Saturday, November 30, 2019

The transition to leadership

The flawed theory is that A+ students become good leaders.

There’s no reason to think that this should be true.

Doing well on tests, paying attention to what’s being asked, being diligent in short-term error correction–these are three hallmarks of someone who is good at school.

None of these are important once you’re charged with charting a new path, with figuring out what to do next. In fact, they get in the way.

We invented the educational regime to produce compliant factory workers. But the most compliant aren’t always suited to be the bravest, the most empathic or the most intuitive.

       


from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/610534314/0/sethsblog~The-transition-to-leadership/

Friday, November 29, 2019

Book list, Fall 2019

Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey

Beginner’s Pluck by Liz Forkin Bohannon

Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday

Change the World by Jacqueline Novogratz

The Power Broker (audio) by Robert Caro

Ignore Your Customers and They’ll Go Away by Micah Solomon

Super Thinking by Weinberg and McCann

The Diversity Bonus by Scott Page

Living Bread by Daniel Leader

Poilane by Apollonia Poilane

A Culture of Fact by Barbara Shapiro

The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato

She Came to Slay by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

 

NEW! A one-click way to add a whole bunch of books to your Amazon cart at once. To add 17 of my books to your Amazon cart with just one click, simply click here.

And here’s a one-click way to fill your cart with books for kids, the best gift I know for the new parent who has everything but sleep.

And here’s a link to Reedsy’s spreadsheet if you want to build your own. Be sure to make a copy of the sheet, as you can’t change that one. HT.

       


from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/610450298/0/sethsblog~Book-list-Fall/

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Better/worse

When things get difficult, is your instinct to invest the effort to make it better, or to set a trap so it all gets worse?

Because if things get worse, well, then you won’t have to deal with them much longer.

And if things get worse, then you’re off the hook.

No longer your problem.

If we don’t trust ourselves with making it better, if it’s too fraught with risk or emotionally painful, it might feel easier and simpler to simply make it worse and walk away.

Investing in a system, a place, a relationship, a project–that’s a commitment. It puts you even more on the hook. That person who is right in front of you becomes more real and the problem becomes even more urgent.

And it might even be worth it.

 

[Grateful for you and for everything you do to make things better. Thank you.]

       


from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/610391308/0/sethsblog~Betterworse/

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Alexa is about to be very disappointed

A general lack of judgement has always been one of the strongest appeals of smart assistants. Whatever bad pop song or terrible online video you play for the 10,000th time — they don’t care. They’re simply there to help, judgement free.

Amazon, however, has been working on some features behind the scenes to help make Alexa more lifelike. Those involve bringing more emotional resonance to the smart assistant — namely the ability to make it voice sound varying levels of excited and disappointed.

“Alexa emotions” feature three levels of intensity. For the full effect, here’s “I just listened to the Smiths and then Googled what Morrissey has been up to lately” mode:

We all get down around the holidays, Alexa. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about here? Amazon says users are feeling the newly empathetic assistant. “ Early customer feedback indicates that overall satisfaction with the voice experience increased by 30% when Alexa responded with emotions,” it writes in a post.

The feature is available to developers starting today, primarily focused on gaming skills. That means they’ll probably start rolling out to applications in the near future. No word on whether it’s possible to set those flash news briefings to perpetual disappointment.

The company is also rolling out a content-tailored delivery, design to give Alexa a style more akin to a news anchor or radio host.



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/27/alexa-is-about-to-be-very-disappointed/

Louis Bacon’s sunset ride may foretell ‘mechanized future’ of data-driven investing

The legendary Moore Capital is closing. Its founder, Louis Bacon, is reported to be riding off into the sunset.

His name was often mentioned in the same breath as George Soros, Stan Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones. Like them, over his three-decade career he helped build hedge funds’ reputation for placing big bets on big world events — profiting from predictions of war and economic meltdown. He has been described as one of the best foreign exchange traders ever. Bacon earned outsized returns from bets that stocks would plummet and oil would spike if Iraq invaded Kuwait and pulled the U.S. into war in the 1990s, which they did. He was managing $14 billion at his height, but his returns haven’t had the shine they used to.

