06-13-26 Smart Glasses Go Mainstream

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 something happens, plus quick “look and ask” questions like identifying landmarks and plants.

We also get honest about the downsides: real battery life versus the advertised numbers, what it means when your prescription eyewear has to go on a charger, and the awkward moments when a physical button can accidentally trigger a photo or video. From there we dig into the privacy and security concerns that come with a camera pointed wherever you look, why recording lights are not a perfect solution, and how public spaces and businesses may start setting new rules around smart glasses.

Then we shift to the AI browser war of 2026. We talk about what it means when browsers become agentic, how Google’s Gemini is changing search and browsing, and why OpenAI’s Atlas concept hints at a merged “browser plus ChatGPT” desktop experience. The convenience is real, but so is the tension around memory, tracking, and the level of access an AI browser may need to truly do work for you.

We wrap with a practical Windows tip you can try today: using Task Manager to disable unnecessary startup apps so your PC boots faster. Subscribe for more weekly tech news and hands-on tips, share this with a friend who loves gadgets, and leave a review with the one feature you want from smart glasses or AI browsers next.

Transcript

Welcome And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hey there, welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 107-3FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, go and use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stop in at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And if you're listening to the show here on Saturday, that means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now for David Levitt and Adam Littlefield.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

All right. Thanks, Greg. And thanks everybody for listening to another edition of Tech Talk with Refreshed Computers. We have another tech-filled show today. A lot of interesting stuff. A lot of interesting

Smart Glasses Hit The Mainstream

SPEAKER_02 1:05

stuff. As usual. We'll try to bring you the latest and greatest news going on in the tech world, give you some really good tech tips while we're at it. And today we're going to be talking about, you know, your computer is in your face now, or on your face, actually. Smart glasses are going mainstream, or they have gone mainstream. Yep. And we'll get into that and we'll catch you up on who's making what glasses. And there's more than more than the metaglasses coming out this year. And then we're going to talk about trying this new tech. You need a solid computer. Yeah, you got one that you can get right there at Refresh Computers. And then we're going to talk about a web browser that does the work for you. So there is an AI browser war right now for 2026. And we'll talk about what that means and you know what ChatGPT is doing to have their own browser and things like that. That's coming up. And then we'll finish today with another Windows tip how to make your computer boot faster. So let's get into it, Adam.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah, let's get knee deep into it because there's a lot going on today. And you know, the first one that you're talking about, something you've got on your face right now, I'm looking at it. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses, smart glasses. Actually, I have the Oakley.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

The Oakley, correct. Yes. There are Ray-Bans and there are Oakleys. And I actually have two pairs of Oakley's. And I remember, you know, they come in different models. They come in well, the Oakleys, there's only one style, but they come in different colors, I guess, right? You can get the rust colored, the black, the white, the red. Excuse me. At least in the version that I have. There is another Oakley version that's like a sports version. So you would you know use it like downhill skiing or something. But the ones I have are the regular nerdy looking ones. That's the best way I can describe it.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Well, nerdy nerdy they are, because you know they're they're smart glasses. They are. And you know, you were you were telling me before we got into the show today about, you know, live translation, how you've been experimenting with that. And you know, now there's actually smart glasses that are coming out with the display in a lens. In the lens, right in your eye.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

And Meta just announced theirs. Right. And if you're wondering, you know, who uh is making my Oakley smart glasses, they also make Ray Ban. That is Meta, you know, the folks at Facebook. Right. Zuckerberg smart move, I guess, on his part. He kind of got a head start on everybody else doing this smart glass thing, basically, you know, a computer on your face, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And smart to pair with an already very well recognized glasses maker, too.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

That's right. That's right. So, you know, with Oakley and Ray Ban, like we already talked about, and you know, those companies are actually manufactured by that big giant Esselore Luxotia. Luxotica.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Luxotica, yep.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Luxotica. Yeah. And you know, they they own the the market and and glasses. There was a 60 Minutes piece

