On Thursday night, I toggled endlessly between a TikTok Live stream and a shopping app in anticipation of 9:30PM. For 30 minutes, I hunted for an available listing; many expletives were uttered. I exhibited bot behavior and got iced out of the app multiple times. I tapped so many times my thumbs got sore. This is Labubu drop night.
Technology
Clever tech hacks for less stress this holiday, from Amazon spoilers to family pics
Gift shopping, scammers, cooking the prime rib just right … There’s too much to worry about this time of year. Before you dive headfirst into the festive frenzy, I’ve got tech tips that’ll sprinkle a little magic on your celebrations.
As my holiday thanks to my loyal readers, I’m giving away an iPhone. Yep, you can win a new iPhone 15 (valued at $799). Enter to win now!
Cook up a storm with a digital cookbook
Picture this: All your go-to holiday recipes are neatly corralled in one digital cookbook. No more frantic shuffling, clicking through a million tabs or misplaced ingredient lists.
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If your recipes are printed or handwritten, snap a pic with your tablet. Add all the pics to one folder (or try the Notes app if you’re on an iPad) for easy swiping between them. Cooking from recipes you found online? Save the PDF versions and toss them in one spot. No iPad? Use your phone!
Bonus: An inexpensive cookbook holder will keep your tablet out of the mess of flour, stock and butter in the kitchen. (This one is gorgeous if you have a bit more to spend.)
Do cards the easier way
I’m giving you permission to go digital with holiday cards this year. Canva, Adobe Express, Paperless Post and Mailchimp are solid options. You can choose a template, whip up a greeting and send it off in just a few minutes — no trip to the post office required.
Unwrapping a gift (Cyberguy.com)
Spoiler-proof Amazon
Before you start buying holiday gifts in a frenzy, make sure your Amazon account is set up the right way.
- Hide and seek: Archive any orders you don’t want someone else to see. On a computer, hover your cursor over Account & Lists and click on Orders. Find the order you want to hide and click View order details, then Archive Order. Click Archive Order again to confirm.
- Banish the browser: Remove items from your browsing history to avoid revealing your gift ideas. Hover your cursor over Account & Lists and click on Browsing History. For each item that you want to hide, tap Remove from view.
Stop arguing about when to leave
The classic holiday battle: When should you leave the house to get to your destination on time and avoid traffic? Stop guessing and let traffic-predicting algorithms make your drive easier.
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You can get a pretty accurate traffic forecast for a future date based on what the conditions are like on that day and time. Then you can fine-tune your departure time to find the ideal time to hit the road.
Here’s how to set a planned time and date for a trip in Google Maps:
- Open Google Maps and tap on the Search here field.
- Enter a destination and select it from the results.
- Tap Directions and then tap the three-dots button to the right of the Your location field.
- Tap Set depart or arrive time.
- Select Depart at and enter a date and time, then tap Done. You’ll get various route options and details such as time and distance.
- Select a route and tap Start.
Steps are here to find out the best time to leave based on when you want to arrive — and steps to do both in Apple Maps.
Google Maps. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Say ‘Cheese!’ to better group pics
Remember the days of designating one unlucky soul to be the photographer? You know, the family friend or someone’s random date. Upgrade to your smartphone camera’s timer.
- On iPhone: Open your Camera app and tap the up-facing arrow at the top of the screen. Scroll right to the option that looks like a clock, then tap it. Select a 3- or 10-second delay.
- On Android: In the Camera app, select Timer and turn it on. Choose from a delay of 2, 5 or 10 seconds.
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If someone insists on taking the pic, ask them to use burst mode. All they have to do is hold down on the shutter button to capture a ton of photos at once. Better chance you’ll get everyone smiling!
Smile! But do it the right way. Here’s how to look better in pics.
Remove the screen temptation
It’s not the weekend to be glued to your phone, scrolling headlines or social media. Need a little help disconnecting?
- On iPhone: Open Settings > Screen Time.
- On Android: Open Settings > Digital Wellbeing.
Rather than a blanket screen time limit, be strategic and limit the stuff that sucks you in. Maybe you set a 10-minute limit on Instagram, for example.
If you set your phone to Do Not Disturb, all good — just make sure you get the calls you want.
Keep your tech-know going
My popular podcast is called “Kim Komando Today.” It’s a solid 30 minutes of tech news, tips, and callers with tech questions like you from all over the country. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts. For your convenience, hit the link below for a recent episode.
PODCAST PICK: Selfie-related deaths, TikTok Jesus scam & expired tech in your house
Plus, Gary Larock needed a kidney, so his family turned to Facebook. A stranger saw the post and stepped in with a life-changing decision. Apple is opening up to Android messaging, and the Feds want to monitor your car. Also, affordable home mesh Wi-Fi systems.
Check out my podcast “Kim Komando Today” on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player.
