Good Monday Morning

Happy autumn on this September 22nd. Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown, Yom Kippur is next week.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,064 words, about 4 minutes to read.

3 Headlines to Know Now

Samsung Turns Your Fridge Into a Billboard

A new software update puts ads on Samsung’s Family Hub refrigerators in the US as part of its “screens everywhere” push that now means ads everywhere. 

Rolling Stone’s Owner Sues Google over AI Overviews

Penske Media, publisher of Rolling Stone and Variety, claims that Google AI summaries steal its reporting, drain traffic, and threaten the business model behind major magazines. That’s all true, and Google said for years they would do just that. (WSJ gift link)

Google Ad-Tech Remedies Trial Starts Monday

A Virginia court will begin weighing penalties that could break up Google’s ad-tech empire, including forcing it to spin off Ad Manager and AdX, the platforms used by most advertisers.

What We Want AI to Do

By The Numbers

George’s Data Take

The key data point here is that one-third of Americans thought that AI should play a big role in only two categories: weather forecasting and analyzing financial crime data. 

These are the often silent objections you’re dealing with when you launch AI initiatives. From the beginning, a significant portion of your audience is skeptical. Some are even hostile.

AI Slop Comes For Social Media

Running Your Business

A man in the Philippines is part of a growing trend of creators who produce AI-only video content on YouTube and has made up to $9,000 monthly for a job he says takes an hour or two a day. 

Silver Beacon Behind the Scenes

The issue isn’t an adorable fake video like the viral bunnies on trampolines, but the inequality between people who create what we consume and the one-in-a-million who makes six figures instead of six dollars.

All of your creatives are under siege, from your graphics people to your copywriters. And to be fair, generative AI can churn out pages of copy and thousands of images. But who is going to decide if it’s any good, or more importantly, if it’s what your organization needs?

Selling Location Data Just Cost Verizon $47 Million

A federal appeals court upheld a $47 million fine against Verizon for selling customer location data without meaningful consent. Other courts have ruled differently in similar cases, setting up a likely Supreme Court fight over how the law treats this sensitive information.

What is Location Data?

Every smartphone constantly produces signals about where it is, which also means where you are. That data can reveal your home, workplace, doctor visits, routines, and favorite hangouts. In other words, it’s a map of your private life. 

Location data is not only a goldmine for marketers, but also governments, criminals, and, yes, data brokers.

Why It Matters

Selling precise location trails can open the door to stalking, scams, predatory pricing, and profiling. Privacy groups argue that ads don’t need pinpoint tracking to show someone what’s nearby. Industry groups counter that bans will make local ads less useful and more expensive. 

They’re both correct. My company doesn’t often need pinpoint accuracy, but I’d feel differently if I were advertising for a retail chain.

How Verizon Got Here

For years, Verizon sold access to “location aggregators” like LocationSmart and Zumigo. These middlemen resold the data to dozens of other companies. 

One buyer, Securus Technologies, gave law enforcement real-time phone tracking, sometimes without warrants or consent. A Missouri sheriff abused the system to track judges and police officers.

That same kind of data, though, can also aid legitimate investigations. After mobs took over the Capitol on January 6, federal agents subpoenaed phone records of everyone inside.

The Legal Split

The Second Circuit (Verizon) and D.C. Circuit (T-Mobile) upheld big fines. The Fifth Circuit let AT&T off the hook. That split makes Supreme Court review likely.

States Step In

Oregon banned sales of location data more precise than 1,750 feet and restricted ads to kids under 16 just a few months ago. California’s pending AB 322 would ban sales outright.

Bottom Line

The law is catching up, but for now the safest step is personal: check your app settings and limit location access to “while using” instead of “always on”.

Google Dwarfs ChatGPT in Traffic

Practical AI

New data shows Google pulled in 83 billion visits in August compared to ChatGPT’s 5.8 billion, and many of those ChatGPT visits were not for search at all. Experts say that many of those who searched via ChatGPT verified the results on Google.

Resource: Protecting Your Location Data

Protip

A solid resource from Lifehacker earlier this year offers simple steps in phone settings to help you limit location tracking data on your phone.

Fox Host Walks Back Killing Mentally Ill Homeless People

Debunking Junk

Brian Kilmeade urged “involuntary lethal injection” for mentally ill homeless people who refuse treatment and then added, “Just kill them.” The clip spread widely online and sparked outrage. Kilmeade apologized days later calling the remark “extremely callous,” but the comment landed in a moment when many people have been punished or fired for their speech. 

Head Starting Mystery Campaign Uniting Baseball and Tennis

Screening Room

New Helmet Can Reach Deep Into The Brain

Science-Fiction World

Scientists at University College London and the University of Oxford built an ultrasound helmet that can focus on tiny areas of the brain to safely change how cells work without surgery. The breakthrough could help treat Parkinson’s disease, depression, and other conditions.

3D Printed Device Pulls Drinking Water From Air

Tech For Good

Two students at Münster University of Applied Sciences built a portable container that uses special materials and 3D printing to turn humidity into safe drinking water, offering up to six liters a day under the right conditions.