Calls Without Holding Your Phone

SPEAKER_02 4:05

on that company like years ago. They own Sunglass Hut, Lens Crafters, Ray-Ban, Oakley. You know, so they they kind of cornered the market. So let's get into what I like and what I don't like about my smart glasses. Yeah. Because they're there, you know, like all kinds of tech, there is there's pros and cons. There are. So this is what you get with the metaglasses, like that, like I have, and it's the same with Ray-Ban, if you get the Ray-Ban or if you get the Oakley's. So you get a a really good tool to use with with your with your phone, with with your iPhone or your Google phone. Yeah. Because there is an app that goes along with it. And one of my uh favorite things to do with my smart glasses is having phone conversations. And my phone can literally be in my pocket and I can just just tell it to answer the phone when I hear it ringing, because I'll hear it ringing in my glasses. Yeah. There's built-in speakers at that. And the conversation is crisp and clear, as crisp and clear as anything. I mean, better than than just ha holding the phone up and talking to somebody over like that. I mean, it's it's it's really clear, and I really like that aspect of my glasses.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

It's a little intuitive too, having you know, just the glasses on, telling it to answer your phone calls, but I can't I cannot forget the the first time I think I heard you taking a phone call, you're walking around the store just talking, and it looked like you're talking to yourself. I know. And I'm just like, what did what did you say? And you just point to your glasses. I'm like, oh, oh, he's on a phone call. He's not talking to me.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

If you remember when the uh the rage was the Bluetooth earpieces that came out. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

The the little cockroach.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, the little cockroach on the side of somebody's face. And that for the longest time I would get caught. Did you need uh were you asking me a question? And they turn around and they're like, No, no, pointing over exaggeratedly at their other ear, and you're like, Well, sorry about that. Didn't know the cockroach could talk.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah. Well, and then because my glasses have a a you know more than a function of a computer, they're real glasses, they're prescription glasses. So I have transition lenses, you know, and so they'll and and I love the transition how fast they get dark outside, right? How fast they get light. Now that's another technology altogether, but still the last time I had transition lenses was probably 15 years ago, and I thought, well, I'm not gonna have these anymore. It just took too long to get light again. Yeah, you walk you you walk inside, and I'm still I'm like blind, half blind. But these transition back really fast. I mean, almost instantaneously. So I do like that aspect of it. And I also have I forget what the techno the technical term is called, but where the you know it has trifocals basically. Okay. Right. But I do have the near vision, the far, you know, far away vision, and the reading turn on, all built into one lens. And so that was kind of cool that they were able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

You know, that that really begs the question now with with this new meta rayband display is the name of it. It makes me wonder how they're gonna be able to achieve you know something like trifocal lenses with a with a display built into the lens.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Because we didn't get to that part yet because Meta also has the glasses. I guess we did we I don't know, did we mention it at the beginning of the channel?

Prescription Lenses Meet Wearable Tech

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Mentioned it a little bit, yeah. They also they do have the the type of glasses with the built-in display, yeah, which I just don't I I don't have, and I don't think I would I would want that. But you know, it's it's gotten really big. How big is it? Six and a half million pairs of meta glasses sold.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Meta has actually they've actually made more money now off of their glasses than their VR headset. That's right. And and I have one of the at least the VR headsets, I can attest to that. And you know, that's a great headset. The built-in speakers with it, the comfort of it, it's one of the best VR headsets I've ever owned.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

But I guess that's good there. That's such a niche specific kind of item, right? Like not everybody's not everybody's looking for a headset. Yeah. But just about everybody is looking for a pair of either glasses for reading or sunglasses. Yeah. Which I mean, this opens up a full market for that.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