Listen to the podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for my last name, “Komando.”
Sound like a tech pro, even if you’re not! Award-winning popular host Kim Komando is your secret weapon. Listen on 425+ radio stations or get the podcast. And join over 400,000 people who get her free 5-minute daily email newsletter.
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Something that’s lost in the Labubu mania is that actually buying one from the source is, in one word, maddening. There are, of course, countless fake options (“Lafufus”) that some collectors have come to embrace. But if you want a guaranteed real one, you have to go to the source. Pop Mart, the Chinese toy company that sells Labubu products, has created a series of Sisyphean tasks to subject shoppers to, a humiliation ritual with the chance of getting a little figurine at the end. Unlike many other rare, trendy, or collectible items, the barrier to entry for Labubus is not the cost of the item ($27.99) — it’s everything you need to learn how to do before you buy them.
I spent about a day researching how to actually purchase a legit Labubu from Pop Mart. It’s not a straightforward shopping experience of simply clicking “check out” faster than everyone else. Pop Mart has created a digital frenzy that somewhat resembles what shopping in-person on Black Friday is like: interactive illustrations show display cases stocked with up to six boxes of Labubus. Seconds after they hit the site, all of the boxes are grayed out, meaning someone has at least temporarily claimed them. If you haven’t secured a Labubu, you must scroll through a seemingly endless list of display cases, looking for the rare box up for grabs; more often, though, you must tap constantly, looking for a gray box with a timer that is about to expire, at which point it will be released and available again. You have to play what is essentially a mobile game to even get a chance to buy a Labubu.
The complexity and finickiness of the Pop Mart app mean that there is no shortage of content with tips, hints, and hacks for securing a Labubu. Some influencers have racked up millions of views almost exclusively making videos about how to score popular Pop Mart products. Some of the tips I studied ended up helping me: when I tapped too many times and was blocked by the app, turning Wi-Fi on and off did indeed fix the problem. But other suggestions from collectors were impossible to follow. Some fans swear by camping out on Pop Mart’s hourslong TikTok live streams, waiting for the host to randomly list Labubus for sale on the platform’s shopping page; the auctioneer-style monologues were simply too much for me to listen to.
After about 30 minutes of uninterrupted two-handed tapping, close encounters, and error messages, I finally spammed a gray box right at the moment it was released. The mystery Labubu was mine. I “shook” the virtual box, which gave me a hint as to what color character was inside: it was not orange or green (I didn’t have a color preference, but other shoppers might at this point abandon a box that Pop Mart says does not contain their color of choice). After checkout, I opted to reveal which Labubu I had purchased — it was the blue one, named “Hope.”
It’s not entirely surprising that Labubus have taken off like this: the more you are forced to look at them, the cuter they become (maybe). They’re not the first so-called blind box toy to gain a cult following, and there’s a somewhat dark comparison to be made between Labubus and gambling — for serious collectors, the thrill is in the reveal, the chance that you hit the rare color that Pop Mart says is in one out of 72 boxes. It’s addictive, plain and simple.
But the longer I spent on Labubu forums or on the Pop Mart site, the more I understood that the toy at the end is almost beside the point: legit Labubus represent the time and effort that came before the unboxing, along with the pure luck of what’s inside. A friend who has scored dozens of Labubus for their network told me flipping the dolls isn’t even worth it unless it’s an unopened box or a rare color — the margins are too low to make real money. The pervasiveness of Lafufus no doubt helps to push prices down. The real value of Labubus is in the ridiculous hoops you have to jump through to get a shot at something collectible.
According to Google Trends, search volume for “Labubu” is as high as it’s been. The TikTok livestreams will drone on, the bots will be deployed nightly, and the viral unboxings will pull in views. The hype will die down only when it’s no longer torture to buy one, when the little guys (who are actually canonically girls) are just a toy, not a stand-in for your effort. When that will happen is anyone’s guess; my Labubu is scheduled to ship out in September.
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Amazon already dominates online shopping, but now it’s setting its sights even higher. With a new artificial intelligence-powered project called Starfish, the company aims to become the world’s most complete and trusted source of product information.
The goal? Make every listing on Amazon accurate, detailed and easy to understand, whether the product is sold by Amazon or a third-party seller. If the project works as planned, it could save sellers hours of work and help shoppers find what they need faster.
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Amazon website (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What is Amazon’s Starfish AI project?
Starfish is a multi-year initiative built around generative AI. According to an internal Amazon document obtained by Business Insider, the system gathers product data from across the web, including external websites and images. It then uses large language models (LLMs) to create “complete, correct and consistent” product listings. This isn’t a small update. Amazon expects Starfish to boost sales by $7.5 billion in 2025 alone by improving conversion rates and expanding product variety.
