Anker’s October Prime Day deals bring charging accessories down to new record lows

Anker is selling quite a robust selection of products at a discount for Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale, and some of the deals even represent new all-time lows for the items. If you need to make sure your devices don’t ever run out of battery, the Anker 737 Power Bank is currently on sale for $100, or $50 less than its retail price. The model has a 24,000mAh battery capacity and has two USB-C, as well as one USB-A, charging ports. Anker says it carries enough juice to charge an iPhone 13 for almost five times, though that number would probably be lower if you have an iPhone 14. 

Shop Anker Prime Day deals

Need a portable wireless battery for your iPhone instead? The black variant of the Anker 633 Magnetic Battery (MagGo) is currently on sale for $55. That’s $25 off and the lowest we’ve seen for the wireless charger on the website. The device has a small kickstand attachment, and since it sticks to your iPhone while charging, it also doubles as a phone stand. This one’s a bit smaller than the 737 Power Bank and has a 10,000mAh battery capacity with a 20W USB-C power delivery port for fast charging times. The white and blue versions are also on sale, but they cost a bit more at $64.

If you’re traveling or just simply need a power strip with an abundance of ports and outlets, you can get Anker’s 727 Charging Station for $66.50, or 30 percent off its usual price. That’s the lowest we’ve seen for the power strip, which has a maximum output of 100W. The 727 Charging Station has two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports and two AC outlets, and it comes with a five-foot detachable cord. 

In case you need cords to be able to connect your iPhones and iPads to a USB-C charger, you can also grab a bunch from the sale. A 3-pack bundle of Anker’s Powerline II USB-C-to-Lightning Cable will set you back $22, or $17 lower than usual. The cables come in different lengths — three feet, six feet and 10 feet — and had been tested to withstand up to 12,000 bends. 

There are a lot more Anker items on sale at the moment, but they are exclusive to Prime members. If you’re a new user or haven’t been a Prime subscriber over the past 12 months, though, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial.

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Waymo’s cafeteria workers are forming a union

The cafeteria workers at Waymo’s offices are forming a union, according to NBC News. As the news organization notes, that makes them the latest group of people to organize at one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies. Waymo’s food service personnel are also following in the footsteps of the 4,000 Google cafeteria workers who quietly unionized during the COVID-19 pandemic. The autonomous driving tech company used to be an experimental unit under Google before it became an Alphabet subsidiary. 

Like Google’s other food service workers, Waymo’s are employed by contracting firm Sodexo. Workers cited the high cost of living in the Bay Area where Alphabet’s offices are located as the reason why they want to unionize. They said their $24-per-hour pay isn’t enough to live adequately in the city, where rents are astronomical, and that their health plan is prohibitively expensive. The workers are also asking for better treatment and benefits, since they don’t enjoy the same perks as full-time Alphabet employees. 

Organizers for the unionization efforts at Waymo told NBC News that they’ve already gathered signatures from majority of the workers. Sodexo said that it “respects the rights of [its] employees to unionize or not to unionize” but didn’t say whether it will voluntarily recognize the union. If it does, the workers will have to file for an NLRB election to be able to join the other Alphabet cafeteria workers at Unite Here.

Rivian recalls 13,000 EVs due to potential steering control problem

Rivian has notified customers that it’s recalling 13,000 EVs — or almost all of the electric trucks and SUVs it has ever delivered — due to an issue that could render drivers unable to steer and control their vehicles. The company issued the recall after becoming aware of seven reports wherein a fastener connecting the steering knuckle to the vehicle’s upper control arm “may not have been sufficiently torqued,” according to Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. 

In the letter sent to customers, Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe said the company is recalling vehicles despite the small number of reported defects “out of an abundance of caution.” He said the fastener could become loose in “rare circumstances” and lead to loss of steering control, but that there had been no reported injuries related to the issue. 

