Microsoft: No, Not Cortana
May 9, 2019
Microsoft has a small room filled with its Bob-type products: Windows ME, Windows Vista, the notorious chatbot, but now Cortana can take its place amongst its brethren. Cortana was Microsoft’s answer to Siri and other digital assistants that live in mobile devices and smart speakers. Cortana never gained the same popularity as its competitors. MS Power User reports on the story in the article, “Cortana Retreat Continues As Microsoft Ditch Wunderlist Integratior.”
Services that allow Cortana integration are slowly fading away. Microsoft will no longer support Cortana on Skype, but now Wunderlist will no longer allow users to sync their lists and tasks with Cortana starting April 15. One of the reasons why Microsoft might no longer wish to support Wunderlist is that that company is replacing it with a new alternative:
“In this case, it is not clear if it is due to Cortana or Wunderlist both being sunsetted, but likely its a bit of both. Wunderlist is being replaced by Microsoft To-Do and in a statement Microsoft said: ‘We’re not currently working on new features for Wunderlist as we’re concentrating on our new app, Microsoft To-Do. Once we are confident that we have incorporated the best of Wunderlist into Microsoft To-Do, we will retire Wunderlist.’”
Microsoft is into the cloud just without Cortana. “Wunder” about that? No, I don’t.
Whitney Grace May 9, 2019
How Does One Access an iPhone?
May 9, 2019
If you are interested in accessing a locked iPhone, you may want to add this write up to your reference file. DarkCyber is not sure the three ways to work around the iCloud lock cover the waterfront, but the information is suggestive. See “How Hackers and Scammers Break into iCloud-Locked iPhones.” DarkCyber is not thrilled that this type of information is floating around untethered. Just our viewpoint, of course. Vice’s editorial judgment is interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2019
Thomson Reuters: Whither Palantir Technologies
May 6, 2019
When I was working on a profile of Palantir Technologies for a client a couple of years ago, I came across a reference to Thomson Reuters’ use of Palantir Technologies smart system. News of the deal surfaced in a 2010 news release issued on Market Wired, but like many documents in the “new” approach to Web indexing, the content is a goner.
My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I recall that the application was called QA Studio. The idea obviously was to allow a person to ask a question using the “intuitive user interface” which the TR and Palantir team created to generate revenue magic. The goal was to swat the pesky FactSet and Bloomberg offerings as well as the legion of wanna-be analytics vendors chasing the Wall Street wizards.
Here’s a document form my files showing a bit of the PR lingo and the interface to the TR Palantir service:
I am not sure what happened to this product nor the relationship with the Palantir outfit.
I assume that TR wants more smart software, not just software which creates more work for the already overburdened MBAs planning the future of the economic world.
One of the DarkCyber researchers spotted this news release, which may suggest that TR is looking to the developer of OS/2 (once used by TR as I recall) for smart software: “IBM, Thomson Reuters Introduce Powerful New AI and Data Combination to Simplify How Financial Institutions Tackle Regulatory Compliance Challenges.”
The news release informed me that:
IBM and Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence will now offer financial institutions access to a RegTech solution delivered from the IBM Cloud that features real-time financial services data from thousands of content sources. Backed by the power of AI and domain knowledge of Promontory Financial Group, the collaboration will enable risk and compliance professionals to keep pace with regulatory changes, manage risk and reduce the overall cost of compliance.
I learned:
Thomson Reuters and IBM have been collaborating on AI and data intelligence since 2015, bringing together expertise and technology to solve industry-specific problems in areas such as healthcare and data privacy. Today’s announcement represents another step forward in helping businesses combat their most pressing regulatory challenges.
The most interesting word in the news release is “holistic.” I haven’t encountered that since “synergy” became a thing. Here’s what the TR IBM news release offered:
Featuring an updated user experience to allow for increased engagement, IBM OpenPages with Watson 8.0 transforms the way risk and compliance professionals work. By providing a holistic view of risk and regulatory responsibilities, OpenPages helps compliance professionals actively participate in risk management as a part of their day-to-day activity. In addition to integrating Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence, IBM OpenPages with Watson incorporates the expertise of Promontory Financial Group to help users of OpenPages create libraries of relevant regulatory requirements, map them to their internal framework and evaluate their impact to the business.
Yep, OpenPages. What is this? Well, it is Watson, but that doesn’t help me. Watson is more of a combo consulting-licensing thing. In this implementation, OpenPages reduces risk and makes “governance” better with AI and advanced analytics.
