Windows 11 update breaks SSDs: Last week’s KB5063878 update is making storage drives vanish, showing up as unallocated space. Since the update rolled out automatically, the only real fix is to roll it back. Here’s how.
The secret science squad in your pocket
ChatGPT
Think your phone is just for calls, texts and scrolling? Think again. You’re carrying around a secret lab in your pocket.
The accelerometer that flips your screen when you turn it? That’s what your fitness app uses to count steps. The barometer that helps your weather app? It can tell if you’ve climbed a flight of stairs. And the gyroscope that powers AR games? Aim it at the sky, and it points out planets.
These little guys are working harder than dating apps a week before Valentine’s Day.
👏🏻 Meet the team inside your phone
- The accelerometer detects movement, whether you’re walking, running or sprawled on the couch.
- The gyroscope tracks rotation, so panoramic photos don’t look like a toddler took them.
- The magnetometer? Your phone’s built-in compass. Perfect when you’re lost in the mall.
- How about the barometer? It senses air pressure, so yes, it knows if you’re upstairs or downstairs.
- The ambient light sensor adjusts brightness, so you’re not blinded in bed.
- Who could forget the proximity sensor? It turns off the screen when you hold the phone to your ear. Magic.
- And the classic microphones are sensitive enough to detect distant rumbles from earthquakes.
🧑🏻🔬 Experiments you’ll want to try
- Turn your phone into an earthquake detector – Download Phyphox (iOS, Android) or Vibration Meter (iOS, Android), and place your phone on a table. Watch it register vibrations from passing trucks or even footsteps.
- Be your own weather station – Use Barometer & Altimeter (iOS, Android) to predict a storm before your local weather TV reporter does. I bet you win.
- North without looking – Open your compass app, spin around, close your eyes, and try to stop facing north. Or on your next flight, use it to check your altitude.
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.
1,500 years
That’s how long ago engineers in Tajikistan built a hidden aqueduct system. Ancient designers used ceramic pipes and waterproof mortar to serve a fortress city long before flush toilets were a thing. And yes, it still impresses modern-day scientists. Click through the photos, and you’ll see why.
📺 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.
📧 Big Tech is reading your emails: Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, so annoying. They all snoop on what you open, click and even say. I use StartMail because it puts privacy first: no ads, no tracking, and encrypted email with unlimited disposable addresses. Try it free for 7 days right now, and get 60% off. It’s what I use, and I trust it.
🧬 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.
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.
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? 💿