Amazon is set to expand Haul, its discount-focused shopping platform, beyond the United States, marking a strategic move to compete with Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop on a global scale. Sources familiar with the matter indicate that Amazon is preparing to launch Haul in Europe later this year, with further expansion plans in progress.

Amazon’s Global Push for Haul

Recent job postings suggest Amazon is gearing up for an international launch of Haul, with hiring efforts focused on regions outside the U.S. One such listing sought a software development engineer for the Haul team to support a worldwide expansion, while another role targeted a senior product manager for a launch in Mexico. Both job openings, which were posted earlier this month, have since been removed.

While Amazon has yet to make an official announcement, a company spokesperson provided a general statement regarding its expansion strategy:

“We are always exploring new ways to work with our selling partners to delight our customers around the world with more selection, lower prices, and greater convenience.”

What Is Amazon Haul?

Launched in November 2023, Haul is Amazon’s answer to Shein and Temu, offering ultra-low-cost products across various categories, including fashion, beauty, and home goods. Most items on Haul are priced under $20, with some products—such as $1 eyelash curlers and $2.99 cubic zirconia rings mirroring the budget-friendly pricing strategies of its competitors.

Unlike Amazon’s main e-commerce site, Haul is only accessible via the Amazon mobile app, aiming to create a more engaging, app-driven shopping experience.

Challenges in Amazon’s Expansion Strategy

Amazon’s ambitions for Haul’s European launch may face some hurdles, particularly concerning sustainability policies. The company has committed to eco-friendly packaging in the region, eliminating plastic in favor of recyclable paper bags and cardboard. However, Haul shipments may rely on plastic packaging, which could pose a challenge to Amazon’s green initiatives in Europe.

Additionally, Amazon’s expansion of Haul comes at a time when the de minimis rule, a U.S. trade regulation that allows goods valued under $800 to enter the country duty-free, is under political scrutiny. The rule has allowed companies like Shein and Temu to import goods from China without tariffs, an advantage that Haul also leverages.

Former President Donald Trump briefly suspended the de minimis rule earlier this month before reinstating it. However, the rule is expected to be permanently revised once new customs systems are in place. If stricter regulations are implemented, it could impact Haul’s supply chain, given that many of its sellers operate from China.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy addressed concerns about the de minimis rule during an interview with Bloomberg Television, stating:

“We have a certain number of items that are shipped in that way for Haul, but likely fewer than Chinese e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu.”

Amazon’s Strategy to Monetize Haul

Beyond product sales, Amazon is integrating ads and influencer marketing into Haul to drive revenue. The company has introduced sponsored product placements in Haul search results, similar to the advertising strategies used on its main marketplace, which helped generate $56.2 billion in ad revenue in 2024.

Additionally, Amazon is partnering with influencers to promote Haul’s offerings. The platform now features curated storefronts from lifestyle influencers, including TikTok’s Michaela Delvillar, who has over 150,000 followers and is labeled as a “Top Creator” on Amazon’s storefront.

The Future of Haul

Amazon’s expansion of Haul signals a strong commitment to competing in the budget e-commerce space. While regulatory challenges and sustainability concerns remain, the company’s aggressive monetization strategy and global ambitions indicate that Haul could become a permanent fixture within Amazon’s ecosystem.

With Europe and Mexico in its sights, Amazon appears to be positioning Haul as a key competitor in the low-cost shopping market, one that could challenge Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop on a global scale.

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Data storage is not so limited and is not only found in clouds, rather it goes beyond Earth’s atmosphere. This bold step takes the form of a collaboration between Lonestar and Phison to launch the first ever lunar data center. With cyber threats, climate risks, and AI-driven data demand soaring, of course, the race toward safeguarding the most prized human asset, information, has officially gone planetary.

The move to achieve data storage and resilience has now become more pronounced for Lonestar, along with Phison in rolling out a data center infrastructure aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket destined to the moon. The flight, which took place on Wednesday, will pave the way for developing a data storage site on the moon, a phenomenon mentored into changing the way humankind guards its dearest digital artifacts. The mission carries Phison’s PASCARI storage such as solid state drives engineered for data centers, all packed in Lonestar clients’ data. An initial lunar data center, landing on March 4, and then scaling to an eventual total capacity of a petabyte.

Future of a Space Storage Vision:

Chris Stott, Founder, Chair, and CEO of Lonestar, said that he has had this idea of an off-Earth data center since 2018. It has been since before any possible AI forwards has beaten up all the new demands on data storage about the development to house critical information outside the planet’s vulnerabilities took form. Stott said, “Humanity’s most precious item, outside of us, is data. They see data as the new oil. I’d say it’s more precious than that”.

Phison seemed a natural choice for partnership, as they were engaged in space missions already such as, its storage solutions powering NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars where Phison loaned its knowledge in designing customized SSDs for extreme conditions in space. Imagine Plus service customized the needed hardware according to Lonestar’s requirements. Michael Wu, the General Manager and President of Phison said, “We were very excited when there’s a call from Chris. We took a standard product and were able to customize whatever they need for these products and we launched it. So it’s a very exciting journey”.

