Speaker 1: Nothing to say here but a new phone brand. Hollywood
Speaker 1: goes on strike over AI, among other things, Should you
Speaker 1: install iOS seventeen Beta plus? Your tech questions answered?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich de Murou and this is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 3: The show where I talk about the tech stuff I
Speaker 3: think you should know about and answer your questions about technology.
Speaker 1: I believe that tech should be easy, helpful, inspiring and fun.
Speaker 1: Phone lines are now open. Yes, that's right. Phone lines
Speaker 1: are now open at triple A Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. And no, AI did not take over
Speaker 1: the show just yet. What you just heard is my
Speaker 1: personal voice. This is a new feature on iOS seventeen
Speaker 1: that lets you recreate your own voice using AI. Now
Speaker 1: it sounds silly, there's a reason for it, but here's
Speaker 1: what you have to do. It took me about twenty
Speaker 1: four hours to create that. I had to sit in
Speaker 1: a room and read one hundred and fifty different phrases.
Speaker 1: And once I read those one hundred and fifty different phrases,
Speaker 1: it could then synthesize my voice and it took overnight.
Speaker 1: It took me about a half an hour to read
Speaker 1: the phrases, but it took the phone about twenty four
Speaker 1: hours to actually analyze and recreate my voice. Now, why
Speaker 1: would you do this? Why would you want your own voice, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't really think sounds like me
Speaker 1: in a big way. I think it has intonations of me,
Speaker 1: but it's not really rich on tech. But here's the deal.
Speaker 1: This is a feature that is actually an accessibility feature.
Speaker 1: So it was created with people in mind that may
Speaker 1: have some sort of degenerative disease or illness that would
Speaker 1: cause them to lose their voice over time. And so
Speaker 1: in this way, instead of using a robot voice to
Speaker 1: beak to do text to speech later on in life,
Speaker 1: they can actually use their own voice. And so while
Speaker 1: I was recording this, I was actually getting kind of
Speaker 1: sad because it made me realize that when we're gone,
Speaker 1: our voice is gone too, and we're gone. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a it's kind of weird. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to bring you down. But that's just one of
Speaker 1: the new features in iOS seventeen. The beta was released
Speaker 1: this week, and so a lot of folks are wondering
Speaker 1: if they should install it. My advice is only if
Speaker 1: you are super tech savvy or if you have a
Speaker 1: secondary device, because there could be problems. This is a
Speaker 1: beta software and so that means it's not fully finished.
Speaker 1: People are saying it's good. I'm not running it on
Speaker 1: my primary device, so I can't tell you if it's perfect,
Speaker 1: but it could be some issues there by the way,
Speaker 1: maybe this got lost in this whole thing. But phone
Speaker 1: lines are open at triple A rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Give me a call. If you have a question about technology,
Speaker 1: you can also email me. Just go to or email
Speaker 1: hello at rich on tech dot tv. Also new this
Speaker 1: week is the website rich on tech dot tv is
Speaker 1: completely redesigned, reformed. It's all brand new. I finally got
Speaker 1: the security lock that y'all have been asking me for
Speaker 1: because you said, rich your website's insecure. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't really collect data, so it's not that
Speaker 1: big of a deal. But now the lock is there.
Speaker 1: Rest assured the site is secure. So if you want
Speaker 1: to look up show notes, if you want to see
Speaker 1: what I do on TV, it is all there rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot TV. If you look at the top
Speaker 1: of the page, there is a banner for the show notes.
Speaker 1: So if you hear something I mentioned on the show,
Speaker 1: it will appear on those show notes in near real time.
Speaker 1: So that's just one of the ways I'm working for
Speaker 1: you to make life a little bit better. Ah this week,
Speaker 1: let's see what happened. So we went to the movies.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell you all about that, but one
Speaker 1: little pro tip. Okay, my wife had her Apple Watch
Speaker 1: on and we're at the movies and in the middle
Speaker 1: of a silent portion of the movie, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we hear a walkie talkie. It's like, hey, mom, are
Speaker 1: you gonna pick me up? Because there's that walkie talkie
Speaker 1: feature on the Apple Watch and we didn't think to
Speaker 1: turn that off. And so my wife is like fumbling
Speaker 1: with her watch, and my kid is like, hey mom,
Speaker 1: what are you there? What's happening? And everyone in the audience, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's a matine, there was not that
Speaker 1: many people, but we were laughing because she couldn't run
Speaker 1: out of the movie theater quick enough. So let me
Speaker 1: just give you the pro tip of the week. Before
Speaker 1: you go to the movies. On your Apple Watch, you
Speaker 1: swipe up and there are two little masks it's an
Speaker 1: icon in the quick settings that is your theater mode.
Speaker 1: Tap that on your watch, turn on theater mode before
Speaker 1: you get into the movies. That will disable the walkie
Speaker 1: talkie and it will also disable the sounds and the screen.
Speaker 1: So once you're done doing that, just hold your hands,
Speaker 1: you take your palm, and you just tap your Apple
Speaker 1: Watch screen with your entire palm and it will turn
Speaker 1: off your screen and it will not turn back on
Speaker 1: until you press a button. And then when you're done
Speaker 1: with the movie, you go back in. You swipe up
Speaker 1: from the bottom of your Apple Watch screen and you
Speaker 1: tap those two little faces and you'll turn that off. Now,
Speaker 1: I did that before I got into the movie theater,
Speaker 1: but what I forgot to do was turn it off,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't get messages for the next twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. On my Apple Watch. People were texting me
Speaker 1: left and right, and I didn't see any of them
Speaker 1: because I still had this theater mode. They were trying
Speaker 1: to get a hold of me in the newsroom and
Speaker 1: they couldn't text me, and I just I looked at
Speaker 1: my watch. I said, I don't know, I didn't see. Oh,
Speaker 1: there it is. Oh. I left that on last night
Speaker 1: there you go. So just remember to turn that off
Speaker 1: if you do turn it back on. Ah what else
Speaker 1: this week? Oh, I switched to a new note taking system.
Speaker 1: I am really and I've talked about this on the show.
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to do better about my notes. So
Speaker 1: I've been trying all these different note taking situations and
Speaker 1: ever Note if you've been following that, that was my
Speaker 1: previous note taking preferred application. And they laid off a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of people in San Francisco. They moved operations
Speaker 1: to Italy. They actually got purchased by a company that
Speaker 1: I really like. They make another app that I love
Speaker 1: called Splice. It's a video editing app. But now everyone's
Speaker 1: worried about the future of ever Note. So everyone's kind
Speaker 1: of like fleeing from it, myself included, because it's expensive
Speaker 1: and you know, it kind of like has not grown
Speaker 1: over the years. It's done a lot of stuff, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of clunky. And Notion is this new kind
Speaker 1: of it's like the bell of the what do they
Speaker 1: call it, the bell of the ball. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like the one that everyone wants right now. And so
Speaker 1: Notion is what I switched to. But it is like
Speaker 1: it does way too much. So now I'm like somehow
Speaker 1: like the executive CEO of note taking that I just
Speaker 1: don't need. Like all I needed was like a notepad,
Speaker 1: and I got like a Ferrari on. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just so much. So but now I'm in it because
Speaker 1: I spent the whole day switching to it. So now
Speaker 1: I can't go back because my wife will make fun
Speaker 1: of me. So now I got to stick with it
Speaker 1: because it is I'm in it to win it now.
Speaker 1: So I did switch to Notion. And of course with
Speaker 1: all these apps, the minute you get sort of into them,
Speaker 1: you know, I switched everything over, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I run into a roadblock and it's like, oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, that's like, you know, it's a couple bucks
Speaker 1: a month for that feature. I'm like, oh, it's called freemium.
Speaker 1: So that's that's how all these apps work. Let's see
Speaker 1: what else? So many things this week? Oh, Nothing Phone,
Speaker 1: this is what I've been using. This is a new
Speaker 1: phone that the name is Nothing and it's the Nothing
Speaker 1: Phone too. That's actually the second version. It launches in
Speaker 1: a couple of days. I've been using it for the
Speaker 1: past couple of weeks, and I got to tell you,
Speaker 1: it's been a long time since I've actually fallen in
Speaker 1: love with the device. But I fell in love with
Speaker 1: this device. Why because it is the most it's the
Speaker 1: most iPhone Android I've used. Now, before you say, okay, Rich,
Speaker 1: sure you like it because it's an iPhone, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean like it's simple, the design is timeless and beautiful,
Speaker 1: and it's unique. Like it just works really well. The
Speaker 1: camera is good, the form factor is good. It's not
Speaker 1: too big, it's not too small. If this was a
Speaker 1: bowl of porridge, it would be perfect. This is the
Speaker 1: one that Goldilocks would would eat. I don't know if
Speaker 1: do you want to eat a phone? Probably not. But
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about this phone is the back of
Speaker 1: the device. So on the back of this device, there's
Speaker 1: a whole bunch it's actually translucent, and there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of LED lights and I'm gonna light them up
Speaker 1: right now, just so Bobo can see this. See that.
Speaker 1: So it's these elied You can't see this, but Bobo can.
Speaker 1: And it's these LED lights on the back. They call
Speaker 1: it the glyph interface, And what that does is they
Speaker 1: want you to put your phone down, use it less.
Speaker 1: They want you to put it face down so you
Speaker 1: don't see your notifications. And when you put this phone
Speaker 1: face down, what happens. It goes into this mode of
Speaker 1: do not disturb, and only your most important notifications will
Speaker 1: actually light up the back of the phone. So I
Speaker 1: had one set for my wife, a couple friends, work people,
Speaker 1: and so if they text me or call me, it
Speaker 1: will light up on the back of that phone. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: all those other nonsense notifications that are trying to get
Speaker 1: you into Instagram and Facebook and threads and all that
Speaker 1: other stuff, they won't light up your phone because this
Speaker 1: phone wants you to use it less. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about this phone a little bit later. I've
Speaker 1: fallen in love with it, but I've got someone else
Speaker 1: to talk to, Ben Sin of XDA Developers. He is
Speaker 1: going to give me his review of the phone. So
Speaker 1: maybe there's something I'm missing, but I think this phone
Speaker 1: is near perfect. But we'll talk about that a little
Speaker 1: bit later on in the show. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of great stuff coming up on the show today, Lots
Speaker 1: and lots of calls from you at Triple eight rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to one zero one, We've got Cissy Shao of
Speaker 1: Google Bard. Sissy's gonna talk about some of the new
Speaker 1: features that you can take advantage of on Google Bard.
Speaker 1: Then this concert that I went to in virtual reality
Speaker 1: is just incredible, and so we're gonna have a Maze
Speaker 1: VR come on the show and talk about their new
Speaker 1: VR concert app. I'm not kidding. I was standing within
Speaker 1: inches of Zara Larsen for a personal concert. Yes, it
Speaker 1: was all virtual reality in a headset, but it was
Speaker 1: quite incredible. And then, like I said, Benson will be
Speaker 1: along to review the Nothing Phone two. But first it
Speaker 1: is your turn. Your calls coming up next. Give me
Speaker 1: a call Triple eight Rich one on one email hello
Speaker 1: at richontech dot TV. Give me a call if you
Speaker 1: have a question about technology. My name is rich Demiro
Speaker 1: and you are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with
Speaker 1: you talking at technology at Triple eight Rich one O one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Let's go to Rod in Los Angeles. Rod,
Speaker 1: you're kicking off the show. Welcome, Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic. How about you staying cool?
Speaker 4: I live out in the Zanfernano Badley, so it's hot
Speaker 4: out here.
Speaker 1: Well it's cold in here, so we'll see. Let's hope
Speaker 1: the uh, the power grade stays up, although it's been
Speaker 1: pretty good lately. I don't want to jinx it. So
Speaker 1: what can I help you with?
Speaker 4: Well, so I have an issue just popped up recently
Speaker 4: with my mouth acting kind of odd, like many times
Speaker 4: when I click it, it acts like I double clicked it.
Speaker 4: So for example, I can excel I go to click
Speaker 4: on a cell and if you double click it it
Speaker 4: opens up a like an edit function and within the cell.
Speaker 4: And so sometimes I'll just go to click on the
Speaker 4: one cell and it'll do that. Or on Chrome, I'll
Speaker 4: click the plus button to open up another window and
Speaker 4: it'll open two and stuff like that. And I'm trying
Speaker 4: to figure out how do I I don't know, like
Speaker 4: readjust it?
Speaker 1: Did this just start?
Speaker 4: Huh?
Speaker 1: Did this just.
Speaker 4: Start just within the last like four to six weeks?
Speaker 1: And what kind of mouse? Is it? A wireless? Is
Speaker 1: it wired? Is it Mac? Is it PC?
