Welcome, it’s Presidents Day! Let's start with a fun fact if you own an electric bike. If you won't be using your e‑bike for a while, how much charge should you leave on the battery? Is it 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%? The answer's at the end, friends.

🙏🏻 Quick favor! Reply to this email, say “OK,” drop an emoji or just hit send. It helps keep my newsletter in your inbox, not junk. Thanks for your support. Now, let’s dive into keeping you tech‑ahead! — Kim

Linda recently called my national radio show with a question that flooded my inbox. Clearly, a lot of you have experienced a similarly eerie moment.

“I was shopping yesterday at Walmart, looking at kitchen knives. I called my friend and told her where I was in the store. I didn’t buy the knives. Today, I received an email advertising the very knives I was looking at! How did that happen? I never looked knives up online.”

I hear you: “Kim, her phone was listening!” The answer isn’t that simple, but I can explain what’s really going on.

Your digital trail

Even if Linda never searched online for knives, her smartphone was busy collecting data. Your phone tracks your location, not just through GPS but also Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals.

If you’ve connected to a store’s Wi-Fi or walked in with Bluetooth on, Walmart and other retailers can track your movements. They know where you’re standing in the store. They also know you didn’t buy the knives.

Retailers sell this data to ad networks that then work with data brokers to get your email address. Bingo. Linda got an email from the knife company. I bet she starts seeing ads for knives and related items online, too.

But wait, there’s more

Facebook, Instagram, Google and weather apps track your location, even when running in the background. If you’ve granted them location access, they know where you are and later use that data to serve you ads.

Throw AI into the mix

Odds are, Linda is now going to get email pitches and see ads on social media for new cutlery, charcuterie boards and cooking classes. This is how AI-driven advertising works. It takes one interest (kitchen knives) and expands it into related categories.

How to protect your privacy

📍 Manage location tracking

🛑 Erase your digital breadcrumbs

⚙️ Adjust your ad settings

📵 Review app permissions

It’s a creepy feeling when this sort of thing happens. Remember, this combination of retailers, advertisers and data brokers is trying to get you to spend a buck.

AI is changing the game, and small to large businesses are transforming at lightning speed. But here's the good news: It's not too late to get in on the action and take your business to the next level. That’s where Oracle comes in.

You know AI is the future — now’s your chance to cut your cloud bill in half with Oracle. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain.

🔞 Watch the kids on ChatGPT: You can now ask about and create spicy and gory content and images. People complained restrictions were interfering with news reporting and crime scene depictions.

“Rage-baiting”: It’s what Winta Zesu does when she posts videos of her life as a NY model whose biggest problem is being “too pretty.” Is she a narcissist? Nope. People get angry and post hateful comments. Joke’s on them. More engagement translates to money and sponsorships for her.

Take part in research: Apple’s looking for 350,000 people for a new health study about how mental health impacts heart rate and sleep affects exercise. Spoiler: Joining means sharing a lot of personal data. Hopefully, we’ll get another useful tool like the AirPods hearing test.

Lifetime subscriptions: It’s the newest marketing ploy. Pay once and get access forever, right? But “forever” means “as long as the company stays in business” (paywall link). If it shuts down or abandons the app, you’re out of luck. Ask yourself, “Will I use this five years from now?” Probably not.

🩸 Elizabeth Holmes’ life in vein: Convicted felon and former CEO of Theranos wants us to feel sorry for her after cheating and stealing $724 million for tech that didn’t work. In a PR puff piece interview, she says prison is “hell and torture,” waking up at 5 a.m., earning 31 cents an hour and only seeing her kids twice a week. This criminal's best asset is her lie ability.

Kindness + Tech = Heroes: After Hurricane Helene and the Eaton Fire, Taylor Schenker and Claire Schwartz are reuniting lost photos with their owners. They find damaged pictures, clean them, and post them on Facebook and Instagram to match them with the right families. Here are photos found from the Eaton Fire. So nice.

Snag these holiday deals before it’s too late.

🍽️ Savings on the menu: Cookware not looking so hot? Treat yourself to new pots and pans (36% off) and a cast iron skillet (42% off, $20).

🏁 Hey, speed racer: Trim down startup programs that take forever to load. On Windows, open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc, then hit the Startup tab. Right-click and disable programs you don’t need right away when your system reboots.

Use a Mac? Find the list of startup programs under the Apple menu > System Preferences > Users & Groups. Select your user account, then click Login Items. Easy‑peasy.

Be the smart one at work: Download NetSuite’s free knowledge e-book, “The CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.”* No matter what you do, you should know more about AI.

Easier than bookmarks: Want all your tabs to open up when you start your browser? In Chrome, click the three vertical dots, then Settings. Click On startup > Continue where you left off. Steps for Safari, Firefox and Edge here.

🎬 Want to watch a movie on YouTube? Search for the title and the word “movie,” like “Oppenheimer movie.” You’ll get the option to buy or rent if it’s not available for free.

Hackers and scammers don’t want you to use EndpointLock: It stops them from capturing your keystrokes when you enter your usernames, account numbers and passwords. If you bank on your phone or do anything else confidential, you need this. Hit this link for 10% off.*

✍️ That was easy: Adobe has two URLs for the next time you need to adjust a PDF or add your signature: edit.ing and sign.ing. Yep, those are real URLs.

These are examples of Russian hackers targeting Microsoft 365 users. They’re sending emails and messages in WhatsApp, Signal and Microsoft Teams. Don’t reply. Don’t click a link. Don’t download anything.

🚲 The answer: 50%. It's best to keep your e-bike's battery in a cool, dry place, not fully charged and not totally empty, so anywhere between 40% and 60% is best. You know, I studied the buying trends of e‑bikes. It’s so e‑cyclical.

Whatcha doing with your free time today? How about a five-minute phone privacy checkup? It’s worth it.

👋 I’ll see you back here tomorrow with more smarts in the best tech newsletter in the USA! — Kim