Amazon runs a second-price auction for its search ads, a system in which the winning advertiser is supposed to pay one cent more than the next-highest bid.

The Federal Trade Commission now alleges that Amazon charged advertisers their full winning bid roughly 80% of the time instead.

The agency and 22 states sued Amazon on Monday, in a case first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The complaint covers seven years of advertising activity involving more than one million brands and sellers.

The reason second-price auctions became common in digital advertising is that they are supposed to make honest bidding the rational choice.

If an advertiser knows it will pay only slightly more than the next-highest bidder, there is little reason to deliberately bid below what the ad is worth to the business.

That makes the difference between the auction Amazon describes and the one the FTC says it actually ran particularly important. A second-price auction is not just a label for a particular type of bidding system.

It tells advertisers how their bids will translate into the prices they ultimately pay, and the FTC’s argument is that Amazon advertised one set of rules while applying another.

The agency says Amazon “covertly and substantially increased the prices that more than one million brands and sellers were required to pay” and estimates that the practice generated tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue.

Amazon is disputing that interpretation rather than accepting the FTC’s description of how advertisers behaved. The company says advertisers set and adjust their bids based on the results they get from advertising, rather than relying on descriptions of the underlying auction mechanics.

In Amazon’s view, that means sophisticated advertisers were making decisions based on performance rather than on the precise way the auction was supposed to work.

There is a problem with that defence, because advertisers can optimise around performance only if the system translating their bids into prices behaves consistently.

If the auction rules differ from what advertisers are told, the fact that they measure outcomes does not make those rules irrelevant; it can make their optimisation less predictable.

Amazon is also pointing to the savings its auction system has generated for advertisers. The company says that taking ad relevance into account saved advertisers more than $8 billion between 2021 and 2025, suggesting that the system should be judged on the prices and results advertisers actually receive rather than on the FTC’s description of a particular bidding mechanism.

The scale of Amazon’s advertising business helps explain why the allegations are potentially so expensive. Its advertising operation generated $68.6 billion in 2025, making Amazon the world’s third-largest digital advertising platform behind Google and Meta.

A large share of that business comes from sellers that have relatively few alternatives. For a merchant that depends on Amazon for distribution and customer access, refusing to buy sponsored listings can be a difficult choice, which is what turns an argument about auction mechanics into a broader question about market power.

Advertising has also become one of the most important sources of profit supporting Amazon’s wider retail operation. Retail margins are relatively thin, while AWS operates as a separate business, leaving advertising as a significant contributor to the company’s overall profitability.

The involvement of 22 state attorneys general could make the financial consequences much larger.

State consumer-protection laws can allow penalties to be calculated on a per-violation or per-day basis, and the complaint covers seven years of conduct involving more than a million advertisers.

TNW reported in June, citing Bloomberg, that a complaint had already been drafted and that the involvement of the states was the element that could push potential penalties into the billions. That complaint has now been filed.

Amazon is already dealing with other major regulatory cases. The company agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle deceptive-practices claims over Prime enrolment in autumn 2025, while a separate antitrust case filed in 2023 is scheduled to go to trial in early 2027.

The advertising case is narrower than that antitrust proceeding, but it could present a different kind of problem for Amazon. The central question is relatively concrete: whether the auction operated in the way the company told advertisers it did.

That is less dependent on competing economic theories than a broader argument about market power, and the FTC says it has evidence covering seven years.

European advertisers will also have a reason to follow the case even though it was filed in the US. The evidence produced during discovery could reveal more about how Amazon’s advertising auctions actually work, and the underlying system is not confined to the American market.

The timing is particularly awkward for Amazon because the company is now defending the auction case while preparing for a broader antitrust trial.

Both proceedings touch on the same underlying question about the company’s relationship with sellers: how much freedom do businesses that depend on Amazon really have to walk away from its ecosystem?

Nothing has been established in court yet. For now, there is a complaint, a set of allegations and figures that Amazon disputes, and a $68.6 billion advertising business whose auction system is suddenly under scrutiny because the rules advertisers were told to trust may not have been the rules being applied.

On his last day as CEO of Apple, Tim Cook has sent a memo to every employee thanking them for what the company has achieved. Here’s what he said.

Tim Cook had his going away party back on August 24, 2026, and in truth he’s been steadily stepping back from his CEO role since at least April when his successor was announced. But now in his last hours leading the company, Cook has sent a heartfelt and optimistic memo to all staff.

Team,

Today is my last day as CEO of Apple. This is a moment I always knew would come one day, and yet it is still hard to believe it has arrived and I am writing these words. I love this company and the team behind it, and I couldn’t let this day pass without sending a note to you, to tell you how grateful I am for the outpouring of affection you’ve sent my way, for the way you’ve shown up each and every day, and most of all, for the privilege of a lifetime serving as your leader.

