🐓 Cluckin’ wild: The Minecraft movie is meh, but Jack Black’s unhinged chicken ballad, “Steve’s Lava Chicken,” shot up to # 78 on Billboard’s Hot 100. It’s now the shortest song ever to hit the famed list, clocking in at 34 seconds, making it both a record and maybe a cry for help for our attention spans. Listen here, you have been warned.
1 billion
The number of humanoids Morgan Stanley expects to exist by 2050. Yes, that’s one bot for every eight people on Earth. So if your coworker gets replaced by a robot, don’t panic, statistically, so will you. If you’re picturing WALL-E with better knees and worse social skills, you’re not far off.
🗣️ ¿Hola, como estas? Live translation is coming to AirPods later this year with the iOS 19 update (paywall link), real-time convo decoding straight into your ears. Your iPhone talks, your AirPods whisper. It’s Google Translate meets sci-fi earpiece meets coffee shop small talk in multiple languages. As the Germans say, das is pretty cool.
NYC wants subway cams to predict trouble: The MTA is piloting AI that watches for risky behavior before a crime happens. If someone’s acting off, it can alert police in real time so they can respond faster. FYI: The new system won’t rely on facial recognition. It’s strictly focused on behavior, not people. Well, at least for now.
🏠 Hackers are targeting homes, not just bank accounts: With just a few clicks, cybercriminals can steal your home title and rack up huge loans in your name. It’s one of the fastest-growing crimes in America. Home Title Lock is your watchdog, monitoring and protecting your most valuable asset. Sign up with code KIM to get a free home title history report and a 14-day trial of their Million Dollar Triple Lock Protection.
47%
The drop in total apps on Google Play since early 2024. The Play Store went from 3.4 million apps to 1.8 million in just over a year. Less of a spring cleaning, more of a digital purge. If your flashlight app disappeared, now you know why. It’s not looking so hot for app developers.
🪖 Welcome to drone country, soldier: The Army just launched its biggest makeover since the Cold War, and it’s all about drones. Think 1,000 drones (paywall link) per combat division, replacing aging gear with swarms of flying surveillance bots, delivery drones and attack craft that would make a Call of Duty dev blush.
Electrician army: AI isn’t just eating jobs, it’s eating power. Google just dropped a cool $10 million to train over 100,000 U.S. electricians, trying to unclog a grid bottleneck slowing its AI expansion. Data centers are guzzling so much electricity that they could triple U.S. power usage in three years.
50+
The number of languages Google’s AI podcast tool now supports. NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews can now speak everything from French to Korean, so your AI-generated podcast can sound like NPR in Istanbul or a TED Talk in Mumbai.
⚠️ Scammers are back at it: This time using fake Facebook posts about a “missing police officer” named Carolyn Lynch. The goal? Tug at your heartstrings so you’ll share it, unknowingly flagging yourself as an easy target for future scams. Don’t fall for it.