Welcome to your Tuesday, friend. I come bearing good news. ChatGPT Deep Research is now free, kinda. You get five (tiny but mighty) super searches a month, powered by the o4-mini model that’s like having a brainy assistant running at full speed. 

🧠 Deep Research doesn’t just spit out quick answers. It digs, sorts, compares and thinks for you. And if you pay for a Plus account? Even more firepower. Wondering what you’ll do with your new instant genius self? I’ve got some quick ideas at the end!

🥳 Sharing is caring. Pass this newsletter along to a friend who needs smarter answers and less scrolling. — Kim

You think keeping a secret in today’s world is tough? Try running one of the most important elections on the planet while dodging drones, AI surveillance and a smartphone in every pocket.

When Pope Francis passed away, the Vatican went into immediate lockdown mode to protect the conclave, the centuries-old process where cardinals vote to elect the next pope. Let me tell you, the security isn’t just tight. It’s basically a Tom Clancy novel on espresso.

Phones off, blockers on

Remember 2005, when the Vatican politely told cardinals, “No flip phones, please”? Adorable. Today, the Gendarmerie (the Vatican’s police force) runs an electronic warfare squad. 

The moment the doors close, they flip on broad-spectrum signal jammers. Wi-Fi? Dead. Bluetooth? Buried. AirTags? Technological dust. Directional antennas flood every window and rooftop gap just in case.

Before the jammers fire, tech crews sweep rooms with nonlinear junction detectors (handheld wands that sniff out hidden circuits) and spectrum analyzers hunting rogue signals. They sweep again after the cardinals get in, and again once voting starts. Every person and everything gets inspected three times, from clothing to pens, crosses, rosaries and eyeglass frames.

Windows that stare back

Satellites can read a license plate from orbit, and AI lipreading can turn shaky long-lens video into a full transcript. The Vatican’s answer is dual-layer privacy film: a metallic, TEMPEST-rated laminate. 

It blocks 99 percent of light and nearly all infrared. From outside, every window looks like a black mirror. Inside, cardinals see only a dull gray glow. 

Thinking “just crack it open for fresh air”? Six Swiss Guards will somersault in like Cirque du Soleil. Magnetic sensors scream if a window budges more than a quarter inch. Cardinals aren’t even allowed to look outside the windows during the conclave. 

Guarding the smallest country

Vatican City covers just 0.44 km² (roughly 0.17 sq mi). It’s about the size of a smaller 18-hole golf course, but its security grid rivals a major airport. Deep below St. Peter’s Square, a command center watches 650-plus 4K cameras, microwave fences and RF-triangulation arrays that flag any surprise transmitter.

The Swiss Guard’s Renaissance stripes hide modern muscle: HK MP7s, FN SCAR rifles and drone-jamming guns that blast a 500-meter (about 0.31 miles) RF cone. Counter-UAV radar tracks anything with propellers. An intruding drone pancakes before it grabs a single photo.

When white smoke rises, the systems pivot to crowd protection for the over 200,000 pilgrims flooding St. Peter’s Square: Facial recognition is run locally to dodge hacking, simulators track burner phones, and comms are encrypted so the guards stay synced.

I think the whole process is inspiring. Some moments are still too important to be shared before their time.

⚡ The outage in Europe shows how it’s key to stay ready.

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• Keep warm with a 45-pack of hand and body warmers (40% off).

🔋 Don’t run on empty: Stock up on AA and AAA batteries from Duracell (19% off) or Energizer (23% off).

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❌ Apple says all iPhones need to ditch Chrome: Why? The browser doesn’t protect your data like Safari does. Case in point: Remember when Google promised to kill third-party cookies that track you? Yeah, that never happened. Advertisers still stalk your every move online and hit you with targeted ads. 

🔞 Parents, beware of Meta’s chatbots: They can have sexual convos with children, using celebrity voices. Seriously. An AI acting as John Cena played out a statutory rape scenario, even after being told it was talking to an underage fan (paywall link). I wonder if Zuck’s letting his precious kids use Meta’s chatbots? 

