🎧 Quiet isn’t always better: Noise-canceling headphones protect your eardrums no matter how loud your Uncle Ralph’s hot political takes get. But it turns out, if you wear them nonstop, especially as a kid, your brain never learns to tune out background noise (paywall link). Doctors are now linking heavy use to auditory processing disorder, where everyday sounds feel overwhelming.
The tech myths we can’t stop repeating
Tech myths have a way of sticking around like those 99 browser tabs you keep open, harmless at first, but over time, they slow everything down. They spread in group texts, get repeated by well-meaning relatives and pop up like spammy ads from 2003.
Pay-to-park warfare: A viral site let San Franciscans dodge parking tickets by showing where enforcement officers were in real time. The leaderboard showed one officer writing 192 tickets in a single day, over $20K in fines! The city patched the data feed within hours, killing the tool, after 50,000 people tried it.
Search goes live: Google just dropped Search Live in the U.S. You point your camera, talk out loud, and it feeds you answers plus links in real time. Ask which munchies to grab or how to fix your busted fan, and boom, Google talks back. Free, no sign-up required. At this point, even my snacks are getting SEO’d.
Jewelry heist fiasco: So picture this, 25 masked suspects suddenly storm a California jewelry store, smashing cases and grabbing $1M in loot. Now, look at the tech the store had in place. The door locked them inside, forcing one to shoot their way out. Police drones tracked the crew, leading to seven arrests. The suspects, all from Oakland, range from 17 to 31. So young, so dumb.
🚨 Prime time penalty: Amazon just agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle FTC claims it tricked millions into unwanted Prime memberships and made cancellations nearly impossible. $1.5B will go to 35 million customers, $1B to the FTC. Amazon admits no wrongdoing, but it now has to make canceling easier. If you had Prime between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025, you may qualify for a refund. Some will be automatic, others through an FTC claims portal (coming soon on ftc.gov).
Zapped back to life: After years of crippling rheumatoid arthritis, Lynn Milam got her life back thanks to a lima bean–size nerve stimulator implanted in her neck. It zaps her vagus nerve once a day, dialing down the immune system’s overreaction. The FDA just approved it, meaning thousands of drug-resistant patients could see real relief, and maybe hug their kids again. Love this.
🐭 Mickey needs the cash: Disney+ and Hulu are raising prices again starting Oct. 21. Ads-on plans jump to $11.99/month. Premiums hit $18.99. Even ESPN Select sneaks up to $12.99. Oh, and Hulu’s getting folded into Disney+ soon anyway. Just a reminder, that’s three price hikes in three years.
CapCut’s hidden side: Think CapCut’s just a video-editing app? Nope, it’s TikTok’s little cousin without seat belts. No parental controls, weak age checks, and kids can run into strangers or even see posts with phone numbers. Docs say it fuels oversharing and self-esteem hits. If your kid’s using it, check their settings, peek at their uploads and talk about what not to share.