Speaker 4: It's wired?
Speaker 5: PC?
Speaker 4: Windows?
Speaker 6: Ten?
Speaker 1: Okay? And have you tried a different mouse?
Speaker 4: Not yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that would be the first thing you want
Speaker 1: to do. So you gotta secure a different mouse to
Speaker 1: see if it's actually the mouse. I assume you probably
Speaker 1: don't have a secondary mouse around the house. I just
Speaker 1: want you to rhyme that.
Speaker 4: But I can probably find one.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean maybe if you have a friend
Speaker 1: or family member that has one. That would be the
Speaker 1: easiest way to troubleshoot this, because that will tell you
Speaker 1: if it's the actual mause or if it's your software
Speaker 1: and you made some sort of change. Right, So, if
Speaker 1: it's not the mouse, or if you don't feel like
Speaker 1: doing that or you can't do that, does the mouse
Speaker 1: feel any different when you click it? Like, does it
Speaker 1: feel like it's gummed up or something?
Speaker 4: No? Not really?
Speaker 1: Okay, so in that case it Now have you tried
Speaker 1: like restarting your computer? I know that sounds basic, but
Speaker 1: that's always a good start. Okay, you've done that, okay,
Speaker 1: And what about looking in your settings in the Windows?
Speaker 1: Did you check those settings to make sure that you
Speaker 1: didn't change anything?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I did, and I adjusted there's a double click speed, yes,
Speaker 4: and I adjusted that and it seemed to help a
Speaker 4: little bit. But it's still doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: And otherwise this was working just fine previously, like you've
Speaker 1: used this for a long time.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's pretty old computer. I mean, that's that
Speaker 4: was one of my concerns. Is maybe just the computers
Speaker 4: getting old.
Speaker 1: Well I don't think. I don't think the mouse would
Speaker 1: double click just because the computer's getting old. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what I would do? I would I think it sounds
Speaker 1: like it's the actual physical mouse. If you're not, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not seeing this happen in other is it
Speaker 1: only in certain program.
Speaker 4: Oh no, it happens in a variety of different programs.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you checked, you sure, you went into your
Speaker 1: Windows settings and checked and made sure that you've got
Speaker 1: all those settings proper. So what about disabling double clicking?
Speaker 1: There's some like accessibility features. Have you tried doing that?
Speaker 4: Uh no, okay, that could.
Speaker 1: Be that could be a way to do it too,
Speaker 1: to see if that will that will help.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I'm not sure there's I'm seeing anything
Speaker 4: that says disabled double click.
Speaker 1: I'm going into the settings here and let's see. So
Speaker 1: if we go into the mouse, primary, mouse button, mouse pointer,
Speaker 1: additional mouse settings. So let's see clicklock that might that
Speaker 1: might be something. Let's see, and then you've got your pointer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of like little options in here.
Speaker 1: I would go into there and see if you can,
Speaker 1: if you can switch some of those things and see
Speaker 1: what happens with that. But I would try I would try,
Speaker 1: Rod to get a secondary mouse in troubleshoot that way.
Speaker 1: If it works, then you know that, you know you've
Speaker 1: solved your problem without going through a thousand different settings
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out you know, drive yourself nuts
Speaker 1: over this situation, Okay, because that's that's frustrating. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know that. For me, when I'm on a Windows computer,
Speaker 1: for sure, I disable the uh, the right click situation
Speaker 1: because I feel like I'm always especially with the track pad,
Speaker 1: I'm always like right clicking when I mean to just
Speaker 1: click once. So I'll disable some of the features on there.
Speaker 1: That's one of the first things I always do is
Speaker 1: go in there and do that. So, uh, hopefully you
Speaker 1: get it figured out. Rod. Thanks for the call today.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, and once again, if you have a question,
Speaker 1: the phone line is triple eight rich one on one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four to one
Speaker 1: zero one. Earlier, I mentioned that Hollywood, almost all of
Speaker 1: Hollywood is on strike at this point. So you've got
Speaker 1: the SAG Aftra's Union and you've got the Writer's Guild,
Speaker 1: so a lot of this town is no longer working.
Speaker 1: So if your shows start to look really bad on TV,
Speaker 1: you know why, because no one's writing them. They're not
Speaker 1: making anything new, and yeah, we're still here. If you
Speaker 1: notice that the actors are not on TV promoting stuff,
Speaker 1: they're not on the late shows anything, it's because they can't.
Speaker 1: So here is one of the interesting points. And of
Speaker 1: course it all comes down to money and AI. But
Speaker 1: one of these things is that the studios apparently want
Speaker 1: to be able to scan a background actor and then
Speaker 1: use their likeness for any project without consent or compensation.
Speaker 1: SAG says no, no, no, no, no, we're not letting
Speaker 1: them do this, and the union says that they don't
Speaker 1: like this, and then the studio say, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we meant we only want to scan them once to
Speaker 1: use that in that one movie, and any other use
Speaker 1: we would have to pay them. So the point of
Speaker 1: all of this is that AI is not only a
Speaker 1: huge factor in the writer's strike, with you know writers
Speaker 1: not wanting studios using AI to write scripts and drafts
Speaker 1: and rewrites and all that good stuff. But also with
Speaker 1: the actors union, they don't want to make actors digitally
Speaker 1: or recreate them digitally. I'm telling you this AI stuff
Speaker 1: is really throwing a wrench in things. All right, coming up,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk AI new features on Google Bard. What
Speaker 1: a transition you are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology and joining me now is Cissy Shao,
Speaker 1: vice president and general manager of Assistant and Bard at Google. Cissy,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me Rich.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Google Bard. This has been around
Speaker 1: for a couple of months. Now, how is that going?
Speaker 1: This is there your AI chatbot assistant?
Speaker 6: Well yeah, Well, first of all, let's just talk about
Speaker 6: what is Bard. And Bard is Google's experiment that lets
Speaker 6: people collaborate with generative AI, and what that means is
Speaker 6: you can use Bard to boost your productivity and really
Speaker 6: help you solve everyday problems. So, for example, we find
Speaker 6: users asking Bard to give them ideas for tailored workout plans,
Speaker 6: helping them write their resumes and prep for interviews, or
Speaker 6: even like for me, I use Bard to help write
Speaker 6: a short story for my son who loves video games.
Speaker 1: And so are people finding different uses for this or
Speaker 1: there are instructions for how to use Bard. How do
Speaker 1: you know what you can do with this?
Speaker 6: Well, when you start with bar, Bard will give you
Speaker 6: some ideas of what you can do with Bard. But
Speaker 6: really we find people find use in three different areas.
Speaker 6: One is productivity, and that can be like planning a
Speaker 6: trip that you have coming up, or planning your kids
Speaker 6: summer camp plans, or coming up with great ideas for
Speaker 6: like a meal plan. Then there's creativity, which is the
Speaker 6: second piece, which is like I said, you know, writing
Speaker 6: stories or even fiction, or coming up with great brainstorming
Speaker 6: ideas for something that you're wanting to write. And the
Speaker 6: third is really companionship, which is just it's kind of
Speaker 6: fun to just talk to an AI sometimes about you know,
Speaker 6: anything on the top of your mind.
Speaker 1: So we've heard a lot about these assistants. You are
Speaker 1: adding some new features to Bard. Let's talk about the
Speaker 1: first new feature, which is the power of lens. So
Speaker 1: now you can actually upload a photo to Bard and
Speaker 1: it will do what with that picture.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, people absolutely love lens, so when
Speaker 6: lens meets barred, it's really exciting. So I'll give you
Speaker 6: a story of how I use lens and Bard. I
Speaker 6: bought a new pair of sneakers and I had no
Speaker 6: idea what.
Speaker 2: To wear with those sneakers.
Speaker 6: So I take my phone out and I use lens
Speaker 6: and take a picture, and then I ask Bart, what
Speaker 6: can I wear with these shoes? And Bart I correctly
Speaker 6: identify that they were a pair of Converse and actually
Speaker 6: gave me some ideas, like maybe you can wear like
Speaker 6: a smart casual pair of jeans with this pair of shoes.
Speaker 6: So that's just one way that people can use lens.
Speaker 6: But really the sky's the limit in terms of how
Speaker 6: people want to use pictures and interact with Bard with
Speaker 6: their pictures.
Speaker 1: So the next thing it can do is talk to us,
Speaker 1: so you can have Bard read its responses to you
Speaker 1: explain what that's all about.
Speaker 6: Well, we're really excited because this is Bard's biggest expansion,
Speaker 6: both globally and also in forty languages. And so when
Speaker 6: Bard speaks to you, now Bart can actually read its
Speaker 6: response in not only in English, but in all those languages.
Speaker 6: So an example of how I use this is I
Speaker 6: have an eight year old son who really loves video games,
Speaker 6: and I thought it'd be fun to write a little
Speaker 6: story about his.
Speaker 2: Favorite characters with Bard.
Speaker 6: So I asked Bard to write a story, and then
Speaker 6: I asked Bart to read the story out loud to
Speaker 6: my son, who really thought that was really really fun.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. What is the challenge of getting an AI
Speaker 1: assistant to be able to speak so many different languages.
Speaker 6: Well, we have to get things like inflections right in
Speaker 6: different languages, and we also need to make sure that
Speaker 6: we're being culturally aware of all these different languages. So
Speaker 6: I find it fascinating that, for example, if you ask
Speaker 6: Bard for a recipe for eggs, you'll get a different
Speaker 6: type of recipe depending on what language you ask.
Speaker 1: Barred forty six different languages in total, including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi,
Speaker 1: and Spanish. That's incredible.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're really excited with what people can do with
Speaker 6: both language expansion and global expansion. There's another feature that
Speaker 6: I want to share, which is something we call pinning
Speaker 6: and sharing. So let's say you know you're using Bard
Speaker 6: to create a meal plan for the week for yourself.
Speaker 6: We find users do a lot of this kind of
Speaker 6: planning and work with Bard, and you then go to work,
Speaker 6: and then you go to the grocery store and you
Speaker 6: need to now buy the recipe ingredients for that meal
Speaker 6: plan that you use.
Speaker 2: Bard to create.
Speaker 6: Now you can go back to Bard's pin threads and
Speaker 6: actually just get that meal plan right up on your
Speaker 6: phone when you're at the grocery store. And you can
Speaker 6: also then share that same meal plan. Let's say you
Speaker 6: want to share on social media, like this is the
Speaker 6: new meal plan that I'm following. You can also use
Speaker 6: our new sharing feature to share that same conversation that
Speaker 6: you had with Bard directly on social media.
Speaker 1: So by remembering some of these things you've asked, it's
Speaker 1: no longer this ephemeral sort of conversation. You can revisit it.
Speaker 1: Do you think that makes for a more personalized experience
Speaker 1: for the user?
Speaker 6: Oh, definitely. People are asking us for pinning and saving
Speaker 6: and also to be able to bring back personal things
Speaker 6: that they're doing with Bard. You know, I talked about
Speaker 6: meal plans, but people use Bard to prep for job
Speaker 6: interviews and write their resumes. People come up with business
Speaker 6: ideas like there's a user who's thinking about how to
Speaker 6: rename their new online water bottle store that they're starting
Speaker 6: on the internet. I have a friend who's using a
Speaker 6: bar to come up with basketball drills for a little
Speaker 6: third grade basketball team that he coaches, And so there's
Speaker 6: all these different things that people are doing with BARD.
Speaker 6: And being able to both remember those conversations and also
Speaker 6: share those conversations is something we're really excited about.
Speaker 1: Since you're an engineer and a computer scientist, what excites
Speaker 1: you the most about the possibilities of AI like Bard?
Speaker 6: I mean, this is going to change the world, right,
Speaker 6: This is going to make people way more productive and
Speaker 6: help them explore their imaginations and creativity in really unique ways.
Speaker 6: I'm excited because I hear from users that they're able
Speaker 6: to save time and effort and in working using Bard
Speaker 6: to accomplish their goals. So that really excites me. How
Speaker 6: this is going to change how people do things.
Speaker 1: Should we feel guilty because sometimes it seems almost too
Speaker 1: easy to use these tools? Should we feel guilty about
Speaker 1: relying on them at all?
Speaker 6: I think that, you know, humans have always created technology
Speaker 6: and tools to make our lives more fun and interesting
Speaker 6: and also easier, and to save time. I mean, think
Speaker 6: about the Internet or search or the phone. Right, these
Speaker 6: are all innovations that have made life more easy, and
Speaker 6: I think of BART and AI as just another generation
Speaker 6: of that. Right, Why do in you know, an hour
Speaker 6: what you can do in five to ten minutes. But
Speaker 6: it's important to remember that BART is a collaborator for you,
Speaker 6: like it's an AI to help you get done what
Speaker 6: you want to get done. And so really the human
Speaker 6: is in control and really is the one that's directing
Speaker 6: the AI.
