Woz-not-Woz: Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak went on CBS to warn about fake videos of him promoting Bitcoin. The scam clips promise to double whatever BTC you send. The funny part? While telling the story, CBS showed a fake 1970s “Woz in his garage” photo, which turned out to be of a Disney animatronic. Awkward.
The new scams that know you by name
ChatGPT
Ever get a text that feels … a little too real? You know the ones: “Your account has been locked. Click here to verify.” Most of us roll our eyes and delete them.
But the new generation of scams? They’re scarier and a whole lot smarter.
📱 Smishing goes high-tech
In the past month, investigators uncovered a Chinese cybercrime group that stole data on up to 115 million U.S. payment cards over 16 months. That’s one card for every three people.
They didn’t skim them from ATMs. They tricked people into handing over their card info through fake payment alerts sent to phones, aka “smishing” or phishing through text messages.
Those stolen cards were instantly loaded into mobile wallets and used before victims could blink.
💍 The ‘small’ breach that isn’t
Jewelry brand Pandora admitted a hacker got hold of customer names and email addresses via a third-party platform. No passwords, no payment info. Sounds harmless, right? Wrong.
That data is a gold mine for cybercriminals. Why?
It makes their fake messages frighteningly believable. Picture this: “Hi, [Your Name], we noticed unusual activity on your Pandora account…” See how quickly you’d lower your guard?
🕵️♂️ Phishing-as-a-service
Criminals are running ready-made scam platforms with names like “Sneaky 2FA” and “Tycoon 2FA.” These are crazy. You pick a phishing email, select email addresses, pay for it and they are sent out. These services make it easy to mimic real login pages and even trick two-factor authentication systems.
17.75
The average turbulence score on America’s bumpiest flight. The eddy dissipation rate (EDR) is basically a nerdy way to measure how violently the air’s shaking you around. Albuquerque to Denver nails it, turning a short hop over the Rockies into a midair mechanical bull ride. Expect seat belt signs, coffee spills and a nervous chuckle from the flight attendant.
🍿 Delete Netflix history: You can remove shows and movies from your watch history to improve recommendations (or hide guilty pleasures 🤭). On PC, go to Your Profile > Viewing activity and click Hide from viewing history next to the title. Also handy if you’re trying to remember something you watched months ago.
Swift thinking: Taylor Swift revealed her twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, not on stage but on boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast, precisely at 12:12 ET on Aug. 12. No songs, no date, just a master class in soft-launch hype engineering. Within 15 minutes, she had over 1 million views. Dang, how do I get Taylor on my show?
📸 That’s one bad Lenovo: Researchers at Eclypsium have shown that some Lenovo webcams (510 FHD and Performance FHD) can be reprogrammed via BadUSB‑style firmware attacks to inject keystrokes and drop malware, which can persist even after reinstalls. Translation: Your webcam can now type, hack and haunt your PC forever. Patch via firmware 4.8.0 now.
Big Windows update: Yup, Microsoft rolled out fixes for over 100 security flaws, including critical ones that let hackers remotely run malicious code on your PC. The Black Screen of Death is now official, and a new Quick Machine Recovery feature will try to fix your PC if there’s a boot problem. Go to Settings > Windows Update to get it.
💬 75 minutes
That’s how long the average Character.AI user chats with a bot every day. More time than most people spend talking to their actual friends. But hey, Sherlock Holmes never zones out mid-convo to scroll Instagram, right? Turns out, you can put a price on friendship (paywall link): $10 a month, to be exact.
🧳 Panic in the skies: Midway through a plane ride, Will’s AirTag said his suitcase was “left behind” at the last airport. No Wi-Fi meant two hours of imagining his luggage sipping cocktails without him. Landing? Bag was fine. An AirTag glitch. Therapy bill pending. At least Reddit is free; Will’s post is going viral.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Your TV’s USB ports can charge your phone, tablet and other mobile gadgets. If a pop-up asks to access the device, just ignore it. It’ll keep charging anyway. Genius.
Data today, gone tomorrow: Back it up before it backs out on you. Total Drive automatically saves your photos, videos and important documents in the cloud, safe and sound. Simple, secure, and yes, I trust it with my own files. Get 10TB for just $18.
$40 billion
That’s how much market value Do Kwon vaporized in his crypto collapse. He hyped TerraUSD as a stablecoin, then secretly used a trading firm to fake its stability. He could face up to 25 years, but the feds will settle for 12. That’s about one year for every $3.3 billion in lost value.
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📎 Clippy’s cursed reboot: Microsoft dropped “365 companions,” mini-apps that haunt your task bar like friendly ghosts of productivity. They do just enough (search files, poke calendars, hover over your contacts) to pretend they’re helpful.
NYC’s newest side hustle: Gotta give it up to ingenuity! A woman’s making cash “car-sitting” so folks don’t get street-cleaning tickets. In New York, if you don’t move your car, you get fined. Her gig? You stay at work while she chills in your ride until the sweeper passes. Beats paying the $65 ticket.
🕵️ The app store’s worst roommate: Cybercrime crew VexTrio Viper has been publishing fake VPNs, RAM cleaners and dating apps in official stores, pulling millions into their ad-and-scam trap since 2015. That store badge? Just lipstick on a hacker pig. Treat the app store like a public bathroom: Use it, but don’t touch anything without checking first.
On a wing and a snack: This is the start of something huge! Auntie Anne’s, Jamba and Schlotzsky’s are going airborne. DoorDash and Alphabet-owned Wing are piloting drone delivery in three Texas cities, promising pretzels and smoothies in just under three minutes, if you live within 4 miles. And get this. Delivery costs only $3.99. The mall food court just learned to fly.
🌀 Grift of gab: An AI deepfake of their grandson’s voice convinced an 83-year-old Pennsylvania woman and her husband to hand over $18K in cash. Scammers even used rideshare drivers to ferry them to the bank, twice. Police have the footage, but the cash is gone. Family code words could’ve saved them.
$7.7 billion
That’s how much Paramount paid for the rights to the UFC. That’s more than the GDP of Fiji. Seven years, 43 events a year and zero pay-per-view fees, just all-you-can-binge brawling for your $12.99 Paramount+ subscription. ESPN’s old $500M-a-year deal looks like pocket change.