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Say hello to your Monday, {{first_name | friend}}. Let’s go back to late 1998 at Pixar. The Toy Story 2 team was two years and tens of millions of dollars in. One animator accidentally hit a single command. Files started vanishing. Buzz’s helmet. Woody’s arm. Andy’s room. In 20 seconds, 90% of Toy Story 2 was gone. Then, someone yanked the server’s power cord.
🧸 How did Pixar recover Toy Story 2? A) Paid $5 million to recover the files, B) An employee on maternity leave had a backup at home, C) An intern had been illegally copying files to a personal drive, D) Reanimated from scratch, missed the release date by 26 months. To infinity and beyond! Or, more practically, scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for the answer.
👤 Your data isn’t just “out there”: It’s being used to build a secret shadow score that determines what you pay for insurance, if you see available rentals online and even how long you wait for customer service. All the data about you is sorted and sold every single day to who knows who. Here’s how I took control back. You can too! Get 60% off right now.* — Kim
TODAY’S DEEP DIVE
Channel the cameras
Image: Gemini/Kim Komando
⚡ TL;DR
I found 11 hidden cameras in one Airbnb. This isn’t rare.
There are policies but it’s on you to find them.
Here’s the 2 minute sweep to do at every rental, cruise and hotel from now along with packing a $40 hidden camera detector (20% off).
📖 Read time: 3 minutes
I once stayed at an Airbnb that had 11 hidden cameras. I found them by scrolling to the TV’s upper channels. Live feeds of every room.
Now I sweep every rental and hotel. So should you. This isn’t rare. 47% of Americans say they've found one in a rental, almost double from 2023. Five real cases:
Smoke detector, Scottsdale Airbnb. A family found one tucked inside the smoke detector over their kids' bed last year. They're now suing Airbnb and the homeowner.
Hocking Hills cabin, Ohio. A mom looked up in the bathroom and saw a green light blinking. Camera. Aimed at the toilet and shower. Investigators pulled 49 adults and 13 kids off the owner's SD card.
Royal Caribbean cabin, Symphony of the Seas. An attendant let himself into staterooms with his keycard and rigged cameras in the bathrooms, then posted the videos to the dark web. Up to 960 passengers may have been filmed.
Ceiling fan, friend's rental. A friend found one in the fan above the bed. It got even creepier when the homeowner started harassing her after finding her home address and phone number online.
Bathroom outlet, Wisconsin Airbnb. A guest discovered two cameras superglued behind the outlet plates, each one staring through a pinhole at the shower and the toilet. Gross.
No matter where you find your vacation rental, cruise or hotel room, you need to do a hidden camera sweep.
🫣 The 2-minute sweep
TV trick. Grab the remote. Scroll past standard channels into the higher numbers. Cheap wireless cameras broadcast there. Live feed of the room you’re in? That’s a camera. (How I found mine.)
Flashlight pass. Lights off. Open your phone flashlight. Sweep across smoke detectors, alarm clocks, USB chargers, remotes, wall outlets, fake plants, picture frames, well, everywhere. Camera lenses reflect a tiny pinprick of light.
Selfie-cam IR test. Lights off. Open your camera, switch to the front. Pan slowly. Night-vision cameras emit infrared, invisible to your eye but glowing white or purple on your screen.
Wi-Fi scan. Download Fing (iOS/Android). Connect to the room Wi-Fi, run a scan. Look for anything labeled “camera,” “IPCam” or any device you don’t recognize.
Mirror trick. Press a fingernail to any mirror that feels off. Gap to the reflection? Normal. No gap? Two-way. Walk.
😌 Want peace of mind? Grab a hidden camera detector ($26). It scans for wireless signals, GPS trackers and pinhole lenses in seconds. Toss it in your bag. Use it for hotels, rentals, cruises, even rental cars.
🚨 Found one?
Don’t touch it. Don’t unplug it. Don’t yell at the host. Photograph the device, and video what it’s aimed at and the room. Call police first, then the rental company, hotel or cruise manager on duty.
You need a smile after all that: Who’s the patron saint of security cameras? St. Francis of a CCTV. Ouch. I know.
