• Amazon is re-hiring former workers back into AI and cloud roles
• The company is investigating the impacts of its office-working mandates
• Despite 30,000 layoffs in the past year, Amazon continues to hire for certain roles

Amazon is reportedly trying to re-hire old workers, including many who were affected by previous rounds of layoffs.

Recruiter emails cited by Business Insider reveal that rather than filling roles that have emerged following layoffs, the company is actually targeting specific ex-workers it seems, with the company's cloud computing business predominantly seeing these hiring efforts.

AWS, cloud computing, AI, ML and agentic AI are apparently the focus of these efforts, with one recruiter reportedly referring to the scheme as 'Swami's Boomerang Reengagement Initiative' – Swami Sivasubramanian is a VP for AWS Agentic AI.

Amazon is re-hiring ex-workers back into the company

The company is also said to be making it easier for former employees to return, offering shortened interview processes that may skip over some of the screening steps that aren't all that necessary.

Besides trying to attract former talent, Business Insider also reports that Amazon is digging deeper into why they left, and the potential impacts of its return-to-office (RTO) mandates. Specifically, the tech giant wants to know whether the RTO changes were behind some ex-workers' departures.

While company spokesperson Haley Silva told the publication that Amazon isn't specifically targeting people who left because of the RTO and that its in-office expectations haven't changed, it's an interesting perspective from a company that went pretty much all-in on the RTO years ago in a bid to drive more in-person collaboration and to boost productivity.

All of this comes in the wake of major ongoing layoffs – the company fired around 30,000 workers just in the past year. But it's apparently all part of a broader shift in focus, because instead of cutting headcount as aggressively as that 30k figure suggests, Amazon's more likely looking to lose workers in certain areas of the business and gain workers in more important areas.

• AWS deal with Nvidia adds 2 million Blackwell Ultra, Rubin, and Rubin Ultra GPUs, on top of more than 1 million committed in March 2026
• Totals more than 3 million Nvidia GPUs due before 2029, a ~1.9x multiple for each of Amazon's roughly 1.58 million employees
• Nvidia's CFO has said deliveries start this quarter, not in 2027, but neither company says what it counts as a GPU or what the deal costs

Amazon ended 2025 with about 1.58 million full- and part-time employees, most in fulfillment centers and delivery operations, with a much smaller share working in its AWS data center division (estimated at around 246,000).

By mid-2028, Amazon Web Services expects to have taken delivery of roughly twice that many new Nvidia GPUs, based on a recent deal it made with Nvidia.

The latest deal was announced on August 26, the same afternoon Nvidia reported quarterly earnings, and will see AWS plan to deploy two million additional Blackwell Ultra, Rubin, and Rubin Ultra GPUs across its global infrastructure in 2027 and 2028. This is on top of over a million Nvidia GPUs that AWS committed to at Nvidia GTC 2026 in March, and which Nvidia's Ian Buck told Reuters would ship from 2026 through 2027.

A mammoth deal that dwarf's Amazon's entire payroll

Together, this all amounts to over three million GPUs in play between the data center giant and the chip designer, which is also the world's most valuable company at the time of writing. At 3 million GPUs against a workforce of 1.58 million, that's nearly 1.9 Nvidia GPUs per employee.

This is only Amazon's commitment to Nvidia; it also has its own custom Tranium3 GPUs, which the company says are "nearly fully subscribed" or "almost fully booked" as of mid-2026.

At the same time, Amazon is not increasing job roles on its end; it cut around 30,000 corporate roles between October 2025 and January 2026, a restructuring its top HR executive, Beth Galetti, described as "reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy."

Building on an already solid base

While AWS's current GPU base from Nvidia, consisting mainly of H100 and H200 GPUs, is smaller than Microsoft's 485,000 count, it is hardly a rounding error, with Omdia estimating that Amazon bought 196,000 Hopper GPUs in 2024 alone.

The interesting part is determining what counts as a GPU: Nvidia and Amazon's joint statement about 2 million GPUs across calendar years 2027 and 2028 might mean two very different things depending on how you count GPUs.

At GTC 2025, Nvidia said it would count Rubin-generation GPUs by compute die rather than by package, which is why the Vera Rubin rack was first unveiled as NVL144. It reversed course before CES 2026, and the flagship now ships as Vera Rubin NVL72, counting 72 two-die packages. To make matters a bit more complicated, Rubin Ultra, due in 2027, puts four compute dies in each package.

Whether the companies count each die as a separate GPU or the whole package as a GPU could make the numbers skew heavily in either direction. The deal also includes a national security element: approximately 100,000 GPUs are earmarked for US government AI workloads at Impact Level 6.

Amazon's limitation here is supply, not demand; AWS revenue rose 37% year over year to $42.2 billion in the second quarter, and its contracted backlog reached $496 billion, up from $364 billion three months earlier, as CloudTech News reported.

On Amazon's July earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy said capacity would fall short of demand this year and likely next, adding: "In fact, the demand we already have for 2028 is striking."

In addition to its own custom ASICs, including Tranium3, Amazon is gearing up for a few fiscal years of eye-watering AI infrastructure spend and AI demand combined, and it better be right: Amazon's free cash flow has already turned negative as it looks to fund its bid to be one of, if not the largest hyperscaler in play for the foreseeable future.

Via StorageNewsletter

• Malware botnets route traffic through the internet connection on many smart TVs
• Roku, Fire TV, Tizen and webOS all affected
• Some manufacturers are removing affected apps

LG, Samsung, Roku and Fire TV televisions and devices may have apps downloaded to them that mean they can be used as part of a malicious "botnet" — and millions of TVs could be affected, though LG and Samsung have committed to removing the relevant apps,

FlatpanelsHD rounded up pieces of this puzzle, stretching back several months. Back in April, it emerged that many apps and games included a feature called "residential proxy" that could be abused by bad actors.

The tech means the TVs were being used to bypass IP range blocks that affected AI data centers: because each individual TV has its own unique address, such blocks could easily be evaded by seeming to be 'real' traffic. And because the proxy feature doesn't require the app to be open, TV owners would be none the wiser that their device is being used this way — and that's partly because in many cases, you wouldn't assume that was the real purpose of the app.

One example of a residential proxy system, IPIDEA, had enlisted millions of smart TVs in a network that could crawl the web for AI training or even carry out coordinated attacks by groups in China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.

According to security researcher Harrison Sand at Mnemonic, one of the apps in question was a Pac-Man game, likely to be downloaded by kids, that Samsung featured as an Editor's Choice.

And according to security firm Spur, 26.5% of apps for Samsung Tizen smart TVs and over 42.5% of LG webOS apps could be used in this kind of way. That's a truly shocking statistic.

What is a residential proxy, and how can it be used maliciously?

A residential proxy or "reproxy" transmits data through your device, in this case your TV, to make it look as if your TV is the sender of that data.

The feature isn't necessarily malicious — it can be used for testing and advertising purposes — but as security expert Spur explains, it also "provides attackers with a scalable way to hide automation, bypass geo-controls, and evade reputation-based defenses."

Spur's website goes into more detail of how they operate and how they differ from services such as the best VPNs.

It seems likely that at least some of the potentially dodgy apps weren't made maliciously; developers who use certain software development kits that have residential proxy features may not know those features are there.

LG and Samsung have vowed to ban any smart TV apps that contain residential proxies, a process LG completed on 15 September after two months of app removal. IPIDEA is already banned by Amazon, Roku and Google TV, and they have also restricted the new Bright Data network.

Samsung has restricted new app registrations for apps, and is "working to identify and remove all apps… that contain these components."

What worries me isn't so much that the malware exists — the more our TVs become like PCs, the more PC-like attacks will target them — but that it's made its way into so many TVs and is presumably still there on many of them, despite being publicized back in April.

It just adds to my distrust of smart TVs more widely: with features such as Automatic Content Recognition and ad injection (and here in the UK, prominent placing of TV channels I don't want anywhere near my TV on the home screen), plus too-frequent updates to terms and conditions that I just know mean more tracking, it seems to me that smart TVs are becoming both privacy and security risks.

Which is why I treat my smart TV like it isn't smart at all: it's merely a monitor for my Apple TV 4K.

Even though we're waiting for Amazon to kick off its Prime Big Deal Days sale at the start of next month, the retailer is already running several strong tech offers this weekend. So, I've taken a look through the latest batch and picked out 16 of the best deals that I'd recommend buying now across laptops, appliances, health and beauty, and accessories.

• See all this weekend's best deals at Amazon UK

One of the strongest offers that even surprised me when I saw it is this Kindle Scribe for £279.99 (was £429.99). It stands out because it's a record-low price for the ereader and e-ink notepad hybrid with 64GB of storage, which is rare to see outside of a major sales event. I guess Amazon didn't want to wait around until Prime Big Deal Days to make this one available.

Elsewhere, you can find a handy and highly-rated Dreo Electric Heater for £39.99 (was £64.99), this great value Fitbit Inspire 3 for £59 (was £84.99), and a powerful Microsoft Surface Pro for £949 (was £1,629).

A good range of solid offers, then, for a fairly random weekend in the middle of September. Do have a browse through all of my top picks below, and be sure to check in with TechRadar from October 6, when we'll be sharing all of the best deals from Prime Big Deal Days.

This weekend's 16 best deals at Amazon UK

• Fire TV owners spotted an issue that prevented sideloading on compatible Fire TV models
• This convinced users to believe that Amazon was clamping down on sideloading on older devices
• Turns out it was just a bug, and Amazon is rolling out a fix soon

There's a dedicated community of Amazon Fire TV Stick owners who like to sideload apps on their devices. However, a recent issue seemed to block the feature, leading to users worry that the tech giant was removing sideloading for older devices to match the lack of sideloading capability on the latest Fire TV Stick HD.

Turns out, it was just a bug. It's been plaguing Fire TV owners for the past month, and was first spotted by users when Amazon rolled out an update that effectively stopped Downloader, a popular sideloading service developed by AFTV News, from working.

Soon after, similar services started vanishing from the ‘Install unknown apps’ list in Fire TV settings, mainly ones that can install apps from sources that aren’t the official Fire TV app store.

While the bug didn’t invade every Fire TV device, it was enough to make users suspicious that Amazon was cracking down on the feature. Without Downloader and similar apps, you can’t grant permission for them to install other apps.

Thankfully, Amazon has confirmed that a fix is on the way, sharing the following with AFTV News:

"There was a bug in a recent Fire TV Settings update that caused the 'Install unknown apps' list to appear incomplete or empty on some Fire TV devices. We have identified the cause and a fix will roll out in an upcoming Fire TV Settings update, installed automatically on affected devices over the coming week."

According to AFTV News, the update will be installed to your Fire TV device automatically and will likely arrive as a component update. You can also check for it by going to Settings > My Fire TV > About > Check for updates.

Of course, this all still only applies to the older devices — anything powered by Amazon’s own Vega OS, which is taking over from the Android-based Fire TV OS in newer models, will likely never have sideloading abilities.

Amazon has announced that its Prime Big Deal Days sale will return for another year, effectively kicking off the Black Friday sales season on October 6 - 7.

• Browse all early deals at Amazon US
• Browse all early deals at Amazon UK

The event is similar to its regular Prime Day sale in the middle of the year, with 48 hours of deals exclusively available for Prime members. Whether it's your first time hearing about it or you're a regular, I've brought together everything you need to know.

As we've come to see over the last few years, Amazon has hosted the Prime Big Deal Days sale mainly as a teaser of what to expect from the retailer's full Black Friday sale in November. While it's not made up of all the exact same deals, many products do pop up again in the later sale, which can help you plan any spending you want to do.

In its announcement, Amazon has confirmed several featured brands, including Lego, Shark, Braun, Anker, and many more, with new deals promised across tech, home, fashion, toys, and essentials each day. It's almost guaranteed that many of its own-brand tech will feature in the sale, too, such as Blink, Ring, Fire TV, and Kindle.

Even with recent price hikes, I'm hopeful that we'll at least see a few products down to record-low prices in the sale — or at least the cheapest we've seen them so far this year. That'll be more likely with Amazon products, though, so I wouldn't expect any out-of-this-world bargains on RAM or storage, for example. Sorry to dash any hopes.

Still, there should be some strong deals available in some categories — and we'll be here to bring you all of the very best ones we recommend right here at TechRadar. And if you want to be prepped for the sale, new subscribers can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime.

This is one of the cleverest docking stations I've ever seen from Anker (or anyone else for that matter). This 13-in-1 dock with a detachable hub supports everything from triple display output to 100W laptop charging over a single cable.

• Best for: Remote workers, creators, gamers, and office professionals who want a multi-monitor setup at home with a compact travel hub for on the move.

• The deal: The Anker Nano 13-in-1 dock is discounted to $120 (was $150) at Amazon. In the UK, the dock is now £100 (was £130).

• Why we like it: This docking station features 13 ports, with support for three-monitor set ups, and a 100W PD for charging smaller devices like phones and laptops. But what really stands out to me is the detachable 6-in-1 hub. So, you can leave the bulky main hub on your desk and take the small unit with you on the commute.

Why we recommend it

The triple display support is the main draw for a home office upgrade. Switching from a single laptop screen to two or three monitors through one cable is one of the most noticeable productivity upgrades you can make to a desk setup.

Anker's combination of two HDMI ports and a DisplayPort covers most monitor configurations without adapters. This allows up to 4K at 60Hz on a single screen, or dual 2K at 60Hz.

The detachable 6-in-1 hub is a genuinely practical design choice. It means the dock doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing desk fixture; you can pull the smaller hub off and take it with you when you only need basic connectivity away from your main setup.

100W of pass-through charging is enough for most laptops on the market, so this can realistically replace your laptop's charger at the desk while also handling displays, Ethernet, and peripherals through the same cable.

Price Context & Historical Value

A $30 drop from $149.99 to $119.99 is a 20 percent discount. Third-party price tracking shows this dock has dipped as low as $104.49 previously, so $119.99 is a solid price but not the lowest it has ever been. It is still a meaningful saving over the regular price for anyone who has been waiting to buy.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the Anker Nano docking station if... you want to run two or three monitors off a single laptop cable, you need Ethernet for a more reliable home office connection than Wi-Fi, or you want a hub that detaches into a smaller, travel-friendly piece when you do not need the full docking setup.

❌ Skip the Anker Nano docking station if... your laptop or monitors cannot make use of triple display output, you need faster charging than 100W for a larger laptop, or you are looking for the absolute cheapest single-purpose USB-C hub rather than a full docking station.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

Since macOS doesn't support Multi-Stream Transport over USB-C, and this docking station use a single-cable setup, monitors will mirror the main screen, instead of showing independently. That's not an issue on Windows. User reviews also note that charging speed can be slower when the dock is also driving multiple displays and peripherals at once, so heavy multitaskers with power-hungry laptops should keep expectations realistic.

