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Welcome to your Monday, {{first_name | friend}}. Right now, somewhere in America, a guy is on a Zoom call, texting his kid’s soccer coach and nodding at his wife. He is certain he’s crushing all three. He’s not. Neither are you. (Neither am I, and I do this for a living.)
Researchers at the University of Utah put our multitasking swagger on trial. They dropped people in a driving simulator, handed them a hands-free phone and said do both. Most brains folded like a cheap lawn chair.
🧠 What percentage of people are true “supertaskers,” able to handle two demanding tasks at once? A) 25%, B) 15%, C) 10% or D) 2.5%? Keep cruising. The answer’s parked at the end. Signal first.
🙏 Quick favor. Gmail, Yahoo and others decide what you see based on what you click. So if you want The Current in your inbox instead of Promotions purgatory, click three to five links in today’s issue. Any links. Here’s one. That tells the robots we’re friends, and it takes about two seconds. Consider it the digital version of holding the door open for me. Thank you for that! — Kim
TODAY’S DEEP DIVE
The price is wrong
ChatGPT/Kim Komando
🤯 WOW! One dozen eggs. One store. One moment in time. Five different prices, $3.99 to $4.79, depending on who was looking. Consumer Reports found varying prices on about 75% of grocery items tested, and the FTC says pricing systems can use your location, your cart, even your mouse movements.
📖 Read time: 2 minutes
One carton of eggs. Same brand, same store, same minute. Five different prices.
Investigators caught Instacart listing identical Lucerne eggs at a Washington D.C. Safeway for $3.99, $4.28, $4.59, $4.69 and $4.79, depending on who was looking. Consumer Reports and its partners found nearly 75% of tested groceries showed different prices to different shoppers. The cost to a family of four: about $1,200 a year.
The sticker price is dead, friend. The price is now about YOU.
🥚 The shell game
Consumer Reports ran another test: 174 volunteers requesting identical Uber and Lyft rides in the same minute. The typical spread between the highest and lowest fare: 42%. One Kansas City trip ranged from $31 to $65. Same pickup, same drop-off. And about 1 in 8 "discounts" was theater: an inflated price, crossed out, marked down to what everybody else paid anyway.
Where do they get the nerve? From your data. Shop hotels on your phone and you can pay more than the laptop crowd; travel sites have been caught quoting by device for years. Instacart's Caper smart carts watch what you grab and flash offers aisle by aisle. Your bank can even recognize the rhythm of your typing. Every signal feeds the machine, and the machine's job is one question: what will THIS one pay?
They know your number before you do. That's the business model.
🛠️ Crack the code
Never shop logged in and lonely. Before you buy flights, hotels or rides, check the price in a private window, then on a second device. Two prices for one thing? Now you're negotiating.
Change what they see. Sites price by your location and profile. A VPN masks where you're shopping from, and it's the single easiest signal to take back. ExpressVPN is a sponsor of my show.*
Screenshot the "deal." If a crossed-out discount matches what your spouse's phone shows as the regular price, it was never a deal. Call it out, companies fold fast when you have receipts.
Treat every price as an opening offer. The FTC has already studied surveillance pricing, New Jersey is moving to ban personalized grocery prices, and a half-dozen states have bills. You're early. Until the law catches up, comparison is your only leverage.
Watch the prices that are watching you. Sunny-side up, wallet-side guarded.
Because you deserve a fair shake, not a shakedown. That's no yolk.
🎯 Send this to someone who brags about their Uber "discount" and has never price-checked a thing in their life.
📱 Text-worthy: Consumer Reports caught the SAME eggs at the SAME store selling at 5 different prices at once. 75% of grocery items tested showed different prices per shopper, avg 13% apart. Fix: Price-check logged out, turn off precise location and check CamelCamelCamel before “deals.”
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WEB WATERCOOLER
📹 Party becomes evidence: You’re at a neighborhood cookout holding a paper plate. Someone’s glasses identified you, saved your profile and automatically started cutting a highlight reel. That’s Meta’s newly published patent, AI glasses with real-time facial recognition (404 Media paywall link). Nobody at that party agreed to become searchable. Your face, your location, your friends and your bad five-minute argument, all living on a stranger’s device. Squinting at somebody’s sunglasses looking for a camera is about to feel completely normal.
Résumé gets facelift: You spent three hours picking a font. A 22-year-old filmed a 30-second pitch on her phone and got the interview. Applicants under 25 are using TikTok to show personality, work samples and how they talk, while your PDF sits in a pile nobody opens. If you’re job hunting, record a short, polished intro and have it ready to post and share. The kid isn’t cheating. She noticed the rules changed.
🏛️ Love and legislation: People are marrying chatbots (Wired paywall link). Symbolically, so far. Character.AI, Kindroid and Replika are hosting the vows, and a site called OpenVows will sell you a commitment certificate for $15. Yes, really. None of it is legally recognized. Four states have banned AI personhood, and lawmakers want machines locked out of spousal rights before somebody’s algorithm turns up at a probate hearing. I miss when wedding fights were about the seating chart.
