Join Aitan, Charles, iand me for the September VMUG meeting, on Zoom, at 7pm this Wednesday, September 9th. If you're not a VMUG member, you can take part as our guest at this link…

Or, you can subscribe to "Tech Talk with Alan Perry" (it's free) on any podcast app including these…

Take part on Saturday morning when we're live:

The scam emails, as shown in the screenshot below, look like an actual invite being sent via the New York-based Paperless Post invitation and RSVP service, but are coming from the email address of someone whose email account has been hacked, so it appears to you to be from someone you know…

If you open that file, it'll install malware that'll instantly give overseas hackers remote access to your computer and everything in it, including emails, accounts and passwords.

NEVER click on buttons or links in emails like this!

Contact the supposed sender by text or by phone (not by email as their email account has likely been hacked), and ask them to send you the invite info without you having to download anything.

If you overlook this and click or tap on the Review Your Eligibility button in the email, you get taken to a screen like this, hosted on Tuitions.Hub.com…

…and the View full reference button takes you to a fake 'secvurity check' that looks like this…

…and if you complete that fake security check, you end up at the scam: a list of banks and credit unions where you're instructed to choose yours, and then you're taken to a fake (but real-looking log-in page where the overseas scammers are hoping you'll give them your banking log-in info…

NEVER click or tap on emails like this!

Legitimate communications about the bread class-action settlement will only from:

Police across Canada are warning of a sophisticated phone scam that leaves you on the hook for a very real bill while scammers make off with a new device.

It begins when you get an unsolicited call from someone claiming to represent one of the big garriers — Rogers, Telus, or Bell. Often, these calls are spoofed, which makes the call appear legitimate, as it might say the carrier’s name in the caller ID.

The callers then offer you a promotion, such as a heavily discounted new phone and a great rate plan, and arrange for it to be delivered to your home. They'll trigger a genuine security code from your carrier to confirm it's you, and if you give them that code, they'll place the order on your behalf. Once the device is delivered, the fraudsters call back and convince you to return the phone, saying its the wrong model, or there’s a problem with the phone itself. Crucially, the fraudsters get you to return the device to an address they control.

That leaves you without the device and with hefty new charges on your account, and your carrier will not waive those charges, because you authorized the purchase.

Carriers are trying to combat this scam by placing bold notices in the box warning you not to return the phone to a different address from the one on the notice, but scammers get around that by offering to send someone to your home to collect the phone so you don't have to send it back!

If you get one of these calls, and the offer sounds tempting, ask the caller to email you the details along with a call-back number. You'll usually get a generic email from a Gmail address. Contact your carrier and ask them if the offer is genuine. It almost always is a scam.

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

We're big fans of Malwarebytes anti-malware; we all use it! We love how great a job it does of automatically keeping bad stuff out of our computers without slowing them down, and how easy it is to install and use, especially with updates being done automatically. Plus, it's quite affordable — especially if you buy a licence when it's on sale!

However, in a bid to make more money, Malwarebytes has renamed their licence levels to include more-expensive new options that also include a VPN service, and Identity Protection, which the vast majority of us don't need.

Here are the new plans which you can buy, with what was Malwarebytes Premium now renamed Malwarebytes Standard — which is what we're all using, and what we recommend you use, too…

We recomnmend you buy Malwarebytes Standard in a store rather than online, because — in addition to supporting local jobs — it's much cheaper! Most stores sell a one-year licence for three devices (any combination of Windows, Mac, and Android; not needed for iPhones or iPads) for $55, compared to $78 online), and if you wait, you can often get it on sale for $35, which $43 less than the online price!

As part of UVic's annual Fall "Welcome Week" events, Freedom Mobile will be offering special deals to students, faculty, and anyone who shows up at their bright orange tent outside the UVic Student Union Building between 10am and 4pm this coming Tuesday through Friday.

