🚗 Your car is a snitch that’s hiking your insurance rates

Hey there. It’s Saturday, {{first_name | friend}}. Have you ever been hiking and looked up at a pine tree, only to discover it’s more 5G than bark? Those strange trees aren’t trees at all. They’re cell towers in disguise. 

🌲 Can you guess why most cell phone towers have fake branches or look like strange, plastic evergreen monsters? A) To prevent birds from nesting in the wiring, B) To camouflage them for local zoning laws, C) To act as lightning rods for the neighborhood, or D) The “needles” help catch 5G signals? Stay tuned, the answer is at the end of the trail. 

🤑 Yesterday, I asked what you thought about AI-cloned voices of long-gone celebrities. Well, 15% told me the voices were cool and 33% them creepy, but most (52%) of you called them a cash grab. Yea, I agree with the cash grab for sure!

📻 Tune in! My national radio show is airing all weekend across the USA. With over 510 stations strong, find your closest one by using our super-duper station locator map, or listen commercial-free on Apple Podcasts, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts, search for “Komando.” — Kim

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⚡ TL;DR (THE SHORT VERSION)

📖  Read time: 2 minutes

I love cars, the designs, the power, the history. I have a Porsche that knows everything I do, where I drive, how fast I take corners, probably my to-go order. I also have a 1946 Chevy truck with a gas gauge I have to flick with my fingers to get it to register.

When I forgot to lock my car before a hike on Camelback Mountain the other day, I opened the app halfway up the trail and locked it remotely. I’ll admit, that was slick. Still, there’s a trade-off most people don’t realize they’re making.

The FTC recently slapped General Motors with a settlement for selling driving data from millions of vehicles without proper consent. OnStar was sharing your location, acceleration and braking habits with insurance companies that used it to raise your rates. Drivers had no idea until their premiums spiked.

GM is now banned from sharing this data for five years. But they’re not the only ones collecting and selling it.

Mozilla reviewed 25 major car brands, and every single one failed basic privacy expectations. They called cars “the worst product category we have ever reviewed.”

Your car may be logging your home address, contacts, garage door codes and voice commands. Layer AI on top, and it learns your patterns. Late-night drives. Medical appointments. Weekend routines.

Treat your car like an old laptop. Wipe it.

✅ My step-by-step guide tells you where to look in your car to delete your data and what apps you need to use to finish the job. Also, on this page be sure to get your Vehicle Privacy Report that shows all the data your car’s make and model is collecting and selling. 

Because you might be trading in that car this weekend. Or renting one. Every trip gets logged. Every connection stays stored. And unlike on your phone, you probably never thought to check the privacy settings. Now you will.

Phew, after all that, you need a smile. Why are rental cars so depressed all the time? Because they’re loners. (I saw that, and it made my day!)

📲 Share the knowledge: Know someone about to sell or trade their car? Forward this, so they don’t accidentally hand over their entire location history with the keys.

⚡️ Power plays: Your electric bill’s up. Your local data center’s isn’t. What the heck? Shocker, utilities give massive breaks (paywall link) to Big Tech. In Virginia, ratepayers covered $5B in upgrades for data centers. And the worst part? Most residential customers have zero say in pricing. So yeah, you’re not only paying for your lights, you’re subsidizing Grok putting everyone in bikinis, or worse. 

TikTok’s hottest trend? “Becoming Chinese”: Chinese creators are going viral sharing everyday habits: drinking hot water instead of iced, wearing house slippers, swapping cold salads for warm soups in winter. Millions of Americans are taking notes. I don’t think this is the Chinese influence we were so worried about happening on TikTok.

Fourth and Prime: Amazon is trying its very best to reinvent football broadcasts to make more money. How? The Prime Vision feed uses overhead cameras, AI and real stats (not only rushing yards) to show every player’s movement and explain why teams do what they do. It’s kinda like watching the game next to a former coach. It might even make 22 guys running into each other make sense to the average non-watcher. I still love a tight end.