At the moment, Rivian has two models on offer, which are the R1T truck and the R1S SUV, but it also makes electric delivery trucks for its minority owner Amazon at its factory in Normal, Illinois. Like most players in the auto and tech industries, the global supply chain woes over the past couple of years impacted its production capability. It even tried to raise the price of its R1T pickup truck by $12,000 due to inflation and component shortages earlier this year, though it quickly reversed the decision after customer backlash.

In July 2022, the automaker reported that it had almost doubled its production output to 4,401 vehicles for the second quarter of the year compared to the first. That’s a fraction of other automakers’ output — rival company Tesla, for instance, manufactured 258,580 EVs within the same period — but it’s a positive step towards achieving its goal of producing 25,000 vehicles in 2022.

This recall isn’t expected to prevent the company from reaching that goal, and the automaker is hoping that it can check all affected vehicles within 30 days. Rivian told customers that they can bring their vehicles to service centers to have the fasteners in their vehicles tightened within minutes. The company also said that they can send mobile repair vans to customers. Those experiencing possible symptoms for the issue, such as noise and vibration, may want to look into that option.

Acer says the Swift Edge is the ‘world’s lightest’ 16-inch OLED laptop

Acer has unveiled a new lightweight laptop that targets on-the-go professionals in a world where more and more people are choosing to work from home or away from the office. The Swift Edge is a 16-inch OLED laptop with a magnesium-aluminum chassis that’s only 0.51-inch thin and only weighs 2.58 pounds. That’s lighter than the 13.6-inch M2 MacBook Air that weighs 2.73 pounds or the 16-inch LG Gram that weighs 2.62 pounds. 

Its screen is a 4K OLED display with a 60Hz refresh rate, surrounded by a narrow bezel that gives it a 92 percent screen-to-body ratio. The model is powered by AMD Ryzen 6000 and Pro 6000 processors that come with integrated RDNA2 graphics, allowing users to play modern games in 1080p. It also comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 memory that’s upgradable to 32BG and either 512GB or 1TB of SSD storage. The device’s 54 Wh 3-cell battery can last up to 10.5 hours based on the company’s video playback tests and up to 8.5 hours based on its web browsing test results. 

Other features include an FHD (1,920 x 1,080) webcam and support for Microsoft’s Pluton security processor architecture, which provides additional protection for Windows 11 PCs. In addition, the laptop has a fingerprint reader and a Noble Wedge Lock slot. Acer’s first Swift Edge laptop will be available this month in North America for prices starting at $1,500. In Europe, Middle East and Africa, prices begin at €1,499, while in China prices start at RMB 7,999.

Amazon will no longer publicly test its Scout delivery robots

Amazon’s Scout robot, a small machine that looks like a cooler and can navigate sidewalks, won’t be delivering anybody’s packages anymore. The e-commerce giant has shut down field testing for the experimental machine and is “reorienting” the program. According to Bloomberg, the Scout team has been disbanded and most of its 400 members will be offered new positions within the company. Amazon spokesperson Alisa Carroll told Reuters that the company will not be abandoning the project completely. Only a skeleton crew will remain to consider the use of autonomous robot for deliveries, though, and that could mean that it’s the end for the cooler-like Scout.

Carroll said:

“During our Scout limited field test, we worked to create a unique delivery experience, but learned through feedback that there were aspects of the program that weren’t meeting customers’ needs. As a result, we are ending our field tests and reorienting the program. We are working with employees during this transition, matching them to open roles that best fit their experience and skills.”

Amazon started testing Scout back in 2019 and initially deployed six units to deliver packages north of Amazon’s Seattle home base. The machine can autonomously follow a delivery route, and though it was accompanied by a human employee for the tests, it can stop at a customer’s front door and open its lid to allow them to collect their purchase. After that initial rollout, Amazon expanded its tests to Southern California, Atlanta, Georgia and Franklin, Tennessee.  

While Carroll didn’t say which exact aspects of the program “weren’t meeting customers’ needs,” this is but one of the recent moves Amazon has made that indicates it’s scaling back its experimental projects. Just a few days ago, it also killed the Glow kid-focused video calling device, possibly due to lackluster sales. 

