Technology
12 must-have apps to crush your New Year’s resolutions
Happy New Year! As 2025 begins, it’s the perfect time to set intentions and start fresh. Whether you’re aiming to adopt healthier habits, master new skills or take control of your finances, there’s an app to help you make it happen. Technology can be a game-changer in turning resolutions into realities, and we’ve come up with a list of tools designed to support your goals and keep you motivated all year long.
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Happy New Year sign (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
1) Habitica to build better habits
- iPhone: 4.0 stars (at time of publishing)
- Android: 4.7 stars (at time of publishing)
If your goal is to create and stick to healthy habits, Habitica offers a fun, gamified approach to habit tracking. By turning your tasks into a role-playing game, Habitica motivates you to complete daily tasks, habits and to-dos to level up your character, earn rewards and avoid penalties. You can join parties with friends, participate in quests and tackle challenges together. The app is perfect for anyone who loves games and wants to make self-improvement enjoyable. Habitica is free with optional in-app purchases for customization and premium content.
Habitica app (Habitica) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
SKYROCKET TO A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE WITH THIS GEAR IN 2025
2) MyFitnessPal to master nutrition and fitness goals
- iPhone: 4.7 stars (at time of publishing)
- Android: 4.3 stars (at time of publishing)
MyFitnessPal is a powerful tool for tracking your nutrition, exercise and progress toward health goals. Whether you’re aiming to lose weight, gain muscle or maintain a healthier lifestyle, the app offers a massive food database, a barcode scanner and customizable goals to suit your needs. It also integrates with fitness trackers and apps to provide a comprehensive overview of your wellness journey. MyFitnessPal offers free features, with a premium subscription unlocking more advanced insights and features, such as macronutrient goals and meal planning.
MyFitnessPal app (MyFitnessPal) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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iPhone: 4.8 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.4 stars (at time of publishing)
Headspace app (Headspace) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
The Headspace app can help you achieve your New Year’s resolutions of practicing mindfulness and meditation. You can access hundreds of tailored sessions, courses and exercises for various topics, such as stress, sleep, focus and happiness. Headspace can help you improve your mental health and well-being in 2025. You can try Headspace for free for 10 days and cancel anytime. Headspace offers discounts for students, educators and health care professionals.
iPhone: 4.8 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.7 stars (at time of publishing)
Duolingo app (Duoloingo) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
If your New Year’s resolution is to learn a new language or improve your existing skills, the Duolingo app can help you accomplish your goals. With this app, you can set your own goals and track your progress as you learn from over 40 languages, including Spanish, French, Japanese and more. Duolingo makes learning enjoyable and effortless with bite-sized lessons, games and stories that fit your schedule and level. You can also use Duolingo for free with some limitations, such as ads, fewer lessons and no offline access.
BEST WIRELESS EARBUDS EXPERT REVIEWED
iPhone: 4.8 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 5.0 stars (at time of publishing)
Serial Reader app (Serial Reader) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
If one of your New Year’s resolution goals is to read more books, you might want to check out Serial Reader, a mobile app that delivers bite-sized portions of books to your phone every day. The app lets you choose from over 700 classic books, from “Pride and Prejudice” to “War and Peace,” and sends you a 10-minute portion of the book every day. You can read at your own pace, adjust the font size and theme and sync your progress across devices. You can also earn achievements and badges as you complete books and challenge yourself to read more.
Serial Reader is a great way to discover new books, revisit old favorites or catch up on the classics you’ve always wanted to read. It’s also a fun and easy way to make reading a habit and a part of your daily routine. You can start reading for free or upgrade to Serial Reader Premium to unlock more features, such as offline reading, highlighting, notes and more.
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iPhone: 4.6 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.6 stars (at time of publishing)
Yousician app (Yousician) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
If your New Year’s resolution is to learn and master musical instruments or vocals, the Yousician app can help you do just that. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, you can find the right lessons and songs for you. You can also practice with real-time feedback, track your progress and challenge yourself with new goals. The app supports guitar, piano, ukulele, bass and singing. You can choose from various genres, styles and levels of difficulty.
The app is free to download and use, but it has some limitations. You can only access a limited number of lessons and songs per day, and you can only use one instrument at a time. If you want to unlock unlimited access to all the features and content, you need to subscribe to the premium plan.
7) Nike Training Club to help get in shape
iPhone: 4.8 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.4 stars (at time of publishing)
Nike Training Club app (Nike) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Nike Training Club is a versatile mobile app designed to help you achieve your fitness goals in 2025. Whether you’re aiming to lose weight, build muscle or improve overall health, Nike Training Club offers a wide array of resources to keep you motivated. With access to hundreds of free workouts for all fitness levels, including body-weight exercises, yoga and cardio, this app is perfect for getting started without any cost. The app also features personalized training plans, expert tips and instructional videos from professional trainers.
