For more than a decade, one question has loomed over the race to build autonomous vehicles: Are cameras alone enough to safely replace human drivers, or do truly driverless cars need additional, overlapping sensors like lidar and radar to navigate the world reliably? Tesla has bet billions of dollars that artificial intelligence and cameras are sufficient. Nearly every other major autonomous vehicle developer has gone the opposite direction.
Technology
How to clean up your Gmail inbox
If you’re like me, you probably have tens of thousands of emails in your Gmail inbox. Most of them are probably read, and some are probably unread, but regardless, they are all sitting in your inbox, taking up space.
You only get 15GB of storage for free with Gmail, and while 15GB may seem like a lot, emails can add up quickly, especially if you receive emails with attachments such as images or videos.
A clean inbox is the first step to a more organized personal and professional life. Cleaning up your Gmail inbox can be done in a few easy steps. Let’s go over 10 different methods to reclaim your Gmail inbox.
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Gmail inbox. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Tip 1 — Delete large attachments
Emails with large attachments, such as video or audio files, can take up a lot of space. Luckily, Google makes it easy to search for and find emails with large attachments buried in your inbox. From your Gmail search bar, you can search for emails larger than 10MB, showing you all emails in your inbox with an attachment larger than 10 megabytes. This will help you delete emails with large attachments you no longer need from your inbox. To delete the email, all you have to do is:
- Open Gmail and type size: 10MB in the search bar.
- Select the emails you want to delete by clicking the checkbox next to each email.
- Click the trash icon at the top of the page to move the selected emails to Trash.
- Empty the Trash to permanently delete these emails and free up space.
Deleting large attachments. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Tip 2 — Delete entire categories
By default, Gmail gives you several categories to help organize your inbox. You should have category tags for primary, promotions and social.
- If you click Inbox in the left pane in Gmail, you should see a column that shows which categories you are active in.
- You can add or remove categories from here, and I recommend using category tags relevant to your life.
Deleting entire categories. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
- Once you’re ready to clean out a category, you can click the box in the upper right corner to select all emails, allowing you to delete them quickly.
Deleting entire categories. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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Tip 3 — Unsubscribe from email lists
Remember that app you signed up for 10 years ago and still receive daily emails about? You’re not alone. Most of us get emails from a mailing list we subscribed to long ago that is no longer relevant to us. The simple solution here is to unsubscribe. Here’s how to Unsubscribe:
- Look for the unsubscribe link: Most promotional emails include an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Click it, and follow the instructions to remove yourself from the list.
- Use email management tools: Unsubscribing from multiple email lists can be a time-consuming process. Luckily, a helpful tool called Clean Email will do the hard work for you.
- Mark as spam: If you can’t find an unsubscribe link, mark the email as spam. This will help your email provider filter out similar messages in the future.
- Update your preferences: Some emails come from services you still use but don’t need frequent updates from. Check if you can update your email preferences to receive fewer notifications.
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Tip 4 — Block unwanted senders
As a tech reporter, I receive many emails from sales reps from various companies. Many of these emails come from companies and senders outside of my scope for the things I typically cover, and unfortunately, I have had a few salespeople who wouldn’t leave me alone. If you have a similar issue, I recommend just considering blocking them.
- All you need to do is open any message from a sender you want to block; on the right side of your screen, click the ellipses and select block.
Blocking unwanted senders (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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Tip 5 — Delete emails by sender
An easy way to clear up some space quickly in your Gmail inbox is to delete old emails from the sender. Do you have a client you no longer work with, or would you want to delete all social media notification messages? Using Gmail search, you can filter all emails in the From section to delete emails from a particular sender.
- All you need to do is click the toolbar on the right side of the Gmail search box and input the sender’s name in the From section.
- Then, click the search button. This will display all emails from that sender.
- You can then select all these emails by clicking the checkbox at the top of the list.
- Finally, click the trash icon to delete them.
Deleting emails by sender. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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Tip 6 — Delete emails by date
You can sort emails by date and delete them in the same search box form. There’s a good chance you don’t need those emails still in your inbox after five or 10 years, so why not search by date and delete them?
Just like you did with the deleting emails by sender section, all you need to do is click the toolbar in the Gmail search bar, and you can sort emails within a specific time in the form. Here’s how to do it.
