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Sometimes, the scammers will leave a callback number in their voicemail, but NEVER call it.

NEVER tap on buttons in screens like this!

This is a new twist on an old scam, as you'll see in the screenshot shared by our good friend Charles Martin: it's a reciept for a $568 gun supposedly bought from Apple…

Aside from the fact that Apple doesn't sell guns, the email is coming from an individual @iCloud.com email account (which we've reported to Apple and has since been shut down)…

The scam is the phone number the scammers are hoping you'll call to dispute the charge. It gets answered at a call-centre in India, where someone posing as Apple Support will offer to 'reverse' the charge, but will want you to log into your account to confirm that has happened. They then ask to share your screen, and will either steal your log-in info so they can buy things on your account, or most often, they'll want you to check your bank account or credit card account so they can copy that log-in info and start transferring money to themselves.

And make sure you also have a clear clue for the unlock code(s) written down in a safe place — and you know where that place is!

One of the most-stressful things that can happen to you and your tech gear is finding youself locked-out of your phone, tablet, or computer, and that usually happens at the worst time.

Twice this week, I had people contact me who had forgotten the unlock codes for their devices.

Richard uses Face ID on his iPhone and loves that, but when it restarted after an update, he had to tap in his passcode to unlock it and resume using Face ID, and he could not remember his passcode.

The usual solution would be to reset it using his Apple ID email address and password, but he couldn't remember that password, either.

Fortunately, he had a Windows laptop, and the passwod was stored in his web-browser, so Josh at London Drugs Tillicum Centre was able to help him regain access to his iPhone and iPad.

Emily was having a stressful week, having learned that her sister was dying of cancer, and couldn't remember her laptop password, and also coudn't remember where she'd written it down.

When I tried to help her reset her password, Microsoft wanted to send a verification message to her Microsoft Authenticator app on her phone, but she'd deleted the app when her phone gor full at Christmas and forgot to reinstall it. The other option was to have a code texted to a phone number, but she hadn't given Microsoft her mobile number, and initially didn't recognize the number they did have on file. Eventually, she guessed it was he ex's number, and after a few hours, she was able to contact him and get the code, and we were able to reset her password, and pick a PIN code she won't forget.

So, please do these three things, to avoid stressing youself to the max:

Feel free to bookmark that page, as we'll keep updating it with screenshots of the latest scams!

An Ontario woman is sharing her story after she invested over $900,000 in a cryptocurrency platform that turned out to be fake.

It was in the summer of 2025 when 86-year-old Judy Skene of Sault St. Marie came across what was actually a deepfake video of Prime Minister Mark Carney promoting a crypto investment platform.

At the time, Skene clicked the link, signed up, and made an initial investment. “I saw an ad on Facebook of Mark Carney telling me if I invested $350 Canadian, it would be backed by the Bank of Canada,” Skene said.

Following the initial investment, she received a phone call from someone claiming it had already tripled in value. Over the next few months, she invested everything she had, even taking out a mortgage on her condo. “So I agreed to put a mortgage of $300,000 on my condominium,” Skene told CTV News.

In a fake investment account, it appeared her money had almost doubled, but in reality, she was defrauded of $900,000. “Once I did the final payment, there was no more conversation and all my money was gone,” said Skene.

Apple is set to release iOS 26.5.2, the latest update for iPhones, aimed at addressing critical issues and enhancing overall device performance.

This update is expected to roll out within the next few days to tackle user-reported problems such as unreliable Wi-Fi connectivity, excessive battery drain, and performance lags in Low Power Mode.

It'll also include essential bug fixes and security patches to ensure device stability and protection against emerging cyber threats.

There'll be matching 26.5.2 updates for other Apple products.

Public Mobile, which is the self-serve budget brand owned by Telus, is getting back into the lower-priced end of the mobile market, offering three plans that are less than $30/month, as well two excellent $35 plans, one for Canada-only, and one for Canada/USA/Mexico calling and roaming…

Note that these plans do not allow any data-sharing or hotspotting.

Here are the current plans listed on Public’s website:

The Canada Day specials are only valid till the end of business on Canada Day, Wednesday July 1.

All of these plans are self-serve only, so you have to purchase them online, and help is available only via messaging, no in-store or on-the-phone help.

