Amazon and Apple earnings: Covid-19 crashes the tech titan party May 1, 2020 It’s been a busy week for Silicon Valley as the major US tech firms lined up to report earnings for the first quarter. Google, Facebook and Twitter all delivered upbeat figures, proving that social media services are well-placed to weather the Covid-19 storm. But the mood was dampened somewhat last night as coronavirus costs weighed [...]
Green light for £250m Netflix and Amazon film studio complex in Kent April 23, 2020 Developers have been given the green light to build a £250m film complex in Kent to provide much-needed studio space for streaming giants such as Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN). Local councillors last night approved plans for Ashford International Film Studios, which will boast 240,000 square feet of production space. Derelict railway works The complex, [...]
Coronavirus: Amazon to close warehouses in France after court order April 16, 2020 Amazon has been forced to close its warehouses in France after it was ordered to only deliver essential goods such as food and medical supplies during the coronavirus crisis. The US retail giant will close its six warehouses in France from today until at least 20 April following the court order. Around 10,000 permanent and [...]
Amazon to suspend third-party delivery service due to coronavirus April 8, 2020 Amazon will suspend its third-party delivery service in the US as it diverts resources to deal with a huge surge in orders from its own customers. Amazon Shipping, which competed with UPS and Fedex, allowed the ecommerce giant’s drivers to pick up packages from businesses and deliver them to customers — an alternative to shipping [...]
Amazon wins trademark battle against Davidoff perfume maker April 2, 2020 Amazon has won a legal battle against the cosmetics firm behind Davidoff after the ecommerce giant listed unlicensed bottles of the perfume on its platform. The German arm of Coty, which owns the Davidoff brand, complained that Amazon had infringed its trademark by stocking the perfume from third-party sellers. Coty initially brought the case before [...]
Amazon to sell check-out free store tech to other retailers March 9, 2020 Amazon has launched a new business to sell its check-out free store technology to other retailers. The tech giant launched a website this morning inviting customers to inquire about the service. Amazon, which uses similar technology in its own chain of convenience stores, said it has already signed several deals. The ‘Just Walk Out’ technology [...]
Amazon bans 1m fake coronavirus products February 28, 2020 Amazon has had to remove more than 1m products from its marketplace that claimed to protect from or cure the coronavirus. The retailer said it had also removed “tens of thousands” of overpriced health products, according to Reuters. It comes after the World Health Organisation expressed concern about companies trying to profit off the outbreak [...]
Union slams Amazon over ‘hellish’ warehouse conditions February 18, 2020 More than 600 serious injuries or near misses have been logged at Amazon warehouses in the past three years, according to the latest figures from GMB Union. Between 2016/17 and 2018/19 a total of 622 reports have been made from Amazon warehouses to the Health and Safety Executive, the union said as it called for [...]
Former Amazon executive admits turning off Alexa for ‘private moments’ February 17, 2020 A former senior Amazon executive has admitted to turning off his Alexa whenever he wants some privacy due to concerns the company was listening in on his conversations. Robert Frederick, who served as senior manager of Amazon Web Services, told BBC Panorama: “I don’t want certain conversations to be heard by humans. Conversations that I [...]
Judge pauses Microsoft’s $10bn Pentagon contract in Amazon lawsuit February 13, 2020 A US judge has temporarily blocked Microsoft’s $10bn (£7.66bn) Pentagon cloud computing contract, in response to a lawsuit filed by Amazon. Judge Patricia E. Campbell-Smith issued the injunction but did not release her written opinion. Amazon Web Services has been told to earmark $42m to pay for costs and damages in the event that today’s [...]