She discovers an unintentional environmental theme running through the meeting. Bezos' green references included the Kindle potentially leading to less paper use down the road, the recent
eliminations of dozens of wire ties and hard plastic encasements from its packaging, the use of hundreds of employees to identify waste and look for more energy-efficient practices, and how it's
more efficient to use full delivery trucks to drop off packages via optimized routes than for consumers to drive a 2,000-pound car to buy a five-pound item from a brick-and-mortar store.
Meanwhile, though, another local Seattle outlet, Techflash, reported that Amazon has just been granted a patent "for a building design that looks a lot like a mini-store location." Is
Amazon "getting into the brick-and-mortar retail business," asks reporter Eric Engleman in his story that's complete with images from the patent itself.
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