I’ve written a lot about Zelle fraud in recent months, as banks keep erroneously rejecting victims’ requests for “refunds” after their money is stolen. NBC recently reported on the story and asked me to help. Their piece does a good job of illustrating the scope of the crime – based [Keep reading]
One of my favorite subjects is the problem of shortened attention spans and the fallacy of multitasking in the digital age. Tech competes for our eyes and ears perhaps thousands of times each day. The average worker only gets a few moments to focus on something without being interrupted. Even [Keep reading]
When Facebook announced its grand cryptocurrency idea on Tuesday, the rebellious nature of crypto-coins — decentralized, anonymous, not backed by a government — was decidedly missing. Facebook has a highly sophisticated way of identifying users, said its currency would be back by real money, and “Libra” seems anything but libertarian. [Keep reading]
The side hustle? It’s a trap! And if we’re not careful, we’re going to end up with a new economic category: The Four-Income Household. In fact, we might already be there. A new Bankrate survey found that 45% of American workers say they have a side hustle. At the moment, [Keep reading]
“Working too hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack. You oughta know by now.” It’s the official start of summer, and if you haven’t planned your vacation yet, you aren’t alone. Americans are terrible at taking vacations, terrible at relaxing — terrible at shutting down and rebooting. I think I [Keep reading]
Does your power company know when you get home at night? Does it know how often you use your microwave oven? In this week’s week’s episode of So, Bob, we examine the sometimes controversial topic of smart meters. They have great potential to help cities manage the increasing power demands [Keep reading]
How would you feel if you discovered your smartphone was recording you while you sleep without your knowledge? Last year, co-host Alia Tavakolian came to me when she discovered a sleep app had made dozens of such recordings. Worse yet, to hear what was on the files, she had to [Keep reading]
I’ve spent a year working with Alia Tavakolian and Spoke Media developing this podcast, and I’ve spent almost 25 years preparing for it. So, please give it a try. Click play below, if a play button appears, or click on this Stitcher link or this iTunes link. I started [Keep reading]
Every once in a while, a passion project becomes something real. And I’m over-the-moon to share with you news of our new podcast, called “So…Bob?” — a weekly conversation about the unintended consequences of technology. I haven’t been this excited about a new project since the birth of The Red [Keep reading]
Stealing money using Zelle is apparently as easy as adding a phone number to a consumer’s checking account, and then telling the bank to “Zelle” money to a hacker-controlled account — at least in some cases. When following up my story earlier this week about consumers who don’t even use [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan