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Amazon Acquires DuckLabs to Integrate DuckDB into AWS Analytics and AI Agent Workflows
Amazon has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based company behind the open-source columnar database DuckDB. The acquisition brings the DuckLabs development team into Amazon Web Services (AWS), where they will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary starting in early September. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. DuckDB creators and DuckLabs co-founders Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt will continue leading the team from Amsterdam, maintain
August 26, 20261 min
Amazon to Shut Down Mechanical Turk on September 30 After 21 Years
Amazon Web Services has announced that it will permanently shut down Amazon Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026. The retirement brings an end to a 21-year-old crowdsourcing platform that served as an early foundation for modern machine learning dataset annotation and human-in-the-loop computing. In a formal notice posted to the Mechanical Turk portal, AWS stated that the decision followed an internal assessment of its service portfolio. The platform had previously halted new customer registra
August 26, 20261 min
Amazon and Twitch Face Class-Action Lawsuit Over AI Model Training on Creator Streams
A proposed class-action lawsuit filed against Amazon and its livestreaming subsidiary Twitch alleges the companies systematically harvested millions of hours of creator video, audio, and chat logs since 2024 to train generative AI models without creator consent or financial compensation. The complaint, filed on August 20, 2026, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California by streamer Warren Pandiscia, alleges breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair business practic
August 24, 20261 min
Amazon Hikes Hardware Prices Across Echo, Fire TV, Kindle, and Eero Over AI-Driven Memory Costs
Amazon has quietly increased retail prices across its first-party consumer hardware lines, raising MSRPs on Echo smart speakers, Fire TV streaming devices, Kindle e-readers, and Eero mesh networking systems to offset rising component costs for memory and storage. The price adjustments reflect how the enterprise artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout is impacting consumer electronics supply chains. Surging hyperscaler demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM3e and HBM4) alongside high-dens
August 22, 20261 min
Investigation: Amazon buys and destroys rare books to scan them for AI training
Amazon is buying large quantities of books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying the printed copies in the process, according to a 404 Media investigation published Aug 17, 2026. The investigation revealed Amazon's book-buying operation, which had not been previously reported, by placing a tracking device inside a rare book suspected of being acquired by an AI company. The shipment traveled from California through Milwaukee, Kenosha, Colorado Springs, and a truck stop in Grand Jun
August 17, 20261 min
Twitch lets streamers block their content from Amazon's generative AI training
Twitch lets streamers block their content from Amazon's generative AI training Twitch has quietly added a control that lets creators stop their streams, clips, and chat from being used to train Amazon's generative AI models. The setting, labeled "Training for Generative AI," sits in the Security and Privacy tab of account settings and is live now, but it arrives with a design that puts the burden on users to find it. What the toggle actually blocks Flipping the control off excludes a d
August 12, 20261 min
Amazon Data Center Could Be Powered by One of the Nation's Most Polluting Power Plants
Amazon is investing in a new natural-gas power plant in Pecos County, Texas, to supply a West Texas data center, and the project holds a permit that would allow it to emit more carbon dioxide than any coal plant in the country, according to The Verge and the New York Times. The plant, tracked as GW Ranch by Cleanview, a service that monitors data center power projects, would deploy 35 natural-gas turbines generating about 7.65 gigawatts. At least initially, the plant would not connect to
August 8, 20261 min
Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, Cursor, and Vercel Agree on an Open Standard for AI Agent Plugins
Five major companies spanning cloud infrastructure, developer tools, and frontier models have agreed on a shared open standard for AI agent extensions called Agent Plugins. The group includes Amazon, Cursor, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel, and the specification introduces a single packaging format that lets developers bundle agent extensions once and deploy them across platforms. The standard defines a directory structure anchored by a plugin.json manifest file. Version 1.0.0 supports two compon
August 7, 20261 min