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Stability AI Selects AWS as Its Preferred Cloud Provider to Build Artificial Intelligence for the Future

/news/news-details/2022/Stability-AI-Selects-AWS-as-Its-Preferred-Cloud-Provider-to-Build-Artificial-Intelligence-for-the-Future/default.aspx

Stability-AI-Selects-AWS-as-Its-Preferred-Cloud-Provider-to-Build-Artificial-Intelligence-for-the-Future

11/30/2022 16:00:00

Stability AI Selects AWS as Its Preferred Cloud Provider to Build Artificial Intelligence for the Future

11/30/2022

2022

Leading open-source artificial intelligence startup trains foundational models 58% faster and more cost efficiently using Amazon SageMaker on AWS

<div><p><i>Leading open-source artificial intelligence startup trains foundational models 58% faster and more cost efficiently using Amazon SageMaker on AWS</i></p></div>

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Stability AI, a community-driven, open-source artificial intelligence (AI) company, has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to build and scale its AI models for image, language, audio, video, and 3D content generation. Stability AI uses Amazon SageMaker (AWS's end-to-end machine learning service), as well as AWS's proven compute infrastructure and storage, to accelerate its work on open-source generative AI models. In addition, Stability AI will collaborate with AWS to make its open-source tools and models available to students, researchers, startups, and enterprises around the world. Stability AI offers generative AI models that create text, images, audio, video, code, and more from simple text instructions. Generative AI or foundational models—models that are adaptable to a variety of tasks in domains such as language, image, audio, and video—require a high-performance compute cluster with thousands of GPUs or AWS Trainium chips, advanced expertise, and months of training. The company recently released Stable Diffusion Version 2.0, which features open-source models for state-of-the-art image generation, allowing users to create new images from user-supplied text and image inputs. This latest open-source release also introduces models to upscale image resolution and infer depth information to generate new images. Stability AI will use Amazon SageMaker to build and train machine learning models, reducing training time and costs by 58% compared to self-managed machine learning infrastructure. The company is provisioning one of the largest clusters of machine learning instances to run its open-source models on AWS using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), making it easier for developers to access those models. Going forward, Stability AI plans to use AWS machine learning and AI services to build and train future models to achieve the best performance at the lowest cost. Stability AI will also make its open-source models available on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, the model hub of Amazon SageMaker, for all AWS customers. "At Stability AI, our mission is to build the foundation to activate humanity's potential through AI," said Emad Mostaque, founder and CEO of Stability AI. "AWS has played an integral role in scaling our open-source foundation models across modalities. We are delighted to run these models on Amazon SageMaker to enable tens of thousands of developers and millions of users to leverage the power of AI with a robust set of tools. We look forward to seeing the amazing things that developers build and customers design and implement using collective intelligence and augmented technology." "Only AWS offers the scale, reliability, and efficiency to deliver the next generation of AI with Stability AI, which will enable billions of people to create stunning art within seconds," said Bratin Saha, vice president of Machine Learning and AI Services at Amazon. "Amazon SageMaker will help Stability AI scale its use of machine learning with end-to-end tooling, empowering developers to innovate AI applications and dream up new use cases. We are excited to help them invent new products, services, and experiences for the world with the proven performance of one of the largest-ever clusters of machine learning instances in the cloud."

<p>LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Stability AI, a community-driven, open-source artificial intelligence (AI) company, has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to build and scale its AI models for image, language, audio, video, and 3D content generation. Stability AI uses Amazon SageMaker (AWS's end-to-end machine learning service), as well as AWS's proven compute infrastructure and storage, to accelerate its work on open-source generative AI models. In addition, Stability AI will collaborate with AWS to make its open-source tools and models available to students, researchers, startups, and enterprises around the world.</p><p>Stability AI offers generative AI models that create text, images, audio, video, code, and more from simple text instructions. Generative AI or foundational models—models that are adaptable to a variety of tasks in domains such as language, image, audio, and video—require a high-performance compute cluster with thousands of GPUs or AWS Trainium chips, advanced expertise, and months of training. The company recently released Stable Diffusion Version 2.0, which features open-source models for state-of-the-art image generation, allowing users to create new images from user-supplied text and image inputs. This latest open-source release also introduces models to upscale image resolution and infer depth information to generate new images.</p><p>Stability AI will use Amazon SageMaker to build and train machine learning models, reducing training time and costs by 58% compared to self-managed machine learning infrastructure. The company is provisioning one of the largest clusters of machine learning instances to run its open-source models on AWS using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), making it easier for developers to access those models. Going forward, Stability AI plans to use AWS machine learning and AI services to build and train future models to achieve the best performance at the lowest cost. Stability AI will also make its open-source models available on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, the model hub of Amazon SageMaker, for all AWS customers.</p><p>"At Stability AI, our mission is to build the foundation to activate humanity's potential through AI," said Emad Mostaque, founder and CEO of Stability AI. "AWS has played an integral role in scaling our open-source foundation models across modalities. We are delighted to run these models on Amazon SageMaker to enable tens of thousands of developers and millions of users to leverage the power of AI with a robust set of tools. We look forward to seeing the amazing things that developers build and customers design and implement using collective intelligence and augmented technology."</p><p>"Only AWS offers the scale, reliability, and efficiency to deliver the next generation of AI with Stability AI, which will enable billions of people to create stunning art within seconds," said Bratin Saha, vice president of Machine Learning and AI Services at Amazon. "Amazon SageMaker will help Stability AI scale its use of machine learning with end-to-end tooling, empowering developers to innovate AI applications and dream up new use cases. We are excited to help them invent new products, services, and experiences for the world with the proven performance of one of the largest-ever clusters of machine learning instances in the cloud."</p>

AWS and Slalom Expand Next-Generation Strategic Collaboration

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AWS-and-Slalom-Expand-Next-Generation-Strategic-Collaboration

11/30/2022 18:23:00

AWS and Slalom Expand Next-Generation Strategic Collaboration

11/30/2022

2022

Renewed agreement supports global expansion, strengthens Slalom's collaboration with AWS Professional Services, and positions both companies to deliver innovative technology and industry-specific solutions to more joint customers

<div><p><i>Renewed agreement supports global expansion, strengthens Slalom’s collaboration with AWS Professional Services, and positions both companies to deliver innovative technology and industry-specific solutions to more joint customers</i></p></div>

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Slalom, LLC (Slalom), a global business and technology consulting company, announced a multiyear extension to the companies' global Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA). The two companies will work together to develop vertical solutions and accelerators on AWS for customers in the energy, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, public sector, and media and entertainment industries, delivering specialized end-to-end cloud migration and modernization services to help accelerate their cloud journeys. In addition to supporting accelerated growth in Slalom markets in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, and New Zealand, AWS and Slalom in 2023 will jointly create go-to-market strategies and make co-investments in support of Slalom's continued expansion into Ireland and the Netherlands, followed by additional countries in Latin America, Asia Pacific, and through Europe over the next three years. As part of the agreement, AWS and Slalom are expanding upon their 2019 announced collaboration to deliver AWS | Slalom Launch Centers (Launch Centers) that help enterprises accelerate their business transformations and modernize information technology services. Launch Centers provide customers with access to the unique combination of AWS Professional Services—a global team of AWS experts who help customers reach their desired outcomes with the cloud—and Slalom's expertise in business transformation, software engineering, and analytics capabilities. Over the last three years, more than 160 customers have migrated and modernized to AWS through their work with Launch Centers. AWS is working with Slalom to develop solutions to help customers solve specific industry challenges. For example, Slalom offers the Slalom Meter Data Analytics solution on AWS, which uses Amazon SageMaker (AWS's service for building, training, and deploying machine learning models in the cloud and at the edge) to help utility and renewable energy customers improve billing and energy efficiency, and forecast power outages. In addition, the companies collaborated to introduce in 2022 Slalom Agile Supply Chain, a solution aimed at helping manufacturing customers build agility and resiliency into their supply chains to reduce costs, increase capacity, and improve their customers' experiences. "This agreement enhances our relationship with AWS and serves as a key growth driver for Slalom's business over the next three years," said Brad Jackson, CEO of Slalom. "Through the expansion of our AWS practice, we will be better equipped to help our customers find new ways to use AWS technologies to dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all." "Slalom has a proven track record and is a trusted partner in providing innovative business and technology consulting services to our mutual customers, helping them accelerate their transitions to the cloud and leverage the vast portfolio of AWS services to drive innovation," said Ruba Borno, vice president, Worldwide Channels and Alliances at AWS. "By extending our collaboration with Slalom, expanding more broadly into markets together, and combining Slalom's consulting and technical skills with our leading cloud services and migration expertise, we are giving customers a broader range of capabilities and offerings to better support their cloud strategies and digital transformation journeys." TC Energy is a North American energy company headquartered in Canada. Working with AWS and Slalom, TC Energy used the Amazon Working Backwards process to envision and then build a new business intelligence application that maximizes capacity in its network of gas pipelines. Maximizing pipeline capacity helps TC Energy avoid the years-long process, capital expenditures, and environmental impact associated with building new pipelines. "We will save millions of dollars in greenhouse gas emissions costs by innovating on AWS," said Peter Jarmola, TC Energy's director of enterprise innovation, in an AWS-published case study. "That's an important benefit because it helps us demonstrate to our customers, our regulators, and the government that we are a responsible operator." Slalom—an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner in the AWS Partner Network for over a decade, the 2021 National Systems Integrator Partner of the Year in the US, and the 2022 SI Partner of the Year in North America—holds 15 AWS Competencies and seven AWS Service Delivery designations. In addition to the more than 160 customers who have migrated and modernized with Launch Centers, more than 500 customers have optimized their business in the cloud by working together with AWS Professional Services and Slalom.

<p>LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Slalom, LLC (Slalom), a global business and technology consulting company, announced a multiyear extension to the companies' global Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA). The two companies will work together to develop vertical solutions and accelerators on AWS for customers in the energy, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, public sector, and media and entertainment industries, delivering specialized end-to-end cloud migration and modernization services to help accelerate their cloud journeys. In addition to supporting accelerated growth in Slalom markets in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, and New Zealand, AWS and Slalom in 2023 will jointly create go-to-market strategies and make co-investments in support of Slalom's continued expansion into Ireland and the Netherlands, followed by additional countries in Latin America, Asia Pacific, and through Europe over the next three years.</p><p>As part of the agreement, AWS and Slalom are expanding upon their 2019 announced collaboration to deliver AWS | Slalom Launch Centers (Launch Centers) that help enterprises accelerate their business transformations and modernize information technology services. Launch Centers provide customers with access to the unique combination of AWS Professional Services—a global team of AWS experts who help customers reach their desired outcomes with the cloud—and Slalom's expertise in business transformation, software engineering, and analytics capabilities. Over the last three years, more than 160 customers have migrated and modernized to AWS through their work with Launch Centers.</p><p>AWS is working with Slalom to develop solutions to help customers solve specific industry challenges. For example, Slalom offers the Slalom Meter Data Analytics solution on AWS, which uses Amazon SageMaker (AWS's service for building, training, and deploying machine learning models in the cloud and at the edge) to help utility and renewable energy customers improve billing and energy efficiency, and forecast power outages. In addition, the companies collaborated to introduce in 2022 Slalom Agile Supply Chain, a solution aimed at helping manufacturing customers build agility and resiliency into their supply chains to reduce costs, increase capacity, and improve their customers' experiences.</p><p>"This agreement enhances our relationship with AWS and serves as a key growth driver for Slalom's business over the next three years," said Brad Jackson, CEO of Slalom. "Through the expansion of our AWS practice, we will be better equipped to help our customers find new ways to use AWS technologies to dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all."</p><p>"Slalom has a proven track record and is a trusted partner in providing innovative business and technology consulting services to our mutual customers, helping them accelerate their transitions to the cloud and leverage the vast portfolio of AWS services to drive innovation," said Ruba Borno, vice president, Worldwide Channels and Alliances at AWS. "By extending our collaboration with Slalom, expanding more broadly into markets together, and combining Slalom's consulting and technical skills with our leading cloud services and migration expertise, we are giving customers a broader range of capabilities and offerings to better support their cloud strategies and digital transformation journeys."</p><p>TC Energy is a North American energy company headquartered in Canada. Working with AWS and Slalom, TC Energy used the Amazon Working Backwards process to envision and then build a new business intelligence application that maximizes capacity in its network of gas pipelines. Maximizing pipeline capacity helps TC Energy avoid the years-long process, capital expenditures, and environmental impact associated with building new pipelines. "We will save millions of dollars in greenhouse gas emissions costs by innovating on AWS," said Peter Jarmola, TC Energy's director of enterprise innovation, in an AWS-published case study. "That's an important benefit because it helps us demonstrate to our customers, our regulators, and the government that we are a responsible operator."</p><p>Slalom—an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner in the AWS Partner Network for over a decade, the 2021 National Systems Integrator Partner of the Year in the US, and the 2022 SI Partner of the Year in North America—holds 15 AWS Competencies and seven AWS Service Delivery designations. In addition to the more than 160 customers who have migrated and modernized with Launch Centers, more than 500 customers have optimized their business in the cloud by working together with AWS Professional Services and Slalom.</p>

American Family Insurance and AWS Team Up to Drive Innovation in the Insurance Industry

/news/news-details/2022/American-Family-Insurance-and-AWS-Team-Up-to-Drive-Innovation-in-the-Insurance-Industry/default.aspx

American-Family-Insurance-and-AWS-Team-Up-to-Drive-Innovation-in-the-Insurance-Industry

12/01/2022 09:00:00

American Family Insurance and AWS Team Up to Drive Innovation in the Insurance Industry

12/01/2022

2022

Insurance provider names AWS as its preferred cloud provider to power the company's IT transformation and create value for its customers, employees, agents, partners, and the community

<div><p><i>Insurance provider names AWS as its preferred cloud provider to power the company’s IT transformation and create value for its customers, employees, agents, partners, and the community </i></p></div>

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced an expanded relationship with American Family Insurance, a mutual insurance company focused on property, casualty, business, and life coverage. As part of the multiyear agreement, American Family Insurance has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to help accelerate cloud migration, drive innovation, provide financial support and training for the local community, and reduce environmental impact. In addition, American Family Insurance and AWS have teamed up to establish a co-innovation fund as part of the companies' shared commitment to create new solutions that will benefit consumers and the insurance industry. The fund will allow cross-functional teams to work backwards—using cloud technologies, developing new processes, and combining expertise from both companies—to solve specific business and insurance industry challenges. The fund aims to identify, test, and develop novel ways to support consumer insurance needs that couldbe broadly adopted across the entire insurance industry. "With AWS, we're embarking on a mission to accelerate digital innovation in every part of our business," said Peter Settel, American Family Insurance's chief strategy and technology officer. "The American Family Group of companies are customer-driven and powered by purpose—we champion dreams and opportunities so everyone can rise. Working with AWS, we are building on our 95-year history to deploy the technology foundation necessary to serve our customers and our communities for the decades ahead." American Family Insurance's expanded partnership with AWS will accelerate the insurance company's cloud migration. This multiyear migration will enable American Family Insurance to centralize its information technology infrastructure and reduce operating costs, enhance business performance, and expand support for the company's 13.1 million policyholders. Once the migration is complete, American Family will leverage AWS analytics, compute, databases, machine learning, security, and storage capabilities to drive efficiencies, increase responsiveness, and become a more agile company in the cloud. "Migrating our legacy systems to the cloud enables us to deliver new digital processes that reduce response times, help boost innovation, and decrease operating costs, while still providing the personalized service and security that our customers expect," said Sheldon Cuffie, American Family Insurance's chief information security officer. "AWS will help American Family Insurance meet the industry's most stringent security and compliance requirements, gain a holistic view of customer preferences, and innovate ways to help protect what matters most," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "AWS's scale, performance, and portfolio of capabilities give American Family Insurance the flexibility to focus on innovation, delivering new products and customer touchpoints that reflect its commitment to exceptional service." Supporting Local Communities and the Environment American Family Insurance is committed to investing in the communities it serves. Providing access to technical training is a critical step in helping underemployed individuals embark on a new career in IT. Starting in 2023, American Family Insurance and AWS will provide free cloud training together with Brooksource, an AWS Technology Consulting and training partner, and Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition, a non-profit organization working inclusively to grow technology talent in the region. This fully funded program will use AWS re/Start, a cohort-led workforce development training program with the support of Brooksource's Elevate Program. The program will help prepare underemployed individuals for careers in cloud computing and will be offered to them at no cost. Once the training is complete, Brooksource will help graduates secure IT roles with companies in the region, including American Family Insurance. American Family Insurance believes addressing climate impact and supporting climate resilience is critical to communities and customers. In September, American Family Insurance became the first U.S.-based insurance company to sign The Climate Pledge, joining more than 375 companies across 53 industries in 34 countries committed to become net-zero carbon. By migrating to AWS, American Family Insurance will decrease its workload carbon footprint as part of its goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2030.

<p>LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced an expanded relationship with American Family Insurance, a mutual insurance company focused on property, casualty, business, and life coverage. As part of the multiyear agreement, American Family Insurance has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to help accelerate cloud migration, drive innovation, provide financial support and training for the local community, and reduce environmental impact.</p><p>In addition, American Family Insurance and AWS have teamed up to establish a co-innovation fund as part of the companies' shared commitment to create new solutions that will benefit consumers and the insurance industry. The fund will allow cross-functional teams to work backwards—using cloud technologies, developing new processes, and combining expertise from both companies—to solve specific business and insurance industry challenges. The fund aims to identify, test, and develop novel ways to support consumer insurance needs that couldbe broadly adopted across the entire insurance industry.</p><p>"With AWS, we're embarking on a mission to accelerate digital innovation in every part of our business," said Peter Settel, American Family Insurance's chief strategy and technology officer. "The American Family Group of companies are customer-driven and powered by purpose—we champion dreams and opportunities so everyone can rise. Working with AWS, we are building on our 95-year history to deploy the technology foundation necessary to serve our customers and our communities for the decades ahead."</p><p>American Family Insurance's expanded partnership with AWS will accelerate the insurance company's cloud migration. This multiyear migration will enable American Family Insurance to centralize its information technology infrastructure and reduce operating costs, enhance business performance, and expand support for the company's 13.1 million policyholders. Once the migration is complete, American Family will leverage AWS analytics, compute, databases, machine learning, security, and storage capabilities to drive efficiencies, increase responsiveness, and become a more agile company in the cloud.</p><p>"Migrating our legacy systems to the cloud enables us to deliver new digital processes that reduce response times, help boost innovation, and decrease operating costs, while still providing the personalized service and security that our customers expect," said Sheldon Cuffie, American Family Insurance's chief information security officer.</p><p>"AWS will help American Family Insurance meet the industry's most stringent security and compliance requirements, gain a holistic view of customer preferences, and innovate ways to help protect what matters most," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "AWS's scale, performance, and portfolio of capabilities give American Family Insurance the flexibility to focus on innovation, delivering new products and customer touchpoints that reflect its commitment to exceptional service."</p><p>Supporting Local Communities and the Environment</p><p>American Family Insurance is committed to investing in the communities it serves. Providing access to technical training is a critical step in helping underemployed individuals embark on a new career in IT. Starting in 2023, American Family Insurance and AWS will provide free cloud training together with Brooksource, an AWS Technology Consulting and training partner, and Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition, a non-profit organization working inclusively to grow technology talent in the region. This fully funded program will use AWS re/Start, a cohort-led workforce development training program with the support of Brooksource's Elevate Program. The program will help prepare underemployed individuals for careers in cloud computing and will be offered to them at no cost. Once the training is complete, Brooksource will help graduates secure IT roles with companies in the region, including American Family Insurance.</p><p>American Family Insurance believes addressing climate impact and supporting climate resilience is critical to communities and customers. In September, American Family Insurance became the first U.S.-based insurance company to sign The Climate Pledge, joining more than 375 companies across 53 industries in 34 countries committed to become net-zero carbon. By migrating to AWS, American Family Insurance will decrease its workload carbon footprint as part of its goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2030.</p>

Yahoo Selects AWS as Its Preferred Public Cloud Provider for Its Ad Tech Business

/news/news-details/2022/Yahoo-Selects-AWS-as-Its-Preferred-Public-Cloud-Provider-for-Its-Ad-Tech-Business/default.aspx

Yahoo-Selects-AWS-as-Its-Preferred-Public-Cloud-Provider-for-Its-Ad-Tech-Business

12/01/2022 09:00:00

Yahoo Selects AWS as Its Preferred Public Cloud Provider for Its Ad Tech Business

12/01/2022

2022

Yahoo migrates its advertising tech infrastructure to the cloud, leveraging AWS's industry-leading technologies to innovate digital experiences for leading brands and publishers

<div><p><i>Yahoo migrates its advertising tech infrastructure to the cloud, leveraging AWS’s industry-leading technologies to innovate digital experiences for leading brands and publishers</i></p></div>

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Yahoo has selected AWS as its preferred public cloud provider for its advertising technology business Yahoo Ad Tech. Building on its longtime relationship with AWS, Yahoo Ad Tech is migrating all of its advertising technology workloads—including its media-buying and supply-side platforms, analytics, and identity solutions and products—from its on-premises data centers to AWS. The migration is part of the business's ongoing digital transformation strategy to reduce IT infrastructure costs, transform its advertising business operations, and develop more tailored and immersive solutions to help brands connect with their audiences. Improving Scale, Inventory, and Effectiveness for Advertisers and Agencies Yahoo Ad Tech reaches more than 540 million people worldwide through its advertising software platform that gives advertising publishers, brands, and agencies the ability to upload creative and automate media-buying across an inventory of mobile, web, and TV channels. The Yahoo Ad Tech platform uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) compute-optimized instances, powered by AWS-designed processors, to provide publishers, advertising agencies, and brand customers with insights on real-time advertising performance. This reduces the time it takes to deliver the insights advertisers need to reach the right audiences at the right times and in the right formats. Increasing Advertising Performance and Revenues for Publishers In addition to giving brands a platform to reach audiences, the Yahoo Ad Tech platform offers media owners and publishers an ad-decisioning engine to help attract advertisers and manage their ad business. AWS's proven global infrastructure and extensive portfolio of cloud capabilities—including analytics, compute, machine learning (ML), serverless, and storage—will enable Yahoo to rapidly innovate new features for its ad tech platform. Yahoo will help its publisher partners add measurement capabilities, optimize real-time ad-bidding, and hone ad inventory and effectiveness to determine the best mix of advertising while also attracting new brands. As part of its migration to the cloud, Yahoo Ad Tech is moving its central data platform to AWS to improve advertising effectiveness, personalization, and engagement for its advertiser and publishing customers. Using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Yahoo Ad Tech will construct a centralized data lake to store hundreds of petabytes of data. The data lake will enable Yahoo Ad Tech to break down data silos and tap into AWS analytics services, including Amazon EMR (AWS's industry-leading cloud big data service for processing vast amounts of data using open-source tools) and Amazon Athena (an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data). This will support rapid analysis of data from a variety of sources to understand advertising trends, target audiences, and deliver ad performance insights across its operations. Yahoo Ad Tech plans to use Amazon SageMaker (AWS's service for building, training, and deploying ML models in the cloud and at the edge) to streamline its ML pipeline, which today contains thousands of models, and deepen the company's ability to predict advertising spends, ad inventory, and the effectiveness of ad formats. Toexpedite cloud adoption for Yahoo Ad Tech and develop new advertising solutions, Yahoo is providing employees with cloud skills training using the AWS Designated Virtual Trainer (DVT) program. Yahoo is on track to conduct more than 50 instructor-led classes in 2022 with a goal of providing 2,000 IT employees with foundational cloud training over the next two years. These classes will help employees develop skills in application development, data management, and security to support Yahoo's migration goals and drive innovation at scale. "By harnessing the power of AWS, we'll be able to move faster and give our customers what they value most—advertising solutions that provide the right combination of performance, audiences, and revenue growth," said Aaron Lake, senior vice president of Platforms Engineering and chief information officer at Yahoo. "Running all of Yahoo Ad Tech on AWS provides us with a broad portfolio of world-class services that will allow us to help advertisers achieve the returns they want by providing them with precise audience targeting, while our ad publisher customers are able to scale and monetize their ad space." "Yahoo is a digital pioneer and a trusted partner for the world's biggest brands," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "The world's leading media and digital advertising companies rely on AWS as their cloud provider because we help them deliver performance and drive real growth. We're excited to help Yahoo accelerate its migration to the cloud and bring innovative solutions that help advertisers serve customers all over the world."

<p>LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Yahoo has selected AWS as its preferred public cloud provider for its advertising technology business Yahoo Ad Tech. Building on its longtime relationship with AWS, Yahoo Ad Tech is migrating all of its advertising technology workloads—including its media-buying and supply-side platforms, analytics, and identity solutions and products—from its on-premises data centers to AWS. The migration is part of the business's ongoing digital transformation strategy to reduce IT infrastructure costs, transform its advertising business operations, and develop more tailored and immersive solutions to help brands connect with their audiences.</p><p>Improving Scale, Inventory, and Effectiveness for Advertisers and Agencies</p><p>Yahoo Ad Tech reaches more than 540 million people worldwide through its advertising software platform that gives advertising publishers, brands, and agencies the ability to upload creative and automate media-buying across an inventory of mobile, web, and TV channels. The Yahoo Ad Tech platform uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) compute-optimized instances, powered by AWS-designed processors, to provide publishers, advertising agencies, and brand customers with insights on real-time advertising performance. This reduces the time it takes to deliver the insights advertisers need to reach the right audiences at the right times and in the right formats.</p><p>Increasing Advertising Performance and Revenues for Publishers</p><p>In addition to giving brands a platform to reach audiences, the Yahoo Ad Tech platform offers media owners and publishers an ad-decisioning engine to help attract advertisers and manage their ad business. AWS's proven global infrastructure and extensive portfolio of cloud capabilities—including analytics, compute, machine learning (ML), serverless, and storage—will enable Yahoo to rapidly innovate new features for its ad tech platform. Yahoo will help its publisher partners add measurement capabilities, optimize real-time ad-bidding, and hone ad inventory and effectiveness to determine the best mix of advertising while also attracting new brands.</p><p>As part of its migration to the cloud, Yahoo Ad Tech is moving its central data platform to AWS to improve advertising effectiveness, personalization, and engagement for its advertiser and publishing customers. Using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Yahoo Ad Tech will construct a centralized data lake to store hundreds of petabytes of data. The data lake will enable Yahoo Ad Tech to break down data silos and tap into AWS analytics services, including Amazon EMR (AWS's industry-leading cloud big data service for processing vast amounts of data using open-source tools) and Amazon Athena (an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data). This will support rapid analysis of data from a variety of sources to understand advertising trends, target audiences, and deliver ad performance insights across its operations. Yahoo Ad Tech plans to use Amazon SageMaker (AWS's service for building, training, and deploying ML models in the cloud and at the edge) to streamline its ML pipeline, which today contains thousands of models, and deepen the company's ability to predict advertising spends, ad inventory, and the effectiveness of ad formats.</p><p>Toexpedite cloud adoption for Yahoo Ad Tech and develop new advertising solutions, Yahoo is providing employees with cloud skills training using the AWS Designated Virtual Trainer (DVT) program. Yahoo is on track to conduct more than 50 instructor-led classes in 2022 with a goal of providing 2,000 IT employees with foundational cloud training over the next two years. These classes will help employees develop skills in application development, data management, and security to support Yahoo's migration goals and drive innovation at scale.</p><p>"By harnessing the power of AWS, we'll be able to move faster and give our customers what they value most—advertising solutions that provide the right combination of performance, audiences, and revenue growth," said Aaron Lake, senior vice president of Platforms Engineering and chief information officer at Yahoo. "Running all of Yahoo Ad Tech on AWS provides us with a broad portfolio of world-class services that will allow us to help advertisers achieve the returns they want by providing them with precise audience targeting, while our ad publisher customers are able to scale and monetize their ad space."</p><p>"Yahoo is a digital pioneer and a trusted partner for the world's biggest brands," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "The world's leading media and digital advertising companies rely on AWS as their cloud provider because we help them deliver performance and drive real growth. We're excited to help Yahoo accelerate its migration to the cloud and bring innovative solutions that help advertisers serve customers all over the world."</p>

Amazon Games and Bandai Namco Online Bring Blue Protocol to the West in 2023

/news/news-details/2022/Amazon-Games-and-Bandai-Namco-Online-Bring-Blue-Protocol-to-the-West-in-2023/default.aspx

Amazon-Games-and-Bandai-Namco-Online-Bring-Blue-Protocol-to-the-West-in-2023

12/08/2022 22:00:00

Amazon Games and Bandai Namco Online Bring Blue Protocol to the West in 2023

12/08/2022

2022

Visually stunning, anime-inspired action role-playing game will launch for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 next year

<div><p><i>Visually stunning, anime-inspired action role-playing game </i><i>will launch for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 next year</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and Bandai Namco Online Inc. today announced they are bringing Blue Protocol, a multiplayer online action role-playing game featuring beautiful, anime-inspired art, to North America, Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Blue Protocol will be free-to-play, and will launch for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in the second half of 2023, with a Closed Beta on PC earlier in the year. View the gameplay trailer, which debuted tonight at The Game Awards, here. Amazon Games and Bandai Namco Online Bring Blue Protocol to the West in 2023 (Photo: Business Wire) "Blue Protocol is a beautifully crafted game; it's like an anime come to life," said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. "Bandai Namco Online has created a world of the highest quality with a compelling story that will build community and immerse players in an action-packed adventure. As anime continues to rise in popularity globally, we look forward to bringing Blue Protocol to players in the West next year." Blue Protocol, co-developed by Bandai Namco Online Inc. and Bandai Namco Studios, takes players on a heroic journey through Regnas, a world teetering on the brink of destruction after millennia of conflict and technology overuse. Players must unite and harness the mysterious light called Flux to defeat powerful foes. Players can fully customize their character, and choose from five unique classes at launch: the sturdy Blade Warden, the valiant Twin Striker, the versatile Keen Strider, the multifaceted Spell Weaver, or the damage-dealing Foe Breaker. Aided by Echoes, mystical summoned creatures with powerful attacks, players will unlock their memories and fight to save the world. "Amazon's commitment to quality and attention to detail in bringing Blue Protocol to new audiences is exemplary," said Sokichi Shimooka, executive producer of Blue Protocol at Bandai Namco Online Inc. "The Amazon Games team's deep expertise in operating multiplayer games, combined with Amazon's publishing resources and transmedia opportunities, made them the ideal publisher for Blue Protocol in the West. We're excited to work together to bring players an incredible experience." Blue Protocol will be the latest title in Amazon Games' portfolio of high-quality live service games, including Lost Ark and New World. This collaboration follows previously announced publishing agreements with leading global developers, including Smilegate RPG, Glowmade, and Disruptive Games. For more information and to stay up to date on Blue Protocol, follow along at @BlueProtocol and PlayBlueProtocol.com. Sign up for a chance to be selected for the Closed Beta at PlayBlueProtocol.com. About Amazon Games At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans is building within the sandbox of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including New World, with our studios and teams in Orange County, San Diego, Montreal, and Seattle. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third-party games, leading with Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG. About Bandai Namco Online Inc. "Online games from Japan to the world" Bandai Namco Online Inc. is a rapidly growing company within the Bandai Namco Group that specializes in the online game business, with a full range of functions from development and operation to publishing. Our company continues to develop a variety of contents and services for all devices, including the team shooter GUNDAM EVOLUTION, the online action RPG BLUE PROTOCOL, and our original IP IDOLiSH7. Upholding our slogan, "Online games from Japan to the world," we are committed to challenging ourselves to create online games with a unique Japanese twist. While focusing on the production of online games, we will continue to collaborate with other companies both within and outside of the Bandai Namco Group in order to develop a wide variety of entertainment that goes beyond games. Veronica Garland Amazon Games games-pr@amazon.com Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and Bandai Namco Online Inc. today announced they are bringing <i>Blue Protocol</i>, a multiplayer online action role-playing game featuring beautiful, anime-inspired art, to North America, Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. <i>Blue Protocol </i>will be free-to-play, and will launch for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in the second half of 2023, with a Closed Beta on PC earlier in the year. View the gameplay trailer, which debuted tonight at The Game Awards, here.</p><div><p>Amazon Games and Bandai Namco Online Bring Blue Protocol to the West in 2023 (Photo: Business Wire)</p></div><p>"<i>Blue Protocol</i> is a beautifully crafted game; it's like an anime come to life," said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. "Bandai Namco Online has created a world of the highest quality with a compelling story that will build community and immerse players in an action-packed adventure. As anime continues to rise in popularity globally, we look forward to bringing <i>Blue Protocol </i>to players in the West next year."</p><p><i>Blue Protocol, </i>co-developed by Bandai Namco Online Inc. and Bandai Namco Studios, takes players on a heroic journey through Regnas, a world teetering on the brink of destruction after millennia of conflict and technology overuse. Players must unite and harness the mysterious light called Flux to defeat powerful foes. Players can fully customize their character, and choose from five unique classes at launch: the sturdy Blade Warden, the valiant Twin Striker, the versatile Keen Strider, the multifaceted Spell Weaver, or the damage-dealing Foe Breaker. Aided by Echoes, mystical summoned creatures with powerful attacks, players will unlock their memories and fight to save the world.</p><p>"Amazon's commitment to quality and attention to detail in bringing <i>Blue Protocol </i>to new audiences is exemplary," said Sokichi Shimooka, executive producer of <i>Blue Protocol</i> at Bandai Namco Online Inc. "The Amazon Games team's deep expertise in operating multiplayer games, combined with Amazon's publishing resources and transmedia opportunities, made them the ideal publisher for <i>Blue Protocol </i>in the West. We're excited to work together to bring players an incredible experience."</p><p><i>Blue Protocol</i> will be the latest title in Amazon Games' portfolio of high-quality live service games, including <i>Lost Ark</i> and <i>New World. </i>This collaboration follows previously announced publishing agreements with leading global developers, including Smilegate RPG, Glowmade, and Disruptive Games. For more information and to stay up to date on <i>Blue Protocol</i>, follow along at @BlueProtocol and PlayBlueProtocol.com.</p><p>Sign up for a chance to be selected for the Closed Beta at PlayBlueProtocol.com.</p><p>About Amazon Games</p><p>At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans is building within the sandbox of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including <i>New World</i>, with our studios and teams in Orange County, San Diego, Montreal, and Seattle. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third-party games, leading with <i>Lost Ark</i> from Smilegate RPG.</p><p>About Bandai Namco Online Inc.</p><p>"Online games from Japan to the world"</p><p>Bandai Namco Online Inc. is a rapidly growing company within the Bandai Namco Group that specializes in the online game business, with a full range of functions from development and operation to publishing.</p><p>Our company continues to develop a variety of contents and services for all devices, including the team shooter GUNDAM EVOLUTION, the online action RPG BLUE PROTOCOL, and our original IP IDOLiSH7.</p><p>Upholding our slogan, "Online games from Japan to the world," we are committed to challenging ourselves to create online games with a unique Japanese twist. While focusing on the production of online games, we will continue to collaborate with other companies both within and outside of the Bandai Namco Group in order to develop a wide variety of entertainment that goes beyond games.</p> <div><p>Veronica GarlandAmazon Gamesgames-pr@amazon.com</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics Strike Deal to Develop and Publish Next Major Entry in Iconic Tomb Raider Series

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Amazon-Games-and-Crystal-Dynamics-Strike-Deal-to-Develop-and-Publish-Next-Major-Entry-in-Iconic-Tomb-Raider-Series

12/15/2022 11:38:00

Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics Strike Deal to Develop and Publish Next Major Entry in Iconic Tomb Raider Series

12/15/2022

2022

Next major Tomb Raider game will continue Lara Croft's saga in a single-player, multiplatform adventure

<div><p><i>Next major </i>Tomb Raider<i> game will continue Lara Croft’s saga in a single-player, multiplatform adventure</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics today announced they have reached an agreement under which Crystal Dynamics will develop a new multiplatform Tomb Raider title, with Amazon Games providing full support and publishing the game globally. Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics have reached an agreement under which Crystal Dynamics will develop a new multiplatform Tomb Raider title, with Amazon Games providing full support and publishing the game globally. (Graphic: Business Wire) The as-yet-untitled new Tomb Raider game is a single-player, narrative-driven adventure that continues Lara Croft's story in the Tomb Raider series. It includes all the elements that have made Tomb Raider one of the most revered franchises in gaming, giving players control of the confident and multidimensional hero Lara Croft in an environment that rewards exploration and creative pathfinding, with mind-bending puzzles to solve, and a wide variety of enemies to face and overcome. Crystal Dynamics is drawing on the power and cutting-edge technology of Unreal Engine 5 to take storytelling to the next level, in the biggest, most expansive Tomb Raider game to date. The title is currently in early development, and additional details will be announced at a later date. "Tomb Raider is one of the most beloved IPs in entertainment history," said Christoph Hartmann, VP of Amazon Games. "Amazon Games is committed to bringing players games of the highest quality, from the best developers, across all variety of platforms and genres, and we're honored by the opportunity to work with this storied developer and franchise. Our team is incredibly excited about collaborating with the talented and visionary Crystal Dynamics team to bring the next chapter of Lara Croft's saga to players around the world." "Crystal Dynamics has an extraordinary opportunity following our acquisition by Embracer to redefine what a publishing relationship is for Tomb Raider," said Scot Amos, head of studio at Crystal Dynamics. "Transformative is what we're looking for, and with Amazon Games, we found a team that shares our creative vision, ambitions, and values for a Lara Croft universe across the spectrum of possibilities. They're uniquely positioned to rewrite what publishing and development collaborations are, and we're eager to forge this new path together, starting with building the biggest and best Tomb Raider game yet!" Crystal Dynamics has developed and published dozens of award-winning titles over the past three decades, including globally revered franchises like Legacy of Kain and Tomb Raider. The Tomb Raider franchise includes more than 20 video games, is loved by more than 170 million people around the world1, and has sold more than 95 million copies since the first entry was released in 1996. The most recent "Survivor Trilogy," comprised of Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015), and Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018), garnered more than 200 "Best of" awards and nominations. The agreement with Crystal Dynamics marks a further expansion of Amazon Games' AAA publishing efforts, which also include Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG and the recently announced Blue Protocol from Bandai Namco Online Inc. The upcoming Tomb Raider title will mark Amazon Games' first single-player narrative title, following success with multiplayer titles New World and Lost Ark. To stay up to date, visit amazongames.com. About Amazon Games At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans is building within the sandbox of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including New World, with our studios and teams in Seattle, Orange County, San Diego, and Montreal. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third party games, leading with Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG and Blue Protocol from Bandai Namco Online Inc. About Crystal Dynamics Crystal Dynamics has developed and published more than 30 games during its award-winning, 30-year adventure. Some of the company's beloved franchises include Legacy of Kain and TOMB RAIDER, which has sold more than 95 million copies worldwide. TOMB RAIDER's protagonist, the hero Lara Croft, has been a cultural icon for more than 25 years, appearing in more than 20 games, and has made an indelible mark on virtually every facet of entertainment. In addition to its headquarters in San Mateo, California, Crystal Dynamics has two additional studios: Crystal Northwest in Bellevue, Washington, and Crystal Southwest in Austin, Texas. Crystal Dynamics' website can be found at https://crystald.com/ About TOMB RAIDER The TOMB RAIDER videogame franchise, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, has sold over 95 million copies worldwide. The franchise's popularity has exploded into a series of blockbuster films based on the original Tomb Raider game and 2013 reboot. Its protagonist Lara Croft has been a contemporary global icon for over two decades. The most-recent release in the world-famous franchise, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, co-developed by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal, received numerous "Best of" nominations and awards and is the remarkable conclusion to Lara Croft's origin story. All of this continues to make TOMB RAIDER a destination brand for action-adventure. TOMB RAIDER Related Links: Official Website, Twitter, Discord, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook 1 NRG global study, May 2022 Rebekah Nicodemus Amazon Games games-pr@amazon.com Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics today announced they have reached an agreement under which Crystal Dynamics will develop a new multiplatform <i>Tomb Raider</i> title, with Amazon Games providing full support and publishing the game globally.</p><div><p>Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics have reached an agreement under which Crystal Dynamics will develop a new multiplatform Tomb Raider title, with Amazon Games providing full support and publishing the game globally. (Graphic: Business Wire)</p></div><p>The as-yet-untitled new <i>Tomb Raider</i> game is a single-player, narrative-driven adventure that continues Lara Croft's story in the <i>Tomb Raider</i> series. It includes all the elements that have made <i>Tomb Raider</i> one of the most revered franchises in gaming, giving players control of the confident and multidimensional hero Lara Croft in an environment that rewards exploration and creative pathfinding, with mind-bending puzzles to solve, and a wide variety of enemies to face and overcome. Crystal Dynamics is drawing on the power and cutting-edge technology of Unreal Engine 5 to take storytelling to the next level, in the biggest, most expansive <i>Tomb Raider </i>game to date. The title is currently in early development, and additional details will be announced at a later date.</p><p>"<i>Tomb Raider </i>is one of the most beloved IPs in entertainment history," said Christoph Hartmann, VP of Amazon Games. "Amazon Games is committed to bringing players games of the highest quality, from the best developers, across all variety of platforms and genres, and we're honored by the opportunity to work with this storied developer and franchise. Our team is incredibly excited about collaborating with the talented and visionary Crystal Dynamics team to bring the next chapter of Lara Croft's saga to players around the world."</p><p>"Crystal Dynamics has an extraordinary opportunity following our acquisition by Embracer to redefine what a publishing relationship is for <i>Tomb Raider</i>," said Scot Amos, head of studio at Crystal Dynamics. "Transformative is what we're looking for, and with Amazon Games, we found a team that shares our creative vision, ambitions, and values for a Lara Croft universe across the spectrum of possibilities. They're uniquely positioned to rewrite what publishing and development collaborations are, and we're eager to forge this new path together, starting with building the biggest and best <i>Tomb Raider</i> game yet!"</p><p>Crystal Dynamics has developed and published dozens of award-winning titles over the past three decades, including globally revered franchises like <i>Legacy of Kain</i> and <i>Tomb Raider</i>. The <i>Tomb Raider</i> franchise includes more than 20 video games, is loved by more than 170 million people around the world¹, and has sold more than 95 million copies since the first entry was released in 1996. The most recent "Survivor Trilogy," comprised of <i>Tomb Raider</i> (2013), <i>Rise of the Tomb Raider </i>(2015), and <i>Shadow of the Tomb Raider </i>(2018), garnered more than 200 "Best of" awards and nominations.</p><p>The agreement with Crystal Dynamics marks a further expansion of Amazon Games' AAA publishing efforts, which also include <i>Lost Ark</i> from Smilegate RPG and the recently announced <i>Blue Protocol </i>from Bandai Namco Online Inc<i>. </i>The upcoming <i>Tomb Raider</i> title will mark Amazon Games' first single-player narrative title, following success with multiplayer titles <i>New World</i> and <i>Lost Ark. </i>To stay up to date, visit amazongames.com.</p><p>About Amazon Games</p><p>At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans is building within the sandbox of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including <i>New World</i>, with our studios and teams in Seattle, Orange County, San Diego, and Montreal. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third party games, leading with <i>Lost Ark</i> from Smilegate RPG and <i>Blue Protocol</i> from Bandai Namco Online Inc.</p><p>About Crystal Dynamics</p><p>Crystal Dynamics has developed and published more than 30 games during its award-winning, 30-year adventure. Some of the company's beloved franchises include <i>Legacy of Kain</i> and <i>TOMB RAIDER</i>, which has sold more than 95 million copies worldwide. <i>TOMB RAIDER</i>'s protagonist, the hero Lara Croft, has been a cultural icon for more than 25 years, appearing in more than 20 games, and has made an indelible mark on virtually every facet of entertainment. In addition to its headquarters in San Mateo, California, Crystal Dynamics has two additional studios: Crystal Northwest in Bellevue, Washington, and Crystal Southwest in Austin, Texas.</p><p>Crystal Dynamics' website can be found at https://crystald.com/</p><p>About <i>TOMB RAIDER</i></p><p>The <i>TOMB RAIDER</i> videogame franchise, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, has sold over 95 million copies worldwide. The franchise's popularity has exploded into a series of blockbuster films based on the original <i>Tomb Raider</i> game and 2013 reboot. Its protagonist Lara Croft has been a contemporary global icon for over two decades. The most-recent release in the world-famous franchise, <i>Shadow of the Tomb Raider</i>, co-developed by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal, received numerous "Best of" nominations and awards and is the remarkable conclusion to Lara Croft's origin story. All of this continues to make <i>TOMB RAIDER </i>a destination brand for action-adventure.</p><p><i>TOMB RAIDER</i> Related Links: Official Website, Twitter, Discord, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook</p><p>¹ NRG global study, May 2022</p> <div><p>Rebekah NicodemusAmazon Gamesgames-pr@amazon.com</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon's Buy with Prime Increases Shopper Conversion by an Average of 25%

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Amazons-Buy-with-Prime-Increases-Shopper-Conversion-by-an-Average-of-25

01/10/2023 08:00:00

Amazon's Buy with Prime Increases Shopper Conversion by an Average of 25%

01/10/2023

2023

Previously available on an invite-only basis, Buy with Prime will be widely available by January 31 Introducing ‘Reviews from Amazon,' enabling Buy with Prime merchants to display ratings and reviews from Amazon customers within their own online stores

<div><p><i>Previously available on an invite-only basis, Buy with Prime</i><i> will be widely available by</i><i> January 31</i></p><p><i>Introducing ‘Reviews from Amazon,’ enabling Buy with Prime merchants to display ratings and reviews from Amazon customers within their own online stores</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon today announced that Buy with Prime, the company's direct-to-consumer offering for merchants' own online stores, has been shown to increase shopper conversion by an average of 25%. Launched in April, Buy with Prime empowers merchants to extend the proven and trusted benefits of Prime—fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns—on their own online stores to build their brands and establish direct customer relationships. Amazon also announced today that Buy with Prime will be widely available to U.S.-based merchants by January 31. Previously, Buy with Prime was available to merchants by invitation only. The company also announced the launch of Reviews from Amazon, a new capability to help Buy with Prime merchants increase shopper trust and conversion and better inform purchase decisions on their own online stores. "We've been working closely with merchants since the launch of Buy with Prime and have been thrilled to hear the results it's helped drive for them so far," said Peter Larsen, Amazon vice president of Buy with Prime. "We'll continue innovating and investing in new features, such as Reviews from Amazon, to help merchants of all sizes succeed and give Prime members the shopping benefits they love, whether it's on Amazon or beyond." Increased Conversion: Driving traffic and converting shoppers are two primary pain-points for direct-to-consumer merchants. This data shows that offering Buy with Prime increases conversion by an average of 25%. This data point measures the average increase in shoppers who placed an order when Buy with Prime was an available purchase option versus when it was not, during the same time period. In September, Amazon released traffic-driving solutions to help merchants attract shoppers. "Our mission is to make smart home technology accessible to everyone, and that's why we were quick to jump at the chance to offer Buy with Prime and the Prime shipping promise to our customers," said Logan Dunn, head of ecommerce at Wyze. "I mean, who doesn't want an accelerated checkout and fast, free shipping? Our customers seem to agree. We're seeing a 25% higher conversion rate, and we've now added Buy with Prime to all eligible products in our catalog." "Trophy Skin was founded in 2013 with the idea that costly in-office skincare treatments should be available at home," said Susie Tew, director of ecommerce, Trophy Skin. "Adding Buy with Prime on our website allows us to take that idea further by giving Prime members the option to purchase skincare tools and topicals with fast, free shipping and hassle-free returns. When given the option to check out using Buy with Prime, we see a conversion rate increase of over 30%." "As we continue to optimize our direct-to-consumer channels, we need to ensure our customers receive the same level of service wherever they shop, especially on our website," said Emily Lease, director of ecommerce, Hydralyte. "Buy with Prime allows us to tap into our existing omni-channel operation to help build an even stronger ecommerce presence in the U.S. After adding Buy with Prime, we have seen a 14% increase in conversion." Reviews from Amazon: Buy with Prime merchants are now able to display ratings and reviews from Amazon customers on their own online stores for no additional cost. When an Amazon shopper leaves a rating and review for a brand's product on Amazon.com, the same rating and review will now appear on the product pages of a merchant's own online store, wherever Buy with Prime is enabled. Created more than 20 years ago by Amazon to help customers inform their purchase decisions, customer reviews and ratings can help Buy with Prime merchants further increase shopper trust and conversion. "We are super excited to add Reviews from Amazon to our store," said Javier Rabago, co-founder, Sustainable Glam. "By having our Amazon reviews shown directly on our website, it shows new customers what Amazon customers are saying about the quality and performance of our products and gives them confidence in their purchases." Wide Availability: Buy with Prime will be widely available to interested U.S.-based merchants by January 31. Previously, Buy with Prime was available by invitation only. Buy with Prime is designed to work with most online stores, including ecommerce service providers such as BigCommerce. Today, BigCommerce announced it will launch the Buy with Prime app with BigCommerce in Q1 2023, which allows merchants to quickly add Buy with Prime to their BigCommerce site with no coding required. Learn more about Buy with Prime here.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon today announced that Buy with Prime, the company's direct-to-consumer offering for merchants' own online stores, has been shown to increase shopper conversion by an average of 25%. Launched in April, Buy with Prime empowers merchants to extend the proven and trusted benefits of Prime—fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns—on their own online stores to build their brands and establish direct customer relationships.</p><p>Amazon also announced today that Buy with Prime will be widely available to U.S.-based merchants by January 31. Previously, Buy with Prime was available to merchants by invitation only. The company also announced the launch of Reviews from Amazon, a new capability to help Buy with Prime merchants increase shopper trust and conversion and better inform purchase decisions on their own online stores.</p><p>"We've been working closely with merchants since the launch of Buy with Prime and have been thrilled to hear the results it's helped drive for them so far," said Peter Larsen, Amazon vice president of Buy with Prime. "We'll continue innovating and investing in new features, such as Reviews from Amazon, to help merchants of all sizes succeed and give Prime members the shopping benefits they love, whether it's on Amazon or beyond."</p><p>Increased Conversion: Driving traffic and converting shoppers are two primary pain-points for direct-to-consumer merchants. This data shows that offering Buy with Prime increases conversion by an average of 25%. This data point measures the average increase in shoppers who placed an order when Buy with Prime was an available purchase option versus when it was not, during the same time period. In September, Amazon released traffic-driving solutions to help merchants attract shoppers.</p><p>"Our mission is to make smart home technology accessible to everyone, and that's why we were quick to jump at the chance to offer Buy with Prime and the Prime shipping promise to our customers," said Logan Dunn, head of ecommerce at Wyze. "I mean, who doesn't want an accelerated checkout and fast, free shipping? Our customers seem to agree. We're seeing a 25% higher conversion rate, and we've now added Buy with Prime to all eligible products in our catalog."</p><p>"Trophy Skin was founded in 2013 with the idea that costly in-office skincare treatments should be available at home," said Susie Tew, director of ecommerce, Trophy Skin. "Adding Buy with Prime on our website allows us to take that idea further by giving Prime members the option to purchase skincare tools and topicals with fast, free shipping and hassle-free returns. When given the option to check out using Buy with Prime, we see a conversion rate increase of over 30%."</p><p>"As we continue to optimize our direct-to-consumer channels, we need to ensure our customers receive the same level of service wherever they shop, especially on our website," said Emily Lease, director of ecommerce, Hydralyte. "Buy with Prime allows us to tap into our existing omni-channel operation to help build an even stronger ecommerce presence in the U.S. After adding Buy with Prime, we have seen a 14% increase in conversion."</p><p>Reviews from Amazon: Buy with Prime merchants are now able to display ratings and reviews from Amazon customers on their own online stores for no additional cost. When an Amazon shopper leaves a rating and review for a brand's product on Amazon.com, the same rating and review will now appear on the product pages of a merchant's own online store, wherever Buy with Prime is enabled. Created more than 20 years ago by Amazon to help customers inform their purchase decisions, customer reviews and ratings can help Buy with Prime merchants further increase shopper trust and conversion.</p><p>"We are super excited to add Reviews from Amazon to our store," said Javier Rabago, co-founder, Sustainable Glam. "By having our Amazon reviews shown directly on our website, it shows new customers what Amazon customers are saying about the quality and performance of our products and gives them confidence in their purchases."</p><p>Wide Availability: Buy with Prime will be widely available to interested U.S.-based merchants by January 31. Previously, Buy with Prime was available by invitation only.</p><p>Buy with Prime is designed to work with most online stores, including ecommerce service providers such as BigCommerce. Today, BigCommerce announced it will launch the Buy with Prime app with BigCommerce in Q1 2023, which allows merchants to quickly add Buy with Prime to their BigCommerce site with no coding required.</p><p>Learn more about Buy with Prime here.</p>

Amazon.com to Webcast Fourth Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call

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Amazon.com-to-Webcast-Fourth-Quarter-2022-Financial-Results-Conference-Call

01/19/2023 16:01:00

Amazon.com to Webcast Fourth Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call

01/19/2023

2023

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter 2022 financial results on Thursday, February 2, 2023, at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET. The event will be webcast live, and the audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir. Amazon.com Public Relations amazon-pr@amazon.com amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter 2022 financial results on Thursday, February 2, 2023, at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET.</p><p>The event will be webcast live, and the audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com Public Relationsamazon-pr@amazon.com amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

AWS Launches Second Infrastructure Region in Australia

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AWS-Launches-Second-Infrastructure-Region-in-Australia

01/23/2023 18:03:00

AWS Launches Second Infrastructure Region in Australia

01/23/2023

2023

Second AWS Region in Australia provides customers with more options to run workloads with even greater resilience and availability, securely store data in Australia, and serve end users with even lower latency The new AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region is estimated to support an average of more than 2,500 full-time jobs annually through a planned investment of more than $4.5 billion (approx. A$6.8 billion) in Australia by 2037 Hundreds of thousands of customers, including ANZ, Littlepay, and RMIT University, use local AWS infrastructure to innovate

<div><p><i>Second AWS Region in Australia provides customers with more options to run workloads with even greater resilience and availability, securely store data in Australia, and serve end users with even lower latency</i></p><p><i>The new AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region is estimated to support an average of more than 2,500 full-time jobs annually through a planned investment of more than $4.5 billion (approx. A$6.8 billion) in Australia by 2037</i></p><p><i>Hundreds of thousands of customers, including ANZ, Littlepay, and RMIT University, use local AWS infrastructure to innovate</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the launch of its second AWS infrastructure Region in Australia—the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region. Starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, will have greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from AWS data centers located in Australia. AWS is planning to invest an estimated $4.5 billion (approx. A$6.8 billion) in Australia by 2037 through the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure. "Australia has a strong history of technical innovation, and the launch of a second AWS Region in Australia provides even greater resilience and enables more customers to develop cloud-based applications that help fuel economic development across the country," said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. "The AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region adds to our ongoing infrastructure expansion and investments in Australia since we launched the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region in 2012. We are proud to deepen our investment by driving local job creation, building cloud skills, and creating opportunities for growth and collaboration with our local customers and AWS Partners." "We know how important access to secure cloud infrastructure is to Victorian businesses, and providing more choice will deliver a boost to the economy, support innovation, and help to create new jobs locally," said Victorian Minister for Trade and Investment Tim Pallas. With the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region, AWS now has 99 Availability Zones across 31 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 12 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and Thailand. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. The AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region consists of three Availability Zones and joins the existing AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region, which opened in November 2012. Availability Zones are located far enough from each other to support customers' business continuity and near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance. The launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region will enable local customers with data residency preferences to store data securely in Australia while providing customers with even lower latency to drive greater productivity, more efficient business operations, and enhanced real-time application performance. Customers will also have access to advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation including compute, storage, networking, business applications, developer tools, data analytics, security, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. AWS also released an economic impact study estimating that the company's projected spending on the construction and operation of the new Region will support more than 2,500 full-time jobs at external businesses annually, with a planned $4.5 billion (approx. A$6.8 billion) investment in Australia by 2037. The investment includes capital expenditures on the construction of data centers, operational expenses related to ongoing utilities and facility costs, and purchases of goods and services from regional businesses. These jobs, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and other jobs within the country's broader economy, will be part of the AWS supply chain in Australia. The construction and operation of the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region is also estimated to add approximately $10.6 billion (approx. A$15.9 billion) to Australia's GDP by 2037. Customers welcome the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region Hundreds of thousands of organizations in Australia are among the millions of active customers using AWS in more than 190 countries around the world. Enterprises in Australia choose AWS to innovate and assist with accelerating time to market. Customers using AWS include Airtasker, Animal Logic, ANZ Bank, Atlassian, Canva, Cochlear, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Jim's Group, Kmart, Lion, Lovisa, National Australia Bank, Optus, PEXA Group, Pizza Hut, Smiling Mind, Swimming Australia, Target, Telstra, Ticketek, Woodside Energy, and Youfoodz. Australian public sector customers use AWS to help drive cost savings and better serve local citizens. These customers include FrontierSI, Melbourne Genomics Health Alliance, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), University of Melbourne, and Victorian Land Registry Services. Australian startups, including Brighte, FloodMapp, FrankieOne, Illuvium, Law On Earth, Littlepay, Mr Yum, Omniscient Neurotechnology (o8t), Reejig, and Swoop Aero, are building their businesses with the use of AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world. ANZ Bank provides banking and financial products and services to more than 8.5 million retail and business customers, and operate across 32 markets. "We plan to deploy our AWS targeted workloads and applications through the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region on day one and want to make it our long-term primary AWS location," said Gerard Florian, group executive of Technology at ANZ. "The lower latency and higher performance we expect of the new AWS Region in Melbourne will help us improve our customer experience and accelerate our cloud adoption." Littlepay is a Melbourne-based financial technology company that works with more than 250 transport and mobility providers to enable contactless payments on local buses, city networks, and national public transport systems. "Our mission is to create a universal payment experience around the world, which requires world-class global infrastructure that can grow with us," said Amin Shayan, CEO at Littlepay. "To drive a seamless experience for our customers, we ingest and process over 1 million monthly transactions in real time using AWS, which enables us to generate insights that help us improve our services. We are excited about the launch of a second AWS Region in Australia, as it gives us access to advanced technologies, like machine learning and artificial intelligence, at a lower latency to help make commuting a simpler and more enjoyable experience." PEXA Group operates Australia's leading digital property settlement platform, which provides an efficient, reliable, and secure settlement experience for home buyers and sellers. "Operational resilience is at the heart of our commitment to customers and our regulatory imperatives, which is why it is a top strategic priority at PEXA," said Eglantine Etiemble, chief technology officer at PEXA Group. "The launch of a second AWS Region in Australia makes it possible for us to deploy applications securely across multiple Regions to improve the availability and performance of our PEXA platform and continue helping more than 20,000 families a week settle their homes sooner." RMIT is a public research university with more than 96,000 students globally. "The launch of an AWS Region in Melbourne gives us the additional capacity to assist researchers, students, and academics to deliver world-class research outcomes that benefit society," said professor Calum Drummond, deputy vice chancellor of Research and Innovation and vice president at RMIT. "We recently launched RMIT University's AWS Cloud Supercomputing facility, known as RACE. RMIT researchers are using RACE to advance battery technologies, photonics, and geospatial science. The low latency and high throughput of the AWS Region in Melbourne, combined with our high-bandwidth private fiber network, will enable researchers and students to innovate beyond the limitations of traditional on-premises data centers." Australian AWS Partners also welcome the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS ISVs, SIs, and consulting partners help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. Examples of Australian-based AWS Partners include Cevo, CMD Solutions, DiUS, IntelligenceBank, Local Measure, NCS, Stax, Unleash live, Urban.io, and Versent. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners. Cevo is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner that provides cloud services such as migration, data analytics, and managed services to Australian companies including David Jones, Insignia Financial, MYOB, and Jim's Group. "Working with AWS has enabled us to expand our team by more than 60 consultants in the past 12 months to meet increased customer demand for deploying highly-regulated cloud environments," said James Lewis, CEO at Cevo. "As cloud adoption continues to scale, we're seeing more customers—particularly in the financial, government, and retail sectors—move to the cloud to tap into advanced modernization and analytics capabilities to ideate, design and build new customer-focused services. With the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region, we can enable customers to drive more experimentation at scale, while providing assurance that their data is stored securely in Australia." Commitment to sustainability As part of The Climate Pledge, Amazon is committed to reaching net-zero carbon across its business by 2040 and is on a path to powering operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. Amazon is the world's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, and as of 2021, reached 85% renewable energy across its business. Additionally, AWS will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations. Amazon has three renewable energy investments in Australia, which include a wind farm in Hawkesdale, Victoria, and two solar farms in New South Wales, in Gunnedah and Suntop. When all three projects are operational, these renewable energy investments are expected to generate 717,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy annually, the equivalent of the annual power use of almost 115,000 Australian homes. Amazon now has 57 renewable energy projects across the Asia-Pacific region.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the launch of its second AWS infrastructure Region in Australia—the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region. Starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, will have greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from AWS data centers located in Australia. AWS is planning to invest an estimated $4.5 billion (approx. A$6.8 billion) in Australia by 2037 through the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure.</p><p>"Australia has a strong history of technical innovation, and the launch of a second AWS Region in Australia provides even greater resilience and enables more customers to develop cloud-based applications that help fuel economic development across the country," said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. "The AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region adds to our ongoing infrastructure expansion and investments in Australia since we launched the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region in 2012. We are proud to deepen our investment by driving local job creation, building cloud skills, and creating opportunities for growth and collaboration with our local customers and AWS Partners."</p><p>"We know how important access to secure cloud infrastructure is to Victorian businesses, and providing more choice will deliver a boost to the economy, support innovation, and help to create new jobs locally," said Victorian Minister for Trade and Investment Tim Pallas.</p><p>With the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region, AWS now has 99 Availability Zones across 31 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 12 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and Thailand. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. The AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region consists of three Availability Zones and joins the existing AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region, which opened in November 2012. Availability Zones are located far enough from each other to support customers' business continuity and near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.</p><p>The launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region will enable local customers with data residency preferences to store data securely in Australia while providing customers with even lower latency to drive greater productivity, more efficient business operations, and enhanced real-time application performance. Customers will also have access to advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation including compute, storage, networking, business applications, developer tools, data analytics, security, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.</p><p>AWS also released an economic impact study estimating that the company's projected spending on the construction and operation of the new Region will support more than 2,500 full-time jobs at external businesses annually, with a planned $4.5 billion (approx. A$6.8 billion) investment in Australia by 2037. The investment includes capital expenditures on the construction of data centers, operational expenses related to ongoing utilities and facility costs, and purchases of goods and services from regional businesses. These jobs, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and other jobs within the country's broader economy, will be part of the AWS supply chain in Australia. The construction and operation of the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region is also estimated to add approximately $10.6 billion (approx. A$15.9 billion) to Australia's GDP by 2037.</p><p>Customers welcome the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region</p><p>Hundreds of thousands of organizations in Australia are among the millions of active customers using AWS in more than 190 countries around the world. Enterprises in Australia choose AWS to innovate and assist with accelerating time to market. Customers using AWS include Airtasker, Animal Logic, ANZ Bank, Atlassian, Canva, Cochlear, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Jim's Group, Kmart, Lion, Lovisa, National Australia Bank, Optus, PEXA Group, Pizza Hut, Smiling Mind, Swimming Australia, Target, Telstra, Ticketek, Woodside Energy, and Youfoodz. Australian public sector customers use AWS to help drive cost savings and better serve local citizens. These customers include FrontierSI, Melbourne Genomics Health Alliance, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), University of Melbourne, and Victorian Land Registry Services. Australian startups, including Brighte, FloodMapp, FrankieOne, Illuvium, Law On Earth, Littlepay, Mr Yum, Omniscient Neurotechnology (o8t), Reejig, and Swoop Aero, are building their businesses with the use of AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world.</p><p>ANZ Bank provides banking and financial products and services to more than 8.5 million retail and business customers, and operate across 32 markets. "We plan to deploy our AWS targeted workloads and applications through the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region on day one and want to make it our long-term primary AWS location," said Gerard Florian, group executive of Technology at ANZ. "The lower latency and higher performance we expect of the new AWS Region in Melbourne will help us improve our customer experience and accelerate our cloud adoption."</p><p>Littlepay is a Melbourne-based financial technology company that works with more than 250 transport and mobility providers to enable contactless payments on local buses, city networks, and national public transport systems. "Our mission is to create a universal payment experience around the world, which requires world-class global infrastructure that can grow with us," said Amin Shayan, CEO at Littlepay. "To drive a seamless experience for our customers, we ingest and process over 1 million monthly transactions in real time using AWS, which enables us to generate insights that help us improve our services. We are excited about the launch of a second AWS Region in Australia, as it gives us access to advanced technologies, like machine learning and artificial intelligence, at a lower latency to help make commuting a simpler and more enjoyable experience."</p><p>PEXA Group operates Australia's leading digital property settlement platform, which provides an efficient, reliable, and secure settlement experience for home buyers and sellers. "Operational resilience is at the heart of our commitment to customers and our regulatory imperatives, which is why it is a top strategic priority at PEXA," said Eglantine Etiemble, chief technology officer at PEXA Group. "The launch of a second AWS Region in Australia makes it possible for us to deploy applications securely across multiple Regions to improve the availability and performance of our PEXA platform and continue helping more than 20,000 families a week settle their homes sooner."</p><p>RMIT is a public research university with more than 96,000 students globally. "The launch of an AWS Region in Melbourne gives us the additional capacity to assist researchers, students, and academics to deliver world-class research outcomes that benefit society," said professor Calum Drummond, deputy vice chancellor of Research and Innovation and vice president at RMIT. "We recently launched RMIT University's AWS Cloud Supercomputing facility, known as RACE. RMIT researchers are using RACE to advance battery technologies, photonics, and geospatial science. The low latency and high throughput of the AWS Region in Melbourne, combined with our high-bandwidth private fiber network, will enable researchers and students to innovate beyond the limitations of traditional on-premises data centers."</p><p>Australian AWS Partners also welcome the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region</p><p>The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS ISVs, SIs, and consulting partners help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. Examples of Australian-based AWS Partners include Cevo, CMD Solutions, DiUS, IntelligenceBank, Local Measure, NCS, Stax, Unleash live, Urban.io, and Versent. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners.</p><p>Cevo is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner that provides cloud services such as migration, data analytics, and managed services to Australian companies including David Jones, Insignia Financial, MYOB, and Jim's Group. "Working with AWS has enabled us to expand our team by more than 60 consultants in the past 12 months to meet increased customer demand for deploying highly-regulated cloud environments," said James Lewis, CEO at Cevo. "As cloud adoption continues to scale, we're seeing more customers—particularly in the financial, government, and retail sectors—move to the cloud to tap into advanced modernization and analytics capabilities to ideate, design and build new customer-focused services. With the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region, we can enable customers to drive more experimentation at scale, while providing assurance that their data is stored securely in Australia."</p><p>Commitment to sustainability</p><p>As part of The Climate Pledge, Amazon is committed to reaching net-zero carbon across its business by 2040 and is on a path to powering operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. Amazon is the world's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, and as of 2021, reached 85% renewable energy across its business. Additionally, AWS will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations. Amazon has three renewable energy investments in Australia, which include a wind farm in Hawkesdale, Victoria, and two solar farms in New South Wales, in Gunnedah and Suntop. When all three projects are operational, these renewable energy investments are expected to generate 717,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy annually, the equivalent of the annual power use of almost 115,000 Australian homes. Amazon now has 57 renewable energy projects across the Asia-Pacific region.</p>

Amazon Pharmacy Introduces RxPass: Unlimited Prescription Medications for Only $5 a Month, Delivered Free to your Door—Available Exclusively for Prime Members

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Pharmacy-Introduces-RxPass-Unlimited-Prescription-Medications-for-Only-5-a-Month-Delivered-Free-to-your-DoorAvailable-Exclusively-for-Prime-Members/default.aspx

Amazon-Pharmacy-Introduces-RxPass-Unlimited-Prescription-Medications-for-Only-5-a-Month-Delivered-Free-to-your-DoorAvailable-Exclusively-for-Prime-Members

01/24/2023 03:01:00

Amazon Pharmacy Introduces RxPass: Unlimited Prescription Medications for Only $5 a Month, Delivered Free to your Door—Available Exclusively for Prime Members

01/24/2023

2023

RxPass provides affordable access to medications that treat more than 80 common conditions, including high blood pressure, anxiety, acid reflux, and more

<div><p><i>RxPass provides affordable access to medications that treat more than 80 common conditions, including high blood pressure, anxiety, acid reflux, and more</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon today announced RxPass, a new Prime membership benefit from Amazon Pharmacy that offers patients affordable access to commonly prescribed generic medications that treat more than 80 common health conditions. With RxPass, Prime members can receive all of their eligible medications for one flat, low monthly fee of $5, and have them delivered free of charge. There are no hidden fees and no markups to the $5 per month subscription. RxPass is available starting today in most U.S. states. "Prime members already get fast, free delivery on prescription medications, and RxPass is one more way to save with Amazon Pharmacy. Any customer who pays more than $10 a month for their eligible medications will see their prescription costs drop by 50% or more, plus they save time by skipping a trip to the pharmacy," said John Love, vice president of Amazon Pharmacy. "We are excited to offer our customers surprisingly simple, low pricing on the eligible medications they need each month." To enroll in RxPass, Prime members can go to Amazon.com or Amazon's mobile app to create or update their Amazon Pharmacy profile. Once there, customers will be guided through a simple sign-up process that verifies their eligibility and prescription information. If customers have questions during the enrollment process or after a prescription arrives, Amazon pharmacists are on hand 24/7 to coordinate with a customer's doctor or help with refills. Amazon Pharmacy offers choice and convenience, whether customers are paying with insurance or not. When not using insurance, Prime members now have two innovative, affordable options to pay for prescription medications. Prime members who typically take two or more medications per month to manage chronic or ongoing health conditions could save significant time and money with the $5 a month RxPass subscription. Alternately, Prime members can save with the Prime prescription savings benefit—available for no additional fee—to get discounts up to 80% off generic and 40% off brand name medications at more than 60,000 participating pharmacies nationwide, including Amazon Pharmacy and the PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy service. Amazon Pharmacy and PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy also welcome most health insurance plans, and offer low, transparent pricing for customers who use insurance to pay for their prescription medications. In addition, customers may use their HSA or FSA accounts when not paying with RxPass. To learn more about Amazon Pharmacy or to sign up for RxPass, visit amazon.com/rxpass. Every Day Made Better with Prime RxPass is the newest benefit available for Prime members. Prime membership offers the best of shopping, savings, and entertainment to make life every day more convenient, budget-friendly, and fun. In the U.S. that includes free, fast delivery on millions of items, unlimited streaming of movies and series like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and live sports like Thursday Night Football with Prime Video, ad-free listening of 100 million songs and millions of podcast episodes with Amazon Music, prescription medications as low as $1 per month and free two-day shipping from Amazon Pharmacy, ultrafast Fresh grocery delivery, in-store savings on select groceries at Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S., unlimited photo storage with Amazon Photos, free gaming benefits with Prime Gaming, more than 3,000 books and magazines with Prime Reading, Buy with Prime, which offers Prime shopping benefits like fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns on online stores beyond Amazon.com, and exclusive deals and shopping events like Prime Day. Members can now also enjoy a free, one-year Grubhub+ membership trial valued at $9.99 per month, offering unlimited $0 delivery fees on orders over $12. Anyone can join Prime for just $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial at amazon.com/prime. About Amazon Pharmacy Amazon Pharmacy is a full-service pharmacy in the Amazon.com store. Customers can use Amazon Pharmacy to purchase medications prescribed by their doctor and have them conveniently delivered to their door, with free two-day delivery for Prime members. At Amazon Pharmacy, we're making pharmacy better—with upfront pricing, home delivery, and pharmacists available 24/7. We also support PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy, a service for people who manage multiple daily medications. Learn more at amazon.com/pharmacy.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon today announced RxPass, a new Prime membership benefit from Amazon Pharmacy that offers patients affordable access to commonly prescribed generic medications that treat more than 80 common health conditions. With RxPass, Prime members can receive all of their eligible medications for one flat, low monthly fee of $5, and have them delivered free of charge. There are no hidden fees and no markups to the $5 per month subscription. RxPass is available starting today in most U.S. states.</p><p>"Prime members already get fast, free delivery on prescription medications, and RxPass is one more way to save with Amazon Pharmacy. Any customer who pays more than $10 a month for their eligible medications will see their prescription costs drop by 50% or more, plus they save time by skipping a trip to the pharmacy," said John Love, vice president of Amazon Pharmacy. "We are excited to offer our customers surprisingly simple, low pricing on the eligible medications they need each month."</p><p>To enroll in RxPass, Prime members can go to Amazon.com or Amazon's mobile app to create or update their Amazon Pharmacy profile. Once there, customers will be guided through a simple sign-up process that verifies their eligibility and prescription information. If customers have questions during the enrollment process or after a prescription arrives, Amazon pharmacists are on hand 24/7 to coordinate with a customer's doctor or help with refills.</p><p>Amazon Pharmacy offers choice and convenience, whether customers are paying with insurance or not. When not using insurance, Prime members now have two innovative, affordable options to pay for prescription medications. Prime members who typically take two or more medications per month to manage chronic or ongoing health conditions could save significant time and money with the $5 a month RxPass subscription. Alternately, Prime members can save with the Prime prescription savings benefit—available for no additional fee—to get discounts up to 80% off generic and 40% off brand name medications at more than 60,000 participating pharmacies nationwide, including Amazon Pharmacy and the PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy service.</p><p>Amazon Pharmacy and PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy also welcome most health insurance plans, and offer low, transparent pricing for customers who use insurance to pay for their prescription medications. In addition, customers may use their HSA or FSA accounts when not paying with RxPass.</p><p>To learn more about Amazon Pharmacy or to sign up for RxPass, visit amazon.com/rxpass.</p><p>Every Day Made Better with Prime</p><p>RxPass is the newest benefit available for Prime members. Prime membership offers the best of shopping, savings, and entertainment to make life every day more convenient, budget-friendly, and fun. In the U.S. that includes free, fast delivery on millions of items, unlimited streaming of movies and series like <i>The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power</i> and live sports like<i> Thursday Night Football </i>with Prime Video, ad-free listening of 100 million songs and millions of podcast episodes with Amazon Music, prescription medications as low as $1 per month and free two-day shipping from Amazon Pharmacy, ultrafast Fresh grocery delivery, in-store savings on select groceries at Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S., unlimited photo storage with Amazon Photos, free gaming benefits with Prime Gaming, more than 3,000 books and magazines with Prime Reading, Buy with Prime, which offers Prime shopping benefits like fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns on online stores beyond Amazon.com, and exclusive deals and shopping events like Prime Day. Members can now also enjoy a free, one-year Grubhub+ membership trial valued at $9.99 per month, offering unlimited $0 delivery fees on orders over $12. Anyone can join Prime for just $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial at amazon.com/prime.</p><p>About Amazon Pharmacy</p><p>Amazon Pharmacy is a full-service pharmacy in the Amazon.com store. Customers can use Amazon Pharmacy to purchase medications prescribed by their doctor and have them conveniently delivered to their door, with free two-day delivery for Prime members. At Amazon Pharmacy, we're making pharmacy better—with upfront pricing, home delivery, and pharmacists available 24/7. We also support PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy, a service for people who manage multiple daily medications. Learn more at amazon.com/pharmacy.</p>

Zurich Selects AWS to Accelerate Digital Transformation and Deliver New Customer Experiences at Scale

/news/news-details/2023/Zurich-Selects-AWS-to-Accelerate-Digital-Transformation-and-Deliver-New-Customer-Experiences-at-Scale/default.aspx

Zurich-Selects-AWS-to-Accelerate-Digital-Transformation-and-Deliver-New-Customer-Experiences-at-Scale

01/31/2023 03:01:00

Zurich Selects AWS to Accelerate Digital Transformation and Deliver New Customer Experiences at Scale

01/31/2023

2023

With AWS as its preferred cloud provider, global insurance leader will use AWS capabilities and the AWS Europe (Zurich) Region to speed innovation and meet regulatory and security requirements

