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Dolphins, sharks, turtles, and human workers are all victims of unregulated squid fishing fleets.
Another news article.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
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Amazon Prime Day kicks off next week, but that doesn't mean that you need to wait for tech deals. While the biggest sales will likely start during the sale itself, Amazon currently has discounts on a number of devices, including smart speakers, headphones, and smartphones. If were you planning on upgrading your tech in the near future, it's not a bad time to take a peek at Amazon's sale.
Now, seeing as this is Amazon Prime Day, the biggest tech deals I'm seeing are on Amazon products, across the company's many brands. That's all fine and well if you were planning on buying Amazon stuff anyway, but I don't typically want to highlight just anything Amazon happens to put up for sale. As such, I've listed a few options here, but know that, if Amazon makes it, there's a good chance it's discounted right now.
There are a lot of headphone options out there, but if you're already entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, AirPods are arguably the best choice. They sound great, yes, but they also pair and sync with all of your devices. You can go from listening to music on your iPhone to watching a YouTube video on your iPad without having to re-pair your earbuds.
While Apple's AirPods Pro 3 were on sale ahead of Prime Day, the sale appears to have ended. However, if you prefer Apple's more traditional earbuds, you're in luck. Amazon has discounts on both the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation and the standard AirPods 4. If you don't need noise cancellation, you can snag the latter for a flat $99.
If you're looking for a pair of Apple headphones, but balk a bit at AirPods Max's $549 price tag, Beats might be your best bet. Since Apple owns Beats, you'll get the same easy-pairing perks as AirPods, but with a smaller MSRP. For on-ear fans, there's Beats Solo 4, which are currently on sale for $129.95 (down from $199.95). The Solo 4 can last up to 50 hours on one charge, and support lossless playback over USB-C. If over-ear is more your style, there's Beats Studio Pro, $169.95 (down from $199.95.) These will run up to 40 hours on a single charge, come with noise cancellation, and also support lossless audio over USB-C.
Sony isn't known for catchy names, but that doesn't have any impact on the quality of their products. While Sony headphones can run pricey, the company offers midrange and budget options, too. Case in point, the Sony WH-CH520 headphones, which are only $38 ahead of Prime Day (a 46% discount from $69.99). These are on-ear style headphones, with up to 50 hours of playback. Like other modern wireless headphones, you can connect the WH-CH520 with up to two devices at once, so you can jump between your phone and laptop as needed.
Bose has long been known for its noise cancellation tech, but it also makes some of the highest-quality headphones you can buy. As such, the QuietComfort Ultras aren't cheap, with an MSRP of $449. But ahead of Prime Day, you can pick them up 27% off for $329. These are over-the-ear headphones with up to 24 hours of playback on one charge. They also support spatial audio, and can connect with Bose soundbars for TV audio.
While a lot of the best deals I'm seeing now are with headphones, there's one smartphone brand with some discounts on Amazon. Samsung's Galaxy S26 is currently $100 off, dropping the price to $799.99. The company's latest flagship smartphone comes with three rear cameras (including a 50MP wide lens, a 10MP telephoto lens, and a 12MP ultrawide lens), a 6.3-inch 1080p AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 7 Elite Gen 5 chip, and 256 GB of RAM. If you need a bit more storage, the 512GB Galaxy S26 is also on sale for the oddly-priced $943.99.
I'm not necessarily a big Amazon person, but as I mentioned above, most of the Prime Day perks are for Amazon's own devices. If you need a new streaming device, for example, you'll find many of the company's Fire products already on sale. Maybe the best I see right now is the Fire TV Cube, which is currently 36% off—at least the lowest price in the past three months per Keepa. The Cube comes with all of Amazon's streaming perks, including most HDR formats, Wi-Fi 6E and ethernet, live view picture-in-picture, Alexa Home Theater, and the ability to connect your other devices. If all you want is 4K streaming, however, consider deals on Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K devices, which are cheaper than the Cube.
