Mar. 28 & 29, 2026 Show Notes
Juno Awards Weekend Edition
🎙️ Show airs live
Saturday: 10:05am-Noon PT
on C-FAX 1070 in Victoria and
on CKFR AM 1150 in Kelowna
🔁 Rebroadcast
Sunday: 1:05pm-3pm PT
on C-FAX 1070
🎧 Podcast
Anytime
anywhere you get your podcasts
Your crew this weekend:
Kyle Wilson
Colwood-based IT Specialist, Wikipedia Administrator, and a Business Insider contributor
X & BlueSky: @KWilsonMG
1) If you have an Apple device, 26.4 updates have been released, with security patches, bug fixes, new emoji, and a few new features
The 26.4 series of updates for iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches and Apple TV's fix numerous security flaws (36 holes on iPhones and 71 holes on Mac's running macOS Tahoe), including some which hackers are actively exploiting to gain access. Depending on your device model, your update could be from 3GB to 20GB in size…
Mac users: in a small but very welcome move, Apple has added a message in Terminal in macOS 26.4 that warns when a user tries to paste an instruction that might be malware.
Because of the significance of the security holes being patched, Apple has also released special updates for devices that are too old to be able to run the current series 26 operating systems…
- for iPhones and iPads: iOS/iPadOS 18.7.7
- for older Macs: macOS Sequoia 15.7.5 and macOS Sonoma 14.8.5
- for older Apple Watch models, watchOS 8.8.2 and watchOS 5.3.10
- If your iPhone or iPad doesn't have enough available storage to install the update, you can use iTunes on a PC or Mac to help install the update…
(Your iPhone or iPad must already be running iOS/iPadOS 26. If it's still on iPS/iPadOS 18, you can take it to London Drugs and they will do a clean install of OS 26.4 for $30)
Also, after the Update finishes on an iPhone or iPad, remember to check for App Updates (App Store, icon in the top-right, tap on Updates, then pull down in mid-screen, scroll up, and "Update All.)
See item #10 for info on the new features included in the 26.4 series updates.
2) If you get a pop-up like these screenshots, it's a scam — but your computer is not infected, and you have not been hacked!
Those scam pop-up screenshots are all Notification boxes, which get delivered by a website or websites (like news or recipe sites) which you agreed to allow to send you Notifications.
Unfortunately, those websites have chosen to "rent" that ability to unscrupulous companies which send out fake virus warnings and other scams.
If you click or tap on the button, you'll be taken to a fake website where you'll be encouraged to either give them your credit card info for a fake (and pricey) anti-virus subscription, or to call a toll-free number which connects to an overseas call-centre where they'll pitch any one of a variety of scams.
Don't click, tap, or call! Instead, here's how to block these scam pop-ups…
On a Windows PC, open your Microsoft Edge web-browser, copy/paste the following into the address-bar… edge://settings/content/notifications
In the Notifications box, turn OFF the switch to the right of "Ask before sending"…
If you use the Chrome web-browser, copy-paste the following URL in the address bar of Chrome and hit Enter: chrome://settings/content/notifications.
The Notifications settings will open up, and you'll see the default setting Ask before sending.
Toggle the slider to select Blocked.
If you use the Safari web-browser on a Mac…
Click on the Apple logo in the top-left and click on Safari Preferences. Click on the Websites tab and then scroll down to Notifications. Now, uncheck the Allow websites to ask box highlighted in yellow...
These steps will prevent websites from sending you notifications!
3) It's tax season, and scammers are starting to churn out fake texts to try and steal some of your money
One of the scam text messages looks like this screenshot shared by astute "Tech Talk" listener Don…
The message claims that a temporary "hold' has been placed on your federal benefit payments because of discrepancies in your tax assessment, and urges you to visit https://canada-aud.com. That website has since been taken-down, but the scammers will surely change their text message to a new address and pump those out.
The website — hosted in Iceland — is a fake Canada Revenue Agency log-in page that looks just like the real one, and urges you to use a Partner site to confirm your identity to access your CRA account, which is precisely what you'd get on the real CRA website. But when you click on the logo for your bank or credit union, you're taken to a fake log-in page for that bank (note the web-address)…
The scammers are 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!