• See more docking station deals at Amazon.

• Amazon is still selling fake 'energy-saving' plugs despite having pledged to remove them
• Which? first spotted them in 2025, and Amazon said they had been removed
• The retailer promised to remove them for a second time in August, but they're still available to purchase

Fake ‘energy-saving’ plugs are one of the biggest tech scams, and they’re still being sold on Amazon even though the retailer promised MPs it would remove the product listings.

Liberal Democrat MP Joshua Reynolds highlighted the dangers of the plugs — which can pose a fire risk — during a hearing back in June, calling for the retailer to take accountability.

In August, Amazon’s UK Director of Public Policy, Monica Ariño, issued a letter to the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee saying the devices had been removed from sale, adding that there was "a technical issue in [our] automated classification system that was preventing some of these products from being proactively detected".

This isn’t the first time Amazon has promised to remove fake plugs. Back in 2025, Which? first spotted these ‘energy-saving’ plugs and approached retailers with their findings, resulting in their removal from stores. However, identical products were found on Amazon just weeks later.

Despite Amazon's most recent pledge to remove the plugs from sale, they're still available to purchase from the retailer. We’ve checked Amazon UK’s page and found that these products are still live — the Telegraph (£) has also spotted similar listings.

Now, Reynolds says he’ll be writing to Amazon asking for an explanation, adding that "Amazon has got some proper questions they have to answer. These are exactly the same products tested by Which?". He also claims that these plugs are appearing as sponsored ads at the top of Amazon’s listing pages.

As mentioned, these devices were first spotted during a test carried out by Which?, for where it tested eight devices from sites including eBay, AliExpress, Shein, and TikTok Shop. It found no evidence that the plugs actually worked, and noted that it would be illegal to sell them in the UK, as they didn't meet basic safety standards.

So how are these plugs claimed to cut your energy bills? Based on the product listings we’ve found, Amazon’s ‘energy-saving’ plugs are advertised as ‘voltage stabilizers’ and ‘surge protectors’, and are claimed to significantly cut your energy bills by optimizing the performance of your household appliances.

At a time when energy bills are increasing, it’s an easy sales pitch to make, and they’re also affordably priced (usually around the £10-£15 mark), making them seem to be a worthwhile puchase.

However, it's claimed that the devices are a fire hazard, and also pose an electrocution risk. According to the tests conducted by Which?, more than half of the plugs’ socket pins were either too small, not straight, or were so frail they just snapped off.

Other tests found that some of the plugs failed to meet basic safety measures due to poor manufacturing, including non-standard capacitors and soldering.

Amazon hasn't yet commented on the current status of these product listings, or responded to the latest claims. We've asked the company for a comment, and will update this story if we get a response.

No, it's not Prime Day, and we're still a couple of months away from Black Friday. But out of nowhere, Amazon has dropped the 64GB model of the latest Kindle Scribe to a record-low price. You can head over to the retailer right now to pick up the Kindle Scribe at Amazon for £279.99 (was £429.99).

The previous generation model may have been cheaper than this, but this newer version offers the Premium Pen, new writing features and some genuinely useful AI additions as standard. And while the lower-capacity 16GB model has been discounted more as well, it's only been £15 cheaper, so you don't pay a lot extra for a lot more storage space.

The Kindle Scribe combines the functions of Amazon's immensely popular ereaders with the smooth and natural writing features of e-ink tablets. That means you can enjoy your favourite books while also making annotations, taking notes, reviewing documents, journaling, and creating lists using the included pen.

The device also sports a large 10.2-inch 300ppi glare-free high-resolution display, with an adjustable warm light and auto-changing front light like the Kindle Paperwhite to ensure a clear and comfortable reading experience in all conditions.

Ultimately, if you're looking for an advanced ereader and journal all in one, the Kindle Scribe is a top option.

Today's best Kindle Scribe deal

• A GAO report requested by Bernie Sanders lists Amazon among the top employers of Medicaid and SNAP recipients in every state that supplied employer data
• Amazon's capital expenditure guidance for 2026 has risen from $200 billion to $220 billion citing AI demand as a primary driver
• Amazon contests the findings, stating the rankings used do not account for the employer's workforce numbers

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently published a report claiming Amazon is among the largest employers of Americans who rely on food stamps and Medicaid.

The report, requested by US Senator Bernie Sanders, who is the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was released publicly on July 22 2026, a month after it was sent to the senator.

The study is not the first of its kind: the GAO published the same in October 2020 at the request of the same committee, though Amazon was far less dominant on the list at a cursory glance.

A report that paints a worrying trend, but fails to provide a complete picture

GAO collected employment records from 15 agencies across 11 states, all of them the same agencies that supplied the 2020 data, and asked for a snapshot of September 2025.

The office then estimated the 25 employers in each state with the most enrollees. The resulting document showed Amazon near the top of every list: It ranked second in five states for Medicaid enrollees, and second or third for SNAP recipients in six different states. Adding the state figures links the e-commerce giant's employee list to 11,338 Medicaid enrollees and 12,346 SNAP recipients.

The report does not, however, directly or indirectly address AI, data centers, or Amazon's Capex ambitions, or point to a particular trend as a snapshot of a single month of data, and it fails to draw a direct comparison with its 2020-based iteration.

It has drawn a sharp rebuke from Amazon, which saw its spokesperson, Rachael Lighty, tell The Washington Post that the company dealt in raw numbers rather than percentages, which was misleading, and CNN that eligibility "is based on total household income and family size, not individual wages or benefits," so an employer offering part-time work will naturally show more eligible staff.

This is something the GAO tends to accept, even in its own footnotes: a larger employer simply has more employees in play and is therefore more likely to be on that list, which is skewed against part-time individuals who are more likely recipients of those food assistance programs.

It does make for an interesting approach to the entire model, which Senator Sanders has pointed out shows "triple" the number on SNAP and Medicaid simply because Amazon's employment statistics have swung so wildly of late.

The e-commerce giant's global workforce went from about 798,000 at the end of 2019 to a peak of 1.61 million in 2021, and stood at 1,576,000 at the end of 2025, effectively doubling from when the report was originally published in 2020, potentially skewing results against itself due to a larger employee base.

The findings and the defense presented by Amazon, however, have not gone down well with certain quarters; Senator Sanders has called the trends "beyond unacceptable", stating that "American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations".

Much of Amazon's recent focus, including a significant increase in Capex spending, has been towards AI and AI-related infrastructure under its AWS arm. Amazon guided to about $200 billion of 2026 capital expenditure on its Q4 2025 call in February, up from $131.8 billion in 2025. On July 30, Andy Jassy raised that to $220 billion, blaming higher memory prices, and said Amazon would still not have enough capacity for the demand it is seeing.

AI data centers are increasingly a point of contention among AI juggernauts, hyperscalers, and less-eager locals bearing the brunt of higher water and power costs, even as availability becomes equally challenging.

For a company spending $220 billion on AI infrastructure this year and rolling out an $1 billion commitment in late 2025 to raise base pay for its US fulfillment and transportation workers, being at the top of multiple lists of states with workers being eligible for (and using) Medicaid and food assistance programs might not be great timing when there is increasing scrutiny of trillion-dollar corporations and their massive profit margins by consumers and jobseekers alike.

• Qualcomm to help build custom silicon and optical networking for AWS data centers
• Amazon will acquire 25 million Qualcomm shares, worth over $4 billion
• AWS data centers are more efficient than the industry average, but behind Google's

Qualcomm and Amazon have announced what they have describing as a "multi-generational product collaboration," in which Qualcomm will help build future AI data center infrastructure for AWS.

Because this isn't a one-off project, instead of announcing a single component, the companies are likely to work together across multiple generations of infrastructure spanning both custom inference silicon and high-speed optical connectivity.

Together, the two companies are expected to combine their expertise in AI infrastructure and data centers to improve performance, power efficiency and cost efficiency for a future where data centers exist in even higher volumes.

AWS and Qualcomm to work together on future data centers

The project spans two key areas – custom AI silicon and networking hardware. On the silicon front, Qualcomm will help produce custom AWS silicon with a major focus on inference, giving the chipmaker a potentially big entry into the data center semiconductor market – one that Nvidia has seen major success in.

As for networking, Qualcomm will be behind high-performance optical connectivity for AWS data centers, covering connections of up to 1.6T initially but plans to scale.

With data centers under intense pressure from all angles to boost efficiency and reduce resources consumption, operators are being forced to make progress in all areas, and reducing losses between components with efficient networking is often overlooked compared with outright chip efficiency.

"As AI demand accelerates, data center infrastructure will require advances in both computing and connectivity to deliver greater performance with more efficiency,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon summarized.

In Amazon's 2025 sustainability report, it declared a global average PUE of 1.14, which was nearly 9% better than the public cloud industry average of 1.25. Still, Google says it managed a fleet-wide average of 1.09, so Amazon's work with Qualcomm could be key to it overtaking Google.

"By working together on customized silicon and advanced connectivity, we’re delivering more performant, efficient, and cost-effective infrastructure for our customers," AWS VP Prasad Kalyanaraman added.

As part of the deal, Qualcomm has issued warrants for Amazon to acquire around $4.03 billion in stock, per a SEC filing – the equivalent of 25 million shares priced at $161.26. Qualcomm is currently trading at $174.09, up nearly 5% in five days.

• Google has fixed a setup issue with the first-gen Chromecast device
• Owners have been complaining for months about their devices going missing from the Google Home app
• The update also fixes functionality issues

Have you been running into setup issues with your older Chromecast and Google Home devices? You’ll be happy to hear you’re not alone on this one — and even happier to know that Google has finally rolled out a fix.

These issues first arose when Google announced it would be ending support for its oldest Chromecast dongles back in May. From there, owners started reporting problems with setting up their devices after they started disappearing from the Google Home app on Android.

A Google Home app update made setting up Chromecast even more difficult which, understandably, sparked a lot of worry for those who are still using the first-gen Chromecast from over 10 years ago, convincing them that Google was officially pulling the plug on its OG streaming device. Similar issues then started cropping up for owners of the 2015 Chromecast model and Google Home Mini speaker, affecting functionality as well as the setup process.

At first, users were left to find their own workarounds and solutions, with many having to factory reset their devices, revert to older versions of the Google Home app, or even wipe their entire Home ecosystem to start afresh. Thankfully, Google has solved this, implying that these setup and functionality crashes were part of a software glitch.

The Google Nest Community account on Reddit replied to a series of frustrated posts with the following statement: ‘We've resolved an issue that was impacting the ability to set up some older Chromecast and Google Home devices. If you haven't already, factory reset your speaker or update your Google Home app to version 4.26 and try again’.

It hasn’t been the best time to be a first-gen Chromecast owner to say the least, but at least Google’s latest fix offers some reassurance that the company isn’t writing off its oldest streaming device yet — despite pulling the first Chromecast from shelves in early 2025. That said, Google isn’t the first tech giant to be accused of intentionally bricking older streaming devices to get users to upgrade.

Amazon received similar backlash when a user filed a lawsuit against the company, after reporting that two Fire TV sticks ran into severe performance issues just a few years after purchasing them. The user claimed that Amazon had been software tethering, while not disclosing the truth about the lifespan of its Fire TV stick streamers.

Now that Google has found a solution, hopefully it does the job at reviving your older Chromecast model. If the issues still persist, Google recommends reaching back out to the Nest community to let them know.

Amazon UK's bank holiday sale may officially be over, but some of the best tech deals have refused to end. It was a surprisingly strong event for this time of year, with everything from Amazon devices, Kindles, laptops, smartwatches, appliances, and essentials reduced by up to 50%. And while not all of these are still available, I've found the 11 best deals that are still live.

• Browse the full sale at Amazon UK

If you're still hunting for a new laptop for the new school year, I'd recommend this Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook for £249.99 (was £339) as an affordable, capable option for basic use. It's not the most powerful laptop out there, but it has all the essentials covered at a great price, including a decent entry-level processor, 8GB of RAM to help with performance, and a decent-sized 256GB SSD for storage.

More of my top picks from the remaining deals in the Amazon UK bank holiday sale are below. I wouldn't hang around for too long if something catches your eye, as they could end very soon.

Today's 11 best deals at Amazon UK

The Kindle Scribe is much more than an oversized e-reader, combining a 10.2-inch Kindle display with a digital notebook that you can actually write on. And right now, a Like-New 64GB Metallic Jade Amazon Kindle Scribe with Premium Pen is down to $320 (was $405) at Amazon.

It's one of those devices, like the reMarkable tablets, that we often recommend for professionals looking to take digital handwritten notes. If you're not too fussy about owning a brand new model, you can save a good chunk of money here. Our hardware editor purchased the same Like-New Scribe and, just as Amazon promised, it showed absolutely no signs of use.

In the UK? The same 64GB Like-New Kindle Scribe is down to £270 (was £387) at Amazon.

Why we recommend it

If you read a lot but also fill notebooks with ideas, lists, meeting notes or general scribblings, the Scribe can replace both your Kindle e-reader and a pile of paper. The 10.2-inch, 300ppi glare-free display is front-lit, while the Premium Pen requires no charging or setup.

You can write directly on book pages using Active Canvas, annotate imported PDFs and documents, and send files including DOCX and EPUB to the Scribe.

In his four-and-a-half-star review, our expert Philip was impressed that Amazon had "added AI features and… they’re good?!" He explained that "Kindle AI brings better handwriting recognition and note summaries, nothing untoward, and it makes the Kindle Scribe an even more competitive writing tablet, on top of being the best big e-reader you can buy."

Also consider

Price context & historical value

Amazon has reduced this 64GB Scribe from $404.99 to $319.99, which knocks $85 off the usual price and works out to a discount of about 21%.

This is a Like-New device rather than a brand-new Scribe, although Amazon says these units are refurbished, tested and certified to look and work like new, and they carry the same limited warranty as a new device.

This model has been cheaper in the past however. I've seen it sell for as low as $279 towards the end of 2025 and at the start of this year.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the Kindle Scribe if...

You love reading on a Kindle but have always wished you could properly write on one too. The Scribe adds a large digital notebook and Premium Pen while keeping the distraction-free reading experience that makes a Kindle appealing.

❌ Skip the Kindle Scribe if...

You want a tablet that can organize your writing with dedicated apps. The Scribe is deliberately more like intelligent electronic paper, so an iPad will give you far more flexibility for apps and more complex workflows.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

The obvious question is whether “Like-New” should put you off. Our hardware editor Steven bought a Like-New Kindle himself and says it arrived in perfect condition.

That doesn't guarantee every unit will be cosmetically flawless, however, and Amazon notes that Like-New devices may arrive in generic Amazon-branded packaging.

If you're buying it as a gift, that might make the saving less appealing, but if you're buying for yourself, it will likely be fine.