<div><p><i>With AWS as its preferred cloud provider, global insurance leader will use AWS capabilities and the AWS Europe (Zurich) Region to speed innovation and meet regulatory and security requirements</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich), a leading multi-line insurer providing property, casualty, and life insurance solutions globally, is moving its enterprise information technology (IT) infrastructure to AWS. Zurich will use AWS's reliable global infrastructure, advanced analytics, and machine learning technologies to deliver new digital customer experiences and drive automation at scale, in support of its worldwide digital strategy. As part of the multiyear strategic collaboration, Zurich will move 1,000 applications to AWS by 2025, including core insurance and SAP workloads. Zurich will move its critical applications to AWS, simplifying, modernizing, and automating the company's infrastructure. This approach will provide flexible and scalable application environments, enabling agile product development. Using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), Amazon Aurora (AWS's fully managed MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud), and AWS App Runner (AWS's service to quickly deploy containerized web applications and APIs), Zurich will develop and bring new products to market quicker, saving approximately $30 million a year. As a result, Zurich can focus on innovation and new customer experiences, reinvesting valuable resources into new business opportunities, recruitment, and acquisition strategies. By embracing cloud technologies, Zurich will also be able to streamline and optimize its core business processes and better prepare for new reporting requirements in 2023, including alignment with international financial reporting standards—IFRS 9 and IFRS 17. Zurich will use RISE with SAP on AWS, a fully managed offering that combines SAP's solution and implementation experience with AWS' experience in helping customers transform their SAP landscapes on the cloud. By migrating its SAP environment to AWS, Zurich will create a modern, cloud-based system connecting data across its entire business. The SAP workloads migration will consist of 20 landscapes, a collection of servers for a specific workload, including more than 100 individual systems such as human resources (HR) and finance. AWS's extensive SAP experience will allow Zurich to increase the performance of its SAP applications and integrate its data with advanced analytics and machine learning services to gain predictive capabilities and enterprise-wide reporting. Zurich works with AWS Skills Guild, a comprehensive skills enablement program that helps organizations accelerate cloud outcomes by creating excitement, increasing employee engagement, and nurturing a culture of learning. The insurance provider has already trained more than 400 employees, with plans to further grow the program. Zurich offers skills development opportunities to help attract and train new employee talent, and accelerate cloud adoption across the company. "We want to help our retail customers lead safer and healthier lives, and bring our business customers peace of mind, by using the power of digital technologies to meet their evolving needs," said Zurich's Ericson Chan, Group Chief Information and Digital Officer. "Working with AWS will transform the way we bring solutions to market and enable us to make the most accurate and up-to-date insights available to our customers. We look forward to using the new AWS Region in Switzerland to support our regulatory reporting requirements." "Zurich's focus on customers and innovation over the last 150 years is why it remains a leading insurer for more than 55 million people and businesses around the world. Moving their most critical business applications to AWS allows Zurich to put data at the heart of its business to automate processes, increase efficiency, and improve customer responsiveness," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at Amazon Web Services. "Combining Zurich's financial expertise with AWS's broad functionality will help the insurer continue to evolve its business to anticipate customer needs, and provide more personalized insurance products."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich), a leading multi-line insurer providing property, casualty, and life insurance solutions globally, is moving its enterprise information technology (IT) infrastructure to AWS. Zurich will use AWS's reliable global infrastructure, advanced analytics, and machine learning technologies to deliver new digital customer experiences and drive automation at scale, in support of its worldwide digital strategy. As part of the multiyear strategic collaboration, Zurich will move 1,000 applications to AWS by 2025, including core insurance and SAP workloads.</p><p>Zurich will move its critical applications to AWS, simplifying, modernizing, and automating the company's infrastructure. This approach will provide flexible and scalable application environments, enabling agile product development. Using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), Amazon Aurora (AWS's fully managed MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud), and AWS App Runner (AWS's service to quickly deploy containerized web applications and APIs), Zurich will develop and bring new products to market quicker, saving approximately $30 million a year. As a result, Zurich can focus on innovation and new customer experiences, reinvesting valuable resources into new business opportunities, recruitment, and acquisition strategies. By embracing cloud technologies, Zurich will also be able to streamline and optimize its core business processes and better prepare for new reporting requirements in 2023, including alignment with international financial reporting standards—IFRS 9 and IFRS 17.</p><p>Zurich will use RISE with SAP on AWS, a fully managed offering that combines SAP's solution and implementation experience with AWS' experience in helping customers transform their SAP landscapes on the cloud. By migrating its SAP environment to AWS, Zurich will create a modern, cloud-based system connecting data across its entire business. The SAP workloads migration will consist of 20 landscapes, a collection of servers for a specific workload, including more than 100 individual systems such as human resources (HR) and finance. AWS's extensive SAP experience will allow Zurich to increase the performance of its SAP applications and integrate its data with advanced analytics and machine learning services to gain predictive capabilities and enterprise-wide reporting.</p><p>Zurich works with AWS Skills Guild, a comprehensive skills enablement program that helps organizations accelerate cloud outcomes by creating excitement, increasing employee engagement, and nurturing a culture of learning. The insurance provider has already trained more than 400 employees, with plans to further grow the program. Zurich offers skills development opportunities to help attract and train new employee talent, and accelerate cloud adoption across the company.</p><p>"We want to help our retail customers lead safer and healthier lives, and bring our business customers peace of mind, by using the power of digital technologies to meet their evolving needs," said Zurich's Ericson Chan, Group Chief Information and Digital Officer. "Working with AWS will transform the way we bring solutions to market and enable us to make the most accurate and up-to-date insights available to our customers. We look forward to using the new AWS Region in Switzerland to support our regulatory reporting requirements."</p><p>"Zurich's focus on customers and innovation over the last 150 years is why it remains a leading insurer for more than 55 million people and businesses around the world. Moving their most critical business applications to AWS allows Zurich to put data at the heart of its business to automate processes, increase efficiency, and improve customer responsiveness," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at Amazon Web Services. "Combining Zurich's financial expertise with AWS's broad functionality will help the insurer continue to evolve its business to anticipate customer needs, and provide more personalized insurance products."</p>

Amazon Sets a New Record for Most Renewable Energy Purchased by a Single Company

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Amazon-Sets-a-New-Record-for-Most-Renewable-Energy-Purchased-by-a-Single-Company

01/31/2023 06:00:00

Amazon Sets a New Record for Most Renewable Energy Purchased by a Single Company

01/31/2023

2023

The company's renewable energy portfolio now totals more than 20 GW and will generate enough clean energy to power 5.3 million homes in the U.S. Amazon's renewable energy purchases last year brought it closer to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of its original target

<div><p><i>The company’s renewable energy portfolio now totals more than 20 GW and will generate enough clean energy to power 5.3 million homes in the U.S.</i></p><p><i>Amazon’s renewable energy purchases last year brought it closer to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of its original target</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that in 2022 it grew its renewable energy capacity by 8.3 gigawatts (GW) through 133 new projects in 11 countries. This brings Amazon's total portfolio to more than 20 GW—that could generate the amount of energy to power 5.3 million U.S. homes—across 401 renewable energy projects in 22 countries. The company's renewable energy purchases continue to add new wind and solar projects on the grids that power Amazon's operations, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers, Amazon fulfillment centers, and physical stores around the world. With these continued investments, Amazon set a new corporate record for the most renewable energy announced by a single company in one year. The company remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it's held since 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Amazon's continued investment in renewable energy helps to accelerate growth in new regions through innovative deal structures, technologies, and cloud solutions. These purchases also bring Amazon closer to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of its original 2030 target. In 2022, the company announced new projects in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Spain, and the U.S., and broke ground in Brazil, India, and Indonesia. With 25 new renewable energy projects secured to close out the year, the company now has 401 projects globally, including 164 wind farms and solar farms, and 237 rooftop solar projects on Amazon facilities. Once operational, Amazon's global renewable energy projects are expected to generate 56,881 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy each year. "As we continue to launch new renewable energy projects around the world, we're pleased to be on track to power our operations with 100% renewable energy, five years ahead of our original target. With 133 projects in 11 countries announced in 2022, Amazon had another record year," said Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS. "These projects highlight the diversity of our renewable energy sources and showcase our ability to bring new technologies to new markets and further reduce the impacts of climate change." In addition to the 108 clean energy projects the company announced in 2022, Amazon today is announcing 25 additional 2022 clean energy projects. These include: Eleven new projects in Europe, including Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, totaling 372 megawatts (MW) of capacity. Tapping into one of the world's best renewable energy resources, Amazon continued to add to its portfolio of offshore wind projects, investing in two new offshore wind projects in Europe totaling 280 MW of capacity. Four new projects in North America, totaling 918 MW of energy in Arizona, California, and Texas. A new solar project paired with energy storage in California allows Amazon to store clean energy produced by its solar projects and deploy it when solar energy is not available, such as in the evening hours, or during periods of high demand. Also in California, Amazon added its first on-site solar project at the Amazon Air Hub, where employees pack and handle freight and conduct planeside operations. Ten new renewable energy projects in India, Indonesia, and Japan. In India, a third 200 MW wind-solar hybrid project was added to Amazon's first two wind-solar hybrid projects. Renewable hybrid energy systems can play a key role in helping India accelerate the decarbonization of power generation, lowering the cost of electricity in the medium term. These hybrid energy systems also maximize clean energy use on the grid by combining two technologies with different generation profiles, reducing variability in renewable generation, and improving grid stability. In Indonesia, Amazon invested in its first renewable energy projects, securing a first-of-its-kind agreement for corporations to access additional utility-scale solar projects. In Japan, Amazon added three on-site solar projects and a new 38 MW utility-scale solar project. Rapidly scaling renewable energy is one of the most effective strategies to fight climate change. To ensure organizations' renewable energy purchases have the greatest impact on emissions reductions, Amazon recently led the creation of the new Emissions First coalition. This coalition is leading advocacy efforts to modernize the world's leading carbon-accounting standard, helping to reduce carbon from global electricity grids as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. "Amazon's clean energy portfolio doesn't just top the corporate charts—it is now among the leading utilities globally, as well," said Kyle Harrison, head of sustainability research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "The fact that it announced a new annual record of clean energy in a year mired by a global energy crisis, supply chain bottlenecks and high interest rates speaks to its forward planning and expertise in navigating power markets and executing long-term contracts." "Amidst the market uncertainty of 2022, Amazon led clean energy buyers and doubled down on its commitment to renewable energy," said Miranda Ballentine, CEO of Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA). "Amazon's commitment to decarbonization is demonstrated through its leading placement on CEBA's Deal Tracker Top 10, within our member community, and on a global scale." "As Asia continues to transition away from coal and gas, these investments by Amazon in wind and solar are further evidence that there is a large and growing corporate renewable electricity demand in this region. We look forward to continuing to work with Amazon and our other ACEC members to rapidly increase the supply of renewables and to achieve our shared 100% renewable ambitions in the region," said Sam Kimmins, director of energy at Climate Group and Asia Clean Energy Coalition (ACEC) spokesperson. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, committing to reach net-zero carbon by 2040—10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. The Pledge now has nearly 400 signatories, including Best Buy, IBM, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Siemens, Unilever, Verizon, and Visa. Amazon continues to transform its transportation network, including electrifying its delivery fleet and sourcing alternatives to fossil fuels—it currently has thousands of electric delivery vehicles from Rivian in more than 100 cities and regions in the U.S., more than 3,000 electric vans delivering packages to customers in Europe, and several electric vehicle partnerships in APAC. The company is also investing $2 billion in the development of decarbonizing services and solutions through The Climate Pledge Fund. For more information, visit https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that in 2022 it grew its renewable energy capacity by 8.3 gigawatts (GW) through 133 new projects in 11 countries. This brings Amazon's total portfolio to more than 20 GW—that could generate the amount of energy to power 5.3 million U.S. homes—across 401 renewable energy projects in 22 countries. The company's renewable energy purchases continue to add new wind and solar projects on the grids that power Amazon's operations, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers, Amazon fulfillment centers, and physical stores around the world.</p><p>With these continued investments, Amazon set a new corporate record for the most renewable energy announced by a single company in one year. The company remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it's held since 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Amazon's continued investment in renewable energy helps to accelerate growth in new regions through innovative deal structures, technologies, and cloud solutions.</p><p>These purchases also bring Amazon closer to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of its original 2030 target. In 2022, the company announced new projects in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Spain, and the U.S., and broke ground in Brazil, India, and Indonesia. With 25 new renewable energy projects secured to close out the year, the company now has 401 projects globally, including 164 wind farms and solar farms, and 237 rooftop solar projects on Amazon facilities. Once operational, Amazon's global renewable energy projects are expected to generate 56,881 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy each year.</p><p>"As we continue to launch new renewable energy projects around the world, we're pleased to be on track to power our operations with 100% renewable energy, five years ahead of our original target. With 133 projects in 11 countries announced in 2022, Amazon had another record year," said Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS. "These projects highlight the diversity of our renewable energy sources and showcase our ability to bring new technologies to new markets and further reduce the impacts of climate change."</p><p>In addition to the 108 clean energy projects the company announced in 2022, Amazon today is announcing 25 additional 2022 clean energy projects. These include:</p><ul><li>Eleven new projects in Europe, including Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, totaling 372 megawatts (MW) of capacity. Tapping into one of the world's best renewable energy resources, Amazon continued to add to its portfolio of offshore wind projects, investing in two new offshore wind projects in Europe totaling 280 MW of capacity.</li><li>Four new projects in North America, totaling 918 MW of energy in Arizona, California, and Texas. A new solar project paired with energy storage in California allows Amazon to store clean energy produced by its solar projects and deploy it when solar energy is not available, such as in the evening hours, or during periods of high demand. Also in California, Amazon added its first on-site solar project at the Amazon Air Hub, where employees pack and handle freight and conduct planeside operations.</li><li>Ten new renewable energy projects in India, Indonesia, and Japan. In India, a third 200 MW wind-solar hybrid project was added to Amazon's first two wind-solar hybrid projects. Renewable hybrid energy systems can play a key role in helping India accelerate the decarbonization of power generation, lowering the cost of electricity in the medium term. These hybrid energy systems also maximize clean energy use on the grid by combining two technologies with different generation profiles, reducing variability in renewable generation, and improving grid stability. In Indonesia, Amazon invested in its first renewable energy projects, securing a first-of-its-kind agreement for corporations to access additional utility-scale solar projects. In Japan, Amazon added three on-site solar projects and a new 38 MW utility-scale solar project.</li></ul><p>Rapidly scaling renewable energy is one of the most effective strategies to fight climate change. To ensure organizations' renewable energy purchases have the greatest impact on emissions reductions, Amazon recently led the creation of the new Emissions First coalition. This coalition is leading advocacy efforts to modernize the world's leading carbon-accounting standard, helping to reduce carbon from global electricity grids as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.</p><p>"Amazon's clean energy portfolio doesn't just top the corporate charts—it is now among the leading utilities globally, as well," said Kyle Harrison, head of sustainability research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "The fact that it announced a new annual record of clean energy in a year mired by a global energy crisis, supply chain bottlenecks and high interest rates speaks to its forward planning and expertise in navigating power markets and executing long-term contracts."</p><p>"Amidst the market uncertainty of 2022, Amazon led clean energy buyers and doubled down on its commitment to renewable energy," said Miranda Ballentine, CEO of Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA). "Amazon's commitment to decarbonization is demonstrated through its leading placement on CEBA's Deal Tracker Top 10, within our member community, and on a global scale."</p><p>"As Asia continues to transition away from coal and gas, these investments by Amazon in wind and solar are further evidence that there is a large and growing corporate renewable electricity demand in this region. We look forward to continuing to work with Amazon and our other ACEC members to rapidly increase the supply of renewables and to achieve our shared 100% renewable ambitions in the region," said Sam Kimmins, director of energy at Climate Group and Asia Clean Energy Coalition (ACEC) spokesperson.</p><p>Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, committing to reach net-zero carbon by 2040—10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. The Pledge now has nearly 400 signatories, including Best Buy, IBM, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Siemens, Unilever, Verizon, and Visa. Amazon continues to transform its transportation network, including electrifying its delivery fleet and sourcing alternatives to fossil fuels—it currently has thousands of electric delivery vehicles from Rivian in more than 100 cities and regions in the U.S., more than 3,000 electric vans delivering packages to customers in Europe, and several electric vehicle partnerships in APAC. The company is also investing $2 billion in the development of decarbonizing services and solutions through The Climate Pledge Fund. For more information, visit https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/.</p>

Amazon.com Announces Fourth Quarter Results

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Amazon.com-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-Results

02/02/2023 16:01:00

Amazon.com Announces Fourth Quarter Results

02/02/2023

2023

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2022. Fourth Quarter 2022 Net sales increased 9% to $149.2 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $137.4 billion in fourth quarter 2021. Excluding the $5.0 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 12% compared with fourth quarter 2021. North America segment sales increased 13% year-over-year to $93.4 billion, or increased 14% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates. International segment sales decreased 8% year-over-year to $34.5 billion, or increased 5% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates. AWS segment sales increased 20% year-over-year to $21.4 billion. Operating income decreased to $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $3.5 billion in fourth quarter 2021. Fourth quarter 2022 operating income includes approximately $2.7 billion of charges for changes in estimates related to self-insurance liabilities, impairments of property and equipment and operating leases, and estimated severance costs. These charges primarily impacted the North America segment. North America segment operating loss was $0.2 billion, compared with operating loss of $0.2 billion in fourth quarter 2021. International segment operating loss was $2.2 billion, compared with operating loss of $1.6 billion in fourth quarter 2021. AWS segment operating income was $5.2 billion, compared with operating income of $5.3 billion in fourth quarter 2021. Net income decreased to $0.3 billion in the fourth quarter, or $0.03 per diluted share, compared with $14.3 billion, or $1.39 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2021. All share and per share information for comparable prior year periods throughout this release have been retroactively adjusted to reflect the 20-for-1 stock split effected on May 27, 2022. Fourth quarter 2022 net income includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $2.3 billion included in non-operating income (expense) from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation gain of $11.8 billion from the investment in fourth quarter 2021. Full Year 2022 Net sales increased 9% to $514.0 billion in 2022, compared with $469.8 billion in 2021. Excluding the $15.5 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the year, net sales increased 13% compared with 2021. North America segment sales increased 13% year-over-year to $315.9 billion. International segment sales decreased 8% year-over-year to $118.0 billion, or increased 4% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates. AWS segment sales increased 29% year-over-year to $80.1 billion. Operating income decreased to $12.2 billion in 2022, compared with $24.9 billion in 2021. North America segment operating loss was $2.8 billion, compared with operating income of $7.3 billion in 2021. International segment operating loss was $7.7 billion, compared with operating loss of $0.9 billion in 2021. AWS segment operating income was $22.8 billion, compared with operating income of $18.5 billion in 2021. Net loss was $2.7 billion in 2022, or $0.27 per diluted share, compared with net income of $33.4 billion, or $3.24 per diluted share, in 2021. 2022 net loss includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $12.7 billion included in non-operating income (expense) from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation gain of $11.8 billion from the investment in 2021. Operating cash flow increased 1% to $46.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $46.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021. Free cash flow decreased to an outflow of $11.6 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $9.1 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021. Free cash flow less principal repayments of finance leases and financing obligations increased to an outflow of $19.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $20.4 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021. Free cash flow less equipment finance leases and principal repayments of all other finance leases and financing obligations increased to an outflow of $12.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $14.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021. "Our relentless focus on providing the broadest selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery drove customer demand in our Stores business during the fourth quarter that exceeded our expectations—and we're appreciative of all our customers who turned to Amazon this past holiday season," said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO. "We're also encouraged by the continued progress we're making in reducing our cost to serve in the operations part of our Stores business. In the short term, we face an uncertain economy, but we remain quite optimistic about the long-term opportunities for Amazon. The vast majority of total market segment share in both Global Retail and IT still reside in physical stores and on-premises datacenters; and as this equation steadily flips, we believe our leading customer experiences in these areas along with the results of our continued hard work and invention to improve every day, will lead to significant growth in the coming years. When you also factor in our investments and innovation in several other broad customer experiences (e.g. streaming entertainment, customer-first healthcare, broadband satellite connectivity for more communities globally), there's additional reason to feel optimistic about what the future holds." Highlights Obsessing over the customer experience Amazon obsesses over how to make customers' lives better and easier every day. This is true for consumers, sellers, brands, developers, enterprises, and creators. For example, in the past quarter, Amazon: Had a record-breaking holiday season with customers purchasing nearly half a billion items from small businesses in the U.S. During Amazon's biggest Thanksgiving-through-Cyber-Monday holiday shopping weekend ever, customers around the world purchased hundreds of millions of products, and small businesses in the U.S. generated more than $1 billion in sales over the five-day period. Made Same-Day Delivery even faster in major metropolitan areas in the U.S., such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Portland, Oregon, where customers can now receive hundreds of thousands of items within hours. Amazon's new Same-Day Delivery site in Sacramento is set to be the world's first logistics facility certified as Zero Carbon by the International Living Future Institute. In the EU, Same-Day Delivery is now available in Belgium. Attracted more than 100 million viewers worldwide to the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, making it the most watched Amazon Original series in every region of the world, with more than 24 billion minutes streamed, and driving more Prime sign-ups worldwide during its launch window than any previous Prime Video content. Amazon Studios also announced the all-female slate of directors—Charlotte Brändström, Sanaa Hamri, and Louise Hooper—for Season Two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is currently in production in the UK. Finished the Thursday Night Football (TNF) season with the youngest median age of any NFL broadcast package since 2013 and viewership up 11% from last season among hard-to-reach 18- to 34-year-olds, according to Nielsen Media Research. TNF featured the most streamed NFL games ever, with an average audience of 11.3 million viewers, according to combined data from Amazon's first-party measurement metrics and Nielsen Media Research. Prime Video also made history as the first streamer to place on Variety's Top 100 Primetime Telecasts of 2022, with four of its TNF telecasts making the list. Premiered several Original series and films, including Western drama The English, with Emily Blunt;family-friendly competition show Dr. Seuss Baking Challenge; My Policeman,starring Harry Styles;and documentary Good Night Oppy. Prime Video also released new seasons of existing series, including the fourth volume of Rihanna's annual fashion experience Savage X Fenty and the third season of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, starring John Krasinski. Wednesday, an MGM-produced series on Netflix, debuted at No. 1 on Nielsen's weekly streaming charts and earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Series (Jenna Ortega). Brought HBO back to Prime Video Channels in the U.S., after reaching an agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery. For $15.99 per month, customers who subscribe to HBO Max have access to approximately 15,000 hours of curated premium content. Announced new commitments and migrations from AWS customers. Nasdaq completed the migration of its MRX core trading system to the cloud, delivering a 10% performance improvement for market participants and marking a major milestone in Nasdaq's journey to deliver the first cloud-based U.S. options exchange. NFL and AWS announced the NFL Contact Detection Challenge, which invites experts to use machine learning (ML) and computer vision to predict and prevent injuries. Yahoo Ad Tech selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to develop tailored and immersive solutions for brands to better connect with their audiences. Stability AI selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to build and train artificial intelligence (AI) models for the best performance at the lowest cost. Descartes Labs is going all-in on AWS to give customers timely, actionable insights to tackle challenges like enhancing food security and mitigating climate change. Brookfield Asset Management selected AWS as a preferred cloud provider to advance renewable energy use globally. Duke Energy is working with AWS on smart grid solutions to improve reliability and resiliency in preparation for rapid electric vehicle adoption. Wallbox migrated to AWS, enabling customers to return excess energy to the grid and reducing the company's IT costs by 70%. American Family Insurance named AWS as its preferred cloud provider to unlock personalized service and security for its 13.1 million policyholders. Launched AWS Regions in Spain and Switzerland as well as a second Region in India to continue expanding AWS's infrastructure footprint, delivering the most secure, extensive, and reliable cloud technology to millions of customers around the world. As of the end of 2022, AWS has 96 Availability Zones within 30 geographic Regions globally, with announced plans to launch 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions. Expanded the AWS Partner Network to help customers accelerate innovation in their organizations and speed their journey to the cloud. Professional services company Accenture launched a platform that helps customers drive business outcomes up to 50% faster on AWS. Atos, a provider of managed infrastructure services, will collaborate with AWS to enable customers with large-scale infrastructure outsourcing contracts to accelerate digital transformation and workload migrations to the cloud. Global business and technology consulting company Slalom will develop vertical solutions and accelerators on AWS for joint customers. Inventing on behalf of customers Amazon is driven by a passion for invention across all of its business areas. The company builds new products and services that customers ask for, and also invents new ones that customers didn't know they wanted but make their lives or businesses better in some meaningful way. For example, this past quarter, Amazon: Expanded Buy with Prime to all eligible U.S. merchants, letting more merchants offer Prime customers fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns on their websites. Data shows that shopper conversion increases an average of 25% when merchants use Buy with Prime. Amazon also introduced a capability for Buy with Prime merchants to display customer reviews from Amazon.com within their own online stores and announced an integration with BigCommerce, an ecommerce platform, that will help merchants easily enable Buy with Prime on their storefronts with no coding required. Introduced Sparrow into the company's first fulfillment center. Sparrow is a robotic system that can detect, select, and handle individual products in Amazon's inventory—a major technological advancement that allows employees to shift their time and energy to other tasks. Sparrow also improves health and safety by reducing the repetitive tasks done by employees. Delivered the 10 millionth package using electric delivery vehicles from Rivian, custom-designed from the ground up with input from delivery services providers and their drivers. With thousands of miles driven, drivers have said the vehicle design and features make their jobs easier and more comfortable, the driving experience is improved, and they feel safe while driving. Amazon plans to have 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian on the road by 2030, saving millions of metric tons of carbon per year. Launched Amazon Clinic, a message-based virtual health service that delivers convenient, personalized, affordable care for more than 20 common conditions. Amazon Clinic lets customers choose from a network of leading telehealth providers based on their preferences. Amazon also recently launched RxPass, a new Prime membership benefit from Amazon Pharmacy that offers access to unlimited eligible prescription medications for only $5 per month including free shipping. Amazon's mission in healthcare is to make it dramatically easier for anyone to find, choose, and afford what they need to get and stay healthy. Announced AWS Graviton3E chips, which deliver the best price performance for high performance computing workloads on AWS; new AWS Nitro Cards, which deliver the highest network bandwidth, the highest packet rate performance, and the best price performance for network-intensive workloads; and Inf2 instances, powered by AWS Inferentia2 chips, which deliver the lowest latency at the lowest cost for ML inference on Amazon EC2. Announced Amazon Security Lake, a service that automatically centralizes an organization's security data from cloud and on-premises sources into a purpose-built data lake in a customer's AWS account so customers can act on security data faster. Announced Amazon DataZone, a new data management service that unlocks customer data across organizational boundaries, including the cloud, on-premises infrastructure, and third-party SaaS applications. With AWS DataZone, customers can catalog, discover, and share data with governance and access controls. Announced AWS Supply Chain, an application that helps businesses increase supply chain visibility to make faster, more-informed decisions that mitigate risks, lower costs, and improve customer experiences. Announced AWS SimSpace Weaver, a fully managed simulation service that helps customers build, operate, and run large-scale spatial simulations. With AWS SimSpace Weaver, customers can deploy spatial simulations to model dynamic systems with many data points, like traffic patterns across an entire city, crowd flows in a venue, or factory floor layouts, and use the simulations to visualize physical spaces, perform immersive training, and garner insights on different scenarios to make informed decisions. Announced AWS Clean Rooms, which helps companies across industries easily and securely analyze and collaborate on combined datasets without sharing or revealing underlying data. AWS Clean Rooms provide a broad set of built-in data access controls to protect sensitive data, while allowing customers to create secure data clean rooms to generate unique insights about advertising campaigns, investment decisions, clinical research, and more. Launched Inspire, a feed in the U.S. Amazon shopping app with content from customers, influencers, and brands to help customers discover products personalized for their selected interests. Partnered with Snapchat to launch an augmented reality shopping experience that allows millions of Snapchatters to digitally try-on thousands of Amazon eyewear styles via Snapchat and seamlessly purchase those items in the Amazon store. This experience is enabled by Amazon's 3D Asset technology, which easily integrates with third-party apps like Snapchat, to provide 3D assets for augmented reality-based shopping and dynamically supply up-to-date product details, pricing, and availability. Empowering employees and delivery service partners In addition to its focus on customers, Amazon strives to make every day better for its employees and delivery service providers. For example, in the fourth quarter, the company: Surpassed 100,000 participants in Career Choice, an education benefit that empowers employees to learn new skills for career success through a range of options, including prepaid college tuition, foundational skills training, and industry certifications. In 2022 in the U.S., the company celebrated 3,000 graduates of its new English language proficiency program. Continued to make its workplace more accessible and inclusive for employees who are deaf and hard of hearing. For example, Amazon rolled out new video stations over the past year at more than 200 sites across eight countries in North America and Europe to help employees learn the basics of sign language for their region and improve communication with colleagues who are deaf and hard of hearing. Expanded the Amazon Mentoring Program to support new people managers with opportunities to receive mentoring from experienced Amazon people managers and develop the foundational skills to be an effective people leader. Since its launch, the program grew from 18,800 employees in 2016 to over 159,000 employees in 2022. Launched a new Alexa feature where customers can say "Alexa, thank my driver" to an Alexa-enabled device, the Alexa app, or the Amazon mobile shopping app, and the driver who delivered their most recent package would be notified. Nearly 8 million "thank yous" have been received. Supporting communities and protecting the environment Amazon believes that success and scale bring broad responsibility to help the planet, future generations, and local communities in which the company has a significant presence. Amazon employees have passion for investing in these areas, and a sampling of the efforts from this past quarter are that Amazon: Advanced its goal to decarbonize its transportation network globally. For example, Amazon partnered with TVS Motor Company to deploy a fleet of electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers for last mile deliveries in India. The agreement is part of Amazon's plan to bring 10,000 electric delivery vehicles to India by 2025. Released a report detailing Amazon's progress and methods to reduce packaging, including through the use of innovative technologies, processes, and materials. Since 2015, these efforts have helped reduce the weight of packaging per shipment by 38% and eliminated the use of more than 1.5 million tons of packaging materials. Amazon continues to take steps to reduce single-use plastics in outbound packaging, recently announcing that it reduced average plastic packaging weight per shipment by over 7% in 2021 across its global operations network. Unveiled its largest on-site solar energy installation in Europe at a fulfillment center in Seville, Spain that is fitted with more than 13,300 solar panels and is expected to produce more than 6 million kilowatt hours per year—enough energy to power the equivalent of more than 1,500 Spanish homes annually. Set a goal for AWS to be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations, and announced that it achieved an industry-leading 2021 global water use efficiency metric of 0.25 liters of water per kilowatt-hour. Signed a memorandum of understanding confirming AWS's continued cooperation in 2023 with the Ukraine government. Since the start of the war, AWS has played a crucial role in helping the Ukraine government maintain continuity and provide critical services to its citizens. To date, Amazon has committed more than $75 million in support to help the people of Ukraine address immediate and long-term needs. Released its latest Community Impact Report, which detailed program milestones, including 85 million pounds of food donated through a partnership with Feeding America; 20 million relief items donated to date; $1.6 billion invested to create or preserve more than 11,000 affordable homes through Amazon's Housing Equity Fund; computer science education provided to 600,000 students across 5,000 schools through Amazon Future Engineer; and $96 million donated to more than 190 nonprofits in the Puget Sound, Washington region in 2021, making it the Seattle area's top corporate philanthropist that year. Financial Guidance The following forward-looking statements reflect Amazon.com's expectations as of February 2, 2023, and are subject to substantial uncertainty. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as uncertainty regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic and geopolitical conditions and customer demand and spending (including the impact of recessionary fears), inflation, interest rates, regional labor market and global supply chain constraints, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet, online commerce, and cloud services, and the various factors detailed below. First Quarter 2023 Guidance Net sales are expected to be between $121.0 billion and $126.0 billion, or to grow between 4% and 8% compared with first quarter 2022. This guidance anticipates an unfavorable impact of approximately 210 basis points from foreign exchange rates. Operating income is expected to be between $0 and $4.0 billion, compared with $3.7 billion in first quarter 2022. This guidance assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions, restructurings, or legal settlements are concluded. A conference call will be webcast live today at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET, and will be available for at least three months at amazon.com/ir. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the Company's financial and operating results. These forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products and services sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income or other taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of claims, litigation, government investigations, and other proceedings, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, variability in demand, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, proposed and completed acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, global economic and geopolitical conditions and additional or unforeseen circumstances, developments, or events may give rise to or amplify many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. Our investor relations website is amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding information about us. We promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the SEC, corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics), and select press releases, which may contain material information about us, and you may subscribe to be notified of new information posted to this site.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2022.</p><p><i>Fourth Quarter 2022</i></p><ul><li>Net sales increased 9% to $149.2 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $137.4 billion in fourth quarter 2021. Excluding the $5.0 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 12% compared with fourth quarter 2021.<ul><li>North America segment sales increased 13% year-over-year to $93.4 billion, or increased 14% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates.</li><li>International segment sales decreased 8% year-over-year to $34.5 billion, or increased 5% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates.</li><li>AWS segment sales increased 20% year-over-year to $21.4 billion.</li></ul></li><li>Operating income decreased to $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $3.5 billion in fourth quarter 2021. Fourth quarter 2022 operating income includes approximately $2.7 billion of charges for changes in estimates related to self-insurance liabilities, impairments of property and equipment and operating leases, and estimated severance costs. These charges primarily impacted the North America segment.<ul><li>North America segment operating loss was $0.2 billion, compared with operating loss of $0.2 billion in fourth quarter 2021.</li><li>International segment operating loss was $2.2 billion, compared with operating loss of $1.6 billion in fourth quarter 2021.</li><li>AWS segment operating income was $5.2 billion, compared with operating income of $5.3 billion in fourth quarter 2021.</li></ul></li><li>Net income decreased to $0.3 billion in the fourth quarter, or $0.03 per diluted share, compared with $14.3 billion, or $1.39 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2021. All share and per share information for comparable prior year periods throughout this release have been retroactively adjusted to reflect the 20-for-1 stock split effected on May 27, 2022.<ul><li>Fourth quarter 2022 net income includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $2.3 billion included in non-operating income (expense) from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation gain of $11.8 billion from the investment in fourth quarter 2021.</li></ul></li></ul><p><i>Full Year 2022</i></p><ul><li>Net sales increased 9% to $514.0 billion in 2022, compared with $469.8 billion in 2021. Excluding the $15.5 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the year, net sales increased 13% compared with 2021.<ul><li>North America segment sales increased 13% year-over-year to $315.9 billion.</li><li>International segment sales decreased 8% year-over-year to $118.0 billion, or increased 4% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates.</li><li>AWS segment sales increased 29% year-over-year to $80.1 billion.</li></ul></li><li>Operating income decreased to $12.2 billion in 2022, compared with $24.9 billion in 2021.<ul><li>North America segment operating loss was $2.8 billion, compared with operating income of $7.3 billion in 2021.</li><li>International segment operating loss was $7.7 billion, compared with operating loss of $0.9 billion in 2021.</li><li>AWS segment operating income was $22.8 billion, compared with operating income of $18.5 billion in 2021.</li></ul></li><li>Net loss was $2.7 billion in 2022, or $0.27 per diluted share, compared with net income of $33.4 billion, or $3.24 per diluted share, in 2021.<ul><li>2022 net loss includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $12.7 billion included in non-operating income (expense) from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation gain of $11.8 billion from the investment in 2021.</li></ul></li><li>Operating cash flow increased 1% to $46.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $46.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021.</li><li>Free cash flow decreased to an outflow of $11.6 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $9.1 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021.</li><li>Free cash flow less principal repayments of finance leases and financing obligations increased to an outflow of $19.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $20.4 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021.</li><li>Free cash flow less equipment finance leases and principal repayments of all other finance leases and financing obligations increased to an outflow of $12.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $14.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2021.</li></ul><p>"Our relentless focus on providing the broadest selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery drove customer demand in our Stores business during the fourth quarter that exceeded our expectations—and we're appreciative of all our customers who turned to Amazon this past holiday season," said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO. "We're also encouraged by the continued progress we're making in reducing our cost to serve in the operations part of our Stores business. In the short term, we face an uncertain economy, but we remain quite optimistic about the long-term opportunities for Amazon. The vast majority of total market segment share in both Global Retail and IT still reside in physical stores and on-premises datacenters; and as this equation steadily flips, we believe our leading customer experiences in these areas along with the results of our continued hard work and invention to improve every day, will lead to significant growth in the coming years. When you also factor in our investments and innovation in several other broad customer experiences (e.g. streaming entertainment, customer-first healthcare, broadband satellite connectivity for more communities globally), there's additional reason to feel optimistic about what the future holds."</p><p>Highlights</p><p><i>Obsessing over the customer experience</i></p><p>Amazon obsesses over how to make customers' lives better and easier every day. This is true for consumers, sellers, brands, developers, enterprises, and creators. For example, in the past quarter, Amazon:</p><ul><li>Had a record-breaking holiday season with customers purchasing nearly half a billion items from small businesses in the U.S. During Amazon's biggest Thanksgiving-through-Cyber-Monday holiday shopping weekend ever, customers around the world purchased hundreds of millions of products, and small businesses in the U.S. generated more than $1 billion in sales over the five-day period.</li><li>Made Same-Day Delivery even faster in major metropolitan areas in the U.S., such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Portland, Oregon, where customers can now receive hundreds of thousands of items within hours. Amazon's new Same-Day Delivery site in Sacramento is set to be the world's first logistics facility certified as Zero Carbon by the International Living Future Institute. In the EU, Same-Day Delivery is now available in Belgium.</li><li>Attracted more than 100 million viewers worldwide to the first season of <i>The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power</i>, making it the most watched Amazon Original series in every region of the world, with more than 24 billion minutes streamed, and driving more Prime sign-ups worldwide during its launch window than any previous Prime Video content. Amazon Studios also announced the all-female slate of directors—Charlotte Brändström, Sanaa Hamri, and Louise Hooper—for Season Two of <i>The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power</i>, which is currently in production in the UK.</li><li>Finished the <i>Thursday Night Football (TNF)</i> season with the youngest median age of any NFL broadcast package since 2013 and viewership up 11% from last season among hard-to-reach 18- to 34-year-olds, according to Nielsen Media Research. <i>TNF</i> featured the most streamed NFL games ever, with an average audience of 11.3 million viewers, according to combined data from Amazon's first-party measurement metrics and Nielsen Media Research. Prime Video also made history as the first streamer to place on <i>Variety's</i> Top 100 Primetime Telecasts of 2022, with four of its <i>TNF</i> telecasts making the list.</li><li>Premiered several Original series and films, including Western drama <i>The English</i>, with Emily Blunt;family-friendly competition show <i>Dr. Seuss Baking Challenge</i>; <i>My Policeman</i>,starring Harry Styles;and documentary <i>Good Night Oppy</i>. Prime Video also released new seasons of existing series, including the fourth volume of Rihanna's annual fashion experience <i>Savage X Fenty</i> and the third season of <i>Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan</i>, starring John Krasinski. <i>Wednesday</i>, an MGM-produced series on Netflix, debuted at No. 1 on Nielsen's weekly streaming charts and earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Series (Jenna Ortega).</li><li>Brought HBO back to Prime Video Channels in the U.S., after reaching an agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery. For $15.99 per month, customers who subscribe to HBO Max have access to approximately 15,000 hours of curated premium content.</li><li>Announced new commitments and migrations from AWS customers.<ul><li>Nasdaq completed the migration of its MRX core trading system to the cloud, delivering a 10% performance improvement for market participants and marking a major milestone in Nasdaq's journey to deliver the first cloud-based U.S. options exchange.</li><li>NFL and AWS announced the NFL Contact Detection Challenge, which invites experts to use machine learning (ML) and computer vision to predict and prevent injuries.</li><li>Yahoo Ad Tech selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to develop tailored and immersive solutions for brands to better connect with their audiences.</li><li>Stability AI selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to build and train artificial intelligence (AI) models for the best performance at the lowest cost.</li><li>Descartes Labs is going all-in on AWS to give customers timely, actionable insights to tackle challenges like enhancing food security and mitigating climate change.</li><li>Brookfield Asset Management selected AWS as a preferred cloud provider to advance renewable energy use globally.</li><li>Duke Energy is working with AWS on smart grid solutions to improve reliability and resiliency in preparation for rapid electric vehicle adoption.</li><li>Wallbox migrated to AWS, enabling customers to return excess energy to the grid and reducing the company's IT costs by 70%.</li><li>American Family Insurance named AWS as its preferred cloud provider to unlock personalized service and security for its 13.1 million policyholders.</li></ul></li><li>Launched AWS Regions in Spain and Switzerland as well as a second Region in India to continue expanding AWS's infrastructure footprint, delivering the most secure, extensive, and reliable cloud technology to millions of customers around the world. As of the end of 2022, AWS has 96 Availability Zones within 30 geographic Regions globally, with announced plans to launch 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions.</li><li>Expanded the AWS Partner Network to help customers accelerate innovation in their organizations and speed their journey to the cloud. Professional services company Accenture launched a platform that helps customers drive business outcomes up to 50% faster on AWS. Atos, a provider of managed infrastructure services, will collaborate with AWS to enable customers with large-scale infrastructure outsourcing contracts to accelerate digital transformation and workload migrations to the cloud. Global business and technology consulting company Slalom will develop vertical solutions and accelerators on AWS for joint customers.</li></ul><p><i>Inventing on behalf of customers</i></p><p>Amazon is driven by a passion for invention across all of its business areas. The company builds new products and services that customers ask for, and also invents new ones that customers didn't know they wanted but make their lives or businesses better in some meaningful way. For example, this past quarter, Amazon:</p><ul><li>Expanded Buy with Prime to all eligible U.S. merchants, letting more merchants offer Prime customers fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns on their websites. Data shows that shopper conversion increases an average of 25% when merchants use Buy with Prime. Amazon also introduced a capability for Buy with Prime merchants to display customer reviews from Amazon.com within their own online stores and announced an integration with BigCommerce, an ecommerce platform, that will help merchants easily enable Buy with Prime on their storefronts with no coding required.</li><li>Introduced Sparrow into the company's first fulfillment center. Sparrow is a robotic system that can detect, select, and handle individual products in Amazon's inventory—a major technological advancement that allows employees to shift their time and energy to other tasks. Sparrow also improves health and safety by reducing the repetitive tasks done by employees.</li><li>Delivered the 10 millionth package using electric delivery vehicles from Rivian, custom-designed from the ground up with input from delivery services providers and their drivers. With thousands of miles driven, drivers have said the vehicle design and features make their jobs easier and more comfortable, the driving experience is improved, and they feel safe while driving. Amazon plans to have 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian on the road by 2030, saving millions of metric tons of carbon per year.</li><li>Launched Amazon Clinic, a message-based virtual health service that delivers convenient, personalized, affordable care for more than 20 common conditions. Amazon Clinic lets customers choose from a network of leading telehealth providers based on their preferences. Amazon also recently launched RxPass, a new Prime membership benefit from Amazon Pharmacy that offers access to unlimited eligible prescription medications for only $5 per month including free shipping. Amazon's mission in healthcare is to make it dramatically easier for anyone to find, choose, and afford what they need to get and stay healthy.</li><li>Announced AWS Graviton3E chips, which deliver the best price performance for high performance computing workloads on AWS; new AWS Nitro Cards, which deliver the highest network bandwidth, the highest packet rate performance, and the best price performance for network-intensive workloads; and Inf2 instances, powered by AWS Inferentia2 chips, which deliver the lowest latency at the lowest cost for ML inference on Amazon EC2.</li><li>Announced Amazon Security Lake, a service that automatically centralizes an organization's security data from cloud and on-premises sources into a purpose-built data lake in a customer's AWS account so customers can act on security data faster.</li><li>Announced Amazon DataZone, a new data management service that unlocks customer data across organizational boundaries, including the cloud, on-premises infrastructure, and third-party SaaS applications. With AWS DataZone, customers can catalog, discover, and share data with governance and access controls.</li><li>Announced AWS Supply Chain, an application that helps businesses increase supply chain visibility to make faster, more-informed decisions that mitigate risks, lower costs, and improve customer experiences.</li><li>Announced AWS SimSpace Weaver, a fully managed simulation service that helps customers build, operate, and run large-scale spatial simulations. With AWS SimSpace Weaver, customers can deploy spatial simulations to model dynamic systems with many data points, like traffic patterns across an entire city, crowd flows in a venue, or factory floor layouts, and use the simulations to visualize physical spaces, perform immersive training, and garner insights on different scenarios to make informed decisions.</li><li>Announced AWS Clean Rooms, which helps companies across industries easily and securely analyze and collaborate on combined datasets without sharing or revealing underlying data. AWS Clean Rooms provide a broad set of built-in data access controls to protect sensitive data, while allowing customers to create secure data clean rooms to generate unique insights about advertising campaigns, investment decisions, clinical research, and more.</li><li>Launched Inspire, a feed in the U.S. Amazon shopping app with content from customers, influencers, and brands to help customers discover products personalized for their selected interests.</li><li>Partnered with Snapchat to launch an augmented reality shopping experience that allows millions of Snapchatters to digitally try-on thousands of Amazon eyewear styles via Snapchat and seamlessly purchase those items in the Amazon store. This experience is enabled by Amazon's 3D Asset technology, which easily integrates with third-party apps like Snapchat, to provide 3D assets for augmented reality-based shopping and dynamically supply up-to-date product details, pricing, and availability.</li></ul><p><i>Empowering employees and delivery service partners</i></p><p>In addition to its focus on customers, Amazon strives to make every day better for its employees and delivery service providers. For example, in the fourth quarter, the company:</p><ul><li>Surpassed 100,000 participants in Career Choice, an education benefit that empowers employees to learn new skills for career success through a range of options, including prepaid college tuition, foundational skills training, and industry certifications. In 2022 in the U.S., the company celebrated 3,000 graduates of its new English language proficiency program.</li><li>Continued to make its workplace more accessible and inclusive for employees who are deaf and hard of hearing. For example, Amazon rolled out new video stations over the past year at more than 200 sites across eight countries in North America and Europe to help employees learn the basics of sign language for their region and improve communication with colleagues who are deaf and hard of hearing.</li><li>Expanded the Amazon Mentoring Program to support new people managers with opportunities to receive mentoring from experienced Amazon people managers and develop the foundational skills to be an effective people leader. Since its launch, the program grew from 18,800 employees in 2016 to over 159,000 employees in 2022.</li><li>Launched a new Alexa feature where customers can say "Alexa, thank my driver" to an Alexa-enabled device, the Alexa app, or the Amazon mobile shopping app, and the driver who delivered their most recent package would be notified. Nearly 8 million "thank yous" have been received.</li></ul><p><i>Supporting communities and protecting the environment</i></p><p>Amazon believes that success and scale bring broad responsibility to help the planet, future generations, and local communities in which the company has a significant presence. Amazon employees have passion for investing in these areas, and a sampling of the efforts from this past quarter are that Amazon:</p><ul><li>Advanced its goal to decarbonize its transportation network globally. For example, Amazon partnered with TVS Motor Company to deploy a fleet of electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers for last mile deliveries in India. The agreement is part of Amazon's plan to bring 10,000 electric delivery vehicles to India by 2025.</li><li>Released a report detailing Amazon's progress and methods to reduce packaging, including through the use of innovative technologies, processes, and materials. Since 2015, these efforts have helped reduce the weight of packaging per shipment by 38% and eliminated the use of more than 1.5 million tons of packaging materials. Amazon continues to take steps to reduce single-use plastics in outbound packaging, recently announcing that it reduced average plastic packaging weight per shipment by over 7% in 2021 across its global operations network.</li><li>Unveiled its largest on-site solar energy installation in Europe at a fulfillment center in Seville, Spain that is fitted with more than 13,300 solar panels and is expected to produce more than 6 million kilowatt hours per year—enough energy to power the equivalent of more than 1,500 Spanish homes annually.</li><li>Set a goal for AWS to be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations, and announced that it achieved an industry-leading 2021 global water use efficiency metric of 0.25 liters of water per kilowatt-hour.</li><li>Signed a memorandum of understanding confirming AWS's continued cooperation in 2023 with the Ukraine government. Since the start of the war, AWS has played a crucial role in helping the Ukraine government maintain continuity and provide critical services to its citizens. To date, Amazon has committed more than $75 million in support to help the people of Ukraine address immediate and long-term needs.</li><li>Released its latest Community Impact Report, which detailed program milestones, including 85 million pounds of food donated through a partnership with Feeding America; 20 million relief items donated to date; $1.6 billion invested to create or preserve more than 11,000 affordable homes through Amazon's Housing Equity Fund; computer science education provided to 600,000 students across 5,000 schools through Amazon Future Engineer; and $96 million donated to more than 190 nonprofits in the Puget Sound, Washington region in 2021, making it the Seattle area's top corporate philanthropist that year.</li></ul><p>Financial Guidance</p><p>The following forward-looking statements reflect Amazon.com's expectations as of February 2, 2023, and are subject to substantial uncertainty. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as uncertainty regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic and geopolitical conditions and customer demand and spending (including the impact of recessionary fears), inflation, interest rates, regional labor market and global supply chain constraints, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet, online commerce, and cloud services, and the various factors detailed below.</p><p>First Quarter 2023 Guidance</p><ul><li>Net sales are expected to be between $121.0 billion and $126.0 billion, or to grow between 4% and 8% compared with first quarter 2022. This guidance anticipates an unfavorable impact of approximately 210 basis points from foreign exchange rates.</li><li>Operating income is expected to be between $0 and $4.0 billion, compared with $3.7 billion in first quarter 2022.</li><li>This guidance assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions, restructurings, or legal settlements are concluded.</li></ul><p>A conference call will be webcast live today at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET, and will be available for at least three months at amazon.com/ir. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the Company's financial and operating results.</p><p><i>These forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products and services sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income or other taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of claims, litigation, government investigations, and other proceedings, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, variability in demand, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, proposed and completed acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, global economic and geopolitical conditions and additional or unforeseen circumstances, developments, or events may give rise to or amplify many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.</i></p><p>Our investor relations website is amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding information about us. We promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the SEC, corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics), and select press releases, which may contain material information about us, and you may subscribe to be notified of new information posted to this site.</p>

AWS Announces AWS Telco Network Builder

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Announces-AWS-Telco-Network-Builder/default.aspx

AWS-Announces-AWS-Telco-Network-Builder

02/21/2023 12:00:00

AWS Announces AWS Telco Network Builder

02/21/2023

2023

New service automates deployment and management of telco networks on AWS, making it easier and faster for communications service providers to build and scale operations in the cloud Amdocs, Infosys, and O2 Telefónica among customers and partners using AWS Telco Network Builder

<div><p><i>New service automates deployment and management of telco networks on AWS, making it easier and faster for communications service providers to build and scale operations in the cloud</i></p><p><i>Amdocs, Infosys, and O₂ Telefónica among customers and partners using AWS Telco Network Builder</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the general availability of AWS Telco Network Builder, a fully managed service that helps customers deploy, run, and scale telco networks on AWS. Now, communications service providers (CSPs) can use their familiar telecom industry standard language to describe the details of their network (e.g., connection points, networking requirements, compute needs, and geographical distribution) in a template uploaded to the service. AWS Telco Network Builder translates the template into a cloud-based network architecture and provisions the necessary AWS infrastructure, shortening the deployment of an operational, cloud-configured telco network from days to hours. As customers update their networks, AWS Telco Network Builder automatically adjusts compute and storage resources, allowing CSPs to focus on business operations and deliver new services. AWS Telco Network Builder provides a centralized dashboard to monitor and manage the network running on AWS infrastructure – whether on premises or in AWS Regions. There are no upfront commitments or fees to use AWS Telco Network Builder, and customers pay only for the AWS services used to manage their network. To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/tnb. CSPs want to take advantage of the cloud's performance, elasticity, and scale to build modern telco networks that support emerging use cases like smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and robotics. However, designing and scaling a telco network in the cloud can be a laborious, time-intensive process due to the iterative nature and breadth of network use cases, such as business support systems, mobile core, and radio networks. CSPs must first deploy and securely interconnect hundreds of specialized network functions (NFs)—containerized network appliances, like routers and firewalls—across dozens of vendors and thousands of locations, often hardcoding the infrastructure's parameters when replicating across deployment locations. Once the NFs are deployed, the CSP must update each NF individually to incorporate new software capabilities or make configuration changes, which is time-consuming work that strains resources. Building and running the network also requires skilled network architects with experience in cloud design and management. Additionally, CSPs must often purchase, setup, and maintain separate monitoring tools to observe the health of their on-premises and cloud-based infrastructures, making it challenging to obtain a complete view of their networks and address issues. As a result, CSPs can sometimes allocate too many resources to the undifferentiated heavy lifting of network management instead of focusing on innovating new experiences. AWS Telco Network Builder is a fully managed network automation service that enables CSPs to deploy, run, and scale their telco networks on AWS faster and more easily. To start, a CSP populates their network architecture (e.g., routing requirements, location of deployment, specific NFs) as a template in the service's console using telecom industry standard language, making it intuitive and easy to begin. AWS Telco Network Builder translates the customer's network specifications into a cloud-based network architecture, streamlining programming requirements across multiple software vendors and accounting for the network's geographic footprint. AWS Telco Network Builder automatically maps the provided topology to network services, provisions the necessary compute and storage resources, and connects the NFs to create an operational telco network. Customers can then reuse the uploaded templates to replicate that network architecture in new regions. As customers change their network configuration or run software updates, AWS Telco Network Builder handles lifecycle management for the NFs, performs updates to the NFs, and adjusts related infrastructure. Together, AWS Telco Network Builder and Amazon CloudWatch provide a comprehensive view of the NFs and AWS infrastructure, so customers can efficiently monitor and manage their networks to identify and remediate issues more quickly. AWS Telco Network Builder also integrates with popular third-party, end-to-end orchestrators for CSPs to maintain continuity across existing telco network operations and business systems. With AWS Telco Network Builder, customers only pay for the AWS products and services they use, so they can quickly scale their network based on business requirements. "The telecom industry is undergoing a transformation as CSPs navigate building their telco networks in the cloud," said Jan Hofmeyr, vice president of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). "Some of the biggest challenges CSPs face as they look to migrate include manually configuring and then managing these complex networks, which impedes growth and stifles innovation. Groundbreaking in the value it provides to the telecom industry, AWS Telco Network Builder removes the burden of translating a customer's desired telco network into a cloud architecture, empowering them to easily modernize and quickly scale to meet demand while freeing time and capital to build new offerings, expand coverage, and refocus on invention." AWS Telco Network Builder is generally available today in US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Europe (Frankfurt), and Europe (Paris), and with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon. Amdocs is a leading provider of software and services to communications and media companies. "The current era of 5G cloud-based networks creates an opportunity for communications service providers to deliver accelerated value at unparalleled scale and efficiency," said Anthony Goonetilleke, group president at Amdocs Technology. "Amdocs Intelligent Networking Suite takes advantage of AWS Telco Network Builder's support of telecom interfaces to simplify service and network orchestration while bringing agility to network planning, deployment and operations." Cloudify is an open source, multi-cloud orchestration platform that packages infrastructure, networking, and existing automation tools into self-service environments. "We've observed the challenges the industry faces in bridging the gap between applications and cloud environments," said Nati Shalom, CTO and founder of Cloudify. "Our work with AWS Telco Network Builder will help communications service providers more easily manage their network services by automating network planning, deployment, and operations activities using standard DevOps and IT service management tools. We are excited to use AWS Telco Network Builder to simplify the orchestration of network workloads using standard European Telecommunications Standards Institute-based interfaces." Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. "The cloud's scalability and efficiency are key to enabling innovation and reducing the complexity of managing telco network operations, which arms us with the tools to deliver new services for our end users continuously," said Anand Swaminathan, executive vice president and global industry leader - Communications, Media, and Technology at Infosys. "As we look to build and operate cloud-based networks for our clients with Infosys Cobalt, we are excited to leverage AWS Telco Network Builder to increase the operational efficiency of mobile and private networks, ultimately enabling a streamlined operational model across Multi-G technologies." Mavenir is a network software provider building the future of networks with leading 4G, 5G, Core, and IP Multimedia Subsystem cloud-native software. "Managing 4G, 5G, Core, and IP Multimedia Subsystem networks is complex. Often these networks are distributed across the edge continuum," said Bejoy Pankajakshan, chief strategy officer at Mavenir. "AWS Telco Network Builder allows us to create repeatable network templates that speed up the definition, provisioning, deployment, and upgrading of network services for our customers. The collaboration between Mavenir and AWS offers customers flexibility and agility in the deployment of network functions, furthering us toward our goal of building a single, software-based automated network." O2 Telefónica is a leading telecommunications provider in Germany, with around 47 million mobile telephone lines and 2.3 million broadband lines. "As we transition our telco network to the cloud, we strive to achieve greater operational simplicity while accelerating the roll-out of our network and services," said Bas Hendrikx, head of Cloud Center of Excellence at O2 Telefónica. "We are exploring AWS Telco Network Builder to enable us to leverage automation to deliver new 5G network services faster and manage our networks more efficiently. At O2 Telefónica, we are committed to shaping digital change that benefits everyone, and our investments in building cloud-native networks and using AWS services help to provide greater value and performance to our customers."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the general availability of AWS Telco Network Builder, a fully managed service that helps customers deploy, run, and scale telco networks on AWS. Now, communications service providers (CSPs) can use their familiar telecom industry standard language to describe the details of their network (e.g., connection points, networking requirements, compute needs, and geographical distribution) in a template uploaded to the service. AWS Telco Network Builder translates the template into a cloud-based network architecture and provisions the necessary AWS infrastructure, shortening the deployment of an operational, cloud-configured telco network from days to hours. As customers update their networks, AWS Telco Network Builder automatically adjusts compute and storage resources, allowing CSPs to focus on business operations and deliver new services. AWS Telco Network Builder provides a centralized dashboard to monitor and manage the network running on AWS infrastructure – whether on premises or in AWS Regions. There are no upfront commitments or fees to use AWS Telco Network Builder, and customers pay only for the AWS services used to manage their network. To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/tnb.</p><p>CSPs want to take advantage of the cloud's performance, elasticity, and scale to build modern telco networks that support emerging use cases like smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and robotics. However, designing and scaling a telco network in the cloud can be a laborious, time-intensive process due to the iterative nature and breadth of network use cases, such as business support systems, mobile core, and radio networks. CSPs must first deploy and securely interconnect hundreds of specialized network functions (NFs)—containerized network appliances, like routers and firewalls—across dozens of vendors and thousands of locations, often hardcoding the infrastructure's parameters when replicating across deployment locations. Once the NFs are deployed, the CSP must update each NF individually to incorporate new software capabilities or make configuration changes, which is time-consuming work that strains resources. Building and running the network also requires skilled network architects with experience in cloud design and management. Additionally, CSPs must often purchase, setup, and maintain separate monitoring tools to observe the health of their on-premises and cloud-based infrastructures, making it challenging to obtain a complete view of their networks and address issues. As a result, CSPs can sometimes allocate too many resources to the undifferentiated heavy lifting of network management instead of focusing on innovating new experiences.</p><p>AWS Telco Network Builder is a fully managed network automation service that enables CSPs to deploy, run, and scale their telco networks on AWS faster and more easily. To start, a CSP populates their network architecture (e.g., routing requirements, location of deployment, specific NFs) as a template in the service's console using telecom industry standard language, making it intuitive and easy to begin. AWS Telco Network Builder translates the customer's network specifications into a cloud-based network architecture, streamlining programming requirements across multiple software vendors and accounting for the network's geographic footprint. AWS Telco Network Builder automatically maps the provided topology to network services, provisions the necessary compute and storage resources, and connects the NFs to create an operational telco network. Customers can then reuse the uploaded templates to replicate that network architecture in new regions. As customers change their network configuration or run software updates, AWS Telco Network Builder handles lifecycle management for the NFs, performs updates to the NFs, and adjusts related infrastructure. Together, AWS Telco Network Builder and Amazon CloudWatch provide a comprehensive view of the NFs and AWS infrastructure, so customers can efficiently monitor and manage their networks to identify and remediate issues more quickly. AWS Telco Network Builder also integrates with popular third-party, end-to-end orchestrators for CSPs to maintain continuity across existing telco network operations and business systems. With AWS Telco Network Builder, customers only pay for the AWS products and services they use, so they can quickly scale their network based on business requirements.</p><p>"The telecom industry is undergoing a transformation as CSPs navigate building their telco networks in the cloud," said Jan Hofmeyr, vice president of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). "Some of the biggest challenges CSPs face as they look to migrate include manually configuring and then managing these complex networks, which impedes growth and stifles innovation. Groundbreaking in the value it provides to the telecom industry, AWS Telco Network Builder removes the burden of translating a customer's desired telco network into a cloud architecture, empowering them to easily modernize and quickly scale to meet demand while freeing time and capital to build new offerings, expand coverage, and refocus on invention."</p><p>AWS Telco Network Builder is generally available today in US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Europe (Frankfurt), and Europe (Paris), and with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon.</p><p>Amdocs is a leading provider of software and services to communications and media companies. "The current era of 5G cloud-based networks creates an opportunity for communications service providers to deliver accelerated value at unparalleled scale and efficiency," said Anthony Goonetilleke, group president at Amdocs Technology. "Amdocs Intelligent Networking Suite takes advantage of AWS Telco Network Builder's support of telecom interfaces to simplify service and network orchestration while bringing agility to network planning, deployment and operations."</p><p>Cloudify is an open source, multi-cloud orchestration platform that packages infrastructure, networking, and existing automation tools into self-service environments. "We've observed the challenges the industry faces in bridging the gap between applications and cloud environments," said Nati Shalom, CTO and founder of Cloudify. "Our work with AWS Telco Network Builder will help communications service providers more easily manage their network services by automating network planning, deployment, and operations activities using standard DevOps and IT service management tools. We are excited to use AWS Telco Network Builder to simplify the orchestration of network workloads using standard European Telecommunications Standards Institute-based interfaces."</p><p>Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. "The cloud's scalability and efficiency are key to enabling innovation and reducing the complexity of managing telco network operations, which arms us with the tools to deliver new services for our end users continuously," said Anand Swaminathan, executive vice president and global industry leader - Communications, Media, and Technology at Infosys. "As we look to build and operate cloud-based networks for our clients with Infosys Cobalt, we are excited to leverage AWS Telco Network Builder to increase the operational efficiency of mobile and private networks, ultimately enabling a streamlined operational model across Multi-G technologies."</p><p>Mavenir is a network software provider building the future of networks with leading 4G, 5G, Core, and IP Multimedia Subsystem cloud-native software. "Managing 4G, 5G, Core, and IP Multimedia Subsystem networks is complex. Often these networks are distributed across the edge continuum," said Bejoy Pankajakshan, chief strategy officer at Mavenir. "AWS Telco Network Builder allows us to create repeatable network templates that speed up the definition, provisioning, deployment, and upgrading of network services for our customers. The collaboration between Mavenir and AWS offers customers flexibility and agility in the deployment of network functions, furthering us toward our goal of building a single, software-based automated network."</p><p>O₂ Telefónica is a leading telecommunications provider in Germany, with around 47 million mobile telephone lines and 2.3 million broadband lines. "As we transition our telco network to the cloud, we strive to achieve greater operational simplicity while accelerating the roll-out of our network and services," said Bas Hendrikx, head of Cloud Center of Excellence at O₂ Telefónica. "We are exploring AWS Telco Network Builder to enable us to leverage automation to deliver new 5G network services faster and manage our networks more efficiently. At O₂ Telefónica, we are committed to shaping digital change that benefits everyone, and our investments in building cloud-native networks and using AWS services help to provide greater value and performance to our customers."</p>

Amazon Games and NCSOFT Reach Deal to Publish Highly Anticipated Online Game THRONE AND LIBERTY in the West and Japan

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Games-and-NCSOFT-Reach-Deal-to-Publish-Highly-Anticipated-Online-Game-THRONE-AND-LIBERTY-in-the-West-and-Japan/default.aspx

Amazon-Games-and-NCSOFT-Reach-Deal-to-Publish-Highly-Anticipated-Online-Game-THRONE-AND-LIBERTY-in-the-West-and-Japan

02/22/2023 08:00:00

Amazon Games and NCSOFT Reach Deal to Publish Highly Anticipated Online Game THRONE AND LIBERTY in the West and Japan

02/22/2023

2023

Massively multiplayer title will launch for consoles and PC Deal with NCSOFT marks next chapter for Amazon's rapidly growing game publishing business

<div><p><i>Massively multiplayer title will launch for consoles and PC</i></p><p><i>Deal with NCSOFT</i><i> marks next chapter for Amazon’s rapidly growing game publishing business</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and NCSOFT today announced an agreement to bring massively multiplayer online role-playing game THRONE AND LIBERTY to North America, South America, Europe, and Japan. Amazon Games will publish the highly anticipated title for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with support for cross-platform play. (Graphic: Business Wire) "NCSOFT has created some of the most popular and longest-running online games in the world, so it's no surprise that THRONE AND LIBERTY is among today's most anticipated MMOs," said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. "Publishing games that live and grow over time remains a critical piece of our strategy, and delivering games of the highest quality from the world's most talented developers is one of the cornerstones of our business. The last year has taught us a great deal about publishing and managing a successful live-service game on a global scale, and we're ready to bring THRONE AND LIBERTY players an incredible experience at launch." THRONE AND LIBERTY is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that combines story-driven adventure and action combat. In THRONE AND LIBERTY, players enter a vast world with constantly shifting geographical and environmental features that change the course of play. Massive-scale player vs. player and player vs. environment combat are fundamental to THRONE AND LIBERTY. Players can transform into animals to soar through the air or explore the depths of the sea, and even tip the odds of battle in their favor by triggering powerful environmental effects, like solar eclipses or rainstorms. NCSOFT has a long history of developing and publishing beloved multiplayer franchises across the globe, including Lineage, AION, Blade & Soul, and Guild Wars. THRONE AND LIBERTY is the latest next-gen MMO from the South Korea-based developer, and its first to be released across multiple regions in collaboration with an external publisher. "Amazon Games is one of the most reliable partners for publishing massive live-service games globally, with proven expertise in operations, localization, marketing, and community support," said Moonyoung Choi, principal development management officer at NCSOFT. "For our next-gen flagship title, we're confident they are the right publisher to bring THRONE AND LIBERTY's inimitable value and its dynamic, immersive MMO experience to players around the world." THRONE AND LIBERTY continues Amazon Games' momentum in game publishing, following the success of its internally developed MMO New World and action RPG Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG, both of which have toppedSteam and Twitch charts and continue to nurture strong player communities. Amazon has also announced publishing agreements with Bandai Namco Online for Blue Protocol, Crystal Dynamics for the next major Tomb Raider game, and Glowmade and Disruptive Games for unannounced titles. About Amazon Games At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans draws on the power of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, AWS, and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including New World, with our studios and teams in Seattle, Orange County, San Diego, and Montreal. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third-party games, leading with Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG and Blue Protocol from Bandai Namco Online, as well as the next major Tomb Raider title from Crystal Dynamics. About NCSOFT NCSOFT, headquartered in Pangyo, Korea, is the world's premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games, including the critically acclaimed Lineage, AION, Blade & Soul, Guild Wars franchises as well as numerous casual games. With approximately 5,000 employees worldwide, NCSOFT aims to provide fun for everyone, everywhere in the world. More information can be found at www.ncsoft.com. Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and NCSOFT today announced an agreement to bring massively multiplayer online role-playing game <i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i> to North America, South America, Europe, and Japan. Amazon Games will publish the highly anticipated title for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with support for cross-platform play.</p><div><p>(Graphic: Business Wire)</p></div><p>"NCSOFT has created some of the most popular and longest-running online games in the world, so it's no surprise that <i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i> is among today's most anticipated MMOs," said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. "Publishing games that live and grow over time remains a critical piece of our strategy, and delivering games of the highest quality from the world's most talented developers is one of the cornerstones of our business. The last year has taught us a great deal about publishing and managing a successful live-service game on a global scale, and we're ready to bring <i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i> players an incredible experience at launch."</p><p><i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i> is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that combines story-driven adventure and action combat. In <i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i>, players enter a vast world with constantly shifting geographical and environmental features that change the course of play. Massive-scale player vs. player and player vs. environment combat are fundamental to <i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i><i>. </i>Players can transform into animals to soar through the air or explore the depths of the sea, and even tip the odds of battle in their favor by triggering powerful environmental effects, like solar eclipses or rainstorms.</p><p>NCSOFT has a long history of developing and publishing beloved multiplayer franchises across the globe, including <i>Lineage, AION, Blade &amp; Soul</i>, and <i>Guild Wars</i>. <i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i> is the latest next-gen MMO from the South Korea-based developer, and its first to be released across multiple regions in collaboration with an external publisher.</p><p>"Amazon Games is one of the most reliable partners for publishing massive live-service games globally, with proven expertise in operations, localization, marketing, and community support," said Moonyoung Choi, principal development management officer at NCSOFT. "For our next-gen flagship title, we're confident they are the right publisher to bring <i>THRONE AND LIBERTY'</i>s inimitable value and its dynamic, immersive MMO experience to players around the world."</p><p><i>THRONE AND LIBERTY</i> continues Amazon Games' momentum in game publishing, following the success of its internally developed MMO <i>New World </i>and action RPG <i>Lost Ark </i>from Smilegate RPG, both of which have toppedSteam and Twitch charts and continue to nurture strong player communities. Amazon has also announced publishing agreements with Bandai Namco Online for <i>Blue Protocol</i>, Crystal Dynamics for the next major <i>Tomb Raider</i> game, and Glowmade and Disruptive Games for unannounced titles.</p><p>About Amazon Games</p><p>At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans draws on the power of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, AWS, and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including <i>New World</i>, with our studios and teams in Seattle, Orange County, San Diego, and Montreal. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third-party games, leading with <i>Lost Ark</i> from Smilegate RPG and <i>Blue Protocol</i> from Bandai Namco Online, as well as the next major <i>Tomb Raider</i> title from Crystal Dynamics.</p><p>About NCSOFT</p><p>NCSOFT, headquartered in Pangyo, Korea, is the world's premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games, including the critically acclaimed <i>Lineage, AION, Blade &amp; Soul, Guild Wars</i> franchises as well as numerous casual games.</p><p>With approximately 5,000 employees worldwide, NCSOFT aims to provide fun for everyone, everywhere in the world. More information can be found at www.ncsoft.com.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com, Inc.Media HotlineAmazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

One Medical Joins Amazon to Make It Easier for People to Get and Stay Healthier

/news/news-details/2023/One-Medical-Joins-Amazon-to-Make-It-Easier-for-People-to-Get-and-Stay-Healthier/default.aspx

One-Medical-Joins-Amazon-to-Make-It-Easier-for-People-to-Get-and-Stay-Healthier

02/22/2023 09:07:00

One Medical Joins Amazon to Make It Easier for People to Get and Stay Healthier

02/22/2023

2023

Together, Amazon and One Medical will help more people get better care, when and how they need it For a limited time, One Medical membership is available to new U.S. customers for $144 (28% discount) for the first year—the equivalent of only $12 per month

<div><p><i>Together, Amazon and One Medical will help more people get better care, when and how they need it</i></p><p><i>For a limited time, One Medical membership is available to new U.S. customers for $144 (28% discount) for the first year—the equivalent of only $12 per month</i></p></div>

SEATTLE & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and 1Life Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ: ONEM, "One Medical") announced that Amazon completed its acquisition of One Medical. One Medical's seamless in-office and 24/7 virtual care services, on-site labs, and programs for preventive care, chronic care management, common illnesses, and mental health concerns have been delighting people for the past 15 years. Together, Amazon and One Medical look to deliver exceptional health care to more people to achieve better health outcomes, better care experiences, and more value, within a better care team environment. For a limited time, One Medical is offering annual memberships at the discounted price of $144 for the first year (regularly $199/year), the equivalent of $12 per month, to new customers. Redeem the One Medical membership promotion and learn more about what's included. "We're on a mission to make it dramatically easier for people to find, choose, afford, and engage with the services, products, and professionals they need to get and stay healthy, and coming together with One Medical is a big step on that journey," said Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services. "One Medical has set the bar for what a quality, convenient, and affordable primary care experience should be like. We're inspired by their human-centered, technology-forward approach and excited to help them continue to grow and serve more patients." "One Medical has been on a mission to help transform health care through its human-centered and technology-powered model to delight people with better health, better care, and better value, within a better team environment," said Amir Dan Rubin, CEO of One Medical. "We now set our sights on delivering even further positive impacts for consumers, employers, care teams, and health networks, as we join Amazon with its long-term orientation, history of invention, and passion for reimagining a better future." "If you fast forward 10 years from now, people are not going to believe how primary care was administered. For decades, you called your doctor, made an appointment three or four weeks out, drove 15-20 minutes to the doctor, parked your car, signed in and waited several minutes in reception, eventually were placed in an exam room, where you waited another 10-15 minutes before the doctor came in, saw you for five to ten minutes and prescribed medicine, and then you drove 20 minutes to the pharmacy to pick it up—and that's if you didn't have to then go see a specialist for additional evaluation, where the process repeated and could take even longer for an appointment," said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. "Customers want and deserve better, and that's what One Medical has been working and innovating on for more than a decade. Together, we believe we can make the health care experience easier, faster, more personal, and more convenient for everyone." One Medical sets a high bar for human-centered primary care experiences: Access to primary care where, when, and how people prefer, with: Around-the-clock access through the One Medical app, giving people more control of how they seek care and the ability to do so from home or on-the-go On-demand virtual care services, like 24/7 video chats and easy in-app messaging, which are included in membership at no extra cost; for other services, such as in-office appointments, One Medical accepts most major insurance health plans Same and next-day in-office or remote visits, so people can quickly get the care they need Thoughtfully designed and welcoming One Medical offices, offering care close to where people work, live, and shop Walk-in availability for on-site laboratory services, making it easy to get lab work done where and when it's most convenient A comprehensive approach to make health care easier to navigate by offering: A health care home base with primary care providers that help manage a person's full health picture; from preventive and acute care needs, to chronic disease and mental health concerns Pediatricians and family care providers available in a growing number of locations, serving children and families Providers trained to address both physical and mental health needs, which may include lifestyle recommendations, medications, or referrals to appropriate specialists Clinical and digital integrations with leading hospital networks across the U.S. for more seamless access and coordinated care across primary and specialty care services Easy access to vaccine and medical records, prescription renewals, specialty referrals, and lab results in the One Medical app Outstanding care for seniors in a growing number of locations, with teams specialized in serving people on Medicare A more human health care experience enabled by: Highly engaged clinicians focused on meeting the whole needs of people, thinking about health care comprehensively, and taking time to treat people as people and not solely as diagnoses More time in appointments to engage with providers for more personalized and comprehensive health care Proactive app reminders for follow-up care and referral needs facilitating better prevention and coordination of care so the dots are better connected for people to get and stay healthier A human-centered and technology-powered approach, offering an easy-to-use app and innovative clinician tools to simplify the experience for both the patient and the provider For customers looking for additional information, here are answers to some frequently asked questions: What does the One Medical membership fee cover? The One Medical annual membership fee covers access to One Medical's on-demand and asynchronous virtual care services as well as high-touch and value-added personal services such as insurance navigation and referral management. The on-demand virtual services are accessible through the One Medical app (at no additional cost), featuring 24/7/365 on-demand video chats, secure provider messaging, "Treat Me Now" assessments for common health concerns, easy vaccine and medical record access, prescription renewals, and proactive reminders for follow-up care and referral needs. What does One Medical joining the Amazon family mean for current One Medical members? One Medical members can continue to count on One Medical for the high-quality care and high-level of service they receive. One Medical looks forward to continuing to increase access to care and improve health outcomes with the support of Amazon. How does One Medical differ from a typical primary care or urgent care practice? One Medical aims to make health care easier to access and even enjoyable, while improving health outcomes for people across every stage of life. One Medical offers same and next-day in-office or remote visits, seamlessly paired with 24/7 on-demand virtual care services through the One Medical mobile or web app, allowing members to seek care when and where it's most convenient to them. One Medical is designed to better serve the needs of its patients and providers, including through thoughtfully designed and welcoming offices across the U.S., appointments that start on time, more appointment time with providers, and onsite labs. One Medical provides a comprehensive and human-centered primary care experience, including preventive and everyday health visits, chronic care management, pediatric and mental health services in a growing number of locations, and more. Members enjoy access to 24/7/365 virtual care services through the One Medical app, which allows them to continue their care from the comfort of home or on the go, whether it's for acute needs at odd-hours, or to simply manage follow-up needs and prescription renewals. Do Amazon Prime members receive One Medical memberships? No, One Medical membership is separate from Prime membership. For a limited time, One Medical membership, regardless of Prime membership, is available to new U.S. customers for $144 for the first year (regularly $199/year), the equivalent of $12 per month. Visit here to redeem the One Medical membership promotion and learn more about what's included. How do Amazon and One Medical protect private health information? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) governs what One Medical, Amazon, and others can do with Protected Health Information and this includes information like medication history, medical conditions, and treatment information. Amazon and One Medical have extensive experience protecting data of all kinds appropriately across a variety of businesses and nothing about this acquisition changes Amazon or One Medical's commitment to privacy or the strong protections we have for Protected Health Information.