Speaker 1: Now. Of course, we want these AI assistants to be useful,
Speaker 1: but also we want them to be honest, and ethics
Speaker 1: is a big part of that. So how is your
Speaker 1: team working to make Barred ethical?
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, we want to take a bold
Speaker 6: and responsible approach to AI, and that's why we've been
Speaker 6: really measured and careful about how we launch BART. So,
Speaker 6: for example, we first launched BART in English because we
Speaker 6: hadn't done the responsibility work yet in all those other languages,
Speaker 6: measuring you know if Bart is going to say things
Speaker 6: that are inappropriate, for example, culturally or in those languages.
Speaker 6: And so what we do is really work to train
Speaker 6: bar to be responsible and abide by our AI ethics
Speaker 6: that we've published.
Speaker 1: To the world, and I would like to know your
Speaker 1: advice for young people out there that want to pursue
Speaker 1: careers along the lines of AI.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, AI is exploding, and even us
Speaker 6: at the sort of the edge of that are still
Speaker 6: learning what AI can do. And so I would just say,
Speaker 6: get really curious about the tools. Go try the tools
Speaker 6: for yourself. Ask it questions that you may not expect
Speaker 6: it to be able to do. Like so, for example,
Speaker 6: for Lens, I took a picture of my bookshelf and
Speaker 6: I said, this is my book collection, Like what other books.
Speaker 5: Might I like?
Speaker 6: And not only did Bard understand that I had a
Speaker 6: bunch of business and personal development books on my bookshelf,
Speaker 6: it actually gave me some advice on new books that
Speaker 6: I might try in the same genre. So just there's
Speaker 6: just some incredible like capabilities, and so I would just
Speaker 6: say my advice is go try things out, play with it,
Speaker 6: learn with it as we're all learning together how AI works.
Speaker 1: Cissi Shao, vice president and general manager of Assistant and
Speaker 1: Bard at Google, Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me Rich so excited.
Speaker 1: All right, more Rich on tech coming your way. Give
Speaker 1: me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: The phone number is triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Welcome back to a Rich on tech. Rich
Speaker 1: DeMuro here hanging out talking technology with you. Let's go
Speaker 1: to Marcie in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Marcie, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 8: Hello. I went to say, I really enjoyed the precitation
Speaker 8: on Bard just now what you can do and suggestions,
Speaker 8: and also it's ethnic concerns and how they develop it
Speaker 8: in different language to adapt to that culture. But I
Speaker 8: have a concern. I am part of a large number
Speaker 8: of people in California that had their data breached. My name,
Speaker 8: my birth date, my social Security number, and my ZIP code.
Speaker 8: So I called up my people that have my four
Speaker 8: oh one K account and talk to that about him.
Speaker 8: So they asked me if I you know I had
Speaker 8: I wanted a duo often take authentication, and so they
Speaker 8: asked me if I wanted voice recognition, and I said no,
Speaker 8: So we settled on a password and then I don't know,
Speaker 8: maybe that day or the next day, I had another question.
Speaker 8: So I called back and I went through my name.
Speaker 8: You know, you still have to give your social Security number,
Speaker 8: your name and all that stuff. And the person hesitated,
Speaker 8: and I said, is anything wrong? And she said, we
Speaker 8: don't recognize your voice? Oh wow, So I didn't okay
Speaker 8: that number one, number two, it didn't recognize my voice.
Speaker 8: And I said, good, I have a password.
Speaker 1: Good. Yeah, I said no to that when I got
Speaker 1: that option. Hey, do you want us to make a
Speaker 1: fingerprint of your voice?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 8: Yeah, So I guess my concern is I just want
Speaker 8: to say, you know, I have a concern about security issues.
Speaker 8: So you know, that's something that's going to have to
Speaker 8: you know, just like the actors not letting their image
Speaker 8: taken later on and done something with you know, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it to be through. Yeah, And look,
Speaker 1: and all these companies are going to try to do
Speaker 1: what they can because it makes their lives easier, you know,
Speaker 1: if they if they can run this authentication. Supposedly it's
Speaker 1: in our favor, but let's be honest, is it really
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're protecting their assets,
Speaker 1: you know, their their accounts and all this stuff. And
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that the voice recognition stuff is
Speaker 1: probably pretty good. But I'm just not sure I'm ready
Speaker 1: for that just yet. You know, it's one of these
Speaker 1: things where it's it's pretty new, and I'm seeing it
Speaker 1: in more and more companies. When you call up they say, hey,
Speaker 1: do you mind if we use your voice to authenticate you?
Speaker 1: I say no, And I'm not saying you have to
Speaker 1: say no, but I do see the concerns with that.
Speaker 1: Do they share that information? Who stores that now? Earlier
Speaker 1: in the show, you know, I played my AI voice on.
Speaker 8: The iPhone's That's why I called right.
Speaker 1: Away, because it's really fascinating that now anyone will be
Speaker 1: able to create one of these. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the iPhone is just one of a thousand tools that
Speaker 1: you can easily find online that will do something similar.
Speaker 1: There are many many AI startups that will help you
Speaker 1: create an AI voice of yourself. So the iPhone is
Speaker 1: just putting it in a lot of people's hands. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I didn't really think it sounded like me.
Speaker 8: But either, however, I mean, technology is going to develop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's day one, right, it's not even day one
Speaker 1: because this isn't even public it's a public beta, So
Speaker 1: iOS seventeen doesn't even happen until the fall. So the
Speaker 1: bottom line, Marcy, I think is is here's what we're learning.
Speaker 1: Number one, you had this data breach. So your information
Speaker 1: is out there and it's probably your social Security number,
Speaker 1: your name, your phone number, your email, user names, passwords,
Speaker 1: all that stuff could be potentially in this breach. Right,
Speaker 1: So how do you protect yourself? What remedies did they
Speaker 1: give you for this breach? Do you know?
Speaker 8: I actually the lines are so busy. This is well
Speaker 8: the California State.
Speaker 10: Teachers, that's a lot of it.
Speaker 8: You can imagine how many people.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 8: If somebody my friend call it took her two and
Speaker 8: a half hours on hold and they didn't have a
Speaker 8: callback number. So I've done some things I don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm looking.
Speaker 8: At I'm not sure I want to say this on right.
Speaker 1: Well, they're saying that they want you to put a
Speaker 1: fraud alert on your credit reports. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: see if they've listed the information. Okay, okay, the files
Speaker 1: contained contained the name and social security numbers, date of birth,
Speaker 1: and zip codes of certain calisters. Is that it is that?
Speaker 1: What it's called Calsters members and beneficiaries?
Speaker 11: Oh?
Speaker 1: Okay, So it's not even just you, it's also the
Speaker 1: people that you are trying to give your money to
Speaker 1: as a beneficiary. Now their number in their soci security number.
Speaker 8: So also CalPERS, which is a California public employees.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here here's my recommendation with this. I actually
Speaker 1: use Google if you pay Google for something called Google One.
Speaker 1: So if you have like any sort of storage with Google,
Speaker 1: they actually offer a service where they will they will
Speaker 1: they will scan the dark web for your information. So Google,
Speaker 1: of course is always crawling the web every day to
Speaker 1: see what's new. They can have a service where they
Speaker 1: will alert you if your information comes up in their search,
Speaker 1: and they will look for your name, your address, your
Speaker 1: phone number, your email, your social security number, you username
Speaker 1: and password. Wow, I can't speak today, and so I
Speaker 1: have signed up for this service. The only thing, and
Speaker 1: this is similar to something like a LifeLock or any
Speaker 1: of these nor insecurity services, right. Uh, the only thing
Speaker 1: is you have to give them your information so that
Speaker 1: they can look for it exactly. And so that's where
Speaker 1: I have the problem with all you know, whatever, this
Speaker 1: free year of credit monitoring they gave you, you probably
Speaker 1: have to hand over all your personal information to this
Speaker 1: company and so that's where I say no.
Speaker 8: And so of the it's one of the three, you know,
Speaker 8: it's one of the three credit bureaus that they will
Speaker 8: give us a your free and so when my teacher
Speaker 8: friends is up, I'm not doing that, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because then you have to give Now the credit bureaus
Speaker 1: have your info. But I think the monitoring service is
Speaker 1: probably a separate entity from the standard you know, reporting service.
Speaker 1: So where does that leave us, Marcia? I think what
Speaker 1: you have to do and I think it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of good privacy hygiene. The less you give out
Speaker 1: your information, the more protected you potentially are. So what
Speaker 1: does that mean when someone asks for your social just
Speaker 1: think do I need to give this to that business,
Speaker 1: that person, that company, whatever it is. Same thing with
Speaker 1: email address. We're seeing now this idea of your email
Speaker 1: address is becoming part of your identity as well your
Speaker 1: phone number. It's all part of your identity. So the
Speaker 1: more that you can get this stuff off of these
Speaker 1: databases and off of the web in general, the better
Speaker 1: you're going to be. Now, we can't help it when
Speaker 1: a company has a data breach, there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 1: That information is out there. It will continue to just
Speaker 1: percolate throughout the web. People buy lists, They use this
Speaker 1: information to text us and to scam us and to
Speaker 1: fish us, and so you really have to be vigilant
Speaker 1: about making sure that you keep your information out of there.
Speaker 1: I'm going to put the link to this Google. If
Speaker 1: you do pay for any storage on Google, you can
Speaker 1: use this Google one service to scan the dark web.
Speaker 1: Now for me personally, let me tell you, oh, actually
Speaker 1: it's not even even for non members. You can do this.
Speaker 1: So Google one members will get let's see one email address,
Speaker 1: so they will scan for your email address and you
Speaker 1: can review the results. But if you're a Google one member,
Speaker 1: you can do your soci security number, your name, your
Speaker 1: data birth, your address, up to ten emails and up
Speaker 1: to ten phone numbers. So if you go to one
Speaker 1: dot Google dot com and under dark Web report, you
Speaker 1: can click try now and then run scan and it
Speaker 1: will show you your information. Of course, I'll put all
Speaker 1: this on the website linked up at richon tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: But that's just one of these services. There are many
Speaker 1: of these services that can help you with this. Try
Speaker 1: to get your information off of these public databases. You
Speaker 1: can do it yourself. You can subscribe to a service
Speaker 1: that will do it. But again, the less you give out,
Speaker 1: the better you're going to be. And I would definitely
Speaker 1: look into using hidden email addresses. So this is another
Speaker 1: thing that people are rapidly sort of understanding, is instead
Speaker 1: of giving out your real email address when you sign
Speaker 1: up for a website, you use what's called a hidden
Speaker 1: or a cloaked email address. And what that means is
Speaker 1: that it's almost like a password. It's a one time
Speaker 1: email address that will only work for that website. So Marci,
Speaker 1: thanks for the call. And it's just one of these
Speaker 1: things where we really have to be on guard. So ah, man,
Speaker 1: this stuff is so concerning with the information. It's just
Speaker 1: everywhere I mean you go, I get these these little
Speaker 1: alerts and it's just like, oh, your email address came
Speaker 1: up here, your password came up here. Can reuse the
Speaker 1: same password twice? I will say that again, do not
Speaker 1: reuse the same password twice. I feel like a broken
Speaker 1: record when I say that, because people want to make
Speaker 1: things easy, and you shouldn't make it easy because the
Speaker 1: easier you make it for yourself, the easier you make
Speaker 1: it for hackers. The other thing to know, turn on
Speaker 1: two factor authentication, do it yesterday. Turn it on. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you all right. More on the website rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot TV. More of your calls at triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to one zero one. You're doing something smart today.
Speaker 1: You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Let's go to Let's go to Ted
Speaker 1: in Fountain Valley, California. Ted, You're on with rich Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 10: Hi, rich Ria. I've been using an old Windows seven
Speaker 10: laptop for the last thirteen years. I'm now replacing it
Speaker 10: with a new Windows eleven laptop. But over the last
Speaker 10: thirteen years, I've accumulated a lot of software on my
Speaker 10: old laptop. I'm trying to figure out if I'm able
Speaker 10: to just transfer that software to the new laptop, or
Speaker 10: do I need to go out and buy the very
Speaker 10: same programs a second time for the new Windows eleven laptop.
Speaker 1: Well, it all depends on the software. So some software
Speaker 1: will let you transfer it over, some will not, and
Speaker 1: it all sort of depends on how they run their
Speaker 1: program So, as you might expect, I switch devices a lot,
Speaker 1: I move things around a lot, and I run into
Speaker 1: some software that allows you to activate on multiple devices.
