Amazon Web Services has launched a new cloud computing service called AWS Deadline Cloud that allows customers to set up, deploy, and scale rendering projects in what the company says is mere “minutes,” improving efficiency by facilitating parallel rendering pipelines. “With Deadline Cloud, customers creating computer graphics, visual effects, or innovating their pipelines to incorporate artificial intelligence-generated visuals can build a cloud-based render farm — aggregated compute — that scales from zero to thousands of compute instances for peak demand, without needing to manage their own infrastructure,” according to AWS. Continue reading AWS Deadline Cloud Service Scales Up Instant Render Farms

Amazon has added $2.75 billion to its initial September 2023 investment of $1.25 billion in Anthropic, completing its announced $4 billion stake in the artificial intelligence startup formed in 2021 by former members of OpenAI. As part of the resulting strategic collaboration, Anthropic’s most powerful models, including the Claude 3 series, are available on Amazon Bedrock, a service providing fully managed foundation models. Anthropic is using Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider and Amazon says Anthropic will use AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips “to build, train, and deploy its future models.” Continue reading Amazon Increases Its Investment in Anthropic AI to $4 Billion

Amazon’s net sales for Q4 were $170 billion, a 14 percent increase year-over-year. For the full year 2023, net sales were up by 12 percent to $574.8 billion. “This Q4 was a record-breaking holiday shopping season and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon,” CEO Andy Jassy said in the recent earnings release. The results included October Prime Day and holiday season shopping. Outstanding Q4 performers included ad sales, up 27 percent to $14 billion, and Amazon Web Services, which brought in $24.2 billion, growing 13 percent.”What we’re most pleased with is the continued invention and customer experience improvements across our businesses,” Jassy added. Continue reading Growth in Ad Sales, AWS Drive Amazon Profit Up 200 Percent

Amazon Web Services has introduced a palm-scanning identity service for enterprise clients that lets people authenticate when entering physical premises. Called Amazon One Enterprise, the new service leverages the Amazon One offering launched in 2020 to allow biometric payments in Amazon’s cashierless Amazon Go stores, bringing the technology to the workplace. At retail, Go shoppers can link payment cards to their palm-print and complete transactions by placing their hand on a scanner. While use of biometric data has raised concerns, Amazon appears to be expanding the technology’s applications. Continue reading AWS Debuts Amazon One Enterprise Palm-Scanning Service

Amazon has entered into a strategic investment in San Francisco-based Anthropic, founded by former members of OpenAI. The AI startup will train and deploy future models using AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to train and deploy future foundation models with AWS as its primary cloud provider. In turn, Amazon says it will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, as it strives to compete with other technology firms in the race to develop generative AI, seeding growth for what is shaping up to be an entirely new economic and social landscape. Continue reading Amazon Plans to Invest Up to $4 Billion in AI Startup Anthropic

Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Dutch mapping company TomTom have joined forces with The Linux Foundation to give Google a run for its money in the maps space with the launch of the Overture Maps Foundation to build interoperable open map data. “Mapping the physical environment and every community in the world, even as they grow and change, is a massively complex challenge that no one organization can manage,” Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin said. Overture’s mission is to create an extensible mapping framework that will enable companies to contribute their own data, constantly refreshing as the physical world changes. Continue reading Meta, Microsoft, AWS Want to Map the Future with Overture

Amazon Web Services, a leading provider of cloud computing services, is rolling out its new ARM-based Graviton3E chips for high-performance workloads, including tasks like weather forecasting and gene sequencing. AWS customers can rent the high-performance computing (HPC) power to take advantage of “performance gains and cost savings” as a result of making its own chips, Amazon says. The move makes AWS something of a competitor to other top chipmakers, including Intel, AMD and Nvidia, who continue to be among Amazon’s major chip suppliers. Amazon says it will continue to offer HPC services that rely on third-party chips. Continue reading AWS Touts HPC with Launch of Graviton3E Chip at re:Invent

Things were restive at TwitchCon, which wrapped Sunday in San Diego. Content creators were riled up over downsized revenue-sharing, first announced last month. The conference lets gamers and other enthusiasts who use Amazon’s live-streaming platform meet their favorite influencers while brands tout their wares. With over 2.5 million hours of live content streaming daily around the world, Twitch has become increasingly focused on financial sustainability and eventual profitability. But a less favorable revenue split and push toward advertising has proven unpopular with creators. Continue reading TwitchCon: Streamers Object to Revenue-Sharing Reduction

