Microsoft partners with Black Girls Code to help the organization launch Seattle chapter

Microsoft has partnered with Black Girls Code, led by Kimberly Bryant, to enable the organization to launch a chapter in Seattle, Microsoft announced on LinkedIn today. Since launching in 2011, Black Girls Code has introduced technology and computer science to young black girls in 13 cities throughout the country. Seattle marks Black Girls Code’s 14th chapter.

Microsoft also deepened its partnership with Technology Access Foundation, founded by Trish Millines Dziko. Across both partnerships, Microsoft invested $500,000.

Earlier this year, Black Girls Code teamed up with Lyft — after turning down a $125,000 donation from Uber last year —  to make the non-profit organization one of Lyft’s Round Up & Donate partners.

We're incredibly excited to announce our partnership with the @Microsoft team in Seattle! Mountains of gratitude to the BAM team and Satya for supporting our mission to bring more girls of color into tech! #Grateful #BlackGirlsCode https://t.co/Sgay7e3G38

— Kimberly Bryant (@6Gems) July 26, 2018

In a LinkedIn post, Microsoft Corporate VP and Lead Mary Snapp said she hopes the investments will “will help a lot more students find a passion for technology, the opportunity to pursue a STEM education and most importantly believe it is possible for them.

“As Satya has said in the past, Microsoft can only be successful if we have people of all backgrounds building our technology and we cannot build product and services for everyone unless everyone is represented in our engineering ranks,” Snapp wrote.

Computer science education should be accessible to young people of all backgrounds, which is why we're partnering with @BlackGirlsCode to help establish a Seattle chapter. Thanks @6Gems for your pioneering work to empower the next generation of innovators. https://t.co/TBMIoSNxjU

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) July 27, 2018

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/microsoft-partners-with-black-girls-code-to-help-the-organization-launch-seattle-chapter/

Tech companies can bid on the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud contract, starting today

On Thursday, the Pentagon opened bidding for a huge cloud computing contract that could be worth as much as $10 billion. Given its size, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, known as JEDI, is alluring for major cloud computing companies that might not normally do much business with the Department of Defense.

Announced in March, JEDI is structured as a winner-take-all contract with a potential ten year term, though the Pentagon clarified that the original award will span just the first two years, so all ten years aren’t set in stone up front.

While it’s not yet sparked the same level of outcry as Google’s AI contract with the Pentagon known Project Maven, JEDI isn’t uncontroversial. The now infamous Project Maven project was a smaller, more specific contract with direct implications for the military’s use of drones, while JEDI is broader and bigger, seeking a vendor to provide cloud services for all branches of the military. Google has since abandoned plans to renew the contract, but Maven was likely a kind of test run for the company in the lead-up to JEDI.

While Amazon is largely regarded as the most likely winner, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle are also among the major tech companies expected to throw their hats into the ring. Earlier in the process, it looked possible that companies could band together to form unlikely alliances against the perceived frontrunner, though it appears in the final request for proposal that the Pentagon plans to award the contract to a single company capable of handling it. Interested parties will have until September 17 to submit proposals, so we can certainly expect to hear more from companies in the running and workers who oppose JEDI involvement in the months to come.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/jedi-10-billion-department-of-defense-bidding/

Tech companies can bid on the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud contract, starting today

On Thursday, the Pentagon opened bidding for a huge cloud computing contract that could be worth as much as $10 billion. Given its size, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, known as JEDI, is alluring for major cloud computing companies that might not normally do much business with the Department of Defense.

Announced in March, JEDI is structured as a winner-take-all contract with a potential ten year term, though the Pentagon clarified that the original award will span just the first two years, so all ten years aren’t set in stone up front.

While it’s not yet sparked the same level of outcry as Google’s AI contract with the Pentagon known Project Maven, JEDI isn’t uncontroversial. The now infamous Project Maven project was a smaller, more specific contract with direct implications for the military’s use of drones, while JEDI is broader and bigger, seeking a vendor to provide cloud services for all branches of the military. Google has since abandoned plans to renew the contract, but Maven was likely a kind of test run for the company in the lead-up to JEDI.