And I've worn glasses, you know, my entire life. And so it was just a natural thing for me to when I needed a new prescription. I got mine at Walmart. Yeah. Went to Walmart, got my my eyes tested, and they sell them. And actually, I went I didn't even know they sold them there when I went there because that's where I go to get my vision tested. And when I was there, I was telling the guy, hey, I'm gonna get some some uh probably the oakleys, because I I like how they how they look, you know, because you can do this virtual thing on the on the meta website where you can actually point your phone at your face, you can see what the glasses look like on you. Right. And I thought, well, I like these oak leys. And he goes, Yeah, we have them right here. I said, Oh, wow, that's cool. So he let me see them. I played with them for a little while, and of course they were the display model, and the ones I got came, it took about, I think, two weeks, maybe ten days. No longer than your usual pair of glasses. No longer than a usual pair of glasses. And another thing that I do like about them is being able to look and ask about things. Like I can just look at a landmark, yeah, and I can ask my glasses, what am I looking at? And it'll tell me. It'll tell me a mountain range, what mountain range it is, but it'll recognize it. And you know, these kinds of things. Yeah. That's kind of cool. You I can look at a plant and say, hey, what kind of plant is this? You know, and I know they have these apps on your phone and stuff too, but yeah, but you don't have to point your phone at it. You just look at it. And that's the great thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, these as these accessories that we've kind of tied to our phones continue to grow, this is the logical next step. But I think now it's almost commonplace for everyone to have a smartwatch on their wrist at this point as opposed to a regular watch. I think we're kind of trending that same direction with these smart glasses. I'm seeing more and more people wearing these.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah, you know, and then people come up to me. Oh, I see you have your Oakleys, your your your smart glasses. I said, Yeah, oh, I see you have your Ray Bans, you know. And so another thing, hands-free photos and videos, I just tell it to take a photo and it takes a photo. Yeah. I tell it start a video, it starts a video. And it's it's really cool because I like when I'm playing with my grandkids, for example. We went out for a nature walk with them. They're almost three years old, twin boys. And I just told it to start videoing them, and it did.

Photos Videos And Directions Hands Free

SPEAKER_02 10:35

And it and it's just and very, very good quality video.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

I think that honestly, and that's and that is a very big pro because again, it's it can be very hard to catch those moments sometimes trying to reach for a phone or a camera or anything like that. Sure. It's uh yeah, you you can catch things quicker. You can catch things quicker, but also on the other side of that, it's also kind of ties into a bit of a privacy concern for a lot of people too.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Big privacy concern. And one that I have, but yeah. But let me get into another feature. It's like turn-by-turn directions, like that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, if you're not looking down at your phone for your navigation, it's talking to you, you know, kind of in your ear and naturally as well, as opposed to the the robotic way your car normally would do it, where by the time you've passed your turn, it's telling you to turn off into a lake or something at that point.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Yeah. So so anyway, uh, battery life. Let's talk about battery life. Now they tout an eight-hour battery life. No way. Yeah. No way. These uh the battery of my ogles last maybe four hours, four or five hours. I I even learned that another reason I bought a second pair is because I can have them charging. I even bought extra charging cases, so I have a charging case in my house and my car at work. Because when they go dead, you have to think, you know, and you want to use them, you have to charge them. But then while they're charging them, they're being charged, you don't have anything to use, and not even to see anymore. Because I need mine for for seeing as well. So that's why I bought my second pair. So I always have an active pair ready, ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

That's what I do like with those sm with smart glasses now, is the idea of you know, you don't have to take them off and plug them in. You're not attached to a cord. You have a uh glasses case that you sit them into and they charge.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

But that that highlights, you know, exactly what you're saying as well that if you got to put them on charge for an hour and you rely on your glasses to see, you're not carrying around a second pair of glasses as a backup for when your your metaglasses are chargeable.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Yeah, that's that's true. So let's talk about who else is making smart glasses. Google. They have an Android XR coming out this year in the fall 2026. And so is Samsung. It's called the Samsung Jinju, J-I-N-J-U. I guess I pronounced that right. That's what it looks like. And they're coming out this fall. Apple, yep, they're coming out with their own also, but it's going to be next year sometime, 2027.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Which fits into Apple's, you know, way of doing things. They they do take that year or two to trail and kind of let other companies be the testers of, you know, this new technology.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

So it's big, and then back to

Battery Reality And Charging Workarounds

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Greg's point about the privacy thing. Yeah, so that's a big, big deal. Right. So one of the things that I don't like with my glasses, like a con, I guess, would is because there is actually a button on the top of the right side just close to the to where the lens is on the frame. And so when I go to take off my glasses, I sometimes push down on that button and it takes a photo. Or if I push down too long for three seconds, it starts a video. And maybe that's not a good thing. And and so and there's no way to turn that off.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

