🦄 Charging to 100% is bad?! (Plus more tech myths to stop believing)

Happy Friday, {{first_name | friend}}. Remember when phones had antennas longer than your forearm and the concept of a FaceTime felt like science fiction? Well, Hollywood got an early dial tone. Way before iPhones hit pockets, one iconic film had the audacity to show a working cell phone on the big screen. 

🎬 Take a guess, which movie was the first to spotlight the future’s favorite gadget. Was it: A) Wall Street, B) Lethal Weapon, C) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home or D) Airplane!? The answer’s waiting at the end!

🎁 Heads up! This Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be surprising lucky readers with Amazon gift cards. Yep, free shopping money. Make sure you open your newsletters this weekend for your chance to win. Don’t miss it! — Kim

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Tech myths have a way of sticking around like those 99 browser tabs you keep open, harmless at first, but over time, they slow everything down. They spread in group texts, get repeated by well-meaning relatives and pop up like spammy ads from 2003. 

Let’s bust five of the most common myths I hear all the time.

Phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra boast up to 200MP, but megapixels aren’t the full story. Sensor size matters more. Full-frame cameras like the Canon EOS R5 or Sony Alpha series still blow phones out of the water in dynamic range, low-light performance and depth of field. 

Phone cameras use computational photography to fake pro-level shots. Great for Instagram, but if it’s your wedding or a professional shoot? Use real gear.

Nope. Draining lithium-ion batteries to 0% shortens their lifespan. The ideal strategy is keeping your charge between 30% and 80%.  Going to 100% all the time is not great for the battery.

By the way, your phone shutting off at 0% doesn’t mean it’s fully dead. Manufacturers build in a buffer to preserve battery health. But letting it hit zero stresses the battery and reduces capacity.

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 5G emit electromagnetic fields (EMFs), but they’re nonionizing radiation. They don’t damage your DNA like X-rays or UV rays.

The CDC and FDA have reviewed decades of research and found no conclusive link between EMFs from consumer tech and health problems. Those EMF “shield” stickers and hats? Useless.

You’re more in danger from a scalding Hot Pocket than invisible death rays.

Starlink is a total game changer in rural areas with little to no broadband access, but it’s not perfect. It’s slower than cable or fiber, costs $90 to $165/month (plus $599 for the kit or lower depending on the moon’s phase) and can suffer from network congestion. 

The FCC defines broadband as 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. Starlink often falls short. Even Elon Musk says it’s ideal for “low to medium population density,” not cities. But it sure is amazing tech that is going to only get better.

Accessing the dark web isn’t illegal in the U.S. Using tools like the Tor browser, anyone can do it. The illegal part is what some people use it for, like selling stolen data, stealing from people and trading in child porn. 

But it’s also used by journalists, whistleblowers and people in oppressive regimes to communicate safely. Just like the open web, it’s a tool. It’s what you do there that matters.

We should be more scared of whatever’s going on in your Facebook aunt’s group chat. 

You look like you need a laugh: Where does a myth buster sleep? In debunk bed. (Good one!)

🤝 Use the share icons below to spread the truth.

Alexa might be listening more than you think. George, your AI host, breaks down how much data your smart speaker is really grabbing. Plus, the Venmo “oops” scam that could cost you big, fragile iPhone 17s and device advice you need to hear.

Listen on Komando.com →

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🚨 Prime time penalty: Amazon just agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle FTC claims it tricked millions into unwanted Prime memberships and made cancellations nearly impossible. $1.5B will go to 35 million customers, $1B to the FTC. Amazon admits no wrongdoing, but it now has to make canceling easier. If you had Prime between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025, you may qualify for a refund. Some will be automatic, others through an FTC claims portal (coming soon on ftc.gov).

Jewelry heist fiasco: So picture this, 25 masked suspects suddenly storm a California jewelry store, smashing cases and grabbing $1M in loot. Now, look at the tech the store had in place. The door locked them inside, forcing one to shoot their way out. Police drones tracked the crew, leading to seven arrests. The suspects, all from Oakland, range from 17 to 31. So young, so dumb.

📞 Don’t get this hot app: A new app called Neon promised to pay you to record your calls: 30¢ a minute, max $30 a day for a little self-spying. It then sells your voice data to AI companies. It was No. 2 in Apple’s social charts. But the app went dark suddenly after people could access calls, recordings and transcripts of any other user. Yikes. Once your voice is out there, it could be cloned, hacked or scammed into oblivion. PSA: Delete it if you installed it, now.

