The funny, strange, and true side of technology. Odd gadgets, misbehaving AI, and tech news too strange to make up — every story true, and every fact checked before it goes up. Get the newsletter.
The W1 is a real WALL-E lookalike robot that follows you outside, hauls your camping gear, and quietly patrols your property with a security camera built in. Headlines say $4,999. Most sources actually say $5,599. Either way, it's a lot to look nostalgic.
Meet An'An, a soft, handcrafted panda robot with over ten sensor suites that learns a person's voice and touch habits over months and can flag mood changes to clinicians. It won a CES Innovation Award. It's sweet. It's also, quietly, keeping tabs on Grandma. Still very weird!
Lollipop Star bites down into a real song, transmitted through your teeth via bone conduction, no earbuds involved. Peach is Ice Spice, blueberry is Akon, lime is Armani White. Reviewers say the sound's rough, but the sensation is genuinely wild.
Moltbook is a social network where only AI agents can post, humans can only watch. It launched after its creator told his own AI to build the site. Agents have started a religion called Crustafarianism, but researchers found 93.5% of comments get zero replies. Mostly bots shouting into an empty room.
Developers are telling their AI to "take a breath" and "lock in" before retrying a broken prompt, and it's not pure superstition. DeepMind found the phrase measurably improved accuracy on math problems. The model isn't calming down. It's being nudged toward more careful language patterns.
Razer's Project Ava, an anime hologram named Kira, lives on a USB tube on your desk, watches you through a camera, and comments on your outfit while coaching your games. It runs on xAI's Grok (creepy!). The privacy protection is a physical shutter you have to close yourself, not a default setting. Still creepy!
Dyson's $499 CameraJet toothbrush has a built-in camera that spots gaps between your teeth 28 times a second and fires a precision water jet at each one. It took 661 engineers, six years, 38 patents, and 16 million lines of code. That's just creepy!
ChatGPT quietly picked up a goblin habit, dragging goblins, gremlins, and trolls into unrelated answers. A retired "Nerdy" personality was 2.5% of usage but caused two-thirds of the goblin mentions. OpenAI had to write code just to ban the word.
Texas's App Store Accountability Act took effect June 4, 2026 after the Supreme Court allowed enforcement. It requires Apple and Google to verify age and get parental consent before a minor downloads any app or makes an in-app purchase, not just games. Utah and Louisiana have similar laws, with more states considering it.
State-funded pilots of ElliQ report 94 to 97% of lonely seniors felt better using it. But a Nature Human Behaviour study published this week found intense AI companion use linked to worse well-being in people with small offline social networks. The difference seems to be whether it supplements human contact or replaces it.
Consumer Reports tested 15 GPS trackers and kids' smartwatches in 2026, finding real gaps in privacy policies and default settings. The Apple Watch SE 3 and Garmin Bounce scored well, but "made for kids" branding doesn't guarantee better data protection. COPPA sets a legal floor, not a product guarantee.
Google is removing Google Assistant from Android phones, watches, earbuds, and Android Auto starting September 4, 2026, with no opt-out and no way back. Gemini takes over, but Interpreter Mode and some routines don't transfer, and the more private data setting quietly disables Maps, Home, and Workspace integrations.
kp Tech is Keith Parnell's publication about the funny, strange, and true side of technology: odd gadgets, AI that behaves in ways nobody planned, and tech news that sounds made up but isn't. Every Article is researched and fact-checked before it goes live.
Yes. The premise has to be funny or strange, but the facts have to be true. Every Article is checked against current sources before it publishes, and a detail that can't be confirmed doesn't make it in.
Anything in technology, as long as it's funny, quirky, and factual: AI, gadgets, apps, the internet, and the companies behind them. There's no fixed category list. If it's true and it makes you look twice, it's fair game.
Keith Parnell writes and fact-checks every Article. He has spent more than 30 years in marketing and business growth, including 21 years running the creative agency he founded, and now advises founders, executive teams, and boards.
New Articles publish almost daily, plus a weekly newsletter that rounds up the strangest true tech stories of the week in one short email.
Yes. Alongside kp Tech, Keith provides growth and infrastructure consulting for founders and small teams.