It’s the latest in series of money manager giants taking their leave, including Leon Cooperman and Jeffrey Vinik. One imagines them joining Tom Cruise in the 2003 movie “The Last Samurai,” galloping at full tilt, swords drawn, representing the last vestige of their chivalrous time crashing against the mechanized future. 

In the movie, the mechanized future was represented by Gatling guns mowing down the warriors of old. On Wall Street, it’s quants, their data operations and passive management versus active. Think Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies taking all emotion out of investing, dismissing “stories” about a stock as distraction, and becoming known as one of the greatest investor of all time.

The truth of what’s going on is something different.



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/27/louis-bacons-sunset-ride-may-foretell-mechanized-future-of-data-driven-investing/

Trouva, an online marketplace for independent boutiques, raises $22M

Amazon helped pioneer and now dominates the online marketplace business model, where a variety of merchants post items for sale on its platform for billions of consumers to discover and buy them. Today, a London startup that’s taken that idea but is applying it to a far more curated set of retailers and goods has raised some money to fuel its international growth.

Trouva, which provides an online marketplace for brick-and-mortar independent boutiques selling “beautiful” and hard-to-find pieces — think Farfetch but less fancy and less high-end design — has raised £17 million ($21.8 million) in funding, money that it will be using to expand outside of the UK on the back of a strong launch in its Berlin last year, as well as to continue building out more technology on its platform, specifically around inventory and logistics management.

The funding is being led by Octopus Ventures, C4 Ventures (the venture firm launched by Apple vet Pascal Cagni) and Downing Ventures. BGF and LocalGlobe were also in the round, which brings the total raised to about $36 million. Mandeep Singh, who co-founded the company with Alex Loizou and Glen Walker, said in an interview that the startup is not disclosing valuation. 

Amazon may dominate our consciousness (and for some of us, our wallets, with its sticky Prime perks) when it comes to browsing for a variety of goods online, buying them, and getting them delivered to us in an efficient way.

But the Amazon way leaves a lot out of the proposition: for retailers it doesn’t give them a lot of leeway in how they present items, and they have to compete with many thousands of other offers (including Amazon itself) to get their products seen.

More generally for both sellers and buyers, the ethos of the platform is that of an “everything” store with little in the way of focus or curation: you can watch movies or listen to music, or you can buy an HDMI cable, or you can buy food, or you can buy a book, or you can buy a vase… and so on. That in a way makes it more of a functional rather than pleasurable experience.

This opens the door to a multitude of different competitors, and there is where Trouva has stepped in. Where Amazon gives us the promise of everything, the smaller startup has effectively incorporated scarcity into its DNA.

“We are very picky,” Singh said. “We have to turn down the majority of applications from stores that want to sell on our site. We are looking for the very best curators. Having every single vase in the world is less important than having the best one, curated by an expert.”

While we are continuing to see a surge of purchasing via the web and apps — a trend that will get played out during holiday shopping in the weeks ahead — analysts estimate that some 85% of retail is still happening offline.

Within that group there is an interesting core of brick-and-mortar independent shops: At a time when large chains and the likes of Amazon are shifting the sands for how people sell things — and certainly how people shop — there remains a large group of independent retailers — “curators,” as Singh describes them. These shops target consumers with disposable income, people who are looking for more unique things to buy with their money.

The challenge of the ‘High Street’

Independent stores are often under threat in cities like London. First, they pop up in areas where rents are not as high, with like-minded people congregating to live in the same neighborhoods for the same reason. There, they sell a small selection of not-cheap clothes, interesting home goods, a variety of tchotchkes, or quirky gifts and develop a local following.

But their emergence can also often signal wider tides of gentrification. Ultimately, that shift is what moves those stores out as the rents subsequently go up, and bigger chains and fancy boutiques move in. (SoHo in NYC is another classic victim of this trend.)

Be that as it may, Singh notes that there are still more than 20,000 independent shops in the UK. “And we are working with 500 of the very best,” he added.

The company’s biggest competition, to my mind, are other players that are also looking to target the same kinds of shoppers online, for example, another UK site, Not On The High Street, or Etsy, which focuses less on retailers and more on makers. Similarly, there is the prospect of stores building their own sites, although that comes with its own set of headaches that independent shopkeepers may be less inclined to deal with.

