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SpaceX suffered an explosion of one of its Falcon 9 rocket engines during qualification testing at its facility in McGregor, Texas, per The Verge. The failure resulting in the explosion occurred on Sunday, and the company is now underway with investigations designed to determine what went wrong that resulted in the incident.
The Merlin engine explosion did not result in any injuries to personnel, but the component was intended to be used during a launch late next year. Even so, it shouldn’t impact SpaceX’s launch manifest or plans going forward, according to the company.
For now, however, all testing at the McGregor facility is on hold while the investigation into the cause proceeds. Repairs might be completed before the investigation delivers its findings, however, and it will continue with its planned launches in the next few weeks while also running the investigation and sharing results publicly when appropriate.
SpaceX has had a very good year so far, with 16 total successful Falcon 9 launches – a great bounce-back from its more serious setback last September, when one of its Falcon 9 rockets exploded during pre-launch fueling with Facebook’s internet satellite on board.
Amazon quietly launched its own private label diapers on its site last week, this time under the Mama Bear brand. The brand, which already sells other baby items like baby food and diaper pail refills, is now carrying size newborn through size 6 diapers. However, shoppers will have to request an invite to purchase the items, as they’re still being launched.
The arrival of Amazon’s own diaper brand follows reports from last year which claimed Amazon was planning to re-enter this market, after pulling its line of diapers sold under the Amazon Elements name back in January 2015.
While Amazon Elements continues to sell baby wipes, it more recently expanded to include vitamins and supplements – not other baby products.
But the success of Amazon’s baby wipes line may have rival diaper manufacturers fearing Amazon’s return to the market. Today, Amazon Elements wipes have achieved 14 percent market share, up from 9 to 10 percent since last year, notes the firm One Click Retail. Another brand, Water Wipes, have gained more market share in wipes, but Amazon Elements is the number 2 gainer, the firm said.
While still invite-only, Amazon’s new diapers area already proving to be a strong sales driver for the Mama Bear brand. The seven ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Number, or basically, an Amazon SKU) for these new diapers have now accounted for 38 percent of the brand’s sales.
In addition, Amazon launched a new diaper pail refill ASIN around three months ago. On its own, it accounted for 41 percent of Mama Bear sales last week.
In other words, diapers and the diaper pail refill combined accounted for around 79 percent of Mama Bear sales last week.
While Mama Bear sales have spiked before – such as during Amazon’s sales holiday, Prime Week – the launch of the new private label diapers led to the largest sales spike the brand has ever seen last week, says One Click Retail CEO Spencer Millerberg.
Amazon’s investment in its private label lines has been exploding in recent months, including fashion, home, and other verticals. Its latest additions, reported this week, were new lines of activewear clothing, via brands called Goodsport, Rebel Canyon, and Peak Velocity. It also just entered the furniture market, with brands called Rivet and Stone & Beam, following earlier expansions into lingerie, shoes and handbags, and plus-size fashion.
A number of Amazon’s private labels today have seen millions, or even tens of millions or hundreds of millions in sales. A prior report from One Click Retail found the AmazonBasics line, for example, has over $250 million YTD, or 85 percent of total private brand sales in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s apparel label Lark & Ro and its baby care and vitamins brand Amazon Elements have each grown 90 percent year-over-year, with respective sales of approximately $5 million and $10 million, the report said.
The new Mama Bear-branded diapers are being manufactured through Kimberly Clark, a source familiar with the situation says.
The diapers also come in two pattern options, white and a bears print, and are sold as 4-packs, with a varying amount per pack, depending on the diaper size. They’re competitively priced with leading brands: for example, 128 newborn diapers will sell for $25.49 when launched; 216 size 1 diapers are $38.49; 184 size 2 diapers are $39.69; and so on.
For comparison’s sake, 128 newborn Pampers Swaddlers are $26.28 and 216 size 1 Huggies Little Snugglers are $37.04 – to give you an idea of diaper pricing in general.
When comparing four sizes of Pampers Swaddlers that did have exact equivalent pack sizes to Mama Bear’s packs, Amazon’s brand saved shoppers 11 percent to 17 percent.
