Speaker 1: Google is ruled a monopoly, so what does that mean
Speaker 1: for your search? The app that can tell you about
Speaker 1: flight delays even before the airlines themselves. Another streaming service
Speaker 1: is raising prices and at rhymes with kidney plus. Your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and
Speaker 1: this is Rich on Tech. This is the show where
Speaker 1: I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
Speaker 1: know about. It's also the place where I answer your
Speaker 1: questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting,
Speaker 1: useful and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at
Speaker 1: triple A Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Again the
Speaker 1: phone line for the show eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Give me a call.
Speaker 1: If you have a question about technology, you're confused about something,
Speaker 1: you need an app for something, you need a website,
Speaker 1: you need some help deciding between a couple of products,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, I am here for you. Email is
Speaker 1: also open. Just go to the website Richontech dot TV
Speaker 1: and hit contact. This week on the show, We've got
Speaker 1: Bart Welch of Points. Yeah, this is a website that
Speaker 1: can help you plan your travel with your points. You're
Speaker 1: racked up those points. You need to figure out how
Speaker 1: to use them. It seems impossible to do that in
Speaker 1: a efficient way. Points yet can help. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: him a little bit later on. And then what about
Speaker 1: the idea of a solar electric car. There is one
Speaker 1: company that is working on one. Steve Fambreau of Aptera
Speaker 1: Motors is going to join me to talk all about
Speaker 1: the solar electric car. Well, this was a big week
Speaker 1: for Google, and not in a good way. A federal
Speaker 1: judge ruled that Google illegally maintained a monopoly in online search. Now,
Speaker 1: usually when you hear about monopoly, you're thinking about the game.
Speaker 1: This is no game, this is real. Now, Google, we
Speaker 1: all know they have a lot of products. Google is
Speaker 1: our Search is their largest product. It is a product
Speaker 1: that makes them a majority of their income, even though
Speaker 1: they have their hands in many other things. But this
Speaker 1: was a big ruling against them. This is the first
Speaker 1: major antitrust ruling against a tech, big tech company in
Speaker 1: the modern Internet era. The last time this happened was
Speaker 1: Microsoft with Internet Explorer. Remember they installed Internet Explorer on
Speaker 1: all of their Windows machines and people got up in
Speaker 1: arms because Netscape was the big browser at the time,
Speaker 1: and Microsoft said, hey, wait a second, we want a
Speaker 1: little piece of that. And so they just went ahead
Speaker 1: and installed Internet Explorer by default on all their Windows
Speaker 1: machines and next thing you know, people were like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, how can you do that?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: That was a major turning point for Microsoft, to major
Speaker 1: turning point for the Web, major turning point in so
Speaker 1: many ways. But this is an interesting one with Google,
Speaker 1: and here is where the judge had a big problem.
Speaker 1: Google pays billions of dollars to be the default search
Speaker 1: engine on devices like when you get a device from Apple,
Speaker 1: you get a device from Samsung, a tablet, a phone,
Speaker 1: and many other devices. Google has paid those companies many
Speaker 1: times billions of dollars to be the default search engine,
Speaker 1: and in particular, Apple is the one that is mentioned
Speaker 1: many many times because I think they pay them some
Speaker 1: upwards of twenty billion dollars a year or something like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just an incredible amount of money. And
Speaker 1: so if they're paying them billions of dollars, imagine how
Speaker 1: much Google is making in return. Because you don't just
Speaker 1: pay something out and not make a return on that investment.
Speaker 1: You make many, many times a return on that investment.
Speaker 1: So the fact is Google being the default search engine
Speaker 1: on these devices makes them a lot of money because
Speaker 1: when you fire up your web browser and you search
Speaker 1: for something, what happens You get those little links up
Speaker 1: at the top that you click by mistake or maybe
Speaker 1: you just click them because they're relevant, and Google makes
Speaker 1: a lot of money off of those links. So this
Speaker 1: case focused on Google's dominance in search, so nothing else
Speaker 1: about the company, but really the dominance in search. And
Speaker 1: I thought what was interesting is not only does Google
Speaker 1: control not only does Google control like ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the Internet search market, they're really good at it. So
Speaker 1: the judge had no problem with the fact that Google
Speaker 1: has a really good search engine. And in fact, there
Speaker 1: was another story that came out surrounding this about Apple
Speaker 1: and Microsoft. So I guess Microsoft came to Apple and said, hey,
Speaker 1: can Bing be the default on the iPhone? And Apple
Speaker 1: said to Microsoft, there is no money in the world
Speaker 1: you can pay us to make Bing the default on
Speaker 1: the iPhone because what would happen if you turned on
Speaker 1: your iPhone and you had Bing as your default. You'd
Speaker 1: not be happy because those results are just not the same.
Speaker 1: They're just not as good as what Google delivers. So
Speaker 1: the interesting part about this is that Google did this
Speaker 1: and people didn't mind because they like Google and they
Speaker 1: like the search results. But the problem is if you
Speaker 1: are an advertiser, and this is where the anti trust
Speaker 1: came in. Because Google was so dominant on all of
Speaker 1: these devices, they could charge as much as they want
Speaker 1: for those little links at the top of search. And
Speaker 1: that is where the judge found the problem. He said,
Speaker 1: because Google controls so much of the industry, and because
Speaker 1: Google has such a stronghold on all these devices, when
Speaker 1: a company goes to advertise on Google, Google can charge
Speaker 1: whatever they want. They are left unchecked because where else
Speaker 1: are you gonna go If you want to get in
Speaker 1: front of all of those eyeballs, There is no other
Speaker 1: place you can go.
Speaker 2: You have to go to Google.
Speaker 1: And Google knows that, and so they charge as much
Speaker 1: as they want because there's really no alternative. And that
Speaker 1: is the issue that they took with Google. Now I
Speaker 1: would agree with this. I think that it is true.
Speaker 1: We love Google. But yeah, if you've ever done a search,
Speaker 1: you know, if you've ever bought search ads, and I've
Speaker 1: helped small businesses do this, including my father's business. It
Speaker 1: is basically just a spigot of money for Google. You
Speaker 1: have no idea what's going on. You kind of set
Speaker 1: a budget and next thing you know, Google just runs
Speaker 1: through that budget and they say, Okay, you want to
Speaker 1: do more. You want to do more, you want to
Speaker 1: do more, and you don't know if it's working or not.
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes you can tell, but for a lot
Speaker 1: of these businesses, they're just spending money and Google's just
Speaker 1: collecting the money. And you don't know if you could
Speaker 1: have better results somewhere else. Maybe you could go to Yelp,
Speaker 1: maybe you can go I mean, where else would you go?
Speaker 1: It's really just Google if you want to reach these
Speaker 1: foot folks. Sorry, my phone, my phone keeps activating because
Speaker 1: it keeps hearing me say Google, and so it is responding.
Speaker 2: That's how powerful Google is.
Speaker 1: It's even responding to what I'm saying right now here
Speaker 1: on the radio. But that is what the judge found.
Speaker 1: And so what's going to happen here? What's going to
Speaker 1: happen we don't know. Is this judge going to try
Speaker 1: to break up Google? Are they going to try to
Speaker 1: separate Google's advertising business from Chrome? I mean, really, when
Speaker 1: you look at Google, they have a couple of major
Speaker 1: businesses that make them money, and I would say that's
Speaker 1: probably YouTube and advertising. Those are the two main things
Speaker 1: that make Google money.
Speaker 2: Gmail.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just kind of that's just a way
Speaker 1: to get people to use Google and some of the
Speaker 1: other things they've worked on, you know, maybe some of
Speaker 1: the web stuff and the cloud storage that's that's not
Speaker 1: returned in a huge way like some other companies like Apple.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, they my. Google just keeps telling me
Speaker 1: stuff right here. I thought you had to say, hey, Google,
Speaker 1: are okay?
Speaker 2: Google?
Speaker 1: Apparently I can just say, oh my oh, I'm activating
Speaker 1: Bobos too.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay.
Speaker 1: So here is the question. There's two things I see here.
Speaker 1: Number One, if you're talking about Google right now, I
Speaker 1: think there are so many headwinds against them. Right So,
Speaker 1: you've got Google, You've got Ai, which is coming along here.
Speaker 1: And I would say Google is probably in the worst
Speaker 1: position they have been in in a long time, because
Speaker 1: if you think about it, who are you going to
Speaker 1: go to for Ai? You're probably not going to Gemini
Speaker 1: unless you see that little thing and it pops up,
Speaker 1: You're probably going to chatch Ebt. So I think that
Speaker 1: AI has the potential to upend twenty five years of
Speaker 1: progress with Google.
Speaker 2: We will see.
Speaker 1: I mean, Google's putting a good fight in here. The
Speaker 1: other question is if you had a choice, Let's say,
Speaker 1: when you fired up your iPhone or when you fired
Speaker 1: up your Samsung for the first time, it gave you
Speaker 1: a choice screen and it said, Hey, which search engine
Speaker 1: do you want as your default? Would you choose different one? Now,
Speaker 1: for what it's worth, you can go in on the
Speaker 1: iPhone and choose a different search engine. You can go
Speaker 1: into Settings, you can go into Safari and then search engine.
Speaker 1: Now that your choices there are Google, Yahoo, Bing, Duck,
Speaker 1: Duck Go, and Ekoshia.
Speaker 2: I think that's how you say it.
Speaker 1: For every search I think they plant like a tree,
Speaker 1: or every ten searches whatever, they plant a tree. So
Speaker 1: it's like an Earth friendly search engine. Would you choose
Speaker 1: one of those over Google? I would personally not. I'm
Speaker 1: sticking with Google. Un Android, you can open Chrome. You
Speaker 1: can tap the three dots in the upper right hand
Speaker 1: corner and then tap settings search Engine, and they give
Speaker 1: you a choice of Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yan Dex.
Speaker 3: What's yandex? Is that like the Russian one? I gotta
Speaker 3: see what that is? Yand dex. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 3: the Russian search engine. Wow, I'm surprised that's a choice.
Speaker 3: And Duck duck go again. I'm not switching to any
Speaker 3: of those. I'm sticking to Google. That's why I like Chrome,
Speaker 3: That's why I use Google. Now where it gets interesting is,
Speaker 3: of course I'm using Google for search. But what am
Speaker 3: I using for AI? I'm not using Google majority of
Speaker 3: the time. What am I using I'm not even using
Speaker 3: chat GBT. I'm using something called Claude from Anthropic. I
Speaker 3: find it to be far superior to anything out there,
Speaker 3: especially when it comes to text.
Speaker 1: Anyway, big news for Google this week. We will see
Speaker 1: what happens, any kind of punishment. It might take six
Speaker 1: months to a year to find out. And Google, of
Speaker 1: course disagrees with all of this, and they are appealing
Speaker 1: that ruling. All right, Coming up on today's show, another
Speaker 1: story about Google. They are killing Chrome casts after eleven years.
Speaker 1: It's not as crazy as it sounds, I'll explain. But
Speaker 1: first your turn, your calls coming up at eight eight
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. My name is
Speaker 1: Rich Dmuro and 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 at Triple eight. Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Thanks for joining me today. I guess they're
Speaker 1: the ending the show early with this song.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, uh that the the intro was so
Speaker 1: bad that they're like, no more, no more, Rich, Uh No,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, but uh, it just goes to show
Speaker 1: that uh G O O G L E is always listening,
Speaker 1: so is s I R I and A L E
Speaker 1: X A. Who would have thought that you would need
Speaker 1: a degree in spelling to listen to a tech show,
Speaker 1: but these uh, you know, it's funny my uh my
Speaker 1: little uh what's it called a Google Home? That thing
Speaker 1: now when you look at it, it listens to you.
Speaker 1: And so every time you even go your eyes even
Speaker 1: go near the thing, it just starts like in listening mode.
Speaker 1: And my kid always walks by and he always says
Speaker 1: to to it. He says, why are you listening to me?
Speaker 1: Why are you listening?
Speaker 2: But it's just what these things want to do.
Speaker 1: Uh eighty eight Rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one the website for
Speaker 1: the show richon tech dot TV. Let's go to Adam
Speaker 1: in Orlando, Florida. Adam, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hi, Rich, thank you for taking my call. I have
Speaker 4: a question about an older Samsung TV that I have.
Speaker 4: It's I think it was made in twenty seventeen or
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen. It's a smart TV. I can use Netflix
Speaker 4: and I'm and all the regular apps, but it has
Speaker 4: a problem with the paramount Plus app. And so I
Speaker 4: tried it on a newer TV that I have in
Speaker 4: another room, and the Paramount Plus app works fine. So
Speaker 4: I suspect it's my older TV that's having a problem
Speaker 4: with it, even though the other apps work fine. And
Speaker 4: I guess my question is I don't want to replace
Speaker 4: the TV because it only is not working with the
Speaker 4: Paramount Plus. But I'm wondering if there's a maybe a
Speaker 4: less expensive way of figuring out this problem, maybe a firestick.
Speaker 4: I don't want to use rokup. I don't have rokup,
Speaker 4: but I don't want to use it because I don't
Speaker 4: want to give them. I believe you have to use
Speaker 4: a credit card number to use the Roku and I
Speaker 4: don't want to do that, So I'm wondering what options
Speaker 4: you may be aware of.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, first off, yeah, I mean number one. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the paramount plus support site and it does
Speaker 1: say paramount plus works on twenty seventeen Samsung TVs and
Speaker 1: newer running ties in so that sounds like your set
Speaker 1: would fit that bill. So I would try to troubleshoot
Speaker 1: this and get this thing working. I will tell you this,
Speaker 1: in my experience, paramount Plus has the worst app of
Speaker 1: any streaming service out there. I have the most issues
Speaker 1: with it. It does not work half the time, I
Speaker 1: can't get it to download to my devices, and it's
Speaker 1: just overall really really poorly done. It stutters, it's just
Speaker 1: not good. So with that said, once you get it
Speaker 1: up and running, it's still not that greade of an experience.