I you the only thing I can do is change it to where if I push it instantly, it'll video instead of take a picture, and I have to hold it for three seconds before it will take a picture. Right. And the other security concern is that you know the camera points at whatever you're looking at, right? And there is a little light that comes on on the outside of the glasses so that people will see that you're recording. It'll start it'll flash the white light that's flashing. But you know, of course, they're already making the light blockers. Right. So you can run around to all those kinds of things. Yeah, so you can like put something over your the light so people would know that you're recording them. So that's another security concern.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

And meta used to be really good with that as well. I remember the first iteration of those glasses that came out. If you block that light, the the glasses would actually say, hey, the the notification light is blocked and we can no longer record video until it's unblocked.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

That's I think that's gonna be a continuing concern with Windsor as they continue more and more private spaces are restricting the use of even phone devices. So I can only imagine it's gonna reach over into that. We'll continue our conversation a bit on this here on Tech Talk. You've been listening on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. And now back to David and Adam.

Who Is Launching Smart Glasses Next

SPEAKER_02 15:35

All right, thanks, folks, and thanks for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. Today we have a lot to talk about. We've already talked a lot about the the new fad that's out there right now that's really catching on like wildfire fire, you know, is smart glasses and the six and a half million users at least already sold in 2025. So probably double that so far for 2026. That Meta is like they it's hard for them to even keep up.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

It was only the smart move, too, for this kind of technology. You know, VR was I think the the first step into that space, and now you know, glasses, especially starting to put displays into glasses. That's right. Is gonna be, you know, I think the the future with that.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

So Meta uh just announced that they have a display coming out with their glasses, and we talked earlier about Google and Samsung coming out with their own glasses, they're coming out towards the end of this year, but the models that they're coming out with will not have the display in them. Right. The model I'm wearing, the Oakleys that I talked extensively about in the last segment, uh, do not have the display in them. And I don't know that I would want the display in my glasses because they do everything that I need them to do, and I don't need that that distraction. But we were also talking about the security concerns with these glasses, and you know, we were talking about, hey, you know, whatever you're looking at is potentially being being recorded. So anybody that you look that that you see that are wearing glasses, they they could be these glass, the types of glasses, right? And smart glasses, and you know, you could be recorded, you know, just about anywhere. So it's important, like restaurants, gyms, locker rooms, schools. So society's gonna have to have to catch up with what they only do, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

I I I even saw a recent uh article about a uh a car dealership that has a notice now that says no Ray-Ban or Oakley meta glasses allowed. If you have them, you'll be asked to return to your vehicle, asked to leave the premises, all this kind of at a car dealership. At a dealership of all things.

unknown 17:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah. That makes you take a lot more into question than.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Maybe I don't want to do business with you anyway.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

And that's somebody taking the privacy concerns a little bit too far, maybe right now. But you know, who they're gonna be alienating a lot of customers. I can I can I can tell you that. Right. So listen, if you missed any of what we talked about, go to refreshcomputers.net, click on the podcast link in

Privacy Fears And Recording Concerns

SPEAKER_02 17:55

the upper right-hand corner. You can catch the show in its entirety. We had a lot to talk about smart glasses, uh, and especially the ones that I actually wear, the Oakley version of the Metaglasses. And uh, you know, we got a lot of details of features and functionality. So if you're thinking about that, go listen to that podcast at refreshcomputers.net. Better yet, click at the bottom of every website or web page at refreshcomputers.net. Uh, you can enter your email address, click submit, and you'll be notified when the show is ready for you to listen to. And there's nice little bullet points in the email so you'll know what we're talking about without actually happening to listen to the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah, and that puts you into our uh refresh insiders as well. So any new deals we have coming for the week, you're gonna you're gonna get live updates on that, which are also available on our website. Our whole inventory is available as there are there as well for you to be able to view. And I can I can tell you right now, any computer we have on that website is Windows that's Windows 11 capable, you'll be able to use almost any of this AI stuff that's right out now.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Just about all of it, and and including you know the tools that that you hook up to your smart glasses. Exactly. If you end up getting a pair of smart glasses, and so smart money option, refurbished, right? So you save gosh, you can save uh 75% off a brand new computer, you know, why not just get one that's refurbished? I guarantee you it will last just as long, if not longer, than a brand new one in the box. And and look, when you get a brand new one in a box, you bring it home, you have a box, you got to get rid of the box, you got all this bloatware on it, because that's what they put on there. We don't put bloatware on any of our refurbished computers. And you know, you use it after you use it for five minutes, what do you have? A used computer. Yep, and a box to throw away. So why not go refurbished, you know, and it's the uh it's not only the the smarter, smart money way to do things. So many businesses take advantage of that, you know, buying their refurbished computers at refreshed computers, but it's also ecologically friendly. It is so you know, it keeps more stuff, you know. The longer we have a big sign up at the store, you know, the uh extend the life of a product, extend the life of a planet. And that's what you're doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