We're big fans of the refurbished Epson Eco-Tank printers which are exclusive to London Drugs, and come with a full one-year warranty. Many of you over the past year or so bought a refurbished ET-2850 for more than $200 off the price of a new unit, and we've had virtually no problem with them. The 2850's and its bigger cousin, the 3850, are now all gone, but Epson is now providing newer refurbished models, also at hefty savings…

London Drugs stores are carrying three models, all of which come with bottles of ink, enough for literally three years of printing for most people…

There's also the ET-4958 touchscreen model: $380 (reg. $600), wired/wireless, touchscreen, ADF, fax

When we told you about this deal last month, they sold out within an hour! In response, London Drugs has brought in more!

No more needing separate chargers for here and Europe: you can now get a Joby 20W USB-C fast-charging power charger that works here in North America and has a snap-on adapter for use in the Europe and the UK. They're usually $40, but while they last, they're on sale for just $7 — a $33 saving — at London Drugs stores (not online)…

Stores don't open till 11am on Sundays at Hillside Centre, but on Sunday, July 12, Freedom Mobile will open at 10am for "Tech Talk" listeners only, and I'll be there with manager Darren Alexander and his staff to answer any questions you have — especially if you're going travelling soon, and want to stay connected without going broke!

Special deals will be available only during that hour, and Darren will arrange for Tom Horton's coffee, to put it on your calendar!

This blast from the past is on sale until the end of the weekend. Great for kids at camp, or even weddings! Hurry in while supplies last.

Items start at #10, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more security items above!

Rogers and Fido customers are seeing a notice on their latest bills, advising of a new line item, a $5/month Wireless Rate Plan Adjustment Fee…

What's important here is that this new fee is also being added onto the bills of people who are under contract with Rogers/Fido through having bought a phone from them.

By making it a new fee, Rogers is claiming that this does not violate the fixed-rate contract.

Canada's communications regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has sent a letter to Rogers over the carrier’s new price hike, asking for an explanation as to how it does not violate new rules banning such fees.

Rogers is the last of the big three carriers to come up with a new fee to make-up for the ban on Activation Fees which took effect on June 12; Bell and its budget brand Virgin+ have started charging a $40 Device Handling Fee — but only when you buy a new phone — while Telus and its budget brand Koodo have started charging a $15 SIM fee. Telus is making it mandatory that this $15 SIM card fee be charged, even for eSIMs, for all new activations online or in-store. This cannot be waived this time around by dealers during promo periods, according to Telus documentation to employees.

One week after outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook warned that rapidly rising prices for memory and other components was going to necessitate price hikes, Apple this week substantially boosted prices on a variety of products — MacBooks, iMacs, iPads, and even Apple TV 4K's and HomePods which haven't been updated in two years.

Customers buying an iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods, or AirTag will pay the same prices they paid before the increases.

Here’s the new Canadian pricing across the board:

Mac and iMac

iPad

Smart Home, Apple TV, and Vision Pro

Price-hikes are also expected on Apple's new iPhones and other gear when they're introduced this fall, although analysts think that the additional revenue Apple will earn from the current price-hikes should help limit the amount of the increases on new gear.

Starting August 1. the prices for Xbox consoles will jump worldwide by 23- to 33- percent, and there'll no longer be a 2TB model.

In the USA, Microsoft says it'll increase Xbox prices by $100 (about $142 CAD more) for consoles with 512GB of storage and by $150 (roughly $212 CAD more) for 1TB models.

We're still waiting for word on how much exactly the price hikes will be here in Canada, but based on those American numbers, we could see Xbox Series X consoles starting around $890 CAD and Series S consoles rising to around $590 CAD.

Samsung Display has received Apple's approval to begin module production of OLED panels for Apple's first foldable iPhone, according to a report from TheElec.

Samsung Display has already begun operating part of its back-end production lines in Vietnam to fulfill an initial order of approximately three million panels scheduled for delivery this year.

Module production approval is a qualification process in which a panel supplier must demonstrate final assembly quality, product performance and mass-production stability before supplying displays to a device manufacturer. Apple's approval threshold is known to be a yield rate of at least 70%. Samsung Display reportedly passed the requirement after achieving final yields exceeding 80%.

Samsung Display is the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for Apple's foldable smartphone.

Foldable smartphones require significantly stricter specifications than conventional bar-type smartphones. Because displays must withstand repeated folding, durability in the fold area, crease management, overall thickness and assembly precision are critical.

The display is also expected to use Samsung Display's latest OLED material set, known as M16, the company's newest organic material system for flagship smartphone OLED panels, which offers better brightness, colour performance, lifespan and power efficiency compared with previous generations.