Speaker 1: But I think your model number is on the CUSP
Speaker 1: pure so it may just be that it's fallen off support.
Speaker 1: But it does say twenty seventeen models a newer it
Speaker 1: does not give a specific model number for that Samsung TV.
Speaker 1: So with that said, what I would do before you
Speaker 1: go trying something else, I would uninstall this app and
Speaker 1: then I would as much as you can update any
Speaker 1: sort of operating system on that Samsung TV. I would
Speaker 1: restart the TV, do like a nice restart where you
Speaker 1: go into settings and restart it, not just you know,
Speaker 1: turning it off and on, and then I would install
Speaker 1: this app again and log in again and see if
Speaker 1: it works. Then now, if none of that gets it
Speaker 1: to work, then I would look into an alternative, and
Speaker 1: I think the alternative is number one. Typically these TVs
Speaker 1: have casting built in, so I would just download the
Speaker 1: Paramount Plus app on your phone and past the picture
Speaker 1: to the TV. And usually all you have to do
Speaker 1: is download the app, make sure your phone is on
Speaker 1: the same Wi Fi network as the TV, and even
Speaker 1: if you have an iPhone, it should work. To cast
Speaker 1: this into the Samsung TV as well. You may have
Speaker 1: to put the Samsung TV. You may have to turn
Speaker 1: on that feature just to get that to work, but
Speaker 1: that's probably the simplest and easiest way. The only downside
Speaker 1: of that is that you're going to be controlling everything
Speaker 1: from your phone and not from the TV screen itself.
Speaker 1: But that's an easy way to continue using your TV
Speaker 1: the way you typically do. Just when you want to
Speaker 1: watch something on Paramount you've got to stream it. And
Speaker 1: keep in mind, even if it's coming from your phone,
Speaker 1: it's not actually streaming the show from your phone. Your
Speaker 1: phone is just acting as a remote control for the TV,
Speaker 1: and on the back end, your TV is just calling
Speaker 1: up that live stream or whatever that stream is and
Speaker 1: streaming it from its own data and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So that's number one.
Speaker 1: The other way is if you already have the Roku
Speaker 1: and you want to use that. Yes, I do believe
Speaker 1: that Roku requires some sort of level of payment information
Speaker 1: if you want to set up an account. These days,
Speaker 1: it's been a while since I did that. I think
Speaker 1: some people are grandfathered in, but they may require that.
Speaker 1: You could use an account like privacy dot com, so
Speaker 1: that could shield your credit card number. You could just
Speaker 1: use like a one time credit card or a virtual
Speaker 1: card number. Your bank might offer that, and that way
Speaker 1: they can't actually charge you for anything. So you can
Speaker 1: sign up for the account. They might authorize it for
Speaker 1: a dollar just to make sure that card works, and
Speaker 1: then you could just get rid of that card or
Speaker 1: pause it, and that way you never get charged. So
Speaker 1: that's another way. But I think the easiest way if
Speaker 1: you want to is just upgrade this old TV with
Speaker 1: a with a stick. The fire TV stick, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I think is probably going to be the cheapest and
Speaker 1: the easiest, and it does support all of these different apps,
Speaker 1: all of the main apps these days. Adam and Orlando,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for the call. Eight eight eight rich
Speaker 1: one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you why
Speaker 1: Google is killing Chrome Cast. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple A Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. The website
Speaker 1: for the show rich on Tech dot TV. All of
Speaker 1: the songs today you really liked last week when my
Speaker 1: mom chose all the songs. My mom is still in
Speaker 1: town and I said, Mom, you gotta do it again.
Speaker 1: People liked your eclectics taste in songs, and so she did.
Speaker 1: She came up with this list of songs and hand
Speaker 1: wrote it once again. And I think they're pretty good.
Speaker 1: So that was gosh, that was from a while ago. Aerosmith.
Speaker 1: Don't want to miss a thing. So speaking to my
Speaker 1: mom whenever she comes into town, we are pretty much
Speaker 1: we're like tourists in our own town, which I always
Speaker 1: it's fun when people come to town because you end
Speaker 1: up doing things you wouldn't typically do, and so it's
Speaker 1: always nice. And by the way, she watches my kids
Speaker 1: without any sort of asking. She'll just be like, go out, go,
Speaker 1: go go, and so we get to do that as well,
Speaker 1: which is kind of nice. But my kid has been
Speaker 1: begging me to play this song that he wrote about
Speaker 1: my mom, and he made it on his iPad. You know,
Speaker 1: my kids, I've got two kids ten and just turned thirteen.
Speaker 1: And when I tell you, they are so ahead of
Speaker 1: where we were when we were kids, it is incredible
Speaker 1: and it gives me a lot of faith for the
Speaker 1: future because these kids are so advanced that when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, you know, I was playing with dirt
Speaker 1: and worms and you know, just hanging out in the backyard.
Speaker 1: These kids, I mean, my kids are literally like hacking
Speaker 1: on computers, like just kidding, but they want to. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're literally they're so curious. Anyway, So my kid made
Speaker 1: this song called Grandma d on an an app called
Speaker 1: band Lab on his iPad. So take a listen question.
Speaker 1: Then you found a little home, sit a little hope here.
Speaker 1: I think he's just yelling.
Speaker 2: I missed that last.
Speaker 1: Line anyway, So you got Grandma d this is my
Speaker 1: my ten year old I haven't listened to this, okay anyway,
Speaker 1: So Tanner, there you go. There's your song that you
Speaker 1: want me to play on the radio. Eighty day eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Uh, clearly use a little
Speaker 1: bit of auto tune there. But again, Uh, it's just
Speaker 1: incredible what you can do with apps on your iPad.
Speaker 1: The stuff that I see my kids do and create,
Speaker 1: I mean, being a creator now compared to when I
Speaker 1: was coming up through the world, it is just incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, I paid today to buy capcut, which uh
Speaker 1: is TikTok's editing program, And I mean, it's just incredible
Speaker 1: what you can do on your phone with a mobile
Speaker 1: editing program. I grew up editing on tape to tape,
Speaker 1: three quarter inch tape to three quarter inch tape. Then
Speaker 1: eventually we got to VHS, and then eventually we got
Speaker 1: to digital. And now you are shooting on your phone
Speaker 1: using a microphone that is connected to your phone wirelessly,
Speaker 1: and you can make an entire video and then you
Speaker 1: can by the way put the captions on you can
Speaker 1: it's just quite quite incredible. So I am very impressed
Speaker 1: with what we are able to do nowadays. Speaking of apps,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite apps got a big update this week.
Speaker 2: It's called Flighty.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard me talk about it before if you've
Speaker 1: ever listened to me for more than a minute. But
Speaker 1: this is one of my all time favorite apps. But
Speaker 1: just to give you an example of how tough it is,
Speaker 1: even when I tell people how great things are, they
Speaker 1: still don't necessarily do it. So, for instance, I always
Speaker 1: tell people you got to use a password manager, you
Speaker 1: got to turn on two factor authentication, And nine times
Speaker 1: out of ten, when someone emails me and says they
Speaker 1: were hacked, I said, well did you have the No,
Speaker 1: I didn't do that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well I get it. It's tough.
Speaker 1: I know it's a little bit more work, but please
Speaker 1: do these things that I mention my sister she was
Speaker 1: flying and I said, oh, you gotta download Flighty, and
Speaker 1: she goes, what does it do that my airline app
Speaker 1: doesn't do?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1: Yes you can track using your airline app, but this
Speaker 1: is just so much more beautiful and it's not airline specific,
Speaker 1: and it's just really cool. So the main thing that
Speaker 1: they did this week they updated it to tell you
Speaker 1: about flight delays before your airline tells you. So they're
Speaker 1: now using machine learning AI to forecast delays up to
Speaker 1: six hours in advance, so before you even leave your house,
Speaker 1: it might be able to tell you that, hey, your
Speaker 1: flight's going to be delayed. Now what you do with
Speaker 1: that information is up to you. Are you going to
Speaker 1: stay home?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It depends on how seasoned of a traveler you are,
Speaker 1: But I think where this really comes in handy is
Speaker 1: when you might need to rebook a flight or change
Speaker 1: your flight preemptively because you know you're going to miss
Speaker 1: your connection or whatever because it's going to be late.
Speaker 1: So they claim up to ninety five percent accuracy. How
Speaker 1: are they doing this? They are looking at whether they're
Speaker 1: looking at airport issues, special events, happening, live performance, airport
Speaker 1: performance trends, FAA and euro controlled data for air traffic controls.
Speaker 1: I mean they're looking at a whole bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: feeding that all into their AI and then coming up
Speaker 1: with this information. Now, if you're not familiar with FLIGHTY
Speaker 1: in general, it is just a fantastic way to track
Speaker 1: your flights. You pop your flight number in there, it
Speaker 1: lives on your device. It finds all the information. What
Speaker 1: I particularly like is it tells you how old the
Speaker 1: airplane is, which is kind of fun because you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: and it not only tells you how old the plane is,
Speaker 1: it now tells you the name of the airplane. So
Speaker 1: Jet Blue and these other smaller airlines they like to
Speaker 1: have fun names for the aircraft, so they'll show you that.
Speaker 1: It also tells you if you've ever been on that
Speaker 1: route before before, how many times you've been on that route,
Speaker 1: and if you've ever been on that specific aircraft. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really quite incredible. It gives you a list of
Speaker 1: all the different flights that you've been on in the past.
Speaker 1: You can share your flight information with a friend, you
Speaker 1: can share it to your social media, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's so beautifully done that I keep telling the developer,
Speaker 1: I said, can you please make this for Android as well?
Speaker 1: So Android folks can enjoy this beautiful flight tracking app.
Speaker 1: And they're just doing so well on iPhone that they
Speaker 1: just they don't even have they're just not considering it
Speaker 1: Android right now. But last he said maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of years, but that is part of their paid they
Speaker 1: do have like a pro which is four dollars a
Speaker 1: week or forty eight dollars a year. Right now, this
Speaker 1: works on iPhone only if you are Android and you
Speaker 1: want something. The closest I've found is an app called
Speaker 1: App in the Air and that's but again not as beautiful,
Speaker 1: not as well designed. The notifications don't come in as fast,
Speaker 1: but it is it is a nice app to have.
Speaker 1: So again, if you're flying a lot, you know, these
Speaker 1: apps really do help, so check it out, Flighty.
Speaker 2: I'll put a link on the website. Rich on tech
Speaker 2: dot tv.
Speaker 1: Also this week, you might have gotten an email from
Speaker 1: Cash App saying you're eligible for a settlement. This is
Speaker 1: related to a data breach in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Is a fifteen million dollars settlement. Eligible
Speaker 1: class members are current and former Cash app customers that
Speaker 1: were affected between August twenty third, twenty eighteen, and August twentieth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. So you use the Cash app in
Speaker 1: those years, you may get up to twenty five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for documented losses related to the data breach. So
Speaker 1: this is not one of those things where you just
Speaker 1: get money because you're using the app. I've been using
Speaker 1: cash App since day one. I did not get an
Speaker 1: email about this, so I'm curious what makes you qualify
Speaker 1: For the email from them, maybe they know that your
Speaker 1: information was out there and you had some sort of loss.
Speaker 1: But the compensation will cover credit costs, bank fees, travel expenses,
Speaker 1: and up to three hours of lost time at twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars an hour, so that you could probably claim
Speaker 1: without sort of any receipts or anything. Say, yeah, this
Speaker 1: cost me a couple hours surfing the web seventy five bucks.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're eligible, you might as well claim.
Speaker 1: For filing is November eighteenth, twenty twenty four. You do
Speaker 1: have to have documentation of losses, so again this is
Speaker 1: not one of those like automatic things. But if you
Speaker 1: get an email, and again be careful because what happens
Speaker 1: is this is real. But scammers will capitalize on this,
Speaker 1: and so they will email you saying, hey, use the
Speaker 1: cash app here claim your money. So don't just like
Speaker 1: start typing in your information when you get something like that.
Speaker 1: Go to the official website Cashappsecuritysettlement dot com Cashappsecurity Settlement
Speaker 1: dot com. That is the official website and you can
Speaker 1: see more information about this. But again, fifteen million dollars
Speaker 1: settlement for cash App for data breaches in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two and twenty twenty three. All right, eight eight eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Coming up on the show,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about Samsung. They're announcing a recall.
Speaker 1: If you have a stove from them, you might want
Speaker 1: to hear this because they're recalling over a million stoves.
Speaker 1: And the website for the show rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: Can find me online on social media at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: And coming up later, I'm gonna have a guest that's
Speaker 1: going to tell you how you can plan your travel
Speaker 1: with your points. You are listening to Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Miro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology at triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Let's go to Paul in Columbus, Ohio. Paul,
Speaker 1: you're on with rich.
Speaker 5: Very great, Rich. Thanks, how you're doing today?
Speaker 2: I am doing fantastic. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Good thank you.
Speaker 6: Okay, I've got an older iMac the Night twenty fifteen
Speaker 6: model as a twenty seven inch great screen, and all
Speaker 6: won't be able to use it anymore. But bottom line,
Speaker 6: it's kind of pooping out. Wanted to consider another Mac,
Speaker 6: but concerned about.
Speaker 5: The ability to run Windows. I know right now the
Speaker 5: only way you can do it is with Parallels, which
Speaker 5: isn't the most economical way. But is there anything coming
Speaker 5: down the line where we'd be able to with the
Speaker 5: newer M chips be able to run Windows?
Speaker 2: Great question? Yeah, so I know I was. Let's see.
