Your face in an ad

🐔 Best of cluck: If you see someone “bawk”-ing at their phone, they’re probably playing TikTok’s new chicken filter game. It’s a 2D platformer (like Mario) where you can control the on-screen chicken with your voice to navigate obstacles. Soft “bawk”s make the chicken walk forward, and loud “bu-gawk”s make it jump. What a world we live in.

Range in value of the watches in Tom Brady’s collection. They’ll be auctioned off by Sotheby’s. The white gold and diamond watch he wore during his Netflix special, “Greatest Roast of All Time,” is the hot ticket, and it’s expected to go for $400,000 to $800,000. Yeah, I hear you — my $30 Timex does the same thing.

No woofin’ around: The U.S. Army is testing robot dogs armed with AI-enabled gun turrets in the Middle East. The robo-pups pack some serious heat, like a rotating AR-15/M16-pattern rifle and an electro-optical targeting system. They’re way cheaper than using missiles to take down drones. FYI, China showed off its own four-legged war dog in May. 

Jeff needs the money: Amazon is going to double its Prime Video ad volume in 2025. Right now, you’ll see two to three-and-a-half minutes of ads per hour, with no commercials in the middle of content. How much worse will it get? Expect around six minutes of ads per hour. Bet that’s long enough for some people to cough up the extra $36 a year to go ad-free. Btw, Netflix and Disney+ run five minutes of ads per hour.

📦 If you see this trick online, it doesn’t work anymore: A Walmart shopper found the ultimate moving-day hack: Ordering 24 boxes online. Each box arrived individually packed in a Walmart delivery box with bubble wrap, basically doubling his single-box order for free. Someone at Walmart caught on, of course, and now they’ll be shipping box orders altogether.

Told ya this was going to happen: Google Search is losing money with so many of us relying on ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and other AI bots instead. Now, Google’s serving up AI search results with a twist — ads. You’ll see “sponsored” next to the content. Say you search for “how to get grass stains out of jeans.” Along with the tips, Google will display ads for cleaning products. Be careful where you click.

End of an era: Microsoft will officially end support for Windows 10 on Nov. 14, 2025. No more “free” updates, security fixes or tech assistance. Your best options? Upgrade to Windows 11 or, if yours doesn’t meet the Windows 11 upgrade requirements, buy a new PC (this $299 one is a good pick). You can also pay Microsoft for extended security updates (up to three years) or switch to a different OS, like Linux or ChromeOS Flex.

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🐬 33% of them smile back: New research shows bottlenose dolphins “smile” at each other to signal playtime. In science speak, it’s a “prolonged open-mouth expression,” and it only happens when their friends are in view — never in other contexts. The video is adorable.

Amazon’s new lineup of Fire HD 8 tablets: They’ve got double the RAM of the previous models, a 5 MP rear cam, an 8-inch HD display, up to 13 hours of battery life, plus an AI webpage summary tool and a writing assistant. Good time to buy, too: The Fire HD 8 is 35% off right now, and the Fire HD 8 Kids and Fire HD 8 Kids Pro are both 50% off.

We may receive a commission when you buy through our links, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.

🧃 Out of juice: Enel X, the company behind JuiceBox EV chargers, is cutting all support in the U.S. Its home chargers will still work, but they’ll receive no more updates, apps or fancy features, like scheduling a charge. Customer support is gone, too. Send questions or claims to claimsagent@tplc-claims.com.