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Amazon Prime Members Gets Pre-access to the Amazon Summer Sale 2019

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A sale is the best time for companies to earn more profits. And, after a long wait, Amazon’s summer sale has gone active for its Prime members. The sale started midnight on 2 May for the Prime members, giving them the opportunity to get their hands on the better deals before anyone else. As the other Amazon member will be able to take advantage of the sale after exactly 24 hours the sale has started, i.e. at 12 am IST on 3 May.

Amazon-Summer-Sale-2019
Image Source: newsd.in

It has been a few months since the company has hosted a bigger sale. The summer sale will end on 7th May, and people will be able to grab great deals in those four days. The sale has got big discounts on fashion, home appliances, gadgets, electronics, etc., and we need to see how the Prime members take benefit of early shopping at the summer sale.

The company along with fabulous deals is also offering an extra 10 per cent discount on SBI credit and debit card, i.e. up to Rs. 1,500 per card. The sale is boasting up to 40 per cent discount on Smartphones, and the users can also pre-book OnePlus 7 Pro Smartphone during this period. The One Plus Pro will be available with a free screen replacement warranty worth up to Rs 15,000 for the buyers with pre-booking. Other than that, the buyers can get discount of up to 10,000 or above on high-end smartphones including One Plus 6T, Oppo A5s, iPhone 6, iPhone X including its other variants as well as Samsung smartphones.

The price for mobile accessories like earphones, screen guards, data cables, memory cards, etc. starts at Rs. 69, and accessories like power bank are available at Rs. 499. The company is also offering up to 50 per cent discount on branded digital gadgets like speakers, cameras and headphones from brands like Canon, Nikon, JBL, etc. In fact, the price of Sony PlayStation 4 500GB Slim is down to Rs. 22,190 from its MRP, i.e. Rs. 28,580.

The company has also proposed heavy discounts on its home production gadgets, including Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon Echo, etc. The company as a bonus has also offered a 3-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited for as low as Rs. 79.

For the prime members, Amazon is providing free as well as fast deliveries and also discounts on its streaming services, including unlimited video streaming, ad-free music etc. There is also a cashback of up to 2400 Rs. for the Prime members on some eligible purchases including from the Amazon-partnered companies like Swiigy, Yatra.com, netmeds.com, BookMyShow, and others.

Amazon Opens its Blockchain Standard as a Service

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aws blockchain
Image Source: cryptoglobe.com

Amazon, through its cloud computing arm, AWS, had launched two new Blockchain products last November, and now, it has launched its Managed Blockchain Service for general availability. The new Blockchain Service will allow the users to create and manage blockchain networks, without the need for a centralized authority.

Noticeably, the company had launched the service in November, which was available only in ‘preview’, for which the users needed to sign up to get the approval to use the service. But now, it is open for general use. With the help of Managed Blockchain Service, the users will be able to set up their blockchain networks within their organisations, easily, quickly and economically.

The Managed Blockchain Service is a fully-managed service and will let the users ditch the arduous task of software installation, creating and managing the certificates for access control, and configure network settings, which they had to do in order to set up a separate blockchain network.

“Amazon Managed Blockchain takes care of provisioning nodes, setting up the network, managing certificates and security, and scaling the network. Customers can now get a functioning blockchain network set up quickly and easily, so they can focus on application development instead of keeping a blockchain network up and running,” said Rahul Pathak, General Manager, Amazon Managed Blockchain at AWS.

The company made the service first open to using in northern Virginia and is slowly expanding its availability to other locations. The companies like AT&T Business, Nestlé and the Singaporean investment market, the Singapore Exchange, are already up to use the company’s latest services.

For now, the service will make use of Hyperledger Fabric, whereas the company is working on the Ethereum network, which will be available as general by the end of this year.

Alexa Users Gets Ad-supported Music Streaming for Free

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Though the rumours of Amazon rolling out an ad-supported streaming music service was making rounds till the last week, it was not final that when the company will launch the said service. Amazon, on Thursday, confirmed that all the company’s Echo products will now be streaming the ad-supported music service for free.

amazon music
Image Source: sonos.com

The Echo-devices will now be able to play music from the top playlists of Amazon Music Unlimited, and the user does not have to be an Amazon Prime or Amazon Music Unlimited member. Baing ad-supported, the music streaming service, from Amazon, will play smaller ads in between the songs in random time intervals.

Earlier, the users needed to subscribe for the Prime membership to use the music streaming service bundled to it, or they could buy a separate plan to use Amazon Music Unlimited, by paying a monthly $3.99 fee to use on an Echo device and $9.99 fee to use the service on a non-echo device.

Noticeably, the company has announced the news on the same day Google launched the ad-supported free YouTube Music streaming on Google Home smart devices. Also, Amazon has directly challenged its another rival, Spotify, that was the only music streaming service to provide free as well as paid service to its users.

Amazon, along with its ad-supported music streaming service has introduced referral deals to its subscribers, to get more users to buy its Alexa-powered family of Echo, other smart home devices, and its Prime membership. The music streaming service included in the free membership includes over 2 million songs in different languages, and the paid subscription plan of the same service has a library of over 50 million songs. Noticeably, last year, Amazon’s music streaming service alone had tens of millions of active subscribers, and the company sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices last year.

Having a music streaming service for free from the same company, as the smart speaker belongs to, is a better choice for every Echo speaker owner, as they do not have to pay extra money for a music streaming service from other company to play on those devices. Also, this is quite a move by the company to increase the sales of its smart speakers over smart speakers from its rival companies.