<p>SEATTLE &amp; SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and 1Life Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ: ONEM, "One Medical") announced that Amazon completed its acquisition of One Medical. One Medical's seamless in-office and 24/7 virtual care services, on-site labs, and programs for preventive care, chronic care management, common illnesses, and mental health concerns have been delighting people for the past 15 years. Together, Amazon and One Medical look to deliver exceptional health care to more people to achieve better health outcomes, better care experiences, and more value, within a better care team environment. For a limited time, One Medical is offering annual memberships at the discounted price of $144 for the first year (regularly $199/year), the equivalent of $12 per month, to new customers. Redeem the One Medical membership promotion and learn more about what's included.</p><p>"We're on a mission to make it dramatically easier for people to find, choose, afford, and engage with the services, products, and professionals they need to get and stay healthy, and coming together with One Medical is a big step on that journey," said Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services. "One Medical has set the bar for what a quality, convenient, and affordable primary care experience should be like. We're inspired by their human-centered, technology-forward approach and excited to help them continue to grow and serve more patients."</p><p>"One Medical has been on a mission to help transform health care through its human-centered and technology-powered model to delight people with better health, better care, and better value, within a better team environment," said Amir Dan Rubin, CEO of One Medical. "We now set our sights on delivering even further positive impacts for consumers, employers, care teams, and health networks, as we join Amazon with its long-term orientation, history of invention, and passion for reimagining a better future."</p><p>"If you fast forward 10 years from now, people are not going to believe how primary care was administered. For decades, you called your doctor, made an appointment three or four weeks out, drove 15-20 minutes to the doctor, parked your car, signed in and waited several minutes in reception, eventually were placed in an exam room, where you waited another 10-15 minutes before the doctor came in, saw you for five to ten minutes and prescribed medicine, and then you drove 20 minutes to the pharmacy to pick it up—and that's if you didn't have to then go see a specialist for additional evaluation, where the process repeated and could take even longer for an appointment," said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. "Customers want and deserve better, and that's what One Medical has been working and innovating on for more than a decade. Together, we believe we can make the health care experience easier, faster, more personal, and more convenient for everyone."</p><p>One Medical sets a high bar for human-centered primary care experiences:</p><p><i>Access to primary care where, when, and how people prefer, with:</i></p><ul><li>Around-the-clock access through the One Medical app, giving people more control of how they seek care and the ability to do so from home or on-the-go</li><li>On-demand virtual care services, like 24/7 video chats and easy in-app messaging, which are included in membership at no extra cost; for other services, such as in-office appointments, One Medical accepts most major insurance health plans</li><li>Same and next-day in-office or remote visits, so people can quickly get the care they need</li><li>Thoughtfully designed and welcoming One Medical offices, offering care close to where people work, live, and shop</li><li>Walk-in availability for on-site laboratory services, making it easy to get lab work done where and when it's most convenient</li></ul><p><i>A comprehensive approach to make health care easier to navigate by offering:</i></p><ul><li>A health care home base with primary care providers that help manage a person's full health picture; from preventive and acute care needs, to chronic disease and mental health concerns</li><li>Pediatricians and family care providers available in a growing number of locations, serving children and families</li><li>Providers trained to address both physical and mental health needs, which may include lifestyle recommendations, medications, or referrals to appropriate specialists</li><li>Clinical and digital integrations with leading hospital networks across the U.S. for more seamless access and coordinated care across primary and specialty care services</li><li>Easy access to vaccine and medical records, prescription renewals, specialty referrals, and lab results in the One Medical app</li><li>Outstanding care for seniors in a growing number of locations, with teams specialized in serving people on Medicare</li></ul><p><i>A more human health care experience enabled by:</i></p><ul><li>Highly engaged clinicians focused on meeting the whole needs of people, thinking about health care comprehensively, and taking time to treat people as people and not solely as diagnoses</li><li>More time in appointments to engage with providers for more personalized and comprehensive health care</li><li>Proactive app reminders for follow-up care and referral needs facilitating better prevention and coordination of care so the dots are better connected for people to get and stay healthier</li><li>A human-centered and technology-powered approach, offering an easy-to-use app and innovative clinician tools to simplify the experience for both the patient and the provider</li></ul><p>For customers looking for additional information, here are answers to some frequently asked questions:</p><p>What does the One Medical membership fee cover?</p><p>The One Medical annual membership fee covers access to One Medical's on-demand and asynchronous virtual care services as well as high-touch and value-added personal services such as insurance navigation and referral management. The on-demand virtual services are accessible through the One Medical app (at no additional cost), featuring 24/7/365 on-demand video chats, secure provider messaging, "Treat Me Now" assessments for common health concerns, easy vaccine and medical record access, prescription renewals, and proactive reminders for follow-up care and referral needs.</p><p>What does One Medical joining the Amazon family mean for current One Medical members?</p><p>One Medical members can continue to count on One Medical for the high-quality care and high-level of service they receive. One Medical looks forward to continuing to increase access to care and improve health outcomes with the support of Amazon.</p><p>How does One Medical differ from a typical primary care or urgent care practice?</p><p>One Medical aims to make health care easier to access and even enjoyable, while improving health outcomes for people across every stage of life. One Medical offers same and next-day in-office or remote visits, seamlessly paired with 24/7 on-demand virtual care services through the One Medical mobile or web app, allowing members to seek care when and where it's most convenient to them. One Medical is designed to better serve the needs of its patients and providers, including through thoughtfully designed and welcoming offices across the U.S., appointments that start on time, more appointment time with providers, and onsite labs. One Medical provides a comprehensive and human-centered primary care experience, including preventive and everyday health visits, chronic care management, pediatric and mental health services in a growing number of locations, and more. Members enjoy access to 24/7/365 virtual care services through the One Medical app, which allows them to continue their care from the comfort of home or on the go, whether it's for acute needs at odd-hours, or to simply manage follow-up needs and prescription renewals.</p><p>Do Amazon Prime members receive One Medical memberships?</p><p>No, One Medical membership is separate from Prime membership. For a limited time, One Medical membership, regardless of Prime membership, is available to new U.S. customers for $144 for the first year (regularly $199/year), the equivalent of $12 per month. Visit here to redeem the One Medical membership promotion and learn more about what's included.</p><p>How do Amazon and One Medical protect private health information?</p><p>The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) governs what One Medical, Amazon, and others can do with Protected Health Information and this includes information like medication history, medical conditions, and treatment information. Amazon and One Medical have extensive experience protecting data of all kinds appropriately across a variety of businesses and nothing about this acquisition changes Amazon or One Medical's commitment to privacy or the strong protections we have for Protected Health Information.</p>

AWS to Launch an Infrastructure Region in Malaysia

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-to-Launch-an-Infrastructure-Region-in-Malaysia/default.aspx

AWS-to-Launch-an-Infrastructure-Region-in-Malaysia

03/01/2023 21:00:00

AWS to Launch an Infrastructure Region in Malaysia

03/01/2023

2023

AWS Region will enable customers to run workloads and securely store data in Malaysia while serving end users with even lower latency New Region reflects AWS's commitment to meeting high demand for cloud services in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia AWS plans to invest $6 billion (approx. MYR 25.5 billion) in Malaysia by 2037

<div><p><i>AWS Region will enable customers to run workloads and securely store data in Malaysia while serving end users with even lower latency</i></p><p><i>New Region reflects AWS</i>’<i>s commitment to meeting</i><i> high</i><i> demand for cloud services in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia</i></p><p><i>AWS plans to invest $6 billion (approx. MYR 25.5 billion) in Malaysia by 2037</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced plans to launch an AWS infrastructure Region in Malaysia. The new AWS Region will give developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centers located in Malaysia. As part of its commitment to the region, AWS is planning to invest $6 billion (approx. MYR 25.5 billion) in Malaysia by 2037. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure. "AWS has committed to the largest international technology investment to date in Malaysia, which will advance our Malaysia Madani vision of a highly skilled, innovative, prosperous, and sustainable economy," said Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia. "Bringing access to world-class AWS infrastructure, advanced technologies, and cloud skills programs to Malaysia will unlock opportunities for local businesses of all sizes to build and expand globally, cultivate a highly skilled workforce, spur new job creation, and deliver long-term economic growth. Today's announcement is a vote of support for Malaysia's leadership in the global digital economy, and we look forward to deepening our collaboration with AWS to advance our nation's cloud-first ambitions." "The new AWS Region reflects our deep and long-term commitment to customers and organizations in Malaysia, as well as our commitment to serving sizeable and fast-growing demand for cloud services across Southeast Asia. We are proud to support Malaysia's digital transformation with the highest levels of security and reliability available on AWS cloud infrastructure," said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. "We look forward to helping Malaysian institutions, startups, and companies deliver cloud-powered applications to fuel economic development across the country and to spur job creation, skills training, and educational opportunities in the communities surrounding our data centers." The new AWS Region will consist of three Availability Zones at launch, adding to the existing 99 Availability Zones across 31 geographic regions globally. With today's announcement, AWS has plans to launch 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Thailand. AWS Regions consist of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations, with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting customers' business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones and across multiple Regions to achieve even greater fault tolerance. The new AWS Region will enable customers with data residency preferences to store data securely in Malaysia, enable customers to achieve even lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services across Southeast Asia. Customers from startups to enterprises to government organizations and nonprofits will be able to use advanced technologies from the world's leading cloud to drive innovation. AWS offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of services, including analytics, compute, database, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, mobile services, storage, and other cloud technologies. Customers welcome the AWS Region in Malaysia Organizations in Malaysia are among the millions of active customers using AWS in more than 190 countries around the world. Enterprises in Malaysia choose AWS to innovate, drive cost efficiencies, and accelerate time to market-segment. Customers using AWS include Astro Malaysia Berhad, Axiata Group, Bank Islam Malaysia, CelcomDigi, Johor Corporation, PayNet, and Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS). Malaysian public sector customers use AWS to help drive cost savings and better serve local citizens. These customers include Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, BeEducation, Cybersecurity Malaysia, Department of Statistics Malaysia, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Pos Malaysia, and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Malaysian startups and small businesses, including Baba Products, Carsome, Omesti Berhad, and StoreHub, are building their businesses on AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world. PayNet, the national payments network and shared central infrastructure for Malaysia's financial market-segment, uses AWS to run critical banking workloads, including the company's MyDebit cashless payments system. "As the nation's operator of real-time retail payments infrastructure, we leverage AWS to meet the reliability, security, scalability, and compliance required by our customers," said Farhan Ahmad, group CEO at PayNet. "The launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia provides us with lower-latency access to cloud services to help ensure our customers have a seamless payments experience. We're excited to see how this development can pave the way for other companies in the region to innovate with speed and uncover new opportunities." PETRONAS, a global energy and solutions provider with presence in over 50 countries, has been an AWS customer since 2014. "Our work with AWS has supported our digital solutions and enabled us to use the cloud as an accelerator. We have also leveraged Amazon's working backwards methodology to ideate and scale innovation best practices across the group to pursue new growth opportunities," said Datuk Tengku Muhammad Taufik, president and group CEO at PETRONAS. "With the launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia, we look forward to further strengthening our collaboration with AWS to develop scalable solutions, deliver greater value to our stakeholders, and play a part in achieving Malaysia's vision to become a regional leader in the digital economy." Pos Malaysia, Malaysia's national postal and parcel service provider, has the largest delivery and retail network in the country, delivering to more than 10 million addresses and operating more than 3,500 retail touchpoints. As part of the company's digital transformation, Pos Malaysia plans to migrate the vast majority of its IT infrastructure to AWS by 2023. "As we continue on our digital transformation journey to deliver a better customer experience, our collaboration with AWS has been instrumental in streamlining our processes, reducing IT costs by 50%, and driving greater organizational agility," said Sumesh Rahavendra, chief strategy and digital officer at Pos Malaysia. "We are excited about the launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia and look forward to incorporating deep analytics and machine learning initiatives into our operations to help further develop our products and services, enabling us to deliver smiles to the last mile." TNB is the largest electricity utility provider in Malaysia and services more than 9.5 million commercial, industrial, and residential customers nationally. TNB has collaborated with AWS since 2020 to accelerate its digital transformation, improve customer experience, and develop smart energy solutions. "TNB is on a mission to digitally transform and become more than just a utility provider," said Azlan bin Ahmad, chief information officer at TNB. "Leveraging world-class AWS services such as compute, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will help us accelerate the launch of innovative digital services, enabling customers to more easily track and manage their energy usage. We welcome the launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia, which will help boost the efficiency and agility of industries, helping companies deliver a wider range of services to improve the lives of local citizens." Malaysian AWS Partners also welcome the new AWS Region The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS ISVs, SIs, and consulting partners help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. Examples of Malaysia-based AWS Partners include Axrail, eCloudvalley, Exabytes, G-AsiaPacific, GHL, Maxis, Radmik Solutions Sdn Bhd, Silverlake Axis, Tapway, Uberfusion, and Wavelet. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners. Maxis is Malaysia's leading converged solutions provider and an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner. In 2019, Maxis signed a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS to deliver industry-leading cloud technologies enabled by 4G to help organizations improve productivity, performance, and innovation. "Maxis aspires to be the one-stop shop for all IT and connectivity services in Malaysia, and we see AWS as a key factor in helping us achieve this goal," said Goh Seow Eng, CEO at Maxis. "We look forward to providing businesses in Malaysia with greater access to world-class cloud solutions to accelerate cloud adoption and empower businesses to be better equipped for Industry 4.0, in line with the government's cloud-first ambition." Silverlake Axis is an enterprise technology, software, and services company and an AWS Software Partner. "Silverlake Axis's collaboration with AWS has helped us create a future vision of our digital solution by modernizing 25 omnichannel applications such as transactions, loans, payments, and digital engagement," said Andrew Tan, group managing director at Silverlake Axis. "We can now offer customers various combinations of digital solutions with pay-as-you-go pricing, which provides a customized and seamless customer experience across all channels and any device. An AWS Region in Malaysia will be transformative for the technology services industry, providing secure, high-performing, resilient, and regulated infrastructure for digital banking workloads or insurtech businesses. This will help us accelerate the launch of new features and let our customers pivot quickly to leverage the benefits of the cloud." Commitment to sustainability As part of The Climate Pledge, Amazon is committed to reaching net-zero carbon across its business by 2040 and is on a path to powering operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. In 2022, Amazon set a new corporate record for the most renewable energy announced by a single company in one year and remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it's held since 2020. Amazon now has 401 renewable energy projects globally, including 164 wind farms and solar farms, and 237 rooftop solar projects on Amazon facilities. Once operational, Amazon's global renewable energy projects are expected to generate 56,881 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy each year. Additionally, AWS will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced plans to launch an AWS infrastructure Region in Malaysia. The new AWS Region will give developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centers located in Malaysia. As part of its commitment to the region, AWS is planning to invest $6 billion (approx. MYR 25.5 billion) in Malaysia by 2037. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure.</p><p>"AWS has committed to the largest international technology investment to date in Malaysia, which will advance our Malaysia Madani vision of a highly skilled, innovative, prosperous, and sustainable economy," said Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia. "Bringing access to world-class AWS infrastructure, advanced technologies, and cloud skills programs to Malaysia will unlock opportunities for local businesses of all sizes to build and expand globally, cultivate a highly skilled workforce, spur new job creation, and deliver long-term economic growth. Today's announcement is a vote of support for Malaysia's leadership in the global digital economy, and we look forward to deepening our collaboration with AWS to advance our nation's cloud-first ambitions."</p><p>"The new AWS Region reflects our deep and long-term commitment to customers and organizations in Malaysia, as well as our commitment to serving sizeable and fast-growing demand for cloud services across Southeast Asia. We are proud to support Malaysia's digital transformation with the highest levels of security and reliability available on AWS cloud infrastructure," said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. "We look forward to helping Malaysian institutions, startups, and companies deliver cloud-powered applications to fuel economic development across the country and to spur job creation, skills training, and educational opportunities in the communities surrounding our data centers."</p><p>The new AWS Region will consist of three Availability Zones at launch, adding to the existing 99 Availability Zones across 31 geographic regions globally. With today's announcement, AWS has plans to launch 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Thailand. AWS Regions consist of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations, with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting customers' business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones and across multiple Regions to achieve even greater fault tolerance.</p><p>The new AWS Region will enable customers with data residency preferences to store data securely in Malaysia, enable customers to achieve even lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services across Southeast Asia. Customers from startups to enterprises to government organizations and nonprofits will be able to use advanced technologies from the world's leading cloud to drive innovation. AWS offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of services, including analytics, compute, database, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, mobile services, storage, and other cloud technologies.</p><p>Customers welcome the AWS Region in Malaysia</p><p>Organizations in Malaysia are among the millions of active customers using AWS in more than 190 countries around the world. Enterprises in Malaysia choose AWS to innovate, drive cost efficiencies, and accelerate time to market-segment. Customers using AWS include Astro Malaysia Berhad, Axiata Group, Bank Islam Malaysia, CelcomDigi, Johor Corporation, PayNet, and Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS). Malaysian public sector customers use AWS to help drive cost savings and better serve local citizens. These customers include Asia Pacific University of Technology &amp; Innovation, BeEducation, Cybersecurity Malaysia, Department of Statistics Malaysia, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Pos Malaysia, and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Malaysian startups and small businesses, including Baba Products, Carsome, Omesti Berhad, and StoreHub, are building their businesses on AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world.</p><p>PayNet, the national payments network and shared central infrastructure for Malaysia's financial market-segment, uses AWS to run critical banking workloads, including the company's MyDebit cashless payments system. "As the nation's operator of real-time retail payments infrastructure, we leverage AWS to meet the reliability, security, scalability, and compliance required by our customers," said Farhan Ahmad, group CEO at PayNet. "The launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia provides us with lower-latency access to cloud services to help ensure our customers have a seamless payments experience. We're excited to see how this development can pave the way for other companies in the region to innovate with speed and uncover new opportunities."</p><p>PETRONAS, a global energy and solutions provider with presence in over 50 countries, has been an AWS customer since 2014. "Our work with AWS has supported our digital solutions and enabled us to use the cloud as an accelerator. We have also leveraged Amazon's working backwards methodology to ideate and scale innovation best practices across the group to pursue new growth opportunities," said Datuk Tengku Muhammad Taufik, president and group CEO at PETRONAS. "With the launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia, we look forward to further strengthening our collaboration with AWS to develop scalable solutions, deliver greater value to our stakeholders, and play a part in achieving Malaysia's vision to become a regional leader in the digital economy."</p><p>Pos Malaysia, Malaysia's national postal and parcel service provider, has the largest delivery and retail network in the country, delivering to more than 10 million addresses and operating more than 3,500 retail touchpoints. As part of the company's digital transformation, Pos Malaysia plans to migrate the vast majority of its IT infrastructure to AWS by 2023. "As we continue on our digital transformation journey to deliver a better customer experience, our collaboration with AWS has been instrumental in streamlining our processes, reducing IT costs by 50%, and driving greater organizational agility," said Sumesh Rahavendra, chief strategy and digital officer at Pos Malaysia. "We are excited about the launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia and look forward to incorporating deep analytics and machine learning initiatives into our operations to help further develop our products and services, enabling us to deliver smiles to the last mile."</p><p>TNB is the largest electricity utility provider in Malaysia and services more than 9.5 million commercial, industrial, and residential customers nationally. TNB has collaborated with AWS since 2020 to accelerate its digital transformation, improve customer experience, and develop smart energy solutions. "TNB is on a mission to digitally transform and become more than just a utility provider," said Azlan bin Ahmad, chief information officer at TNB. "Leveraging world-class AWS services such as compute, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will help us accelerate the launch of innovative digital services, enabling customers to more easily track and manage their energy usage. We welcome the launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia, which will help boost the efficiency and agility of industries, helping companies deliver a wider range of services to improve the lives of local citizens."</p><p>Malaysian AWS Partners also welcome the new AWS Region</p><p>The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS ISVs, SIs, and consulting partners help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. Examples of Malaysia-based AWS Partners include Axrail, eCloudvalley, Exabytes, G-AsiaPacific, GHL, Maxis, Radmik Solutions Sdn Bhd, Silverlake Axis, Tapway, Uberfusion, and Wavelet. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners.</p><p>Maxis is Malaysia's leading converged solutions provider and an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner. In 2019, Maxis signed a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS to deliver industry-leading cloud technologies enabled by 4G to help organizations improve productivity, performance, and innovation. "Maxis aspires to be the one-stop shop for all IT and connectivity services in Malaysia, and we see AWS as a key factor in helping us achieve this goal," said Goh Seow Eng, CEO at Maxis. "We look forward to providing businesses in Malaysia with greater access to world-class cloud solutions to accelerate cloud adoption and empower businesses to be better equipped for Industry 4.0, in line with the government's cloud-first ambition."</p><p>Silverlake Axis is an enterprise technology, software, and services company and an AWS Software Partner. "Silverlake Axis's collaboration with AWS has helped us create a future vision of our digital solution by modernizing 25 omnichannel applications such as transactions, loans, payments, and digital engagement," said Andrew Tan, group managing director at Silverlake Axis. "We can now offer customers various combinations of digital solutions with pay-as-you-go pricing, which provides a customized and seamless customer experience across all channels and any device. An AWS Region in Malaysia will be transformative for the technology services industry, providing secure, high-performing, resilient, and regulated infrastructure for digital banking workloads or insurtech businesses. This will help us accelerate the launch of new features and let our customers pivot quickly to leverage the benefits of the cloud."</p><p>Commitment to sustainability</p><p>As part of The Climate Pledge, Amazon is committed to reaching net-zero carbon across its business by 2040 and is on a path to powering operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. In 2022, Amazon set a new corporate record for the most renewable energy announced by a single company in one year and remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it's held since 2020. Amazon now has 401 renewable energy projects globally, including 164 wind farms and solar farms, and 237 rooftop solar projects on Amazon facilities. Once operational, Amazon's global renewable energy projects are expected to generate 56,881 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy each year. Additionally, AWS will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.</p>

Amazon Business Launches 3-Way Match for Mobile App

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Business-Launches-3-Way-Match-for-Mobile-App/default.aspx

Amazon-Business-Launches-3-Way-Match-for-Mobile-App

03/02/2023 09:00:00

Amazon Business Launches 3-Way Match for Mobile App

03/02/2023

2023

New feature enables customers to save time and reduce costs by closing purchase orders anywhere, anytime

<div><p><i>New feature enables customers to save time and reduce costs by closing purchase orders anywhere, anytime</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, Amazon Business announced the launch of 3-Way Match on the Amazon Business mobile app to help business customers improve their smart business-buying strategies and automate reporting. Now available in the U.S., the new 3-Way Match app enables account administrators and approved buyers to use a mobile device to simply scan the barcode of a package when it arrives and automatically mark the item as received. With this new feature, the nearly 1 million active users on the Amazon Business mobile app in the U.S. have a simple and quick way to close purchase orders—anywhere, anytime—at no additional cost. Amazon Business - 3-Way Match (Photo: Business Wire) Amazon Business helps businesses of all sizes digitize and automate procurement with powerful management controls and analytic tools, all within the familiar experience of Amazon. Among those tools is 3-Way Match, a common accounting control to ensure that a business' purchase payments are received, accurate, and complete. Until now, it was cumbersome to use because it was only available on desktop or via handheld scanners. The mobile version adds the extra flexibility of being able to complete a 3-Way Match in real-time from anywhere. A successful 3-Way Match includes matching and verifying the purchase order, the invoice, and the receipt before a payment is made. "Manual processes cannot be scaled efficiently, especially for large organizations," said Doug Gray, vice president of technology at Amazon Business. "Integrating our 3-Way Match capability on the Amazon Business mobile app simplifies the process so customers can reconcile their purchases in seconds. At Amazon, we're driven to find better ways for our customers to work, and our 3-Way Match mobile scan does just that." With 3-Way Match, accounts payable and procurement teams can protect their organization from paying for incorrect invoices, items not yet received, or fraudulent purchases—all while automating the process to save a significant amount of time. This helps businesses of all sizes improve efficiency and reporting capabilities while also reducing time spent on manual data entry and avoiding payment for damaged or incorrect packages. Customers can download the Amazon Business mobile app by visiting Google Play store for Android users or the Apple App store for iOS users and get started with 3-Way Match. For more information about 3-Way Match and how to use it, visit https://business.amazon.com/en/find-solutions/3-way-match. About Amazon Business Amazon Business helps millions of customers worldwide—from small businesses, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and government agencies to large enterprises with global operations—reshape their procurement with cost and time savings, greater productivity, and insightful purchasing analytics. Procurement and business leaders enjoy convenient shipping options on hundreds of millions of supplies across categories like office, IT, janitorial, food service, and professional medical supplies. Customers also have access to a variety of business-tailored features and benefits, including a curated site experience, Business Prime, business-only pricing and selection, single- or multi-user business accounts, approvals workflow, purchasing system integrations, payment solutions, tax exemptions, and dedicated customer support. Amazon Business is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and India. For more information, visit business.amazon.com, www.amazonbusinessblog.com, and @AmazonBusiness. Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, Amazon Business announced the launch of 3-Way Match on the Amazon Business mobile app to help business customers improve their smart business-buying strategies and automate reporting. Now available in the U.S., the new 3-Way Match app enables account administrators and approved buyers to use a mobile device to simply scan the barcode of a package when it arrives and automatically mark the item as received. With this new feature, the nearly 1 million active users on the Amazon Business mobile app in the U.S. have a simple and quick way to close purchase orders—anywhere, anytime—at no additional cost.</p><div><p>Amazon Business - 3-Way Match (Photo: Business Wire)</p></div><p>Amazon Business helps businesses of all sizes digitize and automate procurement with powerful management controls and analytic tools, all within the familiar experience of Amazon. Among those tools is 3-Way Match, a common accounting control to ensure that a business' purchase payments are received, accurate, and complete. Until now, it was cumbersome to use because it was only available on desktop or via handheld scanners. The mobile version adds the extra flexibility of being able to complete a 3-Way Match in real-time from anywhere. A successful 3-Way Match includes matching and verifying the purchase order, the invoice, and the receipt before a payment is made.</p><p>"Manual processes cannot be scaled efficiently, especially for large organizations," said Doug Gray, vice president of technology at Amazon Business. "Integrating our 3-Way Match capability on the Amazon Business mobile app simplifies the process so customers can reconcile their purchases in seconds. At Amazon, we're driven to find better ways for our customers to work, and our 3-Way Match mobile scan does just that."</p><p>With 3-Way Match, accounts payable and procurement teams can protect their organization from paying for incorrect invoices, items not yet received, or fraudulent purchases—all while automating the process to save a significant amount of time. This helps businesses of all sizes improve efficiency and reporting capabilities while also reducing time spent on manual data entry and avoiding payment for damaged or incorrect packages.</p><p>Customers can download the Amazon Business mobile app by visiting Google Play store for Android users or the Apple App store for iOS users and get started with 3-Way Match. For more information about 3-Way Match and how to use it, visit https://business.amazon.com/en/find-solutions/3-way-match.</p><p>About Amazon Business</p><p>Amazon Business helps millions of customers worldwide—from small businesses, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and government agencies to large enterprises with global operations—reshape their procurement with cost and time savings, greater productivity, and insightful purchasing analytics. Procurement and business leaders enjoy convenient shipping options on hundreds of millions of supplies across categories like office, IT, janitorial, food service, and professional medical supplies. Customers also have access to a variety of business-tailored features and benefits, including a curated site experience, Business Prime, business-only pricing and selection, single- or multi-user business accounts, approvals workflow, purchasing system integrations, payment solutions, tax exemptions, and dedicated customer support. Amazon Business is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and India. For more information, visit business.amazon.com, www.amazonbusinessblog.com, and @AmazonBusiness.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com, Inc.Media HotlineAmazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

AWS Selected as Southwest Airlines' Preferred Cloud Provider

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AWS-Selected-as-Southwest-Airlines-Preferred-Cloud-Provider

03/08/2023 09:00:00

AWS Selected as Southwest Airlines' Preferred Cloud Provider

03/08/2023

2023

Southwest Airlines uses AWS to optimize operations, streamline infrastructure costs, and advance delivery of digital customer experiences

<div><p><i>Southwest Airlines uses AWS to optimize operations, streamline infrastructure costs, and advance delivery of digital customer experiences</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider as the airline advances its digital transformation initiative. This large-scale modernization with AWS is part of the airline's long-term plan to enhance the passenger journey, optimize operations, and efficiently invest in information technology (IT) infrastructure. "As our preferred cloud provider, AWS will offer solutions that are critical in our drive to modernize our operation, equip our employees with the tools they need to serve our customers, and improve our reliability," said Lauren Woods, senior vice president and chief information officer of Southwest Airlines Co. "With the help of AWS's leading cloud technology and expertise, we will launch improved digital solutions, responsive customer support, and streamlined operations as we deliver on our digital transformation initiatives." Deepening Value for Customers Southwest uses their website and app to directly reach passengers, resulting in more than 83% of revenue coming from these channels. Using AWS, the airline will harness the automatic scaling capabilities of cloud technology to more efficiently process real-time fare searches on its website and mobile app. This helps customers easily and securely find and book fares quickly, even during periods of peak traffic. The airline aims to provide next-generation customer service and employee tools in a test-and-learn capacity through their Innovation Lab powered by AWS. Southwest recently built a secure system that gathers and stores pricing and flight shopping data using AWS Lambda, a serverless compute service, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which offers cost-effective storage classes. Utilizing AWS's leading availability and reliability, the new system was able to handle the scale and processing needed to offer competitive fare recommendations to customers across partner and Southwest digital properties. In the future, Southwest also plans to leverage AWS technologies, such as analytics and machine learning, to improve the speed to market of new digital innovations to best support customers from shopping for fares to arrival at their destination. Optimizing Flight Operations Southwest plans to utilize the full power of AWS as a development platform to deliver automated, scalable, and secure solutions. The airline is implementing a modernized data architecture using Amazon Redshift, a cloud data warehouse, to deliver analytics capabilities for analysts, data scientists, and business users to gain real-time and predictive insights across its entire operations. To better harness this data, Southwest developers are creating a self-service machine learning platform using Amazon SageMaker to enable data scientists to build, train, and deploy machine learning models for any use case with fully managed infrastructure, tools, and workflows. The internal platform will provide additional insights to expedite the development of new tools and products for employees and customers. In addition, the airline will use AWS storage, container, and serverless compute services to optimize operational applications that support gate assignments, ground operations, flight operations, and aircraft maintenance. All of this will mean a more seamless and enjoyable travel experience for Southwest's customers. "Southwest Airlines is one of the world's largest low-cost carriers, operating 4,000 flights daily during peak travel season," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "AWS's proven experience in the travel industry, coupled with our vast portfolio of cloud technologies, empowers Southwest to increase operational resiliency, drive cost efficiency, and deliver exceptional experiences for its employees and customers. Our shared culture of customer obsession will help Southwest innovate new travel solutions that will enhance customer touchpoints, flight operations, and airplane and crew scheduling, to keep air travel affordable and enjoyable for passengers."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider as the airline advances its digital transformation initiative. This large-scale modernization with AWS is part of the airline's long-term plan to enhance the passenger journey, optimize operations, and efficiently invest in information technology (IT) infrastructure.</p><p>"As our preferred cloud provider, AWS will offer solutions that are critical in our drive to modernize our operation, equip our employees with the tools they need to serve our customers, and improve our reliability," said Lauren Woods, senior vice president and chief information officer of Southwest Airlines Co. "With the help of AWS's leading cloud technology and expertise, we will launch improved digital solutions, responsive customer support, and streamlined operations as we deliver on our digital transformation initiatives."</p><p>Deepening Value for Customers</p><p>Southwest uses their website and app to directly reach passengers, resulting in more than 83% of revenue coming from these channels. Using AWS, the airline will harness the automatic scaling capabilities of cloud technology to more efficiently process real-time fare searches on its website and mobile app. This helps customers easily and securely find and book fares quickly, even during periods of peak traffic.</p><p>The airline aims to provide next-generation customer service and employee tools in a test-and-learn capacity through their Innovation Lab powered by AWS. Southwest recently built a secure system that gathers and stores pricing and flight shopping data using AWS Lambda, a serverless compute service, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which offers cost-effective storage classes. Utilizing AWS's leading availability and reliability, the new system was able to handle the scale and processing needed to offer competitive fare recommendations to customers across partner and Southwest digital properties.</p><p>In the future, Southwest also plans to leverage AWS technologies, such as analytics and machine learning, to improve the speed to market of new digital innovations to best support customers from shopping for fares to arrival at their destination.</p><p>Optimizing Flight Operations</p><p>Southwest plans to utilize the full power of AWS as a development platform to deliver automated, scalable, and secure solutions. The airline is implementing a modernized data architecture using Amazon Redshift, a cloud data warehouse, to deliver analytics capabilities for analysts, data scientists, and business users to gain real-time and predictive insights across its entire operations. To better harness this data, Southwest developers are creating a self-service machine learning platform using Amazon SageMaker to enable data scientists to build, train, and deploy machine learning models for any use case with fully managed infrastructure, tools, and workflows. The internal platform will provide additional insights to expedite the development of new tools and products for employees and customers. In addition, the airline will use AWS storage, container, and serverless compute services to optimize operational applications that support gate assignments, ground operations, flight operations, and aircraft maintenance. All of this will mean a more seamless and enjoyable travel experience for Southwest's customers.</p><p>"Southwest Airlines is one of the world's largest low-cost carriers, operating 4,000 flights daily during peak travel season," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "AWS's proven experience in the travel industry, coupled with our vast portfolio of cloud technologies, empowers Southwest to increase operational resiliency, drive cost efficiency, and deliver exceptional experiences for its employees and customers. Our shared culture of customer obsession will help Southwest innovate new travel solutions that will enhance customer touchpoints, flight operations, and airplane and crew scheduling, to keep air travel affordable and enjoyable for passengers."</p>

AWS and NVIDIA Collaborate on Next-Generation Infrastructure for Training Large Machine Learning Models and Building Generative AI Applications

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-and-NVIDIA-Collaborate-on-Next-Generation-Infrastructure-for-Training-Large-Machine-Learning-Models-and-Building-Generative-AI-Applications/default.aspx

AWS-and-NVIDIA-Collaborate-on-Next-Generation-Infrastructure-for-Training-Large-Machine-Learning-Models-and-Building-Generative-AI-Applications

03/21/2023 12:14:00

AWS and NVIDIA Collaborate on Next-Generation Infrastructure for Training Large Machine Learning Models and Building Generative AI Applications

03/21/2023

2023

New Amazon EC2 P5 instances deployed in EC2 UltraClusters are fully optimized to harness NVIDIA Hopper GPUs for accelerating generative AI training and inference at massive scale

<div><p><i>New Amazon EC2 P5 instances deployed in EC2 UltraClusters are fully optimized to harness NVIDIA Hopper GPUs for accelerating generative AI training and inference at massive scale</i></p></div>

SEATTLE & SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- GTC--Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced a multi-part collaboration focused on building out the world's most scalable, on-demand artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure optimized for training increasingly complex large language models (LLMs) and developing generative AI applications. The joint work features next-generation Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) P5 instances powered by NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and AWS's state-of-the-art networking and scalability that will deliver up to 20 exaFLOPS of compute performance for building and training the largest deep learning models. P5 instances will be the first GPU-based instance to take advantage of AWS's second-generation Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) networking, which provides 3,200 Gbps of low-latency, high bandwidth networking throughput, enabling customers to scale up to 20,000 H100 GPUs in EC2 UltraClusters for on-demand access to supercomputer-class performance for AI. "AWS and NVIDIA have collaborated for more than 12 years to deliver large-scale, cost-effective GPU-based solutions on demand for various applications such as AI/ML, graphics, gaming, and HPC," said Adam Selipsky, CEO at AWS. "AWS has unmatched experience delivering GPU-based instances that have pushed the scalability envelope with each successive generation, with many customers scaling machine learning training workloads to more than 10,000 GPUs today. With second-generation EFA, customers will be able to scale their P5 instances to over 20,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, bringing supercomputer capabilities on demand to customers ranging from startups to large enterprises." "Accelerated computing and AI have arrived, and just in time. Accelerated computing provides step-function speed-ups while driving down cost and power as enterprises strive to do more with less. Generative AI has awakened companies to reimagine their products and business models and to be the disruptor and not the disrupted," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "AWS is a long-time partner and was the first cloud service provider to offer NVIDIA GPUs. We are thrilled to combine our expertise, scale, and reach to help customers harness accelerated computing and generative AI to engage the enormous opportunities ahead." New Supercomputing Clusters New P5 instances are built on more than a decade of collaboration between AWS and NVIDIA delivering the AI and HPC infrastructure and build on four previous collaborations across P2, P3, P3dn, and P4d(e) instances. P5 instances are the fifth generation of AWS offerings powered by NVIDIA GPUs and come almost 13 years after its initial deployment of NVIDIA GPUs, beginning with CG1 instances. P5 instances are ideal for training and running inference for increasingly complex LLMs and computer vision models behind the most-demanding and compute-intensive generative AI applications, including question answering, code generation, video and image generation, speech recognition, and more. Specifically built for both enterprises and startups racing to bring AI-fueled innovation to market in a scalable and secure way, P5 instances feature eight NVIDIA H100 GPUs capable of 16 petaFLOPs of mixed-precision performance, 640 GB of high-bandwidth memory, and 3,200 Gbps networking connectivity (8x more than the previous generation) in a single EC2 instance. The increased performance of P5 instances accelerates the time-to-train machine learning (ML) models by up to 6x (reducing training time from days to hours), and the additional GPU memory helps customers train larger, more complex models. P5 instances are expected to lower the cost to train ML models by up to 40% over the previous generation, providing customers greater efficiency over less flexible cloud offerings or expensive on-premises systems. Amazon EC2 P5 instances are deployed in hyperscale clusters called EC2 UltraClusters that are comprised of the highest performance compute, networking, and storage in the cloud. Each EC2 UltraCluster is one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, enabling customers to run their most complex multi-node ML training and distributed HPC workloads. They feature petabit-scale non-blocking networking, powered by AWS EFA, a network interface for Amazon EC2 instances that enables customers to run applications requiring high levels of inter-node communications at scale on AWS. EFA's custom-built operating system (OS) bypass hardware interface and integration with NVIDIA GPUDirect RDMA enhances the performance of inter-instance communications by lowering latency and increasing bandwidth utilization, which is critical to scaling training of deep learning models across hundreds of P5 nodes. With P5 instances and EFA, ML applications can use NVIDIA Collective Communications Library (NCCL) to scale up to 20,000 H100 GPUs. As a result, customers get the application performance of on-premises HPC clusters with the on-demand elasticity and flexibility of AWS. On top of these cutting-edge computing capabilities, customers can use the industry's broadest and deepest portfolio of services such as Amazon S3 for object storage, Amazon FSx for high-performance file systems, and Amazon SageMaker for building, training, and deploying deep learning applications. P5 instances will be available in the coming weeks in limited preview. To request access, visit https://pages.awscloud.com/EC2-P5-Interest.html. With the new EC2 P5 instances, customers like Anthropic, Cohere, Hugging Face, Pinterest, and Stability AI will be able to build and train the largest ML models at scale. The collaboration through additional generations of EC2 instances will help startups, enterprises, and researchers seamlessly scale to meet their ML needs. Anthropic builds reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems that will have many opportunities to create value commercially and for public benefit. "At Anthropic, we are working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. While the large, general AI systems of today can have significant benefits, they can also be unpredictable, unreliable, and opaque. Our goal is to make progress on these issues and deploy systems that people find useful," said Tom Brown, co-founder of Anthropic. "Our organization is one of the few in the world that is building foundational models in deep learning research. These models are highly complex, and to develop and train these cutting-edge models, we need to distribute them efficiently across large clusters of GPUs. We are using Amazon EC2 P4 instances extensively today, and we are excited about the upcoming launch of P5 instances. We expect them to deliver substantial price-performance benefits over P4d instances, and they'll be available at the massive scale required for building next-generation large language models and related products." Cohere, a leading pioneer in language AI, empowers every developer and enterprise to build incredible products with world-leading natural language processing (NLP) technology while keeping their data private and secure. "Cohere leads the charge in helping every enterprise harness the power of language AI to explore, generate, search for, and act upon information in a natural and intuitive manner, deploying across multiple cloud platforms in the data environment that works best for each customer," said Aidan Gomez, CEO at Cohere. "NVIDIA H100-powered Amazon EC2 P5 instances will unleash the ability of businesses to create, grow, and scale faster with its computing power combined with Cohere's state-of-the-art LLM and generative AI capabilities." Hugging Face is on a mission to democratize good machine learning. "As the fastest growing open source community for machine learning, we now provide over 150,000 pre-trained models and 25,000 datasets on our platform for NLP, computer vision, biology, reinforcement learning, and more," said Julien Chaumond, CTO and co-founder at Hugging Face. "With significant advances in large language models and generative AI, we're working with AWS to build and contribute the open source models of tomorrow. We're looking forward to using Amazon EC2 P5 instances via Amazon SageMaker at scale in UltraClusters with EFA to accelerate the delivery of new foundation AI models for everyone." Today, more than 450 million people around the world use Pinterest as a visual inspiration platform to shop for products personalized to their taste, find ideas to do offline, and discover the most inspiring creators. "We use deep learning extensively across our platform for use-cases such as labeling and categorizing billions of photos that are uploaded to our platform, and visual search that provides our users the ability to go from inspiration to action," said David Chaiken, Chief Architect at Pinterest. "We have built and deployed these use-cases by leveraging AWS GPU instances such as P3 and the latest P4d instances. We are looking forward to using Amazon EC2 P5 instances featuring H100 GPUs, EFA and Ultraclusters to accelerate our product development and bring new Empathetic AI-based experiences to our customers." As the leader in multimodal, open-source AI model development and deployment, Stability AI collaborates with public- and private-sector partners to bring this next-generation infrastructure to a global audience. "At Stability AI, our goal is to maximize the accessibility of modern AI to inspire global creativity and innovation," said Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI. "We initially partnered with AWS in 2021 to build Stable Diffusion, a latent text-to-image diffusion model, using Amazon EC2 P4d instances that we employed at scale to accelerate model training time from months to weeks. As we work on our next generation of open-source generative AI models and expand into new modalities, we are excited to use Amazon EC2 P5 instances in second-generation EC2 UltraClusters. We expect P5 instances will further improve our model training time by up to 4x, enabling us to deliver breakthrough AI more quickly and at a lower cost." New Server Designs for Scalable, Efficient AI Leading up to the release of H100, NVIDIA and AWS engineering teams with expertise in thermal, electrical, and mechanical fields have collaborated to design servers to harness GPUs to deliver AI at scale, with a focus on energy efficiency in AWS infrastructure. GPUs are typically 20x more energy efficient than CPUs for certain AI workloads, with the H100 up to 300x more efficient for LLMs than CPUs. The joint work has included developing a system thermal design, integrated security and system management, security with the AWS Nitro hardware accelerated hypervisor, and NVIDIA GPUDirect™ optimizations for AWS custom-EFA network fabric. Building on AWS and NVIDIA's work focused on server optimization, the companies have begun collaborating on future server designs to increase the scaling efficiency with subsequent-generation system designs, cooling technologies, and network scalability.

<p>SEATTLE &amp; SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- GTC--Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced a multi-part collaboration focused on building out the world's most scalable, on-demand artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure optimized for training increasingly complex large language models (LLMs) and developing generative AI applications.</p><p>The joint work features next-generation Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) P5 instances powered by NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and AWS's state-of-the-art networking and scalability that will deliver up to 20 exaFLOPS of compute performance for building and training the largest deep learning models. P5 instances will be the first GPU-based instance to take advantage of AWS's second-generation Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) networking, which provides 3,200 Gbps of low-latency, high bandwidth networking throughput, enabling customers to scale up to 20,000 H100 GPUs in EC2 UltraClusters for on-demand access to supercomputer-class performance for AI.</p><p>"AWS and NVIDIA have collaborated for more than 12 years to deliver large-scale, cost-effective GPU-based solutions on demand for various applications such as AI/ML, graphics, gaming, and HPC," said Adam Selipsky, CEO at AWS. "AWS has unmatched experience delivering GPU-based instances that have pushed the scalability envelope with each successive generation, with many customers scaling machine learning training workloads to more than 10,000 GPUs today. With second-generation EFA, customers will be able to scale their P5 instances to over 20,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, bringing supercomputer capabilities on demand to customers ranging from startups to large enterprises."</p><p>"Accelerated computing and AI have arrived, and just in time. Accelerated computing provides step-function speed-ups while driving down cost and power as enterprises strive to do more with less. Generative AI has awakened companies to reimagine their products and business models and to be the disruptor and not the disrupted," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "AWS is a long-time partner and was the first cloud service provider to offer NVIDIA GPUs. We are thrilled to combine our expertise, scale, and reach to help customers harness accelerated computing and generative AI to engage the enormous opportunities ahead."</p><p>New Supercomputing Clusters</p><p>New P5 instances are built on more than a decade of collaboration between AWS and NVIDIA delivering the AI and HPC infrastructure and build on four previous collaborations across P2, P3, P3dn, and P4d(e) instances. P5 instances are the fifth generation of AWS offerings powered by NVIDIA GPUs and come almost 13 years after its initial deployment of NVIDIA GPUs, beginning with CG1 instances.</p><p>P5 instances are ideal for training and running inference for increasingly complex LLMs and computer vision models behind the most-demanding and compute-intensive generative AI applications, including question answering, code generation, video and image generation, speech recognition, and more.</p><p>Specifically built for both enterprises and startups racing to bring AI-fueled innovation to market in a scalable and secure way, P5 instances feature eight NVIDIA H100 GPUs capable of 16 petaFLOPs of mixed-precision performance, 640 GB of high-bandwidth memory, and 3,200 Gbps networking connectivity (8x more than the previous generation) in a single EC2 instance. The increased performance of P5 instances accelerates the time-to-train machine learning (ML) models by up to 6x (reducing training time from days to hours), and the additional GPU memory helps customers train larger, more complex models. P5 instances are expected to lower the cost to train ML models by up to 40% over the previous generation, providing customers greater efficiency over less flexible cloud offerings or expensive on-premises systems.</p><p>Amazon EC2 P5 instances are deployed in hyperscale clusters called EC2 UltraClusters that are comprised of the highest performance compute, networking, and storage in the cloud. Each EC2 UltraCluster is one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, enabling customers to run their most complex multi-node ML training and distributed HPC workloads. They feature petabit-scale non-blocking networking, powered by AWS EFA, a network interface for Amazon EC2 instances that enables customers to run applications requiring high levels of inter-node communications at scale on AWS. EFA's custom-built operating system (OS) bypass hardware interface and integration with NVIDIA GPUDirect RDMA enhances the performance of inter-instance communications by lowering latency and increasing bandwidth utilization, which is critical to scaling training of deep learning models across hundreds of P5 nodes. With P5 instances and EFA, ML applications can use NVIDIA Collective Communications Library (NCCL) to scale up to 20,000 H100 GPUs. As a result, customers get the application performance of on-premises HPC clusters with the on-demand elasticity and flexibility of AWS. On top of these cutting-edge computing capabilities, customers can use the industry's broadest and deepest portfolio of services such as Amazon S3 for object storage, Amazon FSx for high-performance file systems, and Amazon SageMaker for building, training, and deploying deep learning applications. P5 instances will be available in the coming weeks in limited preview. To request access, visit https://pages.awscloud.com/EC2-P5-Interest.html.</p><p>With the new EC2 P5 instances, customers like Anthropic, Cohere, Hugging Face, Pinterest, and Stability AI will be able to build and train the largest ML models at scale. The collaboration through additional generations of EC2 instances will help startups, enterprises, and researchers seamlessly scale to meet their ML needs.</p><p>Anthropic builds reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems that will have many opportunities to create value commercially and for public benefit. "At Anthropic, we are working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. While the large, general AI systems of today can have significant benefits, they can also be unpredictable, unreliable, and opaque. Our goal is to make progress on these issues and deploy systems that people find useful," said Tom Brown, co-founder of Anthropic. "Our organization is one of the few in the world that is building foundational models in deep learning research. These models are highly complex, and to develop and train these cutting-edge models, we need to distribute them efficiently across large clusters of GPUs. We are using Amazon EC2 P4 instances extensively today, and we are excited about the upcoming launch of P5 instances. We expect them to deliver substantial price-performance benefits over P4d instances, and they'll be available at the massive scale required for building next-generation large language models and related products."</p><p>Cohere, a leading pioneer in language AI, empowers every developer and enterprise to build incredible products with world-leading natural language processing (NLP) technology while keeping their data private and secure. "Cohere leads the charge in helping every enterprise harness the power of language AI to explore, generate, search for, and act upon information in a natural and intuitive manner, deploying across multiple cloud platforms in the data environment that works best for each customer," said Aidan Gomez, CEO at Cohere. "NVIDIA H100-powered Amazon EC2 P5 instances will unleash the ability of businesses to create, grow, and scale faster with its computing power combined with Cohere's state-of-the-art LLM and generative AI capabilities."</p><p>Hugging Face is on a mission to democratize good machine learning. "As the fastest growing open source community for machine learning, we now provide over 150,000 pre-trained models and 25,000 datasets on our platform for NLP, computer vision, biology, reinforcement learning, and more," said Julien Chaumond, CTO and co-founder at Hugging Face. "With significant advances in large language models and generative AI, we're working with AWS to build and contribute the open source models of tomorrow. We're looking forward to using Amazon EC2 P5 instances via Amazon SageMaker at scale in UltraClusters with EFA to accelerate the delivery of new foundation AI models for everyone."</p><p>Today, more than 450 million people around the world use Pinterest as a visual inspiration platform to shop for products personalized to their taste, find ideas to do offline, and discover the most inspiring creators. "We use deep learning extensively across our platform for use-cases such as labeling and categorizing billions of photos that are uploaded to our platform, and visual search that provides our users the ability to go from inspiration to action," said David Chaiken, Chief Architect at Pinterest. "We have built and deployed these use-cases by leveraging AWS GPU instances such as P3 and the latest P4d instances. We are looking forward to using Amazon EC2 P5 instances featuring H100 GPUs, EFA and Ultraclusters to accelerate our product development and bring new Empathetic AI-based experiences to our customers."</p><p>As the leader in multimodal, open-source AI model development and deployment, Stability AI collaborates with public- and private-sector partners to bring this next-generation infrastructure to a global audience. "At Stability AI, our goal is to maximize the accessibility of modern AI to inspire global creativity and innovation," said Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI. "We initially partnered with AWS in 2021 to build Stable Diffusion, a latent text-to-image diffusion model, using Amazon EC2 P4d instances that we employed at scale to accelerate model training time from months to weeks. As we work on our next generation of open-source generative AI models and expand into new modalities, we are excited to use Amazon EC2 P5 instances in second-generation EC2 UltraClusters. We expect P5 instances will further improve our model training time by up to 4x, enabling us to deliver breakthrough AI more quickly and at a lower cost."</p><p>New Server Designs for Scalable, Efficient AI</p><p>Leading up to the release of H100, NVIDIA and AWS engineering teams with expertise in thermal, electrical, and mechanical fields have collaborated to design servers to harness GPUs to deliver AI at scale, with a focus on energy efficiency in AWS infrastructure. GPUs are typically 20x more energy efficient than CPUs for certain AI workloads, with the H100 up to 300x more efficient for LLMs than CPUs.</p><p>The joint work has included developing a system thermal design, integrated security and system management, security with the AWS Nitro hardware accelerated hypervisor, and NVIDIA GPUDirect™ optimizations for AWS custom-EFA network fabric.</p><p>Building on AWS and NVIDIA's work focused on server optimization, the companies have begun collaborating on future server designs to increase the scaling efficiency with subsequent-generation system designs, cooling technologies, and network scalability.</p>

Amazon Fire TV Surpasses 200 Million Fire TV Devices Sold Globally, Expands Amazon-Built TV Lineup, and Brings its Smart TV to More Countries

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Fire-TV-Surpasses-200-Million-Fire-TV-Devices-Sold-Globally-Expands-Amazon-Built-TV-Lineup-and-Brings-its-Smart-TV-to-More-Countries/default.aspx

Amazon-Fire-TV-Surpasses-200-Million-Fire-TV-Devices-Sold-Globally-Expands-Amazon-Built-TV-Lineup-and-Brings-its-Smart-TV-to-More-Countries

03/22/2023 10:04:00

Amazon Fire TV Surpasses 200 Million Fire TV Devices Sold Globally, Expands Amazon-Built TV Lineup, and Brings its Smart TV to More Countries

03/22/2023

2023

Amazon adds three new Fire TV Omni QLED Series sizes, bringing the Fire TV Ambient Experience to any space, in any home All-new Fire TV 2-Series offers the full Fire TV experience and power of Alexa starting at just $199.99 Amazon-built TVs launch in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Mexico for the first time Fire TV has sold over 200 million devices globally across its family of streaming media players and smart TVs

<div><p><i>Amazon adds three new Fire TV Omni QLED Series sizes, bringing the Fire TV Ambient Experience to any space, in any home</i></p><p><i>All-new Fire TV 2-Series offers the full Fire TV experience and power of Alexa starting at just $199.99</i></p><p><i>Amazon-built TVs launch in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Mexico for the first time</i></p><p><i>Fire TV has sold over 200 million devices globally across its family of streaming media players and smart TVs</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced the expansion of its Amazon-built TV family. The Amazon-built TV lineup will now include three new sizes of the Fire TV Omni QLED Series lineup, which includes the Fire TV Ambient Experience; and introduce the affordable Fire TV 2-Series which starts at just $199.99. Amazon also is launching its Amazon-built TVs in more countries, bringing the Omni QLED Series, Fire TV 4-Series, and the new Fire TV 2-Series to the United Kingdom, Germany, and Mexico for the first time. (Photo: Business Wire) "We continue to hear from customers that most smart TVs just aren't all that smart—and they're turning to Fire TV to deliver a truly intelligent and intuitive TV experience. With over 200 million streaming players and smart TVs sold globally, our relentless focus on making TVs actually smart is resonating with customers around the world. In fact, televisions are the fastest growing segment in the Fire TV business," said Daniel Rausch, vice president of Amazon Entertainment Devices and Services. "When customers love something, we double down. We're excited to not only bring our Fire TV Ambient Experience to more rooms of the home with multiple new screen sizes of the Omni QLED Series, but also to enable customers to get a Fire TV smart TV for as low as $199.99 with the new 2-Series. We can't wait to hear what customers think." Fire TV Omni QLED Series—starting at $449.99, new sizes bring the Fire TV Ambient Experience to any space, in any home The popular Fire TV Omni QLED Series—with the Fire TV Ambient Experience—will now be available in three new sizes: 43", 50", and 55". With new smaller sizes, customers can enjoy the Ambient Experience in any space, in any room. The Omni QLED features a stunning 4K Quantum Dot Technology (QLED) display with full-array local dimming of up to 96 zones, plus support for both Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive providing an immersive, cinematic experience. The lineup also features built-in far-field technology, enabling customers to find apps, discover shows, manage playback, and control the Ambient Experience hands-free with Alexa from anywhere in the room. Fire TV Ambient Experience—adding hundreds of free gallery-quality images and dynamic art The Omni QLED's Fire TV Ambient Experience transforms the TV into an always-smart device. When not streaming, the Omni QLED Series uses built-in presence sensors to detect when a person enters the room to intelligently switch to the Ambient Experience, which uses the power of Alexa to display helpful information. With the Ambient Experience, customers can see glanceable information like their schedule with Calendars and Reminders, leave Sticky Notes for family members, control smart devices like a thermostat or Ring doorbell, play audio from services like Amazon Music, Spotify, and others—and much more. With no monthly subscription required, the Omni QLED Series can also turn your TV into an in-home art gallery. Today, the Ambient Experience added hundreds of new images to its collection of more than1,700free gallery-quality pieces of artwork; and expanded its collection from famous institutions like The National Gallery of Art and The Art Institute of Chicago to include pieces from the National Galleries of Scotland, National Museum of Wales, Munich's Pinakothek of the Modern, and more. You can learn about any art collection by asking, "Alexa, who painted this?" or "Alexa, tell me more about this artwork." Coming later this year, the Ambient Experience will also feature dynamic art, a new art concept that adapts to the current environment. Based on the time of day, temperature, weather, and other factors, dynamic artresponds to its surroundings to display unique, personalized pieces of art that are always evolving. The brand-new Fire TV 2-Series—starting at just $199.99 The all-new Fire TV 2-Series features 32" and 40" sizes, designed for all rooms and sizes like the family room, kitchen, or bedroom. The lineup offers great performance and the power of Alexa at an affordable price while providing access to over one million movies and TV episodes from favorite apps including Prime Video, Netflix, Apple TV, Paramount+, and more. The Fire TV 2-Series 32" brings movies and shows to life in HD resolution, while the Fire TV 2-Series 40" offers enhanced clarity and detail withFHD. The Fire TV 2-Series lineup includes support for HDR 10, HLG, and Dolby Digital Audio. The lineup also includes the Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote to easily find, launch, and control content or check the weather, sports, the status of your smart home devices, and more. The brand-new Fire TV 2-Series is available starting today. Customers can learn more at amazon.com/firetv2series. Accessible entertainment Fire TV proudly supports the open-source Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol. In 2022, the Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) became the first-ever streaming media player in the United States to support ASHA through a collaboration with hearing aid company Starkey. Less than a year later, Fire TV streaming media players and smart TVs became the first streaming TV devices to stream sound directly to a hearing implant sound processor through Fire TV's work with Cochlear, the global leader in implantable hearing solutions. The Fire TV Omni QLED Series, Fire TV 4-Series, and Fire TV 2-Series support ASHA. Customers with compatible Starkey Bluetooth hearing aids or Cochlear hearing implant sound processors can connect directly with these Amazon-built TVs to enjoy audio from their favorite streaming apps, use Alexa, listen to music, hear navigational sounds, and more. Learn about pairing hearing aids with Fire TV devices, and explore other features available with Amazon Accessibility. Pricing and availability With this expansion of the Amazon-built TV family, customers can choose from Fire TV's widest range of smart TV options yet—with sizes ranging from 32" to 75", at price points that deliver incredible value and combine Fire TV's intuitive, discovery-focused TV experience with the power of Alexa. The new Fire TV Omni QLED Series 43", 50", and 55" sizes are available for pre-order today starting at $449.99 at Amazon and will be available for purchase at BestBuy.com starting May 11th. The brand-new Fire TV 2-Series will be available in 32" and 40" starting at $199.99 at Amazon starting today.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced the expansion of its Amazon-built TV family. The Amazon-built TV lineup will now include three new sizes of the Fire TV Omni QLED Series lineup, which includes the Fire TV Ambient Experience; and introduce the affordable Fire TV 2-Series which starts at just $199.99. Amazon also is launching its Amazon-built TVs in more countries, bringing the Omni QLED Series, Fire TV 4-Series, and the new Fire TV 2-Series to the United Kingdom, Germany, and Mexico for the first time.</p><div><p>(Photo: Business Wire)</p></div><p>"We continue to hear from customers that most smart TVs just aren't all that smart—and they're turning to Fire TV to deliver a truly intelligent and intuitive TV experience. With over 200 million streaming players and smart TVs sold globally, our relentless focus on making TVs actually smart is resonating with customers around the world. In fact, televisions are the fastest growing segment in the Fire TV business," said Daniel Rausch, vice president of Amazon Entertainment Devices and Services. "When customers love something, we double down. We're excited to not only bring our Fire TV Ambient Experience to more rooms of the home with multiple new screen sizes of the Omni QLED Series, but also to enable customers to get a Fire TV smart TV for as low as $199.99 with the new 2-Series. We can't wait to hear what customers think."</p><p>Fire TV Omni QLED Series—starting at $449.99, new sizes bring the Fire TV Ambient Experience to any space, in any home</p><p>The popular Fire TV Omni QLED Series—with the Fire TV Ambient Experience—will now be available in three new sizes: 43", 50", and 55". With new smaller sizes, customers can enjoy the Ambient Experience in any space, in any room. The Omni QLED features a stunning 4K Quantum Dot Technology (QLED) display with full-array local dimming of up to 96 zones, plus support for both Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive providing an immersive, cinematic experience. The lineup also features built-in far-field technology, enabling customers to find apps, discover shows, manage playback, and control the Ambient Experience hands-free with Alexa from anywhere in the room.</p><p>Fire TV Ambient Experience—adding hundreds of free gallery-quality images and dynamic art</p><p>The Omni QLED's Fire TV Ambient Experience transforms the TV into an always-smart device. When not streaming, the Omni QLED Series uses built-in presence sensors to detect when a person enters the room to intelligently switch to the Ambient Experience, which uses the power of Alexa to display helpful information. With the Ambient Experience, customers can see glanceable information like their schedule with Calendars and Reminders, leave Sticky Notes for family members, control smart devices like a thermostat or Ring doorbell, play audio from services like Amazon Music, Spotify, and others—and much more.</p><p>With no monthly subscription required, the Omni QLED Series can also turn your TV into an in-home art gallery. Today, the Ambient Experience added hundreds of new images to its collection of more than1,700free gallery-quality pieces of artwork; and expanded its collection from famous institutions like The National Gallery of Art and The Art Institute of Chicago to include pieces from the National Galleries of Scotland, National Museum of Wales, Munich's Pinakothek of the Modern, and more. You can learn about any art collection by asking, "Alexa, who painted this?" or "Alexa, tell me more about this artwork." Coming later this year, the Ambient Experience will also feature dynamic art, a new art concept that adapts to the current environment. Based on the time of day, temperature, weather, and other factors, dynamic artresponds to its surroundings to display unique, personalized pieces of art that are always evolving.</p><p>The brand-new Fire TV 2-Series—starting at just $199.99</p><p>The all-new Fire TV 2-Series features 32" and 40" sizes, designed for all rooms and sizes like the family room, kitchen, or bedroom. The lineup offers great performance and the power of Alexa at an affordable price while providing access to over one million movies and TV episodes from favorite apps including Prime Video, Netflix, Apple TV, Paramount+, and more. The Fire TV 2-Series 32" brings movies and shows to life in HD resolution, while the Fire TV 2-Series 40" offers enhanced clarity and detail withFHD. The Fire TV 2-Series lineup includes support for HDR 10, HLG, and Dolby Digital Audio. The lineup also includes the Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote to easily find, launch, and control content or check the weather, sports, the status of your smart home devices, and more. The brand-new Fire TV 2-Series is available starting today. Customers can learn more at amazon.com/firetv2series.</p><p>Accessible entertainment</p><p>Fire TV proudly supports the open-source Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol. In 2022, the Fire TV Cube (2^nd Gen) became the first-ever streaming media player in the United States to support ASHA through a collaboration with hearing aid company Starkey. Less than a year later, Fire TV streaming media players and smart TVs became the first streaming TV devices to stream sound directly to a hearing implant sound processor through Fire TV's work with Cochlear, the global leader in implantable hearing solutions. The Fire TV Omni QLED Series, Fire TV 4-Series, and Fire TV 2-Series support ASHA. Customers with compatible Starkey Bluetooth hearing aids or Cochlear hearing implant sound processors can connect directly with these Amazon-built TVs to enjoy audio from their favorite streaming apps, use Alexa, listen to music, hear navigational sounds, and more. Learn about pairing hearing aids with Fire TV devices, and explore other features available with Amazon Accessibility.</p><p>Pricing and availability</p><p>With this expansion of the Amazon-built TV family, customers can choose from Fire TV's widest range of smart TV options yet—with sizes ranging from 32" to 75", at price points that deliver incredible value and combine Fire TV's intuitive, discovery-focused TV experience with the power of Alexa. The new Fire TV Omni QLED Series 43", 50", and 55" sizes are available for pre-order today starting at $449.99 at Amazon and will be available for purchase at BestBuy.com starting May 11th. The brand-new Fire TV 2-Series will be available in 32" and 40" starting at $199.99 at Amazon starting today.</p>

Amazon Invites Developers to Test Sidewalk and Build the Next Billion Connected Devices

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Amazon-Invites-Developers-to-Test-Sidewalk-and-Build-the-Next-Billion-Connected-Devices

03/28/2023 08:59:00

Amazon Invites Developers to Test Sidewalk and Build the Next Billion Connected Devices

03/28/2023

2023

Low-cost, long-range coverage now extends to more than 90% of the U.S. population Calling all developers: test kits are available today—validate Amazon Sidewalk coverage for yourself AWS IoT Core helps developers easily connect Sidewalk-enabled devices to the cloud

<div><p><i>Low-cost, long-range coverage now extends to more than 90% of the U.S. population</i></p><p><i>Calling all developers: test kits are available today—validate Amazon Sidewalk coverage for yourself</i></p><p><i>AWS IoT Core helps developers easily connect Sidewalk-enabled devices to the cloud</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that Amazon Sidewalk, a secure, low-bandwidth, long-range network designed to connect the next billion devices, is now open for developer testing. Sidewalk coverage now extends to 90% of the U.S. population, and free test kits are available for developers to validate the breadth of Sidewalk coverage for themselves as they build Sidewalk devices. Developers can request their test kit here. "We've rapidly built out a long-range, low-bandwidth network that now covers more than 90% of the U.S. population, and this is an open invitation for developers to put it to the test," said Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices & Services. "Many types of connected devices have been limited by the range of Wi-Fi and the cost of cellular technology, which has hindered the ability to connect devices like environmental sensors, leak detectors, and smart locks. Sidewalk is designed to provide a secure, low-cost way to invent and connect a whole new range of devices, and we can't wait to see what developers build." Nationwide Coverage, Ready to Test Devices connected to Sidewalk come with a secure, persistent, and low-cost connection to the cloud. Newly-released public coverage maps showcase estimated Sidewalk coverage for any U.S. location, enabling developers to understand if their devices will connect in a desired area before starting product development. Sidewalk test kits are designed to validate real-world coverage by regularly pinging their location over the network, providing clear signal strength readings on a map within a developer portal. Build with New Developer Tools and Resources Developers can now use the tools and technology from Amazon Sidewalk, AWS, and leading silicon companies to rapidly build and onboard devices and supporting cloud-based applications to Sidewalk. Developers within Sidewalk's coverage area can instantly connect a qualified silicon provider's developer kit to the cloud without deploying their own network infrastructure. This also means developers' customers can seamlessly add new Sidewalk-enabled devices without installing new apps or providing new passwords to connect their devices to Sidewalk. New tools and features available to developers include: Software Development Kits (SDKs): Distributedby leading silicon companies Nordic Semiconductor, Silicon Labs, Texas Instruments, and module vendor Quectel, these SDKs support Sidewalk technology and enable developers to build their Sidewalk applications while also integrating with existing silicon provider toolkits. This simplifies development for new Sidewalk designs and allows easy migration to Sidewalk for existing designs. Hardware Development Kits (HDKs) and Connectivity Module: To support their SDKs for Sidewalk, Nordic Semiconductor, Silicon Labs, and Texas Instruments each offer HDKs for developers to tinker, prototype, and design their applications on reference hardware. Additionally, Quectel offers a Sidewalk connectivity module, designed to help developers productize their Sidewalk-enabled devices and decrease their time-to-market. Mobile SDK and Tools App: Delivered by Amazon via GitHub, the Mobile SDK for iOS and Android devices is designed to speed up the integration of Sidewalk technology into developers' mobile apps. Amazon also offers a Tools App for developers to debug and troubleshoot designs in the field. Natively Integrate with AWS IoT Core AWS IoT Core integration with Sidewalk makes it easy for developers to access the AWS services and resources needed to efficiently connect Sidewalk-enabled devices to the cloud, including: AWS IoT Core for Amazon Sidewalk : AWS IoT Core lets developers access and configure their Sidewalk-enabled devices via an easy-to-use web interface and offers a broad range of AWS services developers are already familiar with. With AWS IoT Core for Amazon Sidewalk, device registration for the development kits is as simple as turning on the device, simplifying the onboarding experience for developers. AWS Samples GitHub Repository: Developers can access the software, source code, scripts, and documentation needed to connect devices to Sidewalk, providing AWS reference code that helps developers rapidly prototype solutions. "The integration of AWS IoT Core and Amazon Sidewalk marks a significant milestone for developers, manufacturers, and customers, streamlining the design, connection, and deployment of Amazon Sidewalk based IoT solutions," said Yasser Alsaied, vice president of IoT at Amazon Web Services. "Now, with AWS IoT Core for Amazon Sidewalk, developers can access more than 200 AWS services to build scalable solutions on top of a highly reliable, secure, and free-to-connect wireless network." New Devices Join Amazon Sidewalk This Year As Sidewalk opens to developers, customers will have even more choice in the types of devices they can buy. Three companies are introducing new Sidewalk-enabled devices available later this year, including: Netvox : Used in residential and industrial settings, the Multi-Sense S315 Series from Netvox will keep homes and buildings safer by combining a variety of sensors into a single device, including air conditioning monitoring, water leak detection, and state monitoring. With Sidewalk, it's easy for customers to install and deploy the device at an extended range and maintain connectivity. OnAsset : A new sensor from OnAsset called Sentinel 200 will leverage Sidewalk to provide logistics professionals with data on high-value shipments from delivery origin to destination, spanning airplane transport, pharma shipments, food deliveries, and more. OnAsset will use Sidewalk data to validate that a shipment is undamaged before it reaches customers. Primax : Woody, a smart door lock from Primax, will connect via Sidewalk to help customers experience easy installation and access to remote status monitoring, as well as remote door lock and unlock. Start Building Developers can request their test kit today here. They can then visit the AWS IoT Console to begin building Sidewalk-enabled devices. Developers will participate in the "Works with Amazon Sidewalk" qualification program, enabling developers to easily ensure compliance with the Sidewalk protocol. This will also enable customers to see if devices are compatible with Sidewalk. Learn more about Sidewalk's privacy and security protections here. About Amazon Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth's Best Employer, and Earth's Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that Amazon Sidewalk, a secure, low-bandwidth, long-range network designed to connect the next billion devices, is now open for developer testing. Sidewalk coverage now extends to 90% of the U.S. population, and free test kits are available for developers to validate the breadth of Sidewalk coverage for themselves as they build Sidewalk devices. Developers can request their test kit here.</p><p>"We've rapidly built out a long-range, low-bandwidth network that now covers more than 90% of the U.S. population, and this is an open invitation for developers to put it to the test," said Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices &amp; Services. "Many types of connected devices have been limited by the range of Wi-Fi and the cost of cellular technology, which has hindered the ability to connect devices like environmental sensors, leak detectors, and smart locks. Sidewalk is designed to provide a secure, low-cost way to invent and connect a whole new range of devices, and we can't wait to see what developers build."</p><p>Nationwide Coverage, Ready to TestDevices connected to Sidewalk come with a secure, persistent, and low-cost connection to the cloud. Newly-released public coverage maps showcase estimated Sidewalk coverage for any U.S. location, enabling developers to understand if their devices will connect in a desired area before starting product development. Sidewalk test kits are designed to validate real-world coverage by regularly pinging their location over the network, providing clear signal strength readings on a map within a developer portal.</p><p>Build with New Developer Tools and ResourcesDevelopers can now use the tools and technology from Amazon Sidewalk, AWS, and leading silicon companies to rapidly build and onboard devices and supporting cloud-based applications to Sidewalk. Developers within Sidewalk's coverage area can instantly connect a qualified silicon provider's developer kit to the cloud without deploying their own network infrastructure. This also means developers' customers can seamlessly add new Sidewalk-enabled devices without installing new apps or providing new passwords to connect their devices to Sidewalk. New tools and features available to developers include:</p><ul><li>Software Development Kits (SDKs): Distributedby leading silicon companies Nordic Semiconductor, Silicon Labs, Texas Instruments, and module vendor Quectel, these SDKs support Sidewalk technology and enable developers to build their Sidewalk applications while also integrating with existing silicon provider toolkits. This simplifies development for new Sidewalk designs and allows easy migration to Sidewalk for existing designs.</li><li>Hardware Development Kits (HDKs) and Connectivity Module: To support their SDKs for Sidewalk, Nordic Semiconductor, Silicon Labs, and Texas Instruments each offer HDKs for developers to tinker, prototype, and design their applications on reference hardware. Additionally, Quectel offers a Sidewalk connectivity module, designed to help developers productize their Sidewalk-enabled devices and decrease their time-to-market.</li><li>Mobile SDK and Tools App: Delivered by Amazon via GitHub, the Mobile SDK for iOS and Android devices is designed to speed up the integration of Sidewalk technology into developers' mobile apps. Amazon also offers a Tools App for developers to debug and troubleshoot designs in the field.</li></ul><p>Natively Integrate with AWS IoT CoreAWS IoT Core integration with Sidewalk makes it easy for developers to access the AWS services and resources needed to efficiently connect Sidewalk-enabled devices to the cloud, including:</p><ul><li>AWS IoT Core for Amazon Sidewalk: AWS IoT Core lets developers access and configure their Sidewalk-enabled devices via an easy-to-use web interface and offers a broad range of AWS services developers are already familiar with. With AWS IoT Core for Amazon Sidewalk, device registration for the development kits is as simple as turning on the device, simplifying the onboarding experience for developers.</li><li>AWS Samples GitHub Repository: Developers can access the software, source code, scripts, and documentation needed to connect devices to Sidewalk, providing AWS reference code that helps developers rapidly prototype solutions.</li></ul><p>"The integration of AWS IoT Core and Amazon Sidewalk marks a significant milestone for developers, manufacturers, and customers, streamlining the design, connection, and deployment of Amazon Sidewalk based IoT solutions," said Yasser Alsaied, vice president of IoT at Amazon Web Services. "Now, with AWS IoT Core for Amazon Sidewalk, developers can access more than 200 AWS services to build scalable solutions on top of a highly reliable, secure, and free-to-connect wireless network."</p><p>New Devices Join Amazon Sidewalk This YearAs Sidewalk opens to developers, customers will have even more choice in the types of devices they can buy. Three companies are introducing new Sidewalk-enabled devices available later this year, including:</p><ul><li>Netvox: Used in residential and industrial settings, the Multi-Sense S315 Series from Netvox will keep homes and buildings safer by combining a variety of sensors into a single device, including air conditioning monitoring, water leak detection, and state monitoring. With Sidewalk, it's easy for customers to install and deploy the device at an extended range and maintain connectivity.</li><li>OnAsset: A new sensor from OnAsset called Sentinel 200 will leverage Sidewalk to provide logistics professionals with data on high-value shipments from delivery origin to destination, spanning airplane transport, pharma shipments, food deliveries, and more. OnAsset will use Sidewalk data to validate that a shipment is undamaged before it reaches customers.</li><li>Primax: Woody, a smart door lock from Primax, will connect via Sidewalk to help customers experience easy installation and access to remote status monitoring, as well as remote door lock and unlock.</li></ul><p>Start BuildingDevelopers can request their test kit today here. They can then visit the AWS IoT Console to begin building Sidewalk-enabled devices. Developers will participate in the "Works with Amazon Sidewalk" qualification program, enabling developers to easily ensure compliance with the Sidewalk protocol. This will also enable customers to see if devices are compatible with Sidewalk. Learn more about Sidewalk's privacy and security protections here.</p><p>About AmazonAmazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth's Best Employer, and Earth's Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com, Inc.Media HotlineAmazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon Music Introduces 50 & Forever, a Celebration of Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Music-Introduces-50--Forever-a-Celebration-of-Hip-Hops-50th-Anniversary/default.aspx