And if you're into the market for a refurbished computer, a great way to check out the inventory, head over to refreshcomputers.net. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, go and use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stopping at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And if you're joining us here on Saturday, that means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now for David Levitt and Adam Littlefield.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

All right. Thanks, Greg, and thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refreshed Computers. We talked a lot about smart glasses in the last couple segments and how popular they

The AI Browser War Of 2026

SPEAKER_02 21:35

they are. And perhaps you've seen somebody already, or maybe you know somebody. It wouldn't be unusual today for you to know somebody that's actually wearing a pair of smart glasses. And they look like everyday glasses.

unknown 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

I guess that's the point of them too, is to blend in, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:51

They do, and and uh and so they can do all kinds of fun things. We talked all about that. So if you missed that, go to refreshcomputers.net, click on the podcast link. And you can listen to the show in its entirety. So in this segment, we want to talk about the AI browser war of 2026. So AI is obviously the talk of the town, the talk of the planet, basically. It's the talk of us for almost like the past year now, it feels like. I know. I remember when we started talking about AI probably two years ago. Yeah. And then it was so tempting to talk about AI again on the next show. Right. But I remember making it a lot of people. A conscious point to, okay, we just talked about AI last week, so I don't want to talk about AI again this week. It's getting kind of old. But now every show is almost there's an AI-related segment because AI isn't everything. It is. It's just around us, you know, and it's doing so much, and including your web browser. So what's a web browser? Well, that's Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox. Firefox. And so, you know, of course, Google has dominated that market for a few decades now.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Anyone that's anybody knows that Internet Explorer and uh Microsoft Edge is normally the browser you use to download Google Chrome. That's right. At least that's how it has been for me.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

And Edge begs you not to do it. Please wait. I can do so much.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Just give me a chance. Are you sure you don't want to make me default? Absolutely. The default browser. So anyway, so what's changing big time in the browser world is and this one kind of caught me a little bit by surprise, Adam, because I didn't think that the technology was going this direction, but the people that make Chat GPT. Right. They uh open AI. So they announced that they are coming out with a browser of their own. It's called Atlas. And so it's and it's to compete, I guess, directly with Google. Yeah. And and Gemini.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Well, it it begs the uh the it ba it invites, you know, challenge, I guess, because Google, we did a show episodes back where they were introducing that Gemini nano into their browsers first. And I'm sure that once uh ChatGPT or OpenAI, once they caught wind of that, they're like, well, there's another corner for us to start fighting for, and that's uh, you know, the the browser, your browser in your computer.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

And so what's really crazy is right now Atlas is available from ChatGPT, but only in a Mac OS operating system. So you know, they re recently announced plans to merge ChatGPT and Atlas into a unified desktop super app, right? So I think what you're going to see is that Chat GPT using the Atlas program will probably be just kind of merged into one. So now it looks more like it look and feel of a browser, but it's just Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah, and it's almost kind of like how when you do a Google search anymore, it gives you the option to AI enhance that search. That's right. Right. So I imagine it'll probably maybe kind of similar to how that layout works out, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Yeah, I think so. And and it could be that you know they maybe they jumped the gun a little bit by coming out with this Atlas operating or Atlas browser, you know, chat GPT folks, and and they only put it on the Mac operating system, which seems kind of odd to me. And it's almost to me like they had that part ready, and maybe they were working on the Windows part. This is just pure speculation on my part, and then they caught themselves and said, wait a minute, let's hold off on that. Because the research I've done on Atlas, Chat GPT's browser, is it's probably not even going to be a Windows-based browser. It's going to be what I said, that unified product where it's kind of merging a browser and Chat GPT together, sort of like what Google has already done with Gemini, but just in reverse order. So you know you had Google, you Google something. Google took their AI tool, which is Gemini, and they blended that Gemini into Google searches now. So where Chat GPT had chat GPT, right? So they had the first they had the AI tool, and now they're making the browser. And I and I just don't know that that's going to be the way to go.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