Speaker 1: So boot Camp is what Apple offers for free to
Speaker 1: install Windows on Mac computers, but like you said, that
Speaker 1: only works on the old Intel based computers. I don't
Speaker 1: see anything on their website about the you know, the
Speaker 1: new Apple Silicon, so like the M chips. Basically, let's
Speaker 1: see if they say anything about that. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: see anything about that, so it doesn't seem like they're
Speaker 1: bringing that back anytime soon. So, yes, you would need
Speaker 1: an older computer to do it that way. And you
Speaker 1: also mentioned Parallels, which of course is a very popular
Speaker 1: way to run Windows on a Mac computer virtually, But
Speaker 1: have you heard of VMware Fusion Pro. So I actually
Speaker 1: mentioned this on the show. I think, gosh, it might
Speaker 1: have been a couple of months ago, but they made
Speaker 1: this free. So this is a program that's typically two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and if you're using it for personal use,
Speaker 1: you can download this for free and emulate Windows on
Speaker 1: your Mac computer. So that would probably work for you.
Speaker 1: And it does work on the the M class chips,
Speaker 1: so I think that's probably your best bet, Paul, is
Speaker 1: to download this program if you get a new computer.
Speaker 1: Ironically or incidentally, I literally just got a new MacBook
Speaker 1: today using it for the first time. I had the
Speaker 1: old not old, it was only a year old or
Speaker 1: two years old, but it was the MacBook Pro and
Speaker 1: I bought the thirteen inch and it was just I
Speaker 1: could not deal with the screen size.
Speaker 2: It was so small.
Speaker 1: And I put up with it, I think, for two years,
Speaker 1: and I finally said, Okay, I've got to get a
Speaker 1: fifteen inch MacBook Air. And because I wanted a lighter computer,
Speaker 1: you know, that's why I went, not with the sixteen
Speaker 1: inch Pro. But anyway, I got it today. I I
Speaker 1: could not be happier with it. It is incredible and
Speaker 1: I don't run Windows on it. But maybe I'll try
Speaker 1: it with this you know this Fusion Pro thirteen, but
Speaker 1: again VMware Fusion Pro thirteen it's free for personal use.
Speaker 1: Used to be one hundred and ninety nine bucks, and
Speaker 1: that would let you run the Windows on your new
Speaker 1: Mac computer even if it has the newer chip. And
Speaker 1: I highly recommend if you're going to get a Mac
Speaker 1: at this point, going with the newer chips because Apple
Speaker 1: has really outdone themselves with this. They have done just
Speaker 1: such a great job in optimizing those chips.
Speaker 2: So there you have it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the call today from Columbus, Ohio. Appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and let's go to AJ in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 7: Hey Jay Rich, good morning, how are you.
Speaker 2: I am doing well, Good morning.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 8: Question.
Speaker 7: I heard your little blurb about the app that allows
Speaker 7: you great editing on TikTok. I'm a former cio Cto
Speaker 7: Technology all my lives decades. Love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 7: But I'm wondering about your take on the security issues
Speaker 7: around the use of TikTok just in general. Have heard
Speaker 7: lots of you know, pro cons about it, but wondering
Speaker 7: what the latest and greatest is from your perspective.
Speaker 1: All right, hold on, let me pour a drink here,
Speaker 1: let me turn on the fireplace. I gotta gotta get
Speaker 1: comfortable here in my lazy boy before I talk about this.
Speaker 2: I totally yeah, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I knew when I mentioned that that there would be
Speaker 1: some people like raising an eyebrow, be like interesting.
Speaker 2: So I'll start with this.
Speaker 1: Number one. I do not have TikTok on my phone.
Speaker 1: I think TikTok is pretty horrible. And it's not because
Speaker 1: of the data. It's actually because of what you see
Speaker 1: on there. And you know, for me, as a journalist,
Speaker 1: I deal in facts and I deal in stuff that
Speaker 1: when I put something on social media, I have fact
Speaker 1: check it. I fact checked it, I have vetted it.
Speaker 1: I have made sure that what I'm telling people is
Speaker 1: right and is truthful. And I feel like all of
Speaker 1: that is thrown away on TikTok. And not just that
Speaker 1: when you start watching something on TikTok, what does it do?
Speaker 1: It puts you down a rabbit hole of that exact
Speaker 1: content over and over in a thousand different ways. Not
Speaker 1: to mention that I just can't stand poor, poor quality
Speaker 1: of videos where people you know they do these things
Speaker 1: where they hold the microphone in front of their mouth.
Speaker 1: For some reason, I don't understand that they put the
Speaker 1: screen screen where it's like not fully green screened out.
Speaker 1: I don't understand that. Maybe I'm just old and curmudgeonly
Speaker 1: and I, you know, don't really know what the kids
Speaker 1: are doing on there. But my concerns with it is
Speaker 1: more that now, when it comes to data, I think
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of people out there concerned
Speaker 1: with how TikTok is using their data. And of course
Speaker 1: what I was talking about, which is cap cut, the
Speaker 1: most popular editing app on mobile, and it also has
Speaker 1: a desktop version as well. And I would be lying
Speaker 1: if when I installed a cap cut on my old computer,
Speaker 1: I did not think about the rampifications of China perhaps
Speaker 1: having some sort of access to data on my computer.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, I did not install it on
Speaker 1: my new desktop when I got it, because I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I feel comfortable with it on my phone.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why I feel comfortable with TikTok
Speaker 1: and even cap cut on my phone. It's because Apple
Speaker 1: is the one that is allowing that app on the phone,
Speaker 1: and Apple does not fool around with privacy and safety
Speaker 1: and security. So the information that TikTok can gather from
Speaker 1: your smartphone, and I'm talking iPhone only at this point
Speaker 1: is limited to what Apple allows every other app in
Speaker 1: the world to collect. So can they get the information
Speaker 1: and the maximum information they want out of there, Absolutely,
Speaker 1: but it's limited by what Apple does. And Apple has
Speaker 1: done a great thing with iOS where they put everything
Speaker 1: in these little compartments, and apps are not necessarily allowed
Speaker 1: to snoop those different compartments. So I do think that
Speaker 1: a lot of the privacy claims are they're way over sold.
Speaker 1: When it comes to TikTok Now and Android, I think
Speaker 1: there's a little bit more concern because the Android operating
Speaker 1: system does have a little bit more freedom with the
Speaker 1: apps to kind of snoop around in things that's getting
Speaker 1: closed up as well.
Speaker 2: I think Google is doing a much better job.
Speaker 1: But what I think is everything comes down to what
Speaker 1: you're comfortable with and the information you're giving out. So
Speaker 1: I think that you need to be careful with any
Speaker 1: app and anytime you're sharing personal information. Does TikTok have
Speaker 1: the location of every person that's using the app? Probably
Speaker 1: are they collecting data on their web surfing habits and
Speaker 1: things like that. Yeah, if you give them access to that,
Speaker 1: But I don't think it goes above and beyond what
Speaker 1: other apps are collecting. But I think, no matter what,
Speaker 1: you have to remain critical about any time you are
Speaker 1: installing an app, and anytime you're giving your information anywhere,
Speaker 1: whether it's on your phone, the web, and no matter
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Thanks for the call, Aja, Do you
Speaker 1: appreciate you listening? This is rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: There you can get my newsletter. There's a new issue
Speaker 1: today packed with all kinds of good information. Uh, just
Speaker 1: looking at some of the feedback so far on the show.
Speaker 1: We got an email from Gary in Burbank. He said
Speaker 1: the Flighty app is now also available on Android.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 1: He searched the playstore and sure enough, if you do
Speaker 1: search the Playstore for flight Y, there is an app.
Speaker 1: It says Flighty app flight tracker with five thousand downloads.
Speaker 1: Do not download that. Well, I mean unless you want
Speaker 1: that app. But that is not the app I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: And in fact, it looks like a third grader made
Speaker 1: this app and just they're playing on the name. So
Speaker 1: they're playing on the fact that you are searching for
Speaker 1: Flighty and it's not in it and it comes up
Speaker 1: as this that's not the same app. So let's see
Speaker 1: do they have any other apps? Now they have a
Speaker 1: couple apps, but yeah, so it's only got five thousand downloads.
Speaker 1: Flighty is not available for Android. I'm looking on the
Speaker 1: website right now, the official website flightyapp dot com. Be careful,
Speaker 1: you got it. This is one of the biggest issues
Speaker 1: with app names is that there are so many companies
Speaker 1: that prey upon people just searching and using you know,
Speaker 1: the name and or a variation of the name, or
Speaker 1: they use a sponsored ad with the name, and it's
Speaker 1: just you got to be very very careful. That's why
Speaker 1: I always try to give like official links for things.
Speaker 1: Over on Twitter, David said, I just got a new
Speaker 1: Roku device two weeks ago, no credit card needed, so
Speaker 1: do a little searching online and it seems like it's
Speaker 1: kind of a debate of whether you can set up
Speaker 1: a Roku account with a credit card or not. One
Speaker 1: of the posts I saw said that you can skip
Speaker 1: it at the bottom of the screen. It's got like
Speaker 1: a tiny little thing where you can bypass the credit card.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty, someone posted a link to a
Speaker 1: forum for Roku where if you go into myrocud my
Speaker 1: dot Roku dot com slash sign up slash no CC,
Speaker 1: it will apparently not ask you for the credit card.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that's true or not, but
Speaker 1: there you go. So kind of divided on that. But
Speaker 1: all these companies, you know, nowadays, all these companies want
Speaker 1: a credit card because they want you. They want to
Speaker 1: be able to make the purchase process as seamless as possible.
Speaker 1: They want you to say, oh, I want to rent
Speaker 1: a movie, and next thing you know, oh, I already
Speaker 1: have my credit card in there. Cool, I'll just rent
Speaker 1: it other than trying to find your card and input
Speaker 1: it at that time, And that gives you time to
Speaker 1: think and then you say never mind. Jay wrote in said,
Speaker 1: my Samsung phone fell in water. Is now done? Can
Speaker 1: I recycle it best Buy? Since I cannot reset it
Speaker 1: to factory setting. Is it possible for someone to access
Speaker 1: the data or is there any other option? Thanks, you
Speaker 1: could recycle it best buy. Best Buy says, and you
Speaker 1: can go to best Buy or Staples and recycle this.
Speaker 1: They both say that they dispose of these things properly,
Speaker 1: so you know, that means that they're not supposed to
Speaker 1: have their employees kind of looking at these things. And
Speaker 1: you know, and everyone I've talked to that recycles electronics,
Speaker 1: like the companies, if they're reputable, they go through and
Speaker 1: they make sure that these things are wiped before they
Speaker 1: actually recycle them, so you can feel comfortable. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really how comfortable you feel with putting this phone.
Speaker 1: If it does indeed have all of your data, then
Speaker 1: you know there is a risk. But the reality is
Speaker 1: your phone is probably protected with a passcode, so I
Speaker 1: think that even if someone got access to this phone,
Speaker 1: they would likely not get access to your information. So
Speaker 1: what they're going to do is when they get this phone,
Speaker 1: they're going to test it. They're going to see if
Speaker 1: it turns on. If it doesn't, then they're just gonna
Speaker 1: scrap it for parts. If it does, they're gonna put
Speaker 1: it on a machine that's gonna wipe it clean and
Speaker 1: then sort of get it set up again for recycling
Speaker 1: or for resale or whatever they do with these things.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they sell them, sometimes they scrap them, sometimes they
Speaker 1: get the little parts out of them. But I think
Speaker 1: you should be comfortable bringing it to Best Buy because
Speaker 1: they do pledge that they recycle these things in a
Speaker 1: safe manner.
Speaker 2: So there you have it.
Speaker 1: Let's see Solomon says, I've searched for all of your
Speaker 1: links trying to find the website for cash App. Where
Speaker 1: do you post the links to your show notes? Yes, sorry,
Speaker 1: I didn't mention I typically mentioned where you can find
Speaker 1: the links for the show notes. It is rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV. You hit the light bulb up at
Speaker 1: the top of the page and that will bring you
Speaker 1: to the show wiki. And the show wiki is basically
Speaker 1: just a list of all of the previous shows by date.
Speaker 1: This is show number eighty four. Click that and that
Speaker 1: will give you a list to all the links in
Speaker 1: real time. So you specifically were looking for that cash
Speaker 1: app settlement link, it is. It is on there because
Speaker 1: I keep very good notes, So thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Let's go to
Speaker 1: Michael in Huntington Beach.
Speaker 2: Michael, you're on with.
Speaker 8: Rich Hey, Rich Hey, I got a couple of problems
Speaker 8: with my almost new Samsung TV. It's the eight thousand series,
Speaker 8: is left twelve, three years old, and half of the
Speaker 8: screen is darker than the other half. And it started
Speaker 8: kind of noticeable, but it's like right smack down the
Speaker 8: middle on the left side where it's darker than the
Speaker 8: other half.
Speaker 2: And how can I help? What are you trying to
Speaker 2: figure out? What you can do? Huh?
Speaker 8: Yeah? I mean, is it fix the ball? Is it?
Speaker 8: Why is that happening after we had the worst luck
Speaker 8: with these TVs with I mean, it's only three years
Speaker 8: old and it's I think it's getting worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it sounds like it's one of the panels
Speaker 1: is going bad, like one of the one of the
Speaker 1: back light panels. That's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 1: And that could just be that, you know, you got
Speaker 1: a bad set. It could be something loose in there
Speaker 1: that you know your TV is obviously out of warranty
Speaker 1: at this point of course, right, Yeah, So I mean
Speaker 1: your options are, what do you want to do? Do
Speaker 1: you want to get a new TV? Do you want
Speaker 1: to try to fix this TV. You know, did they
Speaker 1: even have people that come to houses anymore to look
Speaker 1: at TVs like this?
Speaker 8: Because but I did find a guy like an hour
Speaker 8: away that said he could probably fix it for a
Speaker 8: couple of hundred dollars, but there's no guarantee.