For those who want more, Nike Training Club provides a premium upgrade that includes HD workout videos, advanced workout tracking and comprehensive training plans tailored to your fitness journey. Get ready to crush your fitness goals with one of the highest-rated fitness apps on the market.
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iPhone: 4.7 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.5 stars (at time of publishing)
QUITNOW app (QUITNOW) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
If one of your New Year’s resolution goals is to quit smoking, you might want to try QUITNOW, a mobile app that helps you break free from nicotine addiction. QUITNOW is an app that tracks your progress, shows you how much money you save and rewards you with achievements and health benefits as you quit smoking. You can also join a community of over 10 million quitters, chat with other users and get support and advice from experts and coaches. QUITNOW is a free app, but you can upgrade to QUITNOW PRO to access more features, such as personalized plans, motivational quotes and advanced stats.
iPhone: 4.8 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.5 stars (at time of publishing)
Todoist app (Todoist) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Todoist is a mobile app designed to help you organize your life and achieve your New Year’s resolutions in 2025. With Todoist, you can create tasks, projects and subtasks, assigning due dates, priorities and labels to each. The app allows for seamless syncing across devices, enabling collaboration with others and integration with various apps and services. Todoist provides feedback, reminders and productivity statistics to keep you motivated. It is free to download, but you can upgrade to Todoist Premium or Todoist Business for enhanced features. The Premium plan offers additional functionalities such as comments, attachments, filters and templates. As of now, Todoist boasts more than 30 million users, reflecting its popularity as a task management tool.
iPhone: 4.8 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.7 stars (at time of publishing)
YNAB app (YNAB) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
The YNAB app is a great mobile app for helping you create a budget, plan your spending and save more money in 2025. YNAB lets you connect your bank accounts, credit cards, loans and track your transactions and balances. You can also set goals, assign categories and prioritize your expenses. YNAB also provides you with reports, feedback and coaching to help you improve your financial skills and habits. YNAB is not free, but you can get a 34-day free trial to use the app.
iPhone: 4.8 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.2 stars (at time of publishing)
Skillshare app (Skillshare) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Skillshare is a great app for helping you keep your New Year’s resolution of learning something new. You can discover new passions, hobbies and interests with the app. You can access thousands of online classes on various topics, such as photography, design, business and more. You can also watch videos, do projects and get feedback from experts and peers. The app also offers live sessions, workshops and challenges to keep you motivated and engaged. The app is perfect for anyone who wants to learn something new, explore their creativity or advance their career.
The app is free to download and use, but it has some limitations. You can only watch a limited number of classes and videos per month, and you can’t access the premium features and content. If you want to unlock unlimited access to all the classes, videos and features, you need to subscribe to the premium plan.
iPhone: 4.7 stars (at time of publishing)
Android: 4.5 stars (at time of publishing)
Lumosity app (Lumosity) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to improve your cognitive skills and mental fitness? Well, then the Lumosity app might be worth downloading. Lumosity is a brain-training app that offers personalized and adaptive exercises that challenge your memory, attention, speed, flexibility and problem-solving abilities. You can track your progress and compare your results with others. Lumosity also provides insights and tips on how to optimize your brain health and performance. Whether you want to sharpen your mind, boost your productivity or have fun, Lumosity could be the app for you. Lumosity has different subscription plans to suit your needs and budget. You can try Lumosity for free for 7 days and cancel anytime.
Connected Care app (Connected Care) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Experience the peace of mind that comes with being closely involved in your family’s caregiving with Connected Care. This lovingly designed, intuitive mobile app transforms the complexities of managing health care into a seamless and heartwarming part of your daily routine.
Imagine easily organizing your loved one’s doctor visits, medication schedules and medical history all within the palm of your hand. With Connected Care, not only do you get a comprehensive medical summary at a glance, but you also become part of a nurturing network that ensures your family member’s needs are attended to with the utmost care and attention.
Enjoy how easy it is to share important updates about your loved one’s care with other family members and caregivers. With Connected Care, you can create a team of people who are all on the same page and ready to give the best support. Connected Care is more than just an app; it’s a caring friend who helps you manage long-term care.
While the majority of features are free, the option for a subscription to Connected Care Premium allows you to enhance this experience, ensuring that you have all the tools you need at your fingertips. Should you opt for premium, the process is made simple through your Apple account, with the flexibility to manage your subscription directly from the App Store settings.