“Yes, it’s very easy for an independent brick-and-mortar boutique to set up an online shop. That’s the easy part,” Singh said. “But what you find with independents is that building a website doesn’t help drive customers. There is a range of backend technology that we take care of, including inventory management software and handling the logistics of shipping. All of those can be difficult for a [physical] boutique to do on its own. It’s easy to sell online but you still need someone who has the economies of scales to pick up and deliver.”

On the other hand, he notes that “Amazon definitely doesn’t worry us.”

“We position ourselves as the complete opposite. Giants like that are too focused on categories that work well,” he added. Notably, he believes that the biggest threats are the same ones that threaten the independent stores that use Trouva to sell online: “Offline chains, those who sell homewares and clothes. The big guys.”

Trouva has no plans to move into selling its own goods, or to work with other online retailers, although it might consider down the line how it could leverage warehouse space to help its retailers with their inventory management (since many of these shops are very small indeed). “One hundred percent of our supply comes from our brick and mortar store partners,” he said.

Nor does it currently have anything like a Prime-style loyalty program. It does work with retailers and shipping partners to provide an end-to-end shipping service from store to buyer, with options for next-day delivery if it’s necessary.

“The relationship is mutually symbiotic with the boutiques, who benefit from a broader customer base, better priced and efficient delivery and stock tracking and management software from Trouva, and in turn higher revenues and improved profitability,” said Jo Oliver, a venture partner at investor Octopus. “As more boutiques are added the customer proposition becomes more and more attractive, particularly as Trouva’s footprint expands internationally.”

Singh notes that there is “exclusivity” for the shops that eventually come on to Trouva, although that’s almost by default since they are the kinds of small operations that are unlikely to be in the business of trying to expand their online presence.

Amazon has been working hard to improve how it interfaces with and curates items on its site to provide products, and a marketplace selling service, to the same consumer and retailer demographics that Trouva (and others) target. That’s unlikely to disappear over time, especially since Amazon plays the long game, where it will gradually tinker with an idea while at the same time quietly shift our shopping habits to match what it is producing.

“Online sellers like Amazon and eBay have tried to make a better experience, but it’s very hard for a business to change its DNA,” Singh said.

Updated with investor comment.



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/27/trouva-an-online-marketplace-for-independent-boutiques-raises-22m/

Discontinuous thought

The gap between mobile and desktop is:

[shift] ENTER

When one is typing on a laptop, the assumption is that you’ll keep going with your thought until you push ‘send’ or ‘publish’.

But on a smart phone, the enter key is your publish button. So your text, your Slack message, or your tweet happens as soon as you type a single sentence.

That’s good for platforms that want to deliver the endorphin hit of a mic drop, but not particularly helpful in sharing complex ideas. And the ideas that are worth sharing are the complex ones.

 

PS Today’s the last day to sign up for the Story Skills Workshop. Hope to see you there.

       


from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/610318184/0/sethsblog~Discontinuous-thought/

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Report alleges Amazon worked with Indiana to downplay warehouse worker’s death and safety concerns

It’s strange that no matter how hard Amazon denies that its warehouses are terrible, dangerous places to work, the reports to that effect just keep coming out. Not only that, but now a whistleblower alleges the company worked with Indiana officials to erase a workplace safety violation that cost a man his life.

Reveal News reports the whistleblower’s account of Phillip Lee Terry’s death in 2017 and the subsequent efforts to shift blame from Amazon to the deceased. The full report is worth reading; it implicates Amazon, the head of Indiana’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and even the governor.

The short version is this: Terry died on the job in a forklift accident. An investigation conducted by the whistleblower, John Stallone, found that Amazon had failed to provide adequate safety training. Citations were issued and $28,000 in fines proposed. But Stallone’s boss, IOSHA’s director, directly contacted Amazon and discussed how they might reduce those fines and place the blame on Terry.

Stallone knows this because he was in the room and recorded the conversation, which Reveal News listened to. Amazon told TechCrunch that it “worked directly with [IOSHA] during the inspection and in follow-up discussions to provide Mr. Terry’s training records.” When I asked directly whether the company disputed Stallone’s account of the call, the representative suggested I contact the Indiana state government instead.

A few days later, Stallone said, he was called into the office of Indiana’s Labor Commissioner, Rick Ruble, and found the governor, Eric Holcomb, there as well. He was told to stop pursuing the case, according to Stallone’s account, because of — you guessed it — Indiana’s aspirations to host Amazon’s HQ2.

