🤖 You’ve got a friend in me: AI leaders like Musk, Zuckerberg and Microsoft are pushing bots as personalized friends (paywall link) to combat loneliness, but more importantly, for user engagement and data tracking. AI companions are constantly being tweaked with just enough bias to keep you loyal, as seen with Musk’s Grok being “retrained” after backlash for leaning too liberal.
2 days
How long it took AI to figure out why some superbugs are immune to antibiotics. The shocker? A team of microbiologists spent 10 years getting to the same answer. The bot even came up with four new ideas they hadn’t considered. And get this: It couldn’t have copied them … their research wasn’t published.
Stop trolls on Instagram: You can filter out nasty comments. Go to Profile > Settings and activity > Hidden Words (under How others can interact with you). Tap Manage custom words and phrases to build a block list, then toggle on Hide comments. Anything with those words stays hidden from your followers.
🧠 New brain tech: This is amazing. Researchers developed an implant that helps people who can’t speak communicate again. Casey Harrell, for example, has ALS and now has his brain signals turned into text and read aloud by a computer in his old voice. The best part? It’s 97% accurate, making it the most advanced system yet.
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TSA gets it right: Gold Star families now have free PreCheck, plus a discount for military spouses, and TSA is adding expedited lanes in 10 cities. It’s part of their July 4th rollout that finally makes airport lines suck a little less to thank families for their service to our country.
🧲 Battery boy: A mom demanded an X-ray for her screaming toddler. Good move, because he’d swallowed a button battery, which was frying his throat from the inside. He was originally misdiagnosed with a stomach virus. He’s recovering after several procedures, and Mom basically saved his life by refusing to be gaslit by triage.
Free TV isn’t free: Amazon is torching the Freevee app. It’s dead by August 2025. All that “Watch Free with Ads” content is getting absorbed into Prime Video. Jeff needs the money.
🩸 The FBI’s waving red flags: Scammers have a new angle. They’re impersonating health fraud investigators to steal sensitive data. They’ll slide into your texts or inbox asking for health info or fake reimbursements. Watch out for phone calls, too. Don’t bite, it’s all phishing designed to use your medical ID for something or someone else, along with stealing your cash. Have an older family member? Warn them about this one.
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🍿 Movie theater ad bloat: I saw F1 last night. It was pretty good but 70 minutes longer than it should have been, courtesy of 25 minutes of commercials. AMC is stuffing up to 30 minutes of ads to plug revenue holes, and movies will start later than the listed time. Order dessert, your seat’s not going anywhere.
Microsoft Authenticator changes: It’s ditching password management. At the end of this month, the autofill password feature bites the dust. And by August? Say goodbye to accessing saved passwords in the app at all. I use NordProtect for my password manager.
37 out of 50
That’s how many top news sites saw traffic drop after Google’s AI took the wheel. Despite wild headlines covering assassination attempts, election chaos and tariff wars, users stayed on the search page. Why? Google’s Gemini bot summarizes the news, grabs the eyeballs and leaves publishers ghosted like a bad Tinder date.
💔 Trouble in swipe city: Dating apps are seeing a drop in love … and users. Case in point: Bumble just laid off about a third of its staff to cut costs. Why? People are fed up with ghosting, pay-to-play matches and the lack of real connection. Looks like it’s back to making eye contact at the grocery store while squeezing the melons.
$1 billion
That’s Rivian’s latest cash infusion from Volkswagen. It’s the second billion in a $5.8B tech JV, paid out after Rivian hit gross profit (finally). The deal: VW gets EV software; Rivian gets a lifeline. Think of it as funding your roommate’s startup in exchange for their Wi-Fi password.
DJI’s power play: DJI’s new Power 2000 is part battery beast, part road trip buddy. It’s a 2kWh LFP unit expandable up to 22kWh, thanks to 10(!) daisy-chained expansion batteries. It hits 3000W output and doubles as a noise-conscious “Uninterruptible Power Supply,” meaning it can keep devices powered during blackouts. Cost? $10,000.
🔞 TikTok trouble, again: This is really bad. A viral TikTok trend is using motivational clips to camouflage grooming tactics. Teens, mostly girls, lip-synch “Yes you can” while text implies dating younger kids or sneaking out. Experts say it plays on empowerment language to nudge kids into risky behavior. Predators are watching and commenting. TikTok, of course, does nothing.
Over 1 million
That’s how many robots are working in Amazon warehouses. They do everything from moving packages to sorting items. The scary part? Robots already help with 75% of deliveries and are on track to outnumber human workers soon. First they take our jobs, then it’s the world. Better be nice to your Roomba.
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👂🏻 Gene therapy restores hearing: I love this. Scientists helped people with lifelong deafness hear for the first time using an experimental treatment. They injected the OTOF gene (needed to send sound signals to the brain) into patients born with a mutation. The outcome? After six months, everyone tested gained some level of hearing. Amazing.