Monday is here! It’s a big tech news day, but first, a little tech brain teaser! Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world, worth $213.5 billion, so what are his digs like? How much was the home he lives in … $50K, $500K, $5 million or $50 million? The answer is at the end.

Prepare yourself for an enlightening read about the tech universe. No algorithms here. Just the right amount to keep you in the game and be smarter than anyone you know. Let’s get started! — Kim

It's been the perennial problem with smart home tech: Nothing talks to each other. Your Ring doorbell, Nest thermostat and Wyze light bulbs are all great, but opening three different apps is annoying. Tech companies aren't really known for cooperating.

That’s why this news is such a huge deal. Something called “Matter” is a new smart home standard that lets all your devices communicate without the cloud. You need to know about it so you don’t waste money.

What’s the Matter?

First of all, the big dogs are behind Matter. Apple, Amazon, Google and Samsung worked together to make Matter the standard for smart thermostats, sensors, lighting, plugs, switches and even TVs.

I don’t know about you, but being able to control all the smart stuff in my house using Alexa or Siri or Google or Bixby (well, said no one) sounds pretty sweet.

It also means you can do things like share the smart lock info with someone using a Samsung, even if your whole family uses Apple and you have an Apple hub at home. This is really about making tech easier to use, no matter what brand you buy.

You Matter to me

Here are three Matter-compatible goodies to check out:

• Aqara’s $189.99 Smart Lock U100 can be unlocked by simply tapping an iPhone or Apple Watch, even when the iPhone or Watch is out of power. Soon, it’s getting an update to work with Matter.
• The SwitchBot 2 Hub Smart WiFi lets you control appliances like TVs and air conditioners using your voice (e.g., Alexa) or even using the app or Apple Watch. It’s getting an update later this month to add Matter support for smart locks.
• Yale’s Assure SL smart lock has a BHMA Grade 2-certified deadbolt that's fully motorized, super quiet and works with Matter, too.

Odds are, most of what you already own in the smart home category won’t work with Matter since this is a new standard. Bummer. That said, when you’re out shopping for something new, look for the Matter logo. (It’s in the pic above.)

🔌 You can connect any of those Matter-compatible gadgets to Apple Home, Google Home or Samsung SmartThings. Amazon Alexa is a little late to the party, but its support is coming soon.

Now, don’t you feel smart! Share this news with your friends and family so they don’t buy non-Matter goods and throw money away.

Breach alert: Nearly 500K patients had sensitive info swiped in a huge hack at Intellihartx, a healthcare payment company. A ransomware group hacked one of the company’s vendors. Your doctor’s office should notify you if your info was leaked. But keep an eye on your credit report anyway.

🚗 Route 66 hands-free kicks: Mercedes-Benz is getting the green light for partially self-driving cars in California. Fun part? As long as the driver shows their face to the in-car cameras, they’re cool to play Tetris on the console while driving.

Time to upgrade: If you sport an iPhone X or anything older, bad news — it won’t work with iOS 17 coming this fall. The latest version you will ever be able to use is, sadly, iOS 16. You’ll need to get a new phone.

🦆 Retro crimes: A guy in South Carolina robbed a store with a Nintendo Duck Hunt gun. David Joseph Dalesandro flashed it to a cashier and stole $300. Cops found him in a parking lot with the toy in his pants, but no robber duck.

Security update: Google Password Manager just dropped a whole bunch of new features. You can now easily access it from Chrome, make notes for login details and upload CSV files from other password managers. BTW, I say it's not as safe as a dedicated PW manager.

🧒 Kiddo internet ban: Louisiana just introduced a bill that could keep kids off the internet without parental consent. If it gets the go-ahead, it will bar minors from sneaky TikTok scrolling and even making their own emails.

Womp-womp: Meta's first big foray into generative AI is ... stickers in Messenger. Create your very own images just by typing in some text prompts and sending them to your FB friends. Groundbreaking!

🛌 True story I have to share: A friend was having trouble with his teen son playing video games too much. He decided to take the door off the kid’s bedroom. When his son came home and asked what was going on, he told him, “Son, we’ve updated the privacy policy in our home.” Classic.

🎨 Spreadsheet da Vinci: Tatsuo Horiuchi is a fantastic artist. But you’d never guess his medium — it’s Microsoft Excel. Using the program’s vector tools, he creates large landscapes of Japan that you can check out in this video. Totally worth the watch.

Every morning, brush your teeth to my Daily Tech Update. You get fresh breath and fresh tech know-how in a minute.

Listen to my podcast, Daily Tech Update, here.

Ever been thrown into Facebook jail? Look at Twitter or Reddit, and it seems like just about anything (or nothing at all) can get you banned.

Enter the Oversight Board. This is Meta’s oversight board that checks Facebook and Instagram’s content moderation decisions. Last year, it received almost 1.3 million appeals. That’s an appeal every 24 seconds!

Most of those appeals are about alleged violations of two community standards: Violence/incitement and hate speech.

Like the Supreme Court ...

... but for social media. Gizmodo got its proverbial hands on Meta’s 2022 report containing all this info. Some highlights:

• 92% of appeals were from people asking to get their accounts or content restored.
• 45% came from the U.S. and Canada — no surprise, given those are some of the biggest user bases.

They must have made a lot of decisions, right?

Uh-oh. Despite 1,290,942 appeals in 2022, the Oversight Board only made a handful of decisions. They published the results of 12 and overturned Meta’s decision 75% of the time. In another 32 cases, Meta said its own decision was incorrect, so they never made it to the Board.

If you’ve been banned from FB or IG, the Oversight Board will probably say, “Too bad, so sad.” You can appeal their decision here. But good luck with that.

Your phone stores metadata every time you take a picture. That might include the date you took it, your camera settings and where you were.

Think about that for a second if you’re sending pics you took at home. When you share your image, anyone can access that data. Yikes.

• To stop location sharing on iPhone, open the image you want to share and tap the share button (it looks like a square with an arrow pointing up). Next, select Options, and toggle off Location.
• On Android, open your gallery, select the photo, then go to Details and click Remove location data.

🥯 There, safe and sound. If you’re on a roll, browse more of my smart tech tricks.

It’s not enough to have strong passwords and watch what you click. Malware is harder than ever to spot. Antivirus software isn’t optional. You need it.

My pick is TotalAV. It’s simple to install and use, and they’ve received the VB100 award for detecting more than 99% of malware samples for the last three years in a row.

Best part: You get an entire year of protection on five devices for just $19!

Remember this: A cat has claws at the end of paws. A comma is a pause at the end of a clause.

🏠 The answer: The only house Elon Musk calls “home” is worth around $50,000. He rents the small three-bedroom house in Boca Chica, Texas, from SpaceX — and it’s walking distance to the rocket factory. But he did buy the house next door for his personal security guards.

🌍 Phew, big day. Thanks for taking on the tech world with me. Tell your friends to sign up. Leave a review and just shout if there’s something you want to see in a future issue. — Kim