- Select the date range you want to delete emails from. For example, you can type before: YYYY/MM/DD or after: YYYY/MM/DD in the search bar to specify the date range.
- Once you have your search results, click the checkbox at the top left to select all emails in the search results.
- Finally, click the trash can icon to delete the selected emails.
Deleting emails by date. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Tip 7 — Delete emails by subject
An easy way to quickly clean up your Gmail inbox is to delete emails with specific subject lines. Gmail’s advanced email search also has a line allowing you to search for emails by particular phrases or keywords in the subject line. Make sure to use quotation marks around any words you are searching. You can quickly find and delete emails this way, and it’s one of my favorite ways to clean up an inbox. Here’s how to do it.
- Log in to your Gmail account on your computer.
- At the top of the page, you’ll see a search bar. Type in the subject line you want to search for, enclosed in quotation marks (e.g., “Meeting Notes”).
- Gmail will display all emails with that specific subject line.
- Click the checkbox at the top left corner of the email list to select all emails on the current page. If you have more emails than what is displayed on one page, you will see an option to select all conversations that match the search.
- Click the trash can icon to delete the selected emails.
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Tip 8 — Organize your Gmail inbox with labels
Labels are a great way to organize your Gmail inbox. You can easily create a new label by clicking on the Create a new label option on the left sidebar within Gmail. I use labels to organize my most valuable emails, typically work emails, in my inbox. I also use Gmail’s label system to automatically filter my emails, which I’ll tell you more about in the next tip.
Organizing your Gmail inbox with labels. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Create a new label:
- Open Gmail.
- On the left sidebar, click on “Create new label.”
- Enter a name for your label (e.g., “Work Emails”).
- Then, click “Create.”
Apply labels to emails:
- Select the emails you want to label by checking the boxes next to them.
- At the top of the page, click on the “Labels” icon.
- Choose the label you want to apply, or create a new one if needed.
Organize emails automatically:
- Use Gmail’s filter system to automatically label incoming emails.
- Click on the “Show search options” icon in the search bar.
- Enter your criteria (e.g., emails from a specific sender).
- Click on “Create filter.”
- Choose “Apply the label” and select the label you want to use.
- Click “Create filter.”
Manage Your Labels:
- To edit or delete a label, hover over the label name on the left sidebar.
- Click on the three dots (More) next to the label name.
- Choose “Edit” to rename or “Remove label” to delete it.
Organizing your Gmail inbox with labels. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Tip 9 — Make use of Gmail’s built-in organization features
Gmail has many organizational features that many users neglect. For example, within Gmail, you can star emails to mark them as important or color code folders of emails to stay on top of the organization. You can also mark important emails that need responses, and all of these features are just a simple click away from the advanced settings button within Gmail.
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- Star Emails: You can star important emails to easily find them later. Just click the star icon next to the email. You can also customize the star system by going to Settings > See all settings > General > Stars.
- Labels: Labels are like folders but more flexible. You can create labels to categorize your emails. To create a label, go to Settings > See all settings > Labels > Create new label. You can also nest labels under other labels for better organization.
- Color Code Labels: To color code your labels, hover over a label in the sidebar, click the three dots, and select Label color. This helps you visually distinguish between different categories of emails.
- Filters: Filters automatically sort your incoming emails. Go to Settings > See all settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses > Create a new filter. You can set criteria like sender, subject, or keywords, and choose actions like applying a label, archiving or deleting.
- Priority Inbox: Enable Priority Inbox to automatically sort your emails into categories like Important and Unread, Starred and Everything Else. Go to Settings > See all settings > Inbox > Inbox type > Priority Inbox.
- Snooze Emails: If you need to deal with an email later, you can snooze it. Hover over the email, click the clock icon and choose when you want the email to reappear in your inbox.
Creating new filters. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Making use of Gmail’s built-in organization features. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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Tip 10 — Create new filters
Gmail’s filter system automates organizing all the emails in your inbox. Once you’ve cleaned it out, this should help you keep it clean. Filters in Gmail allow you to automatically redirect emails once they hit your inbox, saving you the time and trouble of manually sorting through them. For example, you can create a filter that will send all newsletters from specific senders to a particular inbox, or you could create a filter that automatically sends emails from particular senders straight to the trash.