Speaker 1: Is that worth it? Though a couple hundred bucks? I
Speaker 1: mean a new TV? You know, my last TV I
Speaker 1: bought was like under a thousand bucks, So I don't
Speaker 1: know if a couple of hundred.
Speaker 2: How much did you spend on this TV?
Speaker 8: It was four fifty and they're still for fifty, so.
Speaker 2: It's four hundred and fifty bucks. Yeah. I would not
Speaker 2: fix it for a couple hundred that's for sure. I would.
Speaker 1: What I would do personally is I would email Samsung.
Speaker 1: Have you done that yet?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, So what I would do is fire up chat EBT.
Speaker 1: Write out your story, like everything that's happening with this thing.
Speaker 1: Say you know, I've got the panel. It looks like
Speaker 1: the back light panel is going dead. I've had this
Speaker 1: for three years. I don't know if you're a good
Speaker 1: customer of Samsung or not. You can throw that in
Speaker 1: if you are, help it craft an email like explain
Speaker 1: what you want, I would like someone to come repair this.
Speaker 1: I think Samsung does have their own repair so they
Speaker 1: may just send someone there. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: just for their mobile stuff, but I have seen vans
Speaker 1: around town. I mean it says, let's see benefits. I mean,
Speaker 1: yeah they do. Yeah, they do have TV repair technicians,
Speaker 1: so they've got a Samsung has a large network of
Speaker 1: TV repair So if you go to Samsung dot Com,
Speaker 1: slash US, Slash Support, slash Service, you can request to repair.
Speaker 1: That way, I would at least try to get a
Speaker 1: free repair and see what happens.
Speaker 8: Why not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly why not. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know you may have to get a new TV,
Speaker 1: but you know you might as well go through the
Speaker 1: motions of trying to get what you can from Samsung.
Speaker 1: They're a big company. This does not cost them a lot,
Speaker 1: and it's a learning lesson, like why is this TV
Speaker 1: only lasting three years? That should not be the case.
Speaker 1: I've had TVs last a decade or more so for them,
Speaker 1: you know, by them giving you another model and taking
Speaker 1: back this one, they can analyze it and see what
Speaker 1: went wrong with that TV.
Speaker 2: So I think it's beneficial to them.
Speaker 8: Speaking of TVs having a long time, I had a
Speaker 8: Sony plasma that lasted me fifteen years. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 8: most beautiful picture you've ever seen in your life. I
Speaker 8: wish there were still plasmas you could buy.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, Yeah, I have a Sony plasma and
Speaker 1: it is it is like the single. It's the thing
Speaker 1: must weigh ten thousand pounds, the problem. But it is
Speaker 1: absolutely the most beautiful picture. And it's not just beautiful,
Speaker 1: it's like got a filmic quality to it, like it
Speaker 1: just it looks like if I was like a filmmaker,
Speaker 1: this would be the TV that I would watch a
Speaker 1: movie on because it's so good. I don't use yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean that's plasma, you know, versus h you know,
Speaker 1: LED and all these new you know, I mean, unless
Speaker 1: you have an old lead. Obviously those are very expensive,
Speaker 1: but they you know, I've got the black contrast and
Speaker 1: that that's much better than the LEDs. But the LEDs
Speaker 1: have come a long way. When I first switched to mine,
Speaker 1: I got a new TV. Recently, I bought a High
Speaker 1: Sense and it at first, yeah, and at first I
Speaker 1: was I was a little bit skeptical. I got it in,
Speaker 1: I got it installed, and I was like, ugh, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I like this as much. And within
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks we now I love it. I
Speaker 1: think it's fantastic for the price. I think it was,
Speaker 1: like I said, I think it was about maybe twelve
Speaker 1: hundred with tacks and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: But wow, it was. It was pretty good.
Speaker 8: I asked you one more quick sung question.
Speaker 2: I've got thirty seconds, so make it quick.
Speaker 8: Okay. I've got this thing that happens. It's not a jutter.
Speaker 8: It's like a jitter on the screen. It's like it's
Speaker 8: missing one thin pixel line and it'll jump. And it
Speaker 8: happens on download, or it happens on screaming screaming, and
Speaker 8: it also happens on UH antenna.
Speaker 2: Is this on?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: This is on your TV?
Speaker 8: It's on the Samsung, same Samsung TV. I've got two
Speaker 8: hundred up download, great wireless connection, and I can't figure
Speaker 8: this thing out. I've made every adjustment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think it sounds like you got
Speaker 1: a lemon there, Michael. I think you gotta press them
Speaker 1: hard and tell them, look, you know this is not
Speaker 1: you know you got to you gotta do something here,
Speaker 1: at least come out and look at it and tell
Speaker 1: me what's going on, because two things wrong. That's telling
Speaker 1: me that this thing could be a lemon eighty eight
Speaker 1: rich one on one eight eight eight seven four two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Remember you have the ability to
Speaker 1: get in touch with these big companies. It does not
Speaker 1: cost them a lot to help you out. It costs
Speaker 1: you a lot because it's your money. Does not cost
Speaker 1: them a lot. Press them, press them, press them. You're
Speaker 1: listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple eight rich one oh one, that is eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give
Speaker 1: me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: Website also an option. Just go to rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot tv hit contact. You can send an email. That's
Speaker 1: what Steve did in reference to the Samsung TV. He said,
Speaker 1: what about an extended warranty from a credit card that's
Speaker 1: usually included? And uh, I did think of that, but
Speaker 1: three years old, most of the cards I would say
Speaker 1: match like a year now. I should have said if
Speaker 1: if Michael bought it from Costco, because I believe you
Speaker 1: can return things pretty much, not forever, but I think
Speaker 1: some in some case as you can. I think for
Speaker 1: some of the electronics, I know you got to check
Speaker 1: it out, but Costco has a very lenient return.
Speaker 2: Policy, let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: And these credit cards, I just looked up on the
Speaker 1: points guy dot com. So USAA matches up to a
Speaker 1: year Visa infinite, one year visa signature, up to a
Speaker 1: year chase, up to a year, American Express one year,
Speaker 1: City two years. Wow, that's impressive. So and it's up
Speaker 1: to ten thousand dollars per claim for most of these. Now,
Speaker 1: in my experience, I don't think I've don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever maybe I tried to do this once and like
Speaker 1: it's just a nightmare.
Speaker 2: These these these credit cards.
Speaker 1: You know, they post all of these benefits, but when
Speaker 1: you go to actually use them, it could be a
Speaker 1: real pain.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, maybe that's just me.
Speaker 1: If you've used one of these like warranty extension things,
Speaker 1: let me know, But I kind of just imagine that
Speaker 1: they just they advertise them well, but then when people
Speaker 1: go to use them, it's like you got to jump.
Speaker 2: Through hoops to use them. But good suggestion there, Steve.
Speaker 2: Thanks for that.
Speaker 1: Let's go to David in Fontana. David, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 9: Hey, mister Rich, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I am doing excellent. Thanks for asking. What can I
Speaker 1: help with?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 9: You see, I bought a new iPhone fifteen titanium, okay,
Speaker 9: And I am a truck driver and I've been using
Speaker 9: iPhone for several years now, and I use a headset,
Speaker 9: a blue parrot headset to talk on the phone. Okay,
Speaker 9: And ever since I bought this new iPhone titanium, everything
Speaker 9: is just went paywire.
Speaker 7: It doesn't work the.
Speaker 9: I pull into it. It works fine. When I'm driving
Speaker 9: down the freeway, everything works fine. But as you like,
Speaker 9: pull into a business, it seems like their Wi Fi
Speaker 9: or something just blocks everything out.
Speaker 4: And I have a lot of network issues, connection issues
Speaker 4: with the new iPhone fifteen.
Speaker 9: So I don't know if it's go ahead.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, David.
Speaker 1: When you set this phone up, did you set it
Speaker 1: up fresh or did you copy everything over from your
Speaker 1: old device?
Speaker 9: I copied everything over from my old device.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 9: I don't know how Team mobile. I brought it from
Speaker 9: T Mobile.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 9: I did say everything like you said, yes.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they oh, they did it for you. They
Speaker 1: copied it over. Yeah, oh gosh, Okay, that's that's probably
Speaker 1: what's happening here. So I think what's happening here is
Speaker 1: that it just was not the cleanest copy. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're trying to get you out of there as soon
Speaker 1: as humanly possible, and so maybe they just did, you know,
Speaker 1: the simplest, quickest, easiest way. So I, personally, when I
Speaker 1: set up a new device, you just spent a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of money on a brand new, awesome iPhone fifteen titanium,
Speaker 1: and so I want to set that up the way
Speaker 1: I want to set it up, and I want it
Speaker 1: to be nice and fresh. I don't know what phone
Speaker 1: you came from, but you know there are some settings
Speaker 1: and things that were copied over that just might not
Speaker 1: really work very well on this new device. So what
Speaker 1: I would do, personally, what I would do if you're
Speaker 1: having all these problems, I would one hundred percent just
Speaker 1: format this phone and start fresh. So that means erase
Speaker 1: all content in settings and literally start over fresh. That's
Speaker 1: what I would do personally if I was having these issues.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to go that far, you can
Speaker 1: kind of reset things without going that far. So if
Speaker 1: you go into settings and then general, scroll all the
Speaker 1: way down and it will say transfer or reset iPhone.
Speaker 2: You tap there.
Speaker 1: I know it sounds scary, but you still have a
Speaker 1: lot of options before you actually do anything. And then
Speaker 1: it says reset. You tap reset, and then you get
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of options. It says reset all settings,
Speaker 1: reset network settings, delete all sims, reset keyboard, reset homescreen,
Speaker 1: reset location. What I personally might do is start with
Speaker 1: reset network settings. And what that's gonna do is clear
Speaker 1: out all of your Bluetooth and Wi Fi and cellular
Speaker 1: settings on this phone, and it will get them back
Speaker 1: to factory. And what that means is you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to reconnect Wi Fi, You're gonna have to reconnect Bluetooth,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to restart your phone to get the
Speaker 1: cellular going again. But it's all gonna work. And I
Speaker 1: think that you're you know, you're gonna have to reconnect
Speaker 1: your Bluetooth headset. But I think what's happening here is
Speaker 1: that some of these old Wi Fi networks that you've
Speaker 1: connected to. You said you're a truck driver, maybe at
Speaker 1: some of these like truck stops, your phone is trying
Speaker 1: to reach out to them and connect to them. And
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi signal is not very strong in your
Speaker 1: cab or wherever you are, and it's kind of like
Speaker 1: teetering between cellular and that, and so it's kind of
Speaker 1: having trouble keeping that connection. There's also another connection, another
Speaker 1: cellular set that you can go to inside there used
Speaker 1: to be inside the cellular. Let me see if it's
Speaker 1: still there. Yeah, inside cellular. If you go to setting cellular,
Speaker 1: says Wi Fi Assist, it will automatically use cellular data.
Speaker 1: When Wi Fi connectivity is poor, you can turn that
Speaker 1: on and it will automatically use cellular if it's trying
Speaker 1: to get a Wi Fi signal. That can anyway, David,
Speaker 1: hopefully get that phone back up and running. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the call.
Speaker 2: Today. Coming up, I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna tell you how to use your points to plan
Speaker 1: your travel. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology. The phone lines open at eight eight eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. We'll get back to
Speaker 1: them in just a moment. But very excited for my
Speaker 1: next guest, do you do it for the points. Well,
Speaker 1: if you do, you probably have a lot of them
Speaker 1: saved up, and you wonder how can you use them effectively?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of blogs out there talking about this stuff,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you just want to figure out, like, how
Speaker 1: can I use all these points from all these different
Speaker 1: programs And there is a website that can help. Bart
Speaker 1: Welch is CEO and co founder of a website called
Speaker 1: points Yeah dot com This helps you use your points
Speaker 1: to plan travel. Bart, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 10: Hey, thanks for having us on. Really excited to talk
Speaker 10: about Pointsdid dot com and nerd out a bit in
Speaker 10: this space because it's a space that a lot of
Speaker 10: people have their fingers in but don't really know how
Speaker 10: to utilize.
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you can rack up points pretty easily nowadays.
Speaker 1: I know many people are driven by that, but the
Speaker 1: most important part is using them and using them effectively.
Speaker 2: So what made you start this website?
Speaker 10: Yes, if I take a look back at the past
Speaker 10: decade or even a little bit longer than that, the
Speaker 10: points business used to be a lot simpler in a way.
Speaker 10: It wasn't as lucrative, but it was simpler. You knew
Speaker 10: that you had to save up twenty five thousand miles
Speaker 10: to you know, use a get a round trip metic
Speaker 10: economy ticket. These days, most the airlines have moved to
Speaker 10: dynamic pricing. Most credit card companies have their own points
Speaker 10: programs as well. There are proprietary portals, and you can
Speaker 10: also transfer your credit card points into airlines, and so
Speaker 10: it's just become a really complicated, complicated place. And so
Speaker 10: my co founder and I, we've been in this this
Speaker 10: party industry for quite some time. More on the earning
Speaker 10: point side, we said, hey, let's just make something that's
Speaker 10: simpler so that people just have to use one website
Speaker 10: to see you know, let's say you've got miles in
Speaker 10: two or three different airline programs or two or three
Speaker 10: different credit card programs, rather than having to have multiple
Speaker 10: tabs open and you know, opening up all these other
Speaker 10: online travel websites, just one website, and so that's points
Speaker 10: dot com. So you can basically search twenty different airline
Speaker 10: loyalty program six bank programs, and five online travel agencies
Speaker 10: all in one click. So it makes your life a
Speaker 10: heck of a lot easier.
Speaker 1: Instead of helping, so I see American Expresses on here,
Speaker 1: Built Rewards Capital One, Chase City Bank, Wells Fargo and
Speaker 1: the airline programs. I mean it looks like all of
Speaker 1: the major airlines, plus some of the international airlines, Jet Blue.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: So you put in your information, you know where you
Speaker 1: want to go, and then it searches in real time.
