For more than 20 years, David Snell’s Tech Talk has been a regular spot on The South Shore’s Morning News on 95.9 WATD fm. At 8:11, David chats with show hosts Rob Hakala and Beth Foster about what’s happening in IT today. The subjects range from computer viruses, scams and cybercriminals to what Amazon, Apple or Microsoft are planning next.
He often shares new product information and reviews software that may help you, especially when there is a free version to try!
On this blog, he provides links, sources and other necessary information. And, on the Tuesday before Christmas, you can expect his annual NORAD Santa report!
If you have a question that you’d like him to answer on the show, please email him.
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Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Outage severely affect users across the country.
The Microsoft Outlook/Exchange outage (tracked internally by Microsoft as EX1464935) is a major, ongoing authentication‑related failure affecting Exchange Online, the cloud backend that powers Outlook for Microsoft 365 users. This is a widespread, multi‑hour [...]
TikTok’s $400 Million Wake Up Call: What Parents and Everyday Users Need to Know
If your kid has ever begged to use TikTok, here’s the part you probably didn’t know: the app was quietly collecting data from millions of children — and now it’s paying $400 million for [...]
Your Phone Probably Isn’t Listening to You… But The Truth Is Even More Disturbing
Most of us have already decided that our phone is spying on us. The surprise is that researchers studied over 17,000 apps and found no evidence of widespread secret audio recording for [...]
Time for a Reality Check: Is There Really a “RAM Crisis”?
Short answer: Yes, but with some nuance. Samsung has publicly stated that memory supply constraints are expected to persist through 2028 and become even more severe in 2027. The primary driver is [...]
Is the U.S. Government Banning Roombas?
The short answer is: not your current Roomba, and not necessarily every robot vacuum already on store shelves. However, a new U.S. government proposal aimed at restricting certain foreign-made robots could affect [...]
Microsoft is moving some of Co-Pilot’s free features to a paid subscription model.
It feels like Microsoft has turned a corner in its AI strategy. After spending billions of dollars and trying to force-feed Copilot and other AI tools onto its users they’re moving some [...]
Windows 11 Ultimate Undo Button
Remember the CrowdStrike disaster back on July 19th, 2024? That was the day millions of Windows computers around the world suddenly started crashing with the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. We're talking about [...]
Apple agrees to pay $250 million to certain iPhone owners
Apple has agreed to pay some iPhone buyers a collective $250m to end a lawsuit accusing the company of misleading people about new artificial intelligence (AI) features and capabilities. In a settlement [...]
Windows 10 Just Quietly Got Another Year of Support — Here’s Why It Happened
When Microsoft ended support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, millions of users faced a difficult choice: buy a new PC, upgrade to Windows 11, or pay for Extended Security Updates (ESU). Now, [...]
Apple’s New Siri Is Finally Getting Smart
For years, Siri has felt like the kid who showed up to class but forgot to do the homework. You could ask Siri to set a timer, send a text message, or [...]
LastPass Breach Settlement: What It Means for You
If you used LastPass in 2022 and were affected by their data breaches, you may be eligible for a cash payment—and in some cases, it could be significant. Here’s what actually happened! In 2022, [...]
Microsoft Backpedals On The Edge Password Keeper “by design” controversy.
Normally, when you save passwords in a browser: They are encrypted (locked) while stored on disk and are only decrypted (unlocked) briefly when needed (like for autofill) But Microsoft Edge has been [...]
Sam Altman’s World Project Is Expanding — and It Raises Difficult Questions About Identity.
Sam Altman’s World Project Is Expanding — and It Raises Difficult Questions About Identity. Last year, Sam Altman’s iris‑scanning startup sounded easy to dismiss. A chrome sphere. An eyeball scan. Some crypto [...]
You Bought Smart Home Devices. Here’s the Amazon Network They’re Part Of:
Amazon’s Ring, Echo, and Sidewalk ecosystem has quietly grown into one of the largest consumer sensor networks in the U.S. Millions of Ring doorbells and Echo devices are now interconnected through Amazon Sidewalk, a [...]
What happens when your home security expert gets hacked???
On April 20, 2026, ADT detected unauthorized access to some of its cloud-based environments. The incident involved the theft of customer and prospective customer data, leading to an extortion attempt by the [...]
China is cracking down on scams – just not the ones hitting Americans.
Beijing is clamping down on fraud at home but researchers say the crime syndicates are shifting their focus to victims elsewhere. The headline is real, and it reflects a well-documented and worrying [...]
ACTSmart IT Security Advisory
FBI Dismantles “W3LL” Phishing Platform Targeting Microsoft 365 Users What Happened? The FBI, working with international partners, has taken down a large cybercrime service known as W3LL (pronounced WELL). This group operated [...]
Did you know “Google has been keeping a diary on you”?
I'm talking about Googles My Activity — a real dashboard at https://myactivity.google.com that shows much of what Google has recorded about your activity when you’re signed in to your Google account. What [...]
Last week the FCC declared foreign‑made routers a national security threat.
On March 23, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially determined that all new consumer‑grade routers made outside the United States pose an “unacceptable risk” to U.S. national security. As a result, [...]
AI is Everywhere – is it time to embrace it?
There is so much happening in tech right now that it’s honestly hard not to be excited. Here are the AI trends that are actively reshaping daily life, work, and creativity: AI [...]
How 2026’s AI + RAM Crisis Will Affect Everyday Tech Consumers
The global “RAMmageddon” and AI infrastructure supercycle are reshaping consumer technology in ways that nearly every buyer will feel — from laptops and phones to cloud services and even gaming. Here’s what the current [...]
Windows 12 — Myth vs. Fact
The industry has been buzzing lately with lots of chatter about the NEW WINDOWS 12 upcoming release. Well – let’s put that rumor mill to bed. Here’s some of the information that’s [...]
Open Elasticsearch Database — Up to Hundreds of Millions of Unique SSNs Exposed
UpGuard Researchers discovered a completely unsecured Elasticsearch database on a German hosting provider. Contents included: 2.7 billion SSN records 3 billion email–password combinations Names, addresses and plaintext passwords The headlines are scary [...]
Ring’s Facial Scanning and Lost Pet Search Party
Amazon Ring has recently rolled out two major AI‑driven programs—Familiar Faces and Search Party—both of which rely on continuous scanning of what Ring cameras see. Together, these features illustrate Ring’s expanding use [...]
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