Owners of Eight Sleep smart beds woke up in a sweat Monday night, and not because they were having bad dreams.  Instead, they were literally sweating as their malfunctioning beds—which had been knocked offline due to Monday’s massive Amazon cloud outage—began overheating and got stuck upright, or in other ungainly positions.  It was an embarrassing situation, no question—a bed got knocked offline?—and it led to a hoard of angry Eight Sleep users, an apology from the company’s CEO, and a slew of bad headlines.  The Eight Sleep snafu served as yet another example of smart technology that suddenly turns dumb once there’s an internet or server outage. Indeed, a “dumb” bed with heating and position controls that actually work was briefly smarter than Eight Sleep’s $2600-and-up smart “pods,” which completely froze up during the global AWS crash.  But then something interesting happened. Eight Sleep acted, and it acted fast.  Within two days of the AWS outage, Eight Sleep delivered what its CEO promised Monday: an offline “Backup Mode” that allows the Eight Sleep app to connect locally to the company’s smart beds via Bluetooth during a Wi-Fi or internet outage.  Backup Mode offers only limited functionality compared to the cloud-enabled Eight Hours experience—no sleep schedules, for example, nor will the bed’s temperature be automatically regulated.   But at least you’ll be able to manually adjust the temperature and bed position, as well as turn the beds on and off. (Eight Sleep owners had to unplug their overheating beds during the Amazon cloud downtime.)  Eight Sleep’s Backup Mode certainly isn’t perfect—and, arguably, should have shipped a long time ago. Still, it’s here now, and hats off to the company for getting its fix out so quickly.  Eight Sleep’s fast reaction to a critical dependency on the cloud is, sadly, more than the exception than the rule when it comes to the smart home market. Take Amazon’s Ring and Blink cameras, which went down for the count during the AWS outage. Yes, the Ring Alarm Pro home security system and some Blink Sync Modules (specifically, the Sync Module 2 and Sync Module XR) both offer local storage of video recordings, but the cameras themselves were unreachable during the Amazon cloud blackout. And yes, Ring and Blink cameras are back online again, but only until the next big cloud outage comes around. Then there’s Sengled and its Wi-Fi bulbs, which were useless for weeks following a series of Sengled server outages. The good news is that Sengled appears to be sputtering back to life, but likely too late for exasperated customers who went ahead and switched to another ecosystem. (Sengled’s Matter and Zigbee bulbs, which can be controlled with local smart hubs, were notably immune to the company’s server woes.)  Another example: Tablo and its over-the-air DVRs, which suffered a pair of outages back in August that left their owners unable to view their recordings or watch live TV. To its credit, Tablo manufacturer Nuvyyo did finally release an offline mode for fourth-generation Tablo DVRs, but it was a fix that long-suffering Tablo owners had been waiting years for.  The great AWS outage of 2025 should serve as a wakeup call for smart home makers who sell products dependent on the cloud—because cloud outages happen, sooner or later, rendering their smart devices stupid in the blink of an eye. At least some smart product manufacturers are doing something about it. Read...

If you’re often short on time—and who isn’t these days?—you need to grab one of these Anker Nano 3-port USB-C chargers. Unlike the power adapter that came with your phone (or tablet, or earbuds, or camera…), this thing is way faster and more versatile. Don’t miss this chance to snag one for just $25.99 (was $39.99) with a 35% discount on Amazon! I didn’t even mention that this charger has 3 ports, did I? You’ll find two USB-C ports that each deliver up to 65W on their own, as well as a USB-A port that pushes up to 22.5W on its own. When all three are being used—and yes, you can use this to charge multiple devices at once—the primary USB-C caps out at 40W while the secondary USB-C and USB-A each deliver 12W. That’s pretty darn good for the price! Built on newer GaN technology, this charger is faster than older power adapters while also being smaller in size (great to take with you while traveling!) and producing less heat overall. It even has foldable prongs so it won’t get damaged or cause damage whether it’s stashed away in a drawer, a backpack, or even your pocket. If you’re tired of your devices taking forever to charge but don’t want to shell out a ton on a super-fast adapter, then take advantage of this opportunity and grab this 3-port Anker Nano USB-C charger while it’s 35% off on Amazon! This just happens to be the lowest price it’s ever been, so you know you’re getting a great deal. This fast 3-port USB-C charger just dropped to its all-time best priceBuy now on Amazon Read...

Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the hot topics on our YouTube show or latest news from across the web? You’re in the right place. Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website!  Pretend for a moment that for a satellite, the only thing that matters is what it does while in orbit. From that view, the news about Starlink’s amped-up new V3 satellites is pretty astounding—as reported by my former colleague Michael Kan, these hulking contraptions will not only dramatically expand download capacity for customers, but also support gigabit speeds. This development definitely piques my interest. And I’m diehard fan of wired internet. Wireless technology captures the heart—it always feels futuristic, no matter how mundane the application. Or how rudimentary the tech. I remember when satellite internet was synonymous with slow. Practically speaking, you signed up for such a service only because nothing better existed. But emotionally? It was comforting to have the option available. And also, as a child of the 90s (when connecting to the web happened via whining beeps and boops), knowing the internet could be beamed to you from the sky was super cool. Heck, even spoiled now by always-connected pocketable computers (aka smartphones), I still feel joy whenever I use a basic wireless keyboard. Something about breaking free of tethers is wondrous—for me, it represents freedom. Infinite possibility. When you can connect without physical contact, the sky is the limit.  (Now literally so, thanks to hardware in literal space, blasting internet into homes at the same theoretical rates as earth-bound services.) Evgeny Opanasenko / Unsplash Still, the pragmatist in me wants to see more. Not more satellites, per se—that’s actually a potential risk, given how at least one Starlink satellite burns up each day, and such debris could add to the severity (and resulting consequences) of climate change. I’m hoping to see an even tighter closing of the gap between wireless and wired technologies. Because as good as it’s become, wireless still has one main weakness. It remains bound by physics. Signal interference will always give wired connections a leg up when rock-solid dependability matters. Starlink’s improved a lot. But heck, even the wireless keyboard I’m currently reviewing acts up if I put its receiver behind the PC. If the technology could become resilient enough to trust through thick and thin, I’d consider abandoning my wired internet. (Or at least, trusting I don’t have to have wireless access points connected via Ethernet backhaul.) Maybe my other wired tech, too. I’m hoping it will. Because even though I am a hard sell on this point, I love that we have options. I love alternatives. I love that a bunch of smart folks decided to trade one set of limitations (physical linking as a requirement) for a different set, so that you can choose what best fits your situation. I love someone asked, “Isn’t this a neat idea?” Because yeah, it is. In this episode of The Full Nerd In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Brad Chacos, Will Smith, and special guest Tom Peterson, Fellow at Intel, dive deep into Xe3 gaming, making a better GPU, and much more. As always when TAP visits us, he guides everyone through an incredible amount of detailed, insightful information—for over two hours! Plus, Tom adds yet again to The Full Nerd cookbook with two mouth-watering suggestions—chicken ballotine and “the best brownie ever.” In his words, these brownies are not chewy but cakey, and “very, very nice.” (Also, I’m hereby proposing that for every guest we have on the show, we ask for a recipe contribution so we can put it into a TFN Cookbook collection at each year’s end.) Willis Lai / Foundry Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time! Don’t miss out on our NEW shows too—you can catch episodes of Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition now! And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds.  This week’s wild nerd news So apparently, I should take vacation more often—I was not expecting to come back to word of an itty bitty PCs housing a desktop 5060 Ti 16GB chip, much less a report on butt-breathing could become an actual medical treatment (yes, you read that correctly). Now that is a toy I’d want under my Christmas tree.Mikael Lindkvist ‘Butt-breathing might soon be a real medical treatment’: Look, I can’t summarize this article better than its headline, so I’ll just once again tip my hat in respect to the fine writers at Ars Technica. Also, what clever science. This takes me back: This week’s dose of 90s nostalgia comes courtesy of a Microsoft devblog post, which digs into Windows 95’s most iconic icons. Seeing that desktop computer PC icon hit me hard. Never change, Japan: I sincerely hope Japan never loses its love for physical media—books, discs, and the like. I love the