Mike Epstein
@bombur
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Senior Gear Editor, @Hearst Enthusiast Group. (@PopMech, @RunnersWorld, @BestProducts) Former game critic. Crotchety, but still a good time.
New York, NY
Joined April 2009
Big/bad news for consumers. Google is out today with an announcement of how they plan to integrate shopping into their AI offerings including search and Gemini. The plan includes “personalized upselling.” I.e. Analyzing your chat data and using it to overcharge you. 1/2
AI agents will be a big part of how we shop in the not-so-distant future. To help lay the groundwork, we partnered with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart to create the Universal Commerce Protocol, a new open standard for agents and systems to talk to each other across
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that’s a big nope from me
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, encouraging users to connect their medical records
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Logitech forgot to renew a certificate so its macOS apps for its mice are broken. Windows users are unaffected. A fix is available for G Hub and Options+ on macOS, but it has to be manually applied 🥲
theverge.com
That’s one heck of an oversight.
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fake doordash orders. fake construction photos. fake homework assignments. fake everything, just a pandora's box of industrial scale bullshit polluting both the planet and the basic social contract (which was already on thin ice)
Amazing. DoorDash driver accepted the drive, immediately marked it as delivered, and submitted an AI-generated image of a DoorDash order (left) at our front door (right).
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I’m a poll guy not a policy expert, but surely this has to be one of the most objectively successful policies in recent memory?
Official NYC Congestion Pricing verdict: it's working Through November— • Foot traffic: +3.4% YoY • Sales tax revenue: +6.3% YoY • Storefront vacancy: -0.9% YoY • Pollution: -22% (first 6 months) • Vehicle traffic: -11% YoY (-71.5k per day) • Est. Revenue: $548.3M
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Not writing a GOTY list at PM, but I tracked what I played all year so I wanted to share something: 1. Expedition 33 2. Dispatch 3. Donkey Kong Bananza 4. Ghost of Yotei 5. FFT Remake 6. Ball x Pit 7. Doom: The Dark Ages 8. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound 9. Absolum 10. The Alters
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As a sad person who loves stuff, I feel confident that this is the best listicle of the season.
so @GQMagazine asked me for a “fun” year end list https://t.co/7vvSSUryGx
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Every year I hope my Spotify Wrapped will be less embarrassing, but alas... They said I listen to music like a 42 year old. Being 39, I could not be more upset.
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This is the only good 6-7 joke from an adult.
There is only one person who has known the power of 6-7 since the beginning.... Ah ah ah! ⚡️🔢💜
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The West Wing is all we have left
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New potential explanation for “what’s happening in America in 2025”
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Well this is a fucked up thing to read a few weeks after working protein shakes into my workout routine.
@ConsumerReports 🧵read on for a thread on my on the broader food safety implications and the surprising places reporting this out took me, or check out the article yourself here (no paywall) https://t.co/XLarT7iyex
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They. Are. Saying. It. Out. Loud.
Steve Bannon: I think there are many different alternatives we’ll roll out after the midterms to make sure President Trump is on the ballot in 2028. And if he’s on the ballot, he’ll win.
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This is pretty dystopian.
Huh: TikTok took down my 8-second video featuring this image of Debbie Brockman — the news producer just detained by Trump’s CBP agents — saying it violates the “joy of TikTok”
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Stephen Miller said last year this was the plan. They said it out loud. Some of us highlighted his remarks at the time and warned how dangerous they were. Most of the media missed them and/or moved on from them. It’s happening:
Deputizing red state guardsmen to go into blue states against the wishes of the governor of that state.
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Feeling seen
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I'm genuinely puzzled why this directive -- which on the face of it seems truly a push towards harnessing federal law enforcement for a far-reaching free speech crackdown -- isn't getting mainstream media attention.
Congress largely only reads NYT, WaPo etc. so would be cool if one of their dozens of national security reporters could be assigned to do something on NSPM-7 !
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