Service Canada and the CRA will NEVER text you, and if they email you, the email will NEVER contain a link for you to click on.
5) CBC warns of interview request scam asking for money
CBC is warning of an email scam in which someone impersonating a CBC journalist is pitching people on an interview and then asking them to pay to promote it.
"Along with the alarming rise in fake ads and news stories appearing online and on social media platforms, CBC is aware of people impersonating our employees via email offering interviews on CBC shows and asking for payment," Kerry Kelly, a spokesperson for CBC, said in a statement.
"These are not CBC employees and CBC does not ask for money, including bank transfers or online payments, in interview requests."
Many of the emails, which purport to come from a producer or researcher from one of CBC's broadcast shows, appear to be targeting authors.
In some of the emails, the impersonator provides facts about the show or the CBC itself. The recipient of the email is then pitched on the opportunity to participate in an interview with the show and offered to purchase a promotional campaign package that would be launched after the interview.
The email then offered the author three different "promotion campaign" packages they could purchase at different prices. Prices included $200 for a basic package, $360 for a standard package and $460 for a premium package.
The impersonator said that once the author let them know which package option works best for them, they would "send over the PayPal details and the official interview form."
6) Royal Bank has an excellent portal listing the latest banking scams and how to spot and avoid them
It's at RBC.com/cyber-security/alerts…
Tech Deals This Weekend
Freedom Mobile has quietly revived its $40/month for 250GB/month Canada/USA/Mexico + 50GB/month + 120-country "Roam Beyond"
For people who want a lot of data and/or who plan on doing lots of overseas travel, this was the best mobile deal we've ever seen when Freedom offered it earlier this month. They've quietly brought it back for this weekend!
For $40/month, you get unlimited Canada/USA/Mexico calling and data-roaming with a whopping 250GB/month of 5G data, plus 50GB/month of "Roam Beyond" calling and data in +120 countries.
The rate is guaranteed as long as you don't change your plan, and its contract-free so you can cancel anytime if your circumstances change.
Perhaps the best part: this offer is available to current Freedom customers too, not just new customers.
If you're a current Freedom Mobile customer, you can can call 611 or you can message them on iMessage or WhatsApp (find the links on their app or website under "Contact us").
Public Mobile reduces data buckets, but then does about-face to compete against Freedom, announces half-price sale instead
Public Mobile, the self-serve budget carrier owned by Telus, began the week by reducing its data allotments in its plans and taking-away the international calling it had been offering.
But, when Freedom Mobile brought back its amazing $40/month 250GB/month Canada-USA-Mexico plan, Public Mobile reversed course and launched a half-price flash sale for this weekend.
The best of several offers would get you 80GB/month of Canada/USA/Mexico calling and data for $25/month for up to 24 months…
Be aware, though, that this plan does not allow tethering/hotspotting, so you can't share this data with other nearby devices. This offer is only valid this weekend, and only for new customers.
Also, be aware that you'll have to pay $5 for an eSIM or $15 for a physical SIM card.
Saturday morning update: Freedom Mobile has responded by offering a 100GB/month Can/USA/Mex plan for $30/month this weekend
It's $5/month more, but includes 20GB/month more data, plus free SIM or eSIM, and includes tethering/hotspotting, plus 5GB/month of "Roam Beyond" coverage in 120+ countries
This is an unadvertised special, available only at Freedom Mobile stores, until the end of business on Monday.
Fido, Koodo, and Virgin Plus are (sort-of) competing by again offering $35/80GB CAN/US/MEX plans
The plan is mostly the same at the three providers, with a few small differences. First, here’s what you get regardless of provider:
- 80GB of 5G data (speeds vary).
- Canada/U.S./Mexico roaming with data, talk, and texts.
- Unlimited international SMS.
The biggest difference between the three providers is data speed. Koodo still caps 5G plans at 250Mbps, or up to 500Mbps if you get the company’s free speed boost perk. However, Fido and Virgin Plus, which started offering 5G service more recently, cap data speeds at up to 1Gbps.
Another difference is the aforementioned Koodo perks. Koodo offers a free perk with its plans, with options like a speed boost, rollover data, premium voicemail, and more.