• Amazon accused of creating fake auction participants to raise advertiser bids
• The number of advertisers paying more than anticipated doubled in three years
• Amazon argues the FTC's lawsuit is misguided and that its practices are normal

The Federal Trade Commission together with 22 US states has filed a lawsuit against Amazon, accusing it of manipulating its advertising auctions to make advertisers pay more.

According to the case, the practice affected more than one million brands and sellers, more than half of which were small and medium sized businesses.

This particular case centers around Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Display/Sponsored Display advertising – ads that appear alongside Amazon's product search results where sellers bid for the most prominent positions to gain more exposure to potential customers.

Amazon accused of extracting billions in extra ad revenue

According to the case, Amazon changed the mechanics of its bidding scheme without properly telling advertisers. Under the old model, winning bidders should have paid one cent more than the second-place bidder rather than their proposed maximum.

But the company has been slated for using a so-called "invented auction participant" to push the price higher, scamming bidders out of more money.

The FTC warns that the proportion of Sponsored Products bidders paying more than they should have rose dramatically over the years, from around 30-40% in 2021 to around 80% by 2024, effectively doubling the number of victims within three years.

Internal documents cited by the lawsuit allegedly imply that Amazon workers understood that advertisers believed they were participating in conventional auctions without the shady practices.

"The complaint quotes notes from a 2024 discussion between senior executives, including the head of Amazon Ads and Amazon’s Chief Digital Economist, where it was acknowledged that Amazon’s 'clever non-transparent way to charge first price' has been an 'incredibly effective way to drive revenue'," the FTC wrote.

The company has since responded to the FTC in an entire blog post, describing the case as "misguided," arguing that the FTC has misunderstood how its ad auctions work and asserting that soft reserve prices are a normal industry practice.

Unless Amazon and the FTC reach an agreement, the case could result in trial. The FTC and the 22 states involved want Amazon to cease the highlighted practices and remunerate affected advertisers.

• AWS plans to add 2 million Nvidia GPUs between 2027 and 2028
• The expanded deployment follows an earlier commitment exceeding one million chips
• New Vera-based CPUs will support increasingly demanding artificial intelligence workloads

Amazon Web Services and Nvidia have expanded their long-running partnership to add far more computing power for artificial intelligence workloads.

The cloud provider intends to add two million more GPUs across its global infrastructure between 2027 and 2028.

This expansion follows an earlier pledge to add more than a million chips starting in 2026, as customer demand outpaced expectations.

A bigger push into AI infrastructure

The companies also plan to bring new Vera-based CPUs into Amazon's cloud to support increasingly advanced AI applications.

Additional networking upgrades, including extended NVLink Fusion technology paired with custom high-bandwidth memory, aim to boost performance across large computing clusters.

Separate upgrades to Amazon's analytics service using Nvidia's cuDF software promise processing speeds nearing 3.7x faster than typical standard configurations.

The same upgrades are expected to deliver roughly a 30% improvement in price performance versus setups that rely only on standard chips.

Vector search capabilities on Amazon's search service are also improving, with index construction now completing roughly 9x quicker when run on GPUs.

Amazon's robotics division is separately working with Nvidia on simulation tools intended to speed up training for next-generation warehouse robots.

Government agencies are also included in the plan, with 100,000 chips reserved for sensitive government and defense computing needs nationwide.

"Customers want the freedom to choose the best tools for their AI workloads, and they want confidence that everything works seamlessly together," said Matt Garman, CEO of AWS.

“That’s why we’ve invested deeply with Nvidia to make AWS the best place to run Nvidia AI technologies, optimizing performance across our infrastructure from networking and security to deployment. This expanded collaboration gives frontier labs, enterprises and governments even more ways to build and deploy AI on AWS.”

Executives point to rising demand

Demand for accelerated computing across global cloud storage has continued to outpace projections that were made only months earlier this year.

“Nvidia and AWS have built one of the great growth engines of the AI era, and demand is running ahead of every forecast,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia.

“For 16 years, we have scaled Nvidia computing in the cloud together. Now, we are expanding our partnership across the full stack — GPUs, CPUs, networking, open models and software — to make agentic and physical AI real at an unprecedented pace and scale that only AWS and Nvidia can deliver.”

New processors delivered under the expanded plan are expected to offer notably faster inference and improved graphics performance for customers.

Recent hardware upgrades already deliver up to 4.6x faster inference and 2.1x stronger graphics output than the previous generation of systems.

Such a large hardware commitment suggests both companies expect artificial intelligence spending to keep climbing well beyond today's already elevated levels.

Whether actual demand keeps pace with these ambitious plans will only become clear once the new infrastructure is fully operational.

• Amazon will permanently close Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026
• Mechanical Turk once connected more than 500,000 workers with paid tasks
• Workers completed image tagging, transcription, surveys, and other routine assignments

Amazon plans to permanently close Mechanical Turk, its long-running platform for outsourcing small tasks to human workers.

Launched in 2005, the platform enabled companies to hire people to complete small, routine tasks that computers could not easily handle at the time.

Jeff Bezos once summarized the concept with a phrase that stuck: "artificial artificial intelligence," in remarks about the platform.

A tool built to outsmart the limits of early computers

“We regularly evaluate our programs, tools and services and make adjustments based on those assessments,” a notice on the Mechanical Turk website said.

“Following an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close AWS Mechanical Turk, effective September 30, 2026.”

The platform's original name referenced a historical automaton that appeared to play chess but was secretly guided by a hidden human operator.

Amazon initially built Mechanical Turk to help label the enormous volume of product data listed across its own retail website.

At its peak, the service reportedly connected more than 500,000 workers, known informally as turkers, to available paid tasks online.

Workers typically earned only a few cents per task, completing jobs like tagging photos, converting speech into text, or filling out surveys.

Amazon later marketed that same workforce as a convenient data annotation source to support its own SageMaker machine learning service.

Rapid AI growth left the human workforce behind

Krista Pawloski, an organizer with the worker advocacy group Turkopticon, said the platform had clearly been declining for several years now.

She said Amazon appeared to spend less on maintaining the platform just as several newer competitors entered the market rapidly.

Companies including Scale AI, Mercor, and Prolific have since emerged to recruit workers specifically for training a wide range of newer AI models.

Researchers based in Switzerland published a 2023 study reporting that 46% of surveyed workers had relied on AI systems while finishing assigned jobs.

Amazon disclosed one month earlier that it would no longer accept new customers, a move workers quietly read as an early warning sign.

Certain firms in insurance and travel sectors continue relying on this workforce and are now hurriedly searching for replacement services.

“There’s some people that still pretty much still do it full time,” said Krista Pawloski, a data worker and organizer with Turkopticon. “They’re concerned now.”

Although Mechanical Turk is going down, the company claims to remain committed to serving both its Amazon and AWS customer base well.

“[Amazon is] focused on delivering the best possible experience for all our Amazon and AWS customers,” said Amazon’s spokesperson Montana MacLachlan.

The platform's decline says as much about shifting AI economics as it does about Amazon's own waning commitment to it.

A service once built to prove humans could out-think machines is closing just as AI tools increasingly outcompete many of those same humans.

Via CNBC

I've been working from home for many years now, so I know how important it is to create a genuinely productive (and cool) workspace that has everything you need right to hand. And whether you're on staff, freelancing, or running a small business, these are my 12 favourite deals in Amazon's surprise Tech Week sale.

I've hand-picked a spread of devices and desk accessories here, from printers and tablets to webcams and SSDs. These are the sort of gear and gadgets that I've found essential when working from home. And they're perfect for upgrading an existing setup without spending a fortune.

My top 12 must-buys in Amazon's surprise Tech Week sale

Why I recommend these products

I recently bought the Epson EcoTank ET-2861 printer for my home office, and definitely recommend it. The refillable ink tanks mean I don’t have to keep buying ridiculously expensive ink cartridges, which I had to do with my previous HP printer (especially since yellow kept running out and I couldn't print without it). Wireless printing, scanning and copying cover pretty much everything I need day to day.

For anyone looking to replace an aging computer, the Dell 15 Laptop packs a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD and it's currently under £500. It pairs those specs with a 15-inch Full HD 120Hz display, making it a solid everyday machine for work.

The Logitech MX Master 3S mouse is another straightforward home office upgrade. Silent clicks keep noise down, while the MagSpeed scroll wheel, thumb wheel and 8K DPI sensor make navigating documents, spreadsheets and large screens easier.

If you run a small business that regularly sends out orders, the Munbyn thermal label printer could save you time and hassle. It prints 4 x 6-inch shipping labels without ink or toner and supports major selling platforms and UK delivery companies including Royal Mail, DPD and Evri.

The 2TB Crucial X9 Portable SSD is my storage pick because it combines plenty of capacity with read speeds of up to 1,050MB/s. I have a few of these SSDs and they are great and work with PCs and Macs.

Finally, the Amazon eero 6+ two-pack tackles one of the more frustrating home office problems: unreliable Wi-Fi. It can cover up to 280m², handle more than 75 connected devices and uses mesh technology to reduce dead zones. I live in an old house with very thick walls, and this is the perfect solution to the problems that causes me.

They’re very different products, but between them they cover computing, printing, storage, networking, navigation and shipping — the everyday technology that can dramatically impact a home office or small business.

Anker's 14-in-1 docking station was one of those desk accessories we didn't know we needed so much until we tested it. This fast-charging desktop dock lets you charge a laptop, run two monitors, and move files at full speed. And right now, the Anker Prime 14-in-1 charging docking station is down to $170 (was $270) at Amazon.

Ideal for home offices and dorm rooms, this is one of those devices I recommend whether it's for back-to-school prep or upgrading your workspace. It's just so useful, and we called it a practical, well-equipped solution when we tested it. In the UK, the Anker Prime 14-in-1 dock is now £150 (was £175) at Amazon.

Why we recommend it

We tested the Anker Prime Charging Docking Station, and it proved a genuinely practical way to consolidate a busy desk setup into one connection. The dual HDMI outputs supporting 4K at 60Hz cover a two-monitor setup cleanly, and the pair of 10Gbps USB-C data ports made transferring large files noticeably faster than the more common 480Mbps USB-A ports found on cheaper docks.

Charging performance stood out during testing too. With three dedicated charging ports capable of 100W each and a 160W total budget, the dock handled multiple devices at once without meaningfully slowing any of them down, and fast charging kicked in reliably for phones plugged in alongside a laptop.

The one real omission is a card reader, which is a minor gap given how comprehensive the rest of the port selection is. An external reader plugged into one of the USB-C ports covers that gap easily enough if you need it regularly.

Price Context & Historical Value

A $100 drop from $269.99 to $169.99 is a substantial 37 percent discount, and it puts this dock within a few dollars of its all-time low. Deal trackers have only seen it dip meaningfully lower during major sale events like Prime Day, so this is a strong price outside of those windows rather than a routine markdown.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the Anker Prime Docking Station if...

You regularly connect a laptop to two external monitors and want a single-cable setup, you need fast 10Gbps data transfer for external drives, or you want to charge multiple devices at once without a tangle of separate chargers.

❌ Skip the Anker Prime Docking Station if...

You only need basic charging without the display or data features, you specifically need an SD or microSD card reader built in, or the attached, non-removable power cable would be a problem for your setup.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

The power cable is permanently attached, which is a minor inconvenience if you travel with the dock or need to swap cables for any reason. At $169.99, it is still a premium accessory, and if your needs are limited to basic charging, a simpler and cheaper hub would cover that without the added cost of the display, dual monitor support, and faster data ports this model is built around.

• See more docking station deals at Amazon.

The summer bank holiday may still be over a week away, but that hasn't stopped Amazon from dropping an unusually high number of early deals across tech, appliances, essentials, toys, and more. I've searched through this weekend's latest batch of offers and picked out 26 of the best deals that I'd recommend.

• See all of this weekend's best deals at Amazon UK

Amazon devices make up a surprising number of this weekend's offers, so there are discounts available on Fire TV Sticks, Ring doorbells, and Fire tablets. Many of these have been cheaper during Prime Day and Black Friday, though, so while the savings of up to 40% are solid, we're far from record-low prices in some cases.

However, one standout deal is this Blink Outdoor 4 Camera and Video Doorbell for £34.99 (was £129.95). That's fantastic value for money for a beginner smart home bundle, and an easy-to-use first set if you're trying out the tech for the first time.

Other deals I like the look of include this Lenovo Chromebook Duet for £199.99 (was £349.99) that's ideal for students, the budget-friendly Fitbit Inspire 3 for £58.99 (was £84.99), and the fantastic Shokz Open Run Headphones for £94 (was £129.95).

You can check out all of my top picks below. While these offers aren't part of any official bank holiday sale at Amazon, I suspect that most will remain available over the next week or so, unless otherwise stated on the site.

26 best weekend deals at Amazon UK

Hear me out: what if our outrage over an apparent Amazon Kindle Software update and DRM for ebooks is wildly overblown?

I'm not talking about the recent Kindle update that reportedly strips away the ability to remove DRM (Digital Rights Management) from downloaded books. While you might argue that there's good reason to maintain this ability, I say writers gotta get paid, and the edge cases of needing to remove electronic rights controls don't add up to a good enough one to undermine authors' ability to make money off their works.

Instead, I want to talk about the reported change that initially really ground my gears: decommissioning the "WiFi workaround." This refers to the commonly used Airplane Mode trick for reading a digitally borrowed book long after the loan ends.

As an avid reader and Kindle owner, I have relied on this workaround for years. Here's how it works: I visit the Libby app and peruse my local library's books. Overdrive's app is, by the way, still one of the best things to ever happen to Kindle reading.

Instead of buying every book I want to read, I check them out from my library. I borrow the book through Libby; it connects me to Amazon's vast book library, where I sign in to get a digital edition delivered to my Kindle.

On the Kindle, I make sure it's connected to the internet, update my bookshelf, and start reading. Loans usually last two weeks.

When I'm on vacation, I can finish three or four books in a week. When I'm working, I mostly read at night in bed and only get through a few pages before falling asleep (don't judge me). This happens every night, which means that, instead of reading a book in days, it can take me weeks or even months.

To make sure I can still read the book after the loan ends, I turn off my Kindle's WiFi and set it to Airplane Mode.

Everyone knows this hack

This is such a well-known workaround that when I called my local library to ask about it, the guy at the resources desk knew immediately what I was talking about.

"It's a well-known hack," he told me without enthusiasm.

I asked if I should be concerned that, since I wasn't "returning" my digitally loaned book on time, I was holding up anyone else's loan.

"I wouldn't worry about it," he told me, adding, "It's not gonna bother anyone else."

Basically, it doesn't matter if I took any action to return the book. The library has already reclaimed the DRM for that book and is ready to loan it out to someone else.

I would know this if I turned on my Kindle's WiFi and tried to continue reading my overdue book: it would suddenly become unavailable, as Libby and the library would've done their job and reclaimed the title. Interestingly, Amazon is not involved with managing loan expirations.

