Who’s watching your phone?
I’ve been hearing lately from more and more people who believe they’re being watched or listened to through their phones. Whether it’s an ex, a snooping spouse or someone with too much time and too little ethics, digital stalking is real and it’s sneaky.
Romance scams continue: A retired Texas man fell for an online “romance,” and then “she” convinced him to dump his 401(k) into crypto. Spoiler: It was all fake, complete with a site showing his money “grow.” Now, he’s out $500K, his house is up for sale, and he’s job hunting. Love hurts, but that’s next level.
40 feet
That’s the size of a new submarine-hunting sea drone called the “BlueWhale.” It uses special sensors to spot underwater and surface threats, and can help clear mines. The cool bit? It’s fully autonomous and runs on batteries for weeks. Basically, a Roomba’s scarier cousin with serious military vibes. Here’s a clip of it.
🤖 CRM sentience: Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot just dropped for public beta, and it’s like Clippy got a PhD and an Adderall prescription. It reads your company data, automates tasks and generates content, all without leaking your Q1 projections to Skynet. Also, it’s now called Agentforce, which sounds less friendly and more … ready for war?
😑 Feeling left behind? Download NetSuite’s free knowledge drop, “The CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.” No matter what you do, you should know more about AI. It’s not going anywhere.
🔞 Sick social media trend: Awful accounts are using AI filters to make the women in overly sexual TikTok and IG gym videos look as if they have Down syndrome. They’re adding captions like “Syndrome is down but your d is up.” Why? It goes viral, and they try to redirect people to adult sites. And yes, the original clips are stolen.
📝 Sneaky students: College kids are turning in papers with typos … on purpose. This helps fool AI detectors after using chatbots to write essays. Some even tell bots to write like a “dumb” freshman or run their work through multiple tools to hide the AI fingerprints. Clever? Yep. Smart? Not so much.
508,883
The number of bacteria lurking on your sofa per 15.5 inches squared. That’s 75 times more than a toilet seat. Turns out the dirtiest place in your house might be where you binge Netflix.
📵 Virginia limits kids’ screen time: A new law will ban anyone under 16 from using social media for more than one hour a day. Apps will verify age, and parents can adjust if their kids get more time. Once they hit the limit, the app is supposed to block access … though it’s unclear how that’ll work.
🚔 Crypto CEO sentenced: Alex Mashinsky, former Celsius Network CEO, just got slapped with 12 years for securities and commodities fraud (paywall link). Prosecutors wanted 20, but he got off slightly easier. Celsius collapsed in 2022, leaving a $1.19 billion crater. Turns out its slogan, “Unbank Yourself,” actually meant “Unpack Your Belongings in Cellblock D.”