Amazon introduces Nova Chat(aboutamazon.com)
aboutamazon.com
Amazon introduces Nova Chat
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon-nova-website-sdk
55 comments
Is this just an "us too!" offering? What is the purpose of this exactly? Promo project?
Here's the actual link to the product: https://nova.amazon.com/chat
Amazon should have taken a page out of literally everyone elses book and made it public. But no Amazon being Amazon, ofc you have to sign in
> Thank you for your interest in Amazon Nova. At this time, we are only accepting customers in the US.
Every single time
GDPR is a double edged sword
GDPR only applies to Europe, not the entire rest of the world outside of the USA.
GDPR is simply ahead of its time from an American perspective. Like Mobile Telephony in Europe when pagers were still a thing in the US.
In time the average american consumer will understand the monetary value of their PII and usage metadata and demand adequate protections - which effectively is all that GDPR does. Given the actions of the current cabinet, I feel we are in fact accelerating towards this inevitable outcome.
In time the average american consumer will understand the monetary value of their PII and usage metadata and demand adequate protections - which effectively is all that GDPR does. Given the actions of the current cabinet, I feel we are in fact accelerating towards this inevitable outcome.
GDPR does more than demand protections. It demands data locality. It demands that encryption and access controls be done in a certain way. It backs up its demands (that are sometimes vague) with huge fines.
It really doesn't do anything more than mandate consumer side protection.
Data locality in legally compatible jurisdictions is the most fundamental form of protection there is. Without concepts such as Safe Harbour and data locality, handling of PII would be farcical amongst MNCs.
Re: Demands on Encryption? The most prominent mention of encryption is in Article 32(1)(a), which mentions the “pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data” as measures that organisations can adopt.
However, it is important to note that encryption is not compulsory. Instead, the GDPR takes a risk-based approach, meaning that the decision to encrypt data depends on the sensitivity of the data, the risks involved, and the potential impact on data subjects.
Backing up demands with fines is about the only way consumer protections are realised as corporate mandates rather than friendly advisory. Name me another comparable legislation that achieves its goals without resort to punitive measures for non-compliance?
In short, you would far better understand the intent, purpose, and reality of GDPR if you engaged with it as a piece of vital EU consumer protection legislation, rather than some sort of draconian shake-down of American Capitalist practices.
Data locality in legally compatible jurisdictions is the most fundamental form of protection there is. Without concepts such as Safe Harbour and data locality, handling of PII would be farcical amongst MNCs.
Re: Demands on Encryption? The most prominent mention of encryption is in Article 32(1)(a), which mentions the “pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data” as measures that organisations can adopt.
However, it is important to note that encryption is not compulsory. Instead, the GDPR takes a risk-based approach, meaning that the decision to encrypt data depends on the sensitivity of the data, the risks involved, and the potential impact on data subjects.
Backing up demands with fines is about the only way consumer protections are realised as corporate mandates rather than friendly advisory. Name me another comparable legislation that achieves its goals without resort to punitive measures for non-compliance?
In short, you would far better understand the intent, purpose, and reality of GDPR if you engaged with it as a piece of vital EU consumer protection legislation, rather than some sort of draconian shake-down of American Capitalist practices.
Ah excellent. Encryption is not compulsory, but doing a bureaucratic risk assessment of whether you need encryption is. That is so much less work.
In reality, GDPR is a jobs program for eurocrat auditing and consulting firms combined with an effort by Facebook and Google to prevent European competition. Note that GDPR fines are big enough that they can crush a small company, but small enough that Google wouldn't care.
In reality, GDPR is a jobs program for eurocrat auditing and consulting firms combined with an effort by Facebook and Google to prevent European competition. Note that GDPR fines are big enough that they can crush a small company, but small enough that Google wouldn't care.
Doing a risk assessment to determine TLS and encryption requirements is a fairly fundamental part of handling of any personal information in any context. That GDPR puts a basic framework and foundational expectations around this as a legal mandate can only be a positive thing from the POV of the consumer.
The notion that this is either a consulting gig fix or an effort to prevent European competition is naive and farcical in the extreme. The three highest fines for Meta (1.2b, 405m, 390m) total €2 Billion. More than every other GDPR fine combined.
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
Note that GDPR fines for individuals and SMEs are in the 3 to 5 figure range, and come under very basic grounds following repeated warnings. The intention is not to 'crush' anything, least of all SMEs in a globalised marketplace.
This is quickly evident when you look through the fines, whereby the only entity that wasn't a major company with hundreds of millions in turnover to break a fine of €5 million was a Croatian Debt Collector with absolutely appalling violations of basic data control - including processing minors, processing people with no debt at all, and monitoring things down to progression of terminal illnesses.
https://azop.hr/debt-collection-agency-eos-matrix-d-o-o-impo...
