July 6 & 7, 2024 Show Notes
🎙️ Show airs live
Saturday: 10:05am-Noon
🔁 Rebroadcast
Sunday: 1:05pm-3pm
🎧 Podcast
Anytime
Guest co-hosts this week:
Charles Martin
Co-host
Victoria Mac and iOS User Group Program Director
Phone 1-888-718-4598
Alan is on vacation in the Rockies and Whistler with Suzanne and their international homestay students before they head back to Germany and Mexico, and will be back next Saturday.
1) If you're worried thieves might steal your car by using a key-fob repeater, start storing your key fob in a signal-proof bag at home
Most newer cars and trucks use wireless key fobs and push-button starters instead of traditional metal keys. The fob sends a short-range signal, so when you approach your vehicle, it automatically unlocks the door. This saves you the hassle of digging out your keys when you've got your hands full with groceries, but that technology also makes things easier for thieves.
The wireless fob continues to emit a signal even when you're not using it. Thieves prowl neighborhoods at night looking for cars parked outside, so they can carry out so-called relay attacks. Using portable equipment that can pick up the faint signal from a fob inside the house or parking lot, they relay it back to a transmitter that can clone the signal.
Officials have urged carmakers to reduce the security vulnerabilities and warn owners about the risks. In the meantime, ou can prevent a relay attack by getting in the habit of placing your keys in a signal-proof bag when you enter your home.
The Canadian Press
One Tech Tip: Protecting your car from the growing risk of keyless vehicle thefts
LONDON (AP) — They appear like ghosts in the night, standing outside your house, one holding up an antenna while the other crouches next to the car parked on the driveway. Within seconds, your car is gone, yet another victim amid a surge in auto theft enabled by the technology designed to make it easier to unlock and start vehicles. Auto technology...
2) If you use an authentication app called Authy, expect more spam and scam calls in the near future.
Authy owner Twilio admits that hackers stole 33 million users' phone numbers
“We have seen no evidence that the threat actors obtained access to Twilio’s systems or other sensitive data," said Twilio spokesperson Karl Ramirez. "As a precaution, we are requesting all Authy users to update to the latest Android and iOS apps for the latest security updates and encourage all Authy users to stay diligent and have heightened awareness around phishing and smishing attacks.”
Or better yet, switch to a more secure authentication app if possible, like Microsoft's Authenticator or 2FAS.
3) Ransomware locks credit union users out of bank accounts
Patelco Credit Union in California has shut down transactions, transfers, payments, and deposits temporarily
A California-based credit union with over 450,000 members said it suffered a ransomware attack that is disrupting account services and could take weeks to recover from, with hackers gaining access via a phishing attack. More here.
Tech News Of The Week
Items start at #10, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more security items above!
Tip: if an item in these Show Notes has the icon on the right in the upper-right corner, you can click/tap on it to make the additional info open in a new tab.
10) We've updated our collection of Travel Tech Tips!
There are 40 of them, and they're in a separate Travel Tech Tips notes, which you can find on our Home Page, or on the toolbar at the top of any of our Notes.
You can bookmark them, as we update them often, at Tech-Talk.ca/travel-tech-tips.
The current Travel Tech Tips notes are also below as a PDF…
11) Apple has released an impressive free Final Cut Camera app with pro-quality controls for recording videos on an iPhone
If you record videos on an iPhone, you're going to love the new free Final Cut Camera app which Apple has released — even if you don't use it for anything more then it's ultra-smooth zoom slider!
The app lets you capture video with a raft of powerful settings including shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and manual focus. Easily customize your resolution, frame rate, color space, and more. Quickly monitor your video with focus peaking and overexposure indicators. Dial in the perfect shot for your professional videos with Final Cut Camera. Or, ignore all of that and just use the ultra-smooth slider to zoom in and out!
App Store
Final Cut Camera
Final Cut Camera puts you in the director’s chair with intuitive pro controls for your entire video production. Seamlessly start a Live Multicam session by connecting up to four devices running Final Cut Camera to preview, record, and sync your video angles in Final Cut Pro for iPad. Capture with po…
12) Apple self-service repair program coming to Canada next year
It's official — Canada next year will become the 34th country where Apple will sell you parts to fix your Mac or iPhone, and even rent you the special tools needed to do the work.
Along with expanding the Self-Repair Program to include Canada, Apple is also making changes to how the program works, including revamping its controversial Parts Pairing policy.
Later this year, Apple says it'll launch a program that will be able to identify when a part from a stolen phone is used in a repair. This is because the parts pairing process happens automatically when you replace a part in your phone, and since each part has a unique identifying number the new phone will know if the part came from a device that was placed in Lost Mode in Find My. Having a parts paring process also allows your phone to keep track of all the parts it’s been repaired with over its lifetime.
Some interresting stats are included in Apple's updated Self-Repair White Paper…
- Used Apple devices hold their value around 40% better than used Android devices.
- Repairs for accidental damage have gone down 44% since the iPhone became waterproof.
- 88% of third-party batteries caught fire or exploded in at least one test.
13) iPhone/iPad tip: use the Notes app to write secret messages
The built-in Notes app for iOS/iPadOS is a great secret weapon for private conversations, as long as your friends also have an iPhone and/or iPad.