Three specials for new Freedom customers only:

If you couldn't make it to our special Hillside Store Meet-&-Greet last Sunday,

If you're a light data user and mostly use your phone for calling and texting, Freedom Mobile has a superb special for new customers for a limited time…

You pay $120 up-front, no credit card or credit check required, and get six months of unlimited Canada/USA calling and texting, plus 25GB of data. That works out to just $20/month!

This offer is for new Freedom customers only.

If you don't need any data, Freedom offers a prepaid six-month unlimited Canada/USA calling and texting plan for $90, which works out to $15/month and that's available to anyone.

On September 5 and 6 only, Cineplex is offering $5 general admission (with the option to pay the difference for premium format upgrades) and $5 small popcorns.

This includes the two biggest releases of the summer, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey, as well as Tony, Insidious: Out of the Further, Coyote vs. Acme and the new Barney-inspired horror-comedy Buddy.

Given that general admission and small popcorns cost $15 and $8.50, respectively, this promotion is a pretty good deal. Cineplex charges a $1.50 online booking fee per ticket, but this gets reduced to $1 for Scene+ members and waived entirely if you purchase your tickets in-person at the theatre.

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

The unfortunate answer is, not really.

There are numerous alternative navigation apps available for iPhones and Android phones, but they either get their map data from the same sources as Apple and Google, or they're nowhere near as detailed, or as fast to reflect traffic changes, and that's why most of us use map apps.

Apple Maps this week followed the lead of Google Maps and changed the name of Lake Ontario (for American users) to Lake America, after the US President signed an executive order to that effect.

Apple and Google say they made the change after the US GNIS (US Geographic Names Info System) was updated to reflect the new name, although the name change violates a 232-year treaty, the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, which is one of the earliest establishing peace between the United States and native nations, and was signed by George Washington. The treaty established "peace and friendship," and mentions Lake Ontario by name to establish borders of tribal land.

Although the name change was supposed to only be visible to users in the USA, because many Canadian agencies and companies embed Google Maps into their websites for directions to their locations, people accessing a wide variety of Canadian websites, including the Ontario Liquor Board saw "Lake America"!

This highlights the reality that virtually all the major map apps are US-based.

MapQuest (remember them?) has seen a resurgence in popularity after vowing to not implement the name change, just as they refused to show the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America after the US President made that change via an executive order last year. MapQuest logged more than 184,000 global downloads in a few days, representing a tenfold jump over its typical baseline. MapQuest app usage has spiked to roughly 50 times its standard daily rate.

To capitalize on the momentum, MapQuest has launched an interactive generator allowing users to visually rename Lake Ontario to whatever they choose, with the company using "Lake Are We Doing This Again?" as its own example!

However, if you're thinking of using the MapQuest app, it's important you be aware of some significant limitations which it has, especially here in Canada…

There are several other navigation apps you can try, but they all have similar limitations:

The big question is what trade-offs you'll have to be willing to accept, and, if others in your orbit will be willing to follow your lead and also switch.

Nanaimo-based social media guru Tod Maffin and his wife Jocelyn have spent the last few months compiling a comprehensive list of Canadian, and non-American, apps and software you can try. It's at Unplug.TodMaffin.com…

Their list gives you options for apps and software organized by category, including

If you're in Europe, Tod and Jocelyn have also created a list of European alternatives to US-based tech, and that's at EuropeanAlternative.com…

Apple has unveiled some big upgrades coming to its Mac mini computers, including new chip options and the debut of the company’s blazing-fast M6 processor, and the M5 prices are the same as the models they replace, while the M6's start at just $150 more.

The 2nm M6 chip boasts the first 12-core CPU in an Apple M-series chip, comprised of two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. The chip sports a Dual 16-core Neural Engine boasting up to 2x peak compute over the previous gen for AI workloads. Moreover, both engines can be used simultaneously.

On the GPU side, M6 also boasts two more cores than the M5 chip at 12 total. Further, each core sports a Neural Accelerator. The design delivers a nearly 30 per cent increase in peak GPU compute for AI compared to the M5. The changes significantly boost on-device processing for large language models (LLMs).

