How to talk to a real customer service rep

🎮 “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.

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.