Refresh Computers Tech Talk
Help and advice are given on a range of technical issues from computers to everything internet-related.
Refresh Computers Tech Talk
05-09-26 Google Installed A Hidden 4GB AI Model In Your Browser Without Asking
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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’s supposed to help with, and the real-world problem: even if you toggle it off, the storage hit can still be there.
From there, we zoom out to performance and value. New PCs often ship with bloatware that burns storage, nags you with pop-ups, and quietly slows the machine down. We explain why a quality refurbished computer with a clean Windows install can feel faster on day one, plus simple ways to audit the tech in your home or small business. We also share how our recycling and trade-in options can help you clear out old gear responsibly and put credit toward an upgrade.
Then we get into AI you actually choose to use. ChatGPT’s latest “5.5 Instant” update claims 52.5% fewer hallucinations, better memory, and clickable sources, but we keep it practical: AI is a research assistant, not an oracle, and it still needs fact-checking for medical, legal, and financial questions. Finally, we cover the Canvas ransomware breach tied to Shiny Hunters and why this is prime time for phishing scams aimed at students, parents, and educators, including the password changes you should make right now.
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Welcome And What’s Ahead
SPEAKER_01Hey 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 any other comments during the show, we'd love to hear them. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at RefreshComputers.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. 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 the men themselves, David Little David Levitt and Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_02All right. Thanks, Greg, and thanks everybody for listening to yet another edition of Tech Talk with Refreshed Computers. Guys, we have so much to talk about, so much tech news out there. It's like a technology reson renaissance going on.
SPEAKER_00Everything's just exploding, expanding. You know, things are changing like every week now, we've been seeing.
SPEAKER_02And we have so much to talk about. We're actually going to have two shows this weekend. So today, Saturday, is going to be the first show. And then tomorrow, this show usually repeats on Sundays from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. But we're going to have a completely separate show on Sunday. So because there's just so much to go over, and I think people need to people need to know about it, Greg. So the things we're going to talk about on today's
Chrome’s Hidden 4GB AI File
SPEAKER_02show. We have Google putting a four gig file on your computer if you're using the the Chrome browser. And also many Google Chromebooks if you're using those. So that's that's a big issue because they're kind of sneaking it in there without letting you know about it. So you know, just imagine uh, you know, your cable company coming in and installing a box in your house and just tell you, oh, don't worry.
SPEAKER_00It's a it's a new feature, don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_02It's just something you need. So we'll go into what Google is doing, why they're doing it, and why maybe you want to be aware of it and also ways to get rid of it. And another thing we're gonna talk about a little later is why you know buying refurbished computers makes more sense than ever right now. There's some big points on that coming up. We're also gonna talk about how ChatGPT just got smarter because you know it's claiming now it's hallucinating, 52.5% less. So we're gonna get into that. If you use Chat GPT or Claude or Grok or any of the other you know AI tools that are out there, and if you use them consistently, I think you know what I'm talking about when I use the term hallucinate, but that's actually a chat GPT term that came out with about getting rid of some of the hallucinations going on when you're using their tools. And then we're gonna finish the show with uh something that's was just broke today, I heard yesterday on the news, is that uh the canvas breach that happened with the company, their the organization that we talked about last week, the shiny hunters came out, and they, you know, the canvas system is the system used by the majority of school systems in the country. And so that was a data breach that happened there where they locked down files and and are asking for ransom money to get into that. And we'll go talk more into that topic here in a few few minutes. But we're gonna start off again with what Google is calling the Gemini nano AI model. And again, it's a four gig file, and it's they named it right though. They called it the weights.bin, w-e-i-g-h-t-s.bin is the name of the file that's they inserted on your computer. And four gigs the lot.
