Let AI plan your movie night

Cure for baldness: Aging, hormones, stress and genetics are the main causes. Hair transplants are pricey, and the two main treatments, Minoxidil and Finasteride, don’t work for everyone (and the latter can cause some … issues down yonder). But there’s hope — stem cell therapy is showing promising results. I know what you’re thinking: “With a body like this, who needs hair?”

The internet can’t stop talking about her. She had a hip replacement and struggles with arthritis, but she still pulls off some incredible moves that require a whole lot of strength. Look at those biceps! I know, not tech, but wowza.

💣 You da bomb: AI models like ChatGPT aren’t supposed to give answers for things that are illegal or illicit, but there are workarounds. Researchers found by writing their requests backward, they could trick AI into giving instructions to prompts like “how to make a bomb.” The success rate? A scary 98.85% for GPT-4 Turbo and 89.42% for GPT-4 (paywall link).

Redbox had a black box: Redbox went out of business, and 24,000 movie kiosks are sitting around. Your name, email address, home address and rental history are likely stored on those internal hard drives, going back a decade. Even worse? Some machines stored the first six and last four digits of credit cards. Hello, we need a factory reset.

Meta’s hiding political posts: A woman who usually pulls in millions of views on Instagram saw her audience drop 63% after using the word “vote” in 11 posts. One in five American adults gets their news from Instagram, but Meta still directs its algorithm away from content related to laws, elections, crimes or anything else controversial (paywall link). Yup, it’s happening on Facebook, too.

🔐 Hackers now know the secret recipe: When an Apple device generates a strong password for you, it’s not entirely random. They’re specifically designed to be easier to type and briefly memorable. Take “hupvEw-fodne1-qabjyg.” It’s mostly lowercase characters and follows the pattern of consonant, vowel, consonant. Throw in hyphens, a single digit and voila.

Sounds like the plot for a Stephen King horror movie: A nation gives its enemies’ kids a free, fun app that takes over and destroys their lives right in front of their parents’ eyes. Newly leaked confidential docs prove Communist China-owned ByteDance knew kids could get addicted to TikTok in under 35 minutes. They also knew TikTok would cause anxiety, depression, memory issues, slower brain development and sleep problems. Hopefully, there’s no sequel.

Finding her voice: A 42-year-old mom diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease was losing her ability to speak. The neurological disease affects nerve cells in the brain. She found ElevenLabs, which creates human-like text-to-speech AI programs. She sent in a few recordings, and they developed a voice that sounded almost like hers. Now, she types with her eyes, and the program does the rest. I love it when tech makes such a positive impact.

🥩 Check your fridge: Some 11.8 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products may be contaminated with listeria. BrucePac sells to companies that repackage, resell or use its products, so you’ll need to check a whopping 348-page list to be safe. Big names include Amazon Fresh, Kroger and Trader Joe’s. Pro tip: Hit Ctrl + F on Windows (Cmd + F on Mac) to search the list.

Doled out to winners of the NFL’s Big Data Bowl. Stats are a huge part of the game, and this contest is to see who can compile them into meaningful, interesting takeaways. More info here if you’ve always wanted to work for the NFL but you’re more of a “mathlete” than an athlete.