Walmart’s New AI Deal Should Worry Everyone; 183 Million Email Accounts Just Compromised: Was Yours? New AI App Helps You Fake Your Vacation Photos; The Poop Toilet… and more!
Every day, we scan the tech world for interesting news, sometimes from outside the tech world. Every Thursday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Thursday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
Please note that the tips, tricks, programs, and apps appearing in the articles below are not necessarily recommended by Cloudeight. Try at your own risk.
Walmart’s deal with ChatGPT should worry every ecommerce small business
The retail battleground just shifted again. Walmart announced a partnership with OpenAI to let shoppers buy products directly within ChatGPT, while Amazon doubled down on computational AI with its Quick Suite platform and Etsy introduced instant checkout. My question is: What happens when your customers stop coming to your website entirely?
Four months ago, industry veterans were debating whether AI shopping agents could disrupt Amazon and Walmart’s dominance. Today, those same retailers are racing to build the infrastructure that makes those agents possible. That’s how quickly this is moving.
For the past 25 years, the retail website has been sacred territory. Brands controlled the narrative, captured data, and converted browsers into buyers. AI shopping agents are about to do to websites what e-commerce did to storefronts: not eliminate them, but fundamentally transform their purpose.
Analyzing over 20 million AI shopping agent conversations revealed an unmistakable pattern. Consumers aren’t just experimenting with conversational commerce; they prefer it for the purchases that matter most. In electronics alone, buyers ask 50% more questions before purchasing than in any other category. When retailers deploy AI shopping agents for these complex products, they’re seeing 25% engagement rates and conversion lifts 10 times higher than traditional website experiences…
183 million email accounts just got compromised. Check if you’re affected
The data breach tracking service known as Have I Been Pwned just added an immense collection of leaked user data.
Security expert Troy Hunt just added a huge new dataset to the Have I Been Pwned database containing 183 million new email accounts with leaked login details. It was collected with the help of Synthient, a security product that helps detect and block bad actors on platforms. (Have I Been Pwned is a great way to stay on top of fresh data breaches!)
According to the HIBP announcement post, the data includes both email addresses and their corresponding passwords, along with all the websites they’ve been entered into. The data was cleansed before inclusion into the database so that only unique accesses were included (i.e., no duplicate entries).
This brings the total number of accounts that have been “pwned” (i.e., affected by verifiable data leaks) to over 15.3 billion..
Dystopian AI App Will Fake Your Vacation Photos
Vacation photos have become a global obsession, and the scramble to capture them is wreaking havoc at major landmarks. Now, a new AI app promises to let travelers skip the crowds entirely — by never leaving home.
Endless Summer is made for when “burnout hits and you need to manifest the soft life u deserve,” writes the app’s developer, Laurent Del Rey. It uses Google’s Nano Banana model to generate photos of the user browsing the markets of Amsterdam, eating noodles in Hong Kong, or cooking on the sandy beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
TechCrunch reports that the app has a simple interface, which involves the user uploading a selfie, and from there the app will generate countless photos showing fake vacation pictures…
Microsoft prepares major Windows 11 feature drop with new Start menu, Taskbar updates, and more
New features expected to roll out next month
Windows 11’s next major update is set to include a brand-new Start menu, lots of Taskbar and File Explorer updates, and general quality of life improvements, which is now in the final testing stages before general availability.
Microsoft is finally ready to begin shipping its new Start menu for Windows 11 that was first announced earlier this year. As of this week, Microsoft is now testing the next major feature drop for Windows 11, and in it is the new Start menu along with Taskbar and File Explorer updates, and general quality of life improvements.
The next feature drop is now in testing with the Windows Insider Release Preview Channel, which is the last stop before a feature drop becomes generally available. That means these new features are expected to begin rolling out to production PCs imminently, possibly as soon as next month if all goes to plan…
Kohler has just launched a $600 ‘poop’ camera for your toilet — yes, really
Smart tech for toilets, anyone?
When it comes to our toilet habits, not many of us really want to see the contents inside the bowl. But knowing what comes out of our bodies can be a useful insight into our health and lifestyle.
Bathroom fixture brand Kohler has unveiled a smart toilet camera (yes, you heard right), equipped with multiple sensors to track any liquid or solid waste inside the toilet bowl to provide health insights.
Essentially, the Dekoder health tracker is part of Kohler Health’s new initiative focused on “turning the bathroom into a connected, data-informed health and wellness hub.” But how exactly does the Dekoda poop camera work?
Disguised in a discreet, curved case, the camera simply attaches to the rim of your toilet. It’s designed to peer into the bowl and analyze what it detects using algorithms to scan for indicators of your hydration and gut health. What’s more, it sends real-time alerts and will notify when blood is detected in the stool, which can be a symptom of more serious medical issues.
In addition, it comes with a magnetic charging pad and wall-mounted remote…
Thanks for reading this week’s Thursday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful.