The most common by far is Art. 5 and 6 - Insufficient legal basis for data processing, followed by Art. 28 (3) and Art. 32 - Insufficient technical and organisational measures to ensure information security.
These are basic compliance requirements, mirroring something like PCI but for personal as opposed to cardholder information. Framing this as some lobbyist wet dream of Goliath vs David is just so much FUD.
The notion that this is either a consulting gig fix or an effort to prevent European competition is naive and farcical in the extreme. The three highest fines for Meta (1.2b, 405m, 390m) total €2 Billion. More than every other GDPR fine combined.
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
Note that GDPR fines for individuals and SMEs are in the 3 to 5 figure range, and come under very basic grounds following repeated warnings. The intention is not to 'crush' anything, least of all SMEs in a globalised marketplace.
This is quickly evident when you look through the fines, whereby the only entity that wasn't a major company with hundreds of millions in turnover to break a fine of €5 million was a Croatian Debt Collector with absolutely appalling violations of basic data control - including processing minors, processing people with no debt at all, and monitoring things down to progression of terminal illnesses.
https://azop.hr/debt-collection-agency-eos-matrix-d-o-o-impo...
The most common by far is Art. 5 and 6 - Insufficient legal basis for data processing, followed by Art. 28 (3) and Art. 32 - Insufficient technical and organisational measures to ensure information security.
These are basic compliance requirements, mirroring something like PCI but for personal as opposed to cardholder information. Framing this as some lobbyist wet dream of Goliath vs David is just so much FUD.
I can't tell if this is sarcastic or genuine surprise.
Well they certainly have the GPUs for that.
I wonder if this will squeeze cloud GPU pricing even more or it's already priced.
I wonder if this will squeeze cloud GPU pricing even more or it's already priced.
> Well they certainly have the GPUs for that.
Eh, not really. They are behind in this 'race' on GPU stock as well as spare power, and I question if they will be able to truly catch up before the interest wanes.
https://nypost.com/2025/02/07/business/amazon-shares-fall-on...
Eh, not really. They are behind in this 'race' on GPU stock as well as spare power, and I question if they will be able to truly catch up before the interest wanes.
https://nypost.com/2025/02/07/business/amazon-shares-fall-on...
Do they?? Trying to get GPU's from AWS at work is like pulling teeth for me.
Wait you mean you don't want to reserve 8xH100s a week from now for $20,000 just for your 1 day experiment? Crazy.
The UI is kind of horrendous. Not even a dark mode. I also have a hard time imagining wanting to use BedRock at this point. Still can't use any of the leading models besides Claude, plus IAM config is comparatively painful, and you have to setup bedrock-access-gateway to get an OpenAI compatible API for tools that expect that API setup.
Amazon likes to force their devs into full stack roles, like they'll hire you for a frontend role and you'll end up writing java. Some teams do recognize the need for specialization, but generally speaking UI at amazon is an afterthought.
The AWS console supports dark mode. Just click the gear icon in the top bar.
I'm talking about the actual product interface here: https://nova.amazon.com/chat
Unless I've missed it, which is totally possible, I don't see anything in the UI or the settings that lets me change to a different theme.
Unless I've missed it, which is totally possible, I don't see anything in the UI or the settings that lets me change to a different theme.
Probably a no go for Spanish speakers.
I think it was a pun. "No va" in Spanish means "it doesn't go."
Spanish, being a continuation of Latin, recognizes "nova" as its own word; it doesn’t parse as no va. Your pun is an urban legend.
See “Chevy Nova”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...
Often repeated, but it doesn't make any sense to Spanish speakers. Nova is a word on its own.
Would an English speaker assume a hammer is made of ham?
Often repeated, but it doesn't make any sense to Spanish speakers. Nova is a word on its own.
Would an English speaker assume a hammer is made of ham?
English speakers seem to belive that it makes sense to call “cheeseburger” a Hamburger with cheese, so who knows.
>> Amazon makes it easier for developers and tech enthusiasts to explore Amazon Nova
Well, you don't. Can't find a simple way to try it out. Not that i expected anything else. The only thing saving AWS in the AI wave seems to be their deal with Anthropic.
Well, you don't. Can't find a simple way to try it out. Not that i expected anything else. The only thing saving AWS in the AI wave seems to be their deal with Anthropic.
If it’s anything like AWS then that makes sense. Why is the UI for all cloud providers absolutely dogshit? Has anyone written about this?
I have empathy for them. It's a complex product with many different use cases, so there is no one-best UI for anyone. Further, accommodating multiple skill levels is a genuinely hard problem.
That said, there is a larger problem: every team is incentivized to ship as fast as possible, and good UI takes time and consistency across every team. As a manager with a team that works closely with design systems, it's a brutally hard problem to get right and nobody wants to slow down in the design phase or have limitations placed on them for the purposes of consistency.