Speaker 1: Other software that only allows you to activate on one
Speaker 1: device at a time. Some software that maybe wants you
Speaker 1: to rebuy, or it's a subscription based or it's you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. So it's really going to depend on
Speaker 1: the programs themselves. So what I would do is make
Speaker 1: a list of your programs and sort of investigate each
Speaker 1: program and what their deal is. So let's say it's
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to see on my computer here, what
Speaker 1: do I have like something like you know, if it's free.
Speaker 1: Now you said you got this over thirteen years, so
Speaker 1: some of this software may be outdated for the new computer.
Speaker 1: Depends on do they have an updated model, do they
Speaker 1: have an updated system for this? So it really depends
Speaker 1: on the software. And so what I would do is
Speaker 1: I would just go through each software program, make a
Speaker 1: list of all the programs that you have, and just
Speaker 1: go through and go on Google and go to the
Speaker 1: software website and see what it says. So say, you know,
Speaker 1: transfer to a new device, or what your account is.
Speaker 1: Some of these will have an activation code that you'll
Speaker 1: need to use. Other may not. But it really is
Speaker 1: going to depend on the software that you're installing. On
Speaker 1: the new computer. So a lot of the new software
Speaker 1: nowadays is all subscription based, and so they want to
Speaker 1: make you pay to use that software, and they sort
Speaker 1: of decide can you install that on multiple devices? Can
Speaker 1: you install it on just one device? And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: even slick enough where when you install it on one device,
Speaker 1: it stops working on the previous device. So it's really
Speaker 1: going to depend on the software and how they have
Speaker 1: it set up. The other thing is that because you've
Speaker 1: been accumulating the software for so long, there may be
Speaker 1: some products that are available as a website or as
Speaker 1: a web based software that you may be able to
Speaker 1: switch to kind of easily to do that as well.
Speaker 1: So I've seen it all. It just really depends how
Speaker 1: they have things set up. But that's quite The upgrade
Speaker 1: Windows seven to Windows eleven is a big one, and
Speaker 1: so that is going to be a big change for you.
Speaker 1: But that's thirteen years on your last laptop is a
Speaker 1: pretty good run, so I think you've done pretty well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, definitely make a list of the software that
Speaker 1: you have before you move to the new laptop. It
Speaker 1: sounds like you'll probably have this old laptop with you.
Speaker 1: For myself, what I usually do is I'll take screenshots
Speaker 1: of my system before I switched to the new computer,
Speaker 1: so that way I can see how I had everything
Speaker 1: set up. I can see all the different programs that
Speaker 1: I had installed, and then I can easily go through
Speaker 1: and reinstall those programs on the new computer. And these
Speaker 1: days it's gotten pretty good a lot of times. If
Speaker 1: you had some sort of activation code with a program,
Speaker 1: you can go to the website, type in your email address,
Speaker 1: and they'll send you a new activation code. So it
Speaker 1: again just sort of depends on the program that you're
Speaker 1: using how they decide to do that. So good question, Ted.
Speaker 1: Thanks for calling in today from Fountain Valley. If you
Speaker 1: have a question, give me a call. The phone lines
Speaker 1: are open. It's triple eight rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Let's talk Amazon Prime Day. Did you just shop on
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Day? The data is in July eleventh and twelfth.
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Day twenty twenty three, July eleventh, the first
Speaker 1: day has now set a new single sales record for Amazon.
Speaker 1: They've never had a bigger sales day in history. Over
Speaker 1: two days, Prime members bought over three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five million items. Now this is the funny part. Amazon
Speaker 1: doesn't say how much was sold. They only say how
Speaker 1: much was saved. Members saved over two point five billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Top selling categories included home, fashion, beauty, popular deal, We're
Speaker 1: on AirPods, some sort of like deep cleaner from Bissel,
Speaker 1: and lip gloss. Pretty random there. The most popular thing
Speaker 1: that people bought was a Fire TV stick. That is
Speaker 1: huge because that means that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: using these streaming sticks, which we know, but Fire TV stick,
Speaker 1: because it's so prevalent and because it's so cheap, it
Speaker 1: is becoming the platform to be with streaming. And Amazon
Speaker 1: knows this. They are really secretly building a huge TV platform.
Speaker 1: And what does that mean later on advertising? They can
Speaker 1: control the advertising that people see on that Fire TV stick,
Speaker 1: and that means they've got a lot of bargaining power
Speaker 1: with these streaming websites and apps. Let's see, now that's
Speaker 1: Amazon's information. Then we have Adobe and as they get
Speaker 1: receipts from a lot of different people through different methods,
Speaker 1: and so they tallied up the data. They don't specifically
Speaker 1: cite Prime Day. They don't have necessarily like here's what
Speaker 1: people ordered on Amazon, but they know what people ordered
Speaker 1: in general. And total Prime Day spending this year twelve
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars, up six percent over last year.
Speaker 1: So on July twelfth, Day two spending hit six point
Speaker 1: three billion dollars in one day. People were just pouring
Speaker 1: money into Amazon on July twelfth and the eleventh. Let's
Speaker 1: see discounts electronics, apparel, and toys. Of course, twenty percent
Speaker 1: of orders use curb side pickup, which was something that
Speaker 1: sort of started during the pandemic. And have you tried this,
Speaker 1: this curb side pickup. You basically order the stuff in
Speaker 1: the app and then you drive up to target. You
Speaker 1: order anywhere. I mean so many stores have this now,
Speaker 1: where you drive up and someone runs out to your car.
Speaker 1: We did this the other day for Fast Food. Place
Speaker 1: the order on the phone and you drive up and
Speaker 1: you just wait in that spot and they bring your
Speaker 1: food out. And by the way, if you're not downloading
Speaker 1: the app for the retailer that you're shopping at, I
Speaker 1: highly recommend you do it. You know why, because they're
Speaker 1: trying to get people to use their apps, and what
Speaker 1: does that mean? They are putting discounts inside the app
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, any story you go to, whether it's Target,
Speaker 1: whether it is Best Buy, whether it is a fast
Speaker 1: food place, download the app. All these quick service restaurants,
Speaker 1: all of the coupons and discounts are inside the apps.
Speaker 1: So you take five extra minutes to download the app
Speaker 1: and place your order that way, I'm telling you it
Speaker 1: will save you money. We went to a sub shop
Speaker 1: the other day and you go into the subshop, there's
Speaker 1: no discounts, there's no nothing, and you go inside the app.
Speaker 1: It's by one get on free. So just take the
Speaker 1: extra time to download the app and do this, and
Speaker 1: when you sign up again, sign up with unique email address,
Speaker 1: unique password, and save that information in your phone so
Speaker 1: you can use it later. Forty four point eight percent
Speaker 1: of sales came from smartphones, so now we're talking almost
Speaker 1: fifty percent of people are shopping from their phones. And
Speaker 1: that's through not just Amazon Prime, but all shopping, So
Speaker 1: that's pretty wild. Amazon Prime started out as a celebration
Speaker 1: of Amazon's birthday, and now it's become the largest shopping
Speaker 1: event of the summer and one of the largest shopping
Speaker 1: events of the year. So Amazon literally created a shopping
Speaker 1: event out of nothing. It used to be of Best Reviews.
Speaker 1: Jacob Palmer of Best Reviews last week mentioned that it
Speaker 1: calls it the Turkey Five, the five days between Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: and the you know, the Monday, those five shopping days.
Speaker 1: It used to be just Black Friday. Now it's that
Speaker 1: entire Like as soon as people are done at the
Speaker 1: Turkey dinner, they're like out the door shopping. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever shopped on Thanksgiving, but it's happening. Okay,
Speaker 1: coming up, we got lots more to talk about. We
Speaker 1: got a maze VR. Lance Drake and Cook Kim are
Speaker 1: going to join us to talk about a new VR
Speaker 1: concert app. If you have one of these VR headsets,
Speaker 1: you gotta download this app. It is called a maze
Speaker 1: VR and they have their first concert inside there. It
Speaker 1: is a Zara Larson. I experienced it. It was incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean it was a private VR concert just for me,
Speaker 1: but anyone that can experience it, it's really really cool.
Speaker 1: Later on in the show, we've got Ben Sam. I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to have Ben on the show. This guy
Speaker 1: travels more than anyone I know. He's always testing out
Speaker 1: new smartphones and he does a really good job, very
Speaker 1: very fair and he's very worldly as well, so he's
Speaker 1: going to join me to talk about a nothing phone too.
Speaker 1: But of course we have more of your calls at
Speaker 1: triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Give me
Speaker 1: a call if you have a question about technology. You
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on social media. I am at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and yes, I'm still on threads. Last week
Speaker 1: it was yes I'm still on Twitter. Now this week
Speaker 1: it's yes, I'm still on threads. I'll be honest. Threads
Speaker 1: is uh. I don't know is it happening? Are people
Speaker 1: still using it? I'm getting a lot of spam on threads,
Speaker 1: a lot of spam, not too much interaction. So I
Speaker 1: think my theory is that Threads is sort of the
Speaker 1: Instagram crowd, and the Instagram crowd is not necessarily the
Speaker 1: Twitter crowd, and so I don't know where does that
Speaker 1: leave us. It leaves me where. I deleted Threads from
Speaker 1: my home screen and replaced it with Twitter again because
Speaker 1: Twitter feels like it's a Twitter crowd. They're people that
Speaker 1: want information, they are people that want updates. People that
Speaker 1: are on threads are Instagram people. Instagram people want Instagram stories,
Speaker 1: they want Instagram photos and reels. And so it's gotten
Speaker 1: very confusing because I think a lot of people signed
Speaker 1: up because it was easy, but then there are they
Speaker 1: still staying there and I'm not the only one. According
Speaker 1: to some estimates of different reports, let's see, time spent
Speaker 1: on threads has dropped over fifty percent from twenty minutes
Speaker 1: to eight minutes, according to some numbers from sensor Tower
Speaker 1: and similar web. And let's see. A Meta spokesperson told
Speaker 1: Gizmoto in an email, while it's early days, we're excited
Speaker 1: about the initial success, which they were. They were touting
Speaker 1: one hundred million sign ups. But out of those hundred
Speaker 1: million people, who is still actually using it on a
Speaker 1: daily basis? I don't know. And then Elon Musk tweeted out,
Speaker 1: let's see, do I have his tweet somewhere here? Probably
Speaker 1: I thought I did, but I guess I don't. But
Speaker 1: he tweeted out that the usage on Twitter was up,
Speaker 1: like they were reaching new records. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a battle. It's tough. I think at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it's tough for you, the consumer, because
Speaker 1: nobody wants to sit there and check one hundred different
Speaker 1: apps every day. We want to check a couple And
Speaker 1: it's already tough enough that we've got Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter and YouTube shorts and TikTok and email and
Speaker 1: sms and dms, and it just goes on and on.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. I'm not gonna say Threads is dead's
Speaker 1: but you know, we'll see what happens with it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to follow that one. Let's take a question here,
Speaker 1: Let's go to Let's go to Kathy. Kathy in Duarte.
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 5: Hi Hi, Rich.
Speaker 12: So my question is, actually it's a statement. First, I
Speaker 12: use a Mac and I use the email. I use
Speaker 12: yahus on my Mac because I prefer it, and at
Speaker 12: least I did it until last night when I went
Speaker 12: in to compose a new document rather than the old format.
Speaker 12: It puts me inside the little box that says new message.
Speaker 12: And I'm trying to and I didn't click anything to
Speaker 12: make this happen, and I try to go into help
Speaker 12: to figure out how to go back into the old format,
Speaker 12: and I'm just not able to figure it out.
Speaker 1: So they redesigned.
Speaker 12: Design. Yeah, when I click on an email, it comes
Speaker 12: out it looks exactly like it used to. But when
Speaker 12: I click on compose, I get the little box that
Speaker 12: I never liked, a little box. So that's why I
Speaker 12: didn't use the mail function that came on my map.
Speaker 12: I went, I switched right to Yahoo, and now it's
Speaker 12: reminding me of the one I switched away from.
Speaker 1: Oh no, okay. And so when you when you compose
Speaker 1: a message, it's composing it in a little window versus
Speaker 1: a larger window, right.
Speaker 12: As opposed to going into that email where you can
Speaker 12: click reply, right, it's this new message too, and then
Speaker 12: subjects and you can attach documents and whatever on the bottom.
Speaker 12: But I prefer to have the old email in case
Speaker 12: I'm addressing it to something. And this is like it's
Speaker 12: a brand of email, no matter what.
