8 ways your phone is tracking you - That you can stop now
You understand that your phone knows where you’re located. This is how GPS works, how Find My sees your location and why you get local ads on Facebook and Google. Like other data on your phone, that location data is a hot commodity for internet marketers.
🚕 You can go your own Waymo: The self-driving car company owned by Google parent company Alphabet is expanding to Atlanta and Austin next year. Unlike in Phoenix, where Waymo riders can use either the Uber or Waymo apps, Atlanta and Austin riders will need the Uber app to hail a Waymo car, and getting a Waymo still isn’t guaranteed. I don’t trust them enough to get in one.
26 years later
A guy dislodged a Lego brick stuck up his nose. When he was 6, he wedged a plastic brick and a Lego man up his nostrils. Mom removed the Lego man but didn’t know about the individual brick. All that time, the 32-year-old dealt with congestion, asthma and sleep apnea. Watch the news about this crazy story!
✔️ It’s a yes from me: A new California bill could stop companies from collecting and sharing personal data with just one click. It’s a royal pain in the butt to opt out of every single site. If the bill passes, it could impact all Americans, since many companies apply the same privacy protections nationwide.
Passwordless future: Google now lets you log into Android, Windows, macOS and Linux devices without a password. Instead, you’ll use a passkey stored in Google Password Manager, which can be authenticated via fingerprint, face scan or screen lock. Chrome and iOS support coming soon.
$2.2 billion
How much movie theater chains are spending to lure us back. It’s not just better screens (though there are plans for 21,000 of those), beefed-up sound systems and comfier seats. You may see pickleball courts, arcades, ziplines and bowling alleys at a theater near you … all of which will be grossly overpriced.
👋 So long, farewell: Without warning, Russian cybersecurity provider Kaspersky Lab deleted its anti-malware protection from its subscribers’ computers and replaced it with something called UltraAV. This comes after the U.S. government added Kaspersky to its national security concern list because of its ties to the Kremlin. If you were using Kaspersky for antivirus protection, try my antivirus pick instead.
They only care about the money: The FTC says social media platforms are engaging in massive online surveillance and failing to protect children. They track everything we do, combine it with data from third-party brokers, then sell it or use it to advertise to you.