The controversy arose when people noticed that they could no longer access downloaded titles in Airplane mode. Some assumed this meant that their expired loans were being triggered even when their Kindles were offline. Others blamed a Kindle software update.

I noticed in the Reddit comments that people said they had downloaded the borrowed titles but had not opened them, which is when I remembered having gone through something similar during a recent vacation.

Before embarking on my vacation in Aruba, I downloaded a few books. Later, while lying on the beach (and at a place where my Kindle remained in Airplane Mode as it did not have access to the hotel WiFi), I tried to open one of the titles. It wouldn't open unless I connected to the Internet.

That was new. Previously, I could open any book I downloaded whether or not I was on WiFi.

Another workaround?

Amazon has not spoken publicly about any of this, but apparently has not made any recent changes to how Kindle handles borrowing library books.

If that's the case, it's possible the change is coming through Libby's system or that there's some change in how the Amazon bookstore is handling DRM for borrowed ebooks.

Regardless of the source, none of this means that Amazon or Libby will reach into your Kindle to retrieve overdue books. What may be happening is that the system now wants a DRM handshake when you first open the digital book. That's the moment when WiFi is necessary. Right after that, you can go back to Airplane Mode and keep reading the book.

More interesting is that I don't even know if the source of all this Kindle angst remains an ongoing issue. Today, as a test, I borrowed another Libby book, downloaded it to my Kindle, and then turned on Airplane Mode. The book still opened. I cannot say what will happen after the loan expires or whether there is some internal ticking clock that would not have let me start reading the book while in Airplane Mode.

Ultimately, this may be more of an annoyance than an all-out travesty. I understand that some people think the enforced scarcity of digital loans is ridiculous. You can make endless copies of digital books, after all. But then how do authors get paid for all the purchases and loans? While some books are donated, libraries are paying for digital book copies. Those revenues do go back to the publishers and ultimately the authors. If libraries buy only one digital ebook and then make unlimited copies, authors could lose most of their revenue.

I like reading good books, and I'd like to see authors financially empowered to write more of them. This change, if it even exists, seems like a reasonable middle ground between giving writers what they need and not causing Kindle readers like me undue frustration.

If you're still worried about this, here is my two-part tip: First, make sure the book is fully downloaded on your device (look for the black checkmark on the book cover). This should ensure you can read offline, but as an extra precaution, as soon as you download the books you want to read later, open them on the Kindle to the first page. After that, no matter what happens on the book-loan side, you should still be able to turn off WiFi and read at your leisure.

Update 8-21-2026: After we published, Amazon shared this statement:
"Kindle customers have always been able to open a fully downloaded library borrow or purchase when their Kindle device is in airplane mode, and there have been no changes to Kindle or Kindle DRM that change that."

• Amazon has rolled out tougher DRM to the Kindle Oasis
• The same update has previously landed on most other Kindle models
• The company has also closed an airplane mode loophole for Libby loans

If you like reading Kindle books on other devices or borrowing digital library books using Libby, Amazon has just made some changes that you’re unlikely to be happy about.

First up, as reported by The eBook Reader, a software update has rolled out for the Kindle Oasis that adds a new hardened DRM (Digital Rights Management) to books on it, meaning that most DRM-removal tools will no longer work.

While we don’t condone piracy, there are legitimate reasons to want to remove DRM, such as reading the book on a non-Amazon ereader that doesn’t have access to the Kindle app.

And this isn’t the first or only Kindle to get this undesirable update — now, the only supported model that doesn’t have this new DRM is the Kindle Voyage, and it’s probably only a matter of time before that gets it too.

No more lengthy loans

The other change that Kindle users are unhappy with is that you can seemingly no longer keep a Libby book beyond its due date by turning airplane mode on. This was a handy workaround that gave you more time with a borrowed book, but now Reddit users report being prompted to turn Wi-Fi on to access their loans.

As these are digital loans, this workaround wasn’t really hurting anyone — the books would still be made available to other users after the loan period expired anyway; you’d just also still have a copy on your Kindle.

Unsurprisingly, the online reactions to these changes aren’t positive, with Reddit comments about the new DRM including the likes of “glad I switched to Kobo,” while of the Libby change, one commenter claimed it was “my biggest nightmare.”

If you’re affected by either of these issues, then there aren’t any easy solutions — other than potentially switching to another brand. In the case of the DRM, Kobo books currently use a version that’s easier to remove, but even on Kobo, the airplane mode loophole won’t work.

Bluetti's power stations show up often in our outdoor gear coverage, and we put the Elite 30 V2 through real-world testing during storm outages, inflating mattresses, and topping off tool batteries on a job site. And right now, the Bluetti Elite 30 V2 is down to $219 (was $299) at Amazon.

It's a compact 288Wh station built around a LiFePO4 battery, with a 600W inverter that can briefly lift to 1500W in Power Lift mode, plus a 140W USB-C port and dual AC outlets for topping off laptops, phones, and small appliances. In the UK, the Elite 30 V2 is now £200 (was £239) at Amazon.

Why we recommend it

We've used the Elite 30 V2 in several real scenarios: recharging phones and tools during storm outages, powering an air mattress pump while camping, and running small job-site gear.

In our 4.5-star review, we found it held up consistently across all of them, and the 1500W Power Lift mode gave it enough headroom for occasional higher-draw devices that would stall a lower-wattage station.

The form factor is a genuine strength here. At around 9.5 lbs with an integrated handle, it's light enough to carry one-handed, and the front-facing port layout makes it easy to plug in multiple devices without fumbling around the back of the unit.

You can check out the full round-up, including the Elite 30 V2 in our guide to the best portable power stations.

Price Context & Historical Value

An $80.02 discount off $299 works out to roughly 27 percent, one of the larger price cuts we've tracked on this model. Compared to similarly sized LiFePO4 power stations from other brands, this price puts the Elite 30 V2 solidly in budget-that-doesn't-feel-budget territory.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the Bluetti Elite 30 V2 if...

You want backup power for short outages or outdoor trips, need to recharge devices and small appliances without lugging a heavier station, or want UPS-style backup for sensitive electronics with fast switching.

❌ Skip the Bluetti Elite 30 V2 if...

You need to run a full-size fridge or power tools for extended hours, you want the largest possible capacity in this size class, or you're looking for the fastest AC recharge speed available.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

At 288Wh, this isn't a station built for extended off-grid use or running larger appliances for hours at a time; it's built for short bursts and topping devices off. AC recharge time is also more moderate than some competitors, so if you need to refill quickly between uses, factor that into your decision.

• See more power station deals at Amazon.

• Twitch has revealed that user streams are training Amazon’s AI
• You have to actively opt out to prevent this from happening
• The community has reacted with fury over the move

If there’s one thing a sizeable proportion of the population hates more than artificial intelligence (AI), it’s being opted in to having their data automatically fed into an AI for training. Yet that’s exactly what’s going to happen to your Twitch streams unless you specifically opt out.

The issue came to light when the official @TwitchSupport posted on X to explain that “We’ve added a setting that lets you opt out of having your channel content used to train generative AI content models across Amazon.”

According to an FAQ on Twitch’s account settings support page, data used for training AI includes “Your stream and the stream’s chat, your VODs, your Clips, Highlights, and any text or images on your Channel.”

Notably, neither the @TwitchSupport post nor Twitch’s FAQ provided steps on how you can opt out. If you want to do that, you’ll need to click on your Twitch profile picture and go to Settings > Security and Privacy, then untick the toggle next to Training for Generative AI near the bottom of the page.

It’s worth being aware that opting out of AI training does not mean you won’t see any AI features on Twitch. The website says that it “may also still use your data to run AI-supported features,” including captioning, while other AI tools like AutoMod will still function for safety and security reasons. However, the difference is that these AI features do not retain and use your streams to generate new content.

As well as that, Twitch warns that “If you chat on someone else’s stream, their opt-out preferences govern if that chat can be used for training.” So even opting your own stream out doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be spared from feeding Amazon’s AI when you visit another user’s page.

A highly divisive move

It’s safe to say that this move has not gone down well with Twitch users. One Redditor branded it “absolutely disgusting,” adding that there are “over 13,000 votes on their uservoice thread saying no to this, and they still made it on by default.”

Other people speculated that this might have been a move forced on Twitch by its owner Amazon. Popular Twitch streamer AnEternalEnigma commented on Reddit to say that the AI training move was made “because it was Daddy Amazon’s decision. Not Twitch’s. I know for a fact multiple people at Twitch internally fought against this and fought for the opt-out button.”

A recent recording of a discussion between Mike Minton, Twitch’s Chief Product Officer, and Twitch’s Head of Community Mary Kish lent some weight to this argument. In explaining why AI training is not opt in, Minton said bluntly that “if it was opt in, nobody would opt in.”

In a revealing comment, Minton then added: “I know this is not a fan favorite. I know it’s very upsetting to the community. But this is where we are.” That doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing endorsement of a feature that Minton is excited about, and the “but this is where we are” admission seems to imply that the decision was out of his hands.

Kish later commented to say: “The opt out numbers will help us continue to reiterate that our community is not receptive of AI in any form. I’m sorry but I am reading your comments and do hear you.”

If you watch the video and read Kish’s words, it seems clear that neither Minton nor Kish were keen on the decision to make AI training opt out instead of opt in. As Kish said during the livestream discussion, “We don’t expect you to be happy or excited about this. I don’t expect anyone to react to this favorably.”

If you don’t want your Twitch streams to be vacuumed up and fed into Amazon’s AI algorithm, make sure you opt out in your Twitch settings as soon as you can. And while you’re at it, it would be a good idea to check any accounts you have at other AI companies to ensure your data is not being treated in a similar way.

• Amazon’s Texas AI project could become America’s largest power plant polluter
• The facility could release 33 million tons of CO₂ annually
• Amazon plans to install 35 gas turbines capable of producing 7.65 GW

Amazon has confirmed plans to invest in a natural gas power plant that will supply electricity to a huge new AI data center in Texas.

A New York Times report claims the facility, located in Pecos County, would use 35 natural gas turbines to generate up to 7.65GW of power for the site.

Regulatory permits indicate the plant could release up to 33 million tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere each year.

Largest single source of CO₂ pollution in the US

The scale of those emissions would make the Texas plant the single largest source of CO₂ pollution from any power plant in the United States.

By comparison, the country's current worst offender, the coal-burning James H. Miller Jr. Power Plant in Alabama, emits roughly 16 million tons of CO₂ annually.

Amazon had pledged to eliminate its planet-warming emissions by 2040 under a voluntary agreement known as the Climate Pledge.

The company co-founded that particular coalition in 2019, alongside more than 700 other large global businesses.

Despite that pledge, Amazon's own emissions have continued climbing every year, a trend the company links to the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure.

"The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge," said Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokeswoman, in a recent statement.

She insisted that the company remained fully and genuinely committed to reducing emissions across all of its global business operations.

Gas power is fast becoming the industry's default choice

Amazon is far from alone in choosing gas power over ordinary electricity grid connections to fuel its rapidly expanding AI ambitions.

Industry analysts say hyperscale companies are increasingly building dedicated on-site power plants rather than waiting years to connect new data centers to overloaded electricity grids.

“We’re going to see an explosion of off-grid gas projects,” Amazon’s plan “could be a foreshadowing of what’s to come,” said Michael Thomas, founder of Cleanview.

Environmental groups have raised alarms about both the local and global consequences of such large-scale gas burning near residential communities.

"It's going to absolutely have a huge impact on the environment and public health," said Kathryn Guerra, a campaign director at Public Citizen.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has actively encouraged this shift toward fossil-fuel-powered data centers, favouring oil, natural gas and coal over renewable energy sources.

Other tech firms are pursuing alternative routes, including Microsoft's nuclear deal at Three Mile Island and Meta's push toward securing 1GW of orbital solar capacity but gas seems to remain the preferred route.

• Amazon revealed plans to build Gilroy, California data center were first submitted in 2020
• Gilroy citizens have accused the city council of inadequate communications concerning the development
• The 438,500-square-foot data center occupies a 56-acre chunk of farmland 30 miles south of San Jose

Citizens of Gilroy, California, have expressed dismay at the building of an Amazon data center, which they say they were not informed of - and when one resident attempted to lodge a complaint, she was told that comments on the plans were closed in 2024 – long before most citizens were even aware of the planned installation.

Occupying a 56-acre area of farmland between a Walmart and a local shopping center, the Amazon project appears to have been quietly pushed through using obfuscation and clever use of 45-year-old planning laws.

Amazon has apparently made provision to divert wastewater to the data center, and donated money for local spending. Meanwhile, the city mayor has responded to the concerns by likening the water-and power-hungry Amazon data center to a food distribution center that was also recently approved.

Opposition and sponsorships

Utilizing the old city zoning rule – originally intended for industrial development along a freeway – has enabled the data center to proceed into full development without planning scrutiny from residents. However, the apparent collaboration between Amazon and the Gilroy city council and mayor has not gone unnoticed, with opposition organized against the project.

One of those organizers, 21-year-old college student Landon Sepulveda, indicated to the Wall Street Journal that there was a trust issue between the population and the city administrators. “These processes were not enough for the citizens of Gilroy to do anything about it. We’ve elected them to tell us, and we shouldn’t have to watch over their shoulders.”

Another citizen, elementary school teacher Coleen Crew, told a recent council meeting “Many if not most residents first learned about this project after construction had already begun.”

Amazon and the Gilroy council have been at pains to highlight the advantages of the deal, citing jobs, tax revenue, and that solution to concerns over water use. Amazon has also donated $1 million for a new city fire truck, and donated money to non-profits and the city’s annal Gilroy Garlic Festival.

Mayor Bozzo and AWS

Responding to public dismay over the development, Mayor Greg Bozzo has highlighted an “opportunity to change the way that we do business in Gilroy. We’re adapting to the times.”

Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services’ VP of economic development Roger Wehner claims the project “followed standard approval processes.” He added: “We’ve since met directly with residents and hosted an open house to hear feedback and answer questions.”

The challenges and advantages of data centers seem to be the modern day equivalent of opposition to nuclear plants from 50 years ago. While the data center’s continued construction seems inevitable, and Amazon has made some generous provisions, it is disappointing that the city’s residents were not informed of the development – and that might be the biggest problem here.

Another month, another stacked list of 4K Blu-rays. August 2026 looks to have some big releases coming, but I’ve decided to narrow it down to my top four picks, all of which I’ll be hoping to get in to test as part of our monthly Blu-ray Bounty feature. This is where we test the best 4K releases from each month, looking at each disc’s picture and audio quality to see how it can give your home theater a chance to flex its muscles.

