$500M (and counting)

Post when it matters: On Facebook, weekdays between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. is best. Wednesday posts get the most eyeballs. Weekends and outside of normal business hours are the lowest engagement times.

It’s gaining traction: Pirelli and Bosch have teamed up to create a “cyber tire” loaded with sensors to track the temp, pressure and road conditions so your car can adjust instantly. What a plus for hydroplaning (when tires lose grip on wet roads). Someday, these tires will talk to other tires to warn them about road conditions. Can you imagine? “Hey, watch out for the pothole!”

Hardware nerds are snapping up old Redbox DVD machines: They’re figuring out how they work and trying to release the movies still inside. But there’s a weird issue — nobody can get the 1996 disaster flick “Twister” out. It’s a problem across all kiosks, with theories ranging from a licensing dispute to a software glitch. What in the hail?

🎮 Wargaming with the pros: This is interesting. Militaries around the world are playing a video wargame called Command: Professional Edition to simulate battlefield scenarios. It lets them test strategies and explore hypotheticals like nuclear warfare (paywall link). The kicker? It was originally made for gamers; its creators had no military background.

Don’t Google these words: A couple searched for “pressure cooker” and “backpacks” on the husband’s work laptop. (I know, right?) Of course, this search got flagged by his IT department … because they’re both homemade bomb ingredients. Just a reminder: Your IT department knows everything you do on a company-issued device.

💬 Never back down: A Utah man was denied a $3,000 payout that’d been confirmed by his home warranty provider’s chatbot. The warranty company claimed its bot was “miscommunicating.” Not having it, the man took his complaint to Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection, which said a chatbot counts as a company representative, making it responsible. PSA: Screenshot every online chat in case you need proof later.

⭐️ Good news: Science Corporation’s new eye implant is bringing sight to the blind. Here’s how it works: A tiny 2mm chip sits under the retina while special glasses equipped with a camera capture what’s ahead. The camera sends infrared light to the chip, which translates it into signals the brain can understand. Patients can’t see full color or detail yet, but they can already recognize shapes and patterns. Amazing.

💳 ICYMI, a PayPal update: Starting Nov. 27, PayPal will share all your purchasing data with third-party merchants — think products, preferences, sizes and styles. Yes, you can stop it. In the app, tap your profile photo at the top right, followed by Data and privacy. Under Manage shared info, tap Personalized shopping and toggle off the switch. On desktop, click the settings gear icon in the top right, then select Data & Privacy > Personalized shopping to toggle off the slider. It never stops …

You know AI is self-aware when it thinks its bot is too big: OpenAI plans to roll out its next big AI model, Orion, by December of this year. It’s 100 times more powerful than GPT-4 and could bring us closer to AGI — you know, where AI can perform any intellectual task a human can. Yikes.

🚨 PSA: Slow down: A 65-year-old woman in Maine lost $23,000 to a scammer posing as Bank of America. The thief tricked her by saying they needed her to share her screen to stop an unauthorized transaction, then they had her complete a wire transfer to “protect” her money. If you get one of these “act now” calls, don’t bite. Hang up and call your bank.