Fido and Virgin, on the other hand, offer some bonuses bundled directly into the plan. Fido includes unlimited international calls to 27 countries and enhanced voicemail. However, Fido also charges extra for hotspot access, so you might want to skip Fido if you use hotspots frequently.
Virgin also offers unlimited international calling to 27 countries and hotspot access, but only offers basic voicemail with its plan.
Last chance for refurbished PC's at Tesseract before prices jump due to more pricey RAM and SSD's
Sadly, as prices of solid-state drives and RAM have skyrocketed due to demand from AI datacentres, Gary and Chris as Tesseract say this is the last shipment of desktop and tiny PCs at their old pricing.
Refurbished desktop PC's and miniPC's powered by Intel Core i5 processors start at $449, while faster Core i7 models start at $599. They all come with a one-year Lenovo warranty.
Tesseract Computers will be open 1-3:30pm this Saturday only and then 9am-4pm Monday to Friday.
They're at 720 Broughton Street near Douglas.
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) Seven new emojis — including an orca! — plus new features are included in Apple's 26.4-series updates
The 26.4 series of updates released this week contain more than new features, as well as the following seven new emojis: treasure chest, falling rocks, ballet dancers, an orca, Bigfoot, a distorted face, a fight cloud, and a trombone.
(If you're dictating and want to insert these emojis, just say the word(s) above followed by "emoji" and it'll quickly change the words into the emoji.)
Here are the highlights of the new features:
- The Music app now generate playlists with the help of Apple Intelligence, and also includes an optional "Concerts Near You" feature, which will alert you when concerts are scheduled for any artists in your library.
- The Podcasts app now includes video podcasts. Subtitle and captioning options are also now easier to find and customize, via a Captions button during podcast playback.
- The Health app will now show you the average time you've gone to bed over the past two weeks.
- In Settings, under the iCloud section, you'll see a new iCloud.com setting, which is a new name for the Access iCloud Data on the Web option.
- Similarly, the Reduce Highlighting Effects option in Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size has been renamed to Reduce Bright Effects — just a name-change, nothing else.
- Also in the Settings app, the Personal Hotspot section has been updated, and Data Usage is now displayed in the main settings pane, rather than within a dedicated submenu.
- The Stolen Device Protection capability, introduced in 2023, is now automatically enabled whenever a device is updated to iOS 26.4. This feature aims to prevent the total loss of an Apple Account if an iPhone and its passcode are stolen.
- Apple has also made a change affecting Family Sharing. Rather than forcing all participants to use a single user's payment method, adult members are now able to select their own method of payment, no longer requiring a shared wallet.
- Finally, the iOS 26.4 update fixes an issue with the iPhone keyboard. Apple says it has "improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly," meaning that the keyboard no longer fails to produce characters when the user taps too quickly.
Here's more on what's new in iOS 26.4 for iPhones…
Here's more on what's new in iPadOS 26.4 for iPads…
Here's more on what's new in macOS 26.4 for Mac computers and MacBooks…
Here's more on what's new in tvOS 26.4 for Apple TV's…
11) WhatsApp is gaining three features which many users have been longing for, including allowing two accounts on an iPhone
Meta has announced three big new features are being added to the WhatsApp app:
- Cross-platform transfer: an easy way to move WhatsApp accounts, chats and messages between an iPhone and an Android phone
- Free up space, keep what matters: Now you can find and delete large files directly within any chat, so you can clear what you don't need without wiping your entire conversation.
Simply hold your finger on a chat, scroll up in the options to Clear Chat, and then choose to clear the media files while keeping your chat history intact…
If you want to recover even more space faster, you can choose to delete large files from ALL you chats by going to your profile picture or initials, then to Storage and data, then to Manage storage, and then tap on Review and delete items…, when you can choose which attachents to delete, or delete just the ones you've shared a lot, or delete them all.
Because I share a lot of videos and pics with the families of our Grade 10 homestay students from Spain and Japan, here's how much space I receovered…
- Two accounts, one phone – now on iOS: You can now have two WhatsApp accounts logged in at the same time on iOS—just like on Android. No more carrying two phones to keep work and personal separate. You’ll always know which account you’re in because your profile picture will now be visible in the bottom tab.
