After mothballing Amazon Care, Amazon reenters tele-health with Amazon Clinic, a marketplace for third-party virtual consultants

The ink is not yet dry on Amazon’s $4 billion acquisition of OneMedical, but in the meantime, the online services giant is making one more move into telehealth, and into medical services overall, on its own steam. The company today is taking the wraps off of Amazon Clinic, which Amazon describes as a virtual health “storefront”: users can search for, connect with, and pay for telehealth care, addressing variety of conditions that are some of the more popular for telehealth consultations today.

Amazon Clinic is initially launching in 32 states in the U.S.. It does not work with health insurance and this point, and overall pricing will vary depending on providers, conditions, and location. (One example, connecting with a clinic for acne treatment in Nevada will cost around $40, and you get a choice of two providers whose different offers are provided in a comparative table. Another example, for pink eye (conjunctivitis) in New Jersey, has a wider price gap of between $30 and $48 between the two providers listed.)

Amazon Clinic appeared to leak out about a week ago when users spotted a video on YouTube that was then quickly removed as media picked up on the attention. Now, it is launching officially, and at a critical moment.


It’s only been a few months since Amazon shut down Amazon Care, which had been a telehealth service that it created for its own employees before stepping up plans to launch it nationwide and to third-party companies. And more generally, the company is, like many others in tech, feeling the economic pinch. It is reportedly gearing up to make a big round of layoffs, potentially 10,000 jobs and possibly this week; and additionally to that it’s been downsizing and cutting a number of its operations.

Amazon Clinic is about the company taking another pass at the healthcare market, and positioning itself as a player in what is a perpetual problem in the U.S.: how to bridge the gap between people needing medical help for ailments that are more complicated that a trip to the drug store, but might not justify expensive and time-consuming trips to the doctor.

(Other conditions it will cover addition to acne and pink eye include asthma refills, birth control, cold sores, dandruff, eczema, erectile dysfunction, eyelash growth, genital herpes, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), hayfever, hyperlipidemia refills, hypertension refills, hypothyroidism refills, men’s hair loss, migraines, sinusitis, smoking cessation, urinary tract infections (UTIs), yeast infections and so on.)

Clinic is very much built in the Amazon mold. It’s a marketplace where third parties can leverage Amazon’s platform and reach to find customers, and Amazon can leverage third parties to quickly scale what offers to its consumers. And it helps Amazon extend the business funnel for other Amazon operations — in this case Amazon Pharmacy, which can fulfill any prescriptions that come out of Clinic consultations, and has reportedly not been as big of a boom in business as expected. (Users can fill Amazon Clinic scripts in other pharmacies, too.)


We’ve asked Amazon if it plans to provide its own in-house (private label, in e-commerce parlance) telehealth consultancy utalongside third parties, and what the plans are for further states, whether there are international ambitions, and if it will accept health insurance for Clinic in the future. It may well be that this is laying the groundwork for Amazon to link up what it is building here with OneMedical when that acquisition closes.


The bigger picture for Amazon Clinic is that the service will sit within Amazon’s bigger ambitions in the healthcare market. The company already has an online chemists, Amazon Pharmacy, which fulfills subscriptions and lets users additional buy over-the-counter drugs via Prime memberships that ship the items within two days.

Amazon also believes its new telehealth service addresses a gap in the market for providing users with health consultations for more minor ailments. Some situations need more direct physician involvement, which might be covered with One Medical or one’s existing healthcare coverage; some situations might be addressable by visiting a pharmacy on one’s own steam.

“But we also know that sometimes you just need a quick interaction with a clinician for a common health concern that can be easily addressed virtually,” the company noted in its blog post announcing the service.

Amazon has been making inroads, and laying out its ambitions, in healthcare for a number of years. Amazon Pharmacy was launched off the back of its acquisition of PillPack. And it’s been exploring healthcare as an enterprise opportunity, with integrations of Alexa into healthcare environments.


But Amazon Care is not the only step back it’s taken in its longer journey. In 2018, it formed a JV with JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway to build an employee healthcare operation, appointing a high-profile doctor to lead it. That service never appeared to take shape as expected and shut up shop in 2021.

We’ll update this piece as we learn more.

source: techcrunch.com

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Adobe snaps up Figma for $20B, taking out one of its biggest rivals in digital design

 

Big news in the world of digital creative technology: Adobe today announced that it would acquire Figma for $20 billion, taking out one of its biggest rivals in the realm of digital design.