Speaker 1: And so does it look like the entire website has
Speaker 1: changed because I'm looking I'm looking inside, you know, on
Speaker 1: anything about Yahoo mail redesigned, and I don't see anything
Speaker 1: for like a year.
Speaker 12: That's so interesting because it just happened yesterday. And everything
Speaker 12: still looks the same to me. You know, I'm wondering,
Speaker 12: maybe I should just, rather than restart, just close down everything.
Speaker 12: And then is there a way to go out of
Speaker 12: y'allhoo email and then go back into it and maybe
Speaker 12: the old Parmatt will come back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, there's a couple of things you can do.
Speaker 1: Would I would see, look in your settings and see
Speaker 1: if there's a way to revert to classic view. There
Speaker 1: might be Sometimes when these whenever there's a big change
Speaker 1: with any sort of online service, they typically know that
Speaker 1: people do not like change, right. We are creatures of habit.
Speaker 1: We like things to look the way they look, and
Speaker 1: it takes a while for us to adapt to the
Speaker 1: new newness of things. So what I would do is
Speaker 1: look at.
Speaker 12: One of the things I did try was I did
Speaker 12: click on the three little dots inside of an email. Actually,
Speaker 12: when I did it last night, it would say revert
Speaker 12: to classics. Yeah, I was supposed to look to look
Speaker 12: for where it said revert to classic but it does
Speaker 12: not give me that option.
Speaker 1: Oh so it doesn't even give you that option. Well maybe,
Speaker 1: so I'm wondering if what happened was maybe you didn't
Speaker 1: have maybe you were on the long runway of the
Speaker 1: new you know, when I said I looked this up,
Speaker 1: it said it was a year ago that they kind
Speaker 1: of read, you know, changed things. So maybe you were
Speaker 1: on that grace period and that grace period has ended,
Speaker 1: and so now that option to go back to the
Speaker 1: old way is just not there. So the only thing
Speaker 1: I could recommend is perhaps using a different app or
Speaker 1: something to access your email on your computer. I know
Speaker 1: you said you didn't like the included email app on
Speaker 1: your Mac, but there are some other ones. The one
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people like is Edison Mail,
Speaker 1: So that's one that people like. There's so many, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's Spark. There's a lot of different email providers for
Speaker 1: the for the Mac computer. So maybe check out some
Speaker 1: of the just options there and maybe you'll like something
Speaker 1: that's a little bit different. You know, you can go
Speaker 1: with Thunderbird. There's Outlook if you want. Actually, you know what,
Speaker 1: I might recommend this to you since it's free, I
Speaker 1: would just maybe try micro Soft Outlook and connect your
Speaker 1: account to that. So just search for Microsoft Outlook on
Speaker 1: the Mac. You can download that app and it just
Speaker 1: came out with it it's brand new and it's like
Speaker 1: a very classic email app and you can log in
Speaker 1: with your Yahoo account that way and check it there.
Speaker 1: And so hopefully Kathy you'll like that better. But I agree,
Speaker 1: we don't like change. It's when these things change, people
Speaker 1: don't like it. No one likes change, but it happens
Speaker 1: to the best of us. All right. Coming up next,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to a maze VR about how
Speaker 1: you can experience concerts in virtual reality. And if you
Speaker 1: have a call or if you have a question, give
Speaker 1: me a call at Triple eight rich one on one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here with you on the Sony backlot in Culver City, California.
Speaker 1: This is where they record a lot of music and
Speaker 1: also you may have heard of a couple of shows
Speaker 1: that they do here called Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with Lance Drake is the creative director
Speaker 1: at Amazed VR.
Speaker 3: Lance, thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 13: Thanks thanks for being here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about this concert that I just
Speaker 1: experienced in virtual reality. I was in a Metaquest headset
Speaker 1: and Zara Larson was literally inches away from my face,
Speaker 1: singing and dancing. Explain to me what I just experienced.
Speaker 14: Yeah, so you just got a preview of our Zara
Speaker 14: Larson VR concert experience and this is the launch and
Speaker 14: a preview of our home app, and we represent the
Speaker 14: future of VR concerts.
Speaker 13: We offer the highest.
Speaker 14: Quality and stereo fidelity and immersiveness and it's it's, in
Speaker 14: my opinion, a completely new medium for musicians to explore
Speaker 14: and get closer than ever to their fans.
Speaker 13: So we've heard about VR before.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of starts and stops with VR,
Speaker 1: but now that Apple is coming out with a headset,
Speaker 1: it seems to have legitimatized this technology. Where are we
Speaker 1: with view?
Speaker 14: You know, I think we're at the beginning of VR,
Speaker 14: and that's what's most exciting is that the possibilities are
Speaker 14: endless and it's kind of a new level of experimentation
Speaker 14: and communication. And I think that's why Apple's entering now,
Speaker 14: is because this represents raising the ceiling for the way
Speaker 14: people communicate and use digital tools. And what's really exciting
Speaker 14: about the Apple launch is that they always bring the
Speaker 14: human touch to it, and I think that's what is.
Speaker 13: Going to be the breaking point is that.
Speaker 14: You know, in the past couple of years, we've been
Speaker 14: given the promise of the metaverse and what is the metaverse?
Speaker 13: And it's not really defined.
Speaker 14: And honestly, that humanity and that human spirit, which we're
Speaker 14: also exploring in our application, I think represents the future
Speaker 14: of VR.
Speaker 1: So the concert that I experienced was not like your
Speaker 1: typical concert. It was almost like a solo performance just
Speaker 1: for the person that's watching. And I'm sitting there and
Speaker 1: Zara Larsen is in some sort of virtual reality set.
Speaker 1: Explain to me how this is different than a typical
Speaker 1: concert you would go to or just see in VR. Yeah.
Speaker 14: So we shoot on the highest quality stereo cameras and
Speaker 14: we place the artists in the most immercible and dynamic
Speaker 14: CG environments. So unlike other metaverse or other digital experiences
Speaker 14: that typically either are an avatar representation of a person
Speaker 14: or of a musician, this is the artist singing to
Speaker 14: you and performing to you. It's better than a front
Speaker 14: row seat at a concert. But it's also different. It's
Speaker 14: a completely new media. I'm really excited for what we're
Speaker 14: hoping every artist across the world to just roll up
Speaker 14: their sleeves and create this whole new genre of communication
Speaker 14: and creation.
Speaker 1: You call it a whole new genre, and it really is,
Speaker 1: because it felt like the most intimate experience you could
Speaker 1: have with an artist. They're performing just for you. That
Speaker 1: is different than anything we've seen before. If you're at
Speaker 1: a concert, they're very far from you. If you are
Speaker 1: watching a music video, it's kind of a music video.
Speaker 1: This is almost an entirely new way of experiencing your
Speaker 1: favorite artist. Do you think people will take a liking
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah?
Speaker 13: Absolutely.
Speaker 14: You know, it's all about super fans now and fandom
Speaker 14: and every fan of their favorite artist, and any fan
Speaker 14: they're detail obsessed. They want to know the wardrobe, they
Speaker 14: want to know the designer. They want to know the
Speaker 14: nails and the makeup artists and the shoes, and they
Speaker 14: want to be immersed in the world and the lore
Speaker 14: and the story of music. And you know, our company
Speaker 14: is detail obsessed. And it's almost like a dream state.
Speaker 14: You're somewhere in between reality and in this highly customized
Speaker 14: bespoke show that's for the fan, and it's also giving
Speaker 14: fans permission to look because you're making direct eye contact
Speaker 14: with your favorite artists.
Speaker 13: And how much is a meet and greet.
Speaker 14: These days to get a handshake backstage for a moment.
Speaker 13: This is for fans to return to forever.
Speaker 14: I think as a kid, if I had the chance
Speaker 14: to see Michael Jackson Moonwalk, if I had a chance
Speaker 14: at the Motown twenty five, or I had the chance
Speaker 14: to see Madonna where the bride like a virgin dress.
Speaker 14: Our company represents a chance for artists to be forever.
Speaker 1: How do you get the app? And how much does
Speaker 1: an experience like this cost?
Speaker 14: So Our May's VR app has launched and it's available
Speaker 14: on Meta headsets and Steam and will soon be coming
Speaker 14: to Peico and all major VR headsets. We're already dev
Speaker 14: toolkitting to on board to the Apple headset when it's
Speaker 14: ready to launch, and we're just really excited to give
Speaker 14: fans access to their favorite artists in ways that were
Speaker 14: unimaginable before.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the world that I was experiencing, because
Speaker 1: you've got this real life person, but it seemed to
Speaker 1: be in a virtual world she was in.
Speaker 13: That's part of the dream like state of our shows.
Speaker 14: And I think the differential between what we've created anything
Speaker 14: that's been done before is that artists are performing live
Speaker 14: in a CG environment, and I say it's a dream
Speaker 14: state because it's completely controlled. You're not seeing the rigging
Speaker 14: of the lighting, you're not seeing the scuffs in the floor.
Speaker 14: You're seeing perfection, and it's timed to the music, and
Speaker 14: it's almost this perfect moment. And it's all about that
Speaker 14: moment of connection and complete immersion in this world. And
Speaker 14: you know, we collaborate with artists and we help to
Speaker 14: help them to design these worlds, and we do it
Speaker 14: all in house at the moment, and I think eventually
Speaker 14: the dream is for artists to go off shoot their
Speaker 14: own shows, ingest it into our platform and soon maybe
Speaker 14: one day everyone will be able to create their own
Speaker 14: VR concert and their own worlds to bring to the masses.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. So you're saying someone even at home might
Speaker 1: potentially be able to do this and release something like this.
Speaker 13: But like I mean, we're looking really far ahead.
Speaker 14: But if you look at the trajectory of two D content,
Speaker 14: the revolution and YouTube was someone like Justin Bieber performing
Speaker 14: in his living room or in his bedroom and knowing
Speaker 14: how to connect to the camera in a way that
Speaker 14: was very distinct and special. You have to imagine once
Speaker 14: vrs to the masses and people know that tool set
Speaker 14: and how to communicate, they'll be able to use what
Speaker 14: we've created to build their own worlds and light their
Speaker 14: own stages.
Speaker 13: And that's the dream.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's really something I didn't think about. This is
Speaker 1: an entirely new medium that people can create for in
Speaker 1: their homes. Because if you think about it, you may
Speaker 1: not even need a green screen in the future. Your
Speaker 1: AI will be able to just take my form and
Speaker 1: put it somewhere.
Speaker 14: A lot of the secret sauce of our company is
Speaker 14: actually our AI tool set, and it's a lot of
Speaker 14: auto keying, it's a lot of upresing, it's future proofing
Speaker 14: the technology, and it's also eventually going to allow us
Speaker 14: to shoot in a variety of spaces. And we'll also
Speaker 14: be working on design tools, opening up maybe eventually to
Speaker 14: the public to where someone in their home and then
Speaker 14: create their own Amazed VR concert.
Speaker 1: Let's bring in Cook Kim, head of production at Amazed VR.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me as well. Nice to meet you too, Cook.
Speaker 1: What do you want people to know when they watch
Speaker 1: this because it looks very fluid, it's very seamless, and
Speaker 1: it looks like you guys have been doing this forever
Speaker 1: but this is still pretty new.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I think always the challenge is with like VR. Obviously,
Speaker 15: I think there's not much people who worked a long
Speaker 15: time and for your format, the video format is selfish
Speaker 15: is very different, and I think the most challenging part
Speaker 15: is the sterele So having the perfect aligned left and
Speaker 15: right footage will give that vividness and immersiveness and the
Speaker 15: feeling that the actual, real human size person is right
Speaker 15: front of me.
Speaker 1: Are you excited to get this into the eyes of
Speaker 1: people out there?
Speaker 15: Previously, I think VR was mostly only used for entertainments
Speaker 15: and like gaming, especially gaming heavy. With like Apple announcement,
Speaker 15: I was really excited because now this technology is going
Speaker 15: beyond just gaming. It's just trying to coming closer to
Speaker 15: like regular people's life, using for work and other like
Speaker 15: everything in our lives. So yeah, I'm pretty excited. I'm
Speaker 15: just curious how people will react to our app and
Speaker 15: also I think it'll be a great way for artists
Speaker 15: and fans and I just want their action fast.
Speaker 1: Cook Kim and Lance Drake of Amazed VR, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining me. You gotta check this app out.
Speaker 1: It is very impressive. If you can get your hands
Speaker 1: on a VR headset or you have one. It's called
Speaker 1: a maze VR. You gotta see what I saw. Go
Speaker 1: to the website to download it. I'll put the link
Speaker 1: at Richontech dot TV. More rich on Tech coming up
Speaker 1: right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here talking technology with you at Triple A Rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. If you have a question
Speaker 1: about technology, give me a call. Phone lines are open.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Kerrie in uh Is it Sanni Yanez, California?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Perfect, I love that area. Beautiful.