charm of disc drives and calculators (yep, a whole bin full of basic, desk-sized ones) stocked alongside $1,000 AM5 motherboards in Akihabara stores. Fingers crossed mini-disc players have a revival. It doesn’t snow where I live, but I want one: OK, this smart snow blower isn’t computer hardware. It’s also $5,000. But you control it with a dupe of an Xbox controller and it looks like one of my favorite construction toys from when I was a kid. I’m in. Mini but mighty: I built a big PC just a few weeks ago, but I love tiny gaming PCs. And Zotac’s sub-3L offering with a desktop 5060 Ti stuffed inside is delightful. Turns out, enshittification has nuance: At least, Cory Doctorow (the original inventor of the term enshittification) takes this approach to the concept. After reading this interview, I can’t wait to get my hands on his full book. Why put Battlefield 6 on an AIO screen? Why not?Allround-PC.com Battlefield 6 blinding you? The fine folks over at PCGamer have you covered—try their suggestion for adjusting the brightness settings. Or I guess you could just play Battlefield 6 this way instead: I’m betting on a screen that small, it won’t blind you. Well, not from brightness. I’m not the only one: When an astoundingly broad range of people sign an open letter asking for AI development to be paused until it can be done safely—and with large public buy-in—it seems like maybe the tech industry is ignoring how problematic the current approach is. GoG Games has some crazy tales: I think none of us appreciate enough the lengths GoG has gone to preserve gaming—at least, I feel I didn’t after reading about this particular tale. Wow. Well, it was a good run while it lasted: I like how the earth gets a finite end date, but the calculus for humanity’s survival is generalized to, “Well, definitely not as long as earth’s lifespan.” More lucky thrift shopping: On a more cheerful note—$500 for a PC with a 2080 Ti inside. Hot dang. Catch you all next week—I believe the whole TFN crew will be celebrating Halloween in full style. At least, we will be if Adam has anything to say about it. ~Alaina This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld. Read...

It’s hard to think of any other company that has shaped the labor market as much as Amazon has over the past two decades. Now, internal documents and interviews obtained by the New York Times point to the next far-reaching change. According to the insider report, Amazon is planning to replace around 600,000 jobs in the United States with robots by 2033. Up to 75 percent of all operational processes will be automated in the future. Replacing human workers with robots to save billions of dollars Since 2018, the number of Amazon employees in the US has more than tripled to almost 1.2 million. Nevertheless, managers have reportedly informed the board last year that the company will not need to hire any more US employees in the future thanks to advancements in robot automation—even if sales double by 2033. According to internal documents, around 160,000 jobs could be lost by 2027, particularly in logistics and warehousing. In the long term, Amazon plans to automate around 75 percent of all activities by 2033, which will save the company up to $12.6 billion (and according to projections, this will reduce the cost to sell each product by about 30 cents). Amazon already employs more than 1 million robots that support 1.6 million human workers. In the future, however, machines will no longer just help but completely take over many tasks—even beyond the warehouse. Amazon is already working on robots for package delivery. According to the New York Times, Amazon is preemptively dodging criticism by molding its communication. Terms like “automation” and “artificial intelligence” are to be avoided in public. Instead, the company wants to talk about “advanced technology” or “cobots” (i.e., robots that work together with humans). Amazon is also planning to increase involvement in charitable projects to soften negative headlines. Amazon rejects the implications Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told The Verge that the documents came from an internal team and do not reflect the company’s overall strategy. Many internal papers are drafts or brainstorms that do not reflect the current state or long-term planning, she says. At the same time, Amazon points out that it’s actively recruiting staff, with about 250,000 new jobs to be created over the Christmas period. The company didn’t say how many of these jobs will be permanent. Amazon also told the NYT that its managers haven’t been instructed to avoid using certain terms in connection with robotics, and that its involvement in charity and the community has nothing to do with the company’s automation plans. The impact of Amazon’s robot strategy Amazon has relied on robot technology for years. Back in 2012, the company bought robotics manufacturer Kiva Systems for $775 million. Since then, the company has been massively driving forward the automation of its warehouses and delivery processes. Thousands of robots are already being used in newer logistics centers such as in Shreveport, Louisiana. According to internal calculations, Amazon was able to reduce the number of employees there by a quarter in the first year, while at the same time increasing throughput. However, Amazon emphasizes that increasing automation will also create new job profiles, for example in the areas of maintenance, programming, and monitoring of robotic systems. For consumers, Amazon’s increasing use of robots is unlikely to be noticeable in the short term. Packages may even arrive faster. In the long term, however, the trend could have an impact on the labor market in the US—and possibly also on prices, service quality, and the treatment of employees in online retail in general. Economist and Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu warns of the possible consequences: should Amazon realize its plans, the company “will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator.” There is also a risk that other companies will follow suit if full automation proves to be financially profitable for Amazon. Read...

The head of the company that makes Tasers tells us about the future of the technology. Read...

Since August 29th, many users have reported various login problems on Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025, and that includes both Windows 11 24H2 and the newer Windows 11 25H2. According to Microsoft’s support page on the issue, the issue is caused by new security protections that are unfortunately causing Kerberos (the authentication protocol in Windows) and New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) to fail for users with duplicate Security IDs (SIDs). The issue can start occurring on relevant systems after installing either update KB5064081 (released on August 29th) or KB5065426 (released on September 9th). Symptoms include repeatedly being prompted for credentials, access requests fail even with valid credentials, shared network folders being inaccessible via IP address or hostname, failure to establish remote desktop connections, and errors in Event Viewer. To permanently resolve this issue, affected devices with duplicate SIDs need to be rebuilt so that each SID is unique. Detailed information on how to do this is available on this Microsoft guide page. Read...

Now part of the NZTech Group ( a not‑for‑profit, member‑driven NGO providing a united voice for Aotearoa’s technology ecosystem) KiwiSaaS is transitioning to a sustainable, community‑run network that connects and empowers the country`s rapidly expanding SaaS industry. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Fast, reliable palm-vein unlocking Easy installation and intuitive setup Smooth app integration with detailed event logs Cons Palm scanner only unlocks, not locks No protective cover for the USB-C port Plastic interior housing feels less premium Our Verdict The Wyze Palm Lock combines dependable biometric access, solid performance, and smart-home integration at a price that’s hard to beat. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Wyze Palm Lock Retailer Price $129.98 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices Wyze has made a name for itself by delivering affordable smart home devices that punch well above their price tags, and its latest addition to its smart lock offerings continues that trend. The Wyze Palm Lock brings a more advanced form of biometric security to the front door, swapping a fingerprint sensor for a more advanced and hygienic alternative: palm vein recognition. Using infrared imaging to identify the unique vein pattern beneath your skin, the lock can recognize users even if their hands are wet or dirty, mitigating a common weakness of fingerprint-based systems. Design and features The Wyze Palm Lock looks and feels like a thoughtful blend of modern design and practical engineering. The outdoor assembly is mostly metal, giving it a solid, weather-resistant feel, with a single glass panel that combines the keypad and palm sensor into one sleek surface. Beneath this, a magnetic slide-down cover hides the keyway, a nice touch that preserves the lock’s clean aesthetic while keeping a mechanical backup within reach. The interior escutcheon is made of plastic with a sturdy metal thumb turn, and together with the exterior housing, it replaces your existing deadbolt entirely. The design has been tested for real-world durability, achieving relatively modest results: It earned a weatherization rating of IP53. PCWorld’s IP code guide tells us that means it can keep enough dust out of its internal workings to prevent failure, and that it can withstand being sprayed with a water hose at up to a 60-degree angle on either side of vertical. Wyze Labs advertises the lock as being “BHMA 3 certified,” by which we assume they mean it’s rated ANSI grade 3, the lowest of the three ratings for commercial deadbolts, according to our lock durability guide. BHMA certifications are for residential deadbolts and consist of letter grades for security, durability, and finish. A slide-down cover hides a keyway for a mechanical backup. