It felt like half of the internet was dealing with a severe hangover on October 20. A severe Amazon Web Services outage took out many, many websites, apps, games and other services that rely on Amazon’s cloud division to stay up and running. That included a long list of popular software like Venmo, Snapchat, Canva and Fortnite. Even Amazon's own assistant Alexa stuttered, and if you were wondering why the internet seemed to be against you — you weren't imagining it.
Amazon is reportedly moving towards an era of unprecedented automation that would put half a million jobs in the US at risk. According to a series of interviews and internal documents referenced in an extensive report from The New York Times, Amazon executives expect to sell twice as many products by 2033.
Samsung is partnering with Perplexity to bring the startup’s AI Search engine to its smart TVs. If you own a 2025 Samsung TV, you can start using the app today. The company will bring the software to older 2024 and 2023 sets later this year via an OTA update. As part of today’s announcement, Perplexity is also offering free 12-month subscriptions to its Pro plan.
Apple is back with the latest version of the iPad Pro, and like the iPad Air earlier this year the surface-level changes are minimal. Like that iPad Air, there’s a new chip on board here. It’s the M5, which was also added to the 14-inch MacBook Pro and Vision Pro.
If you're not a big fan of the, well, glass in iOS 26's Liquid Glass interface, Apple has apparently heard you. The latest iOS 26.1 Beta 4 has a new toggle that lets you apply a "tinted" setting to boost the opacity of elements and add contrast, making them stand out better against the background, MacRumors reported.
A decent-sized chunk of the internet stopped working after a fairly massive Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage. This included Venmo, Snapchat, Canva and Fortnite — even Amazon’s own products went on the fritz. Your humble narrator’s Ring Chimes started turning their night lights on and off entirely at random, with no prompting from yours truly.
Whether you’re into adventure sports or just want to log your day-to-day activities, an action camera is the way to go. On top of regular models from the likes of GoPro, DJI and Insta360, you can film your adventures with 360-degree models and a new class of tiny cams that can even be attached to kids or pets. In other words, there are more options than ever for types of action shooting or vlogging.
Home products company Kohler is launching a new Kohler Health division, and its first product is a $599 camera for your toilet. The item, dubbed Dekoda, is equipped with sensors that analyze whatever liquid or solid waste goes into the toilet bowl with "validated machine learning algorithms." The data, which can offer insights on hydration and gut health as well as detecting the presence of blood, then goes to Kohler Health's iPhone app, although Android support is in the works.
Are you still using Windows 10 on your desktop or laptop? If so, you need to know this: As of October 14, Microsoft moved the software to its "end of life" phase.