Amazon Shuts Down Secret Project To Develop Fertility Tracker 86
Amazon has discontinued its secretive "Encore" project to develop an at-home fertility tracker, resulting in layoffs for around 100 employees. The project, part of Amazon's Grand Challenge division, aimed to launch a device and app that would predict fertility through saliva testing but was ultimately terminated to control costs. CNBC reports: The project was born out of the company's 2020 acquisition of Wisconsin-based startup bluDiagnostics, the sources said. BluDiagnostics was founded in 2015 by Weibel, Katie Brenner and Jodi Schroll, all of whom joined Grand Challenge. The startup had developed a thermometer-like device, called FertilityFinder, to help women track their fertility from home by testing their saliva and measuring two key hormones, estradiol and progesterone. The results of the test were viewable through a corresponding app. Business Insider reported on aspects of the fertility device in 2022, when its codename was Project Tiberius.
The team was working to develop its own saliva collection device and mobile app, which could predict when a user might be in the fertile window. Users could also log their period symptoms, sexual activity and other data to assist with tracking their fertility. There are similar offerings on the market from companies including Inne, Oova, Ava and Mira, along with fertility and ovulation tracking apps such as Flo, Clue and Max Levchin's Glow. Amazon initially aimed to release the product this year, but the timing was pushed out after the team encountered technical issues with the device, one of the people said. It was a costly endeavor and required significant upfront investments for lab research and development, in addition to the high salaries for scientists and engineers, the sources said, adding that the team's weekly overhead was roughly $1.5 million. Amazon didn't comment on the figure. Only one project now remains active within Grand Challenge. Its focus is on health tech, the people said. "We regularly review our businesses to ensure we focus on areas where we can make the biggest difference for customers," said Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan. "Following a recent review, we've decided to discontinue this project within Grand Challenge, and we're working directly with employees whose roles are impacted to support them through the transition and help them find other opportunities within Amazon."
The team was working to develop its own saliva collection device and mobile app, which could predict when a user might be in the fertile window. Users could also log their period symptoms, sexual activity and other data to assist with tracking their fertility. There are similar offerings on the market from companies including Inne, Oova, Ava and Mira, along with fertility and ovulation tracking apps such as Flo, Clue and Max Levchin's Glow. Amazon initially aimed to release the product this year, but the timing was pushed out after the team encountered technical issues with the device, one of the people said. It was a costly endeavor and required significant upfront investments for lab research and development, in addition to the high salaries for scientists and engineers, the sources said, adding that the team's weekly overhead was roughly $1.5 million. Amazon didn't comment on the figure. Only one project now remains active within Grand Challenge. Its focus is on health tech, the people said. "We regularly review our businesses to ensure we focus on areas where we can make the biggest difference for customers," said Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan. "Following a recent review, we've decided to discontinue this project within Grand Challenge, and we're working directly with employees whose roles are impacted to support them through the transition and help them find other opportunities within Amazon."
Do not use fertility trackers (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what happens when you criminalize basic reproductive healthcare. And it is extremely likely we will start enforcing the Comstock act and start passing national bans on such care.
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Right back to the dark ages. Because that was such a great time.
Any woman that voted for Trump needs to have her head examined...
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Any woman that voted for Trump needs to have her head examined...
A bit like US muslim voters expecting better from someone who a. floated a total ban on people entering the US from muslim majority countries and b. moved the US embassy to Israel into Jerusalem. And now he picks as ambassador to Israel a person who advocates Israel annexing Gaza and the West Bank, denies that illegal settlements exist and whose solution to the Palestinians' plight is for them to "move somewhere else". Talk about turkeys voting for dhabihah...
Re:Do not use fertility trackers (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect the women who voted for Trump believe they won't be affected by increasingly stringent limits on abortion. They figure they'll always be able to afford a holiday outside the country if an unexpected pregnancy gets in the way of them living their best life.
Re: Do not use fertility trackers (Score:4, Interesting)
Thing is, the abortion type you describe is already illegal, and has been for a couple decades.
This is about banning abortion all the way down to the pill. Some even want to ban the morning after pill, even for rape cases.
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This is about banning abortion all the way down to the pill.