- To create a filter, type in a specific keyword you want to filter into the Gmail search bar and click on the filter symbol.
- Clicking the filter symbol will open a dropdown menu that you can use to refine your filter options.
- Once you’ve created your refinements, click the Create filter button.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Organizing your email inbox can be a lot of work, but luckily, as I’ve shown, Gmail makes it easy. If you feel overwhelmed by how much has accumulated in your inbox, don’t panic. Take a deep breath, and follow these steps in order. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you have thoroughly cleaned out your inbox and have now taken advantage of Google’s automation features to keep your unruly inbox organized.
What strategies have you found most effective for managing your email inbox, and do you have any additional tips or experiences to share? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact
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Until now, that argument has largely been left to executives and engineers. New Jersey lawmakers are trying to settle it in state law.
A bill expected to come up for a vote later this year would require companies seeking to operate fully autonomous vehicles in New Jersey to use cameras plus two other sensing technologies, most commonly lidar and radar. If enacted, New Jersey would be the first state to codify such a hardware mandate into law, moving ahead of a nearly identical proposal currently pending action in neighboring New York. The measure would also effectively prevent Tesla’s camera-only Robotaxi system from operating in New Jersey unless the company changed its hardware.
”This is not anti-Tesla,” Democratic state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, the bill’s primary sponsor, told The Verge. “I’m pro-New Jersey safety.”
Zwicker, a physicist who works at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (New Jersey doesn’t restrict legislators from outside jobs), said after riding in a Waymo robotaxi in Phoenix he became convinced autonomous vehicles could transform transportation.
”I was amazed how quickly you get used to it,” he said.
The technology, he argues, could dramatically expand mobility, reduce traffic deaths, and make transportation more accessible. But he believes the technology should roll out cautiously in the nation’s most densely populated state.
”At this point, I don’t think the evidence is sufficient that a single sensor with software can handle situations that humans can,” Zwicker said. “Can we get there? Maybe. But we’re not there yet.”
The proposal would establish a three-year pilot program governing the testing and deployment of fully autonomous vehicles in New Jersey. Companies would have to use multiple sensing technologies, report certain crashes, and receive state authorization before operating fully driverless commercial services. They would also have to complete at least 50,000 miles of supervised testing in New Jersey without a major incident before removing the human safety driver.
While state battles over autonomous vehicles have largely centered on safety performance, oversight, and potential job losses, New Jersey is attempting something different: legislating how the vehicles themselves should be built.
“At this point, I don’t think the evidence is sufficient that a single sensor with software can handle situations that humans can.”
— New Jersey state Sen. Andrew Zwicker
The sensor requirement is by far the bill’s most consequential provision and it would have repercussions beyond Tesla. Elon Musk has long argued that cameras paired with increasingly capable artificial intelligence are the best and most cost effective way to operate autonomous vehicles. Humans navigate the world using vision alone, Musk has said, so sufficiently advanced AI should eventually be able to do the same. Eliminating lidar and radar also dramatically lowers hardware costs, making it easier to build robotaxis cheaply enough to deploy at massive scale.
Musk has even argued that adding more sensors can reduce safety by forcing software to reconcile conflicting information.
”Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention. If lidars/radars disagree with cameras, which one wins?” he wrote on X last year. “We turned off the radars in Teslas to increase safety. Cameras ftw.”
Most of the rest of the autonomous vehicle industry disagrees. Companies including Waymo and Zoox combine cameras with lidar and radar, arguing that each sensing technology has different strengths and weaknesses. Cameras capture rich visual detail, allowing vehicles to recognize colors, traffic signs, lane markings, and pedestrians, but they can struggle in poor weather, darkness, or glare. Radar performs better in rain and fog and excels at measuring the distance and relative speed of nearby objects. Lidar uses lasers to create detailed three-dimensional maps of a vehicle’s surroundings, making it particularly effective at determining the shape and distance of nearby objects.
Rather than relying on a single sensor, those companies combine the strengths of all three, arguing that redundancy makes autonomous driving safer. Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon electrical and computer engineering professor and autonomous vehicle safety expert, said camera-only systems may eventually become capable enough for fully autonomous driving. But he doesn’t believe they are today.
