Refresh Computers Tech Talk

Send us Fan Mail Your wrist can do more than show the time now. We talk through how today’s smartwatches are evolving into practical safety tools, including fall detection that can automatically call 911, crash and collision alerts, and location sharing that helps first responders find you fast. If you have ever wondered whether an Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, or other smartwatch is actually...

Send us Fan Mail The sky is getting smarter and so is your tech. We talk through the real mechanics behind modern Fourth of July spectacles, where drone light shows can paint flags and eagles in midair with hundreds of synchronized aircraft, and why so many cities are now blending drones with classic fireworks for that can’t-miss grand finale. You’ll hear what makes these shows work, what can make...

Send us Fan Mail Your family memories are sitting on borrowed time. Those shoebox photos fade, VHS tapes get sticky, and the players you need to watch old camcorder footage are getting harder to find every year, especially in Florida heat and humidity. We walk through a realistic, do-it-now approach to digitizing old photos and home movies so you can preserve them, share them, and stop worrying th...

Send us Fan Mail DJI is getting pulled off US shelves, and that’s not just “drone hobbyist” news. We walk through what the DJI ban means for anyone who flies for fun, shoots video at weddings, inspects roofs and job sites, or depends on drones for fast situational awareness. Adam shares why DJI became the go-to brand in the first place, and we dig into the real reason this story keeps coming back:...

Send us Fan Mail One lightning flash down the street can quietly take out a TV, a router, and the computer you rely on for work and you won’t always know why it happened. We live in Florida, where thunderstorms are frequent and the power grid is constantly fluctuating, so we decided to get practical: what actually hurts electronics, what protects them, and what mistakes people keep making without...

Send us Fan Mail Your smart TV isn’t just “smart” anymore, it may be reporting back what’s on your screen. We walk through how Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) works, why it can track far more than streaming apps, and why that data is valuable enough to help drive down TV prices. Then we get practical: we share where these settings hide, what they’re often called by brand, and the extra privacy...

Send us Fan Mail Passwords are turning into a liability, and not because you are “bad at security.” The rules changed. AI-driven guessing, phishing, and nonstop automated attacks are making the old “strong password” playbook harder to live with and easier to break. So we talk through the shift that Apple, Google, and Microsoft are already pushing hard: passkeys and passwordless authentication. We...

Send us Fan Mail Smart glasses are not a sci-fi flex anymore. They look like normal Ray-Bans or Oakleys, but they behave like a wearable computer with speakers, a mic, a camera, and an AI assistant that is always within reach. We share what it is actually like to use Meta smart glasses day to day, from answering calls with your phone in your pocket to taking hands-free photos and video the moment...

Send us Fan Mail Humanoid robots are no longer a “someday” product, they’re showing up in real shopping carts with real price tags. We walk through what you actually get when a humanoid robot costs $18,000 to $20,000, starting with the Unitree G1 and the sensors that try to keep it upright and aware, like depth cameras and 3D LiDAR. We also talk candidly about the gap between flashy demos and ever...

Send us Fan Mail Siri has been “fine” for timers and quick lookups, but AI has moved on and Apple can’t afford to stay in catch-up mode. We dig into why Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is such a big moment, and why the most interesting rumor is also the most uncomfortable one: Siri may get its new brain from Google Gemini. That would make Siri far more conversational and useful, but it als...

Send us Fan Mail AI didn’t just change productivity tools, it changed crime. One of the biggest mistakes we can make right now is assuming scams still look like scams. Today, Greg Rhodes and I, David Levitt from Refresh Computer Superstore, dig into the AI cybersecurity arms race and why major institutions are warning that AI-powered attacks are arriving faster than defenses can keep up. We walk t...

Send us Fan Mail Space and tech collide today, starting with a plain-English look at the rumored SpaceX IPO and why a two-trillion-dollar valuation has so many people paying attention. We talk through what it actually means when a company goes from private shares to a public offering, what most everyday investors can realistically expect around IPO access, and why we keep repeating the same discla...

Send us Fan Mail If your phone suddenly loses service, it might not be a carrier outage. It could be a SIM swap, and that can hand a criminal the keys to your bank, email, and social accounts in minutes. We explain how attackers impersonate you with data from phishing and breaches, why SMS based two factor authentication is now a liability, and what that scary “my phone went dead” moment really me...

