Anker is the go-to brand for consumers worldwide if you’re looking for a charging solution. Whether you’re looking for a compact charger for your phone, a robust power bank for your tablet or a portable power station with solar capabilities (Solix), Anker has built a reputation. Their products are designed to be compatible with a wide range of devices, from the latest iPhones and MacBooks to Android phones and Windows laptops, which makes them very popular all across the world.
If you’re searching for a single device that can keep your phone, tablet, and laptop charged, the Anker 737 power bank is the clear choice. And this Monday morning, Amazon has a phenomenal deal: this tiny 140W 24,000mAh charging device which is normally sold for $149 is now available for just $87, which is a savings of over 41 percent. This price feels almost too low to be true, considering the quality and utility that Anker is famous for.
The Anker 737 Power Bank is a powerhouse in a travel-friendly design. The massive 24,000mAh capacity can charge an iPhone 16 Pro over four times or a 2024 13-inch iPad Pro up to 1.3 times for instance. You can obviously also charge your MacBook or any other Windows laptop super fast. The digital display is a cool feature as it provides real-time insights into output and input power as well as the estimated time remaining until the power bank itself is fully recharged.
Thanks to Power Delivery 3.1 technology and bi-directional charging, it can output a whopping 140W of power which is way enough to charge even performance laptops in no time. Featuring two USB-C ports and a single USB-A port, you can charge up to three devices simultaneously, which is this perfect for families or if you need with multiple devices. The USB-A port delivers up to 18W, and the USB-C ports do all the heavy lifting and provide compatibility with pretty much any device you’ve got.
The small, soda-can-sized body will not take up much space but contains enough juice to get you through an entire day (or more) of heavy use. Through this Amazon promotion, the Anker 737 power bank is now more affordable than ever. Amazon is clearing stock to start the week right, and this is one deal you’ll want to grab before it’s gone.
Samsung is closing in on an investment in AI search startup Perplexity that would also see the Korean tech giant incorporating the AI company’s tech into its devices, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources.
As one of the biggest investors in the AI company’s new fundraising round, Samsung is discussing having Perplexity’s app and assistant pre-installed on its phones and integrating its search features within the default browser, the report said.
The companies are also discussing having Perplexity’s AI tech power some of Samsung’s own assistant Bixby’s features, Bloomberg reported, adding that the partnership could be unveiled this year.
Samsung and Perplexity did not immediately return requests for comment.
Perplexity is in the process of raising a $500 million round at a $14 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported in May.
Samsung is not alone in looking to integrate Perplexity features. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple has thought about adding Perplexity as a search engine option to Safari, and in April, Motorola announced a partnership with Perplexity to power AI features.
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Data-labeling startup Scale AI has hired the team behind Pesto AI, which helps companies recruit developers remotely, according to a blog post by one of Pesto’s founders.
Founded in 2017 by Ayush Jaiswal and Indian food delivery platform Swiggy’s co-founder Rahul Jaimini, Pesto AI is backed by the likes of Product Hunt’s Ryan Hoover and Gumroad’s Sahil Lavingia. According to Crunchbase, it has raised more than $8 million in funding.
Pesto will be shutting down its operations. According to its LinkedIn page, Pesto had 71 employees, but it’s not clear how many of those are joining Scale AI.
“Earlier this year, I made the exciting decision to join Scale. This move marks the next chapter in a journey I’ve been deeply passionate about for years—exploring how we can harness the power of AI to create meaningful opportunities for people around the world,” Jaiswal, whose LinkedIn profile says he now is the head of growth at Scale, wrote in the blog post.
Previous reporting about Pesto suggests the startup was also involved in educating developers during its early years.
Scale AI did not immediately return requests for comment.
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Apple’s reputation for making the best-of-the-best devices is well deserved. iPhones, iPads, Watches and MacBooks set the benchmark by which everything else is measured within their particular markets. The iPad offers the convenience of a tablet with the functionality to get work, creativity and entertainment tasks done.
That convenience just became even greater with the new 11-inch iPad that was released in March 2025. Already, Amazon is selling this latest model for a record-low price: the 128GB Wi-Fi model is selling for only $299 which is a 14 percent discount from its $349 list price.
This makes the iPad 2025 an even better option if you want to enjoy Apple’s best-of-the-best experience without the best-of-the-best price that normally comes with it. The new iPad is powered by the super-fast A16 chip which provides a definite boost of performance to duties, way better than the previous processor.
The 11-inch Liquid Retina display is stunning and it provides vibrant colors and it boasts True Tone technology that balances the screen to the light around you in the room. Not only a nicer thing to look at but also less harsh on eyes during prolonged use.
iPadOS is the ideal complement to the hardware and it helps the iPad to be more productive. You can have several apps open at once, type in any text field with Apple Pencil via Scribble Technology and access a massive catalog of apps crafted specifically for the iPad. The Magic Keyboard Folio and Apple Pencil transform this tablet into a powerful tool for note-taking, sketching and typing, with a wonderful keyboard and responsive trackpad for precision control.
Connectivity is also a strong area of this 2025 tablet as it comes with fast Wi-Fi 6 for quick file transfers, seamless streaming and live video chats. The USB-C charging point ensures easy charging and porting of peripherals and all-day battery life allows you to use your iPad for work or play without searching for a plug.
