For her 11th birthday, my niece got a $36 Bluetooth speaker that plays music, lights up in multiple colors and calls her friends.

The Hetyre Night Light Bluetooth Speaker is a 6-inch tall reading lamp, nightlight, music player and alarm clock. My niece said the alarm woke her up with the sound of birds. “My parents thought there were birds outside fighting,” she said. “It sounded like a battle.” She figured out all the features without reading the manual or asking her parents for help.

For the toddler crowd, there’s the PlayMonster “OK to Wake,” $20 on Amazon. It has multiple colors, five levels of brightness and turns green when it’s okay to get out of bed. I first heard about it from relatives. When a 3-year-old cousin wanted to get up, for example, his 5-year-old brother told him not to. “It’s red,” he warned. “But I have to go to the bathroom,” said the 3-year-old.

Nasa Fireplace

How about a fireplace fueled by rocket boosters from the Artemis I mission, the one that went around the moon and back? It’s just an animation, but it gives you an idea of what 8.8 million pounds of thrust might do to warm your holiday mood. Crackling logs make the sound even nicer. You can view it on YouTube or at plus.NASA.gov. I also like their “Holiday Yule Log,” because it has Christmas music.

Coming soon to Disney Plus and Netflix is a new NASA Plus channel, which will also be available in your phone’s app store. For now, you can check out the NASA Plus website. I’m watching “To an Asteroid and Back,” which has spectacular photography. Besides documentaries, the site has question-and-answer sessions between astronauts and students. On December 11, there’s a live discussion with the space station crew. Click “NASA Live” for more events.

Cutting Some Slack

My sister hates group texts, especially long ones. “Young people use Slack,” a friend told me. Gee, I thought it  was just for business.

Users like Slack because it’s more concise than text messaging. Instead of texting back and forth with a group just to figure out a date that works for everyone, Slack gives you calendar emojis for each person so you can see at a glance who’s free. But that’s just one of its many features.

Slack lets you set up your own channels, which stay open indefinitely. Participants go in and out of private or public chat rooms, collaborating, sharing files, leaving video or voice messages and more.  If you tire of it, you can mute it. You get email notifications when there’s new activity, but you can choose to be notified less often, perhaps only when your name is mentioned. It’s free if you don’t mind your messages disappearing after 90 days. 

I’d like to start a channel called “Monthly Lunch Bunch,” if my friends like the idea. But both the phone app and the desktop app are a little confusing. I went to YouTube to learn the basics.

Outlawing Social Media for Kids

The Australian government has outlawed all social media for kids under 16. They say it’s too dangerous.

But no kids or parents will be punished. Only tech companies, and they’ll have a year to figure things out before they have to pay fines up to $32.4 million. I’m guessing that tech-savvy kids will get around the law by using Virtual Private Networks or VPNs, just as they do in restrictive countries. Elon Musk warned that it’s a first step toward controlling internet use for all Australians, according to The Verge.

Don’t Go Cheap

I bought a $10 charger for my HP laptop from Hibbo on Amazon. On the third day, it conked out when I plugged it in to an outlet. I even saw sparks. Worse, it never came back from the dead. So I bought a $50 charger from Staples while on vacation in California, since I couldn’t wait for an Amazon delivery. This one is made by HP and is built to last. Lesson: Don’t go cheap.

AI Trends

Forty percent of Americans aged 18 to 64 have used ChatGPT or some other AI search engine, according to Harvard economist David Deming, who was quoted by Planet Money. Over 24 percent use it at least once a week. However, a US Census Bureau study earlier this year found that only five percent of businesses had used AI in the previous couple of weeks. Evidently, a lot of people aren’t telling their bosses that AI helped them write an email or finish a project.

Edible Transistors

Italian researchers in Italy have discovered how to make a transistor from an ingredient in toothpaste. I read about it in ZME Science.

Since the transistor is safe to swallow, it could be used as a component in edible electronics that monitor your gastrointestinal tract, for example. Or it might deliver a smart drug that tells doctors how you’re doing.

Internut

“Scientists develop smart sutures that use electricity to speed up healing.” Search on that phrase to find an article on how electrical stimulation can close a wound three times faster than ordinary stitches can, according to new research from Donghua University in China. By generating a small electric field, the sutures mimic the body’s own internal electrical systems. This helps cells to proliferate and wounds to close. When the new sutures biodegrade, they don’t leave anything behind.

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