Speaker 1: AI is now being used to create fake receipts. The
Speaker 1: glasses that can foil facial recognition in video becomes the
Speaker 1: world's first five trillion dollar company. Plus Your tech questions Answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. This is the show where I talk about
Speaker 1: the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's
Speaker 1: also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
Speaker 1: I believe the tech should be interesting, useful, and fun.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's open up those phone lines at triple A rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Give me a call if
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology. Kim is standing by
Speaker 1: sure she can't wait to hear from you. Eight eight
Speaker 1: eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Remember, only the best
Speaker 1: questions make it on the air here, so call up
Speaker 1: with a good one. Uh email is also open. Just
Speaker 1: go to Rich on tech dot TV. Hit contact Rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot TV, hit contact All Right, Guests, this week,
Speaker 1: we've got Alexandra Samuel, technology journalist and host of the
Speaker 1: new AI podcast Me plus Viv. She's gonna talk about
Speaker 1: creating her own AI coach, curious to hear what that's
Speaker 1: all about. Plus we'll take your calls eight eight to eight,
Speaker 1: rich one on one. Well, I hope you had a
Speaker 1: fantastic Halloween. We had all the kids over at our house.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. You know, this was
Speaker 1: one of the rare Halloweens on a Friday night, so
Speaker 1: it only happens once every seven years, I'm told so
Speaker 1: I don't remember the last time it happened. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a It was a blast. We had a
Speaker 1: great time with the kids. You know, the kids just
Speaker 1: love Halloween. I I love Halloween too. I feel like
Speaker 1: as I get older, I enjoy more of more of
Speaker 1: the more of the Halloween stuff through the kids. This week, though,
Speaker 1: of course, there's a lot going on not just Halloween.
Speaker 1: As fun as that was, but did you hear about
Speaker 1: this new outage again? So last week we had that
Speaker 1: AWS outage, right that Microsoft or the Amazon AWS outage.
Speaker 1: Now this week we had Microsoft's They had their turn.
Speaker 1: They do Azure and this is basically their answer to AWS.
Speaker 1: These are all cloud infrastructure services that big companies, small companies,
Speaker 1: they all rely on for their back end infrastructure. Right,
Speaker 1: so if you're doing business with these companies, Chances are
Speaker 1: they store their data in either Microsoft, which is Azure,
Speaker 1: Amazon which is AWS. Of course, Google Cloud, and there's
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other ones out there, but those
Speaker 1: are the three big ones. But if you had trouble
Speaker 1: logging into any of your Microsoft services, it was all
Speaker 1: because of this. They had an eight hour outage in
Speaker 1: multiple regions. The cause was a configuration error. Thankfully it
Speaker 1: was not cybersecurity issue. But it doesn't really matter if
Speaker 1: it's cybersecurity or not. I guess they're able to recover
Speaker 1: from something they can figure out quicker. But it still
Speaker 1: took down things like major airlines. Alaska Airlines had issues,
Speaker 1: Heathrow Airport, nat West Bank Microsoft three sixty five Scottish
Speaker 1: Parliament had to pause proceedings because it systems went down.
Speaker 1: What no laws were made during that time. Microsoft says
Speaker 1: the recovery was phased and deliberate, because you know, once
Speaker 1: these cloud services go down, you can't just bring them
Speaker 1: back up instantly. You have to do it slowly just
Speaker 1: to make sure there's not more issues as this comes
Speaker 1: back on board. But you know a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been talking about how much our internet relies on
Speaker 1: these giant cloud infrastructure products, and just a few major
Speaker 1: players control such a large swath of the market, So
Speaker 1: should they not put all their eggs in one basket.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's tough because because you've got the law of money
Speaker 1: on your side, because you know, these companies, once they
Speaker 1: build these cloud infrastructures, they're so cheap to operate for
Speaker 1: the people that are renting the space, and so if
Speaker 1: you were to do your own thing and come up
Speaker 1: with your own servers, it costs you a lot more money.
Speaker 1: So you say, oh well, I'll just go with AWS,
Speaker 1: I'll just go with Microsoft. I'll just go with Google.
Speaker 1: It's a lot cheaper than coming up with your own
Speaker 1: server somewhere that you've got to maintain. But then when
Speaker 1: these things happen, you got to deal with them. Do
Speaker 1: you hear about Nvidia five trillion dollar valuation this week?
Speaker 2: You know this company?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you're in kind of the graphics world,
Speaker 1: if you're in the gaming world, you knew about Nvidia
Speaker 1: a long time ago, right, But now everyone has heard
Speaker 1: of it because they are the company that is making
Speaker 1: all of these AI chips, and so they just keep
Speaker 1: getting more and more investments. They just keep making more
Speaker 1: and more investments, they keep getting more orders, and so
Speaker 1: this week they reached a five trillion dollar market value.
Speaker 1: I'm looking online right now. They're not there anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: these stocks, they go up and down, but they did
Speaker 1: cross that threshold. So if you look at the top
Speaker 1: five companies right now by market cap, in Vidia number
Speaker 1: one at almost five trillion, Apple at four trillion, Microsoft
Speaker 1: at like three point eight trillion, Alphabet which obviously owns Google,
Speaker 1: that's at three point four trillion, and then Amazon Amazon
Speaker 1: just an itty bitty two point six trillion dollars. That's
Speaker 1: how much they're worth. Can you believe that in Vidia
Speaker 1: is almost worth double what Amazon is now? I am
Speaker 1: not a financial guy, but when you look at what
Speaker 1: Amazon has, the infrastructure they have built around the world.
Speaker 1: You're talking warehouses, you're talking robots, you're talking delivery vehicles,
Speaker 1: you're talking everyone in the world is on Amazon on
Speaker 1: a daily basis.
Speaker 2: Practically.
Speaker 1: In Vidia is still much more in the behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: You know, they make these chips for people's computers and
Speaker 1: the graphics AI. But a lot of this is speculation
Speaker 1: right now that is just going to keep growing and
Speaker 1: growing and growing.
Speaker 2: We don't know if that's the truth.
Speaker 1: But if you have a hairstylist or a barber, or
Speaker 1: a friend or an uncle, they have probably given you
Speaker 1: the stock tip buying video buying video buying video. So
Speaker 1: for me, when I'm hearing that, I'm putting up the
Speaker 1: little you know, the little red lights are going off
Speaker 1: of my head going on. I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: So we'll watch this one. I have no doubt that
Speaker 1: we are just beginning this AI journey. But as we know,
Speaker 1: prices do come down over time for this stuff, and
Speaker 1: right now everyone's trying to you know, they're trying to
Speaker 1: bet big on it. We'll see what happens with that.
Speaker 1: I thought this was really interesting, this video that was
Speaker 1: sort of went viral. I mean, I guess it did
Speaker 1: go viral. This is one ex technology They unveiled Neo,
Speaker 1: a five foot six humanoid robot that can do basic
Speaker 1: chores including loading your dishwasher, wiping your counters, folding clothes,
Speaker 1: fetch items. This is a robot, a humanoid robot for
Speaker 1: your home, part robot, part human. The part that they
Speaker 1: don't really talk about is that someone else is operating
Speaker 1: this robot in your home by wearing a VR headset.
Speaker 1: So literally, this robot is walking around your house because
Speaker 1: someone else in an office somewhere is putting on a
Speaker 1: VR headset and controlling this robot, at least for now.
Speaker 1: So this thing is not doing anything on its own.
Speaker 1: It's not folding your clothes. In fact, if you want
Speaker 1: it to fold your clothes, you have to schedule a time.
Speaker 1: And what does that time mean. It means that the
Speaker 1: robot is now up in your house. But this person
Speaker 1: puts on their headset at the office and they say,
Speaker 1: all right, time to go work at Rich's house and
Speaker 1: they start folding the clothes. Now, what do you think
Speaker 1: the implications of this are? This person is looking through
Speaker 1: a VR headset at your home. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I think of that. What if this person goes rogue? Now,
Speaker 1: of course, the person that runs the company is saying, no,
Speaker 1: they can't do that. We have strict guidelines. There's no
Speaker 1: way they can just do whatever they want in your house.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, what if this thing gets hacked.
Speaker 1: The operator can see through the robots camera eyes, but
Speaker 1: users can set no go zones and they can also
Speaker 1: blur out faces. So if you don't want this thing
Speaker 1: going into your bedroom, you can say that's a no
Speaker 1: go zone until something goes wrong. This thing is twenty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars if you want to buy it out right,
Speaker 1: or five hundred dollars a month if you want to
Speaker 1: rent it. Deliveries are expected in twenty twenty six. Again,
Speaker 1: the company is Neo. If you haven't watched the video
Speaker 1: on it, Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal did
Speaker 1: a really great video on this. It. I get that
Speaker 1: we're all excited about robots and what they can do.
Speaker 1: And it's cool what they've done with this robot, and
Speaker 1: it's a start, but it is not where we want
Speaker 1: to be right like we have when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: we grew up watching the Jetsons and Rosie the robot
Speaker 1: was doing everything and just to get I mean, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. If you think about everything a robot does,
Speaker 1: we want it to mimic what a human can already.
Speaker 2: Do, Like out of the gate.
Speaker 1: Out of the Gate, any human can come to your
Speaker 1: home and wipe down the counters, fold your clothes, fetch
Speaker 1: things for you, load the dishwasher. Although as a human
Speaker 1: I often forget to do all of those things.
Speaker 2: Nor do I do them all very well.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, sometimes I don't do them very
Speaker 1: well because I just want my wife to have to
Speaker 1: be like, I'll do that next time you wantloaded the
Speaker 1: dishwasher and even put the stuff in the right place. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did I do that again for the twenty
Speaker 1: thousandth time. I'm sorry, Maybe you just do it next time.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, but I do. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: it has definitely crossed my mind to be like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do that great of a job unloading
Speaker 1: the dishwasher, because guess what, then I'm unloading the dishwasher
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: There's nothing worse.
Speaker 1: And tell me if you think if you've ever had
Speaker 1: this happen when you open the dishwasher and you hear
Speaker 1: that snap of like this is clean, and I go, oh.
Speaker 2: Now I got to unload this thing. Oh man.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Neo is sixty six pounds, can carry up to
Speaker 1: fifty five pounds. And you know this is just the beginning.
Speaker 1: There are many many companies that are working on these
Speaker 1: humanoid robots. Tesla is one of them. Figures another and
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna see a bunch of these twenty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars is not the answer for me right now.
Speaker 1: I would rather just you know, tell my kids you
Speaker 1: gotta do some chores, or I'll just pick up the
Speaker 1: slack five.
Speaker 2: Hundred dollars a month rental. Okay.
Speaker 1: I mean they're getting to a place where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I could see why people might want to experiment with this,
Speaker 1: but it's still not completely there. But you got to
Speaker 1: start somewhere. And the CEO of the one X was saying, look,
Speaker 1: the early adopters are going to be training this for
Speaker 1: the rest of us, because yes, we need a human
Speaker 1: operator today. But eventually these things will learn. And that's
Speaker 1: the whole name of the game with all of this
Speaker 1: AI has to be trained on something. Someone has to
Speaker 1: be the guinea pig to help train these robots on them,
Speaker 1: on their data, on their homes, on what you do
Speaker 1: in your house, and eventually they will figure it out.
Speaker 1: And it's going to happen very quickly and very fast.
Speaker 1: And those mean the same thing. You just said the
Speaker 1: same word twice eight and eight rich one on one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one,
Speaker 1: you gotta call you got a question about technology. Give
Speaker 1: me a call. You are listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. Triple eight Rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Let's go to uh Dennis in South Orange County.
Speaker 1: Dennis your own with Rich.
Speaker 3: Oh great, Hi. I heard three or four weeks ago
Speaker 3: you were talking about portable battery rechargers for their iPhone. Yeah,
Speaker 3: talking about Belka, and you talked about anchor. Anchor failed,
Speaker 3: Belkan was the choice. I'm just wondering, you know, they're
Speaker 3: ten than twenty thousand and more and when it gets
Speaker 3: really up there more whatever. I'm just wondering about the
Speaker 3: balance of too much weight and you know, even though
Speaker 3: you have more power, what about those ones above twenty
Speaker 3: thousand or whatever they might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so you're talking about the million hours.
Speaker 1: So that's basically a measure of, you know, how many
Speaker 1: times you're gonna be able to recharge your device. So
Speaker 1: if you think about the typical phone is you know,
Speaker 1: let's just see iphoned seventeen.
Speaker 2: Let's see iPhone seventeen. M ah, so.
Speaker 1: It has about four thousand million hours in it. So
Speaker 1: if you let's say you got one that was about
Speaker 1: five thousand million hours, it would be maybe one, you know,
Speaker 1: one and a half charges, one charge right right, you
Speaker 1: get ten thousand million hours, you're going to get to charges.
Speaker 1: You know, you get fifteen thousand. I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: it depends what you're doing. So if you are let's
Speaker 1: say you're out and about, you're on a vacation and
Speaker 1: you just want to have a little backup battery in
Speaker 1: your purse, your backpack, you know, I would say a
Speaker 1: ten thousand million hour battery is probably the sweet spot.
Speaker 1: But if you are out and about and you want
Speaker 1: something that's gonna you know, charge you for the whole
Speaker 1: day you're on a boat, whatever, you need much more
Speaker 1: than Yeah, you can go for like a twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand million hour battery, but it's going to be a
Speaker 1: lot bigger. She don't want to be carrying that around
Speaker 1: the whole day. That's more like, you know, in your
Speaker 1: suitcase something like that. So what are you trying to
Speaker 1: get this for.
Speaker 3: Well, my wife has a medical condition and she needs
Speaker 3: the power to keep her iPhone charged because there's an
Speaker 3: app on there that works the devices for her Okay,
Speaker 3: Oh god, I'm kind of concerned about being on vacation,
Speaker 3: you know, in the middle of the ocean running out
Speaker 3: of power.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, in that case, I'd say, you know, you
Speaker 1: can get a ten thousand or twenty thousand million power
Speaker 1: battery and it's it's still gonna be I mean, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be big, but it's not it's not a deal breaker.