Binance forced to briefly halt transactions following $100 million blockchain hack

Binance temporarily suspended fund transfers and other transactions on Thursday night after it discovered an exploit on its Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain network. Early reports said hackers stole cryptocurrency equivalent to more than $500 million, but Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao said that the company estimates the breach’s impact to be between $100 million and $110 million. A total of $7M had already been frozen.

The cryptocurrency exchange also assured users on Reddit that their funds are safe. As Zhao explained, an exploit on the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge, which enables the transfer of cryptocurrency and digital assets like NFTs from one blockchain to another, “resulted in extra BNB” or Binance Coin. That could mean the bad actors minted new BNBs and then moved an equivalent of around $100 million off the blockchain instead of stealing people’s actual funds. According to Bleeping Computer, the hacker quickly spread the stolen cryptocurrency in attempts of converting it to other assets, but it’s unclear if they had succeeded. 

Zhao said the issue has been contained. The Smart Chain network has also started running again — with fixes to stop hackers from getting in — so users might be able to resume their transactions soon. Cross-chain bridge hacks have become a top security risk recently, and this incident is but one of many. Blockchain analyst firm Chainalysis reported back in August that an estimated total of $2 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen across 13 cross-chain bridge hacks. Approximately 69 percent of that amount had been stolen this year alone. 

Musk says Tesla’s electric Semi truck has started production

Tesla’s long-delayed semi-truck has started production, and the company will begin making deliveries as soon as December 1st, Elon Musk has announced on Twitter. When the automaker unveiled the Tesla Semi way back in 2017, it expected to start manufacturing the electric big rigs by 2019. While that obviously didn’t happen, Musk told employees in an email back in early 2020 that the vehicle was already in limited production and that it was “time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production.” In April that year, however, the automaker announced in an earnings call that it’s delaying deliveries yet again to 2021. 

Alas, 2021 wasn’t the Semi’s year either. Tesla notified shareholders in another earnings call that deliveries would be delayed to 2022 due to the global supply chain shortages affecting the tech and auto industries, as well as its then-limited production capability for the vehicle’s 4680 style battery cells. Musk didn’t say outright that the company’s component shortage issues for the semi-truck have already been addressed. But if it has started building the vehicles, and there’s already an expected delivery date, Tesla must have at least enough parts to build Semis for its first customer. 

The first batch of Semis will be delivered to Pepsi, which ordered 100 vehicles from the company back in December 2017. As TechCrunch notes, other big companies had also ordered trucks from the automaker, including Walmart and UPS. And in May this year, the automaker opened reservations to more customers for a deposit of $20,000. A Semi costs between $150,000 and $180,000, depending on the range, and it could go as far as 500 miles on a single charge. 

Amazon’s Eero Pro 6E WiFi bundle is $280 off for Prime members

Amazon has been slashing the prices of its own products over the past few days as we approach its second Prime Day event for the year. After holding a sale for its Fire tablets, Kindle Paperwhite and Fire TVs, the company is now also selling the Eero Pro 6E tri-band mesh WiFi devices at heavily discounted prices. Among all the options available, the three-pack bundle of Eero devices seems to be the standout deal — at $419, it’s even cheaper than the pack with two nodes that’s currently selling for $499. That’s also $280 or 40 percent lower than its usual price, and it’s the lowest we’ve seen the three-pack go for on the website. 

Buy Amazon eero Pro 6E tri-band mesh Wi-Fi 3 Pack at Amazon – $419

This is the first Eero model to support WiFi 6E, which allows eligible devices to access a new 6 GHz band. Amazon said 6E support results in lower latency across the network, so even devices that don’t support the extended standard will stand to benefit from the capability. The model supports network speeds of up to 2.3 Gbps, can cover up to 6,000 sq ft of space and can handle over 100 connected devices. Eero also uses TrueMesh technology to route traffic in order to reduce drop-offs and prevent dead spots. In addition to serving as a mesh router, Eero Pro 6E can be used as a smart home hub, allowing you to control compatible Thread and Zigbee devices with Alexa voice commands. 