Send us Fan Mail Streaming was supposed to make TV cheaper and simpler, but the math is starting to look painfully familiar. As Netflix, Disney+, Max, Prime Video, Spotify, and others keep raising prices, a lot of us are right back to paying a cable sized bill, just split across a bunch of apps. We dig into what’s driving the increases, why ad-supported tiers are changing everything, and how weekl...

Send us Fan Mail Record profits used to mean stability. Now it can mean something else: a company realizes AI can do more with fewer people, and the layoffs start anyway. We talk through the real-world signals, starting with Cisco cutting thousands of jobs while reporting strong results, plus other examples like GM trimming IT roles. The takeaway isn’t panic, it’s clarity: AI job displacement is a...

Send us Fan Mail AI is no longer just a productivity tool, it’s a force multiplier for cybercrime. We dig into Google’s Threat Intelligence Group warning about the first confirmed case of criminal hackers using AI to discover and weaponize a zero-day vulnerability, the kind of software flaw nobody can patch because nobody knows it exists yet. That changes the clock on security from “weeks to respo...

Send us Fan Mail The government wants a seat at the table before the most powerful AI ships, and Big Tech is starting to say yes. We walk through the news that Google, Microsoft, and xAI plan to let the US Department of Commerce review new frontier AI models ahead of release, supposedly to catch national security and cybersecurity risks. That sparks the bigger question we cannot ignore: where does...

Send us Fan Mail A hidden 4GB file on your computer sounds like malware, but this time it can arrive through a normal Chrome update. We break down what Google’s Gemini Nano is, why the weights.bin file is showing up for Chrome users and many Chromebook owners, and why people are upset that it installs without a clear “yes” from you. We also talk through what “on-device AI” actually means, what it’...

Send us Fan Mail A brand-new AI model goes hunting for hackers and what it finds is honestly unsettling: thousands of high-severity zero-day vulnerabilities, including flaws that sat unnoticed for decades. We talk through Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, why the partnerships matter, and how AI-powered cybersecurity could help patch the holes before bad actors get there first. If you’ve ever wondered...

Send us Fan Mail Waymo is officially giving rides around metro Orlando, and that single fact kicks off a bigger question: are we ready for a world where “rideshare” no longer includes a driver? We walk through what Waymo’s launch looks like on the ground, why it is avoiding interstates for now, and the real-world situations that test every self-driving system, from construction zones and emergency...

Send us Fan Mail AI chatbots are leveling up fast, and the change is bigger than new features or a faster reply. We talk through what a chatbot really is, why tools like ChatGPT, Grok, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot suddenly feel more responsive, and how better “memory” and context can make an AI assistant useful for real work, not just random questions. If you have been ignoring AI, we make...

Send us Fan Mail That “problem with your payment method” email might look exactly like Amazon or one of your real suppliers, but it could be a targeted phishing attack built to drain a small business account in minutes. We walk through the FBI warning on vendor impersonation scams hitting Florida and explain how attackers clone logos, mimic domains with tiny character swaps, and weaponize urgency...

Send us Fan Mail Your phone picks the worst possible moment to fail: right when you’re in a crowd trying to upload a photo, pay a vendor, or find your friends. We’re live from Spring Fiesta at Lake Eola to explain what’s really happening to your cell service and Wi-Fi at big events, why “full bars” can still mean no usable internet, and how 5G’s more localized coverage changes the experience as yo...

Send us Fan Mail Your monthly tech bill is creeping up, and it’s not always obvious why. We walk through the “subscription squeeze” hitting streaming services and everyday software, where prices rise while features quietly disappear. We talk about what to look for in plan changes, why Netflix-style tier reshuffles frustrate so many people, and how subscription fatigue builds when you’re juggling l...

Send us Fan Mail Your phone used to last all day. Now it hits the afternoon and you are hunting for a charger like it is a daily routine. We dig into what is actually happening to smartphone battery life, from lithium-ion battery degradation to the charging habits that quietly wear batteries down faster. We also talk about why cheap, off-brand chargers can create problems, how heat changes everyth...