Apple may be making some major changes to next year’s iPhones. At the top of the list…adding a 2nd camera to the poor-selling iPhone Air. 9to5mac.com reports that the new model may be delayed until Spring 2027 in order to redesign and add a second camera. The other big change to the line will be adding the new iPhone Fold…or whatever they end up calling it. Right now, it looks like the Fall 2026 rollout will only include the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, and Fold. The base iPhone 18 may be joining the Air in a Spring rollout.
In a big move in the AI world, SoftBank has sold its entire stake in Nvidia for $5.83 billion. According to cnbc.com, the company is going ‘all in’ on its stake in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. SoftBank said in a statement this wan’t a knock on Nvidia, of which they were an early backer, but that they needed some $30 billion in capital as they continue to pump money into ChatGPT and other investments. OpenAI is now showing up as worth some $500 billion…while Nvidia is a leader in the trillion dollar valuation club.
Meta has paid astronomical amounts to steal AI experts from other companies, but now their top AI scientist is bailing…to found his own startup. Gizomodo.com notes that Yan LeCun is in talks to raise capital. Meta, like Apple, is admittedly running behind leaders like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic in the AI race. Meta has taken out some $27 billion in loans to pour into their AI race.
Sony has announced that they have now sold 84.2 million PlayStation 5s since it was introduced. Engadget.com says that they actually sold more PS5s last quarter than a year ago…3.9 million compared to 3.8 million. The company is still concerned due to the flaky tariff regime of the Trump administration and also the delay of Grand Theft Auto VI. That said, Sony now predicts they will make $29 billion in gaming revenue for the full year ending March 31, 2026.
Satellite features have been pretty limited on phones to now. Apple’s iPhones have really only been able to send a call for emergency help or send messages via satellite when a cellular connection is unavailable….like at the beach, or hiking in the woods. Now, engadget.com reports that Mark Gurman says Apple is planning on adding to their satellite feature offerings. Personally, I’m betting this is ahead of making satellite connection a paid monthly charge, adding to Apple’s quiver of monthly charges that give them a nice cash flow! Right now, you can send and receive texts via the Messages app over satellite when you are out in the boonies. Now Apple is looking to let you send photos, too. They are also aiming to enable 5G NTN support. That allows cell towers to get a coverage boost by tapping into satellites. For anyone who needs directions in a remote area without a cellular or Wi-Fi connection, Apple reportedly has plans to introduce satellite connectivity to Apple Maps. Boy, I could have used that a few times! In a really cool possible upgrade, Apple is working on ‘natural usage.’ That would mean you won’t have to hold the phone up and point it towards a spot in the sky to connect to a satellite. They are working to make it possible to stay connected even without a clear view of the sky or indoors. All this could be a couple years away…and some features no doubt will be needing the latest greatest iPhone hardware. As a friend of mine frequently says, ‘That’s how they getcha!’
It has reportedly been patched as of last April, but for over a year, a very sophisticated spyware called ‘Landfall’ was making the rounds on Samsung Galaxy phones. According to arstechnica.com, it was one of those nasty ‘zero-click’ hacks, which can get into your phone without your direct involvement. The spyware was picked up by Researchers at Unit 42, the intelligence arm of Palo Alto Networks. They only found it because of a couple of similar bugs found in Apple’s iOS and on WhatsApp. The hack involved images. The attackers used modified DNG files, which are a modified type of file based on the TIFF format. They imbedded ZIP archives with the bad programs in them. The hack basically gave the bad actors pretty complete access to user information on the phones. It is pretty tough to remove, too. The good news…the hack was mainly confined to Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Morocco. If you didn’t travel to those countries, you are probably fine, but these zero-click hacks are pretty scary.
