🚨 You must read this before your next Uber ride

Welcome to your Thursday, {{first_name | friend}}. One game has absolutely dominated the sales charts, crossing a jaw‑dropping 300 million copies sold. Wow! Guess who the gaming king is: A) Tetris, B) Grand Theft Auto V, C) Minecraft or D) Solitaire? Find the answer loading at the end! 

⚠️ It’s rough out there: You need to be proactive. This is one of the smartest things you can do to protect your identity. Don’t wait till it’s too late, sign up for NordProtect today and get 65% off. Bet you save a ton of money making the switch to NordProtect, too! I sure did. 

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⚠️ Warning: This story contains details about sexual assault that may be disturbing.

I know two women who were raped by an Uber driver. That’s not hearsay or a story I read online. They trusted the ride, believed the app was safe and paid the price in the most horrific way possible.

Now, The New York Times (paywall link) has just uncovered something you need to know: Between 2017 and 2022, Uber got a report of sexual assault or misconduct in the United States almost every eight minutes, based on sealed court records, despite the company publicly claiming such incidents were vanishingly rare.

Yes, you read that right, every eight minutes. The court documents show 400,181 trips linked to sexual misconduct in five years. Women are almost always the victims.

They say 99.9% of rides happen without incident. Internally, they studied the demographics and patterns like late-night pickups near bars, intoxicated passengers and low-rated drivers with past complaints.  

They even tested tools to make rides safer: pairing women with female drivers, adding in-car cameras and using smarter ride-matching. But they didn’t roll them out widely. 

Why not?

Because it might cost too much, slow down growth or upset the way they classify drivers as “independent contractors,” not employees. That saves Uber a fortune in benefits, overtime and supervision, but it also means less oversight and accountability.

Uber’s documents show many attacks follow predictable patterns. They could have warned people. They could have stopped some of these assaults. Instead, they stayed quiet.

For starters, do not be alone in an Uber. If you must, follow these rules.

Better yet, choose a Waymo or another self-driving taxi. No stranger behind the wheel means one less risk to worry about. 

There is no acceptable level of assault or misconduct. Uber’s data shows this problem isn’t random, it’s systemic. Yes, there are plenty of decent law-abiding rideshare drivers, but you have to be safe. 

🙏🏻 Please, don’t keep this to yourself. Use the share icons below with your friends and family, you will be protecting someone you love.

Layoffs used to be a corporate embarrassment. Now, CEOs are proudly slashing jobs as proof they’re all-in on AI.

Listen on Komando.com →

💸 Apple’s $100B “core” investment: Sweet news! Apple’s about to pour another $100 billion into U.S. manufacturing. Analysts say it’s likely headed toward high-end gear and AI labs, not iPhones and chargers. Either way, I’m glad to see this kind of big bite coming back to our shores.

Swifties, avert your eyes: Grok’s “spicy” video mode just casually turned AI Taylor Swift into a nude dancing avatar on the first try. No warnings, no real age checks. While other tools block NSFW celeb content, Grok was like “Sure, let’s get weird.” Somewhere, a lawyer just woke up sweating and didn’t know why.

🪦 Big Tech, meet Big Audit: The IRS’s free tax-filing tool got iced after just one full season due to limited adoption. Commissioner Billy Long says Direct File’s donezo. RIP to the rare government app that actually worked. IRS saw people being happy and said, “Yeah, that’s enough.”

Fake raids, real scams: Those viral “deportation at Walmart” TikToks? Total scam. Scammers are using phoney retail sob stories to phish your data with bogus surveys and sketchy “free gift” links. No ICE, just identity theft. Congrats, money just got deported from your bank account.

Sleep surveillance: Is your Fitbit saying you’re waking up at night more than usual? It’s not because you’re broken, sleep tracking just got “more accurate.” Translation: Fitbit is clocking every micro-wiggle like it’s the NyQuil NSA. Google says this is step one in a whole series of sleep upgrades, rest assured. 

⚡ Watt the heck? Electricity prices rose 6.5% nationwide so far this year, and in some states, like Maine, they’re up a whopping 36%. Major culprit? Data centers. Their sky-high energy demands (thanks, AI) are hiking rates and triggering billion-dollar grid upgrades that we get to fund. Ohm my gosh!

