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Welcome to your Friday, {{first_name | friend}}. Picture this: You’re watching The Office for the 47th time, minding your own business. Out of nowhere, your smart speaker lights up. Nobody said, “Alexa.” Nobody said, “Hey, Google.” It just decided to join the conversation.
Researchers sat smart speakers in front of TVs and played them 125 hours of popular shows like The Office and The Big Bang Theory. They counted how often the speakers woke up when nobody called them.
🔊 How many times a day can a smart speaker wake up by accident? A) Never, they only respond to their name, B) Once a week, C) Up to 19 times a day or D) Only when you say something embarrassing? Hold your conspiracy board, the answer is lurking at the end.
💾 “Kim, you warned me!” My sister Christine’s USB drive died, taking 738 important files with it. Heartbreaking. That’s why I use Carbonite to automatically back up my entire computer. It’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month. An important reminder to have a backup plan. Save 60% with my exclusive offer.* — Kim
TODAY’S DEEP DIVE
Air today, gone tomorrow
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
🤯 WOW! Michelin built a tire with no air in it. Zero. Flexible spokes do the work instead, and delivery vans have already rolled about 1.9 million miles on them. Meanwhile, Pirelli makes tires with a brain that can warn your car about hydroplaning.
The Short Version: Your tires are smarter than you think, and a future set might never go flat.
📖 Read time: 2 minutes
Quick question. When’s the last time you thought about your tires? Same. Nobody does, until one goes flat on the freeway at 9 p.m.
Tires have quietly turned up the tech. Some of it is on your car right now. The next wave sounds like science fiction.
🛞 Already in your driveway
Pressure sensors: Every new car sold in America since 2007 has to warn you when a tire runs low. It works. NHTSA found cars with direct sensors were 55.6% less likely to be rolling on a badly underinflated tire.
Self-sealing tires: Michelin, Continental and Pirelli sell tires with a gooey layer inside. Run over a nail, and Michelin says its version plugs most holes up to a quarter inch on the spot.
Run-flats: These keep going after a puncture. Bridgestone says its version gets you up to 50 miles at up to 50 mph. Goodbye, roadside tire change in your good shoes.
EV tires: Electric cars are heavy and quick off the line, so the industry’s rule of thumb is about 20% less tread life. EV tires fight back with tougher rubber, plus foam inside that cuts road noise by up to 9 decibels.
Smart inflators: Cordless pumps let you dial in your PSI and shut off automatically when they hit it. No more guessing at the gas station air machine.
🚀 Rolling your way
Tires that talk: Pirelli’s Cyber Tyre has a sensor inside that tells the car about grip, temperature and wear. It can even warn of hydroplaning. It’s on supercars like the McLaren Artura and Pagani Utopia, and Pirelli plans to build it in Rome, Ga.
Tires that read the road: Goodyear’s SightLine tracks tire health and road conditions. Gatik’s self-driving delivery trucks use it, and Goodyear is pitching it to automakers.
Tires with no air at all: Michelin’s airless Uptis uses flexible spokes instead of air. Delivery vans have logged about 1.9 million miles on them, and Michelin says they last three times longer. The catch? There’s no sale date for your car yet, and they run hot and noisy above 62 mph. (Your commute says hi.)
FYI, smarter tires mean more data leaving your wheels. Researchers recently tracked 20,000 cars, using the ID numbers pressure sensors broadcast. When you shop for your next car, ask how its tire tech protects that data.
My take? The flat tire isn’t dead. But it’s on life support. I left my position as a tire pump salesman. Couldn’t handle the pressure.
🗣️ Text/post this stat: Michelin’s airless tires have rolled about 1.9 million miles on delivery vans, and Michelin says they last three times longer than regular tires. GetKim.com
📩 Send this to someone who has changed a flat on the shoulder of the highway.
Share this now:
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Your computer has a backup, right?
There’s something I wish more people would think about: backing up their files. My sister Christine called me in a panic when her USB drive suddenly died. All 738 files, including family photos and important documents were gone. I tried every recovery trick. Nothing worked. She kept saying, “Kim, you warned me!” That’s a terrible time to discover how important a backup plan is.
