You’ve seen them on Instagram, Twitter, and even on news sites: those impossible photos and videos, which used to be the privilege of professionals, showing amateur athletes perfecting their skills. Sometimes they show incredible stunts, other times incredible stupidity, but they all share one common trait – they were taken from an angle that simply […]
An Atlas cargo plane flying on behalf of Amazon Air — Amazon’s own freight delivery service that competes with FedEx and UPS, among others — has crashed outside Houston, Texas, killing three people on board. Amazon and Atlas both confirmed the accident with short statements. Neither provided any details on the nature of the accident. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the flight crew, their families and friends along with the entire team at Atlas Air during this terrible tragedy. We appreciate the first responders who worked urgently to provide support,” said Dave Clark, SVP of worldwide operations at Amazon. “This is to confirm that an Atlas Air 767 cargo aircraft Flight No. 3591 operating from Miami to Houston has been involved in an accident this afternoon,” reads a statement from Atlas. “We understand the aircraft went down near the city of Anahuac, Texas, in the Trinity Bay. We can confirm there were three people on board the aircraft. Those people and their family members are our top priority at this time. Atlas Air is cooperating fully with the FAA and NTSB. We will update as additional information becomes available.” The Boeing 767 cargo jetliner lost contact on radio and radar around 12:45pm local time after crashing into Trinity Bay close to Anahuac, a small city about 30 miles from Houston. Local news reported officials on the ground saying there is unlikely to be survivors. The aircraft, Atlas Air Flight 3591, was flying from Miami on behalf of Amazon, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24. Many are reporting the crash as a “Prime Air” incident, but this isn’t completely accurate. Originally, Amazon Air was branded “Prime Air”, and this appears to be the logo that still runs on many of these planes — but Amazon rebranded the service in December 2017. Amazon Prime Air now refers to the company’s efforts to build a drone delivery network. As we have noted, it is not yet clear what caused the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the accident in a statement, deferring the investigation to the National Transportation Safety Board, which said in a tweet that it has dispatched investigators to the crash site. Counting today’s plane, Amazon has 40 aircraft operating under the Amazon Air brand, serving some 23 airports in the U.S. One looming question is how and if today’s incident will impact Amazon’s bigger strategy with freight delivery. The company has been building its own network of cargo planes since 2015, a strategy that serves a couple of purposes. It gives Amazon more control (both in terms of scheduling and costs) over air-based logistics for the transport of goods that it sells; and it gives Amazon a shot at taking on some of the air shipping business that FedEx and UPS provide for other companies. Amazon Air has quietly but steadily grown over the years. Amazon currently has plans to add another 10 aircraft during 2019 and 2020, leasing them from Air Transport Services Group, an Atlas competitor. Notably, Amazon has stakes in both Atlas and ATSG as part of this bigger bet on taking on other larger cargo carriers with its own freight delivery service. Amazon Air expands with 10 more cargo aircraft, bringing fleet to 50 planes ... Read More
More than 100 Microsoft employees have signed a letter sent to CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith criticizing the company’s plans to build HoloLens AR tech for the military, the organizing group said Friday. The development is part of a $480 million military contract that Microsoft won this past November. The group’s letter demands that the company cancel their work on the contract and cease development of weapons technologies. “We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used,” the letter further states. Microsoft wins $480M military contract to outfit soldiers with HoloLens AR tech Microsoft has been focusing its augmented reality efforts on enterprise customers but had aggressively pursued the military contract, beating out other applicants including billions-backed startup Magic Leap. The contract is essentially a pilot program to begin outfitting the U.S. military with augmented reality visors and software tools to help with training and combat. The letter protesting the nearly half-billion-dollar deal came just a couple days before Microsoft was expected to release a second-generation HoloLens at an event in Barcelona. On behalf of workers at Microsoft, we're releasing an open letter to Brad Smith and Satya Nadella, demanding for the cancelation of the IVAS contract with a call for stricter ethical guidelines.If you're a Microsoft employee you can sign at: https://t.co/958AhvIHO5 pic.twitter.com/uUZ5P4FJ7X — Microsoft Workers 4 Good (@MsWorkers4) February 22, 2019 In October, Microsoft President Brad Smith published a blog expressing the company’s support for the military projects it was pursuing, saying “we believe in the strong defense of the United States and we want the people who defend it to have access to the nation’s best technology, including from Microsoft.” That letter was into the company’s substantially more impactful bid to win the $10 billion JEDI cloud infrastructure contract, but the sign of more pushback from a small group of employees showcases that not everyone at the company believes that Microsoft should be assisting the U.S. military. ... Read More
Oppo has come to Mobile World Congress this year not with a phone, but with a promise. That promise is a lossless 10x optical zoom that you’ll be able to obtain from a new triple-lens cameraphone system the company just unveiled. I tried it out from myself, and while I wouldn’t say that the results are quite as pristine as having a dedicated camera with a true optical zooming system, this is definitely the closest we’ve yet come to conquering the seemingly insurmountable challenge of injecting real zoom into the tight confines of a smartphone. The key component to Oppo’s system is a periscope setup inside the phone: light comes in through one lens, gets reflected by a mirror into an array of additional lenses, and then arrives at the... Continue reading… ... Read More
Software giant Microsoft is teaming up with Albertsons, America’s second-largest grocery chain, to implement a “frictionless” shopping experience for customers. The deal comes as Amazon has been increasingly turning its attention to the grocery business, which acquired Whole Foods in 2017 and has reportedly been planning to open thousands of Amazon Go stores across the country. The partnership will bring Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 to Albertsons stores, which Albertsons Companies executive vice president and CIO Anuj Dhanda says will allow it to “transform the customer experience in our stores and digitally,” using “cognitive technologies, artificial intelligence and data science applied at scale.” The goal, according to... Continue reading… ... Read More
Premium PC games see largest decline, leaving Fortnite near the top on both console and PC... Read More
Robert Kraft, 24 others charged after eight-month-long investigation in southern Florida... Read More
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