Lately, there has been a pretty substantial number of layoffs across industry. A good deal of them have been blamed…at least partially, on AI. As it turns out, that isn’t exactly accurate. AI itself isn’t replacing jobs, so much as spending on AI. Fastcompany.com notes that an MIT Media Lab study has found that 95% of generative AI pilot business projects were failing. Another survey by Atlassian concluded that 96% of businesses “have not seen dramatic improvements in organizational efficiency, innovation, or work quality.” Still another study found that 40% of the business people surveyed have received “AI slop” at work in the last month and that it takes nearly two hours, on average, to fix each instance of slop. In addition, they “no longer trust their AI-enabled peers, find them less creative, and find them less intelligent or capable.” What IS sucking up money that had been going to salaries is the massive amount of money being poured into spending on AI infrastructure. Just Amazon…which chopped some 14,000 last month with another 14,000 jobs to go in January…has increased capital spending from $54 billion in 2023 to $118 billion in 2025! Meta is working to lock up at $27 billion credit line to build data centers. Oracle will borrow $25 billion a year the next few years to cover its AI contracts. Financial stress…especially in the tech sector makes the C Suite folks look for some easy cuts…it’s always headcount…the employees that take it in the tail.
A bit more AI-related news. Attorneys have been using AI to more quickly turn out legal briefs, and the stories continue to come out about those who aren’t double checking the work of the AI bots, and ending up with the likes of fake case citations. Gizomdo.com reports that more courts are levying fines or the like. Now, some lawyers have started a tracking system to compile information on cases involving AI misuse. A French attorney is presently in the forefront of this with a website…Damien Charlotin has listed some 509 cases so far. At this point, sadly, no bar association has meted out any punishment for the sloppy briefs, only some courts.
Japan’s Softbank shares were down 10% on Wednesday, which was a loss of $23 billion in market capitalization. Cnbc.com reports most of the drop was due to investor worry about what most observers are calling the AI bubble. Billions have been pumped into AI, but at this point, no one is making any kind of real money from it. Softbank has a controlling stake in ARM Holdings, which designs mobile processors and AI processors. Softbank also has money in OpenAI, and a few other AI application level startups. Other Asian stocks are also down, including Samsung Electronics, which was down 4.1% and Taiwan’s TSMC, the biggest contract chip maker on earth, was down 2.99%. The declines come after U.S. software company Palantir dropped about 8% overnight, even after topping expectations for the third quarter. Some analysts say valuations of AI companies increasingly resemble the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, with share prices soaring far ahead of credible profit expectations. Hey, my son and I have been saying this for over a year, and we aren’t even analysts!
Yet another speed bump in Elon Musk’s quest for his trillion dollar, 10 year pay package from Tesla. Just ahead of the shareholder vote tomorrow, too. According to arstechnica.com, new car registrations in Europe show Tesla sales down anywhere from 89% in Sweden to 34% in Spain. France was the outlier…Tesla sales were up 2% year over year there. In China, sales were down 9.9% in October, year over year. Anti-Musk sentiment aside, there is now a much wider selection of electric vehicles from a number of manufacturers. Tesla’s line is pretty stale, with the sales-leading Models 3 and Y barely getting a facelift…a slight change in the rear, and light bar in the front like the Cyber Truck. Over the weekend, Musk teased on a major podcast that a much delayed roadster was coming, and said it would have cool features like every James Bond car ever, and might even fly. It may be that HE was flying a bit on that one…heavy batteries have made electric planes a tall order, and his roadster will be no different.
Cloud streaming is officially rolling out to Playstation Portal. There has been a beta running of it since last year. Theverge.com notes that Premium Plus members will be able to stream select titles from their own library without the need to connect to their PS5 console. The device also has a newly updated menu, with three tabs to swipe through for Remote Play from your PS5, cloud streaming, or search. Over 2,000 games are available for cloud streaming at launch. As with so much on the web, the update is a rolling one, so expect it to take a few weeks to get to everyone.
Google is now including Gemini in Google Maps for both Android and iOS. Zdnet.com says the update is rolling out this month, and with it updated, you can use Talk to Google Maps to find your destination. You can also use Lens to learn more about your present location. You could ask if there is a steak house nearby that doesn’t require reservations, for example. With directions, instead of ‘turn right in 300 feet,’ you can hear ‘turn right after the Starbucks on the corner.’ With Lens, you can ask in a conversational manner for Maps to tell you more about a place like a restaurant…like if the food is worth a few minutes of wait time, or if it is noisy.
