Amazon - push into "health care"

Vicarious is an artificial intelligence company based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
They use the theorized computational principles of the brain to build software that can think and learn like a human.
The company was founded in 2010 by D. Scott Phoenix and Dr. Dileep George.

Before co-founding Vicarious, Phoenix was Entrepreneur in Residence at Founders Fund and CEO of Frogmetrics,
a touchscreen analytics company he co-founded through the Y Combinator incubator program.
The company launched in February 2011 with funding from Founders Fund, Dustin Moskovitz,

Adam D’Angelo (former Facebook CTO and co-founder of Quora), Felicis Ventures, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
In August 2012, in its Series A round of funding, it raised an additional $15 million.
The round was led by Good Ventures; Founders Fund, Open Field Capital and Zarco Investment Group also participated.
The company received $40 million in its Series B round of funding.

The round was led by such notables as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla, and Ashton Kutcher.
An additional undisclosed amount was later contributed by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos,
Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang, Skype co-founder Janus Friis and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_(company)

(February 22, 2016) ICHR launches hospital linked digital platform for keeping child’s health record
The child’s health records will now be made available at a click of a button.
India’s first ever digital platform, Integrated Child Health Record (ICHR),
to keep a child's health record, has been launched recently. Supported by cloud computing and mobile technology,
ICHR is a revolutionary product to map a child’s health and track vaccination.
This application removes the manual vaccination cards and makes the experience paperless and traceable from any part of the world.
Harpreet Singh, chief technology officer, Oxyent Medical, the company behind ICHR said,
“Our main aim behind this product is to provide a paperless authenticated platform
integrating doctors, hospitals and parents. The platform will provide automated vaccination record
and will monitor the growth schedule. Being on Amazon cloud, doctor can access real time patient information
regarding growth and vaccination from any part of world using internet.
pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=93618&sid=2

(March 6, 2018) What if billionaires could live forever?
Several billionaires, most of them Californians, have been funding firms involved in developing life-extension technologies.
What if they succeed? What if billionaires alive today live indefinitely and get ever richer?
Diamandis and Hariri's new venture is the latest example of a well-established phenomenon in Silicon Valley:
Extremely wealthy techno-optimists have for years been funding biomedical R&D companies meant to achieve immortality for their funders.
Some of the more recognizable names who have been putting money into such efforts: Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle),
Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google), Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon), and Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies.
Palantir, by the way, is a "big-data" company that uses algorithms to scan huge datasets for patterns.
It does a lot of work for US government intelligence agencies. Thiel is a radical corporate libertarian, and Silicon Valley's best-known Donald Trump supporter.
In late February, Diamandis wrote to subscribers of his email bulletin: "I asked the smartest people I know for their tech predictions for the next 20 years (2018 – 2038).
What are the breakthroughs we can expect on our countdown to the Singularity?" One of the predictions he listed was that by 2030, "humanity will have achieved Longevity Escape Velocity for the wealthiest."
dw.com/en/what-if-billionaires-could-live-forever/a-42840013

(March 12, 2018) Royal Philips, Samsung partner to expand connected health ecosystem
Royal Philips, a global leader in health technology, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced plans for a strategic partnership
to connect Samsung’s ARTIK Smart IoT Platform to the Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform.
This collaboration will ultimately allow the Samsung ARTIK ecosystem of connected devices
to safely access and share information with Philips’ cloud platform.
Healthcare application developers working with the Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform
will be able to use data from devices connected to Samsung’s SmartThings Cloud to develop new, data-driven connected health solutions.
In addition, they can leverage data from various sources and IoT solutions, like QualcommLife, Validic and Philips’ own HealthSuite IoT solution which is based on Amazon Web Services IoT.
pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=107733&sid=2

(August 7, 2018) 5 privacy concerns for Amazon's healthcare efforts
1. With Amazon's acquisition of PillPack and its partnership with JPMorgan Chase
and Berkshire Hathaway, the e-commerce giant is becoming a hybrid entity,
Mr. Short explained. HIPAA lays out rules that entities with multiple functions must follow,
meaning Amazon needs to create barriers around each of its operations to ensure that health information doesn't pass from one business area to another.