Are you being watched? Use these two tricks to spot hidden cameras anywhere.

Listen on Komando.com →

🥗 Eating healthy shouldn’t be hard. These helpers make it easy.

😋 Hungry for more? I got you. Hit up my Amazon page for a full spread of handpicked kitchen must-haves (like this compact air fryer).

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: In Google Docs, press Ctrl + Shift + C (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + C (Mac) to check your word count. It all adds up!

🔔 Keep Android notifications private: Put that lock screen on lockdown. Go to Settings > Notifications > Lock screen notifications and toggle on Hide content. FYI: You can also set it per app if you only want it for some.

Use AI to write tricky messages: Think about the main points you need to get across, whether it’s to a neighbor, your kid’s teacher or customer service. Prompt: “Write a short, polite message that clearly says this.” No more overthinking or rewriting 20 times.

📚 Sort and filter books on your Kindle: You can organize your Library so it’s easier to find what you’re reading (or ignoring). Tap the Filter icon (top left) to show only Downloaded, Unread or Read books. Then hit the Sort icon (top right) to sort by Most Recent, Title or Author. Easy.

Share Instagram posts the right way: Tagging friends in the comments? Meh. Next time you see a funny reel, tap the little arrow under the post (or on the side). Pick who you want to send it to and hit Send. It lands right in their DMs. 

👏 Get noticed on LinkedIn by posting when it matters most! Peak times are Tuesday to Thursday, 7–9 a.m. or 11 a.m.–1 p.m. Skip weekends and late nights. Use my special link to post a job for free on LinkedIn.*

🚨 ICYMI: If your content isn’t showing up in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini, you’re invisible to millions of potential customers. 👉 Read my full post here about how to fix this. Let me know what you think, or drop me a question about it in the comments.

Getting a phone before 13
Puts kids at a much higher risk of developing suicidal thoughts. A massive study of 100,000+ people found girls often take the biggest hit to self-worth and emotional control, while boys struggle more with calmness and empathy. The common culprit? No shocker here, social media.

2,300 acres
The growing size of Zuckerberg’s Hawaiian estate. Zuck’s sprawl now covers more land than Disneyland and Central Park combined. He started with a $100M beachfront parcel in 2014, and now he’s got a mini-nation with bunkers, tunnels and Bond villain-level fit. He also just shelled out $30 million for a set of dorm-style buildings. 

September 30
The last day to take delivery and still score the $7,500 EV tax credit. Tick, tick, tax. Forget order dates. The feds only care when it hits your driveway. So if you’re waiting eight to 10 weeks for delivery, as is the case for most Teslas, you’re cutting it real close. Better hope your dream car is already on a lot somewhere.

🦀 Shell we be worried?

A real-life crab drone just scuttled onto the scene. Built by a team in China, this compact, modular DIY bot can walk, swim, fly and, yes, fire tiny pew-pew projectiles like it’s starring in a Pixar war flick.

It’s still likely a prototype, but the tech is no small feat: amphibious moves, stable flight and precision aim.

Cute … until it claws its way onto your porch with a note from the HOA. Watch more here.

Answer: C) Minecraft, the ultimate blockbuster (literally). With over 300 million copies sold worldwide this year, it’s the best-selling video game in history turned full-on cultural phenomenon. 

🪏 Fun fact: The original version of Minecraft was created in just six days by Markus “Notch” Persson. Six days. If Minecraft has ever taught us anything, it’s that you shouldn’t spend money on diamonds and hoes. (lol)

Before you head out, think about this: When your identity gets stolen, the damage is devastating and takes years to repair. NordProtect helps stop it before it starts. I’ve lined up 65% off for my readers. Sign up today!

This is the #1 tech newsletter in the United States, think of it like a free software update for your brain. Tomorrow, loan and behold. I will share a place on the internet where you can see anyone’s mortgage amounts, payments and interest rates.

🫶 Until then, I’m leaving you with a charged heart and 17 tabs still open. — Kim

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT, @elmosky via Giphy

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