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Best early Prime Day deals 2025: 47+ sales on tech products live now

Tharon Green/ZDNET When is Amazon Prime Day? Amazon Prime Day will run from Tuesday, July 8, to Friday, July 11, 2025. The annual two-day sale was extended to four days in 2025. How long will Prime Day last? Amazon Prime Day will last four days, running from July 8-11, 2025. That's two days longer than the years prior. Where will Prime Day take place? Amazon announced that its July Prime Day event will return in over 20 countries, including Ireland for the first time. Prime Day 2025 will r

LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon Joins Early Prime Day Deal, and It’s a 25th Anniversary Collectible Model

To Luke Skywalker, it’s a piece of junk. To Lando Calrissian, it’s a poker hand gone bad. To Han and Chewie and every Star Wars fan alive, the Millennium Falcon is an icon, and now to LEGO Star Wars enthusiasts, it’s a beautifully detailed displayable model aimed at adults age 18 and up. It’s also a great deal at Amazon, where you can get this advanced 921-piece rendition of the Millennium Falcon for just $68 as part of the ongoing celebration of LEGO Star Wars’ 25th anniversary. The LEGO Star

Microsoft laying off about 9,000 employees in latest round of cuts

Microsoft said Wednesday that it will lay off about 9,000 employees. The move will affect less than 4% of its global workforce across different teams, geographies and levels of experience, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. The announcement comes on the second day of Microsoft's 2026 fiscal year. Executives at the Redmond, Washington-based company typically unveil reorganizations at the time of the new fiscal year. "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best po

Google Messages is hiding a useful text formatting feature from users

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR It turns out Google Messages supports text formatting, but currently, only the integrated Gemini chatbot can use it to format its own replies. The hidden feature uses Markdown syntax, as seen when the Gemini chatbot formats its own text with symbols like double asterisks for bolding. A full rollout may be challenging due to cross-platform compatibility needs, as text formatting isn’t a standard part of the RCS specification. Google Messages was a sim

Here’s why you should probably steer clear of Samsung’s online-exclusive colors

Zac Kew-Denniss / Android Authority TL;DR Samsung reportedly requires authorized service centers to color-match replacement parts, including internal components. As a result, users with Samsung-exclusive colorways have faced unexpected repair delays due to limited part availability. This raises concerns about the practicality of choosing Samsung-exclusive finishes. Samsung typically releases exclusive colors for its flagship devices, which are available only through its official web store. T

Bezos-funded satellite tracking methane emissions loses power in space

MethaneSAT, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) methane-tracking satellite backed by the Bezos Earth Fund, is lost in space. Its ground team lost contact with the spacecraft on June 20 but tried to reestablish a connection until it learned in the morning of July 1 that MethaneSAT had lost power altogether. The team believes that the satellite is likely not recoverable. MethaneSAT collected data on methane emissions that have previously been untrackable in an effort to combat climate change. Met

Cloudflare Introduces Default Blocking of A.I. Data Scrapers

Cloudflare, a tech company that helps websites secure and manage their internet traffic, said on Tuesday that it had rolled out a new permission-based setting that allows customers to automatically block artificial intelligence companies from collecting their digital data, a move that has implications for publishers and the race to build A.I. With Cloudflare’s new setting, websites can block — by default — online bots that scrape their data, requiring the website owner to grant access for a bot

Airplane Wi-Fi Is Now … Good?

Expensive and erratic, in-flight Wi-Fi has been more of a punchline than a pipeline over the past decade. But 2025 has marked a sea change for the skies: the rollout of fast, and free, connectivity on most of the world’s major airlines. Satellite technology has enabled leaps in speed and bandwidth. SpaceX’s Starlink network of low Earth orbit satellites, for example, can deliver a connection capable of downloading more than 200 megabits per second—twice as fast as most basic home internet plans

23 Best MagSafe Accessories (2025), Tested and Reviewed

Other Good MagSafe Accessories The accessories below aren't as great as the top picks in this guide, but they're still good options if you're looking for more MagSafe gadgets. Photograph: Julian Chokkattu Belkin iPhone Mount With MagSafe for $30: Using Apple's Continuity Camera feature, you can wirelessly use your iPhone as a webcam for a MacBook. It supports various video calling apps too, from FaceTime to Zoom. This circular silicone puck magnetically sticks to the back of your iPhone and c

Tesla reports 14 percent drop in second-quarter vehicle deliveries

Tesla sales hit a new low, with the company reporting a 14 percent drop in second-quarter vehicle deliveries compared to a year ago. The company said that it produced a total of 410,244 vehicles between April–June of this year, including 396,835 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, as well as 13,409 “other vehicles” like the Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck. That represents a minor 0.1 percent drop compared to the second quarter of 2024, when the company produced 410,831 vehicles. Tesla also said tha