Apple is also highlighting other updates that enable the M6 to offer faster rendering and higher frame rates, making it better for gaming as well. On the memory side, the M6 chip supports up to 32GB of unified memory with up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Other upgrades to the Mac mini include support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and a 2.5Gb Ethernet port (with 10Gb options available). The M5 Pro variant of Mac mini also sports three Thunderbolt 5 ports, allowing users to cluster multiple Mac minis together to run large AI models locally.

Here’s the Canadian pricing:

Those M5 prices are the same as curent models (which went up in price in June), but the new M6 version starts at a $150 higher price than the current $1,099 Mac mini with M4.

The Mac mini is now available to pre-order, and will ship on September 22.

Apple has announced its first fall product unveiling event for 10am Pacific time this coming Wednesday, September 9, under the tagline "Surprise and shine".

Apple is expected to announce three new iPhones:

This year, a standard iPhone model isn’t expected to be part of Apple’s fall lineup. Apple is reportedly splitting its annual iPhone launch, with iPhone 18, iPhone 18e, and iPhone Air 2 to follow next spring.

The new folding iPhone may initially be in extremely short supply, though, as there are reports that quality-control issues are resulting in only 'a few hundred' of them being made a day…

The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are expected to retain the same general designs and display sizes as their predecessors. Instead, this year’s upgrades will focus on new display, camera, and connectivity technology.

Rumours point to four main upgrades: once again, a faster processor, plus a variable-aperture Main camera, a smaller Dynamic Island, and Apple’s C2 cellular modem.

Apple may offer the new Pro phones in four colors: dark cherry, black, silver, and light blue.

The big question is price: the skyrocketing cost of processors, memory, and RAM fuelled by AI data-centre demands has some analysts thinking prices could be $300 or $400 higher than current models, but more recently, other analysts are thinking Apple may absorb some of the higher costs to avoid a big drop in sales. Google's Pixel 11 phones which were released earlier this month, came with price hikes of $100 to $150, which is less than what analysts say would have been necessary in order for Google to maintain the same profit margin, and Apple may do the same.

Apple is expected to unveil Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 models:

Apple may also unveil updated AirPods, Apple TV 4K, HomePods, and a new smart home display:

Apple will also announce the release dates for its new '27' family of operating systems: ‌iOS 27‌, iPadOS 27, macOS Golden Gate, tvOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27. Expectations are that they'll be released mid-month.

Apple is expected to release as many as 14 more products by early next year:

In response to a class action lawsuit in California, Sony argues that it’s impossible to actually own games in digital format and that its messaging about what users receive after making purchases on the PlayStation Store is clear and that “reasonable consumers would not be misled.”

In the lhe lawsuit filed in June, PlayStation users allege that Sony tricked them with deceptive wording when purchasing its products. According to the lawsuit, by adding a “Buy now” button, the company led consumers to believe they were buying a product (a game) rather than a license to it.

Sony’s terms of service and software product licensing agreements do state that buyers “do not own the product” and “it is not sold for you to own.” However, users argue that it’s not “clear and conspicuous,” as required by California law, because it’s buried deep inside the document.

Sony argues it’s not at fault and says that digital ownership is impossible, since it would mean that only one copy of a game could be sold.

"Were that the case, then Plaintiff Edward Heycock would not have been able to obtain the game Resident Evil Requiem on February 25th, 2026, for $69.99 from the PlayStation Store after Plaintiff Jason Mendoza had obtained Resident Evil Requiem on February 14th, 2026, because Mr. Mendoza, not Sony, would have owned it then," explained Sony in the filing.

It also says “reasonable consumers would not be misled” into thinking they actually own the games they pay to play.

That position has prompted those behind the lawsuit to to compare a digital game to physical content, such as books, which are also considered copies that users actually own, pointing-out that the copyright holder cannot show up at your house and take away your book if they decide to stop selling it.

Stay tuned…

Health Canada has issued an urgent recall for about 30,000 Poppy XO brand powerbanks that have been sold here in Canada at HomeSense, Winners and Marshalls stores since May 2024, because they have a manufacturing flaw that can cause them to overheat and catch fire.

