Adventure Through the Amazon

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Running Out of Gas? Alexa will Check it for You.

Oh, Alexa… You just keep on getting smarter and smarter everyday. Adding up to her growing number of skills, she is not just capable of managing your smart home devices through the Amazon Echo but your car as well. Yes, BMW just announced its support for Amazon Echo through the “Connected” assistant app. … Continue reading →

Enter the AWS Serverless Chatbot Competition!

Earlier this month I was asked to be a judge for the AWS Serverless Chatbot Competition and I was happy to accept!

Build a Chatbot
We want you to build a chatbot for Slack using AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway. You can also use other APIs (the Slack Events API will be helpful), additional services (AWS or otherwise), and other data sources. Your entry should be creative and original, and should provide genuine value to Slack users.

The AWS Free Tier provides you with access to Lambda, API Gateway, and other AWS services at no charge. New and existing AWS users get 1 million Lambda requests and 400,000 GB-seconds of compute time for free. New AWS users get 1 million API calls per month to the API Gateway for up to 12 months after signing up.

Your Entry
After you build your chatbot, I would encourage you to spend some time on the packaging and the marketing. Be sure to supply the following items as part of your entry:

Demonstration video of your chatbot in action.

Brief explanation of what it does and what makes it unique.

Link to your public or private GitHub repo (include all files needed to run your chatbot).

Instructions for testing and using your chatbot.

Your chatbot can be a new or existing application, but it must use Lambda and API Gateway. The code must function as shown in the video, and the submission must be in English. It also has to be substantially different from any other app submitted by the same submitter, team, or organization.

Prizes
Individuals, teams, and organizations with 50 or less employees are eligible for the Serverless Chatbot Hero Award. This award includes one ticket to AWS re:Invent and access to discounted hotel room rates, along with recognition at the Serverless State of the Union address, some cool swag, $100 in AWS credits, and publicity opportunities for their bot. We will make up to eight of these awards.

Larger organizations are eligible for a non-cash, recognition-only award.

See the FAQ for more information on rules and eligibility.

Timeline
Here's the timeline for the competition:

August 10 – September 29, 2016 – Submission period.

October 3-7 – AWS Judging.

October 15 – Winners announced.

Get Started Now
Here's what you need to do to get started:

Read the Rules and Eligibility Guidelines.

Create AWS and Slack developer accounts.

Visit the Resources Page to learn more about the APIs and services.

Build your chatbot. Our sample code (aws-serverless-chatbot-sample) is a good place to start.

Create your demo video and your other materials for the submission.

Submit your materials before 5 PM ET on September 29, 2016.

I'm looking forward to seeing, using, and judging the entries!

Relevant Webinars
Here are some upcoming webinars that will help you to get started:

August 24 – Getting Started with Serverless Architectures.

August 30 – Building Serverless Chatbots.

You may also find these recordings of past webinars to be helpful:

AWS Lambda – Event-driven Code for Devices and the Cloud.

Build and Manage Your APIs with Amazon API Gateway.

-
Jeff;

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

An Exciting Offer from Amazon to All College Students

College years are the best time in a person's life, in my opinion and Amazon will make it even more exciting by giving you more perks to enjoy. With Amazon Prime Student, you get free 2-day shipping, free unlimited photo storage through Prime Photos, unlimited streaming of movies, TV shows and music through … Continue reading →

Monday, August 8, 2016

Accessories to Channel your Inner Minimalist

Minimalist fashion has been really popular among bloggers, celebrities and fashionistas all over the world. No frills, no glitters, no crazy prints… just solid colors, clean lines and expert tailoring. Picking the right accessories is a must too because it can either make or break your minimalist look. To help you with that, … Continue reading →

Amazon CloudFront Expands to Canada

With a long feature list (powered in large part by customer requests) Amazon CloudFront is well-suited to delivering your static, dynamic, and interactive content to users all over the world at high speed and with low latency. As part of the AWS Free Tier, you can handle up to 2 million HTTP and HTTPS requests and transfer up to 50 GB of data each month at no charge.

I am happy to announce that we are adding CloudFront edge locations in Toronto and Montreal in order to better serve our users in the region, bringing the global count up to 59 (full list). This includes a second edge location in São Paolo, Brazil that we recently brought online. Pricing for the locations in Toronto and Montreal is the same as for our US edge locations (see CloudFront Pricing for more info). The edge locations in Canada fall within Price Class 100.

If your application already uses CloudFront you need not do anything special in order to take advantage of the new locations. Your users will enjoy fast, low-latency access to your static, dynamic, or streamed content regardless of their location. As a developer, you will find CloudFront to be simple to use as well as cost-effective. Because it is elastic, you don't need to over-provision in order to handle unpredictable traffic loads.

Before you ask, these new locations will also support Amazon Route 53 in the future. Again, you won't need to do anything special in order to take advantage of the new locations!

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Jeff;

PS – You can learn more about CloudFront at our monthly Office Hours (register now). The next session will be held at 10 AM PT on August 30^th, 2016.

Amazon CloudFront se développe au Canada

Grâce à ses nombreuses fonctionnalités (développées en partie à la demande des clients) Amazon CloudFront est parfaitement adapté pour offrir un contenu statique, dynamique et interactif à haut débit et faible latence aux utilisateurs du monde entier. Dans le cadre du niveau gratuit AWS, vous pouvez traiter jusqu'à deux millions de requêtes HTTP et HTTPS, et transférer gratuitement jusqu'à 50 Go de données par mois.

Afin de mieux répondre à nos utilisateurs, j'ai le plaisir d'annoncer l'ajout d'emplacements périphériques Amazon CloudFront à Toronto et Montréal, portant ainsi leur nombre total à 59 (liste complète). Cela comprend la mise en service récente d'un second emplacement périphérique à São Paulo, Brésil. La tarification pour les emplacements à Toronto et Montréal est la même que pour nos emplacements périphériques aux USA (pour en savoir plus consultez la Tarification CloudFront). Les emplacements périphériques au Canada relèvent de la catégorie de tarifs 100.

Si votre application utilise déjà CloudFront, aucune action supplémentaire n'est nécessaire pour que vous profitiez des nouveaux emplacements. Vos utilisateurs apprécieront la rapidité daccès avec faible latence à votre contenu statique, dynamique ou diffusé, quel que soit le lieu où ils se trouvent. En tant que développeur, CloudFront vous paraîtra simple d'utilisation et économique. CloudFront étant un produit élastique, il ne vous sera pas nécessaire de surenchérir pour gérer les pics de trafic.

Pour votre information, ces nouveaux emplacements prendront également en charge Amazon Route 53 dans le futur. Encore une fois, aucune action supplémentaire n'est nécessaire pour que vous profitiez de ces nouveaux emplacements !

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Jeff;

PS – Vous pourrez en savoir plus sur CloudFront durant nos sessions mensuelles (Inscrivez-vous maintenant). La prochaine session aura lieu à 10 h HAP le 30 août 2016.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Alexa-powered Headphones and Smart Locks?

If you live under the rock and have no idea who Alexa is… well, Alexa is a voice assistant developed by Amazon for their wireless speakers – Echo and Tap. These Alexa-powered devices are capable of voice interaction, music playback, smart home control and a lot more! The latest addition to the growing … Continue reading →

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Oprah's Latest Pick for Her Newest Book Club

Send to Kindle“This book has kept me up at night, had my heart in my throat, almost afraid to turn the next page… Get it.” – Oprah Winfrey Oprah's Book Club began in 1996 where she recommended a novel for her viewers to read and discuss each month. The titles eventually became very popular bestsellers … Continue reading →