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.
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.
Most Google searches now end without a click, and that rate climbs further when an AI Overview appears. The overlap between top-10 rankings and AI Overview citations has collapsed, meaning steady rankings can still mean falling traffic. The fix isn't abandoning SEO, it's writing pages that answer the core question in the first two sentences.
Windows 10's free security patch bridge ends October 13, 2026. Scammers are exploiting the deadline with fake upgrade emails and "Phantom Hacker" relay calls impersonating tech support, banks, and investigators. Seniors lost roughly $4.9 billion to fraud in 2024. One rule stops most of it: never call a number a warning gives you.
AI nudify apps can generate fake sexualized images from any ordinary photo of a child, no inappropriate photo required. 16% of US teens know someone targeted. Apple, Google, and Meta bans exist on paper but aren't reliably enforced. Minnesota just passed the first state ban on the apps themselves.
ADA website accessibility lawsuits are on pace for 5,500 filings in 2026, and nearly 70% target e-commerce sites, most with revenue under $25 million. Here's what WCAG 2.1 actually requires, why small stores get targeted, and a free scan to run on your site this week.
Medicare's telehealth coverage for older adults is extended through December 2027, and audio-only phone visits still count toward it. Here's what changed, why this extension matters more than past ones, and how to set up telehealth for an aging parent before you actually need it.
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.
