An AI startup offered to build me a digital avatar of my late mom using photos, videos, and recordings. Thousands of you wrote to me about it. In this show, I reveal my emotional decision.
🔓 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.
Your camera roll deserves a cleanse
Kim Komando
I remember my parents saying, “Kim, stop wasting the film.” Oh, yes, this was back when we’d put film in a camera, take up to 36 pictures, then wait for the roll to get developed to see if any of the shots were good. Those days are long gone, fortunately.
Low-quality bamboozling: If that viral clip looks like it was shot on a flip phone, your alarm bells should be ringing. AI videos are getting scary good, but the fakes still hide behind grainy, short clips. Think “security cam from 2006.” The newest fakes want to look bad because the blur hides the glitches. Don’t trust it just because it feels real.
🎨 Design like a pro: I’ve mentioned Canva before, but it’s worth another shout. Besides social posts, you can make birthday cards, mini videos, CVs and slideshows. Sign in with Google to start customizing templates. FYI, teachers can get Pro features for free at canva.com/education. Click Get verified and enter your school info.
AI after dark: Meta’s facing a $359M porn piracy lawsuit, and claims it didn’t use adult films to train its AI. It argues the 2,396 videos(!) were likely downloaded for “private personal use” on its network. Yep, they’re leaning on an old BitTorrent excuse that IP addresses don’t prove identity and “someone at work might’ve torrented that.” I hope his name wasn’t Mark.
Death by download: A YouTuber made a how-to on installing Windows 11 on unsupported PCs. YouTube yanked it and claimed it could lead to “harm or death.” No, seriously. Apparently, teaching people how to upgrade their dusty laptop is a lethal activity. Rich, the creator, thinks Microsoft might be pulling strings. Thanks for keeping the internet safe, YouTube. Next up: cat videos taken down for terrorism.
Clips for clicks: Turns out those random MrBeast clips in your feed aren’t random at all. He’s got a thousand editors cutting up his videos into bite-size bait. Each one gets paid per view, up to $1,500 per million. It’s like a digital attention span deficit factory with ring lights. Wildest part? It works. He’s at 448 million subscribers and counting.
🔭 Seeing too many stars: Get this, Neil DeGrasse Tyson had to tell people he’s not promoting flat Earth videos. Yep, deepfakes got so real that even Terry Crews believed one. Neil says he’s cool with parodies, but if it looks real? “You’ve crossed a line.” I always wanted to ask him, “How different do you think your life would have been if your parents named you Moe instead of Neil, and would you still use your full name?”
😅 Hide old YouTube videos: Keep those cringey family vlogs to yourself by making them private. Go to your Profile > YouTube Studio > Content, and change Visibility to Unlisted. They’ll disappear from search and recommendations, and only people with the link can watch. Memories preserved, pride intact (and the kids will thank you).
▶️ Got YouTube Premium? You can download videos to watch offline anytime. Open a video, tap Download and choose your quality. On PC, find them under Downloads in the left panel. On mobile, tap You (bottom right) > Downloads. Bonus tip: You can play them in the background while your phone’s locked.
🔄 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.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Switching to dark mode on YouTube desktop is gentler on your eyes and makes videos feel more immersive. Click your profile pic (top right), select Appearance and set it to Dark theme.
Share videos with Google Drive: It’s an easy way to send large files to a client or friend. Open your browser, sign in to Google Drive and click + New > File Upload. Choose your video and wait for it to finish uploading. Then open it, hit Share, select Anyone with the link, copy the link and send it off.
🎥 AI’s next film class: Google’s new Veo 3.1 can generate eerily realistic videos complete with audio, edits and, this is a big one, TikTok-ready vertical frames. It’s rolling out across Gemini and YouTube Shorts, which means spotting what’s real online just got harder. If you blink, you might miss the line between “content” and “AI slop.”
📄 Convert YouTube videos to text: If you’d rather read a tutorial than watch it, YouTube makes it easy. Open the video, expand the description and tap Show transcript. In the new sidebar, hit the three-dot menu and select Toggle timestamps to clean it up. Then highlight, copy and paste the text wherever you need it. Amazing.
Real fake videos
AI is blurring the line between real and fake faster than ever. From OpenAI’s Sora 2 video generator to a lost billion in Bitcoin and Taylor Swift’s AI-fueled backlash
📸 Try the new Photos app: On iPadOS 26, Photos got a big makeover. The sidebar now lets you jump from Library to Collections, and you can reorder sections by tapping Edit (top left). For example, drag Videos above Favorites in the Pinned area. See a hexagon icon on a pic? Tap it to add a 3D effect.
The day that all videos became untrustworthy
Remember this date. It’s the day AI finally made fake videos indistinguishable from real life. OpenAI’s Sora 2 changes everything.