Want Google out of your life? It’s pretty easy to find alternative search, email, and photo storage providers, but it’s much harder to come up with a mobile operating system that’s free of Google. The obvious answer is an iPhone, but if you want Google out of your life, you probably don’t want to immediately replace it with Apple. While a little better from a privacy standpoint, Apple is still not great.
Fear not, privacy-conscious WIRED reader, there are alternatives to Android. Technically speaking, most alternative mobile operating systems are based on Android, not alternatives to it, but these various projects all remove Google and Google-related services (to varying degrees) from the system. Typically that means all the Google services are stripped out and replaced with some alternative code (usually the micro g project), which is then sandboxed in some way to isolate it and restrict what it has access to. The result is a phone that is less dependent on Google, pries less into your privacy, and sometimes might offer a more secure experience. However, at their core, these are all still based on Android.
If you want a true alternative to Android, there are a few. I am sorry to say, free software fans, the best and most functional alternative to Android is still iOS. Most people looking for Android alternatives are not, however, looking to switch to an Apple device. There are a couple of Linux-based phone systems out there, most notably SailfishOS, which can run Android apps (I will be testing this next), but in my testing, none of the Linux-based operating systems are ready to be your everyday device.
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Why De-Google Your Phone?
First off, you don’t have to remove Google. There are plenty of people happily running Google Services on LineageOS just because they want to tinker with the system and expand the capabilities of their phones. That’s a fine reason to dive into the world of Android alternatives.
Still, you don’t have to have a nice tinfoil hat to know that Google’s privacy record is laughable. De-Googling your phone is a way of enjoying the convenience of having a smartphone without sharing everything you do with Google and every app that takes advantage of its APIs. Should you be able to participate in the technological world without trading your privacy to do so? I think so, and that’s why I’ve used an Android alternative, GrapheneOS, for more than five years.
What Is the Android Open Source Project?
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Google’s Android mobile operating system is open source, which means anyone can, in theory, build their own mobile operating system based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The AOSP just provides a base, though. There is much more to a mobile operating system than just the underlying code.
Android’s operating system may be open source, but it runs device-specific drivers and Google’s various Play Services application programming interfaces (APIs) with a suite of built-in apps for basic functionality. All of this stuff is another layer atop the Android operating system, and it’s this layer that’s very difficult for other projects to reproduce. It’s not hard for projects to get the AOSP code running, but it’s difficult to create a great mobile user experience on top, which is why the list of good de-Googled Android alternatives is short.
What Is the Bootloader and Why Is It Locked?
The bootloader is a piece of code that allows you to change which software boots up on your phone. The manufacturer of your phone puts a cryptographic key on the phone, the public read-only key. When an update is released, the manufacturer signs the update, and when the phone gets the update, it checks to make sure the signature matches the key. If it does, it applies the update, and if it doesn’t match it doesn’t. This is basic security and protects your device, but it also prevents you from loading another operating system, so one of the first things you’ll do when installing one of these de-Googled operating systems is unlock the bootloader.
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Then you install the OS you want to install and then … you probably don’t relock the bootloader because most of the time that won’t work. This is why Pixel phones are popular with people who like to tinker and customize, because you can relock the bootloader on Pixels (and a handful of others), but by and large most people using alternative OSes just live with an unlocked bootloader. It’s not ideal, it’s a security vulnerability, but there’s also not a good solution aside from saying, get a Pixel.
Apple’s iOS does offer more privacy features than stock Android. In my experience, it’s a fine operating system, but it is still very tightly coupled to Apple. Sure, you can avoid iCloud, run your own syncing software, and not use Apple’s various tools, but to do that you’ll be fighting the phone every step of the way. If iOS works for you, that’s great, but for a lot of us, a de-Googled Android phone is just easier to use and more convenient.
Best Preinstalled Phone: Fairphone 6 With /e/OS
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
Fairphone
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Fairphone (6th Gen, /e/OS)
The best de-Googled phone experience for most people is going to be Murena’s /e/OS version of the Fairphone 6. Not only does it offer the full /e/OS experience out of the box, with a strong focus on privacy and blocking apps from tracking you, but the Fairphone hardware is repairable, the battery replaceable, and the bootloader is locked. The catch, if you’re in the United States, is that the Fairphone 6 only works with T-Mobile and its MVNOs. Somewhat ironically, it worked great on GoogleFi when editor Julian Chokkattu tested it last year. I tested it using T-Mobile’s prepaid plan, as well as RedPocket’s T-Mobile-based service, and had no issues with either.
The Fairphone 6 gets even better when you put /e/OS on it. Thanks to the privacy-first design of /e/OS, apps no longer track you, but they do still work 99 percent of the time, which is often not the case with some apps on alternate OSes (looking at you, banking apps).