Samsung is expected to goose prices on the Galaxy S26 models. Bgr.com reports that no exact money amount has been leaked, but with suppliers struggling to crank out memory and storage chips due to AI, it is looking more and more likely. Samsung upped prices in 2024 by $100. Apple effectively did this with its iPhone line…although Apple just quietly dropped lower memory options, which was an effective price hike…but needed, since the cheaper phones wouldn’t run their AI backed systems. With mobile chip prices up about 12% year over year, and camera modules up 7%, some sort of increase seems highly likely. Since they raised last year by $100, maybe we will see something like just a $49 increase if you preorder. We should know something before the end of the year.
A contingent of users of Windows, led by gamers, is not happy with a lot of Windows 11 features…Copilot for one, but especially the intrusive Recall feature that saves screenshots of everything you do. Some users have bailed for Linux, but a lot of people don’t have the tech knowhow or inclination for that. With the possibility of Windows 12 being subscription based, even more folks will be unhappy. There’s always Chromebook…and now, another option may be coming for those that want to ditch Windows. According to macrumors.com, Apple may launch a budget MacBook in the first half of 2026. A Bloomberg report has it coming in at ‘well under $1,000,’ which puts it in direct competition with reasonably priced Windows and Chromebook laptops. Right now, the cheapest Mac is $999, with $100 off for educational buyers. You can always get a Mac Mini for $599…but have to tack on a monitor, keyboard, and mouse…so no bargain there. The cheaper MacBook will allegedly have a 13 inch display and an A series iPhone processor instead of the beefier Mac processor….probably the A18 that came out in the iPhone 16 Pro. Bright colors are forecast like with an iMac…Silver, Blue, Pink, and Yellow. If they are able to do it for…say, $600, it might be a really big hit for Apple.
Android is finally getting OpenAI’s video app, Sora. Theverge.com notes that this will let users on Android create, share, and remix AI generated videos. You can download it from the Google Play Store now. The app has been out since September on Apple’s iOS. The app has gotten flack for its approach to deepfakes and copyright protections. OpenAI had to reverse its opt-out policy for rights holders and go to opt-in. OpenAI has also introduced the ability to create “character cameos” with reusable avatars, and eventually plans to give rightsholders the ability to “charge extra for cameos of beloved characters and people.”
Norway’s wealth fund has given a ‘thumbs down’ to Elon Musk’s trillion dollar pay package. TechCrunch.com says that at a bit over 1% of Tesla stock, this alone may nt be enough to defeat the proposal, but it will add to the recommendations of ISS and Glass Lewis that have recommended votings against the ludicrous package. Musk insists the compensation isn’t so much about money as control. Tesla doesn’t throw off near the profit to cover this kind of pay over a 10 year period, and Elon’s promise of robots and an upcoming ‘flying electric car’ hasn’t really moved anyone to throw strong support towards making him the first ‘Trillion Dollar Baby.’
OpenAI has made a deal for some $38 billion for AI training with Amazon. Theverge.com reports that Amazon Web Services that will give the AI giant access to “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia GPUs to power its AI models. The seven-year partnership comes as Microsoft continues to loosen its grip on OpenAI, dropping its status as its exclusive cloud provider and losing the first right of refusal to host its AI workloads. In a press release, OpenAI said it will “immediately” start using AWS compute to train its AI models, with “all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, and the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.”
The CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, has come out and said what a lot of us have believed to be true….that only biological beings are capable of consciousness, and that developers and researchers should stop pursuing projects that suggest otherwise. According to CNBC.com, he told a conference in Houston, “If you ask the wrong question, you end up with the wrong answer. I think it’s totally the wrong question.” Suleyman says it is particularly important to draw a clear contrast between AI getting smarter and more capable versus its ability to ever have human emotions. “Quite simply, we’re creating AIs that are always working in service of the human,” he said.
Apple has of late being using ChatGPT to answer more detailed queries that Siri gets, buy handing off to the large language model…but first asking you if it is ok if your prompt leaves the Apple private server system. Now, a change is afoot. 9to5mac.com picked up a report from Mark Gurman that says starting this spring, Apple will use a bulked up version of Siri, backed by Google Gemini models. Here’s the difference, though. The Gemini models will run on Apple’s private servers, giving the user much more privacy than with the old system. The new Siri setup will have three distinct components; a query planner, a knowledge search system, and a summarizer. Google Gemini models will run on Apple’s servers and provide planner and summarizer capabilities. It should be able to do much more personalized questions, like ‘What was that book Mom recommended?’ This setup is similar to what Samsung does with its Galaxy phones. Many Galaxy AI features are really Google Gemini with a light Samsung coat of paint on them.