Both the WSJ and Bloomberg reported earlier this morning that Adobe was close to announcing the deal to acquire Figma. In the end, Adobe confirmed the news to coincide with its quarterly earnings.

Those Q3 earnings saw the company post revenues of $4.43 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $3.40, which respectively met and exceeded analysts’ expectations. Nevertheless, the company said that it might need to finance this deal with a loan, and it provided a lukewarm outlook for the next quarter, with revenues expected to be $4.52 billion and EPS of $3.50, citing “the overall macroeconomic environment” and “FX headwinds”. Its stock is trading down nearly 10% pre-market open — one sign of how Adobe likely hoped the news of consolidating and taking out a rival could give it a boost.

Investors are not the only ones a little worried…

Source: Tech Crunch

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BlackBerry confirms it will can its Classic smartphone

Goodbye to more tactile keys, and hello to planes of cool and smooth glass. Today, BlackBerry confirmed that it will stop making the Classic, one of the company’s last smartphone models based around a physical keyboard for inputting text, as the company prepares for a new series of phone designs based on Android and BlackBerry 10 platforms, and more attempts to compete in an increasingly lopsided smartphone market.

BlackBerry’s COO and GM for devices, Ralph Pini, confirmed the decision in a blog post published a little earlier, which itself appeared to be a belated response to news that leaked out by way of a U.S. Senate memo published by Politico before the long Independence Day weekend.

“Sometimes it can be very tough to let go,” he wrote. “As part of this, and after many successful years in the market, we will no longer manufacture BlackBerry Classic.”

To be clear, BlackBerry is not backing out of making any devices with physical keyboards. The Politico memo mentioned that a full range of BlackBerry OS 10 devices (“Q10, Z10, Z30, Passport, and Classic”) was getting discontinued, which would have covered yet more QWERTY models. But Pini writes that only the Classic would be going, and BlackBerry has confirmed the same directly to us.

“We continue to actively support sales of our BlackBerry 10 smartphones to customers in most markets. And for customers choosing our Android device as their next smartphone, there will be a seamless transition without any compromise to the security of their mobile platform or operations,” the company noted in a statement. “We believe that being truly cross platform – which includes support for BB10, Android, iOS and Windows Phone – will allow us to best serve our customers across the world.” While phone companies will stop selling these devices, BlackBerry notes you can still buy them unlocked while supplies last.

As part of this, the company said it will be releasing 10.3.3 next month, with another update next year.


In the meantime, pour one out for the model that arguably started it all, and may have even given the company its original fruity brand. (Hold it with your arm stretched out, and one of the original black Blackberry phones kind of do resemble one of the sweet berries that grows in the brambles in the forest.)

BlackBerry continues to have huge challenges ahead of it in the smartphone industry, and you could easily argue that the Classic was more important as an icon than as an actual business.

Once the early mover and market leader among all smartphones, BlackBerry accounted for only 0.2% of all worldwide sales in Q1 2016, according to Gartner. Android phones represented over 84% of all purchased devices.

The thinking seems to be that by pushing BlackBerry deeper into the realm of Android, it may pick up more users in a market that isn’t particularly strong on one brand: underscoring the fragmentation in Android, market leader Samsung only accounts for 23.2% of sales. iOS and Apple are close by at 14.8%.

In that regard, it’s particularly ironic that the Classic — which itself was a relaunched (in 2014) version of the company’s original design — is being discontinued: it was one of the few remaining phone models that you could distinctly make out in a sea of me-too, anonymous Android styles or iPhone lookalikes.

Next up, you have to wonder about the longer term fate of BlackBerry’s platform. The company has seen some major setbacks, with companies like Facebook pulling away from supporting the platform, which it lumped together with Symbian and older versions of Android in the “unfriend” pile. As the slow growth of Windows Phone demonstrated, popular app availability was one (but not the only) factor that kept consumers from buying those devices.

Source: TechCrunch

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Metro Africa Xpress Looks To Bring On-Demand Local Delivery To Urban Africa

Adetayo Bamiduro had to convince his co-founder Chinedu Azodoh that starting an e-commerce site wasn’t necessarily the best idea — at least, not yet. Instead, the two decided to start Metro Africa Xpress (or MAX, for short), a last-mile delivery service for urban Africa based in Lagos, Nigeria. MAX is launching onstage today at TechCrunch Disrupt London.

The service gives merchants a way to have their goods delivered to customers within three hours through a platform that can use an API the company built, as well as through text messaging and other platforms. Merchants summon MAX couriers through the platform and MAX charges the merchants based on distance instead of weight and other factors that logistics companies often use. In addition, traditional logistics companies currently can’t offer that kind of speed, which is largely the focus of MAX, Azodoh said.