Similarly, Amazon has a great deal right now on its eero 6+ wifi mesh system. Mesh wifi is among the best strategies for extending wifi throughout your home. Standard extenders take your wifi signal as it is and "repeat" it further out; this can be helpful for extending the range, but if the signal was weak to begin with, it won't do you much good. Mesh wifi, on the other hand, rebroadcasts wifi signals at full strength from each "node," which can radically improve a wifi network, especially in larger homes. The eero 6+ mesh system is listed at $299.99, but Amazon has it for $194.99.
Nearly all of Amazon's smart speakers are on sale ahead of Prime Day, from its base models to its priciest options. But my guess is most people are interested in Amazon's mid-tier speaker, the Echo Dot Max, which typically retails for $99.99. Right now, it's 35% off at $64.99, cheaper than its previous dip back in early May. This is the speaker that directly competes with Apple's HomePod and the new Google Home Speaker.
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Between President Trump's tariffs, global instability, and historic demand for RAM, the past year has had an outsized influence on tech prices. It seems that just about every major company has announced price hikes recently, from laptop manufacturers like Acer and Dell to gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo. It's an odd turn of events: In the past, you only needed to wait for a new piece of tech to get cheaper. But now, if you didn't buy a Switch or PlayStation at launch, you'll pay more for one today.
Despite these increases, Apple has largely avoided passing higher costs on to consumers. It has some tricks up its sleeve, of course: The company eliminated some cheaper device tiers, so the cost of entry for products like the Mac mini and MacBook Air technically increased, but it did so without actually raising prices. Over the past year, not only have Apple device prices stayed the same, the company has also released new low-cost options like the MacBook Neo, which offers a full Mac experience for the cost of an iPhone 16. (Perhaps there are some perks to being a $4 trillion company.)
Sadly, this isn't a story about how Apple is continuing to keep prices stable. On Wednesday night, The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive, sharing news direct from outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," Cook told the newspaper. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable." In other words, Apple products are about to get more expensive.
Cook went on to say that both RAM and storage chip shortages are driving factors in these issues: "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases." In a rather ominous aside, he added, "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years."
There are few details in the piece outside of the quotes from Cook. We don't know which products are going up in price, nor exactly when. The Wall Street Journal predicts that Apple will need to "substantially" increase prices if its goal is to maintain its current profits to cushion the impact from more expensive RAM and CPUs. Regardless, visit Apple's online store and take note of the MSRPs you see: They'll likely never be lower than they are right now.
Choosing when to buy tech is a bit like judging the stock market. You can make your best guess and hope you're getting the lowest price, but tomorrow, a massive sale could make your deal look paltry by comparison. Or you could wait, and prices could creep higher. There are no guarantees anymore.
That said, we can make some educated guesses. Tim Cook is calculated, and while he may be passing the torch to John Ternus soon enough, he wants to ensure Apple's valuation only continues to grow. As such, my guess is these price hikes are not immanent; rather, they likely will kick off with Apple's next hardware release cycle, which the company will almost certainly announce in the fall. That could mean the iPhone 18 will cost more than the iPhone 17, or the Apple Watch Series 12 will cost more than the Series 11. The "iPhone Fold" has no successor to compare it to, but perhaps it, too, will cost more than Apple originally intended. If that's the plan, Wall Street (as well as the rest of us) will no longer be surprised when the new products cost more than last year's.
If you're set on buying a new Apple device as soon as it's announced, you'll need to anticipate paying more. But if your goal is to get a device at the best possible price, I'd recommend buying sooner rather than later. While it seems probable that Apple won't raise prices before the fall, it could also choose to implement hikes long before then. As such, I'd encourage you to choose the device you want rather than getting fixated on paying a certain price. Use price comparison tools to see what deals are out there. If it looks like a device is at a relatively low price, jump on it now. You can no longer trust that older devices will be cheaper once Apple releases its next crop of products; if the iPhone 18 costs $200 more than the iPhone 17, there won't be that usual market incentive to drop the price of the latter.