Tesla faces second straight year of falling sales after another bad quarter

Tesla delivered 384,122 vehicles in the second quarter of this year, wrapping up another weak quarter for the company as it struggles to bring the pace of sales back up to 2023 levels. That represents a 13.5% drop from the number of cars Tesla delivered in the second quarter of 2022, and it means Tesla runs a real chance of underperforming its total sales figure from 2024. If that happens, it would mean Tesla’s sales will have fallen two years in a row — despite the company once promoting the a

AI virtual personality YouTubers, or ‘VTubers,’ are earning millions

One of the most popular gaming YouTubers is named Bloo, and has bright blue wavy hair and dark blue eyes. But he isn't a human — he's a fully virtual personality powered by artificial intelligence. "I'm here to keep my millions of viewers worldwide entertained and coming back for more," said Bloo in an interview with CNBC. "I'm all about good vibes and engaging content. I'm built by humans, but boosted by AI." Bloo is a virtual YouTuber, or VTuber, who has built a massive following of 2.5 millio

China's Honor launches new challenge to Samsung with thin foldable smartphone and a big battery

Honor launched the Honor Magic V5 on Wednesday July 2, as it looks to challenge Samsung in the foldable space. Honor Honor on Wednesday touted the slimness and battery capacity of its newly launched thin foldable phone, as it lays down a fresh challenge to market leader Samsung. The Honor Magic V5 goes will initially go on sale in China, but the Chinese tech firm will likely bring the device to international markets later this year. The company, which spun off from Chinese tech giant Huawei in

The Download: how AI could improve construction site safety, and our Roundtables conversation with Karen Hao

More than 1,000 construction workers die on the job each year in the US, making it the most dangerous industry for fatal slips, trips, and falls. A new AI tool called Safety AI could help to change that. It analyzes the progress made on a construction site each day, and flags conditions that violate Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules, with what its creator Philip Lorenzo claims is 95% accuracy. Lorenzo says Safety AI is the first one of multiple emerging AI construction sa

Paramount pays Trump $16 million to settle Harris lawsuit

Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to settle its lawsuit with Donald Trump filed during the 2020 presidential campaign, according toThe Washington Post. The deal is controversial as legal experts said Paramount had a strong chance of prevailing in court and may have settled to smooth the path for its $2.4 billion Skydance merger. Paramount said the $16 million would be allocated to Trump's future presidential library and not paid to him "directly or indirectly." In addition, it "does not i

Microsoft: DNS issue blocks delivery of Exchange Online OTP codes

Microsoft is working to fix a DNS misconfiguration that is causing one-time passcode (OTP) message delivery failures in Exchange Online for some users. Recipients may receive a single-use access code via a separate email to open an encrypted message in Gmail, Yahoo, or other email clients without a Microsoft 365 subscription. This OTP message allows them to view the encrypted email on the Office 365 Message Encryption portal. However, as the company explains in a new service alert published in

Scam Travel Websites Are Real: What To Know Before You Book Your Trip

Summer is officially here and you might be looking to beat the heat with a trip to a popular beach or dream overseas vacation, but experts warn that online scammers are looking to take advantage of eager travelers. Vacation scams are nothing new. Travel can be expensive and people are looking to grab the best prices they can get, says Seckin Yilgoren, Mastercard's senior vice president for security solutions for North American markets. This is especially true now as many people deal are dealin

Amazon deploys its 1 millionth robot in a sign of more job automation

Amazon announced Monday its millionth worker robot, and said its entire fleet will be powered by a newly launched generative artificial intelligence model. The move comes at a time when more tech companies are cutting jobs and warning of automation. The million robot milestone — which joins Amazon's global network of more than 300 facilities — strengthens the company's position as the world's largest manufacturer and operator of mobile robotics, Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics,

How generative AI could help make construction sites safer

To combat the shortcuts and risk-taking, Lorenzo is working on a tool for the San Francisco–based company DroneDeploy, which sells software that creates daily digital models of work progress from videos and images, known in the trade as “reality capture.” The tool, called Safety AI, analyzes each day’s reality capture imagery and flags conditions that violate Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rules, with what he claims is 95% accuracy. That means that for any safety risk the

