Welcome, wonderful Wednesday! (Go ahead, try to say that three times fast!) Let’s kick things off with a tech brain teaser. Which tech company contains the most information on the internet? Is it … Amazon, Facebook, Google or Microsoft? The answer’s at the end.

🫡 It’s a packed newsletter, so let’s get down to business. If you learn something, smile or slap your forehead over one of my jokes, hit the thumbs up at the end. — Kim

My artistic skills don't paint a pretty picture. That's why I am utterly astounded by AI-generated images. Today's AI art looks more and more like the real thing, and Meta just unleashed its CM3leon AI art tool.

Listen, we all know Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have questionable judgment and sell our data to anyone, but they might just be onto something here. Let's break down the hype. By the end, I promise you'll understand a lot more about AI art.

Karma CM3leon

Meta says CM3leon is one of the best AI art tools for text-to-image generation. It can also generate captions for images. (How do you think it's pronounced? I'll tell you in a bit, so make your best guess now.)

It’s all about the process. OpenAI's DALL-E 2 and Google's Imagen use "diffusion" to create art. An image starts as "noise" and is refined to make it more of a match for the target prompt.

Say you type in "cat biker with tattoos." In Imagen, it'll start as a cloud of dots that morphs into that cool kitty.

Meta's CM3leon is what's known as a transformer. Transformers use "attention" (aka complex algorithms) to decide how important the text or image prompts are. Transformers can get better and more accurate over time, plus they're faster and less expensive than diffusion generators.

To train CM3leon, Meta used millions of licensed images from stock photography giant Shutterstock. The best version of CM3leon so far has over 7 billion parameters, more than twice as many as DALL-E 2.

Give AI a try — it’s fun

Whether you're brand new to the world of AI art or want to try a new program on for size, there are plenty of options.

👄 CM3leon is pronounced like “chameleon.” I can kinda see how they came up with that.

Experts in the medical community are paying attention to Akkermansia muciniphila. It can improve gut health by strengthening the gut lining and reducing gut permeability, based on in vitro studies. With over 2,000 scientific publications under its belt, this is one probiotic to pay attention to.

As award-winning actor Halle Berry says, “Akkermansia will change your life because it will change your gut.” This is just one of the reasons she decided to join the company as Chief Communications Officer.

Akkermansia isn’t found in food, so you can’t just eat more (fill-in-the-blank). But Pendulum has patented the strain as a daily probiotic. And since you’re reading this newsletter, you get a special deal to try it out.

Scary A-Eye: Besides OpenAI, Sam Altman owns Worldcoin. Its goal? A global electronic money system that envisions scanning everyone's irises because no two are alike. Called non-alterable global identity verification, it’s designed to prove you're really human, as well as unmask all aliases, AI robots and internet bots. Is this a prophecy?

🕵️ WormGPT and FraudGPT: These AI bots are growing like crazy and designed to quickly create believable phishing messages, giving hackers the best ways to commit credit card fraud, fake a voice — you name it. I’m doing a slew of research you can read here next week. This way, you don’t get taken.

No more dead Bolts: Chevy’s bringing back the EV Bolt. Turns out people want them. Why? The sticker price starts at $26,500, with the car also qualifying for a $7,500 federal tax credit. It’s not a bad-looking car.

🛸 The truth is out there: Mark your calendar for July 26 at 10 a.m. Eastern. A congressional subcommittee will hold a hearing on UFOs, complete with firsthand accounts of “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” (That’s the fancy new term for UFOs, btw.) Watch it using this link.

What could go wrong? The ESRB (the folks who slap ratings on video games) wants to stop kids from buying games rated “Mature” or “Adults Only.” How? In a pitch to the FTC, the ESRB said kids would snap a picture with a phone and AI would verify their age. And those pictures would be “immediately, permanently deleted.” Sure, they will.

📦 Mystery solved: A woman in Virginia received over 100 Amazon boxes filled with 1,000 headlamps, 800 glue guns and dozens of binoculars — all addressed to Lixiao Zhang. Why? A third-party seller picked a random address to send its unsold merch to instead of paying Amazon to get rid of it. Yes, she gets to keep all of it.

In the Barbie queue: McAfee says it’s spotted 100 Barbie-related filenames loaded with malware, masquerading as the movie itself or a way to get free tickets. Friendly reminder: Pirating movies isn’t just illegal — it’s dangerous.

Amazon safety check: Go to your Amazon account and look under Your orders. You may see a new page called “Your Recalls and Product Safety Alerts.” Here, you’ll see details about recalls for any of the products you’ve purchased and how to get a refund or return the items. You’ll get an email, too. About time!

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Listen to my podcast, Daily Tech Update, here.

Picture this. It's a nice day, and you sit in a comfy chair to listen to the birds and enjoy your morning beverage. I bet you're calmer just thinking about that.

And it's not just you. Researchers say birds’ songs and calls are some of the most restorative sounds in nature, helping our brains and nervous systems get a nice reset. Those sounds can ease anxiety, too.

Here's a fun twist: Those benefits are even more substantial when we can see the bird we're hearing. Just glimpsing a feathered friend activates the dopamine system in the brain.

Why is bird song so magical?

Ron Hoy, an acoustics researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, told the Wall Street Journal bird song falls in the sweet spot of human hearing frequency and unconsciously reminds us of music with its melodies and rhythms.

Yep, there’s an app for that

Merlin Bird ID helps you figure out which pretty birdie you can hear or see based on an audio clip or photo. Super cool. Download the free app for iOS or Android, and have fun!

Watch out! No single bird can defeat me. But toucan.

Just like your grumpy neighbor, your expensive smartphone hates the heat. Smartphones work best between 35 and 95 degrees. At other temps, you’re risking hardware damage and shorter battery life.

Try these tips this summer:

By the way, if your computer’s running hot, check out my guide to fixing that issue.

Remember, there’s a “Highway to Hell” and a “Stairway to Heaven.” Says a lot about the traffic!

🦦 The answer: Amazon. It’s not the Amazon we shop but Amazon Web Services, which stores around 250 EB of data. You’ll need to put on your thinking cap for this: 1 exabyte (EB) is equivalent to 1 million terabytes (TB) or 1 billion gigabytes (GB). So, 250 exabytes = 250 million terabytes or 250 billion gigabytes. It’s a lot of data, and it keeps growing every second of every day!

Speaking of … What do you call it when data goes on a difficult car journey? A hard drive. I saw you smile at that one!

Whew! There was a lot to cover today. I love to get your questions about what to buy, how to make money online, how to get things done or whatever. Drop me a line here. I read every note! — Kim

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