Amazon has set up 14 Amazon Go stores in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. They do not have any cash registers so once customers have scanned a screen from a special app on their phone at the entrance, they just grab their items and walk out the door, while Amazon magically charges their credit card. By all accounts, the company intends to open more of these stores in the months and years ahead. Bloomberg Businessweek reports today the kind of investment Amazon has made into these stores -- it is the ecommerce firm's most ambitious research project to date -- but despite that, how these stores are just like 7-Eleven stores, but with more complexity and cost. From the report: From a technological perspective, the Go stores are a marvel -- a succinct demonstration of Amazon's capacity to devote vast resources toward applying the state of the art in artificial intelligence to an everyday problem. They also illustrate the company's tendency to pursue technology for technology's sake (see: the Fire Phone), resulting in a store that offers all the selection of a 7-Eleven, but with more complexity and cost. Scores of cameras pointed at all angles hang from the ceilings to track shoppers as they wander the aisles, while precise scales embedded in the shelves tabulate products down to the gram to figure out which ones have been picked up. Behind the scenes, sophisticated image recognition algorithms decide who took what -- with Amazon workers in offices available to review footage to ensure shoppers are accurately charged. Each store also has a local staff on hand to help people download the Go app, restock shelves, and, in locations with a liquor section, check IDs. Will all this work be worth it? Some Go stores seem almost deserted except for the lunchtime rush. Employees familiar with Amazon's internal projections say the outlets in Chicago, in particular, are falling short of expectations, and the company has had to resort to raffles and giveaways of tote bags and other branded goodies. Yet, as the turbulent history of the project suggests, the Go store isn't so much the culmination of the company's efforts but something closer to an ongoing experiment. And the potential prize -- a big piece of the $12 trillion grocery industry -- is one that Amazon, with its limitless resources and appetite for risk, may be in the best position to claim.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Several people have been killed after an apparent arson attack gutted a building at Kyoto Animation, one of Japan's most renowned anime studios. NHK reports that 33 people are confirmed dead and many more have been injured. An explosion was heard around the studio at around 10.30AM local time. Police are questioning a man in his 40s who was seen spreading and lighting a gasoline-like liquid in the 1st Studio building, which is said to be where most of Kyoto Animation's mainline production takes place. The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper reports that the man said he started the fire. Kyoto Animation, also known as KyoAni, is best known for series like K-On! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya, and release standalone feature A Silent Voice in 2016. Netflix picked up the streaming rights to KyoAni's Violet Evergarden series and made it available worldwide last year.

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ElevationLab has released a unique solution for families looking to charge multiple iPhones, iPads, and other devices at once. FamilyCharger offers power for Lightning, USB-C, and microUSB devices in one hearty nine-foot cable with 65W of power. Read on for all the details…

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Welcome to our Daily Deals column, where we round up the best tech deals from around the web. Here you'll find discounts on everything from Apple products to accessories, video games and much more. But you better hurry, these prices won't be around forever!

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he's seriously considering looking at a Pentagon contract that's said to be worth up to $10 billion for Microsoft or Amazon. From a report: "I never had something where more people are complaining," Trump said, adding that he's going to take a close look at it. "We're getting tremendous complaints from other companies," Trump said in a press pool at the White House during a meeting with the prime minister of The Netherlands. "Some of the greatest companies in the world are complaining about it." He named Microsoft, Oracle and IBM. Since April, Microsoft and Amazon have been the only remaining competitors for the contract after IBM and Oracle were ruled out by the Defense Department. The contract, known as JEDI, is viewed as a marquee deal for the company that ultimately wins it, particularly as Microsoft and Amazon are aggressively pursuing government work for their expanding cloud units. While Trump didn't cite Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by name on Thursday, the billionaire executive has been a constant source of frustration for the president. Bezos owns the Washington Post, which Trump regularly criticizes for its coverage of his administration. Trump also has gone after Amazon repeatedly for, as he claims, not paying its fair share of taxes and ripping of the U.S. Post Office.

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Zagg is out today with a durable keyboard case for the iPad mini 5. The Rugged Book features four layers of protection including steel and rubber for military-grade rating, a detachable seven-color backlit keyboard, and more.

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Indie developer Jordan Morgan has today released a nifty new app called Spend Stack, which aims to make it easier to track running totals while shopping. The app syncs across devices and makes it easy to share lists and more.