The core of the privacy features in /e/OS revolve around the Advanced Privacy app and widget. Here you can block (or chose to allow) in-app trackers, and there are other features such as hiding your IP address or geolocation when you feel like it. The IP and geo-spoofing are nice for limited-use cases, but the main privacy feature for most of us is the ability to block trackers in apps—and it turns out there are a lot of those.
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Murena also ships /e/OS with a very nice custom app store, the App Lounge. It’s similar to the Play Store, but with extras like privacy information about each app. Under each listing in the App Lounge you’ll see a grade from 1 to 10, where 1 is horrible for privacy and 10 generally means no trackers. The App Lounge also grades apps according to which permissions they require. The fewer permissions (like access to your photos or geodata), the higher the rating.
Although [Jamie’s Brick Jams] has made many far more complicated motor design in the past, it’s nice to go back to the basics and make a motor that uses as few parts as possible. This particular design starts off with a driver coil and a magnetic rotor that uses two neodymium magnets. By balancing these magnets on both sides of an axis just right it should spin smoothly.
The circuit for the simple motor. (Credit: Jamie’s Brick Jams, YouTube)
First this driver coil is energized with a 9 V battery to confirm that it does in fact spin when briefly applying power, though this means that you need to constantly apply pulses of power to make it keep spinning. To this end a second coil is added, which senses when a magnet passes by.
This sense coil is connected to a small circuit containing a TIP31C NPN power transistor and a LED. While the transistor is probably overkill here, it’ll definitely work. The circuit is shown in the image, with the transistor pins from left to right being Base-Collector-Emitter. This means that the sensor coil being triggered by a passing magnet turns the transistor on for a brief moment, which sends a surge of power through the driver coil, thus pushing the rotor in a typical kicker configuration.
Obviously, the polarity matters here, so switching the leads of one of the coils may be needed if it doesn’t want to spin. The LED is technically optional as well, but it provides an indicator of activity. From this basic design a larger LEGO motor is also built that contains many more magnets in a disc along with two circular coils, but even the first version turns out to be more than powerful enough to drive a little car around.
Lenses sure can be expensive for mirrorless cameras. When I first bought a Nikon Z camera, I picked up the versatile 24-70mm F2.8 S to go with it, and that fabulous lens tied me over for a few years until I could afford a second one.
Recently, I have been able to pick up a few more optics because I have found an affordable alternative that doesn’t compromise on quality, and that’s Viltrox.
I have a few Viltrox prime lenses now, and couldn’t be more impressed. Take the new 35mm F1.2 Lab – it’s a pro-quality prime ideal for reportage photography and, despite being Viltrox’s priciest lens for mirrorless cameras, it costs just one-third the price of Nikon’s. It’s the same story across the range.
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Viltrox makes autofocus lenses for full-frame and APS-C mirrorless cameras, focusing on Sony E, Nikon Z, andFujifilm X, and recently released its first L-mount lens, the AF 16mm F1.8.
All Viltrox lenses are well-made, shoot sharp shots, and cost so much less. The only real compromise versus pricier proprietary alternatives is that Viltrox lenses can be a little heavier, and autofocus speed in older models can be a fractionally slower. Otherwise, you’re getting the same performance and quality at a significantly lower price.
Viltrox currently only makes prime lenses, ranging between 14mm and 135mm focal lengths for full-frame, or between 9mm to 75mm for APS-C. I’ve included some of my top picks below, and for the full range, check out viltrox.com.
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Written by
Written by
Timothy Coleman
I have worked as a tech journalist, photographer and videographer for over 15 years, and three years ago I took the reins as TechRadar’s Cameras Editor. I’ve reviewed all the major camera gear during this time, and personally have six Viltrox lenses in my collection (and have used many more), in addition to proprietary glass. My workhorse camera is a Nikon Z8.
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9 of my favorite Viltrox lenses
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According to sources familiar with Lenovo’s plans, the device is slated to debut at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, scheduled for March 2 to 5. It marks the company’s first detachable refresh in two years. Read Entire Article Source link
Our slow-moving queue curves around a two-story wooden boathouse filled with props from explorations through distant lands. At the front of the line, a Disney cast member dressed in khaki helps us step onto a quaint little boat for a tour around the jungle.
This is Disneyland’s world-famous Jungle Cruise, filled with animatronic animals and painful puns from your skipper, and old-world set pieces depicting scenes straight out of the Amazon, Congo, Mekong and Nile rivers. It’s a ride that Walt Disney himself had a hand in developing, but something new is coming that separates it from its 1950s origins: a 3D-printed prop.