- Stickers that match your mood: Stickers can bring bigger, bolder expressions to your chats—and now WhatsApp will make it easier to use them by suggesting them as you type emojis. With just a tap, you can swap an emoji for a sticker that captures exactly how you're feeling.
- Photo touch-ups with Meta AI: You can now use Meta AI to touch up photos directly in your chat before sending, making it easy to remove something distracting, swap in a new background,
These features are rolling out now and will be available soon at all WhatsApp users.
WhatsApp.com
New Feature Roundup: Free up space, multiple accounts, cross-platform transfer and more
Over time, our chats become a record of the moments that matter: conversations with family, laughs with friends, the photos and videos we couldn't stop sharing. To help you make the most of all of it, we're rolling out new ways to make WhatsApp even easier to use — whether you're staying organized, juggling work and personal, or getting more out of every chat.
12) Canadians can now claim compensation for 2022 LastPass data breach
If your personal info was compromised in the 2022 LastPass data breach, you can now apply for up to $500 in compensation through a new $4.13 million class-action settlement.
This class-action suit follows a data breach involving a LastPass engineer’s home computer, resulting in unauthorized access to users’ vault backups, names, billing addresses, and phone numbers between August 2022 and March 2023.
Final approval for the settlement was given on Feb. 18, 2026, by the BC Supreme Court, where the suit was originally filed.
The settlement is open to anyone residing in Canada whose private info was accessed during the breach.
Eligible users can file for two different types of compensation: Ordinary Claims and Crypto Claims.
Under Ordinary Claims, users can claim up to five hours of wasted time spent addressing the breach at a rate of $34.01 per hour, totalling $170.05. Claimants can also request up to $500 for out-of-pocket expenses incurred by May 31, 2023, provided they can supply the supporting documents proving that the costs were related to the breach.
Under Crypto Claims, users may seek damages for the loss of digital assets reasonably linked to the compromised vault data. Unlike standard time-loss claims, those filing for crypto asset losses must provide documentation and certification to be considered valid by the claims administrator.
To submit a claim, start by visiting the class-action website, below (the address, if you want to share it, is LastPassCanadianSettlement.ca/en. The deadline for submitting a claim is June 30.
If you're a LastPass user in the USA who was affected by the 2022 data-breach, a similar class-action lawsuit is still working its way through the courts in Massachusetts.
13) Unlike in the USA, Netflix rates here in Canada are not going up — at least not at this time
Netflix rates in the USA are being hiked this month by $1/month or $2/month depending on your plan.
But here in Canada, Netflix has explicitly stated that our rates are staying the same for now.
This comes on the heels of a report showing that streaming rates charged by the top 10 streaming services here in Canada rose an average of 7% last year.
Many Canadians have chosen to reduce that impact by opting for cheaper plans that include ads.
The full 2025 Couch Potato Report, by Convergence Research, is here…
14) Sony is shutting-down almost all of its memory card business because of the growing shortage of SSD's — solid-state drives
The global shortage of solid state memory has claimed its first photographic victim, as Sony has announced that it is suspending fulfillment of all orders for nearly its entire SD and CFexpress memory card product lines.
Sony Japan has published this notice on its website:
Thank you for your continued patronage of Sony products.Due to the global shortage of semiconductors (memory) and other factors, it is anticipated that supply will not be able to meet demand for CFexpress memory cards and SD memory cards for the foreseeable future. Therefore, we have decided to temporarily suspend the acceptance of orders from our authorized dealers and from customers at the Sony Store from March 27, 2026 onwards.Regarding the resumption of order acceptance, we will consider it while monitoring the supply situation and will announce it separately on the product information page.
The aforementioned SSD shortage is due entirely to the seemingly endless hunger of AI datacenters for memory. The cost of memory components is going up because the supply for the actual dies that make up all types of SSDs is finite and being largely consumed by enterprise companies looking to expand AI data centers. But it isn’t stopping at price increases. Because supply is finite, that also means that at some point, there simply isn’t enough hardware to even make certain products anymore.
As a result, Sony has decided to back out of memory card manufacturing until the market stabilizes. It’s the first to do this in the photography segment, but it is unlikely to be the last.
