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News

• A ride into space will cost US$200K

  ​Jeff Bezos' rocket company plans to charge passengers about US$200,000 to US$300,000 for its first trips into space next year, two people familiar with its plans told Reuters.

• US government won't block AI development

  ​The Trump administration will not stand in the way of the development of artificial intelligence in the United States, a top official said on Thursday, while acknowledging that the burgeoning technology will displace some jobs.

• Amazon.com opens first checkout-free grocery store in the US

  Amazon.com opened its checkout-free grocery store in the US today after more than a year of testing, the company said, moving forward on an experiment that could dramatically alter brick-and-mortar retail.​

• AWS exodus due to Amazon Australia competition 'doesn’t make rational sense': A/NZ chief

  ​Amazon Web Services' Australian chief has dismissed suggestions local retailers will pull out of the company’s cloud services following the arrival of Amazon.com.au in the country.

• Amazon given green light to undercut Aussie businesses

  Competition laws will allow Amazon to undercut local businesses with loss-making prices when it opens for business in Australia, expected to be in November.

• Microsoft, Amazon go after enterprises with new SAP cloud offerings

  There are some fresh public cloud offerings on the horizon for SAP database customers, thanks to Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

• Here's everything announced at Wednesday's AWS Summit

  AWS unveiled a smorgasbord of new functionality, including new billing for software-as-a-service applications, a new continuous integration tool, and enhancements to the company’s database services. Here’s the rundown of what got announced.

• Could Amazon become an enterprise collaboration contender?

  Amazon has a series of apps that compete with Office 365 and G Suite, but they currently aren’t packaged and sold as a collective portfolio. Here’s how Amazon could become a major player in business software.

• Blockchain can help secure medical devices, improve patient privacy

  If implemented properly, blockchain can help secure medical devices and improve patient privacy, but the key is proper implementation, according to a top security pro at Partners Healthcare.

• AWS offers Alexa developers free cloud credits

  Developers interested in extending the capabilities of Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant have some more free tools in their arsenal, thanks to a program the company announced Wednesday.

• AWS follows Google with Reserved Instance flexibility changes

  Customers who have Reserved Instance contracts with Amazon Web Services will be able to subdivide some of their Linux and Unix virtual machine instances while maintaining their capacity discounts, thanks to pricing changes announced Monday.

• AWS says a typo caused the massive S3 failure this week

  Everyone makes mistakes. But working at Amazon Web Services means an incorrectly entered input can lead to a massive outage that cripples popular websites and services.

• AWS blames a typo for Tuesday’s outage

  An authorized S3 team member entered a command incorrectly and a larger set of servers was removed than was intended, Amazon said.

• Amazon's Alexa gains support for Outlook calendars

  Users of Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant can now ask her questions about the contents of their Microsoft-hosted calendars. On Wednesday, the assistant gained the ability to interact with calendars from Outlook.com and Office 365, similar to how it works with Google Calendar.

• AWS Roundup: IoT buttons hit the enterprise, Directory launch and more

  Amazon Web Services got off to a slow start in January, taking its time to sleep off the New Year’s festivities. But the cloud provider got up to speed by the end of the month, launching a handful of new products for its customers to work with.