The camera and video capabilities are quite robust for a tablet (you just can’t compare it to an iPhone, but it’s definitely among the best tablets in 2025) such as a 12MP Wide rear camera that is 4K video-enabled and a 12MP Center Stage front camera that is well-suited for video calls. Scanning receipts, capturing moments, or participating in a video call, the iPad cameras deliver high-quality shots even if you’re a beginner.
This is one the best deals on a premium device you’ll find this year, make sure you grab yours asap.
Generative AI comes in many forms. Increasingly, though, it’s marketed the same way: with human names and personas that make it feel less like code and more like a co-worker. A growing number of startups are anthropomorphizing AI to build trust fast — and soften its threat to human jobs. It’s dehumanizing, and it’s accelerating.
I get why this framing took off. In today’s upside-down economy, where every hire feels like a risk, enterprise startups — many emerging from the famed accelerator Y Combinator — are pitching AI not as software but as staff. They’re selling replacements. AI assistants. AI coders. AI employees. The language is deliberately designed to appeal to overwhelmed hiring managers.
Some don’t even bother with subtlety. Atlog, for instance, recently introduced an “AI employee for furniture stores” that handles everything from payments to marketing. One good manager, it gloats, can now run 20 stores at once. The implication: you don’t need to hire more people — just let the system scale for you. (What happens to the 19 managers it replaces is left unsaid.)
Consumer-facing startups are leaning into similar tactics. Anthropic named its platform “Claude” because it’s a warm, trustworthy-sounding companion for a faceless, disembodied neural net. It’s a tactic straight out of the fintech playbook where apps like Dave, Albert, and Charlie masked their transactional motives with approachable names. When handling money, it feels better to trust a “friend.”
The same logic has crept into AI. Would you rather share sensitive data with a machine learning model or your bestie Claude, who remembers you, greets you warmly, and almost never threatens you? (To OpenAI’s credit, it still tells you you’re chatting with a “generative pre-trained transformer.”)
But we’re reaching a tipping point. I’m genuinely excited about generative AI. Still, every new “AI employee” has begun to feel more dehumanizing. Every new “Devin” makes me wonder when the actual Devins of the world will push back on being abstracted into job-displacing bots.
Generative AI is no longer just a curiosity. Its reach is expanding, even if the impacts remain unclear. In mid-May, 1.9 million unemployed Americans were receiving continued jobless benefits — the highest since 2021. Many of those were laid-off tech workers. The signals are piling up.
Some of us still remember 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL, the onboard computer, begins as a calm, helpful assistant before turning completely homicidal and cutting off the crew’s life support. It’s science fiction, but it hit a nerve for a reason.
Last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs in the next one to five years, pushing unemployment as high as 20%. “Most [of these workers are] unaware that this is about to happen,” he told Axios. “It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it.”
You could argue that’s not comparable to cutting off someone’s oxygen, but the metaphor isn’t that far off. Automating more people out of paychecks will have consequences, and when the layoffs increase, the branding of AI as a “colleague” is going to look less clever and more callous.
The shift toward generative AI is happening regardless of how it’s packaged. But companies have a choice in how they describe these tools. IBM never called its mainframes “digital co-workers.” PCs weren’t “software assistants”; they were workstations and productivity tools.
Language still matters. Tools should empower. But more and more companies are marketing something else entirely, and that feels like a mistake.
We don’t need more AI “employees.” We need software that extends the potential of actual humans, making them more productive, creative, and competitive. So please stop talking about fake workers. Just show us the tools that help great managers run complex businesses. That’s all anyone is really asking for.
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Elon Musk’s interview with CBS Sunday Morning seemed to get off to an awkward start, as reporter David Pogue asked the SpaceX CEO about his thoughts on his ally Donald Trump’s policies, including growing restrictions on international students.
“I think we want to stick to the subject of the day, which is, like, spaceships, as opposed to, you know, presidential policy,” Musk said.
Pogue looked surprised, replying, “Oh, okay, I was told, ‘Anything’s good.’”
“No,” Musk said, while looking into the distance. “Well … no.”
He did, however, comment on the controversy around his Department of Government Efficiency, which has been making aggressive cuts across federal agencies, and which Musk complained had become “the whipping boy for everything.”
“If there was some cut, real or imagined, everyone would blame DOGE,” he said.
Musk also suggested that he’s “a little stuck in a bind” when it comes to the Trump administration, where “I don’t want to speak out against the administration, but I also don’t want to take responsibility for everything the administration’s doing.”
Pogue’s interview was conducted before SpaceX’s Starship test flight on Tuesday, which saw the ship successfully launch but lose control on reentry. Asked whether there’s anything linking his various companies — in addition to SpaceX, there’s Tesla (which faces ongoing anti-Musk protests), xAI and X (formerly Twitter), Neuralink, and The Boring Company — Musk replied, “I guess you could think of the businesses as things that improve the probable trajectory of civilization.”
At the time, Musk was supposedly pulling back from his government work but said he would remain involved for a “day or two” per week. He told Pogue, “DOGE is going to continue, just as a way of life. And I will have some participation in that, but as I’ve said publicly, my focus has to be on the companies at this point.”
Pogue noted that after their conversation, an interview clip of Musk’s comments criticizing the Trump-backed budget bill drove a news cycle of their own — and soon after, Musk said he was ending his time as a special government employee. Trump, however, subsequently said Musk is “not really leaving.”
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