On Friday, the Pentagon awarded a huge contract to Microsoft. It had been expected to go to Amazon. A former aide to  Jim Mattis alleged that President Donald Trump told the Defense Secretary to “screw Amazon,” MotherJones reported.

Guy Snodgrass, one-time aide to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, alleged in a book that was published only recently that Trump had indeed attempted to intervene. Here’s Task & Purpose, via Jake Tapper: Trump called Mattis in the summer of 2018 and directed him to “screw Amazon” out of a chance to bid on a $10 billion cloud networking contract. Snodgrass writes: “Relaying the story to us during Small Group, Mattis said, ‘We’re not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically.” The Department of Defense defended its decision in a statement yesterday, saying that that everything was mad legit: “The acquisition process was conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.” and totally cool and stuff: All parties, the statement said, “were treated fairly and evaluated consistently with the solicitation’s stated evaluation criteria.”

The Apple Watch Series Five has arrived in some new countries. It is now available in South Korea, Thailand, and Brazil, AppleInsider reported.

With different local sales taxes applied, Apple is selling the Apple Watch Series 5 at roughly the same pricing as in the US in Korea and Thailand where it’s 539,000 ($458) and 13,400 ($444) respectively. It’s a considerably more expensive purchase in Brazil, however, where prices start at R$3,999 ($996). The key selling point of the Series 5 is that it brings an always-on screen that intelligently dims until you raise your wrist or tap on the screen. An ultra-low power display driver together with newly-optimized watch faces contribute to having this feature yet in theory retaining an all-day 18-hour battery life. In practice, users are finding the Series 5 battery does run down a little faster than on the previous Apple Watch Series 4, however.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has made taking on big tech a key part of her campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Bloomberg Businessweek analyzed what her plans might mean.

The plan consists of two big ideas. The first is to unwind old acquisitions, such as Facebook Inc.’s purchases of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. There’s a legal framework already in place for this. The Federal Trade Commission has the power to review old mergers and said when it formed an antitrust task force in February that it would consider doing so. Any such moves would certainly end up in court. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has already told employees he thinks the company would prevail if a Warren administration tried to break it apart. Warren’s second idea is that the tech giants—those with more than $25 billion in revenue—that operate an online marketplace or exchange shouldn’t be allowed to offer services that compete with the participants on those platforms.

On October 23, 2001, Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPod. The Economist reflected on how the device revolutionized both the music and tech industries.

The iPod’s wheel elegantly removed the scrolling problem. A tiny hard-drive built by Toshiba packed five gigabytes of memory (enough for 1,000 songs) into 1.8 inches (4.5cm), allowing the iPod to offer as much storage as any competitor in a smaller body. And the earlier launch of iTunes meant that every Apple computer had a programme dedicated to managing the device’s contents. Critics wondered whether ordinary music fans would fork out $399 (about $580 today) for such a strange contraption. By 2007 Apple had sold 120m of them, and soon launched the smaller Mini, the tiny Nano and the screenless Shuffle. The classic iPod gained a colour screen, then the ability to play videos, and finally a hard-drive of 160 gigabytes, which was more than most laptops had. Historians of Apple generally note that the iMac computer, which Jobs launched shortly after returning to the ailing company in 1997, revived its fortunes. But the iPod introduced most people to the firm’s aesthetic and technical brilliance. At its peak it accounted for 40% of Apple’s revenue.