Amazon-Music-Introduces-50--Forever-a-Celebration-of-Hip-Hops-50th-Anniversary

03/30/2023 11:45:00

Amazon Music Introduces 50 & Forever, a Celebration of Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

03/30/2023

2023

50 & Forever by Rotation will immerse fans in hip-hop's indelible history, celebrating both the trailblazers who made hip-hop an inescapable cultural force and the rising stars who are redefining the genre for a new generation Kicking off today, 50 & Forever reveals its first series of events at J. Cole's Dreamville Festival and Mary J. Blige's Strength of a Woman Festival & Summit Watch Generational Queens, 50 & Forever's tribute to Queen Latifah's feminist anthem ‘U.N.I.T.Y.' here a mazon.com/50andforever

<div><p><i>50 &amp; Forever by Rotation will immerse fans in hip-hop’s indelible history, celebrating both the trailblazers who made hip-hop an inescapable cultural force and the rising stars who are redefining the genre for a new generation</i></p><p><i>Kicking off today, 50 &amp; Forever reveals its first series of events at J. Cole’s Dreamville Festival and Mary J. Blige’s Strength of a Woman Festival &amp; Summit</i></p><p><i>Watch </i>Generational Queens<i>, 50 &amp; Forever’s tribute to Queen Latifah’s feminist anthem ‘U.N.I.T.Y.’ <a>here</a></i></p><p><a><i>a</i><i>mazon.com/50andforever</i></a></p></div>

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Music is paying tribute to hip-hop's monumental influence on music, culture, and society with 50 & Forever, a program in celebration of hip-hop's 50th anniversary, which will bring fans together to honor hip-hop's undeniable legacy and champion the artists writing the next 50 years of hip-hop's history. Created by Rotation—the hip-hop and R&B brand from Amazon Music—50 & Forever will give hip-hop its well-deserved flowers, with curated events, livestreams, playlists, original content, and new music—spanning Amazon Music, Twitch, Audible, Prime Video, and Amp. Download hi-res 50 & Forever images here: https://amazonmusic.box.com/s/tg1595jhbf43ptnoz9hnt90b33jg5j9y The celebration will feature some of the most important names in hip-hop, from hip-hop's Golden Era through present day, including J. Cole and Dreamville, Mary J. Blige, Queen Latifah, Jeezy, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Jadakiss, DJ Drama, Jodeci, Free Marie, and Kenny Burns. Many more events and featured artists will be announced throughout 2023. "This year, hip-hop fans around the world will come together to mark one of the culture's most important milestones: the 50th anniversary of hip-hop," said Tim Hinshaw, head of hip-hop and R&B for Amazon Music. "More than music, hip-hop has broken barriers and redefined culture across fashion, sports, film, and social movements. From art to activism, hip-hop hasn't just changed history, but is history, and 50 & Forever pays tribute to the indelible mark that hip-hop has made on the culture." To kick off 50 & Forever, Amazon Music today released Generational Queens, the first in an ongoing series of short films that will be released throughout the year from Amazon Music. Directed by Fenn O'Meally and featuring a Black, all-female cast, the film is centered around the first lady of hip-hop, Queen Latifah, and her groundbreaking, respect-demanding feminist anthem ‘U.N.I.T.Y.'—which turns 30 this year. The film captures the journey of music discovery and shows that when hip-hop fandom starts at home, it carries on for generations. Watch the short film here. Dreamville x 50 & Forever - Through The Years Exhibit @ Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh, 3/31 This weekend, Grammy Award-winning multiplatinum hip-hop artist J. Cole will once again host Dreamville Festival in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. To celebrate the storied legacy of Dreamville, J. Cole, and North Carolina hip-hop, Amazon Music is hosting a very special 50 & Forever exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh on Friday, March 31. The exhibit will explore Dreamville's long and storied history, with a carefully curated gallery of never-before-seen photographs and video from the label's infancy to present day. To complement the exhibit, Dreamville and 50 & Forever will host a series of panels, workshops, and conversations on March 31, from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT. The schedule includes a conversation between 9th Wonder and B.Dot about North Carolina hip-hop history; a panel on the creation of the Creed III soundtrack featuring Joe Shirley, Frank Brim, Bas, and MixedByAli; a star-studded tribute to multiplatinum producer Anthony Parrino, aka "Elite"; and a beat battle between DJs Khrysis, D.R.U.G.S., Nottz, and Bink to close out the night. For fans not able to make it to Raleigh for the festival, Rotation will present the exclusive livestream of the 2023 Dreamville Festival on Saturday, April 1 and Sunday, April 2. Starting at 2 p.m. EDT each day, fans will be able to tune in to the Amazon Music channel on Twitch or Prime Video to watch performances from artists including J. Cole with special guest Drake, Usher, Burna Boy, Summer Walker, Lil Durk, Ari Lennox, J.I.D, GloRilla, City Girls, Sean Paul, EARTHGANG, Jessie Reyez, Key Glock, Bas, Waka Flocka Flame, and Mario. Mary J. Blige's Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit Livestream, May 12-13 This May, Grammy and Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated artist Mary J. Blige is returning to Atlanta for the second annual Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit, curating four days of music, comedy, female empowerment, and community building. To bring the celebration to as many hip-hop and R&B fans as possible, 50 & Forever will be livestreaming a special event, Mary J. Blige B-Sides: A Celebration of HipHop50 with Special Guests, at State Farm Arena on Friday, May 12. Hosted by Kenny Burns and DJ E-Class, the night will feature music spanning Mary J. Blige's career and include special appearances from legendary artists like Jeezy, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Jadakiss, Jodeci, and additional special guests. On Saturday, May 13, 50 & Forever will also livestream the summit's series of panels and workshops, aimed at empowering women of the BIPOC community. Curated by Strength of a Woman's Black, all-female team, these discussions will cover wellness, finance, beauty, tech, and music. The summit will also feature live tapings of podcasts like Angela Yee's Lip Service, Don't Call Me White Girl, and Earn Your Leisure. Rap Rotation Rewind with Free Marie and other 50 & Forever Original Content and Playlists Throughout 2023, 50 & Forever is providing highly curated original content, playlists, and programming for hip-hop fans young and old. Available today, fans can experience Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Mode, a new listening experience hosted by legendary radio/television personality Free Marie (106 & Park, Power 105.1). Available to stream now, Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Mode is an immersive listening experience that provides a steady stream of iconic music from hip-hop's five decades, curated by the team of experts from Amazon Music and drawn from customers' listening habits. Throughout the experience, Free Marie will share intimate stories and untold anecdotes about classic hip-hop records, as well as interviews with the artists who created them. Fans can experience Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Modehere or by saying, "Alexa, play Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Mode." Fans will also be able to revisit and explore some of hip-hop's most defining tracks via [RE]DISCOVER, the catalog brand from Amazon Music, which has carefully curated a series of playlists for each of the genre's formative eras. Fans can listen to The 2010s: Hip-Hop, The 2000s: Hip-Hop, The '90s: Hip-Hop, and The '80s Hip-Hop to explore the genre's most influential music. Fans can hear all of 50 & Forever's playlists and stations on Amazon Music here. Additional 50 & Forever activities honoring hip hop's most important artists and milestones will be announced throughout 2023. Stay tuned for additional announcements throughout the year. ABOUT AMAZON MUSIC Amazon Music is an immersive audio entertainment service that connects fans, artists, and creators through music, podcasts, and culture. Amazon Music brings fans closer to what they love, with curated and personalized playlists, artist livestreams, artist merch, and Amazon Exclusive podcasts. Prime members get access to over 100 million songs in shuffle mode, All-Access playlists, plus the largest catalog of top ad-free podcasts, included with their membership. Customers can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited for full, on-demand access to 100 million songs in HD and a growing catalog of Ultra HD and Spatial audio. Anyone can listen to Amazon Music by downloading the free Amazon Music app, or wherever they listen to music including Alexa-enabled devices. Learn more at www.amazonmusic.com. Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Music is paying tribute to hip-hop's monumental influence on music, culture, and society with 50 &amp; Forever, a program in celebration of hip-hop's 50th anniversary, which will bring fans together to honor hip-hop's undeniable legacy and champion the artists writing the next 50 years of hip-hop's history. Created by Rotation—the hip-hop and R&amp;B brand from Amazon Music—50 &amp; Forever will give hip-hop its well-deserved flowers, with curated events, livestreams, playlists, original content, and new music—spanning Amazon Music, Twitch, Audible, Prime Video, and Amp.</p><div><p>Download hi-res 50 &amp; Forever images here: https://amazonmusic.box.com/s/tg1595jhbf43ptnoz9hnt90b33jg5j9y</p></div><p>The celebration will feature some of the most important names in hip-hop, from hip-hop's Golden Era through present day, including J. Cole and Dreamville, Mary J. Blige, Queen Latifah, Jeezy, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Jadakiss, DJ Drama, Jodeci, Free Marie, and Kenny Burns. Many more events and featured artists will be announced throughout 2023.</p><p>"This year, hip-hop fans around the world will come together to mark one of the culture's most important milestones: the 50th anniversary of hip-hop," said Tim Hinshaw, head of hip-hop and R&amp;B for Amazon Music. "More than music, hip-hop has broken barriers and redefined culture across fashion, sports, film, and social movements. From art to activism, hip-hop hasn't just changed history, but <i>is </i>history, and 50 &amp; Forever pays tribute to the indelible mark that hip-hop has made on the culture."</p><p>To kick off 50 &amp; Forever, Amazon Music today released <i>Generational Queens</i>, the first in an ongoing series of short films that will be released throughout the year from Amazon Music. Directed by Fenn O'Meally and featuring a Black, all-female cast, the film is centered around the first lady of hip-hop, Queen Latifah, and her groundbreaking, respect-demanding feminist anthem ‘U.N.I.T.Y.'—which turns 30 this year. The film captures the journey of music discovery and shows that when hip-hop fandom starts at home, it carries on for generations. Watch the short film here.</p><p>Dreamville x 50 &amp; Forever - Through The Years Exhibit @ Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh, 3/31</p><p>This weekend, Grammy Award-winning multiplatinum hip-hop artist J. Cole will once again host Dreamville Festival in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. To celebrate the storied legacy of Dreamville, J. Cole, and North Carolina hip-hop, Amazon Music is hosting a very special 50 &amp; Forever exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh on Friday, March 31.</p><p>The exhibit will explore Dreamville's long and storied history, with a carefully curated gallery of never-before-seen photographs and video from the label's infancy to present day. To complement the exhibit, Dreamville and 50 &amp; Forever will host a series of panels, workshops, and conversations on March 31, from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT. The schedule includes a conversation between 9th Wonder and B.Dot about North Carolina hip-hop history; a panel on the creation of the <i>Creed III </i>soundtrack featuring Joe Shirley, Frank Brim, Bas, and MixedByAli; a star-studded tribute to multiplatinum producer Anthony Parrino, aka "Elite"; and a beat battle between DJs Khrysis, D.R.U.G.S., Nottz, and Bink to close out the night.</p><p>For fans not able to make it to Raleigh for the festival, Rotation will present the exclusive livestream of the 2023 Dreamville Festival on Saturday, April 1 and Sunday, April 2. Starting at 2 p.m. EDT each day, fans will be able to tune in to the Amazon Music channel on Twitch or Prime Video to watch performances from artists including J. Cole with special guest Drake, Usher, Burna Boy, Summer Walker, Lil Durk, Ari Lennox, J.I.D, GloRilla, City Girls, Sean Paul, EARTHGANG, Jessie Reyez, Key Glock, Bas, Waka Flocka Flame, and Mario.</p><p>Mary J. Blige's Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit Livestream, May 12-13</p><p>This May, Grammy and Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated artist Mary J. Blige is returning to Atlanta for the second annual Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit, curating four days of music, comedy, female empowerment, and community building. To bring the celebration to as many hip-hop and R&amp;B fans as possible, 50 &amp; Forever will be livestreaming a special event, <i>Mary J. Blige B-Sides: A Celebration of HipHop50 with Special Guests</i>, at State Farm Arena on Friday, May 12. Hosted by Kenny Burns and DJ E-Class, the night will feature music spanning Mary J. Blige's career and include special appearances from legendary artists like Jeezy, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Jadakiss, Jodeci, and additional special guests.</p><p>On Saturday, May 13, 50 &amp; Forever will also livestream the summit's series of panels and workshops, aimed at empowering women of the BIPOC community. Curated by Strength of a Woman's Black, all-female team, these discussions will cover wellness, finance, beauty, tech, and music. The summit will also feature live tapings of podcasts like Angela Yee's <i>Lip Service, Don't Call Me White Girl</i>, and <i>Earn Your Leisure</i>.</p><p>Rap Rotation Rewind with Free Marie and other 50 &amp; Forever Original Content and Playlists</p><p>Throughout 2023, 50 &amp; Forever is providing highly curated original content, playlists, and programming for hip-hop fans young and old. Available today, fans can experience <i>Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Mode</i>, a new listening experience hosted by legendary radio/television personality Free Marie (<i>106 &amp; Park</i>, Power 105.1). Available to stream now, <i>Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Mode</i> is an immersive listening experience that provides a steady stream of iconic music from hip-hop's five decades, curated by the team of experts from Amazon Music and drawn from customers' listening habits.</p><p>Throughout the experience, Free Marie will share intimate stories and untold anecdotes about classic hip-hop records, as well as interviews with the artists who created them. Fans can experience <i>Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Mode</i>here or by saying, "Alexa, play Rap Rotation Rewind in DJ Mode."</p><p>Fans will also be able to revisit and explore some of hip-hop's most defining tracks via [RE]DISCOVER, the catalog brand from Amazon Music, which has carefully curated a series of playlists for each of the genre's formative eras. Fans can listen to <i>The 2010s: Hip-Hop</i>, <i>The 2000s: Hip-Hop</i>, <i>The '90s: Hip-Hop</i>, and <i>The '80s Hip-Hop</i> to explore the genre's most influential music. Fans can hear all of 50 &amp; Forever's playlists and stations on Amazon Music here.</p><p>Additional 50 &amp; Forever activities honoring hip hop's most important artists and milestones will be announced throughout 2023. Stay tuned for additional announcements throughout the year.</p><p>ABOUT AMAZON MUSIC</p><p>Amazon Music is an immersive audio entertainment service that connects fans, artists, and creators through music, podcasts, and culture. Amazon Music brings fans closer to what they love, with curated and personalized playlists, artist livestreams, artist merch, and Amazon Exclusive podcasts. Prime members get access to over 100 million songs in shuffle mode, All-Access playlists, plus the largest catalog of top ad-free podcasts, included with their membership. Customers can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited for full, on-demand access to 100 million songs in HD and a growing catalog of Ultra HD and Spatial audio. Anyone can listen to Amazon Music by downloading the free Amazon Music app, or wherever they listen to music including Alexa-enabled devices. Learn more at www.amazonmusic.com.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com, Inc.Media HotlineAmazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon Announces its Latest Advances in Counterfeit Prevention for Customers, Brands, and Selling Partners

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Announces-its-Latest-Advances-in-Counterfeit-Prevention-for-Customers-Brands-and-Selling-Partners/default.aspx

Amazon-Announces-its-Latest-Advances-in-Counterfeit-Prevention-for-Customers-Brands-and-Selling-Partners

04/04/2023 00:43:00

Amazon Announces its Latest Advances in Counterfeit Prevention for Customers, Brands, and Selling Partners

04/04/2023

2023

Amazon's Brand Protection Report details how the company's industry-leading technology and experts have increasingly deterred bad actors and prevented millions of counterfeit products from entering the global supply chain

<div><p><i>Amazon’s Brand Protection Report details how the company’s industry-leading technology and experts have increasingly deterred bad actors and prevented millions of counterfeit products from entering the global supply chain</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today released its third annual Brand Protection Report, highlighting how the company's efforts to protect customers, brands, and selling partners from counterfeit products has resulted in more criminal referrals and industry partnerships than ever before. The report also demonstrates how the strategic combination of industry-leading technology and experts are successfully stopping bad actors and making an impact beyond Amazon's store—identifying, seizing, and appropriately disposing of over six million counterfeit products in 2022, preventing them from reaching customers and being resold elsewhere in the global supply chain. "We take pride in the progress our organization has made this past year, specifically further evolving our technology to stay ahead of bad actors and doubling down on our criminal referral and litigation efforts," said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's Vice President of Worldwide Selling Partner Services. "We're appreciative of the growing industry-wide collaboration in this space, and look forward to continuing to innovate and work together to drive counterfeits to zero." Amazon's Brand Protection Report highlights progress in four key areas: 1) robust proactive controls to protect its store, 2) powerful tools to protect brands, 3) holding bad actors accountable, and 4) protecting and educating customers: Increasingly Deterring Bad Actors: Our robust seller verification, including connecting one-on-one with prospective sellers through video chat, coupled with continued advancements in our machine learning-based detection, are deterring bad actors from even attempting to create new Amazon selling accounts. In 2022, we stopped over 800,000 attempts to create new selling accounts, preventing bad actors from publishing a single product for sale—down from 2.5 million attempts in 2021, and 6 million attempts in 2020. Expanded Adoption of Brand Protection Tools: We continued improving our automated protection technologies which leverage our partnership with brands enrolled in Brand Registry and the data they provide us, reducing the need for brands to find and report infringements. In 2022, adoption of our brand protection programs continued to grow—and at the same time, the absolute number of valid notices of infringement filed by brands in Brand Registry decreased by over 35%. Holding Counterfeiters Accountable and Stopping Them From Abusing Our Store and Others: Our efforts to identify and dismantle counterfeit organizations are working and making a positive impact. In 2022, Amazon's Counterfeit Crimes Unit sued or referred for investigation over 1,300 criminals in the U.S., UK, EU, and China. We continued to partner with brands and law enforcement to not only stop these bad actors, but we also worked to go upstream from the counterfeit signals we detected to identify, seize, and appropriately dispose of over six million counterfeit products. This prevented them from being resold anywhere in the supply chain. Strengthening Consumer Education: In partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, we built marketing campaigns that helped educated consumers about how to shop safely and ensure they were purchasing authentic products, while also ensuring they understood the harm and dangers of purchasing counterfeits. These campaigns reached over 70 million consumers in the U.S. To view the full Amazon Brand Protection Report, click here.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today released its third annual Brand Protection Report, highlighting how the company's efforts to protect customers, brands, and selling partners from counterfeit products has resulted in more criminal referrals and industry partnerships than ever before. The report also demonstrates how the strategic combination of industry-leading technology and experts are successfully stopping bad actors and making an impact beyond Amazon's store—identifying, seizing, and appropriately disposing of over six million counterfeit products in 2022, preventing them from reaching customers and being resold elsewhere in the global supply chain.</p><p>"We take pride in the progress our organization has made this past year, specifically further evolving our technology to stay ahead of bad actors and doubling down on our criminal referral and litigation efforts," said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's Vice President of Worldwide Selling Partner Services. "We're appreciative of the growing industry-wide collaboration in this space, and look forward to continuing to innovate and work together to drive counterfeits to zero."</p><p>Amazon's Brand Protection Report highlights progress in four key areas: 1) robust proactive controls to protect its store, 2) powerful tools to protect brands, 3) holding bad actors accountable, and 4) protecting and educating customers:</p><p>Increasingly Deterring Bad Actors: Our robust seller verification, including connecting one-on-one with prospective sellers through video chat, coupled with continued advancements in our machine learning-based detection, are deterring bad actors from even attempting to create new Amazon selling accounts. In 2022, we stopped over 800,000 attempts to create new selling accounts, preventing bad actors from publishing a single product for sale—down from 2.5 million attempts in 2021, and 6 million attempts in 2020.</p><p>Expanded Adoption of Brand Protection Tools: We continued improving our automated protection technologies which leverage our partnership with brands enrolled in Brand Registry and the data they provide us, reducing the need for brands to find and report infringements. In 2022, adoption of our brand protection programs continued to grow—and at the same time, the absolute number of valid notices of infringement filed by brands in Brand Registry decreased by over 35%.</p><p>Holding Counterfeiters Accountable and Stopping Them From Abusing Our Store and Others: Our efforts to identify and dismantle counterfeit organizations are working and making a positive impact. In 2022, Amazon's Counterfeit Crimes Unit sued or referred for investigation over 1,300 criminals in the U.S., UK, EU, and China. We continued to partner with brands and law enforcement to not only stop these bad actors, but we also worked to go upstream from the counterfeit signals we detected to identify, seize, and appropriately dispose of over six million counterfeit products. This prevented them from being resold anywhere in the supply chain.</p><p>Strengthening Consumer Education: In partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, we built marketing campaigns that helped educated consumers about how to shop safely and ensure they were purchasing authentic products, while also ensuring they understood the harm and dangers of purchasing counterfeits. These campaigns reached over 70 million consumers in the U.S.</p><p>To view the full Amazon Brand Protection Report, click here.</p>

Experian Selects AWS as Its Preferred Cloud Provider to Drive Product Innovation at Scale

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Experian-Selects-AWS-as-Its-Preferred-Cloud-Provider-to-Drive-Product-Innovation-at-Scale

04/06/2023 07:01:00

Experian Selects AWS as Its Preferred Cloud Provider to Drive Product Innovation at Scale

04/06/2023

2023

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Experian (LON:EXPN), the leading global information services company and credit reporting bureau, has named AWS as its preferred cloud provider to power its multiyear information technology (IT) modernization initiative. As part of the company's cloud-first strategy, Experian will move core business operations, consumer-services products, analytics tools, and on-premises servers to AWS. Centralizing these critical technology platforms on the world's leading cloud will enhance Experian's IT security and reliability, decrease operating costs, and improve time to market for new offerings. Experian will also expand its use of AWS's broad set of cloud services to create customized programs and deliver real-time financial services to consumers and business customers. "Expanding our relationship with AWS is another step in our strategy to make financial services simpler, faster, and safer for consumers and businesses," said Joe Manna, group president of Global Technology at Experian. "Our digital transformation strategy is accelerating our ability to make advanced data-driven decisions as we develop new and enhanced products that help our customers make smarter, more informed financial decisions. AWS provides the technology foundation and ever-expanding set of capabilities that will help us achieve our goals of giving customers complete visibility into their financial health and fostering financial inclusivity." AWS provides Experian with resilient and secure IT infrastructure that will accelerate the introduction of new financial services products for consumers and businesses. Working with AWS, Experian will continue to use the most advanced services and apply machine learning and analytics across its vast amount of data. This will enable Experian to identify trends and insights that will help them rapidly create innovative services to meet and exceed customer expectations. "AWS is powering Experian's services to help consumers and businesses around the world make smarter credit decisions while safeguarding their data with the most stringent security standards," said Scott Mullins, managing director of Worldwide Financial Services Business Development at AWS. "By running its largest divisions on AWS, Experian can expand its service offerings, empowering businesses and financially underserved consumers to build, improve, and take control of their financial future. AWS will also help Experian integrate data across its business, providing new and faster insights and predictions that will allow businesses and consumers to improve their financial health and save money." In addition to its cloud migration and modernization efforts, Experian is a member of the AWS Partner Network (APN) and the AWS ISV Accelerate Program, a co-sell program for organizations that provide software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Experian (LON:EXPN), the leading global information services company and credit reporting bureau, has named AWS as its preferred cloud provider to power its multiyear information technology (IT) modernization initiative.</p><p>As part of the company's cloud-first strategy, Experian will move core business operations, consumer-services products, analytics tools, and on-premises servers to AWS. Centralizing these critical technology platforms on the world's leading cloud will enhance Experian's IT security and reliability, decrease operating costs, and improve time to market for new offerings. Experian will also expand its use of AWS's broad set of cloud services to create customized programs and deliver real-time financial services to consumers and business customers.</p><p>"Expanding our relationship with AWS is another step in our strategy to make financial services simpler, faster, and safer for consumers and businesses," said Joe Manna, group president of Global Technology at Experian. "Our digital transformation strategy is accelerating our ability to make advanced data-driven decisions as we develop new and enhanced products that help our customers make smarter, more informed financial decisions. AWS provides the technology foundation and ever-expanding set of capabilities that will help us achieve our goals of giving customers complete visibility into their financial health and fostering financial inclusivity."</p><p>AWS provides Experian with resilient and secure IT infrastructure that will accelerate the introduction of new financial services products for consumers and businesses. Working with AWS, Experian will continue to use the most advanced services and apply machine learning and analytics across its vast amount of data. This will enable Experian to identify trends and insights that will help them rapidly create innovative services to meet and exceed customer expectations.</p><p>"AWS is powering Experian's services to help consumers and businesses around the world make smarter credit decisions while safeguarding their data with the most stringent security standards," said Scott Mullins, managing director of Worldwide Financial Services Business Development at AWS. "By running its largest divisions on AWS, Experian can expand its service offerings, empowering businesses and financially underserved consumers to build, improve, and take control of their financial future. AWS will also help Experian integrate data across its business, providing new and faster insights and predictions that will allow businesses and consumers to improve their financial health and save money."</p><p>In addition to its cloud migration and modernization efforts, Experian is a member of the AWS Partner Network (APN) and the AWS ISV Accelerate Program, a co-sell program for organizations that provide software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS.</p>

Amazon.com to Webcast First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call

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Amazon.com-to-Webcast-First-Quarter-2023-Financial-Results-Conference-Call

04/13/2023 16:01:00

Amazon.com to Webcast First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call

04/13/2023

2023

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss its first quarter 2023 financial results on Thursday, April 27, 2023, at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET. The event will be webcast live, and the audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir. Amazon.com Public Relations amazon-pr@amazon.com amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss its first quarter 2023 financial results on Thursday, April 27, 2023, at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET.</p><p>The event will be webcast live, and the audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com Public Relationsamazon-pr@amazon.com amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon Announces Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange to Help Eliminate Counterfeits Across the Retail Industry

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Amazon-Announces-Anti-Counterfeiting-Exchange-to-Help-Eliminate-Counterfeits-Across-the-Retail-Industry

04/20/2023 09:01:00

Amazon Announces Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange to Help Eliminate Counterfeits Across the Retail Industry

04/20/2023

2023

Private sector partnership makes shopping safer and protects U.S. consumers, brands, and rights owners from counterfeiters Multiple private sector companies are regularly sharing information on confirmed counterfeiters, helping ensure they can't start selling anywhere else

<div><p><i>Private sector partnership makes shopping safer and protects U.S. consumers, brands, and rights owners from counterfeiters</i></p><p><i>Multiple private sector companies are regularly sharing information on confirmed counterfeiters, helping ensure they can’t start selling anywhere else</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX), an industry collaboration designed to make it safer to shop online and more difficult for counterfeiters to move among different stores to attempt to sell their counterfeit goods. ACX allows participating stores to share information about confirmed counterfeiters who attempted to use their services to try to sell counterfeit products. By sharing information about these counterfeiters, ACX participants can identify and stop perpetrators more quickly than they would in the absence of this collaborative data sharing. In accordance with industry standards and best practices, an independent third party provides anonymized access for participants to share and receive information. ACX has enabled regular information sharing and participants use this information in their ongoing efforts to detect and address counterfeiting, improve their individual risk evaluation systems, and make more robust referrals to law enforcement so bad actors can be held accountable. Through ACX, Amazon has already detected hundreds of matching accounts where the same counterfeiter tried to create selling accounts on Amazon and at least one other store operator. The power of ACX comes from the fact that as soon as one of the participating stores catches a counterfeiter and shares the account information through the exchange, all the other stores participating in ACX can know about that counterfeiter and can stop them even more quickly in their store. Each participant makes its own independent decisions about whether and how to use the information in ACX. "We want our customers to have confidence in their shopping experience and for brands to know they are protected from counterfeits," said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's vice president of Selling Partner Services. "As we laid out in our blueprint for private and public sector partnership to stop counterfeiters, we think it is critical to share information about confirmed counterfeiters to help the entire industry stop these criminals earlier. By leading the way in creating an industry-wide solution to share information about known counterfeiters, we are excited to have helped improve the industry's collective ability to fight counterfeit crime, providing consumers and rights owners with greater peace of mind." "The IPR Center applauds the foundational efforts made by the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange, and we're pleased to have been a part of its creation," said James Mancuso, director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. "This is an opening salvo in a much larger battle against counterfeiters and criminal organizations, and the effort will need even greater participation, from all industries and sectors, to reach its full potential. We look forward to supporting this momentous effort with all of the tools that the IPR Center brings to bear." Daniel Castro, director of the Center for Data Innovation, reiterated the importance of this type of voluntary collaboration. "Active cooperation among private sector firms is key to combating illicit counterfeiting networks. In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security called on private sector stakeholders to take a more active role in detecting and preventing the trafficking of counterfeit goods. It's encouraging to see Amazon and other stores answer this call by creating the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange." Amazon has been working with other members of ACX to pilot the exchange, ensure the appropriate guardrails, and design a scalable way to broaden participation to additional companies interested in stopping counterfeiters. Private sector partnerships around data sharing are crucial to combating counterfeiting. Amazon invites other retailers and marketplace service providers to join the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange and collaborate with the founding members to further strengthen the industry's collective efforts against counterfeiters. Through ACX, counterfeiters and criminal organizations are on notice that the private sector is aligning against them and working to protect consumers and rights owners across the retail industry.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX), an industry collaboration designed to make it safer to shop online and more difficult for counterfeiters to move among different stores to attempt to sell their counterfeit goods.</p><p>ACX allows participating stores to share information about confirmed counterfeiters who attempted to use their services to try to sell counterfeit products. By sharing information about these counterfeiters, ACX participants can identify and stop perpetrators more quickly than they would in the absence of this collaborative data sharing. In accordance with industry standards and best practices, an independent third party provides anonymized access for participants to share and receive information.</p><p>ACX has enabled regular information sharing and participants use this information in their ongoing efforts to detect and address counterfeiting, improve their individual risk evaluation systems, and make more robust referrals to law enforcement so bad actors can be held accountable. Through ACX, Amazon has already detected hundreds of matching accounts where the same counterfeiter tried to create selling accounts on Amazon and at least one other store operator. The power of ACX comes from the fact that as soon as one of the participating stores catches a counterfeiter and shares the account information through the exchange, all the other stores participating in ACX can know about that counterfeiter and can stop them even more quickly in their store. Each participant makes its own independent decisions about whether and how to use the information in ACX.</p><p>"We want our customers to have confidence in their shopping experience and for brands to know they are protected from counterfeits," said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's vice president of Selling Partner Services. "As we laid out in our blueprint for private and public sector partnership to stop counterfeiters, we think it is critical to share information about confirmed counterfeiters to help the entire industry stop these criminals earlier. By leading the way in creating an industry-wide solution to share information about known counterfeiters, we are excited to have helped improve the industry's collective ability to fight counterfeit crime, providing consumers and rights owners with greater peace of mind."</p><p>"The IPR Center applauds the foundational efforts made by the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange, and we're pleased to have been a part of its creation," said James Mancuso, director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. "This is an opening salvo in a much larger battle against counterfeiters and criminal organizations, and the effort will need even greater participation, from all industries and sectors, to reach its full potential. We look forward to supporting this momentous effort with all of the tools that the IPR Center brings to bear."</p><p>Daniel Castro, director of the Center for Data Innovation, reiterated the importance of this type of voluntary collaboration. "Active cooperation among private sector firms is key to combating illicit counterfeiting networks. In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security called on private sector stakeholders to take a more active role in detecting and preventing the trafficking of counterfeit goods. It's encouraging to see Amazon and other stores answer this call by creating the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange."</p><p>Amazon has been working with other members of ACX to pilot the exchange, ensure the appropriate guardrails, and design a scalable way to broaden participation to additional companies interested in stopping counterfeiters. Private sector partnerships around data sharing are crucial to combating counterfeiting. Amazon invites other retailers and marketplace service providers to join the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange and collaborate with the founding members to further strengthen the industry's collective efforts against counterfeiters. Through ACX, counterfeiters and criminal organizations are on notice that the private sector is aligning against them and working to protect consumers and rights owners across the retail industry.</p>

AWS Announces Three New Amazon GuardDuty Capabilities to Help Customers Protect Container, Database, and Serverless Workloads

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Announces-Three-New-Amazon-GuardDuty-Capabilities-to-Help-Customers-Protect-Container-Database-and-Serverless-Workloads/default.aspx

AWS-Announces-Three-New-Amazon-GuardDuty-Capabilities-to-Help-Customers-Protect-Container-Database-and-Serverless-Workloads

04/24/2023 08:00:00

AWS Announces Three New Amazon GuardDuty Capabilities to Help Customers Protect Container, Database, and Serverless Workloads

04/24/2023

2023

Tens of thousands of AWS customers use GuardDuty to protect millions of accounts, including more than half a billion Amazon EC2 instances and millions of Amazon S3 buckets Arctic Wolf, Best Buy, GE Digital, Siemens, and Wiz are among the tens of thousands of customers and partners using Amazon GuardDuty

<div><p><i>Tens of thousands of AWS customers use GuardDuty to protect millions of accounts, including more than half a billion Amazon EC2 instances and millions of Amazon S3 buckets</i></p><p><i>Arctic Wolf, Best Buy, GE Digital, Siemens, and Wiz are among the tens of thousands of customers and partners using Amazon GuardDuty</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced three new capabilities for Amazon GuardDuty, AWS's threat detection service, that further strengthen customer security through expanded coverage and continuous enhancements in machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence. GuardDuty is part of a broad set of AWS security services that help customers identify potential security risks, so they can respond quickly, freeing security teams to focus on tasks with the highest value. The three new capabilities expand GuardDuty protection to container runtime behavior, as well as database and serverless environments. EKS Runtime Monitoring deepens threat detection inside customers' containerized workloads. GuardDuty RDS Protection helps customers protect data stored in Amazon Aurora databases. GuardDuty Lambda Protection helps customers detect threats to their serverless applications. To get started with Amazon GuardDuty, visit aws.amazon.com/guardduty. The ability to gather, synthesize, and alert on security-relevant events is fundamental to any organization's risk management program. The evolving cybersecurity landscape and multitude of security tools from different vendors, combined with a shortage of IT security professionals, make it challenging for customers to integrate and scale security detection and response across their environments. Many security teams today have to build or integrate multiple tools to detect anomalies, such as web server vulnerabilities, compromised instances used to serve malware or mine cryptocurrency, or compromised access credentials. Integration challenges can lead to inefficiencies, data inconsistencies, and increased costs. In addition, the workplace and threat landscape continue to evolve, requiring chief information security officers (CISOs) to continually raise the bar on enterprise security to account for cloud adoption, remote working, and third-party infrastructure integration. Demand for technologies and services such as cloud threat detection, security analytics, cloud security posture management, and threat intelligence has been rising to tackle new vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other IT risks emerging from this digital transformation. GuardDuty helps protect customers from the latest threats through ongoing innovation in machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence continuously derived from the broad visibility AWS has across the global threat landscape. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can activate GuardDuty across multiple accounts in multiple AWS Regions on highly trusted and secure-by-design AWS Cloud infrastructure and mitigate threats early by initiating automated responses. Since its launch in 2017, GuardDuty has added more than 100 new threat detection capabilities, including the ability to detect credential exfiltration and compromise even when highly evasive techniques are used. GuardDuty uses machine learning detections trained to identify highly suspicious data access and any potential Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) compromise, and uses integrated threat intelligence to detect malware and malicious container, database, and serverless access. GuardDuty comes with pre-integrated and continuously updated threat intelligence feeds from AWS and industry-leading, third-party providers such as CrowdStrike, Proofpoint, and Bitdefender. AWS-developed threat intelligence offers customers unique coverage against the latest global threat landscape, including emerging Linux-based malware, evolving credential exfiltration techniques, and new malicious domains identified through machine learning–based reputation models. The three new capabilities added to GuardDuty build on the hundreds of features and enhancements available since its launch and expand security coverage to other AWS workloads and core deployment use cases. The capabilities can all be easily enabled organization-wide with a few steps and no other requirements or prerequisites, resulting in actionable, contextual, and timely security findings with resource-specific details to help quickly investigate and respond. The new capabilities include: New container runtime protection for Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS): GuardDuty EKS Runtime Monitoring introduces a fully managed, lightweight security agent that profiles and monitors on-host operating system–level behavior such as file access, process execution, and network connections. In tight collaboration with Amazon EKS, the agent performs without requiring customers to deploy, maintain, or update it.This allows GuardDuty to add security coverage comparable to other agent-based solutions, while maintaining easy-on enablement. It deepens GuardDuty protection for Amazon EKS deployments and decreases the operational overhead and complexity often required to achieve this level of coverage, especially in highly dynamic, containerized compute environments. GuardDuty now makes it easier to achieve runtime coverage across all Amazon EKS workloads in an account or organization. Account and data compromise can often start with a single compromised endpoint or container that then escalates to credential compromise and can spread to the broader AWS environment and data stored in it. With GuardDuty's visibility across runtime events, Kubernetes audit logs, and broader AWS control plane and networking logs, customers can identify steps in an attack and are signaled early to contain potential security threats before the threat escalates to broader business-impacting breaches. This capability builds on the initial integration of GuardDuty EKS Protection, which monitors control plane activity by analyzing Kubernetes audit logs from existing and new Amazon EKS clusters in customers' accounts. Extended coverage for data stored in Amazon Aurora: GuardDuty RDS Protection identifies potential threats to data stored in Aurora databases without compromising performance, productivity, or availability. GuardDuty RDS Protection profiles and monitors access activity to existing and new databases in customer accounts, and using integrated threat intelligence and a machine learning model that is trained with highly contextual RDS login activity, it can detect suspicious login activity to Aurora databases. Support for serverless applications in AWS Lambda: GuardDuty Lambda Protection mitigates security risks in customers' serverless applications, which can be challenging for traditional threat detection methods to identify due to the added abstraction layers in serverless workloads. Once enabled, GuardDuty Lambda Protection continuously monitors serverless workloads, analyzing network communications mapped back to individual Lambda functions to detect malicious communications and popular compromise activity, such as cryptocurrency mining. "Tens of thousands of organizations across virtually every industry and geography use Amazon GuardDuty, including more than 90% of our 2,000 largest customers, helping to protectmore thanhalf a billion EC2 instances and millions of S3 buckets," said Jon Ramsey, vice president for Security Services at AWS. "GuardDuty's new capabilities build on this powerful foundation to expand security detection and monitoring even further, to where customers tell us they need it most: containers' runtime monitoring, databases, and serverless applications. We've now more than tripled the number of managed detections since we introduced GuardDuty." Arctic Wolf Networks is a global leader in security operations that provides security monitoring to detect and respond to cyberthreats. "Continuous monitoring is a required component for effective security operations, and as both a customer and partner of AWS, GuardDuty is a service we entrust across all of our AWS workloads," said Adam Marrè, CISO at Arctic Wolf. "With real-time threat detection, Amazon EKS audit log monitoring, and now database protection provided via RDS Protection, GuardDuty plays a key role in helping us secure our internal security tooling and processes with the most advanced technologies, allowing us to stay focused on our mission of ending cyber risk for our customers." Best Buy is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer. "Security is always top of mind for us, especially as we expanded our use of Amazon Aurora for our migrated and cloud native applications," said Vaibhav Sonawane, enterprise risk and compliance cloud security engineer at Best Buy. "With GuardDuty RDS Protection, our security posture around legitimate and nonlegitimate login attempts remains strong thanks to its machine learning and intelligent threat detection capabilities. We are excited to see Amazon GuardDuty expand into new categories in AWS environments like databases because of its seamless integration, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use." GE Digital, a business unit of General Electric (GE), is an industrial software leader bringing simplicity, speed, and scale to their customers' digital transformations. "As a longtime customer of GuardDuty, we're very pleased to see the continued additions of critical detections and increased coverage across AWS's compute native services," said Chuck Rees, senior director of cyber engineering and architecture at GE Digital. "We rely on GuardDuty and its machine learning detections to monitor access to our S3 buckets, allowing us to safeguard our sensitive data. Using GuardDuty is an easy choice for us, and the service is an integral part of securing our workloads on AWS." Siemens, a technology and industrial manufacturing company based in Munich, produces equipment and components for energy, healthcare, and other industries around the world. "We initially selected Amazon GuardDuty to monitor our AWS accounts for malicious activity," said Scott Schwartz, senior infrastructure engineer at Siemens. "One of the primary drivers of our decision to use AWS was to strengthen our security posture and automate important tasks. We also wanted to have centralized access to all of our information by aggregating it from accounts across the organization. The ease with which we could adopt AWS services and integrate them into our existing tools made GuardDuty a clear choice for us." Wiz is a cybersecurity startup with a mission to help organizations create secure cloud environments that accelerate their business. "Wiz uses Amazon GuardDuty, fully integrated with the Wiz platform's Cloud Events & Detection, to continuously monitor our AWS environment," said Ryan Kazanciyan, CISO at Wiz. "We are excited to see GuardDuty broaden as a comprehensive threat detection solution with the addition of detections for databases and container environments."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced three new capabilities for Amazon GuardDuty, AWS's threat detection service, that further strengthen customer security through expanded coverage and continuous enhancements in machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence. GuardDuty is part of a broad set of AWS security services that help customers identify potential security risks, so they can respond quickly, freeing security teams to focus on tasks with the highest value. The three new capabilities expand GuardDuty protection to container runtime behavior, as well as database and serverless environments. EKS Runtime Monitoring deepens threat detection inside customers' containerized workloads. GuardDuty RDS Protection helps customers protect data stored in Amazon Aurora databases. GuardDuty Lambda Protection helps customers detect threats to their serverless applications. To get started with Amazon GuardDuty, visit aws.amazon.com/guardduty.</p><p>The ability to gather, synthesize, and alert on security-relevant events is fundamental to any organization's risk management program. The evolving cybersecurity landscape and multitude of security tools from different vendors, combined with a shortage of IT security professionals, make it challenging for customers to integrate and scale security detection and response across their environments. Many security teams today have to build or integrate multiple tools to detect anomalies, such as web server vulnerabilities, compromised instances used to serve malware or mine cryptocurrency, or compromised access credentials. Integration challenges can lead to inefficiencies, data inconsistencies, and increased costs. In addition, the workplace and threat landscape continue to evolve, requiring chief information security officers (CISOs) to continually raise the bar on enterprise security to account for cloud adoption, remote working, and third-party infrastructure integration. Demand for technologies and services such as cloud threat detection, security analytics, cloud security posture management, and threat intelligence has been rising to tackle new vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other IT risks emerging from this digital transformation.</p><p>GuardDuty helps protect customers from the latest threats through ongoing innovation in machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence continuously derived from the broad visibility AWS has across the global threat landscape. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can activate GuardDuty across multiple accounts in multiple AWS Regions on highly trusted and secure-by-design AWS Cloud infrastructure and mitigate threats early by initiating automated responses. Since its launch in 2017, GuardDuty has added more than 100 new threat detection capabilities, including the ability to detect credential exfiltration and compromise even when highly evasive techniques are used. GuardDuty uses machine learning detections trained to identify highly suspicious data access and any potential Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) compromise, and uses integrated threat intelligence to detect malware and malicious container, database, and serverless access. GuardDuty comes with pre-integrated and continuously updated threat intelligence feeds from AWS and industry-leading, third-party providers such as CrowdStrike, Proofpoint, and Bitdefender. AWS-developed threat intelligence offers customers unique coverage against the latest global threat landscape, including emerging Linux-based malware, evolving credential exfiltration techniques, and new malicious domains identified through machine learning–based reputation models.</p><p>The three new capabilities added to GuardDuty build on the hundreds of features and enhancements available since its launch and expand security coverage to other AWS workloads and core deployment use cases. The capabilities can all be easily enabled organization-wide with a few steps and no other requirements or prerequisites, resulting in actionable, contextual, and timely security findings with resource-specific details to help quickly investigate and respond. The new capabilities include:</p><ul><li>New container runtime protection for Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS): GuardDuty EKS Runtime Monitoring introduces a fully managed, lightweight security agent that profiles and monitors on-host operating system–level behavior such as file access, process execution, and network connections. In tight collaboration with Amazon EKS, the agent performs without requiring customers to deploy, maintain, or update it.This allows GuardDuty to add security coverage comparable to other agent-based solutions, while maintaining easy-on enablement. It deepens GuardDuty protection for Amazon EKS deployments and decreases the operational overhead and complexity often required to achieve this level of coverage, especially in highly dynamic, containerized compute environments. GuardDuty now makes it easier to achieve runtime coverage across all Amazon EKS workloads in an account or organization. Account and data compromise can often start with a single compromised endpoint or container that then escalates to credential compromise and can spread to the broader AWS environment and data stored in it. With GuardDuty's visibility across runtime events, Kubernetes audit logs, and broader AWS control plane and networking logs, customers can identify steps in an attack and are signaled early to contain potential security threats before the threat escalates to broader business-impacting breaches. This capability builds on the initial integration of GuardDuty EKS Protection, which monitors control plane activity by analyzing Kubernetes audit logs from existing and new Amazon EKS clusters in customers' accounts.</li><li>Extended coverage for data stored in Amazon Aurora: GuardDuty RDS Protection identifies potential threats to data stored in Aurora databases without compromising performance, productivity, or availability. GuardDuty RDS Protection profiles and monitors access activity to existing and new databases in customer accounts, and using integrated threat intelligence and a machine learning model that is trained with highly contextual RDS login activity, it can detect suspicious login activity to Aurora databases.</li><li>Support for serverless applications in AWS Lambda: GuardDuty Lambda Protection mitigates security risks in customers' serverless applications, which can be challenging for traditional threat detection methods to identify due to the added abstraction layers in serverless workloads. Once enabled, GuardDuty Lambda Protection continuously monitors serverless workloads, analyzing network communications mapped back to individual Lambda functions to detect malicious communications and popular compromise activity, such as cryptocurrency mining.</li></ul><p>"Tens of thousands of organizations across virtually every industry and geography use Amazon GuardDuty, including more than 90% of our 2,000 largest customers, helping to protectmore thanhalf a billion EC2 instances and millions of S3 buckets," said Jon Ramsey, vice president for Security Services at AWS. "GuardDuty's new capabilities build on this powerful foundation to expand security detection and monitoring even further, to where customers tell us they need it most: containers' runtime monitoring, databases, and serverless applications. We've now more than tripled the number of managed detections since we introduced GuardDuty."</p><p>Arctic Wolf Networks is a global leader in security operations that provides security monitoring to detect and respond to cyberthreats. "Continuous monitoring is a required component for effective security operations, and as both a customer and partner of AWS, GuardDuty is a service we entrust across all of our AWS workloads," said Adam Marrè, CISO at Arctic Wolf. "With real-time threat detection, Amazon EKS audit log monitoring, and now database protection provided via RDS Protection, GuardDuty plays a key role in helping us secure our internal security tooling and processes with the most advanced technologies, allowing us to stay focused on our mission of ending cyber risk for our customers."</p><p>Best Buy is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer. "Security is always top of mind for us, especially as we expanded our use of Amazon Aurora for our migrated and cloud native applications," said Vaibhav Sonawane, enterprise risk and compliance cloud security engineer at Best Buy. "With GuardDuty RDS Protection, our security posture around legitimate and nonlegitimate login attempts remains strong thanks to its machine learning and intelligent threat detection capabilities. We are excited to see Amazon GuardDuty expand into new categories in AWS environments like databases because of its seamless integration, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use."</p><p>GE Digital, a business unit of General Electric (GE), is an industrial software leader bringing simplicity, speed, and scale to their customers' digital transformations. "As a longtime customer of GuardDuty, we're very pleased to see the continued additions of critical detections and increased coverage across AWS's compute native services," said Chuck Rees, senior director of cyber engineering and architecture at GE Digital. "We rely on GuardDuty and its machine learning detections to monitor access to our S3 buckets, allowing us to safeguard our sensitive data. Using GuardDuty is an easy choice for us, and the service is an integral part of securing our workloads on AWS."</p><p>Siemens, a technology and industrial manufacturing company based in Munich, produces equipment and components for energy, healthcare, and other industries around the world. "We initially selected Amazon GuardDuty to monitor our AWS accounts for malicious activity," said Scott Schwartz, senior infrastructure engineer at Siemens. "One of the primary drivers of our decision to use AWS was to strengthen our security posture and automate important tasks. We also wanted to have centralized access to all of our information by aggregating it from accounts across the organization. The ease with which we could adopt AWS services and integrate them into our existing tools made GuardDuty a clear choice for us."</p><p>Wiz is a cybersecurity startup with a mission to help organizations create secure cloud environments that accelerate their business. "Wiz uses Amazon GuardDuty, fully integrated with the Wiz platform's Cloud Events &amp; Detection, to continuously monitor our AWS environment," said Ryan Kazanciyan, CISO at Wiz. "We are excited to see GuardDuty broaden as a comprehensive threat detection solution with the addition of detections for databases and container environments."</p>

Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Results

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Amazon.com-Announces-First-Quarter-Results

04/27/2023 16:01:00

Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Results

04/27/2023

2023

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2023. Net sales increased 9% to $127.4 billion in the first quarter, compared with $116.4 billion in first quarter 2022. Excluding the $2.4 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 11% compared with first quarter 2022. North America segment sales increased 11% year-over-year to $76.9 billion. International segment sales increased 1% year-over-year to $29.1 billion, or increased 9% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates. AWS segment sales increased 16% year-over-year to $21.4 billion. Operating income increased to $4.8 billion in the first quarter, compared with $3.7 billion in first quarter 2022. First quarter 2023 operating income includes approximately $0.5 billion of charges related to estimated severance costs. North America segment operating income was $0.9 billion, compared with operating loss of $1.6 billion in first quarter 2022. International segment operating loss was $1.2 billion, compared with operating loss of $1.3 billion in first quarter 2022. AWS segment operating income was $5.1 billion, compared with operating income of $6.5 billion in first quarter 2022. Net income was $3.2 billion in the first quarter, or $0.31 per diluted share, compared with net loss of $3.8 billion, or $0.38 per diluted share, in first quarter 2022. All share and per share information for comparable prior year periods throughout this release have been retroactively adjusted to reflect the 20-for-1 stock split effected on May 27, 2022. First quarter 2023 net income includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $0.5 billion included in non-operating expense from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation loss of $7.6 billion from the investment in first quarter 2022. Operating cash flow increased 38% to $54.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $39.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022. Free cash flow improved to an outflow of $3.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $18.6 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022. Free cash flow less principal repayments of finance leases and financing obligations improved to an outflow of $10.1 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $29.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022. Free cash flow less equipment finance leases and principal repayments of all other finance leases and financing obligations improved to an outflow of $4.5 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $22.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022. "There's a lot to like about how our teams are delivering for customers, particularly amidst an uncertain economy," said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO. "Our Stores business is continuing to improve the cost to serve in our fulfillment network while increasing the speed with which we get products into the hands of customers (we expect to have our fastest Prime delivery speeds ever in 2023). Our Advertising business continues to deliver robust growth, largely due to our ongoing machine learning investments that help customers see relevant information when they engage with us, which in turn delivers unusually strong results for brands. And, while our AWS business navigates companies spending more cautiously in this macro environment, we continue to prioritize building long-term customer relationships both by helping customers save money and enabling them to more easily leverage technologies like Large Language Models and Generative AI with our uniquely cost-effective machine learning chips ("Trainium" and "Inferentia"), managed Large Language Models ("Bedrock"), and AI code companion CodeWhisperer. We like the fundamentals we're seeing in AWS, and believe there's much growth ahead." Highlights Obsessing over the customer experience Amazon obsesses over how to make customers' lives better and easier every day. This is true for consumers, sellers, brands, developers, enterprises, and creators. For example, in the past quarter, Amazon: Continued to delight customers with convenient delivery options and broad selection. Nearly 26 million customers ordered items with Same-Day Delivery in the quarter, an increase of 50% compared to last year. Increased selection in its U.S. online store with the addition of new marquee beauty, home, and fashion brands, including Lancôme, Shiseido, World of Martha by Martha Stewart, Rent the Runway, KNOW Beauty by Vanessa Hudgens, as well as new The Drop collections from Harlem Fashion Row and Coco & Breezy. The Drop offers customers access to limited-edition, made-on-demand clothing collections by fashion influencers. Launched a new Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) capacity management system to help sellers who use Amazon's storage, packing, and shipping fulfillment service to manage their inventory and capacity more efficiently as they scale their businesses. The management system provides sellers with more insight, predictability, visibility, and control to better plan and manage their inventory and supply chains, as well as increase capacity limits when needed. Released the third annual Brand Protection Report highlighting the company's efforts to protect customers, brands, and selling partners from counterfeit products in 2022. The efforts resulted in more seized products, criminal referrals, and industry partnerships than ever before. The report demonstrates how Amazon is stopping bad actors and making an impact beyond Amazon's store, including by identifying, seizing, and appropriately disposing of more than 6 million counterfeit products, preventing them from reaching customers and being resold elsewhere in the global supply chain. Launched Reviews from Amazon, a new capability that enables Buy with Prime merchants to display customer ratings and reviews from Amazon.com within their own online stores at no additional cost. Nearly 20% of Buy with Prime merchants are already using this feature, and the early feedback is that it's helping merchants drive higher shopper conversion. Acquired One Medical, a primary care organization offering both 24/7 virtual care services and in-office visits across the U.S. for preventive and everyday health, chronic care management, pediatric care, and mental health services. For a limited time, One Medical is offering annual memberships to new customers at the discounted price of $144 for the first year (regularly $199/year), the equivalent of $12 per month. Announced that Prime Video will exclusively present the first-ever "Black Friday" National Football League game on November 24. The game will be available for all fans to stream for free in the U.S. without a Prime membership. Set box-office records with MGM's premiere of Creed III, directed by and starring Michael B. Jordan. The movie grossed $100.4 million globally in its opening weekend—the best U.S. debut for any sports film in history. It also had the biggest global box office gross of any of the Creed titles, at over $250 million to date, and is still opening in territories around the world. In addition, filmmaker Sarah Polley won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for MGM's Women Talking. Premiered Amazon Original limited series Daisy Jones & The Six, based on the New York Times best-selling novel, which debuted at No. 1 on Prime Video globally. Within 24 hours of release, the show's soundtrack was the No. 1 selling vinyl on Amazon, and the novel the series is based on also reached No. 1 on the Amazon Best Sellers List for all books. The company debuted additional Amazon Original films and series, including action comedy Shotgun Wedding, starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel; romantic comedy Somebody I Used to Know,directed by Dave Franco; comedic thriller The Consultant, starring Christoph Waltz; and Swarm, from co-creator and executive producer Donald Glover. Won four Ambies, the premier podcasting award, for Amazon Music and Wondery podcasts I Hear Fear (Best Scriptwriting, Fiction), Business Wars (Best Business Podcast), The Lead (Best Sports Podcast), and Scamfluencers (Best Entertainment Podcast). Announced new commitments and migrations from AWS customers. Southwest Airlines selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider for a large-scale modernization as part of the airline's long-term plan to optimize airline operations, streamline infrastructure costs, and provide a more seamless and enjoyable travel experience to customers. Zurich Insurance Group is moving its enterprise information technology infrastructure, including 1,000 applications over the next three years, to AWS to deliver new digital customer experiences and drive automation at scale. BBVA is employing AWS's extensive portfolio of cloud services to launch new financial solutions that will help BBVA Corporate and Investment Banking expand its business to accelerate innovation, reduce costs, scale quickly, and increase flexibility. Broadridge's LTX electronic trading platform completed a successful migration of its corporate bond e-trading platform to AWS. S&P Global and AWS announced a multiyear strategic collaboration to extend the delivery of advanced, secure, cloud-based services to more than 100,000 of S&P Global's government and enterprise customers in 43 countries around the world. Snowflake and AWS announced a new commitment to build joint industry-specific solutions, increase sales collaboration, and deepen product integration, including further streamlining running Snowflake on Graviton processors. Approximately 84% of Snowflake's customers run their deployments on AWS to rapidly innovate. Stripe announced a new global agreement to run virtually all their infrastructure on AWS while reliably serving millions of internet companies. Westpac, one of Australia's leading banks, expanded its collaboration with AWS through a new five-year agreement that will tap into advanced AWS capabilities, like machine learning, compute, and data analytics, to further accelerate the bank's digital transformation, drive cost efficiencies, and personalize its banking applications. T-Mobile is integrating its 5G Advanced Network Solutions portfolio with AWS to help customers more easily discover, customize, and deploy 5G edge computing. Marvell selected AWS to rapidly scale its electronic design automation in the cloud to address increasingly complex chip design processes and deliver continuous innovation for expanding needs across the automotive, carrier, data center, and enterprise infrastructure markets. TELUS, one of Canada's leading telecommunications providers, is collaborating with AWS to develop a new smart-living solution that will reduce the need for multiple smart-home apps, simplify installation, and enable new multidevice automation. Iberdrola, one of the world's largest clean energy companies, selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to support the energy company as it embarks on further digitalization to enable smarter grids, customer engagement, and connected clean power. Announced plans to open a new AWS Region in Malaysia and launched a second AWS Region in Australia to continue expanding AWS's infrastructure footprint, delivering the most secure, extensive, and reliable cloud technology to millions of customers around the world. Inventing on behalf of customers Amazon is driven by a passion for invention across all of its business areas. The company builds new products and services that customers ask for, and also invents new ones that customers didn't know they wanted but make their lives or businesses better in some meaningful way. For example, this past quarter, Amazon: Announced new AWS tools that make building with generative artificial intelligence (AI) easy, practical, and cost-effective for organizations of all sizes. The tools include: Amazon Bedrock, a new managed service that offers customers the easiest way to build and scale enterprise-ready generative AI applications. Amazon Bedrock provides easy access to leading foundation models (ultra-large machine learning models that generative AI relies on) from AI startups like AI21 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI, as well as exclusive access to the Titan family of foundation models developed by AWS. Broad access to models gives customers flexibility and choice to customize and scale to their specific needs. Two next-generation compute offerings to deliver the lowest cost for training models and running inference in the cloud: the general availability of instances powered by AWS-designed Inferentia2 chips, AWS's second-generation accelerator, purpose-built for deep learning inference, as well as the general availability of network-optimized Trn1n instances for large, network-intensive models. Compared to other EC2 instances, Inferentia2 provides up to 40% better inference price performance, and Trainium delivers up to 50% savings on training costs. General availability of Amazon CodeWhisperer, an AI coding companion that improves developer productivity by generating code suggestions in real time. Amazon CodeWhisperer is free for individual developers. CodeWhisperer is the most accurate, fastest, and most secure way to generate code for AWS services, including Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and Amazon S3. During a productivity challenge, participants who used CodeWhisperer completed tasks 57% faster (on average) and were 27% more likely to complete them successfully than those who didn't use CodeWhisperer. Received Zoox's driverless testing permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, marking a key step to commercializing the self-driving robotaxi for the general public. With this permit, Zoox completed an initial run of its shuttle service for employees at its headquarters in Foster City, California, making it the first purpose-built robotaxi to operate on public roads in California. Expanded the Ring lineup with new devices. Ring Battery Doorbell Plus offers improved HD video and energy-saving features, and Ring Peephole Cam is an apartment and renter-friendly video doorbell that easily installs over an existing door peephole. Expanded the Amazon-built TV lineup with the Fire TV 2-Series, which makes getting an Alexa-enabled TV more affordable than ever, and new sizes of the Omni QLED Series. The Omni QLED Series includes features so customers can see their schedule on the screen, control smart devices, and turn the TV into an in-home art gallery. Amazon has surpassed 200 million Fire TV devices sold globally. Amazon also launched Amazon-built TVs in Germany, Mexico, and the UK, and collaborated with Cochlear to help people with hearing loss stream sound from their Amazon smart TVs directly to their Cochlear hearing implants. Unveiled three customer terminal designs for Project Kuiper, Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite broadband initiative. Kuiper's mission is to bridge the digital divide by providing fast, affordable broadband to communities worldwide that are unserved or underserved by traditional technologies. To use Kuiper's broadband, residential and commercial customers will install an outdoor antenna, called a customer terminal, to communicate with satellites overhead. Amazon is preparing to launch two prototype satellites to test the entire end-to-end communications network this year and plans to be in beta with commercial customers in 2024. Opened Amazon Sidewalk to developer testing for the first time as part of the company's vision to put a billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices on the network. Amazon Sidewalk is a low-bandwidth, long-range community network that connects devices across long distances where Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals often cannot reach. With Sidewalk coverage extending to 90% of the U.S. population, developers can now build and connect a new range of devices for the network. Launched a loyalty linking capability for Amazon One, Amazon's palm recognition service that lets customers enter, identify, and pay. Panera is the first restaurant chain to offer the new loyalty linking capability, allowing customers to easily enroll in and redeem rewards, and pay for their purchases with just their palm. Empowering employees and delivery service partners In addition to its focus on customers, Amazon strives to make every day better for its employees and delivery service partners. For example, in the first quarter, the company: Announced plans to spend $200 million on safety technologies across Amazon's U.S. transportation network in 2023. These innovations include front-collision warning, lane-departure warning, speed limiters, and 360-degree camera detection systems. They are part of Amazon's work to ensure that vehicles and delivery partners are safe on the road, and the innovations are better for the environment. Announced that Amazon improved recordable incident rates worldwide by 11% from 2021 to 2022 and by almost 24% from 2019 to 2022. The company shared the data in the second edition of its safety report, Delivered With Care, which details how Amazon is advancing safety across its operations through investments in capital improvements, safety technology, vehicle safety controls, and engineered ergonomic solutions to reduce risks for employees, partners, and communities. Reached 1 billion packages handled by Robin, a robotic system used across Amazon's operations network in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Robin robotic systems use artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning to help employees handle and sort customer packages before shipment. For employees, this reduces the number of repetitive tasks, improving safety and helping them focus their time and energy on activities that make better use of their talents. Ranked No. 2 on Fortune magazine's World's Most Admired Companies list for the seventh year in a row. The annual ranking is determined by a survey of top executives and analysts, and companies are evaluated on factors including the quality of their management and products, commitments to social responsibility, and ability to attract talent. Introduced Leadership Liftoff, an onboarding program for operations area managers. New managers enrolled in the program participate in group sessions, on-the-job training, and self-paced learning to help them gain skills and confidence to lead successful teams and foster connections between new leaders. Supporting communities and protecting the environment Amazon believes that success and scale bring broad responsibility to help the planet, future generations, and local communities in which the company has a significant presence. Amazon employees have passion for investing in these areas, and a sampling of the efforts from this past quarter are that Amazon: Activated the company's global logistics network to support communities impacted by earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria. The company turned its fulfillment center in Istanbul into a Disaster Relief Hub and partnered with local organizations to ship hundreds of thousands of relief items to affected regions. Amazon also made cash donations to non-governmental organizations and set up donation campaigns across 16 Amazon online stores globally to make it easy for customers to support communities impacted by these earthquakes. Set a record in 2022 for the most renewable energy purchased by a single company in one year. Amazon's renewable energy portfolio now includes 164 wind and solar farms and 237 rooftop solar projects in 22 countries, totaling over 20 gigawatts—an amount of energy that could power 5.3 million U.S. homes. Amazon has been the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy for three years running. Expanded the use of electric delivery vehicles from Rivian, as part of the company's commitment to dramatically reduce its carbon emissions. These custom vans from Rivian have now been used to deliver more than 75 million packages in 500 U.S. cities and regions. Amazon began rolling out its electric delivery vans in the summer of 2022 and now has thousands on the road. Announced over $22 million in low-rate loans and grants to help build affordable homes in Washington, D.C., and Capitol Heights, Maryland. Since creating the Housing Equity Fund in 2021, Amazon has committed nearly $1.6 billion to help create or preserve affordable homes across Amazon's hometown communities. Announced funding for 8,000 U.S. schools to provide access to computer science education to more than 2 million students by the end of the 2022-2023 academic year through Amazon Future Engineer. By providing professional development for teachers, curriculum development, college scholarships, and internships, Amazon aims to inspire millions of students from underserved and historically underrepresented communities to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Launched the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) in partnership with the Aspen Institute, Patagonia, and Tchibo. ZEMBA will work to reduce the climate impact of maritime shipping by helping to create sustainable economic models in renewable energy, zero-emission fuel production, infrastructure, and clean maritime services. Announced that the Right Now Climate Fund is developing the world's first commercial-scale seaweed farm located between offshore wind turbines in the North Sea to help address climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide as it grows. The Fund is also helping to create and restore ecosystems for plants and animals as part of its commitment to boost biodiversity and currently supports 22 rewilding initiatives in London. Financial Guidance The following forward-looking statements reflect Amazon.com's expectations as of April 27, 2023, and are subject to substantial uncertainty. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic and geopolitical conditions and customer demand and spending (including the impact of recessionary fears), inflation, interest rates, regional labor market constraints, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet, online commerce, and cloud services, and the various factors detailed below. Second Quarter 2023 Guidance Net sales are expected to be between $127.0 billion and $133.0 billion, or to grow between 5% and 10% compared with second quarter 2022. This guidance anticipates an unfavorable impact of approximately 30 basis points from foreign exchange rates. Operating income is expected to be between $2.0 billion and $5.5 billion, compared with $3.3 billion in second quarter 2022. This guidance assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions, restructurings, or legal settlements are concluded. A conference call will be webcast live today at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET, and will be available for at least three months at amazon.com/ir. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the Company's financial and operating results. These forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products and services sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income or other taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of claims, litigation, government investigations, and other proceedings, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, variability in demand, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, proposed and completed acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, global economic and geopolitical conditions and additional or unforeseen circumstances, developments, or events may give rise to or amplify many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. Our investor relations website is amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding information about us. We promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the SEC, corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics), and select press releases, which may contain material information about us, and you may subscribe to be notified of new information posted to this site.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2023.</p><ul><li>Net sales increased 9% to $127.4 billion in the first quarter, compared with $116.4 billion in first quarter 2022. Excluding the $2.4 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 11% compared with first quarter 2022.<ul><li>North America segment sales increased 11% year-over-year to $76.9 billion.</li><li>International segment sales increased 1% year-over-year to $29.1 billion, or increased 9% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates.</li><li>AWS segment sales increased 16% year-over-year to $21.4 billion.</li></ul></li><li>Operating income increased to $4.8 billion in the first quarter, compared with $3.7 billion in first quarter 2022. First quarter 2023 operating income includes approximately $0.5 billion of charges related to estimated severance costs.<ul><li>North America segment operating income was $0.9 billion, compared with operating loss of $1.6 billion in first quarter 2022.</li><li>International segment operating loss was $1.2 billion, compared with operating loss of $1.3 billion in first quarter 2022.</li><li>AWS segment operating income was $5.1 billion, compared with operating income of $6.5 billion in first quarter 2022.</li></ul></li><li>Net income was $3.2 billion in the first quarter, or $0.31 per diluted share, compared with net loss of $3.8 billion, or $0.38 per diluted share, in first quarter 2022. All share and per share information for comparable prior year periods throughout this release have been retroactively adjusted to reflect the 20-for-1 stock split effected on May 27, 2022.<ul><li>First quarter 2023 net income includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $0.5 billion included in non-operating expense from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation loss of $7.6 billion from the investment in first quarter 2022.</li></ul></li><li>Operating cash flow increased 38% to $54.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $39.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022.</li><li>Free cash flow improved to an outflow of $3.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $18.6 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022.</li><li>Free cash flow less principal repayments of finance leases and financing obligations improved to an outflow of $10.1 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $29.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022.</li><li>Free cash flow less equipment finance leases and principal repayments of all other finance leases and financing obligations improved to an outflow of $4.5 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an outflow of $22.3 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2022.</li></ul><p>"There's a lot to like about how our teams are delivering for customers, particularly amidst an uncertain economy," said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO. "Our Stores business is continuing to improve the cost to serve in our fulfillment network while increasing the speed with which we get products into the hands of customers (we expect to have our fastest Prime delivery speeds ever in 2023). Our Advertising business continues to deliver robust growth, largely due to our ongoing machine learning investments that help customers see relevant information when they engage with us, which in turn delivers unusually strong results for brands. And, while our AWS business navigates companies spending more cautiously in this macro environment, we continue to prioritize building long-term customer relationships both by helping customers save money and enabling them to more easily leverage technologies like Large Language Models and Generative AI with our uniquely cost-effective machine learning chips ("Trainium" and "Inferentia"), managed Large Language Models ("Bedrock"), and AI code companion CodeWhisperer. We like the fundamentals we're seeing in AWS, and believe there's much growth ahead."</p><p>Highlights</p><p><i>Obsessing over the customer experience</i></p><p>Amazon obsesses over how to make customers' lives better and easier every day. This is true for consumers, sellers, brands, developers, enterprises, and creators. For example, in the past quarter, Amazon:</p><ul><li>Continued to delight customers with convenient delivery options and broad selection. Nearly 26 million customers ordered items with Same-Day Delivery in the quarter, an increase of 50% compared to last year.</li><li>Increased selection in its U.S. online store with the addition of new marquee beauty, home, and fashion brands, including Lancôme, Shiseido, World of Martha by Martha Stewart, Rent the Runway, KNOW Beauty by Vanessa Hudgens, as well as new The Drop collections from Harlem Fashion Row and Coco &amp; Breezy. The Drop offers customers access to limited-edition, made-on-demand clothing collections by fashion influencers.</li><li>Launched a new Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) capacity management system to help sellers who use Amazon's storage, packing, and shipping fulfillment service to manage their inventory and capacity more efficiently as they scale their businesses. The management system provides sellers with more insight, predictability, visibility, and control to better plan and manage their inventory and supply chains, as well as increase capacity limits when needed.</li><li>Released the third annual Brand Protection Report highlighting the company's efforts to protect customers, brands, and selling partners from counterfeit products in 2022. The efforts resulted in more seized products, criminal referrals, and industry partnerships than ever before. The report demonstrates how Amazon is stopping bad actors and making an impact beyond Amazon's store, including by identifying, seizing, and appropriately disposing of more than 6 million counterfeit products, preventing them from reaching customers and being resold elsewhere in the global supply chain.</li><li>Launched Reviews from Amazon, a new capability that enables Buy with Prime merchants to display customer ratings and reviews from Amazon.com within their own online stores at no additional cost. Nearly 20% of Buy with Prime merchants are already using this feature, and the early feedback is that it's helping merchants drive higher shopper conversion.</li><li>Acquired One Medical, a primary care organization offering both 24/7 virtual care services and in-office visits across the U.S. for preventive and everyday health, chronic care management, pediatric care, and mental health services. For a limited time, One Medical is offering annual memberships to new customers at the discounted price of $144 for the first year (regularly $199/year), the equivalent of $12 per month.</li><li>Announced that Prime Video will exclusively present the first-ever "Black Friday" National Football League game on November 24. The game will be available for all fans to stream for free in the U.S. without a Prime membership.</li><li>Set box-office records with MGM's premiere of <i>Creed III</i>, directed by and starring Michael B. Jordan. The movie grossed $100.4 million globally in its opening weekend—the best U.S. debut for any sports film in history. It also had the biggest global box office gross of any of the <i>Creed</i> titles, at over $250 million to date, and is still opening in territories around the world. In addition, filmmaker Sarah Polley won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for MGM's <i>Women Talking</i>.</li><li>Premiered Amazon Original limited series <i>Daisy Jones &amp; The Six</i>, based on the <i>New York Times</i> best-selling novel, which debuted at No. 1 on Prime Video globally. Within 24 hours of release, the show's soundtrack was the No. 1 selling vinyl on Amazon, and the novel the series is based on also reached No. 1 on the Amazon Best Sellers List for all books. The company debuted additional Amazon Original films and series, including action comedy <i>Shotgun Wedding</i>, starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel; romantic comedy <i>Somebody I Used to Know</i>,directed by Dave Franco; comedic thriller <i>The Consultant</i>, starring Christoph Waltz; and <i>Swarm</i>, from co-creator and executive producer Donald Glover.</li><li>Won four Ambies, the premier podcasting award, for Amazon Music and Wondery podcasts <i>I Hear Fear</i> (Best Scriptwriting, Fiction), <i>Business Wars</i> (Best Business Podcast), <i>The Lead</i> (Best Sports Podcast), and <i>Scamfluencers</i> (Best Entertainment Podcast).</li><li>Announced new commitments and migrations from AWS customers.<ul><li>Southwest Airlines selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider for a large-scale modernization as part of the airline's long-term plan to optimize airline operations, streamline infrastructure costs, and provide a more seamless and enjoyable travel experience to customers.</li><li>Zurich Insurance Group is moving its enterprise information technology infrastructure, including 1,000 applications over the next three years, to AWS to deliver new digital customer experiences and drive automation at scale.</li><li>BBVA is employing AWS's extensive portfolio of cloud services to launch new financial solutions that will help BBVA Corporate and Investment Banking expand its business to accelerate innovation, reduce costs, scale quickly, and increase flexibility.</li><li>Broadridge's LTX electronic trading platform completed a successful migration of its corporate bond e-trading platform to AWS.</li><li>S&amp;P Global and AWS announced a multiyear strategic collaboration to extend the delivery of advanced, secure, cloud-based services to more than 100,000 of S&amp;P Global's government and enterprise customers in 43 countries around the world.</li><li>Snowflake and AWS announced a new commitment to build joint industry-specific solutions, increase sales collaboration, and deepen product integration, including further streamlining running Snowflake on Graviton processors. Approximately 84% of Snowflake's customers run their deployments on AWS to rapidly innovate.</li><li>Stripe announced a new global agreement to run virtually all their infrastructure on AWS while reliably serving millions of internet companies.</li><li>Westpac, one of Australia's leading banks, expanded its collaboration with AWS through a new five-year agreement that will tap into advanced AWS capabilities, like machine learning, compute, and data analytics, to further accelerate the bank's digital transformation, drive cost efficiencies, and personalize its banking applications.</li><li>T-Mobile is integrating its 5G Advanced Network Solutions portfolio with AWS to help customers more easily discover, customize, and deploy 5G edge computing.</li><li>Marvell selected AWS to rapidly scale its electronic design automation in the cloud to address increasingly complex chip design processes and deliver continuous innovation for expanding needs across the automotive, carrier, data center, and enterprise infrastructure markets.</li><li>TELUS, one of Canada's leading telecommunications providers, is collaborating with AWS to develop a new smart-living solution that will reduce the need for multiple smart-home apps, simplify installation, and enable new multidevice automation.</li><li>Iberdrola, one of the world's largest clean energy companies, selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to support the energy company as it embarks on further digitalization to enable smarter grids, customer engagement, and connected clean power.</li></ul></li><li>Announced plans to open a new AWS Region in Malaysia and launched a second AWS Region in Australia to continue expanding AWS's infrastructure footprint, delivering the most secure, extensive, and reliable cloud technology to millions of customers around the world.</li></ul><p><i>Inventing on behalf of customers</i></p><p>Amazon is driven by a passion for invention across all of its business areas. The company builds new products and services that customers ask for, and also invents new ones that customers didn't know they wanted but make their lives or businesses better in some meaningful way. For example, this past quarter, Amazon:</p><ul><li>Announced new AWS tools that make building with generative artificial intelligence (AI) easy, practical, and cost-effective for organizations of all sizes. The tools include:<ul><li>Amazon Bedrock, a new managed service that offers customers the easiest way to build and scale enterprise-ready generative AI applications. Amazon Bedrock provides easy access to leading foundation models (ultra-large machine learning models that generative AI relies on) from AI startups like AI21 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI, as well as exclusive access to the Titan family of foundation models developed by AWS. Broad access to models gives customers flexibility and choice to customize and scale to their specific needs.</li><li>Two next-generation compute offerings to deliver the lowest cost for training models and running inference in the cloud: the general availability of instances powered by AWS-designed Inferentia2 chips, AWS's second-generation accelerator, purpose-built for deep learning inference, as well as the general availability of network-optimized Trn1n instances for large, network-intensive models. Compared to other EC2 instances, Inferentia2 provides up to 40% better inference price performance, and Trainium delivers up to 50% savings on training costs.</li><li>General availability of Amazon CodeWhisperer, an AI coding companion that improves developer productivity by generating code suggestions in real time. Amazon CodeWhisperer is free for individual developers. CodeWhisperer is the most accurate, fastest, and most secure way to generate code for AWS services, including Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and Amazon S3. During a productivity challenge, participants who used CodeWhisperer completed tasks 57% faster (on average) and were 27% more likely to complete them successfully than those who didn't use CodeWhisperer.</li></ul></li><li>Received Zoox's driverless testing permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, marking a key step to commercializing the self-driving robotaxi for the general public. With this permit, Zoox completed an initial run of its shuttle service for employees at its headquarters in Foster City, California, making it the first purpose-built robotaxi to operate on public roads in California.</li><li>Expanded the Ring lineup with new devices. Ring Battery Doorbell Plus offers improved HD video and energy-saving features, and Ring Peephole Cam is an apartment and renter-friendly video doorbell that easily installs over an existing door peephole.</li><li>Expanded the Amazon-built TV lineup with the Fire TV 2-Series, which makes getting an Alexa-enabled TV more affordable than ever, and new sizes of the Omni QLED Series. The Omni QLED Series includes features so customers can see their schedule on the screen, control smart devices, and turn the TV into an in-home art gallery. Amazon has surpassed 200 million Fire TV devices sold globally. Amazon also launched Amazon-built TVs in Germany, Mexico, and the UK, and collaborated with Cochlear to help people with hearing loss stream sound from their Amazon smart TVs directly to their Cochlear hearing implants.</li><li>Unveiled three customer terminal designs for Project Kuiper, Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite broadband initiative. Kuiper's mission is to bridge the digital divide by providing fast, affordable broadband to communities worldwide that are unserved or underserved by traditional technologies. To use Kuiper's broadband, residential and commercial customers will install an outdoor antenna, called a customer terminal, to communicate with satellites overhead. Amazon is preparing to launch two prototype satellites to test the entire end-to-end communications network this year and plans to be in beta with commercial customers in 2024.</li><li>Opened Amazon Sidewalk to developer testing for the first time as part of the company's vision to put a billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices on the network. Amazon Sidewalk is a low-bandwidth, long-range community network that connects devices across long distances where Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals often cannot reach. With Sidewalk coverage extending to 90% of the U.S. population, developers can now build and connect a new range of devices for the network.</li><li>Launched a loyalty linking capability for Amazon One, Amazon's palm recognition service that lets customers enter, identify, and pay. Panera is the first restaurant chain to offer the new loyalty linking capability, allowing customers to easily enroll in and redeem rewards, and pay for their purchases with just their palm.</li></ul><p><i>Empowering employees and delivery service partners</i></p><p>In addition to its focus on customers, Amazon strives to make every day better for its employees and delivery service partners. For example, in the first quarter, the company:</p><ul><li>Announced plans to spend $200 million on safety technologies across Amazon's U.S. transportation network in 2023. These innovations include front-collision warning, lane-departure warning, speed limiters, and 360-degree camera detection systems. They are part of Amazon's work to ensure that vehicles and delivery partners are safe on the road, and the innovations are better for the environment.</li><li>Announced that Amazon improved recordable incident rates worldwide by 11% from 2021 to 2022 and by almost 24% from 2019 to 2022. The company shared the data in the second edition of its safety report, <i>Delivered With Care</i>, which details how Amazon is advancing safety across its operations through investments in capital improvements, safety technology, vehicle safety controls, and engineered ergonomic solutions to reduce risks for employees, partners, and communities.</li><li>Reached 1 billion packages handled by Robin, a robotic system used across Amazon's operations network in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Robin robotic systems use artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning to help employees handle and sort customer packages before shipment. For employees, this reduces the number of repetitive tasks, improving safety and helping them focus their time and energy on activities that make better use of their talents.</li><li>Ranked No. 2 on <i>Fortune</i> magazine's World's Most Admired Companies list for the seventh year in a row. The annual ranking is determined by a survey of top executives and analysts, and companies are evaluated on factors including the quality of their management and products, commitments to social responsibility, and ability to attract talent.</li><li>Introduced Leadership Liftoff, an onboarding program for operations area managers. New managers enrolled in the program participate in group sessions, on-the-job training, and self-paced learning to help them gain skills and confidence to lead successful teams and foster connections between new leaders.</li></ul><p><i>Supporting communities and protecting the environment</i></p><p>Amazon believes that success and scale bring broad responsibility to help the planet, future generations, and local communities in which the company has a significant presence. Amazon employees have passion for investing in these areas, and a sampling of the efforts from this past quarter are that Amazon:</p><ul><li>Activated the company's global logistics network to support communities impacted by earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria. The company turned its fulfillment center in Istanbul into a Disaster Relief Hub and partnered with local organizations to ship hundreds of thousands of relief items to affected regions. Amazon also made cash donations to non-governmental organizations and set up donation campaigns across 16 Amazon online stores globally to make it easy for customers to support communities impacted by these earthquakes.</li><li>Set a record in 2022 for the most renewable energy purchased by a single company in one year. Amazon's renewable energy portfolio now includes 164 wind and solar farms and 237 rooftop solar projects in 22 countries, totaling over 20 gigawatts—an amount of energy that could power 5.3 million U.S. homes. Amazon has been the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy for three years running.</li><li>Expanded the use of electric delivery vehicles from Rivian, as part of the company's commitment to dramatically reduce its carbon emissions. These custom vans from Rivian have now been used to deliver more than 75 million packages in 500 U.S. cities and regions. Amazon began rolling out its electric delivery vans in the summer of 2022 and now has thousands on the road.</li><li>Announced over $22 million in low-rate loans and grants to help build affordable homes in Washington, D.C., and Capitol Heights, Maryland. Since creating the Housing Equity Fund in 2021, Amazon has committed nearly $1.6 billion to help create or preserve affordable homes across Amazon's hometown communities.</li><li>Announced funding for 8,000 U.S. schools to provide access to computer science education to more than 2 million students by the end of the 2022-2023 academic year through Amazon Future Engineer. By providing professional development for teachers, curriculum development, college scholarships, and internships, Amazon aims to inspire millions of students from underserved and historically underrepresented communities to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).</li><li>Launched the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) in partnership with the Aspen Institute, Patagonia, and Tchibo. ZEMBA will work to reduce the climate impact of maritime shipping by helping to create sustainable economic models in renewable energy, zero-emission fuel production, infrastructure, and clean maritime services.</li><li>Announced that the Right Now Climate Fund is developing the world's first commercial-scale seaweed farm located between offshore wind turbines in the North Sea to help address climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide as it grows. The Fund is also helping to create and restore ecosystems for plants and animals as part of its commitment to boost biodiversity and currently supports 22 rewilding initiatives in London.</li></ul><p>Financial Guidance</p><p>The following forward-looking statements reflect Amazon.com's expectations as of April 27, 2023, and are subject to substantial uncertainty. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic and geopolitical conditions and customer demand and spending (including the impact of recessionary fears), inflation, interest rates, regional labor market constraints, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet, online commerce, and cloud services, and the various factors detailed below.</p><p>Second Quarter 2023 Guidance</p><ul><li>Net sales are expected to be between $127.0 billion and $133.0 billion, or to grow between 5% and 10% compared with second quarter 2022. This guidance anticipates an unfavorable impact of approximately 30 basis points from foreign exchange rates.</li><li>Operating income is expected to be between $2.0 billion and $5.5 billion, compared with $3.3 billion in second quarter 2022.</li><li>This guidance assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions, restructurings, or legal settlements are concluded.</li></ul><p>A conference call will be webcast live today at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET, and will be available for at least three months at amazon.com/ir. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the Company's financial and operating results.</p><p><i>These forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products and services sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income or other taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of claims, litigation, government investigations, and other proceedings, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, variability in demand, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, proposed and completed acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, global economic and geopolitical conditions and additional or unforeseen circumstances, developments, or events may give rise to or amplify many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.</i></p><p>Our investor relations website is amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding information about us. We promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the SEC, corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics), and select press releases, which may contain material information about us, and you may subscribe to be notified of new information posted to this site.</p>