Speaker 1: What do you get for free versus pakes? I know
Speaker 1: there's a paid aspect, so explain what people get for free?
Speaker 10: Yeah, So basically the majority of the website is free,
Speaker 10: and I'd encourage people just to go to Points dot
Speaker 10: com check it out.
Speaker 2: Register.
Speaker 10: If you register for free, you can do searches for flights,
Speaker 10: for hotels, for all kinds of other things. We do
Speaker 10: have a paid model, which is just shied ninety dollars
Speaker 10: a year. It's still one of the cheapest out there
Speaker 10: in the markets. That opens up additional alerts, you know,
Speaker 10: additional being able to search more dates at one time.
Speaker 10: But the core features are totally free and that's been
Speaker 10: a huge part of our success. And you know, I'm
Speaker 10: really proud to say in the last month we've actually
Speaker 10: become the number one Points planning website on the globe.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, congratulations.
Speaker 1: I Mean, the real magic of this is, like you said,
Speaker 1: it used to be very simple. You got a certain
Speaker 1: amount of points, you had a free flight. Now what
Speaker 1: it really comes down to is how can I get
Speaker 1: a free flight for the cheapest use or the most
Speaker 1: effective use of my points?
Speaker 2: Is that kind of right?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 10: I mean you can play that quite a few different ways,
Speaker 10: because let's say you've only got miles and points with
Speaker 10: one in one program or one airline. Even within that program,
Speaker 10: on any given day or given week, you might see
Speaker 10: the same exact flight for five thousand miles or one
Speaker 10: hundred thousand miles, because it's tied much more to the
Speaker 10: price of the actual picket now than it used to be.
Speaker 10: So that's kind of point number one. Point number two
Speaker 10: is that you know, if you happen to have miles
Speaker 10: across multiple programs, you know these programs are competing with
Speaker 10: each other now on pricing when it comes to miles
Speaker 10: and points. Miles and points effectively have become a cash currency.
Speaker 10: In fact, my mom called me up recently. I was like, Hey,
Speaker 10: I know, you've got a bunch of miles and points,
Speaker 10: and I was like, Mom, you're basically asking me for money,
Speaker 10: because you know, loyalty currency is money at this at
Speaker 10: this stage, of the game, and I always recommend to
Speaker 10: people it's generally depreciating asset, so you should get on
Speaker 10: points dot com and use those miles and points.
Speaker 1: Oh so you're saying that you shouldn't just like keep
Speaker 1: them forever.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think that's that's the worst strategy ever. Actually,
Speaker 10: over time, the value of mile end point has gone down,
Speaker 10: and these days, with interest rates being pretty decent and
Speaker 10: inflation being high, you should be using those miles and
Speaker 10: points because otherwise it's really a depreciating asset.
Speaker 1: So I got an alert that my Highatt points were expiring,
Speaker 1: which I was like, oh wow, I didn't even know that,
Speaker 1: and so I felt so proud of myself. I had
Speaker 1: booked a hotel for an upcoming stay paid and then
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I wonder if there's a Hyatt
Speaker 1: in there. And I was able to transfer a couple
Speaker 1: just like a tiny amount of points into my Higatt
Speaker 1: program and now I got a completely free hotel room
Speaker 1: on points that we're going to expire. And I didn't
Speaker 1: even realize I had them, and they weren't that many points.
Speaker 1: I guess Hyatt points are worth like kind of a lot,
Speaker 1: even if you have a little so it was like
Speaker 1: one room was like fifteen thousand points or something.
Speaker 10: Yeah, Hyatt's a great program. I think most you know,
Speaker 10: most of the hotel chains have great programs, and a
Speaker 10: lot of these loyalty programs these is they technically don't
Speaker 10: expire if you've got some kind of activity. That activity
Speaker 10: could literally be like earn one mile on a credit
Speaker 10: card or you know, do a redemption for a hotel
Speaker 10: or a flight. And one thing that we love is
Speaker 10: that on points dot com you can actually check hotel
Speaker 10: awards as well. Most websites just focus on flights, but
Speaker 10: on us, let's say you want to go to New
Speaker 10: York or Las Vegas or whoever you type in the city.
Speaker 10: You can even put in your preferred program and then
Speaker 10: we'll show you, you know, how many points that hotel
Speaker 10: had cost if you're using miles or points. But then
Speaker 10: also let's say you don't have enough miles or points.
Speaker 10: You want to actually pay cash or book on one
Speaker 10: of the airline reward portals, so we show you all
Speaker 10: those different options. Really, the purpose offpointsid dot com is
Speaker 10: to consolidate all these bits and pieces of information that
Speaker 10: are all over the Internet into one spot, so you
Speaker 10: don't have to have twenty five tabs open, don't have
Speaker 10: to have a Google sheet open when you're supposed to
Speaker 10: be really enjoying the fact that you've earned these rewards.
Speaker 1: Now, I always get the indication that these airlines and
Speaker 1: hotels they don't want you to use these points. They
Speaker 1: make it really tough, like you said, to compare and
Speaker 1: contrast and also figure out your transfer partners. And so
Speaker 1: how do you get the information behind this? Like do
Speaker 1: the airlines like let you tap into their systems? Like
Speaker 1: how do you know when American Airlines has a flight
Speaker 1: for these twenty five thousand points or whatever you know.
Speaker 10: About I think it was just shive a decade ago.
Speaker 10: There is some change in legislation in the US where
Speaker 10: miles and points used to be considered a liability on
Speaker 10: balance sheets, and now that's considered deferred revenue. And so actually,
Speaker 10: most these loyalty programs now do have an incentive to
Speaker 10: get the points off the books because they get to
Speaker 10: recognize the revenue, and so they have you know, even
Speaker 10: on their own websites. Made it more transparent and easier.
Speaker 10: But at the end of the day, these are the
Speaker 10: companies that are you know, trying to sell flights, trying
Speaker 10: to sell hotel rooms for you know, the primary focus
Speaker 10: of their business. So the quality of those tools aren't
Speaker 10: always the best, and so companies like ours have been
Speaker 10: able to build tools that effectively create that transparency and
Speaker 10: create that ease of ease of information. Like one example,
Speaker 10: on our website, we have this feature called Daydream Explorer,
Speaker 10: and it's honest to god, I've been in this industry
Speaker 10: for a long time. It's the coolest thing ever. Where
Speaker 10: I can put in I'm based in Chicago. I can
Speaker 10: put in Chicago and I want to go to Asia
Speaker 10: over these two months. This is the These are the
Speaker 10: airline programs I'm part of. These are the credit card
Speaker 10: cards that I have, and it will literally show me
Speaker 10: all of the options in one go, Whereas that used
Speaker 10: to take me probably an entire weekend of sitting on
Speaker 10: my couch trying to figure out, you know, how can
Speaker 10: I use these miles and points?
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I I just went to this page, and
Speaker 1: I can tell you guys are true nerds by looking
Speaker 1: at this page, because it is it is literally every
Speaker 1: option that you would want, as like a real traveler
Speaker 1: like I can see you can choose your cabin, the program,
Speaker 1: the number of seats, how many stops, how many points
Speaker 1: you want to use, you know, whether you want to
Speaker 1: go to the beach, family fishing golf. I mean it's
Speaker 1: really very very thorough, and so you're thinking like in
Speaker 1: advance of how people would think when they search for
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: It is very very handy.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 10: What to be rich honestly is we're trying to appeal
Speaker 10: to like the nerd qualities that myself and my co
Speaker 10: founder have because we've been in this space for a
Speaker 10: long time, but then also democratize it for people who
Speaker 10: don't necessarily understand what a cabin is or cabin frequency is.
Speaker 10: You know, my mom being the great EXAs, she's got
Speaker 10: Capital one Point, she's got Southwest Points, she's got American
Speaker 10: Airlines miles, and she's always reaching out to me saying, hey, Bart,
Speaker 10: how can I use my miles and points? I said, hey,
Speaker 10: just go on go on points dot com. You don't
Speaker 10: need to ask me anymore. It's gonna save me phone
Speaker 10: calls from mom.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I've heard that before actually from a lot of great
Speaker 1: ideas come from saving phone calls from parents. And you
Speaker 1: can focus on actually just chatting with them instead of
Speaker 1: providing tech support or the Points travel stuff. Bart Welch,
Speaker 1: CEO and co founder of points Yeah dot com. We're
Speaker 1: gonna leave it there. Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: Thanks rich for.
Speaker 10: Having me, and please check out the website if you
Speaker 10: haven't yet. It's pretty much free.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very very cool. I'll put the link on my website.
Speaker 1: Go to rich on tech dot tv. If you want
Speaker 1: to plan travel using and maximizing your Points, just go
Speaker 1: to rich on tech dot tv. Hit that light bulb
Speaker 1: icon up at the top.
Speaker 2: This is show number eighty four. You can get a
Speaker 2: link to Points. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Coming up, I'll tell you why Google is killing the
Speaker 1: Chrome cast in my Roku is getting into sports. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you talking technology at triple A Rich one on one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. I just want to bring up Jonathan from
Speaker 1: a Fountain Valley. You had a comment about the TV warranty.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I've used the Costco one before. Yeah, the Costco
Speaker 7: one is very cheap and inexpensive and it works.
Speaker 2: You're talking to the extended warranty.
Speaker 7: The extended warranty and their credit card one too. And
Speaker 7: I had I had an issue with with the I
Speaker 7: think it's all state that handles it, and they want
Speaker 7: to give me a lower grade television because it had
Speaker 7: to be replaced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what.
Speaker 7: Ended up happening is talking with the management of Costco.
Speaker 7: They got on the phone with with with All eight
Speaker 7: and they got it resolved and they got me They
Speaker 7: they couldn't replace the exact TV, but what they did
Speaker 7: is they gave me the amount of money I paid
Speaker 7: for the TV, which at that point in time was
Speaker 7: nine hundred and ninety nine dollars and the Coppable TV
Speaker 7: was like eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Now, oh well, going.
Speaker 7: Through Costco, it was just absolutely perfect.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well, they just really take take good care of you.
Speaker 7: So and they're and they're extended warranty, so you can
Speaker 7: get five years a warranty for like one hundred and
Speaker 7: fifty to two hundred dollars total.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm looking at their website, so you're right. It's
Speaker 1: all state protection plans that they do. And then Costco
Speaker 1: says it extends the manufacturer's warranty on the following items
Speaker 1: from up to two years from the date of warehouse purchase,
Speaker 1: so televisions, projectors, computers, and major appliances. So if you're
Speaker 1: saying they extend the man if they're saying they extend
Speaker 1: the manufacturers warrant you, Let's say you get a year
Speaker 1: from the manufacturer, so they'll extend that for another for
Speaker 1: another year, or for up.
Speaker 7: To another year, another year, the year, or it could
Speaker 7: be two If I think if you use their credit card,
Speaker 7: I think it's two years. If you're doing it paying
Speaker 7: cash forward, then I think it's only one year. But
Speaker 7: I think if you're using their credit card, it's it's
Speaker 7: two years. Yeah, but you can get total up to
Speaker 7: like five years, five years of warranty on the television.
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like you made out in your in
Speaker 1: your experience there with getting more than you actually paid
Speaker 1: for the TV or what you paid for the TV.
Speaker 1: Then you could buy the new TV for cheaper. Of course,
Speaker 1: you paid for the extended warranty, so that might have
Speaker 1: been taken out of that there. But thanks for the call, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I'm typically not an extended warranty person, and
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I've I've I've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but even with my MacBooks. I know, I know Apple,
Speaker 1: like a lot of their business is apple Care, right,
Speaker 1: and I get it. They have all these stores everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's very easy, but I think you have to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, do the math on things and see if
Speaker 1: it's if it's worth it for you. It does give
Speaker 1: you peace of mind, and I think for a lot
Speaker 1: of people that peace of mind. You know, you got
Speaker 1: to put a price on that, you know, it's part
Speaker 1: of what makes you feel like, Okay, this is great.
Speaker 1: I remember one time I was in an Apple store.
Speaker 1: I was buying an iPhone and they said, you want
Speaker 1: apple Care on this phone. This was many years ago,
Speaker 1: and I think the Apple Care was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe ninety nine bucks whatever it was, And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: absolutely no, I don't do extended warranties. And then five
Speaker 1: seconds later I put a case on the table to
Speaker 1: buy with my phone, and that was fifty dollars. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, so I could just get an extended warranty,
Speaker 1: not by the case, but anyway, I thought that was funny,
Speaker 1: you know. It's one of those things. By the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize I was kicking a bee's nest last weekend,
Speaker 1: I went to Costco after the show and I posted
Speaker 1: on X that I had never seen this before, but
Speaker 1: Costco is now asking folks to scan their membership card
Speaker 1: at the door, and I'd never seen that before, and
Speaker 1: so I took a picture. I posted it to X
Speaker 1: and next thing, you know, that was like a top
Speaker 1: story this week because I guess they rolled that out
Speaker 1: to a bunch of stores all at once, and it's
Speaker 1: to crack down on you know, membership bandits, so folks
Speaker 1: that are either using expired cards or folks that are
Speaker 1: freeloading and using a friend's card. So now they're checking
Speaker 1: your picture against the picture on the account, making sure
Speaker 1: that it's you. And it does work with the app,
Speaker 1: So if you're using the Costco app, which I highly
Speaker 1: recommend by the way, if you have a Costco card,
Speaker 1: stop using the actual physical card. Just add the card
Speaker 1: to the Costco app, so much easier. The only thing
Speaker 1: I've noticed is that it's a little bit different. Now
Speaker 1: this is probably not a big issue for most people.