I guess my this choice with focusing on macOS too, really, you know, it just gets my my imagination going, my speculation going of why they chose mac OS to be their main platform. Because to me, Mac OS is a very one of one of the most secure operating systems out there. Yeah, right. It is very so if you have now an AI browser, it's an application that you installed as a computer, it has access to you know the computer itself and its own application. Did ChatGP did uh did OpenAI see you know possibilities of what it can do that they had to restrict

Agentic Browsers Tabs And Control

SPEAKER_00 26:55

it to Mac? You know, I don't know. I don't know. I would love to have an answer to that question.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Could could be, could be, and so we'll see. So and you know, the other idea is you know, with a with a Chrome browser, you can type in a website address, right? So with Chat GPT, you you can't just type in go to this website. And so that I think that's what they're trying to get to with this atlas. So you can actually type in the name of a website and it will just go there as well as do all the AI stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

And then instead of opening up a separate application, just do it all within one contained program, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Yeah, which I was like a super app.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah, and this, you know, this AI browser, you know, it's it's also being called an Agenic browser. And you know, we talked about you know Agenic AI before, how it's you know, almost like a user using your computer in the background. So you're doing stuff, you know, that just you can do. So now you're comp you're you're compressing that down into a browser, kind of makes me question again, you know, what it's capable of as far as like web browsing or giving you, you know, just answers. You go into it, plug in a question, you watch 15 tabs open of different websites it's looking at, they all close at once, and maybe it spits out an answer, you know, something like that. But I'm you know, I'm thinking of you know, more of Google's integration with Gemini. Right. It's it's not so much in your face, use our AI. It's hey, this AI is here, you know, in case maybe you want to, maybe you want to try it, maybe you want to use it. And the my biggest concern would be seeing Google expand that to the point where you can't use their Chrome browser like a browser anymore. Right. That'd be my major concern because I would hate Dave to walk into the back of the store one day and and hear you just shouting up a storm because you know, Gemini decided to close your 150 tabs because it thinks it doesn't, you don't need them. You know, like that that's kind of the stuff I'm thinking of because you know it's it's very common to have tons of tabs open anymore to keep, you know, tabs on what you what on information. If you have an AI getting into the mix now, trying to decide, hey, you know, you don't need to have this tab open. It's not relevant information to what we're talking about. That's gonna that's gonna be a thorn in a lot of people's sides, I think.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

It is. And speaking of tabs in in Google Chrome, like you're right. Yeah, I uh it's not uncommon for me to have a hundred or a hundred and fifty tabs open. I know it sounds crazy probably to a lot of people, but uh I I get since Chrome came out with uh tab groups, they call them. So you can put tabs like banking, you have all your bank and credit card info in that group and and and stuff like that. Work or personal or whatever, and social. I have a tab group called AI, go figure. That checks out.

unknown 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

And so what they recently did with Google is allow you to minimize the whole tab groups. So now you don't even see you don't see the 150 tabs, but you still have them. And if you want to to get into, I mean, there's so many tabs on my computer, it's just it doesn't go far enough right. Right. It doesn't go to the I can't see the end on the right. I have to minimize stuff, I have to minimize the tab groups, basically hide them, so I can see the new tab I opened all the way on the right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

And even with these tab groups, it it probably doesn't help you see, you know, the name of each tab either, I'm sure. You know, that's just another part of it. And you know, again, integrating AI into your browser, maybe you won't ever need to have 150 tabs open if you can just tell it what you're trying to do. And you know, maybe they give it some sort of access to memory of what you've been talking about before, like most AIs have access to now. But there's a lot of access, again, that you're gonna have to give now your web browser.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Well, that's the security part that comes into play and things that you know people need to be leery of, which I'm which I'm very leery of. It's like in order to do these automated tools that we would love AI to do for us, they need access to your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