You may have seen small-scale 3D printing being done by hobbyists at home. But that’s child’s play compared to what industrial-scale 3D-printing workshops can do.
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Haddy, a 3D-printing business based in Florida, says it can build worlds. More specifically, Jay Rogers, co-founder and CEO, tells me the company is installing its first boat in a Disney park.
“It’s in the Jungle Cruise ride,” he says during Disney Demo Day at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, at the end of last year.
3D printing burst onto the scene in the mid-2010s. These printers take little pellets or strands of polymer or liquid resin and turn them into fully fleshed-out designs, like the purple toy octopus and Prada purse that my 3-year-old daughter got from her Uncle Zach for her recent birthday. Using a digital file, you can send a project to the printer to produce — whether it’s a small octopus or an armchair.
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The lit-up Mickey shape hanging from the tree at Walt Disney Studios was 3D-printed by Haddy.
Corinne Reichert/CNET
You can buy small 3D printers, priced between $180 and $400, for home projects, while larger operations require enormous machines that churn out items as big as cafe counters and even houses.
Haddy’s Jungle Cruise boat is a prop canoe that has now been placed on the ride at Disneyland, becoming part of the scenic journey alongside those fake animals on the banks of the Amazon-Congo-Nile-Mekong river.
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Walt Disney Imagineering collaborated closely with the Haddy team to adapt the plans for the boat, ensuring it captured the spirit of the existing props while using 3D-printing technology.
“We had the old boat, and we did do a 3D scan in order to get it dimensionally,” Chris Hill, associate R&D imagineer for Disney, said in January when Disneyland installed the canoe right across from the loading dock. “For the creative part of it, we had a photo of the boat from the 1960s, and so using the dimensions from the 3D scan, I modeled the new boat, which is what we used to 3D print the boat.”
Imagineers 3D-scanned their old canoe, as well as using a reference photo of the boat from the 1960s to create a new one that could be 3D-printed.
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Disney
Do 3D-printed boats have that Disney whimsy?
Founded in 2022, Haddy creates home decor like planters, and furniture like outdoor benches, chairs and tables. Its gig of working with Disney’s Imagineers came about after it was selected as one of the four startups to receive financing, platforming and mentoring via the 2025 Disney Accelerator Program.
Rogers says Haddy can quickly transform imagination into reality, saving a lot of time (and presumably money, although the companies wouldn’t provide specifics). This is in addition to being able to recycle any 3D-printed material for new objects, because once a prop reaches the end of its life, it can be melted down and 3D-printed again into something new.
A 20-foot boat made by a traditional boat-maker can take 1,000 human hours, but not so for the Jungle Cruise canoe prop, says Rogers. “It’s not just faster to make, it’s faster to develop.”
He describes the traditional process, which unfolds over weeks and months: designing the boat, creating and securing a master mold, repeating the mold-making process an average of 30 times per boat and then manufacturing the parts that go onto the boat.
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By comparison, it would take Haddy 70 robot hours in manufacturing. Both processes use a digital file as a starting point. The difference is that Haddy can simply make tweaks to the file and reprint the boat if there are any problems with the final product — no more mold-making necessary.
The new 3D-printed prop canoe at Disneyland.
Disney
Nick Blackburn, executive of technical business operations at Disney, says his team went to a series of conventions and conferences to find the right company to partner with on 3D printing.
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“This project right now is the premiere project that we’re working on to show that we can use advanced fabrication, robotic manufacturing and new materials to bring parks to life faster and more effectively,” Blackburn says.
Still, how much of the whimsy remains? Can a 3D-printed boat evoke the same feelings of nostalgia and fantasy as the ride’s existing set pieces?
During Disney’s Demo Day, I spot what appears to be a wrought iron fence leaning against a tree, and Rogers says it was 3D-printed. Maybe guests won’t even notice if a boat is made of polymer instead of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, and printed by a robot.
Even the light fixtures in the Main Theatre at Walt Disney Studios, where I had just watched a video showcasing various new technologies being used by startups backed by Disney, were made by Haddy for this event. (I had assumed the intricate, glowing blue lights were a remnant of when Frozen 2 was being workshopped in the theater.)
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Haddy’s 3D-printed gate looks just like wrought iron.
Disney
Perhaps 3D-printed objects have a whimsy of their own? CNET Senior Editor James Bricknell, an expert on 3D printing, says yes. The canoe would not only have all the whimsy that an Imagineer can conjure, but would also be manufactured faster and in a far less expensive way — and would definitely float.
“It’s a brilliant idea,” Bricknell says. “You can make them look any way you like, just like the normal boats, but instead of injection molding, you can make each one individual for much less cost.”
