See why insurance denied your claim: This free tool from ProPublica walks you through the steps to see every scrap of info your insurance company legally has to provide.
Your new AI creepy friend
Feeling lonely? The new $99 AI necklace, Friend, is here to keep you company and ask you questions. Here’s my take on it.
⚕️ Proceed with caution: Epic Systems, the huge health care software company that makes roughly $5 billion annually, says you’ll soon be able to import your medical records to apps of your choice using your Epic credentials. Sounds convenient, but think twice: You can’t control who these apps will sell your data to. Next thing you know, your life insurance premium skyrockets.
Which tech company stores the most information on the internet? Is it … A.) Amazon, B.) Facebook, C.) Google or D.) Wikipedia?
$25 million ransom
Paid in the CDK dealership software hack. The company refuses to confirm, but the writing’s on the blockchain. A bitcoin payment from a ransom attack consultancy to a hacker account matches up with when CDK software came back online. How convenient.
⚠️ Glad I got rid of my Tesla: The EV company has reported more than 1,200 Autopilot-related crashes to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since 2021. The biggest culprits: Autopilot struggling to recognize obstacles and veering off the road in wet conditions. Tesla says to keep your hands on the wheel and be ready to retake control at all times (paywall link). Gee, thanks …
Another health care data breach: This time, it’s HealthEquity, a tech company that runs health savings accounts. Criminals got their hands on 4.3 million people’s names, numbers, addresses and payment info. What’s strange, though, is that no malware was spotted during the investigation, and there’s been no ransom demand yet.
Move over, TikTok: Talkie is now the fifth-most-downloaded app, and its parent company, MiniMax, has ties to Communist China. Talkie lets you chat with AI versions of celebs (paywall link) like Taylor Swift or a customized romantic partner. Yup, the app gets copies of everything on your phone.
Company you've never heard of brought down the world
A routine software update ended up causing millions of computers worldwide to crash with the infamous blue screen of death. Here’s the scoop — and how it impacts you.
⚠️ Job seekers, beware: North Korean hackers are setting up fake job interviews. Their goal is to break into Macs. How it works: They ask you to join a meeting by downloading a file called “MiroTalk.dmg.” It’s hiding info-stealing malware. Next time you get an offer, vet the company and stick to using trusted software already on your computer.
This antivirus software is a danger to national security
Kaspersky, a Moscow-based cybersecurity company, was just banned in the U.S. If you use its popular antivirus software, here’s why it’s time to ditch it.
🚨 Hide and C:/Seek: Hackers grabbed the personal info of more than 400,000 Life360 users, including names, phone numbers, emails and more. Life360’s location-sharing app is used primarily to help parents keep an eye on their kids. More bad news: Life360 owns tracker company Tile, which hackers also breached, nabbing not only personal info, but also device IDs. Don’t wait to change your passwords, and be on alert for phishing, phone and texting scams.
🚨 Have an iPhone or Mac? Apple is warning about a big uptick in phishing scams. Crooks are using sly tactics to get your personal details, most commonly with phony texts, pop-up ads and convincing calls. Protect yourself: Make sure URLs match the company site (apple.com), never give out your password, and enable two-factor authentification (2FA).
🔊 Old Hollywood returns: AI company ElevenLabs is bringing dead celeb voices to its Reader app. Soon, James Dean, Burt Reynolds or Judy Garland will voice your next audiobook. The app can turn PDFs and other text formats into voiceovers, too.
Nvidia's big bet on AI
A Silicon Valley success story no one saw coming — Nvidia’s now the world’s top company, worth $3.42 trillion, thanks to its AI chips. They power everything from gaming to your car. Plus, employees sue over returning to work, iPhone 16 changes, and catching creepy Airbnb hosts.
Major slip-up: A company TikTok, Uber and X hired to verify user identities left admin credentials exposed online for over a year. They process photos of faces and driver’s licenses, a boon for criminals. Yup, a free meal ticket for identity theft. Remember, when you give info to a company, you’re giving it to their vendors, too.
🚨 Don’t chance it: TeamViewer, the go-to remote access tool, was hacked by Russian spies. The company says the breach was limited to its corporate network, but, hey, I’d assume they accessed customer files, too. If you have it, change your password pronto and set up 2FA. Share this one with your favorite IT pro.
Bad ads: Fake Google ads for browser company Arc are routing people to a landing page that looks nearly identical to the real one. When you install the software, malware sends your data to a shady IP address. Tip: If a download tells you to right-click to open instead of just double-clicking, it’s a scam. That’s a trick they use to bypass macOS security.
110 new languages
On Google Translate, thanks to AI. It took Google 16 years to master its first 133 languages. It learned these 110 in just two years. With the company’s PaLM 2 large language model, Google plans to support 1,000 of the most spoken languages in the world. Lo! (That’s “Wow!” in Swahili.)