The truth is, whatever there is to say about my success, I know it is all because of you. You have brought out the best in me. In all my life, I have never seen or been with such an extraordinary team of people before, and every day I get to see more examples of that.

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There is something truly special about Apple. I am most proud of what an annual report could never capture. This place is proof that culture triumphs over everything. We share a belief that what we build matters, and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. That purpose is part of what makes this place extraordinary. Apple helps nurture it, but I believe it lived within each of you long before you arrived here.

It is what brought you to this company and what continues to drive the work you do every day. Together, we have created something far greater than any one of us could have imagined or accomplished alone. And that’s the secret to our success. We bring out the best in each other. We lift each other up. We have made it possible to leave our “dent in the universe,” as Steve once described it, because of who we are and what we believe, because of what we value and how we see the world. How fortunate we are. How fortunate I am.

As you know, I am not leaving Apple. But I am stepping away from a role that I have loved deeply. I will miss this work in ways I can only begin to imagine, even as I remain completely at peace with my decision. I will miss leading you and being with you for every step, even as I take enormous comfort in handing the helm to someone as brilliant and wonderful and capable as John. Few people understand what it takes to build products that change the world the way John does and I could not be more excited for his leadership.

I hope you know how much I appreciate you and what an honor it has been to be your CEO. Most of all, I hope you will continue to be proud to be part of this remarkable place we call Apple and always give it your very best. When we bring our whole selves to this work, with care for one another and for the people we serve, there is no limit to the profound difference we can make.

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I look forward to seeing you in my new role at Apple Park and around the world.

With all I have and all I am, I am always

Yours,

Tim

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The email was first reported by 9to5mac.

Cook is right, of course, that he isn’t leaving Apple. He is instead becoming a Chief Executive of the company, which is a role that might be defined as being whatever John Ternus needs it to be.

Certainly we can expect that it will continue to be Tim Cook who deals with Trump, for instance. It may also continue to be him who announces when Apple is donating to disaster relief.

Nonetheless, Cook’s era is now over and Ternus’s has begun. They were both the right people at the right time.

JBL is taking a shot at the whole-home wireless audio market with the introduction of its new JBL Cove speaker lineup. Known largely for its portable Bluetooth speakers and massive PartyBox models, the audio giant is now branching out with a modular, Wi-Fi-connected system designed to bring high-quality audio to every corner of the house.

A trio of Wi-Fi speakers built for every room

The JBL Cove lineup debuts with three models designed to scale based on room size and portability needs. Every speaker in the series operates over Wi-Fi, supports high-resolution streaming, and works with the unified JBL One app for seamless grouping and room management.

The JBL Cove M1 serves as the entry point for the system. It’s a compact speaker that packs three tweeters, one woofer, and JBL’s AI Sound Boost technology to keep distortion to a minimum even at higher volumes. The Cove P1 is a more versatile pick that brings portability with a battery-powered design. It offers up to 14 hours of playback on a single charge and adds native support for Dolby Atmos playback, making it ideal for moving room-to-room or taking to the patio.

The JBL Cove X1 sits at the top of the range and is engineered to fill larger open spaces. It packs four tweeters, dual woofers, and Dolby Atmos support, and delivers the biggest acoustic footprint in the new lineup. All three models work standalone and can be grouped for a multi-room setup. The Cove lineup also features self-tuning to optimize acoustics based on room placement, and they can double as wireless rear surround speakers when paired with JBL MK2 series soundbars.

On the smart home front, JBL has confirmed that the Cove lineup will receive support for built-in voice controls powered by Amazon’s Alexa+ assistant via an over-the-air update in the US later this year.

Pricing and availability

JBL has positioned the Cove system aggressively against established market players, offering all three models at competitive prices. The Cove M1 comes at $230, the Cove P1 jumps to $400, and the top-of-the-line Cove X1 is priced at $450. All models will be available in black and white color options starting September 13 in the US.

If you are currently mapping out a multi-room audio setup or deciding which brand fits your living space, take a look at our breakdown of the best wireless speakers to see how JBL’s Cove lineup stacks up against the competition.

If you were planning to get the streaming device, you may want to head to Amazon right now.

Proposed redundancies are expected to take place between 7 and 21 October.

PayPal is laying off 164 of its Ireland-based workers in a now familiar Big Tech move to “simplify” company operations for long-term growth.

The layoffs represent 11.9pc of PayPal’s total full-time Irish workforce of 1,380 and includes both remote workers and on-site employees.

