The everyday tech stories our desk judged worth your time, written so anyone can follow them.
Police say 59 people lost at least $1.3 million in October to callers posing as Simba staff, then as police or government officers.
Read more: Fake phone company staff and fake officials stole $1.3m in a monthSocial posts blame the iPhone's Live Listen feature for secret eavesdropping. It is an accessibility tool, not spyware, but one setting is worth a quick check.
Read more: iPhone's Live Listen is not spyware, but one setting is worth checkingA test version of WhatsApp shows a Reels button in the chat attachment menu, which could make sharing short videos faster for the app's users.
Read more: WhatsApp is testing a Reels button inside the chat attachment menuA former Facebook engineer who once lived as a monk has raised $25 million for software meant to speed up school food services and public records.
Read more: Former Facebook Engineer And Ex-Monk Builds Software For Local GovernmentMoore Threads, a Chinese AI chipmaker, reported sales up 1,774% and a small profit, a sign China's homegrown chip supply is growing fast.
Read more: Chinese AI chipmaker's sales jump 1,774% and it turns a profitA writer let the Megu iPhone app plan three days of outfits from his own clothes. It broke his all-dark-blue habit, but its best features cost a subscription.
Read more: A writer let an AI app pick his outfits for three daysAndroid Authority reports ChatGPT is coming to Google Messages, the built-in texting app on many Android phones. Cost and privacy details are still unknown.
Read more: ChatGPT is coming to Google Messages, the texting app on AndroidBanks are using AI voice agents to answer calls at any hour. A vendor guide explains how they work and why a quick handoff to a person still matters.
Read more: Banks are letting AI agents answer customer phone callsHong Kong's privacy office has 85 complaints about three company data breaches, and some scam victims lost more than HK$100,000.
Read more: Hong Kong shoppers hit by scam calls after three company data leaksSamsung Wallet on Galaxy phones in the US can now earn cash back at thousands of brands, with Rakuten behind it and a Black Friday boost.
Read more: Samsung Wallet now pays you cash back at over 3,500 brandsA Tom's Guide editor saw Apple's new MacBook Pro screen next to a Lenovo laptop and called the gap night and day, though Apple chose the test.
Read more: Apple's new MacBook Pro screen beats a rival laptop in a side-by-side testA reviewer compared five book-style foldables priced near $2,000. The Motorola Razr Fold wins on value and battery, and the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold lands last.
Read more: Five $2,000 folding phones compared, and the Pixel ranks lastA Chinese blogger known for exposing scams was killed by people hired online, a reminder that scam groups can hit back at those who call them out.
Read more: Chinese anti-scam blogger killed by people hired onlineSurvival LLM is a free app that runs an AI helper and a reference library on your own computer, so it can answer emergency questions with no internet.
Read more: A free AI helper that works with no internet, for emergenciesAmazon's new 7-inch Kindle Paperwhite and Colorsoft are a bit lighter and look nicer, but Wired says the price hikes sting and the upgrade is small.
Read more: New Kindles are lighter and nicer, but they cost more nowMcDonald's is training all 2 million of its restaurant workers worldwide, partly by having them taste a Big Mac that falls short of the company standard.
Read more: McDonald's trains 2 million workers to taste a bad Big MacCNET testers say Private Internet Access slowed internet speeds by nearly half, crashed often and struggled with streaming, even at a very low price.
Read more: CNET Says Private Internet Access VPN Has Fallen Far BehindEndurance Energy ran a power plant on an undersea volcano off Oregon and made more power than it used, but only briefly. Here is why that still matters.
Read more: Startup Makes Power From an Undersea Volcano, but Only for 8.7 SecondsNVIDIA says its RTX Spark laptops are on sale from six brands, with thin designs built to run AI tools on the machine itself instead of in the cloud.
Read more: Thin Windows laptops now run powerful AI programs on the device itselfDuckDuckGo is publicly pushing back on Samsung's Google search bar in One UI 9, which could affect whether Galaxy owners can pick their own search engine.
Read more: DuckDuckGo objects to Google Search bar in Samsung's One UI 9A Louisiana woman lost thousands of dollars to a fake Jon Bon Jovi built on AI videos. Here is how the scam worked and why a video no longer proves who is real.
Read more: Fake Jon Bon Jovi videos helped scammers nearly take a woman's homeA McAfee Labs survey of 5,000 Americans found fake account alerts are the most reported scam in 17 states, and toll texts lead in others.
Read more: Fake account alerts are the top scam in 17 states, a new survey findsAn Entrepreneur column argues that a few clear, well-labeled YouTube videos can help customers find a business on Google, voice assistants and AI tools.
Read more: Why a YouTube video can help customers find your businessT-Mobile is taking $1,000 off the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL when you add a line on a top plan, and no trade-in is needed.
Read more: T-Mobile offers $1,000 off the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL with a new line