The Trump-appointed Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states have no authority to ban abortion pills.
Trump has said he wants no federal restrictions on abortion and considers it a states' rights issue.
Even red states have been voting to liberalize abortion laws. The Florida vote failed because it required a 60% super-majority and only got 57%.
Some even want to ban the morning after pill, even for rape cases.
"Some" want to ban X for any X you can imagine.
Democrats need to figure out why the majority of voters think they're even worse than Trump. Shrill TDS rants about a
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"Shrill TDS rants about anti-abortion boogymen aren't helpful."
Now that the GOP controls all branches of government, I suppose we shall fuck around and find out, eh?
Re: Do not use fertility trackers (Score:4, Informative)
The vast majority of abortions are done with simple drugs very early in the pregnancy, no surgery, no vacuuming. Except that this doesn't create enough fear in the voters so the whole medieval image still gets pushed.
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The vast majority of abortions are done with simple drugs very early in the pregnancy, no surgery, no vacuuming. Except that this doesn't create enough fear in the voters so the whole medieval image still gets pushed.
By total scum, yes.
That was definitely a factor (Score:3)
Occasionally a poor or lower class woman will be criminally prosecuted for murder because she was investigated, sometimes even if she just miscarried. But for the most part these kind of laws get selectively enforced.
On the other hand Americans are pretty crazy and it's painfully ob
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Absolutely it won't be just up tot he states for long, that's just Trump's campaign message which is not the message coming from his anti-abortion backers, and Trump will do anything at all as long as he gets applause and praise. The whole GOP outlook for quite some time has been about "the ends justify the means", which is why you see life long evangelicals telling lies without blushing.
It's going to blow up. Senate will use the nuclear option to get their way, and then be totally dismayed that 4 years l
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Project 2025 stated that they want to see an end to sex for pleasure. Sex should only be for reproduction. Seems to be somewhat biblical, do not "spill your seed".
The practical measures they mentioned include limiting access to condoms and other contraceptives to married couples with "valid medical reasons", and changes to marriage and divorce to make it harder for women to escape abusive men who want to use pregnancy as a means of control.
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"Somewhat biblical"? You are too kind. That is hardcore anti-human religio-fascist fundamentalism. Ideas like that come from the scum of the scum and they are always enforced with as much violence as possible. Think Iranian religious police, but much worse.
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Yeah actually no. If sex-without-consequences is your highest moral commitment, that makes you deranged.
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Seems to be somewhat biblical, do not "spill your seed".
That is a misconception. Or mistranslation.
The Sin of Onan was: he did not take the widow of his brother as his second or third wife. Which was expected as it was his responsibility to take care for her. He kind of said: "I rather masturbate on the fields than take you as my wife".
Spilling semen never was the issue. And the idea that you do Sex only for making kids, is a pretty stupid, relatively modern idea of some Christian minorities. It never was a
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Interesting. I should have figured the justification would be extra dubious. Of course, it still treats women as property. Literally "your body, my choice."
Random factoid, Japanese for masturbation is "onani", from the English "onanism", from the guy who was slandered for a couple of thousand years by the Bible.
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The basic philosophy of the time was that a person's legacy was tied to their children (you can disagree if you want; I'm not endorsing the idea, I'm only stating the historical fact). If a man died without an heir, it was the responsibility of his brother to have sex with the dead man's wife in order to provide a child that would be legally considered
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Seems unfair to blame Onan for not wanting to father a child with his sister in law, when clearly it is the fault of the misogynistic society in which they live. Not to mention the obligation for the widow to have sex with another man to provide an heir. And what if that heir was female, would they have been obliged to keep trying until they got a son?
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I have a feeling selective prosecution will be very much a thing over the next four years...or longer.
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Obviously. The criminal-in-chief already has made sure he is not held accountable after all.
While it's certainly didn't help (Score:5, Interesting)
There were seven hour wait times to vote in swing states. It was the classic voter suppression tactic the Republican party always uses. They closed polling locations, sent broken or not enough voting machines to blue districts and used gerrymandering maps to figure out which districts were blue.