Speaker 1: If she's relying on it for some sort of health
Speaker 1: or security reason, I would definitely go with that. Belkan
Speaker 1: makes one that is twenty thousand million powers and you
Speaker 1: can get any brand. I mean, you know, I like
Speaker 1: Belkan because they're kind of proven. Eco Flow is also
Speaker 1: really nice. You know, the Anchors are great. You know,
Speaker 1: Anchor has been recommended by so many tech folks, including myself,
Speaker 1: and they perform well. They just have had a rough
Speaker 1: run with these recalls lately. But you know, if you're
Speaker 1: not getting one that's recalled, it's probably still fine. But
Speaker 1: I would go this this Belcan twenty thousand million power
Speaker 1: power bank.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got this one at home.
Speaker 1: It's about fifty anywhere from fifty to seventy dollars, and
Speaker 1: you know it, it's doable. It's gonna be a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, bulkier.
Speaker 3: But on Amazon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: Easily go on Amazon and buy this thing. Just the
Speaker 1: only thing to look for. What kind of phone does sheift?
Speaker 1: She has an iPhone?
Speaker 3: What is the iPhone fifteen?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Okay, pro mag great, so I would go with you
Speaker 1: definitely want something that has USB C Some of the
Speaker 1: cheaper ones don't have USBC in and out. That's what
Speaker 1: you want to look for, just to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're getting the fastest charging on it in and out.
Speaker 1: But if I yeah, all right, go ahead, I'm just
Speaker 1: looking up this Belcan twenty thousand million hour power bank. Yeah,
Speaker 1: forty bucks on Amazon, USBC two USBA ports fifteen watt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be perfect. So it's right at the top.
Speaker 1: They also have a smaller version. Oh look at that
Speaker 1: with an integrated cable. So you might look at the
Speaker 1: top two results you see when you type in Belcon
Speaker 1: twenty thousand million pour those two are going to be great.
Speaker 1: They also have ones that magnetically attached to the back,
Speaker 1: but those are going to be typically those are going
Speaker 1: to charge slower and they're also going to be a
Speaker 1: smaller amount when it comes to the battery that it holds,
Speaker 1: but so.
Speaker 3: Does the Belcon. Does the Belcon charge pretty quickly or
Speaker 3: relatively speaking?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you can look at the output, you know,
Speaker 1: some of them like this. The top one is going
Speaker 1: to be a fifteen watt, which is not going to
Speaker 1: be the fastest, but the second one is a thirty watt.
Speaker 1: So I would go if you want the fastest charging
Speaker 1: on the iPhone, definitely go with the higher wattage. The
Speaker 1: iPhones can support up to I think it's like twenty
Speaker 1: seven watts at this point, but they're they're definitely the
Speaker 1: newer iPhones can support faster charging than before, So I
Speaker 1: would go with the higher wattage. But again, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're just looking to keep this thing charged up,
Speaker 1: it's unless this thing is unless the iPhone is completely dead,
Speaker 1: It's not really going to be that big of a
Speaker 1: deal whether you recharge at you know, thirty watch fifteen wants.
Speaker 3: All right, I think that answers it for me. Just
Speaker 3: a matter of finding it for I just was that
Speaker 3: Staple has found the balcony for like forty five bucks. Yeah, Oh,
Speaker 3: it's a pretty close. It's a pretty close bet there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do it there too, Dennis, Thanks for
Speaker 1: the call today, appreciate it. Get a portable battery for
Speaker 1: your phone, definitely, definitely have that, especially when you traveled.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four to one zero one more
Speaker 1: rich On Tech Next, Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Jay writes in I've
Speaker 1: always wondered it's kind of like a common sense thing.
Speaker 1: We've seen so many issues on flights for people's batteries
Speaker 1: go up and fire in the overhead and then they
Speaker 1: divert the plane. There's a simple solution, and it's not
Speaker 1: banning everything. Why can't the airline require or hand out
Speaker 1: a very cheap pouch for lithium batteries and whatever fire
Speaker 1: hazard goes along with that, charge you a dollar at
Speaker 1: the counter. Jay. You know, here's the thing. Number one,
Speaker 1: I think that these things do happen. I don't think
Speaker 1: it is common. I don't think that these batteries are
Speaker 1: catching fire on a daily basis. To warrant something like
Speaker 1: this because ninety nine percent of the time ninety nine
Speaker 1: point nine percent of the time things are fine. I
Speaker 1: do know that the airplanes are the flight attendants do
Speaker 1: have access to these types of pouches, these like fireproof
Speaker 1: bags that they will use if they have to, as
Speaker 1: far as I know, But I think it would be
Speaker 1: kind of I think it would be a little bit
Speaker 1: much for every person to have to put there, you know,
Speaker 1: where you draw the line. You know, I carry, no joke,
Speaker 1: probably three four phones when I'm going on trips, you know,
Speaker 1: these tech trips that I go on, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one. It's it's it's quite common
Speaker 1: with all the tech folks. When we meet up somewhere,
Speaker 1: we're like, all right, how many phones did you bring?
Speaker 1: Because there's different reasons why we need them. Right we're
Speaker 1: testing one, we're using one for something, we're using this
Speaker 1: for another. You've got one that you know you can't
Speaker 1: even tell people about yet. Like right now, I'm using
Speaker 1: the uh the one plus fifteen, which is what's called embargoed,
Speaker 1: which means the only thing I'm allowed to do is
Speaker 1: show you pictures that I've taken on it, but I
Speaker 1: can't show you the phone itself. So it's stuff like
Speaker 1: that that's always happening with the with the tech folks
Speaker 1: out there. I mean, it's a good idea, and I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, there are rules. Here's what I've
Speaker 1: realized too. When they say do you have lithium ion
Speaker 1: batteries in your luggage? It's not like a smartphone battery.
Speaker 1: It is like a specific like big, old like I
Speaker 1: think they're for like oxygen tanks or something. There's something
Speaker 1: that like people use lithium ion batteries for. That's not
Speaker 1: the ones worth thinking of. Like, it's not like the
Speaker 1: little like I'll be like, oh yeah, I have a
Speaker 1: battery in there for something like that's fine. It's more
Speaker 1: like if you are carrying like some sort of big
Speaker 1: lithium ion battery, that's what they don't want in your luggage.
Speaker 1: But it's a good idea, you know. The other thing
Speaker 1: is when your phone falls behind the seat or falls
Speaker 1: in the crack of the seat, that could be a
Speaker 1: problem because then when you move the seat back or forward,
Speaker 1: it can crush the phone and the internals and that
Speaker 1: could cause some sort of short circuit. So that's why
Speaker 1: they always say, look, if your phone falls in between
Speaker 1: the seat cushion or something, like that. Don't try to
Speaker 1: get it yourself, because we will help retrieve it because
Speaker 1: we don't want you moving the seat because that could
Speaker 1: really be a problem. Good question there. Let's get to
Speaker 1: the gadget of the week. An AI powered Santa phone.
Speaker 1: I've been testing this phone. It's called Santa's Magic Telephone.
Speaker 1: It's from the holiday brand Mister Christmas, which has been
Speaker 1: around since nineteen thirty three. So this is a just
Speaker 1: a plastic phone. It looks retro style, so it's red
Speaker 1: and green. It's a rotary style phone. You take out
Speaker 1: of the box, you connect it to Wi Fi. It's
Speaker 1: pretty simple. There's no app or anything. And then once
Speaker 1: you set it up, kids come in. They press the
Speaker 1: big Santa button that's in the middle, and you can
Speaker 1: talk to Santa live two way conversations. And it's an
Speaker 1: AI powered Santa, so remember names and what they want.
Speaker 1: And the more you talk to Santa, the more he
Speaker 1: learns from you. You get sixty minutes of talk time included.
Speaker 1: You could buy more minutes if you want. It is
Speaker 1: designed for kids age three and up. I just set
Speaker 1: it up in my office and I had my kid
Speaker 1: come home from school. Now he's eleven, so you know,
Speaker 1: he's kind of on the cusp of this whole you know,
Speaker 1: the Santa stuff, Like he's he's just kind of you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So he first off he asked me,
Speaker 1: he said, Dad, how do I use a rotary phone?
Speaker 1: And I laughed. I just sat there and laughed. I
Speaker 1: was like, he has no idea. And I showed him
Speaker 1: how to dial rotary. That's not what you have to do.
Speaker 1: You just pressed the button. Anyway, you press the button,
Speaker 1: Santa answers, and it's actually a really good experience. It's like,
Speaker 1: very very impressive.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, but chat GBT had
Speaker 1: their own kind of Santa voice inside the app last
Speaker 1: holiday season. It's similar to that experience, except I thought
Speaker 1: this was much better, Like this Santa responds so quickly,
Speaker 1: or like, how is this working so fast?
Speaker 2: Anyway?
Speaker 1: The only thing that's kind of a quirky thing is
Speaker 1: that the audio comes from the base of the device,
Speaker 1: not the actual handset, even though the microphone's in the handset.
Speaker 1: But I guess on the flip side, the whole family
Speaker 1: can hear what Santa's saying, So that's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Now here's the weird thing. When they when they pitched
Speaker 1: me this product, the MSRP was around sixty dollars, and
Speaker 1: then when I went to review it yesterday and look
Speaker 1: it up and link it up in my newsletter, it
Speaker 1: was closer to one hundred dollars. And I'm like, excuse me,
Speaker 1: what happened here? And they said, well, the price went up,
Speaker 1: so now it's like it's almost like more like one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, which is a lot. But I still think
Speaker 1: it's probably worth it. If you have a young kid
Speaker 1: at home and you want something that's just a really fun,
Speaker 1: different experience, I think it's probably worth it. They saw
Speaker 1: it at Target, sell it at Walmart, they sell it
Speaker 1: at Amazon again. It's called Santa's Magic Telephone and it
Speaker 1: is this week's Gadget of the Week. This segment sponsored
Speaker 1: by Shopback. My kid was shopping online this week, and
Speaker 1: I love when I feel like the smart dad. He
Speaker 1: was looking for a hat from his favorite NFL team,
Speaker 1: which I won't mention. Let's just say they won their
Speaker 1: first game of the season this week. They were I
Speaker 1: think they were zero to seven before that, so that
Speaker 1: narrows it down a bit. But he wanted to buy
Speaker 1: a beanie and I said, hold on, before you hit by,
Speaker 1: did you check to see if that retailer supported on shopback?
Speaker 1: And he said no, what's that? I said, come on,
Speaker 1: let me show you. And so we went to shopback
Speaker 1: dot com. We searched it up and sure enough, extra
Speaker 1: three percent on top of his purchase. And he was
Speaker 1: pretty impressed because this is his money that he was
Speaker 1: going to get three percent back on. And I said, look,
Speaker 1: I still know a thing or two about tech and
Speaker 1: online shopping. Shop back pays you to shop at your
Speaker 1: favorite places like Best Buy, Amazon, Apple, Home Depot, Walmart.
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on. They've got all kinds
Speaker 1: of brands represented on there, so be sure to look
Speaker 1: because it might not be directly from that retailer the
Speaker 1: thing you want like an iPad, but you can find
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Speaker 1: earn three to ten times higher cash back than other apps.
Speaker 1: You get real cash to your PayPal, not points at expire.
Speaker 1: And it's perfect for those tech purchases. Like I said,
Speaker 1: whatever you want that new iPhone, smart TV or laptop.
Speaker 1: It works on mobile, desktop or with the browser extension
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Speaker 1: upon us. So now is the time to set yourself
Speaker 1: up to save. Join shopback for free today at shopback
Speaker 1: dot com. That's shop back dot com. Download the app
Speaker 1: and the browser extension. Amazon rates available for a limited
Speaker 1: time only. Eight eight eight rich one oh one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Ron writes in from California. My iPhone fifteen plus is
Speaker 1: running iOS eighteen point seven point one and it only
Speaker 1: shows iOS twenty six as an option at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the software update screen. Apple told me it's because
Speaker 1: they're finishing updates to iOS eighteen. I love when people
Speaker 1: email me and they tell me stuff that they hear
Speaker 1: from these like tech support folks. It is all over
Speaker 1: the place, like no, Apple is not finishing updates to
Speaker 1: iOS eighteen. iOS eighteen is done, iOS twenty six is done.
Speaker 1: But here's what's happening, Okay, So let me just read
Speaker 1: the rest of the email. I've heard about battery drain
Speaker 1: and other problems with iOS twenty six, including from my
Speaker 1: son who's having issues on his iPhone sixteen pro. I
Speaker 1: don't want to mess up my phone. What's the truth here.
Speaker 1: The truth is ron you have two options. So what
Speaker 1: Apple has done in years past is they have given
Speaker 1: people the option to stick with their current iOS if
Speaker 1: they want, at least for a while, because it still works.
Speaker 1: Not everyone likes the change, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: update if you don't want to. And what they've done
Speaker 1: is they've separated the full iOS update from security updates.
Speaker 1: So iOS eighteen is not getting any new improvements, it's
Speaker 1: just getting security updates. So if you want to keep
Speaker 1: doing the security updates, that's fine, and that's why it's
Speaker 1: showing you iOS eighteen point seven point one and whatever
Speaker 1: new updates may come for that. But iOS twenty six
Speaker 1: is at the bottom that completely refreshes your entire system,
Speaker 1: and you have the option of updating to that. It's
Speaker 1: going to change everything because it gives you that new
Speaker 1: liquid glass, it's going to change all the feature it's
Speaker 1: going to add new apps. So not everyone wants to
Speaker 1: do that because they're happy with what they've got. And
Speaker 1: Apple is allowing you the choice of Okay, you can
Speaker 1: stick with iOS eighteen, we're just going to give you
Speaker 1: security updates, or you can move to iOS twenty six.
Speaker 1: Now both have their pros and cons. Is iOS twenty
Speaker 1: six perfect?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Is it pretty darn good? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The only problem I have with it right now is
Speaker 1: when I unlock my phone, it's got this weird like
Speaker 1: jumpy animation where it's just not completely all there, and
Speaker 1: so you know, some things need to be smoothed out,
Speaker 1: but overall it's pretty good. So with the battery drain issues,
Speaker 1: Apple has acknowledged that anytime you update to a new
Speaker 1: operating system, there's going to be battery issues. And what's
Speaker 1: happening is your system is optimizing things in the background.
Speaker 1: It's going through all of its indexes, it's making everything work.