While Amazon is largely regarded as the most likely winner, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle are also among the major tech companies expected to throw their hats into the ring. Earlier in the process, it looked possible that companies could band together to form unlikely alliances against the perceived frontrunner, though it appears in the final request for proposal that the Pentagon plans to award the contract to a single company capable of handling it. Interested parties will have until September 17 to submit proposals, so we can certainly expect to hear more from companies in the running and workers who oppose JEDI involvement in the months to come.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/jedi-10-billion-department-of-defense-bidding/

Congress members demand answers from Amazon about facial recognition software

When we called the ACLU’s Amazon’s Rekognition press release an “attention-grabbing stunt” when we wrote about it earlier today, well, consider that attention grabbed. Several Democratic members of Congress have responded with a strongly worded letter to founder Jeff Bezos.

Reps. Jimmy Gomez and John Lewis issued a letter to Bezos, after the ACLU noted that the facial recognition software falsely associated 28 images of Congress members with mugshots in a criminal database. Lewis, a pivotal figure in America’s civil rights moment, was among those falsely matched in the ACLU’s testing — particularly notable as the testing appeared to have a particular bias against people of color.

“The results of the ACLU’s test of Amazon’s ‘Rekognition’ software are deeply troubling,” Lewis wrote in a statement. “As a society, we need technology to help resolve human problems, not to add to the mountain of injustices presently facing people of color in this country. Black and brown people are already unjustly targeted through a discriminatory sentencing system that has led to mass incarceration and devastated millions of families.”

A trio of Congress members (Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Luis Gutiérrez and Mark DeSaulnier), meanwhile, wrote a letter addressed to Bezos with a series of questions about the technology:

While facial recognition services might provide a valuable law enforcement tool, the efficacy and impact of the technology are not yet fully understood. In particular, serious concerns have been raised about the dangers facial recognition can pose to privacy and civil rights, especially when it is used as a tool of government surveillance, as well as the accuracy of the technology and its disproportionate impact on communities of color.

Amazon for its part, both defended Rekognition and disputed the ACLU’s methods. “We remain excited about how image and video analysis can be a driver for good in the world, including in the public sector and law enforcement,” the company wrote in a statement provided to TechCrunch.

With regard to testing, it says:

[W]e think that the results could probably be improved by following best practices around setting the confidence thresholds (this is the percentage likelihood that Rekognition found a match) used in the test. While 80% confidence is an acceptable threshold for photos of hot dogs, chairs, animals, or other social media use cases, it wouldn’t be appropriate for identifying individuals with a reasonable level of certainty. When using facial recognition for law enforcement activities, we guide customers to set a threshold of at least 95% or higher.

The company also reiterated an earlier statement that the results are intended to be used to narrow down results, rather than lead directly to arrests.

Regardless, the ACLU’s stunt certainly got the attention the organization was seeking, both with regard to the aforementioned biases and broader security implications of facial scanning for law enforcement.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/congress-members-demand-answers-from-amazon-about-facial-recognition-software/

You can buy the NES Classic and SNES Classic on Amazon now

If you missed the first few rounds of excitement about Nintendo’s mini nostalgia machines, you’ve got another shot.

Nintendo’s NES and SNES Classic consoles aren’t always easy to find, but they’re now available from Amazon for $59.99 (NES Classic) and $79.99 (SNES Classic). You can place an order for either right now, though be aware that the NES Classic won’t ship until it’s back in stock on August 12 and the SNES Classic looks like it’ll be back on August 3 — a pretty reasonable wait for a sure thing.

Update: It looks like Amazon’s stock of the NES Classic may have already run out in the course of the last few minutes, though the SNES version is still available at its normal retail price of $79.99 (and let’s be real, it was the best console). They seem to be dropping in and out of availability, so try refreshing!

