The former CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, is angling to buy TikTok as the US government is threatening to ban the app unless it is sold off by Chinese firm ByteDance. Engadget.com reports that Kotick…and hey, tick is part of his name, so running TikTok ought to be a natural…ok, kidding…has talked about partnerning with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. If ByteDance will even sell, it would be a multi-hundred billion dollar deal. Kotick chaired Activision for 30 plus years. TikTok has had influencers and people who make a living on the platform flood Congressional representatives with calls and email, urging them not to ban or force a sale of the app. A bipartisan group of law makers are concerned about the data the app is getting which can be going to the Chinese government. President Biden has said he would sign a bill banning or forcing the sale of the app. 

Most people know that our data is currency to many businesses and organizations. Here’s a wrinkle you may not be aware of…a number of car makers are selling your driving data to LexisNexis, which in turn is selling the info to insurance companies, and it’s raising folks’ insurance rates! According to the New York Times, a number of makers have programs you can sign up for to keep track of your driving habits…some, like GM, have made it like a game where you can earn badges for you good driving. The down side is they track hard braking, hard cornering, speeding, tickets and accidents, and your insurance rates can go through the roof…or sunroof in this case. In some instances, people haven’t even signed up for the programs. Several states don’t permit this activity…including California, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Hawaii. Besides General Motors, Kia, Subaru, and Mitsubishi contribute to the LexisNexis ‘Telematics Exchange.’ Ford, Honda, and Hyundai are also claimed to be included…although both Ford and Subaru deny this. If you want to see what data your car can collect, go to vehicleprivacyreport dot com. https://vehicleprivacyreport.com/. You can also see your LexisNexis report at consumer dot risk dot lexisnexis dot com slash consumer. https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/consumer

An interesting new feature may be coming to Apple’s AirPods Pro. Apparently in iOS 18, there will be ‘a major new hearing aid mode.’ The word comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The feature apparently won’t require any hardware changes. AirPods already have a feature called Live Listen, that came out own 2018. That feature turns an iPhone into a directional microphone, sending the audio to the AirPods in real time. A couple of years ago, AirPods got Conversation Boost, which boosts the mic directly in front to better pick up what a person is saying. With the new relaxed FDA guidelines allowing over the counter hearing aids, the hearing aid feature seems like a natural extension of what they already do. 

Quite a few social media influencers are making money promoting great prices on goods over TikTok. Well, it turns out…unsurprisingly, that most of the goods are counterfeit. Wired.com says it isn’t just on TikTok, either. Some influencers are also hawking the illegal knock offs on Facebook, Discord, and Reddit. One firm called Pandabuy claims to have hundreds of content creators touting goods. Some of the knocks offs are not only cheap, but also look cheap, but others are very good fakes. If it is a designer brand and it’s being marketed by an influencer on one of these platforms, it is most likely not the real deal. One example as a pair of $1000 Rick Owens high top sneakers for $73 that apparently are pretty accurate. As always, caveat emptor…let the buyer beware.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.