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Best Prime Day Digital Wall Calendar Deals: Skylight, Everblog, Apolosign (2026)
Digital wall calendars can organize multiple family calendars, meal plans, chores, and to-do lists, and even double as a digital photo frame. And best of all, they’re on sale.
The Best Anti-Prime Day Deals for Amazon Haters
Want to save money without supporting Amazon? This roundup is full of deals on WIRED-approved favorites.
Best Prime Day Laptop Deals: Save Up to $500 (2026)
My favorite MacBook, gaming PC, and budget laptop are all on sale for Prime Day, some at the lowest prices I’ve seen in months.
Alexa Can't Control the AUX Input On Amazon Echo Speakers Anymore
Amazon has removed Alexa voice control for the 3.5mm aux input on several older Echo speakers, meaning users can no longer ask Alexa to play or pause audio coming through the wired connection. It's unclear why the feature was removed. The Verge reports: Ars Technica points to this Reddit poster claiming they received a message from Amazon and says an unnamed spokesperson confirmed the change. When contacted by The Verge, Amazon did not provide an on-the-record statement. The message does not include any explanation for why the feature was removed. It also doesn't mention any changes to audio output functionality like connecting an external speaker to an Echo Dot, and it appears that control of the port from within the app's settings menu still works.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
We’re Tracking October Prime Day Live (2026)
Our team is tracking Prime Day deals in real time. Here’s what’s worth buying today.
Robotics firm appoints former Amazon Alexa chief as next leader
The new chief executive spent 12 years building Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa. He's coming to Boston Dynamics at a crucial time for the robotics industry.
Asos Confirms Hackers Sent 'Unauthorized' Notification to App Users
ASOS says hackers gained unauthorized access to third-party platforms it uses and sent an "ASOS HACKED" push notification directly to customers, apparently as part of an extortion attempt. The clothing and beauty store says some basic personal information may have been accessed but does not believe payment-card data or passwords were affected. The BBC reports: In an email to customers on Tuesday night, the company apologized and urged customers not to engage with the notification. And it said the website and app are "operating as usual" promising customers they can "shop with confidence" while it investigates the incident. The company has not as of yet informed the UK's data watchdog, the Information Commission's Office (ICO), about any breach.
Exactly how many Asos customers received the notification on Tuesday remains unclear, but Google's Play store says the ASOS app has been downloaded to android devices more than 10 million times. The British retailer has a substantial global footprint -- serving around 17 million customers each year across more than 150 markets. Some Asos app users in Australia, France, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland had also received the notification, according to local reports on Tuesday.
[...] Users of the Asos app appeared to have received the alarming notification at around 10:00 BST on Tuesday. Headlined "ASOS HACKED" and addressed to the company's data protection officer and IT teams, it said: "We have fully compromised the Snowflake instance." "Engage with us, or we will leak it," it added, before linking to a Telegram channel. The message left many ASOS customers confused. [...] Meanwhile Snowflake -- whose tools are used by dozens of firms to collect, analyze and store data -- told the BBC its investigation was ongoing, but it had so far found "no compromise" of its platform.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tech Life
What is a supercomputer for? How does it work? And who gets to use it? We explain all.
IBM and Red Hat Find More Than 400 New Vulnerabilities In Popular Java Code
IBM and Red Hat say their AI-powered Lightwell initiative has identified and helped remediate more than 400 previously unknown vulnerabilities across widely used Java libraries. Phoronix reports: They announced this feat today as part of their promoting Lightwell Clearinghouse to GA, which is an enterprise service for their customers to submit open-source software dependencies for priority review and remediation.
From today's announcement: "The milestone addresses a growing business risk. As autonomous AI agents become capable of combining several lower-risk software weaknesses into a more serious attack, companies need to do more than identify vulnerabilities. They need a practical way to develop, test and deploy fixes in the software that supports critical applications."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Everybody’s Favorite Art TV Is Nearly Half Off for Prime Day (2026)
Samsung’s The Frame is the leading art TV for a reason. The matte display makes paintings look like museum pieces, not a glossy screensaver.
Apple AirPods Max 2 Are $120 Off Right Now During Prime Day (2026)
They’re the best over-ear headphones for Apple loyalists, and over 20 percent off at multiple retailers right now.
