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Super Bowl vs. hobby drones
Fly an FPV near the Superdome? New Orleans isn’t playing. Military-grade anti-drone tech will track you down in seconds, here’s the scoop.
🌋 Kick some ash: Scientists found a burnt scroll from Herculaneum, another Roman town Mount Vesuvius wiped out in 79 A.D. They’re using X-rays and AI to read without touching it. Early hints say it might be a work of philosophy. When I visited Pompeii, I was amazed at how forward-thinking they were. There were food courts, sanitation, lovely homes, and even a brothel with the names of prostitutes on the walls with prices and ratings. Really! If you go, ask your tour guide the question I do wherever we go: “What’s something you normally don’t show tourists?” I will save my story about cannibals on the Amazon River for another day.
Severance — Official Trailer | Apple TV+
One more place to watch out for TV spoilers: A podcast about the dystopian TV series “Severance” on AppleTV+ included an ad for an episode that hadn’t aired yet. Director Ben Stiller dropped a bombshell (paywall link). Yeah, fans are peeved. “Severance” is fantastic and weird. Here’s the spoiler-free trailer if you need a new show.
3,000
Fewer words spoken each day. In 2005, we said an average of 16,000 words a day. Today, that’s down to 13,000 because of texting and social media messages. Women tend to chat more than men, averaging 13,349 words a day versus 11,950. (Now, did you expect a joke here, really?)
Shop local: Bet you never thought about it while browsing cheap stuff on Temu, but after President Trump did away with a tax break for e-commerce companies, the site’s algorithm changed. Now you’ll see more products from the Chinese retailer’s U.S. warehouse marked with a green “local” badge. Yeah, I still won’t use Temu.
$100 million
Reported sales price for Brookhaven, a virtual city in Roblox. Some 60 billion people have played the life-sim game. Think building fancy houses, driving around in nice cars and exploring the city. Around 120 million players log on a month. That’s almost the population of Japan!
🤖 Alexa’s glow-up: Save the date for Feb. 26. That’s when Amazon will show off a new Alexa with generative AI. Yep, it’s finally happening after many delays. Alexa will be able to chat back and forth with you and help you get things done. Expect the smarter Alexa to cost you a few bucks a month.
🧀 Gouda grief, not again: Google had to edit one of its Super Bowl ads after its AI butchered a fact about Gouda. In the original video, Gemini said Gouda made up 50% to 60% of the world’s cheese consumption. Spoiler: It doesn’t. The fixed version calls it “one of the most popular cheeses in the world.” Another reminder AI loves to make crap up or, as the AI companies say, “hallucinate.”
🍏 I called this months ago: A foldable iPhone is coming, finally. Rumor has it it’ll be ultra-thin, at just 4.6mm unfolded, and will use a Samsung foldable OLED panel since they’ve already figured out the tech. It could be a massive 12 inches, with two 6.1-inch displays connected by a hinge. The price is TBA, but I bet it’ll cost a fortune. We’ll find out in 2026.
Ingenious till it wasn’t: A guy in Idaho got caught using a homemade barcode ring to scam Walmart’s self-checkout. He ripped off the store a few times without getting caught, then made a total bonehead move: He tried to ring up a $300 grill for the price of a 70-cent can of tomato soup. I wonder how the tomato soup is in jail.