Mar. 8 & 9, 2025 Show Notes
Time Change Weekend Edition
🎙️ Show airs live
Saturday: 10:05am-Noon
🔁 Rebroadcast
Sunday: 1:05pm-3pm on C-FAX
🎧 Podcast
Anytime
Your crew this weekend:
Aitan Roubini
Guest Co-Host
Victoria Mac and iOS User Group (VMUG) President and MacZen.ca owner
eMail: Support@MacZen.ca
iPhone +1 250-813-1323
Join Aitan and Charles for the March 2025 VMUG meeting, on Zoom, at 7pm this coming Wednesday, March 12. If you're not a VMUG member, you can take part as our guest, using this link:
Zoom Video
Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting
Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done. Zoom is a publicly traded company headquartered in San Jose, CA.
The Podcast
Listen now:
SoundCloud
Tech Talk – Mar 8, 2025 by Tech Talk with Alan Perry
Tech Talk is back with another jam-packed episode! Aitan Roubini, President of the Victoria Mac and iOS User Group (VMUG), joins Alan Perry to dive into the latest in tech. From the newest iPads and MacBook Air to the latest scams you need to watch out for, we’ve got you covered. Plus, we answer listener questions live! Hit play and stay ahead of the tech curve.
Or, you can subscribe to "Tech Talk with Alan Perry" (it's free) on any podcast app including these…
1) Watch out for a new batch of fake Shaw emails urging you to upgrade to avoid having your email access cut off
The emails are coming from Gmail accounts overseas, as shown in this screenshot from astute "Tech Talk" listener Joanne…
The format which has poor sentence structure, capitalization, and spacing, urges you to click on a "Log In Now" link, which takes you to a fake Shaw log-in page hosted at sssshaw.mystrikingly.com…
…and if you click on the "Click Here" button, it takes you to a fake Shaw webmail login page hosted at https://ccybulskii.wixsite.com/my-site-1
If you provide your @shaw.ca email address and password, overseas hackers will then start forwarding all your emails to themselves, and will trigger password reset emails so they can lock you out of your own email and financial accounts so they can steal your identity and your money.
NEVER click on links in emails like this!
2) Watch out for scam Canada Revenue Agency "refund" texts
Every tax season, scammers send us texts claiming to be from the CRA, urging you to claim your refund. A screenshot of one of these text is shown here, and unlike a lot of previous ones, this one actually looks pretty good!
But if you look closely, you'll see that it's not from the CRA, but from a gmail.com address, and, the link they want you to click on, 2024taxs.com is also not the Canada Revenue Agency.
That link takes you to a fake Interac website with logos for all the major Canadian banks and credit unions, urging you to click on yours…
If you do, it takes you to a real-looking log-in page for your bank or credit union (but with the wrong address at the top)…
They're hoping you'll give them your log-in info so they can start stealing your money. NEVER click on links in texts or emails like this! The CRA will NEVER text you, and if they email you, the email will NEVER contain a link for you to click on.
CBC's Fifth Estate has been exploring how scammers get into Canada Revenue Agency accounts…
3) Beware a new Apple Approval Notice text scam, and what to do if you get one
If you get a text that claims to be from Apple with a message about a hefty purchase (usually $143.95) made on your Apple ID that you didn't make, with a number to call, it's a scam.
If you call the number in the text, an overseas scammer pretending to be Apple Support will offer to help, but will want you to give them a coide which Apple will send you. That code will allow the scammer to get into your Apple ID and change the password and lock you out, so they can steal yhour identity.
NEVER call numbers in texts or emails like this!
If you're not sure about anything to do with your Apple account, either use the Apple Support app, or log into AppleID.Apple.com.
4) 25 Canadians accused of running multi-million-dollar 'grandparents' scam
25 Canadians from Ontario and Quebec have been charged in connection to a multi-million dollar scam that allegedly defrauded seniors in the USA through phone calls in which the scammers pretended to be a grandson who had been arrested after a car-crash and needed bail money.