Walt Disney Imagineering is “the tip of the spear when it comes to emerging technologies” like AI, robotics and drones, according to Michael Hundgen, portfolio executive creative producer of Walt Disney Imagineering.
With Haddy, Imagineers are exploring the creation of set pieces for attractions in Disney’s theme parks. Beyond the Jungle Cruise, these products could also include closet doors from Monstropolis — for the new Monsters, Inc. ride being constructed at Walt Disney World — and rock work for various lands, such as Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. There might even be the creation of furniture for thousands of hotel rooms across the Orlando property.
“We’re not just creating technology for technology’s sake; we’re doing it to help our creative teams bring the stories from the company to life,” Hundgen says.
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So now it’s out with the fiberglass-reinforced plastic and in with the polymer pellets. We’ll have to see whether guests truly can tell the difference between the old props and the new.
Google has just updated the Deep Think mode for its Gemini 3 model, and it’s a massive step forward for chores involving 3D printing. For the unaware, Deep Think mode focuses on enhanced multimodal understanding and reasoning, and its latest upgrade pushes it further for engineering, research, and scientific tasks. The core focus is going from theoretical to practical applications. One of those application areas is 3D printing.
Essentially, Gemini 3 Deep Think is going to turn your rough sketches into a proper 3D model and generate a file ready for feeding to a 3D printer. What you have here is a tool that can basically take a look at physical objects or a 2D image, and turn them into a 3D blueprint while making changes you request in natural language.
Gave Gemini 3 Deep Think an image of a 3D spider web and asked for an interactive design tool. It generated a full design suite (procedural control, simulation, optimization) with STL export capability. I used it to engineer new metamaterials and a spider-web inspired bridge… pic.twitter.com/fMrdCjuzMG
For anyone interested in 3D printing, even for personal usage, going from idea to execution is a hassle. You must know CAD modeling, own the right software, and have a powerful computing machine to turn those ideas into a 3D file. The whole process is pretty intensive and time-consuming, in addition to posing a steep learning curve. And when it comes to product prototyping in engineering labs, or even companies testing new products, the whole ordeal of physics modeling and prototyping ends up taking a lot of time and resources.
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With Gemini 3 Deep Think, Google wants to replace those technical challenges, letting users go from ideas to the 3D printing stage without having to deal with complex physics-based modeling and software. But it’s not just the sheer convenience of turning drawings into 3D files that is going to speed things up.
Google
Iterating on an existing design is an equally crucial step, and Gemini 3 Deep Think is aiming to ease that, as well. The benefits are huge, not just for DIY enthusiasts but also for material scientists, engineers, and product developers.
A huge practical shift for AI
“I used it to engineer new metamaterials and a spider-web inspired bridge design, 3D printed it, then validated the structural integrity with a @nvidia DGX Spark load test. A mind-blowing example of the future of material and architecture design – image in, fabrication-ready design out,” Markus Buehler, an engineering professor at MIT, wrote on X.
Gemini 3 Deep Think is getting an upgrade 🧠 By blending deep scientific knowledge with advanced engineering utility, Deep Think now moves beyond abstract theory to drive practical applications.
Researchers are already using it to accelerate their work in the real world:
Taking a conversation approach to fixing and tweaking the complex models of objects, and then having a CAD model ready for printing in minutes, is a huge step forward. Gemini 3 Deep Think is available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app, and it will also be made available via API for the first time to interested companies and researchers.
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
In recent years, power tool brands have been going head-to-head when it comes to making modular storage solutions, including Ryobi. Utilizing a common locking interface that works with its wall and mobile system, the Ryobi Link Modular System gives you the option to use compatible products with both. As of writing, Ryobi lists 63 Ryobi Link Modular System products and kits on its official website that span everything from slot boxes, hooks, baskets, cabinets, to all sorts of organizers. It’s interesting to note that it also markets it for storing non-tool products as well, such as sports gear.
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To get the best of both worlds, you’ll want to invest first in its Link Accessory Rails, which measure 10 inches by 2.5 inches, and it can hold up to 75 lbs per linear foot of weight. After that, you may want to consider the Link Rolling Base that can serve as a base for stacking your mobile solutions. With swiveling casters and lockable front wheels, it’s designed to carry up to 200 lbs.
That said, it’s important to note that Ryobi only mentions 54 products that work with its mobile storage options. Because of this, some products like the Stowaway Wall Mounted Workbench are more of a fixed space-saving solution, since there is no compatible mobile storage mechanism. Not to mention, this isn’t the only issue owners have raised before, since reviews for the Ryobi Link Modular System have been a mixed bag.
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What do users have to say about the Ryobi Link Modular System?