Analytics? That was the purpose of Palantir Technologies’ solution.
Let’s step back. What is the news release saying? These thoughts zoomed through my now confused brain:
- TR licensed Palantir’s system which delivers some of the most advanced analytics offered based on my understanding of the platform. Either TR can’t make Palantir do what TR wants to generate revenue or Palantir’s technology is falling below the TR standard for excellence.
- TR needs a partner which can generate commercial sales. IBM is supposed to be a sales powerhouse, but IBM’s financial performance has been dicey for years. Palantir, therefore, may be underperforming, and IBM’s approach is better. What?
- IBM’s Watson TR solution works better than IBM’s forays into medicine, enterprise search, cloud technology for certain government entities, and a handful of other market sectors. What?
To sum up, I am not sure which company is the winner in this TR IBM deal? One hypothesis is that both TR and IBM hope to pull a revenue bunny from the magic hat worn by ageing companies.
The unintentional cold shoulder to Palantir may not be a signal about that firm. But with IPO talk circulating in some circles, Palantir certainly wants outfits like TR to emit positive vibes.
Interesting stuff this analytics game. I suppose one must take a “holistic” view. Will there be “synergy” too?
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2018
Amazonia for May 6, 2019
May 6, 2019
Amazon has become a company to watch—at least in some advertising circles. We learned that an outfit named “The Marin Software” is holding a live webinar called “Amazon Advertising: A Crash Course for the Modern Marketer.” One must sign up for the program because there won’t be a version of the program on YouTube if the email promotion sent to select individuals is to be believed. In the webinar, one will learn in just 60 minutes how to set up an Amazon ad campaign, the “best practices” for creating successful Amazon ads, and “advanced strategies” which will generate higher revenue. How does one find out about the webinar? Easy. Just chase down Marin at this url. DarkCyber believes that Google ad chiefs will attend.
In other Amazon news this week, DarkCyber noted:
Amazon Is Ethical
Computerworld reports that “AWS is ethical about AI.” The source is an Amazon executive who reveals:
But ‘we just don’t talk about it.
The story points out:
AWS offers some best practice advice relating to its customers’ use of data, but has stopped short of laying out its own guiding principles. It is up to clients to decide whether their use of AWS tools is ethical, said the company’s head of solution architecture in ANZ, Dr Peter Stanski.
Dr. Stanski allegedly said:
“We certainly don’t want to do evil; everything we’ve released to customers to innovate [helps] to lift the bar on what’s actually happening in the industry. It’s really up to the individual organization how they use that tech.”
The exploding products item is not related to artificial intelligence and is, therefore, not part of smart software.
Amazon: Product Quality
Facebook has interesting content, and Amazon has products which may provide a buyer with a battery explosion. “When Your Amazon Purchase Explodes” provides some information about the quality control methods for some sellers’ products. Well, there’s not much. The article reveals:
Curious about what [a battery fire] had happened, Jones went back online to try to contact the seller and alert Amazon to the problem. Scrolling through reviews, he realized other buyers were reporting fires from the same item. But Amazon seemed unconcerned, he told me: Customer-service representatives treated his report like a new one each time he called, asking for his name, the order number, and the story of what had happened over and over again. Amazon would not put him in touch with the seller and never assumed blame for the fire.
The message seems to be, “We just sell stuff.” In the small town in which I was born, one auto dealer had a sidewalk guarantee for each used car sold. Here’s the idea: “Once you drive the car off my lot and across the sidewalk, it’s your problem.”
Amazon’s Revenue from Third Party Sellers
Geekwire reported that Amazon’s first-party online sales dipped below 50 percent of the company’s overall net sales in the first quarter, reflecting the growth of the tech giant’s other businesses. The write up said:
The milestone doesn’t take into account sales by other retailers on Amazon.com, but it’s nonetheless a testament to the tech giant’s growing diversification. It’s especially notable in light of the company’s history. Amazon rose to prominence as a pioneer of the e-commerce industry, becoming the online “Everything Store” by expanding beyond its original mission of selling books.
And what will the sellers’ need? Amazon advertising and ways to stand out from the rapidly increasing crowd? SEO.
The data, if accurate, underscore the threat Amazon shopping poses to eBay, Google, and Wal-Mart.
Amazon the Target of an Alleged Microsoft Fear Tactic
Business Insider, which is an interesting publication indeed, reports that Microsoft is capturing customers using IBM’s old school tactic: FUD or fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The story “Microsoft’s Satya Nadella Uses a Subtle Fear Tactic to Win Cloud Business Away from Amazon” asserts that the tactic is manifested in statements like this from Microsoft:
Do you trust a technology partner to store their data, handle their transactions, know the most intimate details of their business, if that tech partner is also a competitor?
