The idea that Amazon S3 is really an 'Amazon Cloud Filesystem' is a bit of a fiction - it isn't a file system and it can't stand in for one. S3 implements a completely different arrangement and its primitives are only partly compatible with the Unix file API. It has fewer functions and can't do some tasks, such as overwriting files partially. This means that filesystem software, especially databases, can't be ported to Amazon S3.

Amazon's $1 billion industrial innovation fund is set to increase investments in companies that integrate artificial intelligence and robotics, aiming to enhance efficiency across its logistics network.

Amazon finalized a $4 billion investment in Anthropic, its largest venture investment yet.

Amazon invested an additional $2.75 billion into AI startup Anthropic, signifying the tech giant's focus on competing with Microsoft's OpenAI-powered services via AWS. Despite this investment, Amazon's internal AGI team is ambitiously working to outpace Anthropic with its own AI model, Olympus. Amazon's strategic move underscores the importance of advanced AI in the Big Tech arena.

Mary Beth Westmoreland, Amazon's VP of Worldwide Selling Partner Experience, announced a new feature that creates an Amazon product page based on the seller's brand website using Amazon's generative AI. Sellers only need to provide the product link and the information is automatically parsed into a new page.

Amazon has introduced a new iOS and Android app that allows users to register for its palm recognition service, Amazon One, by uploading a photo of their palm, eliminating the need to enroll at physical locations. The technology encrypts and securely stores palm prints in the cloud. The added security layers may only alleviate privacy concerns for some users.

Poland's consumer and competition watchdog has fined Amazon nearly $8 million for deceptive practices that included misleading consumers about contract conclusions and employing 'dark design patterns' to create urgency in purchases. The e-commerce giant, accused of not honoring stated delivery dates and availability, plans to appeal the sanction.

In his annual letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy laid out a vision for how generative AI could become the company's next pillar of growth. The company has invested $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic and added prominent computer scientist and AI expert Dr. Andrew Ng to its board. Amazon is taking a three-pronged approach to AI innovation: it will focus on AI models, applications built on top of the models, and the chips that power the technology. The company is optimistic that a lot of world-changing AI will be built on top of AWS.

Amazon's ad system charged a seller almost $300,000 for ads targeting California, where they couldn't sell their products due to state regulations, despite them flagging the issue to the company.

Amazon's leadership principles create shared expectations across roles and ensure that everyone is working toward common goals. The company prioritizes a single obsession to create a focused direction, with the goal of becoming the best in the chosen area. This allows for clear guidelines of success for both products created and for clearer role guidelines on an individual level, removing ambiguity from performance evaluations.

Amazon will have to provide information about the ads running on its platform in a publicly accessible online archive following a decision by the European Union this week.

Google's new AI chip, Cloud TPU v5p, is now available. It boasts nearly triple the training speed for large language models compared to its predecessor, TPU v4. This release underscores Google's position in the AI hardware race alongside competitors like Nvidia. Google has also introduced the Google Axion CPU, based on Arm's chip infrastructure, promising better performance and energy efficiency.

Dr. Andrew Ng is currently the Managing General Partner of AI Fund and is joining Amazon's Board of Directors.

Customers in the United States can now shop alongside their favorite creators, brands, and celebrities on Amazon Live's new interactive, shoppable, and free ad-supported (FAST) channel on Prime Video and Freevee. While watching the new channel, customers can open the Amazon Shopping app on their phone, type “shop the show” into the search bar, and they'll be directed to a carousel highlighting featured products they see on TV in real time.

AWS has launched Amazon Q, a generative AI assistant aimed at improving software development and decision-making by leveraging a company's internal data. Amazon Q facilitates coding, testing, and app development for developers, while offering data-driven support for business users through natural language interaction. The service also includes Amazon Q Apps, enabling the creation of custom AI applications without coding expertise.

Amazon Ads has unveiled an expanded suite of new interactive and shoppable ad formats for Prime Video designed to make it easier for viewers to connect with brands. Shoppable carousel ads allow customers to browse and shop multiple related products on Amazon during ad breaks. Interactive pause ads show a translucent ad featuring brand messaging and imagery when a user pauses a show or movie. Interactive brand trivia ads feature factoids about a brand while giving customers the opportunity to shop on Amazon and even unlock rewards.