While Ryobi is a generally beloved brand for other product lines, it does fall short of expectations for storage, and it’s on the lower end of our list for major portable tool box brands. As for its Link modular storage line up in particular, users have lamented a slew of common problems that include issues with durability, not holding up its end of the bargain in terms of water resistance, and lack of stability for its cabinet offers.
If you still want to give the basic set up a go, its 7-piece Wall Storage Kit is pretty highly-rated with its wall rails, pair of utility hooks, two power tool hooks, and double organizer bin. Priced at just under $65, more than 140 people have rated it 4.8 stars on average on the official Ryobi website. On the other hand, it has a slightly lower, but still mostly positive 4.6-star rating from almost 400 Home Depot customers. In the same vein, Home Depot also sells the $189 20-piece Ryobi Link Wallet Storage Kit, which boasts a similar average rating of 4.6 stars from around 640 users.
If you’re wondering how much you should expect to spend on each type, its cheapest attachment is its Link Reversible J Hook, which is sold for just under $6. On the other hand, the most expensive Link-compatible product is the $219 Link Speed Bench Mobile Work Station.
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Who will benefit from using the Ryobi Link Modular System
While at first glance, one may assume that the people who can benefit the most from investing in the Ryobi Link Modular System are those who already use Ryobi tools, it’s quite flexible even if you use other systems. On the Tool Review Zone YouTube Channel, they mention how it’s the most heavy duty system for wall organization that they’ve tried, as well as the easiest to set up. If you care about aesthetics, they recommend painting it, in case you prefer power tools from other brands. That being said, other popular brands have also rolled out similar solutions that may be a better fit for your needs.
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In the past, we’ve mentioned before how satisfied Milwaukee Packout kit owners were, and how they thought it was worth the premium price point when used properly. In a comparison video, YouTube creator Ben Grimsley Woodworking mentions that the Link’s honeycomb design that locks with a button isn’t as stable as Milwaukee’s sliding lock system, and also lamented how the Link-compatible tool boxes don’t offer as much variety in terms of internal storage boxes. They did agree that it’s impressive for its relatively cheaper price, though.
Alternatively, you can get a pretty comprehensive Craftsman 230-piece Mechanics Tool Set for under $200, which slots perfectly with the VersaStack system. If you think both price points are still too expensive, you can get a similar experience for wall storage using pegboards instead, which make for a great budget DIY solution for workbench clutter.
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Methodology
To help you decide if Ryobi’s Link Modular system is worth it, we rounded up feedback from a variety of sources for a comprehensive view of its performance. In order to understand how it functions as a whole, we considered what people liked and didn’t like about it as both as system and its key components.
Apart from general average ratings across multiple platforms, such as the official Ryobi website and Home Depot, we also referenced issues raised by dedicated reviewers from official product pages, reputable publishers, YouTube creators, and other members of the SlashGear team. Lastly, we referenced alternative modular storage solutions with unique features that may appeal to those who are flexible with a higher or lower budget.
There are many applications where you have limits on how much you can cram into a particular space. There are also many applications where you need as much battery as you can get. At the intersection of those applications, you may soon be able to 3D print custom batteries to fit into oddly shaped spaces that might otherwise go to waste.
Commercial batteries are typically cylindrical or rectangular. In theory, you could build tooling to make batteries of any size or shape you want, but it’s an expensive process in small quantities. [Lawrence Ulrich] on Spectrum talks about a new process, developed by [Gabe Elias], that can print anodes, cathodes, separators, and casings for custom battery shapes with no costly tooling.
As an example, consider an unmanned aerial vehicle crammed with avionics. You could put off-the-shelf batteries in the wings, but you’ll end up wasting a lot of space. A custom battery could fill the wing’s interior completely. The post also mentions batteries shaped like the earpieces of a pair of smart glasses.
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A prototype showed that in the space of 48 cylindrical cells, the new process could deliver a printed battery that uses 35% more of the available volume and a 50% boost in energy density.
Could you do this yourself? Maybe, but it won’t be trivial. The current process requires a liquid electrolyte and the ability to produce thin layers of exotic materials. What oddly-shaped battery would you like to see? Us? We’d like to have a battery for a laptop that was spread uniformly so there wasn’t a heavy side that has the battery.
The lovely thing about the x86 architecture is its decades of backwards compatibility, which makes it possible to run 1990s operating systems on modern-day hardware, with relatively few obstacles in the way. Recently [Yeo Kheng Meng] did just that with Windows 98 SE on a 2020 ThinkPad P12s Gen 1, booting it alongside Windows 11 and Linux from the same NVMe drive.
Naturally, after previously getting MS-DOS 6.22 from 1994 running on a 2020 ThinkPad X13, the step to doing the same with Windows 98 SE wasn’t that large. The main obstacles that you face come in the form of UEFI and hardware driver support.