Amazon Business kicks off its Small Business Month with Small Business Grants Designed to Spur Innovation and Growth

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Business-kicks-off-its-Small-Business-Month-with-Small-Business-Grants-Designed-to-Spur-Innovation-and-Growth/default.aspx

Amazon-Business-kicks-off-its-Small-Business-Month-with-Small-Business-Grants-Designed-to-Spur-Innovation-and-Growth

05/02/2023 13:30:00

Amazon Business kicks off its Small Business Month with Small Business Grants Designed to Spur Innovation and Growth

05/02/2023

2023

Investment from Amazon comes as small businesses report saving money and staying within budget as top purchasing priorities, according to new poll data

<div><p><i>Investment from Amazon comes as small businesses report saving money and staying within budget as top purchasing priorities, according to new poll data</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)–Today, Amazon Business, the Amazon business procurement storefront, kicked off its second annual Small Business Month with the announcement of its 2023 Small Business Grants, designed to spur innovation and support the growth of small businesses that are driving impact in their local communities. Amazon Business also released findings from a new poll of small-business decision-makers, which paint a picture of optimism and resilience in the face of a challenging economic climate. According to the poll of small-business decision-makers across the United States, the ​​top three challenges small-business decision-makers say are keeping them up at night are high inflation (63%), economic recession (39%), and supply chain disruptions (30%). While contending with these challenges, small businesses are heavily focused on financial resilience. Finding ways to save money and staying within budget (both at 61%) are the two most important purchasing priorities for them in the next 12 months. Even with the challenges they're facing, small-business decision-makers remain optimistic. More than half (55%) of respondents say they feel more hopeful about the success of their business than they did a year ago. Small businesses also are looking for ways to drive future growth. They see streamlining business purchases as a way to do so. While product prices will continue to be a key factor in reducing costs and driving growth, small-business leaders also are looking at how easily they can find the products they need, alongside how convenient the purchasing process is to improve efficiency. 91% say the ability to find items that are within their price range is a key factor in growing their businesses long term. 88% say the ability to easily find items they need is a key factor in growing their businesses long term. 90% say the ability to easily purchase items they need is a key factor in growing their businesses long term. "Our small-business customers face unique challenges and are operating with more limited resources—every dollar and minute they save helps them focus their energy on growing their businesses," said Todd Heimes, director of Amazon Business Worldwide. "With Amazon Business, small businesses get the selection and convenience of Amazon, alongside powerful tools that help them make buying decisions that drive towards their business goals, automate the procurement process, and save money with business pricing." Continuing its investment in the success of small-business customers, Amazon Business launched its Small Business Grants to empower small-business growth. This year, Amazon Business will give eligible small businesses in the U.S. the chance to win more than $250,000 in grants. Existing Amazon Business customers with annual revenues of $1 million or less can apply for a grant, with one grand-prize winner, a group of finalists, and semifinalists receiving monetary grants, Business Prime memberships, select Amazon devices, and more. Applications are due by May 21, and winners will be announced on July 17. For additional information and to apply, visit this page on Amazon Small Business Grants. Virtual X Kitchen, based out of College Park, Maryland, was a 2022 grant finalist, receiving $20,000 to put into its business. The small business aims to create a sustainable restaurant model for urban areas by maximizing kitchen space for multiple owners to share and using the newest technology to streamline the ordering process. They used the grant money to fund branding initiatives to raise awareness of the company. "We are so grateful for the opportunity that the Small Business Grant has provided our business," said Naumaan "Nomie" Hamid, CEO and founder. "Thank you to everyone that voted! It has been amazing to see how far Virtual X Kitchen has come since our launch a little over a year ago, and we can't wait to see how far it will go." To learn about the 2022 grant winners and how they used their awards, visit the 2022 recipients page. "At Amazon Business, we are committed to the growth of small businesses and invest in education, grants, and tools to help them overcome challenges they face, and free up time and resources to focus on their mission and customers," said Heimes. "I am particularly passionate about our Small Business Grants. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and when they succeed, we all succeed." Survey methodology Amazon Business asked 500 small-business decision-makers in the U.S. about their online purchasing patterns, the challenges and opportunities impacting purchasing processes, and the broader landscape for small businesses. All respondents are 18 years or older, work at a business making $25 million or less in annual revenue, are involved in their company's supply purchasing efforts, and are currently full-time (61%), part-time (7%), or self-employed (32%). The poll was produced in partnership between Amazon Business and Walker Sands, with data collection conducted via online market research vendor, Rep Data, Inc., between March 20-27, 2023. About Amazon Business Amazon Business helps millions of customers worldwide—from small businesses, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and government agencies to large enterprises with global operations—reshape their procurement with cost and time savings, greater productivity, and insightful purchasing analytics. Procurement and business leaders enjoy convenient shipping options on hundreds of millions of supplies across categories like office, IT, janitorial, food service, and professional medical supplies. Customers also have access to a variety of business-tailored features and benefits, including a curated site experience, Business Prime, business-only pricing and selection, single- or multi-user business accounts, approvals workflow, purchasing system integrations, payment solutions, tax exemptions, and dedicated customer support. Amazon Business is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and India. For more information, visit business.amazon.com, www.amazonbusinessblog.com, and @AmazonBusiness. Amazon-pr@amazon.com Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)–Today, Amazon Business, the Amazon business procurement storefront, kicked off its second annual Small Business Month with the announcement of its 2023 Small Business Grants, designed to spur innovation and support the growth of small businesses that are driving impact in their local communities. Amazon Business also released findings from a new poll of small-business decision-makers, which paint a picture of optimism and resilience in the face of a challenging economic climate.</p><p>According to the poll of small-business decision-makers across the United States, the ​​top three challenges small-business decision-makers say are keeping them up at night are high inflation (63%), economic recession (39%), and supply chain disruptions (30%). While contending with these challenges, small businesses are heavily focused on financial resilience. Finding ways to save money and staying within budget (both at 61%) are the two most important purchasing priorities for them in the next 12 months. Even with the challenges they're facing, small-business decision-makers remain optimistic. More than half (55%) of respondents say they feel more hopeful about the success of their business than they did a year ago.</p><p>Small businesses also are looking for ways to drive future growth. They see streamlining business purchases as a way to do so. While product prices will continue to be a key factor in reducing costs and driving growth, small-business leaders also are looking at how easily they can find the products they need, alongside how convenient the purchasing process is to improve efficiency.</p><ul><li>91% say the ability to find items that are within their price range is a key factor in growing their businesses long term.</li><li>88% say the ability to easily find items they need is a key factor in growing their businesses long term.</li><li>90% say the ability to easily purchase items they need is a key factor in growing their businesses long term.</li></ul><p>"Our small-business customers face unique challenges and are operating with more limited resources—every dollar and minute they save helps them focus their energy on growing their businesses," said Todd Heimes, director of Amazon Business Worldwide. "With Amazon Business, small businesses get the selection and convenience of Amazon, alongside powerful tools that help them make buying decisions that drive towards their business goals, automate the procurement process, and save money with business pricing."</p><p>Continuing its investment in the success of small-business customers, Amazon Business launched its Small Business Grants to empower small-business growth. This year, Amazon Business will give eligible small businesses in the U.S. the chance to win more than $250,000 in grants. Existing Amazon Business customers with annual revenues of $1 million or less can apply for a grant, with one grand-prize winner, a group of finalists, and semifinalists receiving monetary grants, Business Prime memberships, select Amazon devices, and more. Applications are due by May 21, and winners will be announced on July 17. For additional information and to apply, visit this page on Amazon Small Business Grants.</p><p>Virtual X Kitchen, based out of College Park, Maryland, was a 2022 grant finalist, receiving $20,000 to put into its business. The small business aims to create a sustainable restaurant model for urban areas by maximizing kitchen space for multiple owners to share and using the newest technology to streamline the ordering process. They used the grant money to fund branding initiatives to raise awareness of the company.</p><p>"We are so grateful for the opportunity that the Small Business Grant has provided our business," said Naumaan "Nomie" Hamid, CEO and founder. "Thank you to everyone that voted! It has been amazing to see how far Virtual X Kitchen has come since our launch a little over a year ago, and we can't wait to see how far it will go."</p><p>To learn about the 2022 grant winners and how they used their awards, visit the 2022 recipients page.</p><p>"At Amazon Business, we are committed to the growth of small businesses and invest in education, grants, and tools to help them overcome challenges they face, and free up time and resources to focus on their mission and customers," said Heimes. "I am particularly passionate about our Small Business Grants. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and when they succeed, we all succeed."</p><p>Survey methodology</p><p>Amazon Business asked 500 small-business decision-makers in the U.S. about their online purchasing patterns, the challenges and opportunities impacting purchasing processes, and the broader landscape for small businesses. All respondents are 18 years or older, work at a business making $25 million or less in annual revenue, are involved in their company's supply purchasing efforts, and are currently full-time (61%), part-time (7%), or self-employed (32%).</p><p>The poll was produced in partnership between Amazon Business and Walker Sands, with data collection conducted via online market research vendor, Rep Data, Inc., between March 20-27, 2023.</p><p>About Amazon Business</p><p>Amazon Business helps millions of customers worldwide—from small businesses, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and government agencies to large enterprises with global operations—reshape their procurement with cost and time savings, greater productivity, and insightful purchasing analytics. Procurement and business leaders enjoy convenient shipping options on hundreds of millions of supplies across categories like office, IT, janitorial, food service, and professional medical supplies. Customers also have access to a variety of business-tailored features and benefits, including a curated site experience, Business Prime, business-only pricing and selection, single- or multi-user business accounts, approvals workflow, purchasing system integrations, payment solutions, tax exemptions, and dedicated customer support. Amazon Business is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and India. For more information, visit business.amazon.com, www.amazonbusinessblog.com, and @AmazonBusiness.</p> <div><p>Amazon-pr@amazon.com</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

AWS Announces Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Announces-Amazon-Aurora-IO-Optimized/default.aspx

AWS-Announces-Amazon-Aurora-IO-Optimized

05/11/2023 16:35:00

AWS Announces Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized

05/11/2023

2023

New configuration for Amazon Aurora provides improved price performance and predictable pricing for I/O-intensive applications Ancestry, Edison, NetScaler, Razorpay, and Verafin are among customers using Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized

<div><p> <i>New configuration for Amazon Aurora provides improved price performance and predictable pricing for I/O-intensive applications</i></p><p><i>Ancestry, Edison, NetScaler, Razorpay, and Verafin are among customers using Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized, a new configuration for Amazon Aurora that offers improved price performance and predictable pricing for customers with input/output (I/O)-intensive applications. With the new Aurora configuration, customers only pay for their database instances and storage consumption with no charges for I/O operations. Customers can now confidently predict costs for their most I/O-intensive workloads, regardless of I/O variability, helping to accelerate their decision to migrate more of their database workloads to AWS. Today, hundreds of thousands of customers, including Airbnb, Atlassian, and Samsung, rely on Aurora, a fully managed MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database that provides the performance and availability of commercial databases at up to one-tenth the cost. For customers with I/O-intensive applications like payment processing systems, ecommerce, and financial applications, I/O-Optimized offers improved performance, increasing throughput and reducing latency to support customers' most demanding workloads. With Aurora I/O-Optimized, customers can maximize the value of their cloud investment and optimize their database spend by choosing the Aurora configuration that best matches their I/O consumption patterns. To get started with Aurora I/O-Optimized, visit aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/pricing. Organizations of all sizes and across all industries are looking to optimize their IT spend and maximize the value of their cloud investment, so they can continue to break free of their legacy databases. Historically, customers have had to choose between performance and price when evaluating database solutions. Commercial databases offer high performance and advanced availability features, but are expensive, complex to manage, have high lock-in, and come with punitive licensing terms. Other database options require less capital expense, but customers often find those cannot achieve the performance or availability of commercial databases. Amazon Aurora gives customers the right tool for the job, so that they can optimize for performance, scale, and costs when designing applications. Aurora provides simple, pay-per-request pricing based on I/O usage, so customers do not need to provision I/Os in advance. While most customers benefit from the cost-effectiveness of this pricing, the needs of individual businesses can vary widely based on sudden changes in database queries and I/O consumption from spikes in customer demand, leading to price variability. For example, the I/Os on a database powering an ecommerce application may spike based on seasonality, creating variability that makes it challenging to predict I/O needs. Alternatively, some database offerings provide a fixed price for compute, storage, and I/O, but customers must still provision I/Os in advance. Customers want cost predictability without having to provision I/Os in advance. Now, customers can choose between two Amazon Aurora configurations: Aurora Standard or Aurora I/O-Optimized. For applications with low-to-moderate I/O operations that represent less than 25% of the customer's Aurora database spend, the Standard configuration of the service continues to offer customers a cost-effective option with high performance and availability at global scale. For customers with high I/O variability or I/O-intensive applications, Aurora I/O-Optimized provides improved price performance and predictable pricing. I/O-Optimized streamlines I/O processing by using smaller, more frequent batches, which reduces latency and improves throughput. Using I/O-Optimized, customers are not charged for individual read and write I/O operations, but instead, pay a set price for their database instances and storage. This allows customers to easily predict their database spend upfront, regardless of the I/O variability of their applications. Neither configuration requires upfront I/O provisioning, and both can scale I/Os to support a customer's most demanding applications. "We launched Amazon Aurora with the aim of providing customers with a relational database, built for the cloud, that offered the performance and availability of commercial databases at up to one-tenth the cost. Since then, we have continued innovating to improve performance while offering customers simplicity and flexibility with solutions like Amazon Aurora Serverless v2," said Rahul Pathak, vice president of Relational Database Engines at AWS. "Now, with Aurora I/O-Optimized, we're giving customers great value for their high-scale I/O-intensive applications, and an even better option for customers looking to migrate their most demanding workloads to Aurora and the cloud." Customers can launch a new cluster with Aurora I/O-Optimized, or convert an existing cluster, and easily switch between Aurora I/O-Optimized and Aurora Standard pay-per-request configurations in the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or via an AWS software development kit (SDK). For improved price performance, customers can take advantage of Aurora I/O-Optimized using existing Reserved Instances. Customers can also deploy either Aurora configuration using new Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) R7g instances, powered by AWS Graviton3 processors, with up to 20% price performance improvement. Aurora I/O-Optimized is generally available today for Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition and Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition in most AWS Regions, with availability in Mainland China (Beijing), Mainland China (Ningxia), AWS GovCloud (US-East), and AWS GovCloud (US-West) Regions coming soon. Ancestry is a global leader in family history with more than 3 million subscribers around the world. "Ancestry hosts more than 40 billion family history records and maintains the largest consumer DNA network in the world, with more than 23 million customer DNA samples. It's a lot of data, and some of our I/O workloads can be highly variable," said Cary Hoddy, vice president of Cloud Operations at Ancestry. "We use Amazon Aurora to process this data because it provides low-latency transaction processing and the ability to scale storage and I/O seamlessly to match the growing needs of our business. With Aurora I/O-Optimized, we can more accurately predict our database spend, allowing us to invest in our customer experience, benefiting our subscribers." Edison is the oldest energy company in Europe, operating 200 plants and providing 1.6 million consumers with electricity and gas. "At Edison, we use Amazon Aurora extensively because of its reliability, performance, and features," said Federico Morreale, head of Enterprise Architecture and Data Platform at Edison. "With Aurora I/O-Optimized, we can pay a fixed price for database instances and storage, with no additional charges for read and write I/O operations. This will help us improve our price predictability, regardless of spikes in our I/O-intensive applications. We are excited that AWS could learn from Edison's feedback to launch this new feature." The NetScaler (formerly part of Citrix) business unit in Cloud Software Group radically simplifies application delivery and security in hybrid multi-cloud deployments. "We use Amazon Aurora as a relational database for the NetScaler application delivery management platform, which enables automation, orchestration, management, and analytics for application delivery across hybrid multi-cloud environments. We gather a lot of application, network, and endpoint data to help customers derive insights and ensure timely application monitoring and infrastructure performance, which is write-heavy and results in variable I/O charges," said Raghu Goyal, director of Engineering for Cloud Services and Analytics at NetScaler. "With Aurora I/O-Optimized, we will have a predictable Aurora bill with unlimited read and write I/O capacity. By minimizing the variability of our database costs with Aurora I/O-Optimized, we can more confidently plan future spend focused on providing enhanced analytical capabilities to our end-customers using artificial intelligence and machine learning." Razorpay is a payments solution provider in India that allows businesses to accept, process, and disburse payments with its product suite. "We use Amazon Aurora because of its security, performance, and ability to scale compute, storage, and I/O to meet the growing needs of our I/O-intensive payments processing system," said Murali Brahmadesam, chief technology officer and head of Engineering at Razorpay. "We're encouraged by our early testing of Aurora I/O-Optimized that demonstrates increased throughput, lower latencies, cost savings, and price-performance gains, and we're considering switching our entire Aurora fleet to use Aurora I/O-Optimized." Verafin, a Nasdaq company, is an industry leader in anti-financial crime management that provides innovative solutions to fight crimes such as human trafficking, terrorist financing, and elder abuse. "We leverage Amazon Aurora and other database systems to provide fraud detection, compliance, and high-risk customer management services and are impressed with Aurora's ability to handle our most demanding workloads," said Chris Stuckless, director of Cloud at Verafin. "We are excited that Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized will ensure predictable costs for all our customers, despite highly variable workloads. With the introduction of Aurora I/O-Optimized, we are planning to migrate all our customers to Aurora this year to simplify our database management load and better focus our resources on supporting our customers' evolving needs."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized, a new configuration for Amazon Aurora that offers improved price performance and predictable pricing for customers with input/output (I/O)-intensive applications. With the new Aurora configuration, customers only pay for their database instances and storage consumption with no charges for I/O operations. Customers can now confidently predict costs for their most I/O-intensive workloads, regardless of I/O variability, helping to accelerate their decision to migrate more of their database workloads to AWS. Today, hundreds of thousands of customers, including Airbnb, Atlassian, and Samsung, rely on Aurora, a fully managed MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database that provides the performance and availability of commercial databases at up to one-tenth the cost. For customers with I/O-intensive applications like payment processing systems, ecommerce, and financial applications, I/O-Optimized offers improved performance, increasing throughput and reducing latency to support customers' most demanding workloads. With Aurora I/O-Optimized, customers can maximize the value of their cloud investment and optimize their database spend by choosing the Aurora configuration that best matches their I/O consumption patterns. To get started with Aurora I/O-Optimized, visit aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/pricing.</p><p>Organizations of all sizes and across all industries are looking to optimize their IT spend and maximize the value of their cloud investment, so they can continue to break free of their legacy databases. Historically, customers have had to choose between performance and price when evaluating database solutions. Commercial databases offer high performance and advanced availability features, but are expensive, complex to manage, have high lock-in, and come with punitive licensing terms. Other database options require less capital expense, but customers often find those cannot achieve the performance or availability of commercial databases. Amazon Aurora gives customers the right tool for the job, so that they can optimize for performance, scale, and costs when designing applications. Aurora provides simple, pay-per-request pricing based on I/O usage, so customers do not need to provision I/Os in advance. While most customers benefit from the cost-effectiveness of this pricing, the needs of individual businesses can vary widely based on sudden changes in database queries and I/O consumption from spikes in customer demand, leading to price variability. For example, the I/Os on a database powering an ecommerce application may spike based on seasonality, creating variability that makes it challenging to predict I/O needs. Alternatively, some database offerings provide a fixed price for compute, storage, and I/O, but customers must still provision I/Os in advance. Customers want cost predictability without having to provision I/Os in advance.</p><p>Now, customers can choose between two Amazon Aurora configurations: Aurora Standard or Aurora I/O-Optimized. For applications with low-to-moderate I/O operations that represent less than 25% of the customer's Aurora database spend, the Standard configuration of the service continues to offer customers a cost-effective option with high performance and availability at global scale. For customers with high I/O variability or I/O-intensive applications, Aurora I/O-Optimized provides improved price performance and predictable pricing. I/O-Optimized streamlines I/O processing by using smaller, more frequent batches, which reduces latency and improves throughput. Using I/O-Optimized, customers are not charged for individual read and write I/O operations, but instead, pay a set price for their database instances and storage. This allows customers to easily predict their database spend upfront, regardless of the I/O variability of their applications. Neither configuration requires upfront I/O provisioning, and both can scale I/Os to support a customer's most demanding applications.</p><p>"We launched Amazon Aurora with the aim of providing customers with a relational database, built for the cloud, that offered the performance and availability of commercial databases at up to one-tenth the cost. Since then, we have continued innovating to improve performance while offering customers simplicity and flexibility with solutions like Amazon Aurora Serverless v2," said Rahul Pathak, vice president of Relational Database Engines at AWS. "Now, with Aurora I/O-Optimized, we're giving customers great value for their high-scale I/O-intensive applications, and an even better option for customers looking to migrate their most demanding workloads to Aurora and the cloud."</p><p>Customers can launch a new cluster with Aurora I/O-Optimized, or convert an existing cluster, and easily switch between Aurora I/O-Optimized and Aurora Standard pay-per-request configurations in the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or via an AWS software development kit (SDK). For improved price performance, customers can take advantage of Aurora I/O-Optimized using existing Reserved Instances. Customers can also deploy either Aurora configuration using new Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) R7g instances, powered by AWS Graviton3 processors, with up to 20% price performance improvement. Aurora I/O-Optimized is generally available today for Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition and Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition in most AWS Regions, with availability in Mainland China (Beijing), Mainland China (Ningxia), AWS GovCloud (US-East), and AWS GovCloud (US-West) Regions coming soon.</p><p>Ancestry is a global leader in family history with more than 3 million subscribers around the world. "Ancestry hosts more than 40 billion family history records and maintains the largest consumer DNA network in the world, with more than 23 million customer DNA samples. It's a lot of data, and some of our I/O workloads can be highly variable," said Cary Hoddy, vice president of Cloud Operations at Ancestry. "We use Amazon Aurora to process this data because it provides low-latency transaction processing and the ability to scale storage and I/O seamlessly to match the growing needs of our business. With Aurora I/O-Optimized, we can more accurately predict our database spend, allowing us to invest in our customer experience, benefiting our subscribers."</p><p>Edison is the oldest energy company in Europe, operating 200 plants and providing 1.6 million consumers with electricity and gas. "At Edison, we use Amazon Aurora extensively because of its reliability, performance, and features," said Federico Morreale, head of Enterprise Architecture and Data Platform at Edison. "With Aurora I/O-Optimized, we can pay a fixed price for database instances and storage, with no additional charges for read and write I/O operations. This will help us improve our price predictability, regardless of spikes in our I/O-intensive applications. We are excited that AWS could learn from Edison's feedback to launch this new feature."</p><p>The NetScaler (formerly part of Citrix) business unit in Cloud Software Group radically simplifies application delivery and security in hybrid multi-cloud deployments. "We use Amazon Aurora as a relational database for the NetScaler application delivery management platform, which enables automation, orchestration, management, and analytics for application delivery across hybrid multi-cloud environments. We gather a lot of application, network, and endpoint data to help customers derive insights and ensure timely application monitoring and infrastructure performance, which is write-heavy and results in variable I/O charges," said Raghu Goyal, director of Engineering for Cloud Services and Analytics at NetScaler. "With Aurora I/O-Optimized, we will have a predictable Aurora bill with unlimited read and write I/O capacity. By minimizing the variability of our database costs with Aurora I/O-Optimized, we can more confidently plan future spend focused on providing enhanced analytical capabilities to our end-customers using artificial intelligence and machine learning."</p><p>Razorpay is a payments solution provider in India that allows businesses to accept, process, and disburse payments with its product suite. "We use Amazon Aurora because of its security, performance, and ability to scale compute, storage, and I/O to meet the growing needs of our I/O-intensive payments processing system," said Murali Brahmadesam, chief technology officer and head of Engineering at Razorpay. "We're encouraged by our early testing of Aurora I/O-Optimized that demonstrates increased throughput, lower latencies, cost savings, and price-performance gains, and we're considering switching our entire Aurora fleet to use Aurora I/O-Optimized."</p><p>Verafin, a Nasdaq company, is an industry leader in anti-financial crime management that provides innovative solutions to fight crimes such as human trafficking, terrorist financing, and elder abuse. "We leverage Amazon Aurora and other database systems to provide fraud detection, compliance, and high-risk customer management services and are impressed with Aurora's ability to handle our most demanding workloads," said Chris Stuckless, director of Cloud at Verafin. "We are excited that Amazon Aurora I/O-Optimized will ensure predictable costs for all our customers, despite highly variable workloads. With the introduction of Aurora I/O-Optimized, we are planning to migrate all our customers to Aurora this year to simplify our database management load and better focus our resources on supporting our customers' evolving needs."</p>

Amazon Games and Embracer Group's Middle-earth Enterprises Strike Deal for New The Lord of the Rings Game

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Games-and-Embracer-Groups-Middle-earth-Enterprises-Strike-Deal-for-New-The-Lord-of-the-Rings-Game/default.aspx

Amazon-Games-and-Embracer-Groups-Middle-earth-Enterprises-Strike-Deal-for-New-The-Lord-of-the-Rings-Game

05/15/2023 11:35:00

Amazon Games and Embracer Group's Middle-earth Enterprises Strike Deal for New The Lord of the Rings Game

05/15/2023

2023

Studio behind New World developing AAA open-world multiplayer adventure set in Middle-earth

<div><p><i>Studio behind </i>New World <i>developing AAA open-world multiplayer adventure set in Middle-earth</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and Embracer Group, through its wholly owned subsidiary Middle-earth Enterprises, part of the operative group Freemode, today announced they have reached an agreement for Amazon Games to develop and publish a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Amazon Games and Embracer Group, through its wholly owned subsidiary Middle-earth Enterprises, part of the operative group Freemode, today announced they have reached an agreement for Amazon Games to develop and publish a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. (Graphic: Business Wire) The upcoming game will be an open-world MMO adventure in a persistent world set in Middle-earth, featuring the beloved stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings literary trilogy. The game is in early stages of production, with the Amazon Games Orange County studio—makers of the popular open-world MMO game New World—leading development. Amazon Games will publish the game globally for PC and consoles. Additional details, including launch timing, will be shared at a later date. "We're committed to bringing players high-quality games, whether through original IPs or long-beloved ones like The Lord of the Rings," said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. "Bringing players a fresh take on The Lord of the Rings has long been an aspiration for our team, and we're honored and grateful that Middle-earth Enterprises is entrusting us with this iconic world. We're also pleased to be expanding our relationship with Embracer Group following our Tomb Raider deal last year, as they've proven to be excellent collaborators." "The world of Middle-earth continues to prove an endlessly fertile ground for creators, and Amazon Games has a passion for building immersive, compelling worlds and publishing games for a global audience," said Lee Guinchard, CEO of Freemode. "We have the clear ambition to create the highest-quality entertainment products for this IP, whether we utilize internal resources or team up with the best industry partners that complement our capabilities. We're taking every care to deliver an MMO which will do justice to the expansive Middle-earth universe and delight players around the world." The as-yet-untitled The Lord of the Rings game continues Amazon Games' growing momentum in game publishing and development, following the success of its internally developed MMO New World and action RPG Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG, both of which have toppedSteam and Twitch charts and continue to nurture strong player communities. Amazon has also announced publishing agreements with NCSOFT for Throne and Liberty, Bandai Namco Online for Blue Protocol, Crystal Dynamics for the next major Tomb Raider game, and Glowmade and Disruptive Games for unannounced titles. Separately, Amazon Studios produces the hit series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for Prime Video, which takes place during Tolkien's Second Age of Middle-earth and is unrelated to this upcoming MMO game in development with Amazon Games. About Amazon Games At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans draws on the power of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, AWS, and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including New World, with our studios and teams in Seattle, Orange County, San Diego, and Montreal. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third-party games, leading with Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG, Throne and Liberty from NCSOFT, and Blue Protocol from Bandai Namco Online, as well as the next major Tomb Raider title from Crystal Dynamics. About Middle-earth Enterprises Inspired by a deep appreciation for the fictional world created by J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle-earth Enterprises is dedicated to working with businesses providing quality products in accordance with best green business and sustainability practices, including fair trade, equality in the workplace, and a commitment to protect our earth, its wondrous beauty, and the viability of every living creature. Middle-earth Enterprises has been producing and licensing films, merchandise and stage productions based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for more than 40 years. Middle-earth Enterprises was acquired by Embracer Group in 2022. With headquarters located in Berkeley, California, its website may be found at www.middleearth.com. About Embracer Group Embracer Group is a global group of creative and entrepreneurial businesses in PC/console, mobile and board games and other related media. The group has an extensive catalog of over 850 owned or controlled franchises. With its head office based in Karlstad, Sweden, Embracer Group has a global presence through its twelve operative groups: THQ Nordic, PLAION, Coffee Stain, Amplifier Game Invest, Saber Interactive, DECA Games, Gearbox Entertainment, Easybrain, Asmodee, Dark Horse, Freemode and Crystal Dynamics – Eidos. The Group has 135 internal game development studios and is engaging more than 16,200 employees in more than 40 countries. Embracer Group's shares are publicly listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under the ticker EMBRAC B. Subscribe to press releases and financial information: https://embracer.com/investors/subscription/ Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Games and Embracer Group, through its wholly owned subsidiary Middle-earth Enterprises, part of the operative group Freemode, today announced they have reached an agreement for Amazon Games to develop and publish a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> by J.R.R. Tolkien.</p><div><p>Amazon Games and Embracer Group, through its wholly owned subsidiary Middle-earth Enterprises, part of the operative group Freemode, today announced they have reached an agreement for Amazon Games to develop and publish a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. (Graphic: Business Wire)</p></div><p>The upcoming game will be an open-world MMO adventure in a persistent world set in Middle-earth, featuring the beloved stories of <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings </i>literary trilogy. The game is in early stages of production, with the Amazon Games Orange County studio—makers of the popular open-world MMO game <i>New World</i>—leading development. Amazon Games will publish the game globally for PC and consoles. Additional details, including launch timing, will be shared at a later date.</p><p>"We're committed to bringing players high-quality games, whether through original IPs or long-beloved ones like <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>," said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. "Bringing players a fresh take on <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> has long been an aspiration for our team, and we're honored and grateful that Middle-earth Enterprises is entrusting us with this iconic world. We're also pleased to be expanding our relationship with Embracer Group following our <i>Tomb Raider</i> deal last year, as they've proven to be excellent collaborators."</p><p>"The world of Middle-earth continues to prove an endlessly fertile ground for creators, and Amazon Games has a passion for building immersive, compelling worlds and publishing games for a global audience," said Lee Guinchard, CEO of Freemode. "We have the clear ambition to create the highest-quality entertainment products for this IP, whether we utilize internal resources or team up with the best industry partners that complement our capabilities. We're taking every care to deliver an MMO which will do justice to the expansive Middle-earth universe and delight players around the world."</p><p>The as-yet-untitled <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> game continues Amazon Games' growing momentum in game publishing and development, following the success of its internally developed MMO <i>New World </i>and action RPG <i>Lost Ark </i>from Smilegate RPG, both of which have toppedSteam and Twitch charts and continue to nurture strong player communities. Amazon has also announced publishing agreements with NCSOFT for <i>Throne and Liberty</i>, Bandai Namco Online for <i>Blue Protocol</i>, Crystal Dynamics for the next major <i>Tomb Raider</i> game, and Glowmade and Disruptive Games for unannounced titles.</p><p>Separately, Amazon Studios produces the hit series <i>The Lord of the Rings: The </i><i>Rings of Power </i>for Prime Video, which takes place during Tolkien's Second Age of Middle-earth and is unrelated to this upcoming MMO game in development with Amazon Games.</p><p>About Amazon Games</p><p>At Amazon Games, our ambition is to create bold new experiences that foster community in and around our games. Our team of game industry veterans draws on the power of Prime Gaming, Twitch, Amazon retail, AWS, and more to push boundaries and deliver captivating experiences to our players. Amazon Games is developing AAA multiplayer games based on original IPs, including <i>New World</i>, with our studios and teams in Seattle, Orange County, San Diego, and Montreal. Amazon Games also publishes best-in-class third-party games, leading with <i>Lost Ark</i> from Smilegate RPG, <i>Throne and Liberty</i> from NCSOFT, and <i>Blue Protocol</i> from Bandai Namco Online, as well as the next major <i>Tomb Raider</i> title from Crystal Dynamics.</p><p>About Middle-earth Enterprises</p><p>Inspired by a deep appreciation for the fictional world created by J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle-earth Enterprises is dedicated to working with businesses providing quality products in accordance with best green business and sustainability practices, including fair trade, equality in the workplace, and a commitment to protect our earth, its wondrous beauty, and the viability of every living creature.</p><p>Middle-earth Enterprises has been producing and licensing films, merchandise and stage productions based on <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> and <i>The Hobbit</i> for more than 40 years. Middle-earth Enterprises was acquired by Embracer Group in 2022. With headquarters located in Berkeley, California, its website may be found at www.middleearth.com.</p><p>About Embracer Group</p><p>Embracer Group is a global group of creative and entrepreneurial businesses in PC/console, mobile and board games and other related media. The group has an extensive catalog of over 850 owned or controlled franchises.</p><p>With its head office based in Karlstad, Sweden, Embracer Group has a global presence through its twelve operative groups: THQ Nordic, PLAION, Coffee Stain, Amplifier Game Invest, Saber Interactive, DECA Games, Gearbox Entertainment, Easybrain, Asmodee, Dark Horse, Freemode and Crystal Dynamics – Eidos. The Group has 135 internal game development studios and is engaging more than 16,200 employees in more than 40 countries.</p><p>Embracer Group's shares are publicly listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under the ticker EMBRAC B.</p><p>Subscribe to press releases and financial information: https://embracer.com/investors/subscription/</p> <div><p>Amazon.com, Inc.Media HotlineAmazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon Introduces Four All-New Echo Devices; Sales of Alexa-Enabled Devices Surpass Half a Billion

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Amazon-Introduces-Four-All-New-Echo-Devices-Sales-of-Alexa-Enabled-Devices-Surpass-Half-a-Billion

05/17/2023 10:15:00

Amazon Introduces Four All-New Echo Devices; Sales of Alexa-Enabled Devices Surpass Half a Billion

05/17/2023

2023

All-new Echo Pop delivers full sound and the power of Alexa in an all-new form factor—and it's just $39.99 Next generation Echo Show 5 delivers two-times the bass; Echo Show 5 Kids comes in a new space-themed design—starting at $89.99 All-new Echo Buds deliver high-quality audio, premium features and hands-free access to Alexa in a lightweight and compact design—all for $49.99 Echo Auto launches for even more customers around the world

<div><p><i>All-new Echo Pop delivers full sound and the power of Alexa in an all-new form factor—and it’s just $39.99</i></p><p><i>Next generation Echo Show 5 delivers two-times the bass; Echo Show 5 Kids comes in a new space-themed design—starting at $89.99</i></p><p><i>All-new Echo Buds deliver high-quality audio, premium features and hands-free access to Alexa in a lightweight and compact design—all for $49.99</i></p><p><i>Echo Auto launches for even more customers around the world</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NASDAQ: AMZN—Amazon today introduced a new lineup of Echo products—the all-new Echo Pop, Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 5 Kids, and all-new Echo Buds—offering customers even more choice in how they access Alexa. In addition, Echo Auto is now available to customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. "Customers around the world love Alexa as their trusted, personal AI—they've now purchased well over half a billion Alexa-enabled devices, and use of Alexa increased 35 percent last year," said Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa. "These new devices give customers more options and more utility at incredible value. And as with every Echo device we've shipped, they will only continue to get better as we add even more generative AI powered experiences for Alexa throughout the year." Introducing Echo Pop–New Semi-Sphere Form Factor, Full Audio, and Fresh Color Options—$39.99 Echo Pop is a new addition to the Echo family with a loveable semi-sphere form factor, and new Lavender Bloom and Midnight Teal color options for just $39.99. It features a custom-designed front-facing directional speaker to deliver full sound that's great for bedrooms, dorm rooms, apartments, or any small space in the home. Simply ask Alexa to read audiobooks, track the record of a favorite sports team, control smart lights and plugs, or reorder household essentials. Echo Pop is powered by the Amazon AZ2 Neural Edge processor and comes with eero Built-in, which enables the device to add up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to an existing eero wifi network, packing even more value into its compact size. Echo Show 5—Redesigned Speaker System and Deeper Bass—$89.99 Echo Show 5 combines the utility of Alexa, with the convenience of a compact screen so customers can watch news clips, check their Ring doorbell camera, view shopping lists, or easily make video calls to friends and family. The new Echo Show 5 is 20 percent faster than the previous generation, and features an entirely new speaker system, doubling the bass and delivering even clearer sound when listening to music, Audible, video content, or a podcast. It comes with a completely reengineered microphone array and the AZ2 Neural Edge processor. Echo Show 5 and Echo Pop both support Matter, making it easy to connect and control compatible smart home products across various brands. Echo Show 5 Kids—New Space-Themed Design and Alexa Features for the Whole Family—$99.99 Echo Show 5 Kids is designed from the ground up for kids, with kid-friendly responses, jokes, homework help, explicit lyric filtering, and more—in a new colorful space-themed design. Parents and guardians have access to a free suite of parental controls through the Parent Dashboard, where they can adjust age settings, review activity, and set bedtime limits. Echo Show 5 Kids comes with a two-year worry-free guarantee and includes one year of Amazon Kids+, the only kid-focused subscription with thousands of ad-free and age-appropriate audiobooks, videos, games, and Alexa skills. Kids can also co-create a visual story using Create with Alexa, featuring two brand new themes: Dinosaurs and Jazzy Jungle. Echo Show 5 Kids is available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. Echo Buds—Wireless Earbuds with Hands-Free Access to Alexa—$49.99 The all-new Echo Buds bring personal AI on the go, featuring a semi-in-ear design that is built to deliver rich audio, long-lasting battery life, premium features, and hands-free access to Alexa for just $49.99. Simply ask Alexa to cue music, make a call, or set a reminder while on the go. Each earbud features a 12mm dynamic driver that delivers rich sound and balanced bass, as well as two microphones and a voice detection accelerometer to distinguish between the person speaking on a call versus others around. Echo Buds include features like customizable tap controls, VIP Filter, and multipoint pairing, so the earbuds can pair and switch audio between two devices simultaneously. Echo Buds are built with a long-lasting battery, capable of up to five hours of music playback and access to Alexa on a single charge. With the case fully powered, Echo Buds can get up to 20 total hours of listening. Echo Auto—Now Available in Eight Additional Countries Echo Auto is now available to customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. This generation of Echo Auto comes in a slim design, includes an adhesive mount for more placement flexibility in the car and is built with five microphones, so customers can easily ask Alexa to play music, make calls, and add items to calendars or to-do lists. Built with Privacy in Mind Echo devices are designed with customer privacy in mind and include multiple layers of privacy controls. Echo devices include a microphone on/off button and the ability to view and delete voice recordings. With Amazon Kids, parents can view their child's activity and manage parental controls in the Parent Dashboard. To learn more about the features that provide transparency and control with Alexa, visit the Alexa Privacy Hub at http://www.amazon.com/alexaprivacy. Climate Pledge Friendly All devices announced today received the Carbon Trust's Reducing CO2 certification and qualify for the Climate Pledge Friendly badge. Device packaging is 100% recyclable in the U.S., and fabric for Echo Pop, Echo Show 5, and Echo Show 5 Kids is made from 100% post-consumer recycled polyester yarn. Echo Pop, Echo Show 5, and Echo Show 5 Kids have Low Power Mode to intelligently conserve energy during periods of inactivity, helping to save energy over the device's lifetime. Plus, Amazon's renewable energy projects will produce the clean energy equivalent to the electricity used by every customer's Echo device by 2025. Pricing and Availability Echo Pop is available in Charcoal, Glacier White, Lavender Bloom, and Midnight Teal for $39.99. Echo Show 5 is available in Charcoal, Glacier White, and Cloud Blue for $89.99. Echo Show 5 Kids is available in Galaxy for $99.99. An adjustable Echo Show 5 stand with USB-C charging port is available for $26.99. Echo Buds are available in Black for $49.99. To learn more, visit www.amazon.com/echodevices.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NASDAQ: AMZN—Amazon today introduced a new lineup of Echo products—the all-new Echo Pop, Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 5 Kids, and all-new Echo Buds—offering customers even more choice in how they access Alexa. In addition, Echo Auto is now available to customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom.</p><p>"Customers around the world love Alexa as their trusted, personal AI—they've now purchased well over half a billion Alexa-enabled devices, and use of Alexa increased 35 percent last year," said Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa. "These new devices give customers more options and more utility at incredible value. And as with every Echo device we've shipped, they will only continue to get better as we add even more generative AI powered experiences for Alexa throughout the year."</p><p>Introducing Echo Pop–New Semi-Sphere Form Factor, Full Audio, and Fresh Color Options—$39.99</p><p>Echo Pop is a new addition to the Echo family with a loveable semi-sphere form factor, and new Lavender Bloom and Midnight Teal color options for just $39.99. It features a custom-designed front-facing directional speaker to deliver full sound that's great for bedrooms, dorm rooms, apartments, or any small space in the home. Simply ask Alexa to read audiobooks, track the record of a favorite sports team, control smart lights and plugs, or reorder household essentials. Echo Pop is powered by the Amazon AZ2 Neural Edge processor and comes with eero Built-in, which enables the device to add up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to an existing eero wifi network, packing even more value into its compact size.</p><p>Echo Show 5—Redesigned Speaker System and Deeper Bass—$89.99</p><p>Echo Show 5 combines the utility of Alexa, with the convenience of a compact screen so customers can watch news clips, check their Ring doorbell camera, view shopping lists, or easily make video calls to friends and family. The new Echo Show 5 is 20 percent faster than the previous generation, and features an entirely new speaker system, doubling the bass and delivering even clearer sound when listening to music, Audible, video content, or a podcast. It comes with a completely reengineered microphone array and the AZ2 Neural Edge processor. Echo Show 5 and Echo Pop both support Matter, making it easy to connect and control compatible smart home products across various brands.</p><p>Echo Show 5 Kids—New Space-Themed Design and Alexa Features for the Whole Family—$99.99</p><p>Echo Show 5 Kids is designed from the ground up for kids, with kid-friendly responses, jokes, homework help, explicit lyric filtering, and more—in a new colorful space-themed design. Parents and guardians have access to a free suite of parental controls through the Parent Dashboard, where they can adjust age settings, review activity, and set bedtime limits. Echo Show 5 Kids comes with a two-year worry-free guarantee and includes one year of Amazon Kids+, the only kid-focused subscription with thousands of ad-free and age-appropriate audiobooks, videos, games, and Alexa skills. Kids can also co-create a visual story using Create with Alexa, featuring two brand new themes: Dinosaurs and Jazzy Jungle. Echo Show 5 Kids is available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany.</p><p>Echo Buds—Wireless Earbuds with Hands-Free Access to Alexa—$49.99</p><p>The all-new Echo Buds bring personal AI on the go, featuring a semi-in-ear design that is built to deliver rich audio, long-lasting battery life, premium features, and hands-free access to Alexa for just $49.99. Simply ask Alexa to cue music, make a call, or set a reminder while on the go. Each earbud features a 12mm dynamic driver that delivers rich sound and balanced bass, as well as two microphones and a voice detection accelerometer to distinguish between the person speaking on a call versus others around. Echo Buds include features like customizable tap controls, VIP Filter, and multipoint pairing, so the earbuds can pair and switch audio between two devices simultaneously. Echo Buds are built with a long-lasting battery, capable of up to five hours of music playback and access to Alexa on a single charge. With the case fully powered, Echo Buds can get up to 20 total hours of listening.</p><p>Echo Auto—Now Available in Eight Additional Countries</p><p>Echo Auto is now available to customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. This generation of Echo Auto comes in a slim design, includes an adhesive mount for more placement flexibility in the car and is built with five microphones, so customers can easily ask Alexa to play music, make calls, and add items to calendars or to-do lists.</p><p>Built with Privacy in Mind</p><p>Echo devices are designed with customer privacy in mind and include multiple layers of privacy controls. Echo devices include a microphone on/off button and the ability to view and delete voice recordings. With Amazon Kids, parents can view their child's activity and manage parental controls in the Parent Dashboard.</p><p>To learn more about the features that provide transparency and control with Alexa, visit the Alexa Privacy Hub at http://www.amazon.com/alexaprivacy.</p><p>Climate Pledge Friendly</p><p>All devices announced today received the Carbon Trust's Reducing CO2 certification and qualify for the Climate Pledge Friendly badge. Device packaging is 100% recyclable in the U.S., and fabric for Echo Pop, Echo Show 5, and Echo Show 5 Kids is made from 100% post-consumer recycled polyester yarn. Echo Pop, Echo Show 5, and Echo Show 5 Kids have Low Power Mode to intelligently conserve energy during periods of inactivity, helping to save energy over the device's lifetime. Plus, Amazon's renewable energy projects will produce the clean energy equivalent to the electricity used by every customer's Echo device by 2025.</p><p>Pricing and Availability</p><p>Echo Pop is available in Charcoal, Glacier White, Lavender Bloom, and Midnight Teal for $39.99. Echo Show 5 is available in Charcoal, Glacier White, and Cloud Blue for $89.99. Echo Show 5 Kids is available in Galaxy for $99.99. An adjustable Echo Show 5 stand with USB-C charging port is available for $26.99. Echo Buds are available in Black for $49.99. To learn more, visit www.amazon.com/echodevices.</p>

Amazon's U.S. Small Business Empowerment Report Shows Continued Sales Growth for Independent Sellers

/news/news-details/2023/Amazons-U.S.-Small-Business-Empowerment-Report-Shows-Continued-Sales-Growth-for-Independent-Sellers/default.aspx

Amazons-U.S.-Small-Business-Empowerment-Report-Shows-Continued-Sales-Growth-for-Independent-Sellers

05/23/2023 00:27:00

Amazon's U.S. Small Business Empowerment Report Shows Continued Sales Growth for Independent Sellers

05/23/2023

2023

U.S. independent sellers—most of which are small and medium-sized businesses—sold more than 4.1 billion products and averaged more than $230,000 in sales in Amazon's store in 2022

<div><p><i>U.S. independent sellers—most of which are small and medium-sized businesses—sold more than </i><i>4.1 billion products and averaged more than $230,000 in sales in Amazon’s store in 2022</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today released its annual U.S. Small Business Empowerment Report, detailing how the company's investments, innovations, and initiatives on behalf of independent sellers help small and medium-sized businesses across the country increase their product sales and create jobs. Today, more than 60% of sales in Amazon's store are from independent sellers—most of which are small and medium-sized businesses—providing a vast selection of amazing products, competitive prices, and great convenience for consumers. According to the report, independent sellers sold more products year over year in Amazon's store and broadened their customer reach beyond the U.S. through increased international export sales. The data signifies the powerful partnership between U.S. small and medium-sized businesses and Amazon, as well as the resiliency of entrepreneurs as they continue to successfully navigate and thrive in a challenging economic climate. Amazon's Small Business Empowerment Report shows that in 2022, independent sellers in the U.S. sold more than 4.1 billion products—an average of 7,800 every minute—in Amazon's store and exported over 260 million products. Sellers in rural areas, including parts of Rhode Island, Illinois, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming, collectively achieved more than 40% year-over-year sales growth in Amazon's store, demonstrating the opportunity Amazon unlocks for small businesses across the country. Selling in Amazon's store has also enabled independent sellers to create an estimated 1.5 million jobs in the U.S., including jobs that are responsible for managing, operating, and supporting sellers' efforts to sell through Amazon's store, which continued to fuel economic opportunities in local communities around the country. "Small businesses are the heart of our local communities and the backbone of the U.S. economy," said Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Services at Amazon. "Amazon invests billions of dollars annually to provide entrepreneurs with a constantly improving set of valuable tools and resources to help them gain access to capital, quickly launch in our store, build their brands, and rapidly scale and reach more customers. Amazon is committed to the success of small businesses, and we are excited to continue innovating on their behalf and help them grow into thriving success stories." Amazon offers a wide range of new and improved tools, programs, and services to help independent sellers get to the next level and grow their brands. According to the report, brand owners in the U.S. grew sales over 20% year over year in Amazon's store. Matt Slykuis, a resident of San Antonio, Texas, and owner of Boldly Growing, said: "For small business owners, it used to be you could have a great idea and work hour after hour, but you still had to hope you catch a lucky break. However, Amazon has really leveled the playing field and made success possible to just about anyone who is willing to put in the effort to learn and bring their product to market." Customers can easily discover products from U.S.-based small businesses and artisans with the Small Business badge. The badge helps customers shop while knowing they're making a real impact on small businesses—including Black-owned, women-owned, and military family-owned businesses—and in their local communities. The badge can be found throughout Amazon's store and at amazon.com/supportsmall. "Ever since small and medium-sized businesses started selling products in our store 23 years ago, I've been impressed by their passion, creativity, and commitment to customers," said Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores. "All these years later, having met many sellers in person, I remain blown away by their brand building, agility, and ability to look around corners and anticipate new product trends. I am proud that hard-working, diverse, and smart entrepreneurs continue to find success growing their businesses in Amazon's store, and I appreciate the immense value that together, we are able to bring to customers around the world." The most-shopped categories from U.S. independent sellers in Amazon's store: Health & Personal Care Home Beauty Grocery Apparel The five states with the most independent sellers in Amazon's store: California Florida New York Texas New Jersey The five states with the most independent sellers per capita in Amazon's store: Wyoming Delaware Florida Utah New Jersey Top five states with largest percentage growth of independent sellers: Wyoming Delaware Florida Utah Texas The five states and district with the fastest-growing number of independent sellers in Amazon's store: Alaska Washington, D.C. Mississippi Maine Wyoming To view the full 2023 U.S. Small Business Empowerment Report, visit https://sellingpartners.aboutamazon.com/.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today released its annual U.S. Small Business Empowerment Report, detailing how the company's investments, innovations, and initiatives on behalf of independent sellers help small and medium-sized businesses across the country increase their product sales and create jobs. Today, more than 60% of sales in Amazon's store are from independent sellers—most of which are small and medium-sized businesses—providing a vast selection of amazing products, competitive prices, and great convenience for consumers. According to the report, independent sellers sold more products year over year in Amazon's store and broadened their customer reach beyond the U.S. through increased international export sales. The data signifies the powerful partnership between U.S. small and medium-sized businesses and Amazon, as well as the resiliency of entrepreneurs as they continue to successfully navigate and thrive in a challenging economic climate.</p><p>Amazon's Small Business Empowerment Report shows that in 2022, independent sellers in the U.S. sold more than 4.1 billion products—an average of 7,800 every minute—in Amazon's store and exported over 260 million products. Sellers in rural areas, including parts of Rhode Island, Illinois, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming, collectively achieved more than 40% year-over-year sales growth in Amazon's store, demonstrating the opportunity Amazon unlocks for small businesses across the country. Selling in Amazon's store has also enabled independent sellers to create an estimated 1.5 million jobs in the U.S., including jobs that are responsible for managing, operating, and supporting sellers' efforts to sell through Amazon's store, which continued to fuel economic opportunities in local communities around the country.</p><p>"Small businesses are the heart of our local communities and the backbone of the U.S. economy," said Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Services at Amazon. "Amazon invests billions of dollars annually to provide entrepreneurs with a constantly improving set of valuable tools and resources to help them gain access to capital, quickly launch in our store, build their brands, and rapidly scale and reach more customers. Amazon is committed to the success of small businesses, and we are excited to continue innovating on their behalf and help them grow into thriving success stories."</p><p>Amazon offers a wide range of new and improved tools, programs, and services to help independent sellers get to the next level and grow their brands. According to the report, brand owners in the U.S. grew sales over 20% year over year in Amazon's store.</p><p>Matt Slykuis, a resident of San Antonio, Texas, and owner of Boldly Growing, said: "For small business owners, it used to be you could have a great idea and work hour after hour, but you still had to hope you catch a lucky break. However, Amazon has really leveled the playing field and made success possible to just about anyone who is willing to put in the effort to learn and bring their product to market."</p><p>Customers can easily discover products from U.S.-based small businesses and artisans with the Small Business badge. The badge helps customers shop while knowing they're making a real impact on small businesses—including Black-owned, women-owned, and military family-owned businesses—and in their local communities. The badge can be found throughout Amazon's store and at amazon.com/supportsmall.</p><p>"Ever since small and medium-sized businesses started selling products in our store 23 years ago, I've been impressed by their passion, creativity, and commitment to customers," said Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores. "All these years later, having met many sellers in person, I remain blown away by their brand building, agility, and ability to look around corners and anticipate new product trends. I am proud that hard-working, diverse, and smart entrepreneurs continue to find success growing their businesses in Amazon's store, and I appreciate the immense value that together, we are able to bring to customers around the world."</p><p>The most-shopped categories from U.S. independent sellers in Amazon's store:</p><ol><li>Health &amp; Personal Care</li><li>Home</li><li>Beauty</li><li>Grocery</li><li>Apparel</li></ol><p>The five states with the most independent sellers in Amazon's store:</p><ol><li>California</li><li>Florida</li><li>New York</li><li>Texas</li><li>New Jersey</li></ol><p>The five states with the most independent sellers per capita in Amazon's store:</p><ol><li>Wyoming</li><li>Delaware</li><li>Florida</li><li>Utah</li><li>New Jersey</li></ol><p>Top five states with largest percentage growth of independent sellers:</p><ol><li>Wyoming</li><li>Delaware</li><li>Florida</li><li>Utah</li><li>Texas</li></ol><p>The five states and district with the fastest-growing number of independent sellers in Amazon's store:</p><ol><li>Alaska</li><li>Washington, D.C.</li><li>Mississippi</li><li>Maine</li><li>Wyoming</li></ol><p>To view the full 2023 U.S. Small Business Empowerment Report, visit https://sellingpartners.aboutamazon.com/.</p>

Introducing the All-New Fire Max 11: Amazon's Biggest and Most Powerful Tablet Yet

/news/news-details/2023/Introducing-the-All-New-Fire-Max-11-Amazons-Biggest-and-Most-Powerful-Tablet-Yet/default.aspx

Introducing-the-All-New-Fire-Max-11-Amazons-Biggest-and-Most-Powerful-Tablet-Yet

05/23/2023 09:38:00

Introducing the All-New Fire Max 11: Amazon's Biggest and Most Powerful Tablet Yet

05/23/2023

2023

Features a large and vivid 11-inch, 2000 x 1200 resolution display; a new slim, lightweight aluminum design; and a fast and powerful 2.2Ghz octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM 14 hours of battery life, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and up to 128GB of built-in storage make Fire Max 11 an entertainment powerhouse for all your movies, books, songs, and games; 8 MP front and rear cameras help you stay connected—all starting at just $229.99 New easy-to-attach full-size magnetic keyboard and stylus create a versatile 2-in-1 device to get more done—bundle Fire Max 11 with keyboard and stylus starting at just $329.99, and try a free three-month trial of Microsoft 365 Personal for access to popular apps and more.

<div><p><i>Features a large and vivid 11-inch, 2000 x 1200 resolution display; a new slim, lightweight aluminum design; and a fast and powerful 2.2Ghz octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM</i></p><p><i>14 hours of battery life, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and up to 128GB of built-in storage make Fire Max 11 an entertainment powerhouse for all your movies, books, songs, and games</i>; <i>8 MP front and rear cameras help you stay connected—all starting at just $229.99</i></p><p><i>New easy-to-attach full-size magnetic keyboard and stylus create a versatile 2-in-1 device to get more done—bundle Fire Max 11 with keyboard and stylus starting at just $329.99, and try a free three-month trial of Microsoft 365 Personal for access to popular apps and more.</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today announced the new Fire Max 11—its biggest and most powerful tablet yet—that helps you stay entertained, connected, and productive. Featuring a brilliant 11-inch screen, a powerful octa-core processor, and 4 GB RAM, Fire Max 11 provides unrivaled value, performance, and fun and starts at just $229.99. A new optional magnetic attach keyboard and stylus enhance productivity and creativity to help you get more done—with a bundle starting at $329.99. Customers can pre-order Fire Max 11 and companion accessories starting today. Introducing the all-new Fire Max 11, Amazon's biggest and most powerful tablet yet (Photo: Business Wire) "Fire Max 11 is our most powerful tablet yet, with a beautiful screen and a sleek new design—it's built to help you have fun and get things done," said Kevin Keith, vice president of Amazon Devices. "The team has packed in an amazing number of premium features—a powerful octa-core processor, crystal-clear display, fingerprint recognition, superfast Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, 14 hour of battery life, support for great new accessories, and more—all at an incredible value. The new Fire Max 11 is proof you can get everything you need from a tablet without paying premium prices." Fire Max 11 features 14 hours of battery life, up to 128GB of built-in storage, and an enhanced processor for fast streaming, responsive gaming, and seamless multi-tasking. Watch TV shows and movies with 2000 x 1200 resolution; stay connected with video calls with the 8 MP front and rear cameras; answer emails and get work done with the optional keyboard; take handwritten notes or create beautiful art with the optional stylus and on-device handwriting recognition; and with the larger screen, comfortably use two apps at once with split screen mode. With its sleek, lightweight, and durable aluminum construction, the Fire Max 11 is perfect for work and play. The new Fire Max 11 includes: The biggest, most vibrant Amazon tablet display—Certified for low blue light, the brilliant 11-inch screen with 2.4 million pixels (2000 x 1200 resolution) lets you enjoy millions of movies, TV episodes, apps, songs, video calls, and games in sharp clarity and vivid color. Powerful performance—Fire Max 11 is almost 50% faster than Amazon's next fastest tablet, with support for advanced next-generation wireless connectivity with Wi-Fi 6, a powerful 2.2 GHz octa-core processor, and 4 GB of RAM—streaming videos, gaming or switching between apps is blazing fast. A thin and light design—The slim and durable aluminum design weighs just over a pound, with slim bezels and strengthened glass, and is three times as durable as the iPad 10.9" (10th generation). All-day entertainment—Stream videos on Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, or Max, with the 14-hour long-lasting battery and immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound. Plus, with 64 or 128 GB storage, you can save all your favorites for offline viewing. With Amazon Luna cloud gaming service, stream your favorite games like Fortnite straight to your Fire Max 11. Multi-tasking—Fire Max 11 makes it easy to do more tasks in parallel to suit your busy lifestyle, like using split-screen mode to make calls on Zoom or Microsoft Teams while simultaneously taking notes on OneNote or sending emails using the keyboard. Fingerprint Recognition technology—Fire Max 11 is Amazon's first tablet to include Fingerprint Recognition technology as a hassle-free way to unlock the tablet—simply touch the power button with an integrated fingerprint sensor. Enhanced cameras—With the 8 MP front- and rear-facing cameras, 1080p HD video recording, rear auto-focus, and front camera in landscape orientation, Fire Max 11 is great for video calls with friends or family. Access to Alexa—Simply ask Alexa to play a song, start an Audible book, launch a trivia game, find your favorite movies, show your calendar, Drop In on a friend or family member, and more—using only your voice. Smart home controls—With the Device Dashboard on the home screen, seamlessly control your Alexa-enabled smart home devices directly from Fire Max 11; and with Show Mode, turn your Fire Max 11 into an Echo Show-like screen for your smart home. Great for families—Fire Max 11 is great for the whole family with support for up to two adult and four child profiles. With Amazon Kids, parents can easily manage their kids' screen time and set daily goals, age filters, and time limits. Subscribe to Amazon Kids+ for access to thousands of books, apps, games, videos, songs, Audible books, and more. Parents can manage these settings on the device or through the Amazon Parent Dashboard. Climate Pledge friendly—With a design that reflects decarbonization efforts in line with The Climate Pledge, Fire Max 11 carries the "Climate Pledge Friendly" badge on Amazon.com, and is certified by Carbon Trust's Product Carbon Footprint Label, and the device comes in 100% recycled packaging. Fire Max 11 Productivity Bundle: Work, play, and create all day Fire Max 11 also gives customers the option of enjoying powerful productivity and creativity. A Keyboard Case and Made for Amazon Stylus Pen can be bundled for $329.99, transforming the Fire Max 11 into a versatile multi-use device—typing, taking handwritten notes, and getting creative are a breeze. With these new accessories, you can: Power through work—Instantly transform your Fire Max 11 into a 2-in-1 detachable with the full-sized keyboard case. The Keyboard Case provides two customizable shortcut keys and 15 preprogrammed shortcut keys to make doing your favorite tasks easier, and also features trackpad gestures for quick navigation. The keyboard case magnetically connects so you can start using it with no setup needed, and the back cover can be used as a stand for hands-free watching, reading, or video calls. Unleash your creativity—The Made for Amazon Stylus Pen lets you draw and design in apps like Picsart, mark up your documents by hand in Microsoft 365, take handwritten notes in OneNote, or get creative with Drawing Desk, all of which you can then share and access across all your devices. With the Write to Type feature, you can use the stylus to handwrite naturally in any text field, so that a search is as natural as jotting down a quick thought. The stylus pen uses a replaceable battery which lasts up to six months. Take advantage of a free three-month trial of Microsoft 365 Personal (terms and conditions apply), and get access to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, as well 1 TB of cloud storage, cross-device continuity, and data protection ($6.99/month after trial). Pricing and availability Fire Max 11 is available with your choice of 64 GB or 128 GB storage, and is available for pre-order today starting at $229.99. Pair your Fire Max 11 with the integrated Keyboard Case ($89.99) and Made for Amazon Stylus Pen ($34.99) for a bundle price starting at $329.99 (a savings of nearly $25, compared to purchasing the items individually). A new Slim Cover, which doubles as a stylish stand to prop up your device, is also available for $49.99. Fire Max 11 and accessories will begin shipping next month. For more information, go to the Fire Max 11 product page.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today announced the new Fire Max 11—its biggest and most powerful tablet yet—that helps you stay entertained, connected, and productive. Featuring a brilliant 11-inch screen, a powerful octa-core processor, and 4 GB RAM, Fire Max 11 provides unrivaled value, performance, and fun and starts at just $229.99. A new optional magnetic attach keyboard and stylus enhance productivity and creativity to help you get more done—with a bundle starting at $329.99. Customers can pre-order Fire Max 11 and companion accessories starting today.</p><div><p>Introducing the all-new Fire Max 11, Amazon's biggest and most powerful tablet yet (Photo: Business Wire)</p></div><p>"Fire Max 11 is our most powerful tablet yet, with a beautiful screen and a sleek new design—it's built to help you have fun and get things done," said Kevin Keith, vice president of Amazon Devices. "The team has packed in an amazing number of premium features—a powerful octa-core processor, crystal-clear display, fingerprint recognition, superfast Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, 14 hour of battery life, support for great new accessories, and more—all at an incredible value. The new Fire Max 11 is proof you can get everything you need from a tablet without paying premium prices."</p><p>Fire Max 11 features 14 hours of battery life, up to 128GB of built-in storage, and an enhanced processor for fast streaming, responsive gaming, and seamless multi-tasking. Watch TV shows and movies with 2000 x 1200 resolution; stay connected with video calls with the 8 MP front and rear cameras; answer emails and get work done with the optional keyboard; take handwritten notes or create beautiful art with the optional stylus and on-device handwriting recognition; and with the larger screen, comfortably use two apps at once with split screen mode. With its sleek, lightweight, and durable aluminum construction, the Fire Max 11 is perfect for work and play.</p><p>The new Fire Max 11 includes:</p><ul><li>The biggest, most vibrant Amazon tablet display—Certified for low blue light, the brilliant 11-inch screen with 2.4 million pixels (2000 x 1200 resolution) lets you enjoy millions of movies, TV episodes, apps, songs, video calls, and games in sharp clarity and vivid color.</li><li>Powerful performance—Fire Max 11 is almost 50% faster than Amazon's next fastest tablet, with support for advanced next-generation wireless connectivity with Wi-Fi 6, a powerful 2.2 GHz octa-core processor, and 4 GB of RAM—streaming videos, gaming or switching between apps is blazing fast.</li><li>A thin and light design—The slim and durable aluminum design weighs just over a pound, with slim bezels and strengthened glass, and is three times as durable as the iPad 10.9" (10th generation).</li><li>All-day entertainment—Stream videos on Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, or Max, with the 14-hour long-lasting battery and immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound. Plus, with 64 or 128 GB storage, you can save all your favorites for offline viewing. With Amazon Luna cloud gaming service, stream your favorite games like Fortnite straight to your Fire Max 11.</li><li>Multi-tasking—Fire Max 11 makes it easy to do more tasks in parallel to suit your busy lifestyle, like using split-screen mode to make calls on Zoom or Microsoft Teams while simultaneously taking notes on OneNote or sending emails using the keyboard.</li><li>Fingerprint Recognition technology—Fire Max 11 is Amazon's first tablet to include Fingerprint Recognition technology as a hassle-free way to unlock the tablet—simply touch the power button with an integrated fingerprint sensor.</li><li>Enhanced cameras—With the 8 MP front- and rear-facing cameras, 1080p HD video recording, rear auto-focus, and front camera in landscape orientation, Fire Max 11 is great for video calls with friends or family.</li><li>Access to Alexa—Simply ask Alexa to play a song, start an Audible book, launch a trivia game, find your favorite movies, show your calendar, Drop In on a friend or family member, and more—using only your voice.</li><li>Smart home controls—With the Device Dashboard on the home screen, seamlessly control your Alexa-enabled smart home devices directly from Fire Max 11; and with Show Mode, turn your Fire Max 11 into an Echo Show-like screen for your smart home.</li><li>Great for families—Fire Max 11 is great for the whole family with support for up to two adult and four child profiles. With Amazon Kids, parents can easily manage their kids' screen time and set daily goals, age filters, and time limits. Subscribe to Amazon Kids+ for access to thousands of books, apps, games, videos, songs, Audible books, and more. Parents can manage these settings on the device or through the Amazon Parent Dashboard.</li><li>Climate Pledge friendly—With a design that reflects decarbonization efforts in line with The Climate Pledge, Fire Max 11 carries the "Climate Pledge Friendly" badge on Amazon.com, and is certified by Carbon Trust's Product Carbon Footprint Label, and the device comes in 100% recycled packaging.</li></ul><p>Fire Max 11 Productivity Bundle: Work, play, and create all day</p><p>Fire Max 11 also gives customers the option of enjoying powerful productivity and creativity. A Keyboard Case and Made for Amazon Stylus Pen can be bundled for $329.99, transforming the Fire Max 11 into a versatile multi-use device—typing, taking handwritten notes, and getting creative are a breeze. With these new accessories, you can:</p><ul><li>Power through work—Instantly transform your Fire Max 11 into a 2-in-1 detachable with the full-sized keyboard case. The Keyboard Case provides two customizable shortcut keys and 15 preprogrammed shortcut keys to make doing your favorite tasks easier, and also features trackpad gestures for quick navigation. The keyboard case magnetically connects so you can start using it with no setup needed, and the back cover can be used as a stand for hands-free watching, reading, or video calls.</li><li>Unleash your creativity—The Made for Amazon Stylus Pen lets you draw and design in apps like Picsart, mark up your documents by hand in Microsoft 365, take handwritten notes in OneNote, or get creative with Drawing Desk, all of which you can then share and access across all your devices. With the Write to Type feature, you can use the stylus to handwrite naturally in any text field, so that a search is as natural as jotting down a quick thought. The stylus pen uses a replaceable battery which lasts up to six months.</li></ul><p>Take advantage of a free three-month trial of Microsoft 365 Personal (terms and conditions apply), and get access to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, as well 1 TB of cloud storage, cross-device continuity, and data protection ($6.99/month after trial).</p><p>Pricing and availability</p><p>Fire Max 11 is available with your choice of 64 GB or 128 GB storage, and is available for pre-order today starting at $229.99. Pair your Fire Max 11 with the integrated Keyboard Case ($89.99) and Made for Amazon Stylus Pen ($34.99) for a bundle price starting at $329.99 (a savings of nearly $25, compared to purchasing the items individually). A new Slim Cover, which doubles as a stylish stand to prop up your device, is also available for $49.99.</p><p>Fire Max 11 and accessories will begin shipping next month. For more information, go to the Fire Max 11 product page.</p>

AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon Security Lake

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Announces-General-Availability-of-Amazon-Security-Lake/default.aspx