2. HIPAA permits pharmacies to de-identify patient information and make it available elsewhere.
This means Amazon could acquire demographic intelligence about people that take certain medications
and use it to draw conclusions about their purchasing behaviors, leading to more targeted marketing practices.
The information could flow in a similar way from Amazon into the pharmacy.

3. Mr. Nova adds that these issues are not unique to Amazon — companies like Express Scripts and CVS also have mail-order pharmacy operations
and are subject to the same regulations. However, he notes, that Amazon's scale makes regulatory oversight more challenging.

4. Privacy protections already exist for group health plans similar to Amazon's venture with Berkshire and JPMorgan.
However, what makes their initiative different is its potential to offer multiple covered functions.
This means the venture must know where patient information comes from, how it is used and how to properly transmit it.
It is possible the venture could turn employees' data into protected health information, or it could remove identifiers so HIPAA doesn't apply.

5. Another privacy concern with the Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan venture involves what information an employer can provide to the insurance side
of its operations to better manage employee health, Mr. Short said. This could involve social determinants of health,
and there are rules and regulations governing ways to bring these data points together.
beckershospitalreview.com/cybersecurity/5-privacy-concerns-for-amazon-s-healthcare-efforts.html

(September 19, 2018) Accenture, Merck collaborate with AWS to launch a research platform to drive innovation in drug discovery & scientific research
Accenture and Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS),
will launch a cloud-based informatics research platform designed to help organizations in the life sciences industry
improve productivity, efficiency and innovation in the early stages of drug development.
This new platform is one of the outcomes of the ongoing collaboration between Accenture and AWS through the Accenture AWS Business Group.
The new research platform is one of many solutions offered by the Accenture Applied Life Sciences Solutions practice.
pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=111279&sid=2

(October 19, 2018) Amazon is the invisible backbone of ICE’s immigration crackdown
In June, when the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) began separating migrant children from their parents,
several tech companies came under fire for providing the agency with the software that helped them do it.
At the center of the criticism was data mining company Palantir,
which designed the Investigative Case Management system.

The ICM is a critical component of ICE’s deportation operations—it integrates
a vast ecosystem of public and private data to track down immigrants and, in many cases, deport them.
Little is known about how the software actually works or how extensively ICE uses it.
But within the first nine months of the Trump administration,
ICE arrests increased 42% compared with the same period in the previous year.

According to civil rights and immigration activists, ICM is fueling the mass surveillance
and targeting of immigrants at an unprecedented scale.
All of that data and the algorithms powering ICM are now being migrated to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in their entirety;
Palantir pays Amazon approximately $600,000 a month for the use of its servers, according to the report’s authors.
technologyreview.com/2018/10/22/139639/amazon-is-the-invisible-backbone-behind-ices-immigration-crackdown/

(December 13, 2018) Big players to buoy healthcare IT market
Big tech firms have been making leaps into the healthcare sector as the organizations identify the need to employ IT infrastructure.
Amazon is one of those giants which will enter the medical health record market
with the launch of the software that utilizes machine learning for mining the patient data.
This new software by the e-commerce giant would analyze the millions of patient records and offer insights based on those records.
This will help in making better decisions and reduce the overall healthcare costs. Diving into patient records and extracting insights
with high accuracy is what this software aims to achieve, according to the statement by Matt Wood,
the general manager of AI at AWS, to Wall Street Journal.
pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=113816&sid=21

(February 22, 2019) Abbott launches AI based personal assistant named “Maya” for its sales force
Abbott, in association with SmartBots AI, has successfully launched an innovative new virtual assistant
to support and engage their pan-India sales force — and her name is Maya.
As a global healthcare company, Abbott has taken a leadership role in implementing digital solutions across all stakeholders,
including patients, doctors and employees, through the adoption of integrated technology solutions.
In early 2018, Abbott became first in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry to deploy an AI assistant for its field force.
Abbott’s Pharmaceuticals Division initiated a pilot by getting around 3,000 sales employees to start engaging with Maya for their day to day queries.
Moreover, Maya is a BOT with a personality. Developed by SmartBots AI and powered by Amazon’s LeX technology,
she uses a voice or chat interface to communicate with employees in simple natural language, and provides them the assistance they need.
With integration across enterprise systems and self-learning (machine learning) from usage, Maya makes it simple for the field force to access critical business insights.
pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=114204&sid=2