The hinge is one of the most critical components in a foldable smartphone, directly affecting folding performance, crease visibility and long-term durability, and Apple is still working to improve the quality of its folding iPhone hinges, something which could potentially delay the initial availability of a folding iPhone.

Good news if you have a computer that's still running Windows 10: Microsoft has quietly pushed the end of it's free ESU — Extended Security Updates service — off by a year, to October 2027.

Although you won't get any new features or performance updates, you'll continue to get security updates from Microsoft.

Be aware, though, that you'll find more and more apps and websites will become inoperable or inaccessible, as their makers stop supporting Windows 10, which is now 11 years old.

This includes Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, and Teams, which will lose Windows 10 support this October.

If you're still running Windows 10, please make sure you're enrolled in ESU by going to Windows Update, where you should see this…

If you're NOT enrolled, you should see this, and if you do, please enroll, to stay as safe as possible…

Apple will reportedly launch its first touchscreen MacBook with existing M5 Pro and Max chips after scrapping plans for higher-end M6 processors.

Instead of waiting for an entire next-generation processor upgrade, Apple is said to be moving ahead with its release timeline. The new touchscreen laptops are currently on track to launch between late this year and early 2027.

This decision means early adopters will get a radically redesigned exterior paired with internal processors that are already available in current MacBook Pro models.

This upcoming computer will mark the first significant visual overhaul for the high-end MacBook line since 2021. The device will be available in 14" and 16" sizes, currently codenamed K114 and K116 within Apple. Beyond the touch capabilities, the machine will feature an OLED display, likely adopting the same tandem-OLED technology used in recent iPad Pros to provide extreme brightness and contrast.

We can also expect the notch to disappear, as Apple plans to replace it with an iPhone-style Dynamic Island to house the camera and system alerts.

Choosing to launch a premium, next-generation device with existing chips is a notable gamble for Apple. The current M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, built on Fusion Architecture, are undeniably fast and feature specialized neural accelerators built for heavy artificial intelligence tasks. However, consumers who pay a premium for a brand-new form factor generally expect the absolute latest silicon.

For power users who feel disappointed by the reuse of the M5 family, the wait for next-generation silicon will not be too long. The same internal reports show that Apple is already conducting advanced testing on a second-generation touchscreen MacBook powered by future M7 Pro and M7 Max processors.

These M7 MacBook Touch models are planned for a release as early as the end of 2027.

When Apple announced the '27' family of operating systems which will be released this fall, it said that any iPhone that can run iOS 26 will be able to be upgraded to iOS 27, including as far back as the iPhone 11, which was released seven years ago,

Many presumed the same would be true for iPads, but not so.

Apple says the following iPad models that can run iPadOS 26 will not be able to run iPadOS 27:

This is a technological advancement that's sure to be even more controversial than authroties using facial recognition software to spot supected terrorists and wanted criminals :

Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions is marketing technology it calls SignalTrace, which it says is to "identify people of interest by the signals emitted from their electronic devices they travel with, such as fitness trackers, smartwatches, RFID tags, and local signals from their mobile phones."

SignalTrace sensors collect data from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as RFID tags. It categorizes the signals by device and links it to the data shot by ALPR (Automated Licence Plate Reader) cameras.

The idea is that as well as grabbing all of this data, it can be used to create a digital fingerprint of a person or a group of people. It stores that data for the authorities, but also uses it to track trends, such as when two phones are consistently spotted traveling together.

This "can lead to the discovery of convoys and other movement and travel patterns," says Leonardo's official site. Leonardo also claims that it respects individuals' privacy and does not decrypt or read content from the devices it detects. The firm also stresses that this data will only be used when requested by law enforcement. However, there is no mention of Leonardo requiring warrants.

The argument in favour of this is that cars and trucks are being driven in public places, and people walk on sidewalks in public, and so there can be no expectation of privacy. But without any governmental oversight of the system, this is a private company holding personal data and it's use is sure to be challenged in court.

You turn on your favourite show but can’t hear the dialogue. You turn the volume up. It’s perfect. Then, an ad comes on. It’s way too loud. You’re startled, and annoyed.

That’s about to become a thing of the past, at least in California. Starting July 1, a state law will go into effect barring streaming platforms from servicing ads louder than the programming they accompany.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill last year forcing the normalization of audio levels so viewers aren’t jolted by blaring commercials.

Federal law already requires ads to match the average volume of the content being watched, though it only applies to TV broadcasters and cable operators. This legislation now mandates streaming platforms to do the same.