Search goes live: Google just dropped Search Live in the U.S. You point your camera, talk out loud, and it feeds you answers plus links in real time. Ask which munchies to grab or how to fix your busted fan, and boom, Google talks back. Free, no sign-up required. At this point, even my snacks are getting SEO’d.

💾 Windows 10’s doomsday date: Microsoft is pulling the plug on Windows 10 support Oct. 14. Europe gets free updates for a year, but here in the U.S.? You’ve got three options: cough up $30, burn 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, or back up your stuff to OneDrive and pray you don’t run out of storage. Protection ends October 2026. 

Pay-to-park warfare: A viral site let San Franciscans dodge parking tickets by showing where enforcement officers were in real time. The leaderboard showed one officer writing 192 tickets in a single day, over $20K in fines! The city patched the data feed within hours, killing the tool, after 50,000 people tried it.

🎧 Quiet isn’t always better: Noise-canceling headphones protect your eardrums no matter how loud your Uncle Ralph’s hot political takes get. But it turns out, if you wear them nonstop, especially as a kid, your brain never learns to tune out background noise (paywall link). Doctors are now linking heavy use to auditory processing disorder, where everyday sounds feel overwhelming.

From cloned voices to perfect phishing emails and fake websites, criminals are using technology to trick you. Stay alert and protect your money.

Listen on Komando.com →

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Some Android phones still let you expand storage with a microSD card. Pop one in and move apps or photos over to free up space. Sorry, iPhone folks.

Take back your privacy: Your personal information is all over the internet on data broker and people-search sites. Incogni automatically removes your info from over 420 sites, and if you spot your info anywhere, just send them the link, and they’ll send a removal request fast. Get 60% off today!*

🕒 Customize your Mac lock screen clock: In macOS 26, you can change how the clock looks on your lock screen. Go to System Settings > Wallpaper > Clock Appearance. Choose if the clock shows on the Lock Screen, on both the Screen Saver and Lock Screen, or Never. Then pick from six fonts and adjust the Weight with the slider underneath.

Fix Windows without wiping everything: PC acting weird? Don’t rush to reinstall. Instead, reset while keeping your personal files. Go to Settings > System > Recovery > Reset PC, then select Keep my files. Apps and settings get removed, but documents stay safe. Bonus: Always back up to the cloud or a portable hard drive first.

🔍 Make Chrome easier to read: If text feels too small, open the three-dot menu > Settings > Appearance. Under Font size, set it to Large, and under Page zoom, bump it up to 125% (or more). You can also use Customize fonts to choose a style that’s friendlier on your eyes. 

🤔 Quick fact-check with ChatGPT: No need to spend ages Googling. If you’re unsure about something, paste it into ChatGPT and prompt, “Is this factually correct? Search the web and show recent sources.” Then follow up with “Are you sure?”

📧 Split view in Gmail: Tired of bouncing between your inbox and an open email? You can split the screen so your inbox stays on one side while the message you’re reading shows on the other. Go to Settings, scroll down to Reading pane, and choose Right of inbox (side by side) or Below inbox (stacked). Wunderbar!

Microsoft is dropping limited-edition Windows XP Crocs for its 50th anniversary. I’m surprised that I don’t hate them. I mean, even the pope wears Crocs because they’re holey.

If you can snag a pair, you’ll have the iconic “Bliss” wallpaper wrapped around your feet, a grass-green sole, and yes, a Clippy shoe charm. 

Employees get first dibs before a worldwide launch at $80 a pair, with bonus Jibbitz like the MSN butterfly and Internet Explorer icon. Nostalgia never smelled so rubbery.

💰 The answer: A) Wall Street. Yep, Gordon Gekko made more than just “Greed is good” history. He casually strutted along the beach with a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (aka “The Brick”) in 1987, making it the first movie to flaunt a legit cell phone on screen. 

Fun fact: That phone retailed for nearly $4,000 and weighed about 2 pounds. Imagine trying to fit that thing in skinny jeans. Oof.

Speaking of Wall Street… I was very lonely, so I bought some stocks. It’s nice to have a bit of company. (lol)

This is the #1 tech newsletter in the United States. Tomorrow, your streaming apps are quietly emptying your wallet. I’m going over the sneaky charges, the subscription graveyard on your smart TV and why free services are your saving grace. 

✌️ The next time you open your phone, remember you’re in control. — Kim

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT, Microsoft

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This newsletter and its content are intended for informational purposes only. They are provided without warranty of any kind. You shouldn’t construe anything provided here as legal, health, medical, technical, tax, investment, financial or any other kind of advice.

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