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A federal appeals court has ruled that border agents can manually search your phone without any suspicion whatsoever. The Fourth Circuit's decision, highlighted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, draws a line between manual and forensic searches, but critics argue that distinction offers cold comfort when your entire digital life sits in an agent's hands.
Shifting to money and artificial intelligence, new data from Opinium finds that eighty percent of Gen Z investors now turn to AI for financial guidance, compared to just seventeen percent of Baby Boomers. That gap tells a generational story about trust and convenience, but researchers warn that AI tools carry no fiduciary duty and precious little accountability when the advice goes wrong.
And on the lighter side of hardware ingenuity, an Egyptian developer has managed to squeeze five hundred thirty seven thousand blocked ad domains into just four megabytes of flash memory on a five dollar microcontroller. The tiny ESP thirty two device sits quietly on your network and filters unwanted traffic without a subscription, a server, or a monthly fee.
Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
