We sifted through hundreds of price drops and compared them against our expert product reviews & recommendations. We've highlighted the best #MemorialDay#deals on WIRED-approved gear.
If you buy something using our links, WIRED may earn a commission. wired.trib.al/oRgsKYx 1/
.@Roku Streaming Stick Plus for $40 ($9 off): This is the Best Roku for most people and our favorite streaming stick overall wired.trib.al/HOOYRVU
📷: Roku 2/
.@amazon Fire TV Stick 4K for $40 ($10 off): It's a good option for people who use Amazon-branded gadgets on a regular basis wired.trib.al/Z6owEaw
📷: Amazon 3/
.@lg CX OLED 55-inch TV for $1,400 ($100 off): This is the best TV for gamers. Every size is on sale; none of them are discounted very often wired.trib.al/8y0S2Cp
📷: LG 4/
.@oneplus 8T Android Phone for $569 ($180 off): The screen, battery life, and camera are standout features. It's not a great value at full price, but at nearly $200 less, it's a worthy pick wired.trib.al/EDxdmUm
📷: OnePlus 5/
.@loandsons Hanover 2 Backpack for $143 ($95 off): This is one of the best backpacks around. It's supremely versatile; the detachable insert makes it great for juggling baby gear, an excess of dongles, or one too many camera lenses wired.trib.al/2pK3uHX
📷: Lo & Sons 6/
.@Logitech G Pro Wireless Gaming Mouse for $113 ($17 off): One of our top picks for the best gaming mice, this is super lightweight, comfortable, and fast wired.trib.al/vt0sKJS
📷: Logitech 7/
NEW: Tulsi Gabbard, now the US director of national intelligence, used the same easily cracked password for different online accounts including a personal Gmail account and Dropbox over a period of years, leaked records reviewed by WIRED reveal. wired.com/story/tulsi-ga…
The password associated includes the word “shraddha,” which appears to have personal significance to Gabbard: This year, WSJ reported that she had been initiated into the Science of Identity Foundation, which ex-members have accused of being a cult. wired.com/story/tulsi-ga…
Security experts advise people to never use the same password on different accounts precisely because people often do so. As director of national intelligence, Gabbard oversees the 18 organizations comprising the US intelligence community.
DOGE is knitting together data from the Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, and IRS that could create a surveillance tool of unprecedented scope. wired.com/story/doge-col…
The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations. wired.com/story/doge-col…
“They are trying to amass a huge amount of data,” a senior DHS official tells WIRED. “It has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending … They are already cross-referencing immigration with SSA and IRS as well as voter data.” wired.com/story/doge-col…
American police are spending hundreds of thousands on Massive Blue’s unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected traffickers.
Massive Blue calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.”
404 Media obtained a presentation showing some of these AI characters. These include a “radicalized AI” “protest persona,” which poses as a 36-year-old divorced woman who is lonely, has no children, is interested in baking, activism, and “body positivity.”
The audit covers DOGE’s handling of data at several Cabinet-level agencies, including:
–the Departments of Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services
–the Treasury
–the Social Security Administration
–the US DOGE Service (USDS) itself wired.com/story/gao-audi…
It's being carried out after congressional leaders’ requests and is centered on DOGE’s adherence to privacy and data protection laws and regulations.
A Congressional aide said the requests followed media reports on DOGE’s incursions into federal systems. wired.com/story/gao-audi…
Dozens of federal employees tell WIRED that Trump's federal return to office order has resulted in chaos (including bad Wi-Fi and no toilet paper), with productivity plummeting and public services suffering. wired.com/story/federal-…
One effect of all this, many federal employees tell WIRED, is that they are travelling long distances in order to spend all of their time in virtual meetings.
A Treasury employee says they spend most of their time at the office on video calls as well. wired.com/story/federal-…
It isn’t just traveling to work to sit on Zoom calls—it’s that there may be no place to take the call, or no working internet to connect to it.
WIRED granted employees anonymity to speak freely about their experiences. wired.com/story/federal-…
SCOOP: Elon Musk’s DOGE has plans to stage a “hackathon” next week in Washington, DC. The goal is to create a single “mega API”—a bridge that lets software systems talk to one another—for accessing IRS data, sources tell WIRED. wired.com/story/doge-hac…
DOGE ops have repeatedly referred to the company Palantir as a possible partner in the project, sources tell WIRED.