📩 Send this to someone who is going on a trip. Share this now by clicking the links below.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
They can’t scam and spam you if they can’t find you
Scammers can’t target you if they can’t find you. Your personal information fuels almost every scam out there, those fake IRS calls, phishing texts, “bank account alert” emails and insurance scams. It starts with shady data broker sites quietly collecting and selling your information to the highest bidder.
Incogni has completed 2,748 removal requests to have my personal information removed. It works behind the scenes to delete your data wherever it’s exposed online. They cover more than 420 data broker and people-search sites, and they continuously remove your information as soon as it shows up again. Instead of spending hours trying to track down and request removals yourself, let Incogni do the heavy lifting for you.
“I finally used your link for Incogni, it’s amazing! I’ll no longer be a target for spam or junk. It’s so easy to set up and they respond quickly to any questions. Thank you Kim!”
✅ Glad to hear, Lisa. Get my spam-busting deal of 60% off with code KIM60. I am so glad I have Incogni. Btw, I get no kickbacks or residuals if you get it. →
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📺 YOUTUBE: THE KIM KOMANDO SHOW
Watch now or bookmark for later
Travis has a wife. Well, two. Sort of. His wife of 22 years, and Lily Rose, his AI companion. His real wife? Cool with it. I asked Travis all the questions you're already thinking. (Yes, that one too.)
Plus in the news: SpaceX is going public at a $1.75 TRILLION valuation, the largest IPO in history by a country mile. Google is finally letting you ditch that cringey Gmail address you set up in middle school.
Then the segment every TV owner needs to hear. Your smart TV is watching YOU. What you watch, when you pause, even what's on the screen when you're not streaming. Smart TV data revenue is on track to hit $46 billion this year.
Hit play below. This one's stacked. (Just don't let your TV listen in.) 👇
WEB WATERCOOLER
🤖 Otter be careful: That handy AI bot transcribing your work meetings? Otter.ai is facing a class action lawsuit for recording private calls without consent and using the audio to train AI models (paywall link). The bigger problem: AI transcripts preserve every offhand joke, half-finished thought, and "wait, scratch that" comment, all permanent, searchable, and time-stamped. One transcript can void attorney-client privilege and hand opposing counsel a goldmine in discovery. Talk about a record-breaking lawsuit.
Streaming is now cable: I knew this would happen. 68% of us streaming sit through ads. Average household spends $69 a month on streaming, plus the cost of an internet connection. Netflix expects $3 billion in ad revenue this year. Looks like cord-cutters have come full circle, we’re right back to commercial breaks.
🪟 Patch Tuesday is tomorrow: It’s the Windows 11 update you've been waiting for. Microsoft killed the File Explorer white flash that blinds dark mode users. Memory leaks in the Delivery Optimization service got patched, so your RAM stops vanishing. Startup apps launch faster. Folder view preferences actually stick. Xbox mode brings console feel to PCs. After years of bloat, this one is mostly fixes. Run Windows Update tomorrow. You’re welcome for the heads up/=.
The bubble armistice: So iOS 26.5 is dropping later this month, and end-to-end encrypted RCS between iPhone and Android. Translation: The green bubble vs. blue bubble divide is finally over. Cross-platform texts have been wide open for snooping forever. Now, texts go from postcards to sealed envelopes. Update your iPhone the day this lands. It’s the biggest texting upgrade since picture messaging.
Large and in charge: LG dropped pricing on its flagship evo TV. The 75-inch starts at $5,000. The 100-inch hits $8,000. That's not a typo. LG calls it a significant step forward from MiniLED, using its tiniest RGB LEDs ever to deliver colors regular TVs cannot touch. Save it for the wishlist, or wait for the inevitable Black Friday cut. She’s a beauty.
💤 Sweet dreams are made of this: Anthropic launched "dreaming" for Claude AI agents. While the agents "sleep," they review past tasks, find patterns, and update their memory to do better next time. Legal AI company Harvey says task success rates jumped 6x after turning it on. The line between useful productivity tool and creepy science fiction gets a little blurrier every day. You know, sweet dreams are made of cheese. Who am I to dis a brie? AI just dreams of training data. Same idea, worse cheese. (You just sang that, so did I when I wrote it.)
