May 3 & 4, 2025 Show Notes
T-C Book Sale Weekend Edition
🎙️ Show airs live
Saturday: 10:05am-Noon
🔁 Rebroadcast
Sunday: 1:05pm-3pm on C-FAX
🎧 Podcast
Anytime
Your crew this weekend:
Kyle Wilson
Colwood-based IT Specialist, Wikipedia Administrator, and a Business Insider contributor
X & BlueSky: @KWilsonMG
The annual Times Colonist Book Sale is this weekend!
The sale is in the Victoria Curling Club, 1952 Quadra Street, behind Save-On Foods Memorial Centre, and runs from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Children’s books and softcovers are priced at $2 and hardcovers are just $4. More info below…
1) Emails about Yahoo Data Breach class-action settlement payments are NOT a scam!
The lawyers who worked-out a $20 million Canadian class-action settlement for Yahoo's multiple data breaches have started sending-out emails like this one (shared by Tech Talk listener Peter in Kelowna) to those who applied for compensation…
This is not a scam email, and there's nothing you need to do if you get this email.
In Peter's case, he's been approved for 15 hours of compensation for wasted time dealing with the data breach fallout at $25 an hour, so he'll be getting $375!
Settlement payments will start being issued in the next few months.
2) Watch out for scam texts claiming to be from Purolator courier
Many people this week reporeted getting a text like this screenshot, claiming to be from Purolator, claiming they were unable to deliver a package because an incomplete or inaccurate address.
If you look closely, you'll see that the text was sent NOT from a phone number, but from a gibberish email address @appleaccount.com — which is not Pulolator!
They want you to click on a link, but if you look closely at that link, you'll see that it's not Purolator, but Puroflator.etchth.vip/ca — which is a scam website registered in Romania.
But if you don't spot that, the website — and numerous others like it — looks like the actual Pulolator website complete with their logo, and if you click through the pages, it wants your mailing address (I used fake info), and then wants credit card info to pay for a 35-cent "reshipping fee"…
If you type in your credit card info, within just minutes, overseas scammers will be using that info to make online purchases in your name for expensive items which thay can turn around and sell online.
NEVER click on links in texts (or emails) like this!
If you've ordered something online and are waiting for it to be delivered, use ONLY the tracking link supplied by the online retailer.
3) Watch out for new scam emails claiming that your cloud storage is full
The emails look like the screenshot from Tech Talk listener Zack, and don't even mention a specific cloud provider (iCloud, OneDrive, Google Drive)!
The emails are coming from a variety of email addresses that make no sense…
…and they warn that your files will be deleted unless you refresh the cloud to recativate them via a 'flush door" which it claims will give you an additional 50GB of cloud storage for free.
The "UPDATE" button they want you to click on takes you to a website hosted in Korea (.kr) which then bounces to a dangerous-flagged scam website at CloudifyNow.com as shown in the screenshot below…
If you click on the "Continue" button on the actual website, it takes you to the website of TotalDrive.com, which is a budget cloud provider based in Torquay, England…
TotalDrive.com offers 10TB of (slow) cloud storage for $19 USD a year for the first year, but then $99 USD a year after that. You can get much better cloud storage for much less from Microsoft (1000GB for $79 CAD/year), and they don't use scams to try to lure you in.
NEVER click on buttons in emails like this!
5) Microsoft has added a 'scareware blocker' to its Edge web-browser — but you have to turn it on
The latest update to Microsoft's increasingly popular Edge web-browser includes new tooks to keep you safe when surfing the web, most notably a new 'Scareware blocker', which uses AI to detect suspicious websites and flag them for you as being Dangerous…
This new Scareware Blocker is free, but has to be turned-on by you, which you can do in the Microsoft Edge settings, where you can find other tools for keeping you safe online.
- Open Microsoft Edge
- Click/tap on the three … in the top -right
- Click/tap on Settings third from the bottom
- Click/tap on on Privacy, search and services on the left.
