Tech Notes
Buying a new smartphone sometimes gets you so excited to get rid of the old one that you erase and sell it too soon. Keep that old phone until you have full set up your new one, especially if you rely on authenticator apps and even WhatsApp, as they only trust your current phone. Using your current old phone, you can “prove” that your new phone is really yours. And, many new phones are much easier and faster to set up if the old working phone is nearby when you start the new phone setup. Just be patient and erase and sell that old phone a few days later.
Might your new car be sharing more data about your driving that you think it should? The automotive privacy company Privacy4Cars lets you enter your VIN (vehicle identification number) to find out what data might be shared with and sold by your car maker. The newer cars collect quite a bit of data about your identity, driving habits, location, and synced phone data. Vehicleprivacyreport.com is where you can learn more about this.
Anyone using Facebook between May 2007 and December 2022 can claim their share of a $725 million class-action settlement by filing at facebookuserprivacysettlement.com. This settlement resulted from a lawsuit filed after the disclosure of data improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica back in 2018. Don’t count on going on any big vacation with your share though.
Windows 10, still with more than two years of life, will stay at its current version, 22H2. I have seen some scare headlines that Microsoft will no longer update Windows 10, this is very misleading. They are only introducing new fun things in Windows 11. The good news is Microsoft won’t introduce new features into Windows 10, they still will provide security updates each month until 10/14/2025.
In hopes of snaring people, scammers have figured how to get to the top of search results for searches you thought would help you. So be careful when searching such phrases as “Free credit report,” “[Company] customer service number,” “High paying remote job,” “Free people finder” or “Best crypto wallet.” Figure that looking for anything with the word “free” means a scammer is going to be in the top search results.
The online learning nonprofit Khan Academy is another company testing how OpenAI’s ChatGPT can be used as an assistant tutor, guiding students and answering students’ questions without giving away the results. Right now, you can only get on their waitlist but there is more to learn at khanacademy.org/khan-labs.
Not well known but Microsoft has been making some really good hardware, including mice and well-respected ergonomic keyboards. After 40 years, they are pulling out of making Microsoft branded accessories, really sad as they made some good and affordable keyboards and other accessories.
Star Trek fans can “tour” every Enterprise bridge designed since the original one designed in the 1960s. Go to oddenberry.x.io and use the View Scene Selector button in the lower right to better navigate the different Enterprise bridge iterations. I hope the navigation gets better.