⌚ Is your smartwatch obsolete?

Hey there, happy Saturday to you, {{first_name | friend}}. Your phone is a pocket supercomputer with face unlock, AI filters and chatbots that roast you back. But lurking under all that tech is something sneakier than spyware disguised as a Sudoku app.

📍 I’m talking about the secret watermark hidden in almost every photo you’ve ever taken. Yes, even with GPS and location services turned off, your pictures can still be traced back to you. Here’s how: Every smartphone camera sensor invisibly signs every photo you take like a serial number.

What are these tiny marks called? A) Sensor fairy pixie dust artifacts, B) Dead pixel remapping science, C) Photo response non-uniformity or D) Lens diffraction symmetrical patterns. Take a guess. The answer’s posing at the end.

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 📻 Tune in this weekend! My national radio show is on 420+ stations nationwide. Find yours with our station locator map, or skip the commercials on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or in the Komando Community. — Kim

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I got a new Apple Watch last October. My old one from 2020 had been sitting in a desk drawer for years. I’d stopped wearing it because I found myself obsessively checking my step count, heart rate and every other metric. I wondered if things might be different now that I’m no longer my mom’s caregiver consumed by constant health crises. Maybe I could enjoy wearing one again. And I do.

If your smartwatch is more than 3 years old, it’s basically a fitness tracker with a landline. Batteries degrade. Sensors lose accuracy. And you’re missing out on useful features like fall detection, sleep apnea monitoring and alerts that can detect an irregular heartbeat before you even notice something’s wrong.

Here are my smartwatch picks.

Apple Watch Ultra 3 ($799). If you want the most accurate GPS and the longest battery life Apple offers, this is it.

Apple Watch Series 11 (23% off, $330). Solid choice if you want the classic look and have an iPhone.

Samsung Galaxy Ring ($400). This is for you if you want the data but hate the watch.

Garmin Venu 3 (22% off, $350). Best for the person who wants a digital coach.

I wear the Apple Watch Series 11. I didn’t want to drop $799 on the Ultra 3 in case I ended up shoving it back in a drawer like the last one. I might upgrade the next time I’m near an Apple Store. And if I do, I’ll run a little giveaway, maybe you’ll be the lucky winner of my barely used Series 11.

⌚️ Still wearing an old smartwatch? Hit those links and buy a new one. Know someone who keeps asking if they really need to upgrade or wants to get healthy in the new year? Send this to them, especially because fall detection and accurate health tracking matter.

😵‍💫 Productivity in a pouch: This is wild. Forget ping-pong tables and free kombucha. Tech startups have a new office perk: nicotine pouches (paywall link). For real. Palantir installed vending machines stocked with free ones. Austin startup founder Alex Cohen noticed his engineers had Zyn tins and thought, “They’re productive, maybe there’s something here.” He bought some as a joke, then got addicted. Now his company has a “nic fridge” as a perk. Yea, these pouches can hook people, raise blood pressure and potentially increase heart attack and stroke risk. 

Hands-on: Mercedes wants you to open your car like a Jedi. Their new patent uses infrared palm scans to verify you by your vein pattern. It’s apparently super secure, doesn’t drain EV batteries and resists spoofing better than faces or fingerprints. Plus, it can adjust your seat and temp on entry. No keys, no fobs, only your circulatory system and a wave. Next up: controlling acceleration by your eye dilation. 

💲 Paying over $100/month for your phone? You’re getting ripped off. If you’re 50+, you can cut that bill in half right now. Use my exclusive link to get 2 lines for $30 each, plus your 2nd month FREE. Same coverage, same networks, zero contracts, zero BS. Stop overpaying, and see how much you’ll save. Reader Alice told me she’s saving $75 a month.*

Shady tabs ahead: Listen up, if you’ve got any of these popular Chrome and Edge extensions, Speedtest Pro, Clean Master or Infinity New Tab, they were secretly spying on you. Hackers ran them for years before slipping in malware updates. 4.3 million users got hit with spyware, data theft, even ransomware. It’s all due to ShadyPanda, a Chinese group that played the long game. Moral: If you don’t remember downloading it, uninstall it.

As AI lay generating: As of Jan. 1, thousands of 1930s-era works hit the public domain: Faulkner, Nancy Drew, the Marx Brothers, Betty Boop and other classics, as well as some sound recordings from 1925. You know what that means? They’re legally remixable. Brace yourself for some AI slop. 

