Amazon’s head of global consumer Jeff Wilke unveiled his latest delivery drone at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas on June 5, 2019.
Amazon
Amazon does not plan to hold its re:MARS conference on cutting-edge technologies like robotics and space this year, the company confirmed on Friday. It will incorporate the topics into its existing line of Amazon Web Services events.
The tech giant launched re:MARS, which stands for “Machine learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space,” in 2019 as a way for startups, academics, researchers, and executives to discuss the latest developments in these technologies. . It morphed from a private, invitation-only version of the event, called Mars, which attracted the tech elite and was hosted by Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos.
The decision to cancel re:MARS was not made for budgetary reasons, Amazon said.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has taken a hard look at the company’s costs as it grapples with slowing sales growth and a bleak economic outlook. The company suffered the largest layoffs in its history and Jassy cut a number of initiatives, including telehealth program Amazon Care, on tour”treasure truck” Glow Kids Video Conferencing Device and Discover the virtual tours service.
Amazon used re:MARS to highlight some of its futuristic innovations, such as delivery drones, warehouse robots and its first home robot. Bezos also had talks about colonizing space, and tested a pair of giant remote-controlled robotic hands. At last year’s conference, Amazon demonstrated a feature where his digital assistant Alexa posed as a deceased relative.
A spokesperson for Amazon Web Services told CNBC in a statement, “AWS welcomes hundreds of thousands of customers and partners to hundreds of events around the world each year. These events provide an invaluable opportunity to connect with our customers. Their time is valuable and we take serious responsibility for making every event valuable to every attendee, whether that’s developing new skills, identifying new solutions that will transform an organization, or building new relationships that can advance a career. We consulted with customers and the community as always, and for 2023, decided to integrate the re:MARS topics – machine learning, automation, robotics and space – into a well-funded lineup of existing AWS events. .”
