Amazon

November 28, 2024 1:24 PM

Microsoft faces wide-ranging US antitrust probe

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has opened a broad antitrust investigation into Microsoft, including of its software licensing and cloud computing businesses, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The probe was approved by FTC Chair Lina Khan ahead of her likely departure in January. The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, and the expectation he will appoint a fellow Republican with a softer approach toward business, leaves the outcome of the investigation up in the air...

September 16, 2024 3:23 PM

Samsung, Xiaomi colluded with Amazon, Flipkart: CCI report

Samsung, Xiaomi and other smartphone companies colluded with Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart to exclusively launch products on the e-commerce firms' Indian websites in breach of antitrust laws, according to the Reuters news agency. Antitrust investigations conducted by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) have found that Amazon and Flipkart violated local competition laws by giving preference to select sellers, prioritising certain listings, and steeply discounting products, hurting other co...

September 16, 2024 3:23 PM

CCI probe finds Amazon, Walmart’s Flipkart breached antitrust laws

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) investigation has found U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart violated local competition laws by giving preference to select sellers on their shopping websites, Reuters reported. CCI in 2020 ordered an investigation into Amazon and Flipkart for allegedly promoting certain sellers with which they had business arrangements and giving priority to certain listings. In a 1027-page report on Amazon and a separate 1,696-page report on Flipkart, ...

August 30, 2024 7:00 PM

Amazon turns to Anthropic’s Claude for Alexa AI revamp

Amazon's revamped Alexa due for release in October ahead of the U.S. holiday season will be powered primarily by Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence models, rather than its own AI, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Amazon plans to charge $5 to $10 a month for its new "Remarkable" version of Alexa as it will use powerful generative AI to answer complex queries, while still offering the "Classic" voice assistant for free, Reuters reported in June. But initial versions of ...

August 6, 2024 1:41 PM

Deforestation harms climate less than other types of Amazon degradation, study finds

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came into office in 2023 pledging to tackle deforestation in the Amazon and restore his country as a climate leader after years of intense destruction in the world's largest rainforest under predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. Lula's commitment to end deforestation by 2030 is on track with tighter enforcement helping to cut deforestation rates by more than half, according to government figures. But a new study indicates that deforestation alone accounts for ...

September 16, 2024 6:36 PM

Reliance’s Jio Platforms clears hurdle in bid to launch satellite internet in India

A joint venture between Reliance Industries' Jio Platforms and Luxembourg-based SES to provide gigabit fibre internet has won approval from the Indian space regulator to operate satellites there, a government executive said. The three approvals issued to Orbit Connect India - which aims to provide satellite-based high-speed internet access - come as companies from Amazon to Elon Musk's Starlink have been vying for the go-ahead to launch satellite communication services in the world's most popul...

June 12, 2024 2:16 PM

How Apple used Google’s help to train its AI models

On stage on Monday CEO Tim Cook's Apple announced a splashy deal with OpenAI to include its powerful artificial intelligence model as a part of its voice assistant, Siri. But in the fine print of a technical document Apple published after the event, the company makes clear that Alphabet's Google has emerged as another winner in the Cupertino, California, company's quest to catch up in AI. To build Apple's foundation AI models, the company's engineers used its framework software with a range of...