Both ThinkPad laptops have in common that they support UEFI-CSM mode, also known as ‘classical BIOS’, as UEFI boot wasn’t even a glimmer yet in some drunk engineer’s eye when Win98 was released. After this everything is about getting as many hardware drivers scrounged together as possible.
[Yeo] ended up having to bodge on a USB 2.0 expansion card via a Thunderbolt dock as Win98 doesn’t have xHCI (USB 3.0) support. With that issue successfully bodged around using a veritable tower of adapters, installing Windows 98 was as easy as nuking Secure Boot in the BIOS, enabling UEFI-CSM along with Thunderbolt BIOS assist mode and disable Kernel DMA protection.
Because UEFI-CSM implementations tend to be buggy, the CREGFIX DOS driver was used to smooth things over. Another issue is the same that we chuckled about back in the day, as Windows 98 cannot address more than 512 MB of RAM by default. Fortunately patches by [Rudolph Loew] helped to fix this and some other smaller issues.
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Unfortunately neither Intel nor NVIDIA have released Win98 drivers for quite some time, so there’s no graphics acceleration beyond basic VESA support and the SoftGPU driver. Disk access goes via the BIOS too rather than using an NVMe driver, so it’s not as zippy as it could be, but for Win9x it’s quite usable.
Finally ACPI wasn’t recognized by Win98, but it’s only fair to blame that on the complete flaming train wreck that is ACPI rather than anything to do with Windows. This particular issue was worked around by configuring the BIOS to support S3 power state and with that making Win98 happy again.
It’s honestly quite a shame that UEFI-CSM is largely ignored by new systems, as it makes installing even Windows 7 basically impossible, and thus creating probably the largest split within the x86 ecosystem since the arrival of AMD64/x86_64.
Happy Valentine’s Day. Don’t let romance scams — which ramp up around the holiday and are at an all-time high — break your heart.
These scams cost Americans $3 billion last year alone. That’s almost certainly an undercount, given victims’ particular reluctance to report that they’ve fallen for such ruses.
Many romance scams fall under the umbrella of so-called “pig-butchering” scams, in which fraudsters build relationships with and gain the trust of victims over long periods of time. The moniker is a crude reference to fattening up a pig before the slaughter — and they go for the whole hog, repeatedly attempting to extract money from the target. Between 2020 and 2024, these scams defrauded more than $75 billion from people around the world.
Now, AI is making these scams increasingly accessible, affordable, and profitable for scammers. In the past, romance scammers had to have a strong grasp of the English language if they wanted to effectively scam Americans. According to Fred Heiding, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School who studies AI and cybersecurity, AI-enabled translation has completely removed that roadblock — and scammers now have millions more potential victims at their disposal.
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AI is fundamentally changing the scale, serving as a force multiplier for scammers. A single person who used to manage a few scams at a time can use these toolkits to run 20 or more simultaneously, Chris Nyhuis, the founder of cybersecurity firm Vigilant, told me over email. AI-assisted scams are significantly more profitable than traditional ones, and they’re increasingly cheap and easy to run.
On the dark web, fraudsters can purchase romance scam toolkits complete with customer support, user reviews, and tiered pricing packages. These toolkits come with pre-built fake personas with AI-generated photosets, conversation scripts for each stage of the scam, and deepfake video tools, Nyhuis told me. “The skill barrier to entry is essentially gone.”
I wondered if romance scammers might automate themselves out of a job, but the Kennedy School’s Heiding told me that “oftentimes it’s just augmentation, rather than complete automation.” Many of the scammers are also victims themselves, with at least 220,000 people trapped in scam centers in Southeast Asia and forced to defraud targets, facing terrible abuse if they refuse. Leveraging AI means “the crime syndicates [who run these centers] will probably just have better profit margins,” Heiding said.
For now, there’s a human being behind the scenes of the scams, even if they’re just pressing start on an AI agent. But apart from that, it can be fully automated. At the moment, Heiding told me, AI isn’t much better than human romance scammers, but the technology evolves rapidly. In 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat the world’s best human go player in a landslide. Human forecasters think that AI is set to far outpace their ability to predict the future very soon.
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“I wouldn’t be surprised [if] within a few years or a decade, we have AI scammers that are just thinking in completely different patterns than humans,” Heiding said. “And unfortunately, they probably will be really, really good at persuading us.”
What’s love got to do with it?
Romance scams are unique: They target a core human need for love and connection. You may have heard that we’re in a loneliness epidemic, officially declared by the US Surgeon General in 2023, with health risks on par with smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Social isolation is linked to higher rates of heart disease, dementia, depression, and even premature death – and reportedly, 1 in 6 people worldwide are lonely. And lonely people make for prime targets.