Speaker 1: It is for me since I switch phones so often,
Speaker 1: But if you are using the Costco app on your phone,
Speaker 1: you can only have it linked to like one phone
Speaker 1: at a time, So just be aware of that limitation
Speaker 1: because they don't want you installing it on ten different
Speaker 1: phones because it is an issue anyway. Eighty to eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one eight eight eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one is the phone number for the show. So chrome
Speaker 1: Cast ending production after eleven years. This is one of
Speaker 1: Google's most successful devices and they are getting rid of it.
Speaker 1: After eleven years, they sold over one hundred million devices.
Speaker 1: Now I know this sounds wild. You're like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: I have a chrome Cast. No, you're gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: Number one. They're going to continue to provide software and
Speaker 1: security updates for existing chrome Cast devices for at least
Speaker 1: a while, and if you have one, you're going to
Speaker 1: be okay.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: What's really happening here is that Google is understanding that
Speaker 1: chrome Cast had a great place in time in history.
Speaker 1: When it first came out in twenty thirteen. This was
Speaker 1: a small kind of stick that plugged into the back
Speaker 1: of a TV. And what it did was it allowed
Speaker 1: you to cast content from your phone, your tablet, or
Speaker 1: your computer. And this was at a time before TVs
Speaker 1: were truly smart, and so it was a cheap, simple
Speaker 1: way to get things from your phone to your TV.
Speaker 1: And nowadays, of course, this technology is built into a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other devices, so smart TVs, you know,
Speaker 1: you have a streaming stick that you can use. So
Speaker 1: it's just kind of a sign of the times that
Speaker 1: we may no longer need to have this Chrome dongle.
Speaker 1: You can still do it, because it's going to be
Speaker 1: now now it's all about casting from your device to
Speaker 1: a TV, you know, using kind of an app or
Speaker 1: something that's built into the TV. So the good news
Speaker 1: is that the Chrome cast is going away, but I
Speaker 1: think the Chrome cast technology is going to stay. And
Speaker 1: now they kind of call it Google Cast. It's built
Speaker 1: into many TVs. It's kind of the equivalent of airplay
Speaker 1: on you know, the Apple devices. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this week also Google came out with a new Google
Speaker 1: TV streamer and this is a set top box, So
Speaker 1: again changing times. They're going from sort of that dongle
Speaker 1: that lets you add content to your TV in a cheap, fast,
Speaker 1: simple way to now saying, you know what, I think
Speaker 1: the streaming box is the wave of the future. Remember
Speaker 1: Chrome cast when it was a dongle, your phone was
Speaker 1: the remote control. And now of course we've all moved
Speaker 1: to kind of either a smart TV or a streaming box.
Speaker 1: But if you have one of these things plugged into
Speaker 1: your phone, you'll still be okay. Plugged into your TV,
Speaker 1: you'll still be okay. Eighty eight Rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Website for the show rich on Tech dot TV. Coming
Speaker 1: up in the next hour. I got so much feedback
Speaker 1: about last week's story about the guy who said his
Speaker 1: Apple Watch saved his life. I'm gonna read so many
Speaker 1: stories or a bunch of the stories that I got
Speaker 1: about this, and uh, explain more about it. Eighty eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one. This is rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology. The website for the show rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot TV. If you want links to think
Speaker 1: I mentioned, hit the light bulb. If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch, just hit contact and yeah, Roku's got
Speaker 1: a new twenty four to seven free sports channel. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, these free channels are all the rage right now.
Speaker 1: Every single service is doing free channels. It's funny because
Speaker 1: it was all about streaming, you know, these premium like
Speaker 1: Netflix and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But now everyone's doing free.
Speaker 1: Netflix has yet to jump into that, but I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that they may because people want choice and
Speaker 1: they want stuff for free. And so Roku now has
Speaker 1: a Roku Sports channel launching on August twelfth, that's this
Speaker 1: week and be available for free on the Roku channel
Speaker 1: in the US. Programming will have live Major League Baseball games,
Speaker 1: the Rich Eisen Show, Formula eraces, sports themed Roku originals,
Speaker 1: classic boxing matches, combat sports, high stakes poker, and then
Speaker 1: eventually they're gonna have the NBA G League games, which
Speaker 1: I had to look up. I didn't know what that was,
Speaker 1: but it's I guess it's like kind of a bobo.
Speaker 2: You know what that is? NBA G League Have you
Speaker 2: heard of it.
Speaker 1: It's like the the developmental league for the NBA teams.
Speaker 1: So I was looking that up and it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: So that'll be on there as well.
Speaker 11: So pretty much like every team has their own development team,
Speaker 11: So like the Lakers have the South Bay Lakers, Clippers
Speaker 11: have another team and it's like the team that they
Speaker 11: developed to try to hopefully bring to the majors.
Speaker 2: So are these like high school kids or college kids
Speaker 2: or just.
Speaker 1: Anya anyone anyone. Yeah, interesting, very cool. So this will
Speaker 1: be available through the Roku channels, Live TV guide, and
Speaker 1: again these free channels. I was on Google TV and
Speaker 1: they've got like eight hundred free channels and it's just wild.
Speaker 1: You can watch all kinds of stuff. Some people just
Speaker 1: like to have the TV running in the background, you know,
Speaker 1: Like that's how I grew up, just having you know,
Speaker 1: it's streaming, you have to like decide what you want
Speaker 1: to watch. But with stream you know, with these fast channels,
Speaker 1: you can just put them on and they just stay
Speaker 1: on forever. I mean, Pluto TV's got them and it's
Speaker 1: really quite interesting to watch this progression. By the way,
Speaker 1: speaking of streaming, I talked about the Chrome cast going away.
Speaker 1: Google TV Streamer is what's replacing it. This is a
Speaker 1: four K box. It's one hundred bucks. It'll be available
Speaker 1: on September twenty fourth. It's got Ai powered content suggestions,
Speaker 1: four K HDR, double Vision, Dolby ATMOS. It'll be a
Speaker 1: matter hub, which means it'll control your smart home devices.
Speaker 1: It'll have a remote control with a finder button, which
Speaker 1: means if you lose it in the couch, you can
Speaker 1: find it.
Speaker 2: This is coming out very soon.
Speaker 1: And my excitement for this is that I can finally
Speaker 1: set Google Photos for my screensaver because I use Apple
Speaker 1: TV and as much as I love it, it's clean,
Speaker 1: it's nice, it's just you know, the asking it for
Speaker 1: stuff like the audio, like the series is just not
Speaker 1: very good. Last night I asked for John Candy movies
Speaker 1: and it was like, sorry, don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: It's like, how do you not know that? And Google
Speaker 1: their AI for asking it? Like Google as system is
Speaker 1: really really good, and I imagine it's even better on
Speaker 1: this new box. So I'm looking forward to trying this
Speaker 1: out just for my Google Photos, but of course for
Speaker 1: everything else. Let's see here, Let's go to David in
Speaker 1: Trabuco Canyon, California.
Speaker 2: David, you're on with.
Speaker 7: Rich Ye hopefully I've got a quick question for you.
Speaker 7: A friend of mine wants to use chat GPT. Okay,
Speaker 7: she's using Android, Linux and Windows systems. Obviously, the Android
Speaker 7: and the Linux, it's pretty straightforward app download. Windows can't
Speaker 7: find one. So is there a way around that? Or
Speaker 7: is there an alternative.
Speaker 2: System for chat GPT on the desktop?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 1: I would just use the website chat GBT and go
Speaker 1: from there. And you know, if you're I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the website right now, it doesn't look like you can
Speaker 1: install it as like a progressive web app. But I
Speaker 1: would just bookmarkt and just have it on your on
Speaker 1: your browser at all times. There is there is a
Speaker 1: chat GPT desktop app. Let's see if they have it.
Speaker 1: I know they have it for Mac. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they have it for Windows. Let's see, okay, chat
Speaker 1: g Yes.
Speaker 4: According to my I people, they said that it would
Speaker 4: be available for Windows in November of this year.
Speaker 2: Interesting, I wonder where they're getting that. Maybe it's on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, they Okay, at the at the very bottom
Speaker 1: of the screen, it does say coming to Windows later
Speaker 1: this year, so to me that you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: say a specific day, but you know later this year.
Speaker 1: Since we're already in August, I'm guessing you know, probably
Speaker 1: November December. But yeah, they do have it for Mac
Speaker 1: os uh and yeah, the Windows one is coming soon.
Speaker 1: But I would just personally, I just use it. The
Speaker 1: only thing is it would be nice if you could
Speaker 1: install it as, like I said, a progressive web app.
Speaker 1: It looks like mine on claud you can maybe because
Speaker 1: I'm not logged into chat ebt. It's not letting me
Speaker 1: have that option. But yeah, that's the probably the best
Speaker 1: way to do it.
Speaker 2: Just keep it with.
Speaker 7: Nice if you can load it on all the systems.
Speaker 7: That way, you break off one, you can pick it
Speaker 7: right up on the other one. So that's the only
Speaker 7: downside I can see.
Speaker 1: Well you can do that, I mean it'll it'll still
Speaker 1: continue with your chats. So I'm looking at my side
Speaker 1: you know, I've got my sidebar with all my chats here,
Speaker 1: and they're they're they pick up across systems, So as
Speaker 1: long as you're logged in your your chats should be
Speaker 1: picked up across all the systems. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: it's just a temporary issue with the Windows situation. I
Speaker 1: personally just prefer using it as the web app. I
Speaker 1: don't really know what the advantage is to the desktop app,
Speaker 1: except you have a shortcut. You can set a shortcut
Speaker 1: key to trigger it, which is kind of nice. But
Speaker 1: I did have it install to my Mac for a
Speaker 1: while and I kind of forgot about it, and I
Speaker 1: just I just ended up going to the website when
Speaker 1: I need it. But personally, I use Claude. I'm not
Speaker 1: using chat ebt as much as Claude, but I know
Speaker 1: chat GBT is sort of the proprietary eponym. Right now
Speaker 1: for all this stuff, Let's go to Louis in Let's
Speaker 1: see as I think.
Speaker 2: Kim might be on with him. It looks like Louis.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think yeah, I think we're still getting info
Speaker 1: from Louis. All right, well that's happening. I mentioned that
Speaker 1: Samsung has a recall Samsung voluntary recall for certain slide
Speaker 1: in electric model ranges. So these are stoves basically that
Speaker 1: can apparently catch fire because of the knobs might be
Speaker 1: activated without you realizing it, so voluntary recall. These are
Speaker 1: models sold in the US between twenty thirteen and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, so a wide swath of Samsung stoves potential
Speaker 1: activation of range knobs posing a fire hazard. So Samsung
Speaker 1: is offering free knoblocks or covers to fix the affected models.
Speaker 1: Thirty specific model numbers are affected by this recall. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to read all the numbers, but I'll link
Speaker 1: them up.
Speaker 2: On the website.
Speaker 1: You can continue to use your range while waiting for
Speaker 1: the free knoblocks or covers. You do need to provide
Speaker 1: your fifteen digit serial number to get the free fix. Here,
Speaker 1: Samsung recommends general safety precautions such as not storing items
Speaker 1: on the range top and keeping children and pets away
Speaker 1: from the knobs. The knoblocks or covers should arrive within
Speaker 1: five business days of completing this request. So the recall
Speaker 1: remedies provided free of charge, regardless of warranty status. So
Speaker 1: again you can go to there's a website Samsung dot com.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of complicated, but I will put the
Speaker 1: link on my website. Rich on tech dot tv, just
Speaker 1: hit the light bulb. This is show number eighty four.
Speaker 1: Look for the Samsung recall information and you can check
Speaker 1: your model number, see if it's affected, and go from there.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. I mentioned the fit
Speaker 1: Ace LT. This is the smart watch that Google came
Speaker 1: up with for kids. I think it is excellent. My
Speaker 1: kid has been wearing it and testing it, and I
Speaker 1: think it's fantastic. I would only say my only downside
Speaker 1: with this smart watch is I don't think it has
Speaker 1: the strongest antenna for a signal. But I feel like
Speaker 1: that's a problem with a lot of smart watches, especially
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch.
Speaker 2: And this one.
Speaker 1: I just maybe they just can't build the same type
Speaker 1: of antenna that they can on your phone in these
Speaker 1: smart watches, so I feel like it doesn't pick up
Speaker 1: a signal as much as some other devices would like
Speaker 1: a smartphone. But with that said, it does work. It
Speaker 1: is really nice. It is as advertised, but they have
Speaker 1: added a couple new features in time for the school year.
Speaker 1: They did introduce a tap to fay tap to pay feature.
Speaker 1: But here's the weird thing. It's only compatible with green
Speaker 1: Light and Go Henry debit cards. Now, I know those
Speaker 1: are two popular debit cards for kids, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why they didn't just make it compatible with every
Speaker 1: debit card. But at start it's compatible with those to
Speaker 1: It also has two new games they added, plus the
Speaker 1: school time feature, which kind of disables the watch, not
Speaker 1: disables it, but it makes it so that it's not
Speaker 1: going to be distracting during the school day. They added
Speaker 1: a lunch break option, so if your kid has lunch
Speaker 1: from like, let's say, eleven thirty to twelve thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning. By the way, I don't know why kids'
Speaker 1: school lunches are so early, Like my kids are like, oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lunch.
Speaker 1: Our lunch is at like ten to fifteen AM. Like what,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because you've been at school for so early.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: But they added a lunch break option so that you
Speaker 1: can have your your phone or your watch available during
Speaker 1: lunch break. Right now, it's got a thirty dollars discount
Speaker 1: from August eleventh through twenty fifth on the Google Store.