The indictment alleges that between the summer of 2021 and 2024, the defendants defrauded seniors in 40 states out of more than $30 million CAD by making calls from call-centres in and around Montreal.
In some cases, they posed as an ‘attorney’ representing the seniors' grandchild.
If you ever get a call from someone claiming to be a relative in trouble and needing money, or a lawyer calling on their behalf, ask them a question to which only they would know the answer.
Tech Deals This Weekend
Freedom Mobile is repeating its Flash Sale, knocking $4/month off its Canada/USA/Mexico + Roam Beyond plans this weekend
Just in time for people going travelling for Spring Break, Quebec-based Freedom Mobile is reducing the price of its top three already-great Canada/USA/Mexico + Roam Beyond plans by $4 a month through Monday, and the reduced price will continue unless you change your plan…
The plans, which are $4/month off through end of business on Monday, March 10, all include unlimited calling to Canada, USA, and Mexico, unlimited global texting, and from 60GB to 100GB a month of 5G data including Canada/USA/Mexico roaming.
In addition, the $45/month and $55/month plans let you use your phone at no extra cost in 106 countries, so you can phone anyone in the country you're in or call back to Canada, you can text worldwide, and you also get 15GB or 25GB of Roam Beyond data to use in those 106 countries.
The $35/month plan comes with 5GB of Roam Beyond data, but does not including the unlimited global talk and texting of the higher plans. Freedom says the $4/month discount will not expire unless you change your plan.
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) Most of us Spring Forward one hour on Saturday night (more precisely, at 2am on Sunday) as we change to Daylight Saving Time
We've said it before, but this may actually be the last time we undergo the time change, as the Trump administration in the USA appears poised to finally pass legislation eliminating the change.
British Columbia passed legislation in 2019 to move to year-round daylight time "at a time that maintains alignment with Washington, Oregon, California, and Yukon", and US states have also voted to make the change, but unlike here in Canada, that can only happen with approval of the US Congress, and "Sunshine Act" legislation to do that has been mired in political wrangling since then.
Not all of BC changes time; the northeastern Peace region and the southeastern town of Creston do not, and as a result, their time is aligned with Alberta (Mountain Standard Time) in the winter and with BC (Pacific Daylight Time) in the summer.
11) Apple has a new base-model iPad as well as a new iPad Air M3
The new 11th-gen iPad has double the starting storage capacity (128GB), is up to 50% faster than the 9th-gen model which it replaces thanks to its A16 chip, but is the same price — $499 CAD.
The new base-model iPad has Touch ID fingerprint unlock on the edge, thinner bezels so slightly-larger 11" (28cm) screen, a landscape camera, and you charge it via USB-C.
While the A16 chip is a lot faster than the current base-model iPad, it's not fast enough to handle AI-powered Apple Intelligence services, but that avoids a price-hike.
It'll start arriving in stores on the 12th, but you can now pre-order one now.
If you want a more-powerful iPad which does run Apple Intelligence, there's the new iPad Air M3, which comes in both 11- and 13- inch (28- and 33- cm) sizes, a new 12MP Centre Stage front camera, and supports Apple Pencil Pro.
The lightning‑fast M3 chip powers Apple Intelligence and brings breakout performance to iPad Air. With a powerful CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, it’s nearly 2x faster than iPad Air with M1 chip.
The new iPad Air starts at $799 for the 128GB model, can be pre-ordered now, and should start arriving in stores next Wednesday, the 12th.
12) Apple has also released a powerful (and less expensive) new Macbook Air M4 in two sizes, plus two new (really pricey) Mac Studio builds
The new Macbook Air laptops are very light and less than ½" thin, they come in both 13" (33cm) and 15" (38cm) sizes, with twice the RAM (16GB), and are made with more than 50% recycled materials.