Try Some Citizenship Test Questions

Coffee Break

The naturalization test is returning to the longer 2020 version with more civics questions and a higher passing score. Learn more about that and test yourself on 20 questions.

Sign of The Times

Good Monday Morning

It’s September 8. Just about everyone is back to school now, and today is all about the tech they’ll use and have used on them.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,064 words, about 4 minutes to read.

3 Headlines to Know Now

Anthropic Pays $1.5B to Authors

The AI firm that makes the Claude chatbot settled a landmark copyright suit with book publishers by paying about $3,000 per copied title while avoiding a trial that could have cost far more. (Washington Post gift link)

EU Hist Google With 3.2B Fine (Again)

Brussels accuses Google of rigging the online job market, adding a fourth multibillion-dollar penalty to the company’s long string of EU antitrust battles.

“We’ve Hacked Your Webcam” Spam is Real Now

Researchers warn that new spyware actually snaps porn screenshots and webcam pics. They’ve turned the old scam email into a working blackmail tool, which seems bad.

Bell-to-Bell Bans Gather Steam

By The Numbers

George’s Data Take

School leaders know that parents and the community at large back them on banning cell phones in K-12 schools. What’s new is how quickly support jumped from classroom bans to all-day bans.

Most Americans now say those all-day bans would boost kids’ social skills, grades, and behavior.

4,000 Layoffs is Good For Investors

Running Your Business

Salesforce posted 10% year-over-year growth by leaning on AI to replace 4,000 service people.

Silver Beacon Behind the Scenes

Wall Street loves this math.

More Sales minus Employees = More Profit

But bots miss nuance and frustration, the very things humans excel at. Bots are terrible at gauging sentiment, and your service employees are the place where much of your great product development is born.

Back-To-School Tech Briefing For Parents

Back to School Orientation for Parents and Tech

Phones gone at school, surveillance at school and home, and the AI bogeyman creeping into homework.

Phones Go Dark in the Morning

• Bell-to-bell bans now cover millions of students
• Yondr pouches lock phones until a teacher or staff member releases them; other schools use baskets at the front of class.
• Punishments escalate if kids sneak them back or use burner phones, smartwatches, or other devices.

Parents worry about emergencies. Some schools allow exceptions, but policies vary. Lower-income kids also lose their primary device for connecting online.

Surveillance Never Sleeps, Even Afterschool

• Districts buy Gaggle and Lightspeed to scan everything tied to school accounts or devices.
• Software can flag deleted texts, “private” chats, even homework while looking for signs of illegal or dangerous behavior.
• False positives happen: jokes read as threats, essays misread as warning signs.

Escalation is sometimes harsh with students pulled from class, police called, even mandatory psych evaluations. Districts rarely share error rates.

Homework Gets an AI Twist in the Evening

• Platforms like Canvas now embed AI tutors for kids and grading aids for teachers.
• Some teachers welcome AI Bots as a helper; others call it cheating.
• Policies are inconsistent, even within the same school.
• Risks include wrong answers, reduced critical thinking, and student data stored in ways families don’t see. Schools, not vendors, technically own those interactions, but families rarely know how they’re handled.

Age rules for AI bots don’t protect much: Claude bars under-18s, but OpenAI and Google Gemini allow 13+, and none use robust age verification.

What Parents Can Do

• Ask: Which AI tools are live? How is data stored? What’s the phone policy?
• Clarify: emergency rules and how surveillance alerts trigger police.
• At home: set AI norms, require kids to show their work, talk openly about privacy, especially with younger kids.

Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney over Batman + Scooby-Doo

Practical AI

Fresh off Disney and Universal’s lawsuits, WB says Midjourney is cranking out AI knockoffs of its characters and wants damages that could wipe out Midjourney’s $300M revenue.

Here’s What Happens if you stop paying for Cloud storage

Protip

Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox won’t delete your stuff overnight but backup functionality freezes and your files can eventually vanish, so get those photos saved elsewhere before you cancel.

Fact Check: No, 100M noncitizens don’t live in the US

Debunking Junk

AP finds the real number is about 22 million, which is far below viral social media claims that nearly a third of the population aren’t citizens.

Naan Has Its Bagel Moment

Screening Room

Meet George Jetson…

Science Fiction World

Startup Alef will test its $300K electric flying car at Silicon Valley airports, blending road driving with vertical takeoff after a decade in the works.

…Jane, His Wife

Tech For Good

An MIT Suit that simulates being in your 80s shows non-seniors how simple tasks like shopping or boarding a train become harder, and why mindset and daily practice matter as much as muscle. (Wall St. Journal gift link)

5KM Church Move

Coffee Break

A 113-year-old wooden church in Kiruna, Sweden, was hauled 5km intact to escape mine-driven ground fissures, blending an engineering spectacle with deep cultural meaning.

See it in this gorgeous BBC Timelapse and drone video

Sign of the Times

Good Monday Morning

It’s August 11th.

Vladimir Putin travels to Alaska on Friday to meet with President Trump and possibly Volodymyr Zelenskyy. More than a quarter-million troops from both sides and 13,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion over three years ago.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,064 words, about 4 minutes to read.