AWS-Announces-General-Availability-of-Amazon-Security-Lake

05/30/2023 16:07:00

AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon Security Lake

05/30/2023

2023

Purpose-built data lake helps customers and partners achieve a more complete, organization-wide understanding of their security posture and act faster to improve the protection of their workloads, applications, and data More than 55 customers and partners, including Cribl, CrowdStrike, Datadog, SentinelOne, Splunk, and Wiz, integrate with Amazon Security Lake

<div><p><i>Purpose-built data lake helps customers and partners achieve a more complete, organization-wide understanding of their security posture and act faster to improve the protection of their workloads, applications, and data</i></p><p><i>More than 55 customers and partners, including Cribl, CrowdStrike, Datadog, SentinelOne, Splunk, and Wiz, integrate with Amazon Security Lake</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN),today announced the general availability of Amazon Security Lake, a service that automatically centralizes an organization's security data from across their AWS environments, leading SaaS providers, on-premises environments, and cloud sources into a purpose-built data lake, so customers can act on security data faster and simplify security data management across hybrid and multicloud environments. Amazon Security Lake converts and conforms incoming security data to the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF) open standard, making it easier for security teams to automatically collect, combine, and analyze security data from more than 80 sources, including AWS, security partners, and analytics providers. Amazon Security Lake is part of a broad set of AWS Cloud security services that build on AWS's secure infrastructure to help make it the most flexible and secure cloud trusted by millions of customers, including some of the most security-sensitive organizations, and is supported by a broad community of security partners to help customers elevate their security in the cloud. Amazon Security Lake aggregates and optimizes large volumes of disparate log and event data to enable faster threat detection, investigation, and response so organizations can effectively address potential issues quickly, using their preferred analytics tools. To get started with Amazon Security Lake, visit https://aws.amazon.com/security-lake. "Security has been our top priority since the very beginning, when we were designing to meet the needs of the most security-sensitive organizations," said Jon Ramsey, vice president for Security Services at AWS. "We also know that customers need trusted partners to extend the benefits of the cloud and make sure their organizations are secure end-to-end. With more than 80 sources providing data to Amazon Security Lake, security teams can achieve greater visibility into potential security threats and how to respond to them, further protecting the workloads, applications, and data that are critical to driving business forward." Customers want to proactively identify, assess, and respond to potential threats and vulnerabilities. To do this, most organizations rely on log and event data from many different sources (e.g., applications, firewalls, and identity systems) running in the cloud and on premises, each using a different data format. Uncovering security-related insights, like unauthorized external data transfers or malware installations on employee devices, means organizations must aggregate and normalize security data into a consistent schema. Once the data is formatted consistently, customers can analyze it and understand the current level of vulnerability, and then correlate and monitor threats for improved observability. Customers typically use different security solutions to address specific use cases, such as incident response and security analytics. This often means they are duplicating and processing the same data multiple times because each solution has its own data stores and format. Running multiple security solutions is costly and slows down security teams' ability to detect and respond to issues. To monitor new users, tools, and data sources, security teams must manage a complex set of data access rules and security policies to track how data is used while ensuring that employees can still access the information needed to do their jobs. Some security teams create a central repository for all of their security data in a data lake, but these systems require specialized skills and can take months to build due to the large amounts of data, which can run into petabyte scale, from different sources. Amazon Security Lake is a purpose-built security data lake that enables customers to aggregate, normalize, and store data so they can respond to security events faster, simplify compliance monitoring and reporting, and unify security data management across hybrid and multicloud environments. The service builds the security data lake using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and AWS Lake Formation to automatically set up security data lake infrastructure in a customer's AWS account, providing full control and ownership over security data. To help customers achieve end-to-end security, the AWS Marketplace includes thousands of security solutions. Customers can integrate powerful technology from a wide portfolio of integrated services and partner solutions that can be customized, automated, and scaled to achieve the appropriate level of security for their organizations. With just a few steps, customers can easily create a data lake that collects security data from sources like Amazon VPC Flow Logs and AWS CloudTrail, third-party sources like Splunk, CrowdStrike, Datadog, and Cribl, and their own sources of data. All security data in Amazon Security Lake conforms to the OCSF schema, making it simpler to conduct security investigations with a single, unified view. Customers can use their preferred security and analytics tools, including Amazon Athena, Amazon OpenSearch Service, and Amazon SageMaker, along with leading third-party solutions, to capture broader and deeper analytics quickly and easily. Amazon Security Lake is generally available today in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), and South America (São Paulo) with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon. Cribl makes open observability a reality for today's tech professionals. Cribl's vendor-agnostic observability product suite gives customers flexibility to route and process data at scale from any source to any destination within their data infrastructure. "With the explosion of data and the rapidly evolving security landscape, security teams are challenged to continuously monitor, detect, respond to, and mitigate threats," said Clint Sharp, co-founder and CEO at Cribl. "Through our integration with Amazon Security Lake, we are excited to provide AWS customers the flexibility to ingest data from third-party sources, transform it to OCSF, then route it to Amazon Security Lake and additional OCSF-enabled tools for enhanced ability to detect and respond to threats. This integration streamlines the process of federated search-in-place queries and selective routing of crucial data to any analytics platform, making it more convenient for customers to use and faster to capture deeper insights." CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity leader with one of the world's most advanced cloud-native platforms for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk—endpoints and cloud workloads, identity, and data. "Stopping breaches requires organizations to break down the silos that exist across their security and technology stack," said Daniel Bernard, chief business officer at CrowdStrike. "We have noticed a growing trend among customers who correlate CrowdStrike Falcon telemetry with other security data. As a member of OCSF and a long-time AWS Partner, CrowdStrike enables enriched telemetry from the CrowdStrike Falcon platform to Amazon Security Lake. This delivers superior visibility and protection against modern threats, empowering security teams to leverage this information in their security solutions." Datadog is a monitoring and security platform for cloud applications. "By providing security teams with in-depth contextual insights and advanced analytics, we can enhance their ability to address and reduce false positives," said Pierre Betouin, senior vice president of Security Products at Datadog. "The integration between Amazon Security Lake and Datadog platform enables teams to route critical customer logs, including AWS, on-premises, and SAAS logs, to the Datadog Cloud SIEM. This integration provides users with contextual information that helps reduce false positives and enables rapid threat detection and prioritization." Jumia is a leading e-commerce platform in Africa, offering customers across the continent a wide range of products and services through its marketplace. "We find Amazon Security Lake to be an indispensable asset that improves our overall security posture and are excited the service is now generally available," said Pedro Fangueiro, CISO at Jumia. "Amazon Security Lake significantly streamlines our security operations, allowing our teams to efficiently tackle security monitoring use cases, ultimately fortifying our workloads, applications, and data. Amazon Security Lake helps us reduce administrative overhead in critical environments, enabling us to focus on tasks with the highest value to our business." Novozymes is a global biotechnology company specializing in the research, development, and production of industrial enzymes, microorganisms, and bio-pharmaceutical ingredients to help businesses grow sustainably, safeguard the planet's resources, and improve the quality of life for people around the world. "Managing and analyzing security logs and findings for CloudTrail, VPC, Route53, and AWS Security Hub across our hybrid enterprise posed a significant challenge," said Jacob Kofod, Cloud Architect for Novozymes. "We started using Amazon Security Lake to help us normalize the security logs and findings, and enables us to swiftly and accurately feed this information to a SIEM with minimal operational overhead. Amazon Security Lake will help Novozymes spend more time on more impactful work like safeguarding the planet's resources." SentinelOne provides AI-powered cybersecurity to prevent threats, reduce risk, and safeguard organizations by providing protection across cloud, endpoints, identity, and data. "Traditional threat hunting and investigations are often challenging and time consuming. The diverse telemetry and log events required for analysis are scattered across various sources, formats, and tools, creating silos that hinder efficiency and effectiveness," said Jane Wong, senior vice president of Product Management at SentinelOne. "Through our integration with Amazon Security Lake and leveraging the OCSF schema, customers can now ingest, query, and analyze normalized telemetry within SentinelOne's Singularity Platform. This streamlined process greatly reduces complexity and enhances efficiency in threat investigations, enabling a unified data source that automatically correlates events, empowering automated correlations of events to reconstruction threats from inception to resolution." Splunk is a leading technology company specializing in cybersecurity and observability solutions dedicated to fostering a safer and more resilient digital world. "Splunk is honored to be an AWS launch partner for Amazon Security Lake and a valued member of the Steering Committee for the OCSF project, which aims to establish an open schema for data normalization within the cybersecurity community," said Mike Horn, senior vice president and general manager of Security at Splunk. "The integration between Splunk and Amazon Security Lake enables customers to store their data in one unified format, OCSF. This integration not only enhances their ability to accelerate threat detection and investigation of AWS data, but also helps them ensure their compliance with data retention and regulatory requirements." Volkswagen Financial Services is a division of Volkswagen AG represented across the world through many different companies in the business segments of banking, leasing, insurance and services, mobility and payment. "Amazon Security Lake makes it easy to centralize all of our security-related log and findings data into a single data lake, providing us with a comprehensive overview," said Crispin Weißfuß, head of AWS Managed Platform Services at Volkswagen Financial Services. "This has made it easier for us to address a variety of security monitoring use cases and improve the protection of our workloads, applications, and data." Wiz is a cybersecurity startup with a mission to help organizations create secure cloud environments that accelerate their business. "Obtaining deeper insights from security data is imperative for organizations to effectively prioritize critical issues," said Yinon Costica, vice president of Product and co-founder at Wiz. "Through our integration with Amazon Security Lake, we not only provide those critical insights, but also improve cloud security data sharing, enabling customers to better correlate and leverage issues internally. This integration breaks down security product silos, allowing customers to prioritize security issues, query security analytics, and gain greater visibility into their overall security posture."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN),today announced the general availability of Amazon Security Lake, a service that automatically centralizes an organization's security data from across their AWS environments, leading SaaS providers, on-premises environments, and cloud sources into a purpose-built data lake, so customers can act on security data faster and simplify security data management across hybrid and multicloud environments. Amazon Security Lake converts and conforms incoming security data to the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF) open standard, making it easier for security teams to automatically collect, combine, and analyze security data from more than 80 sources, including AWS, security partners, and analytics providers. Amazon Security Lake is part of a broad set of AWS Cloud security services that build on AWS's secure infrastructure to help make it the most flexible and secure cloud trusted by millions of customers, including some of the most security-sensitive organizations, and is supported by a broad community of security partners to help customers elevate their security in the cloud. Amazon Security Lake aggregates and optimizes large volumes of disparate log and event data to enable faster threat detection, investigation, and response so organizations can effectively address potential issues quickly, using their preferred analytics tools. To get started with Amazon Security Lake, visit https://aws.amazon.com/security-lake.</p><p>"Security has been our top priority since the very beginning, when we were designing to meet the needs of the most security-sensitive organizations," said Jon Ramsey, vice president for Security Services at AWS. "We also know that customers need trusted partners to extend the benefits of the cloud and make sure their organizations are secure end-to-end. With more than 80 sources providing data to Amazon Security Lake, security teams can achieve greater visibility into potential security threats and how to respond to them, further protecting the workloads, applications, and data that are critical to driving business forward."</p><p>Customers want to proactively identify, assess, and respond to potential threats and vulnerabilities. To do this, most organizations rely on log and event data from many different sources (e.g., applications, firewalls, and identity systems) running in the cloud and on premises, each using a different data format. Uncovering security-related insights, like unauthorized external data transfers or malware installations on employee devices, means organizations must aggregate and normalize security data into a consistent schema. Once the data is formatted consistently, customers can analyze it and understand the current level of vulnerability, and then correlate and monitor threats for improved observability. Customers typically use different security solutions to address specific use cases, such as incident response and security analytics. This often means they are duplicating and processing the same data multiple times because each solution has its own data stores and format. Running multiple security solutions is costly and slows down security teams' ability to detect and respond to issues. To monitor new users, tools, and data sources, security teams must manage a complex set of data access rules and security policies to track how data is used while ensuring that employees can still access the information needed to do their jobs. Some security teams create a central repository for all of their security data in a data lake, but these systems require specialized skills and can take months to build due to the large amounts of data, which can run into petabyte scale, from different sources.</p><p>Amazon Security Lake is a purpose-built security data lake that enables customers to aggregate, normalize, and store data so they can respond to security events faster, simplify compliance monitoring and reporting, and unify security data management across hybrid and multicloud environments. The service builds the security data lake using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and AWS Lake Formation to automatically set up security data lake infrastructure in a customer's AWS account, providing full control and ownership over security data. To help customers achieve end-to-end security, the AWS Marketplace includes thousands of security solutions. Customers can integrate powerful technology from a wide portfolio of integrated services and partner solutions that can be customized, automated, and scaled to achieve the appropriate level of security for their organizations. With just a few steps, customers can easily create a data lake that collects security data from sources like Amazon VPC Flow Logs and AWS CloudTrail, third-party sources like Splunk, CrowdStrike, Datadog, and Cribl, and their own sources of data. All security data in Amazon Security Lake conforms to the OCSF schema, making it simpler to conduct security investigations with a single, unified view. Customers can use their preferred security and analytics tools, including Amazon Athena, Amazon OpenSearch Service, and Amazon SageMaker, along with leading third-party solutions, to capture broader and deeper analytics quickly and easily.</p><p>Amazon Security Lake is generally available today in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), and South America (São Paulo) with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon.</p><p>Cribl makes open observability a reality for today's tech professionals. Cribl's vendor-agnostic observability product suite gives customers flexibility to route and process data at scale from any source to any destination within their data infrastructure. "With the explosion of data and the rapidly evolving security landscape, security teams are challenged to continuously monitor, detect, respond to, and mitigate threats," said Clint Sharp, co-founder and CEO at Cribl. "Through our integration with Amazon Security Lake, we are excited to provide AWS customers the flexibility to ingest data from third-party sources, transform it to OCSF, then route it to Amazon Security Lake and additional OCSF-enabled tools for enhanced ability to detect and respond to threats. This integration streamlines the process of federated search-in-place queries and selective routing of crucial data to any analytics platform, making it more convenient for customers to use and faster to capture deeper insights."</p><p>CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity leader with one of the world's most advanced cloud-native platforms for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk—endpoints and cloud workloads, identity, and data. "Stopping breaches requires organizations to break down the silos that exist across their security and technology stack," said Daniel Bernard, chief business officer at CrowdStrike. "We have noticed a growing trend among customers who correlate CrowdStrike Falcon telemetry with other security data. As a member of OCSF and a long-time AWS Partner, CrowdStrike enables enriched telemetry from the CrowdStrike Falcon platform to Amazon Security Lake. This delivers superior visibility and protection against modern threats, empowering security teams to leverage this information in their security solutions."</p><p>Datadog is a monitoring and security platform for cloud applications. "By providing security teams with in-depth contextual insights and advanced analytics, we can enhance their ability to address and reduce false positives," said Pierre Betouin, senior vice president of Security Products at Datadog. "The integration between Amazon Security Lake and Datadog platform enables teams to route critical customer logs, including AWS, on-premises, and SAAS logs, to the Datadog Cloud SIEM. This integration provides users with contextual information that helps reduce false positives and enables rapid threat detection and prioritization."</p><p>Jumia is a leading e-commerce platform in Africa, offering customers across the continent a wide range of products and services through its marketplace. "We find Amazon Security Lake to be an indispensable asset that improves our overall security posture and are excited the service is now generally available," said Pedro Fangueiro, CISO at Jumia. "Amazon Security Lake significantly streamlines our security operations, allowing our teams to efficiently tackle security monitoring use cases, ultimately fortifying our workloads, applications, and data. Amazon Security Lake helps us reduce administrative overhead in critical environments, enabling us to focus on tasks with the highest value to our business."</p><p>Novozymes is a global biotechnology company specializing in the research, development, and production of industrial enzymes, microorganisms, and bio-pharmaceutical ingredients to help businesses grow sustainably, safeguard the planet's resources, and improve the quality of life for people around the world. "Managing and analyzing security logs and findings for CloudTrail, VPC, Route53, and AWS Security Hub across our hybrid enterprise posed a significant challenge," said Jacob Kofod, Cloud Architect for Novozymes. "We started using Amazon Security Lake to help us normalize the security logs and findings, and enables us to swiftly and accurately feed this information to a SIEM with minimal operational overhead. Amazon Security Lake will help Novozymes spend more time on more impactful work like safeguarding the planet's resources."</p><p>SentinelOne provides AI-powered cybersecurity to prevent threats, reduce risk, and safeguard organizations by providing protection across cloud, endpoints, identity, and data. "Traditional threat hunting and investigations are often challenging and time consuming. The diverse telemetry and log events required for analysis are scattered across various sources, formats, and tools, creating silos that hinder efficiency and effectiveness," said Jane Wong, senior vice president of Product Management at SentinelOne. "Through our integration with Amazon Security Lake and leveraging the OCSF schema, customers can now ingest, query, and analyze normalized telemetry within SentinelOne's Singularity Platform. This streamlined process greatly reduces complexity and enhances efficiency in threat investigations, enabling a unified data source that automatically correlates events, empowering automated correlations of events to reconstruction threats from inception to resolution."</p><p>Splunk is a leading technology company specializing in cybersecurity and observability solutions dedicated to fostering a safer and more resilient digital world. "Splunk is honored to be an AWS launch partner for Amazon Security Lake and a valued member of the Steering Committee for the OCSF project, which aims to establish an open schema for data normalization within the cybersecurity community," said Mike Horn, senior vice president and general manager of Security at Splunk. "The integration between Splunk and Amazon Security Lake enables customers to store their data in one unified format, OCSF. This integration not only enhances their ability to accelerate threat detection and investigation of AWS data, but also helps them ensure their compliance with data retention and regulatory requirements."</p><p>Volkswagen Financial Services is a division of Volkswagen AG represented across the world through many different companies in the business segments of banking, leasing, insurance and services, mobility and payment. "Amazon Security Lake makes it easy to centralize all of our security-related log and findings data into a single data lake, providing us with a comprehensive overview," said Crispin Weißfuß, head of AWS Managed Platform Services at Volkswagen Financial Services. "This has made it easier for us to address a variety of security monitoring use cases and improve the protection of our workloads, applications, and data."</p><p>Wiz is a cybersecurity startup with a mission to help organizations create secure cloud environments that accelerate their business. "Obtaining deeper insights from security data is imperative for organizations to effectively prioritize critical issues," said Yinon Costica, vice president of Product and co-founder at Wiz. "Through our integration with Amazon Security Lake, we not only provide those critical insights, but also improve cloud security data sharing, enabling customers to better correlate and leverage issues internally. This integration breaks down security product silos, allowing customers to prioritize security issues, query security analytics, and gain greater visibility into their overall security posture."</p>

Amazon Expands Disaster Relief Hub to 2.4 Million Items for Donation as Hurricane Season Begins

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Amazon-Expands-Disaster-Relief-Hub-to-2.4-Million-Items-for-Donation-as-Hurricane-Season-Begins

06/01/2023 08:00:00

Amazon Expands Disaster Relief Hub to 2.4 Million Items for Donation as Hurricane Season Begins

06/01/2023

2023

Amazon has prepositioned the most-needed relief products in a special facility in Atlanta for quick deployment to disaster-affected communities in partnership with American Red Cross, Save the Children, World Central Kitchen, and other nonprofits Amazon has used its inventory and logistics infrastructure to respond to more than 100 natural disasters and humanitarian crises, and donated more than 23 million relief items around the world

<div><p><i>Amazon has prepositioned the most-needed relief products in a special facility in Atlanta for quick deployment to disaster-affected communities in partnership with American Red Cross, Save the Children, World Central Kitchen, and other nonprofits</i></p><p><i>Amazon has used its inventory and logistics infrastructure to respond to more than 100 natural disasters and humanitarian crises, and donated more than 23 million relief items around the world</i></p></div>

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon announced today that it has more than doubled the capacity of its Disaster Relief Hub in Atlanta by prepositioning 2.4 million relief items ahead of the 2023 hurricane season, which officially begins today. The items will be distributed in the wake of natural disasters to nonprofits and other aid partners that quickly help communities impacted by hurricanes or other disasters. The Disaster Relief Hub is a dedicated space within Amazon's global logistics network to store and quickly pack items that are most-needed following damaging storms and other emergencies. "As natural disasters increase in frequency and severity, we're expanding our Disaster Relief Hub in Atlanta, allowing us to deliver more items in less time during this year's hurricane season," said Abe Diaz, head of Amazon Disaster Relief. "Since 2017, we've responded to more than 100 natural disasters and humanitarian crises in the U.S. and across the world. We've donated more than 23 million relief items, and we've mobilized our teams and used our logistics capabilities to help communities in need—from flying two cargo planes to Türkiye after the recent earthquakes to setting up two humanitarian hubs in just 10 days to help Ukrainian refugees." Amazon works year-round with national and international relief organizations—such as the American Red Cross, Save the Children, and World Central Kitchen—to identify items that will most likely be needed after natural disasters. Data shows that more than 80% of the needed items are the same after each natural event. Using such data and forecasts from relief organizations, Amazon teams are able to pack tens of thousands of relief items and have them ready to deploy as soon as it's safe following a natural disaster. Some of the most frequently requested products include diapers, tarps, cots, blankets, heaters, tents, solar lights and chargers, and cleaning supplies. "We are extremely grateful for our collaboration with Amazon. During times of disaster, companies like Amazon enable the American Red Cross to carry out our mission and serve those in need. As we start another hurricane season, it is critical we have stocked warehouses and relief supplies to help at a moment's notice," said Dee Dixon, regional chief executive officer of the American Red Cross of Georgia. "Amazon's donation and commitment to disaster relief and preparedness help the Red Cross respond to communities and families in need across the country." Improving disaster response through cloud technology Amazon Web Services (AWS) is helping organizations use the power of cloud computing to improve disaster response. For example, AWS is working with the American Red Cross to better serve communities by innovating cloud computing-enabled solutions, including powering Alexa-enabled devices to receive hurricane alerts and to schedule blood donations. AWS also has a dedicated Disaster Response team that helps standby partners—including relief organizations and nonprofits—prepare for and respond to disasters globally with the cloud. This includes testing proof-of-concepts and fine-tuning existing innovations under simulated disaster conditions, with support from AWS Disaster Response vehicles. These vehicles are enabled with technology like AWS Snowball Edge devices, which are powerful and portable cloud computing devices designed for rugged deployments in the harshest physical environments. AWS has used cloud technology to help standby partners with mapping and damage assessment of hard-hit areas, re-establishing internet connectivity, and scaling call centers to handle increased requests after a disaster. The team also provides computing power for responding organizations in the field to process information on-site, enabling them to make faster decisions about where to focus response efforts. In the past 18 months alone, Amazon has responded to major disasters and humanitarian crises across the world, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico and Hurricane Ian in Florida, the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria, as well as tornadoes, wildfires, and floods. To learn more about Amazon disaster relief and response efforts, visit https://www.aboutamazon.com/impact/community/disaster-relief Patrick Malone – malonemp@amazon.com Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon announced today that it has more than doubled the capacity of its Disaster Relief Hub in Atlanta by prepositioning 2.4 million relief items ahead of the 2023 hurricane season, which officially begins today. The items will be distributed in the wake of natural disasters to nonprofits and other aid partners that quickly help communities impacted by hurricanes or other disasters. The Disaster Relief Hub is a dedicated space within Amazon's global logistics network to store and quickly pack items that are most-needed following damaging storms and other emergencies.</p><p>"As natural disasters increase in frequency and severity, we're expanding our Disaster Relief Hub in Atlanta, allowing us to deliver more items in less time during this year's hurricane season," said Abe Diaz, head of Amazon Disaster Relief. "Since 2017, we've responded to more than 100 natural disasters and humanitarian crises in the U.S. and across the world. We've donated more than 23 million relief items, and we've mobilized our teams and used our logistics capabilities to help communities in need—from flying two cargo planes to Türkiye after the recent earthquakes to setting up two humanitarian hubs in just 10 days to help Ukrainian refugees."</p><p>Amazon works year-round with national and international relief organizations—such as the American Red Cross, Save the Children, and World Central Kitchen—to identify items that will most likely be needed after natural disasters. Data shows that more than 80% of the needed items are the same after each natural event.</p><p>Using such data and forecasts from relief organizations, Amazon teams are able to pack tens of thousands of relief items and have them ready to deploy as soon as it's safe following a natural disaster. Some of the most frequently requested products include diapers, tarps, cots, blankets, heaters, tents, solar lights and chargers, and cleaning supplies.</p><p>"We are extremely grateful for our collaboration with Amazon. During times of disaster, companies like Amazon enable the American Red Cross to carry out our mission and serve those in need. As we start another hurricane season, it is critical we have stocked warehouses and relief supplies to help at a moment's notice," said Dee Dixon, regional chief executive officer of the American Red Cross of Georgia. "Amazon's donation and commitment to disaster relief and preparedness help the Red Cross respond to communities and families in need across the country."</p><p>Improving disaster response through cloud technology</p><p>Amazon Web Services (AWS) is helping organizations use the power of cloud computing to improve disaster response. For example, AWS is working with the American Red Cross to better serve communities by innovating cloud computing-enabled solutions, including powering Alexa-enabled devices to receive hurricane alerts and to schedule blood donations.</p><p>AWS also has a dedicated Disaster Response team that helps standby partners—including relief organizations and nonprofits—prepare for and respond to disasters globally with the cloud. This includes testing proof-of-concepts and fine-tuning existing innovations under simulated disaster conditions, with support from AWS Disaster Response vehicles. These vehicles are enabled with technology like AWS Snowball Edge devices, which are powerful and portable cloud computing devices designed for rugged deployments in the harshest physical environments.</p><p>AWS has used cloud technology to help standby partners with mapping and damage assessment of hard-hit areas, re-establishing internet connectivity, and scaling call centers to handle increased requests after a disaster. The team also provides computing power for responding organizations in the field to process information on-site, enabling them to make faster decisions about where to focus response efforts.</p><p>In the past 18 months alone, Amazon has responded to major disasters and humanitarian crises across the world, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico and Hurricane Ian in Florida, the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria, as well as tornadoes, wildfires, and floods.</p><p>To learn more about Amazon disaster relief and response efforts, visit https://www.aboutamazon.com/impact/community/disaster-relief</p> <div><p>Patrick Malone – malonemp@amazon.com</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano Is Amazon's Best Book of the Year So Far for 2023

/news/news-details/2023/Hello-Beautiful-by-Ann-Napolitano-Is-Amazons-Best-Book-of-the-Year-So-Far-for-2023/default.aspx

Hello-Beautiful-by-Ann-Napolitano-Is-Amazons-Best-Book-of-the-Year-So-Far-for-2023

06/14/2023 10:00:00

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano Is Amazon's Best Book of the Year So Far for 2023

06/14/2023

2023

Amazon Books' editorial team selects their favorite books across genres and categories to determine the Best Books of the Year So Far

<div><p><i>Amazon Books’ editorial team selects their favorite books across genres and categories </i><i>to determine the Best Books of the Year So Far</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Today, Amazon announced its picks for 2023's Best Books of the Year So Far, naming Ann Napolitano's novel Hello Beautiful as the No. 1 selection, with Amazon editors calling it "big-hearted and addicting." They go on to say that "Napolitano writes with gusto and compassion about the transition from idyllic youth to the complexities of adulthood; love and loss; and the secrets that hold people together and tear them apart." The other top picks are All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby, who proves what a master storyteller he is in this standout Southern Gothic mystery that takes readers—and one courageous sheriff—to dark corners of a small-town in Southern Virginia; Jean M. Twenge's Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future, a captivating look at the six living generations in the U.S. that will change the way you see yourself and everyone you know; and Dave Eggers' middle-grade book The Eyes and the Impossible, a heartwarming story of friendship and community—featuring a lovable dog that can run like the wind—which tops the children's books category. Throughout the year, Amazon Books editors pore over thousands of pages and hundreds of books to determine the Best Books of the Month, Best Books of the Year So Far, and Best Books of the Year, discussing and debating new releases across various categories. After reading titles released from January through June, Amazon Books editors selected the overall top 20 Best Books of the Year So Far, as well as the top 20 in popular categories like literary fiction; mystery and thrillers; romance; history; biographies and memoirs; cookbooks; and children's books. "The Amazon Books Editors are passionate about connecting readers to books they love. Whether you're a narrative nonfiction lover, someone looking for a book that will keep you up all night, or a devout reader of juicy romances, this list has something for everyone," said Sarah Gelman, editorial director, Amazon Books. After being told Hello Beautiful was Amazon Books' top pick for the first half of 2023, Napolitano said, "I'm deeply grateful for this recognition of Hello Beautiful. I wrote this novel because I was looking for a glimmer of hope during a difficult time, and immersing myself in the world of William and the Padavano sisters felt like a way to heal. I've been so moved hearing from readers that the story has given them some of that same comfort." Gelman said, "Hello Beautiful was, by far, our team's favorite book for the first half of the year. This deeply touching and gorgeously written book about relationships—familial, romantic, friend—will root itself in your heart and refuse to leave, which is why we knew it had to be our number one pick. I ached for the characters long after I finished the last page. You will too." Here are the Amazon Books Editors' Top 10 picks of 2023 so far: 1. Hello Beautiful: A Novel by Ann Napolitano With gusto and compassion, Ann Napolitano crafts a tear-jerker of a story that centers on the Padavano sisters, who are thick as thieves—until they aren't. Hello Beautiful offers big emotion, and that's exactly what makes it so powerful and so page-turning, which is why we named it the Best Book of 2023 So Far.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor 2. All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel by S.A. Cosby This Southern Gothic serial killer mystery comes out of the gate dark, and S.A. Cosby rarely takes his foot off the gas—but his storytelling: lean but vivid, and emotionally intelligent, nails every beat, and I couldn't read it fast enough.—Vannessa Cronin, Amazon editor 3. Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future by Jean M. Twenge Mind-changing revelations, fascinating facts—Jean M. Twenge's compulsively readable book will transform the way you see yourself and everyone you know (and finally put all those tired tropes about baby boomers, millennials, and more, to rest). You'll quote it every day.—Lindsay Powers, Amazon editor 4. Weyward: A Novel by Emilia Hart Though divided by centuries, three women, who share a unique connection to the natural world and to one another, tell their fascinating stories of persecution, danger, and resilience in a beautifully written novel that is a fierce and dazzling read.—Seira Wilson, Amazon editor 5. You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America by Paul Kix This is the best kind of narrative nonfiction: your heart will pound, your blood will boil, you'll feel the rush of adrenaline as Paul Kix tells the history—complete with the unsung heroes, villains, and funders— of how Martin Luther King Jr., his team, and thousands of children in Birmingham, Alabama changed America.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor 6. Pomegranate: A Novel by Helen Elaine Lee Sorry/not sorry for the simile: This empathy-expanding novel, a sly paeon to the power of great fiction and its ability to be a Trojan horse delivering the truth, is like a pomegranate—open it and you'll find a treasure trove inside.—Erin Kodicek, Amazon editor 7. Age of Vice: A Novel by Deepti Kapoor Power, pleasure, drugs, and violence collide in this page-turner with Crazy Rich Asians, Narcos, and The Godfather vibes. From extreme wealth to extreme poverty, and narrated by a cast of characters on both sides of the spectrum, Deepti Kapoor's juicy novel centers on a sprawling Indian family that controls—or attempts to control—all that's around them, and at any cost.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor 8. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann Batten down the hatches, this true story of mayhem and murder, adventure and reckless ambition, on the high seas is a thrill to read. You can almost feel the salt spray on your skin as the HMS Wager and its hurly-burly crew fight the elements and each other in pursuit of fame and fortune. David Grann, once again, has made history come alive.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor 9. The Covenant of Water: A Novel by Abraham Verghese We didn't want this book to end—told over the course of three generations, Abraham Verghese weaves a magnetic story of how cultural, social, and racial politics play out in the lives of wives, doctors, and artists who strive to find a home and purpose in a world that is ever-shifting and ever-dangerous. Filled with characters who love deeply and dream big, this novel will sweep you off your feet.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor 10. Happy Place: A Novel by Emily Henry Emily Henry's latest has all the feels! More than your standard second-chance romance, Happy Place is about the beauty, pain, and joy that come with biological families, chosen families, growing up and apart, and how – as adults – we deal with this thing called life.—Kami Tei, Amazon editor To celebrate their appearances on the annual list of Best Books of the Year So Far, three of the authors—Ann Napolitano, Angeline Boulley (Warrior Girl Unearthed), and Curtis Sittenfeld (Romantic Comedy)—will appear on the Amazon Live Author series with Sarah Gelman on June 14 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss their stories, their favorite books of the year so far, and more. Viewers can watch, listen, and join the conversation by visiting Amazon Live. To view the complete list covering children's, romance, science, mysteries, business, history, and more, visit Amazon's page on the Best Books of the Year So Far. On the Amazon Book Review customers can find book reviews, author interviews, celebrity picks, and book round-ups including Most Anticipated Books of Summer, Page-turning LGBTQIA+ young adult books to celebrate Pride, and A decade of Best Books of the Year So Far. You also can follow the Amazon Book Editors team recommendations and conversations on Amazon Books' Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Today, Amazon announced its picks for 2023's Best Books of the Year So Far, naming Ann Napolitano's novel <i>Hello Beautiful </i>as the No. 1 selection, with Amazon editors calling it "big-hearted and addicting." They go on to say that "Napolitano writes with gusto and compassion about the transition from idyllic youth to the complexities of adulthood; love and loss; and the secrets that hold people together and tear them apart."</p><p>The other top picks are <i>All the Sinners Bleed</i> by S.A. Cosby, who proves what a master storyteller he is in this standout Southern Gothic mystery that takes readers—and one courageous sheriff—to dark corners of a small-town in Southern Virginia; Jean M. Twenge's <i>Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future</i>, a captivating look at the six living generations in the U.S. that will change the way you see yourself and everyone you know; and Dave Eggers' middle-grade book <i>The Eyes and the Impossible</i><i>, </i>a heartwarming story of friendship and community—featuring a lovable dog that can run like the wind—which tops the children's books category.</p><p>Throughout the year, Amazon Books editors pore over thousands of pages and hundreds of books to determine the Best Books of the Month, Best Books of the Year So Far, and Best Books of the Year, discussing and debating new releases across various categories.</p><p>After reading titles released from January through June, Amazon Books editors selected the overall top 20 Best Books of the Year So Far, as well as the top 20 in popular categories like literary fiction; mystery and thrillers; romance; history; biographies and memoirs; cookbooks; and children's books.</p><p>"The Amazon Books Editors are passionate about connecting readers to books they love. Whether you're a narrative nonfiction lover, someone looking for a book that will keep you up all night, or a devout reader of juicy romances, this list has something for everyone," said Sarah Gelman, editorial director, Amazon Books.</p><p>After being told <i>Hello Beautiful</i> was Amazon Books' top pick for the first half of 2023, Napolitano said, "I'm deeply grateful for this recognition of <i>Hello Beautiful</i>. I wrote this novel because I was looking for a glimmer of hope during a difficult time, and immersing myself in the world of William and the Padavano sisters felt like a way to heal. I've been so moved hearing from readers that the story has given them some of that same comfort."</p><p>Gelman said, "<i>Hello Beautiful</i> was, by far, our team's favorite book for the first half of the year. This deeply touching and gorgeously written book about relationships—familial, romantic, friend—will root itself in your heart and refuse to leave, which is why we knew it had to be our number one pick. I ached for the characters long after I finished the last page. You will too."</p><p>Here are the Amazon Books Editors' Top 10 picks of 2023 so far:</p><p><i>1. Hello Beautiful: A Novel</i> by Ann Napolitano</p><p><i>With gusto and compassion, Ann Napolitano crafts a tear-jerker of a story that centers on the Padavano sisters, who are thick as thieves—until they aren't. Hello Beautiful offers big emotion, and that's exactly what makes it so powerful and so page-turning, which is why we named it the Best Book of 2023 So Far.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>2. All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel</i> by S.A. Cosby</p><p><i>This Southern Gothic serial killer mystery comes out of the gate dark, and S.A. Cosby rarely takes his foot off the gas—but his storytelling: lean but vivid, and emotionally intelligent, nails every beat, and I couldn't read it fast enough.—Vannessa Cronin, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>3. Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future</i> by Jean M. Twenge</p><p><i>Mind-changing revelations, fascinating facts—Jean M. Twenge's compulsively readable book will transform the way you see yourself and everyone you know (and finally put all those tired tropes about baby boomers, millennials, and more, to rest). You'll quote it every day.—Lindsay Powers, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>4. Weyward: A Novel</i> by Emilia Hart</p><p><i>Though divided by centuries, three women, who share a unique connection to the natural world and to one another, tell their fascinating stories of persecution, danger, and resilience in a beautifully written novel that is a fierce and dazzling read.—Seira Wilson, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>5. You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America</i> by Paul Kix</p><p><i>This is the best kind of narrative nonfiction: your heart will pound, your blood will boil, you'll feel the rush of adrenaline as Paul Kix tells the history—complete with the unsung heroes, villains, and funders— of how Martin Luther King Jr., his team, and thousands of children in Birmingham, Alabama changed America.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>6. </i><i>Pomegranate: A Novel</i> by Helen Elaine Lee</p><p><i>Sorry/not sorry for the simile: This empathy-expanding novel, a sly paeon to the power of great fiction and its ability to be a Trojan horse delivering the truth, is like a pomegranate—open it and you'll find a treasure trove inside.—Erin Kodicek, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>7. Age of Vice: A Novel</i> by Deepti Kapoor</p><p><i>Power, pleasure, drugs, and violence collide in this page-turner with Crazy Rich Asians, Narcos, and The Godfather vibes. From extreme wealth to extreme poverty, and narrated by a cast of characters on both sides of the spectrum, Deepti Kapoor's juicy novel centers on a sprawling Indian family that controls—or attempts to control—all that's around them, and at any cost.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>8. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder</i> by David Grann</p><p><i>Batten down the hatches, this true story of mayhem and murder, adventure and reckless ambition, on the high seas is a thrill to read. You can almost feel the salt spray on your skin as the HMS Wager and its hurly-burly crew fight the elements and each other in pursuit of fame and fortune. David Grann, once again, has made history come alive.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>9. The Covenant of Water: A Novel</i> by Abraham Verghese</p><p><i>We didn't want this book to end—told over the course of three generations, Abraham Verghese weaves a magnetic story of how cultural, social, and racial politics play out in the lives of wives, doctors, and artists who strive to find a home and purpose in a world that is ever-shifting and ever-dangerous. Filled with characters who love deeply and dream big, this novel will sweep you off your feet.—Al Woodworth, Amazon editor</i></p><p><i>10. Happy Place: A Novel</i> by Emily Henry</p><p><i>Emily Henry's latest has all the feels! More than your standard second-chance romance, Happy Place is about the beauty, pain, and joy that come with biological families, chosen families, growing up and apart, and how – as adults – we deal with this thing called life.—Kami Tei, Amazon editor</i></p><p>To celebrate their appearances on the annual list of Best Books of the Year So Far, three of the authors—Ann Napolitano, Angeline Boulley (<i>Warrior Girl Unearthed</i>), and Curtis Sittenfeld (<i>Romantic Comedy</i><i>)</i>—will appear on the Amazon Live Author series with Sarah Gelman on June 14 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss their stories, their favorite books of the year so far, and more. Viewers can watch, listen, and join the conversation by visiting Amazon Live.</p><p>To view the complete list covering children's, romance, science, mysteries, business, history, and more, visit Amazon's page on the Best Books of the Year So Far.</p><p>On the Amazon Book Review customers can find book reviews, author interviews, celebrity picks, and book round-ups including Most Anticipated Books of Summer, Page-turning LGBTQIA+ young adult books to celebrate Pride, and A decade of Best Books of the Year So Far. You also can follow the Amazon Book Editors team recommendations and conversations on Amazon Books' Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.</p>

BBVA Selects AWS to Accelerate Its Data-Driven Transformation

/news/news-details/2023/BBVA-Selects-AWS-to-Accelerate-Its-Data-Driven-Transformation/default.aspx

BBVA-Selects-AWS-to-Accelerate-Its-Data-Driven-Transformation

06/15/2023 05:45:00

BBVA Selects AWS to Accelerate Its Data-Driven Transformation

06/15/2023

2023

One of the world's largest financial institutions taps AWS to apply analytics and AI to offer secure, innovative customer solutions and drive efficiencies across its operations

<div><p><i>One of the world’s largest financial institutions taps AWS to apply analytics and AI to offer secure, innovative customer solutions and drive efficiencies across its operations</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA), a global banking leader, will use AWS to deliver advanced analytics and data services in the cloud, taking a decisive step in its data and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation process. As part of its transformation into a data- and AI-driven organization, BBVA will use AWS to harness analytics and machine learning to transform its internal processes, improve risk management, drive growth, and provide innovative solutions for its customers. BBVA will leverage a broad portfolio of AWS analytics and AI services across its operations and create a new data platform that will be deployed globally, delivering a secure repository of BBVA's operations and customer data. This platform will provide internal business stakeholders with automated business and market insights, increasing operational efficiencies and attracting new customers. AWS Lake Formation and Amazon DataZone will be instrumental in building, managing, and securing access to the data platform, ensuring data governance and compliance while spurring collaboration and information sharing across key business areas. By combining data lakes and data warehouses, the platform will provide business units at BBVA with a unified view of their data and access to more efficient data processing, analysis, and insights. Amazon SageMaker will enable more than 1,000 data scientists at the BBVA AI Factory, BBVA's global development center that builds AI capabilities, and other data specialized units to build, train, and deploy machine learning models for any use case and to analyze data more efficiently. In addition, the platform will offer unparalleled scalability, flexibility, and efficiency in managing vast amounts of data for more than 2,800 data engineers and architects. BBVA will gain access to AWS generative AI capabilities and large language models (LLMs), including Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models available via an API, to explore the potential of advanced technologies and to help create innovative financial solutions. "This collaboration with AWS and the construction of our new data platform represent a significant milestone for BBVA," said Ricardo Oliver, global head of Data Engineering at BBVA. "By embracing the power of AWS for our data strategy, we are improving our data management capabilities, making data available for everyone and leveraging AWS analytical capabilities to boost the impact of our data projects. This strategic collaboration aligns perfectly with our objective of becoming a true data- and AI-driven digital organization." "Working with AWS, BBVA can use the most secure cloud computing environment to put data at the center of every application and process," said Scott Mullins, managing director of Worldwide Financial Services at AWS. "Financial institutions around the world rely on AWS to transform into data-driven companies that make business decisions faster and operate with greater confidence. With AWS, BBVA can harness its data to remain at the forefront of banking innovation, boosting its business insights and developing more compelling and personalized banking services quickly and cost-effectively."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA), a global banking leader, will use AWS to deliver advanced analytics and data services in the cloud, taking a decisive step in its data and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation process. As part of its transformation into a data- and AI-driven organization, BBVA will use AWS to harness analytics and machine learning to transform its internal processes, improve risk management, drive growth, and provide innovative solutions for its customers.</p><p>BBVA will leverage a broad portfolio of AWS analytics and AI services across its operations and create a new data platform that will be deployed globally, delivering a secure repository of BBVA's operations and customer data. This platform will provide internal business stakeholders with automated business and market insights, increasing operational efficiencies and attracting new customers. AWS Lake Formation and Amazon DataZone will be instrumental in building, managing, and securing access to the data platform, ensuring data governance and compliance while spurring collaboration and information sharing across key business areas. By combining data lakes and data warehouses, the platform will provide business units at BBVA with a unified view of their data and access to more efficient data processing, analysis, and insights.</p><p>Amazon SageMaker will enable more than 1,000 data scientists at the BBVA AI Factory, BBVA's global development center that builds AI capabilities, and other data specialized units to build, train, and deploy machine learning models for any use case and to analyze data more efficiently. In addition, the platform will offer unparalleled scalability, flexibility, and efficiency in managing vast amounts of data for more than 2,800 data engineers and architects. BBVA will gain access to AWS generative AI capabilities and large language models (LLMs), including Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models available via an API, to explore the potential of advanced technologies and to help create innovative financial solutions.</p><p>"This collaboration with AWS and the construction of our new data platform represent a significant milestone for BBVA," said Ricardo Oliver, global head of Data Engineering at BBVA. "By embracing the power of AWS for our data strategy, we are improving our data management capabilities, making data available for everyone and leveraging AWS analytical capabilities to boost the impact of our data projects. This strategic collaboration aligns perfectly with our objective of becoming a true data- and AI-driven digital organization."</p><p>"Working with AWS, BBVA can use the most secure cloud computing environment to put data at the center of every application and process," said Scott Mullins, managing director of Worldwide Financial Services at AWS. "Financial institutions around the world rely on AWS to transform into data-driven companies that make business decisions faster and operate with greater confidence. With AWS, BBVA can harness its data to remain at the forefront of banking innovation, boosting its business insights and developing more compelling and personalized banking services quickly and cost-effectively."</p>

Prime Day Is Back This July 11 & 12, With Big Savings, New Amazon-Exclusive Deals, and Celebrity Product Launches

/news/news-details/2023/Prime-Day-Is-Back-This-July-11--12-With-Big-Savings-New-Amazon-Exclusive-Deals-and-Celebrity-Product-Launches/default.aspx

Prime-Day-Is-Back-This-July-11--12-With-Big-Savings-New-Amazon-Exclusive-Deals-and-Celebrity-Product-Launches

06/21/2023 01:15:00

Prime Day Is Back This July 11 & 12, With Big Savings, New Amazon-Exclusive Deals, and Celebrity Product Launches

06/21/2023

2023

Save big on popular brands like Lancôme, Kérastase, Peloton, Victoria's Secret, YETI, The Drop, and Sony, and save on new Amazon-exclusive deals from D'Amelio Footwear, OPI, and Alo Yoga Get up to 75% off an Amazon Fire TV 43" Omni Series and other exciting products with Invite-only deals, a new way for Prime members to request an invitation to access exclusive Prime Day deals that are expected to sell out Start back to school and college shopping now, with thousands of selections under $5, $10, and $20 ahead of Prime Day

<div><p><i>Save big on popular brands like Lancôme, Kérastase, Peloton, Victoria’s Secret, YETI, The Drop, and Sony, and save on new Amazon-exclusive deals from D’Amelio Footwear, OPI, and Alo Yoga</i></p><p><i>Get up to 75% off an Amazon Fire TV 43” Omni Series</i><i>and other exciting products with Invite-only deals, a new way for Prime members to request an invitation to access exclusive Prime Day deals that are expected to sell out</i></p><p><i>Start back to school and college shopping now, with thousands of selections under $5, $10, and $20 ahead of Prime Day</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ:AMZN)—The countdown begins to Amazon's Prime Day event. From July 11 at 3 a.m. EDT through July 12, Prime members get exclusive access to Amazon's lowest prices so far this year on select products from a variety of brands, like Bose, Hey Dude, and Theragun. New deals will drop every 30 minutes during select periods throughout the event, with deep discounts on top products from the hottest brands. This Prime Day, members in the U.S. can also shop more deals on small business products than ever before. Customers can join Prime or start a free trial at amazon.com/primeday to participate and get the most out of Amazon. Prime Day 2023 (Graphic: Business Wire) "Prime Day is all about making our Prime members feel like a big deal, with deep savings and access to some of the best offers from brands they love," said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. "With Invite-only deals, we're adding more value to the Prime experience and have made it easier for our Prime members to access exclusive doorbuster deals at incredible prices without waiting in line." Shop and Save Now Prime members don't have to wait to shop. Early access to deals starts now on select Amazon devices and products from brands like Ruggable and quip. Members can also shop early deals on products from small businesses like Madison Reed, Balanced Tiger, and AllKem Beauty—and other Black-owned, women-owned, and military family-owned brands—and independent artisans at amazon.com/primedaysmallbusiness. Shop Back to School and Off to College shopping guides: Start saving on everyday school and college essentials. The newly launched Back to School and Off to College shopping guides offer thousands of products for parents, students, and teachers to find what they want and need at a low price. Explore back to school products by price point, deals, grade level, customers' most-loved items, and more at amazon.com/backtoschool. Find your dorm room style and everything else you need for college at amazon.com/offtocollege. Shop Prime Day deals beyond Amazon with Buy with Prime: From June 21 through Prime Day, U.S. Prime members can shop deals directly with brands like Briogeo Hair Care, Anker, Wyze, and Pickleball Central, using Buy with Prime, a new shopping benefit for Prime members. To discover deals beyond Amazon.com, visit buywithprime.amazon.com/shoppers. Go big with Prime Visa: From June 29 through July 26, Prime members can get a $200 Amazon Gift Card instantly upon approval for Prime Visa. Cardmembers also earn 5% back year-round at Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market with an eligible Prime membership. Plus, with daily rewards, earnings can now be redeemed at Amazon.com or Chase as soon as the next day. Access exclusive Prime Video and Amazon Music deals: Enjoy early savings on Prime Video with a selection of titles to rent or buy at up to 50% off. Prime members can also subscribe to select channels for 99 cents per month for up to two months, and get 50% off for two months on AMC+ and Paramount+ if not already subscribed. And for a limited time, members can save with an Amazon Music Unlimited and MGM+ bundle for 99 cents per month for three months. All Prime Video deals can be found at amazon.com/primememberdeals. Save big on Amazon Devices: Get deals starting now and save up to 55% on select Alexa-enabled devices, including the Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) and the all-new Echo Pop; up to 63% off select kids devices, including Echo Glow and the all-new Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) Kids; up to 66% off select Ring bundles; up to 56% on select eero mesh Wi-Fi systems; 60% on a Blink Outdoor (3rd Gen); and up to 43% off select Hisense smart TVs with Fire TV built in. Shop celebrity and influencer picks: Add your favorite celebrity and influencer product recommendations to your shopping list. Tastemakers like Marianna Hewitt, Whitney Port, Tayshia Adams, and Rocky Barnes will curate early deals on their Amazon storefronts, including exclusive promo codes on top brands. Influencer picks can be found on the Inspire Tab in the Amazon Shopping app—look for the lightbulb icon in the app's bottom navigation bar. Prime members can also tune into livestreams hosted by celebrities like Lola Tung, Christopher Briney, and Gavin Casalegno from Prime Video's The Summer I Turned Pretty; or the hosts of REVOLT's Black Girl Stuff on amazon.com/liveprimeday or download the Amazon Live Shopping app on Fire TV. Prepare for Prime Day From requesting early access to exclusive Prime Day deals to asking Alexa for deal notifications and event reminders, members can access several ways to prepare for Prime Day. Sign up for Invite-only deals: With the all-new Invite-only deals program, Prime members can request an invitation to score some of Prime Day's best deals that are expected to sell out—including 75% off Amazon Fire TV 43" Omni Series, 60% off Bulova Men's Marine Star Chronograph, 55% off JBL Live 660NC Noise Cancelling Headphones, and 50% off FOREO LUNA 3 Facial Cleansing Brush. Members who are selected will be notified during Prime Day with instructions on how to purchase the item at the exclusive deal price. Set up personalized deal alerts: Prime members can subscribe to receive deal alert notifications related to their recent Amazon searches and recently viewed items. All members have to do is visit the Prime Day event page on the Amazon Shopping app between now and Prime Day to create deal alerts. Once Prime Day arrives, members will receive push notifications on any available deals. Explore all delivery options: With a Prime membership, you can rely on Amazon to make life easier with fast, free delivery on tens of millions of items and, as always, choose the delivery option that best suits your needs this Prime Day. Same-Day Delivery is currently available to customers in more than 90 U.S. metro areas. You can also select free delivery to Amazon Lockers or Counters, or choose a delivery day preference with Amazon Day. Receive deal notifications from Alexa: Prime members can ask Alexa for deal notifications on products added to their Wish List, Cart, or Save for Later. To get started, just say, "Alexa, add [product name] to my cart," and then ask Alexa to notify you about the deal when it's live. Ask Alexa for an event reminder: Let Alexa give you a gentle nudge when Prime Day begins. Prime members can be alerted at the start of the event by saying, "Alexa, set a reminder for Prime Day." Find Prime Day Around the World Prime Day will kick off on July 11 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the U.S., and the UK. Prime members in India can shop on Prime Day later this summer. About Prime Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one single membership. More than 200 million paid Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial if eligible at amazon.com/prime. Additionally, college students can try Prime Student with a six-month trial at amazon.com/joinstudent, then just pay $7.49 per month, or $69 per year. Qualifying government assistance recipients can get Prime Access for $6.99 per month at amazon.com/getprimeaccess. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ:AMZN)—The countdown begins to Amazon's Prime Day event. From July 11 at 3 a.m. EDT through July 12, Prime members get exclusive access to Amazon's lowest prices so far this year on select products from a variety of brands, like Bose, Hey Dude, and Theragun. New deals will drop every 30 minutes during select periods throughout the event, with deep discounts on top products from the hottest brands. This Prime Day, members in the U.S. can also shop more deals on small business products than ever before. Customers can join Prime or start a free trial at amazon.com/primeday to participate and get the most out of Amazon.</p><div><p>Prime Day 2023 (Graphic: Business Wire)</p></div><p>"Prime Day is all about making our Prime members feel like a big deal, with deep savings and access to some of the best offers from brands they love," said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. "With Invite-only deals, we're adding more value to the Prime experience and have made it easier for our Prime members to access exclusive doorbuster deals at incredible prices without waiting in line."</p><p>Shop and Save Now</p><p>Prime members don't have to wait to shop. Early access to deals starts now on select Amazon devices and products from brands like Ruggable and quip. Members can also shop early deals on products from small businesses like Madison Reed, Balanced Tiger, and AllKem Beauty—and other Black-owned, women-owned, and military family-owned brands—and independent artisans at amazon.com/primedaysmallbusiness.</p><ul><li>Shop Back to School and Off to College shopping guides: Start saving on everyday school and college essentials. The newly launched Back to School and Off to College shopping guides offer thousands of products for parents, students, and teachers to find what they want and need at a low price. Explore back to school products by price point, deals, grade level, customers' most-loved items, and more at amazon.com/backtoschool. Find your dorm room style and everything else you need for college at amazon.com/offtocollege.</li><li>Shop Prime Day deals beyond Amazon with Buy with Prime: From June 21 through Prime Day, U.S. Prime members can shop deals directly with brands like Briogeo Hair Care, Anker, Wyze, and Pickleball Central, using Buy with Prime, a new shopping benefit for Prime members. To discover deals beyond Amazon.com, visit buywithprime.amazon.com/shoppers.</li><li>Go big with Prime Visa: From June 29 through July 26, Prime members can get a $200 Amazon Gift Card instantly upon approval for Prime Visa. Cardmembers also earn 5% back year-round at Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market with an eligible Prime membership. Plus, with daily rewards, earnings can now be redeemed at Amazon.com or Chase as soon as the next day.</li><li>Access exclusive Prime Video and Amazon Music deals: Enjoy early savings on Prime Video with a selection of titles to rent or buy at up to 50% off. Prime members can also subscribe to select channels for 99 cents per month for up to two months, and get 50% off for two months on AMC+ and Paramount+ if not already subscribed. And for a limited time, members can save with an Amazon Music Unlimited and MGM+ bundle for 99 cents per month for three months. All Prime Video deals can be found at amazon.com/primememberdeals.</li><li>Save big on Amazon Devices: Get deals starting now and save up to 55% on select Alexa-enabled devices, including the Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) and the all-new Echo Pop; up to 63% off select kids devices, including Echo Glow and the all-new Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) Kids; up to 66% off select Ring bundles; up to 56% on select eero mesh Wi-Fi systems; 60% on a Blink Outdoor (3rd Gen); and up to 43% off select Hisense smart TVs with Fire TV built in.</li><li>Shop celebrity and influencer picks: Add your favorite celebrity and influencer product recommendations to your shopping list. Tastemakers like Marianna Hewitt, Whitney Port, Tayshia Adams, and Rocky Barnes will curate early deals on their Amazon storefronts, including exclusive promo codes on top brands. Influencer picks can be found on the Inspire Tab in the Amazon Shopping app—look for the lightbulb icon in the app's bottom navigation bar. Prime members can also tune into livestreams hosted by celebrities like Lola Tung, Christopher Briney, and Gavin Casalegno from Prime Video's <i>The Summer I Turned Pretty;</i> or the hosts of REVOLT's <i>Black Girl Stuff</i> on amazon.com/liveprimeday or download the Amazon Live Shopping app on Fire TV.</li></ul><p>Prepare for Prime Day</p><p>From requesting early access to exclusive Prime Day deals to asking Alexa for deal notifications and event reminders, members can access several ways to prepare for Prime Day.</p><ul><li>Sign up for Invite-only deals: With the all-new Invite-only deals program, Prime members can request an invitation to score some of Prime Day's best deals that are expected to sell out—including 75% off Amazon Fire TV 43" Omni Series, 60% off Bulova Men's Marine Star Chronograph, 55% off JBL Live 660NC Noise Cancelling Headphones, and 50% off FOREO LUNA 3 Facial Cleansing Brush. Members who are selected will be notified during Prime Day with instructions on how to purchase the item at the exclusive deal price.</li><li>Set up personalized deal alerts: Prime members can subscribe to receive deal alert notifications related to their recent Amazon searches and recently viewed items. All members have to do is visit the Prime Day event page on the Amazon Shopping app between now and Prime Day to create deal alerts. Once Prime Day arrives, members will receive push notifications on any available deals.</li><li>Explore all delivery options: With a Prime membership, you can rely on Amazon to make life easier with fast, free delivery on tens of millions of items and, as always, choose the delivery option that best suits your needs this Prime Day. Same-Day Delivery is currently available to customers in more than 90 U.S. metro areas. You can also select free delivery to Amazon Lockers or Counters, or choose a delivery day preference with Amazon Day.</li><li>Receive deal notifications from Alexa: Prime members can ask Alexa for deal notifications on products added to their Wish List, Cart, or Save for Later. To get started, just say, "Alexa, add [product name] to my cart," and then ask Alexa to notify you about the deal when it's live.</li><li>Ask Alexa for an event reminder: Let Alexa give you a gentle nudge when Prime Day begins. Prime members can be alerted at the start of the event by saying, "Alexa, set a reminder for Prime Day."</li></ul><p>Find Prime Day Around the World</p><p>Prime Day will kick off on July 11 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the U.S., and the UK. Prime members in India can shop on Prime Day later this summer.</p><p>About Prime</p><p>Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one single membership. More than 200 million paid Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial if eligible at amazon.com/prime. Additionally, college students can try Prime Student with a six-month trial at amazon.com/joinstudent, then just pay $7.49 per month, or $69 per year. Qualifying government assistance recipients can get Prime Access for $6.99 per month at amazon.com/getprimeaccess. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime.</p>

Old Mutual Completes All-In Migration to AWS

/news/news-details/2023/Old-Mutual-Completes-All-In-Migration-to-AWS/default.aspx

Old-Mutual-Completes-All-In-Migration-to-AWS

06/21/2023 04:30:00

Old Mutual Completes All-In Migration to AWS

06/21/2023

2023

The premier pan-African financial services group is establishing a foundation for digital transformation on AWS—accelerating innovation, reducing IT infrastructure costs, and harnessing machine learning to deliver more personalized customer experiences

<div><p><i>The premier pan-African financial services group is establishing a foundation for digital transformation on AWS—accelerating innovation, reducing IT infrastructure costs, and harnessing machine learning to deliver more personalized customer experiences</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Old Mutual has closed its on-premises data centers and migrated its entire information technology (IT) infrastructure, including its banking, insurance, and wealth management systems, to AWS. The migration represents a significant step in Old Mutual's digital transformation. Old Mutual is using AWS's proven, secure, and highly performant infrastructure to decrease financial transaction processing time by two-thirds, reduce downtime by 50%, streamline the development of new and more relevant insurance products, and drive innovation across its business with machine learning (ML). The full migration to AWS involved moving more than 2,000 on-premises servers, 215 applications, 1,786 databases, and more than 500 websites. The move will accelerate innovation, at a time of global economic uncertainty, by reducing the time required for new application testing from months to minutes. With its cloud migration complete, Old Mutual will use AWS capabilities to better anticipate customer needs and develop the next generation of financial products and experiences. The company will leverage AWS ML and generative artificial intelligence (AI) services—including Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service to build, train, and deploy ML models—to generate real-time, personalized financial forecasting and recommendations for customers. Examples of benefits include the ability to anticipate changing savings needs as customers approach retirement, recommend insurance products based on changing income levels and life stages, and help entrepreneurs plan for investing their incomes as their businesses grow. The personalization services are made possible by the expansion of Information Fabric, the data lake that Old Mutual established on AWS. The single, consistent view of customers provided by Information Fabric enables individualized recommendations and more seamless, intuitive customer experiences, including combined client rewards programs that enable points earned in one area of the business to be redeemed through another. Old Mutual is also incorporating AWS training into management courses to help senior managers and leaders across the business to adopt a cloud-first mindset and product development strategy. Since 2019, 50% of the financial group's business and technical leaders have earned at least one AWS Certification. Cloud-first thinking is informing Old Mutual's expansion strategy across the 14 countries its pan-African operations serve. Innovative partnerships with cloud-first vendors, such as the API management platform Kong Konnect and the data management platform Tamr Cloud, will help to improve financial accessibility in these markets through innovative banking as a service (BaaS) solutions. "Daily server outages. Disconnected financial products. Ballooning on-premises costs. Those are all challenges we leave behind as we go all-in on AWS," said May Govender, acting chief information officer for Old Mutual Limited. "Our AWS digital infrastructure has become the backbone of reliable service—a launchpad for future growth. AWS is helping us imagine new possibilities at every level, providing us with a suite of innovative services like generative AI that will spur new customer experiences that can differentiate Old Mutual in the future." "The completion of Old Mutual's all-in migration to AWS represents the next chapter of their digital transformation, and we're excited to help them harness their momentum in the cloud to unlock new innovations," said Chris Erasmus, country manager at AWS. "Old Mutual is using our leading infrastructure to increase performance, reduce processing times, streamline operations, simplify customer experiences, and reduce costs. AWS will continue to collaborate with Old Mutual as they deliver the next generation of financial products." Since 2014, Old Mutual has leveraged AWS's broad portfolio of cloud services, including compute, storage, analytics, and databases, to digitally transform the business and unlock innovation for customers. In 2019, the company selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider and launched its ambitious migration project.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Old Mutual has closed its on-premises data centers and migrated its entire information technology (IT) infrastructure, including its banking, insurance, and wealth management systems, to AWS. The migration represents a significant step in Old Mutual's digital transformation. Old Mutual is using AWS's proven, secure, and highly performant infrastructure to decrease financial transaction processing time by two-thirds, reduce downtime by 50%, streamline the development of new and more relevant insurance products, and drive innovation across its business with machine learning (ML).</p><p>The full migration to AWS involved moving more than 2,000 on-premises servers, 215 applications, 1,786 databases, and more than 500 websites. The move will accelerate innovation, at a time of global economic uncertainty, by reducing the time required for new application testing from months to minutes.</p><p>With its cloud migration complete, Old Mutual will use AWS capabilities to better anticipate customer needs and develop the next generation of financial products and experiences. The company will leverage AWS ML and generative artificial intelligence (AI) services—including Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service to build, train, and deploy ML models—to generate real-time, personalized financial forecasting and recommendations for customers. Examples of benefits include the ability to anticipate changing savings needs as customers approach retirement, recommend insurance products based on changing income levels and life stages, and help entrepreneurs plan for investing their incomes as their businesses grow. The personalization services are made possible by the expansion of Information Fabric, the data lake that Old Mutual established on AWS. The single, consistent view of customers provided by Information Fabric enables individualized recommendations and more seamless, intuitive customer experiences, including combined client rewards programs that enable points earned in one area of the business to be redeemed through another.</p><p>Old Mutual is also incorporating AWS training into management courses to help senior managers and leaders across the business to adopt a cloud-first mindset and product development strategy. Since 2019, 50% of the financial group's business and technical leaders have earned at least one AWS Certification. Cloud-first thinking is informing Old Mutual's expansion strategy across the 14 countries its pan-African operations serve. Innovative partnerships with cloud-first vendors, such as the API management platform Kong Konnect and the data management platform Tamr Cloud, will help to improve financial accessibility in these markets through innovative banking as a service (BaaS) solutions.</p><p>"Daily server outages. Disconnected financial products. Ballooning on-premises costs. Those are all challenges we leave behind as we go all-in on AWS," said May Govender, acting chief information officer for Old Mutual Limited. "Our AWS digital infrastructure has become the backbone of reliable service—a launchpad for future growth. AWS is helping us imagine new possibilities at every level, providing us with a suite of innovative services like generative AI that will spur new customer experiences that can differentiate Old Mutual in the future."</p><p>"The completion of Old Mutual's all-in migration to AWS represents the next chapter of their digital transformation, and we're excited to help them harness their momentum in the cloud to unlock new innovations," said Chris Erasmus, country manager at AWS. "Old Mutual is using our leading infrastructure to increase performance, reduce processing times, streamline operations, simplify customer experiences, and reduce costs. AWS will continue to collaborate with Old Mutual as they deliver the next generation of financial products."</p><p>Since 2014, Old Mutual has leveraged AWS's broad portfolio of cloud services, including compute, storage, analytics, and databases, to digitally transform the business and unlock innovation for customers. In 2019, the company selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider and launched its ambitious migration project.</p>

AWS Announces Generative AI Innovation Center

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AWS-Announces-Generative-AI-Innovation-Center

06/22/2023 12:36:00

AWS Announces Generative AI Innovation Center

06/22/2023

2023

AWS invests $100 million in a new program that connects AWS machine learning and artificial intelligence experts with customers and partners worldwide to accelerate enterprise innovation and success with generative AI Highspot, Lonely Planet, Ryanair, and Twilio are engaging with the Innovation Center to explore developing generative AI solutions

<div><p><i>AWS invests $100 million in a new program that connects AWS machine learning and artificial intelligence experts with customers and partners worldwide to accelerate enterprise innovation and success with generative AI</i></p><p><i>Highspot, Lonely Planet, Ryanair, and Twilio </i><i>are engaging with the Innovation Center to explore developing generative AI solutions</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, a new program to help customers successfully build and deploy generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. AWS is investing $100 million in the program, which will connect AWS AI and machine learning (ML) experts with customers around the globe to help them envision, design, and launch new generative AI products, services, and processes. This builds on more than 25 years of deep investment in developing AI technologies for customers and is just one part of AWS's overall generative AI strategy to bring this technology to customers and partners around the world. Companies of all kinds are excited about the potential of generative AI to transform their offerings and operations. The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center can help them make their ideas a reality faster and more effectively. To get started with the Generative AI Innovation Center, visit https://aws.amazon.com/generative-ai/. "Amazon has more than 25 years of AI experience, and more than 100,000 customers have used AWS AI and ML services to address some of their biggest opportunities and challenges. Now, customers around the globe are hungry for guidance about how to get started quickly and securely with generative AI," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "The Generative AI Innovation Center is part of our goal to help every organization leverage AI by providing flexible and cost-effective generative AI services for the enterprise, alongside our team of generative AI experts to take advantage of all this new technology has to offer. Together with our global community of partners, we're working with business leaders across every industry to help them maximize the impact of generative AI in their organizations, creating value for their customers, employees, and bottom line." The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center team of strategists, data scientists, engineers, and solutions architects will work step-by-step with customers to build bespoke solutions that harness the power of generative AI. For example, healthcare and life sciences companies can pursue ways to accelerate drug research and discovery. Manufacturers can build solutions to reinvent industrial design and processes. And financial services companies can develop ways to provide customers with more personalized information and advice. Through no cost workshops, engagements, and training, AWS will help customers imagine and scope the use cases that will create the greatest value for their businesses, based on best practices and industry expertise. Customers will work closely with generative AI experts from AWS and the AWS Partner Network to select the right models, define paths to navigate technical or business challenges, develop proofs of concepts, and make plans for launching solutions at scale. The Generative AI Innovation Center team will provide guidance on best practices for applying generative AI responsibly and optimizing machine learning operations to reduce costs. Engagements will deliver strategy, tools, and assistance that will help customers use AWS generative AI services, including Amazon CodeWhisperer, an AI-powered coding companion, and Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models (FMs) from AI21 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI, along with Amazon's own family of FMs, Amazon Titan, accessible via an API. They can also train and run their models using high-performance infrastructure, including AWS Inferentia-powered Amazon EC2 Inf1 Instances, AWS Trainium-powered Amazon EC2 Trn1 Instances, and Amazon EC2 P5 instances powered by NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Additionally, customers can build, train, and deploy their own models with Amazon SageMakeror use Amazon SageMaker Jumpstartto deploy some of today's most popular FMs, including Cohere's large language models, Technology Innovation Institute's Falcon 40B, and Hugging Face's BLOOM. Highspot is a sales-enablement platform that increases the productivity of sales teams. "Highspot is obsessive about helping our customers drive efficient growth by delivering capabilities that unlock new levels of sales productivity," said Kurt Berglund, vice president of Science at Highspot. "The potential generative AI brings is huge and at Highspot we're leveraging it to transform sales enablement and continue leveling up the value we give our customers. The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center is providing us with novel solutions and creative guidance for some of the most complex challenges and opportunities involved in bringing generative AI workloads to life at scale." For nearly 50 years, Lonely Planet has been committed to helping people experience the joy of travel. "We are always looking for ways to tap into new technology and meet the demands of today's travelers," said Chris Whyde, senior vice president of Engineering & Data Science at Lonely Planet. "The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, paired with expert-driven advice and Lonely Planet's award-winning content, will enable us to provide more personalized travel recommendations, making travel more accessible for those around the world." Twilio is a customer engagement platform that combines an extensive suite of digital communication channels with the best in first-party customer data, enabling businesses to deliver personalized engagement to customers on a global scale, when and how they prefer. "Our goal with Twilio CustomerAI is to empower businesses to leverage both generative and predictive intelligence capabilities that help them better understand and provide deeper value to their customers," said Kathryn Murphy, senior vice president of Product Management at Twilio. "AWS and Twilio are longtime technology partners, and we're proud to be jointly innovating on predictive AI, using Amazon SageMaker, and welcome future collaboration around generative AI. We look forward to seeing the impact of the Generative AI Innovation Center and its mission to nurture new ideas and capabilities in the AI space."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, a new program to help customers successfully build and deploy generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. AWS is investing $100 million in the program, which will connect AWS AI and machine learning (ML) experts with customers around the globe to help them envision, design, and launch new generative AI products, services, and processes. This builds on more than 25 years of deep investment in developing AI technologies for customers and is just one part of AWS's overall generative AI strategy to bring this technology to customers and partners around the world. Companies of all kinds are excited about the potential of generative AI to transform their offerings and operations. The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center can help them make their ideas a reality faster and more effectively. To get started with the Generative AI Innovation Center, visit https://aws.amazon.com/generative-ai/.</p><p>"Amazon has more than 25 years of AI experience, and more than 100,000 customers have used AWS AI and ML services to address some of their biggest opportunities and challenges. Now, customers around the globe are hungry for guidance about how to get started quickly and securely with generative AI," said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. "The Generative AI Innovation Center is part of our goal to help every organization leverage AI by providing flexible and cost-effective generative AI services for the enterprise, alongside our team of generative AI experts to take advantage of all this new technology has to offer. Together with our global community of partners, we're working with business leaders across every industry to help them maximize the impact of generative AI in their organizations, creating value for their customers, employees, and bottom line."</p><p>The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center team of strategists, data scientists, engineers, and solutions architects will work step-by-step with customers to build bespoke solutions that harness the power of generative AI. For example, healthcare and life sciences companies can pursue ways to accelerate drug research and discovery. Manufacturers can build solutions to reinvent industrial design and processes. And financial services companies can develop ways to provide customers with more personalized information and advice.</p><p>Through no cost workshops, engagements, and training, AWS will help customers imagine and scope the use cases that will create the greatest value for their businesses, based on best practices and industry expertise. Customers will work closely with generative AI experts from AWS and the AWS Partner Network to select the right models, define paths to navigate technical or business challenges, develop proofs of concepts, and make plans for launching solutions at scale. The Generative AI Innovation Center team will provide guidance on best practices for applying generative AI responsibly and optimizing machine learning operations to reduce costs. Engagements will deliver strategy, tools, and assistance that will help customers use AWS generative AI services, including Amazon CodeWhisperer, an AI-powered coding companion, and Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models (FMs) from AI21 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI, along with Amazon's own family of FMs, Amazon Titan, accessible via an API. They can also train and run their models using high-performance infrastructure, including AWS Inferentia-powered Amazon EC2 Inf1 Instances, AWS Trainium-powered Amazon EC2 Trn1 Instances, and Amazon EC2 P5 instances powered by NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Additionally, customers can build, train, and deploy their own models with Amazon SageMakeror use Amazon SageMaker Jumpstartto deploy some of today's most popular FMs, including Cohere's large language models, Technology Innovation Institute's Falcon 40B, and Hugging Face's BLOOM.</p><p>Highspot is a sales-enablement platform that increases the productivity of sales teams. "Highspot is obsessive about helping our customers drive efficient growth by delivering capabilities that unlock new levels of sales productivity," said Kurt Berglund, vice president of Science at Highspot. "The potential generative AI brings is huge and at Highspot we're leveraging it to transform sales enablement and continue leveling up the value we give our customers. The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center is providing us with novel solutions and creative guidance for some of the most complex challenges and opportunities involved in bringing generative AI workloads to life at scale."</p><p>For nearly 50 years, Lonely Planet has been committed to helping people experience the joy of travel. "We are always looking for ways to tap into new technology and meet the demands of today's travelers," said Chris Whyde, senior vice president of Engineering &amp; Data Science at Lonely Planet. "The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, paired with expert-driven advice and Lonely Planet's award-winning content, will enable us to provide more personalized travel recommendations, making travel more accessible for those around the world."</p><p>Twilio is a customer engagement platform that combines an extensive suite of digital communication channels with the best in first-party customer data, enabling businesses to deliver personalized engagement to customers on a global scale, when and how they prefer. "Our goal with Twilio CustomerAI is to empower businesses to leverage both generative and predictive intelligence capabilities that help them better understand and provide deeper value to their customers," said Kathryn Murphy, senior vice president of Product Management at Twilio. "AWS and Twilio are longtime technology partners, and we're proud to be jointly innovating on predictive AI, using Amazon SageMaker, and welcome future collaboration around generative AI. We look forward to seeing the impact of the Generative AI Innovation Center and its mission to nurture new ideas and capabilities in the AI space."</p>

Small-Business Owners Now Get Business Prime Duo for Free with their Prime Membership

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Small-Business-Owners-Now-Get-Business-Prime-Duo-for-Free-with-their-Prime-Membership

06/27/2023 06:00:00

Small-Business Owners Now Get Business Prime Duo for Free with their Prime Membership

06/27/2023

2023

Amazon Business offers quantity discounts, exclusive pricing, and streamlined procurement, and now with Business Prime Duo, fast, free delivery on business purchases