The expectation was the secretaries of state in six of the seven swing States would prevent this because they are Democrats. For some insane reason they didn't. I suspect they thought they didn't need to push for ballot access on election Day because they thought early voting and mail-in voting would take care of that. But the numbers don't lie and they were very very wrong.
Re:While it's certainly didn't help (Score:4, Informative)
The turnout the selection was 18 million lower than last election. If that had been roughly split between Republican and Democrat it would be frustrating but not suspicious however when the votes were done being counted 15 million Democrats were unable to vote.
Democratic voter counts were markedly lower all across the US, not just in the hardcore oppressive GOP states. It wasn't that people couldn't vote... they just didn't vote - probably because (and I say this as someone who voted for Harris) the only case she and many other Democrats made was "here's why Trump is a horrible man so don't elect him or the GOP". Sure that resonates with people like me, but I didn't need convincing anyway - people like me were never going to vote for Trump. But the people she needed to sell were the middle of the road folks that actually were undecided (and usually decide elections) - they needed to hear how she was going to make their lives better. When you're the incumbent, it's not a good look to only talk about your opponent.
The lion hunts the rabbit with all its strength (Score:3, Interesting)
The media right wing bias didn't help. I know you're trolling but Harris talked very little about Trump and his policies. She mostly focused on her own policies. You didn't notice because the news media didn't cover her policies choosing instead to focus on Trump's rallies and just how swell a guy Trump was... When they did cover Harris it was just to say that she hadn't been specific enough about such
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"The media right wing bias didn't help."
What are you smoking? The media is hard left except for Fox.
If you were being sarcastic then I missed it.
Kindly list the major media outlets (Score:2)
And no late night television and SNL don't count. Those are court jesters. They're allowed to make fun of the king so long as nobody is paying any real attention to them.
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I'll just leave this here, from my local newspaper in safely blue Washington:
https://www.seattletimes.com/s... [seattletimes.com]
Your "thought" process pretty much boils down to the left-wing equivalent of a 2020 Trump election denier's - your side lost, so the other side must've cheated because it's the only way that could happen. But your original post and this follow-up do seem pretty much par for the course for you - either people are 100% in lockstep agreement with your own opinion, or they're "the enemy".
So ignoring the fact that Kamala won Washington (Score:2)
What's more likely? That in 4 years during the most heavily advertised election in human history people just decided to shrug their shoulders or the thing that Republicans have been doing non-stop since the party's flipped in the '60s and that before that the Democrats were doing because before the '60s the Democrats were the authoritarian party happened?
The authoritarian party in America has used various for
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Meanwhile back in the land of reality. We can see that Trump is no dictator and the GOP does not have this perfect fealty to him you left-tards imagine. Left-tard is 100% fair, you have been wrong about all your stupid demographic predictions, all your counter-historical economic bullshit it.
If Trump was all powerful Rick Scott would be leading the senate, and nobody besides Romney and Collins would be openly discussing denying his cabinet appointments. The world has not ended, our system of checks and ba
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It wasn't just that Harris didn't make a good offer beyond being "not Trump", it's that she and the Biden administration she was part of actively alienated a lot of voters. The genocide in Gaza and on-going support of Israel is obviously a big issue for many, as were the violent crack-downs on people protesting against those things. But also things like the failure to fix SCOTUS or get women's bodily autonomy back.
Excuses like "we need a majority of 60 in the house" don't cut it. The Republicans don't care
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Even if you ignore world affairs, the Biden administration and Harris as an extension of it have alienated even large chunks of their base. When people say they're financially insecure the response from them is always, "The economy is doing great, and you're much better off now than you think you are." That's a great way to lose support. I know it pissed me off every time I heard it, and I'm someone that's seen Trump as the ultimate idiot since the late 1970s. I still wouldn't vote for him if someone held a
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There were seven hour wait times to vote in swing states.
That is something people from "civilized" countries will never understand.
How can there be a waiting time?
When I go voting, I walk 1km ... actually I use my bicycle. Voting is basically always in a school. Mostly a simple primary school, because those are all over the places.
Roughly 10 class rooms are dedicated for voting, each has two or three or four voting booths.