“We hated the way things are done today — you have kilograms, measuring, everyone wastes time,” he said. “Typically, the whole process wasn’t well-organized or well thought out, so for us we do it to simplify the process and make it easy to use our platform.”

MAX does have crowdsourced couriers, but it also has a baseline staff of people to deliver packages on branded motorcycles. The couriers they employ full-time are paid on a salaried basis, while its crowdsourced couriers — if the demand is there — get paid per delivery. Around 70% of the drivers are full-time, Azodoh said on stage.

The pair is from Nigeria, and they went through TechStars (one of the first to come out of Nigeria). Azodoh said they built MAX in Africa to help encourage others on the continent to start companies.

“When you look at the landscape, there weren’t many successful companies that were African-owned, it made it difficult for younger people to look up,” Azodoh said. “Cities in Africa have some of the highest urbanization rates compared across the world. With more and more coming into the system, it’s very important we have things that you can look up to, and say hey, if MAX has done it, I can do it.”

Another reason they built the company in Africa is they want to enable retailers to grow by giving them the tools to actually deliver their goods — which is a natural precursor to growing, you’d expect. On the e-commerce side, one of the reasons it hasn’t hit the penetration rate that is seen in the UK and the United States is that there isn’t a good infrastructure for delivery, he said.

“When you look at comparable markets, the growth of e-commerce has directly correlated with the appearance of strong last-mile delivery,” Azodoh said. “Our main goal is to empower retailers and consumers across the company. The most effective way to do that is to provide last-mile delivery. That provides a real way of commerce workflow.”

Of course, there is the elephant in the room: Uber. The company could end up going after the same space that MAX is going after, given its history of being an aggressive — and well-funded — company with a knack for handling trips from one point to another. Azodoh knows that there’s a chance that Uber could be gunning for them eventually, but said he’s just heads down working on the company right now.

“The great thing has been focusing on executing and executing like crazy,” he said. “We want to get things done as fast as possible. We’re not too focused on what the competitors are doing. We love them and respect them; we don’t use that as a scale of measurement of our performance.”

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Google Adds More Music, TV And Movie Content To Mobile Search, Including Recommendations

An update to Google search rolling out to mobile users is putting a greater emphasis on music and media, including recommendations on songs, TV shows, movies, and more. Now, when searching for things like singers, actors, films and other related items, Google will return enhanced results that provide information like lyrics, covers, or song recommendations for music searches, as well as details on past and current TV episodes, information about the cast, movie showtimes and other items.

To some extent, Google was already offering this information in Google Search previously. For example, it introduced song lyrics around a year ago, pointing web searchers to lyrics from Google Play that appeared as cards just above Google’s search results, reducing traffic to lyrics websites in the process.

Plus, Google’s “Knowledge Graph” – an enhancement to the search engine which provides direct answers to queries by understanding the content found in web pages – has been featuring information about TV shows and movies for some time, including things like showtimes, and even critics’ reviews,announced earlier this summer.

However, with the update, this information has more structure. For instance, a search for a particular singer takes you to a new interface where you can tap your way through tabs that offer you an overview of their work, as well as tabs that list their songs, albums, and upcoming events. You can even listen to their music via services like YouTube, Spotify, Google Play Music, and iHeartRadio – which had also been supported before via Google Search results.


A similar experience is available for actors, film and TV content, which puts Google search in more direct competition with services like Amazon’s IMDb. When introducing the update via its blog post, Google even suggests you could use this feature for the same reason that users would otherwise turn to a site like IMDb, saying: “maybe you’re watching a TV show and can’t remember where you’ve seen that actor before?”


What’s interesting about the update, too, is that Google will also show what’s related to the item in question by showing you other things people have searched for as part of its recommendation system. It’s also pointing searchers to suggestions about what to watch next, and movie showtimes through this interface.

The update is currently available only to mobile users on Android phones and tablets, but Google says it will arrive for iOS users in the near future.

Source: Techcrunch

Images: shutterstock/bloomua

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Android Wear Presents Timely Competition For Apple Watch

The wristwatch has been a fashion accessory for almost 450 years, but technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry. At the heart of this movement is the Apple Watch, a reimagining of the wristwatch that has turned the space on its ear by marrying wearable tech wizardry with sleek, modern design.

With the inclusion of tech, something else interesting has also happened to the humble wristwatch: It has developed the potential to be a valuable business tool, as well.