Stallone soon quit, and a year later, the fines were reversed and all four safety violations were struck from the record. Instead it is listed as an “unpreventable employee misconduct,” meaning Terry was legally responsible for his own death — counter to the conclusions of the investigation, which had Terry’s coworker on the record stating Amazon had failed to provide proper training.

Governor Holcomb retaliated with a statement denying any involvement with a Labor Department case, denying he ever had the meeting Stallone describes, called the allegations “fabricated” and the report “irresponsible and deliberately misleading… heinous lies.”

It’s hard to imagine why Stallone would fabricate such a meeting, when other efforts by state officials to quash these violations and fines are on record. It has not yet been shown beyond the two competing claims whether the meeting indeed took place, but presumably it was informal anyway, which provides the governor plausible deniability.

This would all be harder to believe if we hadn’t seen the frenzy of servility Amazon’s HQ2 announcement provoked nationwide. Or if the allegations of poor working conditions at Amazon warehouses hadn’t continued to pile up in the meantime. Reveal’s investigations related to the whistleblower’s case show an alarmingly high number of injuries at Amazon’s facilities.

In a statement, Amazon said that it takes “an aggressive stance on recording injuries no matter how big or small,” leading to higher numbers than other, similar work environments. As usual, workers at the warehouses dispute Amazon’s account, recalling systematic efforts to under-report and increases in injuries coming from automation.

One thing is certain: Ordering from Amazon during the holidays adds pressure to a warehouse system that by many accounts is already operating at superhuman levels — with very human costs. Perhaps shopping local is a better move this year.



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/report-alleges-amazon-worked-with-indiana-to-downplay-warehouse-workers-death-and-safety-concerns/

Daily Crunch: Free Spotify comes to Alexa

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Spotify’s free music service will now stream on Alexa devices, plus Bose and Sonos smart speakers

Spotify has worked with Amazon Echo since 2016, but only for premium subscribers. Today, that changes.

The Alexa support — which includes playing Spotify’s Top Hits playlist, Discover Weekly and more — will be available for users in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Support for Sonos and Bose is more broadly available to users around the world.

2. Facebook’s latest experiment is a meme-creation app, Whale

Currently, the app allows users to decorate photos with text and stickers in order to create memes that can be shared to social media or texted to friends.

3. Vayyar nabs $109M for its “4D” radar tech, which detects and tracks images while preserving privacy

Vayyar is an Israeli startup that builds radar-imaging chips and sensors, as well as the software that reads and interprets the resulting images, for use in automotive and IoT applications.

4. Google Assistant introduces personalized playlists of audio news

When you say “Hey Google, play me the news” to a Google Assistant-enabled phone or smart speaker, you’ll get a tailored playlist of the day’s big headlines and stories. Your News Update draws from a variety of publisher partners, focusing on the stories that seem relevant to your interests and your location.

5. Bunch, the Discord for mobile games, raises $3.85M from Supercell, Tencent, Riot Games

Users who download the game can connect with friends and join an audio or video chat with them. From there, users can choose a game to load and the whole party is instantly taken into a multiplayer game session with their friends.

6. Build trust with remote users to get qualitative feedback

As co-founder of a digital health company, Alex Gold had to build a community of test patients. And because of security and privacy concerns, he had to approach this process unconventionally. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. 5 reasons you need to be at Disrupt Berlin

We’re one month out from Disrupt Berlin. And no matter which part of the startup ecosystem you inhabit, the event should be a huge opportunity. (I’ll be there!)



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/20/daily-crunch-spotify-alexa/

FedEx robot sent packing by NYC

FedEx’s autonomous delivery bot got a cold reception from New York City officials.

After the company’s SameDay Bots — named Roxo — popped up on New York City streets last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio and transportation officials delivered a sharp response: Get out.

FedEx told TechCrunch that the bots were there for a preview party for its Small Business Saturday event and are not testing in New York. Even this promotional event was too much for city officials concerned with congestion and bots taking jobs from humans.

After reports of the bot sightings, the mayor tweeted that FedEx didn’t receive permission to deploy the robots; he also criticized the company for using a bot to perform a task that a New Yorker could do. The New York Department of Transportation has sent FedEx a cease-and-desist order to stop operations the bots,  which TechCrunch has viewed.

