It doesn’t listen to your phone’s mic for info about you. In one case, Facebook got data from forty-eight thousand companies about a single person. Wow. Plus, caller Ron from Georgia is a truck driver who wants to start a YouTube channel. I also cover Google’s plans for Chrome and how to check whether a phone was stolen.
🔓 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.
The day the cloud caught a cold
Bing Image Creator
If Zoom wouldn’t connect, YouTube froze or your smart home went dumb yesterday morning, it wasn’t just you. Over 11 million people reported issues with more than 2,500 big name apps and services.
The reason? A huge outage at Amazon Web Services, better known as AWS. Let me explain what all this means in plain English.
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.
😅 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).
You asked how a smart ring sent a guy to the ER. Here’s the full story.
@ZONEofTECH via X
Recently here in The Current, I mentioned a YouTuber who ended up in the ER because of a smart ring. A bunch of you left me comments asking the same thing: “How does that even happen?”
Let me explain, because this wasn’t the guy’s fault. It was a complete tech failure.
▶️ 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.
🎥 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.
📺 Monetized redemption: YouTube’s letting some banned creators come back, if they’ve been gone over a year and play nice this time. No copyright cheats, no repeat offenders. They’ll have to rebuild from scratch, monetization and all. Basically, it’s creator purgatory with ads.
See who subscribed to you: On YouTube, you can check who’s following your channel. Click your profile icon in the top right, go to YouTube Studio and select Dashboard. In the middle, find Recent subscribers and tap See All. You can filter by Lifetime or a time range.
🎚️ Turn it down: Ever had a Hulu or Netflix ad jump-scare scream at you mid-binge? Starting 2026, your stream won’t double as a hearing test. California just passed SB 576, a new law that forces services like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube to keep commercial volume in check. Ads must match the level of whatever you were watching. It started because one guy’s baby kept waking up, and now, we all get quieter commercials. Bless that tired parent.
Student discounts rock: Got a kid in school? Their .edu email or student ID unlocks deals on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Premium, Hulu and more. Example: Hulu with ads drops from $9.99 to $1.99 a month. Easy win.
🤖 Don’t get caught in a Roomba doomba: iRobot founder Rodney Brooks (aka the Roomba guy) says stay 10 feet back from humanoid bots. Why? If one tips, it’s a 150-pound steel giraffe doing a trust fall. Also, video-only training won’t teach them real dexterity. Don’t let yourself become a YouTube tutorial with bones.
AI has ears everywhere
Today on The Current AI Podcast, George takes you inside the hidden world of ultrasonic tracking, the creepy tech that links your devices through sounds you can’t even hear. Then it’s off to the Web Water Cooler, where we talk Samsung’s swollen Galaxy Ring, Alexa’s new paywall, AI-powered scams, and even China’s pay-to-wipe toilets. In Device Advice, learn how AI now fights ransomware in Google Drive, the fastest way to cancel sneaky app subscriptions, and smart tricks for Google Docs, YouTube, and Fire TV. From smart speakers to smart scams, this episode is packed with AI, security, and gadget hacks you don’t want to miss.
Share YouTube videos from a time stamp: On desktop, pause the video where you want it to start. Right-click and select Copy video URL at current time. Or copy the top link from your browser and add &t=2m30s to the end (swap in your own time) to go straight to that moment.
DIY movie star: Picture this. Tell OpenAI’s new Sora app, “Make me doing a sick skateboard trick,” and boom, it spits out a movie-quality clip (paywall link), up to 20 seconds. There’s even a “Cameo” mode that drops your likeness into AI worlds. The first viral hit? A fake Sam Altman stealing graphics cards. The app works like TikTok or YouTube Shorts: You can follow, like and comment on other AI slop.
☎️ Don’t touch the button: Listen, if a YouTube video tells you hackers are about to raid your Apple Pay unless you “Protect Now,” don’t fall for it by clicking. That just dumps you into some scammy “cleaner” app you’ll never need. And those pop-ups screaming, “Congrats, you won a Mac”? Yeah, no, you just won malware. Save your clicks, save your bank account.