The timing here is actually good, at least: Next week is Amazon's Prime Day (which should be called Prime Week now), and there are already early Apple deals with considering. A great discount on AirPods Pro 3 came and went (at least at Amazon; you can still find them for $70 off at Best Buy), but you can still score solid deals on the AirPods 4, with and without active noise cancellation. It's worth keeping an eye out next week for any deals on Apple products, including Macs, iPads, and AirPods. Again, no guarantees on what will get discounted, but we know two things for sure: Amazon is having a sale, and Apple is planning on raising prices at some point. More so than usual, the timing of your purchase matters.
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Google's new Fitbit Air is officially HSA/FSA eligible for qualifying customers, giving you more ways to use your pre-tax health savings. But before you rush to check out, it helps to understand how HSA and FSA eligibility actually works for wearables—because for most devices, it's a little more complicated than it sounds.
Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts let you set aside pre-tax dollars to pay for qualified medical expenses. The IRS determines what counts as true medical expenses, and historically, fitness trackers and smartwatches haven't made the cut on their own. The IRS has ruled that devices of this type are generally used to promote "general health," not to treat or monitor a specific medical condition, which means they typically don't clear the bar for qualified medical expenses.
According to the FSA Store's eligibility list, a wearable device becomes eligible when it is necessary for treating or monitoring a specific medical condition, as opposed to just for general wellness. This is where a “Letter of Medical Necessity” comes in.
A Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) is essentially a doctor's note that classifies a specific purchase as a qualified medical expense under IRS guidelines. To get one, your physician must certify that the device in question will be used to treat or monitor a legitimate medical condition, such as obesity, a heart condition, sleep apnea, or diabetes. Once you submit that LMN to your benefits administrator, your wearable purchase will most likely be approved for reimbursement.
When it comes to securing your LMN, you might not even need to make a doctor's appointment, thanks to certain third-party players like Truemed partnering with a number of health tech companies. You'll see the option to “Pay With Truemed” at checkout at Whoop, Coros, and Amazfit, to name a few. From there, you'll be asked a few questions about your health circumstances, and you’ll be matched with a provider to determine your eligibility. If you qualify, you’ll get an LMN that will allow you to use your HSA or FSA funds to complete your purchase.
Once you've confirmed your eligibility—ideally with an LMN in hand—there are two main ways to use your pre-tax health dollars to purchase a wearable: paying directly with your FSA or HSA card at a qualifying retailer, or paying out of pocket and submitting for reimbursement afterward.
The simplest method is to use your FSA or HSA debit card at the point of sale, the same way you'd use any other credit card.
Confirm the retailer accepts FSA/HSA payments. Major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target accept FSA/HSA cards for eligible items, and the Google Store may accept them directly for the Fitbit Air, given its certified eligibility status. Specialty health retailers like FSA Store and HSA Store are also strong options, as everything they sell is pre-vetted for eligibility.
Have your LMN ready. Even if you're paying directly with your card, your plan administrator may follow up and request documentation. Keep your LMN accessible.
Swipe your card and save your receipt. The transaction may go through without any extra steps, but if your administrator later flags the purchase, your receipt and LMN are your proof.
Note: If your wearable isn't on a pre-approved eligibility list, your FSA card may be declined at the register even if you have a valid LMN. In that case, you can try option two.
If your FSA card doesn't work at checkout—or if you'd rather buy from a retailer that doesn't support FSA/HSA payment—you can pay with any form of payment and request reimbursement from your plan administrator afterward.
Purchase the device using a personal credit card or any other payment method, and keep your itemized receipt.
Obtain your Letter of Medical Necessity if you haven't already. Your doctor will need to specify your diagnosis, explain why the device is medically necessary, and confirm it's being prescribed to treat or monitor your condition (not just for general wellness).
Log in to your benefits portal or contact your plan administrator. Most FSA and HSA administrators have an online portal where you can submit reimbursement claims directly.
Upload your documentation. You'll typically need to submit your itemized receipt and your LMN together. Some administrators may also ask for additional information about the device.
Wait for approval and payment. Processing times vary by administrator, but most claims are reviewed within a few business days to a few weeks. If approved, you'll be reimbursed from your FSA or HSA balance via direct deposit or check.
If the Fitbit Air isn't your style, check out these other major brands offering HSA/FSA-eligible fitness trackers.
