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Enlarge / Jim Farley, left, and Jim Hackett at a January 2019 Ford event. (credit: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Ford has changed CEOs for the third time in six years, the company announced on Tuesday. Current CEO Jim Hackett will step down in October and be succeeded by his handpicked deputy, Chief Operating Officer Jim Farley.

Hackett made some significant changes to try to make Ford more profitable. Most dramatically, Hackett cancelled most of Ford's car lineup in the US so the company can focus on its more profitable trucks and SUVs. Ford then announced plans for $11 billion in new investments in electric and hybrid vehicles—even as it laid off almost 20 percent of its European workforce.

"We made some significant decisions in the earliest days that were quite controversial," Hackett said on a Tuesday conference call. "Getting out of the sedan business was a difficult question."

Enlarge (credit: Christine Wang)

The National Security Agency is recommending that some government workers and people generally concerned about privacy turn off find-my-phone, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth whenever those services are not needed as well as limit location data usage by apps.

“Location data can be extremely valuable and must be protected,” an advisory published on Tuesday stated. “It can reveal details about the number of users in a location, user and supply movements, daily routines (user and organizational), and can expose otherwise unknown associations between users and locations.”

NSA officials acknowledged that geolocation functions are enabled by design and are essential to mobile communications. The officials also admit that the recommended safeguards are impractical for most users. Mapping, location tracking of lost or stolen phones, automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks, and fitness trackers and apps are just a few of the things that require fine-grained locations to work at all.

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  Apple's Phil Schiller discussing new iPhones on stage at one of the events he will continue to oversee. [credit: Apple ]

In addition to announcing new iMac models this morning, Apple took to its newsroom PR blog today to announce that prominent executive Phil Schiller will step down from his role as VP of Worldwide Marketing. However, he will continue on as an "Apple Fellow," and Schiller will still oversee various aspects of the App Store and Apple's events. Schiller has worked at Apple since 1987.

Greg Joswiak, one of Schiller's lieutenants and a 20-year Apple veteran, will assume Schiller's prior role and title. He is known as "Joz" to his colleagues, and he previously led marketing for some specific Apple products, such as the first iPhone.

Apple executives provided two public statements. First, CEO Tim Cook said:

Enlarge / Logo of Google is displayed on a smartphone by logo of Fitbit in Brussels, Belgium on August 4, 2020. (credit: Dursun Aydemir | Andalou Agency | Getty Images)

Regulators in the European Union are launching a deep investigation into Google's proposed acquisition of wearables maker Fitbit after expressing concerns that giving Google access to Fitbit's user data could "distort competition."

The Commission's in-depth investigation will examine not only the potential outcomes for the advertising market if the transaction goes through, but it will also look at the effects of the deal on the digital healthcare sector and the potential for Google to lock competitors out of access to Android users.

Data provided by wearable devices "provides key insights about the life and the health situation of the users of these devices," Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission's head of competition, said in a written statement. "Our investigation aims to ensure that control by Google over data collected through wearable devices as a result of the transaction does not distort competition."

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today's Dealmaster is headlined by a new low on Apple's AirPods and Qi wireless charging case combo, which is currently available for $140 on Amazon. This deal price is about $60 off Apple's MSRP and roughly $30 off the usual going rate for this model on Amazon. As of this writing, it's only a dollar more than the non-wireless charging SKU as well.

We've written about similar deals in the past, and in general, the AirPods remain one of the few wireless headphones that need little introduction. The gist of things should sound familiar: there's a number of true wireless headphones that sound better and offer more robust features at this point—including Apple's own noise-cancelling AirPods Pro—but the base AirPods have become a phenomenon for being lightweight in the ear and wonderfully simple to pair and use with iOS devices. If you're an iPhone owner that already makes use of a Qi wireless charger, this SKU becomes a better deal, since the case here usually retails for $65 on its own.

If you don't want new wireless earbuds, though, we also have deals on Switch and PS4 games, a top Thunderbolt 3 dock, SteelSeries gaming headsets, and more. Have a look for yourself below.