I heard an interesting story today that Visa's trying something out. So Visa's working with an

AI Shopping Payment Automation And Trust

SPEAKER_01 31:05

AI group to put together a personal shopper. So you'll put in the information, hey, I'm looking for a set of headphones for $150. You've given Visa and the AI authorization to buy the best $150 headset that it can find for you without your review. Wow. So that's so this is some of these things that we're concerned about. Like so, so what gets mixed up in that translation? I'm someone who, if I'm buying a hundred and fifty dollar set of headsets, I'm getting very in-depth about the research. Researching it, I know which headsets I want. Will AI be able to decipher which headsets I want?

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Well, no, no, not only that, there may be a feature you don't even know about. Right. And so when you do your research, you find out right about that feature and decide, oh, maybe I want to spend $170 and get that one. Right. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 31:53

So But again, we might be the outliers on that. Again, we we do work on a show that's called Tech Talk. So that might be a part of maybe just us being maybe those kinds of people. There are some people that would just be like, no, I don't care. Just get me the best, just get me the best rooms that you that you think and just get them to be as quick as possible.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

And that's you know, that's a really good point as well, because I know Amazon actually just sued uh an AI browser actually for using bots to automatically shop on their site. Right for people. Yeah. Yeah. They they said, stop that. You don't have permission to have have bots shop for other people. Yeah. Which I mean, you that just makes sense to me. I don't want to have these agenic AI bots shopping for me because it's my money. I I want to moderate where it's going, you know? And and you know, I I do a lot of review on stuff about return policies, warranties, you know. AI, I just can't trust to take that into consideration about the physical aspect of if I get this item and it breaks in a week due to a manufacturing issue.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Now what?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

What can I do?

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. And so yeah, I don't know because every it seems like every application out there, like let's it's Amazon, let's throw that one out there. It it's already it just recently built in AI and the whole Amazon shopping experience anyway.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

So if you're anybody out there, even the small guys, heck, even refresh computers, we have our own little chat bot right there on the website now. Go to refreshcomputers.net and it'll open up a little bot. And if you don't like it, you can click an X and it'll go away.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

But you can sit there and ask it any question about refresh computers, and it's gonna answer you. Yeah, hey, I see this laptop, and do you have it in stock? Well, first of all, if you see it on our website, folks, it's in stock. But the chat bot will come back and verify that for you. And and you can ask it, hey, I want to build a gaming computer, can you help me out with that? And it'll our chat bot will come back. So with a very solid response about what it would take for us to build you a gaming computer. And and if you have a business, it doesn't have to be technology business. You might want to consider looking at implementing something like this for your business because that's where everything is going right now. Right. And this is my point where I don't know that you need a separate thing that Visa's doing. I think that's a very far reach. A little overkill. Overkill because it's saying, hey, find all this stuff when you already have all that. Right. And at your favorite shopping places, you know, like there's certain things I only buy on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

I guess the idea behind what Visa is doing would be it also gives you the added security of it being a Visa protected transaction is the idea. So I think that's a big part of the behind the scenes of it, maybe. But yeah, no, I completely agree with your point. There's already these kinds of systems in place. Why not just partner with somebody in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 34:35

And you know, going into back into like the browser sphere of this as well, you know, a lot of uh chatbots now like the one we have on our website, Amazon uses, they're kind of they're what I would call contained. They have a central database of information they refer to. They can't refer to anything else outside sources. When you're using an AI browser, it has access to the whole internet. But the biggest thing, and I know a lot of our customers always have this concern, is their privacy with their internet browser, with what it's tracking, it's recording. A lot of users use browsers like DuckDuckGo, for example, yeah, because it removes that history.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

What are we gonna start getting into where the need of memory is needed for your browser?

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Well, the whole idea behind AI is being able to use the memory that it so it will remember. Exactly. You know, what you've been looking for and what you've been doing. So, yeah, there's a lot of give and take there. And, you know, we're just we're at the forefront of this whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Tip of the iceberg, I think.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Yeah, we are.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

So we'll see what the future holds. Look forward to a lot more conversations about this right here on Tech Talk. You've been listening on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.