With the continuing issues around plastic pollution, here’s a bit of a ray of sunshine…A neural network has found an enzyme that can break down polyurethane. Arstechnica.com notes that the plastic is often found in the soles of shoes…which get thrown out when worn and the plastic remains for the ages. The enzyme can break the plastic down into useable chemicals within 12 hours! The new enzyme is compatible with an industrial-style recycling process that breaks the polymer down into its basic building blocks, which can be used to form fresh polyurethane. This may help reduce the some 22 million metric tons of polyurethane that was made in just 2024!
No more than a day after I reported about Apple getting into the $4 trillion valuation club, and mentioned that Nvidia was the first member of that elite group…things have changed. Cnbc.com reports that Nvidia has just pierced the $5 trillion valuation mark. The stock was up 3% Wednesday, which gets them across the line. The latest move higher comes shortly after CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia expects $500 billion in AI chip orders and announced plans to build seven new supercomputers for the U.S. government. The stock price, which closed up 5% in the previous session, has climbed nearly 50% year-to-date.
I am pretty happy with my ‘dumb’ fridge, and have friends and neighbors that are as well. Meanwhile, appliance makers are forging ahead with more ‘smart’ refrigerators…and now comes the inevitable…Samsung has fridges with integrated displays. If you guessed that they are going to start serving ads on the displays, you aced the test! According to macrumors.com, Family Hub refrigerators in the US are getting a widget that shows ads. Samsung is calling it a ‘pilot program,’ and says the promotions and curated advertisements will be ‘offered’ to some fridge owners. Family Hub refrigerators start at $1899, but go up to $3499. They come with 21.5 and 32 inch screens….hey, that’s bigger than my monitor I use with the computer I do these videos on! The initial ads will just be for Samsung products. The ads are opt out…but you know a lot of people won’t be able to figure out how to do that, or won’t take time to try. Oh, boy. I’ll be keeping my old, dumb fridge for a while longer!
This is a big non-newsy story. It finally happened, but the battle over it has been going on for over a year. OpenAI has finally announced that it completed its recapitalization, and is becoming a for-profit corporation. Gizmodo notes that this is in spite of one of the company’s co-founders, Elon Musk. Of course, Musk has his Grok, integrated with the X platform that is AI and definitely not non-profit! Back to OpenAI…the new structure will have 2 separate entities….the OpenAI foundation, which will remain a nonprofit and which will have partial control over OpenAI Group, which is the new ‘public benefit’ corporation. Under the new structure, OpenAI Group will be able to do things that a for-profit entity can (and a non-profit can’t), like raise more money and acquire companies. It will also get its own board of directors, which the Foundation will appoint. OpenAI Foundation will own 26% of the now for-profit OpenAI Group, valued at around $130 billion, and will continue to be granted shares of the company as it grows. Microsoft will hold a 27% stake in the for-profit arm, which is currently valued at about $135 billion. Microsoft also announced that, as a part of this shift, it will continue to hold intellectual property rights to OpenAI models and future products through 2032. The remaining 47% of the company’s stock will be held by other investors and the employees of OpenAI Group.
In an announcement that was a bit light on details, Westinghouse announced it has a deal with the Trump administration to build $80 billion worth of new nuclear reactors for power generation. Arstechnica.com reports that the government has also indicated it has finalized plans with GE Vernova and Hitachi to build the reactors. During Trump’s Japan visit, it was announced that “Japan and various Japanese companies” would invest “up to” $332 billion for energy infrastructure. This specifically mentioned Westinghouse, GE Vernova, and Hitachi. Westinghouse claims the $80 million will be enough to build out 8 reactors, but it is only enough for 5 larger sized reactors. The deal mentions some smaller modular reactors, but right now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hasn’t approved that type of reactor.
Amazon is getting ready to lay off up to 30,000 corporate employees. Geekwire.com reports that the reduction is to reduce expenses, and it is intended to compensate for what Amazon terms overhiring during the pandemic. Emails are going out today. The company hasn’t put out a workforce number lately, but had about 350,000 employees in early 2023. At that number, this cut would be about 8.5% of the workforce. The cuts will be across logistics, payments, video games, and Amazon Web Services.