Speaker 1: You can also buy it at best Buy and Target
Speaker 1: online in addition to Amazon. When it came out, it
Speaker 1: was only sold on Amazon and Google. And they're still
Speaker 1: doing their fifty percent discount on the annual ACE Data
Speaker 1: pass if you purchase it before August thirty first, So
Speaker 1: it's a one hundred twenty bucks for the year for the
Speaker 1: data for this device. If you buy it right now,
Speaker 1: you'll get fifty percent off, which is sixty dollars. So
Speaker 1: the neat thing about this fitbit acelte is it has
Speaker 1: cellular built in so that you can get in touch
Speaker 1: with your kid anywhere anytime.
Speaker 2: You can call and message them.
Speaker 1: Once again, the biggest downside is that this device is
Speaker 1: not assigned a traditional phone number, so you cannot just
Speaker 1: give someone a phone number to call your kid. Let's
Speaker 1: say Grandma's picking them up from school. Say okay, you
Speaker 1: can get in touch with Johnny by calling them at
Speaker 1: their watch. No, you can't do that. They would have
Speaker 1: to download the fipbit Ace app. You have to add
Speaker 1: them as a contact, and then they can message and
Speaker 1: call through the app. It's all done voiceover IP, so
Speaker 1: it is not a traditional phone number like you would
Speaker 1: get assigned with the Apple Watch. That is a big
Speaker 1: delineation between these two devices. Some people may find that
Speaker 1: that's a good thing because there's no there's no spam
Speaker 1: because of that. Some people may see that as a
Speaker 1: downside because it's just a little more hoops to jump
Speaker 1: through to get in touch with these watches. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up, a lot of you emailed me about the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch and the life saving story I shared last week.
Speaker 1: Coming up, I'm gonna read some of your emails about that.
Speaker 1: You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: talking Technology website for the show Richontech dot TV. Disney
Speaker 1: is raising prices once again. They just really must need
Speaker 1: the money because they have continued to announce price increases
Speaker 1: for Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus like clockwork, just
Speaker 1: like the good old days of cable that everyone was
Speaker 1: trying to escape. Remember when Disney Plus first launched, it
Speaker 1: was six ninety nine a month. It was a no brainer,
Speaker 1: and that included no ads, And that same service now
Speaker 1: is fifteen ninety nine a month. So prices price increases
Speaker 1: range from a dollar to six extra dollars a month,
Speaker 1: depending on what you have. New prices take effect on
Speaker 1: October seventeenth, and basically Disney Plus with ads is going
Speaker 1: up two dollars a month. So it used to be eight,
Speaker 1: now it's ten. Disney Plus without ads is going to
Speaker 1: increase from fourteen to sixteen dollars a month. Let's see,
Speaker 1: and just everything just go down the line. If you
Speaker 1: want to see the full list of price increases, you
Speaker 1: can go to the show notes. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just getting to the point where you know, it
Speaker 1: used to be a no brainer to have these services.
Speaker 1: Now it's like, Okay, which ones do I want to have?
Speaker 1: Because I don't know about you, but the last thing
Speaker 1: I watched on Disney Plus last night was Indiana Jones,
Speaker 1: the original one from like nineteen eighty something. So they've
Speaker 1: more than made their money on that and here I
Speaker 1: am watching it. Oh, I did watch Deadpool and that
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Bobo likes that. He was that surprised me.
Speaker 2: It was a it took me.
Speaker 1: What when did Deadpool come out? Deadpool the first one
Speaker 1: came out in twenty sixteen, so it took me eight
Speaker 1: years to watch that.
Speaker 2: That's not bad. You haven't seen dead Pool overring.
Speaker 1: No, That's what made me want to see it because
Speaker 1: I'm seeing all the publicity and people love this movie.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, all right, let me see the original.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing movie. See what the hype is all about. Hey,
Speaker 1: you gotta watch part two. I gotta watch part two
Speaker 1: and I gotta watch So that's probably talk to me
Speaker 1: in the next like four or five years, and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what I think of these things. I don't
Speaker 1: like you, all right, coming up here, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about this. So last week I mentioned we told
Speaker 1: the story of Peter Moore. This is a guy from Montecito, California,
Speaker 1: former tech executive. Kind of a big deal actually in
Speaker 1: the tech world. He was He ran Xbox for a
Speaker 1: while and a couple other things, but he said that
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch saved his life. He got this low
Speaker 1: heart rate notification. Plus he was feeling a little woozy,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, I might want to
Speaker 1: listen to this thing. His wife brought him to the hospital,
Speaker 1: got a pacemaker. Within four hours, he had an electrical
Speaker 1: blockage from his heart, or complete blockage. Anyway, the emails
Speaker 1: poured in. So I'm going to read some of these
Speaker 1: emails because so many of you wrote to me. Bev
Speaker 1: wrote in hey, Rich, I never had one of these devices,
Speaker 1: but back in March, I took a fall in my garage.
Speaker 1: I was fortunate that I was able to get myself
Speaker 1: back in the house. Anyway, after seeing your piece about
Speaker 1: thirty seconds ago, can you recommend which Apple Watch to get?
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: If you want just the basics for fall detection and
Speaker 1: the heart rate notifications, the Apple Watch se will be
Speaker 1: just fine. Otherwise you have the Apple Watch Series eight
Speaker 1: or nine, which add a little bit more like ECG.
Speaker 1: And then of course you can get the cellular. Only
Speaker 1: get the cellular if you are not taking your phone
Speaker 1: with you. So my recommendation with the Apple Watch or
Speaker 1: any smart watch, you only need the cellular if you
Speaker 1: do something that does not require your phone.
Speaker 2: A lot.
Speaker 1: So, for instance, if you run a lot without your
Speaker 1: phone and he took a fall while you're on a run,
Speaker 1: you'd still want your watch to be able to call
Speaker 1: nine one one, so get the cellular in that case.
Speaker 1: I think it's unag Here in Los Angeles says I
Speaker 1: saw your piece about the gentleman who's smart watch saved
Speaker 1: his life leading to a pacemaker implant. I wanted to
Speaker 1: let you know that a young teen girl experienced something similar.
Speaker 1: Her parents rushed her to UCLA, where she had a
Speaker 1: life saving procedure. Interestingly, her father is on the police
Speaker 1: force and understood the importance of the alert on her phone,
Speaker 1: making sure she received prompt care. This can make a
Speaker 1: compelling story, especially highlighting that heart issues aren't just for
Speaker 1: the aging population. I'm a retired nurse liver transplant coordinator
Speaker 1: from UCLA and yeah, just amazing a reminder, yes, that
Speaker 1: these issues don't just happen with the older population. Thanks
Speaker 1: for that email. Dave from North rich wrote in my
Speaker 1: Apple watch discovered my a FIBs situation about two and
Speaker 1: a half years ago. I went to the er immediately
Speaker 1: spent two days there. My watch showed back to normal
Speaker 1: at the same time the hospital's monitoring confirmed all was okay.
Speaker 1: I've been on heart med since I want. I sent
Speaker 1: a thank you email to Tim Cook and his wonderful
Speaker 1: reply is hanging on my office wall. Carolyn wrote in
Speaker 1: this segment with Peter Moore discussing his lightheadedness and life
Speaker 1: saving smart watch was so compelling, one of those rare
Speaker 1: radio moments nowadays that stops listeners in their tracks and
Speaker 1: reminds us why radio, especially AM radio, is to be valued.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Carolyn Ken writes in I saw your show. Apple Watch
Speaker 1: heart rate data alerted my cardiologist enough to send me
Speaker 1: to an electro physiologist for a pacemaker. I'm asymptomatic, which
Speaker 1: caused me not to be concerned. My heart rate rests
Speaker 1: in the low thirties. I'll have the pacemaker put in shortly.
Speaker 1: I am a true believer in this device. John from
Speaker 1: Ladera Ranch writes in I have an Apple Watch an iPhone.
Speaker 1: I want to get an Apple Watch, especially after hearing
Speaker 1: the life saving story today. I'm not interested in having
Speaker 1: cell service with my watch, but I want to use
Speaker 1: it for blood pressure, steps, heart rate, etc. If I
Speaker 1: buy an Apple Watch without cell service, we'll it provide
Speaker 1: those feature.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I love your radio show. Absolutely it will provide those features.
Speaker 1: You do not need the cell service again. Only get
Speaker 1: the cell service if you want your watch to be
Speaker 1: able to call for help when your phone is not nearby.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, we're going to talk to Aptera
Speaker 1: Motors about their solar electric car. This is rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology. Are you concerned about your
Speaker 1: data privacy? New survey from US News I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1: Eighty two percent of Americans concerned about their personal data
Speaker 1: security online. H Forty two percent use multi factor authentication.
Speaker 1: That's impressive. I maybe because we're forced to do that
Speaker 1: so often, but that seems higher than I would think.
Speaker 1: It's only seventeen percent use a password manager. I think
Speaker 1: that's going to change in a big way with Apple
Speaker 1: because they are coming out with a new password app,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's going to be a big
Speaker 1: change for that. Eighty nine percent feel confident in creating
Speaker 1: secure passwords, but only twenty two percent change them regularly.
Speaker 1: I think if you're creating a secure password, you don't
Speaker 1: really need to change it. Like at work, I always
Speaker 1: have to change my password. Why if it's not getting hacked,
Speaker 1: if it's unique, if it's secure, why do I have
Speaker 1: to change it? I think that's kind of an old
Speaker 1: method that we no longer need to do anymore. Fifty
Speaker 1: five percent reuse credentials across social media platforms. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you if you do take three takeaways from this show today.
Speaker 1: Number one, use a strong, unique password for every website.
Speaker 1: Number two, turn on two factor authentication. And number three,
Speaker 1: go to a website called Google Results about you and
Speaker 1: turn that on and you can actually take down some
Speaker 1: of this personal information for free that's on Google, so
Speaker 1: that people can't find as much personal data about you.
Speaker 1: Thanks US News and World Report. All right, joining me
Speaker 1: now from Apterra. This is a company that is creating
Speaker 1: a solar car. Solar electric car. Steve, let me turn
Speaker 1: off my Mike care Steve Fambreau. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 12: Hey Rich, nice to be on. I a big fan
Speaker 12: of your show and also KFI for many years.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you. Now you're in San Diego, I believe.
Speaker 12: Right, Yeah, Carlsbad just a few miles north.
Speaker 2: Okay, so explain what Aptera is.
Speaker 12: First off, Well, Aptera has a very simple mission. We
Speaker 12: want to make every journey power by the sun. Right now,
Speaker 12: we're doing that with our vehicle, the aptera namesake of
Speaker 12: the company, and it operates like a regular electric vehicle,
Speaker 12: except it charges itself about forty miles a day just
Speaker 12: from the sun. So most people with their typical daily
Speaker 12: commute aren't just gonna they're just not gonna have to
Speaker 12: plug in the vehicle at all. But you can go
Speaker 12: up to about four hundred miles on a single charge
Speaker 12: with the launch version.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, And so where are you at with this car?
Speaker 1: How far along are you with this?
Speaker 12: We've raised about one hundred and thirty million dollars, We've
Speaker 12: taken about fifty thousand pre orders, and we've built a
Speaker 12: bunch of pre production prototypes and we're starting our validation
Speaker 12: builds right now of production intent vehicles. That's happening now
Speaker 12: through the end of the year, and then starting early
Speaker 12: next year, we'll be building the first production vehicles in
Speaker 12: very very low volume, about fifty vehicles before the first
Speaker 12: half of the year. But some of those will actually
Speaker 12: be sold to a customer.
Speaker 2: And what is the price going to be for a
Speaker 2: car like this?
Speaker 12: These vehicles are configured with options and full solar, they're
Speaker 12: running about forty plus thousand dollars. But for that you're
Speaker 12: getting forty miles of free charging a day, plus about
Speaker 12: four hundred miles range, a brilliant performance, a very good
Speaker 12: power to weight ratio, and of course the carbon composite
Speaker 12: structure that's never going to rust will offer decades of
Speaker 12: long service.
Speaker 2: Now, were these two seater four seater?
Speaker 12: Yes, two seaters side by side with about one thousand
Speaker 12: liters of cargo sping. So if you take like my
Speaker 12: other ev as a Chevy bolt, So if you fold
Speaker 12: down the back seats in the bolt, it's like the
Speaker 12: same size as the Aptera. You know, it's two people
Speaker 12: can get a bunch of luggage like check luggage and
Speaker 12: carry on and everything else in the back of it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because when I talk about electric cars, and
Speaker 1: obviously there's a lot of chatter about these things in California.
Speaker 1: They're very popular. People like them. I drive one. I've
Speaker 1: had no problems in three years with it. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: there are some trade offs, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: think about when you take road trips and things like that,
Speaker 1: Like there is a little bit more planning and you know,
Speaker 1: but overall it's really really an exciting experience. But people
Speaker 1: always say, like what about solar? What about solar? So
Speaker 1: can you capture that much sun from the roof of
Speaker 1: the car, And what do you have to do to
Speaker 1: lead event like in the sun. What about people that
Speaker 1: don't live in a sunny area.
Speaker 12: These are all great points, especially about electric vehicles in general.
Speaker 12: You know, even with just to follow on that point,
Speaker 12: even with gasoline cars, you know that there's no one
Speaker 12: vehicle that anybody wants. You know, my dad will never
Speaker 12: give up his diesel pickup truck because he pulls a
Speaker 12: horse trailer. And so even though he thinks it's cool
Speaker 12: that the son started a car company and he wants one.
Speaker 12: But in terms of solar, just putting solar cells on
Speaker 12: a regular electric vehicles not going to help that much
Speaker 12: because those most evs are pretty inefficient by app Terra standards.
Speaker 12: They're heavy and they have high aerodynamic resistance. Because app
Speaker 12: Terra is so efficient, it's so lightweight, such low drag.
Speaker 12: The solar that we do put on the vehicle can
Speaker 12: have a meaningful impact because our rate of consumption is
Speaker 12: about one hundred hours per mile, which is very low.