Here’s what people don’t realize. Saving files to your computer or syncing them to the cloud isn’t the same as having a separate backup solution. That’s why I’ve used Carbonite for years. It automatically backs up my files in the background, with encryption and unlimited storage.
Family photos, financial records, important documents. Think about everything you’ve saved on your computer. Now imagine how you’d feel if you lost it all. Cybersecurity Awareness Month reminds us why protecting our files is important every day of the year.
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📺 YOUTUBE: THE KIM KOMANDO SHOW
Noise cameras fine drivers
On top of Flock surveillance, there’s a camera that can give you a ticket for being too loud. The fine can be as much as $2,500! New York City has collected nearly $2 million since 2021. No officer needed.
Watch now before everyone else is talking about it. 👇
▶️ Watch on YouTube →
WEB WATERCOOLER
🐝 Pocket witness activated: Amazon is selling a subscription eavesdropper for your shirt. Bee Frontier costs $74.99, records conversations throughout the day and turns them into summaries and to-dos. Bee Eclipse, a $99.99 phone attachment coming soon, asks permission before recording calls. I don’t love the idea of anyone near me quietly building a searchable memory bank of our conversations. Amazon says audio gets deleted after processing. Let’s hope this Bee doesn’t sting.
Singer sold separately: Your next favorite singer may not have lungs. YouTube Music announced that AI labels are coming to player pages and the main YouTube app. Tap one, and you’ll see whether the song is fully or partly AI-made or a human polished the work with tools like AutoTune, which stays in the no-AI bucket. I’m waiting for an AI country singer to lose its truck, dog, wife and charging cable in one verse.
📵 Your name calling: Your phone lights up on the kitchen counter with your name and a question mark. Creepy but personal enough to make you answer. That’s the trick. Scammers pair names from data breaches with phone numbers, then wait for curiosity to confirm which lines are active. Replying can make your number more valuable, bring further scam attempts and open the door to a friendly crypto pitch. Leave it unanswered. Block, delete and warn Mom before curiosity gets the cat. Reason #475 to get out of the data broker sites. Get 60% off here with Incogni.*
Touch and go: Apple’s first touchscreen Mac could be weeks away. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says new OLED MacBook Pro models with touchscreens could launch Friday, Nov. 6. Also rumored: a new iPad mini with an OLED screen and M6 iMacs. Shopping for a Mac? Hold off for a few weeks. Talk about a touchy subject.
🩷 Caring for a family member at home? You might be able to get paid for it. Abby Care, an AI-driven home care startup (paywall link), trains family members to become certified, paid caregivers through Medicaid and supports them afterward. It recently raised $82 million, counting CVS Health Ventures among the investors. One Colorado mom gets paid to care for her daughter, who has a pacemaker. She says most families don’t know this program exists. Ask your health plan. Now that’s a family business.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
🚗 Your tires need air. Your trunk has nothing.
4.5 ⭐ 1,000+ reviews
Airless tires are on the way, just not to your driveway anytime soon. Until then, your tires keep quietly losing air, a little every month, whether you notice or not.
This palm-size cordless tire inflator fits in your glove box and inflates a car tire from 30PSI to 36PSI in 90 seconds. No gas station. No cord. No asking a stranger for help.*
One charge lasts 40 minutes and handles up to eight tires. It auto-shuts off the moment it hits your preset pressure, so you can’t overinflate. Works on cars, motorcycles, bikes and sports balls. The built-in flashlight and SOS mode are there for the moments you’d rather not think about.
It also doubles as a power bank for your phone. Because a flat tire and a dead phone at the same time are a special kind of awful.
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Missing your friends’ posts on Instagram? Tap the Instagram logo at the top of Home, choose Favorites and add your people. They’ll show up higher in your regular feed. Open that same list whenever you want to see only their updates. Much easier to keep up with the grandkids when they’re not buried under someone else’s kitchen renovation.