With 38 different watches available, Apple has called its Watch the most personalized device it has ever created. But there’s still a chance for a competitor, like Google Android Wear, to take a bite out of the Apple Watch market share — and enterprise usability just might be a key point of difference.

Android Wear devices offer many tools and services that can positively impact the daily life of corporate users. Android Wear’s biggest value-add for both regular consumers and professional users is the ability to communicate through the smartwatch itself. Because it syncs to your phone, all of your alerts and notifications get pushed directly to your wrist — and that wrist vibration can keep you from missing calls in meetings or in loud occupational environments like server rooms or manufacturing floors.

Plus, those who travel for work will benefit from Android Wear’s travel cards, which pop up when a trip is scheduled in your Google calendar. This means QR codes for boarding passes load to your wrist, as do hotel reservations, local traffic conditions and turn-by-turn driving directions, when needed.

Features like these might be Google’s ticket to get ahead in the smartwatch segment. There are many potential paths to this possibility — but here are three ways it could finally pluck Apple Watch from its place at the top of the heap.
Delivering A Swiss-Made Smartwatch

To date, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Asus and Sony have all released Android Wear watches. Those brands have one thing in common: None of them are watchmakers.

On the other hand, the Swiss produce only a little more than 2 percent of the world’s watches, but capture more than half the global watch revenue. They produce some of the finest watches in the world, and Swiss watchmakers have accumulated thousands of patents that cover everything from clasps to mechanical function. Even the watch faces themselves are valuable: In 2012, Apple reportedly paid $21 million to the Swiss Federal Railway service to use its iconic watch-face design for the clock in iOS6.

Technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry.

To deliver the ultimate in modern form-meets-fashion, the answer is fairly simple: bring smartwatch technology into mechanical and quartz watches without sacrificing quality or style. In other words, get the Swiss on board! Not only would it be a boon to smartwatch buyers who don’t want to sacrifice fashion for function — it also could help Swiss watchmakers survive the digital age.
Harnessing The Power Of Project Ara And Android Wear OS

Google has spent a lot of time recently trying to regain control over Android. There’s been an uptick in Chinese OEMs leveraging the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), as well as momentum behind Cyanogen. This has resulted in Google preventing customization of some newer product releases, like Android Wear.


However, if Google completely open-sourced Android Wear, it would allow manufacturers to customize the OS for specific use cases, like for divers, pilots and the military. It could also ease the incorporation of Android Wear into Project Ara.

Project Ara is Google’s open hardware initiative for smartphones. The idea is to modularize the components of a phone (CPU, storage, camera, etc.) into an open platform to which any engineer — not just large hardware manufacturers — can contribute modules. These modules can be “hot swapped” or changed on the fly.

For example, an old camera module can be unplugged from the phone’s endoskeleton frame, and replaced with a newer high-resolution camera. Or you can choose to remove your Bluetooth module and add extra storage.

Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology.

This is a great initiative, but right now, it’s limited in scope. Why stop at smartphones? The components that live in a smartwatch, like the CPU, Bluetooth and storage, can easily fit inside a traditional watch. This is the integration point between Google and the Swiss. Project Ara for Android Wear, integrated into a Swiss watch, gives consumers the best of both worlds.

For example, you don’t need to worry about a smartwatch becoming dated, as the components can be upgraded as needed. Even better, you can keep your beloved Swiss mechanical function and watch face.
Thinking Outside the Box — And The Watch Face

Both Google and Apple stress that their product is more than just a watch. At Google IO, they are quick to point out that more than 4,000 apps have been created for their device. Today, the most interesting apps don’t even require an electronic display on the watch, such as functions for payment, identity, audio commands and fitness.

Imagine being able to hold up your Breitling to the NFC payment reader at your local supermarket to buy groceries, or automatically unlocking your car door with your Patek Philippe. Go out on a run and have your Swiss Army watch record your workout. Channel James Bond and talk into a microphone in your Omega Seamaster. The use-cases and customizations are endless and exciting.

Even better news? There is precedent for these types of partnerships. Google recently partnered with Levi’s on Project Jacquard to bring gesture and touch-sensing textiles to the masses.

Is there still a window for Google to win the smartwatch race, and drive billions in new revenue into the watch industry? Yes. By leveraging its hardware platform, Project Ara, and completely open-sourcing the Android Wear operating system, Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology into packages that deliver variety, and allow more consumers to become smartwatch owners.

Source: Techcrunch

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