As Amazon initiates job cuts across its entire business, including its streaming division, the e-commerce giant is now laying off employees within its Buy with Prime segment.
Launched in 2022, Buy with Prime is a service that enables third-party merchants to offer Prime benefits like free shipping and returns.
Buy with Prime expanded its availability in early 2023, adding more U.S. brands like BigCommerce and Sustainable Glam.
“Buy with Prime is a top priority for Amazon, with strong adoption from merchants and positive feedback from customers, and we will continue investing significant resources in Buy with Prime to build on that momentum.
Earlier this month, Amazon laid off 500 Twitch workers and hundreds of employees at Prime Video and MGM Studios.
Media streamer Plex’s long-delayed plans to launch a marketplace for TV and movie rentals are finally being realized after multiple false starts.
The media startup originally announced its plan to expand its streaming service to include rentals just ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic, which impacted launch plans alongside other technical concerns.
Then, at CES a year ago, Plex said the rentals market was due for a second-quarter launch.
With those headaches behind it, the rentals service is finally nearing launch — for real this time, Plex says.
In addition to the TVOD store, the report noted Plex’s plans for the year ahead included a redesign and additional social features, too.
Netflix isn’t planning on releasing a dedicated app for the Apple Vision Pro, nor will the company modify its iPad version to run on the headset.
Instead, users will have to resort to the web version, meaning they can’t access features like downloading titles for offline viewing.
“Our members will be able to enjoy Netflix on the web browser on the Vision Pro, similar to how our members can enjoy Netflix on Macs,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch.
One user wrote:Mixed reality headsets are still niche products and Netflix likely believes the Vision Pro won’t be a huge hit with customers – at least not right away — especially given the outrageous price point ($3,500).
The Apple Vision Pro will be available for purchase on February 2 and will include the ability to download and stream movies and TV shows from popular services like Disney+, Apple TV+, Max, Discovery+, Paramount+, Prime Video, Peacock, Pluto TV and Tubi, among others.
E-commerce and fintech company Bolt, which was at one time the subject of a federal probe, confirmed it laid off 29% of its staff, according to a company spokesperson.
This latest round of layoffs, which the spokesperson said happened last week, follow a handful of other layoffs made by the company since 2022.
It’s not clear how many employees the company had at the time of the layoffs or which roles were impacted.
The company, which provides software to retailers to speed up checkout, raised around $1 billion in total venture-backed funding and at one time was valued at $11 billion.
The company announced partnerships with retailers, including Saks OFF 5TH, Shinola, Filson, Lafayette 148 and Toys”R”Us, in November.
Earlier this fall, Spotify was found to be developing a new feature that would allow its streaming app users to create playlists using AI technology and prompts.
Now, that “AI playlists” feature has been spotted in the wild, as part of a test that to see how users will respond to AI-driven playlist creation.
Here, a pop-up menu appears and the AI playlist feature is a new option underneath the existing “Playlist” and “Blend” options.
The feature’s description reads “Turn your ideas into playlists using AI” and notes that it’s currently only available in English.
It remains to be seen if and when the new AI feature goes live to the public.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper successfully validated key technology that will increase throughput and reduce latency for customers using its satellite internet service, the company said Thursday.
That technology is called “optical inter-satellite links” (OISL), a type of optical communication that uses infrared lasers to send data between spacecraft on orbit.
OISL has been around for a while to enable inter-satellite communications, but earlier generations were limited to linking just two satellites at a time.
Kuiper’s satellites will be able to connect with many other spacecraft simultaneously, which will form a mesh network in space.
“With optical inter-satellite links across our satellite constellation, Project Kuiper will effectively operate as a mesh network in space,” Kuiper VP of technology Rajeev Badyal said in a statement.
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