I could go on for pages, but https://www.youtube.com/@zeroheighthq has a design systems wtf podcast that has gone on far longer than me.
That said, there is a larger problem: every team is incentivized to ship as fast as possible, and good UI takes time and consistency across every team. As a manager with a team that works closely with design systems, it's a brutally hard problem to get right and nobody wants to slow down in the design phase or have limitations placed on them for the purposes of consistency.
I could go on for pages, but https://www.youtube.com/@zeroheighthq has a design systems wtf podcast that has gone on far longer than me.
did you hear the joke that mastering cloud UI is the last benchmark AGI will fail at
Still can't seem to do RAG or otherwise answer questions about a specific URL. Seems kinda useless compared to even copilot or Gemini 2.5 unless I'm missing something.
I asked it to summarize this thread [0] and it just said "that thread is about the monthly "who's hiring"' on HN", not even close.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43533516
I asked it to summarize this thread [0] and it just said "that thread is about the monthly "who's hiring"' on HN", not even close.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43533516
I don't really understand where this fits in the market? It's not as intelligent as the pack leaders and is about onpar with GPT-4o mini. When comparing it to GPT-4o mini further, while it is a bit faster, GPT-4o mini is a lot more cheaper [Source: https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/nova-pro/providers].
In terms of value for money, I would probably go with GPT-4o mini and not Nova Pro. Maybe Amazon feels that it needs to have their own offering to stay relevant?
In terms of value for money, I would probably go with GPT-4o mini and not Nova Pro. Maybe Amazon feels that it needs to have their own offering to stay relevant?
My guess is it's also about enterprise agreements.
For many larger enterprises, governments, etc, the barrier to trying these things is to pay for them (new contracts, RFPs, etc).
But all of them already have enterprise agreements with MS, Amazon, etc. So there must be some class of customers to whom it's easy to just add this to their AWS bill.
For many larger enterprises, governments, etc, the barrier to trying these things is to pay for them (new contracts, RFPs, etc).
But all of them already have enterprise agreements with MS, Amazon, etc. So there must be some class of customers to whom it's easy to just add this to their AWS bill.
This isn’t an AWS product, it’s Amazon (the non-AWS side). I don’t think this has anything to do with AWS billing.
AWS already has Amazon Q, which is its chatbot offering for AWS customers.
AWS already has Amazon Q, which is its chatbot offering for AWS customers.
Amazon Nova is a foundation model created by Amazon and is offered as one of the models you can use in AWS Bedrock, so the model gets a marketing page for it. Note that Llama also has an AWS marketing page (as do other models), but that doesn’t make them AWS products: https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/llama/
Amazon Nova Chat is a different product that uses Nova, buts it not AWS. Notice that if you try to use Nova Chat, you log in using your Amazon.com account and not an AWS account.
Amazon Nova Chat is a different product that uses Nova, buts it not AWS. Notice that if you try to use Nova Chat, you log in using your Amazon.com account and not an AWS account.
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These business can easily Anthropic models through AWS Bedrock. All it requires it a simple clickthrough EULA. That's what we do at the F500 non-tech company where I work. The same is true with OpenAI models in Azure.
I can't imagine AWS is going to get much usage of these models... but you have start somewhere I guess.
I can't imagine AWS is going to get much usage of these models... but you have start somewhere I guess.
This is 100% it
Is every multi billion dollar tech company working on this ?
The image generation looks like it's at least a full year behind.
The image generation looks like it's at least a full year behind.
Every cloud provider, which makes some sense I guess.
Let them use it to improve Rufus, their in-store AI search. Now that would be invaluable to Amazon customers.
more undifferentiated offerings, and people don't want to admit AI is plateauing
Seems like there's going to be some trademark conflict with https://novaapp.ai/ ?
Nova because it just means 'new' isn't a term anybody can trademark.
trademark != copyright. VW just means people's car, but I'd be in some trouble if I launched a new transportation company called "Volk's Wagens"
I meant trademarks.
Of course a trademark of a common word might arise naturally from being in the market and becoming widely recognized (e.g. Apple), but you can't file a trademark for it until you have become widely recognized.
This is why Nova is a very popular term for products.
Of course a trademark of a common word might arise naturally from being in the market and becoming widely recognized (e.g. Apple), but you can't file a trademark for it until you have become widely recognized.
This is why Nova is a very popular term for products.
That's not right. The more a term is in the market, the more difficult it is to get a trademark approved.
The difficulty comes from the obligation to protect a trademark - if you have trademark rights to a term and don't take reasonable steps to protect it, you're at risk of losing your rights.
The difficulty comes from the obligation to protect a trademark - if you have trademark rights to a term and don't take reasonable steps to protect it, you're at risk of losing your rights.
Apple
That's a very meta comment, but I'll have to mark it with an X. Would you like an apple for your efforts?
If I had a cent for every brand named Nova, I'd have a dollar.