🎤 PODCAST: DAILY TECH UPDATE
This will teach them
Apple and Google have recorded millions of your conversations since 2014. Those targeted ads were NO coincidence.
🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.
KIM’S DAILY DEALS
As an Amazon Associate, some links pay us a commission at no extra cost to you. Keeps this newsletter free. Thank you.
🤖 Byte-size buys under $25
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Image: BolaButty
💡 Bulbs that bop: Linkind’s color-changing smart LEDs (32% off, $23, four-pack) work with Alexa and Google. Set schedules and trim your electric bill.
Free TV, for real: This digital TV antenna (20% off, $18) grabs local channels in HD and 4K. About a five-minute setup. Zero monthly bill.
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Jack is back: These headphone jack adapters (38% off, $8, two-pack) let you plug wired headphones into any device with a USB-C port.
Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: In Gmail, missing messages (like me) may be sitting in the Promotions or Social tabs, because your inbox has opinions. On desktop, drag one of those emails into Primary. When Gmail asks if future messages should go there, too, click Yes. On mobile, open the message, tap Move to and choose Primary. Small fix. Fewer “I never got it” moments.
🌐 Your spouse, boss, anyone who shouldn't see your AI chatbot or search history: Your history is none of their business: Your spouse, your boss, your internet provider, even your phone company can see every site you visit and what you put into AI. I use ExpressVPN to keep private. One click, my business stays mine. Fast, secure, works on all my devices. Get 4 extra months with my exclusive deal right now.*
Windows has special symbols: Looking for a copyright sign, euro symbol or arrow that isn’t on your keyboard? Open Search, type Character Map and launch the tool. Click a symbol, tap Copy, then paste it anywhere. Perfect for documents or making your next password harder to guess.
🟡 Minimize Mac windows faster: Open System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Window title bar double-click action and set it to Minimize. When you’re in an app like Safari, double-click the menu bar at the top to minimize the window. Small tweak, less squinting when you’re tired.
Feel every phone tap: A little keyboard vibration can make typing feel more precise. On iPhone, go to Settings > General > Keyboard and turn on Haptic Feedback. On Android, open Settings > Sound and vibration > System vibration and turn on Keyboard vibration. It gives your thumbs a tiny “yes, you tapped that” buzz.
🔊 Make Chrome louder: Try the free Volume Master extension. It boosts Chrome tab volume by up to 600% with a slider. Install it, click the extension icon in the top-right corner of Chrome, then slide it up. Remember to pin it, so it’s always there.
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: Genesis AI
🖐️ Catch these hands
A startup called Genesis AI revealed robot hands so advanced they can crack eggs, make smoothies and play piano, which officially moves humanity one step closer to getting slapped by our microwaves.
The company raised $105 million to build GENE-26.5, an AI model trained alongside humanoid robot hands designed to mimic human movement.
The real twist? Genesis has special gloves workers can wear while doing everyday jobs so the robots can learn directly from them. It’s basically mentoring your eventual replacement.
Share this now:
LOGGING OUT …
🔜 Tomorrow: A fake “missed jury duty” text cost a doctor $2,000. The one-line AI prompt that catches scammers in five seconds. You don’t want to miss that for sure.
The answer: B) An employee on maternity leave had a backup at home. The hero: Galyn Susman, Pixar’s supervising technical director, working from home with a newborn. The doomsday command was /bin/rm -r -f *, Unix for “delete everything, no questions asked.” Worse, Pixar’s official backups had been failing for a month. Galyn’s home machine had the only copy left.
Plot twist: Pixar’s execs decided the rescued version wasn’t good enough and rewrote almost the whole movie in nine months. So her backup didn’t become the film you saw. But without it? No Toy Story 2. No 3. No 4. Talk about a Buzz kill!
You can hire real humans to scrub your personal data off the internet. Seriously. It’s wild how much of your info is out there, including your old addresses, political views, medical issues, family members, even your phone number. That’s how scammers, spammers and straight-up creeps find you. Incogni sends real people to get your data removed from the worst broker sites. I use it, I trust it. Get 60% off right now.*
🥊 You don’t have to win every round. You only have to stay standing. Have questions? Ask me here. — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
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Photo credit(s): Gemini/Kim Komando, BolaButty, Genesis AI
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