Apparently Microsoft mentions that Amazon’s businesses are like “tentacles”, “pimples”, and “boils.” Nice stuff.
Business Insider concludes:
Amazon’s willingness to compete with its partners and customers could be AWS’s Achilles heel and one that Nadella seems ready to exploit.
Amazon: A Digital Souq
CNBC reported “Amazon Launches New Middle East Marketplace, and Rebrands Souq, the Company It Bought for $580 million in 2017.” Here’s the interesting bit:
The launch of the new Middle East marketplace, which was first reported by CNBC in January, comes at a time of slowing international sales for Amazon. In its most recent quarter, Amazon’s international sales only grew 9% from a year ago to $16.2 billion.
Contrast Amazon’s tactics with Google’s. Amazon seems to be moving in a purposeful way. Google appears to be more focused on staff-related issues and Amazon’s encroachment on product search and online advertising. For information about how Amazon’s ad business is changing the game for Google and other firms, check out “Google’s Competition for Advertising Heats Up from Amazon, Rival Platforms.”
Amazon: An Uber for Trucking
CNBC is reporting interesting news about Amazon. “Amazon Has Been Quietly Running an ‘Uber for Trucking’ Service Since Last Year” reports:
Amazon has been testing a new online service that matches truck drivers with shippers since last year, taking its first step into the lucrative online freight brokerage space.
Should FedEx and UPS be worried? Yep, especially UPS. Those Amazon returns are now being handled by Kohl’s, which may provide a hint of Amazon’s approach to deliveries: Disruption and disintermediation.
Amazon Dinged for Plagiarism
Amazon may find itself in another spat with copyright owners. The Digital Reader’s “The Biggest Plagiarism Scandal in the History of eBooks Slipped by Amazon Unnoticed” reported as allegedly true:
CopyPastCris, as the scandal has been dubbed, now includes no fewer than 95 books by 43 authors as well as articles and other content from six websites (and two recipes). Numerous passages have been copied from those books and websites into one or more of Serruya’s published works. Yes, ninety-five books.
Digital Reader points out a possible flaw in Amazon’s publishing system:
While some of the plagiarism was spotted by readers and authors, much of the work to document the plagiarism was done by Ryan. She wrote the algorithm, she supplied the computer time to run it, and she double-checked the results. Isn’t it funny how one programmer could find all this and Amazon did not?
Amazon bulldozes forests, not spindly creative flowers, may be one conclusion the allegedly true write up explicates.
Amazon Highlights Speedy AI Chips
Technology Review reported in its public magazine this story: “This Chip Was Demoed at Jeff Bezos’s Secretive Tech Conference. It Could be Key to the Future of AI.” The headline is intriguing because MIT is one of the outfits inventing the future of smart software. The recognition that an online bookstore is producing chips which could “invent the future of smart software” is quite a revelation.
The write up points out in a less than secret way:
the new chip achieves performance 10 or even 1,000 times more efficient than existing hardware does.
The inventor of the chip is a company called Sze, named after an MIT grad Vivienne Sze. What’s this suggest? Amazon is serious about making its smart software smarter.
Why’s this important? The article provides a clue to those lucky enough to attend the Amazon high-tech conference in 2020:
…expect the eye-catching robots and drones at the next MARS conference to come with something rather special hidden inside.
AWS May Be Getting More Like a Mainframe
“New – Amazon S3 Batch Operations” reveals Amazon S3 Batch Operations which allow customers to “process hundreds, millions, or billions of S3 objects in a simple and straightforward fashion. You can copy objects to another bucket, set tags or access control lists (ACLs), initiate a restore from Glacier, or invoke an AWS Lambda function on each one.” The old is new again.
Make Money with Alexa? Maybe
Amazon wants Alexa developers to make money, in theory. “Alexa In-Skill Purchasing, Which Lets Developers Make Money from Voice Apps, Launches Internationally” states:
With in-skill purchasing, developers are able to generate revenue from voice apps in a number of ways: through the sale of digital goods as a one-time purchase, subscriptions or consumables.
Will this work? DarkCyber does not believe that Alexa has a must-have app winner among the 80,000 or so Alexa skills, but the article identifies a couple of contenders; Escape the Airplane and Jeopardy.