(June 5, 2020) Peter Thiel’s Palantir Is Given Access to U.K. Health Data on Covid-19 Patients
Britain’s National Health Service allowed secretive U.S. technology company Palantir Technologies Inc.
access to sensitive personal data of patients, employees and members of the public
under a deal to help it cope with the Covid-19 outbreak.
Faculty, a London-based artificial intelligence firm, is also working on the NHS’s coronavirus response
and secured access to sensitive data. Tech giants Microsoft Corp., Amazon Web Services and Google
are also involved in the deal with the NHS. The companies are tasked with building a data platform
to help understand how Covid-19 is spreading across the country and the capacity of its health-care system to deal with it.
Faculty is run by Marc Warner, whose brother Ben Warner, a data scientist, worked with the Vote Leave Brexit campaign
and has attended meetings of a scientific advisory group to guide the government on its coronavirus response strategy,
the Guardian newspaper has reported.
bloombergquint.com/markets/u-k-shares-patient-data-with-tech-firm-that-worked-for-cia

(October 20, 2020) Big Tech’s aggressive EU lobbying has caused a power shift
Although Europe is known as the most rigorous watchdog of Big Tech,
that reputation is at threat as the tech industry’s aggressive lobbying
in recent years has led to regulations and policies that has seen power shift from states to corporations,
and the wider impact of this is now evident across the continent.
In recent years, the ‘Big Four’ tech companies – Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple
– have increased their lobbying expenditure in the European Union
from a collective €2.8 million in 2013 to €15.25 million in 2018, a 444 percent increase within that period.
The number of lobbyists representing these companies has also seen a drastic rise.
Google went from having just seven declared lobbyists in Brussels in 2013 to 16 according to the most recent figures.
Facebook has gone from eight lobbyists in 2011 to 25,
Amazon from five to ten, and Apple from five to seven.
europeandatajournalism.eu/eng/News/Data-news/Big-Tech-s-aggressive-EU-lobbying-has-caused-a-power-shift

(November 17, 2020) Amazon unveils online pharmacy, expanding its push into health care
Amazon unveiled its biggest push into selling prescription drugs
with the launch of a digital pharmacy and discounts for paying U.S. Prime members
that sent shock waves through shares of drugstore chains and distributors.
Amazon’s new offering comes more than two years after its $753 million acquisition of PillPack,
an online pharmacy known for organizing prescriptions into packets.
adage.com/article/digital/amazon-unveils-online-pharmacy-expanding-its-push-health-care/2295271

(December 1, 2020) Amazon delves deeper into voice recognition, call-center work as COVID-19 drives cloud
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O on Tuesday announced voice recognition
as part of a suite of call-center services for businesses,
as the company sees growing demand for its cloud tools during the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking at the company's annual re:Invent conference, executive Andy Jassy announced Amazon Connect Voice ID,
which uses machine learning software to authenticate customers who dial into call centers.
Jassy, who runs the firm's cloud computing division Amazon Web Services, said AWS builds a voice print
for customers who opt in to save time on calls.
nasdaq.com/articles/amazon-delves-deeper-into-voice-recognition-call-center-work-as-covid-19-drives-cloud-2020

(January 4, 2021) Health venture led by Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan is ending
The joint venture, dubbed Haven and formed in 2018 by the three U.S. corporate giants, will end operations
by the end of February, a company spokeswoman said Monday. She gave no reason for the end of the venture.
Haven's initial goal was to develop technology tools for rolling out
affordable health care options for Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan employees.
But JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon also said the project could eventually expand to other workers.
The companies also picked a high-profile CEO, Harvard professor and surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande, to lead the venture.
In 2019, the company picked a name for itself, but it had been largely silent since then.
Gawande departed last May. Haven's remaining employees will be absorbed by the three companies involved in its creation.
msn.com/en-us/money/companies/health-venture-led-by-amazon-berkshire-jpmorgan-is-ending/ar-BB1ct5dr