As the tech sector continues to dominate much of the financial markets, two tech titans have passed another milestone…one that is hard to wrap your head around. According to techcrunch.com, both Apple and Microsoft are now worth over $4 trillion bucks. It’s the first time Apple has surpassed the $4 trillion mark. Microsoft did it in July, then dropped a bit…but is now over $4 trillion.The only other company that is worth that much right now is Nvidia…but Alphabet…the parent company of Google, is getting a bit close. It is at $3.25 billion. Wouldn’t you love to have the interest on that amount of money for just a few minutes? An hour at 4.26% interest would add up to $19.4 million!
Along with a number of other right-leaning folks, Elon Musk has railed against Wikipedia as being too liberal and too ‘woke.’ Now, he’s unveiled Grokipedia. Gizmodo.com notes that it looks like Wikipedia with dark mode turned on. The site claims to have just under 900,000 articles. Wikipedia, on the other hand, has about 7 million English articles. A quick take: Overall, Grokipedia gives off the impression of a site where topics and people that Elon Musk likes or supports are presented without framings that cast any doubt on their validity, and those he dislikes are presented with criticism front-and-center. If that’s your cup of tea, have at Grockipedia.
The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration is looking into Tesla’s Full Self Driving Mad Max mode. Engadget.com reports that Tesla says it offers “higher speeds and more frequent lane changes” than its Hurry speed profile. Apparently, it is a little too much like Mad Max…reports have it speeding, running red lights, and driving against the flow of traffic. Tesla has given the disparaging description ‘Sloth Mode’ to the regular, no hurry, follow the speed limit mode.
Australia has sued Microsoft over AI linked subscription price increases. Reuters.com reports that the suit claims that Microsoft has mislead millions of users into paying more of its Microsoft 365 product after bundling it with AI tool Copilot. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says about 2.7 million users were affected, as they were led to believe they had to move to higher priced Microsoft 365 personal and family plans that included Copilot. The price increase with Copilot per year was a fat 45% more for the personal plan and 29% for the family plan. According to the suit, Microsoft didn’t clearly explain that people could use the cheaper ‘classic’ plan that omitted Copilot. A Microsoft spokesperson says they are reviewing the legal action.
A number of new features are out with the October update to Google’s Gemini. According to bgr.com, you will now be able to create presentations with the AI chatbot. Essentially, you will be able to drop any source into Gemini, and it will use that to create slides for a presentation. If you aren’t satisfied with the output, you can export them to Google Slides, and then edit and refine the idea further.
A number of state driver licenses can be saved in the iPhone Wallet, and can be used for some things…not for police stops, though. Now, Apple is going to add a digital version of your passport to the Wallet. Apple VP of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet Jennifer Bailey said the update will be coming later this year. She didn’t specify if it would be with an iOS update or just something Apple will do server side. You will be able to show the digital passport to the TSA in select US airports if you are flying domestically. If you are going to fly internationally or cross a border, you will still need a physical passport. You will also be able to use the Digital ID for age and identity verification in apps, online, and in stores.
Workers with expense reimbursement are getting crafty. Some are using image-generating AI to fake expense reports! Financialtimes.com reports that models from both OpenAI and Google are cranking out the fakes. Software provider AppZen says fake expense reports added up to about 14% of those submitted in September…that compares with none last year. The realistic fakes sometimes even have wrinkles in the paper, a coffee stain, detailed itemization, and even signatures! Some systems can detect metadata and toss the fakes, but savvy employees can easily remove that info. No Photoshop skills are needed, just write a prompt. This is going to be a serious issue for companies starting now.
While Apple never planned on the Vision Pro headset being a mass consumer item, Samsung may have other ideas. The Galaxy XR is Samsung’s answer to the Vision Pro, at a much more marketable $1800..about half the price of Apple’s offering. The Samsung headset runs Google’s new Android XR platform, and heavily emphasizes AI and Gemini based voice controls. It actually looks much the same as Apple’s Vision Pro, dow to the connector wire to its external clip-on battery pack. One big difference…the Galaxy XR doesn’t have an outward facing display, so you won’t be able to project your face onto the outside of the headset…which is a bit creepy anyway. The Galaxy is not only less money, it’s lighter, coming in at 1.2 lbs, compared to the new M5 Vision Pro at 1.6 lbs. The Galaxy XR is available now at samsung.com for $1800.00.