Amazon: Search Engine Optimization Comes to the Online Bookstore
SEO undermined the idea of relevance at ad supported Web search systems. Now the SEO carpetbaggers are setting up to mine the Amazon. “Some Amazon Sellers Are Paying $10,000 A Month To Trick Their Way To The Top” discovered:
An emerging black market offers Amazon sellers pricey ways to cheat the marketplace and mislead customers.
I am not sure about the “emerging” part. Fake reviews for products and books have been a success story for some third parties for more than a decade. Nevertheless, the write up reports with the dewy freshness of a spring morning:
The most prominent black hat companies for US Amazon sellers offer ways to manipulate Amazon’s ranking system to promote products, protect accounts from disciplinary actions, and crush competitors. Sometimes, these black hat companies bribe corporate Amazon employees to leak information from the company’s wiki pages and business reports, which they then resell to marketplace sellers for steep prices. One black hat company charges as much as $10,000 a month to help Amazon sellers appear at the top of product search results. Other tactics to promote sellers’ products include removing negative reviews from product pages and exploiting technical loopholes on Amazon’s site to lift products’ overall sales rankings. These services make it harder for Amazon sellers who abide by the company’s terms of service to succeed in the marketplace, and sellers who rely on these tactics mislead customers and undermine trust in Amazon’s products.
How will this play out? There will be conferences, and there will be some modest push back from Amazon. But business is business. Google now has videos about SEO, the industry which it helped foster.
Amazon Secure Zones: Maybe Yes, Maybe No
ZDNet reported that there is No difference between regular AWS and Australian government protected level services. With Amazon competing for the US government JEDI contract the information in the write up could be significant. The article reported:
When AWS gets a customer with specialist security requirements, it looks to implement those requirements everywhere.
From Amazon’s point of view, security is security, regardless of the customer. From ZDNet’s point of view, the approach is newsworthy. A close reading of the statements by the AWS executive reveals:
By certifying a cloud service …it allows government to consume software-as-a-service more easily, while also making it easier for developers to reach government. … Government customers are looking towards outsourced and managed services, but they often cannot consume them because of security regulations.
The Amazon approach addresses this problem.
Amazon Doing Good in Des Moines
Marketwatch published “Amazon Web Services Become the Community Sponsor of the Monetery Tech Summit.” The news item said:
The Monetery Tech Summit has acted as a funding engine for underrepresented groups in technology. In 2018, the conference raised more than $10,000 for Pi515, an after-school program that educates Iowa’s underserved population, particularly refugee 7-12th grade students, on computer coding.
Amazon Blockchain
This struck DarkCyber as old news, but Cointelegraph seemed excited. “Amazon Web Services Launches Managed Blockchain Service.” The article disclosed:
The product will purportedly allow customers to set up blockchain networks within their organizations, and uses the Ethereum and Hyperledger open source frameworks. Notably, Amazon states that AMB can scale to support thousands to millions of transactions.
News of the service surfaced last year, and DarkCyber has pointed out that the information from such a service might have above average interest in some sectors of the law enforcement community.
Autonomic Drives to Amazon
Yahoo reported that “AWS will power Autonomic Transportation Mobility Cloud, giving automotive manufacturers and software developers the cloud infrastructure needed to build innovative connected vehicle services at scale.” As previously noted, Ford is in on the AWS game.
Amazon Advertises Its Conference
The low profile Amazon conferences are low profile no more. Amazon is advertising its reMARS conference. Here’s an example:
You can find this on on TechCrunch.
Amazon and Ethereum
Use the Bit reported that Amazon could start using Ethereum for New Scalable Blockchain. We thought this was already in place with some interesting implications for Amazon’s policeware business.
Amazon Epyc
AnandTech reported that AWS offers another AMD Epyc Powered Instance: T3a. The naming of Amazon services is — to be straightforward — quite an art. T3a is for the Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud, not to be confused with Elastic, the company which developed Elasticsearch. Amazon is beavering away with Elastic in order to suck in “run it on our stuff” business. Back to the Epyc T3a service. We learned:
AWS’s T3a instances offer burstable performance and are intended for workloads that have low sustained throughput needs, but experience temporary spikes in usage. Amazon says that users of T3a get an assured baseline amount of processing power and can scale it up “to full core performance” when they need more for as long as necessary.