For Amazon, the addition of its own diapers and other private labels will have a bottom line impact, due to their increased margins. Plus, in some cases, the labels are used to drive customers to subscribe to Prime, as the brands themselves are Prime-only. So far that’s been the case for Mama Bear products, but the diapers aren’t yet labeled this way. However, that could be because they’re still in invite mode.
Source: TechCrunch
Apple is reportedly working on a redesign of the iPad that includes dropping the Home button and slimming down the bezels on the top-end model, as well as adding facial recognition tech to allow for Face ID unlocking and more. Bloomberg says the redesigned iPad could make its consumer debut as early as next year.
The upgraded tablet would likely sit at the top of the iPad line, which would probably make it an iPad Pro, and would not pack in an OLED screen in addition to the other changes it would inherit from the iPhone X. It’s said to be similar in size to the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, at least (no word yet on a 12.9 version), with a release date late in the year.
Dropping the home button on the iPad would allow for a larger screen in the same physical footprint. Apple already reduced the thickness of the edges on the 10.5-inch version vs. the 9.7-inch model it replaced, to maximize screen real estate, and it could go further still with additional space savings from reducing the ‘chin’ of the front of the device.
Making OLED displays at scale for the new iPad would be too much of a technical and financial hurdle, according to the report, hence it not making the jump from iPhone X to iPad. But Face ID for unlocking will make its iPad debut, per Bloomberg’s sources, along with improved internal specs, and a brand new version of the Apple Pencil.
The report makes no mention of a ‘notch’ design that would eliminate most of the top bezel, as well. It’s possible that this wouldn’t make as much sense on a larger device like this which is often used for consuming video in landscape format.
Obviously, Apple taking the technical achievements of its iPhone X and spreading them around its other products was bound to happen, but if it really is in the next iPad revision then Apple’s moving pretty quickly to capitalize on its main iPhone X innovations.
Source: TechCrunch
We’re approaching one year since Amazon expanded its Prime video service to over 200 countries internationally, and today the company is doubling down on that global audience with the introduction of a ‘Basic Edition’ of its popular Fire TV Stick that ships to over 100 countries.
The company unveiled a much-improved third-generation version of the product in September, adding HD support, but, like its predecessor, availability is limited to the U.S. initially with little chance of hitting much of the world. That’s an issue with Amazon wants to marry the dongle with Amazon Prime Video viewers outside of its strongest markets.
This new Basic Edition is essentially the previous incarnation of the device but without voice commands via Alexa. Alexa has been omitted altogether — you’ll note the lack of a voice command button on the remote. That’s because Alexa products aren’t yet available in many parts of the world, although Amazon has just begun to ship the Echo to India and Japan will follow soon as it bids to expand in Asia.
The Basic Edition, like the previous Fire TV Stick, comes with 720p and 1080p up to 60fps video output, Dolby Audio, a 1.3 GHz processor, 1 GB memory and 8 GB of storage for apps and games. The price is advertised as $50 — it may vary based on location — which is more than the new $39.99 model.
It may seem a little cheeky that Amazon is charging more for essentially less here — Alexa being the main difference — but this is the first time that a Fire TV Stick has been available for direct shipping to many parts of the world. So even if you wanted a superior model you’d end up paying more — both in terms of shipping cost, and the hassle of getting a product moved to your country of choice. This new version also includes free shipping, another small bonus.
It’s a logical move for Amazon because the Fire TV Stick can drive adoption of Prime Video, but for now but — if you live in a country where Amazon’s core e-commerce business and the remainder of the Prime membership services are not present — it isn’t exactly deal of the century. Google’s Chromecast, one of the closet like-for-like competitors, has local resale options world in some parts of the world but, for many, this new Basic Edition might be the most attractive dongle — even when it isn’t tied to Amazon’s full quota of Prime Video services.
“Last year, we made Amazon Prime Video available to customers globally, and today, we’re building on that momentum as we introduce Fire TV Stick Basic Edition to new customers around the world. This makes streaming content from apps like Prime Video fast and easy and we can’t wait to hear what customers think,” Marc Whitten, vice president of the Amazon Fire TV business, said in a statement.
Source: TechCrunch