SPEAKER_00It is. And in terms of you know, AI computing, especially just locally on your own computer, four gigabytes is a lot of storage to have in one single file. That's um about the size of like a full movie download now, isn't it? Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_02It's like a whole movie, and and then it's like and it's not something that you're gonna just stumble across or even you even knew they did. They just put it on there without asking you. And I'll go back to the cable company analogy. You know, would you let a cable company guy come in and just install a box in your house and tell you, oh, don't worry about it. This is just for your own good.
SPEAKER_00It it reminds me a lot of that uh Windows recall feature we had talked uh many shows ago now, where it was you know monitoring your system and you could ask it to recall information that you viewed. It was just put in there when they first released it, enabled, and that's kind of what happened with this Gemini nano is it's enabled by default. That you're not even asked if you want to enable it.
SPEAKER_02It's a it's a new feature, and it's something that you know it's not a fix, it's not an enhancement or anything like that. This is something entirely new that they installed on your computer because you know they're always doing updates, right? Google updates to fix this, to fix that, to enhance this, to enhance that. But this is more than an enhancement, this is an actual installation of a four gig file on everybody's computer that uses the Chrome browser. If you don't use the Chrome browser, don't worry about it. Yeah, it's not on your computer because it comes through that browser on an update. And so what is it? So the the Gemini Nano, which is Google's on-device AI model.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't, it doesn't call back to home to to process something, it's supposed to be all done on your own computer, is what they're saying.
SPEAKER_02It's a small, like localized version of Google's AI tools. And so for a lot of people, probably don't care that it's on your computer, and it's probably doing something that you would want it to do. But you know, for a lot of other people, hey, maybe you would want to know if that's being installed and have the option of installing it or not. Right. So on device, again, means that the AI runs directly on your computer, not on Google servers.
What Gemini Nano Actually Does
SPEAKER_02So Google uses it to power stuff like writing assistants. Maybe you've seen that come up as you're you know, typing or writing something in Chrome, probably like uh in a Google Doc. And so you'll see our new writing assistant that comes up and helps, but also helps with scam detection warnings, not scam detection, but warnings about scam detections, a difference there, organizing your tabs better, things like that. So it it's helpful in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00On on the surface, it's definitely, you know, it's advertised to be helpful. The my first question though, and it's something that I haven't even gotten to really play with yet, is how is this going to present itself and actually be useful for a user? You know, that's that's kind of what I'm wondering. Google, they they injected it back end, like we said, just without any prompt. And there's all these features it's gonna have, but really how useful are some of these features gonna be depending on how good the AI is on actually detecting that stuff?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so and Google, you know, them themselves, they say it's like downloading like offline maps, right? Right? So you always have access to the maps, it's staying on your computer, it's not going outside of your computer. So this new Gemini nano AI model that they're installing, this four gig file that they're installing on everybody's computers that have the Chrome browser, it's just stays on your computer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it's not it's helping you organize what's on your computer.
SPEAKER_01That's roughly 67 to 73 percent of computers, according to Google's most recent guess. Yeah. As to how many people actually use Chrome. So it's uh that's a lot. That's a lot of people that are just getting this four gigs downloaded in the background, no permissions needed.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah, and it's you know the number one web browser by by far.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right? So, and but you know, but why are people upset about it? Well, because nobody asked, right? Right. There's no pop-up, no notification, no, hey, we're about to use four gigs of your storage. None of that stuff. You know, so you know, Google could have done a little better job of rolling it out because they didn't really tell anybody, they just did it. You know, so you you got an extra four gig of data on your computer if you used a Chrome browser, whether you want it or not. Yeah. And some people don't have four gig to spare, you know. I mean, it's four gig is a lot. So, and and guess what happens if you delete the file? You can find it if you can find it, because it's hidden in a hidden, it's in a hidden folder. If you know what you're doing, you can delete it. But if you delete it, it just re-downloads itself and reinstalls itself automatically.
SPEAKER_01I know that we gave Microsoft some pretty big grief over something kind of similar to this pretty on our on a recent episode. Do you think that there's going to be any kind of about face from Google on this, kind of similar to what Microsoft did?