- In the page that appears, tap/click on "Typo Protection" at the top…
- …and then we suggest you turn on the switches shown in this screenshot…
More info on this, and the other new features added to the Microsoft Edge browser, is here…
Tech Deals This Weekend
Starlink is now offering satellite internet with no hardware cost in most of Canada if you stay subscribed for a year — a $500 saving
New customers of Elon Musk's Starlink service can now get their ‘Standard’ hardware kit for free with a 12-month Residential plan which costs $140 per month. The Standard kit typically costs $499 here in Canada and includes a satellite dish, kickstand, router, and the necessary cables.
The deal includes a 30-day trial period with a full refund, so if you go for it and end up disliking the internet service, you can get your money back.
Starlink satellite internet delivers 100-200Mbps download speeds in southern Canada, as long as you have a clear sky view.
Certified Pre-owned phones are back at Freedom Mobile with big savings over new phone prices
By law, people can return phones within 14 days with no questions asked, and some do, mostly because they want a different model, colour, or one with a larger capacity.
Freedom Mobile is now inspecting, cleaning, and factory resetting those phones and selling them at a hefty discount. For example, you can get a nearly-new iPhone 13 for just $5/month for 24 months, (that's a $480 saving off a new iPhone 13), or an iPhone 14 for $14/month, and an iPhone 14 Pro for $20/month.
All of these prices require you to sign-up for a $49/month service plan which gets you unlimited calling in Canada/USA/Mexico, unlimited international texting, 100GB/month of data good in Canada, USA and Mexicvo plus 15GB of data good in 100+ other countries.
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.
11) XBox is raising prices of gaming consoles, accessories, and games by as much as 18% worldwide, in response to USA tariffs
Microsoft says the hefty price hikes are in response to “market conditions and the rising cost of development", an indirect reference to the new USA tariffs.
Although the tariffs only apply to consoles, accessories, and games being imported into the USA from overseas factories, Microsoft has chosen to spread the pain around, by increasing prices worldwide to reduce the price-hike amount for US consumers, a strategy that we expect many other tech firms will also adopt.
Microsoft adds that the cost of “some” new first-party games will go up to US$79.99 (about C$110) by the holidays, an increase of more than 20%. Here are the new and current prices…
Consoles
- Xbox Series S (512GB) — $449.99 (previously $379.99, an 18% increase)
- Xbox Series S (1TB) — $529.99 (previously $449.99, an 18% increase)
- Xbox Series X (1TB) — $729.99 (previously $649.99, a 12% increase)
- Xbox Series X Digital (1TB) — $679.99 (previously $599.99, a 13% increase)
- Xbox Series X (2TB Galaxy Black Special Edition) — $879.99 (previously $799.99, up 10%)
Accessories
- Xbox Wireless Controller — $84.99 (previously $74.99, a 13% increase)
- Xbox Wireless Controller (Special Edition) — $99.99 (previously $89.99, a 10% increase)
- Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 Core — $184.99 (previously $159.99, a 16% increase)
- Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 — $249.99 (previously $229.99, a 9% increase)
More info on the current and coming price-hikes is below…
Repeating our advice from last week: there's a LOT of uncertainty regarding tariffs as the USA rules are constantly changing, often daily. If you're considering buying tech gear, you should get it now before either prices go up to offset US tariffs, or before items stop being available here because they're imported via the USA.
12) All Apple products sold in the USA, except half of iPhones, will now come from factories in Vietnam and India, to reduce tariff impact
To minimize the impact of USA tariffs, Apple is swiftly juggling its manufacturing and distribution systems, so by July, all Apple products sold in the USA except iPhones will have been made in plants in India and Vietnam.
Half of all iPhones in the USA are now being made in India, and the other half in China, but Apple is trying rapidly reduce that percentage, as it admits those being made in China are going to result in the company taking at least a $900 million USD hit to its bottom line just in Q3.
To keep Apple assembly plants in China busy as shipments to the USA are scaled-back, those plants will switch to exclusively supplying iPhones sold here in Canada and elsewhere in the world.
13) Telus receives most complaints in latest CCTS mid-year report, but says its taken steps to rectify the problems
The Canadian Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) has released its review for the 2024-2025 mid-year reporting period, and says it accepted 11,909 complaints across all services (wireless, internet, TV, and phone), which is up 12% from last year’s mid-year complaints.