Free family tracker apps aren’t free. Many sell your family’s movements to data brokers. Your kid’s route to school, Grandma’s doctor visits, all for sale. Nope. HeyPolo is different. Your family’s location is never sold. Ever. Real-time location, arrival alerts, crash detection, a one-tap SOS and everyone controls what they share. One subscription covers your whole family, no per-person fees. Just $2.49 a month, get 6 extra months, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee at heypolo.com/kim. Marco … Polo. Finally answered.*
📁 Windows can clean itself: Don’t wait for a “storage full” warning to deal with old junk. Open Settings > System > Storage and turn on Storage Sense. Click into it and choose weekly. You can include Recycle Bin items and unopened Downloads, too. I’d choose 30 days for both, giving you breathing room to move anything important.
🥁 Unlock the iPhone bass boost: If you have compatible earbuds, you can customize the sound profile. Go to Settings > your AirPods > Audio & Routing > Equalizer > Custom, then drag the bands up or down. Raise the lows for extra thump. I’d put on an old favorite while fiddling. You already know how that chorus should hit.
📺 Dinner’s gone cold. The show’s still loading: Constant buffering isn’t always your internet’s fault. Your smart TV might need a restart. Unplug it for 45 seconds, then plug it back in to clear temporary glitches. One app causing issues? Look under Settings > Apps, select it and hit Clear cache. This won’t log you out. Worth trying before restarting your router again.
🫣 Keep your inbox a secret: Those first few words beneath each email can reveal more than you’d like. On Gmail desktop, open See all settings > General > Snippets > No snippets. In Mail on Mac, head to Settings > Viewing > List Preview > None. Senders and subject lines stay visible. Enough to find what you need, less for the person beside you to spy on.
🎨 Used up your AI image credits? Try Create images on a Chrome new tab page. It can whip up posters, invitations and more for free. Ask for something like “A Halloween party invite for Oct. 31, 8 p.m., at [address], with a haunted house theme.” Then tell it what needs changing. You’ve got options while the other app makes you wait. 😉
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.
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Spill stoppers: These TSA-approved travel bottles (47% off, $6, 16-pack) seal tight, so shampoo stays put instead of soaking your clothes.
🌐 Adventure awaits: Before you pack your bags, shop more trip-saving favorites. →
Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: @PintsDrank via X
🍺 Pint of no return
Mark Zuckerberg bought a 440-acre Irish castle estate, but the welcome basket didn’t include lessons on drinking Guinness.
He spent two hours talking shop and AI on Stripe cofounder John Collison’s Cheeky Pint podcast, but unfortunately, the internet paid more attention to his natural reaction to the stout beer.
Zuck took one cautious sip and pulled a face like his taste buds rejected the terms of service. His defense: “That’s just my face.”
Watch it go down here. For once, a Meta reaction that wasn’t AI-generated.
LOGGING OUT …
🎓 What you learned today: Tires can seal punctures and even detect slippery roads, Amazon’s new wearable remembers conversations, YouTube Music labels AI songs, scammers are texting people their own names, a touchscreen Mac could be weeks away and family caregivers may be able to get paid through Medicaid. Not bad for one email. Your Social Security number could cost less than lunch. Tomorrow, I’ll show you what your private data is worth to criminals and how to make yourself a much more annoying target. Make this the first thing you read.
🎙️ Answer: C) Up to 19 times a day. Yep, and researchers found some awakened speakers kept listening for 20 seconds or more. The slightly silver lining? They found no evidence the speakers record everything you say. Still, it pays to peek.
Alexa app > look for Alexa Privacy > review and delete recordings.
Google > visit myactivity.google.com > Filter by date & product > select Google Assistant > review your history > Delete > All time.
Want true peace and quiet? Hit the mute button during private conversations. What question can Alexa not answer? “Why are you unplugged?”
💾 Backup reminder: Photos, important documents, files you can’t replace. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Get protected with Carbonite today and save 60% with my special offer.*
💛 Tires do their most important work where nobody’s looking. So do a lot of people in your life. Tell one of them thanks this weekend. — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE: Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.
Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, AstroAI, HELLEE, @PintsDrank via X
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