SPEAKER_02I hope so because you know it's it's your computer, it's your space, it's your it's your real estate that they're just assuming they can just land in and use.
SPEAKER_00I always use the analogy when I'm talking about storage space on computers is it imagine it like a warehouse. The the fuller of the warehouse trying to get to the back of it, there's just stuff you've got to go through. Well, if you've got somebody coming into your warehouse loading, you know, truckloads of stuff into your warehouse that you didn't even call for, that that would that would that would upset uh anybody, really. Sure.
SPEAKER_02Of course it would.
SPEAKER_00Somebody coming into your own home and and put storing stuff in your shed. That that's you know another analogy for it.
SPEAKER_02That's what they're doing. It's like uh the city coming by and saying, hey, we're gonna use your shed to store some tools.
SPEAKER_01And what are we gonna need them down the street? One or two things you might not have noticed. Like maybe they put an extra screwdriver in your toolbox and you're like, I don't know if that one's mine or not. Four gigs worth of data inside that toolbox? Yeah, you're definitely gonna notice that. That's a hacksaw. That is.
SPEAKER_02So it's important to note also, though, that there are actually two types of Google AI in Chrome. So one we've just talked about, right? That's the new one that Google is just forcing on everybody's computer, whether you say you want it or not. And that's the Gemini nano Google AI tool, and that stays local to your computer, supposedly, and it's just helping you deal with tasks and things on your computer and help you organize things, which could be good. Could be a good thing if you have extra four gig of space available, right? It sure sounds good on the surface. It does sound good. So the other type of Google AI that's on your computer, if you're running Chrome, these two are on everybody's computer, is the cloud connected Gemini features. So this so that this is how they make the distinction, also. So there is Google Gemini, which is like Claude, which is like Chat GPT, right? It's like those types of things. It's the Google's AI agent that helps you do whatever you ask it to help with, just like you would with Chat GPT. And so there is an interface to that in Chrome, and that goes outside of Chrome, outside of your computer, of course, because it has to go out on the web and get into Google's data center so they can do their their chatbot thing, right? And come back with a response to your inquiry. So that's the the distinction. There's the local version, which is the Gemini Nano, and then there is the cloud version, which is just Gemini. Okay, so that's the the distinction. So what can you do right now if you don't want this on there?
Turning Off AI And Deleting It
SPEAKER_02So you can supposedly turn off the Goo Gemini nano module from interacting with your computer. And there's a way to do that by going into Chrome Settings, and you know, you have to go into the system settings and Chrome, and there is a new toggle there called on device AI, which is this nano thing that we're talking about. And you can actually toggle it off right there.
SPEAKER_01It's very funny that they don't name it the thing that they've named it. Exactly. Right. It's not Google Nano, turn toggle on or off. It's this hidden name on device AI. What does that mean? It says on device AI.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly what it says in your browser when you go into Chrome settings and system settings on your Chrome browser. It's just called on-device AI. But that's the that's the Gemini nano that we've been talking about. And you can toggle it off right there. But and if you want to disable the cloud Gemini features, now so there's two different things, right? We just talked about two different things. There's another setting, and and this is where you don't want to get them confused because maybe you want the cloud settings, but you don't want that nanobot running around in your computer. But guess what? Even if you turn it off, it's still taking up your four gig because it's still there. Yep, it's installed. You just have it off. So if you want to get rid of it, you almost have to go to a company like Refresh Computers. How many people have you've already gotten rid of this for?
SPEAKER_00Just yesterday I had three or four people alone that came in that were just like, hey, I don't want this on my computer. And they found it, then they don't know what it was. And it it some of them actually it was enough that Google trying to download that file just said, Nope, your your drive's full now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's it. So this is how people are finding out right now because their drive is getting full. So you can delete it. You can delete that that nano Gemini nano file, but it takes some work. It takes a how many steps did you say? Was it like a 24-step process?
