The Post Office is an unusual agency. For starters, it has a legal monopoly (weird!), is explicitly enshrined in the Constitution, and despite being part of the federal government, it’s operated more like a corporation. All an average person needs to know is that mail goes in a mailbox, and, with relative expedience,…
Earlier this year, billionaires Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon promised to launch a new partnership that would upend the healthcare industry and lower the cost of care for the employees of their very large companies. That has yet to come to fruition, in large part due to one very big problem: they can’t…
In a unanimous decision (9-0) yesterday, the Seattle City Council approved a version of the “head tax” plan—a progressive tax on big businesses to combat homelessness in the city—putting an end to months of fierce debate.
After breaking up with his boyfriend, Jesus Echezarreta changed the password on his Ring smart doorbell—twice. Still, his ex-boyfriend was able to download video from the home security device as well as remotely ring the doorbell in the middle of the night. The company says it fixed the security flaw that made this…
U.S. lawmakers are raising concerns over the Amazon Echo Kids Edition, a hands-free, voice-controlled hockey puck of a device that reads bedtime stories, plays Disney tunes, and programs our offspring to be tactful and courteous when interacting with artificial intelligent machines—a useful survival skill to impart in…
Companies invest a great deal of time, money, and resources optimizing their operations. But it appears whoever installed this particular security door put next to zero thought into the design.
Cleveland.com and WKYC got their hands on documents revealing a portion of Cleveland, Ohio’s failed pitch to Amazon to land the company’s planned second headquarters. The records reveal the city was prepared to throw some substantial incentives at Amazon if it decided to call Cleveland its new home.
Alexa, a voice assistant that is pretty okay at setting alarms most of the time, may soon be equally mediocre at providing medical advice. Amazon is reportedly building out a team dedicated to expanding Alexa’s health and wellness capabilities.
Amazon announced Wednesday that it will try to pitch the general public on its dystopian future by launching interactive showrooms in model homes across the country to show off its full line of smart home products.
The US Department of Transportation announced Wednesday the participants in its Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Pilot Program, which will test drones for a variety of applications otherwise not permitted under current law. Google, Qualcomm, and Microsoft all made the cut, while Amazon and DJI won’t be…
Top tech companies are launching a bidding war for a massive Pentagon cloud contract, even as their workforces are pressing them to refuse all military work. In addition to the protests from employees, the bidding process for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract is bogged down by infighting…
It’s almost been a year since the White House held its last big tech summit. On Thursday, it will reportedly host representatives from 38 of the biggest companies in the US to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and how the government can help us avoid disaster.
It’s been a few weeks since a Russian court ordered ISPs to block encrypted messaging service Telegram—and the country proceeded to break its own internet to enforce the ruling. Google and Amazon made changes that help the ban, and Russia has moved to blocking VPNs. Now, privacy advocates are asking Congress to step…
On Amazon’s neverending quest to dominate every single retail category imaginable, the company has settled on its next frontier. According to Bloomberg, Amazon is getting into the pet business and is starting with its own line of dog food.
Amazon has a big middle finger today for all the affordable housing proponents out there. According to a Wednesday report in the New York Times, Amazon—Seattle’s largest employer with 45,000 staff in the city—has abruptly decided to halt a “huge” two-building, 7,000 employee expansion plan there after the City Council…
Telegram has been putting up an impressive fight against the governments of Russia and Iran in high-profile efforts to censor the messaging service over the last few weeks. But we’ve heard little about its fellow encrypted messaging app Signal. Both services have used an anti-censorship technique called “domain…
These days, knowing everything that’s coming to the popular streaming services is incredibly useful, but it can be hard to sift through all the titles to find the geeky things you’ll really want to watch. io9 is here to help—as your humble stewards, we’ve whittled down the new-addition lists to just the cool, nerdy,…
A blaze swept through Amazon Fulfillment Center RIC1 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia this morning, overwhelming the building’s internal fire suppression systems.
In another stunning display of its might, Amazon will be transforming an old post office building into a new Amazon office building. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just announced that the Seattle-based online retailer will open a new tech hub on the site of a historic Canada Post building in Vancouver. The…
With winter fading into the distance, Avengers: Infinity War now in theaters, and the truth about Amazon’s logo finally out in the open, we can take a big breath of fresh air and remember what makes us excited about life in the first place. But we’ll probably just endlessly scroll through Twitter until we feel…
