GoKawiil
Tech News
Amazon has begun offering discounts on its own devices and other popular products in advance of its October Prime Big Deal Day sale, which runs from 3AM ET October 6th through 3AM ET October 8th. The Verge says it will keep updating its roundup of deals as more become available before the event officially starts.
An Entrepreneur contributor argues that small business owners spend too much time studying successful founders' personalities and routines instead of the underlying systems that produce results. The writer describes adapting a large partner company's employee philanthropy program by creating a smaller version that tracks volunteer hours and rewards team members for community involvement.
A voting format has been described in which each matchup between two entries is settled by the votes of everyone who has faced that specific pairing, with the winner determined by share of votes received. In cases of ties or pairings that have not yet been voted on, the entry with the stronger overall record advances instead.
An Entrepreneur contributor argues that many organizations treat every setback as a crisis and every win as cause for celebration, with no steady middle ground. The piece says high performers are hit hardest because they're repeatedly given extra work as 'sure bets,' and outlines a five-step leadership approach: calm, clarify, choose, support and recognize.
Amazon is selling the Bluetti Elite 200 V2 portable power station for $899, a 25% discount off its usual $1,199 price, as part of Prime Big Deal Days. CNET's testing gave the unit a 9.9/10 score and a Lab Award for Most Efficient Large Unit, citing 81% round-trip efficiency and nearly 96% of its advertised 1,987.98Wh capacity.
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro is expected to largely follow the design language used since the iPhone X in 2017, with incremental yearly changes. Reports suggest that next year's 20th-anniversary iPhone will introduce a significant redesign, potentially moving toward a single-slab-of-glass design, though it remains unclear whether this will be a standalone model or the next Pro flagship.
WIRED's wearables reviewer tested Apple's current three-model Watch lineup—Series 12, Ultra 4, and SE 3—and named the Series 12 the best overall choice. The Series 12 introduces a new Health Sensing System with a 32-electrode ECG, more frequent heart-rate and HRV tracking, a new Readiness score, and Audio Intelligence features, alongside faster charging and satellite connectivity that the Series 11 lacked.
Kvaesitso is an open-source, search-first Android launcher that is distributed only through GitHub and F-Droid rather than the Play Store. Installing it requires downloading an APK from the project's GitHub releases page and enabling installation from unknown sources, and on some Samsung Galaxy phones users must also disable the Auto Blocker security feature.
Best Buy is selling the HP Omen Transcend 14 gaming laptop for $1,999.99, down from its $2,999.99 list price. The configuration on sale includes an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H processor, 32GB of LPDDR5x memory, an Nvidia RTX 5070 Laptop GPU with 8GB of VRAM, a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, and a 14-inch 3K OLED 120Hz display.
A user named Cobanov used Anthropic's Claude AI to debloat his four-year-old Android TV through developer/ADB access, instructing it to disable unused apps, shorten animations, and log all changes rather than uninstall anything. He also replaced Google TV's ad-heavy home screen with FLauncher, an open-source app launcher, and reported the TV ran smoother than when new, all without rooting the device.
A tech reviewer highlighted the LG xboom Stage 501, developed with will.i.am, as their favorite party speaker, praising its deep bass and clarity even at high volumes. The speaker features twin 5.25-inch woofers and two 2.5-inch drivers, delivers 160 watts on battery and 220 watts when plugged in, and offers up to 25 hours of battery life. It also includes app-based EQ, AI karaoke, synchronized lighting, DJ effects, and built-in phone/tablet stands.
A review of popular at-home pet DNA kits found significant disparities between results, particularly for cat breed ancestry, with companies using different sample sizes and metrics to identify breeds. Wisdom Panel claims over 98% accuracy for cats and 99% for dogs, but experts note most cats aren't purebred and lack recognized breed markers, unlike dogs whose breeds are more clearly genetically defined.