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Amazon Laying Off Hundreds of Employees

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Amazon is laying off employees in the “low hundreds” an in effort to shift head count allocation to businesses that are growing, CNBC has learned . . .

A person familiar with the matter says the cuts are focused on Amazon’s Seattle headquarters and will affect some workers globally. The layoffs will occur in the consumer retail business, which includes Amazon’s toys, books and groceries units, to make room for head count in businesses that are growing, like Alexa, AWS and digital entertainment. Jeff Bezos, in a statement in the last earnings report, said Amazon would “double down” on Alexa after blowing past projections.

While Amazon supports thousands of jobs, the layoffs are in sharp contrast to its rapid expansion over the past few years. It created 130,000 jobs worldwide last year, not including the nearly 90,000 it added with its acquisition of Whole Foods. It has nearly 4,000 corporate jobs currently open in Seattle and 12,000 worldwide.

“As part of our annual planning process, we are making head count adjustments across the company — small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. “For affected employees, we work to find roles in the areas where we are hiring.” (Read more from “Amazon Laying off Hundreds of Employees” HERE)

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Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ Predicts Who Will Win Super Bowl

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Amazon’s Alexa will not only call people out for being sexist, but she also predicts what team will win the upcoming Super Bowl. Her verdict: the Philadelphia Eagles.

According to CBS Philly, videos of Amazon’s Alexa predicting that Eagles will win the big game have gone viral.

“I’m flying with the Eagles on this one because of their relentless defense and the momentum they’ve been riding off their underdog status,” Alexa apparently said.

Alexa even finishes with the Eagles chant — “E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles.”

Could this mean that Alexa’s AI somehow can sense the overall sentiment about the game or that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has his money on Philly and making Alexa predict the winner will psyche out the Patriots? No way to tell, but whatever the reason, the predictions are real:

(Read more from “Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ Predicts Who Will Win Super Bowl” HERE)

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Amazon, Microsoft Bosses in Sex-Trafficking Sting

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“High-level Amazon and Microsoft directors” face charges following a sex trafficking sting that was based on emails sent to brothels.

According to Engadget, Newsweek “got its hands on a slew of emails sent to brothels and pimps between 2014 and 2016 that document the industry’s patronage of brothels and purchasing of services from trafficked sex workers.”

“Among the emails, which were obtained through a public records request to the King County Prosecutor’s Office, were 67 sent from Microsoft employee email accounts, 63 from Amazon accounts and dozens more from companies like Boeing, T-Mobile, Oracle and local Seattle tech firms,” the report claims. “Some of the emails were collected during a 2015 sting operation that targeted sex worker review boards and resulted in the arrest of 18 individuals, including high-level Amazon and Microsoft directors. Two opted for a trial, which is currently set to begin in March.”

The revelation that Amazon and Microsoft directors were implicated in the sting prompted the two companies to release statements condemning sex trafficking.

“Microsoft has a long history of cooperating with law enforcement and other agencies on combating sex trafficking and related topics, and we have employees who volunteer their time and money specifically to combat this issue as well. The personal conduct of a tiny fraction of our 125,000 employees does not in any way represent our culture,” declared Microsoft. “No organization is immune to the unfortunate situation when employees act unethically or illegally. When that happens, we look into the conduct and take appropriate action. Microsoft makes it clear to our employees they have a responsibility to act with integrity and conduct themselves in a legal and ethical manner at all times. If they don’t, they risk losing their jobs.” (Read more from “Amazon, Microsoft Bosses in Sex-Trafficking Sting” HERE)

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Headline Writers Go Crazy Over Pooping Amazon Driver

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Headline writers around the globe have gone wild over the story of an Amazon delivery driver who was caught on video pooping in a customer’s drive.

And there was a common theme.

“Pooping in gutter,” said Fox 40. “Driver poops,” said ABC. “Video shows woman pooping,” said CBS. “Driver caught pooping,” said WWLP. “SEE IT: Amazon delivery driver caught on video pooping,” said the New York Daily News.

One European publication varied that message, stating, “Ding dung. Amazon delivery driver caught having a poo on customer’s driveway after dropping of a package.”

The simple story is that homeowner Nemy Bautista is “down in the dumps,” according to the Huffington Post, after finding feces in front of his house and reviewing a security video that showed the Amazon driver, who later was relieved of her duties by Amazon. (Read more from “Headline Writers Go Crazy Over Pooping Amazon Driver” HERE)

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Amazon Just Released an AI-Powered Camera

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Amazon’s newest product won’t tell you a joke or turn on your lights.

The new DeepLens camera is instead custom-built for artificial intelligence developers, who will be able to build AI systems on Amazon Web Services and have them run on the camera, according to the company. This means the camera itself will be able to recognize objects, look for faces, or label what actions people are doing, all without needing to call back to Amazon’s servers . . .

But the camera still has some limitations; it can detect if there are faces in the camera’s sight, but to process who those people are, it will need to call back to an Amazon cloud service that’s already been trained to know specific faces. (Read more from “Amazon Just Released an AI-Powered Camera” please click HERE)

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Amazon Staff Blast ‘Intolerable’ Conditions

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Amazon’s staff are falling asleep on their feet and being taken away in ambulances as they struggle to meet warehouse targets, an investigation has claimed.

Cameras monitor every move as employees try to process up to 300 items an hour, it has been alleged. Screens remind them if they are falling short.

Exhausted staff are said to cover clocks so they are not reminded how long there is to go on their shifts, and have to walk up to a third of a mile to use the toilet.

The claims in a newspaper were made about the online retailer’s newest warehouse – which the company refers to as a ‘fulfilment centre’ – in Tilbury, Essex.