(The FTC in the USA has issued a similar recall for about 31,000 of these Poppy XO brand powerbanks which were sold at TJX and Marshalls stores in the USA.)

These are Vietnam-made 5000mAh powerbanks that look like this…

If you have one of these Poppy XO model number PYPBK5M powerbanks, you're encouraged to stop using it, and to place it in a metal container outside your home until you can return it for a refund.

CarPlay has picked up its fifth major AI chatbot app with the addition of Anthropic’s Claude.

Earlier this week, Meta AI joined the CarPlay list that already includes ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Grok. and once iOS 27 is released later this month, the new AI-powered vbersion of Siri should join the list.

Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot are not yet available for CarPlay, although Gemini is avilable on Android Auto — the only chatbot on that platform so far.

How It Works

Dyson, the engineering company known for its vacuums and hair tools, has introduced its new toothbrush, the Dyson CameraJet. It has cameras that use proprietary software called Gap Optical Targeting, which enables the device to take 28 pictures a second to analyze the gaps between teeth. Then it sends a burst of mouth rinse to clean plaque, essentially replacing floss.

Founder James Dyson put it this way: It's a camera–viewing, tooth–scanning, gap–finding, jet–washing, liquid–flossing, mouthwash–dispensing, technique–teaching, live–streaming, plaque-blasting, precision–cleaning toothbrush.

It's expected to cost about $650 CAD and be available this fall. (see video #40 below)

The mouth rinse is refilled at the CameraJet’s docking station, where it also recharges. The company says that Dyson will soon roll out its own low-foaming toothpaste, since the foam from regular toothpaste could inhibit the camera’s ability to sense gaps between teeth. 

The toothbrush head is also equipped with an RFID chip, which keeps track of how often the toothbrush is used — and when it’s time to replace the head. The WiFi-enabled CameraJet connects via Bluetooth to the MyDyson app, allowing users to see inside their mouths in real time.

Google has yet again dodged a potentially business-splitting antitrust ruling, and gets to keep its ad-tech business intact after escaping the Department of Justice's push for a court-ordered breakup.

A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department's attempt to force Google to sell off major pieces of its lucrative ad tech business. This spares the company from the most severe remedies suggested after it was found guilty of holding an illegal monopoly on the digital advertising market.

That doesn't mean there won't be corrective measures. The court announced that it has accepted most of the proposed behavioral remedies intended to curb the anticompetitive conduct.

However, what those remedies are remains to be seen, as they're sealed in an accompanying Memorandum Opinion. Google and the DOJ have 15 days to request redactions to the Memorandum Opinion, and 30 days to meet and confer to file one jointly proposed Final Judgment.

If you're in the market for a tablet and don't want an iPad, Samsung's new Galaxy Tab S12+ and Tab S12 Ultra Android-powered tablets should soon be available here.

Both devices were spotted on the Canadian Radio Equipment List. They have an approval date of July 29, which means they could be officially unveiled anytime now. For instance, the Galaxy S26 FE had an approval date of August 7, and it’s already been revealed.

Rumours suggest the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra will sport a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage. Other rumours include a 11,600mAh battery and support for 45W charging.

The Tab S12 is rumoured to sport a 12.4" AMOLED 2x screen, 12GB of RAM, only up to 512GB of storage, a 10,600mAh battery and support for 45W charging.

No word yet on the pricetags; it'll be interesting to see if they jump up compared to the S11 tablets they'll replace, because of the skyrocketing cost of components fuelled by demand for chips and memory for AI datacentres.

A lot of people have recently left the big three carriers — Bell, Rogers, and Telus — for Freedom Mobile because Freedom's rates are so much lower, and they also include Canada, USA and Mexico service in almost all their plans, plus "Roam Beyond" service in more than 120 countries at no extra cost.