Speaker 5: It is beautiful. We're very lucky to live here. And
Speaker 5: thank you for being there. That's helpful.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, thanks for holding. I know you're on
Speaker 1: for a while. What can I help?
Speaker 5: I was listening to your show and I thought, maybe
Speaker 5: this man can help me with my problem. I have
Speaker 5: a friend who's ninety three, and she's wonderful and she
Speaker 5: loves watching the chor to France and decided she needed
Speaker 5: a TV in her kitchen so she could do that.
Speaker 5: So we got a new TV. We hooked it up,
Speaker 5: Comcast came and got it all wired. Everything's great, except
Speaker 5: when we changed the volume to make it a little louder,
Speaker 5: and she's not hard of hearing. She hears better than
Speaker 5: I do. The little lady in the TV tells us
Speaker 5: it is not a smart TV, it's just a regular
Speaker 5: new or TV. It tells us that, yes, your volume
Speaker 5: is up or whatever, and shows the little bar It
Speaker 5: works both with the Comcast remote and the regular one
Speaker 5: that came with the TV. But the volume doesn't hold there.
Speaker 5: As she watches, it eventually reverts to the level that
Speaker 5: was on before. So we're not sure where the problem
Speaker 5: is and how to fix it.
Speaker 1: Huh. So as she's listening to the the TV, the
Speaker 1: volume's just gradually slowly going down.
Speaker 5: Correct?
Speaker 1: Huh? And so does this happen on every channel or
Speaker 1: just the Tour de France.
Speaker 5: Good question, because she's only watched so far as far
Speaker 5: as I know, because she lives alone. She's amazing. I'll
Speaker 5: ask her if she has the same problem on other channels.
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly have heard of volume issues on TVs
Speaker 1: where the volume goes up and down based on commercials
Speaker 1: or programming, or some people can't hear the dialogue. I mean,
Speaker 1: those are all very common. But the fact that the
Speaker 1: volume is going down as she's listening, does it get
Speaker 1: to a spot where she can no longer hear it?
Speaker 5: No, doesn't go that far. It just sort of reverts
Speaker 5: to a level that's not terrible. I mean, she says,
Speaker 5: it's I'm living with it, but it's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you set the volume at a certain level,
Speaker 1: of the volume should stay at that level.
Speaker 5: That's what we thought.
Speaker 1: Now here's my other question. When she's having this issue happen.
Speaker 1: Is there anything on the TV that shows that the
Speaker 1: volume's going down?
Speaker 5: No? No, the bar does not come back. The bar disappears,
Speaker 5: you know, after you first ask it to do whatever.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now here's my other question. Is the volume through
Speaker 1: the box or through the TV?
Speaker 5: So through the TV?
Speaker 1: Okay, because sometimes these cable boxes will use their own
Speaker 1: sort of volume and then the TV is secondary. So
Speaker 1: here's here's my quick sort of solution that you can try.
Speaker 1: Is I understand that you're using the remote that the
Speaker 1: cable box came with to adjust the volume? Correct?
Speaker 5: Well, we tried both. Oh, you have tried both and
Speaker 5: they do both work.
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say, because I think what's
Speaker 1: happening is the cable box sends a signal out to
Speaker 1: the TV with and so what cable companies have done
Speaker 1: over the years, because people have sort of issues in
Speaker 1: general with audio and connecting and making sure that the
Speaker 1: cable box controls the TV as a universal remote, what
Speaker 1: they've done to get around that is the cable box
Speaker 1: itself will adjust the volume up and down the signal
Speaker 1: that it's sending to the TV, so that even though
Speaker 1: it seems like you're adjusting it, you're actually just adjusting
Speaker 1: the cable box volume. So the volume on the TV
Speaker 1: is sort of separate. So I would try I know
Speaker 1: you said you did this, but I would try setting
Speaker 1: the volume on the TV. Does it bring up the
Speaker 1: same exact menu?
Speaker 5: Uh? Not quite sure how to answer that. You get
Speaker 5: a bar?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I feel like I'm curious if you get
Speaker 1: the same bar with both because if you're.
Speaker 5: Good question, I'm not there now, so I can't tell you.
Speaker 1: Because if you get the bar with the cable box
Speaker 1: or one or the other, then they may be independent
Speaker 1: volumes from each other. Oh wow, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like the TV may have Now. I don't think the
Speaker 1: TV is anything to do with this. I think that
Speaker 1: the TV is innocent. I think that the TV. The
Speaker 1: TV is not the culprit here. I do believe it's
Speaker 1: the cable box and it either has some sort of
Speaker 1: leveling function that's happening or something is adjusting it. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen to have a cat that's stepping on this remote,
Speaker 1: would she, because that happens in my house. We have
Speaker 1: we've foster kittens and they step on the remote and
Speaker 1: they change things, and it's really unfortunate. Okay, So what
Speaker 1: I would do to try to figure this out is
Speaker 1: I would go into the settings on the cable box
Speaker 1: and look for anything to do with audio, and in
Speaker 1: specifically anything to do with audio leveling or audio limiting
Speaker 1: or dialogue, and I would change those settings and see
Speaker 1: because I think that this cable box is somehow switching
Speaker 1: the settings. That's that's my theory.
Speaker 5: That sounds like a good idea. We tried the settings
Speaker 5: on the TV. I cannot find how to get to
Speaker 5: the settings on the cable box.
Speaker 1: Well, on the cable remote, there should be either a
Speaker 1: menu There should be there should be a menu button
Speaker 1: on there. You may not, you may not have looked
Speaker 1: for that, but that's what I would look for and see.
Speaker 1: I think the cable box is the culprit here. That's
Speaker 1: my theory.
Speaker 5: Okay, I will try it and she will be very appreciative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and call me back and let me know, because
Speaker 1: I really I'm this is like, this is stumping, Like
Speaker 1: I want to drive there, like I might have to
Speaker 1: do a wine tasting trip and just stop.
Speaker 5: We could manage that.
Speaker 1: I may have to like figure it because now you've
Speaker 1: really got me thinking about this. So the good news
Speaker 1: is about this show, there's other people listening that may
Speaker 1: be like, rich this is how we fix this. And
Speaker 1: so hopefully in the next week in the feedback segment,
Speaker 1: someone's listening that says, I know how to fix this. Andy,
Speaker 1: They say, this is what I did. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: I think, look in those menu settings for anything with
Speaker 1: audio on the cable box and see what the deal
Speaker 1: is with that. But Carrie, hopefully we can figure this out.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, and thank you for your help.
Speaker 5: Ver love yourself.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Good luck with that one, all right?
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four to one zero one. Man, that
Speaker 1: one really really stumped me. Man, I want to know
Speaker 1: what's causing that TV to go up and down in
Speaker 1: the volume. Leslie is in Laguna Beach. Leslie, you're on
Speaker 1: with Rich.
Speaker 11: Hey Rich, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 1: Yeah, help you.
Speaker 11: I use the app meant to track my expenses because
Speaker 11: it coordinates with the bank and everything, and so I
Speaker 11: can have everything in one spot. And the last few
Speaker 11: months my connection with Chase banks. They say that you
Speaker 11: have to reconnect, which has happened before with other banks
Speaker 11: or other accounts. But the difference this time is that
Speaker 11: when it reconnected, it deleted all of my data three
Speaker 11: months before. That's annoying and I looked at up online
Speaker 11: and people are having a problem, but there's no response
Speaker 11: from ment on what's happening or how you can get
Speaker 11: that back.
Speaker 1: No, and this has been going on forever. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean you may or may not be able to get
Speaker 1: it back because Chase only offers a certain amount of
Speaker 1: data transactions through the service, and so they may they
Speaker 1: may only and I don't know if it's ninety days
Speaker 1: or thirty days. But the beauty of Mint is that
Speaker 1: they keep those transactions for the year, and if you
Speaker 1: delete them, you go to do your taxes at the
Speaker 1: end of the year, and it's all gone. So I've
Speaker 1: used Mint forever. I think that it's been It was
Speaker 1: better when it was independent. Now it's owned by Into It.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, you know, it's they're trying to
Speaker 1: get you to pay, trying to get you to pay
Speaker 1: for stuff. So you can't reconnect your Chase because sometimes
Speaker 1: you just reconnect and the stuff is back in there.
Speaker 11: Now it happens three times now, And what are.
Speaker 1: You using for this? What are you doing on Mint?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 1: Are you just trying to see your value or you
Speaker 1: just are you like your your financials or are you
Speaker 1: trying to actually budget through this?
Speaker 11: No, I'm not budgeting, but I use at the track
Speaker 11: line expenses of the categories. Okay, So at the end
Speaker 11: of each month, I look at the category total and
Speaker 11: I transfer it to an Excel spreadsheet so I can
Speaker 11: compare months to months and year to year.
Speaker 1: Okay. The only thing I can do is offer you
Speaker 1: some some alternatives to Mint. But I would I would
Speaker 1: try to delete this log in and maybe change your
Speaker 1: password on Chase and then relink it because it should work.
Speaker 1: Mint is pretty big and so is Chase, and I
Speaker 1: think they work pretty well together. If it was a
Speaker 1: different bank, I might say other some other things. You
Speaker 1: can look at every dollar and there's one called personal capital,
Speaker 1: which I think they call them power. Now check those out.
Speaker 1: You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology.
Speaker 1: Phone lines are open at triple eight rich one O one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. Hello at Richontech dot tv. Is the
Speaker 1: email address. I've got all of your feedback for the
Speaker 1: feedback segment coming up. We're going to talk about some
Speaker 1: of the things that you email me, and you can
Speaker 1: follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and threats at rich on Tech and the website. Don't
Speaker 1: forget rich on Tech dot tv. Totally new fresh. Just
Speaker 1: go in there. It's got that like you know, fresh
Speaker 1: minty smell because it's so new and clean, so fresh
Speaker 1: and so clean. We got Ben send this hour to
Speaker 1: talk about the Nothing Phone two. It's been a while
Speaker 1: since I've seen such a unique smartphone hit the market,
Speaker 1: and this is one of them. We'll see what Ben
Speaker 1: thinks about this phone. He is a reviewer for XDA
Speaker 1: and also his own YouTube channel and speaking of watching stuff,
Speaker 1: on TV. Roku Channel now on Google TV, so if
Speaker 1: you have a Google TV device, you can download the
Speaker 1: Roku channel. If you're not familiar with the Roku channel,
Speaker 1: it's one of these channels that gives you a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff to watch for free, more than eighty thousand
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Speaker 1: Al Weird Al Story, They've got a movie about that,
Speaker 1: They've got the Great American Baking Show, and three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty free TV channels offering news, sports, entertainment. So
Speaker 1: this was available for some other platforms. It was exclusive
Speaker 1: to Roku at the beginning, but now it's available on
Speaker 1: Google TV. So if you're looking for something where you
Speaker 1: can watch stuff for free, and that's what really people
Speaker 1: want nowadays. People are sick of paying for their streaming services.
Speaker 1: Now they want these free services like Pluto TV and
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Speaker 1: Channel available now on Google TV. So if you have
Speaker 1: one of those, you can download Roku Channel and watch
Speaker 1: some new stuff. All right, let's go to Let's go
Speaker 1: to Linda in San Clementy. Linda, you're on with Rich Hi.
Speaker 9: Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: I hear you great, what's up?
Speaker 9: Well, I'm sitting here charging my chestla, so I'm not
Speaker 9: at my computer.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, you have a basic.
Speaker 5: Question for you.
Speaker 9: I'm sure your screeno may have told you, but so
Speaker 9: I don't want to go on and on. But it's
Speaker 9: about my track pad. It's an Apple track pad, or
Speaker 9: I guess you'd call it mouse, okay, And I have
Speaker 9: a desktop computer Apple, and it has always done, for instance, email,
Speaker 9: I click on it and I move it over to
Speaker 9: some fork into I drag it to my folders. But
Speaker 9: all of a sudden it stopped being able to drag,
Speaker 9: and I have to click on it and then pull
Speaker 9: it down to move too. It Also, if I go
Speaker 9: to take an email and forward it, and i'd like
Speaker 9: to take some of the email away, I used to
Speaker 9: be able to blue it out by holding it down
Speaker 9: and delete it, and now I have to take the
Speaker 9: cursor to one side, and each line out.
Speaker 5: I went up.
Speaker 16: I googled.
Speaker 9: I found out you know, what to do about the
Speaker 9: track pad is all fine in the settings as far
Speaker 9: as I'm sure, and I hard closed the computer a
Speaker 9: few times, however that remains okay.
