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Tag: amazon

  • Apple and Amazon spoke with Electronic Arts about a potential acquisition

    Apple and Amazon spoke with Electronic Arts about a potential acquisition

    Gaming studios are being acquired left, right and center. Microsoft announced in January that it had reached a deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion and Sony followed a couple of weeks later with a deal to acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion.

    Now, Electronic Arts — the studio behind The Sims, Battlefield, and FIFA — is actively seeking a potential buyer or merger that’ll unlock its full potential.

    NBCUniversal approached Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson shortly after the Microsoft-Activision deal was announced. The idea would be to merge both companies, with Wilson as CEO of the combined entity. It’s claimed that the media and gaming giants negotiated the terms of such a deal over several weeks, and while discussions were advanced, the proposal fell apart within the last month or so.

    This hasn’t dissuaded EA from looking for a merger or buyer, though. In fact, Puck’s report notes that the company has become more determined than ever to reach a deal following Microsoft’s agreement to purchase Activision Blizzard.

    Among the potential suitors Electronic Arts has held talks with are Amazon, Disney, and Apple. It’s unclear how advanced these discussions became, but such a deal could be of significant interest to all three.

    In Apple’s case, acquiring Electronic Arts would grant it access to a huge library of gaming IP that could be used to boost Apple Arcade, position the brand’s upcoming AR/VR headset as a gaming powerhouse, and even give the brand’s Apple TV+ streaming service more IP to play with.

    The situation with Amazon would be quite similar thanks to the Amazon Luna cloud gaming server.

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  • Amazon tipoff leads to Chinese seizure of counterfeit luxury belts

    Amazon tipoff leads to Chinese seizure of counterfeit luxury belts

    Chinese authorities have seized hundreds of counterfeit belts bearing the Salvatore Ferragamo brand with the aid of Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU).

    The belt is one of Ferragamo’s most known accessories – its link-shaped buckle is used by the brand as a logo for many other products – and it sells for more than US$320.

    The investigation was part of a worldwide probe by Amazon and Ferragamo in identifying bad actors who are trying to sell fake products. Amazon bans the sale of fake goods on its platform globally and in 2020 invested more than $700 million to reduce the incidence of it happening.

    The two companies reported the fake vendor to the Market Supervision and Administration (MSA) authority in Yiwu City, located in China’s Zhejiang Province.

    MSA and CCU said they subsequently seized hundreds of counterfeit belts and buckle accessories which may have been sold throughout retail channels around the world.

    Both companies say they will continue to focus on law enforcement and preventing counterfeit products from entering the global supply chain.

    “This should serve as a reminder that bad actors will be held accountable, as Amazon collaborates with both brands and law enforcement agencies around the world to stop inauthentic products from being sold across the retail industry,” said Kebharu Smith, head of Amazon’s CCU.

    Salvatore Ferragamo last year ran a series of offline and online anti-counterfeiting measures to protect its customers and its brand, removing more than 22,000 products and profiles on social media platforms and over 130,000 product listings on online shops.

    In February last year Amazon and Ferragamo jointly filed two lawsuits in the US against manufacturers who had allegedly used Ferragamo’s registered trademarks to deceive customers over the authenticity of the products.

    The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has estimated the global trade in counterfeit products was worth as much as $464 billion in 2019 and said a boom in e-commerce in 2020-21 led to massive growth in the supply of counterfeit goods online.

  • Amazon Music Unlimited’s monthly subscription price set to slightly increase

    Amazon Music Unlimited’s monthly subscription price set to slightly increase

    Every once in a while, major streaming services are adjusting their subscription prices, especially if they prove to be successful. Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Spotify and many other similar streaming service have had their prices increased a few times in the last couple of years.

    The latest on that list is Amazon Music Unlimited, which is expected to increase its monthly subscription price by $1. Many Amazon Music subscribers have started to receive notifications via email that confirmed the monthly Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan price will increase from $7.99 to $8.99 .

    Strangely enough, Amazon did not announce anything yet, but it’s probably just a matter of time before the move is officialized. According to the email, the new price for Amazon Music Unlimited will go live on May 5.

    On the bright side, the Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan price has been kept the same, so anyone who currently pays the $14.99 monthly subscription will not be affected by the price hike.

    With access to more than 75 million songs in HD, as well as several important top-tier audio features, including Spatial Audio, Amazon Music Unlimited is one of the cheapest offerings on the music streaming services market. Despite the $1 price hike, Amazon Music remains a great deal for those looking for high-quality music content at a low price.