Apple's blazing-fast M4 chip gives these laptop some amazing performance specs, enabling them to easily run the new Apple Intelligence features…
The 13" Macbook Air starts at $1300 CAD, ($50 less than the model it replaces) while the 15" model starts at $1699. They can be pre-ordered now, and should start arriving in stores on the 12th.
If price is not an issue, Apple has unveiled insanely-fast new Mac Studio desktop computers, one powered by their new M4 Max chip, and the other by their M3 Ultra chip.
With massive CPU core updates, mind-bending graphics, increased memory, blazing-fast Thunderbolt 5 connectivity and next-level AI capabilities, Mac Studio can deliver up to 18 simultaneous streams of 8K ProRes video!
Make sure you're sitting down for the pricetags: a Mac Studio M4 Max starts at $2699 CAD and tops out at more than $8500 CAD, while the M3 Ultra model starts at $5499 and tops out at almost 14 grand!
14) The popular new "How Canadian Is It?" Buy Beaver app is now available for Android phones as well as for iPhones
Created by the two Montreal guys behind the increasingly-popular IsItFromCanada.ca website, the free Buy Beaver app does a superb job of ranking from 1 to 5 how Canadian a product is.
You just scan the barcode of a product, and the Buy Beaver app gives you a 1-to-5 Canadian rating in three categories: whether it was totally or partially made in Canada, how much of the ingredients came from within Canada, and whether the brand is Canadian-owned or not…
The Buy Beaver app by Chris Dip and Alexandre Hamila is available free on Apple's App Store and is now available for free on the Google Play Store for Android devices. The product database can also be accessed on the IsItFromCanada.ca website…
15) Telus and Koodo are offering Travel Passes to keep you connected while traveling outside Canada
The passes let you use your phone in other countries without paying a hefty daily roaming fee, but the pass prices are still pricey, so if you're going to be away from Canada for a decent time, or if you have several trips planned, consider switching to Freedom Mobile, whose plans included Canada, USA and Mexico at no extra charge, plus Roam Beyond coverage in 100+ countries.
Telus/Koodo's "Easy Roam" spring break travel passes rage from $40 to $70, depending on your destination and trip length, and save you a little less than half the daily roaming rate.
- USA 7-day pass: $55
- Caribbean & Mexico 7-day pass: $60
- Asia 14-day pass: $70
- Europe 14-day pass: $50
- Europe 30-day pass: $60
There's some unusual fine print on the USA travel pass, presumably because of some small phone companies in five cities that won't make a deal with Telus…
16) Apple's new more-personalized Siri won't be debuting till at least later this year, because it's proving a daunting task to create
Apple has been working hard on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. The new Siri was supposed to be out by now, but Apple admits it’s going to take longer than they thought to deliver on these features, so they now anticipate rolling them out later this year.
Apple's new AI-powered version of Siri is not now expected till sometime next year.
Daring Fireball
Apple Is Delaying the ‘More Personalized Siri’ Apple Intelligence Features
This announcement is disappointing, but unsurprising. If it’s Apple’s general policy not to ship a product before it’s ready, that applies tenfold for a product involving LLM access to deeply private on-device information.
17) We're going to have to wait two more years for next-generation 9-1-1 service here in Canada
Next-generation 9-1-1 service — which would allow us to send texts or video to summon help — won’t be implemented for another two years.
Canada's communications regulator, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) had set Tuesday as the date for transitioning to next-generation 911, but has now reluctantly shoved that date back till 2027.
The CRTC says the phone companies are ready to implement the new technology, but says only a handful of Canada’s 242 emergency services call centres have deployed the necessary new gear.
The CRTC adds that multiple groups — including those representing police, fire and paramedic chiefs — have warned that without a deadline extension, some Canadians could lose access to 911 service.
18) If someone texts you in another language, hold your finger on that text to bring-up a translation option
iPhone or Android, if someone sends you a text in a language that you have difficulty understanding, just hold your finger on it, and you should get a pop-up list of options including translation…
You can also do this with websites, emails, and some other communication apps by highlighting the foreign-language text and looking for the Translate option. If it's not available, such as on WhatsApp, you can always copy the foreign-language text and past it into the Google Translate app.