As Koopman put it, “eyeballs are better than cameras for many reasons” and “human brains are fundamentally more powerful than AI because we understand.” While there are situations where Koopman said camera-only works just fine — clear weather, favorable lighting, and less complex roads — he believes it’s not ready for broad consumer use.
“To run 24/7 across the majority of public roads in New Jersey today, it needs lidar,” he said. “It’s pretty clear that today camera-only technology is not up to the challenge.”
Koopman supports the New Jersey proposal but said he would prefer even stronger safeguards, such as requiring conventional driving controls like steering wheels and pedals so first responders could move disabled vehicles (so no Cybercabs, which don’t have either), and limits on how many AVs can be on the road during the pilot (a potential provision Zwicker said he’s considering).
“It’s pretty clear that today camera-only technology is not up to the challenge.”
— AV expert Philip Koopman
“The difference between 100 cars and 10,000 cars is night and day,” Koopman said. When the scale is small, “There’s just not enough cars for that much weird stuff to happen to them.” He pointed to Waymo, which now operates more than 3,500 commercial robotaxis across 11 US metro areas.
”They never used to have problems with floodwaters and school buses — not because they could do floodwaters and school buses,” Koopman said. “But with 100 cars it just doesn’t happen that often.”
Despite a lot of fanfare, Tesla currently only has a handful of unsupervised Robotaxis on the road, mostly in Texas, according to data from Robotaxi Tracker, suggesting it hasn’t been as easy to scale the camera-only approach as Musk had previously promised. Last year he predicted that Tesla would have hundreds of thousands of fully self-driving Teslas operating by the end of 2026. (Tesla did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)
Many of the bill’s provisions mirror recommendations from SAVE-US, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter autonomous vehicle regulation. Physicist and SAVE-US national campaign director Shua Sanchez said the group formed because Congress has failed to establish national rules while autonomous vehicle companies have expanded into states with dramatically different levels of oversight.
“California has the best safety regulations in the country,” he said. “Texas, Arizona, and Georgia have almost no state oversight.”
Among the organization’s priorities is requiring redundant sensing systems.
“We don’t have a problem with Tesla as a company,” Sanchez said. “We have a problem with camera-only autonomous vehicles.”
Nearly every major stakeholder has sought changes to the bill. Waymo successfully pushed to remove a requirement that safety drivers remain in vehicles throughout the pilot, and Uber argued the state should continue requiring human drivers for most rides, according to Zwicker.
Tesla has been lobbying against the legislation in New Jersey, according to Zwicker, who said company representatives met with lawmakers to argue that advances in artificial intelligence make additional sensor types unnecessary. Zwicker said that while the tech has gotten better, “I’m not convinced yet that they’re ready to go.”
The debate has spilled beyond the state House.
“As written, the legislation imposes restrictions so severely that Tesla’s autonomous vehicle technology couldn’t legally operate in New Jersey,” read a Tesla missive to New Jersey Tesla owners encouraging them to contact lawmakers. “Rather than prioritizing real safety outcomes and performance, the bill specifically bans Tesla from the New Jersey market.”
Zwicker said his office received roughly 4,000 emails within a day. “The messaging wasn’t about the details of the bill,” he said. “It was that Zwicker is trying to take away your Autopilot.”
“Rather than prioritizing real safety outcomes and performance, the bill specifically bans Tesla from the New Jersey market.”
— A Tesla message to NJ owners
Zwicker rejects that characterization. The legislation applies only to fully autonomous vehicles operating under the proposed state pilot program — not driver-assistance systems that require a licensed human driver to remain behind the wheel.
The fight in New Jersey reflects a broader vacuum in autonomous vehicle regulation. Congress has debated national autonomous vehicle legislation for years without passing a comprehensive framework, leaving states to develop their own rules as commercial robotaxi services expand. Robotaxi services already operate in states including California, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia under dramatically different regulatory systems. While California requires extensive testing permits and public reporting, it doesn’t specify which tech the AVs need to get there. Texas has adopted a far lighter-touch approach, which lets automakers self-certify that their autonomous vehicles are ready for the road.
