Amazon Testing New Fast Delivery Setup; Folding iPhone-May be $2400; Landlord Rent Setting Tool Gets Gutted; Amazon Web Services- $50 Billion to Build Government AI Infrastructure 

Posted: November 25, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon is trialing a new rapid delivery idea in Seattle. Geekwire.com reports that Amazon is using a closed Amazon Fresh site as a mini warehouse for  most popular and fast moving items. It is something like a convenience store…open 24/7 but not to you. It functions as a pick up site for  Amazon Flex drivers. Amazon employees will fulfill online orders…picking and bagging items from a stock room, then putting them on shelves for Flex drivers to pick up and deliver to the nearby neighborhoods within hours of ordering. Flex drivers are independent contractors who deliver packages using their own vehicles, signing up for delivery blocks through the Amazon Flex app. The program has often been described as Uber for package delivery. 

We’ve heard price rumors ranging from the $1900 plus level up to $2500 for the upcoming folding iPhone. Now, according to mac rumors.com, analyst Arthur Liao is postulating it will be $2399. Noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had previously said it would land at between $2000 and $2500, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has predicted it will be somewhere around $2000. The foldable ‌iPhone‌ will be expensive because of the premium components that Apple plans to use. The display panel and hinge will push pricing toward the upper end of market expectations, Fubon Research suggests. One truly big deal is that the iPhone is expected to be the first folder with no crease at all in the middle of the screen. Fubon Research sees Apple selling about 5.4 million of the folders in 2026. That is a pretty modest number compared to 228 million total iPhones sold in 2024, the last full year we have figures for. 

A controversial tool used by landlords to set rental prices has had its ears pinned back after a settlement with the Department of Justice. The DOJ said in a press release that the proposed settlement “would help restore free market competition in rental markets for millions of American renters.” The antitrust settlement is with RealPage. For years since the pandemic started, rental prices outpaced inflation, and the DOJ suspected that RealPage was the dominant force driving a market that never favored renters. Under the settlement, RealPage admits no wrongdoing, and doesn’t pay a fine. Arstechnica.com notes that if the court approves the deal, however, RealPage has agreed to update its software so that rival landlords cannot access “competitively sensitive information to determine rental prices in runtime operation.” Additionally, RealPage will “remove or redesign features that limited price decreases or aligned pricing between competing users of the software.” And the company will “cooperate in the United States’ lawsuit against property management companies that have used its software.”

Amazon is spending an eye-watering $50 billion to build out AI infrastructure for the US government. Techcrunch.com reports that it will be a ‘high performance computing infrastructure’ built specially for the feds. It will expand government agency access to AWS AI services. Amazon will break ground on the data centers in 2026. Amazon has long supplied cloud infrastructure to the US government…starting back in 2011. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ’Technified’ for now. 

Nvidia & AMD-May Sell Chips to China if Pay Uncle Sam a Cut; AI Industry Alarm-Huge Copyright Class Action; Apple Testing Improved Siri; AOL  Dial Up Going Away for The Few Who Still Use It

Posted: August 11, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In what smacks of extortion to me, Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of the revenue they make from sales of high-end chips to China, in exchange for licenses to sell those chips in China. TechCrunch.com reports that Nvidia will share revenues from sales of its H20 AI chips in China, and AMD will give up a cut of MI308 chips. This truly sounds like tribute paid to a mob boss. Apparently, besides the cut to the US government, the resumption of sales of the high-end AI chips also restarted in exchange for China resuming selling rare-earth elements that are needed for rechargeable batteries in electric vehicles. 

An entire industry built on basically stealing the work of others to build its large language models is now clutching its pearls over a class-action lawsuit that could bring in up to 7 million class members, all demanding cash should they successfully prevail in litigation or a settlement. According to arstechnica.com, the suit has been brought by 3 authors as lead plaintiffs who are suing Anthropic over using their works for free to train its AI. AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block certification of what they call the largest copyright class action ever certified, whining that it threatens to ‘financially ruin’ the entire AI industry. Up to 7 million claimants, and a possible fine for each of $150,000…yep…that’s a ton of money. The AI companies have managed to raise and spend billions on the tech already…but precious little has gone to any of the creators of the work the large language models have hoovered up…just a handful of newspapers and organizations have received some compensation. It is more difficult than you might think to prove ownership of the likes of a book, but stand by…this could be a biggie, either way it goes. 

Apple is apparently testing out a revised version of Siri with a few third party apps…including Uber, Threads, Temu, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, AllTrails, and some games. Macrumors.com says Apple is also test-driving the better Siri with its own apps. They cite Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, saying the new App Intents system will let you take action entirely with Siri voice commands. With nothing but your voice, you’ll be able to tell Siri to find a specific photo, edit it and send it off. Or comment on an Instagram post. Or scroll a shopping app and add something to your cart. Or log in to a service without touching the screen. Essentially, Siri could operate your apps like you would — with precision, inside their own interfaces. The key part…with precision…we’ll see if that actually ends up being true!

From the ‘who knew this still existed’ department….AOL is dropping its dial-up internet service on September 30th. Engadget.com notes that the service has survived some 34 years now. Of course, back in the day millions used it…and were constantly spammed with tins of CDs in the mail…or before that floppy discs…remember those? Apparently, there are still a few luddites around, now numbering in the low thousands, who still listen to the awful screeching and hissing as their wheezing dial-up modem tries to connect with the internet. Besides the dial-up service, AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser will head for the silicon graveyard on the last day of September.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.