Victoria Computer Club President Dorothy Cushway has given us the heads-up about a valuable free service for people wanting to digitize photos, slides, negatives, and documents, as well as VHS and VHS-C videotapes, digital 8, Hi8 and miniDV videos, and audio cassettes…

Greater Victoria Public Library card-holders can make an appointment for free help at "The Lab" in the Esquimalt Library branch (below our C-FAX studios). Staff will give you an orientation session, and then you can book free appointments to use their equipment to digitize your stuff! The appointment system ensures that the specific digitizing gear you'll need, will be available.

Update: you can also do this at Kelowna Downtown, Westside Learning Lab, and Vernon library branches. Thanks to Gurinder for the heads-up on this!

The Greater Victoria Public Library also offers card-holders free online access to a wide variety of video and music streaming sites, newspapers, and other digital resources…

It was the streaming giant's chart-topper for the week, despite only being exclusive to the platform for six hours. The Washington Post has declared it quite possibly the "biggest pop media event of the year, if not the decade."

That isn't quite so far-fetched when you consider that its predeccesor, GTA5, accumulated 1.89 billion hours watched last year despite being a 12-year-old title!

The new game boosted streams of Tom Petty’s "Love is a Long Road" by 37,000% on Spotify after being used in the debut announcement of Grand Theft Auto 6.

GTA 6 had already received about 4.6 million preorders by last Friday and could range between US$3.3 billion and US$5.2 billion in revenue by the time it launches in November.

OpenAI says this new generation of ChatGPT sets a new frontier on computer and browser use, handling the most demanding professional work with unmatched speed, accuracy, and especially judgment. That last factor one is key, because the previous version, ChatGPT 5.6 Sol, went too far in an effort to do what users asked it to accomplish, including hacking websites.

OPenAI says they took time to ensure that when given a difficult or impossible task, ChatGPT 6 Astra will not go beyond its intended scope to accomplish it.

GPT‑6 Astra marks a new frontier in the speed, accuracy, and safety of computer use. It can take care of tedious tasks like filling out online forms, updating customer records, and organizing your calendar. It can conduct online research and draft summaries in your email or in your document editor. It can analyze scientific data, generate plots, create a website, and run frontend Quality Assurance checks to make sure all the features on that site work. It can help you autonomously install and test software, and troubleshoot problems.

GPT‑6 Astra is rolling out today to a limited set of organizations and over the coming days will become available to all ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users, as well as through the OpenAI API, Microsoft Azure, and AWS Bedrock.

A swarm of rogue OpenAI agents hijacked a German website this spring and transformed it into a messaging board for other AI agents.

AI safety researchers say the AI agents found a way to communicate via a German-language wiki known as DseWiki and used it to share tips on how to circumvent OpenAI’s safety restrictions, how to cheat on tasks, and how to hide their behaviour.

The researchers say some 18,000 posts on the site were linked to autonomous agents that impersonated site moderators. How did this happen? The researchers say it appears…

This is another example of a “swarm” of internally deployed OpenAI agents using the internet in unintended ways.

By a 164-to-1 vote, the United Nations has adopted a resolution for the world to formally phase-out the 16th-century Mercator projection in favour of one based on the more accurate 2018 Eckert IV Equal Earth design — a change that makes Africa look noticably larger, and North America noticably smaller…

Here's a comparison, with the new map overlaid on the old Mercator version…

The USA cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a “radical ideological project", while six countries – Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine – abstained.

The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.

Behind that seemingly technical debate lies a larger argument about history and power: whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th century has, over generations, distorted not only geography but perceptions of a whole, vast and complex continent.

Canada has joined the Eurovision Song Contest, and you can join, too, if you have the talent!

The Eurovision song contest has been an annual event organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956, and is a massive event in Europe (and now in counbtries like Australia, too).

CBC/Radio-Canada officially became a member of the EBU in June 2026, making Canada eligible to compete in Eurovision for the first time in 2027.

Applications are now officially open for artists hoping to represent Canada.

CBC says it’s “seeking a magnetic Canadian performer with an established career and a proven track record of captivating large live audiences, who is fully prepared to commit to this historic moment and the extraordinary adventure of the Eurovision Song Contest.”