Fraudsters send out initial AI-generated messages to prospective victims. Over time, they use lovebombing techniques to convince them that they are in a romantic relationship. Once trust is established, they make requests for money through methods that are difficult to recover like gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency. They will often make up crises that require urgent transfers. They might ghost the victim after reaching their goals, or continue the scam to squeeze more out of them.
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AI romance scams use deepfake video calls, “cheap fake” social media profiles, and voice cloning technology like other AI-enabled scams to draw people in. But according to Nyhuis, they’re “uniquely dangerous because of what they exploit. Phishing uses urgency; tech support scams use fear. Romance scams use love, which can make people think irrationally or overlook their gut feeling that something is wrong.”
Older adults often experience social isolation and are frequently targeted by romance scammers. Retirement and bereavement can create circumstances that scammers deliberately manipulate, making victims feel seen and cared for, even as they steal their life savings and the homes where they plan to spend their retirement years. But anyone can be deceived by these scams. Despite being digital natives, Gen Z is three timesmore vulnerable to online scams than older generations since they spend so much time online, although they tend to have — and therefore lose — less money than older victims.
Here’s something else that will break your heart: Scam victims are more likely to be targeted again. Scammers create profiles of their targets, sometimes adding them to “sucker lists” shared across criminal networks. Victims of other crimes are also more likely to be revictimized, and falling prey to a romance scam isn’t a moral failing on the part of the target.
But it is something to be on guard against, since the vast majority of scam victims will not be able to get their money back. About 15 percent of Americans have lost money to online romance scams, and only 1 in 4 were able to recover all the stolen funds.
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Romance scams thrive in shame and secrecy. Victims are sometimes blackmailed and told that if they confide in people in their lives, the scammers will expose sensitive information. Sanchari Das, an assistant professor and AI researcher at George Mason University, and Ruba Abu-Salma, a senior lecturer in computer science at King’s College London, received a Google Academic Research Award to study AI-powered romance scams targeting older adults in 13 countries. Their research examines how AI tools can amplify traditional scam tactics and how families and communities can better support the victims.
The researchers are building connections with gerontological societies, and aim to build educational tools to support AI romance scam victims. There’s a fair amount of information already out there about prevention, but very little directing victims what to do next.
Like so many people, I met my partner online. I’m grateful that we started dating in the late 2010s, before the explosion of AI-generated profiles on apps and dating sites.
AI is getting better at tricking people across the board. It has massively improved at rendering hands, a formerly reliable tell for deepfakes, and it learns from its mistakes. “As these technologies improve, traditional signals for spotting manipulation are no longer dependable,” Das said. “At the same time, we are leveraging AI to counter these threats by detecting scam patterns, forecasting emerging tactics, and strengthening protective responses. The goal is to build systems and communities that are as adaptive as the technology itself.”
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Society is also getting increasingly desensitized to AI romance. One study found that almost a third of Americans had an intimate or romantic relationship with an AI chatbot. The 2013 movie Her, in which a man falls in love with an AI voiced by Scarlett Johansson, was set in 2025. It wasn’t too far off the mark.
AI chatbots are purposefully designed to keep people engaged. Many use a “freemium” model, in which basic services don’t cost anything, but charge a premium for longer conversations and more personalized interactions. Some “companion bots” are designed to make users form deep connections. Even though people know that the “significant other” is AI, these companion bot apps sell user data for targeted advertising and aren’t transparent about their privacy policies. Is that not also a sort of intimacy scam, a way to extract resources from lonely people for as long as possible?
There are steps you can take to protect your heart, wallet, and peace of mind. It seems obvious, but refusing to send money to someone you haven’t met in person will stop a romance scam in its tracks. You can demand spontaneous video calls, and ask the person on the other end to do something random; deepfakes still struggle with “unscripted” actions.
“Be suspicious of anyone you’ve never met in person — that’s the only safe approach in a digital world increasingly filled with scams,” Konstantin Levinzon, the co-founder of free VPN service provider PlanetVPN, said in a press release. “If someone you meet on a dating site seems suspicious, perform a reverse image search to check if their pictures are stolen from other sources. And if the conversation shifts to money, or if someone asks for personal information, leave the conversation immediately.”
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You can also use a VPN to obscure your location, since scammers might track users’ location and try to personalize their scams based on the target’s city or country. If you are scammed, reporting early to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Federal Trade Commission, and your bank increases the chances that you’ll be able to recover the stolen funds. Several nonprofitsoffersupport for victims of romance scams.