Nelson Aguilar at CNet has a great walk-through…
14) If you have a FitBit but no smartphone, you're about to be out of luck: starting on Monday, it'll only work with the FitBit app.
Google is pulling the plug on the Fitbit web dashboard this coming Monday, July 8. After that, you'll only be able to make it work via the FitBit iPhone/iPad or Android app.
16) Netflix is phasing out its cheapest ad-free plan here in Canada
Netflix Canada quietly stopped offering its popular $10/month Basic subscription last year, but said people who were on it, would be able to keep it, for a while.
That time has now come…Netflix is scraping the Basic ad-free plan this month, and you'll now have to pay $16.49/month for the Standard no-ad plan, which gives higher quality and also allow you to watch on two screens at once, and download shows for offline viewing.
You can also pay $6/month for a subscription with ads, which Netflix says is precisely what 40% of Canadians are doing…
17) CRTC report says the ‘catastrophic’ Rogers outage from 2022 was caused by human error and prolonged by management 'deficiencies'
The independent investigation by Xona Partners looked into the “catastrophic” 2022 Rogers outage that affected 12 million wireless and wireline personal and business customers for some 26 hours two years ago this month.
Details here, but in a nutshell and without getting too technical: the outage was caused by techs removing some important code during an upgrade, and it took a long time to fix because the part that went bad was the part of the software that allowed remote access to fix things. Doh!!
The CRTC in its report acknowledges that Rogers has since implemented all of the recommendations made to avoid the problem happening again.
18) Quebecor says it's fulfilled all its Freedom Mobile promises just one year after acquisition
Quebecor announced this week that it has met all nine commitments made by its subsidiary Videotron to the Government of Canada.
Included in those promises were keeping prices the same for existing Freedom Mobile customers, extending services to Manitoba and other regions, and introducing low-cost 5G phone plans starting at $19.
iPhone in Canada Blog • Leading Tech News for Canadians
Quebecor Completes Freedom Mobile Promises After Acquisition • iPhone in Canada Blog
Just over a year after acquiring Freedom Mobile in April 2023, Quebecor announced today it has met all nine commitments made by its subsidiary Videotron to Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada (ISED). The company sent a progress report to ISED earlier this week on July 3 to detail its promises made. Quebecor says it
19) Microsoft's latest Surface Pro's mostly match the MacBook Air in CPU, But not GPU
Microsoft has finally followed Apple's lead, and has replaced Intel chips used in older Surface Pro's with ARM-based Snapdragon chips, and the performance improvement and better battery life is very noticeable compared to previous models.
The testing, conducted by The Verge, found the two lightweight notebooks more-or-less tied overall, and selling for comparable prices. The MacBook Pro, on the other hand, surpasses both the MacBook Air and the Surface Pro by a considerable margin, but costs more, as you would expect.
20) Apple's Vision Pro is now available here in Canada
You can get a demo of the futuristic and ground-breaking but expensive device at any Canadian Apple store.
The Apple Vision Pro features an augmented reality display, facial recognition, and a virtual assistant optimized for the device's unique capabilities. Sadly, the nearest place Victoria-based users can try it out is the Apple Store at Pacific Centre in downtown Vancouver.
The device, which costs $4,999 in Canada, will allegedly be followed by a less-premium, mass-market version of the device that should cost substantially less, but it's unlikely to be available before early 2026.
The device, which costs $4,999 in Canada, will allegedly be followed by a less-premium, mass-market version of the device that should cost substantially less, but it's unlikely to be available before early 2026.
22) Apple approves Epic Games Store for iPhone and iPad in EU
Per an EU mandate, third-party app stores can be set up that bypass Apple's own App Store, but not all of the potential fees.
Epic continues to object to the notion that it should pay Apple anything for leveraging the company's gigantic user base of iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, as well as building a compatible store using Apple's technology.
23) Which is better — an iPad Pro or Samsung Galaxy S9 Ultra?
A listener asked this question a few weeks ago, and we said the answer likely comes down to whch operating system you're used to — Apple's iOS/iPadOD, or Google's Android.
Now, MacRumors.com has published an excellent comparision article…
24) Virgin Plus is hiking most rate plans by $5 to $10 a month
Bell's budget brand, Virgin Plus, has dropped its 40GB plan and has raised the price of most other plans, including its cheapest talk-&-text plan, by $5 to $10 a month…
25) 53 years after the debut of floppy disks, Japan has scrapped rules requiring government agencies to remain able to use them
Two years after announcing plans to finally exit the use of floppy disks, the Japanese government says it has finally completed a regulation overhaul to accomplish that.
Here are a few pics from Alan and Suzanne , who are showing their two 17-year-old international students — Emma from Germany and Majo from Mexico — the Rockies, the Okanagan, and Whistler, before the girls fly home in a few days…
Celebrating Canada Day in Banff…
At the summit of Rogers Pass…
At Moraine Lake in Banff National Park…
At Kangaroo Creek Farm near the Kelowna Airport…
Biking the Valley Trail in Whistler, along with Emma's friend, Jax, who joined them on Thursday…
…and finally, our "Sign Of The Week"…
And so it goes…