4K Blu-ray is my most used source for testing the best TVs and best soundbars. It offers uncompressed audio and a higher bitrate over 4K streaming, resulting in better picture quality. Not only that, but I’m a collector myself and I’m always adding new discs to my personal collection.

Last month, in my July 2026 most anticipated list, I picked Hard Boiled, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Hairspray (1988) as my most anticipated discs. I got to test three of these in the July 2026 Blu-ray Bounty, and they all proved to be excellent, with special mention for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie which is in my opinion reference-level quality. Unfortunately, Hard Boiled was delayed in arriving, but I’ll be sure to give it a try and let you know what it’s like!

As I’m based in the UK, the following picks are based on 4K Blu-rays set for release in August 2026 here. Just in case the disc is already out in your region, or yet to be released!

Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM Studios)

An adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, Project Hail Mary follows the story of middle school science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), who wakes up on an interstellar spacecraft with no memory of how he got there. The movie is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also directed The Lego Movie and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, and were both involved in the production of the Into the Spider-Verse movies.

I’m expecting Project Hail Mary to look superb in 4K. There are plenty of high-contrast shots both in and outside of the Hail Mary that should demonstrate deep blacks balancing with bright highlights. There’s also scope for some seriously bold colors, as well as crisp textures, with 3D-like textures in both people and environments, such as the intricate textures of the various parts and consoles of the Hail Mary ship.

With a Dolby Atmos soundtrack included, I’m anticipating plenty of height effects in action. With the wide scope of the ship and space setting, there should be opportunities for the Dolby Atmos mix to showcase plenty of detail and texture, as well as a chance to hear some accurately mapped sound as well, as Grace moves around the Hail Mary.

Release date

• US - August 11
• UK - 10th August

Troy (2004) (Arrow Video)

Loosely based on Homer’s Iliad, Troy tells the story of the decade-long Trojan War. When Paris (Orlando Bloom) runs away with married Queen Helen (Diane Kruger), the latter’s husband and king Menelaus of Sparta (Brendan Gleeson) declares war on Troy, which is led by Hector (Eric Bana). Meneluas sends a unified Greek army, led by Achilles (Brad Pitt).

Where I think Troy will really shine is with its audio. While there’s no Dolby Atmos soundtrack on this disc, there is a DTS-HD 5.1 MA mix and I’ve been finding more fantastic-sounding 5.1 MA mixes every month. With large scale battles that should deliver plenty of detail and power, along similar lines to discs I’ve previously reviewed such as Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator II, Troy could end up as another brilliant-sounding disc that could really push a surround sound system.

This 4K restoration is not only presented by Arrow Video, whose 4K Blu-rays are always superb, but is restored from the original 35mm and presented in Dolby Vision. There’s a lot of bold visuals in Troy, including the beautiful environments, vibrant colors and detailed costumes that should look stunning when restored in 4K.

Release date

• US - August 18
• UK - 17th August

West Side Story (1961)

Based on the 1957 stage musical of the same name, West Side Story is inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and tells the story of young lovers Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood), who are embroiled in the gang war for the Upper West Side between the Jets (Tony’s former gang) and the Sharks (of whom Maria’s brother Bernardo is the current leader).

With Dolby Vision HDR support, this 4K disc of West Side Story should look fantastic. Not only is there the vivid colors of the 1950s aesthetic, but there’s plenty of high contrast scenes at night, where dark and bright tones create a nice dynamic range. This 4K disc is presented by Altitude, who released the Some Like It Hot 4K I tested earlier this year and if that disc is anything to go by, this 4K disc should be fantastic.

The musicals I’ve tested, such as Wicked and The Sound of Music, have often sounded excellent, especially when Dolby Atmos is supported. West Side Story also supports an Atmos soundtrack, so I’m expecting iconic songs such as ‘Maria’ and ‘Somewhere’ to sound their very best. With an Atmos soundtrack, there’s also scope for detail, such as the shuffling and movement of dancers during choreography to add that extra layer of immersion.

Release date

• US - September 11 (Import)
• UK - 31st August

Mars Attacks! (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)

Directed by Tim Burton, Mars Attacks! follows the arrival of aliens to Earth, where they meet the President of the United States James Dale (Jack Nicholson). After a first-contact meeting goes awry, the Martians begin to attack Earth. The movie features an all-star cast including Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J. Fox and more.

As with all of Burton’s movies, I’m expecting very vibrant colors, such as those I saw in Edward Scissorhands. Mars Attacks! has a very gaudy, almost 1960s aesthetic in places that is sure to generate some lovely pop on screen, especially as Dolby Vision is also supported. I’ll be curious to see how the CGI of the aliens holds up, but after seeing 1982’s Tron on 4K, which made the dated graphics look decent, I have high hopes.

A Dolby Atmos soundtrack is featured on the 4K disc and other than the iconic ‘Ack’ sounds the Martians make, there’s plenty of great audio throughout this movie that could sound great in Dolby Atmos. The sounds of the Martian’s ray guns should draw some nice detail, explosions should generate some hefty impact and bass and there should be nice height effects in action too.

Release date

• US - August 11
• UK - 31st August

August 2026 highlight 4K releases

Below is a select list of 4K Blu-rays set for release in August 2026. Both UK and US releases are featured, with release dates noted. Release dates may vary by region, with some titles yet to be announced for some regions, or they may already be available in others. 4K Blu-ray is region-free however, so you should be able to order from anywhere.

August 3/4

• Talladega Nights
• The People vs Larry Flint
• School on Fire
• The Devil Wears Prada 2 (UK)
• Once Upon A Thief (UK)

August 10/11

• Project Hail Mary
• Mars Attacks! (US - UK: 31st August)
• Barbarian
• Clear and Present Danger
• Michael
• JFK
• Sing Street

August 17/18

• Troy
• Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (UK)
• Popeye (1980)
• Flight
• Nightcrawler
• Last Tango in Paris (UK)
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople (UK)

August 25/26

• The Pink Panther (1963) (UK)
• Disclosure Day
• Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu (US)
• Practical Magic

August 31

• West Side Story (1961) (UK - September 11, import)
• The Abominable Snowman

Despite Apple promising price increases across its devices, I've found a welcome discount on the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) for $1848 (was $2000) at Amazon.

For creators, students, and business professionals, it's a great laptop in my opinion. It's powerful, versatile, and boasts an outstanding battery life for when you're working and studying on the move.

In the UK, the same MacBook configuration is now £1799 (was £1999) at Amazon.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the MacBook Pro 14-inch M5 if...

You want serious, sustained performance for office tasks, creative work, coding, or AI-assisted workflows in a laptop that doesn't need to be plugged in to deliver it.

❌ Skip the MacBook Pro 14-inch M5 if...

You're already on an M4 or M3 MacBook Pro — our review found this a fairly small generational upgrade outside of AI-focused tasks — or if you specifically need Wi-Fi 7, which isn't included on this model.

Why we recommend it

In our full review of the M5 MacBook Pro line-up, we found it "one of the best displays on a laptop," and praised its battery life and sustained performance even when running unplugged. In our web browsing test, it lasted a massive 18 hours before needing a recharge.

The base M5 chip in this configuration posted class-leading single-core benchmark scores in our in-house testing, ahead of every other laptop chip we've tested to date.

Despite not seeing a major overhaul in design, it remains an awesome workstation laptop, with a gorgeous style that's slim, lightweight, with a superb build quality that feels good in the hand.

Combined with the faster SSD Apple built into this generation — roughly double the transfer speeds of the outgoing M4 model in our testing — this configuration holds up well for genuinely heavy day-to-day work, not just light productivity tasks.

Price Context & Historical Value

Apple's own list price for this exact configuration is $1,999, and it doesn't move much at retail outside of sales events. Although the lowest price Amazon had it was $1499, that was in May, before Apple confirmed price hikes across its range of devices.

The current sale price is about what I'd expect, with Best Buy similarly discounting the 16GB/1TB MacBook Pro to $1849 (was $1999). At B&H Photo, it's selling for $1949. In the UK, both Argos and Currys have it priced at £1999.

For more savings, we track the best business laptop deals every week.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

Our review flagged that this generation sticks with Thunderbolt 4 rather than the faster Thunderbolt 5 found on the M5 Pro and M5 Max models, and there's no Wi-Fi 7 support here either.

The design is also unchanged from last year's M4 model, so if you're after a visual refresh, you won't find one. None of that changes the core experience much, but it's worth knowing if either spec matters for your setup.

For creative professionals, I'd recommend the 24GB MacBook Pro, currently $2042 (was $2199) at Amazon. In the UK, it's at the full £2199 price at Amazon.co.uk.

It's a meaningful step up for anyone regularly juggling large Photoshop files, big Xcode builds, or multiple demanding apps at once, without pushing you all the way into M5 Pro pricing territory.

• See all MacBook deals at Amazon.

It's back-to-school sales season, and Amazon UK is getting in on the action with discounts across laptops, headphones, appliances, and all the useful tech you might need for the year ahead in school, college, or uni. I've had a look through the retailer's latest round of offers and picked out 15 of the best deals that I think are worth buying if you're shopping today.

• See all of today's best deals at Amazon UK

A new year often means a new laptop, and there's one offer in particular that stands out to me as a fantastic all-around choice: it's this Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge for £549 (was £829). With a Snapdragon X processor, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, you'll get fast and efficient performance, as well as incredible battery life, and more than enough storage for all of your needs.

If you're just after a few handy extras, then you can get this pair of Anker USB-C Charger Cables for £5.99 (was £7.99), a Warmco Portable Handheld Fan for £19.88 (was £24.99), and an Inui 45W 10,000mAH Portable Charger for £18.66 (was £21.99).

Have a browse through all of my top picks from Amazon's latest sale below, and be sure to stick with TechRadar over the next few weeks for even more back-to-school deals and buying advice from our expert team.

15 best back-to-school deals at Amazon UK

• Amazon's Claude Sonnet project cost $1.8 million, 860% over budget
• The overspending remained undetected internally for nearly five months straight
• A financial auditing tool project exceeded its budget by $541,000

Amazon has confirmed an internal Claude Sonnet deployment intended for matching author details with product listings ballooned far beyond its planned budget.

The Financial Times found the project ultimately cost the company $1.8 million, marking an increase of 860% over the original allocation.

The overspending went undetected for roughly five months, raising fresh questions about how closely Amazon tracks its growing AI expenditures internally.

Mounting costs across multiple projects

Amazon's Claude-related overspend was not an isolated incident within the company's broader push toward deploying autonomous coding agents across various internal teams.

A separate project meant to build a financial auditing tool reportedly exceeded its budget by $541,000, compounding concerns about unchecked automated spending.

Another logistics-focused initiative, designed to shorten delivery times across Amazon's broader distribution network, incurred an additional $134,000 in unplanned costs.

Company insiders explained that mistakes once considered trivially cheap have grown catastrophically expensive as token-based pricing models replaced older subscription arrangements.

This shift coincides with AI agents gaining broader autonomy, allowing errors to multiply quickly before human reviewers noticed the growing financial damage.

Amazon pushes back on the narrative

In response, Amazon issued an internal statement acknowledging ongoing experimentation while disputing characterizations of these incidents as routine business practice.

"As with any new technology, we're experimenting, learning and improving how we use it, including how we drive cost efficiencies," the company said.

The company further stated that isolated examples portrayed as business as usual do not accurately capture how its teams actually apply AI tools.

Amazon's quarterly revenue exceeds $181 billion, meaning the disclosed AI overspending accounts for less than 0.1% of one month's earnings.

This pattern of AI-driven cost overruns follows earlier troubles at AWS, where automated coding bots triggered several unexpected service outages this year.

Amazon responded to those outages by restricting AI agent permissions rather than granting them access equal to senior engineers overseeing similar tasks.

The company also discontinued an internal leaderboard once used to track employee AI usage, as rising costs prompted a reconsideration of that approach.

Executives across the industry continue framing AI spending as a necessary investment despite growing evidence of inconsistent returns.

Amazon's continued experimentation with AI-driven coding tools comes despite skepticism from other corners of the tech industry regarding its actual business value.

Uber's chief technology officer, whose company also operates a substantial logistics network, has publicly stated no clear connection exists between heavy AI adoption and successful software delivery.

This skepticism stands in contrast to Amazon's own internal messaging, which frames the company's approach as ongoing experimentation rather than a fully validated cost-saving strategy.

Some analysts now argue that unchecked automation could quietly erode profit margins long before leadership notices meaningful financial impact.

For a company of Amazon's scale, these overruns remain financially minor, though they suggest oversight gaps that smaller companies may struggle to absorb.

• Amazon plans to launch 5,105 satellites to support new mobile networks
• The filing with the FCC highlights voice, data, emergency services, and Internet of Things support
• Amazon Leo already has over 390 satellites in orbit, enough to launch the plans ahead of the full deployment

Amazon has confirmed its “low Earth orbit” (LEO) satellite network has submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy a constellation of 5,105 satellites which will provide voice, data, messaging, emergency services access, and Internet of Things support for under the Amazon Leo Direct-to-Device (D2D) project.

The application follows Amazon’s merger with Globalstar, acquiring the US satellite telecommunications company’s operations, infrastructure, and global licenses and authorizations.

This step into orbit will see Amazon Leo’s existing satellites work alongside the Globalstar HIBLEO and C-3 satellite constellations, kicking off early D2D project support ahead of approval for the full network of comsats.

High-speed, low-latency

Much like Starlink, the Amazon Leo network is intended to bridge the connectivity gap between cities and remote communities. It aims to deliver high-speed, low-latency broadband for domestic and enterprise markets, as well as governments, with consumers gaining connectivity via the Leo Nano, Leo Pro, and Leo Ultra high-performance antennae. Meanwhile, mobile devices with satellite-capable chipsets can connect to the satellites without an additional antenna.

Apple iPhones and Apple Watch models are also supported, under a previous agreement to collaborate with Apple. Amazon Leo already delivers data for Emergency SOS, Messages, Find My, and Roadside Assistant to iPhones.

Other partnerships have also been announced that feed into the D2D project. “Telecom operators like Vodafone, DirecTV, Herotel, and Australia’s National Broadband Network [...] it plans to continue working with mobile network operators and other partners to deliver on its long-term vision for space-based connectivity.”

Beyond offering connectivity to remote locations, D2D can enable data support for global fleet management, remote operations for supply chains, and IoT connectivity.

Amazon Leo’s satellites

Following initial deployment in 2025 with 80+ launches with Arianespace, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance, Amazon Leo is aiming at 5,105 low Earth orbit satellites. These units are connected using optical links, capable of high-speed data transfer, with secure gateways networked across the planet, with fiber connectivity.

The D2D satellites are intended to operate across five orbital “shells” – essentially five groups that share the same altitude and inclination. Three shells will cover the mid-latitude, one shell will cover the high-latitude, and the fifth providing coverage for “near-polar” zones. Mid-latitude zones are the world's most heavily populated regions (North America, Europe, parts of Asia, and southern/central Africa) while the high-latitude coverage aims to deliver high speed internet to the Arctic and sub-Arctic circles.

