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Your AirPods Can Now Identify You to Police. Yes, Really.
The device on your wrist and in your ears was never built to be a tracking beacon. Now it might be one anyway. I need you to sit with this one for a second, because when I first heard about it, I honestly had to read it twice. There is now a technology that can identify you; not your car, not your license plate, you, through the Bluetooth signal coming off your AirPods. Your Apple Watch. Your fitness tracker. The wireless devices sitting on your body right now, quietly broadc
Michael Routhier
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Podcast Transcripts
They Called It God: What Tech Billionaires Actually Said Behind Closed Doors
Are we building technology, or are we building something we're being trained to worship? New episode of Tech 4 Grown-Ups is up now. I want to start today with something I don't say very often on this show. I am not afraid of this topic. Some shows won't touch it, because it sounds too strange, too big, too far out there. I'm not one of those shows. We live in a world where the most powerful technology ever built is being handed to you without instructions, without warnings, a
Michael Routhier
2 days ago5 min read
Your AirPods May Be Tracking You: SignalTrace and Surveillance (Podcast Transcript)
Your AirPods broadcast a signal. Now that signal can identify you. Listen to the full episode or read the transcript below. I want to start today with a question, and I want you to actually sit with it before I say another word. If a machine could listen to you without ever needing your permission, would it ask? Hold on to that. We're going to come back to it. We live in a world where the most powerful technology ever built is being handed to you without instructions, without
Michael Routhier
Jul 77 min read
IT Horror Stories: Real Threats, Real People, Real Consequences - Feat. Jack Smith
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the Tech 4 Grown-Ups podcast episode featuring Jack Smith, host of the IT Horror Stories Podcast and 30-year IT industry veteran. Some filler words and crosstalk have been removed for readability. The full audio episode is available below. Michael Routhier sits down with Jack Smith, 30-year IT veteran and host of the IT Horror Stories Podcast, for a conversation about voice cloning, AI scams, and the threats targeting people 55
Michael Routhier
Jun 3010 min read
These Glasses Know Who You Are And You Never Agreed to That (Podcast Transcript)
Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. A face print database. And a folder labeled "Pending." This is what's already on 50 million phones. I want you to picture something before we get into this. You're sitting in a coffee shop, maybe waiting for a friend. Maybe you're just enjoying a quiet morning. A stranger walks in, nice looking, normal person, wearing a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. And they glance in your direction. And their glasses know your name. Not because you told them. Not
Michael Routhier
Jun 169 min read
Apple Is About to Fold, And I Think It's the Best Thing They've Done in Years | Full Episode Transcript
The full episode, in your own time, at your own pace. Every word, right here. This is a bonus episode, something landed in the news that couldn't wait until Tuesday. Apple is about to release its first-ever foldable iPhone, the iPhone Ultra, and as someone who has been using Apple products for over 35 years, I wanted to give you the full, honest breakdown before the rumour mill buried it in noise. The specs. The skepticism. The price conversation nobody wants to have. And the
Michael Routhier
Jun 59 min read
130 Years. Four Generations. One Man With Cash. Where Was Everyone Else? | Full Episode Transcript
One man ended 130 years of family slavery in Pakistan. The technology to have done it decades ago already existed. This episode asks the question nobody wants to answer; where was everyone else? In this episode of The Virtuous Machine series, we follow the story of one family in Pakistan who spent 130 years, four generations, enslaved at a brick kiln. It ended on May 14th, 2026, not because of government enforcement, not because of corporate accountability, not because of AI.
Michael Routhier
Jun 28 min read
The Man Who Built AI Says It Could End Us. Nobody Is Listening. [Podcast Transcript]
The most-cited living scientist on earth helped build AI. Now he's warning we may have a decade to change course. Hey, welcome back to today's episode. If you're new here, new to the show, or if you've been listening to me for ramble on for quite some time, welcome back. I'm glad to have you. Before we get into today's episode, I need to do a little bit of house cleaning. If you've been listening to this show for as long as it's been, we are new, um, you, I think you might be
Michael Routhier
May 2710 min read
Disney's Dark Secret: Your Child's Face Is Now in a Database [Podcast Transcript]
This summer, Disney scanned your child or grandchild's face at the park entrance, converted it into a permanent biometric identifier, and stored it in a database. They did it without asking you, and now there's a $5 million lawsuit because of this. We live in a world where the most powerful technology ever built is being handed to you without instructions, without warnings, and without anyone asking whether it serves you or uses you. That question has a name, the virtuous mac
Michael Routhier
May 267 min read
Transcript: Episode 18 - Kodokushi: The Lonely Death Epidemic Nobody in the West Is Talking About
77,000 lonely deaths in Japan last year. The conditions that caused it are assembling here. Full podcast transcript below. Hey everybody, and I hope you are having a great week so far. Today's show is going to be a little deep. It's a conversation that I've been wanting to have for some time and for some might find it depressing. Some might find it absolutely ludicrous that this is occurring, but we need to have this conversation as a society and as just human beings. And I w
Michael Routhier
May 1910 min read