🏆 A first for Tesla: A Tesla Model 3 owner completed the first fully autonomous coast-to-coast drive across America. David Moss drove 2,732 miles from Los Angeles to Myrtle Beach in two days and 20 hours with zero human interventions using FSD v14.2. That includes parking at 30 Supercharger stops. Elon Musk’s reaction? “Cool.” Back in 2016, he promised this would happen by 2017. Eight plus years late, but finally delivered. Remember, before you say “Tesla” backward, make sure everyone’s ready. All set?

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: USB cables only fit one way, but there’s a trick to get it right the first time. The USB logo always faces up when the port is horizontal. Look for the logo, insert confidently and stop doing the USB flip dance.

🛡️ Don’t browse naked in 2026: If you got a new laptop or are revamping an old one, don’t skip this important step. Hackers are using AI to write code that slips past free and older antivirus software. You need a layer of protection that moves faster than they do. Webroot scans in seconds, blocks real-time threats and won’t slow down your computer. My readers get 75% off Webroot Essentials today.*

Secret Windows setting eating your RAM: Microsoft has a feature called “Delivery Optimization” that downloads updates and apps faster by pulling them from other PCs on your network or online. Problem is, it’s not actually optimized and can slow down your system. Turn it off under Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Delivery Optimization.

💻 Can’t find a folder on Mac? It happens to all of us when you know a folder’s name but not where you left it. Instead of searching, open Finder and press Command + Shift + G. That brings up a window called Go to Folder. Start typing the folder name, like “Projects,” and macOS will take you straight there. Saved you some clicks. 

Move multiple apps at once: On your iPhone, you can drop several apps into a folder without dragging them one by one. Long-press the first app and start to drag it. While holding it, tap the other apps you want with another finger to create a stack. Then open the folder with your free hand and drop the whole bundle in. 

🔚 Is your tech still supported? Your phone or tablet might be too old. Visit endoflife.date and search your device to see if it’s been discontinued or lost manufacturer support. No updates usually means no security fixes, so it might be time to retire it. Hey, that’s one way to justify an upgrade.

👋 The holidays are over. Busy, huh? Time to get your digital life in order. Listen to my award-winning radio show, airing this weekend on over 420 stations. Find yours via my handy station finder. Prefer streaming? Listen commercial-free on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart or in the Komando Community.

😱 Tell me your wildest tech problems. Like maybe you got scammed, you’re starting an online business or have fallen in love with a chatbot. Whatever it is, book an appointment to speak with me here, and you could get your answer on air.

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💰 $80,000 richer: One of the best calls I’ve had recently came from a listener named Stacy. He casually told me he’s made $80,000 renting the vacant land he covered with gravel behind his house with the Neighbor app. Wow. Hear it now.

Don’t just listen! Check the show out on my YouTube channel. You get to see how I react to all the stories and calls. So fun. Click here to watch and subscribe.

👇 Or use the links below to listen on your schedule.

A humanoid robot was set to mirror its CEO’s movements in real time to prove it wasn’t AI slop or even CGI. We’re talking full-body motion capture, zero lag, zero forgiveness. The human showed off some punches and kicks. The robot copied. 

Then the human spun, kicked and the bot followed. Ouch. The bot even showed empathy by hunching over. You’d think after doing that to his creator’s nuts, he’d bolt.

🦞 I’ve got something great for you tomorrow. I’m talking about seafood crime going digital. Lobsters vanish, GPS ghosts, and someone’s scam email snatches tons of crustaceans.

The answer: C) Photo response non-uniformity. Think of it as your camera’s accidental autograph, a microscopic pattern baked into the sensor during manufacturing. Every pixel responds to light a little differently, and together, they create a digital fingerprint unique to your device.

Forensics teams and AI-powered tools (hi, Big Tech 👋) can match that fingerprint to your exact phone, even if you’ve scrubbed all metadata. It’s not magic, it’s physics. Speaking of which, the frequency of all my bad jokes hertz.

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🎮 Life’s like a video game. Save your progress, take breaks and remember every expert was once a noob. — Kim

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Photo credit(s): Gemini, RENPHO, @zeonsunlight via X

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