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Today over at Amazon you can pick up a great deal on the Anker Quick Charge 3.0 USB Type-C wall charger.  Normally this wall charger and Type-C cable combo is $51.99 but today you can pick it up for $21.99, a savings of 58%.  The package comes with the wall charger which has a Type-C connection and supports Quick Charge 3.0.  That means that if you need to charge your phone, you can get up to 80% of full battery power in about 15 minutes of charging.

This morning, Microsoft has announced that they will be acquiring the social-meets-professional network for $26.2 billion.  The agreement will keep LinkedIn as a separate organization within the Microsoft umbrella and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner will remain on board as CEO of the company, now reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

“The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the world’s professionals,” Nadella said. “Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet.”

The news will certainly have a ripple effect through the tech sector today given the strategic nature of the move by Microsoft and the value of LinkedIn as outlined in this deal.

Microsoft has officially – and finally – released an official Xbox app for Android.  The new app, which is more-or-less a replacement for the current Smartglass app (which you can still use), brings you an all new Home experience with an activity feed, see trending content, find friends and other Xbox centric activities all from your phone or tablet.  For those of us who have the console, this new app is very much a welcome addition and shows, again, Microsoft’s commitment to their “mobile first” strategy by offering apps on both Android and iOS in addition to their own beleaguered Windows Phone platform.  Up until this point, you could only get the app for Windows Phone.

Samsung has announced that starting this coming Thursday, June 16th, customers will be able to use Samsung Pay at a wide range of merchants throughout the country.  The announcement means that the contactless payment option from Samsung is now accepted in an ever increasing number of countries as phone-based, contactless purchases continue to gain momentum.

“Since the introduction of Samsung Pay last year, we have seen great momentum and experienced significant consumer adoption. Samsung Pay has redefined the way consumers pay and use their smartphones,” said Thomas Ko, Vice President and Global Co-General Manager of Samsung Pay at Samsung Electronics. “We are excited to bring this service to Singapore consumers and we hope to introduce value-added services to drive and lead innovation in mobile commerce, giving consumers a safer, smarter and better mobile wallet.”

Because of the way Samsung Pay works – leveraging Magnetic Secure Transmission – it can be accepted a significantly larger number of pay terminals than the likes of the NFC secure based Android Pay or Apple Pay.  It will even work on non-contactless terminals.  It’s a big leg up but, to this point, has only been available on Samsung devices.