• Amazon announced the opening of its newest Amazon Go store yesterday - the first to be opened in the Los Angeles market, and the second (after one in Mill Creek, Washington) to feature a suburb-centric format.
The suburban concept is larger than the urban Go stores - a total of 4,100 square feet, with 2,150 square feet in front of house. The format also features a "Made-to-Order kitchen which offers nearly 30 freshly prepared breakfast and lunch items for customers to choose from or customize – available all day and at prices they can feel good about. The Made-to-Order kitchen offers breakfast bowls, sandwiches and burritos, hot and cold deli sandwiches, salads, and wraps." However, the suburban concept also has the checkout-free, Just Walk Out technology pioneered in the original Amazon Go stores.
A third suburban store is slated to be opened in Torrance, California, "soon," according to the company.
• The Wall Street Journal reports that "a union election at an Amazon.com Inc. facility in upstate New York has been scheduled for October, setting up another company showdown with activist workers trying to build on a watershed union victory earlier this year.
"The vote at the facility near Albany is to be held in person between Oct. 12 and 17, according to the company. A group of workers affiliated with the Amazon Labor Union filed for the election in August, after what has been an up-and-down year for ALU organizers following a successful union bid in April at a company facility in Staten Island, a borough of New York City.
"The National Labor Relations Board recently said organizers had proved they had enough support to request an election."
• The Harvard Crimson reports that Harvard University has launched a three-year research partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that "aims to promote research into quantum networking — a method of sending and receiving digital information — at the Harvard Quantum Initiative … It will increase funding for faculty-led projects and allow more students to get involved in research efforts."
“The collaborative initiative between AWS and Harvard will harness top research talent to explore quantum networking today and establish a framework to develop the quantum workforce of the future,” Antia Lamas-Linares, quantum networking lead at AWS, said in a prepared statement.
