Newsletter Archives

• Will the last tech worker who is fired please turn off the server

  Posted on December 19, 2022 at 02:44 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  A wave of layoffs by the world’s largest technology companies is causing widespread fears. People are afraid that the growth spurt in online commerce that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic may be over — and opportunities for tech employment may never be the same again.

  Firings and separations are certainly ripping through the Internet at a rapid pace. But the impact of all this downsizing may not be exactly what you might expect.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.51.0, 2022-12-19).

  Public Defender Amazon, Facebook, Financial, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Newsletters, Tesla, Twitter

• Amazon quietly halts arbitrations — consumers can now sue

  Posted on June 14, 2021 at 02:43 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  With no announcement, Amazon.com has changed its terms of service, which previously compelled aggrieved consumers to submit their claims to mandatory arbitration. But last month, the retail giant eliminated arbitration as a requirement and now allows customers to join in class-action lawsuits.

  This may make a big difference for you — and for anyone who’s ever used any of Amazon’s products and services — because you may someday be eligible for large, court-ordered refunds.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.22.0 (2021-06-14).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender Amazon, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender

• Amazon is turning Echo and Ring into transmitters on June 8

  Posted on May 24, 2021 at 01:02 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  You may not have been expecting this, but those nice little Echo speakers you bought to play music — as well as your Ring Cams, Video Doorbell Pros, Level door locks, etc. — will begin talking on June 8 to a gaggle of gadgets that may be up to a mile from your home or office.

  These always-on communications will not use Wi-Fi, although your speakers, security cameras, and so forth probably already connect with your Wi-Fi router. Instead, Amazon has built a new capability into devices that the corporation may have sold to you as long ago as 2018.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.19.0 (2021-05-24).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender Amazon, Amazon Echo, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LoRa, Public Defender, Ring

• Amazon’s new ‘same-day nodes’ will displace postal deliveries

  Posted on February 22, 2021 at 01:06 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  Amazon’s new ‘same-day nodes’ will displace postal deliveries

  By Brian Livingston

  The market dominance of Amazon in online retail is well known. But what’s less understood is the effect the corporate giant’s expansion into superfast delivery services will have on the US Postal Service and private parcel companies.

  Marc Wulfraat has extensively studied Amazon’s plans in the United States and 22 other countries in his role as president of MWPVL International, a logistics consulting service based in Montréal, Québec.

  In the past year, Amazon has built eight new “same-day fulfillment centers” in the US.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.7.0 (2021-02-22).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender Amazon, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender, USPS

• Mehedi Hassan: Amazon shipped more than a billion products this holiday season

  Posted on December 26, 2018 at 11:18 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  … and I think half of them went to my front porch.

  A real eye-opener from Mehedi Hassan on Thurrott.com.

  Other Amazon

• The scale of tech winners

  Posted on October 14, 2017 at 16:01 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Fascinating piece from Ben Evans:

  Microsoft was working on smartphones and mobile devices 20 years ago, and now it’s killed Windows Mobile, acknowledged that the PC is going the way of the mainframe and, like IBM, has to make its way in a market shaped by other companies. There probably won’t be a technology that has 10x greater scale than smartphones, as mobile was 10x bigger than PCs and PCs were bigger than mainframes, simply because 5bn people will have smartphones and that’s all the (adult) people.

  Check it out.

   

  Other Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google

• Amazon Echo Show – gonna be hard to beat

  Posted on May 10, 2017 at 08:02 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  No doubt you’ve been reading about the Amazon Echo Show – Alexa with a screen — that’ll ship on June 28.

  https://www.recode.net/2017/5/9/15594724/amazon-echo-show-connected-speaker-touchscreen-smart-home

  Amazon’s ‘Echo Show’ Gives Alexa the Touchscreen It Needed

  I’ve ordered two. Even if I only use them as intercoms, they’re worth $230 each.

  I look at Microsoft’s efforts in the same niche and, frankly, I’m embarrassed. Microsoft is so far behind the mark, and the products they’re just now announcing (but not releasing!) seem antiquated right out of the starting gate.

  (By the way, y’all know that Charlie Kindel, the “director of Alexa Smart Home” and driving force behind Alexa, was once the GM for Windows Home Server, yes? Brilliant.)

  Other Amazon, Echo Show

• Amazon S3 cloud storage is down on the east coast

  Posted on February 28, 2017 at 12:49 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  The Register:

  “Amazon Web Services is scrambling to recover from a cockup at its facility in Virginia, US, that is causing its S3 cloud storage to fail.

  The internet giant did not provide details on the cause of the breakdown that is plaguing storage buckets hosted in the US-East-1 region. The malady has led to major sites, including Imgur and Medium, falling offline, missing images or running like treacle. Just to stress: this is one S3 region that has become inaccessible, yet web apps are tripping up and vanishing as their backend evaporates away.”

  I haven’t seen any problems with AskWoody yet, but my fingers are crossed, wood duly knocked.

  Other, Uncategorized Amazon, s3 outage