<div><p><i>Amazon Business offers quantity discounts, exclusive pricing, and streamlined procurement, and now with Business Prime Duo, fast, free delivery on business purchases</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Amazon Business, the Amazon B2B procurement store, today announced that Business Prime Duo, previously $69 per year, is now free for Amazon Prime members who also purchase for businesses. Business Prime Duo is an Amazon Business membership that helps small-business owners by bringing together business buying tools and access to business-only pricing on select items, alongside fast, free business delivery. Now small-business owners can access Business Prime Duo as part of their Prime membership—at no additional cost—alongside the savings, convenience, and entertainment benefits they already know and love from Prime. "We work with a variety of small-business customers, ranging from salon owners and mechanics, to health care providers and restaurant owners. Each of our small-business customers have very different business buying needs, and Amazon Business is committed to providing them with the resources and tools they need to streamline their buying and save money, so they can focus on what matter most – helping their customers and growing their business," said Todd Heimes, director of Amazon Business Worldwide. "Free access to Business Prime Duo with a Prime membership is another way Amazon Business supports small businesses at every stage of their journey." "With the new addition of Business Prime Duo as a free offer for Prime members, there's no better time to be a member," said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. "Getting everything Prime members want and need, quickly and reliably with everyday savings, has always been our focus. Small-business owners who are Prime members can now magnify those savings and conveniences even more when shopping for their business." With Amazon Business and Business Prime Duo, small business owners can keep their personal and business expenses separate, while still enjoying fast, free delivery and the many other benefits of Prime. Separating business and personal accounts can help track business spending, and streamline accounting and taxes. Additionally, Amazon Business customers have access to business-only pricing and quantity discounts on eligible products. In addition to the benefits they enjoy as Amazon Prime members, small-business owners who sign up for Amazon Business and Business Prime Duo will enjoy: Fast, free delivery on business purchases: Free One and Two-Day Delivery on tens of millions of items, and free Same-Day Delivery on eligible items in more than 90 metro areas, helping small businesses get what they need when they need it. Convenient business delivery: Members can choose their own "Amazon Day" to receive eligible orders on the same day each week, where available, so they can be around to receive their package whether at work or home. Reliable delivery means customers can focus more time toward growing their small business, knowing when those shipments will arrive. Additionally, members can choose Consolidated Shipping on eligible large orders to receive items in the fewest packages and deliveries. Free survey and analytics tools: Members can uncover insights to help inspire customer loyalty and drive business growth with survey tools provided by Delighted. 5% back or 90-day terms: With the Amazon Business Prime American Express card, members can take advantage of 5% back or 90 days to pay interest-free on U.S. purchases at Amazon Business. Terms and conditions apply. Prime members can sign up for Business Prime Duo by creating a free Amazon Business account using a different email address than their Amazon.com account, and verifying their status as a business. They can then link their existing Prime membership to their new Amazon Business account and start enjoying the perks and features of Business Prime Duo for free. Current Amazon Business customers can access free Business Prime Duo when they link their personal Amazon.com account with an active Prime membership to their Amazon Business account. Current Business Prime Duo members will be reimbursed for the remainder of their pre-paid yearly membership, with the refund calculated based on the months elapsed since their last renewal. For more information about Business Prime Duo and its benefits, visit https://business.amazon.com/en/find-solutions/business-prime/duo. About Amazon Business Amazon Business helps millions of customers worldwide—from small businesses, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and government agencies to large enterprises with global operations—reshape their procurement with cost and time savings, greater productivity, and insightful purchasing analytics. Procurement and business leaders enjoy convenient shipping options on hundreds of millions of supplies across categories like office, IT, janitorial, food service, and professional medical supplies. Customers also have access to a variety of business-tailored features and benefits, including a curated site experience, Business Prime, business-only pricing and selection, single- or multi-user business accounts, approvals workflow, purchasing system integrations, payment solutions, tax exemptions, and dedicated customer support. Amazon Business is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and India. For more information, visit business.amazon.com, www.amazonbusinessblog.com, and @AmazonBusiness. About Amazon Prime: Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one, single membership. More than 200 million Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial at amazon.com/prime. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime. Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Amazon Business, the Amazon B2B procurement store, today announced that Business Prime Duo, previously $69 per year, is now free for Amazon Prime members who also purchase for businesses. Business Prime Duo is an Amazon Business membership that helps small-business owners by bringing together business buying tools and access to business-only pricing on select items, alongside fast, free business delivery. Now small-business owners can access Business Prime Duo as part of their Prime membership—at no additional cost—alongside the savings, convenience, and entertainment benefits they already know and love from Prime.</p><p>"We work with a variety of small-business customers, ranging from salon owners and mechanics, to health care providers and restaurant owners. Each of our small-business customers have very different business buying needs, and Amazon Business is committed to providing them with the resources and tools they need to streamline their buying and save money, so they can focus on what matter most – helping their customers and growing their business," said Todd Heimes, director of Amazon Business Worldwide. "Free access to Business Prime Duo with a Prime membership is another way Amazon Business supports small businesses at every stage of their journey."</p><p>"With the new addition of Business Prime Duo as a free offer for Prime members, there's no better time to be a member," said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. "Getting everything Prime members want and need, quickly and reliably with everyday savings, has always been our focus. Small-business owners who are Prime members can now magnify those savings and conveniences even more when shopping for their business."</p><p>With Amazon Business and Business Prime Duo, small business owners can keep their personal and business expenses separate, while still enjoying fast, free delivery and the many other benefits of Prime. Separating business and personal accounts can help track business spending, and streamline accounting and taxes. Additionally, Amazon Business customers have access to business-only pricing and quantity discounts on eligible products.</p><p>In addition to the benefits they enjoy as Amazon Prime members, small-business owners who sign up for Amazon Business and Business Prime Duo will enjoy:</p><ul><li>Fast, free delivery on business purchases: Free One and Two-Day Delivery on tens of millions of items, and free Same-Day Delivery on eligible items in more than 90 metro areas, helping small businesses get what they need when they need it.</li><li>Convenient business delivery: Members can choose their own "Amazon Day" to receive eligible orders on the same day each week, where available, so they can be around to receive their package whether at work or home. Reliable delivery means customers can focus more time toward growing their small business, knowing when those shipments will arrive. Additionally, members can choose Consolidated Shipping on eligible large orders to receive items in the fewest packages and deliveries.</li><li>Free survey and analytics tools: Members can uncover insights to help inspire customer loyalty and drive business growth with survey tools provided by Delighted.</li><li>5% back or 90-day terms: With the Amazon Business Prime American Express card, members can take advantage of 5% back or 90 days to pay interest-free on U.S. purchases at Amazon Business. Terms and conditions apply.</li></ul><p>Prime members can sign up for Business Prime Duo by creating a free Amazon Business account using a different email address than their Amazon.com account, and verifying their status as a business. They can then link their existing Prime membership to their new Amazon Business account and start enjoying the perks and features of Business Prime Duo for free.</p><p>Current Amazon Business customers can access free Business Prime Duo when they link their personal Amazon.com account with an active Prime membership to their Amazon Business account. Current Business Prime Duo members will be reimbursed for the remainder of their pre-paid yearly membership, with the refund calculated based on the months elapsed since their last renewal.</p><p>For more information about Business Prime Duo and its benefits, visit https://business.amazon.com/en/find-solutions/business-prime/duo.</p><p>About Amazon Business</p><p>Amazon Business helps millions of customers worldwide—from small businesses, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and government agencies to large enterprises with global operations—reshape their procurement with cost and time savings, greater productivity, and insightful purchasing analytics. Procurement and business leaders enjoy convenient shipping options on hundreds of millions of supplies across categories like office, IT, janitorial, food service, and professional medical supplies. Customers also have access to a variety of business-tailored features and benefits, including a curated site experience, Business Prime, business-only pricing and selection, single- or multi-user business accounts, approvals workflow, purchasing system integrations, payment solutions, tax exemptions, and dedicated customer support. Amazon Business is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and India. For more information, visit business.amazon.com, www.amazonbusinessblog.com, and @AmazonBusiness.</p><p>About Amazon Prime:</p><p>Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one, single membership. More than 200 million Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial at amazon.com/prime. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com, Inc.Media HotlineAmazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

AWS Announces General Availability of AWS AppFabric to Enhance Leading SaaS Applications for Improved Productivity and Security

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Announces-General-Availability-of-AWS-AppFabric-to-Enhance-Leading-SaaS-Applications-for-Improved-Productivity-and-Security/default.aspx

AWS-Announces-General-Availability-of-AWS-AppFabric-to-Enhance-Leading-SaaS-Applications-for-Improved-Productivity-and-Security

06/27/2023 13:05:00

AWS Announces General Availability of AWS AppFabric to Enhance Leading SaaS Applications for Improved Productivity and Security

06/27/2023

2023

With a few clicks, IT and security teams can use AWS AppFabric to easily manage and secure applications, and employees can be more productive using generative AI Asana, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Okta, Slack, Splunk, and Zoom among independently developed applications supported by AWS AppFabric, with customers including Bank Leumi, Optibus, and YuJa

<div><p><i>With a few clicks, IT and security teams can use AWS AppFabric to easily manage and secure applications, and employees can be more productive using generative AI</i></p><p><i>Asana, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Okta, Slack, Splunk, and Zoom among independently developed applications supported by AWS AppFabric, with customers including Bank Leumi, Optibus, and YuJa</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced AWS AppFabric, a no-code service that enhances companies' existing investment in software as a service (SaaS) applications with improved security, management, and productivity. With just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, information technology (IT) and security teams can use AppFabric to add new capabilities that make their existing SaaS applications and productivity suites work better together. AppFabric aggregates and normalizes log data from apps like Asana, Slack, and Zoom, as well as productivity suites such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, to increase application observability and reduce operational costs associated with building and maintaining point-to-point integrations. AWS also unveiled a generative artificial intelligence (AI) feature that will be available in a future release of AppFabric. Powered by Amazon Bedrock, this feature will use large language models (LLMs) and content from multiple SaaS applications from the common API layer to automatically make suggestions, execute tasks, or generate insights across applications, and return results within the user's preferred application. To learn more about AppFabric, including the upcoming generative AI feature, visit aws.amazon.com/appfabric. To boost employee productivity in certain fields (e.g., communications, content management, customer relations, data analytics, finance, security, and more) companies license and manage a growing number of SaaS applications that can exceed 100 per organization. While their goal is that these purpose-built applications make employees more productive, the applications rarely work well together, creating security and productivity challenges. Each app has distinct controls, logs and interfaces, making them challenging for IT and security teams to manage. These teams must often build point-to-point integrations for every SaaS app they use—and each integration can take weeks or months to complete, with additional continued maintenance costs over time. What's more, each SaaS application has its own set of proprietary APIs and data formats, making data highly variable and therefore difficult to analyze for usage patterns. Even monolithic, one-size-fits-all platforms don't normalize data from third-party apps into an open standard format. The high variability and lack of standardization of SaaS data increases security risks across an entire organization. With today's launch, AWS AppFabric helps customers connect and manage some of the most widely used SaaS applications and productivity suites all in one location—including Asana, Atlassian Jira suite, Dropbox, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Miro, Okta, Slack, Smartsheet, Webex by Cisco, Zendesk, and Zoom. Within the AWS Management Console, customers select the list of applications their organization uses to connect them to AppFabric. Then, AppFabric automatically provides a standardized set of security and operational data for every connected app. IT and security teams do not need to build point-to-point integrations, manage those integrations, and analyze disparate security data. AppFabric improves an organization's security posture by connecting SaaS applications to security tools like Logz.io, Netskope, Netwitness, Rapid7, and Splunk. AppFabric aggregates and normalizes security data using the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF), an open community schema, making the data accessible by these tools. Utilizing this framework, IT and security professionals can analyze data more easily and set common policies, alerts, and a unified set of rules spanning multiple SaaS applications. With AppFabric, customers avoid the heavy lifting of point-to-point app integration and management, so they can work more productively and securely. "At AWS, our customers build and use powerful applications to support employee productivity, but we increasingly hear that integrating, managing, and securing apps is a major pain point for IT and security teams," said Dilip Kumar, vice president of Applications at AWS. "Building dozens of custom point-to-point integrations and monitoring data and usage without normalization isn't practical in the long term. With AppFabric, customers now have a simple solution to deploy and scale the world's most widely used applications in a way that helps organizations cut costs, increase productivity, and improve security." AWS AppFabric is generally available today in US East (N. Virginia), Europe (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo), with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon. In addition to the functionality available now, AppFabric will soon include generative AI capabilities—powered by Amazon Bedrock—that will help customers complete a variety of tasks based on context from multiple applications. Today, users have to dig through several apps or copy-and-paste from different data sources to answer questions, compile reports, or create content. All of this context switching and managing apps reduces employees' productivity and inhibits collaboration. AppFabric generative AI will span SaaS applications to help users spend less time toggling between applications to source information or complete tasks like generating meeting notes, drafting update emails, or creating project updates. With the new AI feature, users can get help completing specific tasks and deliver results in the format of their preferred app. For example, a user can prompt the AI assistant to create a to-do list that combines details from multiple sources like email threads, chat conversations, and word-processing documents. Similarly, users can ask AppFabric to create talking points, a status report, or a project summary based on content from across a portfolio of apps. The AI assistant will use AppFabric's integrations to work seamlessly across multiple applications so that users can save time and focus on their most important tasks. Asana is a leading work management platform that helps enterprises drive productivity and maximize impact. "AWS builds infrastructure to power the world's biggest websites and SaaS tools. Working together, we will offer our customers new ways to collaborate across teams and tools through rich, interconnected ecosystems," said Alex Hood, chief product officer at Asana. "Through AppFabric, we're exploring ways to integrate Asana Intelligence into a range of applications. By combining the best of AI and human innovation, together, we'll unlock enormous opportunities for more efficient collaboration and more productive work. We're eager to deliver these advanced capabilities to customers soon." Bank Leumi is Israel's largest bank, providing digital banking services to individuals, small and midsize businesses, and enterprises. "We really like the easy integration and improved security visibility that AppFabric brings to our organization," said Dudi Levi, head of Cyber Data at Bank Leumi. "By leveraging AWS AppFabric to aggregate logs from widely used SaaS enterprise applications, and its support for the OCSF schema, we are able to reduce the time to deliver security logs to our advanced security operations center. What took us days will now only take hours. The logs will be streamed to the bank's Amazon Redshift and Amazon Aurora analytics services and ready for immediate consumption across analytics, rules, and forensic workloads." Okta, Inc. is the leading independent identity provider that frees everyone to safely use any technology—anywhere, on any device or app. "AWS AppFabric allows our technical teams to focus on building policies around signals we receive to enforce stronger security," says Stephen Lee, vice president, Technical Strategy & Partnerships at Okta. "By not having to worry about how the signals go from A to B, AppFabric is helping us streamline and accelerate the process. It will also allow Okta to integrate with a broader range of capabilities such as generative AI as AppFabric expands its reach." Optibus helps cities run their bus fleets more efficiently, flexibly, and sustainably by offering proprietary cloud-centered software, driven by machine learning, that analyzes historical and real-time passenger data to optimize service. "Transforming SaaS application raw audit log data and then centralizing the data into a logs stash comes with its share of challenges. But it is a foundational requirement before we can start to create alerts and monitor usage across multiple apps," said Boris Surets, chief information security officer at Optibus. "We are especially conscious about creating basic visibility, for our global staff, into what happens across the company's SaaS activities to reduce risk exposure. AppFabric has doubled our visibility into SaaS activity overnight, with minimal effort and cost." Splunk is a leading technology company specializing in cybersecurity and observability solutions dedicated to fostering a safer and more resilient digital world. "AWS AppFabric capabilities help solve the key challenges IT and security leaders face when trying to administer and secure SaaS applications inside their organizations," said Mike Horn, senior vice president and general manager of Security at Splunk. "AppFabric automatically normalizes and enriches SaaS application security logs that are quickly ingested by Splunk so that our customers no longer have to manage multiple integration points." YuJa is a leader in ed-tech solutions and offers organizations of all sizes software tools to educate, engage, inspire, and collaborate. "We operate in a highly regulated environment," said Nathan Arora, chief business officer at YuJa. "AppFabric has helped our team reduce our manual efforts by nearly 40% in terms of pipeline management. It's also given us a stronger security posture for our internal application toolset, thanks to a normalization framework based on common threat vectors and enrichment of top audit logs." Zoom is an all-in-one intelligent collaboration platform that makes connecting easier, more immersive, and more dynamic for businesses and individuals. "We continue to expand our strategic initiatives with AWS in order to provide our mutual customers with a stronger security posture and new, modern user experiences," said Brendan Ittelson, chief ecosystem officer at Zoom. "We are excited to partner with AWS AppFabric to enable novel AI experiences that leverage our Zoom Developer Platform solutions so that developers can build powerful applications while helping businesses break down data silos and improve cross-application workflows, security observability, and employee productivity."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced AWS AppFabric, a no-code service that enhances companies' existing investment in software as a service (SaaS) applications with improved security, management, and productivity. With just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, information technology (IT) and security teams can use AppFabric to add new capabilities that make their existing SaaS applications and productivity suites work better together. AppFabric aggregates and normalizes log data from apps like Asana, Slack, and Zoom, as well as productivity suites such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, to increase application observability and reduce operational costs associated with building and maintaining point-to-point integrations. AWS also unveiled a generative artificial intelligence (AI) feature that will be available in a future release of AppFabric. Powered by Amazon Bedrock, this feature will use large language models (LLMs) and content from multiple SaaS applications from the common API layer to automatically make suggestions, execute tasks, or generate insights across applications, and return results within the user's preferred application. To learn more about AppFabric, including the upcoming generative AI feature, visit aws.amazon.com/appfabric.</p><p>To boost employee productivity in certain fields (e.g., communications, content management, customer relations, data analytics, finance, security, and more) companies license and manage a growing number of SaaS applications that can exceed 100 per organization. While their goal is that these purpose-built applications make employees more productive, the applications rarely work well together, creating security and productivity challenges. Each app has distinct controls, logs and interfaces, making them challenging for IT and security teams to manage. These teams must often build point-to-point integrations for every SaaS app they use—and each integration can take weeks or months to complete, with additional continued maintenance costs over time. What's more, each SaaS application has its own set of proprietary APIs and data formats, making data highly variable and therefore difficult to analyze for usage patterns. Even monolithic, one-size-fits-all platforms don't normalize data from third-party apps into an open standard format. The high variability and lack of standardization of SaaS data increases security risks across an entire organization.</p><p>With today's launch, AWS AppFabric helps customers connect and manage some of the most widely used SaaS applications and productivity suites all in one location—including Asana, Atlassian Jira suite, Dropbox, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Miro, Okta, Slack, Smartsheet, Webex by Cisco, Zendesk, and Zoom. Within the AWS Management Console, customers select the list of applications their organization uses to connect them to AppFabric. Then, AppFabric automatically provides a standardized set of security and operational data for every connected app. IT and security teams do not need to build point-to-point integrations, manage those integrations, and analyze disparate security data. AppFabric improves an organization's security posture by connecting SaaS applications to security tools like Logz.io, Netskope, Netwitness, Rapid7, and Splunk. AppFabric aggregates and normalizes security data using the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF), an open community schema, making the data accessible by these tools. Utilizing this framework, IT and security professionals can analyze data more easily and set common policies, alerts, and a unified set of rules spanning multiple SaaS applications. With AppFabric, customers avoid the heavy lifting of point-to-point app integration and management, so they can work more productively and securely.</p><p>"At AWS, our customers build and use powerful applications to support employee productivity, but we increasingly hear that integrating, managing, and securing apps is a major pain point for IT and security teams," said Dilip Kumar, vice president of Applications at AWS. "Building dozens of custom point-to-point integrations and monitoring data and usage without normalization isn't practical in the long term. With AppFabric, customers now have a simple solution to deploy and scale the world's most widely used applications in a way that helps organizations cut costs, increase productivity, and improve security."</p><p>AWS AppFabric is generally available today in US East (N. Virginia), Europe (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo), with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon.</p><p>In addition to the functionality available now, AppFabric will soon include generative AI capabilities—powered by Amazon Bedrock—that will help customers complete a variety of tasks based on context from multiple applications. Today, users have to dig through several apps or copy-and-paste from different data sources to answer questions, compile reports, or create content. All of this context switching and managing apps reduces employees' productivity and inhibits collaboration. AppFabric generative AI will span SaaS applications to help users spend less time toggling between applications to source information or complete tasks like generating meeting notes, drafting update emails, or creating project updates. With the new AI feature, users can get help completing specific tasks and deliver results in the format of their preferred app. For example, a user can prompt the AI assistant to create a to-do list that combines details from multiple sources like email threads, chat conversations, and word-processing documents. Similarly, users can ask AppFabric to create talking points, a status report, or a project summary based on content from across a portfolio of apps. The AI assistant will use AppFabric's integrations to work seamlessly across multiple applications so that users can save time and focus on their most important tasks.</p><p>Asana is a leading work management platform that helps enterprises drive productivity and maximize impact. "AWS builds infrastructure to power the world's biggest websites and SaaS tools. Working together, we will offer our customers new ways to collaborate across teams and tools through rich, interconnected ecosystems," said Alex Hood, chief product officer at Asana. "Through AppFabric, we're exploring ways to integrate Asana Intelligence into a range of applications. By combining the best of AI and human innovation, together, we'll unlock enormous opportunities for more efficient collaboration and more productive work. We're eager to deliver these advanced capabilities to customers soon."</p><p>Bank Leumi is Israel's largest bank, providing digital banking services to individuals, small and midsize businesses, and enterprises. "We really like the easy integration and improved security visibility that AppFabric brings to our organization," said Dudi Levi, head of Cyber Data at Bank Leumi. "By leveraging AWS AppFabric to aggregate logs from widely used SaaS enterprise applications, and its support for the OCSF schema, we are able to reduce the time to deliver security logs to our advanced security operations center. What took us days will now only take hours. The logs will be streamed to the bank's Amazon Redshift and Amazon Aurora analytics services and ready for immediate consumption across analytics, rules, and forensic workloads."</p><p>Okta, Inc. is the leading independent identity provider that frees everyone to safely use any technology—anywhere, on any device or app. "AWS AppFabric allows our technical teams to focus on building policies around signals we receive to enforce stronger security," says Stephen Lee, vice president, Technical Strategy &amp; Partnerships at Okta. "By not having to worry about how the signals go from A to B, AppFabric is helping us streamline and accelerate the process. It will also allow Okta to integrate with a broader range of capabilities such as generative AI as AppFabric expands its reach."</p><p>Optibus helps cities run their bus fleets more efficiently, flexibly, and sustainably by offering proprietary cloud-centered software, driven by machine learning, that analyzes historical and real-time passenger data to optimize service. "Transforming SaaS application raw audit log data and then centralizing the data into a logs stash comes with its share of challenges. But it is a foundational requirement before we can start to create alerts and monitor usage across multiple apps," said Boris Surets, chief information security officer at Optibus. "We are especially conscious about creating basic visibility, for our global staff, into what happens across the company's SaaS activities to reduce risk exposure. AppFabric has doubled our visibility into SaaS activity overnight, with minimal effort and cost."</p><p>Splunk is a leading technology company specializing in cybersecurity and observability solutions dedicated to fostering a safer and more resilient digital world. "AWS AppFabric capabilities help solve the key challenges IT and security leaders face when trying to administer and secure SaaS applications inside their organizations," said Mike Horn, senior vice president and general manager of Security at Splunk. "AppFabric automatically normalizes and enriches SaaS application security logs that are quickly ingested by Splunk so that our customers no longer have to manage multiple integration points."</p><p>YuJa is a leader in ed-tech solutions and offers organizations of all sizes software tools to educate, engage, inspire, and collaborate. "We operate in a highly regulated environment," said Nathan Arora, chief business officer at YuJa. "AppFabric has helped our team reduce our manual efforts by nearly 40% in terms of pipeline management. It's also given us a stronger security posture for our internal application toolset, thanks to a normalization framework based on common threat vectors and enrichment of top audit logs."</p><p>Zoom is an all-in-one intelligent collaboration platform that makes connecting easier, more immersive, and more dynamic for businesses and individuals. "We continue to expand our strategic initiatives with AWS in order to provide our mutual customers with a stronger security posture and new, modern user experiences," said Brendan Ittelson, chief ecosystem officer at Zoom. "We are excited to partner with AWS AppFabric to enable novel AI experiences that leverage our Zoom Developer Platform solutions so that developers can build powerful applications while helping businesses break down data silos and improve cross-application workflows, security observability, and employee productivity."</p>

Amazon Celebrates Prime Members With More Deals Than Any Past Prime Day Event

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Amazon-Celebrates-Prime-Members-With-More-Deals-Than-Any-Past-Prime-Day-Event

07/06/2023 01:20:00

Amazon Celebrates Prime Members With More Deals Than Any Past Prime Day Event

07/06/2023

2023

Discover new deals on Amazon from Betty Buzz by Blake Lively, D'Amelio Footwear, and Dyson, plus savings on Barbiecore items and on celebrity favorites like KNOW Beauty by Vanessa Hudgens, Lemme by Kourtney Kardashian Barker, PRIME by Logan Paul & KSI, and Chamberlain Coffee by Emma Chamberlain Shop summer essentials exclusive to Amazon, including select kids' bathing suits from Simple Joys by Carter's and men's tech shorts from Amazon Essentials starting at $10, and Amazon's lowest prices so far this year on select items from Sun Bum, Bose, and essie Start saving early on deals for back to school and college items, including Gap apparel up to 60% off, select Amazon devices up to 75% off, and additional products from top brands like Frigidaire, Crayola, and Champion

<div><p><i>Discover new deals on Amazon from Betty Buzz by Blake Lively, D’Amelio Footwear, and Dyson, plus savings on Barbiecore items and on celebrity favorites like KNOW Beauty by Vanessa Hudgens, Lemme by Kourtney Kardashian Barker, PRIME by Logan Paul &amp; KSI, and Chamberlain Coffee by Emma Chamberlain</i></p><p><i>Shop summer essentials exclusive to Amazon, including select kids’ bathing suits from Simple Joys by Carter’s and men’s tech shorts from Amazon Essentials starting at $10, and Amazon’s lowest prices so far this year on select items from Sun Bum, Bose, and essie</i></p><p><i>Start saving early on deals for back to school and college items, including Gap apparel up to 60% off, select Amazon devices up to 75% off, and additional products from top brands like Frigidaire, Crayola, and Champion</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Starting July 11 at 3 a.m. EDT, Prime members around the world will have 48 hours of exclusive access to shop millions of deals this Prime Day. Amazon will offer more deals than any Prime Day event before, with new deals dropping every 30 minutes during select periods. From beauty, fashion, and fitness to electronics, toys, and Amazon devices, Prime members can get everything they want and need quickly and reliably this summer—thanks to savings on popular items and everyday essentials across categories from top brands and small businesses. Customers who are not yet Prime members and want to get the most out of Amazon on Prime Day can join or start a 30-day free trial at amazon.com/prime. Select new members will automatically receive a $10 shopping credit upon sign-up to use towards Prime Day shopping. Prime Day 2023 (Graphic: Business Wire) "We're excited to celebrate our Prime members by offering more Prime Day deals than ever before on brands they love and new launches they'll be excited to shop," said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. "They'll also discover more personalized deals this Prime Day with immersive shopping experiences like Inspire, and new opportunities to shop beyond Amazon with Prime benefits like Buy with Prime." Deals Preview Starting today,Prime members will be able to preview a selection of Prime Day deals and click "Watch this Deal" to save it to their watchlists. Members will be notified once their chosen deal is live during Prime Day. New for Prime Day, members can filter their searches to discover products from small businesses with the Small Business Search filter. Amazon will offer millions of deals across categories, including Amazon-exclusive bundles from essie and items from top brands like Dyson, Theragun, and Frigidaire. Prime members can also still sign up for Amazon's all-new Invite-only deals program to request an invitation to access exclusive Prime Day deals that are expected to sell out. Visit amazon.com/primeday to learn more. Here's an additional sneak peek at some of the best deals available to shop this Prime Day: Save up to 75% on select Amazon devices, including the Invite-only deal on 43" Fire TV Omni Series, Fire TV Stick (3rd Gen), Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen), Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), and Ring Battery Doorbell Plus, Pioneer and TCL smart TVs with Fire TV built in, Kindle Scribe, and the all-new Fire Max 11 tablet. Save up to 60% on select Gap men's, women's, kids', and baby apparel. Save up to 50% on select, Amazon-exclusive clothing, shoes, and handbags from The Drop. Save up to 50% on select Sony headphones, speakers, and home audio. Save up to 50% on select floorcare from Bissell and iRobot. Save up to 50% on select dolls and accessories from Barbie. Save up to 45% on select Victoria's Secret products. Save up to 40% on select Bose headphones, speakers, and soundbars. Save 40% on select products from Lemme by Kourtney Kardashian Barker. Save up to 40% on Peloton Bike, Bike+, Guide, accessories, and select apparel. Save up to 40% on select kitchen appliances from Ninja, Keurig, Vitamix, and Breville. Save up to 35% on select beauty and skincare products from Anastasia Beverly Hills, Lancôme, IT cosmetics, and Urban Decay. Save 30% on the new, Amazon-exclusive Betty Buzz Citrus Variety Pack Cans. Save 30% on KNOW Beauty by Vanessa Hudgens. Save 30% on select styles from D'Amelio Footwear. Save up to 30% on select, Amazon-exclusive items on The Summer I Turned Pretty storefront, including a limited-edition Sperry shoe worn by Belly Conklin in Season Two. Save up to 30% on select LEGO sets, building toys from MAGNA-TILES, and Squishmallows products. Save up to 30% on select, Amazon-exclusive kids' and baby fashion from Amazon Essentials and Simple Joys by Carter's. Save up to 30% on select hair dryers, flat irons, and curling irons from T3. Save up to 30% on select pet essentials from Wild One. Save 25% on Logan Paul & KSI's PRIME Hydration+ Sticks. Save 20% on select SPF, skincare, haircare, and lip products from Sun Bum. Save 20% on select products from Chamberlain Coffee by Emma Chamberlain. Save up to 20% on select Le Creuset products. Save up to 20% on select outdoor pizza ovens from Ooni USA. Back to School and Off to College Prime members can get a head start on back to school and off to college shopping this Prime Day. Parents, students, and teachers will discover savings across top categories. Some of the best deals include select kids' uniform styles from Amazon Essentials for under $10; up to 55% off select Crayola products; up to 55% off select mattresses and beds from Zinus; 30% off select lunch boxes from Bentgo; 30% off select shoes from Hey Dude; 30% off towels and bedding from Amazon Basics; up to 25% off select laptops from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, LG, MSI, and Samsung; and 15% off backpacks from Champion; Prime members can also stock up and save 20% off $30 of select school supplies and everyday essentials. Visit amazon.com/backtoschool for more deals on back to school items and amazon.com/offtocollege for college essentials. Ways to Shop & Earn More Prime members can take advantage of exclusive offers and perks that help them make easy payments, earn rewards, and access additional deals—all while shopping on Prime Day. Discover Prime Day deals beyond Amazon with Buy with Prime: Buy with Prime is a new way for U.S.-based Prime members to use the shopping benefits they love and trust, like fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns, on participating brands' websites. This Prime Day, members can shop additional deals up to 40% off directly from brands such as Carbone Fine Food, Wyze, Moon Juice, and The Woobles. To discover deals beyond Amazon.com, visit buywithprime.amazon.com/shoppers. Shop small business and Climate Pledge Friendly deals: Prime members can also shop more deals on small business products than ever before, including from Drink Recess, Saturday Skin, Windmill, FLYBYJING, Partake Foods, The Cut Buddy, and The Honey Pot. Learn more at amazon.com/primedaysmallbusiness. Additionally, members can discover and shop more-sustainable products as part of the Climate Pledge Friendly program, including deals on Blueland, Melissa & Doug, and select Amazon devices. Learn more at amazon.com/shopclimatepledgefriendly. Get inspired with a more personalized experience:From personalized deals categories on the homepage to fun and engaging shopping experiences, Amazon makes it easy for customers to discover personalized, trending deals. This Prime Day,Inspire and Shop by Interest introduce deals feeds featuring shoppable videos and photos from trusted influencers, other customers, and a wide range of brands. Available from the homepage and elsewhere throughout the shopping journey, Amazon will offer over 40 personalized deals categories for Prime Day—more than ever before—including "Deals related to your views," "Deals from brands you may like," and "4+ Star deals for you." Shop deals with celebrities and influencers: Prime members will have exclusive access to shop deals from additional celebrity brands like Brady by Tom Brady. Celebrities and influencers, including Charli D'Amelio, Alix Earle, Michael Strahan, Ayesha Curry, and Paris Hilton, will also share their top Prime Day deal picks through curated storefronts. Access exclusive deals during Prime Night Live "Duel for the Deals": Starting July 11 between 10 p.m.-12 a.m. EDT, tune into @prime's TikTok Live—a two-hour game show featuring various contestants and special guests, including TikTok's known and loved Alix Earle and Jake Shane, who will help viewers play along to unlock exclusive deals. Go big with Prime Visa: Card members earn 6% back on Prime Day and 5% back year-round at Amazon, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market with an eligible Prime membership and rewards everywhere they shop—all with no annual credit card fee. As an extra Prime Day perk, Prime card members can also earn an additional 1% back on eligible Amazon purchases with No-Rush Shipping (for a total of 7% back with an eligible Prime membership). Plus, with daily rewards, earnings can now be redeemed at Amazon or Chase as soon as the next day. Access exclusive healthcare deal: Now through Prime Day, U.S.-based Prime members can get their first year of a One Medical membership for $144 per year (usually $199, a 28% savings). One Medical is a national membership-based primary care organization offering seamless in-office and 24/7 virtual care services, on-site labs, and programs for preventive care, chronic care management, common illnesses, and more. Save with Amazon Fresh online: Prime members can save up to $40 when they shop for groceries online, and get $20 off $100+ on Prime Day. Terms apply. See amazon.com/fresh/learnmore for details. About Prime Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one single membership. More than 200 million paid Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial if eligible at amazon.com/prime. Additionally, college students can try Prime Student with a six-month trial at amazon.com/joinstudent, then just pay $7.49 per month, or $69 per year. Qualifying government assistance recipients can get Prime Access for $6.99 per month at amazon.com/getprimeaccess. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime. About Amazon Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth's Best Employer, and Earth's Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Starting July 11 at 3 a.m. EDT, Prime members around the world will have 48 hours of exclusive access to shop millions of deals this Prime Day. Amazon will offer more deals than any Prime Day event before, with new deals dropping every 30 minutes during select periods. From beauty, fashion, and fitness to electronics, toys, and Amazon devices, Prime members can get everything they want and need quickly and reliably this summer—thanks to savings on popular items and everyday essentials across categories from top brands and small businesses. Customers who are not yet Prime members and want to get the most out of Amazon on Prime Day can join or start a 30-day free trial at amazon.com/prime. Select new members will automatically receive a $10 shopping credit upon sign-up to use towards Prime Day shopping.</p><div><p>Prime Day 2023 (Graphic: Business Wire)</p></div><p>"We're excited to celebrate our Prime members by offering more Prime Day deals than ever before on brands they love and new launches they'll be excited to shop," said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime. "They'll also discover more personalized deals this Prime Day with immersive shopping experiences like Inspire, and new opportunities to shop beyond Amazon with Prime benefits like Buy with Prime."</p><p>Deals Preview</p><p>Starting today,Prime members will be able to preview a selection of Prime Day deals and click "Watch this Deal" to save it to their watchlists. Members will be notified once their chosen deal is live during Prime Day. New for Prime Day, members can filter their searches to discover products from small businesses with the Small Business Search filter.</p><p>Amazon will offer millions of deals across categories, including Amazon-exclusive bundles from essie and items from top brands like Dyson, Theragun, and Frigidaire. Prime members can also still sign up for Amazon's all-new Invite-only deals program to request an invitation to access exclusive Prime Day deals that are expected to sell out. Visit amazon.com/primeday to learn more.</p><p>Here's an additional sneak peek at some of the best deals available to shop this Prime Day:</p><ul><li>Save up to 75% on select Amazon devices, including the Invite-only deal on 43" Fire TV Omni Series, Fire TV Stick (3rd Gen), Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen), Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), and Ring Battery Doorbell Plus, Pioneer and TCL smart TVs with Fire TV built in, Kindle Scribe, and the all-new Fire Max 11 tablet.</li><li>Save up to 60% on select Gap men's, women's, kids', and baby apparel.</li><li>Save up to 50% on select, Amazon-exclusive clothing, shoes, and handbags from The Drop.</li><li>Save up to 50% on select Sony headphones, speakers, and home audio.</li><li>Save up to 50% on select floorcare from Bissell and iRobot.</li><li>Save up to 50% on select dolls and accessories from Barbie.</li><li>Save up to 45% on select Victoria's Secret products.</li><li>Save up to 40% on select Bose headphones, speakers, and soundbars.</li><li>Save 40% on select products from Lemme by Kourtney Kardashian Barker.</li><li>Save up to 40% on Peloton Bike, Bike+, Guide, accessories, and select apparel.</li><li>Save up to 40% on select kitchen appliances from Ninja, Keurig, Vitamix, and Breville.</li><li>Save up to 35% on select beauty and skincare products from Anastasia Beverly Hills, Lancôme, IT cosmetics, and Urban Decay.</li><li>Save 30% on the new, Amazon-exclusive Betty Buzz Citrus Variety Pack Cans.</li><li>Save 30% on KNOW Beauty by Vanessa Hudgens.</li><li>Save 30% on select styles from D'Amelio Footwear.</li><li>Save up to 30% on select, Amazon-exclusive items on <i>The Summer I Turned Pretty </i>storefront, including a limited-edition Sperry shoe worn by Belly Conklin in Season Two.</li><li>Save up to 30% on select LEGO sets, building toys from MAGNA-TILES, and Squishmallows products.</li><li>Save up to 30% on select, Amazon-exclusive kids' and baby fashion from Amazon Essentials and Simple Joys by Carter's.</li><li>Save up to 30% on select hair dryers, flat irons, and curling irons from T3.</li><li>Save up to 30% on select pet essentials from Wild One.</li><li>Save 25% on Logan Paul &amp; KSI's PRIME Hydration+ Sticks.</li><li>Save 20% on select SPF, skincare, haircare, and lip products from Sun Bum.</li><li>Save 20% on select products from Chamberlain Coffee by Emma Chamberlain.</li><li>Save up to 20% on select Le Creuset products.</li><li>Save up to 20% on select outdoor pizza ovens from Ooni USA.</li></ul><p>Back to School and Off to College</p><p>Prime members can get a head start on back to school and off to college shopping this Prime Day. Parents, students, and teachers will discover savings across top categories. Some of the best deals include select kids' uniform styles from Amazon Essentials for under $10; up to 55% off select Crayola products; up to 55% off select mattresses and beds from Zinus; 30% off select lunch boxes from Bentgo; 30% off select shoes from Hey Dude; 30% off towels and bedding from Amazon Basics; up to 25% off select laptops from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, LG, MSI, and Samsung; and 15% off backpacks from Champion; Prime members can also stock up and save 20% off $30 of select school supplies and everyday essentials. Visit amazon.com/backtoschool for more deals on back to school items and amazon.com/offtocollege for college essentials.</p><p>Ways to Shop &amp; Earn More</p><p>Prime members can take advantage of exclusive offers and perks that help them make easy payments, earn rewards, and access additional deals—all while shopping on Prime Day.</p><ul><li>Discover Prime Day deals beyond Amazon with Buy with Prime:Buy with Prime is a new way for U.S.-based Prime members to use the shopping benefits they love and trust, like fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy returns, on participating brands' websites. This Prime Day, members can shop additional deals up to 40% off directly from brands such as Carbone Fine Food, Wyze, Moon Juice, and The Woobles. To discover deals beyond Amazon.com, visit buywithprime.amazon.com/shoppers.</li><li>Shop small business and Climate Pledge Friendly deals: Prime members can also shop more deals on small business products than ever before, including from Drink Recess, Saturday Skin, Windmill, FLYBYJING, Partake Foods, The Cut Buddy, and The Honey Pot. Learn more at amazon.com/primedaysmallbusiness. Additionally, members can discover and shop more-sustainable products as part of the Climate Pledge Friendly program, including deals on Blueland, Melissa &amp; Doug, and select Amazon devices. Learn more at amazon.com/shopclimatepledgefriendly.</li><li>Get inspired with a more personalized experience:From personalized deals categories on the homepage to fun and engaging shopping experiences, Amazon makes it easy for customers to discover personalized, trending deals. This Prime Day,Inspire and Shop by Interest introduce deals feeds featuring shoppable videos and photos from trusted influencers, other customers, and a wide range of brands. Available from the homepage and elsewhere throughout the shopping journey, Amazon will offer over 40 personalized deals categories for Prime Day—more than ever before—including "Deals related to your views," "Deals from brands you may like," and "4+ Star deals for you."</li><li>Shop deals with celebrities and influencers: Prime members will have exclusive access to shop deals from additional celebrity brands like Brady by Tom Brady. Celebrities and influencers, including Charli D'Amelio, Alix Earle, Michael Strahan, Ayesha Curry, and Paris Hilton, will also share their top Prime Day deal picks through curated storefronts.</li><li>Access exclusive deals during Prime Night Live "Duel for the Deals": Starting July 11 between 10 p.m.-12 a.m. EDT, tune into @prime's TikTok Live—a two-hour game show featuring various contestants and special guests, including TikTok's known and loved Alix Earle and Jake Shane, who will help viewers play along to unlock exclusive deals.</li><li>Go big with Prime Visa: Card members earn 6% back on Prime Day and 5% back year-round at Amazon, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market with an eligible Prime membership and rewards everywhere they shop—all with no annual credit card fee. As an extra Prime Day perk, Prime card members can also earn an additional 1% back on eligible Amazon purchases with No-Rush Shipping (for a total of 7% back with an eligible Prime membership). Plus, with daily rewards, earnings can now be redeemed at Amazon or Chase as soon as the next day.</li><li>Access exclusive healthcare deal: Now through Prime Day, U.S.-based Prime members can get their first year of a One Medical membership for $144 per year (usually $199, a 28% savings). One Medical is a national membership-based primary care organization offering seamless in-office and 24/7 virtual care services, on-site labs, and programs for preventive care, chronic care management, common illnesses, and more.</li><li>Save with Amazon Fresh online: Prime members can save up to $40 when they shop for groceries online, and get $20 off $100+ on Prime Day. Terms apply. See amazon.com/fresh/learnmore for details.</li></ul><p>About Prime</p><p>Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one single membership. More than 200 million paid Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial if eligible at amazon.com/prime. Additionally, college students can try Prime Student with a six-month trial at amazon.com/joinstudent, then just pay $7.49 per month, or $69 per year. Qualifying government assistance recipients can get Prime Access for $6.99 per month at amazon.com/getprimeaccess. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime.</p><p>About Amazon</p><p>Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth's Best Employer, and Earth's Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com, Inc.Media HotlineAmazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

First Day of Prime Day was the Single Largest Sales Day Ever on Amazon, Helping Make This the Biggest Prime Day Event Ever

/news/news-details/2023/First-Day-of-Prime-Day-was-the-Single-Largest-Sales-Day-Ever-on-Amazon-Helping-Make-This-the-Biggest-Prime-Day-Event-Ever/default.aspx

First-Day-of-Prime-Day-was-the-Single-Largest-Sales-Day-Ever-on-Amazon-Helping-Make-This-the-Biggest-Prime-Day-Event-Ever

07/13/2023 09:00:00

First Day of Prime Day was the Single Largest Sales Day Ever on Amazon, Helping Make This the Biggest Prime Day Event Ever

07/13/2023

2023

Prime Day 2023 was also the biggest Prime Day event ever for independent sellers, whose sales growth in Amazon's store outpaced Amazon's retail business

<div><p><i>Prime Day 2023 was also the biggest Prime Day event ever for independent sellers, whose sales growth in Amazon’s store outpaced Amazon's retail business</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NASDAQ: AMZN—Today, Amazon announced the first day of Prime Day, July 11, was the single largest sales day in company history. Over the course of the two-day shopping event, Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide and saved more than $2.5 billion on millions of deals across the Amazon store, helping make it the biggest Prime Day event ever. "The first day of Prime Day was the largest sales day in Amazon's history, and Prime members saved more this year than any other Prime Day event," said Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Stores. "Prime is an incredible value, and we're proud to offer additional value for members through exclusive deals events like Prime Day. Thank you to our Prime members for continuing to shop in our store, and to our employees and independent sellers around the world who delivered for customers this Prime Day." Wide Selection across Millions of Deals This year, Amazon offered more deals than any past Prime Day event, with Home, Fashion, and Beauty among the top-selling deal categories, and Fire TV Stick, LANEIGE Lip Glowy Balm, Apple AirPods, and Bissell Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner among the top-selling deals. Amazon's wide selection is made possible through independent sellers – most of which are small and medium-sized businesses – and this Prime Day was the largest ever for independent sellers in Amazon's store. Amazon offered more Prime Day deals on small business products than ever before, and this year, small businesses Caraway, True Classic, and TUSHY increased their average daily sales in Amazon's store by over 18x during the first day of the Prime Day event when compared to 2023 leading up to Prime Day. Prime members purchased millions of Alexa-enabled devices, including Fire TV Stick (3rd Gen) with Alexa Voice Remote, which was the best-selling product across all of Amazon worldwide. Prime Members Save More Prime members saved more this year than any other Prime Day event, saving more than $2.5 billion across millions of deals and getting exclusive access to the lowest prices on Amazon so far this year on select products from a variety of brands like Bose, Hey Dude, and Theragun. Prime is many memberships rolled into one from exclusive savings events throughout the year to free delivery, quality entertainment from Prime Video and Amazon Music, and convenient shopping. Prime Members Shop More Deals Beyond Amazon using Buy with Prime This Prime Day, members shopped deals beyond the Amazon store using Buy with Prime, a new Prime member perk that offers U.S.-based members the benefits they love and trust when shopping directly from participating brands' websites. To help drive awareness for these deals, Buy with Prime invited a range of small, medium, and larger merchants to participate in promotional activities in connection with Prime Day deals on their own sites. These deals were featured across Amazon channels, including placement in premium on-site banners on the Amazon store, influencer content, and digital awareness campaigns. Merchants who participated in Prime Day activities, in aggregate, experienced a 10x increase in daily Buy with Prime orders and saw an 8x increase in daily revenue from those orders during the Prime Day event period versus the month before we announced Prime Day. About Prime Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one single membership. More than 200 million paid Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial if eligible at amazon.com/prime. Additionally, college students can try Prime Student with a six-month trial at amazon.com/joinstudent, then just pay $7.49 per month, or $69 per year. Qualifying government assistance recipients can get Prime Access for $6.99 per month at amazon.com/getprimeaccess. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NASDAQ: AMZN—Today, Amazon announced the first day of Prime Day, July 11, was the single largest sales day in company history. Over the course of the two-day shopping event, Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide and saved more than $2.5 billion on millions of deals across the Amazon store, helping make it the biggest Prime Day event ever.</p><p>"The first day of Prime Day was the largest sales day in Amazon's history, and Prime members saved more this year than any other Prime Day event," said Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Stores. "Prime is an incredible value, and we're proud to offer additional value for members through exclusive deals events like Prime Day. Thank you to our Prime members for continuing to shop in our store, and to our employees and independent sellers around the world who delivered for customers this Prime Day."</p><p>Wide Selection across Millions of Deals</p><ul><li>This year, Amazon offered more deals than any past Prime Day event, with Home, Fashion, and Beauty among the top-selling deal categories, and Fire TV Stick, LANEIGE Lip Glowy Balm, Apple AirPods, and Bissell Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner among the top-selling deals.</li><li>Amazon's wide selection is made possible through independent sellers – most of which are small and medium-sized businesses – and this Prime Day was the largest ever for independent sellers in Amazon's store. Amazon offered more Prime Day deals on small business products than ever before, and this year, small businesses Caraway, True Classic, and TUSHY increased their average daily sales in Amazon's store by over 18x during the first day of the Prime Day event when compared to 2023 leading up to Prime Day.</li><li>Prime members purchased millions of Alexa-enabled devices, including Fire TV Stick (3rd Gen) with Alexa Voice Remote, which was the best-selling product across all of Amazon worldwide.</li></ul><p>Prime Members Save More</p><ul><li>Prime members saved more this year than any other Prime Day event, saving more than $2.5 billion across millions of deals and getting exclusive access to the lowest prices on Amazon so far this year on select products from a variety of brands like Bose, Hey Dude, and Theragun.</li><li>Prime is many memberships rolled into one from exclusive savings events throughout the year to free delivery, quality entertainment from Prime Video and Amazon Music, and convenient shopping.</li></ul><p>Prime Members Shop More Deals Beyond Amazon using Buy with Prime</p><p>This Prime Day, members shopped deals beyond the Amazon store using Buy with Prime, a new Prime member perk that offers U.S.-based members the benefits they love and trust when shopping directly from participating brands' websites. To help drive awareness for these deals, Buy with Prime invited a range of small, medium, and larger merchants to participate in promotional activities in connection with Prime Day deals on their own sites. These deals were featured across Amazon channels, including placement in premium on-site banners on the Amazon store, influencer content, and digital awareness campaigns. Merchants who participated in Prime Day activities, in aggregate, experienced a 10x increase in daily Buy with Prime orders and saw an 8x increase in daily revenue from those orders during the Prime Day event period versus the month before we announced Prime Day.</p><p>About Prime</p><p>Prime is savings, convenience, and entertainment in one single membership. More than 200 million paid Prime members in 25 countries around the world enjoy access to Amazon's enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery. In the U.S., anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial if eligible at amazon.com/prime. Additionally, college students can try Prime Student with a six-month trial at amazon.com/joinstudent, then just pay $7.49 per month, or $69 per year. Qualifying government assistance recipients can get Prime Access for $6.99 per month at amazon.com/getprimeaccess. For more information about Prime, including discounted memberships, visit aboutamazon.com/prime.</p>

Amazon Literary Partnership Announces 2023 Grant Recipients

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-Literary-Partnership-Announces-2023-Grant-Recipients/default.aspx

Amazon-Literary-Partnership-Announces-2023-Grant-Recipients

07/20/2023 09:00:00

Amazon Literary Partnership Announces 2023 Grant Recipients

07/20/2023

2023

Amazon Literary Partnership awards nearly $1 million in grant and sponsorship funding to 93 literary nonprofits nationwide Amazon Literary Partnership is committed to supporting writing programs and nonprofit literary organizations that uplift and amplify writers and promote diversity in storytelling

<div><p><i>Amazon Literary Partnership awards nearly $1 million in grant and sponsorship funding to 93 literary nonprofits nationwide</i></p><p><i>Amazon Literary Partnership is committed to supporting writing programs and nonprofit literary organizations that uplift and amplify writers and promote diversity in storytelling</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Today, Amazon Literary Partnership announced nearly $1 million in grant and sponsorship funding to 93 literary nonprofits across the United States. A longtime champion of the written word, Amazon Literary Partnership's funding includes support for groups that are working to empower diverse, marginalized, and underrepresented voices, helping writers to create, publish, learn, teach, experiment, and thrive in 2023 and beyond. Included in this year's cohort are 14 first-time grant recipients, including Bidoun, Sinister Wisdom, Beloit Poetry Journal, Contratiempo, InsideOut Literary Arts, and We Need Diverse Books. Previous recipients that are receiving grants this year include National Book Foundation, Lambda Literary, Asian American Writers Workshop, WriteGirl, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Center for Fiction, Graywolf Press, Words Without Borders, and Hurston Wright Foundation. For the fifth year in a row, Amazon Literary Partnership is working with the Academy of American Poets on the Poetry Fund and with the Community of Literary Magazine and Presses (CLMP) on the Literary Magazine Fund, each awarding more than 15 grants to poetry organizations and literary magazines, respectively. "Since 2019, the Academy of American Poets has joined forces with Amazon Literary Partnership to support the tireless work of poetry presses and organizations across the nation. The seventeen recipients of the 2023 Poetry Fund speak to the power poetry has at the grassroots level," said Ricardo Maldonado, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. "We're extremely grateful for the contributions they continue to make in our communities by fostering direct engagement between poetry and its readers, asking us to commit ourselves to more compassionate and engaged futures." "CLMP is extremely grateful to Amazon Literary Partnership for providing critical funding to literary magazines, which, like all publishers, continue to face ongoing challenges, but with fewer resources and staff," said CLMP Executive Director Mary Gannon. "Essential to the publishing ecosystem, literary magazines have shown resilience and innovation, fueled by their commitment to writers and to the transformative power of literature." Guided by the mission of having a lasting impact on the literary community, Amazon Literary Partnership has provided more than $16 million in funding to 160 organizations since 2009. The grants have assisted tens of thousands of writers in telling their stories, amplifying their work, and finding their audiences. "It is an honor to support these vital and vibrant institutions that work every day to make sure writers get the support they need—whether that's in workshops or residency programs, or connecting them with readers through publication, events, and awards programming," said Al Woodworth, senior manager of Amazon Literary Partnership. "At Amazon, we believe in the power of the written word to expand our thinking, advance our empathy, and change our world. We are grateful for the incredible work that these organizations do to champion writers and their stories." Amazon Literary Partnership 2023 grant recipients represent more than 40 states and help writers throughout the lifecycle of their publishing career—from youth writing programs and publishing opportunities to residency programs and festivals, to workshops and award programs. Organizations like the African Voices Communications, Asian American Writers' Workshop, BIDOUN, Contratiempo, Empowering Latino Futures, Hurston/Wright Foundation, Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po), Lambda Literary, We Need Diverse Books, and Zoeglassia are explicitly focused on supporting under-represented, underserved, and marginalized literary voices. "We are so excited that, thanks to ALP's sustained support, we will be welcoming over 95 emerging LGBTQ+ writers to this year's Writers' Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ+ Voices," said Harper Zacharia, Director of Development and Engagement at Lambda Literary. "It is the only multi-genre residency devoted exclusively to emerging LGBTQ+ writers. We are thrilled to award over $50,000 in scholarships in no small part due to Amazon's commitment to uplifting our work." "Amazon Literary Partnership has been such a wonderful supporter over the years," said Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of NaNoWriMo. "The best way to conceive of that support is through the thousands and thousands of writers Amazon Literary Partnership has helped to believe in their stories, develop their voices, and put their stories into the world—something that's more important than ever given the book-banning efforts we're facing. The progress of our world can be measured in the stories that are told, and we need to encourage and nourish more stories, especially from those who have been marginalized." 2023 Amazon Literary Partnership grants and sponsorships (*denotes new recipients) A Public Space, New York, NY Academy of American Poets, New York, NY Archipelago Books, Brooklyn, NY Arte Publico Press, Houston, TX Asian American Writers' Workshop, New York, NY Association of Writers & Writing Programs, Norfolk, VA BIDOUN , Brooklyn, NY* Brooklyn Book Festival Inc., Brooklyn, NY Center for the Art of Translation, San Francisco, CA CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth, Baltimore, MD Chatos Inhumanos, New York, NY Chicago Humanities Festival, Chicago, IL Clarion West, Seattle, WA Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, MN Community Word Project Inc., New York, NY Contratiempo , Chicago, IL* Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, New York, NY Deep Vellum, Dallas, TX Empowering Latino Futures, San Diego, CA Girls Write Now, New York, NY Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA House of Speakeasy, New York, NY Hub City Writers Project, Spartanburg, SC Hugo House, Seattle, WA Indiana Writers Center, Indianapolis, IN InsideOut Literary Arts , Detroit, MI * Kundiman, New York, NY Lambda Literary, New York, NY Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Denver, CO Literary Arts , Portland, OR* LitNet, New York, NY The Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, MN The Cabin, Boise, ID MacDowell, Peterborough, NH Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, MN Narrative 4 (N4), New York, NY National Book Foundation, New York, NY National Novel Writing Month, Berkeley, CA Nightboat Books Inc, Brooklyn, NY PEN America, New York, NY Poets & Writers, New York NY Red Hen Press, Pasadena, CA Roots. Wounds. Words. Inc., New York, NY Seattle Arts & Lectures, Seattle, WA The Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute, Las Vegas, NV The Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY The Center for Fiction, Brooklyn, NY Torch Literary Arts, Austin, TX Transit Books, San Francisco, CA Uncross Foundation, Clearmont, WY Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, Miami, FL We Need Diverse Books , Bethesda, MD* Words Without Borders, Brooklyn, NY WriteGirl, a project of Community Partners, Los Angeles, CA Writers in the Schools (WITS), Houston, TX Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Foundation (Hurston/Wright Foundation), Washington, DC 2023 Literary Magazine Fund Recipients, administered by CLMP African Voices Communications Inc., Brooklyn, NY Alaska Quarterly Review, Anchorage, AK American Short Fiction, Austin, TX Bamboo Ridge Press, Honolulu, HI Consequence Forum , Las Vegas, NV* EcoTheo Collective, Houston, TX Electric Lit, Brooklyn, NY Epiphany Magazine, New York, NY Guernica , New York, NY* Hayden's Ferry Review , Tempe, AZ* Lucky Jefferson , Chicago, IL* n+1 Foundation , Brooklyn, NY* Narrative Magazine, San Francisco, CA One Story, Brooklyn, NY Orion, North Hampton, MA Sinister Wisdom , Dover, FL* Common Foundation, Amherst, MA The Paris Review Foundation, New York, NY Tupelo Quarterly, North Adams, MA 2023 Poetry Fund Recipients, administered by the Academy of American Poets Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Venice, CA BOA Editions, Ltd., Rochester, NY Cave Canem Foundation Inc., Brooklyn, NY DewMore Baltimore , Baltimore, MD* Furious Flower Poetry Center, Harrisonburg, VA Get Lit – Words Ignite, Los Angeles, CA Humanities Washington , Seattle, WA* In-Na-Po, Indigenous Nations Poets, Burlington, WI Poetry Northwest, Seattle, WA Pongo Poetry Project, Seattle, WA The Beloit Poetry Journal , Windham, ME* Undocupoets, New York, NY University of Arizona Poetry Center, Tucson, AZ Urban Word NYC, New York, NY Woodland Pattern Book Center, Milwaukee, WI Zephyr Press, Brookline, MA Zoeglossia, San Antonio, TX To learn more about Amazon Literary Partnership and Amazon in the Community, visit www.amazonliterarypartnership.com

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Today, Amazon Literary Partnership announced nearly $1 million in grant and sponsorship funding to 93 literary nonprofits across the United States. A longtime champion of the written word, Amazon Literary Partnership's funding includes support for groups that are working to empower diverse, marginalized, and underrepresented voices, helping writers to create, publish, learn, teach, experiment, and thrive in 2023 and beyond.</p><p>Included in this year's cohort are 14 first-time grant recipients, including Bidoun, Sinister Wisdom, Beloit Poetry Journal, Contratiempo, InsideOut Literary Arts, and We Need Diverse Books. Previous recipients that are receiving grants this year include National Book Foundation, Lambda Literary, Asian American Writers Workshop, WriteGirl, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Center for Fiction, Graywolf Press, Words Without Borders, and Hurston Wright Foundation.</p><p>For the fifth year in a row, Amazon Literary Partnership is working with the Academy of American Poets on the Poetry Fund and with the Community of Literary Magazine and Presses (CLMP) on the Literary Magazine Fund, each awarding more than 15 grants to poetry organizations and literary magazines, respectively.</p><p>"Since 2019, the Academy of American Poets has joined forces with Amazon Literary Partnership to support the tireless work of poetry presses and organizations across the nation. The seventeen recipients of the 2023 Poetry Fund speak to the power poetry has at the grassroots level," said Ricardo Maldonado, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. "We're extremely grateful for the contributions they continue to make in our communities by fostering direct engagement between poetry and its readers, asking us to commit ourselves to more compassionate and engaged futures."</p><p>"CLMP is extremely grateful to Amazon Literary Partnership for providing critical funding to literary magazines, which, like all publishers, continue to face ongoing challenges, but with fewer resources and staff," said CLMP Executive Director Mary Gannon. "Essential to the publishing ecosystem, literary magazines have shown resilience and innovation, fueled by their commitment to writers and to the transformative power of literature."</p><p>Guided by the mission of having a lasting impact on the literary community, Amazon Literary Partnership has provided more than $16 million in funding to 160 organizations since 2009. The grants have assisted tens of thousands of writers in telling their stories, amplifying their work, and finding their audiences.</p><p>"It is an honor to support these vital and vibrant institutions that work every day to make sure writers get the support they need—whether that's in workshops or residency programs, or connecting them with readers through publication, events, and awards programming," said Al Woodworth, senior manager of Amazon Literary Partnership. "At Amazon, we believe in the power of the written word to expand our thinking, advance our empathy, and change our world. We are grateful for the incredible work that these organizations do to champion writers and their stories."</p><p>Amazon Literary Partnership 2023 grant recipients represent more than 40 states and help writers throughout the lifecycle of their publishing career—from youth writing programs and publishing opportunities to residency programs and festivals, to workshops and award programs. Organizations like the African Voices Communications, Asian American Writers' Workshop, BIDOUN, Contratiempo, Empowering Latino Futures, Hurston/Wright Foundation, Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po), Lambda Literary, We Need Diverse Books, and Zoeglassia are explicitly focused on supporting under-represented, underserved, and marginalized literary voices.</p><p>"We are so excited that, thanks to ALP's sustained support, we will be welcoming over 95 emerging LGBTQ+ writers to this year's Writers' Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ+ Voices," said Harper Zacharia, Director of Development and Engagement at Lambda Literary. "It is the only multi-genre residency devoted exclusively to emerging LGBTQ+ writers. We are thrilled to award over $50,000 in scholarships in no small part due to Amazon's commitment to uplifting our work."</p><p>"Amazon Literary Partnership has been such a wonderful supporter over the years," said Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of NaNoWriMo. "The best way to conceive of that support is through the thousands and thousands of writers Amazon Literary Partnership has helped to believe in their stories, develop their voices, and put their stories into the world—something that's more important than ever given the book-banning efforts we're facing. The progress of our world can be measured in the stories that are told, and we need to encourage and nourish more stories, especially from those who have been marginalized."</p><p>2023 Amazon Literary Partnership grants and sponsorships (*denotes new recipients)</p><ul><li>A Public Space, New York, NY</li><li>Academy of American Poets, New York, NY</li><li>Archipelago Books, Brooklyn, NY</li><li>Arte Publico Press, Houston, TX</li><li>Asian American Writers' Workshop, New York, NY</li><li>Association of Writers &amp; Writing Programs, Norfolk, VA</li><li>BIDOUN, Brooklyn, NY*</li><li>Brooklyn Book Festival Inc., Brooklyn, NY</li><li>Center for the Art of Translation, San Francisco, CA</li><li>CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth, Baltimore, MD</li><li>Chatos Inhumanos, New York, NY</li><li>Chicago Humanities Festival, Chicago, IL</li><li>Clarion West, Seattle, WA</li><li>Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, MN</li><li>Community Word Project Inc., New York, NY</li><li>Contratiempo, Chicago, IL*</li><li>Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, New York, NY</li><li>Deep Vellum, Dallas, TX</li><li>Empowering Latino Futures, San Diego, CA</li><li>Girls Write Now, New York, NY</li><li>Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN</li><li>Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA</li><li>House of Speakeasy, New York, NY</li><li>Hub City Writers Project, Spartanburg, SC</li><li>Hugo House, Seattle, WA</li><li>Indiana Writers Center, Indianapolis, IN</li><li>InsideOut Literary Arts, Detroit, MI *</li><li>Kundiman, New York, NY</li><li>Lambda Literary, New York, NY</li><li>Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Denver, CO</li><li>Literary Arts, Portland, OR*</li><li>LitNet, New York, NY</li><li>The Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, MN</li><li>The Cabin, Boise, ID</li><li>MacDowell, Peterborough, NH</li><li>Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, MN</li><li>Narrative 4 (N4), New York, NY</li><li>National Book Foundation, New York, NY</li><li>National Novel Writing Month, Berkeley, CA</li><li>Nightboat Books Inc, Brooklyn, NY</li><li>PEN America, New York, NY</li><li>Poets &amp; Writers, New York NY</li><li>Red Hen Press, Pasadena, CA</li><li>Roots. Wounds. Words. Inc., New York, NY</li><li>Seattle Arts &amp; Lectures, Seattle, WA</li><li>The Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute, Las Vegas, NV</li><li>The Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY</li><li>The Center for Fiction, Brooklyn, NY</li><li>Torch Literary Arts, Austin, TX</li><li>Transit Books, San Francisco, CA</li><li>Uncross Foundation, Clearmont, WY</li><li>Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, Miami, FL</li><li>We Need Diverse Books, Bethesda, MD*</li><li>Words Without Borders, Brooklyn, NY</li><li>WriteGirl, a project of Community Partners, Los Angeles, CA</li><li>Writers in the Schools (WITS), Houston, TX</li><li>Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Foundation (Hurston/Wright Foundation), Washington, DC</li></ul><p>2023 Literary Magazine Fund Recipients, administered by CLMP</p><ul><li>African Voices Communications Inc., Brooklyn, NY</li><li>Alaska Quarterly Review, Anchorage, AK</li><li>American Short Fiction, Austin, TX</li><li>Bamboo Ridge Press, Honolulu, HI</li><li>Consequence Forum, Las Vegas, NV*</li><li>EcoTheo Collective, Houston, TX</li><li>Electric Lit, Brooklyn, NY</li><li>Epiphany Magazine, New York, NY</li><li>Guernica, New York, NY*</li><li>Hayden's Ferry Review, Tempe, AZ*</li><li>Lucky Jefferson,Chicago, IL*</li><li>n+1 Foundation, Brooklyn, NY*</li><li>Narrative Magazine, San Francisco, CA</li><li>One Story, Brooklyn, NY</li><li>Orion, North Hampton, MA</li><li>Sinister Wisdom, Dover, FL*</li><li>Common Foundation, Amherst, MA</li><li>The Paris Review Foundation, New York, NY</li><li>Tupelo Quarterly, North Adams, MA</li></ul><p>2023 Poetry Fund Recipients, administered by the Academy of American Poets</p><ul><li>Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Venice, CA</li><li>BOA Editions, Ltd., Rochester, NY</li><li>Cave Canem Foundation Inc., Brooklyn, NY</li><li>DewMore Baltimore, Baltimore, MD*</li><li>Furious Flower Poetry Center, Harrisonburg, VA</li><li>Get Lit – Words Ignite, Los Angeles, CA</li><li>Humanities Washington, Seattle, WA*</li><li>In-Na-Po, Indigenous Nations Poets, Burlington, WI</li><li>Poetry Northwest, Seattle, WA</li><li>Pongo Poetry Project, Seattle, WA</li><li>The Beloit Poetry Journal, Windham, ME*</li><li>Undocupoets, New York, NY</li><li>University of Arizona Poetry Center, Tucson, AZ</li><li>Urban Word NYC, New York, NY</li><li>Woodland Pattern Book Center, Milwaukee, WI</li><li>Zephyr Press, Brookline, MA</li><li>Zoeglossia, San Antonio, TX</li></ul><p>To learn more about Amazon Literary Partnership and Amazon in the Community, visit www.amazonliterarypartnership.com</p>

Amazon.com to Webcast Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon.com-to-Webcast-Second-Quarter-2023-Financial-Results-Conference-Call/default.aspx

Amazon.com-to-Webcast-Second-Quarter-2023-Financial-Results-Conference-Call

07/20/2023 16:01:00

Amazon.com to Webcast Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call

07/20/2023

2023

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss its second quarter 2023 financial results on Thursday, August 3, 2023, at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET. The event will be webcast live, and the audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir. Amazon.com Public Relations amazon-pr@amazon.com amazon.com/ir Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss its second quarter 2023 financial results on Thursday, August 3, 2023, at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET.</p><p>The event will be webcast live, and the audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir.</p> <div><p>Amazon.com Public Relationsamazon-pr@amazon.com amazon.com/ir</p></div> Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon and iRobot Modify Merger Price

/news/news-details/2023/Amazon-and-iRobot-Modify-Merger-Price/default.aspx

Amazon-and-iRobot-Modify-Merger-Price

07/25/2023 09:00:00

Amazon and iRobot Modify Merger Price

07/25/2023

2023

Under the amended agreement, iRobot to be acquired for $51.75 per share in cash iRobot is entering into new $200 million financing facility to fund its ongoing operations

<div><p><i>Under the amended agreement, iRobot to be acquired for $51.75 per share in cash</i></p><p><i>iRobot is entering into new $200 million financing facility to fund its ongoing operations</i></p></div>

SEATTLE & BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) announced that they have agreed to amend the existing terms of their merger agreement to reflect a change to the price per share. Under the amended terms, Amazon will pay $51.75 per share revised from $61.00 per share. At the same time, iRobot has entered into a $200 million financing facility to fund its ongoing operations. For Amazon, the change in price per share is expected to be largely offset by the planned increase in iRobot's net debt under the new financing facility. "We've reached an amended agreement with Amazon that reflects the incurrence of iRobot's new debt," said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot. "iRobot is taking on new financing that we believe is sufficient to support our operations in a hyper competitive environment and meet our liquidity needs as well as pay off iRobot's existing debt. This new financing is the outcome of a thorough process and represents the best terms reasonably obtainable on additional financing to support our operations." "We are pleased to support iRobot in this way so they can continue inventing and delivering for customers while our proposed acquisition awaits regulatory approval," said Dave Limp, SVP of Amazon Devices. "As we said when we announced the merger last August, customers love iRobot products and we're excited to work with them to invent in ways that make customers' lives easier and more enjoyable." Completion of the transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and approval of the amended merger agreement by iRobot's stockholders. Amazon and iRobot are working cooperatively with the relevant regulators in their review of the merger.

<p>SEATTLE &amp; BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) announced that they have agreed to amend the existing terms of their merger agreement to reflect a change to the price per share. Under the amended terms, Amazon will pay $51.75 per share revised from $61.00 per share.</p><p>At the same time, iRobot has entered into a $200 million financing facility to fund its ongoing operations. For Amazon, the change in price per share is expected to be largely offset by the planned increase in iRobot's net debt under the new financing facility.</p><p>"We've reached an amended agreement with Amazon that reflects the incurrence of iRobot's new debt," said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot. "iRobot is taking on new financing that we believe is sufficient to support our operations in a hyper competitive environment and meet our liquidity needs as well as pay off iRobot's existing debt. This new financing is the outcome of a thorough process and represents the best terms reasonably obtainable on additional financing to support our operations."</p><p>"We are pleased to support iRobot in this way so they can continue inventing and delivering for customers while our proposed acquisition awaits regulatory approval," said Dave Limp, SVP of Amazon Devices. "As we said when we announced the merger last August, customers love iRobot products and we're excited to work with them to invent in ways that make customers' lives easier and more enjoyable."</p><p>Completion of the transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and approval of the amended merger agreement by iRobot's stockholders. Amazon and iRobot are working cooperatively with the relevant regulators in their review of the merger.</p>

AWS Expands Amazon Bedrock With Additional Foundation Models, New Model Provider, and Advanced Capability to Help Customers Build Generative AI Applications

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Expands-Amazon-Bedrock-With-Additional-Foundation-Models-New-Model-Provider-and-Advanced-Capability-to-Help-Customers-Build-Generative-AI-Applications/default.aspx

AWS-Expands-Amazon-Bedrock-With-Additional-Foundation-Models-New-Model-Provider-and-Advanced-Capability-to-Help-Customers-Build-Generative-AI-Applications

07/26/2023 11:26:00

AWS Expands Amazon Bedrock With Additional Foundation Models, New Model Provider, and Advanced Capability to Help Customers Build Generative AI Applications

07/26/2023

2023

Customers, including Bridgewater Associates, Coda, Lonely Planet, Ryanair, Showpad, and Travelers, are using Amazon Bedrock to create generative AI applications Amazon Bedrock adds access to Cohere's foundation models, as well as Anthropic's Claude 2 and Stability AI's Stable Diffusion XL 1.0, to give customers greater flexibility to experiment and innovate New capability allows customers to enable automation of complex tasks and to deliver customized, up-to-date answers for their applications based on their proprietary data

<div><p><i>Customers, including Bridgewater Associates, Coda, Lonely Planet, Ryanair, Showpad, and Travelers, are using Amazon Bedrock to create generative AI applications</i></p><p><i>Amazon Bedrock adds access to Cohere’s foundation models, as well as Anthropic’s Claude 2 and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion XL 1.0, to give customers greater flexibility to experiment and innovate</i></p><p><i>New capability allows customers to enable automation of complex tasks and to deliver customized, up-to-date answers for their applications based on their proprietary data</i></p></div>

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today at AWS Summit New York announced the expansion of its fully managed foundation model (FM) service Amazon Bedrock to include the addition of Cohere as an FM provider and the latest FMs from Anthropic and Stability AI, as well as a new capability for creating fully managed agents in just a few clicks—a game-changing feature for builders, with no expertise required. Customers can use Amazon Bedrock to build and scale generative AI applications with a selection of industry-leading FMs by accessing a simple application programming interface (API), all in a secure environment and without managing any infrastructure. The expansion of Amazon Bedrock to include a new model provider, leading FMs, and the ability to easily create managed agents offers customers the broadest and most comprehensive toolset to leverage generative AI for any use case. To learn more about Amazon Bedrock, visit aws.amazon.com/bedrock. Customers are already using Amazon Bedrock to transform their businesses with generative AI, including Coda, Lonely Planet, Ryanair, Showpad, and Travelers. Today's announcement reinforces how Amazon Bedrock gives customers greater choice and flexibility to find the right FM for the job, while also providing a new capability that helps customers build generative AI applications that can take actions in the real world and deliver personalized answers to users based on their company's data. "Generative AI has the potential to transform every application, business, and industry. Advancements across data processing, compute, and machine learning are expediting the shift from experimentation to deployment for AWS customers of all sizes," said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Database, Analytics, and Machine Learning at AWS. "Through services like Amazon Bedrock and collaborations with industry leaders, we are democratizing access to generative AI, so wherever customers are on their machine learning journey, they can use AWS to reimagine experiences and bring new products to life." With the massive proliferation of data, the availability of highly scalable compute capacity, and the advancement of machine learning (ML) technologies, generative AI is now capable of transforming every industry, and customers want to understand how they can quickly take advantage of this new technology. However, selecting the right model, securely customizing it using sensitive intellectual property or company data, and integrating it into an application is a complex process requiring significant time and highly specialized expertise. Amazon Bedrock is already simplifying this for customers, making it easier to build and scale generative AI-based applications, with access to a broad selection of best-in-class FMs from companies including AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Stability AI, and Amazon, via a simple API. As a fully managed service, Amazon Bedrock allows customers to find and test different models, get started quickly, securely customize a model to fit their needs, and then integrate and deploy it to production. New model provider Cohere offers even more FM selection for customers AWS offers the broadest and deepest set of ML services and supporting cloud infrastructure to put ML and AI capabilities in the hands of builders of all levels of experience. Amazon Bedrock will add Cohere as the newest FM provider to give customers an even greater choice of best-in-class FMs to build their generative AI applications.Cohere is a leading developer of enterprise AI platforms and state-of-the-art FMs, and its FMs help to unlock more intuitive ways to generate, search, and summarize information. Command, Cohere's flagship text generation model, is trained to follow user commands and be useful instantly in practical business applications such as summarization, copywriting, dialogue, extraction, and question answering. Cohere's text understanding model, Embed, can be used for search, clustering, or classification tasks across 100+ languages, allowing organizations to easily search by meaning or categorize text. Saurabh Baji, senior vice president of engineering at Cohere, said of the launch on Amazon Bedrock, "We are excited to expand our collaboration with AWS and offer our FMs on Amazon Bedrock. Our top-performing models are trained for business applications such as summarization, copywriting, dialog, extraction, and question answering. This collaboration will provide our joint customers with the greatest possible flexibility in ways to access our cutting-edge technology. Bringing Amazon Bedrock and Cohere together offers customers intelligent systems so that developers and enterprises alike can innovate faster and more easily with AI." Claude 2 from Anthropic and Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 from Stability AI become available on Amazon Bedrock With Amazon Bedrock, customers can drive rapid innovation as new versions of FMs become available. Amazon Bedrock offers a range of text and image FMs from leading providers that span applications such as analyzing text for sentiment, classifying images, and forecasting trends. Anthropic Claude 2 on Amazon Bedrock: Anthropic, an AI safety and research company that builds reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems, has brought Claude 2, the latest version of their language model, to Amazon Bedrock. Claude 2 can take up to 100,000 tokens in each conversational task prompt, meaning it can work over hundreds of pages of text, or even an entire book.Claude 2 can also write longer documents—like memos and stories on the order of a few thousand tokens—compared to its prior version, giving Amazon Bedrock customers even greater ways to develop generative AI applications. Stability AI Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 on Amazon Bedrock: Stability AI is a community-driven, open AI company, offering FMs that create text, images, audio, video, code, and more from simple text instructions and will release the latest iteration of its text-to-image suite of models, Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 (SDXL 1.0), on Amazon Bedrock. SDXL 1.0 produces improved image and composition detail over its predecessor with its ability to generate more realistic creations for films, television, music, and instructional videos. SDXL 1.0 is also being released on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, an ML hub that provides access to algorithms, models, and solutions. Daniela Amodei, president and co-founder of Anthropic, said of today's launch, "We're excited that our latest model Claude 2, which has made significant gains in performance and safety, is now accessible on Amazon Bedrock. This collaboration opens up new opportunities to deploy Claude to more enterprises using Amazon Bedrock's secure infrastructure and familiar AWS tooling. We are happy to work with AWS because they share our commitment to creating safer, more reliable AI. Together, we can help our customers unlock the power of generative AI and accomplish their goals." Emad Mostaque, founder and CEO of Stability AI, said of their news, "Stability AI thrives on innovation, and our foundation model Stable Diffusion on Amazon Bedrock reflects the most pioneering developments across generative AI. Offering the latest release of our foundation model SDXL 1.0, with improved image and composition detail over its predecessor, gives Amazon Bedrock customers access to cutting-edge resources and advances our goal to activate humanity's potential with AI." Customers can create agents for Amazon Bedrock to complete complex tasks and to deliver customized, up-to-date answers for their applications, based on their proprietary data With a robust understanding of natural language and the ability to be further customized to domain-specific tasks, FMs are incredibly powerful for a wide range of use cases, such as summarization and question answering. However, FMs on their own are limited because they cannot complete complex tasks that require them to interact with external systems and don't have up-to-date knowledge sources, like inventory data for an ecommerce company. To make these kinds of capabilities possible, developers must go through a multistep process to accomplish even simple tasks, like booking a flight or returning a purchased item. This process includes breaking the task into multiple steps, by providing specific definitions and instructions, configuring access to current and relevant knowledge sources, and writing code so the generative AI application can take action according to the plan through a series of API calls. Developers must then provision and manage the requisite infrastructure, along with setting up policies for data security and privacy, which is tedious and time consuming. The complexity of this process for a single task means many companies are not able to unlock the full potential of generative AI. Agents for Amazon Bedrock is a new, fully managed capability that makes it easier for developers to create generative-AI based applications that can complete complex tasks for a wide range of use cases and deliver up-to-date answers based on proprietary knowledge sources. With just a few clicks, agents for Amazon Bedrock automatically break down tasks and create an orchestration plan—without any manual coding. The agent securely connects to company data through a simple API, automatically converting data into a machine-readable format, and augmenting the request with relevant information to generate the most accurate response. Agents can then automatically call APIs to fulfill a user's request. For example, an insurance agency might want to develop a generative AI application to help employees automate tasks like processing insurance claims or managing pending paperwork. As a fully managed capability, agents for Amazon Bedrock remove the undifferentiated lifting of managing system integration and infrastructure provisioning, allowing developers to leverage generative AI to its full extent throughout their organization. Showpad is a leading sales-enablement platform using AI to empower organizations to increase sales productivity and drive better business outcomes. "We improve how sales and marketing teams partner in pursuit of a shared goal: bringing meaningful value to each buyer interaction. This requires tailoring information and improving how sellers engage with buyers, based on their unique needs," said Tony Grout, chief product officer at Showpad. "That's why we rely on Amazon Bedrock to rapidly experiment and subsequently push new models to production, so we can ensure that every conversation is empathetic, authentic, and builds trust with buyers." In existence for more than 165 years, Travelers is an experienced and innovative insurance company that spans personal, business, and specialty insurance, and is the only property casualty company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. "The potential that generative AI brings is huge, and Travelers is excited to leverage access to FMs through Amazon Bedrock," said Mano Mannoochahr, chief data & analytics officer at Travelers. "With direct access to FMs from AWS and third parties, Amazon Bedrock provides the potential for quick and easy experimentation, development, and deployment."

