Blur your house on Google maps
Don’t want to allow nosey people to see your house? Try this!
Tags: Google, Google Maps, maps
Search battle: AI chatbots vs. Google
Still turning to Google for answers? How we search online is changing faster than I’ve ever seen in tech.
Google still processes a massive 8.5 billion daily searches, but AI is coming in hot. As of July, 1.5 billion people globally were using AI chatbots, and that market is projected to hit $455 million in revenue by 2027.
Online dating the safe way
You may not be looking for love online, but Tinder says about 40% of couples meet via apps. I know a couple who met on a dating app for farmers. They’re perfect for each other — they got married and have two boys and two girls under age 8 with another on the way. But for others, dating apps can be a complete nightmare.
📍 For the site you always check: Right-click on a tab in your browser and select Pin. This will shrink it down to a small icon that’s always there.
Dropped your phone in water? Forget the bowl of rice. The collective internet is going bonkers over this video. It uses low sound frequencies to literally pull the liquid out of speakers. Caveats: It won’t help with water trapped in the USB port or SIM card slot, and you’ll need to turn your phone on for this to work. Let it dry out for 24 hours before you try.
Instead of turning up the volume, turn on the closed captioning. My son, Ian, uses closed captioning and once asked me to turn it on when we were watching a movie. Now I can’t go back!
Never hurts to ask: Some credit cards offer extended warranties on anything you buy with the card. If your expensive vacuum or laptop craps out, it’s worth asking Amex or Chase if they’ll pay to repair or replace it.
🔍 Your new favorite Mac shortcut: ⌘ + spacebar. This opens a new Spotlight window. Use it to search for a program, file, contact or anything else.
Try Alt + Shift + arrow keys: This Windows shortcut quickly moves the active window from one monitor to another if you use multiple monitors. Nice!
🛫 Ticket to scam: Boarding passes display your full legal name, ticket number and passenger name record. That six-digit code plus your last name gives anyone access to your booking info online (think email, phone number and address), and they can even change or cancel your flight. Do not post photos of your boarding passes on social!
Nerd alert: OpenAI’s Codex (the engine behind GitHub Copilot) provides AI-powered assistance for coding and can help you write, debug and optimize code across various programming languages.