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How Amazon is using AI to improve product listings
Starfish builds on earlier AI tools that Amazon began testing in 2023. These tools could:
- Automatically generate product images and video ads
- Fill in missing data for third-party listings
- Rewrite product titles, bullet points and descriptions to be more relevant
Now, with Starfish, Amazon wants to scale that effort across millions of listings. The AI will also collect data from 200,000 external brand websites by crawling, scraping and mapping their content to Amazon’s catalog. It’s not yet clear whether Amazon’s own web crawler, Amazonbot, is powering Starfish. But the company confirmed to Business Insider that Starfish is already supporting its new “Buy for Me” feature. This feature recommends products from external websites and lets shoppers buy them directly within Amazon’s app.
A person shopping on Amazon (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Why Amazon built the Starfish AI for marketplace listings
Manually creating product listings is slow and often inconsistent. That’s a problem when Amazon wants to offer a massive selection with reliable information. If shoppers can’t find what they’re looking for, or if the listings are vague, they may head elsewhere. Starfish addresses this by automating the tedious parts of listing creation. That helps sellers spend less time writing and more time selling. For Amazon, better listings mean higher conversion rates and happier customers. Plus, this move positions Amazon to compete more directly with Google Shopping, which also aims to be a central hub for product information.
Amazon’s Starfish AI is expanding globally
Amazon is testing Starfish’s effectiveness with A/B comparisons, measuring sales performance of AI-enriched listings versus standard ones. It’s also rolling out bulk listing tools and preparing to expand the system globally. This isn’t just about improving Amazon’s website. It’s about changing the way product information is gathered, created and shared at scale.
A person shopping on Amazon (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What does this mean for you as an Amazon shopper or seller
If you’re a shopper on Amazon, this could mean faster access to clearer, more accurate product listings, especially for obscure or hard-to-find items. As Amazon’s AI fills in missing details and improves titles and descriptions, the results should help you make better decisions with less research.
For sellers, this streamlines the work of creating listings. If you’ve struggled to write compelling descriptions or keep up with Amazon’s catalog standards, the Starfish project may do much of the heavy lifting. That could save time, reduce errors and improve sales performance.
However, there are some trade-offs. As Amazon scrapes more data from across the web to power its listings, brands and smaller websites may worry about how their product information is being used. And if AI-generated content becomes widespread, quality and trust in listings may vary depending on how well the system works.
In short, expect a more automated Amazon shopping experience, with both conveniences and questions about how your data and the broader web are being used to power it.
Kurt’s key takeaways
Amazon’s Starfish project signals a major shift in how e-commerce works. By combining web scraping, AI models and deep integration into its Marketplace, Amazon hopes to automate one of the most time-consuming parts of online selling. For buyers and sellers, this could mean more convenience and better results. But it also raises important questions about transparency, data ownership and the future role of AI in shaping what we see online.
Would you trust AI to tell you everything you need to know before you click “Buy Now”? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact
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When Nintendo first announced the Switch 2’s slate of launch titles, people were very quick to cry foul about how few original, exclusive games the company had lined up for its latest console. There were ports from other systems and updated versions of original Switch games. But Mario Kart World was the Switch 2’s only major new exclusive title, which, for some, put a further damper on a launch that was already mired in confusion about pricing and game key cards.
Back in April when Nintendo first announced all of the Switch 2 games slated to come out through the end of 2025, you could see that the company was loosely following a monthly release schedule for its new exclusives. June would go to Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. And Donkey Kong Bananza would drop in July amid the releases of a couple Switch 2 editions of older games. At the time, Nintendo said that Drag x Drive would debut at some point in “the summer,” but it has since pegged the game to a firm August 14th release date.
Currently, there’s nothing on the docket for September, but the month could easily go to Kirby Air Riders, which is supposed to come out this year. And after Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s release in October, the “winter” will belong to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (and maybe Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which is also due out sometime in 2025).
Looking at Nintendo’s roadmap for the rest of the year, it feels as if the company is trying to pace things in a way that gives people time to really sit with and enjoy its exclusives. For every hardcore gamer who prides themself on speeding through a title and being the first to uncover or unlock all of its surprises, there are far more casuals who prefer taking their time. Nintendo could have opted to flood the zone with more exclusives from the jump — a move that probably would have made the Switch 2’s launch seem like a splashier beat in the console wars’ twilight hours. But by spacing things out, the company is guaranteeing that there will be a steady stream of new stuff for people to dig into, and giving people ample time to decide if they’re willing to pay the games’ higher prices.
The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s new flagship, which is to say it’s not going away anytime soon and there will be plenty more games for it in due time. Had Donkey Kong Bananza dropped alongside Mario Kart World, neither game would have been able to take up so much space and command attention they way they could with some distance between them. Releasing new titles at a steady pace was a major part of Nintendo’s vision for the original Switch, and that strategy paid off through the console’s life cycle. Now it looks like Nintendo’s sticking to its guns, and the Switch 2 will probably be better off for it.
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