Windows Tip Disable Startup Apps

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Hey there, and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Fender of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. And don't forget to check out the website at refreshcomputers.net. And now back to David and Adam.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

All right. Thanks, folks, for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. We had another good show today. We've been talking a lot of tech. A lot of tech. AI with smart glasses, like the ones I'm wearing and how much I love them and you know what I use them for. It's kind of AI in your browser as well. AI in your browser. We talked all about that. And so if you missed anything you want to catch up, go to refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link, and you'll be able to hear the show in its entirety. Better yet, scroll to the bottom of any page at refreshcomputers.net, enter your email address. That's all we asked for, and click submit, and you will be notified as soon as this radio show is ready in podcast form. So you can go in and listen to it with a nice little bullet points now in the email to let you know what we're talking about in case you just don't want to listen to the whole 40 minutes of recording.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

See if it's interesting to you before you you get into the the meat and potatoes of us two nerds talking about it. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

True. So in this segment, uh, this is our weekly Windows tip that we want to uh get into here and make your PC boot faster. And boy, is this something this is something that people bring their computers in for us to do for them. Right. Right? Because they don't know. They just bring in, hey, my computer's running slow here. But we're gonna tell you how you can make your PC run faster or boot up faster where you probably don't have to bring it in or call us and say, you know, do things. So Adam, I want to let you take this over.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Yeah, so you know, there's a there's a built-in Windows function in Task Manager, actually. You can right-click on your task bar at the bottom and open up Task Manager or press Ctrl Alt Delete, open it that way. There's a little startup apps tab right there. And a lot of the times, you know, when you start up your computer, there's probably eight, ten, I've seen 15 windows pop up before. And those are all your startup apps. Whenever the computer turns on, that's what starts up.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

This is what you, in one form or another, told your computer to go ahead and get started when you turn on your computer.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

And every single one of those that are enabled, guess what? They're slowing it down. That's right. So, you know, you can go through that list and you can take a full audit, see what's enabled, what's disabled, and you can disable them right in that list. Just click on it. There's a little disable button at the top, and you can disable it from startup. And I've seen computers really get turned around because of this. You know, you don't want four web browsers open, you don't want Photoshop opening as soon as you turn the computer. Microsoft Teams, that's a very big one. Right. You know, all of these applications that you don't use immediately. You can or hardly ever sometimes on startup, and it's gonna save you, you know, I I mean it almost like a couple minutes sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

And how many people do we see that didn't even realize all those things are starting up on their computer when they first turn on their computer?

SPEAKER_00 39:06

A lot. Tons of people that don't realize this and think, you know, I'm stuck in this in this torment where I turn on my computer and I'm bombarded with 20 windows that I don't want opening when I just want to read a document.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Or a lot of times it's it doesn't even open anything. A lot of these things are starting up in the background.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

And so you don't even know they started up, but it's also bogging down your computer. Right. So what can you do if you just can't figure out what to do? What we just talked about, right? So it's like this went really fast. So give us a call at the free tech support hotline, 407-478-8200. And we will very quickly go over this. Call us when your computer's on and you're ready to go, and we'll very quickly, over the phone, guide you through this on how to eliminate these startup tasks when your computer turns on, so that your computer will actually be faster the next time you boot it up. Then that's that's a free tech support call at refresh computers. The number again is 407-478-AB200. And, you know, so if your computer is still like crawling, right, after we go through all this, uh, could be something else going on. Yeah. And so, you know, with RAM prices

Free Help Options And Closing Tease

SPEAKER_02 40:20

going up still, SSD might be a solid upgrade for you if you need a solid new solid state drive. But you know, how to find out what might be slowing down your computer beyond what we just talked about, bring it to Refresh Computers, and we'll go over that for you. Free, it's a free free diagnostic to let you know what's going on. And I'll remind everybody again go to refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link to be able to hear this show in case you miss anything. Better yet, go to the bottom of the page at refreshcomputers.net, put in your email address, and be automatically notified when the next show is ready to be listened to. So, folks, that's all we have time for today. We'll be talking to you again tomorrow morning. We're going to be talking about why the password is dying on your computer, what you need to do about it.