Sometimes there are three or four people waiting in front of the class room. You hard
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The turnout the selection was 18 million lower than last election.
Really? Voice dictation? Lazy fucker. Go dry hump the Democratic leg. I am sure they will bring about a better nation.
The Democrats want money. The Republicans want power. The issue is that neither party are happy with their own money, or power over themselves. They wants YOURS. Do you see how both parties are bad, just in different ways? And yet you keep supporting the Democrats. Moron. You shouldn't be supporting EITHER side.
LOL... (Score:2)
I hate to break it to you - but there are statistically a LOT of women who voted for Trump. I know a number of them personally, just in my circle of friends and friends of friends.
And I'd have to say all of them lean towards the more "sane" side of things than some I know on the other side of the political "fence", if we're really keeping score?
I know it's hard for some people to wrap their heads around, but America has always had roughly as many citizens who identify as "Pro Life" as do "Pro Choice".
At th
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I don't think Abortion was the top issue this time around, whereas the Harris campaign treated it like it was. We are absolutely not divided equally on the abortion issue in America according to many many polls over the years (and don't point to failed polls for this election as proof that gut feeling is more accurate).
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I hate to break it to you - but there are statistically a LOT of women who voted for Trump.
You do not need to break anything to me. Large numbers in some behavior are not an indicator of sanity. Woman are on average just as stupid and disconnected as men. And that means very stupid and very disconnected. Most Trump voters did vote directly against their own best interests.
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America has always had roughly as many citizens who identify as "Pro Life" as do "Pro Choice".
Polls show that over 60% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or almost all cases.
Public opinion on abortion [pewresearch.org]
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Then why do they vote like that?
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Then why do they vote like that?
Most people don't think abortion is the #1 issue.
Polls indicate that even those who feel strongly about abortion don't change their votes.
Those strongly pro-choice would've voted for Harris anyway. Those strongly pro-life were already Trump supporters.
There were lots of vote splitters. For instance, 57% of Florida voters supported liberalizing the state's abortion law, but Trump carried Florida with a 13% margin.
Democrats expected abortion to be a winning issue with coattails. They were wrong.
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Re: Do not use fertility trackers (Score:2)
Yes, we do.
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they are no longer safe. They can and will be used against you or your loved ones in court in the event of a miscarriage.
This is what happens when you criminalize basic reproductive healthcare. And it is extremely likely we will start enforcing the Comstock act and start passing national bans on such care.
This is the real reason they're shutting it down. The last thing they want is to get involved in a class action lawsuit about providing personal, private information to the incoming felon who just nominated a pedophile to be AG.
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just nominated a pedophile to be AG.
Gaetz is an ephebophile [wikipedia.org], not a pedophile.
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https://f-droid.org/packages/c... [f-droid.org]
Open source. No data uploads anywhere.
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They can and will be used against you or your loved ones in court in the event of a miscarriage.
That depends on which state you're residing in. I wouldn't be surprised if California defied a federal abortion ban. But if you're living somewhere like Florida, where abortion rights failed at the ballot, there's legitimate cause for concern.
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Yeah the lawyers have a suggestion thats been going around the net is for the ladies to use one of the european ones out of the EU as apparently they have laws specifically forbidding that kind of use and thus would be required to refuse US discovery for that sort of data.
Amazon wants to know about my sex life. Security=0 (Score:1)
I'm sure it's important for someone to track women's hormones (mostly loser republicans who want to ensure no future republican voter goes unburied).
But would you really TRUST such data to a company that will be hacked before you finish thinking about this?
Seems like an odd product to me anyway (Score:2)
While women's bodies are far from clockwork mechanisms, it's not impossible to narrow down the best times for getting pregnant to a handful of days. If they're particularly unscheduled, tracking body temperature will help identify an egg drop because body temperature rises slightly immediately after ovulation due to a related progesterone increase. It's not perfect, but most guys in such situations would take one for the team and suffer through some extra sex. (That's not entirely a joke, as turning sex i
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Accurately measuring a body temperature can be more invasive than the less precise ways. Urine tests are also rather inconvenient, urinating in a cup and all and sticking a test strip in and then having a urine covered test laying around for 5 minutes.
