News

‘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).

A dozen of you asked me this in one week. No, your mother does not need a self-driving car. Nobody sells one anyway.

No car for sale drives itself, friend. Not even the one with Full Self-Driving on the window sticker. Don’t buy your mom the car. Set up the rides on her phone instead. Ten minutes, tops.

For the first time ever, Apple announced new iPhones and made the old ones cost MORE. Here’s what’s driving the bump, and how to buy TVs, laptops and phones before prices climb again.

The iPhone 16 was $699 last Tuesday. The next day, it was $799. Same phone. Nothing changed. This is the first time Apple has raised prices on older iPhones at a launch event, and it’s not really about Apple. It’s about the chips inside everything you own, friend.

Google caught malware that uses AI to rewrite itself every hour. Here’s why your free antivirus may never see it coming, and the 10-minute fix.

Google caught malware that asks AI to rewrite its own code every hour, friend. Your free antivirus is checking mugshots against a face that keeps changing. Ten minutes today puts a real watcher on duty.

They took your kid’s phone this month. Next thing, your boss wants yours. Here’s what he can and can’t legally do.

New Jersey students handed over their phones on Sept. 1 under a new all-day ban. The same company making those locking pouches for schools sells a version for your workplace, and employers are buying. Know the line before the memo lands.

She hadn’t seen her childhood block in 70 years. Then she put on a headset in a California retirement home.

Sue Livingstone, 84, stood on her old street in Queens again. Ginny, 81, swam with dolphins. Bob, 83, hiked Glacier on his birthday with his wife of 61 years beside him. And the part nobody expected: Afterward, they all went to lunch. Together, friend.

Six things TV installers and calibrators know that nobody says at the register, including why your price match gets denied and why your TV is dimming itself.

The picture mode the store set is wrong on purpose. Your TV is dimming itself. And that model number was written to make sure Best Buy never has to match Costco’s price. Six insider fixes, friend, and they’re all free.

On September 11, the phones didn’t break. They filled up. Here’s what still worked.

Twenty-five years ago, millions of Americans picked up the phone at the same moment, and most of them couldn’t get through. The network wasn’t destroyed. It was busy. That continues to happen in hurricanes and blackouts, and there are four things you can set up tonight that make you reachable when everyone else isn’t.

The ads were timed on seven streaming services. Here’s who steals the most from your evening and which ad-free upgrade is worth it.

Prime Video doubled its ad load since launch. HBO Max went up and never announced it. But the service that feels the worst isn’t the one taking most of your time. Here are the stopwatch numbers and the one upgrade worth your $10 a month.

Same towers, half the bill: A couple paying $200 a month asked me what the catch is. Here are all three.

After 20 years of marriage, Dave and his wife agree on one thing: $200 a month for two phones feels wrong. The same signal sells for half. There’s a catch, friend. Three, actually. All smaller than the one they’re living with.

Your ring and watch are guessing. Calorie counts miss by up to 93%, and sleep stages are a bluff. Here’s how to wear one without letting it lie to you.

Stanford tested seven fitness trackers against lab gear. Heart rate passed. Calories missed by up to 93%, friend. Your ring is guessing at sleep stages and blood oxygen. Here’s how to stop it from fooling you.

The defense secretary’s driver’s license was for sale on the dark web. A listener asks: Why bother protecting yours?

Cameron in Houston figures identity protection is a lost cause when even Pete Hegseth’s driver’s license hit the dark web. Kim’s answer: Leaked data is only step one. Here’s where you still win.

The Labor Day watch list: Dolly’s ‘9 to 5’ kicks off seven shows and movies about work this weekend, plus the free site that shows where each one streams.

We lost Dolly Parton last month, friend. So the Labor Day watch list starts with her: seven shows and movies about work, Succession to the GameStop story, with a trailer for each and directions to find streaming.

🍉 One in a melon

A new AI model called Atlas can take footage from just a few regular cameras and turn it into a full 3D scene you can spin around and view from any angle. One demo used nothing but phones on tripods filming a watermelon drop, and honestly, the results look like something out of a big budget movie. I get this 5-star-rated newsletter.