The article, rather unhelpfully adds, “Previously AWS started to offer M5, R5, M5ad, and R5ad instances based on AMD’s latest server processors.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2019
Facebook Says Privacy. Tim Cook Explains Privacy
May 5, 2019
Apple continues to build out its privacy platform. “Apple CEO Tim Cook Slams Peeping Tom Websites for Intruding onto Users’ Privacy, Insists He Doesn’t Want Customers Looking at Their iPhones Too Much and Addresses Concerns That Kids Are Addicted to Devices” presents some of the suggestions and observations likely to find their way into Apple’s marketing of its products and services. (There was no mention of the nagging to sign into Apple’s messaging service or the annoyance of pleading with customers to use the Apple cloud storage service. Intrusive. You betcha.)
In an interview with a US television “real news” reporter, Mr. Cook offered one quite interesting observations; to wit:
Companies that collection people’s data know a lot more about you than someone looking in the window of your home. (Peeping Toms are bad, very bad.)
The article in the Daily Mail linked Mr. Cook’s comments about privacy to one of his previous statements:
Cook previously denounced Facebook and other tech companies for hoarding ‘industrial’ amounts of users’ private data during a privacy conference at the European Parliament in Brussels in October [2018].
How does Mr. Cook some companies’ “hoarding” of data? The answer:
Industrial scale.
One may want to recall that Facebook’s privacy woes have not had a significant impact on the firm’s financial performance. Mr. Cook may be talking privacy, but the reality is that in America, financial performance may be more important in some circles.
Oracle once asserted that in search and retrieval security matters. Oracle’s bet on enterprise search security did not cause competitors much, if any, friction. Apple’s “bet” on privacy will be interesting to observe.
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2019
So Much Protection, So Little Security
April 30, 2019
I receive emails from cyber security firms. The messages flow from Carbon Black, Recorded Future, DarkOwl, FireEye, IntSights, and others. an outfit named BrightTalk besieges me with announcements about cyber security webinars. The flood of information explains that cyber security tools are available, work, and are easy to use. I am not sure I have much confidence in these assurances.
In the midst of this wealth of security options, I find that article like “Unknown US Security Breach Exposes Data of 80 Million Households” suggest a problem exists. The write up states:
The breach was discovered by ‘hacktivists’ Noam Rotem and Ran Locar and highlighted by specialists at vpnMentor. They claim it is part of a 24GB trove of information that had been stored on an unprotected Microsoft Azure cloud server.
My thought for the day:
Marketing may exceed capabilities…at least for administrators of the Microsoft Azure cloud service.
And here’s a question:
Maybe security is a flight of fancy?
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2019
Amazonia for April 29, 2019
April 29, 2019
Amazon has shifted gears. According to a publication with which I am not familiar, a law student has evidence that Amazon has violated anti-trust laws. You can get the student’s views in “Is Amazon Violating US Antitrust Laws?” and if you prefer an analysis from someone other than a student, navigate to Amazon Has Gone from Neutral Platform to Cutthroat Competitor, Say Open Source Developers.”
And in other Amazon bulldozer new, DarkCyber cataloged these items:
Amazon’s Big Quarter
Lots of big numbers for Q1 2019. Example: 12 week revenue of about $8 billion. Example: AWS revenue growth of about 40 percent. Here’s one factoid to which one may want to pay attention:
AWS is Amazon’s fastest growing division and produces the largest margins. This segment has been growing at an annual rate ranging from 43% to 55% for the last 3 years and grew 41% in Q1 YoY. AWS offers the business 39% operating margin compared to the 4.2% margin that the rest of Amazon’s operations are providing. This segment already makes up about 50% of AMZN’s income and will likely continue to grow.
The downside? Growth may be slowing, hence Amazon’s new initiatives. The Register’s comment that Amazon was a cloud business with a gift shop may be correct.
Source: Yahoo
Digital Freight Brokerage
Amazon is a logistics company. Using its internal system, Amazon is positioned to reduce the time for deliveries on some items. How does same day delivery sound to those too busy or uninterested in going to a retail store? Sounds good to DarkCyber.
“Amazon’s Digital Freight Brokerage Platform Goes Live” brings logistics goodness to anyone looking for efficiency. What may be more important than Amazon’s technical acumen is its ability to engage in friendly competition. In this context, “friendly competition” means prices that are about 30 percent lower than what incumbents charge for similar freight forward brokering.
The write up reports:
The entry of Amazon into freight brokerage is the ‘disintermediate to survive’ phase of the flywheel. AMZN is under pressure to re-accelerate its top line revenue, which has slowed from upward of 30 percent annually three years ago to less than 15 percent projected for this year. Amazon cannot allow trucking capacity to constrain its growth and is entering freight brokerage to lock that capacity up.
