🚨 Roblox backlash grows: The mom of 13-year-old Audree Heine says Roblox’s weak moderation and investor-driven greed let violent communities radicalize her daughter before her suicide. Her lawsuit claims Roblox knew kids were being exploited but “prioritized Wall Street numbers” instead. It’s the 12th case accusing the platform of failing basic child safety. Heartbreaking.
🔓 This $130 lock got picked with a water can
@McNallyOfficial via YouTube
You know I love a good tech takedown, and this one is peak internet.
Meet Trevor McNally, a former U.S. Marine staff sergeant turned full-time YouTuber with a very specific hobby: lock picking. On his channel, he tests locks the way most of us test leftovers, with low expectations and a lot of curiosity.
He’s not a locksmith, but he really knows his way around a lock, a pick and a camera. That led to him getting sued.
🎥 Shim happens
It started when one of his viewers left a comment daring him to try the “virtually unpickable” trailer hitch lock from Proven Industries. This is a $130 heavy-duty beast designed to secure your trailer, boat or RV.
The company bragged about its toughness. So McNally took up the challenge.
He bought the lock himself, no sponsorships or tricks, and filmed the whole thing. What he did next was pure genius. He grabbed a Liquid Death can (yes, the trendy water brand in a tallboy can) and sliced it open.
With a pair of scissors and some patience, he shaped the thin aluminum into a shim. Then, with barely any pressure and zero damage, the lock popped open. Click. Done.
It didn’t take brute force, a power drill or some secret tool. Just curiosity, scissors and a can of water. And yes, the whole thing is up on YouTube. Go watch it now. It’s oddly satisfying.
⚖️ Unlock and loaded
Here’s where it gets messy. Instead of fixing the flaw or saying, “Hey, thanks for the heads-up,” Proven Industries sued McNally. They accused him of defamation, trade libel and copyright infringement, saying his video hurt their sales and reputation. Whaw whaw, did the big bad internet hurt your feelings?
McNally then doubled down and posted even more videos showing the same shim trick on other locks. Eventually, Proven Industries settled through mediation.
📦 Stop porch pirates before the holidays hit: Online shopping season’s here, and thieves know it. SimpliSafe keeps packages, and your home, protected with flashing lights, instant alerts and live monitoring. No contracts, no hidden fees, just peace of mind all season long.
🔎 8K? More like OK: Thinking of splurging on an 8K TV? You might want to save your money. New research says your eyes can’t tell the difference between 2K, 4K or 8K TVs at normal distances. Basically, if you’ve got a big screen and sit on a couch, you’re maxed out. Everything else is just for bragging rights.
🏗️ Flying 3D printers: Is it me, or does looking up get more crowded every decade? Carnegie Mellon’s developing drones that double up as construction workers. Really. Picture a swarm of little bots 3D-printing shelters and bridges after a disaster. These things use AI to turn “build a bridge” into an actual blueprint, then adjust midair if something goes wrong. 90% success rate so far! Who would have thought that would ever be possible?
X marks the lock: If you use a physical security key (like a YubiKey) for 2FA on X, you’ve got until Nov. 10 to reenroll, or your account gets locked. Why? X is cutting ties with the old Twitter.com domain, which means you’re basically reregistering your key under X.com. Authenticator and SMS 2FA folks? No action needed.
🧃 The “secret” drink I reach for instead of coffee: Tired of the jitters and sugar crashes? Same. I just found a clean electrolyte drink that tastes great and actually works. No caffeine, no junk. I’m talking all-day energy, mental clarity and zero crash. I’ve been sipping NativePath Hydrate daily, and I’m hooked. Try it for 44% off with free shipping before it sells out.
Grandma’s little genius: A 13-year-old from California out-invented the Life Alert people. Kevin Tang built “FallGuard,” a $30 camera system that spots falls, using an algorithm he coded himself. No necklaces, no subscriptions, no forgetting to charge your smartwatch. He built it after his grandma’s fall caused brain damage. He’s got $25K and a waiting list. Go Kevin!
