94% of hospitals disrupted by a cyberattack

It was on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary. The company said it’s paid out $2 billion in advances to providers while it rebuilds its payment claims systems. I’m not saying this wouldn’t have happened if they read this newsletter … but it probably wouldn’t have.

Tags: company, newsletters


Reader question: 'I want cameras to watch my house when I'm gone, but not when I am home'

In times of crisis, it’s hard to get a clear view of the situation. That’s why irrefutable evidence is so valuable. Say a friend visits for a party, and your favorite vase is missing the next day.

Or maybe two family members get into a fight, and their stories contradict each other. You’ll have a hard time hammering down the facts. Security cameras can tell you what really happened when you have doubts. Tap or click here for five uses for security cameras you never thought of before now.

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Financial safety: Protect yourself from these emerging tax scams

It happens every year. We need to file our taxes, and scammers come out to steal from us. Here’s what you need to know right now.

Every year, the IRS releases a list of scams to watch out for. These are the biggest ones for this year:

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🦐 AI invasion: Facebook’s algorithm is now pushing AI-generated content that goes straight to ad-heavy websites and scams. Some of these spam images look real, and others, like “Shrimp Jesus” (paywall link) are so weird that people can’t help but click. Meta’s response? Crickets, as usual.

A safe phone is a locked phone

If your phone locks after 10 seconds (too fast) or 2 minutes (too long), change that. I recommend 30 seconds — it’s ju-u-u-st right.

  • On iPhone: Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock and choose a length of time.
  • On Android: Go to Settings > Display and look for a Timeout, Screen Timeout or Sleep option.

🐑 Baa-a-d to the bone: A Montana rancher turned a $4,200 clone of a dead sheep into a woolly empire. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth created super sheep hybrids, selling them for up to $550,000 a pop. What could go wrong? Well, everything. After crossing state lines with forged vet certs for these endangered-species mixes, he’s facing up to five years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines.

Office 2024: It’s coming this year, no subscription needed. Microsoft promises five years of support, so one purchase and you’re done. The catch? It’s missing a few bells and whistles, like Publisher and Teams. FYI: The new version will be available for macOS and Windows 10 and 11.

Say what?! UCLA engineers created something remarkable for folks with voice disorders — a wearable device that turns throat movements into speech. It’s a tiny, stretchy patch that uses machine learning to speak for you with over 95% accuracy! No surgery — just stick it on and start chatting. Amazing stuff.

Research from the University of Ottawa shows Gen Xers and baby boomers can’t quite nail the usage of some emojis. The “wide eyes” 😳 emoji? Might as well be hieroglyphics. And “happiness” 😃😀 emojis? I have to say, it’s hard to know which smiley to use and when. Pro tip: Most people see this one as totally fake: 🙂

Smart selfie: Megan Troutwine snapped a selfie on a trip to NYC and noticed something strange: Her eye was drooping. That led her to the neurologist, where she was diagnosed with meningioma, a brain tumor. Surgeons found another, too, during her operation. Glad to say Megan’s doing well.

And then there are the Elon Musk scams: Cybercriminals are using the SpaceX Starship test launches to push bogus crypto giveaways. They’re looping videos, faking Musk’s voice and tricking folks into sending crypto. One phony account even roped in 2.3 million subscribers.