SPEAKER_0025 steps to disable, delete the file, and it's pretty deep in the Google files as well. You're not finding them as a regular end user.
SPEAKER_02No, they're in hidden folders. Yeah. Hidden folders, and you have to delete it just the right way so it doesn't come back. Exactly. Because if you just delete it, you know, next time Google does an update to your browser, they just might reinstall it again.
SPEAKER_01But there's a way to do it. Coming up, we'll talk about why refurbished Mamete make more sense than ever. Coming up next here on Tech Talk on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome back 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 at a little field. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have any other comments during the show, we'd love to hear them. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. And now back to David and Adam.
Why Refurbished Computers Win Now
SPEAKER_02All right, thanks, Greg, and thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. If you missed the first segment, we talked about Google installing a four gig file on everybody's computer, whether you asked for it or not, and you didn't even know they installed it on your computer. It's called the Gemini Nano AI model, and it's there to enhance your AI ability on your just your machine. So, but you know, a lot of people are having an issue with it. If you miss any of that, you can listen to this show in its entirety and pick up that first segment too while you're at it by going to refreshcomputers.net, click on that podcast link, and you'll be able to hear everything that we talked about. And better yet, go to refreshcomputers.net, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Right there, you can subscribe. All we ask for is your email. We don't want a whole bunch of other information. Just put your email address in there, and you will automatically be subscribed to our newsletter, which will be sent to you via email when shortly after the show ends, usually within an hour or two, depending on how fast Greg can get the file over to me. And you'll have access to every show that we've that we've done since we've been doing the podcast over the past three years, including this one. So we're going to get into right now why refurbished makes more sense right now, more than ever. So, you know, and speaking of running on your computer for you know things that you didn't ask for, running like we just talked about with the the Google, the Gemini Nano AI model that they put a four gig file on your computer. Well, one reason to use a refurbished computer is because there's no bloatware. Yeah. Not from us anyway. And bloatware are pieces of software that are installed on brand new computers so that the manufacturers of those computers can pick up a few cents here and there for every time somebody signs up for something that pops up on your screen. Sign up for this, sign up for that.
SPEAKER_00There's also bloatware like the timed ones we've talked about before, where maybe after a week of using it, all of a sudden now you're getting these pop-ups for other sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02So this can go on for months, yeah, actually, in of bloatware. So what does bloatware do? Takes up space on your computer, takes up processing resources. So it diminishes the power of your computer. So a refreshed, refurbished computer, refreshed computers, there's none of that stuff on there. You get a nice, clean, fresh copy of Windows, and you turn on your computer and it just comes on. Yeah. It just turns on. So no, you know, going to the coffee machine to make a cup of coffee while you're waiting for your computer to come on, hoping it's on by the time you get back with your coffee. No, if you do that this time, you know, your your coffee is going to be way ahead of your computer.
SPEAKER_00It won't even be finished pulling the water into the heating element before the computer's probably on.
SPEAKER_02That's right. So it's a good time to to to look at buying a nice quality refurbished computers, uh computer, a company like Refresh Computer. So, you know, summer, it's coming. I mean, actually, with the way the weather is right now, it's here. It's so hot. And so, you know, that means kids home from school, maybe more screen time, more devices on the network. So you're gonna want them to be able to use something that's gonna be quick and not not have to be lagging and dragging. And so, and it's maybe a good time also to audit your tech in your home or your business.
Recycling And Trade In Options
SPEAKER_02So, what's slow, what's broken, what's just taking up space. You know, Refresh Computers offers a free recycling program. So if you have any of those old computers or laptops or smart devices that you want to bring by, we can have them responsibly recycled for you. So that's another reason to consider, you know, maybe upgrading them to a nice refurbished computer.
SPEAKER_00Or if you've been holding on to like that laptop that's been sitting on a shelf for a couple of years, the screen may be broken or something on it, you can bring it by us as well, and we can take a look at it and actually tell you now if it's even worth putting the money into to fix it. Because you know, computers are a lot like our cars. Sometimes the the value of what you're having to put into it is going to outweigh the value of your whole device. That's right.