Among the top five service providers, the CCTS says Telus experienced the highest increase in complaints from the prior 2023-2024 reporting period, up 63% from last year.
Telus had the lowest complaint rate in the industry for the past 13 years, and reported a 90% resolution rate last year. But, at the same time, the company says it acknowledges that its complaint volumes increased during this most recent period, and says it takes full responsibility for these results, viewing every interaction as an opportunity to learn and grow. Telus says its cut complaints by 20% since January 2025.
14) Bell has turned-on a new AI-powered feature to flag potential spam and scam calls
Bell is following the lead of Rogers in activating a new AI-powered system that will flag suspected spam and scam calls on phones running on the Bell, Virgin+, and Lucky Mobile networks.
The company’s new ‘Suspicious Call Detection’ system will use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to label incoming calls as “Likely Fraud” or “Possible Spam".
Bell claims the AI tool will “get smarter over time” and learn from call patterns and threats.
If you have an Android phone, though, you have to make a change to activate the new Bell system, as Android phones have a basic built-in spam call alert feature which will override the more-sophisticated new Bell system.
If you have an Android phone running on Bell, Virgin+, or Lucky Mobile…
- Open your Phone app
- Tap the three-dot menu
- Tap on Settings
- Turn off Caller ID and Spam protection, and that'll automatically turn on Bell’s call detection
15) If you have an LG smartphone, the company will be turning off its phone servers at the end of next month
When LG bowed-out of the smartphone market back in 2021, it promised it'd support its phones for at least three years. Now, four years later, LG has announced that it'll be pulling the plug on its worldwide smartphone servers at the end of next month.
That means no more updates for LG phones, including app updates — which means apps will stop working when app developers push out mandatory updates that cannot be delivered to LG phones.
If you just use an LG phone for calls, texting and surfing the web, you should be fine.
But, if you depend on it for apps like WhatsApp, Amazon, Facebook and the like, we recommend you start looking for a newer non-LG phone, so you don't get left high and dry when those apps start to require updates that you won't be able to get.
16) Have you ever used Google Shop? ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has come up with an alternative
The alternative shopping experience — complete with product recommendations and buy buttons — will soon be available to users of the Large Language Model ChatGPT, including the free tier.
The company says that users are already conducting over a billion searches a week using the chat bot and turning to it for research among a breadth of shopping categories.
17) ChatGPT update pulled for ‘overly supportive’ behaviour
OpenAI has rolled back ChatGPT to an earlier version of the AI model, after a new update displayed “overly supportive but disingenuous” behaviour, a quirk the tech firm describes as “uncomfortable” and “unsettling” for users.
Ahead of the rollback, ChatGPT users took to social media to share their, at times, bizarre interactions with the new version of the popular AI chatbot, which gets about 500 million users each week...
“Why’s it being so ingratiating!?” asked one member of the app’s community subreddit. “It tells me things like, ‘you’re touching on things that most people never really fully grasp’ etc. It just seems over the top!”
According to a screengrab shared by the user, the app denied any undeserved flattery and doubled down, comparing the person to “serious thinkers, good philosophers, and real historians,” as well as “crazy talent clusters” like the Renaissance.
All of this, the user’s posts suggest, was prompted by a list of questions they posed to the app about rock bands The Beatles and Wings. “Your questions really are that incredible,” the screengrab reads.
18) Meta launches a stand-alone AI app to compete with ChatGPT
After integrating Meta AI into WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, Meta is rolling out a stand-alone AI app, called Meta AI.
To win over users, Meta is trying to leverage what makes it different from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic — Meta already has a sense of who you are, what you like, and who you hang out with based on years of data that you’ve likely shared on Facebook or Instagram.
You can also give Meta more information about you to remember for future conversations with its AI — for example, you can tell the AI that you are lactose intolerant, which it could remember before recommending that you go to a wine and cheese tasting on your next vacation.
19) Google has released an experimental tool called "Notebook LM" that can make an AI-powered podcast about your notes
The new AI tool is designed to help users better retain their notes by simulating two virtual hosts casually discussing the content in a podcast-style setting. Friend of the show Rich DeMuro wrote about this for KTLA5.