The Best Prime Day Smart Home Deals Are Up to 50% Off (2026)
The right gadgets can make your house feel smarter. After extensive testing and price checks, these are the Prime Day smart home deals worth bagging.
Yeti Coolers and Cups Are Up to $100 Off for Amazon Prime Day (2026)
Snag some new Yeti gear in your choice of eye-popping colors while supplies last (which won't be long).
8 Best Prime Day Wearable Deals: Apple, Google, Samsung (2026)
I’ve tested the wearables, tracked the prices, and found the Prime Day deals worth grabbing.
The Auk Mini Indoor Garden Is on Clearance for $199—Its Lowest Price Ever
Auk’s original countertop garden is on clearance for $199, with everything you need to start growing herbs indoors.
Licensing Costs Driving 90% of VMware Users To Explore Options, Survey Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: VMware customers face multiple obstacles as they rethink their virtualization strategy to reduce dependence on VMware. Today, Rimini Street published its "2026 IT Virtualization Survey -- What's Next for VMware Users." The survey examined 300 organizations worldwide that use VMware. Notably, Rimini sells third-party support for VMware and other software, including Oracle and SAP. That means there's an incentive for Rimini to portray VMware users as experiencing obstacles. However, the survey was also conducted by a third-party research company, Unisphere Research, and the results align with other recent reports about VMware customers. For example, 90 percent of participants in Rimini's survey said they're exploring VMware alternatives due to VMware's higher licensing costs, while 54 percent pointed to Broadcom killing support for perpetual license holders.
Since Broadcom took over VMware, customers have said that their VMware costs increased by as much as 1,000 percent, with many more pointing to more modest price hikes of around 100 to 300 percent. In Rimini's survey, 73 percent of participants pointed to cost savings as a top priority in their virtualization roadmap decisions. In today's announcement, Rimini pointed to "significant barriers to progress" for organizations exploring virtualization options, with the most cited barriers being operational complexity (named by 40 percent of respondents), multi-vendor management challenges (38 percent), securing the increased attack surface (37 percent), and team skills requirements (37 percent). "These findings suggest that while organizations are actively pursuing change, they are also looking for ways to reduce risk and avoid unnecessary disruption," Rimini's announcement said.
[...] Rimini reported that 60 percent of the organizations it surveyed are considering a multi-hypervisor strategy, which is indicative of "growing interest in more flexible, mixed environments that support both operational and financial goals." "In addition, 47 percent are favoring a hybrid IT virtualization environment consisting of hypervisors and containers for 'best of both worlds' workload placement," the announcement said. Rimini noted that 48 percent of respondents aren't planning to move any of their assets to VMware's hybrid cloud platform, Cloud Foundation.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Finland orders halt to work on two Google data centres
The order affecting two planned data centres follows concerns over forest clearance.
Mistral Unveils New 'Le Chonk' AI Model It Says Rivals Best Open Systems From China
Mistral has unveiled Mistral Large 4, or "le Chonk," a 1-trillion-parameter model that it says is the strongest open-weight AI model developed outside China by a wide margin. The model is entering preview for developers, cybersecurity teams and governments before a broader release later this month. CNBC reports: ML4 was trained on 4,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell GPUs over two months that were deployed in Mistral's own data centers in Europe. When its core parameters are released, ML4 will rank among the top open-weight models globally on aggregate benchmark performance, Mistral said in a statement. The company added that ML4 was the strongest open-weight model developed outside China by a "substantial margin." The new model still lags behind the frontier in areas such as coding.
"The model capabilities will further improve as we scale up our training capacity, following our Series D fundraise," said Guillaume Lample, co-founder and chief scientist of Mistral. "Further, the cyber defense capabilities will enable enterprises and governments to defend themselves against threat actors that are jailbreaking closed models to perform cyber attacks," he added. Further reading: Mistral CEO Says US AI Safety Debate Masks Competitors' 'Negligence'
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Save Over $600 on the Best October Prime Day Mattress and Bedding Deals (2026)
From Birch’s organic mattress to my favorite cooling sheets, these are the Amazon Prime Day discounts worth a look.
Maine regulators deny CMP’s $7 rate hike as utility weighs potential layoffs
With its revenue stagnating, Maine's largest utility is weighing major deferrals on infrastructure and has paused hiring for more than 70 positions.