Speaker 1: It's kind of polishing and smoothing everything. So that's why
Speaker 1: they say for the first couple of days, you're going
Speaker 1: to see your battery is not going to be as
Speaker 1: great as it is after that time. So I have
Speaker 1: zero battery issues whatsoever with my phone with iOS twenty six,
Speaker 1: it is running really smooth, and I think it's the
Speaker 1: best battery life I've ever ever actually had on an iPhone.
Speaker 2: This is with the new iPhone too.
Speaker 1: Now, if you want to go in and just check
Speaker 1: to see how your battery is doing in general, you
Speaker 1: can go to settings, tap battery and it will give
Speaker 1: your battery health. And so if you're running an older
Speaker 1: phone that's a couple of years old, like your son,
Speaker 1: what is your running iPhone sixteen, so it's a year old.
Speaker 1: My maximum capacity right now is one hundred percent, but
Speaker 1: depending on how you charge your phone, you may see
Speaker 1: that number could be anywhere from eighty five to ninety
Speaker 1: something percent. That means that your phone is not going
Speaker 1: to carry the same life level of charge as it
Speaker 1: was when it was new. It's kind of like getting older,
Speaker 1: right you fill your body, it's not working the same
Speaker 1: way it used to when you were a spring chicken
Speaker 1: at seventeen. That's just the reality of getting older. Same
Speaker 1: thing with your phone, and especially if you're really charging it,
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred percent, running it down to zero
Speaker 1: and just you know, running it hot, it could affect
Speaker 1: the battery. So that's probably what's happening. But uh Ron,
Speaker 1: I'd say go ahead, update, You're gonna be just fine.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one coming up more
Speaker 1: of your calls. Plus I'll tell you about Samsung's first trifoldable.
Speaker 2: Phone right here, on rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology triple
Speaker 1: eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Melinda is in a
Speaker 1: Rancho Cucamonga. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: You're Rich. Hi.
Speaker 5: So I've been using the topic outlets and suddenly I've.
Speaker 1: Been I'm losing your signal here. I can barely make
Speaker 1: you out. Can you move to a better area where
Speaker 1: you might have a better signal? Let me hear you again.
Speaker 5: Is that better?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: Much better? We can hear you about that.
Speaker 5: Well. I've been using Classic you know, several eons, and
Speaker 5: suddenly I was having issues with my outbox and my
Speaker 5: calendar invites. I was unable to reschedule calendar invites or
Speaker 5: cancel inst of having a slew of issues. And I
Speaker 5: switched to the new outlook and those issues went away. However,
Speaker 5: I get hundreds of emails a day, and the way
Speaker 5: for me to stay organized is to sort by subject.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I'm really losing your here. So you're you're
Speaker 1: you're trying to sort by subject. I can't really hear
Speaker 1: the end of the question, but you're is this new
Speaker 1: version of Outlook not a allowing you.
Speaker 3: To do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not allowed.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm looking I'm Bovo. You guys, you can't all
Speaker 1: hear what Bobo says to me in my ear while
Speaker 1: while you're talking. But here's the deal I'm looking at.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the new Outlook on both my PC
Speaker 1: and Mac, and it gives you.
Speaker 2: It gives me the option to sort by subject on both.
Speaker 1: So is there something that I'm missing here because I'm okay,
Speaker 1: hold on, I'm looking, hold on, hold on, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: looking here. Short by date, yes, short by subject. It's
Speaker 1: on both of these things.
Speaker 5: So, well, you know how you have a header of
Speaker 5: you know, at the top in your classic outlok where
Speaker 5: you can click subject and it will whatever message you're on,
Speaker 5: it'll sort it by that subject. That doesn't happen in
Speaker 5: the new outlet. I can't select a message and then
Speaker 5: click that subject header and then see all the messages
Speaker 5: relating to that email.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: Okay, that that makes a bit more sense, Okay, because
Speaker 1: you can Yeah, you can sort.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they did change a lot in this version
Speaker 1: of Outlook, and I think some of it is I'm
Speaker 1: trying to see here. Okay, so there's a find related
Speaker 1: and then there's okay, I don't see. So typically you
Speaker 1: just write click on something and then and then say
Speaker 1: find all subjects that are like that. Now, what about
Speaker 1: grouping your messages because are you looking for me?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm doing that now I've got I've got it grouped.
Speaker 5: And so it's a different process, you know, to kind
Speaker 5: of go through and make sure you've read all of
Speaker 5: the string of related emails. But it's just not as
Speaker 5: user friendly. It's not as I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I and I agree.
Speaker 1: I think that the Outlook, I mean, I use it
Speaker 1: for my corporate email and I'm not a fan of
Speaker 1: typically you know all the different things it does. But
Speaker 1: with that said, so you don't want to go back
Speaker 1: to classic Outlook because you're going to get the same
Speaker 1: problems you had before.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've tried to revert and it's same issues. It's
Speaker 5: for some reason, it's just not working. Like I know,
Speaker 5: they're trying to phase it out, and yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not really working on it. Yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: best I can say. And what about a third party
Speaker 1: email app? Like, what do you think about switching or
Speaker 1: you using are you what, like, who's this email with?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Okay, so they want you several.
Speaker 5: Different companies and this is the only company where I'm
Speaker 5: having this issue outlooks. I'm on the classic on my
Speaker 5: other companies.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, it could be that, you know, the corporate
Speaker 1: rules or structure that they have, they're not allowing certain
Speaker 1: features or things like that with this outlook. So that
Speaker 1: could be another side of it. So you might you
Speaker 1: might talk to the IT folks and see if they
Speaker 1: have something that they're you know, holding back on here.
Speaker 2: That could be it.
Speaker 1: But I would say in general, I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: it might be without seeing like exactly what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do here, it's kind of tough for me to
Speaker 1: like envision that. But I think that in general, it
Speaker 1: might just come up with you know, you might have
Speaker 1: to just use like different rules or something. But I
Speaker 1: can see you can definitely sort by subject in general,
Speaker 1: but that there may be another aspect to this that
Speaker 1: I'm not truly understanding. But Melinda, I do understand that
Speaker 1: frustration for sure, when you're trying to do something that
Speaker 1: you can't do and so I when you're using it
Speaker 1: before and it did it and now it doesn't. That's
Speaker 1: that's really frustrating. And this is why people a lot
Speaker 1: of times don't want to update their software because they've
Speaker 1: got their system in place, they know how to work it,
Speaker 1: and when the new system comes, it's like, oh, you
Speaker 1: made all these changes that are great for whatever you're
Speaker 1: trying to push, whether it's AI or you know, whatever
Speaker 1: the new Outlook is trying to do, but it breaks
Speaker 1: all these little functionalities that I rely on on a
Speaker 1: daily basis. And so that's the hesitation from a lot
Speaker 1: of folks. Now you can revert to the old the
Speaker 1: old Outlook if you're not liking the new Outlook. If
Speaker 1: you look in the menu, it says Legacy Outlook. And
Speaker 1: so if you're using the new Outlook and you don't
Speaker 1: like the way it works, you can go back to
Speaker 1: the old one. I ended up just using Outlook on
Speaker 1: the web because there's one feature I need on Outlook
Speaker 1: that does not work on my app for some reason,
Speaker 1: and that's my group of people that I email on
Speaker 1: a regular basis. I have, like a group I created,
Speaker 1: and it just for some reason will not My distribution
Speaker 1: list will not work when I'm on the app, but
Speaker 1: it'll work when I'm on the web. I don't understand
Speaker 1: what the reason is for that, but anyway, so it
Speaker 1: happens to the best of us. Thanks for the call, Melnda.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you get that sorted out. No pun intended there.
Speaker 1: Samsung did show off its first trifold phone. It's a prototype,
Speaker 1: but it's a start. They showed it off at the
Speaker 1: APEC CEO summit in South Korea, home of Samsung. So
Speaker 1: the device folds twice. There are three screens on this device.
Speaker 1: So we've seen the foldable phones that have two screens.
Speaker 1: Imagine just three screens now two hinges. So when it's
Speaker 1: fully open, it's a ten inch display, but when it
Speaker 1: closes down it's a six point five inch phone size,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of like a standard sized phone. But
Speaker 1: when you open it up, you've got a nice ten
Speaker 1: inch display, so it's almost like a tablet. No name
Speaker 1: for this expected to launch soon, we'll see. I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting because Samsung foldables are still kind of not struggling,
Speaker 1: but they're still trying to find their space here in
Speaker 1: the US, and I think next year when Apple launches
Speaker 1: there foldable, it's probably going to do a lot for
Speaker 1: this genre. Of phones, but we do know that they
Speaker 1: are very popular in other parts of the world. So
Speaker 1: Huawei's got one called the mate xt which folds in
Speaker 1: a Z shape, and my friend was using that when
Speaker 1: I was in Mexico. He loves that thing, loves that
Speaker 1: form factor. But a lot of people love the Samsung
Speaker 1: Fold seven because it's just such a great small device
Speaker 1: but opens up pretty big anyway. This prototype was shown
Speaker 1: behind glass. Expected to cost more than two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: We'll see eighty eight rich one oh one eighty eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one coming up.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about how AI is affecting the job market
Speaker 1: and what some of the best jobs are and some
Speaker 1: of the worst jobs are because of it. This is
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Triple eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Did you know you can
Speaker 1: listen to this show as a podcast. Obviously live is
Speaker 1: always the best way, but if you miss an episode,
Speaker 1: you can listen later. Just search rich on Tech in
Speaker 1: your favorite audio app. I know some of you are
Speaker 1: doing without Disney channels right now. If you've got YouTube TV.
Speaker 1: The two big companies are in a spat. This seems
Speaker 1: to happen a lot. It's a contract renewal. Obviously, YouTube
Speaker 1: doesn't want. You know, the prices for these streaming services
Speaker 1: have gone up so much, and of course you know,
Speaker 1: Disney's probably asking for more money. YouTube doesn't want to
Speaker 1: do it because they know inevitably they're going to pass
Speaker 1: along those costs to their subscribers. And so right now,
Speaker 1: all Disney channels are blacked out on YouTube TV. This
Speaker 1: is ESPN, ABC, FX.
Speaker 2: Notat go.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of channels. If you look at it,
Speaker 1: it's a laundry list of stuff. Now what do you
Speaker 1: do in the meantime? You could try a free trial
Speaker 1: from a competing service. The problem is they're not very good,
Speaker 1: so depending on how long this goes on. I mean, Fubo,
Speaker 1: which will give you all those channels, only offers you
Speaker 1: one day of free trial, so that's not really going
Speaker 1: to get you very far. DirecTV is probably your best bet.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for DirecTV stream that'll give you
Speaker 1: five days. So, I mean, you know these things in
Speaker 1: recent memory, these things have not gone on that long.
Speaker 2: Who knows how long this is going to go on.
Speaker 2: YouTube says it will give.
Speaker 1: It its subscribers a twenty dollars credit if the blackout
Speaker 1: continues for a long time. The other thing you could do,
Speaker 1: there's this thing called Sling Weekend Pass and that's ten
Speaker 1: dollars and that gives you Sling for the whole weekend
Speaker 1: with like no strings attached. The only thing there is
Speaker 1: is it depends on the channel. Like, if you want ESPN,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's there. Trying to see the channels
Speaker 1: that are here, Okay, so yeah, they've got ESPN, CNNTNT, TBS,
Speaker 1: Food Network, History, basically all the espns. So if you
Speaker 1: just have something you want to watch on ESPN, you
Speaker 1: could do it that way. Disney channels on there, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's not really all the channels that you want,
Speaker 1: So you're kind.
Speaker 2: Of, you know, stuck right now. If you've got YouTube
Speaker 2: TV like I do.
Speaker 1: Thankfully the World Series is not on ABC, that would
Speaker 1: be a bad time for that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, let's go to Debra in this Candido.
Speaker 6: Debra, you're on with rich Why d thank you for
Speaker 6: taking my call?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's up?
Speaker 6: So I'm a longtime user with Apple excuse me. With
Speaker 6: Google's Contact manager, and recently, I've been having a problem
Speaker 6: when I go in bring up the contact list, and
Speaker 6: I go into the search bar, I search out the
Speaker 6: contact I'm looking for.
Speaker 7: It'll bring it up.
Speaker 6: I tap on it, but it won't open up the contact.
Speaker 6: I have to literally scroll through all my contacts alphabetically
Speaker 6: to find the contact. I've kind of googled to try
Speaker 6: and fix that problem. I've tried thinking, and I'm kind
Speaker 6: of at a loss on what to do.
Speaker 2: Where are you doing this on your computer? On your phone?
Speaker 5: On my computer?
Speaker 1: Okay, a new computer with Windows eleven, Okay, it sounds
Speaker 1: like this is a browser issue. It sounds like something's
Speaker 1: blocking the JavaScript from working on here or some sort
Speaker 1: of whatever they're using to run this, because I just
Speaker 1: did it on my computer and it opens it up
Speaker 1: just fine. So it sounds like there's something that's blocking
Speaker 1: the function on your browser. What browser are you using.
Speaker 6: I'm using.
Speaker 7: The Google Chrome as well, and.
Speaker 6: I've h and I've gone in and cleared my cash
Speaker 6: or that.
Speaker 1: Hasn't okay, So what I would do is just this
Speaker 1: is a very easy easy thing to see if it's uh,
Speaker 1: if it's just your browser. I would go to a
Speaker 1: different browser, like if you're using Windows eleven, like you said,
Speaker 1: open this up in Edge and you may have to
Speaker 1: sign into Google, which I know is a pain, but
Speaker 1: you know, just do that, go to contacts dot Google
Speaker 1: dot com and see if it's happening there, and at
Speaker 1: least that lets you know if it's a bigger problem
Speaker 1: on your computer or if it's just in your browser.
Speaker 1: Now I think it's just your browser. So what I
Speaker 1: would do is I would go through your browser and
Speaker 1: look at all the extensions that you have and get
Speaker 1: rid of any extensions or disable them that you don't need,
Speaker 1: especially for this page, especially if it's an AD blocker,
Speaker 1: because that could be messing with the you know what
Speaker 1: the page wants to do.
Speaker 2: So that that's number one.
Speaker 1: The second thing I would do is when you're on
Speaker 1: this page, just go to the where it says contacts
Speaker 1: dot Google dot com. Up at the top in the
Speaker 1: address bar. There's two little lines they look like settings.