(January 22, 2021) Amazon to open pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Seattle headquarters
Amazon Inc said on Thursday it will open a pop-up clinic in its Seattle headquarters on Jan. 24 with an aim to vaccinate 2,000 eligible members
of the public against COVID-19 on the first day. Amazon Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs Jay Carney, who announced the plan
in a news conference with Washington Governor Jay Inslee, said a company executive will be working with Washington State’s Vaccine Command Center.
The clinic will be hosted in partnership with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. The move came a day after Reuters reported that Amazon
had offered to help with the United States’ efforts involving the COVID-19 vaccine, citing a letter addressed to President Joe Biden.
asiainsurancepost.com/ecoinvestdemography/amazon-open-pop-covid-19-vaccine-clinic-seattle-headquarters

(March 26, 2021) Amazon receives FDA authorization for its own COVID-19 test and employee screening program
According to agency documents, workers in the retail giant’s offices, warehouses and fulfillment centers may be automatically assigned regular testing appointments,
typically every two weeks, though individuals can voluntarily elect whether to participate. The nasal swab tests
will be approved under a standing-order prescription from a contracted healthcare provider, the FDA said,
and administered in-person, under supervision via a telehealth link,
or self-performed while unsupervised at home or at work, with samples being mailed to laboratories for analysis.

In addition, people who test negative will be continuously tested
n pools of up to five samples. The molecular diagnostic and collection kit
were developed by an Amazon subsidiary, dubbed STS Lab Holdco.
fiercebiotech.com/medtech/amazon-receives-fda-authorization-for-its-own-covid-19-test-and-employee-screening-program

(June 16, 2021) Amazon kicks off new role as diagnostics provider by making COVID test available online
Amid the launch of its own wellness-tracking smartwatch and the expansion of the Amazon Care telehealth service,
the retail giant has begun dabbling in diagnostics. Using a proprietary COVID-19 test first developed to screen its own workers
during the pandemic, Amazon has now made its at-home sample collection kit available to the public online.

To use the kit, each test-taker must register on Amazon’s diagnostics portal, AmazonDx.com, using an Amazon account.
Once registered, users can purchase a COVID test, watch a video demonstrating how to use the kit and,
once they’ve sent their sample to the lab, access their test results.

The launch comes shortly after an Amazon subsidiary was granted an emergency use authorization
by the FDA to begin selling its test directly to consumers.

In addition to the August 2020 launch of the Halo wearable device—which tracks both physical and, thanks to voice-tracking microphones,
emotional wellness—Amazon is also on track to expand its Amazon Care telehealth service this summer from an in-house employee
benefit to a widescale service available to employers throughout the U.S.
fiercebiotech.com/medtech/amazon-kicks-off-its-new-role-as-dtc-diagnostics-provider-by-making-covid-test-available

(July 12, 2021) Amazon has won permission to monitor your sleep using radar
Amazon has won permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
to make a device that can monitor people's sleep using radar, Bloomberg first reported.
Amazon filed for the FCC's permission to develop its device in June,
and said radar would help it monitor sleep "with a higher degree of resolution
and location precision than would otherwise be achievable."
businessinsider.com/amazon-sleep-monitoring-device-radar-fcc-permission-granted-2021-7

Olivia Solon
@oliviasolon (August 8, 2021)

NEW: Contracted call center workers for tech companies
including Apple, Amazon and Uber were pressured to consent to intrusive surveillance in their homes,
including consenting to their children being filmed

twitter.com/oliviasolon/status/1424334589070397442

D'ARAMITZ
@2ndNewMoon (October 26, 2021)

Vaccination passport app shares personal data with Amazon and Royal Mail
twitter.com/2ndNewMoon/status/1452757930567258122

The Scottish Government ’s controversial vaccination passport shares the personal data
of users with a host of private firms, the Sunday Mail can reveal.

We have learned the NHS mobile phone app which presents the personal medical information in the form of a QR Code
shares data with companies including Amazon, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Royal Mail and an AI facial recognition firm.
dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/vaccination-passport-app-shares-personal-25285887?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar