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.
The company has already fixed the DNS issue that caused the outage, but a failure like this, which knocks out so damn much of the internet, should serve as a reminder. After all, having so many critical systems in the same basket means that when something goes wrong, a lot of the internet stops working. All at once.
— Dan Cooper
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The news you might have missed
The next generation of smart glasses has arrived.
It’s teeth-grindingly frustrating that Meta seems to be the company that has worked out how to make a truly transformative pair of smart glasses. Karissa Bell has reviewed its new Ray-Ban Display and has plenty of praise for so much of what it can do. You should read her exhaustive review to learn more, but the biggest barriers to adoption are size and price. But you can bet your bottom dollar the second or third generation of these are going to be a smash hit. At least until Meta gets rocked by another scandal that prompts people to deactivate their accounts.
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It’s an anonymous-looking warehouse.
Last year, Amazon announced it would bankroll construction of a small nuclear reactor (SMR) plant in Washington state. Now, the company is showing off renders of the Hanford facility, which look like any other anonymous-looking modern warehouse. If you’re curious, the SMRs in question will use high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, each one with a maximum output of 80 megawatts.
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A few small tweaks add up to a nicer package.
Apple has updated the Beats Fit Pro with more flexible wingtips, a smaller charging case and the added benefits of Apple’s H1 chip. Valentina Palladino has been testing them out and can tell you the good, the bad and the ugly about these updated earbuds. And, if I’m honest, there’s not much that’s bad or ugly about them. Maybe the battery life could be a bit longer.
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It’s a pretty sweet deal given what’s thrown in.
In what can only be described as the least surprising sports rights streaming TV deal ever, Apple TV is the new home of F1 in the US. The five-year pact starts next year, with every practice, qualifying, sprint and race streaming live on Apple TV. Even better is that F1’s own excellent streaming platform, F1 TV Premium, will be a free perk for Apple TV subscribers.
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Sony finally has a worthy rival.
Bose opted for evolution over revolution for its 2025 series of QuietComfort Ultra products and is garnering rave reviews. Billy Steele is effusive with praise, calling them “the best noise canceling headphones you can buy right now.” It looks as if someone has finally been able to lay a finger on Sony’s previously imperious XM series, even if Bose’s glossy finish is a bit much.
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A swing and a miss for Samsung.
Samsung follows each flagship phone launch with a Fan Edition, which trims the spec list to get the price down. Igor Bonifacic has reviewed the S25 FE and found a phone designed for an older paradigm, before cheaper rivals like the Nothing 3a Pro and Pixel 10 came along. His recommendation? Buy last year’s full-fat model during a sale and swerve the compromises.
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