🧬 Eyes before flys: Biometric e-gates are here. Soon, you can scan your face at six airports (ATL, SEA, DCA and more), so you can skip human interaction and plunge straight into security, assuming you’ve paid for Clear and aren’t a criminal. It’s Clear’s way of prepping for the 2026 World Cup, or the singularity, whichever comes first.
No translator, no problem
Midjourney
I’ll never forget the time I was in Paris, sitting at a café, staring down at a menu I couldn’t read. Out came Google Translate on my phone, and suddenly I thought, Wow the future is here. Fast-forward to this fall, and that “future” looks downright primitive compared to what Apple and Google are about to roll out.
Apple’s iOS 26 update, coming alongside the iPhone 17, will turn AirPods into your very own universal translator with no screens, no apps, no fumbling. You speak in English, it comes out in French. The waiter answers in French, you hear it back in English through your earbuds. No awkward mime routines while your croissant deflates.
Smooth, seamless and straight out of Star Trek.
🎧 Ear-resistible tech
Here’s how it works: You’ll need AirPods Pro 2 or Apple’s new AirPods 4, which are lighter and have longer battery life, plus noise cancellation that doesn’t miss a beat. At launch, the live translation feature will cover major languages like English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, with more rolling out in updates.
The best part? Your private conversations aren’t being shipped off to some server farm. Apple says all the language processing happens right on your device. That means your secrets stay yours, whether you’re ordering wine in Paris or bargaining at a street market in Seoul.
🤖 Talk nerdy to me
Android users, don’t worry, you’ve got bragging rights, too. Google’s Pixel Buds Pro already support real-time translation in over 40 languages, powered by Google Assistant. And Samsung is pushing the envelope with the Galaxy Buds3 Pro, which can interpret live conversations on the fly.
We’re standing at the doorstep of something huge: the end of the language barrier. No more phrase books, no awkward hand gestures, no “lost in translation” moments. Just imagine the doors this opens for travel, for business, for making friends across the world.
✅ How to try it now
If you don’t want to wait for iOS 26, you can already test-drive live translation with Pixel Buds Pro paired to any Android phone running the Google Translate app. Or if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, iOS 26 beta testers will get the AirPods translation feature first, so if you’re adventurous, you can sign up for the public beta. Here’s how.
The universal translator isn’t sci-fi anymore. It’s real, it’s in your pocket, and it’s only going to get better. Next time you’re ordering tapas in Madrid or sushi in Tokyo, you’ll sound like a local.
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148%
The spike in impersonation scams over just one year. Scammers are getting better and multiplying. Just last year, fake voices, cloned execs and AI chatbots helped criminals drain nearly $3 billion from victims. The crazy part? It only takes three seconds to clone your voice.
📺 Block the binge: Netflix loves to autoplay the next episode, but you can turn this off. On desktop, click your account picture and select Manage Profiles. Choose Your Profile, go to Playback settings and toggle off Autoplay next episode in a series on all devices. Now hit Save at the bottom.
T-Mobile caught creeping: T-Mobile got slammed with a $92M fine for selling real-time location data without consent. Their legal defense? Basically “We did it, but like, who’s counting?” Judges were not amused. The FCC calls it a massive privacy failure. Verizon and AT&T (pending cases for $104.2M in fines) better start sweating, this was just round one.
🤖 Clickbait’s best friend is a fool: Be careful what you believe on the Motley Fool site. Roadzen’s shares nosedived 10% after Motley Fool’s “friendly Foolish AI,” JesterAI, hallucinated a massive 50% earnings miss in an article. Other sites reposted their AI-written article. “Friendly Foolish AI” sounds like a Tinder bio and a lawsuit waiting.
Gold bars to nowhere: A Pennsylvania woman lost a whopping $800,000 to scammers posing as bank and SSA agents after a fake pop-up said her Social Security number was on porn sites. They made her believe she was “helping” an investigation, convincing her to convert her money to gold and hand it off to couriers. Ouch.
💸 PayPal passwords exposed: A hacker named Chucky_BF (cute, right?) is allegedly selling plaintext passwords for 15.8 million PayPal accounts for just $750. That’s a steal both metaphorically and literally. Experts suspect the info came from malware, not PayPal itself. But still go change your password. Right now, seriously. Add 2FA while you’re at it.
$760
What it costs to unlock horsepower you already own. Volkswagen’s ID3 gives you 228 brake horsepower… but only if you pay to unleash it. Unless you subscribe ($20/month, $200/year) or cough up the one-time $760, you’re stuck with the 201 bhp version, which is like buying a cake and getting billed extra to eat the frosting.
🎊 Hey, Swifties: If you search “Taylor Swift” on Google, you’ll get a confetti shower and a flaming heart that says, “And, baby, that’s show business for you.” A number counter pops up (already in the millions), and if you click it, more confetti drops. Why the celebration? Taylor announced her 12th album.
Trim silence in YouTube Music: Yep, that cool feature from Google Podcasts is now in YouTube Music. It automatically skips over silent or dead-air parts in podcasts, making episodes shorter. To use it: Open the YouTube Music app, start a podcast, tap the playback speed option, and toggle on Trim silence.
📚 Connect headphones to your Kindle: You can listen to audiobooks straight from your Kindle with Bluetooth headphones. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and toggle on Bluetooth. Now tap Bluetooth devices, put your headphones in pairing mode and select them from the list. Not showing up? Hit Rescan.
🪞 Got a smart mirror? I do, and this really doesn’t shock me, but it might you. That mirror might not just be giving you the latest cable news and weather. Turns out it’s probably logging your voice, analyzing your face and selling your data. If yours has a mic or camera, congrats! You might’ve installed a surveillance device over your sink. I’m actually glad the mirror’s watching, someone should see all this emotional growth.
📚 Words, but dumber: The Cambridge Dictionary just added “skibidi,” “delulu” and “tradwife” to its official listings, because apparently we needed receipts that the internet broke language. Other new gems include “mouse jiggler,” “broligarchy” and “work spouse.” Your English teacher is somewhere in a corner, sobbing into a thesaurus.
43 years old
How old the compact disc (CD) just turned. The first commercial one was made in August 1982 for ABBA’s album The Visitors. I had one and lost it. Where did the disco? 💿
Baby got bot: Taking cues from the 2019 I Am Mother movie, China’s building a humanoid with a synthetic womb that can carry a fetus from start to finish. Price tag? Just $14K, way cheaper than a human surrogate. Get this: The inventor, Dr. Zhang Qifeng, says they’re aiming for a working prototype within a year. Frightening.
27
That’s how many “immersive” movies exist for Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro. How awful. Turns out filming in 3D isn’t cheap (paywall link). Until Apple figures out how to mass-produce this stuff, you’re basically buying a 4K souvenir from the future. Wait until 2027 for the cheaper model and more movies.
📱 Google unpacks Pixel 10: Today, Google unveils the Pixel 10 lineup, including Pro, Pro XL and foldable Pro Fold, plus the Pixel Watch 4 and new Pixel Buds 2A. Phones drop Aug. 28, then the Fold, Watch and Buds arrive in October, just in time for holiday shopping. On Sept. 9 (just my guess, they haven’t announced the date yet), Apple will roll out their newest and greatest.
Hurl of fame: As everyone becomes a passenger in autonomous vehicles, motion sickness is the next billion-dollar problem. From predictive buzz seats to cars that gently tilt your body during turns, engineers are working overtime (paywall link) to keep your breakfast down while your car drives itself. The goal? Making you queasy-free before 2030.