<p>NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today at AWS Summit New York announced the expansion of its fully managed foundation model (FM) service Amazon Bedrock to include the addition of Cohere as an FM provider and the latest FMs from Anthropic and Stability AI, as well as a new capability for creating fully managed agents in just a few clicks—a game-changing feature for builders, with no expertise required. Customers can use Amazon Bedrock to build and scale generative AI applications with a selection of industry-leading FMs by accessing a simple application programming interface (API), all in a secure environment and without managing any infrastructure. The expansion of Amazon Bedrock to include a new model provider, leading FMs, and the ability to easily create managed agents offers customers the broadest and most comprehensive toolset to leverage generative AI for any use case. To learn more about Amazon Bedrock, visit aws.amazon.com/bedrock.</p><p>Customers are already using Amazon Bedrock to transform their businesses with generative AI, including Coda, Lonely Planet, Ryanair, Showpad, and Travelers. Today's announcement reinforces how Amazon Bedrock gives customers greater choice and flexibility to find the right FM for the job, while also providing a new capability that helps customers build generative AI applications that can take actions in the real world and deliver personalized answers to users based on their company's data.</p><p>"Generative AI has the potential to transform every application, business, and industry. Advancements across data processing, compute, and machine learning are expediting the shift from experimentation to deployment for AWS customers of all sizes," said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Database, Analytics, and Machine Learning at AWS. "Through services like Amazon Bedrock and collaborations with industry leaders, we are democratizing access to generative AI, so wherever customers are on their machine learning journey, they can use AWS to reimagine experiences and bring new products to life."</p><p>With the massive proliferation of data, the availability of highly scalable compute capacity, and the advancement of machine learning (ML) technologies, generative AI is now capable of transforming every industry, and customers want to understand how they can quickly take advantage of this new technology. However, selecting the right model, securely customizing it using sensitive intellectual property or company data, and integrating it into an application is a complex process requiring significant time and highly specialized expertise. Amazon Bedrock is already simplifying this for customers, making it easier to build and scale generative AI-based applications, with access to a broad selection of best-in-class FMs from companies including AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Stability AI, and Amazon, via a simple API. As a fully managed service, Amazon Bedrock allows customers to find and test different models, get started quickly, securely customize a model to fit their needs, and then integrate and deploy it to production.</p><p>New model provider Cohere offers even more FM selection for customers</p><p>AWS offers the broadest and deepest set of ML services and supporting cloud infrastructure to put ML and AI capabilities in the hands of builders of all levels of experience. Amazon Bedrock will add Cohere as the newest FM provider to give customers an even greater choice of best-in-class FMs to build their generative AI applications.Cohere is a leading developer of enterprise AI platforms and state-of-the-art FMs, and its FMs help to unlock more intuitive ways to generate, search, and summarize information. Command, Cohere's flagship text generation model, is trained to follow user commands and be useful instantly in practical business applications such as summarization, copywriting, dialogue, extraction, and question answering. Cohere's text understanding model, Embed, can be used for search, clustering, or classification tasks across 100+ languages, allowing organizations to easily search by meaning or categorize text.</p><p>Saurabh Baji, senior vice president of engineering at Cohere, said of the launch on Amazon Bedrock, "We are excited to expand our collaboration with AWS and offer our FMs on Amazon Bedrock. Our top-performing models are trained for business applications such as summarization, copywriting, dialog, extraction, and question answering. This collaboration will provide our joint customers with the greatest possible flexibility in ways to access our cutting-edge technology. Bringing Amazon Bedrock and Cohere together offers customers intelligent systems so that developers and enterprises alike can innovate faster and more easily with AI."</p><p>Claude 2 from Anthropic and Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 from Stability AI become available on Amazon Bedrock</p><p>With Amazon Bedrock, customers can drive rapid innovation as new versions of FMs become available. Amazon Bedrock offers a range of text and image FMs from leading providers that span applications such as analyzing text for sentiment, classifying images, and forecasting trends.</p><ul><li>Anthropic Claude 2 on Amazon Bedrock: Anthropic, an AI safety and research company that builds reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems, has brought Claude 2, the latest version of their language model, to Amazon Bedrock. Claude 2 can take up to 100,000 tokens in each conversational task prompt, meaning it can work over hundreds of pages of text, or even an entire book.Claude 2 can also write longer documents—like memos and stories on the order of a few thousand tokens—compared to its prior version, giving Amazon Bedrock customers even greater ways to develop generative AI applications.</li><li>Stability AI Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 on Amazon Bedrock: Stability AI is a community-driven, open AI company, offering FMs that create text, images, audio, video, code, and more from simple text instructions and will release the latest iteration of its text-to-image suite of models, Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 (SDXL 1.0), on Amazon Bedrock. SDXL 1.0 produces improved image and composition detail over its predecessor with its ability to generate more realistic creations for films, television, music, and instructional videos. SDXL 1.0 is also being released on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, an ML hub that provides access to algorithms, models, and solutions.</li></ul><p>Daniela Amodei, president and co-founder of Anthropic, said of today's launch, "We're excited that our latest model Claude 2, which has made significant gains in performance and safety, is now accessible on Amazon Bedrock. This collaboration opens up new opportunities to deploy Claude to more enterprises using Amazon Bedrock's secure infrastructure and familiar AWS tooling. We are happy to work with AWS because they share our commitment to creating safer, more reliable AI. Together, we can help our customers unlock the power of generative AI and accomplish their goals."</p><p>Emad Mostaque, founder and CEO of Stability AI, said of their news, "Stability AI thrives on innovation, and our foundation model Stable Diffusion on Amazon Bedrock reflects the most pioneering developments across generative AI. Offering the latest release of our foundation model SDXL 1.0, with improved image and composition detail over its predecessor, gives Amazon Bedrock customers access to cutting-edge resources and advances our goal to activate humanity's potential with AI."</p><p>Customers can create agents for Amazon Bedrock to complete complex tasks and to deliver customized, up-to-date answers for their applications, based on their proprietary data</p><p>With a robust understanding of natural language and the ability to be further customized to domain-specific tasks, FMs are incredibly powerful for a wide range of use cases, such as summarization and question answering. However, FMs on their own are limited because they cannot complete complex tasks that require them to interact with external systems and don't have up-to-date knowledge sources, like inventory data for an ecommerce company. To make these kinds of capabilities possible, developers must go through a multistep process to accomplish even simple tasks, like booking a flight or returning a purchased item. This process includes breaking the task into multiple steps, by providing specific definitions and instructions, configuring access to current and relevant knowledge sources, and writing code so the generative AI application can take action according to the plan through a series of API calls. Developers must then provision and manage the requisite infrastructure, along with setting up policies for data security and privacy, which is tedious and time consuming. The complexity of this process for a single task means many companies are not able to unlock the full potential of generative AI.</p><p>Agents for Amazon Bedrock is a new, fully managed capability that makes it easier for developers to create generative-AI based applications that can complete complex tasks for a wide range of use cases and deliver up-to-date answers based on proprietary knowledge sources. With just a few clicks, agents for Amazon Bedrock automatically break down tasks and create an orchestration plan—without any manual coding. The agent securely connects to company data through a simple API, automatically converting data into a machine-readable format, and augmenting the request with relevant information to generate the most accurate response. Agents can then automatically call APIs to fulfill a user's request. For example, an insurance agency might want to develop a generative AI application to help employees automate tasks like processing insurance claims or managing pending paperwork. As a fully managed capability, agents for Amazon Bedrock remove the undifferentiated lifting of managing system integration and infrastructure provisioning, allowing developers to leverage generative AI to its full extent throughout their organization.</p><p>Showpad is a leading sales-enablement platform using AI to empower organizations to increase sales productivity and drive better business outcomes. "We improve how sales and marketing teams partner in pursuit of a shared goal: bringing meaningful value to each buyer interaction. This requires tailoring information and improving how sellers engage with buyers, based on their unique needs," said Tony Grout, chief product officer at Showpad. "That's why we rely on Amazon Bedrock to rapidly experiment and subsequently push new models to production, so we can ensure that every conversation is empathetic, authentic, and builds trust with buyers."</p><p>In existence for more than 165 years, Travelers is an experienced and innovative insurance company that spans personal, business, and specialty insurance, and is the only property casualty company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. "The potential that generative AI brings is huge, and Travelers is excited to leverage access to FMs through Amazon Bedrock," said Mano Mannoochahr, chief data &amp; analytics officer at Travelers. "With direct access to FMs from AWS and third parties, Amazon Bedrock provides the potential for quick and easy experimentation, development, and deployment."</p>

AWS Announces the General Availability of AWS Entity Resolution to Help Organizations Improve Data Quality and Customer Insights

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Announces-the-General-Availability-of-AWS-Entity-Resolution-to-Help-Organizations-Improve-Data-Quality-and-Customer-Insights/default.aspx

AWS-Announces-the-General-Availability-of-AWS-Entity-Resolution-to-Help-Organizations-Improve-Data-Quality-and-Customer-Insights

07/26/2023 11:50:00

AWS Announces the General Availability of AWS Entity Resolution to Help Organizations Improve Data Quality and Customer Insights

07/26/2023

2023

ML-powered service helps companies match and link records stored across multiple applications, channels, and data stores ActionIQ, Amazon Ads, Best Western, LiveRamp, Merkle, TransUnion, and Unified ID 2.0 among early customers and partners using AWS Entity Resolution

<div><p><i>ML-powered service helps companies match and link records stored across multiple applications, channels, and data stores</i></p><p><i>ActionIQ, Amazon Ads, Best Western, LiveRamp, Merkle, TransUnion, and Unified ID 2.0 among early customers and partners using AWS Entity Resolution</i></p></div>

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today at AWS Summit New York announced the general availability of AWS Entity Resolution, an analytics service powered by machine learning (ML) that helps organizations easily analyze, match, and link related records stored across applications, channels, and data stores. AWS Entity Resolution uses customizable workflows that leverage rule-based and ML techniques to join related consumer, business, and product information. Business analysts and developers can improve the fidelity of their data quickly with built-in, preconfigured workflows, or customize the workflows to fit their organization's needs. With AWS Entity Resolution, businesses can better understand how their data is related, matched, and linked and develop deeper customer insights, clearer supply chain data for improved operations, more relevant marketing campaigns, and improved complex financial investment decisions. AWS also announced plans to add two entity resolution partner integrations with LiveRamp and TransUnion, as well as interoperability with the Unified ID 2.0 open source framework. These integrations will enable customers to more easily translate or enrich their own records while better protecting their information and reducing data movement. Customers can get started with AWS Entity Resolution by visiting aws.amazon.com/entity-resolution. Records containing information about customers, businesses, and products (e.g., product SKUs, UPCs, and manufacturer codes for the same product) are increasingly siloed in hundreds of different applications, channels, and data stores across multiple organizations. For example, companies may want to link recent consumer interactions (e.g., ad clicks, cart abandonment, and purchases) with a unique ID, so they can better understand shopping patterns across applications (e.g., ad platforms, loyalty programs, and ecommerce systems). To link those records, companies typically use a combination of home-grown complex data pipelines and integrations with external partners, but reconciling records containing disparate or incomplete information is not easy. In order to build these workflows, organizations have to spend costly developer resources, invest months of development time, and continuously update their data pipelines. Adding ML for more accurate, predictive matching requires even more specialized expertise and additional development time to collect and normalize huge amounts of curated data, train and test matching models, and deploy the ML models. Instead of building their own analytics solutions, some companies rely on external solutions to match their records, but this approach also comes with challenges. Using readily available vendors requires building and maintaining custom data pipelines with each partner, copying sensitive data to external platforms with each additional integration—increasing the risk of data leakage—and constantly updating and validating those pipelines, which is costly and requires heavy lifting from both partners and customers. As a result of these challenges, many organizations aren't able to easily match, link, and de-duplicate records and are often unable to fully harness the insights of their data. With AWS Entity Resolution, companies can more easily match and link related records stored across multiple applications, channels, and data stores in minutes using flexible and configurable workflows that can be customized with a few clicks, even when records contain missing or incomplete information. In the AWS Management Console, a user can easily customize rule-based workflows for any kind of record-matching and accuracy needed, and can use preconfigured machine learning (ML) matching, without any expertise in entity resolution or ML models. With AWS Entity Resolution customers can set a higher threshold to obtain exact matches, or a lower threshold to match data across a broader set of results. For example, a financial services company can use AWS Entity Resolution to help prevent fraud by precisely matching transactions across a set of accounts, credit cards, and debit cards. Or an airline can use AWS Entity Resolution to analyze and link millions of consumer interactions across ticketing, airport lounges, customer support, and loyalty programs, even when some of the customer records contain partial information for a customer profile. Using AWS Entity Resolution, customers gain a deeper understanding of how data is linked to deliver new insights, enhance decision making, and improve customer experiences based on a unified view of their records. "AWS customers across every industry rely on accurate data for daily decision making to drive better business outcomes. Today, information about customers, products, or businesses is often fragmented and stored across organizations, making it difficult for companies to gain valuable insights to improve customer experiences, optimize their supply chain, and improve decision making without developing custom data integration and rationalization solutions, which are expensive to build and maintain," said Dilip Kumar, vice president of AWS Applications. "With a few clicks, AWS Entity Resolution makes it easy for organizations to match records and link workflows that are flexible, scalable, and easily connect to existing applications, enabling faster and more comprehensive views of their data to unlock its value and improve business outcomes. Together with the broad AWS portfolio of analytics solutions, AWS Entity Resolution makes matching and linking data from multiple data lakes and data stores easier, helping customers keep their data where it lives, and contributing to a zero-ETL future." Soon, AWS Entity Resolution will also add partner integrations with LiveRamp and TransUnion, as well as an integration with the open source advertising framework Unified ID 2.0, to make it easier for customers to translate or enrich their records with common industry identifiers. AWS Entity Resolution will make it easier to relate commonly used industry identifiers with their own data while minimizing movement of data outside of AWS and eliminating the need to write custom code to translate or enrich their records with identity providers. Customers who want to collaborate with partners in a data clean room such as AWS Clean Rooms can use the AWS Entity Resolution automated workflows to identify common data IDs across datasets and more easily connect records. Together, these integrations make it easier for companies to analyze data with business partners for use cases such as supply chain optimization or advertising measurement, while helping protect sensitive information. AWS Entity Resolution is generally available today in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), and Europe (London), with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon. ActionIQ is an enterprise composable customer data platform provider solving complex data problems like audience segmentation, customer360, real-time personalization, and journey orchestration—helping brands activate data anywhere in the customer experience. "We are excited to be an early customer of AWS Entity Resolution, as the service aligns with our vision to modernize the customer data landscape. ActionIQ's platform, powered by AWS technology, is dedicated to arming marketers with seamless access to customer data and enhancing the overall customer experience for enterprise organizations," said Justin DeBrabant, chief product officer at ActionIQ. "During our early experimentation with AWS Entity Resolution, we were impressed with the flexibility to customize the workflows and how the service quickly hit industry-class benchmarks in terms of speed and match rates. AWS Entity Resolution will help marketers augment the value of their data and harness the ongoing transformation of the identity resolution and marketing technology space." Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a secure, privacy-safe clean room application from Amazon Ads that supports thousands of marketers with custom analytics. "Today it can be challenging for marketers to prepare and analyze the signals used within clean rooms without heavy lifting," said Paula Despins, vice president of Ads Measurement at Amazon Ads. "Now Amazon Ads customers can use AWS Entity Resolution to simplify the process of preparing signals before analyzing them in Amazon Marketing Cloud, for use cases like cross-channel measurement or custom audience activation through Amazon DSP." Best Western Hotels (BWH) is a global hotel brand with a mission to deliver trusted guest experiences. "Understanding our hotel guests and their preferences is incredibly important to delivering exceptional traveler experiences. To enable this, we must consolidate our data into a unified view of each guest, such that we can more effectively communicate, personalize, and provide support around the guest journey. However, consolidating disparate sets of data is challenging, as customer information is fragmented and lives across multiple repositories," said Joseph W. Landucci, director of Technology Management at BWH. "We are excited to be one of the first customers to test this new service and to incorporate AWS Entity Resolution workflows into our Guest Profile process. AWS Entity Resolution allows us to easily match and link these disparate records to create a 360-degree view of our customers, enabling us to deliver a more personalized guest experience at every touch point, across our portfolio of hotels around the globe." LiveRamp is a leading data collaboration platform that helps businesses access, manage, activate and analyze data through a consistent identity framework. "Identity resolution is a foundational requirement for companies to unlock the full value of their data, a critical need for marketing teams, analysts, and model builders focused on customer insights," said Noel McMichael, vice president of Commercial Cloud, LiveRamp. "LiveRamp's partnership with AWS is focused on enabling privacy-centric identity workflows, and as a lead AWS Entity Resolution integration partner, we look forward to delivering even more value to companies in the cloud by advancing customer intelligence, partner collaboration, and better business outcomes enterprise-wide." Merkle specializes in the creation and delivery of unique and relevant customer experiences that help drive performance across all media and devices. "We have successfully used AWS Entity Resolution to perform both deterministic and machine-learning based matching of users across multiple datasets and with high match-rates, allowing us to enhance customer experiences with more complete views of their profiles," said Oscar Wooley, head of Data Solutions, Merkle. "Moreover, we are now able to drastically improve the level of automation for our clients, allowing them to focus on data activation and insights rather than being caught-up on data preparation." TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible by ensuring each person is reliably represented in the marketplace. "Despite continued investments in new technology and data, marketers still struggle to understand their customers and connect their interactions," said Ryan Engle, TransUnion's vice president of Identity Solutions and Platform Integrations for its TruAudience marketing solutions. "We look forward to applying the power of our solutions through AWS Entity Resolution to help brands and publishers leverage their data for insights, audience creation, and more while reducing data movement." Unified ID 2.0 is an open-source digital identity framework that aims to provide greater transparency and interoperability. "In the dynamic world of advertising, accurate data is a cornerstone for success, which is why we're excited that AWS is expanding its capabilities through AWS Entity Resolution," said Samantha Jacobson, chief strategy officer, The Trade Desk. "We look forward to integrating the Unified ID 2.0 framework with AWS Entity Resolution to enable AWS customers to expand their first-party data advertising tactics and deliver omni-channel campaigns across devices."

<p>NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today at AWS Summit New York announced the general availability of AWS Entity Resolution, an analytics service powered by machine learning (ML) that helps organizations easily analyze, match, and link related records stored across applications, channels, and data stores. AWS Entity Resolution uses customizable workflows that leverage rule-based and ML techniques to join related consumer, business, and product information. Business analysts and developers can improve the fidelity of their data quickly with built-in, preconfigured workflows, or customize the workflows to fit their organization's needs. With AWS Entity Resolution, businesses can better understand how their data is related, matched, and linked and develop deeper customer insights, clearer supply chain data for improved operations, more relevant marketing campaigns, and improved complex financial investment decisions. AWS also announced plans to add two entity resolution partner integrations with LiveRamp and TransUnion, as well as interoperability with the Unified ID 2.0 open source framework. These integrations will enable customers to more easily translate or enrich their own records while better protecting their information and reducing data movement. Customers can get started with AWS Entity Resolution by visiting aws.amazon.com/entity-resolution.</p><p>Records containing information about customers, businesses, and products (e.g., product SKUs, UPCs, and manufacturer codes for the same product) are increasingly siloed in hundreds of different applications, channels, and data stores across multiple organizations. For example, companies may want to link recent consumer interactions (e.g., ad clicks, cart abandonment, and purchases) with a unique ID, so they can better understand shopping patterns across applications (e.g., ad platforms, loyalty programs, and ecommerce systems). To link those records, companies typically use a combination of home-grown complex data pipelines and integrations with external partners, but reconciling records containing disparate or incomplete information is not easy. In order to build these workflows, organizations have to spend costly developer resources, invest months of development time, and continuously update their data pipelines. Adding ML for more accurate, predictive matching requires even more specialized expertise and additional development time to collect and normalize huge amounts of curated data, train and test matching models, and deploy the ML models. Instead of building their own analytics solutions, some companies rely on external solutions to match their records, but this approach also comes with challenges. Using readily available vendors requires building and maintaining custom data pipelines with each partner, copying sensitive data to external platforms with each additional integration—increasing the risk of data leakage—and constantly updating and validating those pipelines, which is costly and requires heavy lifting from both partners and customers. As a result of these challenges, many organizations aren't able to easily match, link, and de-duplicate records and are often unable to fully harness the insights of their data.</p><p>With AWS Entity Resolution, companies can more easily match and link related records stored across multiple applications, channels, and data stores in minutes using flexible and configurable workflows that can be customized with a few clicks, even when records contain missing or incomplete information. In the AWS Management Console, a user can easily customize rule-based workflows for any kind of record-matching and accuracy needed, and can use preconfigured machine learning (ML) matching, without any expertise in entity resolution or ML models. With AWS Entity Resolution customers can set a higher threshold to obtain exact matches, or a lower threshold to match data across a broader set of results. For example, a financial services company can use AWS Entity Resolution to help prevent fraud by precisely matching transactions across a set of accounts, credit cards, and debit cards. Or an airline can use AWS Entity Resolution to analyze and link millions of consumer interactions across ticketing, airport lounges, customer support, and loyalty programs, even when some of the customer records contain partial information for a customer profile. Using AWS Entity Resolution, customers gain a deeper understanding of how data is linked to deliver new insights, enhance decision making, and improve customer experiences based on a unified view of their records.</p><p>"AWS customers across every industry rely on accurate data for daily decision making to drive better business outcomes. Today, information about customers, products, or businesses is often fragmented and stored across organizations, making it difficult for companies to gain valuable insights to improve customer experiences, optimize their supply chain, and improve decision making without developing custom data integration and rationalization solutions, which are expensive to build and maintain," said Dilip Kumar, vice president of AWS Applications. "With a few clicks, AWS Entity Resolution makes it easy for organizations to match records and link workflows that are flexible, scalable, and easily connect to existing applications, enabling faster and more comprehensive views of their data to unlock its value and improve business outcomes. Together with the broad AWS portfolio of analytics solutions, AWS Entity Resolution makes matching and linking data from multiple data lakes and data stores easier, helping customers keep their data where it lives, and contributing to a zero-ETL future."</p><p>Soon, AWS Entity Resolution will also add partner integrations with LiveRamp and TransUnion, as well as an integration with the open source advertising framework Unified ID 2.0, to make it easier for customers to translate or enrich their records with common industry identifiers. AWS Entity Resolution will make it easier to relate commonly used industry identifiers with their own data while minimizing movement of data outside of AWS and eliminating the need to write custom code to translate or enrich their records with identity providers. Customers who want to collaborate with partners in a data clean room such as AWS Clean Rooms can use the AWS Entity Resolution automated workflows to identify common data IDs across datasets and more easily connect records. Together, these integrations make it easier for companies to analyze data with business partners for use cases such as supply chain optimization or advertising measurement, while helping protect sensitive information.</p><p>AWS Entity Resolution is generally available today in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), and Europe (London), with availability in additional AWS Regions coming soon.</p><p>ActionIQ is an enterprise composable customer data platform provider solving complex data problems like audience segmentation, customer360, real-time personalization, and journey orchestration—helping brands activate data anywhere in the customer experience. "We are excited to be an early customer of AWS Entity Resolution, as the service aligns with our vision to modernize the customer data landscape. ActionIQ's platform, powered by AWS technology, is dedicated to arming marketers with seamless access to customer data and enhancing the overall customer experience for enterprise organizations," said Justin DeBrabant, chief product officer at ActionIQ. "During our early experimentation with AWS Entity Resolution, we were impressed with the flexibility to customize the workflows and how the service quickly hit industry-class benchmarks in terms of speed and match rates. AWS Entity Resolution will help marketers augment the value of their data and harness the ongoing transformation of the identity resolution and marketing technology space."</p><p>Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a secure, privacy-safe clean room application from Amazon Ads that supports thousands of marketers with custom analytics. "Today it can be challenging for marketers to prepare and analyze the signals used within clean rooms without heavy lifting," said Paula Despins, vice president of Ads Measurement at Amazon Ads. "Now Amazon Ads customers can use AWS Entity Resolution to simplify the process of preparing signals before analyzing them in Amazon Marketing Cloud, for use cases like cross-channel measurement or custom audience activation through Amazon DSP."</p><p>Best Western Hotels (BWH) is a global hotel brand with a mission to deliver trusted guest experiences. "Understanding our hotel guests and their preferences is incredibly important to delivering exceptional traveler experiences. To enable this, we must consolidate our data into a unified view of each guest, such that we can more effectively communicate, personalize, and provide support around the guest journey. However, consolidating disparate sets of data is challenging, as customer information is fragmented and lives across multiple repositories," said Joseph W. Landucci, director of Technology Management at BWH. "We are excited to be one of the first customers to test this new service and to incorporate AWS Entity Resolution workflows into our Guest Profile process. AWS Entity Resolution allows us to easily match and link these disparate records to create a 360-degree view of our customers, enabling us to deliver a more personalized guest experience at every touch point, across our portfolio of hotels around the globe."</p><p>LiveRamp is a leading data collaboration platform that helps businesses access, manage, activate and analyze data through a consistent identity framework. "Identity resolution is a foundational requirement for companies to unlock the full value of their data, a critical need for marketing teams, analysts, and model builders focused on customer insights," said Noel McMichael, vice president of Commercial Cloud, LiveRamp. "LiveRamp's partnership with AWS is focused on enabling privacy-centric identity workflows, and as a lead AWS Entity Resolution integration partner, we look forward to delivering even more value to companies in the cloud by advancing customer intelligence, partner collaboration, and better business outcomes enterprise-wide."</p><p>Merkle specializes in the creation and delivery of unique and relevant customer experiences that help drive performance across all media and devices. "We have successfully used AWS Entity Resolution to perform both deterministic and machine-learning based matching of users across multiple datasets and with high match-rates, allowing us to enhance customer experiences with more complete views of their profiles," said Oscar Wooley, head of Data Solutions, Merkle. "Moreover, we are now able to drastically improve the level of automation for our clients, allowing them to focus on data activation and insights rather than being caught-up on data preparation."</p><p>TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible by ensuring each person is reliably represented in the marketplace. "Despite continued investments in new technology and data, marketers still struggle to understand their customers and connect their interactions," said Ryan Engle, TransUnion's vice president of Identity Solutions and Platform Integrations for its TruAudience marketing solutions. "We look forward to applying the power of our solutions through AWS Entity Resolution to help brands and publishers leverage their data for insights, audience creation, and more while reducing data movement."</p><p>Unified ID 2.0 is an open-source digital identity framework that aims to provide greater transparency and interoperability. "In the dynamic world of advertising, accurate data is a cornerstone for success, which is why we're excited that AWS is expanding its capabilities through AWS Entity Resolution," said Samantha Jacobson, chief strategy officer, The Trade Desk. "We look forward to integrating the Unified ID 2.0 framework with AWS Entity Resolution to enable AWS customers to expand their first-party data advertising tactics and deliver omni-channel campaigns across devices."</p>

AWS Announces AWS HealthScribe, a New Generative AI-Powered Service that Automatically Creates Clinical Documentation

/news/news-details/2023/AWS-Announces-AWS-HealthScribe-a-New-Generative-AI-Powered-Service-that-Automatically-Creates-Clinical-Documentation/default.aspx

AWS-Announces-AWS-HealthScribe-a-New-Generative-AI-Powered-Service-that-Automatically-Creates-Clinical-Documentation

07/26/2023 12:18:00

AWS Announces AWS HealthScribe, a New Generative AI-Powered Service that Automatically Creates Clinical Documentation

07/26/2023

2023

New service leverages speech recognition and generative AI to automatically create preliminary clinical documentation from patient-clinician conversations 3M Health Information Systems, Babylon Health, and ScribeEMR among customers and partners using AWS HealthScribe

<div><p><i>New service leverages speech recognition and generative AI to automatically create preliminary clinical documentation from patient-clinician conversations</i></p><p><i>3M Health Information Systems, Babylon Health, and ScribeEMR among customers and partners using AWS HealthScribe</i></p></div>

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today at AWS Summit New York announced AWS HealthScribe, a new HIPAA-eligible service that empowers healthcare software providers to build clinical applications that use speech recognition and generative AI to save clinicians time by generating clinical documentation. With AWS HealthScribe, healthcare software providers can use a single API to automatically create robust transcripts, extract key details (e.g., medical terms and medications), and create summaries from doctor-patient discussions that can then be entered into an electronic health record (EHR) system. Powered by Amazon Bedrock, AWS HealthScribe makes it faster and easier for healthcare software providers to integrate generative AI capabilities into their application starting with two popular specialties (i.e., general medicine and orthopedics), without needing to manage the underlying machine learning (ML) infrastructure or train their own healthcare-specific large language models (LLMs). AWS HealthScribe enables responsible deployment of AI systems by citing the source of every line of generated text from within the original conversation transcript, making it easier for physicians to review clinical notes before entering them into the EHR. Built with security and privacy in mind, AWS HealthScribe gives customers control over where their data is stored, encrypts data in transit and at rest, and does not use inputs or outputs generated through the service to train its models. To learn more about AWS HealthScribe, visit https://aws.amazon.com/healthscribe. Generative AI is quickly transforming many industries, including healthcare and life sciences. As interest in generative AI continues to grow, healthcare software vendors are looking to leverage this technology in their clinical applications to solve common pain points for clinicians in the healthcare industry. One of the most common issues is compiling clinical documentation after every patient-clinician discussion. This is important for compliance, quality measures, and reimbursement, but it is also a complex, multi-step process that takes time away from seeing patients. While many of these healthcare software providers use text to speech and natural language processing (NLP) to streamline this process today, generative AI has been the missing piece to help these applications go from recorded discussions to concise clinical documentation that can be entered into an EHR. However, working with generative AI is complex, and integrating multiple AI systems into a cohesive solution requires significant engineering resources. To build these generative AI capabilities, a provider must train or fine-tune their own LLM to generate accurate clinical documentation, which requires access to in-demand AI experts, massive amounts of carefully annotated healthcare data, and significant compute capacity. Even then, an LLM for healthcare needs to be specially trained to understand complex medical terminology across different specialties (e.g., general medicine, pediatrics, or orthopedics), to be capable of understanding, analyzing, and summarizing free-flowing discussions, as well as recognizing prescription names and dosages. To ensure these solutions are working properly, software providers must also build with responsible AI in mind, including designing the solution so that clinicians can trace the origin of any generated text to mitigate the risk of errors or hallucinations. Healthcare software providers must also dedicate engineering time and resources to ensuring these systems meet the stringent security and privacy requirements of the healthcare industry. Because of these barriers, it is challenging for healthcare software providers to bring AI-powered solutions to market quickly, despite the potential benefits to both clinicians and patients. AWS HealthScribe is an AI-powered, HIPAA-eligible health service that enables healthcare software providers to build clinical applications that save clinicians time by automatically creating transcripts, generating notes, and analyzing patient-clinician conversations. With a single, easy-to-use API, healthcare software providers can create these clinical solutions quickly and focus on building a differentiated experience for their end users, reducing the need to integrate and optimize multiple separate AI services into their application. By integrating AWS HealthScribe into a clinical application, healthcare providers can leverage built-in text-to-speech capabilities to create robust conversation transcripts that identify speaker roles and segment transcripts into categories (e.g., small talk, subjective comments, or objective comments) based on clinical relevance. The application can then use AWS HealthScribe's NLP and generative AI capabilities to extract structured medical terms, such as medical conditions and medications, and generate discussion-based notes that include relevant details (e.g., key takeaways, reason for visit, and history of the present illness) that a clinician can review and finalize in their EHR. With generative AI capabilities powered by Amazon Bedrock, AWS HealthScribe is designed to create clinical notes for two medical specialties (i.e., general medicine and orthopedics) allowing physicians to focus on their discussions with patients rather than capturing details to enter into the EHR. Every sentence used in the AI-generated clinical notes comes with references to the original doctor-patient conversation transcripts, allowing clinicians to easily view the historical context of notes for greater accuracy and transparency. Data security and privacy are also built into the service–the service does not retain any customer data after processing the customer request and encrypts customer data in transit and at rest. Healthcare software providers have control over where they want to store transcriptions and preliminary clinical notes, maintaining ownership of their content. Additionally, the inputs and outputs generated through the service will not be used to train AWS HealthScribe. "Our healthcare customers and partners tell us they want to spend more time creating innovative clinical care and research solutions for their patients while spending less time building, maintaining, and operating foundational health data capabilities," said Bratin Saha, vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Services at AWS. "That is why AWS has invested in building a portfolio of AI-powered, high-performance, and population-scale health applications so that clinicians can spend more time with the patients during the face-to-face or telehealth visits. Documentation is a particularly time-consuming effort for healthcare professionals, which is why we are excited to leverage the power of generative AI in AWS HealthScribe and reduce that burden. Today's announcement builds on AWS's commitment to the healthcare and life sciences industry and our responsible approach to technologies like generative AI to help reduce the burden of clinical documentation and improve the consultation experience." AWS HealthScribe is part of a broad set of purpose-built health services that help thousands of healthcare and life sciences customers reinvent how they collaborate, make data-driven clinical and operational decisions, advance precision medicine, and decrease the cost of care. Continuing its innovation in the healthcare field, AWS today also announced the general availability of AWS HealthImaging, a service that makes it easier to store, transform, and analyze medical imaging data at a petabyte scale—delivering performance while reducing the burden of provisioning underlying infrastructure. To learn more about AWS HealthImaging, visit https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/introducing-aws-healthimaging/. 3M Health Information Systems (HIS) is an industry leader whose various M*Modal speech understanding, conversational, and ambient AI solutions are currently used by more than 300,000 clinicians. "Machine learning on AWS enables 3M HIS to transform clinician workflows and laborious processes to help healthcare organizations streamline clinical documentation and billing," said Garri Garrison, president, 3M HIS. "3M HIS is collaborating with AWS to bring conversational and generative AI directly into clinical documentation workflows. AWS HealthScribe will be a core component of our clinician applications to help expedite, refine, and scale the delivery of 3M's ambient clinical documentation and virtual assistant solutions." Babylon is an integrated digital-first primary care service that manages population health at scale. "Integrating AI with human medical expertise can make quality healthcare more affordable and accessible, and alleviates burdens on providers," said Saurabh Johri, chief science officer, Babylon. "Innovating in areas like clinical summarization is one example with the potential to improve healthcare outcomes. As a leader in AI innovation, Babylon looks forward to continuing our collaboration with AWS and exploring integrating AWS HealthScribe's generative AI capabilities with our natural language processing solutions." ScribeEMR is a leading provider of virtual medical scribing, virtual medical coding, and virtual medical office services for hundreds of medical practices, hospitals, and health systems. "ScribeEMR's goal is to help increase practice efficiency, maximize revenue, and reduce clinician burnout in the healthcare industry," said Daya Shankar, co-founder and general manager at ScribeEMR, Inc. "By harnessing the power of AWS HealthScribe, we can transform the process of healthcare documentation using generative AI. With AWS HealthScribe, our advanced processes can now capture and interpret patient visits more effectively and optimize EMR workflows, coding, and reimbursement processes."

<p>NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today at AWS Summit New York announced AWS HealthScribe, a new HIPAA-eligible service that empowers healthcare software providers to build clinical applications that use speech recognition and generative AI to save clinicians time by generating clinical documentation. With AWS HealthScribe, healthcare software providers can use a single API to automatically create robust transcripts, extract key details (e.g., medical terms and medications), and create summaries from doctor-patient discussions that can then be entered into an electronic health record (EHR) system. Powered by Amazon Bedrock, AWS HealthScribe makes it faster and easier for healthcare software providers to integrate generative AI capabilities into their application starting with two popular specialties (i.e., general medicine and orthopedics), without needing to manage the underlying machine learning (ML) infrastructure or train their own healthcare-specific large language models (LLMs). AWS HealthScribe enables responsible deployment of AI systems by citing the source of every line of generated text from within the original conversation transcript, making it easier for physicians to review clinical notes before entering them into the EHR. Built with security and privacy in mind, AWS HealthScribe gives customers control over where their data is stored, encrypts data in transit and at rest, and does not use inputs or outputs generated through the service to train its models. To learn more about AWS HealthScribe, visit https://aws.amazon.com/healthscribe.</p><p>Generative AI is quickly transforming many industries, including healthcare and life sciences. As interest in generative AI continues to grow, healthcare software vendors are looking to leverage this technology in their clinical applications to solve common pain points for clinicians in the healthcare industry. One of the most common issues is compiling clinical documentation after every patient-clinician discussion. This is important for compliance, quality measures, and reimbursement, but it is also a complex, multi-step process that takes time away from seeing patients. While many of these healthcare software providers use text to speech and natural language processing (NLP) to streamline this process today, generative AI has been the missing piece to help these applications go from recorded discussions to concise clinical documentation that can be entered into an EHR. However, working with generative AI is complex, and integrating multiple AI systems into a cohesive solution requires significant engineering resources. To build these generative AI capabilities, a provider must train or fine-tune their own LLM to generate accurate clinical documentation, which requires access to in-demand AI experts, massive amounts of carefully annotated healthcare data, and significant compute capacity. Even then, an LLM for healthcare needs to be specially trained to understand complex medical terminology across different specialties (e.g., general medicine, pediatrics, or orthopedics), to be capable of understanding, analyzing, and summarizing free-flowing discussions, as well as recognizing prescription names and dosages. To ensure these solutions are working properly, software providers must also build with responsible AI in mind, including designing the solution so that clinicians can trace the origin of any generated text to mitigate the risk of errors or hallucinations. Healthcare software providers must also dedicate engineering time and resources to ensuring these systems meet the stringent security and privacy requirements of the healthcare industry. Because of these barriers, it is challenging for healthcare software providers to bring AI-powered solutions to market quickly, despite the potential benefits to both clinicians and patients.</p><p>AWS HealthScribe is an AI-powered, HIPAA-eligible health service that enables healthcare software providers to build clinical applications that save clinicians time by automatically creating transcripts, generating notes, and analyzing patient-clinician conversations. With a single, easy-to-use API, healthcare software providers can create these clinical solutions quickly and focus on building a differentiated experience for their end users, reducing the need to integrate and optimize multiple separate AI services into their application. By integrating AWS HealthScribe into a clinical application, healthcare providers can leverage built-in text-to-speech capabilities to create robust conversation transcripts that identify speaker roles and segment transcripts into categories (e.g., small talk, subjective comments, or objective comments) based on clinical relevance. The application can then use AWS HealthScribe's NLP and generative AI capabilities to extract structured medical terms, such as medical conditions and medications, and generate discussion-based notes that include relevant details (e.g., key takeaways, reason for visit, and history of the present illness) that a clinician can review and finalize in their EHR. With generative AI capabilities powered by Amazon Bedrock, AWS HealthScribe is designed to create clinical notes for two medical specialties (i.e., general medicine and orthopedics) allowing physicians to focus on their discussions with patients rather than capturing details to enter into the EHR. Every sentence used in the AI-generated clinical notes comes with references to the original doctor-patient conversation transcripts, allowing clinicians to easily view the historical context of notes for greater accuracy and transparency. Data security and privacy are also built into the service–the service does not retain any customer data after processing the customer request and encrypts customer data in transit and at rest. Healthcare software providers have control over where they want to store transcriptions and preliminary clinical notes, maintaining ownership of their content. Additionally, the inputs and outputs generated through the service will not be used to train AWS HealthScribe.</p><p>"Our healthcare customers and partners tell us they want to spend more time creating innovative clinical care and research solutions for their patients while spending less time building, maintaining, and operating foundational health data capabilities," said Bratin Saha, vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Services at AWS. "That is why AWS has invested in building a portfolio of AI-powered, high-performance, and population-scale health applications so that clinicians can spend more time with the patients during the face-to-face or telehealth visits. Documentation is a particularly time-consuming effort for healthcare professionals, which is why we are excited to leverage the power of generative AI in AWS HealthScribe and reduce that burden. Today's announcement builds on AWS's commitment to the healthcare and life sciences industry and our responsible approach to technologies like generative AI to help reduce the burden of clinical documentation and improve the consultation experience."</p><p>AWS HealthScribe is part of a broad set of purpose-built health services that help thousands of healthcare and life sciences customers reinvent how they collaborate, make data-driven clinical and operational decisions, advance precision medicine, and decrease the cost of care. Continuing its innovation in the healthcare field, AWS today also announced the general availability of AWS HealthImaging, a service that makes it easier to store, transform, and analyze medical imaging data at a petabyte scale—delivering performance while reducing the burden of provisioning underlying infrastructure. To learn more about AWS HealthImaging, visit https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/introducing-aws-healthimaging/.</p><p>3M Health Information Systems (HIS) is an industry leader whose various M*Modal speech understanding, conversational, and ambient AI solutions are currently used by more than 300,000 clinicians. "Machine learning on AWS enables 3M HIS to transform clinician workflows and laborious processes to help healthcare organizations streamline clinical documentation and billing," said Garri Garrison, president, 3M HIS. "3M HIS is collaborating with AWS to bring conversational and generative AI directly into clinical documentation workflows. AWS HealthScribe will be a core component of our clinician applications to help expedite, refine, and scale the delivery of 3M's ambient clinical documentation and virtual assistant solutions."</p><p>Babylon is an integrated digital-first primary care service that manages population health at scale. "Integrating AI with human medical expertise can make quality healthcare more affordable and accessible, and alleviates burdens on providers," said Saurabh Johri, chief science officer, Babylon. "Innovating in areas like clinical summarization is one example with the potential to improve healthcare outcomes. As a leader in AI innovation, Babylon looks forward to continuing our collaboration with AWS and exploring integrating AWS HealthScribe's generative AI capabilities with our natural language processing solutions."</p><p>ScribeEMR is a leading provider of virtual medical scribing, virtual medical coding, and virtual medical office services for hundreds of medical practices, hospitals, and health systems. "ScribeEMR's goal is to help increase practice efficiency, maximize revenue, and reduce clinician burnout in the healthcare industry," said Daya Shankar, co-founder and general manager at ScribeEMR, Inc. "By harnessing the power of AWS HealthScribe, we can transform the process of healthcare documentation using generative AI. With AWS HealthScribe, our advanced processes can now capture and interpret patient visits more effectively and optimize EMR workflows, coding, and reimbursement processes."</p>

Occidental Selects AWS as Its Preferred Cloud Provider

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Occidental-Selects-AWS-as-Its-Preferred-Cloud-Provider

07/27/2023 09:00:00

Occidental Selects AWS as Its Preferred Cloud Provider

07/27/2023

2023

International energy company will use AWS to reduce IT infrastructure costs and develop systems for carbon removal plants capable of removing the equivalent of CO2 emissions from more than 111,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles from the atmosphere per year

<div><p><i>International energy company will use AWS to reduce IT infrastructure costs and develop systems for carbon removal plants capable of removing the equivalent of CO2 emissions from more than 111,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles from the atmosphere per year</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Occidental (NYSE: OXY), an international energy company and carbon management leader, has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to drive its digital transformation. As part of this new multiyear agreement, Occidental will migrate its core production applications and on-premises information technology (IT) infrastructure to AWS to improve operational efficiencies, eliminate upfront capital expenditures, and support the company's development of systems that will remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, including large-scale direct air capture (DAC) plants. Occidental will move its production systems and applications, analytics tools, and workflows to AWS to gain a more flexible, scalable, and secure IT infrastructure. This mass migration will enable the energy provider to use a broad portfolio of cloud services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for secure and resizable compute capacity and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) for high performance block storage to scale IT resources to meet supply and demand fluctuations in the energy market. Leveraging AWS analytics and machine learning will help Occidental gain greater insights and automate processes. For example, Occidental will use AWS Lake Formation to help manage its data lakes and break down data silos, bringing new life to historical data. This will allow Occidental to increase efficiencies and extract greater value from operational data, such as improve exploration decision-making times or optimize equipment performance. AWS will also work with Occidental and its subsidiary 1PointFive to develop and design systems architecture for its large-scale direct air capture plants, which will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. DAC technology uses high-powered fans to draw air into a processing facility where the CO2 is extracted from the air through a series of chemical reactions and then stored in underground reservoirs. DAC is an integral carbon removal technology that's needed to help the world reduce CO2 emissions. 1PointFive expects its first plant, named "Stratos," to capture 500,000 metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, when fully operational—the equivalent of CO2 emissions from more than 111,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles per year. Using AWS infrastructure, 1PointFive can analyze real-time DAC performance data to optimize processes and equipment performance for peak efficiency, and also apply learnings for future plants that are each expected to capture 1 million metric tons per year. "AWS is helping Occidental digitally transform our operations, and together we are using innovative cloud solutions to drive energy efficiencies and decarbonize the atmosphere," said Yanni Charalambous, vice president and chief information officer at Occidental. "Migrating our existing on-premises IT infrastructure to the AWS Cloud will help Occidental reduce infrastructure costs and enhance operational efficiencies, so we can innovate faster to advance our plans to reach net-zero and help others do the same." "Reducing carbon emissions, addressing growing energy demand, and ensuring energy security are top priorities for communities and companies across the globe," said Uwem Ukpong, vice president of Global Services at AWS. "Occidental is using AWS's advanced cloud technologies to take on these generational challenges, at scale, by optimizing carbon removal technology to hasten the world's decarbonization efforts while increasing efficiencies and reducing the carbon footprint associated with energy production. We look forward to working with Occidental to make environmental sustainability and decarbonization a reality."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Occidental (NYSE: OXY), an international energy company and carbon management leader, has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to drive its digital transformation. As part of this new multiyear agreement, Occidental will migrate its core production applications and on-premises information technology (IT) infrastructure to AWS to improve operational efficiencies, eliminate upfront capital expenditures, and support the company's development of systems that will remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, including large-scale direct air capture (DAC) plants.</p><p>Occidental will move its production systems and applications, analytics tools, and workflows to AWS to gain a more flexible, scalable, and secure IT infrastructure. This mass migration will enable the energy provider to use a broad portfolio of cloud services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for secure and resizable compute capacity and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) for high performance block storage to scale IT resources to meet supply and demand fluctuations in the energy market. Leveraging AWS analytics and machine learning will help Occidental gain greater insights and automate processes. For example, Occidental will use AWS Lake Formation to help manage its data lakes and break down data silos, bringing new life to historical data. This will allow Occidental to increase efficiencies and extract greater value from operational data, such as improve exploration decision-making times or optimize equipment performance.</p><p>AWS will also work with Occidental and its subsidiary 1PointFive to develop and design systems architecture for its large-scale direct air capture plants, which will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. DAC technology uses high-powered fans to draw air into a processing facility where the CO2 is extracted from the air through a series of chemical reactions and then stored in underground reservoirs. DAC is an integral carbon removal technology that's needed to help the world reduce CO2 emissions. 1PointFive expects its first plant, named "Stratos," to capture 500,000 metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, when fully operational—the equivalent of CO2 emissions from more than 111,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles per year. Using AWS infrastructure, 1PointFive can analyze real-time DAC performance data to optimize processes and equipment performance for peak efficiency, and also apply learnings for future plants that are each expected to capture 1 million metric tons per year.</p><p>"AWS is helping Occidental digitally transform our operations, and together we are using innovative cloud solutions to drive energy efficiencies and decarbonize the atmosphere," said Yanni Charalambous, vice president and chief information officer at Occidental. "Migrating our existing on-premises IT infrastructure to the AWS Cloud will help Occidental reduce infrastructure costs and enhance operational efficiencies, so we can innovate faster to advance our plans to reach net-zero and help others do the same."</p><p>"Reducing carbon emissions, addressing growing energy demand, and ensuring energy security are top priorities for communities and companies across the globe," said Uwem Ukpong, vice president of Global Services at AWS. "Occidental is using AWS's advanced cloud technologies to take on these generational challenges, at scale, by optimizing carbon removal technology to hasten the world's decarbonization efforts while increasing efficiencies and reducing the carbon footprint associated with energy production. We look forward to working with Occidental to make environmental sustainability and decarbonization a reality."</p>

Sumitomo Corporation Selects AWS to Drive Its Digital Transformation

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Sumitomo-Corporation-Selects-AWS-to-Drive-Its-Digital-Transformation

07/31/2023 09:00:00

Sumitomo Corporation Selects AWS to Drive Its Digital Transformation

07/31/2023

2023

One of the world's largest trading and business investment companies uses AWS to modernize its SAP platform, help customers achieve sustainability goals, and drive business insights across its 900 subsidiaries

<div><p><i>One of the world’s largest trading and business investment companies uses AWS to modernize its SAP platform, help customers achieve sustainability goals, and drive business insights across its 900 subsidiaries</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Sumitomo Corporation, a leading trading and investment conglomerate that operates 900 companies in 66 countries, is using AWS to power its digital transformation. As part of the multiyear initiative, Sumitomo Corporation will migrate its SAP environments to AWS and use a platform built on the world's leading cloud provider to make data-driven business decisions, automate processes, and respond quickly to customer needs. Sumitomo Corporation will use RISE with SAP on AWS, a fully managed offering that combines SAP's solution and implementation experience with AWS's experience in helping customers transform their SAP landscapes. By migrating 16 groupwide, mission critical systems, such as sales and accounting, to the cloud, Sumitomo will modernize its SAP environment to SAP S/4HANA on AWS, and it will use SAP's Business Technology Platform to connect data across its global operations. Sumitomo Corporation will also modernize its enterprise resource planning (ERP), integrating valuable business data with advanced analytics and AWS machine learning services to enhance customer interactions and internal processes. Sumitomo Corporation is also using AWS machine learning to build applications that measure blue carbon to lower carbon footprints for organizations in Japan. For example, Sumitomo Corporation built a product that allows local governments to measure blue carbon, carbon dioxide that is absorbed from the atmosphere and stored in the ocean, in marine and coastal ecosystems, to help towns in Japan to earn carbon credits. Sumitomo Corporation group company InsightEdge uses Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth—a service that makes it easy to label raw data such as images, text files, and videos—to label aerial photographs. These pictures are taken by drones from Nileworks, a Sumitomo Corporation group company, to calculate the amount of blue carbon in marine seagrass and seaweed. Based on the results, towns can apply for blue carbon credits, which local governments can use to launch new sustainability projects. Sumitomo Corporation has collaborated with AWS since 2017 to accelerate its digital transformation. As part of its move to the cloud, Sumitomo Corporation will promote the use of generative AI in its businesses and plans to drive innovation with AWS generative AI capabilities, including Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models available via an API, to drive productivity and uncover new ways to serve customers. Driving innovation inside Sumitomo Corporation SCSK, a Sumitomo Corporation Group company and AWS Premier Consulting Partner, helped Sumitomo Corporation build a secure platform on AWS to help employees access data and easily build applications using advanced cloud technologies. The modern cloud-based platform, dubbed the Sumitomo Corporation Digital Platform (SCDP), connects data across Sumitomo Corporation's entire business. The platform is helping the company's subsidiaries adjust to changing market dynamics and drive operational efficiencies across multiple business units, including metal products; transportation and construction systems; infrastructure; media and digital; real estate; as well as mineral resources, energy, chemical, and electronics. "Since 2017, we have been leveraging AWS and its cloud technologies to drive digital transformation and accelerate the global growth of our business," said Wataru Shiotani, corporate officer and general manager, Information Technology Planning and Promotions Department at Sumitomo Corporation. "The SCDP we built on AWS will allow us to bring our companies together to accelerate innovation, make better data-driven decisions, and leverage the latest technologies, like generative AI, to continuously improve our customer experience." "The scalability and reliability of AWS is critical to achieve Sumitomo Corporation's digital transformation and data-driven management across our 900 companies in 66 countries," said Toshihiro Sato, corporate officer and deputy general manager of the Cloud Service Division in the Solution Business Group at SCSK. "SCSK joined the AWS Partner Network in 2011, following the general availability of the AWS Region in Tokyo, to help more than 800 Japanese enterprise customers drive innovation and deliver on their commercial goals with AWS." "Sumitomo Corporation's focus on pushing leading innovation over the last 100 years is why it remains a trusted company for millions of customers around the world," said Tadao Nagasaki, president at AWS Japan. "Moving their most critical business applications to AWS with the support from SCSK allows Sumitomo Corporation to put data at the heart of its business. This move will help the company to automate processes securely, reduce operational costs, and improve experiences for the group's employees and stakeholders."

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced that Sumitomo Corporation, a leading trading and investment conglomerate that operates 900 companies in 66 countries, is using AWS to power its digital transformation. As part of the multiyear initiative, Sumitomo Corporation will migrate its SAP environments to AWS and use a platform built on the world's leading cloud provider to make data-driven business decisions, automate processes, and respond quickly to customer needs.</p><p>Sumitomo Corporation will use RISE with SAP on AWS, a fully managed offering that combines SAP's solution and implementation experience with AWS's experience in helping customers transform their SAP landscapes. By migrating 16 groupwide, mission critical systems, such as sales and accounting, to the cloud, Sumitomo will modernize its SAP environment to SAP S/4HANA on AWS, and it will use SAP's Business Technology Platform to connect data across its global operations. Sumitomo Corporation will also modernize its enterprise resource planning (ERP), integrating valuable business data with advanced analytics and AWS machine learning services to enhance customer interactions and internal processes.</p><p>Sumitomo Corporation is also using AWS machine learning to build applications that measure blue carbon to lower carbon footprints for organizations in Japan. For example, Sumitomo Corporation built a product that allows local governments to measure blue carbon, carbon dioxide that is absorbed from the atmosphere and stored in the ocean, in marine and coastal ecosystems, to help towns in Japan to earn carbon credits. Sumitomo Corporation group company InsightEdge uses Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth—a service that makes it easy to label raw data such as images, text files, and videos—to label aerial photographs. These pictures are taken by drones from Nileworks, a Sumitomo Corporation group company, to calculate the amount of blue carbon in marine seagrass and seaweed. Based on the results, towns can apply for blue carbon credits, which local governments can use to launch new sustainability projects.</p><p>Sumitomo Corporation has collaborated with AWS since 2017 to accelerate its digital transformation. As part of its move to the cloud, Sumitomo Corporation will promote the use of generative AI in its businesses and plans to drive innovation with AWS generative AI capabilities, including Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models available via an API, to drive productivity and uncover new ways to serve customers.</p><p>Driving innovation inside Sumitomo Corporation</p><p>SCSK, a Sumitomo Corporation Group company and AWS Premier Consulting Partner, helped Sumitomo Corporation build a secure platform on AWS to help employees access data and easily build applications using advanced cloud technologies. The modern cloud-based platform, dubbed the Sumitomo Corporation Digital Platform (SCDP), connects data across Sumitomo Corporation's entire business. The platform is helping the company's subsidiaries adjust to changing market dynamics and drive operational efficiencies across multiple business units, including metal products; transportation and construction systems; infrastructure; media and digital; real estate; as well as mineral resources, energy, chemical, and electronics.</p><p>"Since 2017, we have been leveraging AWS and its cloud technologies to drive digital transformation and accelerate the global growth of our business," said Wataru Shiotani, corporate officer and general manager, Information Technology Planning and Promotions Department at Sumitomo Corporation. "The SCDP we built on AWS will allow us to bring our companies together to accelerate innovation, make better data-driven decisions, and leverage the latest technologies, like generative AI, to continuously improve our customer experience."</p><p>"The scalability and reliability of AWS is critical to achieve Sumitomo Corporation's digital transformation and data-driven management across our 900 companies in 66 countries," said Toshihiro Sato, corporate officer and deputy general manager of the Cloud Service Division in the Solution Business Group at SCSK. "SCSK joined the AWS Partner Network in 2011, following the general availability of the AWS Region in Tokyo, to help more than 800 Japanese enterprise customers drive innovation and deliver on their commercial goals with AWS."</p><p>"Sumitomo Corporation's focus on pushing leading innovation over the last 100 years is why it remains a trusted company for millions of customers around the world," said Tadao Nagasaki, president at AWS Japan. "Moving their most critical business applications to AWS with the support from SCSK allows Sumitomo Corporation to put data at the heart of its business. This move will help the company to automate processes securely, reduce operational costs, and improve experiences for the group's employees and stakeholders."</p>

AWS Launches Infrastructure Region in Israel

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AWS-Launches-Infrastructure-Region-in-Israel

08/01/2023 05:28:00

AWS Launches Infrastructure Region in Israel

08/01/2023

2023

AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region allows customers to run workloads and securely store data in Israel while serving end users with even lower latency The new AWS Region is estimated to support an average of 7,700 full-time equivalent jobs annually through a planned investment of $7.2 billion (approx. ILS 26.6 billion) in Israel through 2037 Active customers in Israel include Aidoc, Bank Hapoalim, the Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority, Migdal, Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, Tnuva, Wiz, and many others innovating on AWS

<div><p><i>AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region allows customers to run workloads and securely store data in Israel while serving end users with even lower latency</i></p><p><i>The new AWS Region is estimated to support an average of 7,700 full-time equivalent jobs annually through a planned investment of $7.2 billion (approx. ILS 26.6 billion) in Israel through 2037</i></p><p><i>Active customers in Israel include Aidoc, Bank Hapoalim, the Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority, Migdal, Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, Tnuva, Wiz, and many others innovating on AWS</i></p></div>

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), today announced the launch of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region. Starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, have an even greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centers located in Israel, using advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation. AWS also released an economic impact study highlighting that the company is planning to invest an estimated $7.2 billion (approximately ILS 26.6 billion) in Israel through 2037 via the new AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure. "The launch of the AWS Region in Israel provides customers with the ability to build the most advanced cloud technology-based applications and achieve the highest levels of security, availability, and resilience," said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. "Israel's strategy to promote technology innovation, along with its abundance of talent, has created a thriving global hub for entrepreneurs, e-governments, and multinational businesses. Cloud technology is at the heart of any digital transformation program, and AWS is proud to support Israel's efforts to enhance citizen services for many years to come." In 2021, the government of Israel announced its selection of AWS as its primary cloud provider as part of the Nimbus contract for government ministries and subsidiaries. The Nimbus framework provides cloud services to Israeli government ministries—including local municipalities, government-owned companies, and public sector organizations—with the aim of driving innovation and enabling new digital services for the citizens of Israel. "We are excited to welcome the new AWS Region to Israel as part of project Nimbus and we congratulate AWS for its commitment and hard work in building the Israeli Region," said Yali Rothenberg, accountant general of Israel. "The establishment of the Israeli Region reflects the long-term commitment of AWS to Israel and to the continuation of their large investments in the Israeli market. The establishment of the Region will enable us to migrate substantial governmental workloads to the cloud, and we are confident that it will help us accelerate digital transformation in the public sector, leverage technology to drive innovation in the government, improve customer experience, and further the development of the technological ecosystem in Israel." With the launch of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region, AWS has 102 Availability Zones across 32 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 12 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Thailand. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. The AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region consists of three Availability Zones, each located far enough from the other to support customers' business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance. The launch of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region enables customers to securely store data in Israel while providing customers with even lower latency across the country to drive greater productivity, more efficient business operations, and enhanced real-time application performance. Customers also have access to advanced AWS technologies to accelerate innovation, including compute, storage, networking, business applications, developer tools, data analytics, security, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI). AWS released an economic impact study estimating the company's projected spend on the construction and operation of the new AWS Region, which will support an average of more than 7,700 full-time equivalent jobs at external businesses annually, with a planned $7.2 billion (approx. ILS 26.6 billion) investment in Israel through 2037. The construction and operation of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region is also estimated to add approximately $13.9 billion (ILS 51.7 billion) to Israel's gross domestic product (GDP) through 2037. Customers and AWS Partners welcome the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region Israeli organizations are among the millions of active customers using AWS in more than 190 countries around the world. Large and small enterprises in Israel choose AWS to innovate, drive cost efficiencies, and accelerate time to market. Customers in Israel using AWS include Amdocs, Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Harel Insurance, ICL Group, Ituran, Migdal, Netafim, Paz, Phoenix, and Tnuva. Public sector organizations that use AWS to transform the services delivered to Israeli citizens include Ayalon Highway, Government of Israel, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, the Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority, and Weizmann Institute. Israeli startups, including Aidoc, AI21 Labs, AppsFlyer, Armis, CyberArk, Gong, Jfrog, Logz.io, Monday.com, SentinelOne, TytoCare, Wix, and Wiz, are building their businesses with the use of AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world. Aidoc is a pioneering force in clinical AI. The company aids and empowers health care teams to optimize patient treatment resulting in improved economic value and clinical outcomes. Aidoc's exclusive aiOS analyzes all types of medical data, including computerized tomography (CT) scans, medical records, and more, to flag acute abnormalities, prioritize life-threatening cases, and expedite patient treatment to improve the quality of care. "Our utilization of AWS infrastructure and services has been pivotal in driving our operational agility and development velocity. What truly sets AWS apart is the constant access to cutting-edge computing technologies, amplifying the effectiveness of our model training," said Guy Reiner, vice president of Research and Development at Aidoc. "With the new AWS Region, health care providers can now achieve a milestone in data privacy within hospitals and care facilities. AWS's unwavering commitment to offering HIPAA-eligible services locally, along with its wide array of features and services to support General Data Protection Regulation requirements in cloud environments, instills our unwavering trust." Founded in 1921, Bank Hapoalim is one of the largest financial institutions in Israel and offers a broad range of banking and financial services to millions of customers in the country. "AWS enables us to speed up innovation and quickly bring new products and capabilities—such as our FinTech Zone business platform—to market," said Eti Ben-Zeev, head of Information Technology, chief information officer, and deputy CEO at Bank Hapoalim. "FinTech Zone makes it possible for fintech startups to work together with the bank efficiently and securely, leveraging the benefits of AWS to bring new offerings to the market faster. The new AWS Region will make it easier for us to offer innovative solutions to our customers while continuing to accelerate our digital transformation and meet the strictest regulatory requirements." The Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority is an independent government agency that is responsible for ensuring legal compliance and consumer rights. The Authority established a new national "Do Not Call" database that is aimed at curbing the problem of unwanted marketing calls in Israel. "The ‘Do Not Call' database project was a technical challenge that required us to develop a service that was secure, accessible, and simple to use for all users," said Peleg Shafir, chief technology officer at the Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority. "AWS helped us create a scalable solution that meets the needs of every citizen, regardless of their language or digital literacy. With the opening of the AWS Region in Israel, we will have even more possibilities to provide our users with the fastest access to our services and an exceptional digital experience." The Ministry of Transport and Road Safety is responsible for the planning, development, and regulation of infrastructure and integrated transport systems in Israel. "Public Transportation has moved to AWS to increase efficiencies in the collection, management, research, and processing of public transportation data in Israel," said Ortal Niv, chief information officer at the Ministry of Transportation and Road Safety. "We use AI services to accelerate information processing, provide accurate prediction of transportation needs, improve traffic management capabilities, and help reduce traffic jams. The new AWS Region will also allow us to securely deploy new applications, increase efficiencies, improve performance, and meet data residency requirements." Cloud security leader Wiz is a pioneer in the rising Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) security market. "Our customers, which include 35% of the Fortune 500, rely on Wiz to help create secure cloud environments that accelerate their business by scanning 230 billion files daily on five million protected cloud workloads," said Roy Reznik, co-founder and vice president of Research and Development at Wiz. "Building on AWS has helped our business scale during hyper growth and allowed us to maintain high levels of service to our customers, regardless of their location. The new AWS Region in Israel will allow us to replicate our development environments locally, delivering faster product iterations and reducing time to market, and now, we will be able to offer our solutions to local data-sensitive customers, enabling them to consolidate their cloud security programs to a single platform." The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS ISVs, technology partners, SIs, and consulting partners help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners. Upskilling Israel's workforce AWS Educate and AWS Academy provide free resources to accelerate cloud-related learning and prepare students in Israel for the jobs of the future. Numerous Israeli universities and business schools participate in AWS Educate and AWS Academy programs, including Bar Ilan University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, MTA–The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Reichman University (IDC), Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and University of Haifa. AWS also offers a full range of training and certification programs to help those interested in the latest cloud computing technologies, best practices, and architectures to advance their technical skills and further support Israeli organizations in their digital transformation. A free full-time, classroom-based skills development and training program, AWS re/Start, prepares individuals for careers in the cloud and connects them to potential employers. AWS GetIT, an initiative designed to encourage 12- and 13-year-old girls to consider a career in tech, challenges long-standing gender stereotypes. The program now operates in more than 25 schools across the country, mainly in disadvantaged and rural communities. To help grow the next generation of Israeli enterprises, AWS began supporting startups in Israel in 2013 through its AWS Activate program. This program gives startups access to guidance and one-on-one time with AWS experts, as well as web-based training, self-paced labs, customer support, third-party offers, dedicated events, and up to $100,000 in AWS service credits—all at no charge. Commitment to sustainability Amazon is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, as part of The Climate Pledge. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019. As part of its Climate Pledge commitment, Amazon is on a path to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. See Amazon's public methodology for more on its approach. In 2022, Amazon set a new corporate record for the most renewable energy announced by a single company in one year and remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it's held since 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Amazon now has 401 renewable energy projects in 22 countries. Additionally, AWS will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.

<p>SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), today announced the launch of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region. Starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, have an even greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centers located in Israel, using advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation. AWS also released an economic impact study highlighting that the company is planning to invest an estimated $7.2 billion (approximately ILS 26.6 billion) in Israel through 2037 via the new AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure.</p><p>"The launch of the AWS Region in Israel provides customers with the ability to build the most advanced cloud technology-based applications and achieve the highest levels of security, availability, and resilience," said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. "Israel's strategy to promote technology innovation, along with its abundance of talent, has created a thriving global hub for entrepreneurs, e-governments, and multinational businesses. Cloud technology is at the heart of any digital transformation program, and AWS is proud to support Israel's efforts to enhance citizen services for many years to come."</p><p>In 2021, the government of Israel announced its selection of AWS as its primary cloud provider as part of the Nimbus contract for government ministries and subsidiaries. The Nimbus framework provides cloud services to Israeli government ministries—including local municipalities, government-owned companies, and public sector organizations—with the aim of driving innovation and enabling new digital services for the citizens of Israel.</p><p>"We are excited to welcome the new AWS Region to Israel as part of project Nimbus and we congratulate AWS for its commitment and hard work in building the Israeli Region," said Yali Rothenberg, accountant general of Israel. "The establishment of the Israeli Region reflects the long-term commitment of AWS to Israel and to the continuation of their large investments in the Israeli market. The establishment of the Region will enable us to migrate substantial governmental workloads to the cloud, and we are confident that it will help us accelerate digital transformation in the public sector, leverage technology to drive innovation in the government, improve customer experience, and further the development of the technological ecosystem in Israel."</p><p>With the launch of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region, AWS has 102 Availability Zones across 32 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 12 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Thailand. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. The AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region consists of three Availability Zones, each located far enough from the other to support customers' business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.</p><p>The launch of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region enables customers to securely store data in Israel while providing customers with even lower latency across the country to drive greater productivity, more efficient business operations, and enhanced real-time application performance. Customers also have access to advanced AWS technologies to accelerate innovation, including compute, storage, networking, business applications, developer tools, data analytics, security, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI).</p><p>AWS released an economic impact study estimating the company's projected spend on the construction and operation of the new AWS Region, which will support an average of more than 7,700 full-time equivalent jobs at external businesses annually, with a planned $7.2 billion (approx. ILS 26.6 billion) investment in Israel through 2037. The construction and operation of the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region is also estimated to add approximately $13.9 billion (ILS 51.7 billion) to Israel's gross domestic product (GDP) through 2037.</p><p>Customers and AWS Partners welcome the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region</p><p>Israeli organizations are among the millions of active customers using AWS in more than 190 countries around the world. Large and small enterprises in Israel choose AWS to innovate, drive cost efficiencies, and accelerate time to market. Customers in Israel using AWS include Amdocs, Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Harel Insurance, ICL Group, Ituran, Migdal, Netafim, Paz, Phoenix, and Tnuva. Public sector organizations that use AWS to transform the services delivered to Israeli citizens include Ayalon Highway, Government of Israel, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, the Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority, and Weizmann Institute. Israeli startups, including Aidoc, AI21 Labs, AppsFlyer, Armis, CyberArk, Gong, Jfrog, Logz.io, Monday.com, SentinelOne, TytoCare, Wix, and Wiz, are building their businesses with the use of AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world.</p><p>Aidoc is a pioneering force in clinical AI. The company aids and empowers health care teams to optimize patient treatment resulting in improved economic value and clinical outcomes. Aidoc's exclusive aiOS analyzes all types of medical data, including computerized tomography (CT) scans, medical records, and more, to flag acute abnormalities, prioritize life-threatening cases, and expedite patient treatment to improve the quality of care. "Our utilization of AWS infrastructure and services has been pivotal in driving our operational agility and development velocity. What truly sets AWS apart is the constant access to cutting-edge computing technologies, amplifying the effectiveness of our model training," said Guy Reiner, vice president of Research and Development at Aidoc. "With the new AWS Region, health care providers can now achieve a milestone in data privacy within hospitals and care facilities. AWS's unwavering commitment to offering HIPAA-eligible services locally, along with its wide array of features and services to support General Data Protection Regulation requirements in cloud environments, instills our unwavering trust."</p><p>Founded in 1921, Bank Hapoalim is one of the largest financial institutions in Israel and offers a broad range of banking and financial services to millions of customers in the country. "AWS enables us to speed up innovation and quickly bring new products and capabilities—such as our FinTech Zone business platform—to market," said Eti Ben-Zeev, head of Information Technology, chief information officer, and deputy CEO at Bank Hapoalim. "FinTech Zone makes it possible for fintech startups to work together with the bank efficiently and securely, leveraging the benefits of AWS to bring new offerings to the market faster. The new AWS Region will make it easier for us to offer innovative solutions to our customers while continuing to accelerate our digital transformation and meet the strictest regulatory requirements."</p><p>The Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority is an independent government agency that is responsible for ensuring legal compliance and consumer rights. The Authority established a new national "Do Not Call" database that is aimed at curbing the problem of unwanted marketing calls in Israel. "The ‘Do Not Call' database project was a technical challenge that required us to develop a service that was secure, accessible, and simple to use for all users," said Peleg Shafir, chief technology officer at the Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority. "AWS helped us create a scalable solution that meets the needs of every citizen, regardless of their language or digital literacy. With the opening of the AWS Region in Israel, we will have even more possibilities to provide our users with the fastest access to our services and an exceptional digital experience."</p><p>The Ministry of Transport and Road Safety is responsible for the planning, development, and regulation of infrastructure and integrated transport systems in Israel. "Public Transportation has moved to AWS to increase efficiencies in the collection, management, research, and processing of public transportation data in Israel," said Ortal Niv, chief information officer at the Ministry of Transportation and Road Safety. "We use AI services to accelerate information processing, provide accurate prediction of transportation needs, improve traffic management capabilities, and help reduce traffic jams. The new AWS Region will also allow us to securely deploy new applications, increase efficiencies, improve performance, and meet data residency requirements."</p><p>Cloud security leader Wiz is a pioneer in the rising Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) security market. "Our customers, which include 35% of the Fortune 500, rely on Wiz to help create secure cloud environments that accelerate their business by scanning 230 billion files daily on five million protected cloud workloads," said Roy Reznik, co-founder and vice president of Research and Development at Wiz. "Building on AWS has helped our business scale during hyper growth and allowed us to maintain high levels of service to our customers, regardless of their location. The new AWS Region in Israel will allow us to replicate our development environments locally, delivering faster product iterations and reducing time to market, and now, we will be able to offer our solutions to local data-sensitive customers, enabling them to consolidate their cloud security programs to a single platform."</p><p>The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS ISVs, technology partners, SIs, and consulting partners help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners.</p><p>Upskilling Israel's workforce</p><p>AWS Educate and AWS Academy provide free resources to accelerate cloud-related learning and prepare students in Israel for the jobs of the future. Numerous Israeli universities and business schools participate in AWS Educate and AWS Academy programs, including Bar Ilan University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, MTA–The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Reichman University (IDC), Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and University of Haifa.</p><p>AWS also offers a full range of training and certification programs to help those interested in the latest cloud computing technologies, best practices, and architectures to advance their technical skills and further support Israeli organizations in their digital transformation. A free full-time, classroom-based skills development and training program, AWS re/Start, prepares individuals for careers in the cloud and connects them to potential employers. AWS GetIT, an initiative designed to encourage 12- and 13-year-old girls to consider a career in tech, challenges long-standing gender stereotypes. The program now operates in more than 25 schools across the country, mainly in disadvantaged and rural communities.</p><p>To help grow the next generation of Israeli enterprises, AWS began supporting startups in Israel in 2013 through its AWS Activate program. This program gives startups access to guidance and one-on-one time with AWS experts, as well as web-based training, self-paced labs, customer support, third-party offers, dedicated events, and up to $100,000 in AWS service credits—all at no charge.</p><p>Commitment to sustainability</p><p>Amazon is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, as part of The Climate Pledge. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019. As part of its Climate Pledge commitment, Amazon is on a path to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. See Amazon's public methodology for more on its approach. In 2022, Amazon set a new corporate record for the most renewable energy announced by a single company in one year and remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it's held since 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Amazon now has 401 renewable energy projects in 22 countries. Additionally, AWS will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.</p>