The Great Dumbing Down: How Tech Is Making Us Weaker and Calling It Progress | Full Episode Transcript
One half of your brain still belongs to you. This episode is about keeping it that way. When was the last time you were genuinely, uncomfortably bored, with nothing to scroll through, nothing to look at, nothing to listen to? Most of us can't remember. And that might be exactly the problem. In this episode, Michael Routhier delivers one of his most personal and unfiltered conversations yet; a no-holds-barred examination of what technology is actually doing to us. Not what it
Michael Routhier
May 146 min read
Your Bank Is the Target - The IMF Just Said It's Inevitable | Full Episode Transcript
The IMF used a word you don't hear from the world's most cautious financial institution very often: inevitable. This episode explains what that actually means for your money, and what's genuinely in your control. The International Monetary Fund just used a word you don't hear from the world's most cautious financial institution very often: inevitable. Not possible. Not likely. Inevitable. AI-powered cyberattacks on the global banking system, they said, will happen. The only q
Michael Routhier
May 1310 min read
Tech That Actually Matters - Part 2: The Stuff Worth Your Time | Full Episode Transcript
Part 2 of the series that started a conversation. This one gets into video calling, medical and safety tech, medication apps, the stuff you can safely ignore and ends with something that has nothing to do with technology at all. In Part 2 of Tech That Actually Matters, we get into the technology that genuinely makes a difference in daily life; video calling, medical alert systems, medication management apps, and the growing category of tech you can safely ignore. We end with
Michael Routhier
May 126 min read
Transcript: Episode 14 - When AI Brings Back the Dead, And Who Really Benefits
A man. A tablet. A glowing simulation of someone he loved. And a mug that says "Love never ends." This episode asks who really benefits when grief becomes a product. Hey, welcome back to today's show. This one is going to be a tough one for us today. I've been sitting with this one for a while and that's not something I usually say. Most of what I talk about on the show, I usually feel clear on, you know, scams make me angry. Privacy violations make me frustrated. Bad tech po
Michael Routhier
May 77 min read
Transcript: Episode 13 - Ghost Tapping: The Digital Pickpocket You Never See Coming - Full Episode Transcript
This episode is about a scam you'll never feel happening; until you check your bank account. Ghost tapping is real, it's growing, and summer festival season is prime time for it. Here's everything from the episode, in full. Hey, welcome back to the show. I hope you're having a great day today. So I want you to picture this. I want you to imagine that you're at the farmer's market this summer. You're browsing, enjoying the day, maybe picking up some fresh bread or a bouquet of
Michael Routhier
May 64 min read
Transcript: Episode 11 - The Tech That Actually Matters, And What Nobody Bothered to Tell You (Part 1 of 2)
Hey, welcome back to Tech 4 Grown-Ups. Today we're starting something a little different, a two-part series. And I want to start with something that genuinely bothers me. So what I want you to do right now is go to Google, go to Google right now and type in elderly tech. Go ahead, I'll wait. Here's what you get when you type that in. And the results are phones with four giant buttons, devices with names that sound like they belong in a hospital ward, tablets designed to look
Michael Routhier
Apr 305 min read
Transcript: Episode 10 - SMS Blasters: The Text Scam That Doesn't Just Steal From You, It Can Get People Killed
I'm going to be honest with you today, I'm a little angry talking about this one. Not frustrated, not mildly concerned, I'm actually angry. Because what I'm about to describe isn't just another scam designed to steal your money or your identity. It's something that can get people killed. And the people doing it are smart enough to know that. Let's talk about SMS blasters. An SMS blaster is a portable device. In some cases, it's not much larger than a backpack. And it mimics a
Michael Routhier
Apr 296 min read
Transcript: Episode 9 - How to Help Your Aging Parents Stay Safe Online - Without It Turning Into a Fight
Hey, welcome back to Tech 4 Grown-Ups. I'm Michael. Today, I want to talk about something a little different. Most of the time on this show, I'm talking directly to you, the person who wants to feel more confident, more safe, more in control of their digital life, and we're going to keep doing that. But today, I want to talk to the other half of this community. That's the adult children, the sons and daughters and grandchildren who are watching a parent or a grandparent navig
Michael Routhier
Apr 287 min read
Transcript: Episode 8 - 75,000 Fake Songs a Day, And Nobody's Stopping It
Hey, welcome back to Tech 4 Grown-Ups. I'm Michael, and today I want to talk about music, not in a nostalgic way, not in a things were better back in my day conversation, although honestly, by the time we're done today, you might feel that way a little bit. I want to talk about what's happening right now on the streaming platforms you probably use every single day. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and I want to talk about what it reveals about us, about creativity, about what we
Michael Routhier
Apr 227 min read
Transcript: Episode 7 - The Honest Conversation About AI Nobody Else Is Having
Hey, welcome back to Tech 4 Grown-Ups. I'm really glad you're here today, because today we're doing something a little different. We're not doing a how-to, and we're not walking through settings or talking about a specific scam. Today I want to have a real conversation with you about something that is everywhere right now that affects almost everyone listening to this, and that almost nobody, and I mean nobody, is talking about honestly. We're talking about AI. The good, the
Michael Routhier
Apr 227 min read
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