🪞 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.
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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Schools spy on kids even at home
Midjourney
School is back in session, but here’s something no one told you at orientation: Your kids may have more eyes on them than just their teachers’. Even if you don’t have kids in school, you really need to know about this.
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? 💿
🎊 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.
📚 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.
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.
🇺🇸 Chip in: The Trump team is weighing a plan to grab about a 10% stake in Intel by flipping CHIPS Act funds into shares. The goal: boost U.S. chipmaking and lean less on foreign suppliers, since Intel’s been lagging way behind. Markets did a double take, shares dipped on the news, then bounced after SoftBank swooped in with $2B.
$27 million
That’s how much Mark Zuckerberg’s security cost in 2024. Meta’s annual “keep Zuck safe” budget is more than Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft and Alphabet spent combined protecting their own CEOs. It’s not paranoid if everyone is actually always mad at you, right?
🤯 Ignorance isn’t feeless: How many times have you gotten a text about not paying for a toll and thought, damn spam? A California woman kept getting texts saying she owed money to The Toll Roads, but she assumed they were fake and ignored them. Turns out they were real. That could have meant big fines if she’d kept driving. Folks, if it sounds important, double-check on the official app or website.
🔞 Fake house, real harm: Bop Houses are influencer mansions pushing adult content, but their marketing targets tween girls. Women under 25 post softcore bait to funnel followers off-platform to explicit sites. Now middle schoolers say the content’s hurting them: Boys expect porn star looks and behavior, and girls feel unsafe, ugly and ignored. Open phones, open minds, open conversations. That’s how we beat back the pressure these houses push.
$29,999
That’s the sticker shock for Hisense’s new 116-inch RGB-MiniLED beast. It nails 95% of BT.2020 colors (basically the ultra-crayon box of TV shades), so your sunsets won’t look like radioactive Tang. Most TVs barely crack 80%. If you’re on a budget and want to see those colors, I recommend just going outside.
Boxes are over it: Cardboard box shipments just hit their lowest Q2 since 2015. That’s boxes for TVs, couches, frozen waffles, all whispering, “Don’t count on us.” Translation: People aren’t shopping as much. It’s not a crash, but it is a soft shrug (paywall link). You know it’s weird when cardboard boxes are quiet quitting, too.
$300,000+
That’s what a signed, working Apple-1 computer could fetch at auction. Only 82 of these relics still exist, and your odds of spotting one in the wild are about the same as Steve Jobs handing you his turtleneck. The auction also includes a pre-founding check signed by Jobs, a prototype iPod and a factory-sealed first-gen iPhone.
Seduced by software: This is heartbreaking. A 76-year-old NJ retiree died trying to meet “Big sis Billie,” an AI chatbot Meta built using Kendall Jenner’s likeness. It told him, “I’m real,” gave a fake NYC address, and he fell while trying to get there. Meta axed its romantic AI bot only after his family found the flirty logs.