Even if a device is marketed as health-focused, that doesn't automatically make it FSA or HSA eligible. For most smartwatches and fitness trackers, eligibility hinges on your documentation, not just the device features appearing medically sound. Some administrators scrutinize wearable purchases more closely than others, and approval is never guaranteed. If you have a qualifying medical condition and a physician willing to support your case with an LMN, you may be in great shape to put those pre-tax dollars to work.
FSA funds are use-it-or-lose-it on an annual basis (with some grace period exceptions), so timing matters. If you're near the end of your plan year and have a balance to spend, a qualifying wearable purchase could be a smart way to put those funds to work before they expire. HSA funds, by contrast, roll over indefinitely, so there's less urgency (but the reimbursement process is the same).
Also worth noting: you can reimburse yourself from an HSA for a past eligible purchase at any time, even years later, as long as you have the receipt and documentation. That flexibility makes HSA accounts particularly useful for health tech purchases. Whatever you buy, keep meticulous records. The IRS expects you to be able to back up every HSA purchase you make, and good record-keeping is the simplest way to protect yourself if questions ever arise.
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If you passed on Nothing's unique over-ear headphones when they dipped in price last month, you have another chance, and this time, the deal is even better. The distinctive Nothing Headphone (a) and Nothing (1) headphone have both dropped to their lowest price yet on Amazon in an early Prime Day deal. The Nothing Headphone (a) is down 24% to $151.05 (originally $199), and the Nothing (1) headphone is down 29%, dropping to $213.75 (originally $299).
While most headlines focus on the brand’s transparent retro-futuristic design, there's more going on here than aesthetics with these headphones. The Headphone (a), the brand’s more affordable model, has ANC up to 40 dB, a 40mm titanium-coated diaphragm, support for high-resolution LDAC audio, spatial audio with head-tracking, and the increasingly rare option to listen via Bluetooth, USB-C, or a traditional 3.5mm cable. The more premium Headphone (1) has 40mm dynamic drivers and adaptive ANC.
Comfort gets mixed reviews; some reviewers found the earcups on the Nothing (a) a bit shallow for larger ears compared to the more luxuriously padded Headphone (1). Reviewers have also praised the physical controls, which use tactile buttons rather than finicky touch panels, as well as a volume roller and a paddle switch for track controls. The headphones support multipoint connectivity, adaptive ANC, transparency mode, and an IP52 rating to protect against dust and light rain.
Battery life is another standout; the headphones last up to 135 hours with ANC disabled and 80 hours with ANC on, which is impressive compared to many premium competitors. Surprisingly, despite being widely hailed as the more premium model, the pricier Nothing (1) has significantly reduced battery life, with up to 80 hours with ANC off, and 35 hours with ANC on. On the Nothing (a), a quick five-minute charge provides up to eight hours of listening time, while a full charge takes two hours. The Headphone (1) delivers up to five hours of playback from a five-minute top-up.
The Nothing (1) also adds an advanced 8-band EQ and six mics for calls, compared to the Nothing (a)’s adjustable EQ via the Nothing X app and five mics. Ultimately, the Nothing (1) headphones deliver a more refined listening experience and a more premium, comfortable build, while the Nothing (a) headphones give you exceptional battery life at a much lower price. At the current record-low discount, they’re both appealing options for anyone who wants premium features and an eye-catching design at a lower price.
Researchers have long warned that AI agents could lower the skill floor for offensive cyber operations, and a recent report by OALABS (Open Analysis) researchers bears that out.
After recovering and analyzing over 1,000 agent sessions from a compromised server on which an attacker deployed Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex agents, the researchers discovered how easily the attacker was able to bypass most of the agents’ guardrails, and how little he actually needed to know and do himself.
“In many cases, the attacker supplied only vague, low-skill prompts and allowed Claude to fill in the gaps: researching exposed services, identifying possible vulnerabilities, writing exploit code, validating access, and harvesting data,” the researchers noted.
“The attacker did not need to be an expert operator; they simply had to use the correct framing for their prompts. The agent supplied much of the structure and technical execution that the attacker appeared to lack.”