PayPal told Sinn Féin TD Ruairí Ó Murchú that the job cuts are part of a strategy announced earlier this year that aims to improve company operations by removing duplication and putting in place clearer reporting lines.

News of the redundancies was revealed yesterday (31 August) after 29 senior members of the staff, three team leaders and one manager were told they were being made redundant. The company later said that a further 131 employees, across a range of departments, would be laid off as well.

The Department of Enterprise said it received a collective redundancy notification from PayPal on 28 August, a legal requirement if a big business is considering laying off 30 or more employees. The proposed redundancies are expected to take place between 7 and 21 October, the fintech told Ó Murchú.

The layoffs come just after talks of Stripe jointly acquiring the once fintech giant for $53bn reportedly fell through. According to the tech job cuts tracker Layoffs.fyi, the latest redundancies take PayPal’s total layoffs since 2022 to more than 4,800.

PayPal has struggled in recent years to modernise against emerging rivals in the payments space, including Apple, Google and Stripe.

The fintech brought in HP’s Enrique Lores as its new CEO earlier this year, replacing Alex Chriss, whose work was apparently “not in line” with board expectations. But by June, PayPal had reportedly planned to shut down its venture capital arm.

PayPal’s shares have dropped dramatically over recent years as a result of the turbulent times at the company, but picked up after promising reports of a takeover by Stripe, which took its market capitalisation to $52.5bn just days ago, up from roughly $43bn in February, before dropping down to around $45bn today (1 September).

Last month, payments giant Visa cut roughly 2,600 employees, or about 7pc of its workforce in a pivot towards AI, and Etsy cut 12pc of its workforce for “flatter, faster teams”.

Medtech giant Boston Scientific said it is planning layoffs in Ireland, while 52 Ireland-based positions are expected to be cut at the Dublin-based automotive software provider Cubic3.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Small loudspeakers have become considerably better at delivering convincing bass, but physics remains undefeated. DALI thinks the answer does not have to involve adding a large black box to the corner of the room.

The Danish loudspeaker manufacturer has introduced the DALI BASIK SUB, a compact active subwoofer designed to add greater low-frequency extension, scale, and impact to smaller music and home theater systems. Developed as a natural partner for compact bookshelf loudspeakers including the DALI KUPID and SONIK 1, the BASIK SUB combines an in-house designed 8-inch down-firing long-stroke woofer with Class D amplification, flexible system integration, and five finish options.

DALI is also entering an increasingly competitive part of the subwoofer market. SVS, KEF, Bluesound, REL, and others have been putting considerable engineering effort into extracting deeper and cleaner bass from smaller enclosures, giving apartment dwellers, desktop listeners, and owners of compact two-channel systems far more options than they had even a few years ago.

The BASIK SUB therefore has to do more than simply make a pair of small DALI loudspeakers sound larger. Its compact dimensions, down-firing driver, and unusually broad choice of colors suggest DALI is also targeting listeners who want meaningful bass extension without allowing the subwoofer to become the largest and least attractive piece of furniture in the room.

“We’ve seen a rise in popularity of bookshelf speakers with our own award-winning KUPID and SONIK 1 speakers over the last year. This has been fueled by small, affordable streaming amplifiers and turntables which allow consumers to create a custom hi-fi system for the price of a smartphone. BASIK SUB is designed as a natural enhancement for these systems as almost all affordable streaming amplifiers and speakers feature dedicated subwoofer output and bass management features, making it possible to get the full scale and bandwidth from a compact and interior-friendly package,” says Krestian Pedersen, Head of Product Management at DALI.

8-Inch Woofer and 220 Watts of Class D Power

The BASIK SUB was developed in-house around an 8-inch down-firing, long-stroke woofer with a paper-pulp cone designed to combine low mass with rigidity for detailed low-frequency reproduction. An oversized ferrite magnet and high-flux motor system provide greater driver control, while a long, vented voice coil helps dissipate heat and reduce compression at higher listening levels. The down-firing configuration is also designed to promote more even bass distribution while providing greater flexibility with room placement.

The woofer is powered by an efficient Class D amplifier rated at 170 watts RMS and up to 220 watts peak. A switch-mode power supply helps reduce power consumption and heat generation, while a built-in dual-stage limiter is designed to protect against overload without unnecessarily compromising the signal. Gain, crossover, and phase controls provide the necessary adjustment for integrating the BASIK SUB with a wide range of stereo and home theater systems.

Compact Cabinet With Five Finish Options

The BASIK SUB uses a compact MDF enclosure available in Solid Black, Solid White, Caramel White, Golden Yellow, and Chilly Blue, allowing it to coordinate visually with DALI’s KUPID and SONIK compact loudspeakers.