Remember those statements by some industry observers who suggested that Amazon benefited outfits like FedEx and UPS (love the color its trucks).
Want to ship something at a peak time of year? Amazon is ready to serve as it pressures the companies against which it is competing — in a friendly way. DarkCyber believes that unlike vendors of policeware, the freight forwarding and brokering sector may be reading what the electronic bookstore has written in its AWS terms and conditions.
Amazon: Responding to the Sound of Music
The bulldozer’s music story this week, in DarkCyber’s opinion, was the information about Amazon’s possible music streaming play. (Amazon has been doing the music thing for years, of course.) “Amazon could Launch Hi-Def Music Streaming by End of 2019” reported:
Amazon’s music streaming service has been around for a while now, but more recently the company seems to be stepping up their efforts to try and grab a larger slice of the pie. For example, it was just last week that Amazon announced a free ad-supported listening tier that would allow non-Prime members to enjoy their streaming services.
Higher quality files may be less important than free or low cost music. Maybe Amazon will add high fidelity podcasts to the mix. What’s the podcast count? A half million or so, including our generally ignored DarkCyber weekly video.
A useful factoid may be that CNBC reported that Amazon will spend $7 billion on music content in 2019.
Open Source Inside a Closed Amazon: The Rent-a-Car Approach
Chatter about Amazon’s tactical plan to attack open source developers seems to be working. The approach is controversial. Medium published the essay “Amazon Has Gone From Neutral Platform to Cutthroat Competitor, Say Open Source Developers.” The main idea seems to be encapsulated in this statement by a commentator on open source software:
called Amazon’s move a “hostile takeover” of Elastic’s business. Steven O’Grady, co-founder of the software industry analyst firm RedMonk, cited it as an example of the “existential threat” that open source companies like Elastic believe a handful of cloud computing giants could pose. Shay Banon, founder and CEO of Elastic, carefully defended Elastic’s new licensing practices, while at the same time making his unhappiness with Amazon crystal clear.
Now what did my grandfather used to say about the barn burned down and the horses ran off? Yes, I recall his statement: “Yep, a bulldozer company is building a factory on that spot.”
What do you think Confluent, Datastax, Neo4j, MongoDB, and InfluxData think about Amazon’s tactical play? DarkCyber sees believes that renting access to another’s work is logical— for Amazon. The open source coder? DarkCyber has no fixed viewpoint.
Enter the Lawyers Arrive
Engadget has reported that “Amazon Tries Bringing in Lawyers for Sellers Claiming Patent Infringement.” The angle is that Amazon has had a problem with knock offs. Without plowing through the legal ramifications of selling a look alike as the real deal, Amazon is trying to gin up “a cheaper, faster alternative to traditional patent lawsuits, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take years to settle.”
Alexa, Who Fired Me?
The Verge reported that Amazon warehouse workers can be terminated for productivity lapses. Who does the firing of the inefficient humanoid? Smart software. The news service reported:
The documents also show a deeply automated tracking and termination process. “Amazon’s system tracks the rates of each individual associate’s productivity,” according to the letter, “and automatically generates any warnings or terminations regarding quality or productivity without input from supervisors.” (Amazon says supervisors are able to override the process.)
Amazon gets a word in. The Verge reports Amazon said:
Amazon consistently terminates fulfillment center associates for failing to repeatedly meet the standardized productivity rates,” the company’s attorney wrote in the letter. Amazon terminated the employee, the attorney wrote, “for the same reason it has terminated hundreds of other employees without regard to any alleged protected concerted activity.” The former employee’s charge was ultimately withdrawn.
The Verge story includes images of documents and other details.
Actual Unemployed Real Journalist Opportunity
Amazon may have a job for you. Navigate to this link and check out how Amazon is approaching local news. Why didn’t Tim Andrews (Patch and AOL) think of this? Oh, right. He was a Googler. Quick question: Identify three ways this type of information complements the AWS policeware service. Give up. Sigh.