With increasing demands for mobile data, not just for remote working but also Internet of Things applications, Amazon Leo could prove to be the solution that facilitates home and workplace automation around the world – assuming, of course, that it gets that FCC approval.

• Hidden AI debts are attracting fresh scrutiny across America's biggest technology companies
• Massive data centre spending is testing investor confidence like never before
• Meta reportedly carries the largest off-balance-sheet obligations among the five companies

An investigation by Nikkei Asia has claimed five of America's largest tech companies are reportedly concealing huge debts outside their official financial statements.

Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle together account for roughly $1.65 trillion in liabilities missing from their public balance sheets.

That figure exceeds the $1.35 trillion these firms officially disclosed last quarter, with Meta alone holding roughly $420 billion off-balance-sheet.

Echoes of Enron

Analysts have begun drawing direct parallels to Enron, the energy trading company whose 2001 collapse remains a cautionary tale in corporate finance.

Like Enron once did, these tech giants rely on special purpose vehicles, essentially legally separate subsidiaries, to keep debt off their books.

Such arrangements can make a company's financial reporting appear far healthier than the underlying reality actually supports at any given moment.

This accounting structure remains legal when applied correctly, although critics argue it can complicate efforts by investors to measure overall financial exposure accurately.

“The accounting treatment itself is in fashion,” technical accounting consultant Tom Selling told Bloomberg.

“But what if one of these companies was a house of cards and was propping itself up with this accounting treatment? To me, that’s the risk.”

The warning has encouraged renewed scrutiny of corporate reporting practices across the technology sector, particularly among the companies named in the investigation.

This scrutiny comes as firms continue spending heavily to expand the computing capacity required for increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems.

Mounting financial pressure

To remain competitive in the AI race, these companies are committing enormous sums toward massive, long-term data center construction projects.

The scale of planned data center spending across the entire industry has reached levels rarely seen in corporate history.

Whether these massive infrastructure bets eventually pay off financially remains genuinely uncertain, given how quickly the technology and market keep shifting.

Nikkei Asia notes many of these firms are also issuing new shares to raise additional funds - but issuing new equity in this manner risks diluting existing shareholders and could gradually erode investor confidence over the coming months.

Such dilution could also leave these companies even more exposed should the broader AI bubble eventually deflate or burst suddenly.

Investor unease could deepen further if the industry fails to generate enough real demand to justify this data center spending spree.

Notably, four of the five companies named in the investigation are scheduled to report second quarter earnings within the coming weeks.

Given how much rides on these coming disclosures, markets and analysts alike will be watching each earnings report closely.

Whether these tech giants ultimately resemble Enron or simply pursue an aggressive yet financially sound growth strategy remains genuinely unclear for now.

• Plans to triple application fees and apply a price-per-foot on coastal cable installations have been announced by Oregon
• Oregon state planners believe the new structure could raise $1 million per new cable laid
• Protecting the coastline has become a political priority in recent years

Oregon has announced plans to introduce a payment structure for service providers laying undersea cables off the coast of the Pacific state.

Currently, the low-tax and zoning incentives on offer make Oregon a particularly attractive location for tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon, and with major data centers (such as Google’s Dalles installation) demanding increasing data infrastructure, state officials believe a new pricing arrangement is overdue.

Oregon Department of State Lands is making the proposal, which seeks to completely restructure the pricing around undersea cables, which has been fixed at $5,000 since 2001.

Price per foot levy

Even by tripling application fees, Oregon will still be a more affordable alternative for service providers upgrading or adding undersea cables than both California and Washington.

The payment structure under consideration covers fees for applications and compensation “for undersea infrastructure located on submerged and submersible land within Oregon’s territorial sea.”

Currently, new application fees are $5,000, with the proposed new fee set at $15,000. Renewal applications are set to increase from $5,000 to $7,500, with a new encroachment application fee, also set at $7,500 (this describes any building or development on any state-owned land that restricts its usual purpose).

Cables up to three inches in diameter have been assigned a $3-per-foot basic annual fee, with conduits charged at $7.

But how might these fees be applied to any new cable installations? Some calculations based on the Amazon Bitfrost cable project, which determined that a total of $1,450,380 was due for two decades, which would be funneled into Oregon’s Common School Fund.

These fees are a revision of an earlier, more expensive set of proposals, and while the Amazon Bitfrost project example may seem high, it is a literal drop in the ocean compared with the budgets required to lay cables across the Pacific – somewhere in the region of $400 million.

Corporate responsibility

Oregon is also proposing new rules that govern how much information companies submit in applications. This covers everything from decommissioning outdated cabling to outlining responses to earthquakes (such as an anticipated Cascadia Subduction Zone event, which is believed to be overdue).

Various challenges to how companies operate off the coast of Oregon have arisen in recent years, such as a Meta subsidiary attempting to install new cabling at Tierra Del Mar in 2020. This abandoned project resulted in a pollution incident with 6,500 gallons of drill fluid dumped in the ocean and a pair of sinkholes appearing the following year.

The fees are expected to be introduced in January 2027.

• Prime Video and Netflix are planning new AI-generated homepages
• Netflix revealed its 'GenPage' tests ahead of a new Prime Video report
• Viewers aren't convinced that homepages are moving in the right direction

You're about to see a lot more generative AI in your streaming apps: Netflix has posted details of testing that it's doing with generative AI on its homepage, while Reuters reports that Amazon Prime Video is set for an AI-driven overhaul as well.

Starting with Netflix, the company has revealed it's working on a way of using generative AI to do a lot of the heavy lifting on the app homepage. That includes figuring out which recommendations each user should see, adapting to feedback and user behavior over time, and combining movies, shows, games, podcasts, and live events in the best way.

It starts with a prompt — "Given everything we know about this user and this request, what homepage should we generate to maximize user satisfaction?" — and Netflix seems pleased with the results. There are still some issues to work on though, like the AI model not knowing much about a movie or show that's only just launched.

User engagement increased in Netflix's internal testing, with the new 'GenPage' AI model applied, and recommendations became more relevant more quickly. What's more, the time needed to render the homepage went down. This is still in its early stages, and Netflix hasn't said when this will come to users or in what form, but it's now in the pipeline.

AI 'front and center' on Prime Video

On to Amazon, and a new Reuters report says Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has personally decided that Prime Video will act as a showcase for AI in the near future, and that an upcoming homepage redesign will put AI "front and center".

That's according to people "with direct knowledge of the matter", so don't take this as confirmed just yet. The homepage overhaul project is apparently known as 'Lighthouse', and is said to be envisioned as a way of claiming some of the AI spotlight from rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

We don't get too many details on what this is going to look like, but film and TV recommendations are going to have more AI injected into them, Reuters says. The AI will also be better at learning the personal preferences of viewers over time, and responding to voice commands.

You might see tiles on the homepage such as 'action movies from the 1980s', for example. The report doesn't give any indication of when this overhaul might start rolling out, but it's apparently already being tested with a select number of users in a variety of forms.

Our AI-driven interface future

With two of the big streaming giants apparently now committed to homepages controlled by AI, the next question is what users might make of it. There's so much to watch on each platform that some kind of filter or algorithm is needed, but is this AI-focused approach the right way to go about it?

Past homepage overhauls perhaps give us some clues: A major Netflix redesign rolled out last year was met with many online complaints, but the company's internal data showed that it was working, so it stayed in place. At the time there was speculation that more AI was on the way, and it seems that's now the case.

"I don't know if I'm alone," writes one Redditor, "but I hate the concept of 'personalizing' my content. No offense to anyone but AI so far has not been good at predicting anything about me... I personally do not want software to think for me."

The reactions to Prime Video's upcoming AI overhaul seem similarly downbeat. "This seems completely unnecessary," comments one user, while several suggest the move might even be enough to tip them into canceling their Prime Video subscription.

It's time once more for yet another look through this week's best tech deals at Amazon UK. While there are far fewer offers right now compared to during major sales events, there are still some solid bargains up for grabs. I've picked out the 11 best deals I'd recommend.

• See all of today's best deals at Amazon UK

With back-to-school season upon us, there are some strong laptop deals up for grabs, with several great picks if you need a new device for the year ahead. My standout is this Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 for £499.99 (was £699.99), as it offers a solid set of specs for the price. There's an Intel Core i5 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive — everything you need for capable all-around performance.

Another popular pick is the Philips OneBlade 360 for £42.99 (was £54.99). This was a best-seller during Prime Day, so if you missed it during last month's sale, here's another chance to pick one up for a great price.

I've highlighted several more deals below on tech, appliances, and more, so do check them out if you're looking to treat yourself to a little shopping this week and take advantage of any payday deals.

This week's 11 best deals at Amazon UK

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025): Two-minute review

I've used the 2024 release of the Kindle Scribe (2nd generation) for two years and I've loved every minute of it. I didn't think there was a better E Ink display to write on (and read on for that matter) and I definitely didn't think it could be improved. Yet that's exactly what Amazon has done with the 2025 (3rd generation) Kindle Scribe with frontlight.

The epaper display is still one of the best to read and write on, but it looks even brighter and, indeed, it is bigger, with 11 inches of screen real estate to use. That's fantastic for note-taking and drawing, but unnecessary for a device that also doubles up as an ereader.

Despite the additional height, the 3rd generation Kindle Scribe is both marginally thinner and lighter than its predecessor, but it is hard to hold in the hand for long periods of use — I constantly felt the need to place it on my lap or a table even when reading, but more so when jotting notes. Moreover, the lack of a broad bezel means it's very easy to trigger a page turn as the thumb rests so close to the edge of the display.

The thinner chassis is solidly built, although there's still no waterproofing (as is the case on most digital notebooks), so be careful if you decide to use it by the pool, the bath or the kitchen sink. And definitely keep it away from the sea's salty water to avoid corrosion.

The new stylus is also redesigned and, while it might feel too smooth for some users, I adore it! It never slipped once, even with sweaty palms, and, personally, gave me one of the best writing experiences I've had on a digital notebook (with the exception of the ViWoods C1 ceramic stylus possibly). Additionally, the magnetic hold to the side of the device is the strongest I've seen to date on any such device.

The homescreen interface has been refreshed and is quite practical in my opinion, and renaming the previous Notebooks tab to Workspace kinda makes sense to me. There are a few new features here: a handful of fresh templates in Workspace, a Smart Shapes feature that some users might find useful and, importantly, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive connectivity for seamless cloud transfer of files. There's even AI-enable search that can trawl through handwritten notes to give you a concise summary to answer your query.

What I'm struggling with is justifying its high price tag. While everything is now a lot more expensive, the extra screen real estate and handful of new features don't go a long way in explaining the significant price increase over its predecessor but, then again, the base model now has double the storage at 32GB and it sure is a very fast performer.

As someone who's extensively used reMarkables and Boox alternatives, I think the 3rd generation Kindle Scribe definitely gives its competitors a run for their money. I'd still only consider picking it up when discounted and only if you don't already have a previous Scribe and are embedded in the Amazon ecosystem.

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025) review: price and availability

• First announced October 2025 in the US; available to buy since December 2025
• Released in the UK and other select markets in early 2026, available in Australia since mid 2026
• List price: from $499.99 / £449.99 / AU$849

The 3rd-generation Kindle Scribe is expensive — at a starting price of $499.99 / £449.99 / AU$849, it's $100 / £70 / AU$200 more than its predecessor's entry cost, but it does go some way in justifying the increase.

Firstly, as I've already mentioned, the entry model now has 32GB of storage compared to 16GB, plus the display is 11 inches (previously 10.2 inches). There are a few new software features that make it a better digital notepad compared to the 2nd-gen Kindle Scribe from 2024, but it's still hard to justify paying full price when color E Ink devices don't cost much more.

That said, color E Ink isn't where it should be in 2026 and I wouldn't recommend the $629 / £569 / AU$999 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft over this monochrome sibling.

On the other hand, the reMarkable Paper Pure, which also offers 32GB of storage, but a 10.3-inch screen and a minimal interface that's not conducive to reading is a lot cheaper with a starting price of $399 / £359 / AU$629. Even the 64GB Boox Go 10.3 (Gen II) Lumi is cheaper at $449.99 / £429.99 / AU$729.

I would still recommend the 3rd-gen Kindle Scribe if you want both a reading and note-taking device in one, but perhaps consider picking it up when it's discounted, which it invariably will be during a major sale, more so once Amazon discontinues the 2024 edition (which it invariably will).

However, if you already own the 2024 version, I wouldn't recommend the 3rd-gen as an upgrade as you won't miss much. And as long as it's available to buy, the 2nd-gen is definitely better value even at full price.

• Value score: 3.5 / 5

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025) review: specs

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025) review: design and display

• 11 inches of beautiful, bright E Ink Carta 1300 screen real estate
• Sturdy, premium build, but slim bezels can be an issue
• Thinner and lighter than previous generation, with newly designed Premium Pen

It might not seem all that different from the previous two Kindle Scribes, but the 3rd-gen model with frontlight is a different beast, at least physically. As already mentioned, it's now a little taller thanks to an 11-inch display, but it's ever-so-slightly thinner (5.4mm vs 5.7mm) and lighter than the second-generation Scribe (400g vs 433g).

How Amazon has managed that is beyond my understanding, but it's a welcome change as it helps negates a little bit of the hand and wrist fatigue the extra height adds during handheld use over longer periods of time.

That, sadly, is exacerbated by the fact that the broader bezel from the previous generations is no longer there beside the screen where your thumb could rest. Now, all four sides are surrounded by even yet narrow bezels that can trigger a page turn if your finger or palm even remotely touches the edge of the screen. It's something you can get used to but, even then, I think all the new 2025 Kindle Scribes are best used while on a table or desk, or your lap.

Other than that, the Kindle Scribe still looks like a premium device with a very sturdy build, despite being thin and light, with minimal embellishments for a clean look. Unlike the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, though, the 3rd-gen model only comes in the usual Graphite (previously called Tungsten) variant, and I do wish another chassis color was available. You're also not going to get any waterproofing here like with the other Kindles.

What I'm thrilled about, though, is the new stylus. Amazon has redesigned the Premium Pen, which is now a white, smooth-bodied styls with a slightly sharper nib that adds better control to marking on the screen. The smoothness of the pen's body might make it harder to hold for some users, but I didn't have any issues with slipping, even if my palms ended up being sweaty for whatever reason.

Better yet is the magnet that attaches the pen to the side of the tablet, which is arguably the strongest I've come across on any such device. Even without a case, the Pen has never come off inside my bag when taking it in or out of a pocket. And I do mean never — it has shifted in angle, sure, but not completely fallen off. That's just my experience, though.