SPEAKER_02And hey, and while you're at it, you know, you might want to take advantage of our trade-in program. Yeah. We just we announced just a month or two ago, excuse me, a new trade-in program to where if you have a seventh generation or newer computer and it's time to upgrade it, bring it on in, we'll be able to give you some credit towards a computer that you purchased right from us there at Refresh Computers.
SPEAKER_01A lot of great programs to take advantage of this summer over there at Refresh Computers. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. 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 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. Or if you have any other comments during the show, we'd love to hear them. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stop it 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. 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_02All right. Thanks, Greg, and thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. So we were talking about all kinds of good stuff. If you missed it, go to refreshcomputers.net, click on the podcast link up there, and then you can listen to the show in its entirety. And if you subscribe to our emails by going to the bottom of the page and just entering your email address, then you'll be able to get a link to the show that will have show notes in there that'll have bullet points to show what we're talking about. So you'll get a good idea before you maybe you don't want to listen to the whole show. Maybe you only want to listen to a segment. So it's segmented that way now in text form so you can see what you're going to be hearing before you spend time listening to the
ChatGPT 5.5 Instant And Hallucinations
SPEAKER_02show. We hope you listen to the show. But so this segment ChatGPT, well, just got smarter. Just got smarter again. You know, they just get smarter and smarter, Adam.
SPEAKER_00They do every time. And you know, I've always seen that there's a lot of reinforcement. Learning with AI is where when it's wrong, they they make it learn how it was wrong and teach it how to be right. But you know, Chat GPT with his latest update, they're throwing around the word it's AI hallucination, and that to me just sounds a little funky. That's a little scary.
SPEAKER_02It is. But yeah, so just this week, just this week, I mean, OpenAI, which owns Chat GPT. By the way, ChatGPT is the agent used by OpenAI. So that's what you're using an agent, right? So, and it is uh they quietly, you know, swapped out the entire engine for Chat GPT just this past week, and nobody knew about it until they did it, and then they weren't announcing it, they just did it. And it's called uh Chat GPT 5.5 instant, and it claims it hallucinates 52.5% less. I wonder, you know, I'm not satisfied until it gets down to 50% less.
SPEAKER_01I don't like I don't I don't want anyone point five, I don't want anyone hallucinating, much less a chat GPT engine here. But so when I think hallucinate, I think like dehydrated, I'm seeing things, bring me some water. But chat GPT doesn't really need any water. What do we mean when we say hallucination when it comes to these kinds of models?
SPEAKER_02Right. So what do they mean by AI hallucination? It kind of reminds me of my first wife. So the definite they define it as when the AI gives you a confident, detailed, and completely wrong answer.
SPEAKER_00You know, that that reminds me back when I when I said AI is the most confident liar I've ever met. That's you know, it's AI hallucination.
SPEAKER_02And we've talked about that too. My own frustration, I remember when I was getting so deep, deep into all the different AI models, and and I I've checked out all the major ones. I mean, I actually subscribe to all of them Claude, ChatPT, CBT, Grot, Gemini Pilot. What's uh co-pilot from Microsoft? Guess which one I don't use as much. The one I couldn't think of, but co-pilot. So and because I like to compare them sometimes too, because you know, with the work that we do, you know, after all, you know, I'm a old tech nerd and and maybe I don't want to rely on what chat PT chat GPT says unless I ask Claude about it. Yeah, using AI to fact-check AI, fact-checked each other, yeah, so sort of putting these agents against each other. And so so I do that a lot. And so hallucinating is crazy. So it's like, you know, when I first started using this Chat GPT, and I would get down and and it still does this today, but it just takes longer to get there. And what I'm talking about is it it starts hallucinating, right? So and it's forgets also, very forgetful.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you'll go through a whole string in a conversation and a chat session, and if you're on that chat session for more than probably 30 minutes or so, it's gonna stop start re for, you know, it's gonna forget what you started off talking about sometimes. So just a little advice, I guess, if you're using any of these models, if you haven't figured out to do this already, open up new chat sessions frequently.