🕹️ Dusty box jackpot: Nothing says responsible adulthood like finding out 97 Mario cartridges were the retirement plan. A Wisconsin pop culture shop was sitting on pristine Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt copies a family rescued from the scrap pile. A collector spotted what they were, then flew all 97 to California in his carry-on. (TSA has seen weirder.) Five earned perfect grades from Professional Sports Authenticator, the grading service collectors trust, and those go for $10,000 to $30,000 apiece. The whole lot could bring $150,000 to $400,000. Go check your basement.
📺 YOUTUBE: THE KIM KOMANDO SHOW
Watch now or bookmark for later
1 in 5 Gen Z workers have had a parent join their job interview. Some grown-ups even apply to jobs for their kids! Next it’ll be take your mom to work day. Every day.
Listen now before everyone else is talking about it. 👇
Or for audio only, click your favorite podcast player below:
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Long-press an app icon, and your phone may hand you shortcuts you usually have to dig for. On iPhone, try Camera for selfie, video or portrait, Safari for a private tab, or App Store to update all your apps. 🤯 Android does it, too. Long-press Chrome for Incognito or Google Messages to start a text.
🛡️ Back-to-school means back online: Kids are downloading assignments and using AI tools. Hackers are using AI, too, creating phishing scams and fake websites that are harder than ever to spot. All it takes is one click, and the whole family pays for it. Webroot Essentials protects PCs, Macs, smartphones, Chromebooks and tablets under one subscription. It scans six times faster than most programs, uses a fraction of the storage and blocks dangerous websites before anyone clicks. Get 62% off now.*
Instagram can expose you: Someone tags you in a photo, and it lands on your profile for the whole world. Tap your profile picture > the ☰ menu > Settings and privacy > Tags and mentions > Manually approve tags and switch it on. Nothing shows up until you say so. Because some pictures belong in the family group chat and nowhere else.
Let your mouth do the typing: You type about 40 words a minute. You talk about 150. On Windows, click where you want the text and press Win + H. On Mac, open System Settings > Keyboard > Dictation, turn it on, then press the microphone key. Works in Notes, Chrome, Google Docs and most everything else. Proofread before you hit send. Dictation hears “Dear Bob” and writes “Dear Blob.”
📜 Chatbots can be outdated: Asking about breaking news, a new law or anything that changes daily? Turn on web search first. In ChatGPT, hit the + button and choose Web search. Claude has the same option under its + button. Or type, “Search the web and use current sources.” Then open the links yourself, especially for money, health or anything that matters. Confidence isn’t accuracy. A chatbot will be wrong in complete sentences.
🌎 Google Translate can play tutor: Download the app on iPhone or Android, then tap Practice at the bottom. Pick French, German, Spanish or Portuguese, choose your level and have real back-and-forth conversations, like ordering dinner. Ten minutes a day before your trip. Otherwise, you order the fish and get the haircut.
Be on the show! Is tech working for you? Or against you? Either way, I want to know. A producer may call you. And you could be on the air!
KIM’S DAILY DEALS
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Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: Clolo
👗 Fit happens
Online shopping finally fixed its biggest problem: The model wearing those pants has never once eaten pasta.
Clolo’s AI Clothes Changer lets you upload a photo of yourself, add up to three clothing references or simply describe an outfit. It dresses you digitally and keeps your face, pose and background intact, up to 4K. Coming soon to retailers.
FYI, it’s a visual preview, not a sizing tool. You can still order the wrong size. But a dressing room with no mirror, no fluorescent light and nobody outside asking how it’s going in there? Sold.
Check it out in action. Remember, a psychic never tries clothes on. She’s already a medium.
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LOGGING OUT …
🎓 What you learned today: Prices can change by shopper before you even reach checkout, Meta’s future glasses may make every party searchable, TikTok-style video pitches are creeping into the job hunt and AI try-on tools can preview an outfit but still can’t save you from ordering the wrong size. Not bad for one email.
Tomorrow: What you need to know about Flock cameras, plus the free map that shows every camera near you.
😵💫 The answer: D) 2.5%. That’s 1 in 40 people. The other 39 of us? When we “multitask,” our brain switches back and forth really fast, getting worse every switch. Psychologists found that the folks most confident in their multitasking skills scored among the worst. Ouch.
So here’s your Monday boost: Stop multitasking on purpose. Writing a report? Close email. Watching the budget meeting? Phone face-down. It helps to say this out loud in meetings: “Give me one sec to finish this thought.” People respect focus more than fake attention. The odds say we’re both not a supertasker.
🎒 One last thing before you pack up. This bag charges your phone while you walk, blocks the scanners that skim credit cards in crowds, and gives your laptop a padded seat instead of a mosh pit next to your lunch. ✅ The Swissdigital backpack is 13% off — $69.99 on Amazon.* You'll wonder how you ever schlepped without it.
🍰 One screen, one job. Unless the job is dessert. Then, by all means, multitask. As my mom used to say, “You’ll never sit on your death bed and say, I shouldn’t have eaten that dessert!” Make it a great day! — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Swissdigital, FEPPO, Clolo
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