Speaker 1: So it's just it's it's acting kind of funky like
Speaker 1: the not the way it used to act.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I just doesn't do the two things I generally
Speaker 9: is it for, which is moving you know, an email
Speaker 9: or something I purchased, But I'd like to put it
Speaker 9: over on the side of online quorterers, and now I
Speaker 9: have to do it. It's kind of like manually.
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, it's just it's just not working the
Speaker 1: way it used to work. So a couple of things. Uh,
Speaker 1: you start, You restarted your computer? Yes?
Speaker 13: What?
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's done. You did that. What about this?
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's like an Apple track pad, right, it's
Speaker 1: like an Apple branded one. Yes, okay. Have you tried
Speaker 1: resetting the actual track pad?
Speaker 14: Well?
Speaker 9: I went up the settings and I looked at how
Speaker 9: it is set, but I don't know how to reset it.
Speaker 9: Is it in that I go to settings? Will it
Speaker 9: say reset your trackpad?
Speaker 1: There should be a physical button on the track pad.
Speaker 1: I don't have mine with me here, but there should
Speaker 1: be a physical button.
Speaker 9: Have you on that button that turns it on and
Speaker 9: off light?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 9: I have not done that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what I would do is do that next.
Speaker 1: So press that for five seconds until it turns off,
Speaker 1: and then press it for five more seconds while you
Speaker 1: turn it on instead of just pressing it quick to
Speaker 1: turn it on, hold it, press it for five seconds
Speaker 1: to turn it on until the light starts flashing, and
Speaker 1: that will kind of like that'll kind of reset it.
Speaker 1: So you may have to reconnect it to your computer
Speaker 1: after that situation and that that hopefully should bring it
Speaker 1: back to the factory settings and everything will be back
Speaker 1: to the way you remember it. If that doesn't work,
Speaker 1: I would also maybe go into the Bluetooth settings on
Speaker 1: your computer and delete the track pad and reconnect it
Speaker 1: and see if that helps. But those are those are
Speaker 1: the things that I would do to kind of like
Speaker 1: see if it can come back to life the way
Speaker 1: that you wanted it. And you said you checked in
Speaker 1: your settings, because I would go in there and just
Speaker 1: make sure that nothing got changed because there are a
Speaker 1: considerable amount of settings when it comes to these track pads.
Speaker 1: I know, it just seems like a simple point click,
Speaker 1: drag whatever, but there are a lot of things that
Speaker 1: these little track pads can do, and so you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's something that you might want to look into
Speaker 1: as well, especially the point and click, and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes there's there's different little settings in there that may
Speaker 1: the gestures are you know, just that could have changed.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying they did, but I think that this
Speaker 1: just is a little bit needs a reconnection. Let's put
Speaker 1: it that way.
Speaker 11: Thank you.
Speaker 9: I will definitely try that. I love your program. I
Speaker 9: learn a lot because I'm not techy, but after listening
Speaker 9: to you, I feel like, I, you know, recharge my
Speaker 9: my techi brain.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well, you're you're recharging your tesla and
Speaker 1: your brain. How do you? How do you like the Tesla?
Speaker 7: I love my titts.
Speaker 5: I've had.
Speaker 1: This is my third your third test, so you were
Speaker 1: early on you? Why not? Wow? Okay, Well I love mine.
Speaker 1: I I think it's great. So except someone someone hit mine.
Speaker 1: If you listen to the show, you know I talked
Speaker 1: about someone hit and run and I had I didn't
Speaker 1: have my cameras turned on, so I didn't have the
Speaker 1: recording of that hit.
Speaker 9: Well, my first one was the ass and my son,
Speaker 9: being young, he ordered it for me with ludicrous. I
Speaker 9: never used that portion of the car.
Speaker 1: Oh you should have. You gotta try that.
Speaker 5: I tried it once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the best. Tesla lent me a car
Speaker 1: one time, and I did the all I did was
Speaker 1: literally take every friend and family member I knew down
Speaker 1: a street and we just all, like, you know, shot
Speaker 1: back into the seat. Right.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, I felt like I was a mission impossible
Speaker 9: movie for sure.
Speaker 1: Exactly. All Right, Linda, thanks so much and keep me
Speaker 1: posting on if you get this working again.
Speaker 9: Okay, thank you, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 1: Thanks for calling. Appreciate it. All right. Uh man, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of issues this weekend. I
Speaker 1: think the heat is bringing out the issues in people.
Speaker 1: Let me, let me hold on, let me grab this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to talk about this. But since
Speaker 1: Linda was talking about her Tesla, you know, EV's in
Speaker 1: the sun, in the heat, and we're going through a
Speaker 1: heat wave, not only here in Los Angeles, but in
Speaker 1: a lot of different cities right now. You're ev it'll
Speaker 1: be okay in the heat, but the heat definitely taxes
Speaker 1: the battery a little bit more. So, here's what you
Speaker 1: need to know. If you've got an electric car, you
Speaker 1: know this heat could affect your battery's health, especially over time.
Speaker 1: It could decrease the range. The reason is the chemicals
Speaker 1: in the battery. I don't want to get into the
Speaker 1: technical details. Of that, but basically they speed up and
Speaker 1: it can it can cause issues with the long term
Speaker 1: range of the battery. So if your car is in
Speaker 1: a hot garage for a long time, that can affect it.
Speaker 1: Cold water or cold weather not so much, doesn't really
Speaker 1: it changes the range just temporarily but not permit. And
Speaker 1: of course many evs are in places like California, Texas
Speaker 1: and Florida where the temperatures are the highest. So battery
Speaker 1: tips according to La Times park in this shade. Don't
Speaker 1: fast charge unnecessarily, So if you don't need to fast charge,
Speaker 1: don't like charge overnight. Slowly keep your car plugged in
Speaker 1: when you're not using it, Like if you have it
Speaker 1: in the garage, you can plug it in. That will
Speaker 1: let your car naturally keep the battery cool because it
Speaker 1: has systems in place to do that. And you can
Speaker 1: limit charging to eighty percent. So I know you get
Speaker 1: this car and you want it to go the full range,
Speaker 1: but I do believe I've been plugging mine in and
Speaker 1: charging it up to one hundred percent for a couple
Speaker 1: of years now, and I do think that has definitely
Speaker 1: taking the range down for sure. So eighty percent that's
Speaker 1: where you want to be on a daily basis. Sure
Speaker 1: you can charge full if you're going on a road
Speaker 1: trip or something like that, but on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis commuting and all that is the magic number. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the heat definitely will have an issue, will have an
Speaker 1: effect on it. So just know that if you have
Speaker 1: an EV it'll be fine, but just know that it
Speaker 1: could potentially have some long term issues with your car.
Speaker 1: All right, let's uh, let's take a break. Triple eight
Speaker 1: rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four to one zero one is the phone number
Speaker 1: to call. You can also email It's hello at richon
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. And if you haven't checked out the website,
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot tv brand new, cleaned up, ready
Speaker 1: to go. And I'll put the show notes for everything
Speaker 1: I mentioned here. So do I have time? I have
Speaker 1: time for one more? I have time for one more
Speaker 1: quick thing? I'm getting the look from Bobo that I
Speaker 1: got I got like quick quickick. I'll just tell you
Speaker 1: two quick things that are happening inside Google Google Calendar.
Speaker 1: In Google Calendar, they have added a feature that lets
Speaker 1: you send a link to someone and you can find
Speaker 1: a mutual time to meet. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: this app called calendar Calendly. How do you say that
Speaker 1: calendly c A L E N D L y calendly
Speaker 1: calendly dot com. A lot of people use this to
Speaker 1: find a time that works for both people. Now they've
Speaker 1: built that directly into Gmail, so you can find that
Speaker 1: when you're composing an email, look for a new calendar
Speaker 1: icon and it will show you the times that you're free,
Speaker 1: or you can share a link to someone and both
Speaker 1: find a time that you can meet. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of cool. And then this is really neat. If you
Speaker 1: have a business that relies on paid appointments, you can
Speaker 1: actually take paid appointment bookings right through Google Calendar. Now
Speaker 1: all you have to do is connect your Stripe, set
Speaker 1: a price, and create a booking page, and then customers
Speaker 1: can go to your little page and pay for the booking.
Speaker 1: So if you have some sort of consulting business or
Speaker 1: whatever you do where people pay for your time, you
Speaker 1: can now do that directly in Google Calendar. And Google
Speaker 1: Calendar says that they connect to Stripe, they don't process
Speaker 1: the payments themselves. You have to deal with all that
Speaker 1: through Stripe. But you can enable this paid booking feature
Speaker 1: inside Google calendar. So if you want to get charged
Speaker 1: for your time or charge for your time, there you go.
Speaker 1: I'll put all this on the website rich on tech dot.
Speaker 1: You all right, now we're going to break. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech where we're talking technology. Let's go
Speaker 1: to Jerry in Rancho San Rancho Santa Margarita. Is that right?
Speaker 9: Yep?
Speaker 1: But I've got Rancho San Margarita on my notes here,
Speaker 1: so I was like, I don't know if it's San
Speaker 1: Margarita or Santa, but welcome to the show.
Speaker 7: Well, it is Rancho Santa like clause Margarita.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so you got You got Santa Claus and
Speaker 1: Margarita all in the same name. That's a that's a
Speaker 1: fun place. What can I help you out?
Speaker 7: Well, it is Rancho Santa like clause Margarita.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so you got You got Santa Claus and
Speaker 1: Margarita all in the same name. That's a that's a
Speaker 1: fun place. What can I help you with?
Speaker 7: Well, I'm a longtime follower. You and I have traded
Speaker 7: emails over the past years. My question, I've been a
Speaker 7: mac Apple user since.
Speaker 1: Day one and day one of what.
Speaker 7: Well nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, so day one, I.
Speaker 7: Don't want to show my I don't want to show
Speaker 7: my age. But I've since been on Mac computers and
Speaker 7: and of course they're iOS forever.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, the question is Rich.
Speaker 7: I don't know if you've run across this, but I've
Speaker 7: got a external eight terabyte card drive that I use
Speaker 7: for time Machine and for backups on my MacBook and
Speaker 7: my desk stop and some reason I got this NTFS
Speaker 7: that popped up, and now the external drive says read only,
Speaker 7: and there are like a bunch of sites that want
Speaker 7: to charge for like I guess to fix it, to
Speaker 7: fix it, but then I sent the email to them,
Speaker 7: I said, what happens if I canceled the subscription? And
Speaker 7: they said, well then it won't work. So I don't
Speaker 7: know if I'm going to have to just get a
Speaker 7: new external drive, move everything over to that one, and
Speaker 7: then reform at this one that says read only.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, what hold on? So what have you used
Speaker 1: this drive on your computer?
Speaker 12: Oh?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean it was my main backup for and
Speaker 7: I can't do it. Won't let me do time Machine,
Speaker 7: it says, they back up sales because it's read only.
Speaker 1: Now, okay, did you plug this into a different computer.
Speaker 7: No, it just I think this NTFS pop up came
Speaker 7: on and I thought maybe it was my error that
Speaker 7: I tried to get rid of it, and I think
Speaker 7: it installed this Microsoft NTFS that you know obviously is
Speaker 7: not compatible with the Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, NTFS is is a format for the drive that
Speaker 1: the Mac does not like, and so that it's interesting
Speaker 1: that that it switched, though I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what made it switch.
Speaker 7: I might have, you know, when I think back, and
Speaker 7: it's been I've been trying for like a couple of
Speaker 7: months to you know, go on different sites and do
Speaker 7: different searches to see how to fix it. And some
Speaker 7: people have suggested, well, the best thing to do is
Speaker 7: get another drive and you're going to have to reform
Speaker 7: at it and then it'll be fine. But this is
Speaker 7: a great Sea Day eight terabyte that I've had for
Speaker 7: a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Well okay, okay, Well so here's my so Number one,
Speaker 1: you could a couple of things you could do with this.
Speaker 1: First off, you could try to repair the permissions. So
Speaker 1: have you tried to do that in finder? Have you
Speaker 1: done that at all? Well?
Speaker 7: I think with the you know, and I thought about
Speaker 7: taking it to and I knew about fixing permissions. Yeah,
Speaker 7: but for some reason they won't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably won't do it because it's NTFS. Uh.
Speaker 7: Well, but I think when I talked to someone at Apple,
Speaker 7: when I went to a Genius bar the latest I
Speaker 7: guess iOS is on desktops or such that Mac os,
Speaker 7: they said they won't let you do like years ago
Speaker 7: used to be able to go in and click permissions.