Amazon’s Jungle Drums
Some items to tuck away in an Amazon notebook:
- Slack’s new deal with Amazon translates to about $250 million through 2023 to AWS. (This may be less than Lyft or Pinterest will pay.) Source: Geekwire
- Ford Motor Company has decided that the Bezos bulldozer’s electronics and software are interesting. Source: Yahoo
- Apple spends $30 million a month for AWS. Apple may be taking steps to trim this monthly bill. Source: CNBC
- AWS has opened a Hong Kong data center region. Alibaba and TenCent may face hear the grinding of the Bezos bulldozer which might be silenced by government regulations. Source: SDXCentral
- AWS ahs announced general availability of concurrency scaling for Redshift, a data warehouse service. Source: Market Watch
- AWS announced general availability of Amazon S3 Deep Glacier Archive, which is the lowest cost storage option available from AWS at this time. Source: Yahoo
Servicers of the Bezos Bulldozer
Vendors with which are generally not familiar are embracing the Amazon AWS environment.
- Corvil becomes an advanced technical partner for AWS. Source: Bakersfield
- Immuta has become an advanced technical partner for AWS. Source: Business Wire
- Instana Automatic Application Monitoring is now available on AWS. Source: Virtual Strategy
- Perspectium provides integration services for AWS. Source: Odessa American
- TigerGraph is available as a pay as you go analytics service on AWS. Source: Globe Newswire
- Vapor IO and Crown Castle have developed to connect these firms services to AWS. Source: LightReading
Stephen E Arnold, April 29, 2019
Amazonia for April 22, 2019
April 22, 2019
Amazon continues to grind forward.
Amazon Fails Where Google Struggled: China
China is a big market. China is a country. Armies, police, regulators, and a history of following its leaders. Amazon learned that it, like Google, could not change China. This is a surprise? “Amazon Plans to Shut Down China Marketplace in Rare Retreat” reports:
In a rare retreat for Amazon.com Inc., the e-commerce giant plans to shut down its Chinese marketplace business in July as it shifts its focus to offering mainland consumers overseas products rather than goods from local sellers.
But Amazon will not give up. Even Mark Zuckerberg learned to speak Chinese so he could continue to spread the word about Facebook goodness.
Amazon will keep running its other businesses in China, including Amazon Web Services, Kindle e-books, and cross-border operations that help ship goods from Chinese merchants to customers abroad. Starting on July 18, customers logging in to Amazon’s Chinese web portal, Amazon.cn, will only see a selection of goods from its global store, rather than products from third-party sellers.
Will Amazon triumph in China? That depends on what one means by identifying a victory. DarkCyber does not think the definition will include impinging on Alibaba and JD.com, among other China favorites.
Amazon and Google: Learning to Coexist
DarkCyber noted that the high school science club spat with the high school mathematics club has ended. Amazon’s FireTV will show YouTube videos. Peace in our Time reported:
In a mutual announcement, the two online giants have revealed that they’re collaborating on bringing their services to the other’s devices. “In the coming months,” the YouTube app will be coming back to the Fire TV (Amazon’s devices and Fire TV Edition smart TVs). It will be followed later this year by the YouTube TV and YouTube Kids apps as well. On Amazon’s side, the Prime Video app will add support for casting “in the coming months,” thus supporting Google’s first-party Chromecasts and other Chromecast built-in devices.
Ah, beautiful music to some ears. But wait. Music is not included. The two clubs are likely to meet up in the high school cafeteria to talk about tunes, DarkCyber opines.
Amazon: Staff Management: Energy and Green Edition
Several thousand Amazon staff want Amazon to do more for saving the planet. The issue is not resolved. What triggered the pushback from happy, content, sleek, and well benefited employees. DarkCyber suggests that the firm’s commitment to renewable energy farms half a world away from Seattle were insufficient. Amazon has some deals with Big Energy to help these oil and gas outfits extract carbon sources from Mother Earth. See “Amazon Employees to Execs: Do More on Climate Change” for some exhaust on the subject. Key point: Amazon management faces a management hot spot. First, a supermarket magazine dust up, then the China problem, and now people one pays to do the company’s honest, meaningful labor. Perhaps a Harvard Business School podcast will offer the online bookstore some advice?
Amazon Partners: Implementing the New, Improved IBM Approach to Sales Continues
Some partners of Amazon revealed some of the Amazon plans. Here’s a few which caught our eye:
- Antian offers its compliance services via Amazon. Source: Geekwire
- AzCopy has improved its S3 data transfer service. Source: Redmond Magazine
- Business Software, an income tax services firm, is now an AWS believer. Source: Virtual Strategy
- Inplayer offers video monetizing services for Amazon. Source: OAOA, part of Aim Media in Texas
- Instana introduced its cloud management services for Amazon. Source: Virtual Strategy
- McAfee achieves Amazon certification. Plus, Amazon has identified McAfee as well architected. Source: Marketwatch
- Phynd, a health care transformation specialist, expanded its Amazon-centric services. The name suggests search, but it seems more of a workflow and content management play. Source: PRNewswire
- Perspectium provides customer support services via Amazon. The firm also uses Press of Atlantic City for its news releases which wants to charge for marketing information. Annoying indeed. If the link goes dead, think bush league PR play.