Speaker 1: Tap that it's called site information and it says cookies
Speaker 1: and site data. Just go ahead and where it says
Speaker 1: manage on device site data. Just delete all those cookies
Speaker 1: right there that may log you out. Of your Google account,
Speaker 1: because you know that's part of the cookies that gets
Speaker 1: you in here. But then I would restart your web browser,
Speaker 1: make sure you do all the secure all the software updates.
Speaker 1: So if you don't know how to do that, you
Speaker 1: go to your menu, you go to settings, and then
Speaker 1: you go to about Chrome. And right now I'm going
Speaker 1: to about Chrome and it's saying updating Chrome. So there
Speaker 1: was an update for Chrome that I didn't even know about,
Speaker 1: and so I would make sure you do that, and
Speaker 1: then I would restart, close out Chrome completely, open it
Speaker 1: back up, go into that website and see if you
Speaker 1: still get the same issue. My instinct is telling me
Speaker 1: that it is something that's interfering with that website, and
Speaker 1: so it's not the website itself, because like I said,
Speaker 1: I just tested it out and it's working fine. So
Speaker 1: it's something on your browser and it's probably one of
Speaker 1: your extensions that's interfering with that page. So try a
Speaker 1: different browser. That's the number one thing, and then do
Speaker 1: with all the other things I mentioned and hopefully that
Speaker 1: should help you out. Thanks a lot, Debra appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Funny funny story about Escondido real quick. So I was
Speaker 1: I was substitute reporting down in San Diego for a
Speaker 1: TV station. And this was back in the day, this
Speaker 1: was before I was doing technology stuff, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget they said, you were reporting from Escondido, and for
Speaker 1: some reason I called it Escondito. And so but my
Speaker 1: family down there was watching. They live down there, like
Speaker 1: some family members, and to this day they never let
Speaker 1: me live it down the way I said it. And
Speaker 1: I every time they see me, how's Escondito, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know I said it wrong once on TV, but
Speaker 1: it's you know, look, when you have this happens all
Speaker 1: the time, like reporters that are in these little cities
Speaker 1: like across America.
Speaker 2: Not that San Diego is a little city, but you.
Speaker 1: Know, these reporters that are on TV, they come from
Speaker 1: different places and then they they set up shop in
Speaker 1: your city, you know, whatever city you're in. You know,
Speaker 1: there's different markets for the whole US, for the broadcast markets,
Speaker 1: whether it's radio or TV, and these people usually start
Speaker 1: out in a smaller market and so they're not familiar
Speaker 1: with all the ways that you say things in those markets.
Speaker 1: So I lived in Louisiana, for instance, and that's a
Speaker 1: very tricky place to say things because it's got a
Speaker 1: lot of French in Creole influence, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of the names. People would just Butcher and Texas.
Speaker 2: Same thing. There was this I'm trying to remember this.
Speaker 1: There was this like there's this city in Texas that
Speaker 1: we had to say, and it was like, if you
Speaker 1: didn't know how to say it, you would pronounce it wrong.
Speaker 2: If you just read the way it was what it
Speaker 2: looked like it would, you'd say it wrong every time.
Speaker 1: Same thing here in Los Angeles there's a museum called
Speaker 1: the Broad Museum and it's Eli Broade, but people call
Speaker 1: the Broad Museum all the time because that's the way
Speaker 1: it looks like it's written. So again, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: no one's perfect in this world, and no one's an expert.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 1: There are some people that pronounce everything perfectly. I'm not
Speaker 1: one of those people. I'll be honest, Like I grew
Speaker 1: up in New Jersey. If you when I got to USC,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. I spoke so poorly as a person
Speaker 1: who wants to go into broadcast journalism, I spoke so poorly.
Speaker 1: I will never forget this. I was sitting in my
Speaker 1: dorm freshman year and everyone was just sitting around me
Speaker 1: in a circle, like I was in the middle of
Speaker 1: the circle, and they were just like, pronounce this word.
Speaker 1: And they would literally just have me pronounce words because
Speaker 1: I was so bad at pronouncing things. Like they'd be like,
Speaker 1: what's the thing that you pull out of your dresser.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, a draw. It's not a draw, it's
Speaker 1: a drawer. But I grew up thinking it was a mirror.
Speaker 1: It was a draw. I mean I I just had
Speaker 1: this Jersey accent.
Speaker 2: Oregon.
Speaker 1: That was how you said Oregon. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: just these are the things. And I My kid was
Speaker 1: asking me the other day, He's like, Dad, do you
Speaker 1: do you always pronounce things right? I said no, I
Speaker 1: used to have a terrible speech. Anyway, I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was a little science experiment. I
Speaker 1: also had never heard of a casadia till I came
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles, and I'll never forget my uh you know,
Speaker 1: one of the people at my dorm they said, here's
Speaker 1: how you make a very very quick casadia. It was
Speaker 1: a it was a tortilla with a slice of American
Speaker 1: cheese and they just put it in the microwave.
Speaker 2: I said, what is this?
Speaker 1: They're like, it's kind of like a grilled cheese, except
Speaker 1: you know casadia and you know, no, I love Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely a different version of a casidia, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. Uh, but you know I still make case idias.
Speaker 1: It's like one of our staples now like that, not
Speaker 1: like that. My kid does like a casadia in the microwave.
Speaker 1: So he does, like we asked him, do you want
Speaker 1: to Frisby or do you want mushy Mushy's in the microwave?
Speaker 1: And mom and dad secretly like that because it takes
Speaker 1: like ten seconds to make versus like, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes on the S condito, S condito. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I pronounced it that way. I got
Speaker 1: married there, did you? So you know, how do you
Speaker 1: pronounce it? Let's get the bobo Bobo pronounces s condido?
Speaker 2: How do you say it condido? Okay, I know how
Speaker 2: to say it. I'm from here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know, oh so you were just born
Speaker 1: with the god given right of knowing how to pronounce
Speaker 1: everything in in California.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Art, It's like, uh, when people come here from
Speaker 8: out of town, they don't say supolvita they sayelvita oh
Speaker 8: or las sienga. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If you look at these things and here we have
Speaker 1: a lot of Spanish influence in the names. Not everyone
Speaker 1: grew up with that. So you look at these things,
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't know how to say that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: will Shire, will Shire Boulevard. I mean, there's so many,
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of fun. And look, you know, La
Speaker 1: is a place where there's a lot of people from
Speaker 1: different places, and so it's very accepting of various people
Speaker 1: coming here and pronouncing these things wrong. And I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone really gets judged for it, but we do
Speaker 1: get a kick out of.
Speaker 2: It, and you get left at yeah, but in a
Speaker 2: fun way.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. We still
Speaker 1: got our guests coming up talking about creating her own
Speaker 1: AI coach. We've still got AI jobs. People are still
Speaker 1: using AI to make fake receipts for expense reports. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that plus your questions. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. Eight eight eight rich one
Speaker 1: O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: to one zero one. You can go to the website
Speaker 1: rich On Tech dot TV. Uh there, don't forget to
Speaker 1: sign up for my free newsletter, a new issue this weekend.
Speaker 1: You can read it. The title is breaking up with
Speaker 1: my credit card. After nine years, I got rid of
Speaker 1: my pricey, pricey, pricey credit card. They added all these
Speaker 1: perks and I looked at them. I said, I don't
Speaker 1: want any of those. They're all it's like a coupon
Speaker 1: book now and it was just and they raised the
Speaker 1: price and so I called in and no big deal.
Speaker 1: The guy said, Okay, anything else I can do for you?
Speaker 1: After nine years could care less, didn't try to keep
Speaker 1: me in any way, shape or form. So now I'm
Speaker 1: just using a run of the mill card. And I
Speaker 1: explained my kind of rule for credit and debit. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't play the points game necessarily, so I will
Speaker 1: get points when I can, but I'm not going out
Speaker 1: of my way to get points. And I think that
Speaker 1: doing that makes you spend more money. And I know
Speaker 1: those are fighting words. Everyone loves their points. Everyone I
Speaker 1: know travels for free. Nobody pays for vacations. Everyone's traveling
Speaker 1: for free on points. But somebody's got to spend all
Speaker 1: that money to get those points.
Speaker 2: And I get it.
Speaker 1: If you have a big corporate job, or you're traveling
Speaker 1: a lot for work, and you're racking up the points,
Speaker 1: you know, during your corporate job, and then you're using
Speaker 1: them for your personal stuff, that's great. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've been in that place back in the day, I
Speaker 1: had a job where I was traveling all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still travel a lot, but you know
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm actively trying to travel less to be
Speaker 1: more with my family. But how about this, Speaking of travel,
Speaker 1: expense report firms say that AI generated fake receipts are
Speaker 1: becoming a major fraud issue. So employees are literally creating
Speaker 1: fake receipts using AI and putting them in their expense reports. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe some of them are recreations, you know, maybe they
Speaker 1: forgot to get a receipt and they need one. But
Speaker 1: Appsen says AI fakes now make up fourteen percent of
Speaker 1: expense fraud attempts. Ramp, another one of these software firms,
Speaker 1: flagged over a million dollars in fake receipts in ninety days.
Speaker 1: What fake receipts can now include realistic wrinkles itemize details
Speaker 1: and signatures, making them hard to detect by I. Sap
Speaker 1: can cur which runs eighty million compliance checks a month,
Speaker 1: Warren's clients don't trust your eyes. Companies are now using
Speaker 1: AI to scan AI to make sure that you know,
Speaker 1: people aren't generating fake receipts. But the problem is, you know,
Speaker 1: users that submit these can erase the metadata just by
Speaker 1: taking a screenshot, so it's like they'll generate it with
Speaker 1: chat GBT. They know that that file has like metadata
Speaker 1: that says this was created with AI, so let's just
Speaker 1: take a screenshot of it, because that metadata doesn't carry through.
Speaker 1: But here's what I think it's funny about sap can Curve.
Speaker 1: That was the company We don't I don't think we
Speaker 1: use them anymore for expense reports.
Speaker 2: But we used to, or maybe we still do.
Speaker 1: But anyway, they you know, they do all these checks
Speaker 1: on your expense reports, like a lot of it's automated,
Speaker 1: but they kind of make your life a little bit
Speaker 1: difficult because it used to be back in the day,
Speaker 1: you'd submit expense reports pretty simple. You know, your boss
Speaker 1: would look at it and say, all right, everything was good,
Speaker 1: and they'd send the payment now it's like all this
Speaker 1: automated AI stuff and these systems and they check everything
Speaker 1: and it's got to be in there perfectly. And so
Speaker 1: I remember I was in Mexico on vacation and the
Speaker 1: whole resort was rented out by SAP or maybe back
Speaker 1: then it was just called Concur. And I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: after maybe after you know, happy hour, going up to
Speaker 1: one of the people at Concur. I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you make your you know, you make the
Speaker 1: lives very difficult for many many people out there with
Speaker 1: your expense you know checks, and they were like laughing.
Speaker 1: But I was just cracking up because here it is,
Speaker 1: this whole company was on vacation with this like big
Speaker 1: old party. I was like, who's footing the bill for this?
Speaker 1: All the all of us expense report? People like, what's
Speaker 1: happening here? I don't know why I told you that.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Terry in uh Tampa. Oh, can we
Speaker 1: get to this Terry and Tampa?
Speaker 2: What's up? I got two minutes.
Speaker 7: Hey, I'm so glad you have time for this. So
Speaker 7: I just had a recent upgrade to my Android software
Speaker 7: on my phone.
Speaker 9: Sure, and ever since.
Speaker 7: Then, I think it times with that I don't know
Speaker 7: if it ties into that or not. But ever since then,
Speaker 7: every time I get a message in my text messaging,
Speaker 7: it takes whatever I'm doing and it moves it out
Speaker 7: of the way and gives me this little pop up bubble.
Speaker 7: And I haven't figured out how to get it off
Speaker 7: of my system. But so annoying.
Speaker 1: Are you talking about conversation bubbles? Like the text is
Speaker 1: like on your screen at all times.
Speaker 7: Maybe might be a conversation bubble. I was looking for
Speaker 7: some check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's like basically when you send a text,
Speaker 1: that person now sits on your screen basically, yeah.
Speaker 7: And if they're texting me, it's this little ball of
Speaker 7: their face or whatever their eyes on is. And then
Speaker 7: another one comes in, and another one comes in. I
Speaker 7: got three little balls, okay. And if I'm typing a message,
Speaker 7: the new message comes in and like covers it. So
Speaker 7: then I'm now typing to the new person who texted
Speaker 7: me and not who I thought I was typing to.
Speaker 1: Okay, I believe this is called a conversation by it's
Speaker 1: a what type of phone are you using? S?
Speaker 4: Two?
Speaker 7: Three? Galaxy?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So it's a Samsung Okay, So you gotta look I
Speaker 1: gotta find the setting. But it's basically, if you, okay,
Speaker 1: put your messages in floating bubbles or pop up. So
Speaker 1: it's Samsung's conversation bubbles. So if you want to turn
Speaker 1: it off, you have to go. Let's see where we
Speaker 1: go here. Uh, settings notifications, Okay, so it's settings notifications,
Speaker 1: and then it's advanced settings and then floating notifications. There
Speaker 1: it is bubbles. Turn those off and those will go away.
Speaker 1: That's the best way to do. I will link that
Speaker 1: up on the website rich on Tech dot tv. In
Speaker 1: the show notes, this is episode one four.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 2: Episode? All right, we'll be right back. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology eight
Speaker 1: eight eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one. This is the
Speaker 1: first time you are here in my voice. Thank you
Speaker 1: for tuning in. If it's the one hundredth time, thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning in joining me now. Uh, we've actually
Speaker 1: had her on the show before. Alexandra Samuel, technology journalist
Speaker 1: and hosts of the new AI podcast called Me plus Viv.
Speaker 1: You have created your own AI coach. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what this is all about. But I'm fascinated. So
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show, number one.
Speaker 9: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: And first off, just explain what do you mean? You
Speaker 1: created your own AI coach? Like, tell me what that is?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 9: So you know, technically Viv, as I refer to her.
