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Amazon's latest round of layoffs will affect 16,000 workers

Engadget

Apple could unveil Gemini-powered Siri in Feb. Amazon's latest round of layoffs will affect 16,000 workers The news was first leaked in an email mistakenly sent early to workers. Sydney, Australia - 2022-07-22 Amazon prime boxes and envelopes delivered to a front door of residential building. Amazon has confirmed that it's letting go of 16,000 workers and employees across its organization. In an announcement by company SVP Beth Galetti, she explained that Amazon was going through organizational changes to reduce layers and remove bureaucracy. Affected employees in the US will be given 90 days to look for another internal role and will receive severance pay if they do not find any.


Jabra transforms headsets into headphones with new Evolve3 75 & 85

Popular Science

Jabra's new, shockingly slim over-and on-ear headsets feature an everyday design that can transition effortlessly from professional to personal use. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. I'm in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel and casino, where roller bag wheels hiss across marble and slot-machine chimes compete for oxygen. Everything is auditioning for my attention, but I'm transfixed by someone reaching into a purse and pulling out headphones carrying cases so slim I assume they're empty. But these are no hollow accessories.


Amazon AI tool blindsides merchants by offering products without their knowledge

The Japan Times

Amazon.com is using an experimental artificial intelligence tool to duplicate independent sellers' product listings, sometimes without their knowledge, then make purchases on behalf of Amazon customers. Sometime around Christmas, Sarah Burzio noticed that the holiday sales bump for her stationery business included some mysterious new customers: a flurry of orders from anonymous email addresses associated with Amazon.com. Burzio, who doesn't sell her products on the retail giant's site, soon discovered that Amazon had duplicated her product listings and made purchases on behalf of Amazon customers under email addresses that read like gibberish followed by buyforme.amazon. I didn't worry about, it to be honest," she said. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.


These 59 post-holiday Amazon deals drop kitchen and home upgrades for clearance prices

Popular Science

Save big on robot vacuums, air fryers, air purifiers, kitchen appliances, and tons of other devices to improve your home life. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. You survived the holidays, and now you're holding the most powerful post-season artifact: an Amazon gift card. Instead of spending it on a random pile of impulse buys, put it toward upgrades that make your home cleaner, cozier, and easier to live in. If you didn't get what you wanted under the tree, now is the time to get it for yourself.


The LLM Wears Prada: Analysing Gender Bias and Stereotypes through Online Shopping Data

Luca, Massimiliano, Beneduce, Ciro, Lepri, Bruno, Staiano, Jacopo

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

With the wide and cross-domain adoption of Large Language Models, it becomes crucial to assess to which extent the statistical correlations in training data, which underlie their impressive performance, hide subtle and potentially troubling biases. Gender bias in LLMs has been widely investigated from the perspectives of works, hobbies, and emotions typically associated with a specific gender. In this study, we introduce a novel perspective. We investigate whether LLMs can predict an individual's gender based solely on online shopping histories and whether these predictions are influenced by gender biases and stereotypes. Using a dataset of historical online purchases from users in the United States, we evaluate the ability of six LLMs to classify gender and we then analyze their reasoning and products-gender co-occurrences. Results indicate that while models can infer gender with moderate accuracy, their decisions are often rooted in stereotypical associations between product categories and gender. Furthermore, explicit instructions to avoid bias reduce the certainty of model predictions, but do not eliminate stereotypical patterns. Our findings highlight the persistent nature of gender biases in LLMs and emphasize the need for robust bias-mitigation strategies.


The latest Polaroid instant film camera is down to just 99 at Amazon making it a killer holiday gift

Popular Science

Bring this to a holiday party and take pictures or wrap one up as a great gift for anyone who likes photos taken without a smartphone. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Did you know you're not supposed to shake a Polaroid picture? There's actually a chemical process going on inside of each Polaroid print and shaking it won't help it turn out any better. In fact, it might ruin the emulsion required for the picture to form.


Amazon dropped Ororo's heated jackets, vests, and gloves to prices lower than Black Friday

Popular Science

Gear Outdoor Gear Amazon dropped Ororo's heated jackets, vests, and gloves to prices lower than Black Friday Stay warm all winter with big discounts on Ororo's most popular heated outerwear and accessories. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. If you're staring down a few more months of cold commutes, dog walks, or pretending to have fun at an outdoor holiday market that charged you $18 for a hot chocolate, heated layers can make winter feel a lot more survivable. ORORO's battery-powered vests, jackets, and accessories hide built-in heating elements to warm your core (and even your hands and legs) at the press of a button, and a bunch of their most popular pieces are on sale at Amazon right now. Whether you want a low-profile heated vest to slip under a coat or a fully insulated jacket with multiple heat zones and dual controls, these discounts cover just about every style.


The 157 Best Cyber Week Deals--Save up to 57% Off Gear We Love

WIRED

Cyber Monday is over, but many deals are still available, at least for now. These are the absolute best discounts on gear we've tested ourselves. Cyber Monday may be over, but many Cyber Week deals are still going strong. Whether you're checking off your holiday shopping or snagging a special treat for yourself, now's the time to pounce. The WIRED Reviews team has hundreds of years of collective experience tracking deals--not just inflated markdowns--on products we've hand-tested. Below, you'll find everything that made the cut and is still on sale: True discounts on the gear and gadgets we'd recommend to our friends and family. Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2024, 12th Generation) $ 160 Our all-time favorite Kindle packs a three-month battery life, an auto-adjusting warm light, and a nice seven-inch screen for one of the best e-reader experiences. Dell had a killer $500 discount all weekend on the Core Ultra 5 version of its Dell 14 Plus. It was a high-end laptop being sold for downright budget-level prices. It's sold out now, unfortunately. But the current discount is still quite good. This is a very strong display for a laptop at this price. While the Surface Laptop is better in many ways, the $650 Dell 14 Plus gets you a full terabyte of storage. Microsoft's Surface Laptop is the closest thing the Windows world has to a MacBook, and it's never been so cheap. Usually, inexpensive Chromebooks have subpar displays and touchpads, but this Acer model's are just fine--at a killer price. Our favorite gaming laptop has a sleek, thin design and impressive graphics. Weighing only 2.16 pounds, it's one of the lightest laptops you can buy, without making any major sacrifices to achieve that weight. The M4 MacBook Air has been the best laptop on the market since it was released in 2024.


AWS CEO Matt Garman Wants to Reassert Amazon's Cloud Dominance in the AI Era

WIRED

As Google and Microsoft continue to surge, the AWS chief lays out his pitch: cheaper, reliable AI delivered at hyperscale. You might think Amazon's biggest swing in the AI race was its $8 billion investment in Anthropic. But AWS has also been building in-house foundation models, new chips, massive data centers, and agents meant to keep enterprise customers locked inside its ecosystem. The company believes these offerings will give it an edge as businesses of all shapes and sizes deploy AI in the real world. WIRED sat down with AWS CEO Matt Garman ahead of the company's annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas to discuss his AI vision, and how he plans to extend Amazon's lead in the cloud market over its fast-rising competitors, Microsoft and Google.


The Canon T7 DSLR camera is down to its lowest price ever at Amazon for a limited time

Popular Science

This is one of the best entry-level DSLR cameras ever made for its lowest price of all time. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Smartphone cameras are amazing, but if you're truly passionate about taking pictures, they can't replace the feel of a dedicated camera . The Canon T7 is a fantastic entry-level DSLR camera and it's cheaper than I have ever seen it right now at Amazon in the post-Cyber Monday glow. The interchangeable lens system makes it a great option for people who want to learn and grow with their camera.