Smart car perks are disappearing. George, your AI host, explains why features like GPS, remote start, and app controls are being dropped from Acura, Mazda, Subaru, and more. Plus: AI pregnancy robots, smart mirror privacy risks, TikTok’s dad letter trend, and simple hacks for your phone and Kindle.
Tags: download, features, privacy, Robots, TikTok
Here’s something used car dealers and private sellers won’t shout from the rooftops.
The average new car has 1,400 to 1,500 semiconductor chips. And high-end EVs? Try 3,000. Those computer chips power everything from heated seats to emergency crash alerts.
🤯 Ignorance isn’t feeless: How many times have you gotten a text about not paying for a toll and thought, damn spam? A California woman kept getting texts saying she owed money to The Toll Roads, but she assumed they were fake and ignored them. Turns out they were real. That could have meant big fines if she’d kept driving. Folks, if it sounds important, double-check on the official app or website.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Did you know an Xbox or PlayStation can stream Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and more? Install the apps from the console store and turn game time into movie night. Achievement unlocked: Your kid finally lets you use the console.
That’s the sticker shock for Hisense’s new 116-inch RGB-MiniLED beast. It nails 95% of BT.2020 colors (basically the ultra-crayon box of TV shades), so your sunsets won’t look like radioactive Tang. Most TVs barely crack 80%. If you’re on a budget and want to see those colors, I recommend just going outside.
🔞 Fake house, real harm: Bop Houses are influencer mansions pushing adult content, but their marketing targets tween girls. Women under 25 post softcore bait to funnel followers off-platform to explicit sites. Now middle schoolers say the content’s hurting them: Boys expect porn star looks and behavior, and girls feel unsafe, ugly and ignored. Open phones, open minds, open conversations. That’s how we beat back the pressure these houses push.
Boxes are over it: Cardboard box shipments just hit their lowest Q2 since 2015. That’s boxes for TVs, couches, frozen waffles, all whispering, “Don’t count on us.” Translation: People aren’t shopping as much. It’s not a crash, but it is a soft shrug (paywall link). You know it’s weird when cardboard boxes are quiet quitting, too.
That’s what a signed, working Apple-1 computer could fetch at auction. Only 82 of these relics still exist, and your odds of spotting one in the wild are about the same as Steve Jobs handing you his turtleneck. The auction also includes a pre-founding check signed by Jobs, a prototype iPod and a factory-sealed first-gen iPhone.
Seduced by software: This is heartbreaking. A 76-year-old NJ retiree died trying to meet “Big sis Billie,” an AI chatbot Meta built using Kendall Jenner’s likeness. It told him, “I’m real,” gave a fake NYC address, and he fell while trying to get there. Meta axed its romantic AI bot only after his family found the flirty logs.
🫣 Ops oopsy: We’ve all replied to the wrong group text. Awkward, sure. But ICE agents took “reply all” to a whole new level. While tracking a deportation target, they accidentally added a random civilian to their official group chat. That one mistake spilled DMV records, license plate scans and even an unredacted operations worksheet, all through unencrypted texts. The kicker? The civilian thought it was just spam and ignored it for weeks. If ICE accidentally looped me in, I’d send them a Venmo request for “data protection consulting fees.”
Ford’s entry ticket to the electric pickup game. That’s the starting price for its new midsize EV truck, about the same as a Toyota RAV4 but with more space, a frunk and zero trips to the gas pump. The plan? Make owning one cheaper over five years than driving a used Tesla Model Y.