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  • Amazon Singapore offers staff mental health support

    Amazon Singapore offers staff mental health support

    Amazon Singapore has today launched a new mental health benefits package that provides its employees and their families with personalised, convenient, and confidential mental health and well-being support. The new service provides holistic mental well-being support with services such as life coaching, legal and financial support, and mindfulness resources available in addition to the traditional Employee Assistance Program services such as counselling sessions.

    “Access to mental health care has become increasingly important as we all continue to navigate different everyday challenges,” says Henry Low, Country Manager, Amazon Singapore. “Our intent is to remove barriers and unnecessary stigma around getting help and ensure our employees and their families feel safe and supported. In providing a range of services, as well as regular dialogue with employees about mental health, we hope to help in every way we can.”

    Through the new Employee Assistance Program, Amazon employees and their families have access to several free resources:

    • Life coaching sessions with a certified wellness coach to help navigate life transitions and maximise personal and professional growth.
    • Access to webinars, personalised advise and resources on topics including career development, travel and leisure, parenting, healthy living, consumer tips, personal growth and coping following a natural disaster.
    • Interactive self-care programs, including computerised Cognitive Behavior Therapy, mindfulness resources, and courses that guide individuals through self-paced, evidence-based treatment for anxiety, stress, depression, substance use, sleep troubles, and more.
    • Free one-on-one counselling sessions for employees and their families, with access to three sessions per person, per topic with the option to be in-person, via phone, video, or text.
    • Crisis and suicide-prevention support and access to a licensed mental health clinician any time of day or night.
    • Work-life assistance for everyday needs, including help with referrals for child and elder care, movers, and other personal services.

    Amazon works closely with health and safety experts and scientists, and conducts thousands of safety inspections each day in the company’s buildings across the world. The company has also made hundreds of changes globally as a result of feedback from employees on how to improve their well-being at work.

    All Amazon permanent employees receive the same core benefits, regardless of their role, level, or position—from the company’s executives to front-line employees in fulfilment centres preparing orders for customers.

    For Amazon employee, Carissa Seah, having a single point of contact for mental health support for not only herself, but her loved ones too, gives her great reassurance.

    “It’s very comforting to know that I have a range of mental health resources available not just for me but for my entire family. I’m glad its not a one-size-fits-all solution and offers a genuine range of services for all of us,” says Carissa.

    This new mental health offering complements Amazon’s range of benefits that support employees and eligible family members, including domestic partners and their children. These comprehensive benefits include health care coverage, time-off, and other resources to improve health and well-being. Amazon offers medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage to all full-time and part-time employees, regardless of their level, tenure, or position. When employees want to take time away from work, they have paid time-off for holidays, in addition to other leave benefits that are available for various life events.

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  • Shareholders urge Amazon to boost tax transparency

    Shareholders urge Amazon to boost tax transparency

    Twenty-four Amazon investors are urging the tech giant to step up transparency in tax disclosures and adopt a new reporting standard, the Financial Times said on Sunday.

    Asset managers Nordea, Royal London, and several large European and U.S. pension funds are among those pushing for Amazon to issue a transparency report in line with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) tax standard, the newspaper said.

    They want to bring a shareholders’ resolution demanding the new standard at the company’s annual meeting this year, it said, citing a letter to be sent this week to the U.S. regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    “Aggressive tax practices can expose a company and its investors to increased scrutiny from tax authorities, adjustment risks, and increase their vulnerability to changes in tax rules,” the investors said.

    These measures come at a time when nations are looking to protect their tax bases from deleterious practices, they added in the letter seen by the FT.

    The 100 groups that signed the letter included several environmental, social, and governance-focused, and religious funds, although not all were investors, the paper said.

    An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the resolution but pointed to last month’s no-action request when the company barred a similar shareholder proposal.

    “The proposal implicates exactly the type of ordinary business issues for which resolution should remain with the company’s management and board,” Amazon said.

    It would be impractical for shareholders to exercise direct oversight of such issues, it added.

    Amazon’s current extensive tax disclosures are in line with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”), it said, adding that it has publicly reported tax payments in the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Spain.

    A December shareholder proposal by the Greater Manchester Pension Fund and Oblate International Pastoral Investment Trust urged Amazon to adopt the new GRI tax standard, and make public breakdowns of financial, tax, and worker information by country.