SPEAKER_00Every every time you do a chat session with an AI and you reply to it, it replies back and you have that conversation. In the AI's internal way it processes it, it goes back to that first message and will run every single message before it responds to your next prompt. So as you start saying more and more, it has to keep going back and back and further and further. And AI, they don't have unlimited memory. You know, we've talked about how these AI expansions are buying up all this memory, but as far as what you're using and you know, with these conversations, the longer they go, this AI even's gonna start forgetting the beginning of the conversation.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it does. And and you know, and it and it loves to compliment you and tell you, oh, that's a that's a great question, Adam. You you you just asked a really good question. I have the answer. And a lot of times the answer's wrong. Yeah. It's just it's just not right. But it's it's compliment you.
SPEAKER_00It's so confident to tell you that it's right. And I know you even had a problem once where it was arguing with you that it was right when you could cite that it was wrong.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we talked about that AI gaslighting before. That's right. Yeah, and it definitely was out there, and it's still out there. It's just it's taking a little longer to get there as these models get better and better, but it'll still gaslight you. Yep, there's no question about it. And so you, you know, you need to if anybody, I think anybody that's used any of these AI tools knows that, right? So this is not news, you know, that if you use it a lot. If you haven't used it a lot yet and you're just now getting into it, be be prepared to have your heart broken or something else. Be prepared to, it's not really lying to you. It's just, you know, it's pattern matching gone wrong. And it's just it's not able to connect the dots correctly, and it sometimes gives you wrong answers. And this is pretty serious, you know, especially when it comes to, you know, like medical questions. A lot of people, a lot of people now are using Chat GPT and the other AI models for medical advice. Hey, I have an ache over here. You know, what could it be? And and it'll go through, it'll ask you for your symptoms, it'll go through all these things like a almost like a doctor would ask you. But be careful of what it advises you on, especially in the medical stuff, because it may not have connected the right dots to get you the answer that you really need to see. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I've I've even I even caught wind of a story where people have started to use for this year AI, croc, Claude, whatever it may be, to file their taxes. Yep. And people are saying, wow, I I fed my my tax uh information through this AI and it found $4,000 of extra tax earnings that I'm gonna be able to file, and they file with that information. And you don't really know where that extra $4,000 of tax return came from. There might be a lot of audits because of that this year.
SPEAKER_02Right. And I and I think that's all of this kind of thing that we're talking about is one of the reasons why they're constantly updating these models, which is why Chat GPT 5.5 instant is coming into play. Their newest
Memory, Sources, And Safe AI Use
SPEAKER_02model is because instant means like lower latency, so it's it it just feels snappier, right? It feels quicker, more conversational, and comes back quicker with responses. And guess what? It has better memory that we were talking about. It can now reference past conversations, also files. You can share files with it, and even your Gmail if you allow it for personalized answers. So you can plug in your Gmail account, you know, it'll ask you for the credentials, and you just plug it in and it'll scan your Gmails, it'll for whatever you want it to look for. You know, you know you sent an email three years ago about your insurance policy on one of your house or something, and but geez, you just don't remember the name of the company or where you know. So you can ask it questions like that. Hey, I sent a email to an insurance company three I think it was three years ago, so you know, and it'll it'll come back with its best guess of which email that you're talking about. So it does that kind of thing. And actually Google Gemini does that already, kinda, right? You can use if you have Gmail, you know, there and I think it's up in the upper right-hand corner is the little Gemini icon. You can click on that and it'll and you can ask it to look for stuff and emails that you sent out. So that's something to remember too. But another good thing about this 5.5 instant that I find very, very helpful, and I've actually used this in other models, is that they show you where they pulled information on. It shows you their sources basically, and with clickable links. I think that's so important. Yeah, that is, yeah. So you can, you know, you can click on the links that it's showing you there, and then and and it's and like I said, I I've used it because sometimes I want to know, oh, I didn't know that. Where did they get that information? And I'll see the link there, I'll click on it, and it goes right there to that website showing you where they've dug that, dug up that information that they're talking about.
