Amazon Day Launches for US Prime Members
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| Amazon Day Launches for US Prime Members | |
| Number | 763 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 28, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 4:33 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Amazon’s Project Zero wants to eliminate counterfeit items, Motorola is readying a foldable device, Uber and Lyft said to allow drivers to participate in IPOs.
Headlines
- Amazon announced Project Zero to help eliminate counterfeit products from its site. Once approved, a Project Zero brand can directly flag and remove counterfeit listings of their products on their own. Previously, brands had to submit a request to Amazon and wait through an evaluation process. Project Zero is invite-only for now with brands now able to join a waitlist. The company will also be requiring that Project Zero users undergo required training, and Amazon plans to actively monitor activity.
- Amazon also launched Amazon Day for Prime members in the US to let them control what day of the week their orders arrive. Amazon says orders will arrive together on the selected Amazon Day in fewer boxes and allow for more predictable delivery. The company says it tested Amazon Day with a group of Prime members, and the results reduced packaging by “tens of thousands” of boxes over several months.
- Apple announced it will lay off 190 employees in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale in its self-driving car division. New details about the layoffs, originally reported by CNBC, in a letter this month to the California Employment Development Department, say that most of the Project Titan employees affected are engineers, and that the layoffs will take effect April 16th.
- Motorola told Engadget this week that it indeed plans to launch a foldable phone, first seen in a patent filing from the company, which describes a smartphone that features a large internal display that bends in half when the device is closed. Motorola VP of Global Product Dan Dery says they're also exploring a dual-hinge device with a single screen that folds twice, leaving only a third of the display exposed when in phone mode.
- Uber and Lyft will give some of their drivers a chance to participate in their initial public offerings, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. Both companies will reportedly offer programs to give active, long-serving drivers a cash award with the option to convert it into stock, even though drivers are contractors, not full-time employees. Uber's plan is said to be designed to give some drivers either a cash bonus or the option to use that money to buy shares at the IPO price. Lyft, would give drivers with 10,000 rides logged in $1,000 they can keep, or use toward IPO shares. Lyft drivers with at least 20,000 rides would be eligible for $10,000.
- The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration issued new rules around lithium ion batteries. Specifically, the new interim final rule bans lithium ion cells and batteries in the cargo area of passenger airplanes. The rule also sets new guidance for lithium ion batteries that travel on cargo-carrying planes, that they should not exceed a state of being 30 percent charged. The rule won’t affect current rules allowing electronic devices in the passenger cabin of planes, this only reiterates guidance in place by the U.N. authority under U.S. regulation. So to sum up, smartphones, tablets, and laptops are to be kept in carry-on baggage. If they're packed in checked baggage, they should be turned completely off and packed to be protected from damage.
- Meanwhile in the US, TikTok has agreed to pay $5.7 million to the US Federal Trade Commission to settle accusations that Musical.ly-- which was acquired by ByteDance and merged into Tik Tok-- did not get parental approval before signing up users younger than 13. Starting now, all Tik Tok users will need to verify their age, and the under 13-year-olds will then be directed to a separate in-app experience that prevents them from publishing videos to TikTok.
- Legendary Studios has signed a six year deal with Norwegian video game developer Funcom to produce “at least” three new games based on the Frank Herbert’s Dune IP. The games will target both PC and consoles with pre-production on an open-world multiplayer title rumored to already have started. The original Dune game released in 1992 was an RTS/Adventure game hybrid followed by Dune II, Dune 2000 a remake of Dune II, Emperor: Battle for Dune all RTS games and Frank Herbert’s Dune an adventure game based on SyFy's Dune miniseries.
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| Preceded by: "Robots that Climb Stairs and Deliver Packages" |
Amazon Day Launches for US Prime Members |
Followed by: "Tesla Sales Go Online Only" |