New Jersey’s bill raises the possibility that AV tech there could differ from that of other states. Zwicker says that isn’t his concern.
“The technology doesn’t exist in the Northeast at all,” he said. “The goal is to start now, do it safely, and build public trust.”
Sanchez sees the sensor requirement as a common-sense safeguard rather than a restriction on innovation.
“There are absolutely brilliant people working at Tesla trying to make camera-only autonomy work,” he said. “But they’re trying to do it with one arm tied behind their back.”
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How to use airline miles and points
The Miles Guy explains how to stop wasting points, spot bad redemptions and get more value from travel rewards, in an interview with Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson.
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Airline miles used to feel like a secret travel weapon. You saved them, watched the award chart and then pounced when the right seat opened up.
Now? You may search for a flight and see a price so ridiculous that it makes you want to close the laptop.
That is exactly why I sat down with David Fleming, a travel rewards consultant known online as The Miles Guy. His job is helping travelers squeeze more value out of airline miles, hotel points and credit card rewards without getting fooled into bad redemptions.
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Dynamic pricing can make the same airline seat cost a reasonable number of miles one day and a shocking amount the next. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
And here is the big takeaway: airline miles can still be valuable, but the old tricks no longer work the same way.
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Why airline miles feel harder to use now
Years ago, many airlines used fixed award charts. That made it easier to know what a flight should cost in points. Now, that predictability is mostly gone. “The airlines and their frequent flier programs went to something called dynamic pricing, which basically ties the cost of the ticket to the number of points you use,” Fleming told me during our conversation on the CyberGuy Report podcast.
He gave one eye-popping example. Air France Flying Blue business class from Los Angeles to Paris used to show up for around 67,500 points one way. Now, on some days, that same type of redemption can balloon to an outrageous level. “Some days you’re now seeing them for 700,000 points one way,” Fleming said. “Which is bananas.”
That is the kind of number that should make you pause before clicking “book.” If you want a broader refresher on how travel rewards work, CyberGuy’s guide on how to rack up points and miles for travel is a helpful read at CyberGuy.com.
Flexibility is still your best travel hack
If you have any wiggle room in your schedule, use it before you spend your miles. “The key really is to book your trip around your flights,” Fleming said. “Find the dates that have the best mileage redemptions available, and book those and let that be your guide.”
That may sound annoying if you already picked your vacation dates. However, shifting by a day or two, or flying from a different airport, can save you a huge number of points.
This approach works best when you are traveling alone or with one other person. It gets harder with kids, school schedules, work calendars and family obligations. Still, even a little flexibility can help. The goal is to stop treating every mileage price as a good deal just because it uses points instead of cash.
Book a refundable ticket as a backup
One of my best strategies is to book a refundable cash ticket as insurance while watching for mileage seats. Here is how it works. You book a refundable fare, so you know you can get where you need to go. Then you keep checking for award seats. If a better mileage redemption becomes available, you can cancel the refundable ticket and book with points.
Fleming said that strategy still has value, even though it worked better before dynamic pricing became so common. “If you book a refundable ticket, you know if something does open up, you always can cancel that refundable ticket, get your money back, and book the mileage ticket,” Fleming said.
There is another version of the same idea. If a good mileage ticket doesn’t appear, you can look for a cheaper, nonrefundable cash fare closer to the trip. Then you cancel the refundable ticket and buy the cheaper fare instead. It takes effort, but it gives you options.
Ask about paid upgrades before you board
Paid upgrades can be hit-or-miss. Still, Fleming says asking at the counter or gate can sometimes pay off. “You might have to be a little proactive and ask the gate agent or the person at the ticket counter, ‘Hey, do you have any upgrades available? And if yes, how much are they?’” Fleming said.
He shared the story of a friend who was flying economy on a transatlantic flight. At the counter, the airline offered him a business class upgrade for $140. If he had bought that upgrade online earlier, it would have cost more than $1,200. That will not happen every time. Airlines may have no seats, no deal or no interest in discounting the upgrade. Even so, the question costs nothing. Ask politely at check-in, at the ticket counter or at the gate: “Are there any paid upgrades available, and what would the cost be?” You can always say no.