SPEAKER_00It just gives you the ability really to fact-check it yourself because you know, if you ask AI something, it spits out a bunch of answers and you're looking at all of the sources, and they're not, you know, good public sources to pull information from, you can already kind of guess, yeah, this isn't this isn't something I should listen to.
SPEAKER_01Well, we saw the news earlier this week. Google announcing that they're gonna be allowing it as a part of Gemini to pull information from blog sources and not not verified certain sources for that kind of stuff. Yeah. So it's gonna be something that's gonna be even more important moving more. More prolific. They want Gemini to be more conversational and give you more detail and more opinion as opposed to just straight facts. Google wants that. Then Google said we want we want you to be able to have that kind of interaction with our AI model.
SPEAKER_02All the more reason why you have to understand that these models are you you you could don't believe everything that's coming across in front of your screen. Everything right now with the grain of salt. It's still not perfect, and who knows when it's going to be perfect or if it's ever going to be perfect. So if you use Chat GPT and you're now looking to see if you have this model 5.5 instant, well, if you're not a paid subscriber right now, you don't have it. That's only been rolled out to the plus and the pro subscribers. So if you're subtle brag from Dave. Yeah, I have it because I pay them. But but it is going to be rolled out to free users, they said, probably in the next few weeks. Okay. So it'll be something that will be it's you know, it's every time you know they update one of these models, it's it's a it's a good thing, I think. So far. I mean, so far.
SPEAKER_00There's there's always to the better. With AI updates, there's always improvements to be had, especially like this. But there's also the thought that with AI, you have to think about the regressions that are going to come out with it over time. Because every time you upgrade these models, it's it's like this model is newly birded into the world. It doesn't have the thoughts of past mistakes of the past models. So an issue that was patched out, you know, three models ago may come back in a new model. And you don't see that happen until it's out probably for a month or two.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you know, one of the features of Chat GPT 5.5 instant is, you know, like we talked about, better memory. Right. And and the memory feature, you know, some people say, well, that's cool. Some people might say, oh, that might be a little creepy because chat GPT now, if you're using that model, can remember things about you across conversations, preferences, past questions, context. It even knows you're a small business owner in Florida. If you're a b if you're a small business owner in Florida, and tailors answers accordingly to you. And it's building a profile of you over time. Right. So the more you use it, the more it's going to remember things about your business. It's not going to remember all the details about all the conversations. That's probably in a future release. But it's going to remember important details. So, for example, if you are constantly asking questions about your vehicle, let's throw your vehicle out there. It's going to remember the year make and model your vehicle three months from now when you bring up another conversation about your vehicle. Oh, yeah, but you know, or maybe I'm going to go on a road trip. Where, you know, I'd like to plan a trip to Chicago and back. Well, it might come back with, oh, well, that'll be perfect for your 2025 Toyota 4Runner, you know, whatever. And so because it'll remember things like that. And, you know, can it so it'll help you with things like gauging, you know, gas mileage, how much money you can spend on gas and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00The one thing I'm thinking about now though is the fact that it has this increased memory, it's gonna remember these facts. You know, we we said at the beginning of the segment it's at 52.5% less hallucinations. It sounds great, but that still means it's going to hallucinate, you know, the the other percentage of the time. What details is it gonna hallucinate about like Dave here?
SPEAKER_02And that's why, you know, the best practical advice I think we can give the listener right now is use it as a research assistant. Right. It's a research assistant. It's not an oracle, it's not something that knows all and sees all. Cross-check everything that's medical, legal, financial, cross-check.
