Amazon

There will be plenty of traditional television series like Shōgun and The Bear in the running at the 76th Emmys in September. But given how many Netflix, HBO, Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, and Amazon projects were just nominated for awards, this year’s competition seems like it could easily go to the streamers.

The agency wants more information about Amazon’s maneuver to hire most of the Adept team and license its technology. Adept said its plans to build “useful general intelligence and an enterprise agent product” would have required “significant attention on fundraising.” The informal inquiry might not lead to an investigation or enforcement, but enforcers are keeping close watch of tech giants and AI.

A report from Bloomberg highlights how a couple’s washable swim diaper business suffered after Amazon’s returns service recirculated a used diaper, leading to a scathing review that hurt sales:

The Barons told Amazon repeatedly that they weren’t at fault and that the review should be taken down. Yet it remains on the site, inflicting lasting harm. The couple says they’re $600,000 in debt, including a loan secured by their home that complicates the prospect of filing for bankruptcy.

Amazon’s brand-specific reordering buttons only lasted from 2015 through 2019, but in that time, they made enough of an impact to earn an eventual featured spot as a Button of the Month.

Some people did try to keep using them — let us know if your hacks are still working.

As explained by Front Office Sports, the NBA is waiting to see if TNT parent Warner Bros. Discovery will try to match any part of the reported $76 billion in offers from NBC, ESPN, and Amazon.

WBD’s (not-HBO) Max could try to match Prime Video, but with a smaller audience than Amazon’s service, matching might not be enough.

The tech giant and comedian Dax Shepard agreed to an $80 million deal for his Armchair Expert podcast, The Wall Street Journal reports. Spotify had landed the show as an exclusive in 2021 before allowing it to be on other platforms last year.

E-book borrowing is the new hot trend, and to use their local libraries, people are buying Kindles. Though paper books are still more popular than digital ones, “Kindle sales have grown in double-digit percentages for each of the past two years and are on track for similar gains this year.”

Amazon has a new 3D “Gaming Zone” online showroom, which feels like it was designed to fit a marketing executive’s idea of “gamer aesthetic.” Also, the showroom is a chore to navigate. And you can’t even play the arcade cabinets!

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An Amazon engineer blogged about how they test the durability of Kindles. The process sounds like every toddler’s dream come true, complete with throwing food at prototypes, drowning them in baths, attempting to poke, prod, and crush them in half with heavy contraptions, and even chucking a few into dryer-like machines.

Amazon’s new Batman: Caped Crusader series from executive producers J. J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Bruce Timm sounds very much like yet another Batman origin story. But the show’s 1940’s, Golden Era of comics vibe makes it seem like it’ll make for a kitschy watch when it debuts on August 1st.

It’s reportedly developing a sequel to Spaceballs, Mel Brooks’ Star Wars parody, with Brooks and Josh Gad producing. The project is in “early stages,” per Variety.

The California Department of Industrial Relations says that Amazon didn’t provide employees written notice of quotas they have to follow — a requirement of the Warehouse Quotas law. “The employer argued they did not need a quota system because they use a peer-to-peer evaluation system,” according to a press release.

The regulator found more than 59,000 violations across two warehouses.

Lewis, the Post’s publisher and a former Murdoch henchman, forced out Sally Buzbee, the executive editor. As a result, a longstanding UK scandal around journalistic ethics resurfaced, as Lewis has allegedly attempted to suppress stories about it.

There’s now enough blood in the water that Bezos, WaPo’s owner, is involved. He’s supporting his British import.

Until now, patients with Medicare — a government-funded insurance program mostly for older adults — haven’t been eligible to enroll in the RxPass program Amazon debuted last year. The RxPass offers Medicare patients “unlimited access” to 60 different prescription medications for $5 a month and a prime membership. For now, patients with Medicaid — state-funded insurance for lower-income Americans — are still ineligible for the program.

The Amazon Labor Union voted to ink an affiliation agreement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Workers at a Staten Island warehouse became the first Amazon employees to vote to unionize in 2022. They still don’t have a contract, as the union struggles to get Amazon to the bargaining table. Joining forces with the Teamsters infuses their fight with fresh resources, The New York Times reports.