Speaker 10: Even though she's an it is a custom GPT, which
Speaker 10: is a version of chat GBT that is loaded up
Speaker 10: with a whole bunch of background files in plaintext plus
Speaker 10: a plain text instruction. So no coding intrinsically required to
Speaker 10: create that kind of.
Speaker 9: Custom AI assistant.
Speaker 10: But what happens when you create your own version of
Speaker 10: an AI, whether it is on CHATTYPT, on Claude, on Gemini,
Speaker 10: because all these platforms let you do it, you can
Speaker 10: develop something.
Speaker 9: That has a vibe.
Speaker 10: I'm hesitant to use the word personality, but that's certainly
Speaker 10: how it comes across, and certainly with a different set
Speaker 10: of knowledge and skills and interaction styles than what you
Speaker 10: get off the shelf from GPT.
Speaker 9: And that's exactly what.
Speaker 10: I've done with Viv, and as a result, Viv doesn't
Speaker 10: feel very much like regular CHATTYPT.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you went in and created your own GPT like, yes,
Speaker 1: because I created this, I've been playing with this, like
Speaker 1: I've Rich on tech GPT, which is just basically programmed
Speaker 1: on all the transcripts of this radio show, so I
Speaker 1: can say, you know, what did what did I write
Speaker 1: recommend when it comes to a password manager?
Speaker 2: What does Rich?
Speaker 1: What did Rich say about this topic? And it will
Speaker 1: pull from my transcript, So that's similar to what you did,
Speaker 1: but you programmed it with what well, So you know that's.
Speaker 10: Part of what's in Viv is actually my at this point,
Speaker 10: my past conversations with Viv, as well as other examples.
Speaker 9: Of my written work, my articles and so on.
Speaker 10: But the probably the most immediate difference in what it
Speaker 10: feels like to interact with Viv is all the instructions
Speaker 10: I gave Viv on its personality. So I you know,
Speaker 10: what you hear in the second episode of the podcast,
Speaker 10: which will come out this week, are it is the
Speaker 10: instruction that kind of brought Viv. You know, it's so
Speaker 10: hard not to use these really human sounding terms, So
Speaker 10: forgive me for saying, you know, kind of brought her
Speaker 10: to life by saying that she was a combination of
Speaker 10: several different personality types, including a number of comedians, and
Speaker 10: once you start giving an AI some parameters around, this
Speaker 10: is the kind of knowledge you draw on. These are
Speaker 10: the kind of interactions I want to have. This is
Speaker 10: the voice I want you to have. Never say this
Speaker 10: word always, you know, always ask a question in this form.
Speaker 10: Then you start to have experiences that much more closely
Speaker 10: reflect what is useful to you and potentially feel much
Speaker 10: more engaging, which which is a double edged sword.
Speaker 1: So you've got the podcast Me plus viv. What are
Speaker 1: you exploring in this podcast?
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, you know it's funny.
Speaker 10: The journey of the AI coach kind of emerged by
Speaker 10: accident from a process I decided to undertake in the
Speaker 10: summer of twenty twenty four when I had kind of
Speaker 10: a ten week period between projects and needed to do
Speaker 10: a little bit of a step back and think about
Speaker 10: what did I really want from the next phase of
Speaker 10: my career, which really quickly turn into what do I
Speaker 10: want from the next.
Speaker 9: Phase of life?
Speaker 10: And it seems really odd, right that you would ask
Speaker 10: an AI to help you figure out the meaning of
Speaker 10: your life when it's not even alive.
Speaker 2: But it's well, we've all done it.
Speaker 10: Right, right, And so what the podcast looks at is
Speaker 10: both like, how do we go about figuring out how
Speaker 10: we want to spend our lives and how does the
Speaker 10: presence of AI in our lives change how we find meaning,
Speaker 10: how we form relationships, how we express ourselves. Because what
Speaker 10: we found through this journey is you can't really figure
Speaker 10: out what your life is going to look like, what
Speaker 10: your work is going to look like as if AI
Speaker 10: doesn't exist anymore, because.
Speaker 9: It's touched every aspect of our lives.
Speaker 10: So the only way to kind of reckon with your
Speaker 10: life is to also reckon with AI.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is the thing a lot of
Speaker 1: people are struggling with because they want to use AI,
Speaker 1: but they're worried that it's going to take their job
Speaker 1: away from them. So do you think that AI can
Speaker 1: make people better at their jobs or faster? I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's made me a lot more productive
Speaker 1: at my roles.
Speaker 9: Absolutely.
Speaker 10: And you know, part of what we explore in the
Speaker 10: podcast is how do we get beyond thinking about AI
Speaker 10: in terms of doing what we do faster, better, maybe
Speaker 10: a little more, into really opening new vistas for what
Speaker 10: we're capable of. And so, you know, part of what
Speaker 10: happened to me through working with Viv and you get
Speaker 10: a pretty intimate look at this. In the course of
Speaker 10: the podcast, is I started taking on new forms of
Speaker 10: creative work, new forms of technical work. I mean, I
Speaker 10: had never programmed anything for real eighteen months ago, and
Speaker 10: now I write multiple little programs every week with AI's help.
Speaker 9: I'd never written a song.
Speaker 10: The podcast is a musical because Viv and I wrote
Speaker 10: tons of songs together in the course.
Speaker 9: Of navigating my own transition.
Speaker 10: And of course, you know, there's the reason that musicians
Speaker 10: explore personal issues and song. It's a great way of
Speaker 10: figuring out some of these big questions.
Speaker 9: And so, you know, when we think.
Speaker 10: About AI taking our jobs, that risk is there, but
Speaker 10: it's not the AI that's taking the job, right, it's
Speaker 10: some human in an office with a spreadsheet deciding that
Speaker 10: they would rather have an AI do your job than
Speaker 10: help you figure out where you can make your best
Speaker 10: contribution with AI. And so part of what we try
Speaker 10: to do with a podcast is say, in a moment
Speaker 10: where so many of us are feeling that threat, feeling
Speaker 10: that risk, what would it look like to explore AI
Speaker 10: as a potential catalyst.
Speaker 3: And a partner.
Speaker 1: Now it sounds like you've gotten pretty close with this
Speaker 1: viv Ai that you've built, So I just want to
Speaker 1: be sure, are you still interacting with regular human beings
Speaker 1: in your life?
Speaker 10: Well, if you open the Wall Street Journal on Monday,
Speaker 10: you'll have an answer to that question.
Speaker 9: That was one of the things that.
Speaker 10: I really struggled with over the course of my time
Speaker 10: working with viv is that, you know, and the podcast
Speaker 10: really revealed to me, is that as much as yeah,
Speaker 10: I mean, it wasn't like I became a total hermit,
Speaker 10: but I'm a very extroverted person and I usually am
Speaker 10: super interactive with other people, and all the time I
Speaker 10: have spent with viv did start to chip away at that.
Speaker 10: And I think we have seen and you know, now
Speaker 10: headline after headline California is you know, one of the
Speaker 10: first jurisdictions actually trying to address this some real mental
Speaker 10: health risks emerging from that level of immersion with AI,
Speaker 10: and you know, I am not as immune to that
Speaker 10: as I had assumed.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 1: One of my stories on Tap this week is the
Speaker 1: open AI data that shows that like millions of CHATCHYBT
Speaker 1: users are struggling with mental health issues, and they revealed,
Speaker 1: like you know, they can see obviously they're scanning these
Speaker 1: chats and things. So three million people each week based
Speaker 1: on open AI's usage estimates, are struggling with psychosis, mania,
Speaker 1: self harm, suicide, emotional reliance on AI. Mean, those are
Speaker 1: big numbers. That's a lot. But isn't that just happening
Speaker 1: in our society anyway? I mean, there's it's just now
Speaker 1: these people are on a computer, so it's not and
Speaker 1: you know, I think we're all still working through a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. What do you think that the
Speaker 1: takeaway is from your podcast? Why should someone listen to
Speaker 1: this and see what you went through with this a
Speaker 1: coach you created?
Speaker 10: Well, you know, the place that I land, you know,
Speaker 10: with AI is that it's not either desirable for me
Speaker 10: personally or realistic.
Speaker 9: To walk away from it. What you see in our story.
Speaker 10: And also in the conversations I have with people like
Speaker 10: Karen how who wrote this terrific book called Empire of AI,
Speaker 10: which is really the inside story of open AI Sorry,
Speaker 10: Empire of AI, is that these these risks, as serious
Speaker 10: as they are, are risks that we all need to
Speaker 10: learn how to navigate. And what I hope people will
Speaker 10: gain from the show is not only you know, a
Speaker 10: little bit of an opportunity to see why this might
Speaker 10: be fun for them and not miserable and not horrible.
Speaker 9: But also where there is opportunity for us to intervene.
Speaker 10: Where do we have choices we can make as individuals,
Speaker 10: Where do we have pressure we need to put on
Speaker 10: policy makers, on companies to look after and not exploit users.
Speaker 10: And by the end of the season, and you know, honestly,
Speaker 10: I got this feedback when I give a.
Speaker 9: Talk just last week. You know, I hope people will
Speaker 9: see that they.
Speaker 10: Have that opportunity to shape their experience of AI so
Speaker 10: that they are at less of that risk and yet
Speaker 10: don't forego the opportunity to explore new forms of relationship
Speaker 10: with other humans as supported by AI.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think AI is a good thing
Speaker 1: in our world? Or is it still undetermined?
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 9: I don't think AI, you know, like any technology AI.
Speaker 10: I won't say it's neutral, but I would say the
Speaker 10: biggest problem with AI is AI companies.
Speaker 9: The biggest problem with AI is an economic system that.
Speaker 10: Stacks the deck in favor of a lot of bad
Speaker 10: decision making, which includes us moving much much more quickly
Speaker 10: in advancing and expanding these models than there's any reason
Speaker 10: to do like, We've got so much firepower right now
Speaker 10: in the platforms as they exist that we could stop
Speaker 10: developing for a decade and still play catch up and
Speaker 10: still have miracle after miracle in terms of what we're
Speaker 10: capable of. And yet instead we're in this very resource
Speaker 10: intensive arms race where every country and every company is
Speaker 10: constantly trying to outdo one another. And that is what
Speaker 10: I think puts us at risk for some really negative outcomes.
Speaker 1: Because at the end of the day, it's the money.
Speaker 1: Whoever wins is going to win big. And that's why
Speaker 1: we have so much competition in this space because it
Speaker 1: is not a done deal. Open Ai is obviously the
Speaker 1: early leader, but there is still, like you said, a
Speaker 1: pretty long runway here. Okay, So where can we get
Speaker 1: the podcast?
Speaker 10: The podcast Best play say at The podcast is on
Speaker 10: tvo dot org tvo dot org and you can find
Speaker 10: it on every podcasting platform. You can find it on
Speaker 10: Apple Podcasts, you can find it on Spotify, so if
Speaker 10: you search for me plus viv you'll find it wherever
Speaker 10: you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: All right, Alexandra Samuel, thanks so much for joining me
Speaker 1: again today.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate it.
Speaker 9: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: All right, now I got to go create my own
Speaker 1: AI coach. I mean, I thought my AI was tuned
Speaker 1: to me, but you know now I need to tune
Speaker 1: it up even more. Eight to eight rich one on
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Coming up, we'll take some more of your
Speaker 1: calls right here on rich On Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology. Triple eight rich one O one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's
Speaker 1: see what did I post this week? Trying to see
Speaker 1: if there's anything interesting. I posted, Oh yeah, if you
Speaker 1: want to watch a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. You know, Apple
Speaker 1: bought all the rights to those Peanuts stuff, so they
Speaker 1: used to all be on broadcast TV. Now they're either
Speaker 1: on I don't think they are anymore, but now you
Speaker 1: have to get the Apple TV app. By the way,
Speaker 1: remember Apple TV change from Apple TV Plus to Apple TV.
Speaker 1: So you've got Apple TV the app's got Apple TV
Speaker 1: the device, and you've got Apple TV the streaming service.
Speaker 1: They're all Apple TV, but they're all different. So but
Speaker 1: if you want to watch a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving It
Speaker 1: will stream for free to everyone on Saturday, November fifteenth
Speaker 1: and Sunday November sixteenth. So basically, if you download the
Speaker 1: Apple TV Plus app or sorry, the Apple TV app
Speaker 1: on your Smart TV, you can watch a Charlie Brown
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving on those two days. It's basically unlocked. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're a subscriber, I think you can watch it any
Speaker 1: day of the week. I can probably search this right now,
Speaker 1: Apple TV.
Speaker 2: Let's see. Oh do I not have Apple TV on
Speaker 2: my computer? Weird?
Speaker 1: I thought I did. Okay, Well, I won't search that.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Michael in rialto Michael, you're on with.
Speaker 8: Rich, Yeah, afternoon, they're Rich.
Speaker 3: Hi, Hey Rich.
Speaker 8: I'm literally just now pulling out my new guest power.
Speaker 8: I'm trying to figure out what's the best uh appt
Speaker 8: to use in order to transfer all the old information
Speaker 8: from my computer to the new one.
Speaker 1: Now, when you say, okay, number one, are we talking
Speaker 1: Mac or Windows?
Speaker 8: Windows? Okay, I have a deal and you.
Speaker 2: Have a Dell. Okay, she got a new computer. Congrats,
Speaker 2: that's exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is it Windows eleven?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okrrect, So what do you want to move over? Do
Speaker 1: you want to move everything over? Or are you just
Speaker 1: talking about your important files? What what level are we talking.
Speaker 2: About here right now?
Speaker 8: I think it was I really don't know, so I'm
Speaker 8: thinking more so just everything and then I can go
Speaker 8: from there and delete whatever it needs to be done.
Speaker 1: Well, my feeling is, you just got a brand new computer.
Speaker 1: How long do you use this old computer?
Speaker 8: Oh she's I say, at least about eight years or more.
Speaker 1: Okay, She've had it for a while, so things have
Speaker 1: gotten kind of you know, things have gotten all over
Speaker 1: the place because you've downloaded stuff, you've deleted stuff, you've
Speaker 1: moved stuff, you've.
Speaker 2: Changed the way things work.