Speaker 12: It's lower than anything on the road, but that we
Speaker 12: collect about four kilo hours over the day, a peak
Speaker 12: of about seven hundred watts, you know, let's say around noontime,
Speaker 12: So over the whole day about four kilod hours. And
Speaker 12: part of our intellectual property is, of course, how do
Speaker 12: you bend and make solar panels that are curved and
Speaker 12: form the exterior, you know, aero panels to the body,
Speaker 12: but also the high voltage electronics that have to operate
Speaker 12: very efficiently to put that energy back into the high
Speaker 12: voltage battery. So over the period of a day, you'll
Speaker 12: collect about four kiloded hours, which is about forty miles.
Speaker 12: Now for those people that don't park in the sun,
Speaker 12: or they have to park in a garage or something
Speaker 12: like that, all that means is that they're at Terra
Speaker 12: is still going to charge faster than a regular EV.
Speaker 12: You won't have to install a level two charger at home.
Speaker 12: You can just plug it in the wall and a
Speaker 12: regular one to ten socket and you'll get about one
Speaker 12: hundred and thirty miles overnight. Because a battery pack is
Speaker 12: so small by comparison, So if you can't park in
Speaker 12: the sun, yeah, that's unfortunate because we want your journey
Speaker 12: to be powered by the sun. If you live in
Speaker 12: a cloud place, you're going to get fewer miles per year.
Speaker 12: But the solar cell technology is improving every year. The
Speaker 12: light weightness is getting better in the vehicle, so we think,
Speaker 12: you know, we're going to go from forty miles to
Speaker 12: fifty miles to seventy. You know, our goal is to
Speaker 12: make the whole journey powered by the sun one day.
Speaker 1: And how you know, is anyone else doing this? Like
Speaker 1: are you know, we see all these big companies are
Speaker 1: getting into electric, but it seems like solar is kind
Speaker 1: of like a very far off kind of idea. But
Speaker 1: you guys say you're doing it, Like it's this car powerful?
Speaker 2: Like is it? You know?
Speaker 1: Obviously your dad's not going to pull the crate behind
Speaker 1: it or the horse carriage. But you know what, what's
Speaker 1: the deal with this car when it comes to like power? Like,
Speaker 1: am I going to give up anything with this?
Speaker 12: Well, you could give up your license if you get
Speaker 12: caught because it goes that fast. You know, it's got
Speaker 12: one hundred and fifty kilowatt's peak power about two innre
Speaker 12: horse power, weighs less than two thousand pounds. So it
Speaker 12: drives like what you would consider a sports car. It's
Speaker 12: very very spirited, very fun to drive. Many electric vehicles
Speaker 12: are like that today though, Yeah, so this would be
Speaker 12: on par with that experience. Sorry, what was your well.
Speaker 2: I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you know we've seen like even with like
Speaker 1: Rivan some of these other car companies. You know, people
Speaker 1: are hesitant to get these startup cars because repair and like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you need something done, like how you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to build out this huge nationwide infrastructure of
Speaker 1: you know, repair places, and how do you know what
Speaker 1: happens if something goes wrong?
Speaker 2: Like can you address some of that? I'm curious.
Speaker 12: Yeah, it's a really great point, and I think it's
Speaker 12: one of the key differentiators that all electric vehicle companies
Speaker 12: are are starting to realize. The dealership model in modern
Speaker 12: automotive sales is the revenue model is on service, and
Speaker 12: electric vehicles just don't have service. You know, the service
Speaker 12: is extremely deminimous compared to a gasoline car. So really,
Speaker 12: if if you think about it at a high level,
Speaker 12: there's no revenue model for any dealership in an electric
Speaker 12: vehicle ecosystem. So then what do you do. Well, Luckily,
Speaker 12: there are already partner folks out there who have deployed
Speaker 12: mobile service quite well, quite successfully for all kinds of vehicles,
Speaker 12: and we're talking with several of them right now, and
Speaker 12: we believe our plan is going to involve one of
Speaker 12: these existing partners who will, with our materials and with
Speaker 12: our training and with our parts, be able to go
Speaker 12: and do that kind of service on an app terra okay,
Speaker 12: without us having to build out that network.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: And I will say for my car, like the except
Speaker 1: when someone hit it, which was expensive, that was not
Speaker 1: my fault, there's been almost zero service charges whatsoever. I
Speaker 1: do have to replace the tires, but that's basically it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've only replaced the cabin filter twice over
Speaker 1: three years.
Speaker 2: And that's it. This car is going to be. You're
Speaker 2: going to have one of.
Speaker 1: Your prototypes showcased at the Pebble Beach.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that.
Speaker 12: Yeah, so that's gamma. That is are it's it's so
Speaker 12: we have alpha, beta, Gamma, and then production. And we're
Speaker 12: not really showing the alphas anymore because they're they're long
Speaker 12: in the tooth, they're smaller, they're not representative. Of what
Speaker 12: we're making. Gamma is actually a near production interior but
Speaker 12: on a beta body, so it's a little bit bigger.
Speaker 12: It's one of our most it's our newest sort of
Speaker 12: prototype or press vehicle, if you will. Although it's over
Speaker 12: a year and a half or so old. It's been
Speaker 12: all over the world. I just got back from the
Speaker 12: Yaz track in Abu Dhabi. It's it was in Switzerland
Speaker 12: last year driving around in the snow. That vehicle is
Speaker 12: going to be at Pebble Beach and it's it's highly
Speaker 12: representative of the size and interior of the production vehicle.
Speaker 1: All right, And that's happening during the weekend of August
Speaker 1: seventeenth and eighteenth. If you want to check it out.
Speaker 1: What's the website for APTERAF Steve.
Speaker 8: Attera dot us.
Speaker 12: You can read everything about us. You can get in
Speaker 12: the waiting list, so people ahead of you, but you
Speaker 12: can find everything you want to know there.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Steve Fambrou from Aptera building a solar car there in Carlsbad.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me today. Appreciate it.
Speaker 12: Oh my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Rich, Thank you. All right.
Speaker 1: This is probably something I would have imagined as a kid,
Speaker 1: you know, we went from gas to electric solar maybe
Speaker 1: flying as next.
Speaker 2: Very very exciting. Good luck there.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we are going to open up the feedbag
Speaker 1: and get some more of your emails to the show
Speaker 1: you are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology the website for the show rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. Jim Rode in interesting that the ap Terra
Speaker 1: interview never corrected you to say that Aptera is not
Speaker 1: a car, it's a three wheeled motorcycle. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: did that intentionally. People will not be quite as interested
Speaker 1: in this vehicle and they know it's not a car.
Speaker 1: He always carefully called it a vehicle and never referred
Speaker 1: to it as a car to keep things legal, I'm sure. Anyway,
Speaker 1: great show as always, Jim, Ah, good, good point, Jim.
Speaker 1: That is uh, yes, that will limit the appeal of
Speaker 1: this for sure, solar electric vehicle. But then again, you know,
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of stories with these kind of
Speaker 1: funky alternative cars and things vehicles. I guess you can
Speaker 1: call them, and you know, people there was one what
Speaker 1: was it called the solo that one tried to anyway,
Speaker 1: people people love the idea of all these things, it takes.
Speaker 2: A while for them to actually happen. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the feedback. Rich on tech dot TV
Speaker 1: hit Contact. John from Newport Beach wrote in about the
Speaker 1: AI discussion on last week's show, We're already seeing massive
Speaker 1: job losses and positions being replaced by AI and fields
Speaker 1: like marketing, sales, content creation, computer programming, and recruiting. AI
Speaker 1: is consolidating workforces, so instead of having ten people in
Speaker 1: each of these positions, a company might only need three.
Speaker 1: Of course, the best workers will master AI, but will
Speaker 1: need fewer of them. Overall, this is already happening. We
Speaker 1: haven't even seen the beginning of it. Just wait until
Speaker 1: AI gets really good. It's still in its early stages.
Speaker 1: Think about that. Thanks John from Newport Beach. That is
Speaker 1: very true. We are just in the beginning stages. We
Speaker 1: had a lot of emails about the MV and O
Speaker 1: discussion last week. Randolph writes in Rich, great show. Never
Speaker 1: miss it. When you've covered travel roaming issues. To avoid charges,
Speaker 1: you always say, turn on airplane mode and turn off roaming.
Speaker 1: But how do you always add? But you always add
Speaker 1: make sure your apps do not download upload How do
Speaker 1: you do that. Do you have to go into each
Speaker 1: app individually and do something?
Speaker 2: Thanks? Yeah, that is basically what you have to do
Speaker 2: at this point.
Speaker 1: There may be some programs that you can use to
Speaker 1: restrict maybe on Android, like the upload and download. But
Speaker 1: if you just go into your main offenders, like the
Speaker 1: major apps like Netflix, anything that's streaming video, anything that's
Speaker 1: streaming music, anything that's uploading or backing up, turn that
Speaker 1: off on cellular. Make sure it's not using cellular to
Speaker 1: do that, and you should be okay. But yes, it's
Speaker 1: a manual process. Sean writes in I'm sure you figure
Speaker 1: it out, but red Pocket actually lets you choose from
Speaker 1: AT and T, Verizon or T Mobile. You stated it
Speaker 1: only works on Verizon. Okay, good to know there. Warren
Speaker 1: writes in, Hey, Rich, I enjoy your show, appreciate your
Speaker 1: tech assistance. One MV and O I did not hear you.
Speaker 1: Mention which I've used for many years is ting they
Speaker 1: can use both Verizon and T Mobile networks. I recommend
Speaker 1: TING to my friends, but most still go with the
Speaker 1: main carriers. That's what my mom said last week after
Speaker 1: she listened to the show, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: I tell all my friends about Mint Mobile, and they
Speaker 1: still want to stick to, you know, their main carriers.
Speaker 1: They said, you know what, they're lost. They're they're losing
Speaker 1: the money. Andrea from New Orleans rights in. US Mobile
Speaker 1: very recently started giving customers the ability to switch between
Speaker 1: their GSM, T Mobile, Verizon and AT and T networks
Speaker 1: on the fly as often as you like. It's free
Speaker 1: for some plans, with a two dollars charge for others, though,
Speaker 1: I think everyone gets too free switched US Mobile. Don't
Speaker 1: discount them. They're a great MV and O. I've tested
Speaker 1: them before, and yes, they give you a choice of networks.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you can switch on the fly. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: Joe from Scranton writes in Rich, I heard you give
Speaker 1: advice to a caller from law enforcement who wanted a
Speaker 1: point and shoot camera for vacation. I'm wondering why you
Speaker 1: didn't simply suggest using a spare phone, either iPhone or Galaxy.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have to be the primary nor does it even
Speaker 1: need to have service. All they need to do is
Speaker 1: keep the camera app open and would essentially be point
Speaker 1: and shoot. Wouldn't that be a good solution? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what, not a bad idea. I actually did not
Speaker 1: even think about that because he said he wanted a camera,
Speaker 1: not a phone, and so typically I use that as
Speaker 1: the queue for my answer. But you're right, just use
Speaker 1: an old phone, don't hook it up to service, and
Speaker 1: there you go. Stuart from Poughkeepsie rights in, when you
Speaker 1: mentioned Firefox, I wanted to share that I use Mozilla
Speaker 1: Firefox on my Windows XP pro ps. I'm enjoying your
Speaker 1: three hour program. Well, thank you, Stutu from Poughkeepsie, appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Jonathan writes in I heard you recommend a Jackerie power
Speaker 1: station to a listener last week and wanted to point
Speaker 1: out that the Jackery power stations use lithium ion batteries,
Speaker 1: which is considered by many to be quote old tech.
Speaker 1: I would suggest people go with power stations that use
Speaker 1: life PO four batteries, such as those made by Ecoflow. Jonathan,
Speaker 1: do you work for Eco Flow? Just making sure. Jonathan
Speaker 1: Joseph writes in he heard me struggle with torque and
Speaker 1: he's explaining it. The torque measurement is a two dimensional
Speaker 1: assessment of engine performance. It's measured in feet for length
Speaker 1: and pounds for weight to gauge the engine's ability to
Speaker 1: turn or crank the pistons. The measurement is commonly referred
Speaker 1: to as torque in foot pounds.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Joseph am Rik am Emeric from Porter Ranch writes in Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I always try to catch you with Bill handle and
Speaker 1: on the weekends. Love your show and cool talking points.
Speaker 1: Thanks for making tech fun and educational. This last weekend,
Speaker 1: you mentioned how Ford is offering over the air performance
Speaker 1: upgrades for the Machi. While that's cool, you didn't mention
Speaker 1: that Tesla's been doing this for several years. Yes, I know, Tesla, Tesla, Tesla.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. You know, sometimes people don't want to
Speaker 1: hear all the time Tesla this, Tesla that. But yes,
Speaker 1: they have done over the air upgrades as well. And
Speaker 1: Carolyn Rode in love the variety of your bumper music
Speaker 1: last week. Your mom is the best. Never would have
Speaker 1: expected to hear the intro to Thank You by led Zeppelin,
Speaker 1: but to put a huge smile on my face. So
Speaker 1: please thank your mom for including that in the great playlist. Yes,
Speaker 1: and thanks to Mom again this week for the playlist.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. 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 richon Tech dot
Speaker 1: TV can find me on social media. Be sure to
Speaker 1: follow me on Instagram X and Facebook at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Next week I am headed to the Google Pixel Event.
Speaker 1: I will have all of the updates from Google's latest
Speaker 1: event with all of their new phones. Very much looking
Speaker 1: forward to that. Thanks so much for listening. There are
Speaker 1: so many ways you can spend your time. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to
Speaker 1: everyone who makes this show possible. Bobo, Kim, Bill, Julie,
Speaker 1: who else my mom this week, Tanner for the song,
Speaker 1: and you, of course you you make this all possible.
Speaker 2: My name is rich Dmiro. I will talk to you
Speaker 2: real soon