Apple will soon begin basing pay on how a series or movie performs. Talent would receive bonuses on a points system, with the size of the bonuses being based on the number of people who signed up for Apple TV+ to watch, how much time they spent viewing, and the cost of the program relative to the size of its audience. Netflix and Amazon have also spent months developing plans for performance-based compensation, but neither have gone public yet with their models. Streaming services are becoming increasingly more transparent - the practice will make it easier to tie pay to performance.

Amazon's Bedrock Studio is a web-based platform within Amazon's Bedrock generative AI environment designed to help developers experiment with, fine-tune, and deploy AI models.

Amazon and Netflix have signed a three-year deal that will put exclusive Christmas games on the streaming service. The first two games will be aired on Christmas Day. 2025 and 2026 will see at least one game on the service each Christmas. The NFL is able to cancel all of its TV deals at the same time in 2029 - this could lead to an unprecedented bidding war that could upend the entire NFL content world.

While S3 is undoubtedly a feat of engineering, its feature set is falling behind its competitors. S3 doesn't have a compare-and-swap operation, something every other competitor has, and it also lacks multi-region buckets and object appends. Engineers wanting any of these features have to either abandon S3 or build around these gaps.

S3, Amazon's object storage service, is missing features like compare-and-swap (CAS), multi-region buckets, and object appends. S3 Express One Zone, S3's faster alternative, lacks many standard S3 features and has high storage costs. As S3 continues to not have these modern features, developers will have to either build workarounds or move on to an S3 alternative.

This in-depth case study analyzes Amazon's marketing strategy. It highlights the company's customer-centric approaches like personalized recommendations, seamless returns, and excellent customer service. It also discusses how innovation through AI and machine learning enabled inventory management and voice-controlled assistants like Alexa. The case study shares recommendations on how marketers can replicate the strategies.

Matt Garman, a veteran AWS executive who most recently led sales and marketing, is now taking the helm at the cloud services provider. Amazon has yet to emerge as a leader in generative AI despite throwing billions of dollars behind Anthropic and rolling out its own large language models. Growth at AWS also decelerated to 13% in 2023, reflecting more conservative spending by businesses on IT and cloud services. While the company remains the leader in cloud infrastructure, Microsoft is quickly closing the gap.

Amazon's Project PI uses AI and computer vision to detect product defects or incorrect specifications before shipping, improving quality control and reducing returns.

A recent survey examined the economic impact of internet outages on countries and businesses and found that the United States and Amazon would face the highest financial losses in such a scenario. The U.S. would incur a $11 billion loss in a 24-hour outage, while Amazon would suffer a $1.5 billion loss in the same period.

Amazon demoed a generative AI-powered Alexa in September last year. There has been little news about the project since, besides some reports about a potential launch later this year. Shipment of the new Alexa is being delayed due to structure dysfunction and technology challenges within Amazon. Former Amazon employees say that the company is desperately behind its Big Tech rivals in the race to launch AI chatbots and agents. The new Alexa is reportedly still not ready for a prime time rollout and Amazon does not have enough data or access to the specialized chips needed to run large language models to compete. Amazon so far has been unable to capitalize on its partnership with Anthropic to build a better Alexa.

TV networks are struggling in the current upfront market as advertisers reduce their spending and demand significant rate rollbacks. With an oversupply of streaming ad inventory and reduced demand, networks like Disney, NBCUniversal, and Fox are aggressively negotiating deals, while Amazon and Netflix hold out for higher rates. The industry also faces challenges from a lack of new content due to last year's Hollywood labor strike and cautious advertisers, further complicating the market.

IP addresses may be nearing obsolescence due to enhanced privacy measures. Despite delays in phasing out cookies, IP addresses have become a crucial alternative. However, companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple are limiting access to these signals. Advertisers need to take note and accept the ongoing loss of various tracking signals driven by regulatory changes.

Amazon has unveiled Ad Relevance, a new cookieless ad-targeting solution. The AI-driven platform analyzes billions of data points from Amazon's properties to match ads with consumer content in real time, enhancing addressability and reducing costs for advertisers. Early tests show significant improvements in CPMs and click costs.

Amazon is reportedly developing an AI chatbot called "Metis" to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT, expected to be unveiled later this year. The chatbot, which will be accessible via web browser, will utilize a new foundational model and share infrastructure with "Remarkable Alexa," Amazon's upcoming paid-tier Alexa version.