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amazon

Walmart Aims for Amazon Prime With New Membership Program

By
Shai Oster
· · Source: The New York Times

Walmart took aim at Amazon with the announcement of a new online membership program. The service, Walmart+, costs $98, which is less than Amazon Prime’s membership, but doesn’t include streaming video and has a minimum order requirement for free shipping. Walmart is relying more on its online services as Covid-19 continues to impact traditional shopping. Walmart said its online sales grew 97%...

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Chatbot Startup Character Seeks $250 Million, Testing Investor Appetite for AI
By Jon Victor, Kate Clark and Erin Woo · Jan. 27, 2023 2:25 PM PST
The cofounders of Character.AI, Noam Shazeer (CEO) and Daniel de Freitas Adiwardana (president) at the company's office in Palo Alto, CA. Photo via Getty.
Character, an AI chatbot startup founded by two former Google researchers, has told investors it wants to raise as much as $250 million in new funding, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The pitch will test investors’ appetite for machine-learning startups as Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar deal with OpenAI casts a halo over the sector. A funding round of...
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