My Top Techs

10/24/2026

I took a closer look at the Google privacy headlines, because they can make it sound like everyone’s inbox and photo library suddenly became open to Search. That’s not what Google’s setup guide says. To connect Google Workspace (currently Gmail and Google Calendar) and/or Google Photos to Search, users must turn on Personalized Recommendations and connect the apps. Google says connected apps can be accessed by Search services, and feature availability and settings vary. Simply having a Gmail account or Photos library doesn’t mean you’ve connected them through this setting.

The ads question has an important nuance. Google’s general policy says it doesn’t personalize ads based on Gmail, Drive or Photos content. Its specific Photos notice says that if you choose to make Photos data available to an ad-supporting Google service, Search may process some of what you allow to personalize content, including ads. Google’s Gmail ads help separately says messages aren’t scanned or read to select ads inside Gmail. That statement is specifically about ads inside Gmail, not every possible use of information you’ve deliberately connected elsewhere.

I’d check Google Account > Search Services Personalization > Connected Content Apps and review what’s connected. Google says the settings are rolling out, so labels can differ. If you want help finding the right setting, I can help.

Sources:
Google Search connection guide: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/16859283?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid
Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US
Google Photos privacy notice: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/15344015?hl=en
Gmail ads guidance: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en
Original report: https://secritic.com/2026/10/22/google-could-use-gmail-and-photos-for/

10/19/2026

I’ve been following Hermes Agent because it reflects a shift from AI tools that answer questions to agents designed to remember context and carry out multi-step work.

The latest release listed on the official GitHub page is v0.21.5, dated September 24, 2026. The project describes it as a patch release rolling up about 460 merged PRs since v0.21.4; full curated release notes are deferred to v0.22.0. Separately, the project site highlights persistent memory, auto-generated skills, natural-language scheduling, isolated subagents, connections across messaging platforms, web and browser tools, vision, image generation, and sandboxing.

My take: that broader agent workflow is interesting, but I’d judge it by how clearly it handles permissions, isolation, and oversight—not only by how many tasks it can take on. Those are project-wide capabilities, not a list of features attributed to v0.21.5.

Hermes Agent releases: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/releases
Official project site: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/

Which task would you trust an agent to take on first—research, scheduling, or repetitive work?

10/16/2026

Meta’s Muse Spark Open is one AI story I’m watching.

After decades in IT and web hosting, I look past the headline and ask what it takes to run a model in the real world.

Meta says Muse Spark Open is an open-weight model built for coding and AI-agent tasks, with 816 billion total parameters (42 billion active) and a 1 million-token context window. The company says it can run locally on two Apple M5 Ultra Mac Studios; its weights are available through Hugging Face and hosted inference partners.

I like the flexibility: developers can adapt the weights and choose how they deploy the model. But this isn’t lightweight self-hosting. Hardware, operating expertise, and Meta’s Muse Model License—including its limited commercial terms—all need to be considered.

Meta’s announcement: https://research.meta.ai/blog/muse-spark-open
Reuters’ report: https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-releases-open-weight-muse-spark-model-coding-agentic-tasks-2026-10-15/

Would you rather run an AI model on infrastructure you control, or use a hosted provider?

09/21/2026

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09/16/2026

I just got a very interesting call that I was going to share with y'all. This company called itself APN Tech and said it was the official verifier of voice search for Apple and Google, but my research doesn't show anything that lists APN Tech as a verifier of anything. The person on the phone tried to tell me about what they do with voice search. Voice is an input method, and from all the technology experience I have, I know that when you speak to your phone, it translates your speech into text. After your speech is translated into text, it does a search based on the text it has translated. Everything I've seen about technology tells me that this person, who was trying to sell me on something, was just trying to take advantage of businesses and people who don't understand the technology.

That's why I decided to make this post. I see this so many times: people have formed companies and make claims that are not accurate in an attempt to convince people to give them money, when the reality is that they're not doing anything you could do yourself. It's one thing if you want to pay somebody to perform a task for you or a service to help make your life easier. When people try to take advantage of people's lack of understanding, that rubs me the wrong way in all kinds of ways. Hence my post. I'm hoping people will read this and take note. I told this rep the same thing: I've seen a lot of businesses advertising about getting people verified on Google and everything. Now, what is it that they're supposedly doing? I do not know. It could be as simple as just gathering your information and submitting it, as you would do.

The way it works with Google, I know for a fact, is that to get verified for a business listing so you show up on Google Maps, you have to go through a verification process. For that process, you make a short video, as I recall, about 2 minutes long. You go to the location and record video of your business and related details.

After the video is reviewed, they'll list you. That's how it works, and I don't know. I haven't seen anything about them making it easier for a business to get listed because of a third party being involved in the process at all.

I see the same thing with software. You have people who produce software and make outlandish claims that can't be backed by facts, along with claims about how this software is going to save you this and protect you from that. This clearly demonstrates that our government and the authorities don't do enough to go after people who decide it's okay to make such claims in an attempt to get your money.

Anytime you have questions and need help, definitely give My Top Techs a call. We are your technology experts to help you with technology and keep you safe.

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09/09/2026

Got a lot of calls and a lot of emails to respond to and everything, so if I haven't gotten to you yet, don't worry. I'm working my way that way.

08/24/2026

I was talking to a friend on the other side of the United States, and we were talking about business and AI and everything. So many people go and shun AI, and they just don't get it. AI is not a replacement for humans, and I guess they feel threatened, but AI is actually a complement to us humans, to be able to find information easier, faster, and get things done.

At the current state, you can't just go and take your hands completely off the wheel and let it do whatever and everything. People do that and all the stuff, and that's okay for some things. It's just a matter of learning when you can let go of the reins and let it go and do its thing, and when you really need to have your finger on the pulse to make sure everything's okay.

That's what I like helping people with: understanding technology better, whether you're talking about computers or peripherals that you use with computers. Helping people make the most and best use of technology is what I really like doing. I'm a locksmith as well, and the locksmith friend and I were discussing AI and locksmithing as well.

I'm not going to expose what AI I was using and the funny story that happened with that, because I know some people do. It is kind of funny whenever they go and poke at the bear, showing, "Look what you did," but everything makes mistakes. Humans make mistakes, computers make mistakes, and everything. The good thing is, with AI, if you use it correctly, it can help cut down on the margin of error so that you have fewer errors in your business and more productivity.

05/26/2026

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