Open-source bombing: Ukraine’s wild daylight drone strike reportedly took out a chunk of Russia’s long-range bombers using open-source ArduPilot software straight from the hobbyist world. The code was originally built in a guy’s basement. Now it’s leveling airfields. Just another casual week for DIY warfare. Who knows what else is lurking around GitHub these days?
Love, hearing loss and Bluetooth settings
hear.com
Barry and I were on vacation in the Bahamas, soaking up the sun and enjoying island life until he caught a nasty virus. The next morning, he woke up and said, “I can’t hear out of my right ear.”
Just like that, his hearing was gone.
He saw a doctor on the island who put him on a steroid immediately. Once we got home, he started a series of injections right into his ear to try to restore the hearing. Nothing worked.
🧏🏼 That’s when reality set in
He’d permanently lost the hearing in one ear.
At first, it was just little things. We avoided our favorite restaurants because they were too noisy. Conversations turned into misunderstandings. I’d start to tell a story, then stop halfway through because it was frustrating for both of us when he couldn’t quite catch the details.
Barry, like a lot of people, didn’t want to get a hearing aid. “They make you look old,” he’d say. And I get it, no one wants to feel like they’re falling apart.
But hearing loss doesn’t just affect one person. It changes how we connect with the people we love. We’ve been married 25 years. I wanted us back.
📱 Tech to the rescue
I helped him tweak his iPhone when he first lost his hearing.
- I went into Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual > Balance to shift sound to his good ear.
- While there, I turned on LED Flash for Alerts for texts and calls so he wouldn’t miss them.
- I also activated Background Sounds to cut out unwanted chatter.
That really didn’t help much.
3:4 aspect ratio
That’s the new photo size Instagram now supports. ICYDK, it’s also how most phone cameras shoot. So now your pics will show up exactly as you took them, with no weird cropping at the top or bottom. And yes, square and 4:5 posts still work, too. Finally, justice for your forehead.
🎬 Not sure what to watch? Try FlixPatrol. It shows daily top 10 charts of what’s trending worldwide, from Netflix movies to HBO shows. Already have something in mind? Use JustWatch to find out where it’s streaming and go straight to the site. Saves time and all that endless scrolling.
👁️ Laser eyes, activated: Chinese scientists made a laser that reads text ⅛ of an inch from 0.85 miles away. Originally for studying stars, it now works on your grocery list from the next neighborhood over. Add shape-recognition AI, and yes, it’s totally spying tech. Meanwhile, you’re looking for your glasses when they’re on your head.
Silicon in your skull: Neuralink’s got company. Paradromics just put a brain chip in a human in a clean 20-minute surgery during epilepsy treatment. It’s their first human implant to prove the tech works; the brain chip was removed after 20 minutes. Next stop: a full clinical trial, and maybe someday, mind-controlled emails. What could go wrong?
$50,000
That’s how much a 20-year-old makes monthly on TikTok Shop. Grayson Finks treats TikTok like a 9-to-5, but with better lighting and fewer naggy coworkers in 10 videos a day. She’s made more than $3 million in revenue, with 176,000 followers.
AirTagged and attacked: This is frightening. Miami man Andres Dorado allegedly planted an Apple AirTag tracker in his estranged wife’s car, then used it to crash her hotel date and stab her new partner. A knife, broken window and GPS breadcrumbs later, cops found the AirTag was linked to his phone and arrested him on the spot.
🍪 93.7 billion cookies for sale: And nope, not the Girl Scouts kind. Hackers are selling browser cookies on the dark web, so they can access your accounts with no login needed. How’d they get them? Infostealer malware from shady downloads. Be careful what you click.
400 million
That’s how many subscribers MrBeast just hit on YouTube. The data supports it, he’s the undisputed king of the algorithm. He’s got more subscribers than the U.S. has citizens. At this rate, he could drop a video called “I Breathed Air,” and it’d hit 50 million in an hour.
🧨 Military-tech frenemies: Meta and its exiled VR golden boy Palmer Luckey are now building souped-up VR headsets for the U.S. Army. It’s part rebrand, part redemption arc and fully dystopian. Move over, Xbox Live, tactical goggles now have patch notes.
👾 Farming pays: Roblox’s new super-hit Grow a Garden has sparked a black market for digital fruit. People are flipping dragonflies and polar bears for $200+ despite it violating Roblox rules. Gamers are basically becoming produce smugglers. It’s Farmville meets Wall Street. Congrats to the guy who sold a few tomatoes to pay his paid rent.
Microsoft alert: Starting in June, you won’t be able to save new passwords in their Authenticator app. By July, it’ll stop autofilling passwords and delete saved payment info. Come August, all stored passwords will be wiped. Why? Microsoft’s moving password management to the Edge browser. I’m still not making the switch.
Every 44 minutes
Something in deep space is flashing, and scientists have no idea what it is. It’s 14,700 light-years away and sends out bursts of both radio waves and X-rays. For the record, that isn’t supposed to be possible. Theories? Maybe an ancient magnetar or a white dwarf binary system. Or hear me out: Aliens.
Too good to be true: Hackers are tricking people into downloading “premium AI tools” that are actually malware. Some freeze your PC. Others steal logins. One claims it’s helping humanitarian causes. Classic hacker gaslight. If an AI app offers unicorn features for free, it’s probably there to eat your bank account.
🚦 You have unpaid tolls: No, you don’t. DMVs in NY, FL, CA and elsewhere are warning about scammy texts pretending you owe traffic fines. They threaten to yank your license. Spoiler alert: It’s fake. Don’t click the links, unless you really want scammers to know your SSN.
Math problem pyramid scheme: A fake Facebook event disguised as a “genius-level math contest” has been a top post for half a year, somehow racking up 115M+ views. Spoiler: It’s just a viral engagement trap. People are still arguing about its fake equation in the comments a year later. My math teacher called me average. How mean.
📸 Google Photos turns 10: Happy 10th bday to Google Photos, now AI-powered and ready to remove your ex from pictures like they never existed. A new editing tool called “Reimagine” will let you circle a part of a photo and prompt it to redo reality. Also, QR codes for albums. iPhone owners? You wait.
21%
That’s how much of Business Insider’s staff just got axed in one morning. BI swung the layoff scythe again, shedding over a fifth of its workforce (paywall link) as SEO clicks vanish and AI floods the content pool. The memo called it “transformation.” Somewhere, a LinkedIn “Open to Work” badge just blinked to life. P.S. We’re hiring!