Discover how Connected Care can help you keep the heart of your family beating strong, every single day.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
A new year is a blank slate filled with endless possibilities, and these apps are here to help you make the most of it. Whether your goal is personal growth, better health or learning something new, these tools can make your journey more manageable and enjoyable. Start 2025 with purpose and let these apps be your partners in creating lasting change. Here’s to a year of progress, achievement and success.
What’s your biggest goal for 2025, and which app do you think will help you achieve it and why? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.
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Copyright 2024 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Amazon’s rolling out a free software update for Echo Hub devices that gives the home screen a much-needed update to the interface it launched with in 2024. It had already added Alex Plus AI support, but the new interface has a cleaner, fully customizable layout that fits more smart home info and controls on the screen than the previous version.
The Echo Hub is also getting access to Ring AI’s Video Search feature that lets you use natural language to search through your smart home camera footage, as well as Alexa Plus summaries of detected camera events.
These are the five new features Amazon highlighted for the Echo Hub:
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Read the full story at The Verge.
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The FBI calls it a “distress scam.” It is also known as a grandparent scam. The scam works by making an older adult believe a grandchild is in serious trouble and needs money right away, often before a court date or legal deadline. Victims reported more than $5 million in losses to this type of fraud in 2025. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center also noted that reported losses likely show only part of what scammers actually stole.
The Federal Trade Commission found in August 2025 that some of the fastest-growing scams targeting older adults use fear and urgency to override good judgment. A caller may claim your bank account was hacked and say you need to move your money immediately to protect it. However, the money does not move to safety. It goes straight to the scammer.
HOW TO HAND OFF DATA PRIVACY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR OLDER ADULTS TO A TRUSTED LOVED ONE
AI voice-cloning tools have made these scams even more convincing. Scammers can use a birthday video, voicemail or social media clip to mimic a grandchild’s voice. Then they place the call. The voice sounds familiar, the emergency feels real and the request for bail money seems urgent. The FBI counted $352 million in AI-related scam losses among victims 60 and older this past year.
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Scammers are using stolen personal data, AI voice cloning and urgent phone calls to trick grandparents into sending money. (ljubaphoto/Getty Images)
What makes grandparents worth targeting
The same three pieces of data are required for identity verification at most banks, brokerages, pension recordkeepers, and Medicare: date of birth, last four digits of a Social Security number, and a current mailing address. For most people in their sixties and seventies, all of those accounts are open.
Those three fields have turned up in breach after breach. The Conduent Business Services breach pulled names, SSNs, dates of birth, and home addresses for more than 25 million Americans from systems that process Medicaid records and employer health plans. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called it the largest data breach in U.S. history in February 2026.
Americans between 65 and 74 held a median net worth of $409,900 in 2022, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, more than ten times the median for adults under 35. The FBI found average losses of approximately $38,500 per victim among Americans 60 and older in 2025, nearly double the figure for younger filers.
Why elder fraud losses are often underreported
Older adults reported $2.4 billion in fraud losses to the Federal Trade Commission in 2024. However, the FTC’s December 2025 report to Congress estimated that real losses may have reached $81.5 billion that year. Most cases likely went unreported.
That gap makes identity theft harder to stop. A fraudulent wire from a pension account may never alert a bank. A new credit account opened with stolen information may not reach the victim until it appears on a credit report. By then, weeks may have passed since the application was approved.
Account protections worth setting up
Scammers move fast, so it helps to set up account protections before anything goes wrong. These steps can give banks, brokerage firms and family members more ways to spot trouble early.
1) Add a trusted contact to brokerage accounts
Brokerage accounts have a protection option many account holders never activate: a trusted contact designation. Under FINRA Rule 4512, brokerage firms must ask for a trusted contact when you open or update an account. A trusted contact can be a family member, attorney or accountant. The firm can contact that person if it suspects financial exploitation or cannot reach you. However, that person cannot trade, withdraw funds or view your account balances. FINRA, the SEC and the North American Securities Administrators Association asked investors in August 2025 to contact their firm and add one. You can name more than one trusted contact. You can also change the designation at any time.
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Families can help protect older adults by adding trusted contacts, verifying urgent calls and blocking online Social Security changes. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
2) Ask about holds on suspicious withdrawals
Under FINRA Rule 2165, brokerage firms can place a temporary hold on disbursements when they reasonably believe financial exploitation may be happening. That hold can last up to 55 business days. In January 2026, FINRA proposed extending the window to 145 business days. Ask any firm holding a pension, brokerage or annuity account about its policy on disbursements after an address change.
3) Verify urgent calls before sending money
When a caller claims a grandchild is in trouble or a federal agent needs immediate action, hang up. Then call back using a number you already have, not the number in the message. The FTC found that 41% of older adults who reported losing $10,000 or more to impersonation scams in 2024 said a phone call was the initial point of contact. That makes one simple habit especially important: verify the story before you act.