15) Rising drive and RAM prices are also behind big price hikes for Sony's PlayStation 5, PS5 Pro and PS Portal
Sony has announced that the price of the PS5, PS5 Pro and PS Portal will all see hefty price hikes starting on April 2.
The changes are hitting countries around the world, and we here in Canada is no exception:
- Standard PS5 — $819.99 (previously $649.99, so an increase of $170)
- Digital PS5 — $749.99 (previously $579.99, so an increase of $170)
- PS5 Pro — $1099.99 (previously $959.99, so an increase of $140)
- PS Portal — $319.99 (previously $269.99, so an increase of $50)
The fact that these hikes are coming more than five years into the generation is especially rough, as consoles historically are supposed to lower in price over time.
In a blog post, PlayStation attributes these hikes to “continued pressures in the global economic landscape” — presumably, a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and the global RAM and drive shortage.
PlayStation follows fellow console makers Xbox and Nintendo in raising hardware prices over the past year. Last year, Microsoft raised Xbox Series X/S prices twice, and Canada was included in one of those hikes. Nintendo, meanwhile, started charging more for the original Switch in August, although it hasn’t yet increased the price of the Switch 2.
16) Apple has confirmed that local ads will start appearing in Apple Maps this summer
The rumours of ads coming to Apple Maps were accurate: Apple has officially announced the launch of Apple Business, a new all-in-one platform for companies that confirms the arrival of sponsored ads within Apple Maps for Canadian and USA users.
Starting this summer, businesses in Canada and the USA will be able to pay for local ads to appear during search and discovery moments in the Maps app.
Ads will appear at the top of search results based on relevance and within a new Suggested Places section that highlights trending locations and recent searches.
Apple says these ads will be clearly marked for transparency, and claims the system is built with a privacy-first approach that does not associate a user’s location or ad interactions with their Apple Account. Here’s what it'll look like; you can see how ads have a light blue hue to them and say “Ad”:
Google Maps has had ads in some form since 2016, but became much more prominent starting in February of last year. Waze Maps has had ads since 2012.
iPhone in Canada | Canada’s source for Apple, telecom, tech news, and deals
Apple Confirms Local Ads Coming to Apple Maps in Canada This Summer | iPhone in Canada
Looks like the rumours of ads coming to Apple Maps is true after all. Apple has officially announced the launch of Apple Business, a new all-in-one platform for companies that confirms the arrival of sponsored ads within Apple Maps for Canadian users. Starting this summer, businesses in Canada and the U.S. will be able to
17) ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is scrapping its popular AI-powered Sora video-clip creation tool, and a $1 billion investment from Disney
Just six months ago, OpenAI was touting the latest version of its generative AI video model Sora as "the beginning of a completely new era" for creators, one it said would bring "a lot of joy, creativity and connection to the world."
But Sora — a platform that could generate breathtaking videos of the long-extinct Woolly mammoth just as easily as it could whip up a shampoo ad starring Hitler — was born to a different company than the one that exists today.
OpenAI decided this week to shut it down, citing a need to focus on other priorities.
According to the Wall Street Journal, some employees at OpenAI "were surprised by the amount of computing resources the company poured into the project, given the lack of clear evidence of demand for the product." The WSJ considered its discontinuation a rebuke of the company's previous strategy.
It also scaled back some shopping features in ChatGPT and paused development of the much-maligned "erotic chatbot" it had promised for sexually explicit conversation.
Sora's demise was reportedly a surprise to Disney, which announced in December that it would invest $1 billion US into OpenAI, giving Sora users the power to generate videos involving their favourite characters from the House of Mouse.
CBC
Why OpenAI is ditching Sora, its generative video app | CBC News
OpenAI has decided to scrap Sora, its app that generated videos based on user prompts. The move reveals that the company, once the disruptor-in-chief of the AI world, is now facing something of an identity crisis as it struggles to pick a lane on the busy road to profitability.
See two of the best Sora-generated clips in videos #40 and #41 below…
18) Apple has finally pulled the plug on its Mac Pro line
After more than a decade of flirting with the idea, Apple has finally discontinued the Mac Pro tower.