📡 Stop paying more for the exact same signal: You think high prices guarantee better service? They don’t. Consumer Cellular uses the same towers and 5G network as the big carriers. You get the same speed and coverage. The only difference is the price. If you’re 50+ get two unlimited lines for just $30 each line. Plus your second month is free. Don’t pay extra for a logo. Start saving today.*

Running on vibes: You burned 500 calories at the gym, right? Not exactly. Research shows we overestimate exercise. Your body quietly cuts energy elsewhere (immune function, digestion, whatever) when you work out hard. It keeps you in balance and in your jeans size. The big brains say diet is still the main way to create a real calorie deficit. Exercise helps, but you can’t outrun a bad diet. 

🛒 Life in the fast lane: Turns out Costco hated self-checkout almost as much as you did. It’s ditching it but replacing it with two new tricks: Scan & Go via the Costco app (you scan as you shop) and employees pre-scanning your cart while you’re still in line. All you have to do is roll up and pay. I’ll still forget the one thing I came for but end up with a lifetime supply of peanut butter and a kayak. Here’s a bad joke you can share: What do Costco and Las Vegas have in common? You go to buy a gallon of milk, and it costs you $285.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Typing on your phone and need to move the cursor? Hold down the space bar. Your keyboard turns into a trackpad. Game changer. Go ahead, try it now. 

🎧 I tested the expensive brands against Raycon: People ask me if the $200 earbuds are worth it. My honest answer is no. Raycon Everyday Earbuds deliver the same premium sound and deep bass for half the price. They actually stay in your ears, and the battery lasts all day. Don’t pay extra just for a logo. Save 20% sitewide right now.*

Appointments made easy: On iPhone, dates and times in texts or emails are often underlined. Next time that happens, long-press the underlined time to preview your calendar for that exact slot and see if you’re free. Then tap Add to Calendar or Add to Reminders in the same pop-up. No more double-booking.

Stop Android apps from filling up your home screen: If new apps keep popping up as shortcuts, there’s a setting causing it. Long-press an empty part of your home screen, tap Settings, and turn off Add new apps to Home screen. To clean up what’s already there, long-press any app icon and hit Remove. 

🔍 Fastest way to search your computer: On a Mac, press Command + Spacebar to open Spotlight, then start typing away. You can narrow things down even more using the categories for Apps, Files, Actions or Clipboard. On Windows, press Windows key + S to search and filter by Settings, Documents, Folders and more.

🛡️ Your antivirus might be asleep at the wheel: Modern hackers don’t merely crash your PC. They install silent software to watch you type. Old antivirus misses this. I use Webroot because it is cloud-based and lightning fast. I don’t put my name on junk, and this is the protection I rely on. Don’t browse unprotected. Get my exclusive 75% off deal now.*

👂 Listen up! Tune into my award-winning radio show, airing this weekend on 510+ stations. Find yours via our awesome station finder. You can also listen commercial-free on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart or in the Komando Community.

💻 Got a tech problem? Book an appointment to speak with me here, and you could get your answer on air. So cool! 

Love the show? Tell your local station! Hit their “Contact Us” page or send a social media shout-out. Your 30 seconds keeps the tech talk coming to your city. Thank you!

🚨 Jailed over fake texts: This is one of the most chilling calls I’ve had. Melissa spent two days in a Florida jail after her ex used AI to fabricate texts as evidence against her. It took eight months to clear her name. This is the new reality, folks. 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. 

👇 Use the links below to listen on your schedule.

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

Breastfeeding in 2026 is still a lot of guessing, squinting and asking the internet if your baby seems full. That’s wild, considering we have tech to track sleep, steps, heart rate and how long a banana sat on our counter.

Coro has a hidden flow sensor that tells you, in real time, how much milk your baby is getting. You wear it, the child latches like normal and feeds while the app quietly does the math.

It’s basically a speedometer for feeding, not to push performance but to confirm, yes, something is happening.

Heads up, tomorrow’s a must-read. A new gadget uses AI to detect gluten in your food before you take a bite. I’m breaking down what credit freezes actually miss. And 17 popular earbuds and speakers? Hackable. (Not Raycons!) I’ll explain.

🌳 The answer: B) To camouflage them. These camo-trees, lovingly dubbed “monopines,” are deployed to outmaneuver zoning laws and NIMBY complaints. So companies spend $$$ to dress them up like they’re auditioning for a role in a Nature Valley commercial, but they end up looking more like a high-budget backdrop for an elementary school play than wilderness.

I don’t trust these trees. They seem shady.

🔋 Your phone needs charging. So do you. Take a break today. — Kim

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT, Rove, Coro

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