Tech/Gear

You leave a home empty while you travel, prepare it for sale or help an aging parent move. Then an unfamiliar car appears in the driveway. Someone gets inside. Before long, that person may even claim to have a lease. That kind of situation turned Flash Shelton into the man now known as the "Squatter Hunter." I recently sat down with Shelton on "The CyberGuy Report" podcast to talk about […]

If your dog starts barking the second you walk out the door, leaving home can come with a little extra guilt. That can happen whether you live in an apartment or a house. A pet camera can show you what is happening, but watching from your phone does little when your dog reacts to every sound outside or gets anxious when you are gone.WIM-Z wants to take a more active […]

Google's Threat Intelligence Group found experimental malware called PROMPTFLUX that could ask Gemini to rewrite its own code. One version was designed to do that every hour. Why would malware keep rewriting itself? To make it harder to recognize.Security software can look for known patterns in malicious code. If that code keeps changing, the malware becomes a moving target. That does not automatically make it invisible to current security tools, […]

Has this happened to you? You're at the airport, connected to the terminal Wi-Fi, VPN running and feeling good about your security. You board, put your phone in airplane mode, land a few hours later and switch airplane mode off. Your phone finds the hotel Wi-Fi. You open your email and start scrolling.What you probably didn't notice is the moment in between. For a few seconds, your phone may have […]

A deed can change hands without a burglar breaking a window or a scammer hacking a computer. Sometimes the first warning signs are sitting inside county records, bank accounts and email inboxes, waiting for someone to notice.A disturbing case out of South Carolina shows why families may want to put a few digital safeguards in place now. According to a local report, a daughter says her 75-year-old father, who had […]

If you have ever watched your arrival time creep later while sitting in traffic, flying over it sounds pretty appealing. Texas is now testing what that could look like. Earlier this month, the Texas Department of Transportation launched the first phase of Project Nexus, a three-year program focused on preparing next-generation aircraft for use in Texas skies.The Sept. 10 kickoff at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport included demonstrations from […]

You need to check your bank account, so you open Google, type in your bank's name and click the first result that looks right. Most of us have done some version of that without thinking twice.Now federal investigators say criminals turned that everyday habit into a way to steal bank logins and drain accounts. The Justice Department announced on Sept. 8 that a Russian web developer accused of helping run […]

If you think you've seen some wild RVs, this one may reset the scale. Professional truck driver and content creator Tobias Wagner, better known online as Elektrotrucker, is preparing to drive around the world in a specially converted Mercedes-Benz eActros 600. A full Bliss Mobil living module sits behind the cab, turning this electric truck into a rolling home. Wagner plans to make the entire journey on battery power.Mercedes-Benz Trucks […]

You expect traffic jams on Chicago streets. You probably do not expect one on the sidewalk caused by a bunch of food delivery robots. That is exactly what runner Becca Ostien encountered near Lincoln Park. At least a dozen Coco delivery robots had gathered along North Clark Street, leaving her to navigate what looked like a miniature robot traffic jam.The strange scene quickly spread online. Yet behind the viral video […]