3 Headlines to Know Now: The Google Has a Bad Month Edition

St. Paul Hit by a Cyberattack

A late July cyberattack has kept city systems in St. Paul offline for over two weeks, with a 90-day state of emergency and the National Guard still on the job.

Instagram Map Sparks a Safety Panic

Instagram’s new map feature can share your last active location with selected followers. Meta says it is opt in only. Confusion and privacy fears have led bipartisan senators to call for it to be shut down.

Alexa+ Rolls Out With Smarts and a Price Tag

Alexa Plus is free for Amazon Prime members and about $20 per month for others. It offers more natural conversations and can manage tasks like calendars and smart home routines.

Trump’s Tariff Map Turns Red

George’s Data Take

Reminder: U.S. importers pay the tariffs up front, often passing the cost to consumers through higher prices. The auto industry is already that warning prices are headed up despite their covering previous tariffs. At 50% increases, Brazil sends the U.S. coffee, crude oil, soybeans, sugar, beef, and aircraft, while India’s biggest exports are electronics, pharmaceuticals, and gems.

Safes Cracked in Safes

Running Your Business

Hackers have cracked small personal-style electronic safes often found in homes, offices, and hotels in seconds by exploiting hidden locksmith backdoors and debug ports.

Silver Beacon Behind the Scenes

People who want to subvert a system always start by asking “How” and then move to “What if.”

That is exactly what happened to Securam ProLogic locks with a digital locksmith open feature. Hackers at a convention cracked that feature, then uncovered a second exploit. Planning for bad actors has to be part of your process from day one.

ChatGPT 5 is Coming, Your Mouse is Going

Chat GPT Takes The Lead

OpenAI introduced GPT 5 on August 7. It now runs as the default system for all ChatGPT users. GPT 5 uses internal routing to match a query with the right process. OpenAI founder Sam Altman describes it as a PhD level expert that is practical for daily use.

It’s not. At least not for most people.

But this model works faster than previous versions. 

It answers with more accuracy and handles complex reasoning more effectively. It also shows gains in areas such as coding, science, and health topics. Analysts view this as an upgrade rather than a transformation. 

Rival systems still win in some specialized tests. Anthropic’s Claude has long held the second spot, but this is now a three company race with Google’s Gemini gaining popularity through its search integration.

New Personalities Cause Tension

ChatGPT added four personality settings called Cynic, Robot, Listener, and Nerd. These adjust tone without changing the model.

Change still sparks outrage regardless of the system, however.

Many people disliked losing access to GPT 4o Users valued its emotional tone and memory of past interactions. The complaints pushed OpenAI to allow paying users to restore GPT 4o within one day of the launch. Many accepted that swap, trading faked emotions for more errors.

The shift to GPT 5 shows OpenAI’s new focus on simplicity. The company believes a single smart default will keep people engaged. The coding and data people seem happy with the changes. The backlash shows just how strongly users connect with the style of a model, and changing that connection without warning can damage trust.

Microsoft Looks to 2030

Microsoft is a big part of the ChatGPT picture, having invested nearly $14 billion in developer OpenAI. They’ve integrated the ChatGPT-powered Copilot throughout Windows, Office, and Bing.

Microsoft leaders now say they expect voice commands and gestures to replace most keyboard and mouse use by 2030. They see AI agents managing schedules and handling messages. The company is also working on security that can resist quantum attacks, which don’t exist yet, but whose concept worries the entire cybersecurity world.

The move to GPT 5 shows what the brain of future computing might look like. Microsoft’s plan for voice control shows what the body could become. The two trends together hint at a time when talking to a computer will be normal.

AI Joins the Research Game

Practical AI

New AI tools like Gemini Deep Search and ChatGPT Deep Research are handling complex questions with speed and citations, but traditional search is still essential for quick facts and breaking news.

Inside a Job Scam Operation

Protip

A Slate reporter answered a fake recruiter text and followed the scam through every twist. The scheme promised high pay for little work, funneled targets onto encrypted apps, and revealed how a low effort grift can still trap people from any background.

Drug-Price Cuts Over-Promised by 1,500 Percent

Debunking Junk

President Trump is telling audiences and social media followers that prescription drug prices have dropped by 1200 to 1500 percent. Experts say this is mathematically impossible and there is no evidence of dramatic cuts.

Columbia’s Very Funny Look at Nature

Screening Room

WhoFi Turns Your Wi-Fi into a Surveillance Scanner

Science Fiction World

Researchers in Rome created WhoFi, a system that uses AI to read WiFi signal distortions caused by your body to identify you with more than 95 percent accuracy even through walls and in the dark using ordinary routers.

Tiny Patch Matches Hospital BP Accuracy

Tech For Good

UC San Diego Researchers developed a soft skin patch the size of a stamp that uses ultrasound to track blood pressure inside the body with accuracy equal to invasive hospital methods.

The City That Says Stop

Coffee Break

A new Pudding.cool project maps every word seen on New York City streets in 18 years of Google Street View. The most common are stop, no, do not, only, and limit, turning the city into a giant poem of rules, although there are certainly more colorful ones.

Sign of the Times