Good morning. And the award for “funniest effect of the AWS outage” goes to…Eight Sleep, a so-called sleep fitness company based in New York City.
The startup’s Internet-connected products—which include a smart mattress cover, blanket, and boxspring-esque “base”—reportedly turned on and off with abandon, stopped or started cooling or warming, and otherwise got stuck in position during Amazon’s prolonged cloud computing outage.
As one entrepreneur put it: “Imagine not being able to adjust your mattress temp coz it requires checking if your subscription is active and server is sleeping lol.”
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Amazon just might replace 500,000 humans with robots
To think we were worried about AI replacing humans.
A new report in the New York Times says Amazon—the second-largest employer in the U.S. with almost 1.2 million employees—is on the cusp of “replacing more than half a million jobs with robots.”
The ‘bots would allow the company to avoid hiring more than 160,000 U.S. employees it would otherwise need by 2027, according to documents viewed by the Times, saving “about 30 cents on each item that Amazon picks, packs, and delivers to customers.”
Amazon reportedly aims to automate 75% of its operations.
The company’s execs certainly haven’t been shy about describing what robots could do for its sprawling commerce machine.
At Fortune’s Brainstorm AI event in London this year, chief roboticist Tye Brady was careful to say that its robotic breakthroughs—including ‘bots that can “feel” goods on warehouse shelves—wouldn’t replace long-serving human workers, but longstanding human tasks.
“We aim to eliminate … every menial, mundane, and repetitive job out there,” he said, adding: “We will never run out of things to do for our employees. We want them to focus on higher-level tasks.” —AN
OpenAI launches a web browser (yes, really)
OpenAI unveiled a web browser on Tuesday in a bid to make its ChatGPT AI product the starting point for online access and establish itself as a central pillar of the internet economy.
ChatGPT Atlas, as the new browser is called, looks and works much like a standard web browser but infuses generative AI capabilities throughout the experience, putting ChatGPT front and center for everything from internet search and e-commerce shopping to email.
“The browser is already where a ton of work and life happens,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a livestream announcement and demo of the new browser on Tuesday. “We think that by having ChatGPT be a core way to use that… we can take this pretty far.”
Among the features in the Atlas browser is an Ask GPT button. Users can click it and ask the AI bot for additional information or insights relative to whatever web page they’re visiting.
ChatGPT Atlas will initially be available for computers running the Mac operating system, with support for Windows, iOS, and Android to follow.
Shares of Alphabet, whose Chrome product is the world’s most popular web browser, fell 3.6% on the news. —Alexei Oreskovic
A foldable iPad is awfully hard to engineer, it turns out
Apple reportedly plans to introduce a foldable iPad to complement its rumored plans for a foldable iPhone, but getting it right is harder than it seems.
The company has “hit development hurdles” significant enough to threaten its planned launch date, according to a new Bloomberg report.
“The company has been working on the device—projected to cost around $3,000 for several years and had most recently aimed for a 2028 release,” the report reads.
“But engineering challenges tied to weight, features and display technology have pushed its potential debut to 2029 or later, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Apple’s said to be working with Samsung on the 18-inch (!) device, which would feature the same OLED technology found in today’s iPads and minimize the crease for a seamless display. Today’s iPad Pro models measure 11 and 13 inches.
The concept isn’t untested. Samsung (Galaxy Z Flip), Google (Pixel 10 Pro Fold), Motorola (Razr), and Huawei (Mate X6) already sell foldable mobile devices.
What is clear: Apple seeks to shake up its product lineup in a bid for growth. iPad sales—which represent about 7% of Apple’s global revenue—have slowed from their peak in 2021, partly in favor of the Mac. —AN
More tech
—Google and Anthropic are reportedly in talks on a multibillion-dollar cloud computing deal.
—Apple Vision Pro M5, reviewed: “The price hasn’t lowered.”
—Judge orders Zuckerberg and Spiegel to testify in a trial over child social media safety.
—Meta and Blue Owl Capital form JV to fund the Hyperion data center in Louisiana.
—HBO Max prices go up. A dollar or two more monthly. Oof, Madone!
—Netflix shares drop 6%. Q3 revenue meets estimates, but operating margin takes a Brazil-based hit.
—Dario Amodei steps into the fray. As Silicon Valley heavies on opposite sides of the political spectrum argue about Anthropic’s role in the AI revolution, its CEO adds: “We're ready to work in good faith with anyone of any political stripe.”