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You do realize that there are medical-grade digital thermometers now that can simply scan your forehead or eardrum?
You don't have to stick a thermometer up your pooper anymore. I mean, you still can, if that's your thing. It's just that getting an accurate temperature reading isn't invasive unless you want it to be.
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Re: Seems like an odd product to me anyway (Score:3)
Unless there is some medical problem, most of the people I know increased their odds of having kids by just having sex more regularly
.
When they were getting busy every night or every other night the wife became pregnant within a month or two. Exception is a friend of mine who needed fertility treatments, both him and his wife.
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> most of the people I know increased their odds of having kids by just having sex more regularly
My wife and I just stopped using birth control and barely had time to think before she got pregnant.
However, we were lucky - we started late like many do these days and we have several friends who were desperate to have kids and never did. Fertility declines with time and a woman's best child-bearing (for a combination of her own health and healthy children) years are about 19-30.
So far as I know old
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Some sperms can survive up to 7 days, inside the body of a female. :P )
Two days is pretty common. So as a method to prevent pregnancy, it is a bit risky. But I think the temperature rise is already about two days before ovulation (not sure, not important to me
Fun fact: sperms that produce a male offspring, die quickly, but move faster than the sperms fathering female offsprings. So if there already is an egg, you most likely father a male offspring.
But as male sperms die quickly, sometimes in about 2h to 5
According to your lab results (Score:5, Funny)
Doctor: According to our analysis, you can have a baby in nine months
Patient: What if I upgrade to Amazon Prime?
Re:According to your lab results (Score:5, Funny)
This is where their costs got out of control for the project. Prime promised free delivery....
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This is where their costs got out of control for the project. Prime promised free delivery....
I wish I still had some mod points; this made me laugh out loud.
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Could be worse, they could leave the baby unattended in an easily accessible area, not tell the parents and some random person just comes along and takes it.
Also do you get free returns? Or is that illegal in the USA now?
pull out tracker (Score:1)
Why track when you need to pull out when you can just get a vasectomy?
leading/ (Score:2)
who's the lead, Elizabeth Holmes?
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Elon Musk has signaled an interest in taking over this project and using it to make hiring decisions.
Maybe unforeseen consequences? (Score:2)
If the incoming administration can't get hold of information on the reproductive status of American women the good old fashioned way (back door privacy violations), how long will it be before women of child bearing age have to provide proof they aren't pregnant in order to get an exit visa?
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People are fooling themselves. Think having a baby (Score:2)
Think having a baby will make you happy? Think again.
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychol... [bps.org.uk]
Explains JD Vance erratic behaviour.
Just as well (Score:3)
If it worked as poorly as Amazon's other recommendations, I'd imagine it going something like this:
Yellow ring on Echo Dot is flashing
Me: "Alexa, what's my notification?"
Alexa: "Notice from Amazon fertility tracking - based on data we've collected, it may be time to do the horizontal mambo."
Me: "God damn it Alexa, how many times have I told you, we're a gay couple! Nobody here is getting pregnant."
Fertile Amazon Imagination (Score:2)
Mommy, Where do babies come from?
Well, dear, when a man and a woman love each other very much, they place an order on Amazon and in nine months the special truck comes and drops the baby off on your doorstep!
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Where do the returns go?
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Where do the returns go?
Let's not get political like every topic this week.
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Amazon guy dropped me on my head.
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Actually it is a delivery drone, called a Stork.
Casualty of the 4B movement? (Score:2)
When a woman is fertile is irrelevant if there is to be no sex.
STDs should drop dramatically too.
Without sex there are no pregnancies, and therefore no need for abortions.
I'm not seeing a downside here except for Amazon's project.
fertility tracker thru saliva testing, she... (Score:2)
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Perhaps you do not know the "Boris Becker story". Becker is a kind of famous ex professional tennis player.
After one match a lady popped up in his dress room. I think Russian, but could be Ukrainian or something. He got blow job from her, she took the semen in her mouse, and then fingered it into her vagina.
She got pregnant and a year or two after birth, she sued Becker for child support. Genetic tests showed he is the father.
At least that was the story in the newspapers at that time. Now they write on some