The company has removed the the latest Mac Pro iteration —an M2 Ultra model first released in mid-2023 — from its websites and says there are no plans to make a successor.
The discontinuation of the Mac Pro should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Reporting from late last year suggested that the Mac Pro had been put “on the back burner,” but the desktop has clearly been in danger of falling off the stove since at least the mid-2010s, during the six-year period where the controversial cylindrical “trash can” Mac Pro design languished without updates.
Apple briefly rededicated itself to its pro desktop in 2019 with a new design that hearkened back to more versatile, upgradeable, be-handled versions of the Power Mac and Mac Pro. But by the time it was updated again with M2 Ultra four years later, it was already clear that the idea of a huge and expandable Mac desktop was out of step with the Apple Silicon era. The desktop’s demise confirms that, at least in Apple’s estimation, the Mac Pro was trying to fill a niche that no longer exists.
The Mac Pro is survived by the M4 Max and M3 Ultra versions of the Mac Studio desktop, as well as by the M4 Pro Mac mini. It was preceded in death by the 27-inch iMac (2009–2020) and the iMac Pro (2017–2017).
19) The 2026 Juno Awards will be held on Sunday in Hamilton
The 55th annual Juno Awards, celebrating the best in Canadian music, will take place on Sunday starting at 6 p.m. PT, hosted by comedian Mae Martin in the newly-renovated TD Coliseum in Hamilton.
There will be live performances by Canadian artists such as Alessia Cara, Allison Russell, The Arkells, The Beaches, Daniel Caesar, Sarah McLachlan, and more. Joni Mitchell, now 82, will be on-hand to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, her first appearance back in Canada in 13 years!
The Junos will air on CBC-TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, and CBC Listen, and will be streamed globally at CBCMusic.ca/Junos, and be broadcast on CBC Music’s YouTube Channel.
20) Meta and Google ordered to pay millions in two US court rulings for making social media platforms addictive and harmful to teens
Two landmark social media court cases concluded this week in the USA, with Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube, ordered to pay hundreds of millions in damages after juries in New Mexico and in California, concluded that the firms deliberately made Facebook, Instagram and YouTube addictive and harmful to teens.
In the first case, a New Mexico jury ruled Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms.
The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial. Jurors sided with state prosecutors, who argued that Meta — which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — prioritized profits over safety.
The jury determined Meta violated parts of the state's Unfair Practices Act by hiding what it knew about about the dangers of child sexual exploitation on its platforms and the impacts on child mental health, and engaged in "unconscionable" trade practices that unfairly took advantage of the vulnerabilities of and inexperience of children.
Jurors found thousands of violations, each counting separately toward a penalty of $375 million US.
A slated second phase of the trial, possibly in May before a judge with no jury, would determine whether Meta created a public nuisance and may be ordered to change course and pay for remedies.
In the second case, Meta and YouTube must pay $6 million USD in damages to a 20-year-old woman after a California jury found the social media giant and video streamer were designed to hook young users without concern for their well-being.
The decision could influence the outcome of thousands of similar cases accusing social media companies of deliberately harming children.
The plaintiff, identified by her initials KGM, testified that she became addicted to social media as a child and that this addiction worsened her mental health struggles. After more than 40 hours of deliberations, a majority of jurors agreed and awarded her $3 million US in damages.
Jurors later recommended an additional $3 million US in punitive damages after finding the companies acted with malice, oppression or fraud in harming children through their platforms. The judge will have the final say over how much damages are awarded.
CBC
Jury in Los Angeles finds Meta and YouTube liable in landmark social media addiction trial | CBC News
Meta and YouTube must pay millions in damages to a 20-year-old woman after a jury decided the social media giant and video streamer designed their platforms to hook young users without concern for their well-being.
21) Amazon is (again) working to develop its own smartphone
More than ten years after its Fire Phone failure, led by Jeff Bezos, Amazon is preparing a return to smartphone market.
The latest effort, known internally as “Transformer,” is being developed within its devices and services unit, according to four people familiar with the matter. The phone is seen as a potential mobile personalization device that can sync with home voice assistant Alexa and serve as a conduit to Amazon customers throughout the day.
