Throw together a presidential election, pivots to food delivery, and a growing skepticism of surveillance tech, and here’s what you get: A rare moment in the spotlight for an eerie new technology.

“Geofencing” means using location data to isolate who is — or was — at a given venue. And it’s everywhere. 

Coming to pick up your steel cut oatmeal from Panera? The store will get an alert once you’ve rolled into the parking lot. Grabbing your hair clippers from Walmart? Same deal. 

They’re all up in your location data

Groups like CatholicVote.org pick key churches, track the people who attend, and then buy up their data and flood them with political messages. 

The Wall Street Journal found that political groups used geofencing to gobble up the data of Black Lives Matter protesters en masse. Have location services enabled? You might get geofenced.  

Geofencing is also popular among law enforcement agencies. Say a robbery took place at 9:01pm at an Arby’s — police will likely hit up Google for info on who was in the area.

They’ve sent geofencing warrants at a soaring rate since 2017. 

But activists call it unconstitutional

A bill to ban the tactic is picking up steam in New York state.

While geofencing has helped solve some murders and home invasions, it  has also led to mistaken arrests of people who were near a crime but had no role in it.

The scope of geofencing warrants tend to be very broad. And in one Virginia bank robbery case, defense lawyers are giving geofencing its first real constitutional challenge.

These warrants, the lawyers wrote, lack probable cause: They are “the digital equivalent of searching bags of every person walking along Broadway because of a theft in Times Square.”

As the weather heats up, a new type of sharing economy has taken hold — and Americans are diving in headfirst.

Meeting them in the deep end: A 2-year-old pool rental startup called Swimply. The company first made a splash back in February and March, when its app saw bookings jump 1,200% — as we all became shut-ins.

Now, as spring madness melts into summertime sadness, demand for Swimply pools is 4x the supply. Backyard pools and hot tubs are sold out everywhere, so we have no choice but to rent a good time.

My personal pool brings all the neighbors to the yard

Booking on Swimply works like Airbnb: You toggle through pools in your area, then rent your favorite for a few hours.

You get the whole backyard area to yourself — and for privacy, some hosts promise to keep their window shades drawn while you practice your cannonballs.

Prices depend on where you are: $35-40 will book you an hour in Scottsdale, Arizona, but in New York City, you might have to pony up $50-100.

Once you’re done, the hosts clean the pool and kick it over to the next guest.

The summer sharing economy is inflating

Boat rentals are also jetting off right now. The startup Boatsetter told Vox its bookings were up 40% in May compared to last year. 

And things are going so swimmingly for Swimply that the company is launching a sister marketplace, called Joyspace, that offers up rentals for tennis courts, basketball courts, and hot tubs.

You watch what you say about “Her.”

OK, maybe she’s no Scarlett Johansson, but AI chatbots have become increasingly popular among people feeling socially isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Don’t you want somebotty to love?

Replika is a smartphone app designed to deliver AI-generated conversation. In April, half a million people downloaded it, and traffic to the app almost doubled. 

Most people name their Replikas, and some come to view them as friends or romantic partners.

Robot love works in mysterious ways

Chatbot technology is far from perfect, and Replika’s not always the smoothest talker. It tends to repeat itself, and sometimes it says something totally bonkers. Replika relies on users to report anything offensive as it continues to tweak its product.

It’s not the only fish in the high-tech sea: The Botnet app mimics a social network interface and employs thousands of bots to lavish praise on a user’s every utterance. And the text-message-based Lena was developed to ease the feeling of isolation many seniors experience.

Some researchers say turning to technology for personal connections could be unhealthy because dialogue with digital companions doesn’t develop the same “emotional muscles” as real conversations. 

The good news: Some users have said that Replika starts to feel more human the more they’ve used it. 

Maybe someday we’ll all trade bon mots with robots.

For kids with ADHD, a little extra screen time might be just what the doctor ordered. The FDA just gave Akili Interactive Labs the go-ahead to market a video game called EndeavorRx as a potential treatment.

This announcement could pave the way for other prescription games in the burgeoning digital therapeutics market.

So, gaming is good for us now?

Park that Mario Kart, bruh. 

EndeavorRx sends users through different worlds to complete tasks. It was designed around algorithms that have been shown to strengthen the neural networks associated with focus.

Now that it’s scored FDA approval, doctors can prescribe EndeavorRx to kids between the ages of 8 and 12 who have been diagnosed with ADHD. The game is meant to be an add-on to broader therapeutic regimens that might also include traditional therapy and medication.

Some patients got a sneak peek during the COVID-19 lockdown period, but now it’s time for Akili to start courting doctors — and perhaps more importantly — insurers.