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Joanna Stern, reporting for the Wall Street Journal: One of the biggest findings of my multi-city 5G review tour: The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G isn't reliable in the summer -- unless, well, you summer in Iceland. When I ran tests, the phone's 5G often switched off due to overheating, leaving me with a 4G connection. Cellular carriers demo-ing or testing the phone have taken to cooling the devices with ice packs and air conditioners. The phone does this when the temperature reaches a certain threshold to minimize energy use and optimize battery, a Samsung spokeswoman said. "As 5G technology and the ecosystem evolve, it's only going to get better," she added. But there is good part, too. The report adds: After nearly 120 tests, more than 12 city miles walked and a couple of big blisters, I can report that 5G is fasten-your-seat-belt fast...when you can find it. And you're standing outdoors. And the temperature is just right. As my findings show, 5G is absolutely not ready for you. But like any brand new network technology, it provides a glimpse of the future. "Holy spit!" I said the first time I saw a speed test hit 1,800 megabits per second on Verizon's network in downtown Denver. [...] Don't speak megabits? I downloaded the whole new season of "Stranger Things" from Netflix -- 2.1 gigabytes of video -- in 34 seconds. The same averaged more than an hour on my 4G connections. And I downloaded a huge, 10GB file full of video and images from Google Drive in 2.5 minutes.

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Japan's government is leading a global push to set up an international network for cryptocurrency payments, similar to the SWIFT network used by banks, in an effort to fight money laundering, Reuters reports. From the report: Tokyo aims to have the network in place in the next few years, the person said, declining to be identified because the information has not been made public. A team related to the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will monitor its development and Japan will cooperate with other countries, the source said. It remains unclear how the cryptocurrency network would work. SWIFT is the international payments messaging system used by banks to send money around the world.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: A former Microsoft worker has been arrested and charged with mail fraud, in an alleged scheme to steal $10 million worth of digital currency from his ex-employer and use the funds to finance extravagant purchases, including a Tesla and lakefront home. Volodymyr Kvashuk, a 25-year-old software developer and Ukrainian citizen who worked for Microsoft from 2016 to 2018, allegedly took advantage of a testing program meant to simulate customer purchases. He made test accounts to obtain Microsoft gift cards and then sold some or all of them through online resellers.

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Mophie's external battery supplies up to 18 watts of power and features Power Delivery support that can give your iPhone X or later up to a 50 percent charge in under 30 minutes.

The database of Bulgaria's National Revenue Agency (NRA), which was hacked over the weekend and sent to local reporters, is now being shared on hacking forums, ZDNet has learned from sources in the threat intelligence community. From a report: Download links to the hacked database have been shared by a hacked data trader known as Instakilla, believed to be operating out of Bulgaria. ZDNet obtained a copy of the database and verified its authenticity with local sources, and this is a copy of the same database sent to local media over the weekend. The database contains 57 folders, 10.7 GB in size, and holds personal and financial information consistent with what Bulgarian newspapers reported receiving over the weekend. This includes personally identifiable information, tax information, from both the NRA, and from other government agencies who shared their data.

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Apple has seeded the latest public betas of both macOS Catalina and tvOS 13 to public testers.

Apple has seeded the third public betas of iOS 13 and iPadOS.

Instagram has made some changes to how it handles deleting accounts for things like hate speech, bullying, nudity, and other inappropriate content. Along with the policy update, users who are close to having their accounts removed will now get a warning notification.

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Apple today will release the third public beta of iOS 13 to users today. This update comes following the release of the fourth developer beta yesterday.

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Back in 2015, Apple introduced pressure-sensitive iPhone screens alongside 3D Touch as a potentially major hardware-software innovation, but barely supported the feature, leading to informed speculation that all of 2019's iPhones would lose their pressure-sensing hardware. This week's release of the fourth iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 developer betas appears to put the final nail in 3D Touch's coffin, tightening up the responsiveness of its replacement: Context Menus. From a report: If you aren't already familiar with 3D Touch, the concept was simple: slight, medium, and heavy pressure on an iPhone's screen could be recognized differently, such that a light press would open an app while a firm press in the same spot would instead conjure up a contextual menu. Apple sometimes nested additional "peek and pop" features within iPhone apps using the same pressure sensitivity, giving users extra options if they pressed down more on the screen. Over the last few beta releases of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, Apple has been rolling out a replacement called Context Menus -- a change it set the stage for last year by releasing the iPhone XR without 3D Touch hardware. Back then, Apple said it was giving the XR an alternative called "Haptic Touch" that pulled up the same sort of contextual menus as earlier iPhones, but did so using two tricks: Instead of pressure, it sensed button press time, counting an extra split-second as a stronger button press, confirming the different intent with a "thump" from the phone's vibration feature. Now iPad users will get a version of Haptic Touch minus the haptics.

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Apple is now selling an exclusive USB-C hub from Satechi, the Multiport Pro Adapter. The new device features a USB-C port for power, USB-A, SD and microSD card readers, and an HDMI port in a slim package. Native Union also has a range of new Apple accessories now available at Apple Stores and Apple.com.

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Discounted iTunes gift cards highlight today’s best deals along with up to $700 off MacBooks and RAVPower’s latest wall charger. Hit the jump for more in this round of the 9to5Toys Lunch Break.

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