Amazon's cloud computing division - Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently announced that they will invest $10 billion over the next five years to build, operate, and maintain data centers in the UK. Image source note: The image is AI generated and authorized by the provider Midjourney. This decision marks Amazon's further expansion in the UK, where the company established its first AWS region back in 2016, which includes centralized data centers. Additionally, AWS has three availability zones and two Waves in the UK.

In today's world, deepfakes and synthetic media have become increasingly common due to the advancements in generative artificial intelligence (gen AI). To tackle this challenge, many organizations are working to improve digital watermarking technologies for tracking the origins of content. While no organization has completely succeeded yet, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) is expanding its membership. C2PA has announced that Amazon has become a new member of the organization's advisory board. C2PA is an open technical standard organization under the Linux Foundation.

Recently, Amazon began testing advertisements in its newly launched shopping chatbot, Rufus. This information was revealed through an update log released by Amazon. The company stated that in the future, users of Rufus will see some sponsored ads related to their searches during conversations. These ads will not only appear in the chat interface, but may also be accompanied by text generated by Rufus to help users better understand the ad content.

Amazon's Audible has announced an innovative plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to train the voices of professional narrators in order to produce high-quality audiobooks. Starting this week, selected audiobook narrators from the U.S. will participate in the AI training process, ensuring that the AI-generated voices can compete with those of professionals. Narrators will have the opportunity to review the AI-generated voices to ensure they align with the style and tone of the work, and to fine-tune the AI's pronunciation and pacing. Audible has committed to compensating participating narrators based on book titles and royalty sharing.

Amazon has launched the AI Cloning Narrator project aimed at accelerating audiobook production. The project invites narrators to submit recordings to train AI for 'voice cloning'. Narrators can choose to participate in the project voluntarily, including live performances or AI-generated recordings. Audiobooks using AI cloning will be labeled on the product detail page, and narrators will be compensated through a royalty-sharing model, requiring narrator consent for AI cloning use. After beta testing in the U.S., this feature will expand to rights holders, aiming to provide narrators with more creative opportunities and enhance the audiobook market.

Stability AI collaborates with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to introduce three new text-to-image generation models to the Amazon Bedrock service, aiming to enhance business positioning and market competitiveness. These three models—Stable Image Ultra, Stable Diffusion3Large, and Stable Image Core—cater to different needs, offering everything from high-quality image generation to fast bulk image production.

Amazon has launched an AI shopping assistant named Rufus in the UK, utilizing generative AI technology to address shopping needs, product comparison questions, and recommend products, thereby simplifying the shopping process. Rufus can provide product information, comparisons, and detail inquiries based on user requirements, covering a wide range of product research, specific product category exploration, and items needed for specific occasions. Users can access it by updating the Amazon app and clicking the Rufus icon, which is currently being tested for select users and is expected to be gradually promoted in the future.

Amazon has announced the launch of an improved version of its voice assistant, named 'Remarkable Alexa', which is primarily based on Anthropic's Claude AI model. This move aims to enhance Alexa's performance and address accuracy issues in understanding user commands and needs. The new assistant will introduce several practical features, such as daily AI-generated news summaries, a child-specific chatbot, and conversational shopping tools. Expected to be released in mid-October, it will operate on a subscription model with a monthly fee of approximately $5 to $10.

Amazon has announced the acquisition of a non-exclusive license from robotics startup Covariant and has absorbed approximately a quarter of its workforce, aiming to accelerate innovation in the automation field and enhance the safety and adaptability of robots. The founding team of Covariant will join Amazon's AI and robotics team, marking a further enhancement of Amazon's automation capabilities on top of the 750,000 robots already deployed in its logistics centers. Covariant will continue to support its existing customers and develop warehousing automation technology.

Amazon has announced the hiring of the core team from robotics startup Covariant, comprising about a quarter of its staff, and has signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement to use Covariant's robotic foundation models. This move represents Amazon's strategic positioning in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics, aiming to advance foundational research in AI and robotics technology and apply it to Amazon's existing robotic systems, providing greater practical value to customers. Through a 'reverse acquisition' strategy, Amazon gains new technologies while avoiding a direct acquisition of the startup.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a new High Performance Computing (HPC) management service - AWS Parallel Computing Service, aimed at simplifying the process for businesses to access and utilize supercomputing resources, lowering the barrier to entry. This service utilizes the open-source tool Slurm to manage clusters, allowing users to easily set up and manage clusters of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances on AWS without complex system administrator support. Businesses only need one AWS account to experiment and test the advantages of their workloads in large-scale computing.

Amazon plans to launch a new paid version of Alexa called 'Remarkable Alexa' or 'Project Banyan' in October, aimed at competing with companies like OpenAI and Google through more advanced AI features. This upgraded voice assistant will have smarter conversational and interaction capabilities, able to recognize different voices, proactively ask users for preferences, and provide personalized assistance. One key feature is 'Smart Briefings', which offers users customized daily news summaries, although it has raised concerns about

Amazon has launched its AI assistant Rufus in India, aiming to enhance users' shopping experience through generative AI technology. Rufus can provide customized information, product comparisons, and personalized recommendations, although it is currently available to only a limited number of users. This service originates from the U.S. market, where it has already amassed millions of user inquiries with positive feedback. The launch of Rufus marks Amazon's further expansion in the Indian e-commerce market and demonstrates its ongoing efforts to leverage AI technology to improve customer service. Amazon is committed to continuously optimizing Rufus, with plans to roll it out to more users in the coming weeks.

Amazon is set to launch a fully revamped version of its Alexa personal voice assistant in October, introducing features such as the AI-generated news summary called 'Smart Briefing', which will require a subscription to access. The new Alexa aims to enhance daily engagement, particularly regarding the accuracy of political news and information security. The AI-generated news summary feature has become a focal point of user demand, with subscription costs expected to reach up to $10 per month. Additionally, Amazon plans to expand Alexa's presence in e-commerce and children's entertainment through 'Project Banyan'.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating Amazon's $4 billion investment in the AI startup Anthropic, concerned that the partnership may affect market competition in the UK. The investigation is based on information gathered by the CMA, which believes the collaboration could have adverse effects. Amazon has expressed dissatisfaction, stating that the partnership meets market standards. The CMA has collected public opinions and plans to assess the impact of the partnership on the market in the coming weeks, with a final decision to be announced on October 4. The investigation involves Anthropic's use of Amazon Web Services.

Amazon recently released an upgraded version v2 of its internal AI model Titan Image Generator, offering a range of enhanced features for customers using the AWS Bedrock AI generation platform. Titan Image Generator v2 not only retains its original capabilities but also introduces new features such as image adjustments, color scheme control, background removal optimizations, and theme consistency maintenance. Users can accurately control the content of generated images by providing reference images and text prompts.

Amazon Music has launched the 'Themes' feature, utilizing AI technology to help users discover other podcast content related to specific episodes. By analyzing podcast transcriptions and descriptions, the feature identifies key themes and generates tags, allowing users to simply click on a tag to view a list of related podcasts. This feature is available only to users in the United States and requires the latest version of the Amazon Music mobile app. Amazon aims to enhance personalized content recommendations and improve user experience, competing with rival Spotify. As the podcast market grows, personalized recommendations are becoming a user demand.

Amazon Web Services has launched the Llama3.1 model on its Amazon Bedrock platform, developed by Meta. This advanced AI model series includes 8B, 70B, and 405B parameters, showcasing exceptional performance across eight languages, including English and German. The models cater to various applications: Llama3.1405B for enterprise and research, Llama3.170B for content creation and conversational AI, and Llama3.18B for resource-limited scenarios. Th....