“No matter how alone you feel right now, no matter how embarrassed you are, you will recover from this and one day look back and see how you made it through it,” Nyhuis said. “These scammers are good at removing hope. Don’t let them take that from you.”
Doom scrolling is doomed, if the EU gets its way. From a report: The European Commission is for the first time tackling the addictiveness of social media in a fight against TikTok that may set new design standards for the world’s most popular apps. Brussels has told the company to change several key features, including disabling infinite scrolling, setting strict screen time breaks and changing its recommender systems. The demand follows the Commission’s declaration that TikTok’s design is addictive to users — especially children.
The fact that the Commission said TikTok should change the basic design of its service is “ground-breaking for the business model fueled by surveillance and advertising,” said Katarzyna Szymielewicz, president of the Panoptykon Foundation, a Polish civil society group. That doesn’t bode well for other platforms, particularly Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. The two social media giants are also under investigation over the addictiveness of their design.
![Heathrow has said passenger numbers were 60% lower in November than before the coronavirus pandemic and there were “high cancellations” among business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas for Christmas as Omicron spreads. The UK’s largest airport said the government’s travel restrictions had dealt a fresh blow to travel confidence and predicted it was likely to take several years for passenger numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels. This week ministers said passengers arriving in the UK would have to take a pre-departure Covid test, as well as a post-flight test, because of fears about the spread of the new variant. “[The] high level of cancellations by business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas because of pre-departure testing shows the potential harm to the economy of travel restrictions,” the airport said in an update. Heathrow said the drop in traveller confidence owing to the new travel restrictions had negated the benefit of reopening the all-important corridor to North America for business and holiday travel last month. Eleven African countries have been added to the government’s red list, requiring travellers to quarantine before reuniting with families. “By allowing Brits to isolate at home, ministers can make sure they are reunited with their loved ones this Christmas,” said John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow. “It would send a strong signal that restrictions on travel will be removed as soon as safely possible to give passengers the confidence to book for 2022, opening up thousands of new jobs for local people at Heathrow. Let’s reunite families for Christmas.” Heathrow said that if the government could safely signal that restrictions would be lifted soon, then employers at Heathrow would have the confidence to hire thousands of staff in anticipation of a boost in business next summer. The airport is expecting a slow start to 2022, finishing next year with about 45 million passengers – just over half of pre-pandemic levels. This week Tui, Europe’s largest package holiday operator, said it expected bookings for next summer to bounce back to 2019 levels. However, Heathrow said on Friday not to expect the aviation industry to recover for several years. “We do not expect that international travel will recover to 2019 levels until at least all travel restrictions (including testing) are removed from all the markets that we serve, at both ends of the route, and there is no risk of new restrictions, such as quarantine, being imposed,” the airport said.](https://wordupnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/shutterstock_1100012546-scaled-400x240.jpg)
![Heathrow has said passenger numbers were 60% lower in November than before the coronavirus pandemic and there were “high cancellations” among business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas for Christmas as Omicron spreads. The UK’s largest airport said the government’s travel restrictions had dealt a fresh blow to travel confidence and predicted it was likely to take several years for passenger numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels. This week ministers said passengers arriving in the UK would have to take a pre-departure Covid test, as well as a post-flight test, because of fears about the spread of the new variant. “[The] high level of cancellations by business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas because of pre-departure testing shows the potential harm to the economy of travel restrictions,” the airport said in an update. Heathrow said the drop in traveller confidence owing to the new travel restrictions had negated the benefit of reopening the all-important corridor to North America for business and holiday travel last month. Eleven African countries have been added to the government’s red list, requiring travellers to quarantine before reuniting with families. “By allowing Brits to isolate at home, ministers can make sure they are reunited with their loved ones this Christmas,” said John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow. “It would send a strong signal that restrictions on travel will be removed as soon as safely possible to give passengers the confidence to book for 2022, opening up thousands of new jobs for local people at Heathrow. Let’s reunite families for Christmas.” Heathrow said that if the government could safely signal that restrictions would be lifted soon, then employers at Heathrow would have the confidence to hire thousands of staff in anticipation of a boost in business next summer. The airport is expecting a slow start to 2022, finishing next year with about 45 million passengers – just over half of pre-pandemic levels. This week Tui, Europe’s largest package holiday operator, said it expected bookings for next summer to bounce back to 2019 levels. However, Heathrow said on Friday not to expect the aviation industry to recover for several years. “We do not expect that international travel will recover to 2019 levels until at least all travel restrictions (including testing) are removed from all the markets that we serve, at both ends of the route, and there is no risk of new restrictions, such as quarantine, being imposed,” the airport said.](https://wordupnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/shutterstock_1100012546-scaled-80x80.jpg)
