Welcome to a wonderful tech-tastic Wednesday, friends. Let’s start with a riddle that’s stumping the internet. Ready? “I'm not a wave, but I travel. I'm intangible and can carry a conversation. What am I?” You’ll find the answer at the end of this newsletter.

❤️ Show some love to today’s sponsor, Incogni. Your Social Security number, address, financial info and a lot more are on the web. Removing it all is so time-consuming. Incogni does the hard work for you. Check them out to support our free newsletter. Thank you! — Kim

Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days ends at midnight, so don't wait if you need to upgrade something tech. These deals rival Black Friday. All you need is a Prime membership. (Free trial if ya need one.)

My tactic this year: Buy holiday gifts now while everything is on sale so I can focus on, you know, spending time and energy on my loved ones in a couple of months.

• Amazon Fire TV 50-inch Omni QLED Series 4K UHD smart TV – 25% off ($399.99)
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ with 12.4-inch screen – $89 off ($599.99)
• Kindle Fire tablets for adults and kids – Up to 50% off
• TP-Link Tapo Smart LED light strips – 40% off ($29.99)
• Ring stick-up cam and indoor cam – 50% off ($79.99)
• Blink smart home cameras and floodlights – Up to 50% off
• Beats Studio Pro wireless noise-cancelling headphones – 49% off ($179)
• Apple Watch SE 2nd-gen – 20% off ($199)
• Amazon Echo Pop smart speaker + free smart bulb – 41% off ($30.98)
• Amazon Fire TV streaming sticks and boxes – Up to 54% off
• Nespresso Vertuo coffee and espresso machines – 30% off
• TP-Link Deco mesh Wi-Fi system (for homes up to 5,500 sq. ft.) – 33% off ($99.99)
• Sony wireless premium headphones and earbuds – Up to $100 off
• Dyson cordless vacuums, fans and air purifiers – Up to 47% off
• Powerful laptops for video editing, gaming and photography – Up to 44% off
• Amazon Kindle e-readers – Up to 32% off
• Steel security safe and lock box with electronic keypad – 23% off ($52.27)
• Portable hard drives, memory cards and USB drives – Up to 50% off

🤸 Now, friend, go forth and shop. Deals are all well and good, but do yourself a favor: If it's an expensive device from a company you've never heard of … skip it.

For data brokers, your personal information is big business. They collect your Social Security number, birthdate, address, health info, contact details, you name it — and sell it to the highest bidder. It’s nearly impossible to remove all that from the web yourself.

That’s where Incogni comes in. It’s a personal data-removal service that scrubs your info from the web. They handle the hard work for you. Seriously, it’d take hundreds of hours to do it all on your own.

If you’ve ever agreed to a privacy policy online (we all have!), this is a solid way to protect yourself from identity theft, health insurers jacking up your rates, robocalls and more.

"Business trip" in Vegas: Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, a renowned philanthropic organization, is giving back to the community once again. Anyone impacted by the recent cyberattack at MGM Resorts gets free airport pickup, a $1,200 VIP membership and complimentary lap dances. And no, you can't give your information to the MGM hackers now.

⚖️ Put down your $1.50 hotdog: A new lawsuit claims Costco gave customers' personal prescription and health insurance data to Meta. Turns out a Meta analytics tracking tool was installed on Costco's website. That’s right, Meta never met‑a way to not grab our data.

Kiss and tell ChatGPT: Forget asking friends for advice. New apps like Rizz, YourMove and Texts from My Ex use AI to analyze romantic conversations to assess compatibility or generate flirty messages for partners. If you use it, just know your friends will definitely bring it up in a wedding speech.

Take it knee-sy: Over 1,100 patients who received artificial knee, hip or ankle replacements are suing implant manufacturer Exatech. The replacements were faulty, and many folks had to undergo second surgeries to replace them prematurely, meaning more medical debt and pain. Pass this one on to friends and family.

Information superhighway robbery: An unfortunate victim thought he was meeting a woman from a dating app. Nope, it was a masked man with a knife, who then took the victim’s phone, forced him to unlock it and transferred money using Venmo. Warn those you know in the dating pool.

🚵🏼 “E” ain’t for expensive: The government is passing out e-bike rebates if you want to upgrade your wheels. Check out this database of the 62 e-bike incentive programs available in 19 states. You can score up to $1,400. Pro tip: Don’t buy an e-bike that costs less than $700. Not worth the risk.

I make the complex world of tech simple and approachable. From explaining the latest gadgets in plain English to offering easy-to-follow cybersecurity advice, I’ve got you covered.

👉 Tech understanding is just a click away!

Add a capital letter. Needs a number. Oops, you forgot a special character and hieroglyphics. That’s how it feels to create a tough password these days.

By now, you’re used to the login runaround, but how good are you at it? Put yourself to the test with a password game even the creator admits he can’t beat.

The king of fun browser games

New York-based coder Neal Agarwal has made some pretty nifty sites I’ve shared in the past.

• Ten Years Ago takes you back to the website of your choosing on this day a decade ago. (YouTube’s top vid was Eminem.)
• The Size of Space puts into context just how big asteroids, planets and galaxies are.
• Draw Logos from Memory is a good one when you need a quick brain break. (Click the little circles under each section to get more colors.)

Cybersecurity, but make it fun

Neal’s latest creation, The Password Game, challenges you to create a login meeting increasingly difficult requirements. It starts easily enough — make it at least five characters, then include a number, uppercase letter and special character.

Rule No. 5 is the first one that threw me: “The digits in your password must add up to 25.” It only gets trickier from there. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I laughed out loud a few times!

✅ Go give it a whirl and let me know how far you get.

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

Think about that for a second when sending pics you took at home. If you share the 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.

Makes me “pine” for the old days.

The answer: Wi‑Fi. Did you know "Wi‑Fi" doesn't actually stand for anything? Many folks think it means "Wireless Fidelity," but that's a myth. The name was coined as a catchier alternative to this technical mouthful: "IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence."

Thanks for being here and showing some love. Help support our work and this free newsletter by checking out today’s partner, Incogni. It’s a slick service, for sure! — Kim