Jeff Bezos

As more employees use instant messaging at work in lieu of email, federal antitrust enforcers issued a warning Friday: Companies under investigation must turn over those records. 

The head of Amazon's AWS cloud computing business, Adam Selipsky, who was helping lead the company's expansion into AI, told workers he was stepping down Tuesday.

This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, after the success of Amazon's Fallout TV series, we discuss the TV and movie adapatations of video games we'd love to see next.

Social media platform X is expanding access to xAI's Grok chatbot, now offering it to Premium tier subscribers. Following Elon Musk's recent announcement regarding the broader availability of the service to paid users, the company has outlined that only Premium and Premium+ subscribers will have the privilege of engaging with the chatbot in specific regions.

Palworld's new 0.2.0.6 patch is out right now, introducing the game's first Raid boss, and other features that are drawing huge praise from players.

Jeff Bezos, Nvidia Corp. and other big technology names are investing in a business that's developing human-like robots, according to people with knowledge of the situation, part of a scramble to find new applications for artificial intelligence.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Perplexity.AI has been challenging big tech companies like Google and Microsoft by offering a simple, yet amazingly effective, AI-powered search engine experience. And it has seen huge success too! A little over a year into its journey, this AI search engine has received a boost courtesy of $73.6 million in a series B funding round, bringing its total funding to $100 million. It plans to utilize the funding to enhance its AI-driven search engine capabilities. This AI startup, led by Indian-origin CEO Aravind Srinivas, has been impressing big names including NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos, Balaji Srinivasan, Guillermo Rauch, and others, who have all put their money into it. Know all about this Aravind Srinivas-led company.

In a recent announcement from Microsoft, it has been officially disclosed that Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) will be bidding farewell to the Xbox Game Pass on Friday, January 5. The renowned game, which made its Game Pass debut on July 5, 2023, will conclude its six-month stint as an available title for subscribers. Unlike typical Game Pass additions, GTA 5's inclusion had lacked the customary forewarning, surprising subscribers with its unannounced arrival. Furthermore, Rockstar titles, including GTA 5, have consistently departed on dates divergent from the usual 15th or last days of the month, setting them apart from the customary removal schedule of other Game Pass offerings.

Quordle 711 answer for January 5: Today's Quordle 711 shouldn't be a problem for most players, as the makers of the puzzle game have provided fairly straightforward answers. However, players are still advised to have a calm mind while solving Quordle and should exercise caution before making blind guesses as it can lead you to losing your winning streak.  So, if you encounter any difficulties along the way, we suggest refraining from spoiling your attempts. Instead, refer to the Quordle hints and clues provided below. Moreover, we have included the answers to today's puzzle at the bottom to make sure you save your winning streak. 

California-based startup Perplexity AI, just a year into its journey, has secured $73.6 million in a series B funding round, bringing its total funding to $100 million. The investment comes from IVP, NEA, Databricks, Nvidia, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Kindred Ventures, with notable tech figures like Jeff Bezos and Nat Friedman joining as backers. What sets Perplexity AI apart is its ambition to revolutionise knowledge discovery through the Perplexity AI-native search engine, challenging industry giants Google and Microsoft. The startup, valued at over $500 million, plans to utilise the funding to enhance its AI-driven search engine capabilities. Perplexity co-founder and CEO is the Aravind Srinivas.

Even as Google is waging its biggest to maintain its number one position in the web browsing market, it has been revealed that the company has introduced a new feature that will be very beneficial for its users - Google is blocking data tracking. According to reports, Google has blocked third-party cookies for various Chrome users which is used to monitor their online browsing behaviour. The number of users with blocked cookies is small and only includes only 1 percent of total Google Chrome browser users. However, this is nothing new as other browsers, including Apple and Mozilla already provide this cookie-killer feature to its users.

Tired of using Microsoft PowerPoint to prepare presentations and pitch decks? Worry not, because we have found just the right PowerPoint alternative tool for you called Pitch. The Pitch app was launched in 2020 with an aim to improve user experience in developing presentations, and so far, the app has gained huge popularity. Recently, it has also announced its artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives, and these have made it even more advanced in rolling out solutions for users. Now, you must be thinking about what sets Pitch apart from PowePoint? Well, we will check it out in detail here.

Artificial intelligence technology (AI) has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months, but so has the number of miscreants using it to defraud people. One of the most prominent dangers emerged recently has been deepfake videos. For the unaware, deepfakes are AI-generated videos, images, and audio that are edited or manipulated to make anyone say or do anything that they did not do in real life. Deepfake videos are mostly being used by cybercriminals for illegal purposes. While nations are drafting and amending IT regulations to deal with this threat, malicious threat actors are all out to carry out these illicit activities, and deepfakes have now entered the crypto world too! Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko recently became the latest victim of deepfakes in the crypto world. Know all about it.