Not everyone is happy with the new law; the Motion Picture Association and Streaming Innovation Alliance opposed the measure, arguing that many platforms are already working to address the issue. They noted that services have long been intervening to adjust the loudness of commercials that come from server-side ad insertion, and that they’re trying to establish best practices for normalizing the loudness of ads.

Next up, maybe lawmakers can do something about overly soft, mumbling dialogue preceded by deafening explosions.

Logitech’s newest mouse is also the company’s first crack at a foldable form factor. Dubbed the Mobi Fold, it’s slim, compact, and can easily fold up and tuck away in your bag. But, it's $119 CAD.

It’s light, slim, stylish and easy to use; it has a soft, silicon-like material across about two-thirds of the mouse, with the top third (where the buttons and battery live) made from more traditional hard plastic.

Using the Mobi Fold is as simple as unfolding it. There’s no power button, so the mouse just starts up when unfolded, and shuts down when folded.

The Mobi Fold connects via Bluetooth Low Energy (LE). Notably, there’s no wireless USB receiver in the box unless you fork out extra for the ‘business’ version of the mouse. Plus, you can pair it with up to three devices and with its app, you can even use it seamlessly across devices via Logi Flow.

The big downside, users say, is with the touch scrolling — they miss having a scrollwheel and say it feels less precise overall.

Still, some users are complaining, arguing that Netflix doesn’t truly need this info, and is merely seeking more ways to track viewers and share info with advertisers. Netflix’s privacy policy does say that Netflix may share users’ email addresses with marketing and ad firms.

There are now more than 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.

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.

A feathered dinosaur called Jian changmaensis may be the missing predator responsible for mysterious piles of crushed prehistoric bird bones found in China.

A 120-million-year-old fossil of the four-winged glider, a close cousin of Velociraptor, was recently found in northwestern China, and is helping paleontologists understand how early birds and their dinosaur relatives shared the same ancient landscape.

In a study published in the Annals of Carnegie Museum, researchers report the discovery of a previously unknown dinosaur species that had long feathers on both its forelimbs and hind limbs. Based on distinctive features of its arm and shoulder bones, scientists believe this dinosaur was the predator responsible for the mysterious bird bone accumulations.

Check out our new YouTube Favourites playlist #2:

YouTube.com/playlist?list=PLOKnlVLuXE5URgg0ou8uGg4CnHXcou1UA

Our original Favourites playlist maxxed-out at 5000 videos; it's here…

YouTube.com/playlist?list=FLPPpa_PY8rxt-z1RoYZ7QJ

Videos start at #40, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more tech news items above!

40) Watch the hidden processes that go into every FIFA-certified soccer ball…

41) Watch Mark Rober show how he — and you — can outsmart car thieves…

42) Watch tech expert Joanna Stern put the new AI-powered Siri through her (its?) paces for a week…

43) Watch Nicholas Bardon tour an 11-acre private island retreat that looks at Swartz Bay which you can buy for 'just' $4.65 million…

44) Watch Jacob Collier teach members of the VSO School of Music (and the audience) to perform a hit song no-one recognizes till it all comes together…

45) Watch Deborah Roberts look back at the legacy of legendary music producer Clive Davis, who died this week at the age of 94…

46) Watch the video of the song which Natsuki, my Japanese homestay student, picked for her farewell: 'Sakura' (Cherry Blossom) by Kobukuro…

47) Watch: the Rolling Stones' new single Jealous Lover

Natsuki wanted to show her dad some of our special places, so we, along with her friend Rena from Tokyo, watched some of the Canada/Switzerland World Cup game on the big screen at Langford Station, checked-out the hidden waterfall at Goldstream Park, then ate at Ice Cream Mountain and went swimming in the ocean at Witty's Lagoon in Metchosin…

The next day, we hiked up to Pickles Bluff atop ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ in Central Saanich, then Natsuki and her dad (a former swim champion in Japan) had a race in the pool at Saanich Commonwealth Place, followed by cheesecake lunch at Pagliacci's and Naoto's first IMAX movie, and then we headed home to watch the Japan/Sweden game while eating Naoto's first Hungarian langos and Greek souvlaki from the Sidney Night Market…

On Frday morning, we sadly said 'Sayonara' to Natsuki and Naoto, as they headed home to Osaka.

Dōmo arigatōgozaimasu to Naoto, and also to Natsuki's mom Masaki (and her younger brother Sosuke) for allowing Natsuki to be a special part of our family for the past 10 months, and we hope to see her when she returns for Grade 11 with a new host family in September!