Heard the one about the two orange robots who roll into a Belltown bar?
“Rough day at work?” says the first bot, named Kiva II, after his parent, to his stock-picking colleague. “I’ve transported more Amazon Prime product off of warehouse shelves today than a Foxconn iPad assembler working overtime!”
“Easy for you to say” remotes the silicon sibling of a Roomba vacuum cleaner, “I was targeted in a Microsoft BotNet sting this morning. Spent most of the day getting virally scanned and purged! No if, ands, or bots!”
The two robot operatives are part of Amazon’s $775 million bot-buyout of an army of robotic workers from Kiva (didn’t we see this scene in Star Wars, Obe Wan?). Amazon believes their workers and their customers will find the squat digital assistants somehow “fulfilling.”
“Amazon has long used automation in its fulfillment centers, and Kiva’s technology is another way to improve productivity by bringing the products directly to employees to pick, pack and stow,” said Dave Clark, Amazon.com’s vice president of global customer fulfillment said in a statement. “Kiva’s technology is another way to improve productivity by bringing the products directly to employees to pick, pack and stow.”
We’ll drink to that. Kiva represents Amazon’s second-largest acquisition, behind its $847 million takeover of the shoe and accessories retailer Zappos.com in 2009. [24×7]
Microsoft’s BotNet Raid Puts Evil Droid Makers on Notice!
In other parts of the U.S. geo-grid, a Microsoft-led posse of bot hunters bore down on office buildings in Illinois and Pennsylvania, probing evidence of illicit botnets — including infected computers ready to be awakened by criminals, and including a dragnet of seized web addresses purportedly used in the nefarious schemes.
The Microsoft deputies made their intentions clear: “This action is expected to significantly impact the cybercriminals’ operations and infrastructure, advance global efforts to help victims regain control of their infected computers, and also help further investigations against those responsible for the threat.”
According to The New York Times, Microsoft’s law enforcement sheriff and chief gunslinger in its stakeout is Richard Boscovich, a former federal prosecutor who is a senior lawyer in Microsoft’s digital crimes unit. That group watches over fraud that threatens the company’s products and reputation.
Mr. Boscovich asserted the Friday sweep was meant to send a message to the criminals behind the scheme, whose identities are unknown. “We’re letting them know we’re looking at them.”
As for those two, orange Amazon bots in Belltown, they were cleared of suspicion and were spotted heading over to the Crocodile Cafe for tickets to the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, Thursday, March 29 thru Sat., March 31 @TheCrocodile [24×7]