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry Wyze gives you multiple ways to unlock the Palm Lock. The marquee method is its biometric palm vein recognition, which can store up to 50 unique palm profiles. There’s also a backlit keypad that supports up to 50 PIN codes, and a traditional key for backup use in the event the batteries die or the tech ever misbehaves. The lock is powered by a dual-battery system: a removable lithium-ion battery good for up to six months of use, and a two-week backup battery that keeps the lock running while you recharge the main one. If both run out, a USB-C emergency port on the underside can provide temporary power from a portable charger (though the lack of a protective cover could leave it exposed to the elements). Wyze also built in a smart battery saver that uses millimeter-wave radar (the same tech used in self-driving cars) to detect when someone is nearby, so the lock wakes up only when needed. The Palm Lock also includes a full suite of smart features that make it feel right at home in a connected ecosystem. It comes with built-in Wi-Fi, negating the need for a separate bridge, and it works with both Alexa and Google Assistant. For security, voice unlocking requires you to speak your pre-set PIN aloud before the command is carried out. The lock is powered by a dual-battery system: a removable lithium-ion battery and a two-week backup battery. These are accessed from the interior escutcheon. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry The Wyze app adds more control, with tamper and door-ajar alerts, an auto-lock feature powered by a built-in gyroscope, and customizable notifications. When paired with a Wyze video doorbell, you can even unlock your door directly from the live camera view, tying the whole front-door experience neatly together. Setup and performance As the Palm Lock is designed as a direct replacement for a standard deadbolt, installation starts with removing your existing lock and its bolt. That should leave you with just an empty bore hole and side jam in your door. From there, you first install the new Wyze bolt, then fit the outdoor assembly through the bore hole, feeding the single power cable beneath the bolt to the interior side. The indoor bracket attaches with two long machine screws, and the power cable connects to the interior escutcheon using clearly labeled, color-coded terminals. Once everything is secured, the indoor unit slides onto the bracket and locks in place with three short screws. With the hardware assembled, you insert the backup battery first, followed by the main rechargeable pack, then snap the battery cover into place. Wyze includes all the necessary hardware and a mounting template, making the process straightforward even for first-time installers. It took me about 25 minutes. A single cable from the outer assemble connects to the interior escutcheon using clearly labeled, color-coded terminals.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry Afterward, setup continues in the Wyze app, which walks you through calibration and palm registration step by step. The app prompts you to open and close the door, create access codes, and scan your palms, with feedback confirming each step along the way. In everyday use, I found unlocking the door to be nearly instantaneous. I’d just hover a hand near the reader and within a second or so I’d hear a chime confirming recognition and the whirring of the motorized bolt unlocking. The sensor worked reliably even when my hands weren’t particularly clean. With the auto-lock feature enabled, the door relocks either immediately on closing or after a short delay, depending on your setting. The Wyze app is central to the Palm Lock experience. From it, you can lock or unlock the door, check its current status, and view a detailed activity history. It also shows battery levels for both the main and backup batteries. It provides generous access management: you can add up to 50 users and assign specific permissions, whether always-on, recurring on certain days, or active only within a defined time window. One-time codes are another handy option for guests or deliveries, and a “lock after hours” rule ensures your door is automatically secured at night. The Wyze app provides an event log, scheduling options, and flexible access management.