You still get an eraser on the top and the customizable shortcut button, as well as five spare tips in the box. What you don't get is the aforementioned sleep case, which you will need to purchase separately, but there are options galore directly from Amazon and third parties.

As much as I would love to wax lyrical about the stylus, it's the 11-inch E Ink Carta 1300 display that's the star of the show here. It was already fantastic on the 10.2-inch 2024 Scribe, but now it just seems a touch better.

I'd like to say it's because of the 100nit peak brightness that makes it look nicer, but even with the LEDs dimmed, it's the cleanest, almost-white display I've used on an epaper tablet that still manages to seem like paper. In fact, I much prefer it over the duller-looking E Ink Kaleido 3 display on the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.

The flush screen is protected by a top layer of glass that also has an anti-glare coating. You also get the standard 300ppi resolution which, despite being spread over a larger area, still renders text and writing in sharp clarity, and it's arguably one of the most responsive screens on an epaper device to date.

• Design & display score: 4.5 / 5

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025) review: Software

• Refreshed homescreen setup which is cluttered with Kindle Store recommendations
• Cloud service access is very welcome
• More writing tools but not necessarily of note (pun not intended), but new a AI feature could prove useful

It's not a complete makeover, but the homescreen setup on the top of the 2025 Kindle Scribes is different to what was previously on the older models. There's easy access to what Amazon is calling a Quick Note — just tap on it and it opens up an empty notebook for you to start writing on — beside which is a single column of your recently opened items (now called Jump Back In) that were previously arranged horizontally.

By default, the Quick Note takes up more than half the left side of the screen, but it can be shrunk by tapping double arrows, which then separates your recently opened items list into two columns, thus adding more, whether that be notes or ebooks.

I like this setup better as it's a quick glance at a fair few recently opened items, rather than you needing to scroll horizontally, plus you can see what you wrote in the Quick Note without needing to open it.

Below this section is a whole lot of what I think is clutter but some users who are embedded in the Amazon ecosystem would appreciate. These include the Recently Added items list, followed by new-feature intros and several Kindle Store recommendations based on your reading habits, which is what I really detest — it just feels like overkill and I much prefer Kobo's homepage which looks neater to me.

While the bottom navigation menu still has four items, the previous Notebooks tab is now called Workspace and it has a few extra templates that I personally couldn't find much use for. I would have loved a dedicated journal template but... oh well. Otherwise, everything else is carried over from before, with limited pen and brush options that artists perhaps won't be very happy with.

The biggest improvement here (across all three 2025 Scribes in fact) is the addition of Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive support. As someone who uses the former, it's made file transfer a lot easier than using the email sharing option that has previously been the clunkier norm.

There is, however, a caveat when it comes to PDFs: you can't actually mark them up after exporting them if you need to do so. The only way to reflect changes is to export the file and open in Google Docs to edit. Despite that, I still think access to cloud services is a huge improvement and I hope Amazon rolls it out to the older Scribes as well.

Also new is a feature called Smart Shapes that you can access from the stylus menu in a note — if you need to create, say, flowcharts, you can roughly draw a circle or triangle and it will automatically get converted into a proper (or neat) shape. It's not something I personally found useful, but I think it could be for students, teachers and scientists.

The AI-powered handwriting conversion and summary creation tools from the previous generation is available here, as are the ebook annotations (Active Canvas) and side-margin notes from before, but AI search in your notes is new. It allows you to enter a keyword or phrase and all your notes, including handwritten ones (uh-huh, that's different, innit?) will be scanned to give you an AI-generated summary. It's another feature that I don't see everyone needing, but if you have a copious amount of notes on the same subject (like I occasionally do), it can be handy.

I should note that all this software improvement takes up a heck of a lot of storage. For example, when I looked into the Device Options on my 3rd-gen Scribe and Colorsoft units, I only had about 22GB and 21GB of usable storage respectively out of 32GB. This is still a good amount, but 11GB is still a heck of a lot of space to give up for power users who might want to store a lot of ebooks, audiobooks and documents on the device. To put it into context in another way: there was a time when 8GB storage was the norm in an ereader, meaning the Scribe software wouldn't even fit into an older ereader!

Software score: 4 / 5

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025) review: User experience

• Despite its size, it's one of the best screens to read on
• New stylus writes wonderfully, although writing and drawing features are still comparatively limited
• Handful of new templates added for note taking

I have a few Kindle devices at home, including three of the 2024 releases, and yet I'm not really a Kindle fan because of how much the user interface forces you into the Amazon ecosystem.

However, the 3rd-generation Kindle Scribe with frontlight has come very close to changing my mind — I am willing to put up with the homescreen clutter because of how good reading and writing is on that glorious E Ink display. It's hands down the best epaper tablet I've tested in 2026 (it's a delayed review as it wasn't released in Australia, where I'm based, until June this year).

Reading

As I've already said, the 300ppi resolution looks a little better on this Scribe than it did on the previous generation because Amazon has optimized the display very well to render text in sharp clarity.

I've seen some users complain that the Scribes don't look as good as the Paperwhite, but it's important to keep in mind that the 7-inch Kindle has less surface area with the same amount of pixels as the 11-inch version, so the pixel size on the larger device will be slightly bigger. And that makes a difference, but not so much that it stands out. You have to look really carefully to see that kind of difference.

I am a big fan of the ambient light sensor on the display, which means the screen automatically dims or brightens up depending on whether I'm indoors or outdoors, or how bright or dark it might be around me. In other words, it automatically gives me a pleasing brightness for nighttime reading.

The larger screen makes it an ideal choice for comic book fans but, then again, color makes them more enjoyable while you'll be reading them in grayscale. The bigger screen, however, is fantastic for those who prefer larger fonts, so you aren't turning pages after a few sentences and, thus, conserving a little battery.

The Kindle font support is still not as good as flexible as on a Kobo or a Boox device. For example, sideloaded EPUBs added to the device via the Send To Kindle platform render well, but I found a few MOBI files that didn't open as expected but work perfectly fine on my Kobo Libra Colour.

I am, however, very grateful for Amazon's cloud storage where anything in your library previously added to older devices are accessible on any new Kindle.

Writing & drawing

I didn't think Amazon could better the writing experience from the previous-generation Scribe, but lo and behold, a redesigned stylus has achieved just that. As I've previously stated, the pen is the real hero when it comes to epaper writing tablets and the white Premium Pen with a slightly sharper nib glides very well over the glass and yet has just the right friction.

Then again, a pen choice is very personal and some users might prefer more friction, which is understandable. Personally, my experience was perfect, allowing me very good control over the marks I made in a note.

What I'm not necessarily too enthused by are the limited writing tools. I think Kobo's Advanced Notebooks are still a better option compared to what Amazon offers on the Scribe, although Android devices give you even more features and tools if you think you'd need them.

While there are some new templates for notes, I think their use would be very limited to select users, and I would have much preferred if Amazon had, instead, added more pen options. I may not be able to draw to save my life, but I can see how this limitation might affect artists. For everyday doodling, my colleague Lance Ulanoff finds the Kindle Scribe better than his iPad for drawing, especially when outdoors.

Writing and drawing limitations aside, the physical experience of putting words down on the 2025 Scribe is par excellence and, for that, I can't deduct too many marks.

User experience score: 4.5 / 5

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025) review: Performance

• The fastest Kindle yet, with page turns barely visible (unless animated)
• Absolutely no ghosting, even with image-heavy ebooks
• Battery life takes a small hit compared to previous generation

Amazon doesn't reveal what hardware components it uses under the hood of its devices — all we know is that there's a quad-core chip with an indeterminate amount of RAM — to keep things ticking along, but whatever there is sure makes the 3rd-generation Scribe the fastest Kindle yet.

In fact, I think I might go so far as to say it's arguably the fastest ereader and epaper writing tablet I've tested to date. I make that claim based on my recent Boox Go 10.3 (Gen II) Lumi review that I was testing at the same time the Amazon device and, despite being a 2026 release, was so significantly slower than the 2025 Scribe, specifically in terms of page turns.

On the Scribe, you can barely discern a page turn, unless you have the animation turned on of course. Several times during my two-week test period with the Scribe I didn't even think a tap registered until I saw the words on the new page. The time I did notice a blip was when the device was doing a full refresh.

Like its predecessor, there's absolutely no ghosting here, whether you've got image-heavy or word-heavy books. Not even a faded mark appears overlaid on notes, and I do wish Boox would learn how to achieve that.

Battery capacity is another spec that Amazon doesn't reveal, but it does say that it can last up to 12 weeks on a single charge when used for about 30 minutes a day. It's definitely doable, but I think battery life on the previous 2024 edition was slightly better. Potentially more LEDs (another spec that Amazon doesn't reveal) to power a larger display could be the main culprit here, but it doesn't take too much of a hit in comparison.

In my use case, with up to four hours of reading and about 30 minutes of writing each day saw the battery nearly empty in five days. That's with the ambient light sensor on, so no manual brightness adjustments were made and that does put pressure on the battery. Sleep timer was set to 30 minutes and Bluetooth was off, although Wi-Fi was always on. Similar use with the 2024 Kindle Scribe saw the battery drain in approximately seven days for me with the same settings.

Recharging, however, seems to be remarkably quick on the 2025 version of the Scribe with frontlight, with my unit taking just about 20 minutes to top up from 21% down when plugged into a 60W wall charger. That's with the screen switched off, though. If I charged it while the device was in use, it took close to two hours via the same adaptor and USB-C cable.

On the other hand, my Kindle Scribe Colorsoft drains even quicker and takes a heck of a lot longer to recharge.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

Should I buy the Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025) with frontlight?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

The 3rd-generation Kindle Scribe with frontlight is easy to recommend and, for some users, it might even justify its high price tag. For anyone else, know that there are alternatives to consider, and they'll actually save you a little cash even at full price.

How I tested the Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025)

I sadly had the 3rd-generation Kindle Scribe for just two weeks for this review, but I ensured I spent as much time as I could with it. As I've previously mentioned, I spent an average of 4-5 hours with it each day during that time, sometimes more, both reading and writing.

I was able to access my existing library as soon as I signed into my Amazon account, but I also uploaded some new EPUBs using the Send To Kindle web platform. I also connected the Scribe to my Google Drive account to transfer a couple of PDFs to the device, but I also saved select notes to the cloud, which automatically upload as PDFs with handwriting (no automatic text conversion takes place, but you can manually trigger that on the Scribe if you wish).

I tried the Smart Shapes feature and used the new AI search to test if it would be able to summarize my own review notes for me, which is successfully did. Handwriting conversion was also tested, albeit using a colleague's scrawl (I hate to admit but I can't scribble chicken scratchings no matter how hard I try).

Kindle Unlimited and Audible were also accessed on the device, and I was able to pair a JBL Bluetooth speaker for listening.

Learn more about how we test devices here at TechRadar

[First published July 2026]

• Amazon's gaming boss thinks ballooning hardware prices could push more hardcore gamers towards cloud streaming services
• He argued that the price of consoles increasing by 'six, seven times' would mean some gamers become 'priced out of the market'
• He thinks the RAM crisis, and rising prices, will not be 'going away anytime soon'

Amazon GM of gaming Jeff Gattis thinks the rising cost of consoles and PC components could push more hardcore gamers towards cloud streaming, via services such as Amazon's own Luna.

In a recent interview about the service, I asked whether Gattis anticipates cloud gaming becoming a more popular option for core players as traditional systems become much more expensive.

"Yeah. I wouldn't have said that 18 months ago, and I will say our business model is not really predicated on this this massive shift where everybody turns in their consoles and PCs and comes over to cloud" he said.

"But gosh, when you start to see the prices of the Steam Machine and the rumors of PlayStation and Xbox. As you get to $1,000, $1,500 hardware [...] you're going to see more people that are priced out of the market. They're going to consider other technologies".

Gattis, who previously led platform and subscriptions at Xbox, went on to share an anecdote to illustrate just how much prices have risen.

"I was telling somebody the other day that when I was back at Xbox a couple of years ago, we had our Series S console on discount [for a] holiday. I think it was about $199. To think in a span of two to three years we've gone from $200 to what's likely going to be six, seven times that price.

"I understand it's a it's a RAM crisis, it's worldwide, but I don't think that's going away anytime soon."

He was, however, careful to clarify that hardcore gamers moving to the cloud isn't a core part of Amazon's strategy: "It's not our strategy to accelerate that, but it's a nice tailwind if it does happen, and it's realistic to think that it might."

The comments come as Amazon rolls out a Fire TV update that gives Amazon Prime subscribers the ability to stream games like Fallout 4 or Fortnite from directly within Prime Video via Luna in a bid to get more eyes on the service.

If you're looking for a mini PC that can comfortably handle work, study, and everyday computing without taking over your desk, I've found a great deal on the Geekom A5 Pro.

Powered by AMD's Ryzen 5 7530U processor, a six-core, 12-thread chip with boost speeds of up to 4.5GHz, the Geekom A5 Pro is now $513 (was $699) at Amazon, a saving of 27%.

The mini PC comes paired with an upgradeable 16GB of DDR4 memory and a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD, both of which can be upgraded later if your needs change. It will be able to handle multitasking, office applications, video meetings, web browsing, and light creative work. In the UK, the same spec mini PC is now £442 (was £519) at Amazon.

Today's top Geekom mini PC deal

In his review, our mini PC expert Alastair called the A5 Pro "a well-balanced and genuinely impressive home and office mini PC."

Despite its compact size, the A5 Pro mini PC supports up to four displays via its dual HDMI and dual USB-C ports, making it a practical choice for anyone who works across multiple windows or applications.

It also supports resolutions up to 8K, delivering crisp text and detailed visuals for documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and media.

For connectivity, it offers 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, four USB ports, an SD card reader, and HDMI 2.1.

Windows 11 Pro comes pre-installed, providing business-focused features such as BitLocker encryption, Remote Desktop, and domain support all straight out of the box.

The A5 Pro uses Geekom's IceBlast 3.0 cooling system to keep temperatures under control while maintaining low noise levels. The company backs the system with a three-year warranty, considerably longer than the single year offered by many rival manufacturers.

Priced at just over $500, the Geekom A5 Pro offers an attractive combination of performance, connectivity, upgradeability, and compact design. In the US, you can also pick up the A5 Pro with a Ryzen 5 7430U chip, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for $399, down from $449. Or, a model with a Ryzen 5 7530U CPU, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for $449.10, down from $549.

Whether you're replacing an aging desktop, setting up a home office, or simply need a capable everyday PC that takes up very little space, this is a terrific money-saving deal at Amazon.

For more top picks like this, these are the best mini PCs we've tested and reviewed.

• Shop all mini PCs at Amazon

If you're looking to add more 4K Blu-rays to your collection, then Disney's Summer Days, Movie Nights 4K Blu-ray sale has arrived at the perfect time, where it's 2 for £30 on discs including titles from Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and 20th Century Studios. The same 2 for £30 sale is also live at HMV.