- Pyramid Systems is now an advanced consulting partner for Amazon. Sounds good thought. And, no, DarkCyber does not know what the different levels of partner mean. Source: PRNewswire
- Tetrate offers Envoy to AWS Mesh users who want micro services for their Web-accessible applications. Source: Marketwatch
- TigerGraph uses AWS for “pay as you go” graph analytics. Source: Globe News Wire
Amazon: Going the Right Direction Says Yahoo, Verizon, Oath, AOL or Whatever
Despite the mini-crises causing the Bezos bulldozer’s engine to rev, “Jeff Bezos Is Leading Amazon in the Right Direction.” And Verizon should know; it is a paragon of management excellence. According to the company which may have cribbed some ideas from Smarter Analyst:
The founder of Amazon has managed to keep an innovative culture going while they continue to disrupt e-commerce. Bezos anticipates that Amazon can continue to grow its e-commerce footprint in various markets outside the United States where there has been minimal market penetration of e-commerce in general.
Spot on, Yahoooooooo.
For Fans of Amazon’s Policeware
Amazon has added Arabic to the line up of languages which the Amazon Polly system can understand. CRN points out that the service is designed for consumer applications; for example:
The move allows developers to create applications that speak in Arabic and build speech-enabled products and services, including cars, internet of things devices, appliances, automated contact centers, language learning platforms, translation apps and newsreaders.
JEDI: A Down to Earth Battle Between Digital Super Powers
April 20, 2019
This may be good news for China and Russia. Nextgov predicts, “Without JEDI, Pentagon’s Artificial Intelligence Efforts May Be Hindered.” The Pentagon requires an enterprise cloud computing solution for its ambitious AI plans—once it gets past one little snag, that is. They had a plan, called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, but it is now on hold pending litigation. Reporter Frank Konkel writes:
“Through the JEDI contract, the Pentagon aims to put a commercial company in charge of hosting and distributing mission-critical workloads and classified data to warfighters around the globe in a single cloud computing environment. That environment would also process large swaths of military and defense data and serve as the computing and analytics workhorse for artificial intelligence applications.
Motley Fool reports in “An Unexpected Scandal Threatens To Cripple Amazon”:
the Department of Defense (DoD) cleared itself of wrongdoing following an internal investigation into the forthcoming award of the $10 billion cloud computing Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative (JEDI) program. Yet the Pentagon’s self-exoneration was not comprehensive, as Bloomberg noted that: “The investigation uncovered evidence of unethical conduct that will be referred to the DoD inspector general for a separate review.”
Nations like China will not oblige us by putting their AI plans on hold while we catch up. The DoD could try using a hardware stack instead, but that would severely constrict their plans, according to Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.
Is DarkCyber surprised? A better question, “What was the business ethos of DH Shaw when Mr. Bezos honed his financial and business skills at that Wall Street firm?”
DarkCyber does not know.
Cynthia Murrell, April 20, 2019
Phishers Experience Some Tiny Google Pushback
April 17, 2019
Hiding urls is a phisher’s best friend. Google wants to eliminate those pesky urls. The problem is that spoofing a Web site is easier when the GOOG simplifies life. There’s nothing like a PDF with malware to make one’s day.
If the information in “Google Takes a Tiny Step Toward Fixing AMP’s URL Problem” is accurate, the Google may be pushing back against the opportunities bad actors have to deceive a Web user. The write up does describe Google’s action as “tiny” and “tiny” may be miniscule. I learned:
When you click a link on your phone with a little lightning bolt next to it in Google search, you’re getting something in the AMP format. AMP stands for “Accelerated Mobile Pages,” and you’ve probably noticed that those pages load super quickly and usually look much simpler than regular webpages. You may have also noticed that the URL at the top of your browser started with “www.google.com/somethingorother” instead of with the webpage you thought you were visiting.
Yeah, about that “quickly.” Maybe not.
Phishers will be studying this alleged “tiny” change. Why? Phishing and spear phishing are one of the methods which are bring Dark Web type excitement to users of the good, old-fashioned Web. There are six or seven additional examples of metastatic technology in my keynote at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference in June 2019.
“Tiny”. Yep. And what about the “speed” of AMP pages?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2019
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