Tag: re:MARS

Categories
GeekWire

Amazon reveals lineup for re:MARS tech fest

re:MARS fireside chat
Amazon’s Jenny Freshwater engages Jeff Bezos in a fireside chat at last year’s inaugural re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (Amazon Photo)

How do you follow up on Iron Man? The answer for Amazon’s second annual re:MARS conference is to bring the godfather of Baby Yoda to the Vegas stage.

Jon Favreau — the actor, writer, director and producer who created “The Mandalorian,” a Star Wars spin-off starring Baby Yoda — will share headliner honors with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos when re:MARS returns to Las Vegas’ Aria Resort and Casino from June 16 to 19.

Amazon is opening registration for the event today, with tickets priced at last year’s level of $1,999. This year, academics and students who register using a .edu email address can get a price break (discount code: ACAD20REMARS). And just like last year, astronauts attending this year’s event get in free.

The preference for space travelers is apt: Space is one of the big topics covered at re:MARS, which is modeled after the invitation-only MARS conference that Amazon traditionally puts on in March.

MARS stands for Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space. Those subjects are particularly appealing to Bezos as well as other folks at Amazon and at his Blue Origin space venture. There’ll be talks by Amazon execs, researchers and tech-minded celebs like Favreau, as well as interactive workshops, hands-on demos and networking events.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

A way-out plan to turn space junk into treasure

Orbital debris
A computer-generated image represents zones of space debris. The two main debris fields are the ring of objects in geosynchronous Earth orbit and the cloud of objects in low Earth orbit. (NASA Illustration)

What can be done with the thousands of dead satellites orbiting Earth? Some commercial ventures are hatching plans to get rid of them, but one expert has laid out a scheme for turning them into building materials … for the moon.

And the Blue Moon lunar lander being developed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture could play a part in the scheme. “The Blue Moon fits into my plan perfectly,” Keith Volkert, CEO of California-based Satellite Consulting Inc., said last week at Amazon’s re:MARS conference in Las Vegas.

The fact that Volkert presented his satellite salvaging plan at re:MARS doesn’t suggest that Bezos has endorsed the idea. But it does suggest Volkert has put enough thought into his seemingly crazy idea to win a share of the Vegas spotlight.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Lockheed Martin looks into clouds of satellites

Satellite swarm
NASA and Lockheed Martin have been studying how small satellites could be knit together into a distributed swarm. (NASA Illustration)

More and more computing is being done in the cloud, but so far, the cloud-based approach hasn’t been applied in space.

Lockheed Martin is thinking about changing that.

The aerospace giant has already registered two trademarks for satellite cloud systems — HiveStar and SpaceCloud — and it’s considering how the approach can be applied to a range of space missions.

Yvonne Hodge, vice president and chief information officer at Colorado-based Lockheed Martin Space, lifted the curtain on the HiveStar project last week at Amazon’s re:MARS conference in Las Vegas.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

How AWS Ground Station is moving the needle

Capella Space satellite
An artist’s conception shows Capella Space’s radar satellite in orbit. (Capella Space Illustration)

LAS VEGAS – Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says his company has gotten so big that it has to branch out into business lines that “move the needle,” like the recently revealed Project Kuiper broadband satellite constellation.

But Project Kuiper isn’t Amazon’s only potentially needle-moving satellite venture: Amazon Web Services’ effort to create a network of ground stations and an easy-to-use satellite control interface is a similarly big bet for the Seattle-based company.

At least that’s how Shayn Hawthorne, general manager for AWS Ground Station, sees the situation.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Jeff Bezos explains Amazon’s big bet on satellites

Jenny Freshwater and Jeff Bezos
Amazon’s Jenny Freshwater engages Jeff Bezos in a fireside chat at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — For the first time in public, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explained the rationale for his risky Project Kuiper satellite broadband venture, during a fireside chat that was interrupted when an animal rights activist jumped on stage.

Today’s half-hour discussion was one of the headliner events for Amazon’s inaugural re:MARS conference, held here in Las Vegas to throw a spotlight on the frontiers of Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space. It’s modeled after the invitation-only MARS meeting that Amazon has been organizing annually since 2016.

Bezos and his partner in the fireside chat — Jenny Freshwater, leader of forecasting and capacity planning at Amazon — broadened the focus of the conversation to touch on some of the Amazon CEO’s favorite topics, including his management philosophy and his advice for entrepreneurs.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Alexa is learning to juggle multiple AI skills

Rohit Prasad
Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s vice president and head scientist for Alexa, explains how the virtual assistant can plan different activities for a night out. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant will soon get savvier about juggling its thousands of skills — starting with arranging all the elements for a night out.

Cross-skill action prediction is one of the upgrades for Alexa announced here today at Amazon’s re:MARS conference.

Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s vice president and head scientist for Alexa, laid out a scenario where a user of Echo Show could engage in a seamless dialogue to choose a showing of “Dark Phoenix,” reserve seats through Atom Tickets, find a nice Chinese restaurant nearby, make a dinner reservation through Open Table, set up an Uber ride and watch a movie trailer.

“We’ll be bringing this experience to our customers soon,” Prasad said during today’s morning keynote.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Jeff Bezos gets a kick out of robotic arms

Jeff Bezos with robotic arms
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos raises his arms (and the robotic arms they’re linked to) at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ handshake is at least as firm as a robotic hand’s grip.

I found that out for myself today at Amazon’s inaugural re:MARS conference, when Bezos tried out the touch-sensitive, dexterous robotic arm set up in an exhibit hall at the Aria Resort and Casino here in Las Vegas.

Like the annual invitation-only MARS conference, re:MARS is designed to focus on the frontiers of Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space. And robots were the stars of the show when Bezos popped in.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Amazon gives new drone design a glitzy debut

Drone debut
Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke unveils the next-generation delivery drone at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — Amazon’s drone ambitions took another step forward today as the tech giant revealed its latest delivery drone design.

At Amazon’s re:MARS conference, Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer CEO, Jeff Wilke, showed off a fully-electric drone that can fly up to 15 miles and deliver packages under 5 pounds in less than 30 minutes.

As Wilke spoke at this morning’s presentation, one of the drones — which is roughly the size of a go-cart — rose dramatically from a corner of the stage.

“You’re going to see this new drone delivering packages to customers in months,” Wilke told the Vegas crowd.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Racer and rocketeer shows off space capsule

Blue Origin capsule
A mockup of the crew capsule for Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship is laid out beneath the sparkling lights of the Aria Resort Hotel in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — One of the big attractions at this week’s Amazon re:MARS conference is a mockup of the crew capsule for Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship — but chances are that few of the attendees lining up to try out the seats know who their tour guide is.

And that’s just fine with Jimmy Shane, who’s an engineer and manager at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ space venture as well as a prize-winning hydroplane driver for the U-1 Miss HomeStreet team.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Robert Downey Jr. unveils plan to save the planet

Robert Downey Jr.
Robert Downey Jr., at right, is dwarfed by the pictures of his Iron Man character, Tony Stark, projected on a giant video screen at Amazon’s re:MARS conference. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — Robert Downey Jr. has been saving the planet in Marvel movies for 11 years as a cinematic Iron Man. Now he wants to spend the next 11 years helping to save the planet for real.

At tonight’s opening session of Amazon’s re:MARS conference — focusing on the frontiers of Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space — Downey announced that he’s setting up a campaign called the Footprint Coalition to develop new technologies for environmental cleanup.

Get the full story on GeekWire.