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  • Amazon to close physical bookstores

    Amazon to close physical bookstores

    Amazon is closing most of its physical stores, the company announced today, with all 68 of its Amazon Books, Amazon 4-Star, and Amazon Pop Up locations across the US and the UK set to close while the company refocuses on its grocery and fashion stores.

    Amazon Books was one of the primarily online storefront’s first physical retail experiences when the first location opened in Seattle in 2015. Amazon has since expanded to 24 bookstores across the US, all of which are now slated to be closed down.

    The company would go on to expand its retail efforts with Amazon 4-Star in 2018, with a more generally focused store that sold products with a four-star or higher rating curated from Amazon’s digital storefront, along with — of course — Amazon’s own first-party products (including Echo, Kindle, and Fire TV devices).

    Amazon Pop Up stores, on the other hand, were smaller, more focused mall experiences that offered to rotate themed products (March is a printer collaboration with Brother, for example).

    All of Amazon’s retail locations, however, helped serve as a physical contact point to return Amazon products, in addition to offering lower prices and perks to Amazon Prime subscribers.

    The news isn’t entirely shocking: Amazon’s retail ambitions have largely felt like small-scale trials compared to the massive scale of its online operations. And, the company’s physical locations have performed far worse than its digital storefront in recent years.

    Amazon isn’t exiting brick-and-mortar stores entirely. The company will continue to operate its Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods grocery stores, as well as its Amazon Go convenience stores. Amazon’s experimental “Amazon Style” clothing store is also sticking around, too.

    Amazon has yet to say when exactly it’ll be closing up its physical shops, although Reuters reports that timing will vary from store to store.

  • Amazon sues alleged fake review brokers AppSally and Rebatest

    Amazon sues alleged fake review brokers AppSally and Rebatest

    Amazon is suing two websites that allegedly used their networks of more than 900,000 users to post fake reviews to e-commerce marketplaces.

    AppSally and Rebatest operate as “fake review brokers,” Amazon said in an announcement. In AppSally’s case, the website allows merchants to buy Amazon reviews for as little as $20. Rebatest, on the other hand, asks interested users to first buy a product from Amazon; it’ll then refund the cost in exchange for a review.

    “The lawsuits aim to shut down two major fake review brokers, AppSally and Rebatest, who helped mislead shoppers by having their members try to post fake reviews in stores such as Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy,” according the Amazon.

    Together, the claim “to have more than 900,000 members willing to write fake reviews,” Amazaon said. Rebatest’s own homepage says over 818,000 members have used the site to save $11 million.

    In investigating Rebatest, Amazon allegedly found the site “will only pay people writing 5-star reviews after their fake reviews are approved by the bad actors attempting to sell those items.”

    Meanwhile on AppSally, merchants were allegedly shipping empty boxes to users willing to write fake reviews, likely as a way to fool Amazon systems into thinking the same users were verified buyers of the actual products. To make the fake reviews seem even more authentic, AppSally would also upload pictures that could be posted alongside the reviews.

    “While we prevent millions of suspicious reviews from ever appearing in our store, these lawsuits target the source,” Amazon VP for Customer Trust Dharmesh Mehta said in the announcement.

    AppSally and Rebatest did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AppSally is based in New Zealand. It’s unclear where Rebatest is located.

    Amazon didn’t say where it’s suing AppSally and Rebatest. But the lawsuits are part of an ongoing effort to stop inauthentic reviews from circulating on the company’s website and app. “Amazon receives more than 30 million reviews each week, and uses a combination of machine learning technology and skilled investigators to analyze each review before it is displayed,” the company added.

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  • Amazon Luna subscribers can now start games directly from Twitch

    Amazon Luna subscribers can now start games directly from Twitch

    Amazon has done something that Google either couldn’t or subsequently decided not to do. That is to increase the integration between its cloud gaming service and its video platform by making the games on the gaming service directly accessible from the company’s video platform. As first spotted by Vet Cloud Gaming, then shared in a tweet by Bryant Chappel, Amazon has added a new “Play on Luna” button to Twitch.

    The “Play on Luna” button on Twitch will only appear if you have an active subscription to Amazon’s cloud gaming service, Luna. If you do have a Luna subscription, as demonstrated by Vet Cloud Gaming, you can go to Twitch and search for a game. If the game is accessible on Luna, you will notice a new “Play on Luna” button next to the Follow button when you open the searched game’s page on Twitch.

    When you click the “Play on Luna” button, you will see that Twitch will directly open the Luna app and start the game for you without the need to take any further action. You simply click on the “Play on Luna” button and play the game.