Since their partnership in 2021, Lonestar and Phison took turns testing their technology rigorously to support it reliably before launch. Apparently, the SSDs needed to have high endurance for space. Stott said, “[This is] why SSDs are so important. No moving parts. It’s remarkable technology that’s allowing us to do what we’re doing for these governments and hopefully almost every government in the world as we go forward and almost every company and corporation”.

Growing Industry:

The tech has been ready for launch since 2023, with a successful test flight carried out in early 2024. Wednesday’s mission involved sending data from several governments concentrating on disaster recovery and a space agency testing a large language model. Even Imagine Dragons sent along a music video for the soundtrack from the Starfield space game!

Within this segment of companies wanting space data centers, Lonestar finds itself not alone. Starcloud, a Y Combinator Summer 2024 startup, was previously named Lumen Orbit, after closing over $21 million in funding. More companies will start looking at space solutions for massive storage and unlimited solar energy, which terrestrial data centers cannot compete with, as we know, in the time of ramping AI hardware demand.

Expansion Plans:

Presuming that everything goes as planned, it is anticipated that Lonestar will work alongside satellite producer Sidus Space to create a fleet of six dedicated data storage spacecraft with the launches scheduled for 2027 to 2030. Stott said, “It’s fascinating to see the level of professionalism, it is tremendous. This isn’t 60 years ago with the Apollo program. Apollo flight computers, they had 2 kilobytes of RAM and they had 36 kilobytes of storage. Here we are on this mission, flying 1 Gigabyte of RAM and 8 terabytes of storage with Phison Pascari. It’s tremendous”.

For reshaping the digital experience through artificial intelligence and cloud computing, secure and scalable data storage is now more urgent than ever. With Lonestar and Phison at the helm, the phrase becomes more than just stargazing, it becomes reality with space based data centers. Should such a mission succeed, it would herald a new age in which data resilience is no longer bound by Earth’s limitations. So, with many more launches forthcoming and increasing competition in the air, the future of space based infrastructure is about to take off.

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Industry’s new rival:

The Chinese AI startup, MiniMax, claims to have developed the most advanced AI models to compete with major global players like OpenAI and Google. Alibaba, Tencent, and other firms contributed $850 million to support these models. Their aim is to establish innovative and unique boundaries in text processing and comprehension across various modes

MiniMax Models’ advanced features:

The three models, MiniMax-Text-01, MiniMax-VL-01, and T2A-01-HD possess highly advanced and unusual features. The text-based games of MiniMax-Text-01 contains an impressive 4 million tokens and can consume more than 3 million words in one go, surpassing the competencies of rivals like GPT-4o and Llama 3. MiniMax-VL-01 is a multimodal model that includes text and images features, although it is less advanced than Google’s Gemini 2.0, the model can handle graphing interpretation tasks. T2A-01-HD is a model that uses audio and can generate 17 speech languages, with the ability to articulate voices in 10 seconds.

Controversies:

MiniMax’s app, “Talkie,” has been the subject of controversy. The App Store took down Talkie in December for unclear technical reasons, the app features AI-enabled figures also termed as avatars from popular personalities such as Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, LeBron James, Elon Musk and others without any of them providing consent. As, video generators MiniMax were able to mimic the logos of British television channels in December, reported by Broadcast magazine, this suggested that their models were trained on the content of those channels and are sued by iQIYI over the allegations of the claim that the company has included copyrighted material in its model training.

Restrictions and accessibilities:

Hailuo AI and its associated APIs are not open-source models. The use of MiniMax’s licensed materials to enhance competing models is prohibited by the company and they reserve the right to permit their usage on platforms with over 100 million users. The launch of this amazing AI startup is considered as a hindrance in the development of high-tech chips that are vital for AI advancements, as the Biden administration has tightened its export controls on AI technologies to China. MiniMax’s range of ambitious models is a testament to its ability to compete with high level AI companies, despite facing geopolitical challenges.

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A Mechanical Keyboard for Writers at CES 2025

Astrohaus launched the Freewrite Wordrunner, a mechanical keyboard for writers, at CES 2025. Developed over nearly four years and initially known as ‘Maestro’ in earlier publicity, the keyboard was originally scheduled for release in 2022 but faced delays, making its debut at CES 2025.

Purpose-Built for the Writer

Created for the writer, the Wordrunner is designed exclusively for writers, breaking away from the gamer-focused trend of mechanical keyboards. Its tenkeyless layout streamlines writing tasks by replacing the function row with custom keys for features like find and replace, undo, redo, and paragraph navigation. The tenkeyless design incorporates custom keys that replace the function row and streamline writing tasks by simplifying access and speeding up the use of everyday functions like find and replace, undo, redo, and paragraph navigation. A person’s use of such a keyboard will ensure that they can work while minimizing frustration caused by undue keypress and switches.

Innovative Media Controls

No media controls, but artists use a fantastic big red joystick/button to adjust the volume, skip tracks, play or pause-they make up for it. So it is for a writer focusing entirely on work but not shifting gears or rakes between tools or devices.

Ergonomics and Typing Satisfaction

In the new Wordrunner model, Astrohaus took care in thinking about ergonomics and typing satisfaction: backlit, satisfying mechanical key switches with an internal wrist rest to improve comfort in long writing sessions; Bluetooth connection.