Let’s skip to the good bit: Here are some of the best #EarlyBlackFriday deals selected by WIRED's Gear team for all our UK readers. trib.al/jwsKuoy Via @WiredUK 1/8
Apple AirPods (Down £20 to £99): Apple’s standard AirPods still offer supreme convenience. With the second version of these wireless earbuds, you can issue commands to Siri along with a new H1 chip for speedier connectivity.📸: Apple trib.al/jwsKuoy 2/8
WD BLACK M.2 SSD (Down £24 to £165): The PS5 is great and all, with its speedy loading times and luxurious visuals. What isn’t great is the paltry storage. Now we've got support for additional internal storage. 📸: Western Digital trib.al/jwsKuoy 3/8
LG 55in 4K OLED TV (Down £106 to £880): LG is prolific when it comes to making high-end TVs, and this 2021 model is no exception. This OLED panel offers up Dolby Vision IQ, Dolby Atmos and LG’s latest AI processor. 📸: LG trib.al/jwsKuoy 4/8
Apple Watch Series 6 Product Red (Down £70 to £279): Discounts on new Apple products are pretty rare, but if red is your colour, you can save on the Watch Series 6 right now. 📸: Apple trib.al/jwsKuoy 5/8
Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (Down £25 to £25): If you’re not a fan of your TV’s smart interface or are locked into Amazon’s Fire TV offerings, this 4K-ready stick is a solid upgrade. Along with a neat interface, you get an Alexa voice remote. 📸: Amazon trib.al/jwsKuoy 6/8
Subscribe to WIRED for less than $1 per month and get unlimited access to our longform features, buying guides, and tech news wired.trib.al/VvH7v7p 8/8
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SCOOP: Edward Coristine (“Big Balls”), Luke Farritor, and Ethan Shaotran were part of the original DOGE crew. They were brought in under short-term “special government employee” status. Supposed to be temporary. Spoiler: it’s not. wired.com/story/big-ball…
As of May 31 (Coristine & Farritor) and April 10 (Shaotran), the trio officially became full-time federal employees. Their roles at the General Services Administration (GSA) are now permanent.
According to documentation viewed by WIRED, they each maintain their “senior advisor” titles.
Their pay? GS-15 for Coristine & Farritor, one of the highest government salary grades. Shaotran’s at GS-14—just one step below. wired.com/story/big-ball…
In fact, federal workers from at least six agencies tell WIRED that DOGE-style work is escalating in their departments, and Trump himself said in a press conference today that “Elon's really not leaving.” wired.com/story/doge-elo…
Members of Musk’s early DOGE team, including Luke Farritor and Gavin Kliger, have met with a number of departments and agencies in recent days, seemingly continuing business as usual, WIRED has learned.
Over the last week, federal workers have been asked to urgently review contracts across the government, and sources say the pressure to slash contracts has drastically increased in recent weeks. wired.com/story/doge-elo…
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…