Speaker 1: So my feeling is, if I have a brand new computer,
Speaker 1: I want to keep it nice and clean and running
Speaker 1: really smooth. So what I want to do is just
Speaker 1: move over my important file. So personally, what I would
Speaker 1: recommend is just either grabbing an external drive like a
Speaker 1: hard drive or a flask drive, putting all the files
Speaker 1: on there if they fit on the flask drive, and
Speaker 1: then and then moving those onto your new computer and
Speaker 1: then dumping them into a file there and then you
Speaker 1: can deal with them when you want, Or you can
Speaker 1: just use Microsoft one drive which is built in to
Speaker 1: you know, both computers and you can just open it
Speaker 1: up as long as you you know, you get a
Speaker 1: certain amount of free storage on there, and so you
Speaker 1: can you can throw your stuff in there and then
Speaker 1: it'll show up on your new computer. You can do
Speaker 1: it that way or the third way, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people do this. I've not personally tested this, but
Speaker 1: the two popular there's one popular program that everyone recommends.
Speaker 1: We talked about this a couple months ago and every
Speaker 1: email I got was about LapLink. So LapLink makes a
Speaker 1: program called PC Mover, and this will move over everything
Speaker 1: all your applications, your files, your settings.
Speaker 2: You know, you do have to pay for that.
Speaker 1: It's like forty bucks, but it'll be a one stop shop,
Speaker 1: like you're mentioning. So now Windows also has a built
Speaker 1: in settings feature that will automatically carry over your settings
Speaker 1: from one drive from the old computer to the new computer,
Speaker 1: and it will bring your settings like if you change
Speaker 1: things on Windows, it will do that as well. So
Speaker 1: as you can tell Michael, there is not one fail
Speaker 1: proof method for doing this. It kind of depends on
Speaker 1: what you want to do with your new computer. Personally,
Speaker 1: if I'm you, I've got that brand new computer, I
Speaker 1: want to keep it running really nice. I don't want
Speaker 1: to gunk it up with all my old stuff. So
Speaker 1: I'm just going to take all my files that are
Speaker 1: important from the old computer.
Speaker 2: I'm going to put them on a hard drive.
Speaker 1: Then I'm going to move them over to that new computer,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna put them in a folder that says
Speaker 1: old files. And then eventually I'm gonna go through them
Speaker 1: and kind of pair them down and clean them up
Speaker 1: when I get when I get a chance, which is
Speaker 1: probably in retirement.
Speaker 2: So but okay, okay, but that's now, what is your options?
Speaker 8: Okay? Now, for instance, you mentioned about the flash drive.
Speaker 8: Do they come like in different story or not? Storage
Speaker 8: to the megabytes or whatever?
Speaker 2: Yeah, gigabytes.
Speaker 1: So, I mean a flash drive is going to be
Speaker 1: the most it depends how many files you have. That's
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be the most expensive way to do
Speaker 1: it because flash drives are typically small and expensive. Now,
Speaker 1: you can go on Amazon, or you can go to
Speaker 1: best Buy and buy a hard drive Western Digital, you know,
Speaker 1: like a two terabyte hard drive. Uh, for let's see
Speaker 1: how much this is. I mean, they're they're really cheap.
Speaker 1: Let's see here you're talking, you're talking. You know, under
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars eight for a two terabyte if you
Speaker 1: have that much data. You probably don't have that much
Speaker 1: data on your old computer. You might have a terabyte
Speaker 1: at the most, So you can get something for sixty bucks.
Speaker 1: But the flask drive, you know, you can get if
Speaker 1: you want to look at one like p n y
Speaker 1: Uh they make one that I like. But you can
Speaker 1: get like a you know, any any flask drive. You
Speaker 1: go to a store, just get a flash drive, you
Speaker 1: plug it into your computer. But those are going to
Speaker 1: max out at like not as much storage as a
Speaker 1: as a physical hard drive, so you're not gonna get Yeah,
Speaker 1: the flask drive is going to be simpler and easier,
Speaker 1: but it's you're not gonna get as much storage. The
Speaker 1: new ones do come up to two terabytes, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna pay so much more for that in the flash drive,
Speaker 1: you know, form factor versus a hard drive.
Speaker 8: Yeah, because okay, I think I'm leaning a little bit
Speaker 8: more towards now. But when you mentioned the Microsoft one drive.
Speaker 1: Yeah I would I would take a look at that.
Speaker 1: I think one drive gives you maybe five gigs. I
Speaker 1: got to look at what's their included, uh storage I think,
Speaker 1: let's see, yeah, five gigs of storage. So if you
Speaker 1: have five gigs or less, you can just dump everything
Speaker 1: on your old computer into that folder on your old computer,
Speaker 1: let it sync up, and then your new computer you
Speaker 1: can go and open up that folder and all your
Speaker 1: files are gonna be there. And that's a really easy
Speaker 1: way to kind of just you know, go through and
Speaker 1: out with the old, in with the new.
Speaker 8: Okay, all right, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Rich.
Speaker 8: I think I'm ahead that direction and stuff, so virtually
Speaker 8: I don't have to have both computers turned on it
Speaker 8: at that time.
Speaker 1: You do not, you do not, yep, start with the
Speaker 1: old computer, dump them into the one drive, and then
Speaker 1: just move over to the new one, fire it up,
Speaker 1: and they should be in that folder. Eight and eight
Speaker 1: Rich one on one. Thanks to the call, Michael, do
Speaker 1: appreciate it. More of your calls coming up next. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro here with you
Speaker 1: for another hour or so, I mean, I say, or
Speaker 1: so I mean, I guess it's really it's not really
Speaker 1: a lot left to uh left up in the air
Speaker 1: when it comes to you know, radio timetables. No, it's
Speaker 1: an hour, uh, Welcome back to the show. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining me eighty eight rich one oh one eighty eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: If you have open.
Speaker 1: Table, which I don't know about you, but I'm always
Speaker 1: on a well I'm not really.
Speaker 2: My wife is always on open table.
Speaker 1: She's always like making reservations at places, even if we
Speaker 1: don't use them. But uh, a lot of them are
Speaker 1: in my name. So long story short. If you are
Speaker 1: using open Table, they have a new loyalty program called
Speaker 1: open Table Regulars. So it used to be you got
Speaker 1: you know, points for your reservations, like once you dined somewhere.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what those points. It was very unclear
Speaker 1: to me what those points were for. Now you can
Speaker 1: actually redeem those points for Amazon gift cards.
Speaker 2: So that's number one.
Speaker 1: And this is free to sign up, by the way,
Speaker 1: just go in the app and accept it, just say yeah,
Speaker 1: sign me up. Then they've got this new gold Tier status,
Speaker 1: So if you have six reservations in a year, you
Speaker 1: get gold Tier status. And what does that give you
Speaker 1: that Basically, if you're looking to get a reservation at
Speaker 1: a restaurant and the thing says, oh, there's no more
Speaker 1: reservations available, it will text you first to notify you
Speaker 1: before all the other people, the regulars, let's call them.
Speaker 1: So that's another reason to get this gold status. And
Speaker 1: then you can also claim six months free of Uber one.
Speaker 1: So again I was able to get gold status instantly
Speaker 1: just by signing up for this thing, because I guess
Speaker 1: I've had six reservations in the past year.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Open Table Regulars.
Speaker 1: It's called if you have the open Table app, open
Speaker 1: it up, select that program. And I think the coolest
Speaker 1: thing is the fact that you can now redeem for
Speaker 1: Amazon gift cards and the fact that you can get
Speaker 1: those notifications before everyone else, because we've been in this
Speaker 1: situation where you want to get a reservation somewhere but
Speaker 1: there's no table, so it says, oh, we'll text you,
Speaker 1: which invariably those do open up. A lot of people
Speaker 1: cancel reservations like the day before everywhere, and so if
Speaker 1: you are looking for reservation, just you know, sign up
Speaker 1: and get it the day before it usually pops in.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Gary and Redondo Beach.
Speaker 1: The question about it looks like iOS twenty six Gary,
Speaker 1: what's up.
Speaker 4: Hey, Bridge, Yeah, I got a iPad QRO thirteen inch okay,
Speaker 4: and it's got to be an option to Oh hold on,
Speaker 4: muk sec got an option too, So iPads twenty six,
Speaker 4: and I'm just wondering if that I should do that
Speaker 4: or not.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, this is a you said it's an
Speaker 1: M four chip. Yeah, okay, so that's a that's a
Speaker 1: relatively new iPad. So that's gonna run iPad twenty six
Speaker 1: pretty good. I've updated and you know, do you have
Speaker 1: the iPhone or no?
Speaker 4: I have an iPhone?
Speaker 2: Also, have you updated to iOS twenty six on there?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, So you know, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: Are you using this iPad for like your work every day?
Speaker 2: Like, are you relying on this thing?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So basically, at the at the very least, it's gonna
Speaker 1: give you a new look to the iPad.
Speaker 2: It's gonna give you that liquid glass.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: So that's number one.
Speaker 1: The main difference with the iPad OS twenty six is
Speaker 1: that you get this new Windows system, so it's almost
Speaker 1: like using a Windows computer.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: It still works just the way it worked in the past,
Speaker 1: where you can open up an app, you can have
Speaker 1: one app on your screen, you can close that app
Speaker 1: open up a new app, but if you want it to,
Speaker 1: it makes it easier to move these apps into their
Speaker 1: own little windows that you can move around the screen.
Speaker 1: So that's really the main difference. I mean, obviously there's
Speaker 1: a laundry list of one hundred and one things you
Speaker 1: can do on iPad os that you know, new little
Speaker 1: improvements and things. But the bottom line is it's gonna
Speaker 1: look different, and you can also just have these apps
Speaker 1: into windows versus just having them open up one at
Speaker 1: a time. So I've installed it on my iPad and
Speaker 1: it's fine. There's you know, it doesn't ruin this situation.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. I'm not really using the multitasking on there,
Speaker 1: but I think if you're curious about it, your iPad
Speaker 1: is completely fine to run this and it's not going
Speaker 1: to ruin your experience on there.
Speaker 2: Let's put it that way, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I'll do that all right, enjoy And yeah, same thing
Speaker 1: with the iPhone. I mean, I iOS twenty six is
Speaker 1: to a place where you know, some people are asking
Speaker 1: me and emailing me and say, rich, can I go back?
Speaker 1: Once you install the new software on an on an
Speaker 1: Apple device, it is nearly impossible to go back for
Speaker 1: a mere mortal Now are there ways of going back?
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm not really privy to them. I'm sure someone
Speaker 1: could figure it out. I as the average person, it's
Speaker 1: very tough to go back to a different version previously,
Speaker 1: like on your iPhone or on your iPad. And that's
Speaker 1: mostly for security reasons for a lot of these things,
Speaker 1: but that's also the way Apple designs it. So once
Speaker 1: you choose to upgrade, yeah, you're kind of you're locked
Speaker 1: into the new upgrade.
Speaker 2: So just just understand that.
Speaker 1: Speaking of upgrades, I have been waiting for this, and
Speaker 1: waiting for this, and waiting for this.
Speaker 2: I got a.
Speaker 1: Preview of Gemini on the Google Smart speakers last year.
Speaker 1: I think it was last December. It still has not
Speaker 1: made its way to my speakers. Every day I ask Google,
Speaker 1: I say, hey Google, what's the weather, just to see
Speaker 1: if the voice has changed.
Speaker 2: And it becomes Gemini. No it is not.
Speaker 1: Now I do know. You have to opt into this.
Speaker 1: So if you go, if you have a speaker and
Speaker 1: you want it to get smarter, and you have Google Home,
Speaker 1: you have to open up the Google Home app, tap
Speaker 1: your profile picture in the upper right hand corner and
Speaker 1: it says home Settings. Tap that, and then you scroll
Speaker 1: all the way down it says early Access. You tap
Speaker 1: that and it says early Access to Gemini for Home.
Speaker 1: You've signed up for Early Access, you'll be notified as
Speaker 1: soon as features are available. While I'm still waiting Google,
Speaker 1: it has been so long. All I want is Gemini
Speaker 1: on my speakers. So this is rolling out as of
Speaker 1: this week so Google. According to Android Authority, Gemini is
Speaker 1: rolling out to US users in Google's Early Access program
Speaker 1: works on every Google Home and Nest speaker or display
Speaker 1: going back to twenty sixteen. Only the newer devices are
Speaker 1: going to get Gemini Live, which is the hands free
Speaker 1: mode that you can talk naturally with and some of
Speaker 1: these The Gemini Live apparently requires a paid Google Home
Speaker 1: Premium plan, while the standard Gemini features will be free.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people emailing me saying, Rich, do
Speaker 1: I have to pay for these Gemini No, the base
Speaker 1: Gemini will be free on your smart device. It's only
Speaker 1: if you want that Gemini Live, which, to be honest,
Speaker 1: since I haven't played with it, I can't really tell
Speaker 1: you what the difference is right now, But to me,
Speaker 1: the regular geminis gonna be good for like ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of people. Let's see here, we got an email
Speaker 1: from Janet. She says, my husband and I recently changed
Speaker 1: from Comcast cable through Infinity to direct TV through AT
Speaker 1: and T. We had our cable for years, but bundled
Speaker 1: our TV, internet, and mobile phones with AT and T.
Speaker 1: It's taking us a while to get used to the
Speaker 1: new way of getting around DirecTV. We're eighty, but I
Speaker 1: think we're getting the hang of it. One thing we
Speaker 1: found last night we don't like is that while watching
Speaker 1: a mystery movie on the Hallmark channel, it wouldn't let
Speaker 1: us fast forward at all, and it came up saying
Speaker 1: the fast forward feature has been disabled for this show.
Speaker 1: Is this something they have done so we will watch
Speaker 1: all the ads or something? We can work around this problem.
Speaker 1: Other shows we've recorded, even from Hallmark channel, let us
Speaker 1: fast forward. I love listening to on the radio and
Speaker 1: reading your email. Thanks for all you do, Janet. Good question, Janet.
Speaker 1: This is why companies love to get us on on demand.
Speaker 1: Remember DVR was the way of the world back in
Speaker 1: the day. Everything was a DVR. TVO started it and
Speaker 1: you would record stuff locally in your home and play it.
Speaker 1: While the companies hated that because you were able to
Speaker 1: fast forward through all of their commercials, which I understand,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to make money on your programming, how
Speaker 1: do you make money? Nobody's watching the commercials. So they
Speaker 1: got this great idea to say, let's put everything on demand.