The packing plant is the biggest in Europe, the size of 11 football pitches, and is due to ship 1.2million items this year. (Read more from “Amazon Staff Blast ‘Intolerable’ Conditions” HERE)

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Amazon Deletes 1 Star Review of Hillary Clinton’s New Book

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Amazon has been monitoring and deleting reviews after Hillary Clinton’s new book was greeted with a torrent of criticism on the day it was released . . .

Reviews of What Happened have been mixed, with some suggesting it Clinton uses it as an opportunity to blame others – such as Bernie Sanders and Vladimir Putin – for her failure, rather than herself. In The New York Times, which supported Clinton’s campaign, Jennifer Senior writes that the book is “a score-settling jubilee”.

The readers on Amazon, meanwhile, are even more divided – but not all of them have read the book. The online retail giant has a “verified purchase” option to signpost whether reviewers have bought a product, and none of the 42 reviewers leaving comments on Tuesday had done so.

Few of the one-star reviews remain on the website, but reports and screengrabs show that reviewers used the space to criticize the former First Lady and spread conspiracy theories about her and Bill Clinton. (Read more from “Amazon Deletes 1 Star Review of Hillary Clinton’s New Book” HERE)

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Voice-Activated Smart Home Technology Used to Make Arrest in Assault Case

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A new type of court case is slowly but demonstrably taking shape within the American legal system: alleged crimes being detected from data supplied by smart home devices.

In December of last year an Arkansas murder case made headlines not so much for the death itself, but how a suspect was brought into custody. James Bates hosted a party at his Bentonville home on the night of November 21st, 2015. At some point during the event a man drowned in a hot tub on the property. Bates claimed to have found the victim the next morning when he awoke, stating that it was a tragic accident, but Arkansas police obtained smart water meter readings that showed an anomaly between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Based solely on this data – and obtained without a warrant – Bates was arrested and charged with 1st degree murder.

Somewhat ironically, James Bates subsequently requested recordings from his Amazon Echo to defend himself against these charges. So far Amazon appears to be fighting this request. At stake could be the very nature of the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution in addition to the freedom or incarceration of James Bates.

Meanwhile, another case has presented itself in New Mexico where a voice-activated smart device called law enforcement during an alleged altercation. As reported by ABC News:

Eduardo Barros was house-sitting with his girlfriend and her daughter Sunday night at a residence in Tijeras, some 15 miles east of Albuquerque. The couple got into an argument and the altercation became physical, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff Department’s spokesperson, Deputy Felicia Romero.

Barros allegedly wielded a firearm and threatened to kill his girlfriend, asking her: “Did you call the sheriffs?” A smart speaker, which was hooked up to a surround sound system inside the home, recognized that as a voice command and called 911, Romero said.

(Emphasis added)

After an hours-long standoff, the suspect was taken into custody and charged. In this case, law enforcement is touting smart technology as having “saved a life.” And apparently the presiding judge is accepting the evidence regardless of how it was obtained, saying that there was indeed probable cause for the arrest – no warrant needed.

Vin Armani and Aaron Dykes cover this emerging privacy crisis in the following two videos and how the American legal system might adjust to a modern life filled with pervasive surveillance devices.

(For more from the author of “Voice-Activated Smart Home Technology Used to Make Arrest in Assault Case” please click HERE)

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Think Amazon Echo, Other Home Smart Devices Won’t Disclose Private Conversations? Police Armed With Search Warrants Have Different Plans

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Amazon’s Echo and Echo Dot are in millions of homes now, with holiday sales more than quadrupling from 2015. Always listening for its wake word, the breakthrough smart speakers boast seven microphones waiting to take and record your commands.

Now, Arkansas police are hoping an Echo found at a murder scene in Bentonville can aid their investigation.

First reported by The Information, investigators filed search warrants to Amazon (see below), requesting any recordings between November 21 and November 22, 2015, from James A. Bates, who was charged with murder after a man was strangled in a hot tub.

While investigating, police noticed the Echo in the kitchen and pointed out that the music playing in the home could have been voice activated through the device. While the Echo records only after hearing the wake word, police are hoping that ambient noise or background chatter could have accidentally triggered the device, leading to some more clues.

Amazon stores all the voice recordings on its servers, in the hopes of using the data to improve its voice assistant services. While you can delete your personal voice data, there’s still no way to prevent any recordings from being saved on a server. (Read more from “Think Amazon Echo, Other Home Smart Devices Won’t Disclose Private Conversations? Police Armed With Search Warrants Have Different Plans” HERE)

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Amazon Secretly Removes “1984” From the Kindle

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Thousands of people last week discovered that Amazon had quietly removed electronic copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from their Kindle e-book readers. In the process, Amazon revealed how easy censorship will be in the Kindle age.

In this case, the mass e-book removals were motivated by copyright . A company called MobileReference, who did not own the copyrights to the books 1984 and Animal Farm, uploaded both books to the Kindle store and started selling them. When the rights owner heard about this, they contacted Amazon and asked that the e-books be removed. And Amazon decided to erase them not just from the store, but from all the Kindles where they’d been downloaded. Amazon operators used the Kindle wireless network, called WhisperNet, to quietly delete the books from people’s devices and refund them the money they’d paid.

An uproar followed, with outraged customers pointing out the irony that Amazon was deleting copies of a novel about a fascist media state that constantly alters history by changing digital records of what has happened. Amazon’s action flies in the face of what people expect when they purchase a book. Under the “right of first sale” in the U.S., people can do whatever they like with a book after purchasing it, including giving it to a friend or reselling it. There is no option for a bookseller to take that book back once it’s sold. (Read more from “Amazon Secretly Removes “1984” From the Kindle” HERE)

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