Know when points are a bad deal
This may be the hardest part for many travelers. Sometimes the smartest move is to keep your miles. Fleming uses a rough benchmark of about 2 cents per point. So, if 100,000 points would cover a ticket that costs about $2,000, that can be a fair deal.
“On average, you might say that a point is worth $0.02,” Fleming said. “I just kind of set the goal at $0.02 a point.” However, if an airline wants 100,000 points for a $500 ticket, you may want to pay cash and keep the points for something better. That is where people get burned. They see “free flight” and forget that points have value. Those points took spending, flying or credit card bonuses to earn. Burning them on a weak redemption can cost you later.
Tracking your loyalty accounts, point balances and expiration dates can help you stop rewards from slipping through the cracks. (iStock)
Compare points before you book
Airline miles and hotel points can both be easy to waste. Before you redeem either one, compare the points or miles price with the cash rate. That helps you see whether you are getting strong value.
One tool CyberGuy has covered before is Awayz. It can help you compare cash prices with award pricing so you can decide when to use points, miles or cash. Its hotel search can be especially helpful if you have rewards spread across programs like Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, IHG, Accor, Choice or Wyndham. Awayz can also help you look for award availability and spot better dates. That can save time when you are planning a trip with flexible travel dates.
Still, treat any travel search tool as a starting point. Prices and award availability can change fast. Before you transfer points or book, confirm the final price, taxes, fees, cancellation rules and availability directly with the airline, hotel or loyalty program.
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Track every loyalty account in one place
You cannot use your rewards well if you do not know what you have. Fleming says that starts with keeping your travel accounts organized.
“I created a spreadsheet which basically lists my program, American Airlines, my account number, my password, when the points expire and how many points I have,” Fleming said. “Then you know what you have to work with.”
I use a phone contact called “Travel Profile.” In that contact card, I store airline, hotel and rental car loyalty numbers in alphabetical order. So, when I am checking into a hotel or renting a car, I can quickly find the right number.
Here is how to set one up:
- iPhone: Open the Contacts app > tap the + button > enter Travel Profile as the name > scroll to Notes > type your airline, hotel and rental car loyalty numbers in alphabetical order > tap Done.
- Samsung Galaxy : Open the Contacts app > tap the + button > choose where to save the contact, such as Phone or Google > enter Travel Profile as the name > tap View more if needed > add your loyalty numbers in Notes > tap Save.
One important warning: do not store passwords in this contact card. Use it for loyalty numbers only. Keep account passwords in a secure password manager instead.
The trade-off is that a phone contact will not show your current point balances or expiration dates. That is where a spreadsheet or password manager can help, especially if you have dozens of travel accounts.
Watch expiration dates before points disappear
Some airline miles no longer expire. Fleming noted that United MileagePlus miles and Delta SkyMiles do not expire. However, other programs still have expiration rules. Flying Blue, the loyalty program for Air France and KLM, now uses a single 24-month validity period for miles, with qualifying activity able to extend that date. That means you should check each program before assuming your miles are safe forever.
Also, do not ignore small balances. A few thousand points may not buy a long-haul ticket, but they may help with a hotel night, upgrade or short flight later.
Airline status may not go as far as it used to
I asked Fleming whether airline status still means anything. His answer was blunt. “Unless you have the top tier status, I don’t think so,” Fleming said.
I get it. There was a time when top-level status could feel special, especially when flights were delayed or canceled. You could call a dedicated number, find the right person at the airport and sometimes get real help getting where you needed to go.
That still happens, but it feels less dependable than it used to. Planes are packed, upgrades are harder to clear and airlines often sell premium seats instead of handing them to loyal flyers.
Status can still help with free bags, preferred seats and priority support. However, I would not chase it blindly unless the perks still match how often you fly and what you are spending to get them.
Use travel tech to get ahead of delays
One of my favorite travel apps right now is Flighty. It tracks your aircraft before it becomes your flight, which can give you an early warning when trouble is starting to build.
For example, your plane may still be in another city with several flights to complete before it ever gets to you. If one of those earlier flights gets delayed, Flighty can often show the ripple effect before the airline sends an official alert. Flighty can send real-time alerts for delays, gate changes and cancellations.