The letter informs FedEx that its bots violate several vehicle and traffic laws, including that motor vehicles are prohibited on sidewalks. Vehicles that receive approval to operate on sidewalks must receive a special exemption and be registered. 

FedEx has been experimenting with autonomous delivery bots. Postmates and Amazon also have been testing autonomous delivery robots.

FedEx first unveiled its SameDay Bot in February 2019. The company said at the time it planned to work with AutoZone, Lowe’s, Pizza Hut,  Target, Walgreens and Walmart to figure out how autonomous robots might fit into its delivery business. The idea was for FedEx to provide a way for retailers to accept orders from nearby customers and deliver them by bot directly to customers’ homes or businesses the same day.

FedEx said its initials test would involve deliveries between selected FedEx Office locations. Ultimately, the FedEx bot will complement the FedEx SameDay City service, which operates in 32 markets and 1,900 cities.

The company has tested the bots in Memphis, Tennessee as well as Plano and Frisco, Texas and Manchester, New Hampshire, according to a spokesperson.

The underlying roots of the SameDay Bot is the iBot. The FedEx bot was developed in collaboration with DEKA Development & Research Corp. and its founder Dean Kamen who invented the Segway  and iBot wheelchair.

DEKA built upon the power base of the iBot, an FDA-approved mobility device for the disabled population, to develop FedEx’s product.

The FedEx bot is equipped with sensing technology such as LiDAR and multiple cameras, which when combined with machine learning algorithms should allow the device to detect and avoid obstacles and plot a safe path, all while following the rules of the road (or sidewalk).



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/fedex-robots-sent-packing-by-nyc/

New Amazon capabilities put machine learning in reach of more developers

Today, Amazon announced a new approach that it says will put machine learning technology in reach of more developers and line of business users. Amazon has been making a flurry of announcements ahead of its re:Invent customer conference next week in Las Vegas.

While the company offers plenty of tools for data scientists to build machine learning models and process, store and visualize data, it wants to put that capability directly in the hands of developers with the help of the popular database query language, SQL.

By taking advantage of tools like Amazon QuickSight, Aurora and Athena in combination with SQL queries, developers can have much more direct access to machine learning models and underlying data without any additional coding, says VP of artificial intelligence at AWS, Matt Wood.

“This announcement is all about is making it easier for developers to add machine learning predictions to their products and their processes by integrating those predictions directly with their databases,” Wood told TechCrunch.

For starters, Wood says developers can take advantage of Aurora, the company’s SQL (and Postgres) compatible database to build a simple SQL query into an application, which will automatically pull the data into the application and run whatever machine learning model the developer associates with it.

The second piece involves Athena, the company’s serverless query service. As with Aurora, developers can write a SQL query — in this case, against any data store — and based on a machine learning model they choose, return a set of data for use in an application.

The final piece is QuickSight, which is Amazon’s data visualization tool. Using one of the other tools to return some set of data, developers can use that data to create visualizations based on it inside whatever application they are creating.

“By making sophisticated ML predictions more easily available through SQL queries and dashboards, the changes we’re announcing today help to make ML more usable and accessible to database developers and business analysts. Now anyone who can write SQL can make — and importantly use — predictions in their applications without any custom code,” Amazon’s Matt Assay wrote in a blog post announcing these new capabilities.

Assay added that this approach is far easier than what developers had to do in the past to achieve this. “There is often a large amount of fiddly, manual work required to take these predictions and make them part of a broader application, process or analytics dashboard,” he wrote.

As an example, Wood offers a lead-scoring model you might use to pick the most likely sales targets to convert. “Today, in order to do lead scoring you have to go off and wire up all these pieces together in order to be able to get the predictions into the application,” he said. With this new capability, you can get there much faster.

“Now, as a developer I can just say that I have this lead scoring model which is deployed in SageMaker, and all I have to do is write literally one SQL statement that I do all day long into Aurora, and I can start getting back that lead scoring information. And then I just display it in my application and away I go,” Wood explained.

As for the machine learning models, these can come pre-built from Amazon, be developed by an in-house data science team or purchased in a machine learning model marketplace on Amazon, says Wood.