Netflix, which said it lost almost one million subscribers in Q2, has been aggressively cutting costs, implementing a variety of measures that range from scaling back its real estate footprint to trimming cloud computing. While the streaming giant says the cuts have not significantly impacted content spending, it has laid off more than 400 employees in 2022 and has begun hiring more junior staff, according to reports. Macroeconomic trends have made belt-tightening common across the industry, but at Netflix it stands in stark contrast to years of explosive growth and free spending. Continue reading Netflix Cutting Costs in Areas Such as Cloud, Staffing, Perks

Electric vehicle maker Rivian, which produced almost $12 billion in profit for Amazon last year, cratered in the January through March period, prompting the retail giant to record a $7.6 billion loss on the investment. Overall, Amazon posted a $3.8 billion quarterly loss, its first in seven years and a contrast to profit of $8.1 billion during the same period in 2021. A 7 percent increase in quarterly revenue marked the tech giant’s most anemic performance in 20 years, as consumers adopted post-pandemic habits and resumed in-store shopping. Continue reading Amazon’s $3.8 Billon Quarterly Loss Is Its First in Seven Years

Amazon had a merry Q4, doubling net income to $14.3 billion from $7.2 billion the prior year. While quarterly revenue of $137.4 billion was up 9 percent due largely to its “biggest-ever” Black Friday to Cyber Monday shopping weekend, the profit surge was the result of a pre-tax gain of $11.8 billion from its investment in Rivian. The electric car manufacturer completed an initial public offering in November. The Amazon Web Services cloud unit grew revenue 40 percent to $17.8 billion, more than $5 billion of it income. Total 2021 revenue was $469.8 billion, up 22 percent. Continue reading Amazon Profits Double While Q4 Operating Income Plunges

Microsoft ended Q2 for fiscal year 2022 on a high note, with sales up 20 percent to $51.7 billion, and net income rising 21 percent to $18.8 billion, beating analysts’ predictions. Cloud revenue grew 32 percent year-over-year, hitting $22.1 billion. Revenue in Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business was $18.3 billion, a 26 percent jump propelled largely by a basically flat 46 percent increase from Azure and cloud services. “Digital technology is the most malleable resource at the world’s disposal to overcome constraints and reimagine everyday work and life,” Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said in the earnings release. Continue reading Lifted by Cloud, Microsoft Sales Jump 20 Percent for Quarter

Oracle is expanding its healthcare footprint and teeing up to turbo-charge its cloud business with the $28.3 billion purchase of medical software and IT firm Cerner Corporation. Many healthcare providers use Oracle database solutions, but the company says Cerner will be “Oracle’s anchor asset to expand into healthcare.” Oracle chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said in a statement that together the firms “have the capacity to transform healthcare delivery.” The deal — the largest in Oracle’s history — will provide “overworked medical professionals” with access to Oracle’s “hands-free voice interface to secure cloud applications,” Ellison added. Continue reading Oracle Ramps Up Cloud Expansion with Acquisition of Cerner

The Log4j code vulnerability has the media declaring the Internet in a state of crisis. Log4j is a Java-based logging framework developers use to track user activity within applications on the popular Apache web server. Security experts are rushing to patch the bug, which is being exploited to remotely assume control of vulnerable systems, stealing credentials, installing malware and launching other attacks that permeate consumer devices. Last week, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a Log4j alert, as did Australia’s CERT emergency response team. Continue reading Major Security Vulnerability Triggers Worldwide Internet Crisis

Nasdaq says it will in 2022 begin migrating its North American markets to Amazon Web Services in a phased approach starting with the Nasdaq MRX U.S. options market. Nasdaq AWS will use a new edge computing solution the companies designed for market infrastructure that will be made available to other entities as well as leveraged across Nasdaq’s anti-financial crime, data and analytics, and market infrastructure software programs. The announcement was issued the same day Goldman Sachs said it was teaming with AWS on a suite of cloud-based solutions for financial institutions. Continue reading Nasdaq, Goldman Sachs Announce Migration to AWS Cloud