    Luna subscribers can already watch Twitch streams in Luna, and with the new “Play on Luna” button, Amazon fully fulfilled a promise that it made back in 2020 when it announced its Luna cloud gaming service. In 2020, Amazon stated, “Inside the Luna experience, players will see Twitch streams for games in the service, and from Twitch, they’ll be able to instantly start playing Luna games.”

    Google wanted to do the same thing that Amazon did with its “Play on Luna” button. When Google announced Stadia, its cloud gaming service, Google stated that it planned to introduce a way to start playing a game on Stadia directly from the game’s trailer on YouTube only by pressing a button on the video platform.

    Google also wanted to enable Stadia subscribers to join a multiplayer game via a streamer’s YouTube channel—but for Google, none of that ever happened, and now Amazon seems to have started picking up the slack.

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  • M1 partners with AWS to improve customer experiences

    M1 partners with AWS to improve customer experiences

    M1 Limited (M1), one of Singapore’s leading Mobile Network Operators (MNO), announced its collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), to launch Maxine, a VoiceBot for M1’s hotlines.

    Maxine is built on Amazon Connect, AWS’s omnichannel cloud-based contact center service that helps improve contact center agent productivity and end-user customer experiences. Powered by AWS Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding, Maxine is able to engage in more lifelike conversations with customers. Combined with M1’s Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunk services for high quality digital voice communication, Maxine will help improve end-user customer experiences by engaging them in open-ended conversations instead of menu-driven interfaces.

    Since Maxine’s rollout in the last quarter of 2021, M1 is seeing an improved performance to the existing call system with the VoiceBot performing sophisticated functions such as authentication of callers with a One-Time Pin (OTP), or sharing the customer’s position in the call queue and estimated waiting time. In comparison with December 2020, M1’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) for December 2021 has seen a marked 40% increase, largely attributed to Maxine’s ability to capture callers’ intentions which then improves call agent productivity by freeing them up to focus on more complex cases.

    The deployment of Maxine is part of M1’s continuous transformation journey to be a digital platform. As a cloud native solution, M1 is able to regularly develop and deploy new and incremental features and capabilities that enhance Maxine’s services.

    The easy to use and quick to deploy solution enables M1 to scale up and down in a short period of time. It also provides call center agents the flexibility they need to work remotely, without compromising the customer experience.

    M1 has its 1627 (Bespoke), 1622 (Business) and 1800-843-8288 (Prepaid) hotlines operating on the Amazon Connect platform. This will be progressively rolled out to other hotlines. M1 is also supporting other members of the Keppel Group that are making the transition to adopt Maxine, starting with Keppel Electric.

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  • How Amazon’s retail battle with Reliance turned into a legal quagmire

    How Amazon’s retail battle with Reliance turned into a legal quagmire

    Amazon and Future Group have been stuck in a contentious business conflict for more than a year, which has stalled Futures $3.4 billion cash transfer to US rival Reliance Industries, with no end in sight. Here’s what the controversy is about, which is thought to be the driver of who has a say in one of the world’s fastest-growing retail markets. What caused the dispute In 2019, Amazon and Future, India’s second-largest retailer behind market leader Reliance, became business partners after the US corporation invested $200 million in an Indian group gift voucher unit. Amazon claims that the deal contained specific non-compete clauses that prohibited Future from selling retail assets to certain competitors, such as Reliance, which is managed by one of India’s richest men, Mukesh Ambani.

    However, Future, which was hit hard by the Covid-19 epidemic, decided to sell assets to Reliance in 2020. Amazon then approached Singapore arbitrators and successfully ended the transaction. Both parties have filed lawsuits in courts, including the Supreme Court, because the place of arbitration is in New Delhi, and Indian law governs the proceedings. What do Amazon and Future say about their partnership?

    Future claims that the agreements include: According to the US company, the thought of a Future-Reliance contract undermines the latter. Future admits to no wrongdoing, claiming that Amazon is illegally seeking to wrest control of Futures’ online market. Future Retail, the group’s flagship retail arm, has announced that it will be liquidated and that if the Reliance agreement fails, its more than 27,000 workers will become jobless. In this controversial controversy, both sides have deployed a team of lawyers and top law firms.

    What is the bigger picture assuming that Amazon will succeed in a $900 billion retail market with 1.3 billion consumers is the ultimate goal. Reliance, a conglomerate owned by Reliance, has 1,100 supermarkets, while Future has more than 1,500. Both are expanding rapidly into e-commerce, but the Future deal would also strengthen Reliance’s retail presence, which has attracted major foreign investors. Amazon has invested $6.5 billion in India, a key growth market for the company, which it considers to be a leading e-commerce market.