Galaxy S26 could be getting not one, but two battery upgrades

Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR Samsung is reportedly exploring more advanced “battery protection circuits” for the Galaxy S26 series, along with the previously reported SUS CAN casing. These upgrades could leave room for Samsung to expand the batteries in capacity. However, these upgrades may still not be able to compensate for the lack of a more advanced silicon-carbon battery. Batteries on the latest Samsung Galaxy flagship phone have been a major reason for disappointment. With the

This Samsung phone still hasn’t launched in the US, but it’s making waves worldwide

Paul Jones / Android Authority TL;DR Initial sales of the Samsung Galaxy A56 5G in Western Europe were reportedly up 12% over the Galaxy A55 5G. By contrast, the Galaxy A55 5G’s initial sales were down 22% in the region compared to the A54 5G. The phone is scheduled to launch in the US later this year. The Samsung Galaxy A56 5G launched way back in March, offering six years of OS upgrades, faster charging than the Galaxy S25, and a competitive price tag. The phone still hasn’t launched in th

Samsung is giving existing Galaxy phone users a $240 gift for free - here's how to accept it

Reddit (TheACwarriors) / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET If you're a Samsung phone user, you can take advantage of a pretty sweet offer: a free year of Perplexity Pro. Samsung doesn't appear to have made any official announcement about the promotion, so it would be easy not to know about it, but users are seeing the offer under the "Deals and events" tab of the Galaxy Store app. This is a $240 value if you pay monthly, or a $200 value if you pay yearly. Also: 5 projects Perplexity's new Labs AI

My biggest Z Fold 6 regrets after a year - and what Samsung must fix for the Fold 7

Kerry Wan/ZDNET It's not a hot take to say that Samsung hasn't changed the core design of its Galaxy Z Fold series since day one. While the cover screen has grown over time, the overall candy bar-style form factor has remained mostly untouched. While brands like Honor, Vivo, and Google have released slimmer foldables, Samsung has stuck to steady, incremental upgrades, resulting in a sturdy hinge that holds at almost any angle and polished software for productivity. Also: Samsung offers $1,000

Paramount agrees to pay Trump $16 million, clearing way for multibillion-dollar merger

Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against its subsidiary CBS, clearing a path for the administration to approve the media giant’s multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance Media. In a statement seen by CNN on Tuesday night, Paramount said the settlement payment is inclusive of Trump’s legal fees and costs, and that the money will be allocated to his future presidential library instead of being paid to Trump directly. The sum is below the $10 bill

Qantas hack results in theft of 6 million passengers’ personal data

In Brief Australian airline giant Qantas said on Wednesday it experienced a data breach that compromised the personal information of at least six million passengers. The airline said a cybercriminal targeted one of its call centers on June 30, and stole customer data from its systems, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and frequent flyer numbers. Qantas is the latest airline hacked in recent weeks following a spate of breaches attributed to Scattered Spider, a col

Enterprise giants Atlassian, Intuit, and AWS are planning for a world where agents call the APIs

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more This dawning age of agentic AI requires a total rethink on how we build software. Current enterprise APIs were built for human use; the APIs of the future will be multi-model, native interfaces. “We need to build the kind of APIs that will work well with agents, because agents are the ones that are now going to interact with APIs, not hum

Capital One builds agentic AI modeled after its own org chart to supercharge auto sales

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more Inspiration can come from different places, even for architecting and designing agentic systems. At VB Transform, Capital One explained how it built its agentic platform for its auto business. Milind Naphade, SVP of Technology and Head of AI Foundations at Capital One, said during VB Transform that the company wanted its agents to functio

Australians to face age checks from search engines

Search engines such as Google and Microsoft's Bing must implement age assurance checks for logged-in users in 'no later than six months'. Image: Shutterstock Australians using search engines while logged in to accounts from the likes of Google and Microsoft will have their age checked by the end of 2025, under a new online safety code co-developed by technology companies and registered by the eSafety Commissioner. Search engines operating in Australia will need to implement age assurance techn

What Happens to Your Brain When You Use ChatGPT? Scientists Took a Look

Your brain works differently when you're using generative AI to complete a task than it does when you use your brain alone. Namely, you're less likely to remember what you did. That's the somewhat obvious-sounding conclusion of an MIT study that looked at how people think when they write an essay -- one of the earliest scientific studies of how using gen AI affects us. The study, a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, is pretty small (54 participants) and preliminary, but it points tow

From 30 days to 1: Chevron’s cloud migration ROI in real numbers

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more The No. 1 way AI is changing 150-year-old energy giant Chevron? How technical practitioners engage with data. Offshore in the Gulf, Chevron is drilling for oil resources miles below the ocean floor in pockets and reservoirs that may or may not yield results. Agentic architectures need to be able to process petabytes of critical data — whi