I regularly test 4K Blu-ray as part of our monthly Blu-ray Bounty feature, where we test the best new 4K releases. I've picked six discs from the sale that all featured as part of the Blu-ray Bounty, so I know just how good they look and sound.

First up is Alien: Romulus, one of my reference discs for testing contrast and black tones on the best TVs. Its also excellent Dolby Atmos soundtrack is immersive and spine-chilling too.

The Sound of Music is one of the best restorations I've seen, with spectacular colours and detail. Edward Scissorhands is another disc that delivers superb colour reproduction, surpassing my expectations completely.

If you want action-packed titles with brilliant Dolby Atmos soundtracks, Master and Commander delivers pinpoint-accurate sound, while Fantastic Four: First Steps delivers the power you'd want from a superhero flick. Finally, Tombstone looks crisp and offers a fantastic DTS-HD 5.1 MA soundtrack that will show off your surround setup.

For my thoughts on each disc, scroll further down the page.

My picks from Amazon's 2 for £30 4K Blu-ray sale

Alien: Romulus

Set between the events of Alien and Aliens, Alien: Romulus follows a crew of scavengers who come across a derelict space station called Renaissance, where they encounter hostile aliens.

Alien: Romulus delivers a truly stunning picture in 4K. Its inky black levels and high-contrast scenes look superb on the best OLED TVs, and it's a real showcase for 4K detail. Textures are crisp, with impressive intricate detail in objects and environments that show just how good modern movies can look in 4K. When I want to test a TV's backlight and contrast, this is one of the first discs I reach for.

The Dolby Atmos soundtrack featured is incredible. While the more powerful moments, such as gunfire or the sound of engines igniting, have real impact, it's the detail that impresses. The sound of face-hugger feet is so precisely mapped, it had me looking around our testing lab when I first tested it, as their path came from the rear channels with astonishing accuracy. The movie's more visceral moments, as characters meet their demise, can be particularly realistic.

• Check out the full Amazon 2 for £30 sale

The Sound of Music

One of cinema's most iconic musicals, The Sound of Music follows Maria (Julie Andrews), a nun who is sent to take over as the nanny of the Von Trapp family children, set in pre-WWII Austria.

The Sound of Music is one of the best examples of a 4K restoration I've seen. Textures have been cleaned up beautifully, and the breathtaking cinematography of the Austrian landscape has never looked more detailed. Really though, it's the colours that stand out the most here. Green fields and blue skies have serious pop, and other colours such as red, yellow and orange are delivered with real vibrancy. One of my reference discs, the market scene, in particular, is brilliant.

Never has the movie's legendary soundtrack sounded better than here. The Dolby Atmos mixes are all perfectly balanced between the score and vocals, and speech is crystal clear throughout. Songs like 'Do Re Mi' and 'My Favourite Things' sound clean, with superb depth and clarity.

• Check out the full Amazon 2 for £30 sale

Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands follows the story of Edward (Johnny Depp), an artificial humanoid with scissors for hands, who is taken in by a suburban family, where he falls for the family's daughter, Kim (Winona Ryder).

When I first tested Edward Scissorhands on 4K, I didn't expect to be wowed by the disc's colours as much as I was. The gothic nature of the movie is juxtaposed with the vibrant, often garish, colour scheme of the neighbourhood, and these colours are superb in 4K. The bright, multi-coloured houses are vivid, and if your TV has good colour reproduction, you'll be rewarded. Textures have also been refined here to give everything a lifelike look.

The disc's Dolby Atmos soundtrack is excellent. It shows real depth by accurately capturing subtle effects like the clicking of Edward's scissors. Danny Elfman's unmistakable score, with big horns balanced with delicate bells, is delivered with plenty of gusto and detail.

• Check out the full Amazon 2 for £30 sale

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is the tale of the HMS Surprise, a British ship during the Napoleonic Wars in 1805, as they pursue the French ship Acheron. It stars Russel Crowe as Surprise's Captain Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Maturin, the ship's surgeon.

Where Master and Commander's 4K disc shines is with its Dolby Atmos soundtrack. Naval battles deliver room-shaking power as cannons fire, with intricate details such as splintering wood coming through clear in the mix. In several scenes, as cannonballs flew through the ship, I found myself looking around the room, following its trajectory as it was mapped with incredible accuracy.

The 4K presentation looks amazing, too. Night scenes deliver deep black tones with some strong contrast, as lamps balance with said dark tones. The crew looks lifelike, and the vast ocean looks stunning in 4K. Colour, while sparing, has some nice pop, whether it's the red of blood or the gold details on ships.

• Check out the full Amazon 2 for £30 sale

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Set in a 1960's, futuristic world and based on the Marvel superhero family, The Fantastic Four: First Steps follows the Fantastic Four as they must protect Earth from Galactus and the Silver Surfer. Starring Pedro Pascal (Mr Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (The Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Human Torch), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Thing).

The 4K disc of The Fantastic Four: First Steps has brilliant picture quality, accurately delivering the alt-1960s aesthetic. The bright blues and whites of the team's uniforms pop on screen, but the oranges and yellows of decor and civilian clothing look great too. A big-budget Marvel movie, textures are refined and 3D-like and look top-notch on 4K.

As you'd expect from a Marvel movie with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, this disc sounds fantastic. There are plenty of room-rattling explosions that deliver punchy bass and impact. Anytime the Human Torch flies overhead, height channels are utilised perfectly and will sound great through an Atmos system.

• Check out the full Amazon 2 for £30 sale

Tombstone

Tombstone follows Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russel), a retired lawman who moves to the town of Tombstone and ends up as its de facto sheriff after a gang of outlaws wreaks havoc. The movie also stars Val Kilmer, Sam Elliot, and Bill Paxton.

Tombstone looks stunning in 4K. A fantastic restoration means textures are clean and crisp, demonstrating almost 3D-like levels of depth and detail. Colours are bold and punchy throughout, and black tones are rich, whether it's the night sky or the Earp group's clothes.

The disc's DTS-HD 5.1 MA soundtrack is excellent too. Gunfights deliver precise sound mapping, as bullets fly around and ricochet off buildings. Galloping horses offer plenty of rumble that will let your subwoofer flex its muscles, and even subtle sound effects like spurs on boots as people walk have nice detail.

• Check out the full Amazon 2 for £30 sale

If you're tired of replacing expensive ink cartridges every few weeks, I would recommend you consider upgrading to the Epson EcoTank ET-2400. Usually priced at $189.99, it's currently $30 cheaper at Amazon.

Instead of traditional cartridges, the ET-2400 uses refillable ink tanks with Epson's EcoFit bottles. One bottle set provides enough ink for thousands of pages, reducing both refill frequency and the hassle of constantly buying pricing replacements.

In the UK, this printer is known as the Epson EcoTank ET-2861, which is now £150 (was £240) at Amazon. And for more options, we've rounded up our top 6 back-to-school printers, including this one.

Today's top Epson EcoTank printer deal

Epson says the included ink prints up to 4,500 black-and-white pages or 7,200 color pages before you need to worry about a refill.

You also get up to two years of ink in the box, so many households won't need extra supplies for quite some time.

Printing, scanning, and copying are all included, making this a practical all-in-one for everyday tasks like printing homework, recipes, family documents, or occasional color photos.

Wireless connectivity lets you print from compatible devices over Wi-Fi, while USB support offers a straightforward wired connection.

Epson's Micro Piezo Heat-Free technology produces crisp black text alongside colorful graphics and photos on a wide range of paper types.

Although it isn't built for high-speed office workloads, everyday documents and occasional color jobs are handled comfortably.

Another welcome benefit comes from the refillable tank system itself, which creates far less cartridge waste than conventional inkjet printers. If you're trying to reduce household waste while spending less on consumables, this is the solution you need.

At $160 / £150, the Epson EcoTank ET-2400 (or ET-2861 in the UK) costs a little more than many entry-level inkjet printers, but the included ink and refillable design can save you quite a lot of money in the long term.

For more options, check out our round up of the best ink tank printers you can buy, the best Epson printers and the best home printers.

For UK shoppers

• Shop ink tank printers at Amazon
• And at Amazon.co.uk

If you're upgrading a desktop or compatible laptop, this is a fantastic opportunity to add next-generation storage without maxing out your credit card.

Samsung's 9100 Pro 2TB SSD has crashed to $400 (was $680) at Amazon, knocking a massive $280 off one of the fastest consumer PCIe 5.0 drives around. For UK readers, the 9100 Pro is discounted to £364 (was £529) at Amazon, too.

Sequential read speeds reach up to 14,700MB/s, while write speeds climb to 13,400MB/s, delivering exceptional performance for demanding workloads. Everything you'll want to install and run will benefit from the extra bandwidth available through PCIe 5.0.

Today's best Samsung SSD deal

In our review of the 9100 Pro we said: "Samsung's first true PCIe 5.0 drive is the best there is." In the summary we went on to add: "This is a very professional-specific drive in ways that previous Samsung Pro SSDs were not. If you're not a professional user, there are better PCIe 5.0 drives out there, but for pros, there's none better than the 9100 Pro."

Random performance reaches up to 1,850K read IOPS and 2,600K write IOPS, helping applications launch quickly and keeping multitasking smooth.

Samsung also focuses on efficiency, using a 5nm controller that improves power efficiency over the previous generation while advanced thermal controls help maintain consistent speeds.

Hardware encryption adds another layer of protection, and Samsung's Magician Software provides firmware updates, health monitoring, and extra management tools.

The M.2 2280 form factor fits a wide range of modern desktops and laptops that support PCIe 5.0 NVMe storage. With 2TB of capacity, there's plenty of room for creative projects, large software libraries without you needing to consistently manage free space.

Compatibility is straightforward for systems with an available M.2 PCIe 5.0 slot, and installation only takes a few minutes for most desktop builds.

If you've been waiting to benefit from PCIe 5.0 speeds, this deal delivers huge savings alongside outstanding performance, generous capacity, and useful software features that continue adding value long after installation.

The 9100 Pro SSD is also available in 1TB, 4TB and 8TB capacities at reduced prices.

Also consider: Alternative Samsung SSD deal

• US: Shop all internal SSDs at Amazon
• UK: See all internal SSDs at Amazon.co.uk

If you're short on desk space but still need plenty of performance for creative work or everyday productivity, I've found a great offer for you. And it's perfect whether you're looking for a powerful business machine or a back-to-school computer that actually performs under pressure.

The Geekom A8 mini PC has dropped to $586 (was $689) at Amazon, saving you more than $100 on a compact desktop packed with impressive hardware. In the UK, the A8 is discounted to £599 (was £636) at Amazon, as well.

It's powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS processor with eight cores, 16 threads, and boost speeds up to 4.9GHz. Paired with AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics, it has the power you need for photo editing, video production, software development, and demanding multitasking.

Today's top Geekom mini PC deal

In our rave review we said the A8 was "remarkably powerful and can handle applications that use multi-threading to reduce processing times. It also offers AI-specific processing features. With AMD-powered machines, this is as good as it gets."

The system includes 16GB of DDR5 memory alongside a fast 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, providing quick boot times and application loading.

Memory is upgradeable to 128GB, while storage can be expanded up to 4TB, giving the system plenty of room to grow alongside your workload.

Despite its tiny 0.5-liter chassis, it comes with dual USB4 ports, dual HDMI outputs, an SD card slot, 2.5G Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2.

It also supports up to four 4K displays or a single 8K display, making it a good choice for creators, professionals, and anyone running multiple screens.

The compact enclosure includes an advanced cooling system with dual heat pipes, an efficient fan, and optimized airflow to maintain consistent performance during longer workloads.

A VESA mount is included, allowing the system to sit neatly behind a monitor for an even cleaner desk setup.

Windows 11 Pro (not Home) comes preinstalled, and the system also supports Linux and Ubuntu for anyone who prefers to use a non-Microsoft OS.

Geekom backs A8 Mini PC with a three-year warranty, adding extra peace of mind for long-term use.

For more top picks like this, these are the best mini PCs we've tested and reviewed.

Also consider: More Geekom mini PC deals

• Shop all mini PCs at Amazon

When you're building or upgrading a PC, one of the easiest ways to make it faster is by adding a high-performance internal SSD.

Right now, Amazon has cut the cost of the 2TB Samsung 990 Pro to just $390 (was $640), making this one of the best SSD deals I've seen in quite a while. And in the UK, the price of the 990 Pro 2TB slips to £287 (was £503) at Amazon.

We were so impressed with the Samsung 990 Pro's performance that we awarded it a full five stars in our review. We said: "The Samsung 990 Pro is an absolutely stellar M.2 SSD for both professional users and gamers alike. With solid capacities at a fair price and the fastest read/write performance of any PCIe 4.0 SSD we’ve tested, this SSD should definitely be at the top of your list if you’re looking to upgrade or do a new PC build."

Today's best Samsung SSD deal

The 990 Pro delivers sequential read speeds of up to 7,450MB/s and write speeds of up to 6,900MB/s, pushing PCIe 4.0 close to its limits.

Samsung says the SSD offers more than 55% better random performance than the previous-generation 980 Pro, helping applications load faster and demanding workloads complete more quickly.

Another advantage is improved power efficiency. The drive delivers up to 50% better performance per watt than the 980 Pro, allowing it to maintain exceptional performance while using less power, which is especially useful during intensive creative workloads.

During our testing, the drive handled large file transfers with ease and consistently delivered outstanding responsiveness.

We summed it up by saying, "This is easily one of the fastest SSDs we've ever tested, so you can expect top-tier file operation performance."

Although the 1TB and 4TB versions are also on sale, with the 1TB model reduced from $319.99 to $239.99 and the 4TB version falling from $1,099.99 to $865.73, I'd still recommend the 2TB drive as it offers the best balance between capacity and overall value.

There's plenty of room for creative projects, applications, and large media libraries without constantly worrying about running out of space.

• Shop all internal SSDs at Amazon

It's the end of the sales season for a while now, but that doesn't mean the deals are gone for good. Yes, prices may not be as low across the board as during the recent Prime Day sale, but Amazon UK still has several solid offers if you're looking to shop right now. So, I've looked through the retailer's latest batch of offers and picked out 17 deals that are good buys.

• See all of today's best deals at Amazon UK

There are actually a couple of deals from Prime Day that are still available, including the five-star Nothing Ear (a) for £48.99 (was £69). These are some top-rated buds that offer audio quality, noise cancellation and battery life that rivals Apple's very own AirPods — but at a much lower price.

Given all the hot weather we've been experiencing lately, I also like the look of this Warmco Portable Handheld Fan for £19.88 (was £24.99), which is a super-low price for a convenient little gadget to take on the go.

Check out all of my top picks below, including fitness trackers, appliances, and more cheap tech.

Today's 17 best deals at Amazon UK