When they were first introduced, the reimagined versions of two of the best-loved consoles of all-time arrived to feverish demand. Back in 2016, the NES Classic was difficult hunt down and when it hit in August 2017, the SNES followed suit, managing to even outpace interest in its own progenitor. (Naturally, scarcity is the perfect fuel for a nostalgia-powered fire.)

Nintendo originally didn’t intend for either console to be restocked indefinitely, but after observing the “unbridled enthusiasm” of the retro gaming boxes it decided to keep them around. The consoles reappeared in May and June but sold out quickly.

Even with the repeat appearances, it’s been hard to keep track of when and where the things go on sale. If you’re reading this and you’ve yet to score a one-way ticket to nostalgic 8- or 16-bit euphoria, the Amazon listings look like a sure bet — for the moment, anyhow.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/snes-classic-nes-classic-on-sale-amazon/

Amazon’s AWS continues to lead its performance highlights

Amazon’s web services AWS continue to be the highlight of the company’s balance sheet, once again showing the kind of growth Amazon is looking for in a new business for the second quarter — especially one that has dramatically better margins than its core retail business.

Despite now running a grocery chain, the company’s AWS division — which has an operating margin over 25 percent compared to its tiny margins on retail — grew 49 percent year-over-year in the quarter compared to last year’s second quarter. It’s also up 49 percent year-over-year when comparing the most recent six months to the same period last year. AWS is now on a run rate well north of $10 billion annually, generating more than $6 billion in revenue in the second quarter this year. Meanwhile, Amazon’s retail operations generated nearly $47 billion with a net income of just over $1.3 billion (unaudited). Amazon’s AWS generated $1.6 billion in operating income on its $6.1 billion in revenue.

So, in short, Amazon’s dramatically more efficient AWS business is its biggest contributor to its actual net income. The company reported earnings of $5.07 per share, compared to analyst estimates of around $2.50 per share, on revenue of $52.9 billion. That revenue number fell under what investors were looking for, so the stock isn’t really doing anything in after-hours, and Amazon still remains in the race to become a company with a market cap of $1 trillion alongside Google, Apple and Microsoft.

This isn’t extremely surprising, as Amazon was one of the original harbingers of the move to a cloud computing-focused world, and, as a result, Microsoft and Google are now chasing it to capture up as much share as possible. While Microsoft doesn’t break out Azure, the company says it’s one of its fastest-growing businesses, and Google’s “other revenue” segment that includes Google Cloud Platform also continues to be one of its fastest-growing divisions. Running a bunch of servers with access to on-demand compute, it turns out, is a pretty efficient business that can account for the very slim margins that Amazon has on the rest of its core business.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/amazons-aws-continues-to-lead-its-performance-highlights/

Google’s first smart display is finally available

After months of waiting, the first Google smart display is finally available. The company announced a slew of the devices back in January at CES — no doubt as a way of sticking it to Amazon. After all, the Echo Show was a novel enough device in the smart speaker world, but the hardware was always a little lacking.

Google, on the other hand, let hardware partners do the heavy lifting here, and at CES, the company announced devices from Lenovo, JBL and LG. The former was far and away the nicest looking of the bunch — and it’s the first to hit the market, running $200 for the eight-inch version and $250 for the 10-inch (including three months of YouTube Premium). The others are simply listed as “coming soon.”

Google took things a step further at I/O, handing out hardware development kits, so interested manufacturers could build their own. Expect those to start flooding the market in the not-so-distant future, if the Assistant smart speaker market is any indicator.

If you’ve spent any time with the Echo Show or Spot, you pretty much know the deal here: news, music, podcasts, recipes and the like, all with a visual element. Of course, the smart displays have one very key thing Amazon doesn’t: YouTube. Access to the video service has been a major sticking point in the battle between the two companies. After all, it’s one of the best case uses for this sort of hardware.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/googles-first-smart-display-is-finally-available/