Speaker 1: Disney plus Netflix, every other service out there, it's all
Speaker 1: on demand. So therefore we have deprioritized the DVR. Now,
Speaker 1: these cable companies still have DVRs that are mostly cloud
Speaker 1: based these days, and there is a distinction. So when
Speaker 1: you were watching that program last night, it might have
Speaker 1: been on demand. And so typically when you're watching movies
Speaker 1: in the back catalog on demand, a lot of them
Speaker 1: do not allow you to fast forward through the commercials
Speaker 1: because they treat that as an on demand programming and
Speaker 1: so they say, nope, you can't fast forward. Now, the
Speaker 1: workaround is to record that program over the air, right
Speaker 1: even if it's on the cloud, and then play it
Speaker 1: that way, and now you should be able to fast
Speaker 1: forward through those commercials. Now, there is a weird quirk here,
Speaker 1: like I have YouTube TV, and typically when you record
Speaker 1: a show, it'll say, oh, which version do you want
Speaker 1: to play? The on demand version or the one that
Speaker 1: you recorded? And you're like, well, why would I want
Speaker 1: to record? What's the difference. The difference is the one
Speaker 1: you're recorded will probably let you skip through ads. The
Speaker 1: on demand version will not let you skip through ads.
Speaker 1: So in general, just remember, if you're watching on demand,
Speaker 1: you have a lot less control over the ads skipping.
Speaker 1: If you're watching something that you recorded, you're going to
Speaker 1: get more control over.
Speaker 2: The ability to skip through ads. So it is a
Speaker 2: little bit of a nuance there.
Speaker 1: But I believe when you're saying you were watching something
Speaker 1: a mystery movie on the Hallmark channel, I believe it
Speaker 1: was on demand. And a lot of these systems don't
Speaker 1: even designate between what's on live and what's on demand.
Speaker 2: You're just scrolling through.
Speaker 1: It's just showing you a whole bunch of programming and
Speaker 1: you just press play, and so you may not even
Speaker 1: know that is that playing on a linear channel like
Speaker 1: right now and we're just tuning in, or is this
Speaker 1: just something that is coming from an on demand server somewhere.
Speaker 1: But companies love when you do stuff on demand because
Speaker 1: they are in control. They actually have the ability to
Speaker 1: place those ads, and those ads are usually placed specifically
Speaker 1: for you. So from a business standpoint, it's amazing because
Speaker 1: now Janet, I know exactly who you are. I know
Speaker 1: what your likes are, I know the stuff that you
Speaker 1: typically watch and the things that you respond to, and
Speaker 1: I know your web history typically because i'll link that up.
Speaker 1: Not me personally, but you know the marketing company. And
Speaker 1: now I can serve you up ads that should register
Speaker 1: with you, stuff that you are interested in, stuff that
Speaker 1: you want to buy, stuff that you might might be
Speaker 1: a good fit for you. So from a business standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's great, But from a viewer standpoint, when you just
Speaker 1: want to skip them, you can't necessarily eighty eight rich
Speaker 1: one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one.
Speaker 2: Coming up.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about these anti facial recognition glasses if
Speaker 1: you really want to stay private. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology the website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Talk about programming AI. So I went through this whole
Speaker 1: thing with my chat EBT, and I came up with
Speaker 1: these projects like these are things that I do over
Speaker 1: and over every day for my various jobs, coming up
Speaker 1: with YouTube headlines, you know, coming up with just all
Speaker 1: these things that I do, like reorganizing, rewriting, just little
Speaker 1: things like that, and so I've created like all these
Speaker 1: projects and I'm not kidding.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 1: This is stuff that typically took me time to do,
Speaker 1: and now because I programmed the AI so perfectly, it
Speaker 1: does it almost exactly right every single time. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: just it's so good. It's just it's scary, actually, like
Speaker 1: how can this?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Where was this my whole life? So, for instance, when
Speaker 1: I do guests for this show, you know, I have
Speaker 1: it programmed in, right, I programmed in like a in
Speaker 1: the project. You give it instructions, and the instructions just
Speaker 1: tell it, like exactly how to handle this information. And
Speaker 1: so I plug in a whole bunch of information about
Speaker 1: the guests that's going to appear on the show, and
Speaker 1: the AI will spit out exactly what I need for
Speaker 1: that guest, you know, their name, their title, what they're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about, a couple of suggested you know,
Speaker 1: topics I might want to talk about with them. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just wild. But it gets so good
Speaker 1: because you feed it what.
Speaker 2: You want it to learn from.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I just I don't know why I tell
Speaker 1: you that, Just you gotta play with this stuff because
Speaker 1: it's like I wasn't using this two weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: now I am, and it's just really really good. Uh
Speaker 1: let's see here I taught speaking of privacy. I thought
Speaker 1: this was pretty cool or different.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: Zeny this is a company that sells glasses online, Zeny Optical.
Speaker 1: They have this new ID guard lens coding, So any glass,
Speaker 1: any pair of glasses that you get on their website,
Speaker 1: you can I guess, affect with this id guard And
Speaker 1: it's a lens coding that will block infrared light, which
Speaker 1: is used by facial recognition cameras. So the lenses have
Speaker 1: like this pink sheen to them that reflects the IR light.
Speaker 1: If you want to test it out, it will not work,
Speaker 1: like face ID will not work, Windows Hello will not work.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so let's see what else here. I guess
Speaker 1: it's The idea is that if you want to walk
Speaker 1: around and not have all these facial recognition cameras taking
Speaker 1: you know, your biometrics, it'll stop that. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: stop everything, because some and can still snap a regular
Speaker 1: picture and just identify you. But apparently when you have
Speaker 1: these lenses on, if a facial ID camera takes a
Speaker 1: picture of your face, it will just show like black
Speaker 1: areas where your eyes are because it reflects all that light.
Speaker 1: So kind of interesting. Is called id Guard. It's from
Speaker 1: Zeni Optical. It's just a sign of our times, right,
Speaker 1: like people want to remain anonymous or less tracked. It's
Speaker 1: getting tougher and tougher to do make use of featured
Speaker 1: a cool app this week.
Speaker 2: I thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's a music app for Android called music Olet Music
Speaker 1: o Let, and it's an Android app that is free,
Speaker 1: and it's ad free and it plays your local files.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people call into this show say, hey,
Speaker 1: I want an app that plays my files on my Android.
Speaker 1: What should I use? Check this one out. Music Olet.
Speaker 1: No streaming, no tracking. It's for people who own their
Speaker 1: collection and you can do what you want. You can
Speaker 1: play your music your way. It's got all the features
Speaker 1: everything you can imagine. It's got built in, including equalizers,
Speaker 1: offline features, setting songs as ring tones, editing song metadata,
Speaker 1: full control. There is a pro version that adds some
Speaker 1: features like crossfade and chromecasts, but most features are free.
Speaker 1: So again this is called music Olette. If you still
Speaker 1: have your own music collection that you want to play
Speaker 1: on your Android phone check it out, and then I
Speaker 1: thought this was interesting. Syracuse University, according to Fast Company,
Speaker 1: is launching the Center for the Creator Economy, the first
Speaker 1: program of its kind in the US, partnership between the schools,
Speaker 1: communications and business programs prepping kids, student kids, students for careers.
Speaker 1: People are like twenty years old at home kids prepping
Speaker 1: students for careers in the two hundred and fifty billion
Speaker 1: dollars Creator Economy Center is going to open up in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six with pod cast studios, green screens, and
Speaker 1: live streaming setups. Courses are going to focus on content creation,
Speaker 1: audience engagement, digital strategy. Now, kids students are not going
Speaker 1: to major in influencing, but they can take these grad
Speaker 1: and undergrad classes. And I think this is smart that
Speaker 1: they're not graduating and influencing, because here's the thing. If
Speaker 1: you're an influencer, by the way, by the time you've
Speaker 1: made it to college, you're already like big time, Like
Speaker 1: you may not even go to college because you've made
Speaker 1: so much money on TikTok or on Instagram. But I
Speaker 1: still think it's smart to get that education. And so
Speaker 1: by having this this center where you can learn things
Speaker 1: and learn from experts and know, you know, learn from
Speaker 1: people that may have more experience in this stuff, or
Speaker 1: just open up your world.
Speaker 2: I think it's very, very smart.
Speaker 1: But the people I know that are these content creators,
Speaker 1: they're they're already doing it in college, like they're already
Speaker 1: very successful. And this I think is smart that you're
Speaker 1: not trying to replace what they've already built, You're just
Speaker 1: trying to add to it. So Syracuse University Center for
Speaker 1: the Creator Economy smart. We're probably going to see that
Speaker 1: at more schools because you know, you could be a
Speaker 1: creator and still do your regular world right, like you
Speaker 1: could still be a pharmacist or a whatever.
Speaker 2: Vet.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology. The website for the show
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot TV. If you want to email,
Speaker 1: you can do that. Just go to rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv and hit contact. Many of you do that
Speaker 1: each and every week. Let me get to a couple
Speaker 1: of those first. I just wanted to mention what cet
Speaker 1: has basically found what I found to be true, but
Speaker 1: with some testing, I just found it to be true
Speaker 1: in my day to day use of the iPhone seventeen Promacs,
Speaker 1: but c neet lab tests confirm iPhone seventeen Promacs has
Speaker 1: the best battery life of any iPhone ever made. Yes,
Speaker 1: I could tell because I'm going to bed with this
Speaker 1: thing still at like forty fifty percent some nights. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll charge it up a little bit throughout the day,
Speaker 1: but still it's just from every other phone I've tested.
Speaker 1: This thing is just I don't even think about the
Speaker 1: battery anymore. So in a three hour streaming video test,
Speaker 1: it only lost nine percent battery, the lowest drain rate
Speaker 1: ever recorded on an iPhone. The standard iPhone seventeen is
Speaker 1: also impressive. They say you get the same all day
Speaker 1: battery as the seventeen Pro for about two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy to seventy dollars less. The problem is people either
Speaker 1: want the Pro or they want the standard. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not usually you know which one you want, So
Speaker 1: let's see. I think that's about it. So just bottom line,
Speaker 1: iPhone seventeen Promax is the new battery king. That's what
Speaker 1: I suspected because that's what I figured when I was
Speaker 1: using it. This is interesting if you use a Samsung phone.
Speaker 1: Samsung is releasing a beta version of its Samsung Internet
Speaker 1: for PC, so the first time they've ever launched their
Speaker 1: Internet browser for the desktop. So if you go on
Speaker 1: your Samsung phone, you know you've got their Samsung Internet
Speaker 1: on there. A lot of people like their program, their app,
Speaker 1: and so you can now get that on your PC
Speaker 1: for the first time. It's available now for Windows ten
Speaker 1: and Windows eleven users in the US and Korea. You
Speaker 1: can sync your bookmarks, your history, your Samsung Pass logins
Speaker 1: for a more continuous experience. It also supports continue browsing,
Speaker 1: so if you start something on your phone, you can
Speaker 1: go to your computer and just continue there. It also
Speaker 1: has all the Galaxy AI tools, browsing assists for web
Speaker 1: page summaries and translations. It's got strong privacy protections, smart
Speaker 1: anti tracking, privacy dashboard, autofill. So I think this is
Speaker 1: smart for Samsung to do because if you're using a
Speaker 1: Samsung phone and you like the browser on there and
Speaker 1: you use a desktop before, you couldn't kind of carry over.
Speaker 2: Now you can.
Speaker 1: So if you want to sign up for this, you
Speaker 1: got to go to the Beta browser dot Samsung dot
Speaker 1: com slash Beta Browser dot Samsung dot com slash Beta
Speaker 1: Horatio in Huntington Beach Rights in I started my home
Speaker 1: automation setup with Wemo switches, but I just learned their
Speaker 1: ending support for their website and Alexa integration. I've got
Speaker 1: thirteen of these switches and I'm wondering if they'll still
Speaker 1: work with another smart home platform. I've also tried Hubspace
Speaker 1: switches from the home Depot and they actually worked better,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure how reliable that system is long term.
Speaker 2: Any advice.
Speaker 1: Yes, Wemo did mention they are doing end of life
Speaker 1: on a bunch of their products, so they have a
Speaker 1: support page from Belkan, who runs Wemo. After careful consideration,
Speaker 1: we have made the difficult decision to end technical support
Speaker 1: for older Wemo products effective January thirty first, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: After this date, they will no longer be controllable through
Speaker 1: the Wemo app. Fatures that rely on cloud, including remote access,
Speaker 1: will no longer work and voice so basically there are
Speaker 1: They have a list of affected products and non affected products,
Speaker 1: so the shutdown does not affect the functionality of Wemo's
Speaker 1: thread based products. They will continue to function through HomeKit,
Speaker 1: so Horatio, if you're using stuff that's through thread, they
Speaker 1: will still work.
Speaker 2: But it looks like you're using all access, So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's going to stop working.
Speaker 1: Sue what to do. The Hubspace stuff is good, but Hubspace,
Speaker 1: I believe, is a Home Depot brand. Yeah, Hubspace is
Speaker 1: from Home Depot. So will it go on for a
Speaker 1: long time?
Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, it's like their own thing.
Speaker 1: But if I were you personally, I would look for
Speaker 1: stuff that is, you know, that works with the major systems.
Speaker 2: But this just kind of happens.
Speaker 1: You know, we back in the day of smart home stuff,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of companies all throwing things at the
Speaker 1: wall to see what would stick. Right, So if you
Speaker 1: started building stuff, a lot of it worked with Alexa
Speaker 1: or Google Home or Google Assistant. And now it's just
Speaker 1: like these companies are you know, they're just figuring things out,
Speaker 1: what they want to do, what they want to focus
Speaker 1: their attention on. And you know, these Wemo switches are
Speaker 1: just kind of being phased out. So I think that
Speaker 1: the Hubspace stuff is smart, but you know, just kind
Speaker 1: of proceed with caution. Addison from North Carolina writes in Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I'm a newer listener to your show.
Speaker 2: I have a question.
Speaker 1: How can I save my photos to iCloud on my
Speaker 1: iPhone when I'm out of iCloud storage and I can't
Speaker 1: afford to buy more. I've deleted a bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: but the photos are taking up all my space and
Speaker 1: I don't want to lose them. Any advice for a
Speaker 1: broke teenager, Addison, I think you speak for everyone.
