Say hello to the new Dark Web: The encrypted chat app Telegram was founded by two Russians and has over 700 million active monthly users. It’s also home to Huione Guarantee, the largest illegal marketplace selling personal data and tools linked to pig-butchering schemes. One founder recently told a French court they’d “improve its moderation procedures” for Telegram. Sure. Between November 2024 and now, crypto scams on Telegram have increased by over 2,000%. Stay away.
Robotic dog runs 100m in under 10s! (Black Panther 2.0)
They’ll weaponize this: A Chinese company has created a robotic dog that can sprint 100 meters in under 10 seconds. The design is inspired by Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, who, in 1665, discovered pendulum clocks mounted on the same beam synchronized their swings through energy transfer. And get this — the doggo has custom shoes modeled after a black panther for maximum grip and stability.
5 years
Length of time automaker General Motors is banned from selling customer geolocation and driving behavior data. GM was caught collecting all kinds of driving habits (think hard braking, speed and driving at night) every three seconds and selling it to insurance companies and third-party brokers, all without consent. Shame on them.
Sew much fun: This is the year of “grandmacore” hobbies for 20-something gals — baking, knitting, embroidery, crocheting, gardening and anything else granny loved, too. No surprise, they say it’s more relaxing than scrolling. I bought a knitting set three years ago, and it’s still in the closet. Maybe this is my sign to try it!
🎮 “Fix it for me”: This is the start of something big. Nvidia’s Project G-Assist adjusts your game settings for you based on a conversation. Ask the AI questions like your current frame rate and how to improve it, and it’ll adjust your GPU, aka graphics card, for better performance. Here’s a sneak peek.
Skinny is in: Rumors are swirling about Apple’s iPhone 17 Air, measuring a mere 5.5mm in thickness. The iPhone Pro 16 is about two stacked pennies thicker, at 8.25mm. With less room, the specs for the Air aren’t as impressive. Expect a single rear camera, a single speaker and a smaller battery that dies faster. Android’s version, the Galaxy Slim, could drop in May.
🚀 The age of exploration: The U.S. launched 145 rockets in 2024 and plans to be even busier this year. A “traffic jam” is forming at three key launchpads in Florida and California approved for big rockets. New spaceports might be coming to a city near you. Rockets reach orbit easiest when launched near the equator, and most are by the ocean.
Pure scam: It’s wild how successful purebred puppy scams are. The “breeder” hooks you with cute pics, then it’s all downhill. Once you send a deposit for the furry little one through Venmo or Zelle, scammers hand over a (fake) pick-up address and vanish. Don’t pay for a pet you’ve never seen in real life. If you spot a suspicious ad, report it to the FTC.
Call the referee: Hundreds of AI-fueled websites are flooding the internet with crappy sports articles, often stolen from legit sources. One tip-off: URLs that look like the real thing only if you squint, like “BBCSportss.” It’s all about ad money; they’ve got deals from big brands like Sephora, Net-A-Porter and Asana.
10,000 pics at once: Imagine you have 10,000 images with a white background that should be blue. Before, you’d have to open each file, change the background, save it, and then do it again, over and over. Not anymore. Adobe’s new Firefly Bulk Create app can edit them all at once. The AI-powered tool resizes, removes or replaces backgrounds with a single click. You’ll need a Firefly Premium plan ($49 per month) and “generative credits” to unlock the feature.
💰 It pays not to work: New reports say bitcoin-mining company Riot Platforms struck gold during the August heatwave in Texas. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas paid them $31.7 million to use less power. That’s $22 million more than they made mining bitcoin that month, all paid for by taxpayers.
Project G-Assist | AI Assistant for your RTX PC
🎮 Fix it for me: This is the start of something big. Nvidia’s Project G-Assist adjusts your game settings for you based on a conversation. Ask the AI questions like your current frame rate and how to improve it, and it’ll adjust your GPU, aka graphics card, for better performance.
What would you do for $5 million? Contestants on Amazon’s “Beast Games” are taking on giant beer pong, racing in potato sacks, and playing hide-and-seek with Navy SEALs. YouTuber MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, spent $15 million building “Beast City” in Toronto, where 493 folks are competing for the grand prize. After five episodes, it’s Amazon’s second-most-popular streaming show ever, with 50 million viewers. Catch the trailer here. I’m gonna watch it this weekend.
📂 What’s up, doc? A TikTokker is going viral with genius advice — make a medical binder. Print out and file all your medical reports, then bring your binder to your next appointment. Need bloodwork? You’ve got recent results and can save potentially weeks of waiting. Got a doctor questioning a diagnosis? No problem, you have the official report. I keep track of everything in Apple Health.
“Smart” was a dumb choice: Walgreens swapped out their fridge doors for smart screens five years ago, and it’s been such a disaster they’re suing to get out of the $200 million contract. They were supposed to show what’s in stock and run ads, but instead, the screens crash, show the wrong inventory and even catch on fire.
Show me your digits: Engineer Zara Dar fired up an OnlyFans account while she was pursuing a Ph.D. and made $1 million. Now, she’s teaching folks about complex topics like neural networks, probability and integrals full-time online. One of her AI explainer videos has a million views on YouTube. No joke, she posts the same PG videos to Pornhub and makes almost three times the money.
♟️ Caught between a rook and a hard place: International Master Levy Rozman pitted seven popular AI chatbots against chess engine Stockfish. Spoiler: Stockfish crushed ‘em. ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and X’s Grok are great at chatting, not strategizing. They made hilariously bad moves; like breaking the rules, creating patterns, removing random pieces from the board and generating new ones. Chaotic but entertaining.
Attention, website owners: Over 1 million WordPress sites use the SEO and optimization plugin W3 Total Cache. A new flaw lets hackers steal all kinds of sensitive info from the backend of a site. If you use the plugin, download software update 2.8.2 to patch the bug right now.
It’s a bad apple: I wouldn’t want to be the person in charge of this project. Apple is pulling its AI-generated news summaries for pushing fake headlines. The BBC and other outlets called them out for reporting deaths that didn’t happen. This AI needs to work on its core.
🚀 Houston, we have a problem: Elon Musk’s unmanned Starship prototype went boom after launch, lighting up the Caribbean sky like a meteor shower. The debris diverted at least 20 commercial flights. Imagine being on a plane and seeing that. It wasn’t a total disaster, though. The 233-foot-tall booster made it back to the launchpad in one piece. They’re already planning to try again.