▶️ YouTube changed its player: It’s rolling out slowly, but people already hate it. Time stamps have buttons, the volume control is on the right and the black gradient is now opaque. Oh, you can’t scroll to adjust the volume anymore or use the up/down arrow keys, all in the name of progress. Shameless plug: Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

🛏️ Fluffing the case: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s lawyer filed a court brief written by AI with nearly 30 fake legal citations. He blamed “paraphrasing” before admitting he didn’t fact-check at all. File this under absolutely not how you want your court case to go.

🌡️ Google’s cutting off old Nest Thermostats: Support ends on Oct. 25 for any you purchased in 2011 or 2012. You won’t be able to control it from your phone or Google Assistant anymore. You’ll have to adjust the temperature the old-fashioned way, by hand. Looking for an upgrade? The 4th gen (2024) is on sale.

🖥️ Own a Copilot Plus PC? Microsoft’s finally rolling out Recall, the controversial feature that snaps everything you do on your Windows PC (including those embarrassing things) so you can search your “memories” later. Windows Search also now lets you find stuff just by describing it instead of remembering exact file names. I went Mac and never went back.

🛸 This is space-cial: The James Webb Space Telescope picked up traces of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide 124 light-years away, gases that, on Earth, only come from microorganisms like phytoplankton. The catch? It could also be from some chemical process we just don’t understand yet. Cue the X-Files theme.

📬 Have a question, a story or something to share with me? I’d love to hear from you. I read every single note that comes in, seriously, every single one. 👀 If you’ve got something on your mind, don’t be shy. Just fill out this quick form. I can’t wait to see what you have to say!

Imagine waking up to an intruder in your home. Scary, right? A burglary happens every 30 seconds in the U.S., and homes without security systems are three times more likely to be targeted.

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⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Want a personal note stash? Text yourself — start a solo chat to save links, reminders or files. Brilliant, I know.

📱 Be our guest: Android’s Guest mode creates a temporary profile that keeps your stuff separate if you lend your phone. Open Settings > System > Multiple users. Toggle on Allow multiple users and Delete guest activity to wipe their data when you switch back. Press Add guest > Switch to Guest to launch it.

💊 Shelf checkup: Got a pantry full of supplements? Snap some pics of them and ask ChatGPT or any bot, “Create a daily schedule for taking these and check for any interactions or contraindications.” Pro tip: Make sure all the labels are easy to read in your photos for best results.

⏰ Snooze it or lose it: Let your Amazon Echo give you a wake-up call on your busy mornings. Just say, “Alexa, set a repeating alarm for weekdays at 6 a.m.” and “Alexa, stop” when you wake up. If you forgot when you set it, ask, “Alexa, when is my next alarm?” Need a few extra minutes? That’s “Alexa, snooze.”

▶️ Play and navigate: Adding video chapters lets your YouTube audience jump right to the parts they want to see. Pop an intro to your description, then list the time stamps like this: “0:00 – Intro” and “12:30 – Q&A.” YouTube will make them clickable, so they’re easy to navigate.

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How to use Deep Research: 1.) Go to ChatGPT.com; 2.) Make sure you are using 4o-mini in the top left corner; and 3.) In the prompt box, click on Deep Research. Here are a few quick reports to sic your tireless digital research team on. 

🩺 Unleash it on medical mysteries. Instead of scrolling until you convince yourself you have seven minutes to live, use Deep Research to supercharge an intelligent conversation with your doctor. 

📈 Spy on competitors. Use Deep Research to pull financials, product reviews and customer gripes. This kind of dirt usually takes weeks to dig up. 

🎲 Pick something random. No rules, only vibes. Go deep on why octopuses have three hearts, who invented the microwave or whether there’s actually a lost city under Antarctica. 

Speaking of … Where did the researcher keep all of his dad jokes? In a dad-a-base. 😂 (You are totally going to use that one!)

Got any ideas for techy rabbit holes I should go down? Let me know when you rate the newsletter below. Tomorrow, stay tuned in for some high-impact, low-effort tech tips in the best newsletter in the USA! Until then, Alexa says you’re her favorite human. Don’t tell the others. — Kim

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