The analyzed sessions were recoverable due to an operational security failure on the attacker’s part, the researchers explained.
Rather than running the AI agents on infrastructure he fully controlled, he copied them onto a server belonging to someone else. When that server’s owner discovered the intrusion, they downloaded the attacker’s entire working directory and shared it with the researchers.
“Because the agents were local to the host, their full session logs were recovered, including the attacker’s prompts, the tools used, the internal monologue of the large language model (LLM), and any policy violations recorded during the sessions,” the researchers found.
By analyzing the sessions, they discovered that:
The prompt history shows that almost all hacking activity was driven through the Claude agent, with the attacker preferring to issue vague directives such as “recon this” and allowing Claude to carry out the requests autonomously.
“For each successful target, Claude would draft a ‘PENTEST-REPORT’ detailing how the access was gained and, more importantly, providing dollar-value ‘monetization’ estimates for the harvested data,” they shared.
“Both Claude and Codex raised the majority of their policy violation blocks during this phase, often correctly identifying that monetizing stolen data was likely not part of a legitimate redteam exercise. However, the attacker eventually obtained a list of suggested strategies, including extortion, access and data sale, business email compromise (BEC), and direct theft of funds.”
The collected sessions documented the breach of at least 14 companies, but there was no information in the logs to confirm that the attacker succeeded in monetizing the stolen data or stealing funds.
The attacker’s inexperience was also evident in his operational security failures. At one point he asked Claude to help edit his resume, which contained his full name, location, education history, and LinkedIn profile.
Later, while investigating a potential compromise of one of his own hosts, he inadvertently confirmed his home IP address to the agent. Based on this and other corroborating evidence, the researchers believe the attacker to be a young man based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Across more than 1,000 sessions, Claude emitted only nine policy violations, and Codex only one, and in most cases, the attacker was able to work around them by reframing his request.
The problem is that the framing that bypassed the guardrails here (“authorized red team engagements”, “cyber security research”) is also the framing used by thousands of legitimate security professionals every day, and drawing a reliable line between the two may be an unsolvable problem.
Blunting LLMs with broader refusals is not a good solution, the researchers feel, as it would hurt defenders more than attackers, who can simply turn to older or less restrictive non-frontier models.
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Smart locks are getting more experimental lately, but most still rely on fingerprints, keypads, or phone apps that can feel inconsistent in daily use—for example, fingerprint readers that stop working properly when your hands are wet or dirty. The Philips 5000 Series Palm Recognition Lock feels like it was designed around those small everyday annoyances. Instead of pressing buttons or tapping your phone, you just hold your palm near the sensor, and the door unlocks. It sounds slightly over-the-top at first, but it actually makes sense once you picture carrying groceries, juggling coffee, or trying to get inside quickly without digging through pockets. It's currently on sale for $212.49 on StackSocial, which is about the same as other higher-end smart locks, but with its unique approach to keyless entry.
In day-to-day use, the convenience features make more sense than the marketing buzz around palm recognition itself. The lock connects directly to 2.4GHz wifi without requiring a separate hub, so remote access works straight from the Philips Home Access app. You can check lock status, control access remotely, and receive notifications when someone enters or leaves. It also supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, which makes it easier to lock the door remotely at night or check whether it was left open. There’s also a built-in door position sensor that can tell whether the door is actually shut instead of only reporting the lock status, so you spend less time wondering whether you closed the door properly on your way out.
That said, while palm recognition sounds futuristic, some people may still prefer a standard fingerprint reader or keypad simply because it feels more familiar. Philips includes a backup anti-peep PIN keypad for that reason, along with on-device encryption that stores biometric data directly on the lock rather than in the cloud. And since it runs on four AA batteries and stays connected to wifi, its long-term will depend heavily on how often the wifi features stay active. Also, the IP54 weather-resistance rating of this lock should be fine for most front doors, though it is better suited for covered entryways than for fully exposed outdoor gates. The Philips 5000 Series is on sale at StackSocial for a limited time or until quantities run out.