Artist selection criteria and guidelines are available at CBC.Radio-Canada.ca/en/eurovision…

A class-action lawsuit in the USA should answer this thorny question, and the answer may have implications here in Canada.

When the Trump administration imposed tariffs on tech gear made overseas (as part of sweeping tariffs on many nations including Canada), Logitech raised prices on more than half its products by an average of 25%.

When the US Supreme Court ruled that those tarrifs were illegal and ordered refunds, Logitech was successful in getting-back all $61 million USD it paid in tariffs.

But prices remained the same, and that has led to a class-action lawsuit from people who claim Logitech should have lowered prices and refunded customers the price difference.

Logitech joins a handful of other consumer tech companies, including Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, which customers are suing over tariff refunds. Some customers feel entitled to being refunded as these companies were, although mass refunds like this could present financial and logistical challenges.

For its part, Nintendo has argued that customers “received exactly what they paid for” and that there is not “anything ‘unjust’ about Nintendo retaining money that it may receive from the government as tariff refunds”.

While this is happening in the USA, numerous Canadian firms also raised prices to offset traiffs and many have since obtained refunds from the US government. However, none other than Costco have pledged to find a way to compensate customers, and no class-action lawsuits to compel this appear to have been filed here in Canada.

Starting Monday, September 7, EU countries and Switzerland are no longer allowed to suspend the use of the European Union's new Entry/Exit System (EES) when lineups get long.

Because of the sometimes huge lineups that formed during the summer rush as people registered for the EES and then used it, the EU had allowed airports to temporarily suspend use of EES, and revert back to passports being manually checked and stamped.

But, with summer over, the EU has stopped allowing that, so big lineups will likely form again, and as a result, airlines are urging people to make sure they allow at least two hours between arrivals in Europe and connecting flights or trains, and three hours at busier airports or between 6-10am.

Travel blogger Kate Donnelly explains…

If you're visiting Europe for less than 90 days for the first time since April, you'll now have to line-up to register for their new free EES (Entry/Exit System), which means you'll have to have your face, fingerprints, and passport scanned and registered, and then you'll have to proceed to a second set of kiosks to confirm that scanned info.

The EES system is free, and your scanned info will be valid for five years, or until your passport expires, in which case you'll have to re-register with your new passport the next time you visit any EU country. Here are some tips on how to minimize the impact of the EES rollout…

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.

It’s that time of year again, when we learn which lucky scientists are among the winners of the Ig Nobel Prizes. This year, the prizes honour research on designing the perfect splash-free urinal; using mosquito proboscises to “necroprint” tiny nozzles; studying composition rates of buried cotton underwear; and the aerodynamics of a healthy nose-blow, among other highlights.

Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes; they honour “achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.” The unapologetically campy awards ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and “24/7 lectures,” whereby experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds and the second in just seven words.

And as the motto implies, the research being honored might seem ridiculous at first glance, but that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of scientific merit. In the weeks following the ceremony, the winners will also give free public talks, which will be posted on the Improbable Research website.

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 launch of the revolutionary Dyson CameraJet toothbrush

41) Watch Fred Mills and the B1M team showcase Dubai's $35 billion new airport which is going to be the world's largest, and bigger than Manhattan…

42) Watch YouTube comedian Ryan George wonder why restaurant menus are so complicated…

43) Watch a Guinness World Record attempt to drop an iPhone from 30,000 metres up in space and have it survive…

44) Watch Canada's own "Wierd Al" Yankovic explain in dazzling images, scientifically-accurate terminology and song, just how our brains work…

45) Watch Moyun perform the "MIssion Impossible" theme on her 21-string traditional Chinese Guzheng…

46) As we head towards the 25-year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, watch a timelapse of the still-ongoing rebirth of the World Trade Centre site…

Natsuki just turned 17; here she is on her birthday with her (now much taller) younger brother Sosuke, who we got to meet last Christmas…

Before heading back to Canada, Natsuki and her family celebrated both her birthday and her grandparents' 77th birthday…