Even though we're just 4 days into 2024, we've seen already seen several strong solar flares hurled out towards Earth, sparking a solar storm. On December 31, the Sun hurled out an X-class solar flare that hit Earth just a few days ago, and it is still causing radio blackouts in the polar regions. The Sun has been showing all its might for the past couple of months and as we approach the solar maximum that will likely occur in 2024-25, its wrath is only expected to increase. NASA has revealed that the effects of this rising solar activity are now being seen again as multiple sunspots possess energy for solar flares that can spark a solar storm. Know all about this upcoming solar storm today.

Garena Free Fire Redeem Codes for January 5: In November, the developers of Garena Free Fire rolled out the Evo Vault Luck Royale. It offered players an opportunity to get their hands on amazing items such as M4A1 Infernal Draco, M1014 Green Flame Draco, the Groza Bang!  Popblaster, and more. Now, another Evo Vault event has been introduced in Garena Free Fire, giving players another chance to grab amazing in-game items. It is important to note that most of the items only offer cosmetic tweaking, without any in-game advantage. Check out the details of the new Evo Vault event in Garena Free Fire.

NASA, with the help of its advanced space and ground-based telescopes, has recently tracked an asteroid that is set to pass Earth at very close quarters today, January 6, and the US space agency has shed light on details such as its speed, distance of approach, and more. Apart from posing a threat to Earth, asteroids can also provide valuable resources such as water, metals, and other minerals. In fact, it is surmised that water was brought to Earth by asteroids and comets over a period in excess of millions of years. Research on asteroids is critical since it can provide valuable information on the early stages of the solar system and planetary development. Know all about the asteroid that is set to pass Earth in the coming days.

Garena Free Fire MAX Redeem Codes for January 5: If you're a Garena Free Fire MAX player, then you must know that to get your hands on items such as skins, weapons, gloo walls, bundles, emotes, and more through the shop, diamonds play a crucial part. Unfortunately, diamonds are very rarely offered during regular gameplay, meaning that the only way to get them is by purchasing them. In the pursuit of diamonds, you can try various avenues. The in-game Top-Up Center caters to some players by offering several events called Top-Up events. Let us take a closer look.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024 is a great platform where top tech and gadget companies showcase their new or upcoming innovations and plans for the coming year. The event will be the first big technology showcase of the year that is being organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). During the showcase, Nvidia is expected to make big announcements about its AI initiatives along with the new GeForce RTX 40-series Super GPUs which is the most awaited highlight for the gaming industry. Know what Nvidia might reveal in the upcoming CES 2024 event.

 When the Vulcan rocket lifts off for the first time as soon as next week, multiple billionaires are sure to be watching. Built through a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the new vehicle is poised to take on Elon Musk's SpaceX and ferry satellites and cargo for the likes of the Pentagon, NASA, and even Amazon.com Inc.

Technological innovation in the last couple of decades has brought fame and huge wealth to the likes of Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. Often feted as geniuses, they are the faces behind the gadgets and media that so many of us depend upon. Sometimes they are controversial. Sometimes the level of their influence is criticised. But they also benefit from a common mythology which elevates their status. That myth is the belief that executive “visionaries” leading vast corporations are the engines which power essential breakthroughs too ambitious or futuristic for sluggish public institutions.

It was a comeback year for the world's wealthiest. The combined net worth of the 500 richest people surged by $1.5 trillion in 2023, fully rebounding from the $1.4 trillion lost the year prior, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Once again, their fortunes were closely correlated to the performance of tech stocks, which rose to fresh records this year despite recession fears, lingering inflation, lofty interest rates, and geopolitical turmoil. Tech billionaires saw their wealth grow by 48% or $658 billion, propelled by intense hype around artificial intelligence. No one did better than Elon Musk, who recaptured the title of world's richest person from French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault. The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer netted an additional $95.4 billion through Thursday's close, bolstered by the success of Tesla and SpaceX, after losing $138 billion in 2022. His net worth is now more than $50 billion above Arnault's after a global slowdown in demand for luxury goods dented shares of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE.

Blue Origin LLC's space tourism rocket voyaged to space and back for the first time in 15 months, potentially marking the resumption of regular flights for the Jeff Bezos-founded company following an in-flight failure last year. 