OpenAI has released the MacOS version of its new Atlas web browser. According to arstechnica.com, the browser includes Agent Mode preview to ‘use the internet for you.’ OpenAI is hoping the Atlas browser will be as big as success for them as Chrome was for Google. The Atlas browser will let users ‘chat with a page,’ helping ChatGPT become a core way that users interact with the place ‘where a ton of work and life happens,’—online. At least that is the vision of CEO Sam Altman. A Windows and mobile version are due to come out quote ‘as quick as we can.’
General Motors CEO Mary Barra was at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference, and said that the General is targeting a suite of new software initiatives for its vehicles over the next three years, including an in-vehicle artificial intelligence assistant from Google and a driver-assistance system that can largely control the vehicle without human interaction or monitoring. CNBC.com notes that the CEO said conversational Google Gemini AI will begin launching in its vehicles next year, followed by the new driver-assistance system, which will allow drivers to be hands-free and take their eyes off the road under certain circumstances, in 2028. Remember the old slogan about driving ‘Watch Out for the Other Guy?’ Well now, you’re going to have to watch out for the other vehicle…the other guy might be literally asleep at the wheel in 2028!
Many in the entertainment industry are skeptical about using generative AI in filmmaking, but not Netflix. Techcrunch.com reports that while Netflix isn’t planning to use generative AI as the backbone of its content but believes the technology has potential as a tool to make creatives more efficient. CEO Ted Sarandos said in an earnings call “It takes a great artist to make something great.” He did say quote “We’re confident that AI is going to help us and help our creative partners tell stories better, faster, and in new ways. We’re all in on that, but we’re not chasing novelty for novelty’s sake here.”
YouTube’s likeness detection tech has officially rolled out to eligible creators in the YouTube Partner Program, after a pilot run. Techcrunch.com reports that the tech identifies and manages AI-generated content featuring the likeness of creators, such as their face and voice. It is designed to prevent people from having their likeness misused, whether for endorsing products and services they have not agreed to support or for spreading misinformation. There have been plenty of examples of AI likeness misuse in recent years. On its Creator Insider channel, the company provided instructions on how creators can use the technology. Creators can make a removal request or a copyright request. Creators can also opt out of the tech if they want to.
A judge has ordered Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify at the first trial about the adverse effects of social media on younger users. According to CNBC.com, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Instagram’s Adam Mosseri will also have to testify at the trial slated to start in January. It is alleged that social media companies failed to warn users of features created to ‘be addictive’ and ‘drive compulsive’ behaviors in minors. Meta has moved to stop Zuckerberg and Mosseri from testifiying, and Snap argues that Spiegel testifying would be an ‘abuse of discretion.’
The saga of Amazon Web Services’ huge outage Monday continues. Arstechnica.com notes that it was the biggest outage since last year’s CrowdStrike event. More than 28 AWS services were disrupted, possibly causing billions in damages. Snapchat, Signal, and Reddit went dark. Flights got delayed. Banks and financial services went down. Massive games like Fortnite could not be accessed. Some of Amazon’s own services were hit, too, including its e-commerce platform, Alexa, and Prime Video. Ultimately, millions of businesses simply stopped operating, unable to log employees into their systems or accept payments for their goods. “The incident highlights the complexity and fragility of the Internet, as well as how much every aspect of our work depends on the Internet to work,” Mehdi Daoudi, the CEO of an Internet performance monitoring firm called Catchpoint, told CNN. “The financial impact of this outage will easily reach into the hundreds of billions due to loss in productivity for millions of workers that cannot do their job, plus business operations that are stopped or delayed—from airlines to factories.”
In other Amazon news, Amazon is planning to sell twice as many products by 2033…but the some half million humans that would require may be out of luck. The online giant intends to scale up its robotics operations, and would thereby avoid hiring some 600,000 people! Engadget.com reports that the huge robotics department at Amazon would help it automate 75% of all operations. That will save them a whopping 30 cents on each item packed and delivered to consumers. Ok, to be fair, that 30 cents for all those items does add up to real money. In the short run, Amazon plans to hire 250,000 people for this holiday season.
Clark Reid Tech Report 