👻 Now you see it: Boo! Threads dropped “ghost posts” that vanish after 24 hours, and only you can see the likes or replies, which show up as DMs. Meta says it’s for “unfiltered thoughts.” Translation: It’s basically trying to bring back Twitter circa 2012’s fleeting, no-consequences energy. Finally, a feature for people who can’t stop deleting their posts anyway.
⚡ Deal done at last: So it’s official. The U.S. and China finally worked out a $14 billion deal to hand TikTok’s American side to new owners. Trump and Xi are expected to “seal the deal” Thursday. Americans will hold most of it and that precious algorithm, and ByteDance keeps a tiny slice. Phew, it’s time for you to follow me on TikTok. Click to do that now.
🐭 Mouse magic: Middle-click (click on the mouse wheel) on a link to open it in a new tab, or middle-click on an open tab to close it. Sweet!
🛞 Mad Max meets Model 3: Tesla dropped two new “self-driving” modes: Sloth (grandpa speed) and Mad Max (the one your insurance hates). No confirmed speeds yet, but “Mad Max” mode is made to accelerate and swerve through traffic “like a sports car.” The feds opened a preliminary investigation, I wonder why? Coming soon: Mario Kart Mode, bananas sold separately.
Wi-Fi grounded: Got big dreams of fast Wi-Fi everywhere you go? SpaceX just told Starlink Mini users to slow down. Starting Nov. 7, dishes on $165-a-month roaming plans can’t work past 450 mph (down from 550). Too many people were strapping them to private jets. Want faster internet at 30,000 feet? You’ll need the $10,000-a-month “Aviation” plan. Yep, that’s per month.
🔄 The hacker becomes the hackee: If you’ve ever thought, “I’ll just grab the cracked version” of a software or video game, surprise, you’re the product. Check Point found thousands of YouTube “free software” videos that sneak malware into your PC. Some hit hundreds of thousands of views. That’s crazy. Turns out that you can actually fool all the people all the time. Remember, if it’s free and asks you to disable antivirus, it’s a setup.
The phone scam evolution: This is frightening. A cybersecurity firm built a real-time voice deepfake, meaning someone can sound like you on a call instantly. Cheap laptop, open-source tools, done. They tested it, and people fell for it almost every time. So when your “boss” calls asking for gift cards, maybe call back first. You should take a sec and check it out.
💄 Swipe left on spies: In the most James Bond news today, U.S. counterintelligence says foreign agents, mostly from China and Russia, are cozying up to Silicon Valley execs through dating apps, LinkedIn and startup circles. Some even marry their marks. Forget malware, this is man-ware. Roses are red, violets are blue, your crypto’s gone, and she works for Xi, too.
Hold the phone: Do you love talking to robots on the phone? Have I got good news for you! Yelp’s rolling out two talking bots. A Host AI for restaurant bookings and Receptionist for business calls. They’ll handle everything from wait lists to “do you take dogs?” for about $99 a month per restaurant. Next up, a suggested 25% tip.
It’s a sign: A Kenyan engineer built what’s basically Google Translate for sign language. His app, Terp 360, listens to speech and uses AI-powered 3D avatars to sign in real time. It’s built with motion-capture tech (sensors track actual signers’ movements), and it already knows thousands of words. I’ve always wanted to learn ASL.
🔫 Artificial unintelligence: After football practice, a Maryland teen got swarmed by armed police because an AI gun detector thought his Doritos bag was a pistol. In other words, a weapon of nacho destruction. Turns out, the system flagged the way he held the bag as “gun-like.” The teen was cuffed, searched and cleared. Put your hands up and the chips where I can see them!
AWS eats its own: Here’s the cloud tea, Amazon says this week’s massive AWS outage wasn’t a hack but a software glitch so bad it fought itself. That’s right, a mini-tech civil war. Two automation systems tried to update network records at once and triggered a global domino crash. A chunk of the internet went briefly offline, even some people’s smart beds.