Flipkart Tops the List of Best Company for Employees in India Third Time in a Row; Beats Amazon and Oyo

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LinkedIn has released the 4th edition of the ‘2019 Top Companies in India’, and Flipkart is the one that topped the list of the most preferred workplace for Indians. The Walmart acquired company Flipkart is a home for over 14000 employees and is one of the fastest growing companies in India.

flipkart
Image Source: amarujala.com

The list from LinkedIn has ranked Amazon and OYO at the second and the third places, and the parent company of PayTm, One97, got shifted to fourth place from the third place which it held in the last year’s list.

LinkedIn, with the help of its 54 million users in India, shortlists the companies for ranking in the list and take four major criteria into account – interest in the company, engagement with employees, job demand and employee retention. Also, another requirement for the companies to get ranked into the list was to have employed over 500 employees as of February 1, 2018.

The evaluation of the best company was among the private companies operating in India, and any non-profit firm, government institutions and the recruiting companies were excluded from the competition. Also, LinkedIn and its parent company, Microsoft, were also not included in the contest to keep it fair.

Though Flipkart has been winning this race for the past three years, consecutively, as it has made to the top of the same list in 2016 and 2017, it is a great achievement for any company to be in a list of the most loved company by the employees.

Flipkart is one of the most successful startups in India and houses major e-commerce service providers including Myntra, Jabong and PhonePe, in India. It was also credited for having the fairest in working conditions and wages for ‘gig economy’ workers by an Oxford Internet Institute study.

This annual survey of the companies is done globally to determine the top companies to work for in India, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, the U.K, and the U.S., among others. Following is the list of top 25 companies to work with according to LinkedIn:

  1. Flipkart (Walmart) – Internet
  2. Amazon – Internet
  3. Oyo – Hospitality
  4. One97 Communications (Paytm) – Internet
  5. Uber – Internet
  6. Swiggy – Internet
  7. Tata Consultancy Services – Information technology and services
  8. Zomato – Consumer services
  9. Alphabet – Internet
  10. Reliance Industries – Oil and energy
  11. EY – Accounting
  12. Adobe – Computer software
  13. Boston Consulting Group – Management consulting
  14. Yes Bank – Banking
  15. IBM – Information
  16. Daimler AG – Automotive technology and services
  17. Freshworks – Information technology and services
  18. Accenture – Information technology and services
  19. Ola – Internet
  20. ICICI Bank – Banking
  21. PwC India – Management consulting
  22. KPMG India – Management consulting
  23. Larsen & Toubro – Construction
  24. Oracle – Information technology and services
  25. Qualcomm – Wireless

Jeff Bezos Prepping Up for the Upcoming MARS Event to be Held in California

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Like other past few years, Jeff Bezos is all set for its Mars Conference to be held in the coming week. Every year, Jeff Bezos hosts an invite-only robotic conference in the third week of March, where billionaires, astronauts, and roboticists participate in discussions and debates on the future of AI, robotics, machine learning and other space technologies.

jeffbezos
Image Source: geekwire.com

MARS stands for Machine learning, home Automation, Robotics, and Space exploration, and according to an announcement made by the company in January 2019, a similar conference, with the same name will be launched in June, which will be open to the public. The event will be held in Las Vegas between June 4th and 7th.

Bezos is all prepping up for the upcoming event, and like every other year, the event will take place at the Parker Resort in Palm Springs. Reportedly, the place has been decorated with the Blue Origin logos (Bezos’ rocket company) all around. Also, a solar-powered sailing drone, the Saildrone, has also been spotted at the location.

Since the event is an invite-only, not everyone is aware of which type of technologies were launched in past events. Last year, Bezos showcased a SpotMini robot, for which, he had also tweeted, “Taking my new dog for a walk.” And, in 2017, Bezos released a picture where he dressed up in a giant robot suit.

The event hosts famous contributors from various fields of technologies, and last year, the invitees included Mike Massimino (former astronaut), Adam Savage, and Michael J. Fox, etc. This year too we can expect some great personalities from the tech world participating in the event. According to the reports, MARS conference will feature Andrew Ng, Colin Angle, Aicha Evans, Naveen Rao, Robert Downey Jr, etc.

The conference this year may be discussing Amazon’s various AI initiatives and the practical application of machine learning. The hashtag #MARS2019 on Twitter may help you have the glimpse of this year’s MARS event highlights.

Tesla Launches a New Amazon Store to Sell Self-branded Merch

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Tesla, the automotive and energy company, has launched a new Amazon store, to sell its merchandise. This is not the first time that the company is manufacturing and selling those merchandise as it has been selling them on its own ‘Tesla Shop’ website for past many years.

Image Source: pando.com

The automaker previously had also teamed up with Home Depot to sell its energy products, though, hey ended the partnership in 2018.

The company had been selling self-branded goods including almost everything, like water bottles, hats, hoodies, surfboards, iPhone cases, wireless smartphone charger, a portable battery, etc. on the online store, and the people who have been following CEO Elon Musk and are his fans, have always been there to buy them.

As Tesla also knows that Amazon is the number one online shopping site, making Tesla goodies available on an Amazon store will help Tesla to grab more buyers for its merch. The opening of Amazon’s online stores for the Tesla merch can be a company’s move to reach more people. Although the store will not have all the Tesla accessories, yes, it will have some interesting ones available on it.

The Amazon store will have on sale the iPhone X cases, having written Tesla on it, subtly emblazoned across the side. The case price will be between $35-$45. It will also be selling hoodies branding Tesla, which will cost between $70-$75 and a 1:18 scale die-cast models of the company’s cars costing around $250, etc.

Although with the launch of its Amazon store, Tesla had put only two products on the site, i.e. an iPhone 8+ case and a Tesla iPhone X folio case. There can be two reasons that the company had only put two products for sale, either the other products were all sold out, or the company was not ready for the launch. The latter reason can be more accurate as now the company has even put down the page on which it was selling all the goods.