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry The Wyze app also includes several several safeguards to prevent unauthorized access. A Failed Entry Lockout feature temporarily disables palm or code access for five minutes and sounds an alarm after five failed attempts. The lock can alert you to tampering or if the door is left ajar, using its built-in gyroscope to detect movement and position. The illuminated keypad supports Wyze’s anti-peep technology, which lets you enter extra digits before or after your code to prevent onlookers from memorizing it. Further, all biometric data is encrypted and stored locally on the device rather than in the cloud, and the Wyze app keeps a detailed history of every lock and unlock event. This was my first experience with a smart lock, and I came away impressed. Connectivity was excellent throughout my testing. Commands from the app registered quickly, and notifications—like when someone unlocks the door—arrived promptly. Voice control through Alexa or Google Assistant also worked seamlessly. With two teenagers at home who routinely forget their house keys but never their phones, that reliability made the Palm Lock a welcome upgrade. Should you buy the Wyze Palm Lock? At $129.98, the Wyze Palm Lock delivers technology you’d normally expect in far pricier devices. Palm-vein recognition makes unlocking fast and reliable, and the setup and app experience are refreshingly simple. For Wyze users or else anyone seeking a secure, hands-free deadbolt upgrade without spending a fortune, the Palm Lock is an excellent value. Read...

Acronis` 2025 Women in Tech Report reveals men and women strongly differ on perceptions of career barriers and bias in the technology sector worldwide. Read...

Here’s an unsettling development in this episode of “everyday tech can do things you probably never imagined”: in the future, anyone who regularly walks past a café or restaurant with public Wi-Fi could be identified—even without a smartphone in their pocket. Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have discovered that commercially available Wi-Fi routers can recognize and identify individual people based on signal changes. All that’s required is for other devices in the vicinity to be connected to the router. Professor Thorsten Strufe from KASTEL—the Institute of Information Security and Dependability at KIT—explains that the propagation of Wi-Fi radio waves can be used to create an image of the router’s physical environment and the people in it. This works in a similar way to cameras, except radio waves are used instead of light waves. According to the cybersecurity expert, it doesn’t matter whether someone has their own Wi-Fi device on them or not. Switching off their devices also offers no protection, since the imaging is performed by other active Wi-Fi devices in the vicinity. How Wi-Fi signal imaging works Wi-Fi devices communicate with each other by exchanging so-called Beamforming Feedback Information (BFI). These feedback signals show how radio waves propagate throughout a room and are sent unencrypted from connected devices to the Wi-Fi router. If a person moves through this “Wi-Fi field”, their body causes measurable changes to the Wi-Fi signals. Artificial intelligence can then analyze the data and signal changes well enough to associate it with an individual—with a nearly 100 percent accuracy rate. In a study involving 197 test subjects, the researchers were able to reliably identify people regardless of their walking style or perspective. Even objects like bags and boxes had little influence on the results. Pervasive Wi-Fi networks could be employed as a surveillance trap The KIT researchers see this Wi-Fi signal imaging technique as a serious risk to personal privacy and data protection. Julian Todt, a PhD researcher at KASTEL, warns that “this technology turns every router into a potential means for surveillance.” Governments, companies, organizations, and even cyber criminals could identify people unnoticed, particularly in public places but also in the privacy of their own homes. The researchers emphasize that this is especially dangerous in authoritarian states where security authorities could use the technology to identify protesters and dissenters. Stricter Wi-Fi standards are needed Due to these findings, the research team is calling for data protection mechanisms to be integrated into the IEEE 802.11bf Wi-Fi standard that’s slated for the future. This is the only way to prevent feedback signals like the BFI from being read without encryption. “Wi-Fi networks are almost everywhere these days—in homes, offices, restaurants, and public spaces,” says Strufe. “If this technology is used without protective measures, ubiquitous wireless networks could become a nearly universal surveillance infrastructure.” The research was funded as part of the Helmholtz “Engineering Secure Systems” topic area. The results will be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) in Taipei. Further reading: Secure your home Wi-Fi router with these tweaks Read...