19) Another lawsuit alleging that Apple uses its monopoly powers to force us to pay more for iCloud storage, has been dismissed.
For the past 14 years, Apple has been giving users just 5GB free iCloud storage space each (the same as Microsoft has done with OneDrive), so they're surely never going to increase that without some outside pressure. The latest of many attempts to apply such pressure, though, has failed.
Following its filing in March 2024, a class action suit over the amount and cost of iCloud storage has been dismissed by US District Judge Eumi Lee in San Jose, California.
The suit alleged that Apple was violating antitrust laws by coercing users into using iCloud, then effectively making them pay to have adequate storage space on it. This case was a class-action one, whose plaintiffs believed they were representing at least tens of millions of iCloud users.
Judge Lee said, however, that Apple was not violating federal or state antitrust laws. Specifically, she said that users were not required to purchase iCloud storage, and that the case did not demonstrate that Apple is a monopoly.
20) Another sign of our evolving technology: Denmark will have phased-out letter mail by the end of this year
State-run Danish postal service PostNord has announced that it will cease letter delivery in the Nordic nation by the end of this year. While package distribution will continue, the move marks a significant shift in Denmark’s postal landscape and reflects the increasing digitisation of communication.
The change will see the removal of approximately 1,500 mailboxes across Denmark in the latter half of 2025, and unused stamps will be eligible for refunds. The downsizing will also impact PostNord's workforce, with an estimated 1,500 of its 4,600 employees facing layoffs this year.
PostNord says there;s been a dramatic 90% decline in letter volume in Denmark since 2000, with a further drop of more than 30% last year compared to 2023.
21) Shell Recharge app is being retired, integrated into Shell app
Shell has announced that its standalone Shell Recharge app for electric vehicle charging will be shut down at the end of this month, and vehicle charging will be moved into a separate Recharge tab on the Shell app.
The change will also result in Shell EV chargers showing-up, along with in-use ststus, in other EDV charging apps like ChargePoint and PlugShare.
This app is being retired…
24) We've also started compiling a list of our favourite phone apps
The "Our Favourite Apps" list — which will have a lot more added in the coming weeks — is on our home page, and you can also get to it by going to Tech-Talk.ca/apps.
Homework videos (a.k.a. "time well wasted"!)
Videos start at #40, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more tech news items above!
40) Watch Truro, Nova Scotia's Jeff Douglas deliver a perfectly-timed and awesome update to his "I am Canadian" rant from 25 years ago this month…
If you're too young to remember Jeff's original Molson ad from 2000, here it is…
41) Watch Sonya Zaback sing a new Canadian version of "I Will Survive" )with lyrics by Gord Moran who died shortly after writing the lyrics)…
More on retired teacher Gord Moran, here…
42) Watch Firefly's "Blue Ghost" lander became the first private craft to successfully land on the moon…
…and see what happens now as the lunar lander mission unfolds…
43) Watch the first images from Intuitive Machines’ Athena Nova-C lunar lander which landed on its side the day after Blue Ghost…
44) Watch Jim Browning show the arrest of almost 3000 online scammers at a call-centre in Dubai and the recovery of more than $20 million dollars…
45) Watch, from 40 years ago this week, "Northern Lights: Tears Are Not Enough" produced by Victortia-born David Foster (with names)…
Senior "Tech Talk" listener Noreen from here in Victoria used Freedom Mobile's "Roam Beyond" service to keep her connected at no extra cost in England, and then used an Airalo eSIM to stay connected in Egypt, which is one of the few countries not covered by Roam Beyond.
Noreen sent these pics from Egypt, where she explored tombs more than 4000 years old…
…and finally, our "Sign Of The Week"…
seen at Gurton's Garage near the Victoria International Airport...
And so it goes…