SPEAKER_01Use those links. Coming up, we're gonna talk more about that canvas breach that you've probably heard about in the news. It's probably affecting you here in Central Florida. If you've got any students in the house, we'll talk about it more coming up. You've been listening to Tech Talk on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome back 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. You can also check out their website at refreshcomputers.net. And now back to David and Adam. All right.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Greg. Thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. Don't forget you can listen back to the show in its entirety by going to refreshcomputers.net. Click on the podcast link up there on the upper right hand side of the page, and you'll find this podcast along with several podcasts we've done in the last three years or so. And better yet, go to the bottom of the page, enter your email address there. That's all we asked for, just your email address, nothing else, and click send, and you will automatically be signed up to receive email notifications when the podcast is ready to be viewed or listened to. And so it's just a wonderful tool. So you'll also get notifications of when we have some super good deals going on in the computer store that no other no nobody else knows about. We call it the Refresh Insider Club, right? So if you're part of that, if you enter your email address there, so you'll you'll get some bonus, right? So you get notifications when the radio show or podcast is ready to be listened to, and you'll also get notified once a week or so. We don't we don't bombard your your mailbox because quite frankly, I don't I don't like getting bombarded by other companies myself. So you know you t you typically get two or th maybe two or three emails from us each week. So you'll get a deals email and you'll get an email link to the show that we
Canvas Ransomware Breach And Next Steps
SPEAKER_02just did. And so this segment we want to talk about an organization, a shady organization that we talked about in last week's show, Shiny Hunters. We talked about how they have resurrected themselves. They're about six years old, and and they have come back. This is a ransomware company. They go in, this this is the company, it's an organization, the evil organization that will gain access to it's usually a government entity, a city, town, counties. They they were really prevalent a few years ago. Now they're hitting a lot of companies, and they just hit the company called Canvas. And Canvas represents roughly, what did we say, Greg, 50 per 55 percent or 60 percent of school systems in the country?
SPEAKER_01It's a wild amount, at least 41 percent of higher education systems and all the Ivy League schools.
SPEAKER_02All of them. Wow. And so what Shiny Hunters did was they hacked these systems and locked on to all the files in these systems, so whatever has been uploaded there, emails going back and forth between administrators, students, between students, and you know, all these things, files that got uploaded, you know, all these things got locked down by Shiny Hunters. And they're asking for a ransom to unlock them. And they originally gave a deadline of May 6th, just the other day, to you know, pay up. Pay up, pay up, or we're gonna leak all this information. Well, guess what? Nobody paid, which was which was a good thing, I guess. So guess what they did? They said, okay, well, now you have till May 12th. So so they uh extended the deadline to get paid.
SPEAKER_00How how nice of them to extend that, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, you know, it's so you know, and but what is Canvas exactly? So it is an online platform that, like we said, most schools use, right? They post assignments, grades, uh communications, right, between teachers. And so, you know, one of the big things there I think is the grades, right? Right.
SPEAKER_01It is the main input platform for people for all teachers to put in their grades, especially here locally. We're talking UCF, Valencia College, Orange County Public Schools, all affected by this act.
SPEAKER_02And I'm not tuned in right now to when the next semesters are or are they coming? Do you know? This is the end of the year. So so this is the end of the year. So this is it. So this is the time that is most important, which is probably why the Shiny Hunters folks decided that oh, this is a good time to hit Canvas because maybe none of these school systems are going to be able to even release grades because they're all locked down, they're all locked up by you know, and they want a ransom to be able to release this information. So this is the largest education data breach ever recorded. So it's just, you know, watch for phishing email, scammers will use this data to send fake emails, and you know, if your student uses the same password for Canvas as other accounts, change it everywhere now. Just get it done. And folks, I'd like to talk more about this, but we are fresh out of time. We'll be talking to you again tomorrow. We have a brand new show that's coming out tomorrow as well, Sunday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. So make sure you tune in for that as well.
