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By Julie JAMMOT SAN FRANCISCO, April 14, 2024 (AFP) – As Google races with Microsoft and OpenAI to create world-changing generative artificial intelligence, some critics see Amazon as lagging behind. “I respectfully disagree” with that viewpoint, said Adam Selipsky, Amazon’s cloud chief, in an interview with AFP. Tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Meta have made headlines talking about their own foundational models, or those of their close partners, that are key to AI and […]
WASHINGTON, Feb 10, 2024 (AFP) – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has sold off about $2 billion in shares of the online distribution giant, according to recent stock market filings. Bezos sold on Wednesday and Thursday some 12 million Amazon shares, at between $168-171 per share, according to documents sent to stock market regulatory authorities Friday. A previous stock market document, out Wednesday, reported his intention to sell, next July, 50 million shares of the group […]
By Glenn CHAPMAN Meta and Amazon on Thursday blew through expectations in their latest quarterly results as Big Tech continued to impress Wall Street. Meta, the tech titan behind Facebook and Instagram, reported a profit of $14 billion in the final three months of last year, beating analyst forecasts as revenue climbed to $40.1 billion in the quarter. The company said Facebook’s monthly users stood at 3.07 billion people, 20 years after the platform was […]
SEOUL, Dec 6, 2023 (AFP) – US-based live gaming streaming platform Twitch said Wednesday that it would stop its service in South Korea in February because of “seriously” high network costs. In a statement signed by CEO Dan Clancy, the Amazon-owned company said it had reached a stage where continued operation in the country had become “impossible”. It blamed Seoul’s network usage fees for the decision, saying costs were “10 times higher compared to the […]
Amazon on Tuesday released its own AI chatbot intended for businesses, about one year after ChatGPT took the world by storm. “Q” will be available only to Amazon’s AWS cloud computing customers and will be in direct competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s copilots that also run on OpenAI’s technology. Chatbots targeted at businesses have become the main battleground for generative AI, a year after ChatGPT wowed the world with […]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 17, 2023 (AFP) – An estimated 10 percent of the dolphins in a picturesque lake in the Brazilian Amazon were killed in a week as a record drought and searing temperatures devastate the region, researchers said Tuesday. Emergency teams found 153 dolphins dead in the last week of September in Lake Tefe, where water temperatures reached 39.1 degrees Celsius, more than seven degrees higher than the normal maximum, according to the […]
MANAUS, Brazil, Sept 17, 2023 (AFP) – Investigators traveled Sunday to a remote town in the Brazilian Amazon to probe a plane crash that killed 14 people and left no survivors, as authorities brought the bodies to be identified. The small turboprop plane was flying a group of Brazilian sport fishermen into the northern town of Barcelos Saturday when it crashed in stormy weather, apparently after starting its descent too late and skidding off the […]
BOGOTÁ, June 26, 2023 (AFP) — Colombia on Monday awarded one of its highest decorations to the soldiers, Indigenous rescuers and civil servants who led a successful operation to find four children lost for weeks in the Amazon. In a ceremony held in Bogota, President Gustavo Petro praised the collaboration between the military and Indigenous communities, awarding members of the mission, dubbed Operation Hope, with medals of the Order of Boyaca — the second highest […]
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Amazon on Wednesday agreed to pay $30.8 million to settle Ring and Alexa privacy complaints filed by US regulators, including accusations that employees spied on female customers, according to court documents. The Federal Trade Commission charged Amazon-owned home security camera company Ring with failing to implement basic protections to stop hackers or employees from accessing people’s devices or accounts. According to the FTC complaint, Ring’s failures in security resulted in “egregious” […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — More than one third of the Amazon rainforest may have been degraded by human activity and drought, researchers said Thursday, and action is needed to protect the critically important ecosystem. In a study published in the journal Science, the researchers said the damage done to the forest which spans nine countries is significantly greater than previously known. For the study, they examined the impact of fire, logging, drought and changes […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – Amazon announced Wednesday it will cut more than 18,000 jobs from its workforce, citing “the uncertain economy” and the fact that the online retail giant had “hired rapidly” during the pandemic. “Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles,” said CEO Andy Jassy in a statement to his staff. The company had announced 10,000 layoffs in November. Jassey […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) – Amazon confirmed on Thursday that it is laying off staff, after days of rumors that the e-commerce behemoth would become the latest tech giant to unleash a large-scale redundancy plan amid a souring economic environment. “The economy remains in a challenging spot and we’ve hired rapidly the last several years,” wrote chief executive Andy Jassy in an internal memo published on the Amazon website. US media have previously reported that […]