The MDF construction provides a rigid, acoustically stable foundation for the driver, while four decoupled feet elevate the cabinet by 25 mm. This helps reduce unwanted vibration and provides the necessary clearance for the down-firing woofer.

Its compact footprint makes the BASIK SUB easier to accommodate in smaller living spaces, with placement options alongside a wall or in a corner. It is designed for both two-channel music systems and more modest multi-channel home theater setups where a larger subwoofer may be impractical.

DALI says the BASIK SUB has been engineered according to the company’s established sound-design principles, with an emphasis on clean, low-distortion bass and accurate timing.

Flexible Bass Management and System Integration

The BASIK SUB provides an adjustable crossover that allows it to be matched to different loudspeaker sizes and room acoustics when the connected amplifier does not provide its own bass management or dedicated subwoofer controls.

A continuously adjustable 0-180° phase control helps align the subwoofer’s low-frequency output with the main loudspeakers, while an independent volume control allows for final level adjustments.

Stereo LINE L/R inputs accommodate conventional two-channel hi-fi systems, while a dedicated mono LFE input provides straightforward connectivity with AV receivers, home theater systems, and streaming amplifiers equipped with a subwoofer output.

DALI BASIK SUB Specifications

The Bottom Line 

The DALI BASIK SUB is not trying to be the subwoofer that rattles the dishes three rooms away. With an 8-inch down-firing woofer, 170 watts of RMS power, and a published low-frequency response down to 40 Hz, its priorities appear to be integration, musical balance, compact dimensions, and ease of placement.

That makes the BASIK SUB best suited to smaller two-channel systems built around bookshelf loudspeakers, particularly DALI’s own KUPID and SONIK 1, as well as compact streaming amplifiers with proper bass management. It should also make sense in apartments, bedrooms, offices, and modest home theater systems where extending the bottom end is more important than reproducing subterranean movie effects.

The competition at $800 is not exactly asleep. The REL T/5x ($799) also uses an 8-inch down-firing driver and is strongly focused on music systems, while the KEF Kube 8 MIE ($699.99) offers an 8-inch driver, 300-watt Class D amplifier, DSP, and deeper published bass extension for less money.

What makes the BASIK SUB different is its emphasis on design as much as performance. Five color options, compact dimensions, and finishes intended to coordinate with DALI’s smaller loudspeakers make it considerably less anonymous than the black and white boxes that dominate the category.

Whether that is enough to justify $800 will depend on how well it performs, especially with competitors offering deeper published extension at the same price or less. But for listeners assembling a compact 2.1-channel system who want better bass without turning the room into a subwoofer showroom, the BASIK SUB has a clear purpose.

And if Chilly Blue or Golden Yellow finally solves the spousal acceptance problem, DALI may have accomplished something decades of subwoofer engineering could not.

Price & Availability

The DALI BASIK is available through Authorized DALI Dealers for $800 in the U.S. and at £429 and €500 across Europe.

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Singapore car-sharing platform GetGo announced today (Sept 1) that it has launched a new feature that lets users rent its vehicles for cross-border trips to Malaysia.

Unlike traditional car rental services, which often require a deposit and vehicle collection and return at designated rental locations, GetGo said users can book a vehicle through its app and pick it up from their nearest carpark.

There are also no mileage charges for driving in Peninsular Malaysia, regardless of the distance travelled. Instead, users will pay a cross-border surcharge that is capped based on the vehicle category and travel day.

GetGo said the total surcharge will be shown in the app before users confirm their booking.

“[This gives] users… visibility of what they will pay before confirming their booking in the GetGo app,” GetGo said.

For additional coverage, users can opt for collision damage waiver (CDW) or enhanced CDW plans for their cross-border trips.

They can also add a pre-registered co-driver to the booking, allowing two insured drivers to share the driving under the same insurance coverage.

The launch comes ahead of the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link, which is expected to begin operations in January 2027.

GetGo currently operates more than 3,000 vehicles across over 1,700 locations in Singapore.

• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: GetGo

Roland just unveiled the FP-40 digital piano, which has built-in Wi-Fi. It’s not uncommon to see pianos that connect via Bluetooth, but Wi-Fi is incredibly rare. I’ve seen some instruments that allow for the inclusion of Wi-Fi adapters, but this one goes a step further. It simply connects to a home network, like any other gadget.

The primary use case here is for teaching apps and related software. Pianos with Bluetooth, like the well-regarded Casio PX-S7000, connect to proprietary teaching apps, but Wi-Fi is much faster and should offer a more seamless experience.