You can also track a flight right inside the Messages app on your iPhone. Send yourself, or someone else, the airline name and flight number , such as Delta 1234 or American 456. You can also try the airline code and number, such as DL1234 or AA456. Once the flight number appears underlined, tap it and select Preview Flight. You should see details such as flight status, departure time, arrival time, terminal, gate and baggage claim when available.
One low-tech trick I still swear by is carrying a UK plug adapter. Some airplane outlets get loose from heavy use, especially with standard U.S. plugs. A UK adapter may fit more securely in certain universal airplane outlets, but it will not work on every aircraft or every seat. Also, treat it as an adapter, not a voltage converter, and use it only with chargers that support the power range printed on the charger.
Protect your miles like money
Airline miles and hotel points have real value. That makes them attractive to hackers. A thief who breaks into a loyalty account can drain your miles, book travel or sell access before you notice. Since many people rarely check old airline and hotel accounts, fraud can sit there longer than it should.
CyberGuy has covered how hackers can hijack travel rewards programs and drain miles. To protect yourself, use strong, unique passwords for every travel account and store them in a secure password manager. Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) when available and review your balances often.
You should also keep strong antivirus software on your devices to help block malicious links, phishing pages and other threats that can lead to account theft. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at CyberGuy.com.
Also, consider using a data removal service to reduce how much personal information is floating around online, since scammers can use exposed details to make travel-related phishing messages look more believable. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting CyberGuy.com.
Finally, be careful with any email claiming your miles are expiring or offering a too-good-to-be-true travel deal. Go directly to the airline or hotel site instead of clicking links in surprise messages.
Asking about paid upgrades at the airport may not always work, but sometimes one polite question can unlock a much better seat for less. (iStock)
Pick travel credit cards carefully
Travel credit cards can still unlock value, but only if the perks match how you actually travel. If you fly one airline often, a co-branded card may help with bags, boarding or award discounts. If you want flexibility, a transferable points card may give you more options across different airlines and hotel partners.
Before you chase a welcome bonus, read the annual fee, spending requirement and redemption rules. A giant bonus can lose its appeal if you have to overspend to earn it. CyberGuy’s best airline credit cards guide at cyberguy.com/ can help you compare travel cards, perks and earning structures before you apply.
Watch the CyberGuy Live replay: Lock Down Your Phone in 30 Minutes
Your phone holds your email, passwords, photos, banking apps and personal data. In this free CyberGuy Live replay, Kurt the CyberGuy walks you step by step through simple phone security fixes you can do at your own pace. You’ll learn how to improve your privacy settings, spot the latest phone scams, use trusted security tools and walk away with a simple checklist to stay protected. Watch the replay and get our checklist here: CyberGuyLive.com
Kurt’s key takeaways
Airline miles are still worth collecting, but you have to be more careful than ever about how you spend them. Dynamic pricing means the same seat can cost a reasonable number of points one day and an outrageous number another day. That is why flexibility, research and patience can make such a big difference. Before you redeem, compare the cash price against the point price. If the value looks weak, save your miles and buy the ticket instead. Also, organize your loyalty accounts now, not when you are standing at a rental car counter or rushing through an airport. A spreadsheet, secure password manager or travel profile in your phone can keep your rewards from becoming a pile of forgotten numbers. And next time you fly, ask about paid upgrades. You may get nothing. Or you may hear a price that makes the whole trip feel like you beat the system. For more of my conversation with David “The Miles Guy” Fleming, you can watch the full podcast episode at CyberGuy.com.
Do you still think airline miles are worth chasing, or have airlines made the rewards game too confusing to trust? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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Amid public backlash over its smart glasses, Meta announced that it will be updating its glasses with a new feature that will disable the camera when it detects that someone has tampered with or destroyed the glasses’ privacy LED light. The update is meant to address modders who have taken actions such as physically drilling into the LED light.
Meta has previously tried to discourage tampering with the LED light. For example, starting with its second generation glasses, blocking the light with tape or other objects will trigger a prompt asking users to uncover the recording light. However, many modders have found various workarounds for that particular measure.
Meta’s VP of wearables Alex Himel told The Verge that the privacy-focused update was on the way a few weeks ago after launching cheaper Meta Glasses without Ray-Ban branding. At the time, Himel acknowledged that the company was aware of increasing misuse alongside wider adoption of the devices.
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