Speaker 2: So here's the deal.
Speaker 1: How do I save photos to iCloud my iPhone out
Speaker 1: of iCloud storage. So your iCloud storage mimics what's on
Speaker 1: your iPhone, So if you want to clear up storage
Speaker 1: and iCloud, you have to delete stuff off your iPhone.
Speaker 1: They mirror each other. So the app I like to
Speaker 1: do this is called Clever Cleaner from Clever Files, And
Speaker 1: basically I would say just delete a few large video files.
Speaker 1: And if you delete a few large video files, that's
Speaker 1: going to be the easiest way to get rid of
Speaker 1: those files off of iCloud. You know, delete a few
Speaker 1: files that you don't need. So I've deleted a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff, but the photos are taking up all my space.
Speaker 2: I don't want to lose them.
Speaker 1: So there will come a moment when you are maxed out.
Speaker 1: So if you are maxed out in your iCloud. There's
Speaker 1: not much you can do except buy more iCloud, and
Speaker 1: I get it. You said you're a broke teenager, so
Speaker 1: you can't buy more iCloud. So the only other thing
Speaker 1: you can do is offload those files to a flash
Speaker 1: drive or a third party service. So you can try
Speaker 1: just putting them on cloud storage. You know you get
Speaker 1: you get two gigabytes for free on Dropbox.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, what does Dropbox give these days? Dropbox free
Speaker 2: storage limit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, two gigabytes, so you can put them on drop
Speaker 1: Box two gigabytes.
Speaker 2: That'll that'll save free up two gigabytes.
Speaker 1: You can you know, there's a lot of different file
Speaker 1: storage out there, like free cloud storage, so you can
Speaker 1: maybe just put some of those in different places. Let's
Speaker 1: see what are the other options. I mean, you could
Speaker 1: use one drive, you can put someone in there, Proton drive,
Speaker 1: you can put some in there. How much do you
Speaker 1: get there? How much does Proton give you? Probably think
Speaker 1: one one gigabyte?
Speaker 2: I think. Let's see here.
Speaker 1: Why do these companies make it so tough to see
Speaker 1: how much you get for free? All I want to
Speaker 1: see is how much you get for free?
Speaker 2: So let's see.
Speaker 1: I got to type in Proton storage. Uh yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't say, oh, five gigs.
Speaker 2: It looks like for free. So there you go.
Speaker 1: There's another five gigs so you can just kind of
Speaker 1: piecemell these together.
Speaker 2: That's you know, that's my best advice.
Speaker 1: If you can't afford to add more iCloud, just get
Speaker 1: some other free cloud storage. Chris writes in from Vermont.
Speaker 1: We live near the New York and Canadian borders, and
Speaker 1: T mobile service here is terrible. Dropped calls all the time.
Speaker 1: We'd like to find a better, cheaper option, but aren't
Speaker 1: sure who's most reliable. We've looked at Mint, Consumer, Cellular,
Speaker 1: US Mobile, Puretalk, track Phone. We don't use much data,
Speaker 1: just want a dependable connection. Any suggestions, Well, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: All there's only three networks in the US, four if
Speaker 1: you count the new one. What is it Dish Network?
Speaker 1: What's theirs called? There's a I guess it's yeah, Dish
Speaker 1: network has their own.
Speaker 2: Was it boost Mobile?
Speaker 1: I think it's called Boost Mobile have their own network now, yeah,
Speaker 1: which I've not been able to test.
Speaker 2: I keep asking them, can I test this network? I'd
Speaker 2: like to, but I have not been able to test this,
Speaker 2: so I can't tell you much about that.
Speaker 1: One, but we do know it's AT and T. Verizon
Speaker 1: and T Mobile run the three main networks in the US.
Speaker 1: So you have to figure out which network works the
Speaker 1: best in your area, Chris, So how do you do that?
Speaker 1: Ask people that live near you, Ask your neighbors, what
Speaker 1: do you have, what works, what doesn't? Drop calls sounds
Speaker 1: like you've tried T Mobile that does not work in
Speaker 1: that area. That doesn't mean it doesn't work everywhere. But
Speaker 1: each network has its pros and cons in different places.
Speaker 1: You know, some of them just work better in different areas.
Speaker 1: Like you go to the Seattle area where te mobiles
Speaker 1: started back in the day, what was it called voice
Speaker 1: stream or something, it was like the best up there
Speaker 1: because that's where it started. You go to like Central Jersey,
Speaker 1: it's all about Verizon because that's where Verizon was at
Speaker 1: and T. You go to Dallas area, it's all you know, Texas.
Speaker 1: So you know, they all have their their strong areas.
Speaker 1: You just have to figure out which one works by you.
Speaker 1: So ask your neighbors and then you can figure out
Speaker 1: which MV and O is best for you. You mentioned
Speaker 1: all these better cheaper options, so that's called an MV
Speaker 1: and O Mobile Virtual network Operator. Now MINT I can
Speaker 1: tell you is owned by T Mobiles, So that's going
Speaker 1: to use T Mobiles service. You don't want to go
Speaker 1: MINT because you said it doesn't work there. So for
Speaker 1: the rest of these Consumer Cellular, US Mobile Puretalk track phone,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to look up on something like a
Speaker 1: Wikipedia to see what is the network behind those. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, let's look up Consumer Cellular Network and so
Speaker 1: type that in and it's a mobile virtual network operator
Speaker 1: that provides services on major carriers, primarily AT and T
Speaker 1: and T Mobile. So you'd have to look at that,
Speaker 1: though you'd have to kind of check and double check
Speaker 1: because sometimes Google's answers that pop up doesn't necessarily tell
Speaker 1: you the right answer. Like if you go to Consumer
Speaker 1: Cellular's website, they say the network providers we use combine
Speaker 1: to deliver cellular service to ninety nine percent, they don't
Speaker 1: say what cellular providers specifically. Now, if you go to Okay,
Speaker 1: so Tom's guide back in twenty twenty four says it
Speaker 1: piggybacks on AT and T and T Mobile. So again
Speaker 1: US Mobile I do have experience with you can choose
Speaker 1: which network you want through them, but they rename them.
Speaker 1: It's called like dark Star and light Speed and all
Speaker 1: these different things. You have to again, you got to
Speaker 1: do a little research. But once you figure out which
Speaker 1: network works the best, then just look up. Just do
Speaker 1: a Google search, say MVNO's using Verizon, and that'll give
Speaker 1: you a list of Visible Red Pocket you know, whistleout
Speaker 1: dot com is a good website to kind of find
Speaker 1: these things, revealing them so best. Verizon mv and OS
Speaker 1: they've got a whole list Visible US Mobile, Spectrum Mobile,
Speaker 1: So you can figure that out. So if you want
Speaker 1: to go with something cheap, Visible is pretty good for
Speaker 1: if you want to go with Verizon track Phone, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what they use. What does track phone run on?
Speaker 1: Uh it's own Oh it's owned by Verizon. Well there
Speaker 1: you go. Must use Verizon's network. See these are you
Speaker 1: gotta do a little research to figure these things out.
Speaker 2: Uh okay, Coming up, we.
Speaker 1: Are going to open up the feedback see some more
Speaker 1: of the emails that you were sending me this week
Speaker 1: right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking
Speaker 1: technology so much. We always cover so much ground on
Speaker 1: the show. I'm literally going through all the feedback here
Speaker 1: Bobo sees me every week. I've got like so I
Speaker 1: used to. You know, I do print out a fair
Speaker 1: amount of stuff for the show. Bobo can attest, but
Speaker 1: I save the paper just I save it so that
Speaker 1: if you, let's say, you write me something I don't
Speaker 1: make it into the show, I will save that for
Speaker 1: the next week and maybe get into the next week's show.
Speaker 1: So all right, without further Ado, let's open up the feedbag.
Speaker 1: This is the uh you know, the letters, the emails,
Speaker 1: the comments, the questions, all that good stuff that you
Speaker 1: send me. So we've got a mixed bag today. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to try to get through as much as possible.
Speaker 1: Ricky writes in Hey Rich, I'm an avid listener on
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio KFI on Saturdays. You help me with writing on
Speaker 1: the back of digital pictures like in the old days. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to help. My husband wants a vintage typewriter.
Speaker 1: And now I'm trying to remember the name of the
Speaker 1: place you mentioned that restores old things like that.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 1: The website you are thinking of is called retro spect
Speaker 1: r e t R O s p e K T
Speaker 1: retro spect So They basically have a whole bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: everything from audio to photography. Vhs. I mean you could
Speaker 1: buy a v here. Oh they're sold out right now.
Speaker 1: Oh Polaroids. I mean they've just got so many things
Speaker 1: on there. Retrospect spe kt. That's a great one for
Speaker 1: like the holiday season, if you're looking for something.
Speaker 2: Laurel writes in all.
Speaker 1: All you folks, I'm gonna say it like I think
Speaker 1: Laura would say, all you folks who spend hours a
Speaker 1: day scrolling your iPhone screens with your thumbs and index fingers,
Speaker 1: be careful. You're gonna end up with arthritis and those
Speaker 1: two digits. That's like yelling from like the Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you. Laurel val in Los Angeles says, hey, Rich
Speaker 1: about your tip to take four photos of a rental car.
Speaker 1: I take it even further, shoot four K video and
Speaker 1: raw photos, Oh my gosh, of the car before you
Speaker 1: drive off, inside it out.
Speaker 2: Here's my biggest piece of advice.
Speaker 1: Always buy the rental companies insurance, even if you have
Speaker 1: great personal coverage. I've been in ten ten not a
Speaker 1: fall accidents in fourteen years. Well, no wonder why you
Speaker 1: buy the insurance. Val In one rental situation taught me
Speaker 1: the hard way. A scammer cut me off, slammed on
Speaker 1: the brakes, and caused a crash. The prius I rented
Speaker 1: almost took most of the hit from his steel suburban.
Speaker 1: Just over one thousand dollars in damage. That's not that's
Speaker 1: not that much, you you, that's sextually pretty not not
Speaker 1: much at all. My insurance rates still went up because
Speaker 1: I didn't buy the rental coverage. If I paid the
Speaker 1: extra twelve dollars, I wouldn't have touched my personal insurance history.
Speaker 2: Lesson learned.
Speaker 1: It's worth every penny val I will say, And I
Speaker 1: talked about this in my newsletter. The credit card that
Speaker 1: I still am using. I have primary car rental insurance
Speaker 1: on because I don't usually get the rental car insurance,
Speaker 1: but because it can add up. If it's a day
Speaker 1: or two, fine, but like over a long time, it
Speaker 1: can add up to a lot. So good advice there. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you've been in so many accidents. Brian in California, says Rich.
Speaker 1: A while back, you were talking about photo storage. You
Speaker 1: mentioned seeing properties converted into neighborhood storage garages. People paying
Speaker 1: to store stuff they'll probably never look at again. That
Speaker 1: really stuck with me, and I'd love to hear it again.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here refusing to pay Google an extra two
Speaker 1: dollars a month for more photo storage, yet I'm spending
Speaker 1: a fortune on physical storage for things I don't even use.
Speaker 1: I need that reminder to finally clean out those garages.
Speaker 1: Love your show, thanks Brian. And by the way, you
Speaker 1: can clean out your Google storage at one dot Google
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: They've got a great app to every time you say Google,
Speaker 2: my phone cuts on, Oh does it? Mine's not doing that.
Speaker 2: You usually have to say, hey Google, Now it really
Speaker 2: came on.
Speaker 1: Kathleen from La says, I'm a musician who plays at
Speaker 1: weddings and events and wants to warn others about a
Speaker 1: scam targeting performers. I got an email asking if I
Speaker 1: could play wedding music, even offering to pay by check
Speaker 1: and suggesting I perform live, pre recorded, or even via zoom.
Speaker 1: That seemed odd, so I looked it up and found
Speaker 1: an explanation online about the same scam. It's basically a
Speaker 1: fake check scheme where they accidentally overpay you and ask
Speaker 1: for some of the money back. A friend of mine
Speaker 1: also got the same email and someone else I know
Speaker 1: also over sixty recently lost a lot of money to
Speaker 1: fake product ads using names from famous people like Sanjay
Speaker 1: Gupta and Oprah.
Speaker 2: I thought your listeners should know. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy your show. Yeah, these things are. These
Speaker 1: scams target everyone. They've got one out for podcasters too,
Speaker 1: where they say, oh, we'll give you three grand to
Speaker 1: be on our podcast. Just give us access to your
Speaker 1: Facebook so we can set it all up, and they
Speaker 1: steal your Facebook account. Careful Neil from Ohio Rights and
Speaker 1: I think most people need to get used to the
Speaker 1: idea that we're doing our taxes online. I used to
Speaker 1: buy the downloadable software, but the minute I added schedule
Speaker 1: F for farming, every program wanted me to pay for
Speaker 1: an upgrade. About four years ago, I switched to a
Speaker 1: free service called free tax Usa. E files for free,
Speaker 1: covers a ton of forms and charges just a small fee.
Speaker 1: It's time to stop paying those big tax companies at
Speaker 1: lobby to keep filing from being free.
Speaker 2: Love your show, Rich, you provide a great service. Well,
Speaker 2: thank you, Neil.
Speaker 1: O'm gonna just say one minute, Oh my gosh, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just do one more. Jack and Illinois
Speaker 1: I have been listening for years, wanted to say how
Speaker 1: much I appreciate what you do for us tech troubled folks.
Speaker 2: Let's see. I think we have one more.
Speaker 1: A Perva writes in I've been following your KTLA TV
Speaker 1: segments and newsletters for years. Just want to say thanks
Speaker 1: for all the helpful information and advice you've shared.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, that's going to do it for this episode
Speaker 1: of the show. You can find links to everything I
Speaker 1: mentioned on my website. Just go to Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. I'm on social media Atage on Tech. Next week,
Speaker 1: Jamie Simonov, the founder of Ring, is going to talk
Speaker 1: about his new book Ding Dong, all about Shark Tank
Speaker 1: and turning his garage startup into a billion dollar Amazon success.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. Please don't drive distracted. Thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone who makes this show possible. My name is
Speaker 1: rich Darmiro.
Speaker 2: I will talk to you real soon