    Amazon’s efforts to stop billionaire Ambanis’ expansion plans coincide with Keeping Future away from Reliance. Amazon also stated that Reliances’ combined status with Future would further enhance competition in the Indian retail industry, according to a non-disclosure legal filing. What happened to CCI? Future reported to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) that Amazon was making inaccurate and contradictory submissions about the intentions of the 2019 deal.

    Although Amazon argues that the CCI acted beyond its power, Future maintains that the US corporation no longer has the right to assert its claims because the 2019 agreement itself lacks regulatory approval.In a blow to the US giant, the Delhi high court suspended the Singapore arbitration proceedings between the two sides earlier this month in reaction to the CCI decision.The case has since been postponed, but Amazon has appealed the court’s decisions which are yet to hear it.

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  • AS Watson expanding online presence with Amazon Singapore

    AS Watson expanding online presence with Amazon Singapore

    This will launch an extensive product range and offer free scheduled delivery. Amazon Singapore and Watsons entered a partnership to launch a wider range of beauty, health, and personal care products on Amazon.sg through a dedicated storefront.

    According to Amazon, Prime members will find products available on Watson’s storefront from various brands such as as Aveeno, Bioré, Cetaphil, Bifesta, Wavertree & London, L’Oréal Paris, Oral-B, Anessa, Tsubaki, ZA, and other items ranging from facial care to health supplements.

    Customers are also given a free two-hour scheduled delivery of their items within the same day for orders over S$25 until 10 February. Prime members, meanwhile, will still receive free shipping on Watsons for orders above S$60 after the promotion period, Amazon said in a press release.

    This is Amazon Singapore’s first partnership with leading beauty and health retailers, creating a dedicated storefront on Amazon.sg.

    Henry Low, Amazon Singapore’s country manager, said the partnership is “the perfect next step to improve our offerings in Singapore.

    Irene Lau, Managing Director of Watsons Singapore, also noted the two-hour delivery offered by Amazon.sg to its prime members.

    “This is in line with our proactive customer-centric and Offline+Online strategies to offer our shoppers more convenient options to shop seamlessly, whenever and wherever, be it on watsons.com.sg or partner sites, like Amazon.sg,” she said.

    Special deals and promotions such as Weekend Specials and 1-for-1 Deals would also be available for Prime members until 6 February in line with the partnership.

  • Amazon Will Be The First Customer For The RAM ProMaster EV

    Amazon Will Be The First Customer For The RAM ProMaster EV

    Stellantis owned RAM is also slated to go EV first sometime by the end of the decade. Stellantis announced a bunch of partnerships at CES especially big ones with Amazon, but hidden within them was a footnote around RAM’s upcoming ProMaster electric van which will launch in 2023.  Amazon will become its first commercial customer. Notably, this news comes after it was revealed that Rivian’s exclusivity its for its order of 100,000 electric vans ends in 2023 and it will be free to sell its electric van to third parties. This is notable because Amazon is also a major investor in Rivian.

    Rivian expects to ship the first 10,000 units in 2022 and has already started delivering its electric van to Amazon which has already been spotted in the wild. Amazon reportedly has ordered thousands of ProMaster EVs as the e-commerce giant attempts to clean up its carbon footprint on the logistics side of its business.

    This is not the first time Stellantis has partnered with Amazon. Amazon in the past has had separate relationships with RAM, Fiat, Peugeot, and Citroen. Interestingly, Fiat and RAM are part of FCA which merged with PSA which includes Peugeot and Citroen to form Stellantis.

    The RAM ProMaster EV is being billed as a competitor to the Ford E-Transit. “We always knew that our ambitious sustainability goals in our last mile operations would require multiple electric delivery van providers. We continue to be excited about our relationship with Rivian, and this doesn’t change anything about our investment, collaboration, or order size and timing,” said an Amazon spokesperson.

    FCA was owned by Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family which also owns Ferrari separately. After the merger with PSA, Exor continues to have a major holding in Stellantis with John Elkan being on its board. Ferrari in the last couple of years has become very close to Amazon for AWS.  Amazon is also working with Stellantis for AWS and STLA.

