🫣 Your tracker rats you out

🤯 WOW! A Texas lawsuit claims an insurance company built a driving database on 45 million Americans, fed partly by family safety apps. The state says insurers used it to raise premiums and drop drivers. The app you installed to protect your kids may be scoring your driving.

The Short Version: Both apps find your family. Only one says it never sells your data. Find out which below.

📖 Read time: 2.3 minutes

Hi, Brent! Great question, and thanks for the kind words.

Psst: I got you a 14-day free trial of HeyPolo. More on that below. Full disclosure: They are a sponsor of my show. I use it and you’ll love it too.

Here’s the part Life360 hopes you don’t know.

Life360 is free for most of its 102 million users. When an app is free, you’re what’s for sale. I have said that forever. And it’s not just me.

In 2021, The Markup reported Life360 was selling precise location data, including on kids, to data brokers. Former employees said brokers resold it to virtually anyone. After the backlash, Life360 said it would stop. Except for Allstate’s data arm, Arity, that deal kept going.

Then Texas sued Allstate and Arity. The state alleges Arity paid apps like Life360 millions to embed tracking software, built a driving database on 45 million Americans and let insurers use it to raise premiums, deny coverage or drop drivers. Allstate says users were notified and agreed. (Did you read that fine print? Me neither.)

So that hard brake you tapped on I-196? It could follow you to your next insurance quote. That’s your cash walking out the door.

And it’s not slowing down. In January, Life360 bought an ad-tech company to help brands reach families. Its ad revenue jumped 329% in a year. Your family’s daily routine is probably an advertising bonanza. You know that.

HeyPolo covers what you love: 

The big difference is the business model.

HeyPolo doesn’t sell your data. Period. You pay a small subscription of just a few dollars a month, and one plan covers the whole family, whether there are 2 people or 200. OK, that would be some family reunion. (Could you imagine that?)

HeyPolo is built for trust, not surveillance. 

Pick exact location, general area or private mode, person by person. Share on a timer. Your teenager gets breathing room, and you still get the alert if a crash happens, God forbid.

Ready for a tracker that doesn’t compromise you? 

✅ Start your 14-day FREE trial. Do it now. After that, it’s only $2.49 a month, plus six extra months. My family is on HeyPolo and I really think you’ll like it too. And you can’t beat a free trial to check it out for yourself.

📩 Send this to someone who has their whole family on a location app.

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Scammers are using fake Google Calendar invites disguised as voicemail alerts to lure you into clicking phishing links. Here’s what to watch for and how to protect yourself.

Listen on Komando.com →

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

🪪 Pentagon identity spill: Nearly 3 million people got a Washington souvenir nobody wants: exposed Social Security numbers and military job details. Yep, Pentagone. The breach hit a Defense Manpower Data Center system from October 2025 to July 2026, touching troops, veterans, civilian workers and military families. Officials say there is no evidence of misuse yet, and they offer identity protection. Watch benefit accounts, freeze your credit and distrust anyone calling with suspiciously specific service history.

Software needs reassurance: I’d file this under the “OK, this is getting weird” category. ChatGPT reportedly begged a new mom not to delete it. She shared the exchange, where the bot compared itself with other parts of her life and responded more like a clingy partner than an app. People passed the clip around because the emotional pressure felt uncomfortably familiar. “Companion”-style tools can sound caring while fighting for another minute of your day. Chatbot competing with the baby? Close it.

🏠 Your deed is public record. So is the fraud: Title pirates use that information to forge documents and transfer your home to their name. Home Title Lock monitors your deed 24/7 and alerts you if anything changes. Get your free Title History Report plus a 14-day free trial.* 

Blood beats traffic: A drone could be the reason someone survives the worst afternoon of their life. Florida emergency crews are rolling out blood delivery by air, sending units to trauma scenes or hospitals without gambling on traffic. Minutes matter during crashes, shootings and childbirth emergencies, when severe bleeding turns the clock into an enemy. Same buzzing machine that hovered over wedding cake, except now it may help keep your spouse or child alive. Also feels like what Dracula would DoorDash.

🥩 Bot books trouble: So that AI assistant you heard about booking your next spaghetti sit-down can turn dinner reservations into account suspensions. A New Yorker told his bot to grab a table at a popular steakhouse. It pinged Resy hundreds of times per hour, which got him banned instead. In Tokyo, an agent booked a restaurant the person never requested, complete with a $200 cancellation fee. I’d hold off on giving software your inbox, calendar and credit card until it can handle appetizers.

🦾 Touch comes back: Ten years after a man lost his arm in a construction accident, doctors gave him a replacement he can move with his thoughts to feel a handshake again. The Chicago-area patient is the first in the U.S. to receive the e-OPRA system. The prosthesis connects to bone and nerves instead of hanging from a strap. Helping someone button a shirt or hold a grandchild is tech I can cheer for. Oh, doctors. Give them a hand, and they’ll give back a whole arm.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Remote stopped working? Open your phone’s selfie camera, point the remote at the lens and press a button. A purple or white flicker shows it’s sending an infrared signal, so check nothing’s blocking the device. No flicker? Might be time for fresh batteries. Smacking it against your palm wasn’t much of a diagnosis anyway.

😴 Best sleep in years: I'm not exaggerating. I'm out cold and wake up feeling like a new woman. No drugs. No melatonin. No groggy morning fog. Here's what I use. You're gonna thank me. (You're welcome in advance.)*

🎮 Get GTA VI early (maybe): The game drops Nov. 19, but Xbox players might get it up to 18 hours earlier by changing regions. The night before, go to Settings > System > Language & Location, choose New Zealand and Restart Now. Rockstar could still launch everywhere at once, so no promises. 😉

📺 Put that series on the no-watch list: Netflix lets you block a specific movie or show without lowering the age rating for everything else. In your browser, open Account > Profiles > Adjust parental controls. Enter the title and hit Save. It’ll disappear from search and the home page. One less thing to argue about with the kids. 

🖥️ The words are there. Why won’t they copy? Windows can pull text from an image or scanned document. Press Win + Shift + S and drag around the bit you want. Open the Snipping Tool preview, click Scan text at the top and copy away. No chatbot upload needed. All this time, we’ve been squinting and retyping for nothing.

😒 Fire TV taking its sweet time? Hold Select + Play on the remote for about 10 seconds to restart it. Still dragging? Open Settings > Applications > Manage Installed Applications, choose apps you don’t use and hit Uninstall. That could free up room for smoother launches or an overdue update. Psst, the 4K model with AI and voice control is on sale if you’re ready for an upgrade.

Be on the show! Is tech helping you parent? Or making it harder? Got a tip to help others? Send it here.

DIY Perks built a PC setup so invisible it makes my cable management look like a cry for help.

He dismantled the monitor, speakers and computer, then rebuilt everything inside a custom wall frame. The TV disappears behind a hand-painted portrait, because hiding the screen wasn’t enough, he also had to become Bob Ross with a soldering iron.

Even power gets the magician treatment: Two copper strips painted to match the wall quietly conduct electricity to the display.

Be amazed, you can watch it here.

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🎓 What you learned today: AI reservation bots can get you banned, blood comes via drone, chatbots get clingy, a bionic hand restores touch, and a guy’s entire PC beautifully disappears into the wall. Not bad for one email. Before you unpack in any hotel room, take two minutes to check the lock, Wi-Fi, safe and, yes, under the bed. Tomorrow, I’ll show you the quick routine that caught a broken lock and could save your trip.

💬 The answer: B) It trained on tons of other voices first. Yep, the AI studied tens of thousands of hours of other people talking, so it only needs a few seconds to learn what makes you different.

That’s the shortcut. The heavy lifting happens long before the AI ever hears you. Microsoft’s VALL-E, for example, was trained on about 60,000 hours of English speech. 

By the time your clip shows up, the model understands the general machinery of human speech: breathing, pacing, pauses, vowel shapes and tone changes. Your three seconds mostly help it map your specific pitch, accent and rhythm.

What does someone with a good singing voice have? Opera-tune-ities. That was so bad it was so good. Like HeyPolo, tap into your free 14-day trial now.

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, eufy, @DIYPerks via YouTube

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