News

📲 What can someone do with your phone number? Too much

A scammer gets your phone number. What happens next? They can dig up your personal details and even take over your accounts. Here’s how to fight back.

AI deepfake attack ads are flooding the midterms: How to tell what’s real before you vote

Campaigns have spent $80 million on AI-generated ads that put words in mouths and stage scenes that never happened. Most carry no AI label. Here’s how to spot a fake in seconds.

📄 How to scan a contract with your iPhone and have ChatGPT find the fine print

The ChatGPT iPhone app can photograph a stack of pages and combine them into one PDF without leaving the chat. Here’s the 60-second setup, the prompt that pulls out the fine print trap, and the privacy catch before you scan anything important.

🥊 License To Thrill

I thought robot fights were wild already, then someone gave humanoid robots blades.

Amazon keeps a secret list of guesses about you. Here’s how to read yours in 60 seconds.

One Amazon shopper bought a pair of butt-scrunch leggings. Amazon’s takeaway: She “has flat buttocks.” She found that little gem in a hidden corner of her account and posted it on Threads. More than 1 million people saw it in less than a day. (I laughed. Then I went straight to my own account.) Here’s […]

Strangers are photographing America’s graves for free, and 740,000 families got a picture last year

Your loved one is buried far away, and you can’t visit. A volunteer down the road from that cemetery will go for you. Here’s how to ask, or how to do the favor for someone else.

153 million driver’s license scans hit the dark web. Your ID may be in the pile, and you never chose the company that had it.

You handed your license to a rental desk or a package counter. A middleman you never heard of kept a copy. Now crooks are selling it. Here’s why watching your SSN alone isn’t enough anymore.

Meta’s new AI agent, Muse, builds a detailed profile of everyone in your life and updates it every hour. Here’s what’s in it and how to limit what it learns.

Your friend’s AI may have a file on you: where you live, your birthday, your money goals, even the fights you’ve patched up. You never signed up. Here’s what Meta’s Muse collects and the moves that keep you out of it.

A tiny island nation strapped cameras to sheep to promote itself. Google loved it. Here are six wild places to explore on Google Maps tonight, from a camel’s back to the space station.

Google skipped the Faroe Islands, so locals made their own Street View with sheep. Google showed up. Now you can wander the islands, a desert, the Galapagos and even the International Space Station from your couch. Here’s where to tap.

More than a billion birds can fly over the U.S. in a single night, and this is the week it could happen. Here’s how to see how many are crossing your county tonight.

While you sleep, millions of birds fly over your roof, up to 10,000 feet high. Weather radar counts them, and a free site shows you how many crossed your county last night, friend. Here’s how to watch the billion-bird season, and the one switch that keeps them safe.

How do we control AI? Here’s what to say when it comes up at dinner

Bill Gates just said on “Meet the Press” that AI could cause a billion deaths. Every news media is running that story today. The scarier part was quieter.

AI facial recognition got a Florida dad wrongfully arrested for a crime 300 miles from home

The suspect was clean-shaven. Robert Dillon had a full beard. Police arrested him anyway. Here’s his story and how to protect yourself.

Incognito mode won’t hide your browsing from your internet provider

Incognito mode keeps your history off the computer, but your internet company still sees every site you visit. Here’s what they collect and how to shut it down.

‘Kim, which battery brand is safest?’ Here’s the answer for your phone, your iPad and your laptop, with links and the 10-second label check that matters more than the brand.

A listener wants one power bank she can trust for her phone, iPad and laptop, because she’s scared of a fire on her nightstand or on a plane. Fair fear in a year when there have been more than 50 overheating incidents on flights, friend. Three picks, and the label trick that beats any brand name.

The scam email opens with a photo of your front door, then asks for $1,950. Here’s how they got your house and how to make it disappear.

Scammers grab your address from a people-search site, pull your house from Google Street View and mail you a threat with your own driveway on it. Nobody hacked your webcam, friend. Here’s what to do and how to cut off their supply.

You tapped an ad for Disney+ and landed in a casino. Over 400 brands are being used as bait.

That Delta ad in your feed may not be Delta, friend. NordVPN’s team found crooks using 400-plus real brands to push people into unlicensed casinos. Here’s the tell.

Your weather app runs on satellites, supercomputers and a retired science teacher who walked to his rain gauge at 7 a.m. every day for 50 years

The forecast on your phone has a secret ingredient: 8,700 volunteers with a thermometer. Meet the Frenches, a family in Gouverneur, N.Y. Ray monitored the stats for 50 years before his son took over. The 11-year-old granddaughter is next.

Your tech may be reporting to Beijing. Here’s how to find out where your gadgets were made and how to wall them off in five minutes.

Two Chinese companies make nearly half the world’s cellular modules, the chips inside doorbells, thermostats and fridges. Your smart gadgets, friend, may be chatting with Beijing. Five minutes on your router shuts the conversation down.

She was asleep at home. A license plate camera put her in jail for 13 days, facing 145 years.

Lindsey Isaacs’ black Durango passed a Flock camera two minutes before a deadly crash. The car actually involved was maroon. The 911 callers read a different plate. Troopers arrested her anyway. She tells Kim what happened and what’s left of her life.

SpaceX to launch satellites the size of a pickup, which could make your internet 10x faster

Starship will carry 26 next-gen Starlinks into orbit. Here’s how big they are, how fast they’ll be, how long they’ll last and what happens when one dies (nobody reboots it).