    In fact, Rivian, whose 20 percent stake is owned by Amazon has also released a statement on the deal – and said it is good for the industry. “Large fleets focused on electrification and carbon neutrality represent a win for the mission of both companies. Amazon’s scale is globally unprecedented, and we expect them to purchase vehicles from many providers – our own partnership with them is intact, thriving, and growing,” said Rivian on the announcement of the partnership between Amazon and RAM.

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  • Amazon And Stellantis Partner To Deploy Smarter Cars, Cleaner Vans

    Amazon And Stellantis Partner To Deploy Smarter Cars, Cleaner Vans

    Amazon.com Inc and Stellantis NV said Wednesday they will collaborate to develop cars and trucks with Amazon software in the dashboards and deploy electric vans made by Stellantis on Amazon’s delivery network. The agreements expand Amazon’s efforts to get a bigger foothold in the transportation industry and could help Stellantis close the gap with Tesla Inc in developing vehicles with sophisticated, software-powered infotainment features that are connected to the data processing cloud. Stellantis shares were up more than 3 per cent in Milan.

    The agreements between Stellantis and Amazon, the online retailer and cloud computing power, announced in conjunction with the CES technology conference, are wide-ranging, involving software and hardware.

    Amazon and Stellantis said they will work together to develop software for the “digital cockpit” infotainment systems of Stellantis vehicles that will start launching in 2024. Stellantis said it will use Amazon’s Alexa technology for voice-controlled features, “navigation, vehicle maintenance, e-commerce marketplaces, and payment services.”

    Big e-commerce delivery fleet operators such as Amazon will be key to determining winners and losers as established automakers compete with startups to electrify the world’s package delivery system.

    Stellantis Chief Software Officer Yves Bonnefont said during a conference call Wednesday that the automaker’s use of Alphabet Inc’s Android software for vehicles will “evolve over time.”

    Amazon will also help Stellantis speed up the development of new digital products and “upskill Stellantis’ global workforce.” Stellantis and other established automakers are scrambling to match Tesla’s ability to rapidly deploy new vehicle features and revenue-generating subscription services using software delivered over the air.

    As part of the partnership, Stellantis will use Amazon as its “preferred cloud provider” to provide the mobile network and computing power future vehicles will need.

    Under what Stellantis said is a separate agreement, Amazon will be the first customer for Stellantis’ new line of electric delivery vans due to launch in 2023. The companies said they plan to put thousands of Stellantis Ram ProMaster electric vans on the road every year.

    Amazon has a previous agreement to buy up to 100,000 electric vans from startup Rivian Automotive.

    Stellantis in May had agreed with iPhone assembler Foxconn to create a joint venture to supply in-car and connected-car technologies across the auto industry.

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  • Microsoft Joins Google, Amazon, Others In Canceling In-Person Presence At CES

    Microsoft Joins Google, Amazon, Others In Canceling In-Person Presence At CES

    Microsoft Corp said on Friday it will not participate in person at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022 in Las Vegas, joining a list of companies opting not to have a physical presence at next month’s event on concerns over the rapid spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.

    The U.S. software giant added that it will continue to participate at CES remotely, according to an emailed statement. The Verge was the first to report on Friday that Microsoft will not participate physically AT CES.

    Several other companies including U.S. automaker General Motors Co, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and its self-driving auto-technology company Waymo, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc, Twitter Inc, Lenovo Group, AT&T Inc, and Amazon.com Inc dropped in-person attendance plans earlier this week.

    CES officials on Thursday said the event will still be held in person Jan. 5-8 with “strong safety measures in place,” which include vaccination requirements, masking and availability of COVID-19 tests.

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  • Amazon launches Alexa Together, a subscription-based service for seniors

    Amazon launches Alexa Together, a subscription-based service for seniors

    Alexa Together is the new subscription-based service for elders launched by Amazon. It’s an upgrade to the existing Care Hub service and it costs $19.99 per month or $199 per year. Besides the basic features offered by Alexa Care Hub, the new service provides seniors with additional benefits.

    These additional benefits include access to an emergency helpline, fall detection response features, a remote assist option that allows family members to manage settings on the elderly person’s device and an activity feed for family members that will notify them when the aging customer is active.

    Alexa Together provides a few layers of privacy protection. For example, the elder needs to allow access to the family members to use features like Remote Assist. More importantly, the activity feed has been designed to show that the elder did interact with Alexa but will not show what that interaction specifically was.

    Amazon announced that all Care Hub customers will receive a free year of Alexa Together until December 2, 2022. Customers can also sign up for a free limited-time, six-month trial.

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