20) Air Canada and Bell now offer free 'streaming-quality' Wi-Fi for Aeroplan members on more flights
Air Canada is now offering free Wi-Fi for Aeroplan members on select flights within North America, Mexico and the Caribbean.
The internet connectivity is sponsored by Bell, which has been partnering with Air Canada since 2023 to provide Aeroplan members with free in-flight texting. With this expansion, the airline promises “streaming-quality Wi-Fi” on Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge, and now also on Air Canada Express flights operated with smaller CRJ900 aircraft, like the ones that fly between Victoria, Vancouver and cities like Kelowna and Nanaimo.
Air Canada says you’ll be able to find out whether your plane has free Wi-Fi within five days of departure by entering your flight number or route on its website.
Fast, Free Wi-Fi for Aeroplan Members sponsored by Bell now on Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge and Air Canada Express flights in North America, Mexico and the Caribbean
Fast, Free Wi-Fi for Aeroplan Members sponsored by Bell now on Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge and Air Canada Express flights in North America, Mexico and the Caribbean
Customers will enjoy speeds that allow for streaming video services, gaming and more on their personal devicesCertification and Wi-Fi installation on Q400 fleet operating at Toronto Billy Bishop expected later this yearFast, free Wi-Fi for Aeroplan Members expanding to international flights in 2026MONTREAL, May 1, 2025 – Fast, free Wi-Fi for A...
22) The makers of the AI search tool Perplexity want to buy Chrome if Google is forced to sell it
The company believes that it could run a browser at the scale of Chrome without diminishing its quality and while keeping it free to use.
23) Perplexity is working on its own browser. Perplexity's CEO has stated that it'll track everything users do online to sell "hyper-personalized ads"
To accomplish this, it will track everything users do outside of its own app. “That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you,” Srinivas said. “Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related. It’s not like that’s personal.”
24) A US judge has ruled that Apple violated a court order to reform its App Store
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland referred Apple and VP of finance Alex Roman to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation based on their conduct in the case.
Judge Rogers found that Apple had lied to the court in the case and that Roman had lied under oath.
Apple has denied any wrongdoing and has vowed to appeal.
25) Move over HDMI: here comes GPMI — a blazing-fast new all-in-one video, audio, and power cable
The General Purpose Media Interface (GPMI) connector and cable are a new standard created by SUCA — the Shenzhen International 8K Ultra High Definition Video Industry Collaboration Alliance, a group of major China-based tech brands including TCL and Hisense, the two largest TV manufacturers in the world.
The new GPMI standard offers significantly more bandwidth than current HDMI, as well as power delivery, surround sound audio, and other features.
GPMI will come in two variants, a ‘Type-C’ version that uses the same connector as USB Type-C, and a proprietary ‘Type-B’ connector with more impressive technical specs.
The GPMI Type-C connector boasts a 96Gbps transfer rate, which is on par with HDMI 2.2 announced earlier this year, along with up to 240W power delivery, roughly on par with topline USB4 connectors. It’ll also work with existing USB-C ports, which is great for compatibility.
The proprietary Type-B GPMI connectgor, on the other hand, can transfer data up to 192Gbps along with high power and surropund sound, all in one cable.
The conversion from HDMI to GPMI is not going to be a fast one, though, as the new HDMI 2.2 standard which was released in January, can handle 8K video and audio, and most people are still rulling 4K. TCL and HiSense are expected to build the new jacks into their TV's starting this fall.
27) 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.
28) Quebec to ban phones in schools starting in next school year
Building on a classroom phone ban implemented in January 2024, the Quebec government says starting this fall, it'll ban the use of phones and electronic devices on school grounds from the start until the end of the school day
The ban — the toughest in Canada — will apply to public and private schools at the elementary and high school levels in Quebec.
The Quebec government says there may be specific exceptions when phone use is necessary, particularly when a student's medical condition justifies it, for educational purposes set by teachers, or to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities or learning difficulties.
…and finally, our "Sign Of The Week"…
(Wendy must be a really bad driver to justify her own sign!)
And so it goes…