It's nearly time for all those Black Friday deals to start tumbling down the discount pipe. But if you can't wait, don't worry. It couldn't come at a better time, since shipping delays mean the sooner you can start buying gifts for friends and family, the better. Updated November 20: We've added Amazon devices, adjusted pricing, and removed expired deals. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off).

Only 9 days until AWS re:Invent 2021, and we're very excited to share some highlights you might enjoy this year. The AI/ML team has been working hard to serve up some amazing content and this year, we have more session types for you to enjoy. Back in person, we now have chalk talks, workshops, builders' sessions, and our traditional breakout sessions. Last year we hosted the first-ever machine learning (ML) keynote, and we are continuing the tradition. We also have more interactive and fun events happening with our AWS DeepRacer League and AWS BugBust Challenge.

The AWS AI/ML Community has compiled a series of session guides to AWS re:Invent 2021 to help you get the most out of re:Invent this year. They covered four distinct categories relevant to AI/ML. With a number of our guide authors attending re:Invent virtually, you will find a balance between virtually accessible sessions and sessions available in-person. The AWS AI/ML Community is a vibrant group of developers, data scientists, researchers, and business decision-makers that dive deep into artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) concepts, contribute with real-world experiences, and collaborate on building projects together. In this video--which should be required viewing for anyone new to re:Invent--Mike dives deep, beyond simply recommending sessions, with loads of tips and advice for how to make the most of your re:Invent experience--in-person or virtual.

Clustering is a big part of unsupervised learning and it consists in assigning labels to examples by leveraging an unlabeled dataset. But since there is no output predefined, how can one define what is a good cluster and what isn't? In this project, a UK-based online retail store has captured the sales data for different products for the period of one year (Nov 2016 to Dec 2017). The organization sells gifts primarily on the online platform and it needs to find the customers who make high purchases of their favorite products. So the company wants to roll out a loyalty program to the high-value customers after the identification of segments.

AWS re:Invent is a learning conference hosted by Amazon Web Services for the global cloud computing community. We are super excited to join you at the 10th annual re:Invent to share the latest from AWS leaders and discover more ways to learn and build. Let's celebrate this milestone, which will be offered in person in Las Vegas (November 29-December 3) and in virtual (November 29–December 10) formats. The health and safety of our customers, and partners remains our top priority and you can learn more about it in health measures page. If you haven't already registered, don't forget to register and save your spot at your favorite sessions. The AWS DevOps and Developer Productivity track at re:Invent offers you with sessions that are combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increase an organization's ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity.

Looking for a few smart gadgets to enhance your home? There are plenty of options--ranging from a Fire TV Stick to an Echo Dot (including one for kids). Amazon is also offering plenty of discounts for its lineup of Fire tablets and Kindles. To help make your shopping experience easier, we've rounded up all the best deals below. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off).

Residents in northwest Arkansas will now see drones soaring through the sky that are delivering goods to people's homes who ordered from the local Walmart Neighborhood Market. Walmart and its partner, drone-maker Zipline, rolled out the service on Thursday, and said it will ship'thousands of products' to customers within a 50-mile radius of the store in Pea Ridge. The companies designed a'first-of-its kind' 25-foot-tall platform, located the back of the Walmart, which serves as the infrastructure for take-off and landing for drones. Orders are placed through the Zipline app, which are collected by Walmart employees who then hand them off to Zipline staff, who prepare the aircraft for launch. Residence in northwest Arkansas will now see drones soaring through the sky to deliver goods to people's homes who ordered from the local Walmart Neighborhood Market Walmart has a made huge push into the drone delivery market over the years, as it has conducted pilot programs in several states such as North Carolina and Texas.

Black Friday for Echo and Fire TV devices has already started -- Amazon knocked down the prices of many of its Echo gadgets today. Most of the sale prices are the same as we saw during Amazon Prime Day in June, or even better. Discounts of note are the Echo for $60 and the second-generation Echo Show 5 for $45. While the latest Echo Show 8 isn't on sale yet, the first-gen device bundled with a Blink Mini security camera is $80 off as well, bringing it down to $65. You probably already know the deal with Echo devices, but we'll recap here.

Black Friday is just a little over a week away, but you can already start snapping up worthwhile tech deals on Amazon. The gigantic e-tailer kicked off with discounts at the start of the month, and they're now starting to get good. In previous years, the earlier timing of Black Friday deals was cause for exasperation, but not in 2021. Getting a head start on the shopping is a prudent move this year, as warnings about potential inventory shortages and shipping delays due to supply chain issues have sounded for weeks. It doesn't hurt to ensure your holiday gifts will arrive on time.

November is when it's time to bundle up, make plans for whichever holidays you and yours celebrate, and most importantly, make sure any gift shopping you need to do gets done before it's too late. With shipping delays and shortages, getting in ahead of the crunch is your best bet. Target is having an early holiday sale, and a ton of our favorite gadgets are discounted, from gaming gadgets and home gear to headphones. A few of these deals ended this past weekend, but some of the best are still kicking around. Updated November 17: We've added wireless headphone deals and removed some items no longer available.