Personalized phishing scams do not always begin with a wild lie. Sometimes they begin with several pieces of truth: a conference you attended, a trip you took, a race your family supported, or a photograph you shared online. After returning from the Momentum Workshop in Florida and traveling to Washington, D.C., to support my son
Season 2, Episode 32: The Scam That Knows Where You Have Been Read More »
Having your own JARVIS sounds pretty great. But how much access should it have? This week, we explore AI assistant safety and what to consider before handing over the digital keys. In this episode of Mr. Fred’s Tech Talks, we explore the move from AI that answers questions to AI that takes action. With familiar
Season 2, Episode 31: AI Assistants and Your Privacy: How to Stay in Control Read More »
This week, I gave my first-year security students a classroom challenge involving encryption, access control, and a suspiciously endangered grade file. They competed, searched for patterns, and tried to understand what the other teams were doing. The activity led us into a conversation about cryptography and the people who broke secret messages long before modern
Season 2, Episode 30 – Code Girls: The Women Who Cracked WWII’s Secret Messages Read More »
How did video games go from a handful of colored blocks to enormous 3D worlds with realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows? In this episode of Mr. Fred’s Tech Talks, I break down the evolution of video game graphics in plain English, from pixels and sprites to polygons, GPUs, textures, and ray tracing. But there’s a
Season 2, Episode 29: Blocky to Beautiful – How Video Games Went From Pixels to Worlds Read More »
You point your phone at a little square. A notification appears. You tap it, and suddenly you have a restaurant menu, an event ticket, a website, or a payment screen. We do it so often that the process barely seems interesting anymore. But it is. In this episode of Mr. Fred’s Tech Talks, I take
Season 2, Episode 28: What’s Really Inside a QR Code? Read More »
What I’m Seeing From the Other Side of the Classroom What happens when the technology on Mr. Fred’s Tech Talks actually gets to do some of the talking? For this episode, I tried something different. Instead of sitting down with a traditional guest, I handed the questions over to Milo, the name I’ve given the
Season 2, Episode 27: My AI Interviewed Me About the First Week of College Read More »
You’ve heard it a thousand times: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” But why does that actually work? In this episode of Mr. Fred’s Tech Talks, I unpack the computer science behind one of the world’s most familiar tech tips. From stuck processes and messy memory to routers and software updates, there
Season 2, Episode 26: Why Does Turning It Off and On Again Actually Work? Read More »
Do you have to be a tech expert to be good with technology? I don’t think so. In fact, after decades of working with technology and teaching it, I’ve learned that sometimes the more important skill is knowing what to do when you don’t know the answer. Technology changes too quickly for any of us
Season 2, Episode 25: You Don’t Have to Be a Tech Expert Read More »
AI Is the Launchpad. Your Kid Is the Rocket. What if artificial intelligence could actually help get kids away from screens? That may sound a little strange coming from a technology professor. It may even sound a bit like recommending a trip to Hershey Park as a way to cut back on chocolate. But hear
Season 2, Episode 24: AI Is the Launchpad. Your Kid Is the Rocket. Read More »