Today’s announcements from Amazon are designed to simplify machine learning and data access, and reduce the amount of coding to get from query to answer faster.



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/new-amazon-capabilities-put-machine-learning-in-reach-of-more-developers/

Amazon launches medication management features for Alexa

As Amazon moves further into the healthcare market, the company today is rolling out a medication management feature for Alexa owners. The feature will allow customers to set up their own medication reminders and request voice refills using their prescription information. At launch, these capabilities are only available to customers of Giant Eagle Pharmacy, a regional retailer in the Midwest and East Coast.

That being said, there are obvious ties to Amazon’s larger plans with regard to prescription management and healthcare. Amazon has now acquired two health startups, first with online pharmacy PillPack in 2018 for slightly less than $1 billion. This was followed by last month’s acquisition of Health Navigator, which will become a part of Amazon’s pilot healthcare service program for its employees, the recently launched Amazon Care.

The new Alexa features seem to be custom designed for integrations with both Amazon Care and PillPack prescription ordering, even though neither of the two services are referenced today as part of Amazon’s current or future plans with the Alexa features.

Asked about this, an Amazon spokesperson said only that the company would not “comment or speculate on the future.”

Instead, Amazon says it has teamed up with medication management solution and adherence tool provider Ominicell to enable the new features, which were inspired by how people were already using Alexa’s reminders system and other feedback.

For example, some customers said they would like to set time frames for reminders like “twice a day.”

To use the new Alexa medication management, customers will first need to enable the Giant Eagle Pharmacy skill and link their accounts. They’ll also need to create an Alexa voice profile, which helps Alexa to verify the person who is speaking, and they’ll need to create a personal passcode for an extra layer of security. Amazon notes that it had already rolled out a way for developers to build HIPAA-compliant skills using its platform, which not only includes the added authentication steps, but also redacts users’ interactions with the skill from the Alexa app for further privacy.

In addition, Amazon had also recently added a way for customers to view and delete recordings at any time, including from the Privacy Settings page, in the Alexa app, or by voice.

Once their account is set up, the customer can then say “Alexa, manage my medication” to get started setting up their reminders. Alexa will help the customer to review their current prescriptions and set up reminders based on when they prefer to take each medication.

When the reminders go off, customers can ask “Alexa, what medication am I supposed to take right now?”

When it’s time, customers can also use Alexa to request refills from the pharmacy by saying “Alexa, refill my prescription.”

The features, though limited to one regional pharmacy for the time being, offer a view into how Amazon envisions voice-ordering for prescriptions will work for its customer base, and how such a system could be integrated with its own health care program at some later date, perhaps.

“Voice has proven to be beneficial for a variety of use cases because it removes barriers, and simplifies daily tasks. We believe this new Alexa feature will help simplify the way people manage their medication by removing the need to continuously think about what medications they’ve taken that day or what they need to take,” noted Rachel Jiang, Head of Alexa Health & Wellness, in an announcement about the new features.

“We want to make it easy for people to get the information they need and to manage their healthcare needs at home while maintaining the privacy and security of their information, and hope this feature is a step toward that vision,” she added.

 

 



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/amazon-launches-medication-management-features-for-alexa/

A chance for better

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Of course it is.

But that simple sentence becomes more urgent when we realize that nothing (and no one) is perfect. How could it be?

And so, if your hero, your cause, your holiday, your background, your relationship… if it’s not perfect, does that mean you should hide it? Be ashamed of it? Be afraid of it?

We’re surrounded by injustice, and yesterday was even worse. It’s so easy to find things that are imperfect and criticize them or worse, shame them.

Better, I think, to find glimmers of good and seek to amplify them. Mistakes can be seen, errors can be improved upon, progress can be made. But only if we embrace the chance for good.

The imperfect is an opportunity for better.

       


from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/610226170/0/sethsblog~A-chance-for-better/

Monday, November 25, 2019

New Amazon tool helps machine learning models identify unique objects

Amazon announced a new capability today called Amazon Rekognition Custom Labels to help customers train machine learning models to understand a set of objects when there is a limited set of information.

Typically, machine learning models have to work on large data sets to learn something like what’s a picture of a dog, as opposed to some other animals. Amazon Rekognition Custom Labels can work with a limited data set to teach the algorithm a group of objects specific to a given use case.

