It’s almost Mother’s Day and you’re almost out of time to buy a gift. Luckily, Amazon has deals on Apple AirPods. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can get Apple AirPods with free two-day shipping, and in some locations, free one-day shipping. We found the best Apple Airpods deals on Amazon right now.
Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 8. Do you have your Mother’s Day gift for Mom yet? Whether you’re buying for your mother, grandmother, aunt, sister or a maternal figure in your life, Apple AirPods make a great tech gift.
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can ship your gift for free to any address you like.
Keep reading to shop the best Apple AirPods deals on Amazon ahead of Mother’s Day.
Apple AirPods (2nd Generation): $100
Apple
Mom will love these Apple AirPods. They’re not the latest model, but they’re still one of the most sought-after earbud models on the market.
Retailing for $159 at Apple, they’re on sale at Amazon right now for $100. These AirPods boast more than 24 hours total listening time with the wireless charging case, a fool-proof one-tap setup for Apple device owners and a low-latency wireless connection so full immersion when consuming movies and music.
Upgrade Mom’s old AirPods to the Apple AirPods Pro. These AirPods have made headlines by fitting in active noise cancelation technology, water resistance and hearing health tracking in a more compact, better fitting design. It’s also lauded for its great sound quality. But all that comes at a steep price — specifically $250, which is why this deal on Amazon is a big one.
Now at $175, the Apple AirPods Pro are at a major discount on Amazon, making them an even better deal than that of the Apple AirPods (3rd Generation) for those with some flexibility in their budget.
More earbud and headphone deals ahead of Mother’s Day
We found even more earbud and headphone deals ahead of Mother’s Day. Shop these deals from Samsung, Beats by Dre, Bose and more right now.
Samsung Galaxy Buds2: $110
Samsung
Samsung’s highly-coveted earbuds, the Galaxy Buds2 are having a sale moment as well, just in time for Mother’s Day. Featuring active noise cancelation and ambient sound passthrough, the lightweight Galaxy Buds2 are built for moms with an active lifestyle.
Not to be beaten by the Samsung Galaxy Buds, the Samsung Galaxy Live are available at an even deeper discount. Samsung designed these earbuds with 12mm speakers and a form factor that allows them to deliver spacious sound quality, resulting in an immersive concert-like experience. If you mom loves live shows, she may want a pair.
If mom is partial to rock, folk or country, the bright-sounding, on-ear Beats Solo3 may be a good fit. These headphones support spatial audio for a more immersive listening experience, soft ear foams for comfort, and up to 40 hours of battery life on a single charge.
Beats Studio3 headphones are currently $150 off, making them one of the best headphone deals if you’re looking for a high quality option for mom this Mother’s Day. On top of its adaptive noise cancelation, it also features real-time audio calibration, fast charging and easy iOS and Android connectivity. This pair of headphones also support spatial audio and offer great comfort, with many reviewers saying they stay comfortable even when they’ve been worn for hours.
While its original price puts it out of many people’s reach, it’s now deeply discounted at Amazon.
If mom likes to stay active, the Powerbeats Pro may be a better fit — quite literally. These wireless earbuds are designed with comfortable ear hooks for a secure fit, making them ideal for more rigorous activities such as running. Meanwhile, the IPX4 water resistance ensures they’re protected even if mom sweats on them. Plus, they come in several different colors including Cloud Pink and Glacier Blue.
Bose QuietComfort 35 Series 2 gaming headset: $268
Bose via Amazon
This Bose headset is a great choice for moms who love to gamer. The headset includes a removable gaming module with a noise-rejecting boom mic so other players will be able to hear you loud and clear. This headset can also be worn wirelessly and features a built-in mic system that can make clear phone calls, even in noisy environments.
Sony WF-1000XM3 noise-canceling truly wireless earbuds
Sony Store via Amazon
These Sony earbuds feature and HD noise canceling processor and 24bit audio signal processing for the best sound quality whether mom is listening to music, streaming a show or talking on the phone. The earbuds offer a 24 hour battery life but if mom missed a full charge and she’s on the go, these Sony buds only take 10 minutes to charge for up to 90 minutes of play time.
These headphones use Sony’s dual noise sensor technology to detect what kind of noise environment mom is in to provide the best noise cancelation. They have a 35-hour battery life and are smartphone compatible for hands-free calls and voice assistant commands.
The new Bose QuietComfort 45 come with a nice feature set. That includes a 24-hour battery life, fast charging, two different noise-canceling modes and a USB-C port for charging. Mom can personalize her listening experience with the Bose app.
If you’re looking for a pair of weather and sweat resistant earbuds for mom, the Bose Sport Earbuds boast an IPX4 rating, which means it has protection from water splashes. To make them easier to control during workouts, they also feature a capacitive touch interface. Finally, these earbuds offer up to 15 hours of battery life with the included charging case.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
