Besides the Car Pro Show and our weekly newsletter, my other favorite radio show and newsletter is Kim Komando’s. We are on many of the same radio stations across America. She does for her listeners and newsletter subscribers exactly what I endeavor to do: Give you useful information to keep you up to date on the latest in cars, only she does it with technology and there is nobody who does it better. Not sure how she puts out a top-notch newsletter seven days a week, but she does.
With her permission, I comb her newsletters each week and curate a list of her tips and advice that I think you'll find relevant and interesting. Here's what I have for you this week!
Tech Tips & Interesting Finds From This Week’s Komando Newsletters:
Turn them down: Is it me, or do some cars’ headlights make you feel like you’re being zapped up via light beam by aliens? A survey found 60% of us say headlight glare is a problem, and 75% say it’s gotten worse over the last decade. In July, the NHTSA rejected Tesla’s appeal over illegally bright headlights. Tesla must notify owners and fix or replace the parts for free. Small win for our retinas. Read the official Petition Denial here.
3-second tech genius: You might not be able to speak during an emergency. In many areas, you can text 911instead. Send your address first, say whether you need police, fire or medical help, then add brief details. Check text911.info now to see if it’s supported where you live. Best not to wait until you need it.
That “barely used” bargain might not belong to the seller at all. Save the listing photo, go to images.google.com, click the camera icon and upload it. A reverse image search will show where else it appears. If you see the same couch or car in older listings or on another site, keep scrolling.
A royal flush: I read this and immediately wondered whether my bathroom needs a privacy policy. Hamberger Medical’s sensor-equipped toilet seat records a six-lead EKG while you sit for 30 seconds, then checks for AFib through a phone app. More than 5 million U.S. adults have AFib, and about one-third feel no symptoms. A stroke can be the first warning. Useful? Absolutely. Creepy? Kinda. I’m glad no cameras are involved, yet.
Facebook took that search seriously: Look up one sofa, and suddenly Marketplace thinks you’re furnishing an entire house. To clean up the recommendations, open the mobile app, Settings and privacy > Activity log > Logged information > Manage search. Delete the random searches you no longer want influencing your feed.
Just how big IS Amazon? The company pulled in $200.6 billion in sales last quarter. That’s not a typo, and that’s not for the year. Three months. Do the math, and Amazon collects about $25,500 every single second, around the clock. Profit more than tripled to $62.6 billion, and AWS grew 37%, its fastest clip in 18 quarters. Jeff Bezos? He owns about 881 million shares, so his slice of this quarter’s profit works out to roughly $2.3 million an hour. Talk about Prime earnings. How do you spend that much money?
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