Tech Tips

ScamAgent: Researchers Just Built an AI That Can Scam You — And It's Terrifyingly Good By Tech Brewed | Cybersecurity & Privacy This isn't a chatbot doing party tricks. This is a research-grade proof-of-concept that blows the doors off what we thought AI-powered fraud could look like. And it arrives at a moment when phone scams are already costing Americans billions of dollars per year, with scammers increasingly using AI technology and AI-powered tools to make scam texts harder to spot and calls harder to doubt. Let's break down what's happening, why it matters, and what you can do about it — including practical tips to protect your personal information. ScamAgent is an AI pipeline that combines a large language model (LLM) with advanced text-to-speech (TTS) technology to simulate a complete scam phone call. But unlike a simple chatbot or a single "jailbreak" prompt, ScamAgent operates across multiple turns of conversation — it remembers what was said,...

Photographer: Jakub Żerdzicki | Source: Unsplash One-page printable checklist: protect yourself from account takeover and modern scams Print this page and keep it near your desk. Share it with family members (especially anyone who’s been targeted by scam calls/texts). The 5-step protection checklist 1) Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) — start with email Turn on MFA for your email first (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud). Then turn on MFA for: banking, Apple ID / Google account, social media, shopping sites. Prefer an authenticator app when available. Never share MFA codes with anyone who contacts you. Done when: Email + banking + Apple/Google accounts have MFA enabled. 2) Use strong, unique passwords (with a password manager) Stop reusing passwords across sites. Use a password manager to generate long random passwords. Make your master password long and memorable (a passphrase). If a site offers passkeys , consider using them. Done when: Every important account has a unique passwor...

If you’ve ever had that uneasy feeling that “someone could probably get into my accounts if they really wanted to,” you’re not being paranoid—you’re being realistic. Account takeover and social-engineering scams are exploding because criminals don’t need to “hack” you in the Hollywood sense. They just need you to reuse a password, trust the wrong message, or share one tiny piece of personal info publicly. As criminals shift tactics, these account takeover attacks have become a significant threat to your accounts, your brand reputation (if you run a business), and your financial assets. Here’s a practical, no-fluff prevention checklist you can implement today to prevent account takeover fraud (prevent ATO) and reduce unauthorized access. 1) Turn on multi-factor authentication (start with your email) Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds a second proof step beyond your password—often a code or app approval—so stolen login credentials alone aren’t enough to break in. Start with your emai...

Photographer: Nahrizul Kadri | Source: Unsplash ​You're Using AI Wrong — And the Data Proves It Anthropic analyzed nearly 10,000 real Claude conversations. Here's what separates high-performers from everyone else. Most people treat AI like a vending machine. You put in a prompt, you get out an answer, and you move on. If the output looks good, you use it. If it doesn't, you try again with a slightly different prompt and hope for better luck. That approach is leaving a massive amount of value on the table — and now we have the receipts. Anthropic just released their AI Fluency Index , a behavioral analysis of 9,830 real conversations with Claude. The findings reveal a clear gap between users who are genuinely getting powerful results and those who are essentially spinning their wheels. The good news: the habits that separate them are learnable. The surprising news: most of us aren't practicing them. Here are five data-backed insights that should change how you work w...

​AI Arms Race Heats Up: Anthropic Unleashes Claude Opus 4.6 + Multi-Agent “Agent Teams,” While Perplexity Bets Big on Model Council. The AI world never sleeps—and right now, in early February 2026, it feels like it’s sprinting. Two major labs just dropped features and model upgrades that could meaningfully change how developers, researchers, and power users get work done. Anthropic rolled out Claude Opus 4.6 , its most capable model to date, along with an experimental Agent Teams system that enables multiple AI agents to collaborate like a real dev team. Almost simultaneously, Perplexity AI introduced Model Council , a clever ensemble approach that brings together several frontier models in a virtual conference room to debate and refine their answers. These aren’t incremental tweaks. They’re signs that the frontier is shifting from single-model chatbots toward coordinated, multi-agent, multi-model systems that handle complex, real-world tasks with dramatically less human oversight. Le...

​Free AI Tools You Can Actually Use (Without Spending a Dime) If AI has felt too expensive or too technical, here’s the good news: you can start using powerful, genuinely helpful tools today—free—and most take just minutes to learn. Think of AI tools as digital assistants. They can: Draft emails and blog posts Clean up your writing Generate images and videos Summarize meetings Organize your calendar Streamline business tasks Many offer generous free plans, so you can try them without a credit card. Writing and Communication ChatGPT: A chat-style assistant for brainstorming, outlining, drafting, and quick research. You can even generate images. Grammarly: Real-time writing help that fixes grammar, suggests clearer phrasing, and adjusts tone in Gmail, Google Docs, and more. ElevenLabs: Turns text into realistic voiceovers—perfect for videos, demos, and audiobooks. Tools That Save You Time Zapier: Connects your apps and automates busywork. Example: when a lead emails you, add them to a sh...