While the three-pack bundle is obviously the best deal you can get, you can also purchase one node at a discount. A single Eero Pro 6E node will set you back $179, which is $120 less than its regular price. The single node option has been widely available at that price over the past few days, but the discounted three-pack deal is only available today exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers. 

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‘Overwatch 2’ will no longer require legacy players to verify their phone number

Even Blizzard has admitted that Overwatch 2’s launch has not met anybody’s expectations. In a new post detailing the latest status updates for the game’s rollout, the company has apologized to its players and discussed the lengthy list of issues it’s had to face since the first-person shooter went live. One of the biggest updates it’s making to the game is removing the need for for legacy players to link their phone numbers to Battle.net to be able to play. So long as they have a connected Battle.net account, which covers all players who’ve accessed the first Overwatch since June 9th, 2021, they’re exempted from the requirement. 

Blizzard originally made SMS Protect, which requires players to link a phone number to their Battle.net accounts, a requirement to access Overwatch as a way to make it harder for people to cheat or to troll others. It doesn’t always work with numbers associated with prepaid plans, though, and therein lies the problem. While some Mint customers were able able to link their numbers to SMS Protect just fine, players on Cricket seem to be completely locked out of the game. As Kotaku reports, fans feel like they’re being punished or shamed for “being poor.”

The developer is removing the requirement in response, and it expects the change to go live on October 7th. Blizzard said, however, that it remains “committed to combating disruptive behavior,” which is why new accounts and old ones that had never been connected to Battle.net before will still have to meet SMS Protect requirements to be able to play. 

The company also made changes to simplify the queueing process, so players will no longer see their queue numbers jump from hundreds to tens of thousands and vice versa. Plus, it’s working on making logins more stable to prevent players from being dropped from queues or from being able to login at all. A server update that’s also in progress will reduce the chances of players being disconnected once they’re already in the game. As for people’s missing items, Blizzard explained that the issue is caused by incomplete account merging or by items simply taking longer to transfer over from the old game. 

These issues, Blizzard said in its announcement, were “exacerbated by DDoS attacks” upon the game’s launch. While the attacks didn’t directly cause any of them, they made “the environment in which [the team works] on these issues more challenging.” Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller said the team was working through a second DDoS attack late on launch day, but it sounds like the attackers have backed off. Blizzard said it has “not suffered any further attacks,” which hopefully means it can now resolve issues more quickly.

Fast Company returns after attack that saw obscene Apple News alerts pushed to readers

Fast Company’s website finally came back online eight days after the publication took it down due to a cyberattack. The business publication was initially hacked on September 25th, but it wasn’t until the second security breach on September 27th that it had to take drastic measures to contain the situation. If you’ll recall, Apple News users who are subscribed to Fast Company received a couple of obscene push notifications with racial slurs in late September. The bad actors had also defaced the website with obscene and racist messages and posted details on how they were able to infiltrate the publication. 

They said that Fast Company used an easy-to-crack password for its WordPress CMS and had re-used it for its other accounts. From there, they were able to grab the company’s Apple News API keys, as well as authentication tokens that gave them access to employee names, email addresses and IPs. In a forum the hackers linked to on the defaced website, a user called “Thrax” posted a database dump with 6,737 employee records that include mails, password hashes for some of them and unpublished drafts, among other details.

No customer or advertiser information was exposed as a result of the hack, though, Fast Company editor-in-chief Brendan Vaughan wrote in a new post announcing that the publication is back. The main Fast Company website, its corporate site Mansueto.com and its sister site Inc.com remained offline for eight days while an investigation was being conducted. During that period, the publication posted content on other platforms, such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Medium. Vaughan didn’t go into details with the result of the probe, other than saying that no customer or advertiser data was compromised and that the publication has “taken steps to safeguard against further attacks.”