Amazon also has another potential card up its sleeve to draw potential buyers — satellite service.
Amazon is preparing to launch a consellation of low-earth-orbit satellites similar to SpaceX's Starlink, to provide satellite connectivity not just in rural areas that don't have cell service, but also to Amazon phone users who wouldn't have to subscribe to mobile service from a traditional carrier.
Reuters
Exclusive: Amazon plans smartphone comeback more than a decade after Fire Phone flop
In 2014, Amazon introduced its first smartphone, hoping to take on Apple AAPL.O and Samsung. Instead, the Fire Phone - overseen directly by founder Jeff Bezos - was scrapped in barely over a year, one of Amazon’s highest-profile flops.
22) Google’s TurboQuant AI-compression algorithm can reduce LLM (Large Language Model) memory usage by 6x
Even if you don’t know much about the inner workings of generative AI models, you probably know they need a lot of memory. That's why it's currently almost impossible to buy a measly stick of RAM without getting fleeced. Google Research recently revealed TurboQuant, a compression algorithm that reduces the memory footprint of large language models (LLMs) while also boosting speed and maintaining accuracy.
TurboQuant is aimed at reducing the size of the key-value cache, which Google likens to a “digital cheat sheet” that stores important information so it doesn’t have to be recomputed.
With TurboQuant, Google’s early results show an 8x performance increase and 6x reduction in memory usage in some tests without a loss of quality.
If implemented, TurboQuant could make AI models less expensive to run and less hungry for memory. However, the companies creating this technology could also use the newly freed-up memory to run more complex models. It’ll probably be a mix of both, but mobile AI could see more benefit. With the hardware limitations of a smartphone, compression techniques like TurboQuant could improve the quality of outputs without sending your data to the cloud.
25) 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.
26) Kathryn's Paleontology News Item of the Week: new species of baby dinosaur has been named after famous South Korean cartoon
From pop culture to palaeontology, a new baby dinosaur has been named from Asia.
While the dinosaur fossil record in Korea is incredibly rich when it comes to footprints and eggshells, the remains of dinosaur bones are exceedingly rare. That makes the discovery of a partial dinosaur skeleton from the Aphae Islands of South Korea a hugely significant find.
Dating to around 113 million years ago, the youngster would have lived scurrying around the feet of some of the largest land animals to have ever existed. Measuring just a couple of feet in length, this new species was a likely a baby when it died, with the researchers suspecting that it might have been covered in a fuzzy layer of feathers.
Because of this, they have decided to name the dinosaur Doolysaurus huhmin after the well-known South Korean cartoon character Dooly. Created by Kim Soo-jung, Dooly the Little Dinosaur is a baby dinosaur with a couple of tufts sprouting from its head…
The new species was described by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the Korean Dinosaur Research Center and has been published in the journal Fossil Record
This is only the third named species of dinosaur to have been discovered in South Korea.
Homework videos (a.k.a. "time well wasted"!)
Check out our new YouTube Favourites playlist #2:
Our original Favourites playlist maxxed-out at 5000 videos; it's here…
Videos start at #40, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more tech news items above!
40) Watch arguambly one of the best video-clips created using OpenAI's "Sora" video-clip creation tool, which is being scrapped as too expensive…
41) …and another…
42) Watch a REAL cat video as Danny's cat provides the percussion beat on cue…
43) Watch "Captions With Intention" — the first big advance in closed captions since 1971…
44) Watch rare drone footage of Kavachi, a mssive underwater volcano, erupting in the Solomon Islands…
45) Watch Tom Scott announce his return to YouTube after two years…
46) Watch 16-year-old Rafferty Coope blend music and magic to win a Golden Buzzer on "Britain's Got Talent"…
47) Watch street musician Imad Fares immediately turn the crowd in Warsaw into a street dance party when he plays "Despacito" on his Spanish guitar…
48) Watch Listen: Seal and Croft's worldwide 1972 hit, "Summer Breeze", as we remember Dash Croft, who's died in Texas at the age of 87…
The other half, Jim Seals, died in 2022.
…and finally, our "Sign Of The Week"…
(the critical mistake in this one, from listener Daryl, will only be spotted by aviation buffs)
And so it goes…