“Instead of having to train a model from scratch, which requires specialized machine learning expertise and millions of high-quality labeled images, customers can now use Amazon Rekognition Custom Labels to achieve state-of-the-art performance for their unique image analysis needs,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the new feature.

For example, you may want to teach the model to identify a set of engine parts, a limited set of information, which has a lot of meaning to a specific use case. Less information like this actually poses a problem for most machine learning models, but this feature has been designed specifically to learn from a smaller amount of data. Instead of hundreds or thousands of images, Amazon Rekognition Custom Labels can work with as few as ten images to learn to identify the object.

Amazon has gotten flack from the ACLU and shareholders in the past for selling Amazon Rekognition to law enforcement to help identify faces. This feature offers a more benign use of similar technology.

The new feature goes live next week on December 3rd, right in time for AWS re:Invent, the company’s customer conference taking place in Las Vegas.



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/25/new-amazon-tool-helps-machine-learning-models-identify-unique-objects/

Amazon-backed Shuttl raises $18M to expand its app-based bus aggregator in India

Shuttl, a startup that runs an app-based bus aggregator service in India, said on Monday that it has raised $18 million in a new financing round as it looks to scale its business in the country.

Toyota Tsusho Corporate and SPARX Group, through its Mirai Creation Fund II, funded Shuttl’s Series C financing round, the four-year-old startup said. Shuttl, which is based in Gurgaon and counts Amazon as one of its investors, has raised about $66.5 million to date.

Shuttl operates about 1,800 buses that clock over 100,000 rides each day in six cities in India. Customers book their rides through the app and on-board the bus through specified bus stations.

The buses on the platform are equipped with a range of safety features such as an emergency button that automatically slows down the bus until completely stopping at the nearest bus stop. It also offers a live feed that any passenger could share with their loved ones.

Another mandatory feature requires drivers to identify themselves before starting the journey and take an instant alcohol test. Passengers, who are required to book a ticket in advance of riding the bus — different from how traditional buses operate in India — are also authenticated before they can get on with their rides.

These safety features have made the service especially popular among women, Amit Singh, cofounder and chief executive of Shuttl, told TechCrunch in a recent interview. More than 40% of Shuttl’s passengers are female, who find the rides on its buses a safer commute option. This is a promising feat, as women only make up for about 20% of India’s workforce, according to industry estimates.

Singh said that Shuttl, which recently added new routes in New Delhi, Chennai, and Kolkata, will use the fresh capital to grow within and beyond its circle of six cities.

Unlike Ola and Uber, Shuttl has been slow with its expansion. Singh explained that Shuttl’s business is different from any other app-based transportation service provider. “If they sign up a large number of drivers, they can service a city rather quickly. For buses, it is different. For one, a bus is not going to show up to a customer’s door. So you have to first figure out different routes. You have to identify a route, establish pick-up points, train drivers, and persuade customers to follow these routes,” he added.

But he is optimistic that Shuttl is inching closer to reaching “escape velocity” — which when it has hit, it would be able to scale at a faster pace.

In a statement, Shigeru Harada, chief operating officer for automotive division of Toyota Tsusho Corporation, said, “Shuttl has taken the lead in solving for traffic congestion and air pollution through a technology-enabled mass transport solution. We look forward to work together with them to disseminate relatively energy efficient MaaS solutions, such as Shuttl’s app-based mass transportation service, through our global network.”

Earlier this year, Shuttl started to provide meals on its buses. Singh said he continues to explore what all value-added services the startup could offer to customers and also to make best use of its logistics network.

As for numbers, Shuttl doubled its revenue in the fiscal year that ended in March. Its revenue crossed 100 crore Indian rupees, or $14 million.



from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/25/shuttl-india-bus-aggregator/

If every day were Thanksgiving

It’s my favorite holiday for a good reason: It doesn’t matter what country, what culture or what background you come from…

Gratitude works.

Gratitude scales.

Gratitude creates a positive cycle of more gratitude.

When in doubt, default to gratitude.

[And, for the fourth year in a row, we’re offering the free Thanksgiving Reader. You can print it out at home and have it ready for the holiday, wherever and whenever you choose to celebrate. It’s a modern tradition.]

       


from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/610104986/0/sethsblog~If-every-day-were-Thanksgiving/