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Tech roundup: Are dogs talking to us? UFO videos, Ray-Ban smart glasses
🐶 Hold onto your leash: Have you seen the viral videos of dogs pressing buttons on soundboards to “talk”? They’re real! A study tracked over 190,000 button presses from 152 dogs over 21 months. Dogs pressed buttons like “play + ball” in a way that showed they knew what they wanted. (That’s why your pup isn’t hitting the “bath” button.) I’m eyeing this set so I can teach Abby!
Memory lane: Here’s a hot TikTok trend I told you about (checks watch) 10 years ago. Pop into old Street View photos on Google Maps for a hit of virtual nostalgia. Fun finds: One gal spotted her childhood dog in the yard, and another found herself in high school cleaning eggs off her car. Open Google Maps on a browser, type in an address and click the photo that pops up. Choose See more dates. Find something great? Let me know!
🚘 Looking for a cheap Tesla? Try renting one on Hertz. One Reddit user did, then scored a 2023 Tesla Model 3 with 30,000 miles for just $17,913. Be careful — most are pretty beaten up by the time they hit over 100,000 miles. That’s when Tesla’s battery warranty expires, so it may not be such a steal after all.
Pushing out the little guy: Google’s algorithm changes are hitting smaller independent websites hard. Between AI-generated answers, sponsored ads and bigger publishers getting all the play, gaming site Retro Dodo says its traffic has tanked 85% since September 2023. Just 16 companies own over 400 sites that receive 3.8 billion clicks a month from Google. Let that sink in for a moment.
Slice of tech history: A YouTuber just saved a 440-pound retro CRT TV from demolition in Osaka, Japan. What’s the big deal? The 45-inch TV is the largest CRT ever made, and it originally sold in the ‘80s for the equivalent of $100,000 today. It’s the stuff of legends. Here’s a video of the rescue mission.
🛸 I want to believe: AI-generated videos of UFOs and drone swarms are flooding the web and fooling a lot of people. Saucers flying over NYC, “motherships” hovering over the Pacific and shots of ships straight from “Star Wars” are getting hundreds of thousands of likes. This video shows you just how easy it is to make AI drone videos. Don’t fall for it!
I have specs appeal: Meta’s speeding up the release of a bunch of new features for its Ray-Ban smart glasses, including an AR display that’ll show you notifications. They’re also hoping to push out their $10,000 Orion AR glasses. Sales of smart glasses are up 73% this year, so they’d better get to scootin’.
🇷🇺 Did this happen to you? The U.S. government banned Kaspersky because of its ties to the Kremlin. Without warning, the Russian company deleted its software from its subscribers’ computers and replaced it with something called UltraAV. If you were using Kaspersky for antivirus protection, try my antivirus pick instead.*
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