Amazon says it achieved its “fastest Prime speeds ever” for deliveries across the 60 largest U.S. metro areas in Q2, when more than half its member orders arrived “the same or next day.” The benchmark announcement precedes this week’s earnings statement and was couched as fulfillment and transportation investments that have paid off. Amazon says it will in two years double the number of same-day delivery sites. So far in 2023 it has “delivered more than 1.8 billion units to U.S. Prime members the same or next day,” almost four times the shipments delivered at that rate during the same period in in 2019. Continue reading Amazon Boosts Efforts to Ship its Prime Deliveries in One Day

A team from Pixar talked about the massive amount of work the company puts into “localization” or “regionalization” of every film they make. “John Lasseter, from the early days, placed a high importance on creating content for international markets, without the disruptive experience of subtitles or language they don’t understand,” said Pixar executive Cynthia Lusk. “That’s been a priority for the studio since ‘Toy Story.’” Lusk said that they regard each movie as a snowflake, with a different approach from title to title. Continue reading HPA Tech Retreat: Pixar Team Talks Localization, ‘Inside Out’