4) Block online changes to Social Security
Social Security lets you block electronic and automated telephone access to your account record. Once blocked, no one can change your direct deposit information or mailing address online or through the automated phone system. After that, any changes must go through a live SSA representative at 1-800-772-1213 or a field office visit. FINRA also operates a free Securities Helpline for Seniors at 844-574-3577, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.
Identity theft recovery is harder on your own
Even strong account protections may not catch every scam attempt. That is why identity theft monitoring and recovery support can help families respond faster when personal information gets exposed or misused.
Some identity theft protection services monitor dark web marketplaces, data broker sites and people-search sites for exposed Social Security numbers, addresses and other personal information. If fraud happens, recovery support may help contact creditors, file disputes with the three credit bureaus and organize the documentation needed to restore an identity.
OUTSMART HACKERS WHO ARE OUT TO STEAL YOUR IDENTITY
Older Americans remain prime targets for identity theft because scammers can exploit exposed Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Some plans also include identity theft insurance for eligible recovery costs, such as lost wages and legal fees.
No service prevents every misuse of an older adult’s identity. However, family monitoring and fraud resolution can shorten the time between when theft happens and when you or someone in your family acts on it.
See my tips and best picks on Best Identity Theft Protection at Cyberguy.com
Kurt’s key takeaways
Grandparents have become a prime target because scammers know where the money is and how to create panic fast. A familiar voice, a stolen Social Security number or a fake emergency can turn one phone call into a devastating loss. The best defense starts before the call comes. Add trusted contacts to financial accounts, block online Social Security changes, verify urgent requests through a number you already know and talk openly with family about scam warning signs. Identity theft protection can also help spot exposed personal information and speed up recovery if fraud happens. No family can stop every scam attempt. However, a simple plan can give older adults more time, more backup and a better chance of keeping their money safe.
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Is enough being done to stop scammers from using AI voices and stolen data to target grandparents? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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Technology
A warrantless wiretap law is about to expire — but surveillance networks aren’t actually ‘going dark’
Congress has failed to pass a three-week extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), with the House voting 218-198 against reauthorizing the controversial warrantless wiretapping authority through July 2nd. After a short-term extension earlier this year, the spying program now appears set to lapse for at least a week. This is the nightmare scenario FISA’s proponents have been warning about — but it doesn’t actually mean the US has lost its surveillance capabilities.
Proponents of a clean extension claim a lapse will hinder intelligence agencies’ efforts to thwart potential terrorist attacks, with surveillance networks “going dark”. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) stressed the importance of reauthorizing Section 702 ahead of the World Cup. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has said even a brief lapse would be disastrous. “Democrats in the Senate are playing political games right now with the lives of Americans,” he told reporters Wednesday. “It’s a very dangerous situation.”
In March, the FISA court recertified surveillance under Section 702 until 2027. The Brennan Center for Justice notes that a lapse won’t allow telecom companies to flout requests to hand over communications information to the NSA and other spy agencies. In 2008, after Yahoo failed to comply with a Section 702 request during a lapse, the FISA court ruled that the directives issued under Section 702 are effective while the certification is in place — even in the event of a lapse.
“The phrase ‘going dark’ is significantly misleading,” Andrea Sawka Fiegl, the senior policy director for media and technology at Common Cause, said on a Tuesday press call. Fiegl added that companies don’t choose whether they participate in surveillance under Section 702. If they don’t comply after being served with a directive, they face fines starting at $250,000 a day.
“The ‘going dark’ framing is basically a pressure tactic designed to strip Congress of its leverage to negotiate reforms by creating this false binary,” Fiegl said. “There is ample time for Congress to consider and pass reforms.”
Among those reforms are a warrant requirement for queries involving US persons, including so-called “backdoor searches” in which intelligence agencies identify a foreign target with ties to a US person, and then search that person’s communications, thus granting them access to their desired US target. Reformers also want to prohibit intelligence agencies from buying Americans’ data from private brokers to get around warrant requirements.
“Every day that Section 702 is in effect without reforms is a day that Americans’ rights are under threat,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said in a statement Wednesday night, after Senate Republicans blocked his request for a five-week extension of Section 702 with new transparency requirements. “If there is going to be an extension of these authorities, there needs to be some guardrails or at least some transparency that would allow Congress and the American people to understand the abuses that have taken place and the need for reforms.”
Though President Donald Trump and Republican leaders in both chambers have called for a clean reauthorization of Section 702, there’s bipartisan appetite for reform — and a handful of Republican holdouts stand in the way of a clean reauthorization. Most Democrats — even some who have supported reauthorization in the past — have objected to a clean extension due to Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.
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