GETTING FINANCIAL ADVICE FROM AI
When I realized that I didn’t have enough money to pay my Illinois property tax, I asked Google about cashing in a CD.
Google immediately put on its big boy pants, becoming “Google AI Summaries.” It does that when you ask a complicated question.
At first, it warned me about the penalty for cashing in a CD. So I uploaded a screenshot showing the three CDs I have in my Fidelity account. It flipped its wig when it saw what a low rate of return, I was getting compared to the rate Fidelity offers for straight cash.
For example, my one-year CD, due in January, has earned only $1.62– so close to zero, it’s in the nanosphere. What happened? The CD is part of a three-CD “auto roll.” The rate started out great but fell dramatically after the first term was over. By falling asleep at the switch, I allowed the banks to stick me with the lowest possible reward.
Google AI suggested I cash out all three CDs. Whatever penalty I’ll incur will be nothing compared to the improvement I can get by placing the money in a Fidelity cash account.
To start the process, Google told me to click the CD listing, then click “sell” and enter the quantity I wanted to be rid of. That begins the bidding process. I’m going to do it on Monday as soon as Fidelity opens.
I saved the whole conversation by clicking the print command on my desktop, then choosing “Print to PDF.” If I’d used Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, everything would have been saved automatically. The Copilot version in Microsoft Edge used to save everything, but lately it doesn’t. It said that its memory got turned off and I can’t figure out how to turn it back on. But it’s working at Copilot.com.
Michael Caine as a young man
AI Clones
When I heard Michael Caine talking about cloned celebrity voices, I never guessed he was one too. It sounds exactly like him.
ElevenLabs has 28 verified voices, including Art Garfunkel, Babe Ruth, Winston Churchill, Marlon Brando, Katherine Hepburn and Albert Einstein. To hear the cloned version of Michael Caine, search on “Introducing ElevenLabs Iconic Marketplace.”
Cloned voices are pricey, starting at around $500 and going up to $100,000, depending on whether you need a small ad, a podcast, a national TV commercial or a worldwide campaign. But the voice also matters. The price of a cloned Taylor Swift would be astronomical.
Better Meetings
After using Google Meet for a brainstorming session, I received a transcription, a detailed summary and a to-do-list for all participants, courtesy of Tactiq.
Tactiq is free for 10 meetings’ worth of transcriptions. It even provides a chat box so you can ask questions about the meeting, and works with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.
After you install the free extension in the Chrome web browser, available at Tactiq.com, just join the meeting. Tactiq will handle the transcription and other tasks automatically. Among other things, it gives you a snapshot of your timelines as well as an analysis of your budget.
In the free version, you get tools for 10 meetings, including five AI credits. For $8 a month, you get unlimited meetings and 10 AI credits. For $17 a month you get unlimited everything.
Better Battery Life in Newer Phones
If you’ve got an iPhone 15 Pro or better, you’ve got a feature called “Adaptive Power.” It helps your battery last longer.
According to Apple, Adaptive Power can predict when to make adjustments, based on your usage patterns. It’s there by default, if you have an iPhone 17 (any version) or an iPhone Air. For earlier models, such as my iPhone 16e, you have to turn Adaptive Power on yourself. Go to Settings, then Battery, then Power Mode. Toggle the Adaptive Power to the “on” position.
Retro Ornaments
Do you want the villain from Terminator 2 to hang on your Christmas tree? How about a Dungeons & Dragons’ red dragon named Themberchaud? Or Star Wars’ Andor Cassian? At Hallmark.com and Amazon, these retro ornaments range in price from $11 to $32. I also saw a realistic DHS tape ready to go on the tree, a record crate and an old-style cathode-ray-tube computer with Oregon Trail on its green screen. For links to all of these and more, search on the phrase “Deck out your tree with ornaments of retro consoles.”
Restoring Sight
A dozen patients with advanced macular degeneration can now work on crossword puzzles and read regular books, thanks to a new eye implant that works with a set of smart glasses, according to The Verge. The participants only see a blurry world in black and white, but it’s better than nothing. The device is expected to be approved in Europe in 2026 or 2027. But because of FDA hurdles, it may not be out until much later in the US.
Internut
In an MIT lab, microscopic chips were placed on immune cells to do amazing things, like travel through the bloodstream and implant themselves in the brain without surgery.
To test them, the chip-equipped cells were injected into mice whose brains had been artificially inflamed. In 72 hours, the 14,000 hybrids reached their target intact. This discovery by MIT scientists may help Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients. The hybrids might also target hard-to-reach tumors.