To that end, Roland is also releasing a new teaching app called Piano Sphere, which offers “guidance, real-time feedback and a rich library of popular songs and high-quality courses.” Users will need a smartphone or tablet to control many aspects of the app, but the piano will do some stuff all on its own. For instance, it automatically records playing history so users can review what they’ve been practicing. It also notices when a player is struggling and flashes a button to offer assistance.

Once paired with a mobile device, the app offers a nice visual interface in line with Casio’s Music Space. However, using Wi-Fi in place of Bluetooth should reduce lag when practicing.

There’s another benefit to going the Wi-Fi route. Both the app and piano software will update automatically. Roland promises that “new services, feature enhancements and ecosystem integrations that enrich the user’s piano experience over time.”

The piano itself also sounds pretty nifty. It features the company’s proprietary Piano Reality Sound Engine, which “captures the depth, detail and tonal character of an acoustic piano.” It includes fully weighted hammer action keys with a triple-sensor system that provides “exceptional responsiveness and natural expression.” This kind of thing is good for learners and helps eliminate the gap between digital and traditional pianos.

There’s a new speaker system that enhances depth in the low register, which should let people hear what they’re playing in a more natural way. The piano also includes a Bluetooth receiver, which is great for streaming music from an external source to play along with.

The Roland FP-40 is available in both black and white. It costs $750, which is thousands of dollars less than the company’s flagship models. It’s available to purchase right now.

virtualization

Virtzilla finding more ways to pull data out of DRAM to enable ‘densification’ and dodge the RAMpocalypse

VMware is working to find new roles for its memory tiering technology, in the expectation that memory and hardware prices will remain high for years and users will therefore look for ways to put off server purchases.

Memory tiering moves data out of DRAM and onto another storage medium that’s fast enough that CPUs can still access info at speeds that don’t slow application performance. VMware’s implementation works by looking for “cold pages” in DRAM – chunks of memory containing data that a CPU hasn’t touched and/or won’t need for a while.

When a CPU can’t find any capacity in DRAM, it can pause operations until memory becomes available. That leaves CPUs and expensive DRAM idling wastefully when they could be churning through work.

To stop the waste, memory tiering looks for cold pages in DRAM and moves them to another storage medium – for VMware that means fast and resilient NVMe drives.

The virtualization pioneer introduced memory tiering last year in version 9 of Cloud Foundation, its bundle of products that allow users to assemble and operate a private cloud.

In this year’s VCF 9.1 update, VMware tweaked it to improve performance when running databases – always a key workload – and added dashboards that show users the extent of tiering activity, plus more management tools.

VMware delivered memory tiering just as the AI boom saw the price of DRAM and solid state storage skyrocket. DRAM now often costs several times more than the servers it lives in.

At the VMware Explore conference on Monday, staff technical marketing architect Dave Morera said VMware plans to support more VM types with the tech.

“We have a two-to-three year roadmap,” he said in a conference session. Some of the items on that roadmap will emerge in the VCF 9.2 release that VMware will likely debut around May 2027.

Morera said VMware’s memory tiering currently supports about 75 percent of workloads and wants to push that number higher by supporting Microsoft’s Radius cloud-native application platform and so-called “monster VMs” that VMware allows to run up to 960 vCPUs and 16TB of memory across several physical hosts.

One of VMware’s crown jewels is vMotion, the tech that moves VMs from one cluster to another with almost no downtime. Memory tiering currently supports vMotion, but Morera said he wants to improve performance by solving some unidentified physics problems.

Memory tiering is built into VMware’s ESX hypervisor. Using it requires NVMe drives capable of at least 100,000 writes per second, and 7,300 TB of writes across their lifetime. Another metric commonly applied to NVMe is Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD) – the number of times it is possible to completely overwrite a drive in a single day, without the device dying before its warranty expires. VMware recommends drives with a DWPD of at least three.

It’s possible to use memory tiering in a 1:4 ratio – 1 GB of DRAM and 4 GB of NVMe. VMware recommends a 1:1 ratio and claims that it can lead to applications consuming 30 percent fewer CPU cycles, and 40 percent lower cost of ownership by allowing users to “densify” their infrastructure into fewer servers. The Broadcom business unit also argues that adopting memory tiering can improve a server’s performance and therefore extend its working life, making it possible to defer hardware purchases.

Company execs argue that’s a win given the long lead times for servers, the high cost of DRAM, and the likelihood that server vendors will need to change quoted prices due to market fluctuations.

Of course VMware would say that, because it wants more people to implement VCF. Yet it seems VMware customers and prospects are very interested in memory tiering, as the two sessions on the topic that The Register to gather info for this story filled 500-seat conference rooms. ®