For a harrowing hour or two after Amazon.com Inc. launched its first satellites, it appeared the company might have lost one of them. The two prototypes had entered orbit over the Atlantic Ocean at 2:24 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 6. An Amazon antenna on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius made contact with both, but during a subsequent handoff to another station, only one vehicle checked in. Amazon scanned the sky behind the first satellite for a signal from the second one but heard silence. 

The American company Blue Origin plans to launch its rocketv Big Shepard Monday for the first time since an accident more than a year ago, as the firm founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos heads back into space. The launch window from the pad in west Texas opens at 8:30 am local time (14H30 GMT), said Blue Origin, which plans to live stream the event.

It's a sweet deal.

 Amazon.com Inc. has signed a contract with rival SpaceX for three launches of Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket, grabbing additional capacity to loft the company's internet-from-space satellites into orbit.

India's space agency ISRO is exploring joint collaborations with Boeing Co., Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin LLC and Voyager Space Holdings Inc., as an official visit by the head of NASA highlights the growing level of cooperation between the US and India in outer space. 

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Commercial space tech is still a relatively new field. Before the turn of the century, space exploration and technology development were only handled by government-funded space agencies, such as NASA, ROSCOSMOS, JAXA, and ISRO, that worked to use the knowledge from various missions to help their respective nations. It was only after the entry of Elon Musk's SpaceX, Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin and Richard Branson led Virgin Galactic, that people began looking at space tech as an entrepreneurial venture. However, even in 2023, a lot of its potential still remains to be uncovered. Case in point — Sierra Space's Tenacity, the company's first Dream Chaser spaceplane, which will used to resupply the International Space Station (ISS)

Baby Bezos

 Amazon.com Inc. doubled the number of junk ads to boost profits and deleted internal communications to thwart a federal antitrust probe, according to fresh details released by the US Federal Trade Commission in a less redacted complaint against the online retail giant Thursday. 

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is showing off a full-sized mockup of an unscrewed version of its Blue Moon lunar lander.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has announced a new spacecraft that promises to help humanity build and maintain projects in outer space. 

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

There might not have been any battle of the brawn between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, but when it comes to a battle of the brains, the Meta CEO has won out—at least according to a study from online tutoring firm Preply. 

The Pod Generation is an aesthetic in search of an idea.

It is generally a bad sign when a TV show or film franchise that has heretofore shown a complete lack of interest in space suddenly decides to go to space. This is one of the first things they teach you in screenwriting school, right after “enter late, leave early” and just before “you can always fix it in post, it’s no big deal.” It has been a little while since I was in school, but I’m pretty sure it was Dalton Trumbo himself that said, “Going to space will change the hierarchy of power in your story’s universe, and look at how well that worked for Black Adam or F9.” Space — it’s a bad idea! Unless you are The Morning Show. Then it’s when things really start to get good.

The delays facing Amazon’s satellite internet system, Project Kuiper, has prompted a group of shareholders to sue the company for allegedly snubbing SpaceX as a launch provider.

An undergraduate engineering degree costs a lot of money: about $44,072 for a state school, $144,524 for a private one. To recoup that cash, you’re going to want to attend one of the schools whose graduates earn the most. 

Bethesda has been working on Starfield for more than a decade, so that's a lot of time spent thinking about space. It's, therefore, no surprise that game director Todd Howard has thought about going to space himself - and was actually invited to make this a reality.

Brain implants have long been trapped in the realm of science fiction, but a steady trickle of medical trials suggests the tiny devices could play a big part in humanity's future.

The optimal time to have abandoned the idea of a cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg would have been the very moment it was first suggested. The second best time is right now.

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. carried its first private tourists to the edge of space, a long-awaited milestone in founder Richard Branson's quest to build a “spaceline for Earth.”

Several of Amazon's in-house brands are going away as the company ditches them in an effort to cut costs and protect itself against antitrust scrutiny.

U.S. space venture company Voyager Space and Airbus said on Wednesday they will co-operate more closely in the race to build a private version of the International Space Station.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is finalizing its long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in a move that could ultimately break up parts of the company, Politico reported on Tuesday.

Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff has become something of a vanishing breed during the nearly quarter century he has been running the company that pioneered the concept of selling software as an online subscription. While Benioff remains in charge at Salesforce, other billionaire founder/CEOs such Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Google's Larry Page and Netflix's Reed Hastings have all stepped away from groundbreaking companies born during the 1990s.

Amazon said on Friday it will invest $120 million to build a satellite construction facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, as part of its plans to launch a space internet service to rival SpaceX's Starlink.