Speaker 1: Well, you could still do it, it's on. It's in. If
Speaker 1: you do a command eye, you can see the permissions
Speaker 1: and just switch it, you know, to read and write.
Speaker 1: But if it's in NTFS is probably not going to
Speaker 1: let you do that. So a couple of things you
Speaker 1: can do here. If this is a drive that you
Speaker 1: want to keep but the information on it is you
Speaker 1: can get rid of it. You can just go into
Speaker 1: disc utility and format it and just make sure you
Speaker 1: format it as a drive for the mac which you
Speaker 1: probably want to use the Mac os extended. You know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I've got so many files, like three or four
Speaker 7: terabytes of stuff that I need that you need.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So in that case, I.
Speaker 7: Guess I have to get a new drive.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, I don't. I think you could try
Speaker 1: to repair this with you can try a program. The
Speaker 1: one that I use that I think you could may
Speaker 1: be able to do on here is is clean my Mac.
Speaker 1: That may do it. The other thing. The other thing
Speaker 1: is you might be able to go into disc utility
Speaker 1: and click first aid and see if that yeah, I
Speaker 1: won't do it.
Speaker 7: Okay, go the disutilities and I haven't you clean my map, but.
Speaker 1: I would you can see if that can do it.
Speaker 1: But if it's not, this is a tricky one because
Speaker 1: it is format in a different way. I would say, maybe, uh,
Speaker 1: you got to transfer this data if you can't get
Speaker 1: the Mac to read this without losing everything. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up next, we're gonna talk. We're gonna talk nothing
Speaker 1: phone on rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology man.
Speaker 1: So many great questions today, Thanks for calling in at
Speaker 1: Triple eight. Rich one o one joining me now is
Speaker 1: a guest that I'm very excited to have because he
Speaker 1: is someone that I look forward to watching his reviews
Speaker 1: on YouTube and not just that, but all of his travels.
Speaker 1: Benson is a tech reviewer UH based in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: but lives in Hong Kong, so or well, Ben, you
Speaker 1: can explain. Ben, You're now You're in Thailand, so you
Speaker 1: are you are all over my friends, but you do
Speaker 1: Ben's gadget reviews on YouTube and you also write for
Speaker 1: the tech website XDA Developers. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: So where do you actually live these days? Because I
Speaker 1: know you've been in LA for a while and then
Speaker 1: you're you know you're in Hong Kong, So where do
Speaker 1: you actually live nowadays?
Speaker 2: I'm actually living in La.
Speaker 16: I was in Hong Kong for the past eight nine years,
Speaker 16: and I moved back to LA about like six months ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, and now.
Speaker 16: Right now fine, just because I'm happen to be between
Speaker 16: work trips. I have to go to go to Beijing
Speaker 16: for work and there's going to be another work trip
Speaker 16: in Seoul, which I know you know about. Yeah, waiting
Speaker 16: for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm actually going to be there so I will
Speaker 1: see you. I'm going cool, nice, I'm excited. It's a
Speaker 1: Samsung event, so I'm I'm looking. I've never been so
Speaker 1: to Korea. Okay, let's talk about the nothing phone. This
Speaker 1: is the nothing phone too. I talked about it a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier in the show. Without was a while ago,
Speaker 1: So let me see if I have any notes on
Speaker 1: this phone. But I this is a startup that it's
Speaker 1: formerly a couple of people from one plus went over
Speaker 1: London based startup it's called Nothing. This is their second
Speaker 1: phone and it's the first time it's available in the US,
Speaker 1: and it's an Android device six point seven inch screen.
Speaker 1: What is your impression of this phone?
Speaker 16: I like it quite a lot because I like it
Speaker 16: it has a lot of personality, which you can't always
Speaker 16: say about about phones that aren't like instead a flagship level,
Speaker 16: like this is like a little bit below the flagship level.
Speaker 16: It's what I would call like an upper midrange phone,
Speaker 16: and I think that has a lot of personality considering
Speaker 16: it's in that segment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's interesting about it, is like it's it's
Speaker 1: a basic Android device, but to me, it's one of
Speaker 1: these devices that, like I've had a hard time putting
Speaker 1: it down because I really think that I called it
Speaker 1: the you know, almost like the iPhone of Android. Like
Speaker 1: it's just it's simple, the software is clean, the phone
Speaker 1: does what you need it to do. The battery last forever.
Speaker 1: The camera's pretty decent. I mean, I think they came
Speaker 1: up with a pretty good device here.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I think that's exactly what our call paid the
Speaker 16: CEO of Nothing. That's what he's aiming for to make
Speaker 16: a kind of stylish and minimalistic device that you know,
Speaker 16: kind of takes on a little bit. That's like Apple's
Speaker 16: m right, like stylish, minimal.
Speaker 1: What about the back of this phone? It's got this
Speaker 1: glyph interface. Do you think some people are saying it's
Speaker 1: basically these lights that you can program to, you know,
Speaker 1: so you put your phone face down, and if you
Speaker 1: get an important text or an important voicemail, it will
Speaker 1: light up just those glyphs instead of you know, ringing
Speaker 1: your whole phone or making you look at the notifications
Speaker 1: all the time. Do you think this is a gimmick
Speaker 1: or do you actually find some use out of this.
Speaker 16: I lean slightly towards the gimmick part, although I in
Speaker 16: my review I didn't call it that, But I'm slightly
Speaker 16: leaning in that direction, mostly because I feel like a
Speaker 16: lot of people would just they're completely okay looking at
Speaker 16: the front of the phone, because the whole point of
Speaker 16: the Cliff interface is you're still looking at your phone,
Speaker 16: you're just looking at the back instead of the front.
Speaker 16: And call pay gave this whole speech about how like
Speaker 16: he wants to keep people's screen time down to help
Speaker 16: them more focus in the moment. And I guess some
Speaker 16: people that could be very useful for them, But for me,
Speaker 16: I find that all of them the likes looking very cool.
Speaker 2: I most of the times I just rather look at
Speaker 2: the front of the phone.
Speaker 1: I kind of agree with that, Like, I felt like
Speaker 1: it was odd to place my phone face down. As
Speaker 1: much as I understand the reasoning for that, I feel
Speaker 1: like we've all kind of gotten to this point where, yeah,
Speaker 1: some people are like super you know, they can't stop
Speaker 1: looking at their notifications, but there's also a helpfulness there,
Speaker 1: so you know, I think that's a maybe just a
Speaker 1: personal preference for how you want to use it. What
Speaker 1: did you think about the software and the cameras, especially
Speaker 1: because I you know, when I first took a couple
Speaker 1: of pictures, I was like, Wow, this camera is actually
Speaker 1: like I just I just I'm so programmed to be
Speaker 1: disappointed by things and so I but when I started
Speaker 1: taking pictures, like this is actually pretty good.
Speaker 16: Yeah, considering it's a relatively, you know, you know, it's
Speaker 16: price range. There's actually some debate on whether or not
Speaker 16: this phone is it's priced properly on the internet right now,
Speaker 16: particularly coming from other regions like not the US. But
Speaker 16: for me, this this phone isn't expensive, and I think
Speaker 16: at this price range of camera is quite good. But
Speaker 16: I'm also not that surprised because it uses the same
Speaker 16: image sensor. The main camera is a lot of one
Speaker 16: plus phones, and I believe nothing like the software team
Speaker 16: right now, it's like sixty five percent of it. It's
Speaker 16: former one plus engineer, so Calpa has poshed a lot
Speaker 16: as former colleagues to jump over and one plus make
Speaker 16: pretty good phone. So I think that the camera is
Speaker 16: about what I was expecting, and that's what software.
Speaker 2: I like it a lot.
Speaker 16: It's very clean, as fast as minimal. So one of
Speaker 16: the cool things about the software, or maybe gimmicky things.
Speaker 16: It's all monochrome, at least when you first boot up
Speaker 16: the phone. You can change it back to color later,
Speaker 16: but it's monochrome and the app icons don't have titles
Speaker 16: on it, so at first I was a little bit
Speaker 16: thrown off. I had a hard time identifying which apps
Speaker 16: I want to tap on. But after a day, I
Speaker 16: actually have grown to like it, and I kind of
Speaker 16: like how I really like the home screen, how it looks.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I just found myself looking at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's a little odd because their whole mo
Speaker 1: is to get you to use the phone less. So
Speaker 1: they have the monochromatic mode, they have the icons that
Speaker 1: are sort of black and white and no labels, and
Speaker 1: so it makes you kind of much more thoughtful in
Speaker 1: how you use your phone. I don't know, I can't
Speaker 1: get used to that. I tried it. I just couldn't
Speaker 1: get used to it, and it just was one of
Speaker 1: those things where I had to switch back. But the okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the downsides of this phone.
Speaker 1: So number one, there's no optical zoom to speak of,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, it's more like an iPhone I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, fourteen, it's not like a pro device. There's
Speaker 1: no e sim. I thought that the screen was kind
Speaker 1: of tough to see in bright light, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: just you know, I was at the beach kind of thing,
Speaker 1: like it was really tough to see, like in direct sunlight.
Speaker 1: And then of course the water resistance is pretty low
Speaker 1: for a phone in twenty twenty three. Are those kind
Speaker 1: of the downsides that you saw?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 16: And the lack of a zoom lens in particular, it's
Speaker 16: disappointing to me because I really like using a zoom
Speaker 16: lens on all my smartphones, and I found the ULTRAI
Speaker 16: camera to be quite underwhelming in lowla conditions. During the
Speaker 16: day is fine, but at night, the Ultra camera photos
Speaker 16: are very very soft.
Speaker 1: M hmm. Interesting. Uh, I you know, I it's funny
Speaker 1: because I thought that the the odd thing was that
Speaker 1: even in like pretty brightly lit situations, I was still
Speaker 1: getting like a police hold still for like a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds to take a picture, which I thought was
Speaker 1: kind of odd because like this, you know, shouldn't shouldn't
Speaker 1: really be happening, Like it's it's pretty bright. But overall,
Speaker 1: I mean, would you recommend this device to people?
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 16: Certain type of users, I think. The lack of I
Speaker 16: think nothing in the US. The only selling directly to themselves, right,
Speaker 16: it's not through a carrier. Yeah, so that might that
Speaker 16: might be a tough sell in the US because a
Speaker 16: lot of American consumers just to get the phones through
Speaker 16: a carrier. So they can get subsidies and discounts and
Speaker 16: all that. So even though I like the phone, and
Speaker 16: I think if you're like an enjoy entusiast, because if
Speaker 16: you're an enjoy dou sy as like a phone geek,
Speaker 16: I definitely would recommend a phone. But like the average person,
Speaker 16: like if like my cousin or my mom passed me,
Speaker 16: they would still be it would still be the safer
Speaker 16: bed to get an iPhone or get a Samsung Galaxy
Speaker 16: because you can get it to a carrier, so you
Speaker 16: can get it at a cheaper price, and those phones
Speaker 16: probably still have a little bit more proven track record
Speaker 16: of getting software updates down the line.
Speaker 1: And this is a It starts at five hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars for a one hundred and twenty eight
Speaker 1: gigabyte model. It's available starting July seventeenth directly from the company,
Speaker 1: and it works on AT and T and T Mobile
Speaker 1: here in the US. Now there are Verizon antennas inside,
Speaker 1: but Verizon is really picky about letting certain devices on
Speaker 1: its network that are not verified whatever that means, and
Speaker 1: so you may be able to activate this on Verizon,
Speaker 1: but after a couple of days they will shut you down,
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't even bother. But I will say Ben
Speaker 1: that I really overall think that they did a really
Speaker 1: nice job with this device. I think that there's like
Speaker 1: a couple of little things where I'm like, ah, it's
Speaker 1: just maybe not the best device in the world, and
Speaker 1: maybe if the price is cheaper, I would feel a
Speaker 1: little bit differently, But I still think it's a pretty
Speaker 1: nice little second going from nothing. What since I have
Speaker 1: you and you test all these phones, what are sort
Speaker 1: of your top three devices that you recommend to people
Speaker 1: these days looking for Android or iOS? I guess so
Speaker 1: this question.
Speaker 16: Is always tricky for me to answer because I basically
Speaker 16: have to look at it from two different scenes. There's
Speaker 16: like the American phone scene, which is relatively limited compared
Speaker 16: to what Asia and Europe gets because there are a
Speaker 16: lot of Chinese brands that don't sell in the US
Speaker 16: at all, but they are major players in Asia and
Speaker 16: Europe and they make very good phones. So I was
Speaker 16: looking at the US scene, my top three phones would
Speaker 16: have to be I still like the Google Pixel seven
Speaker 16: prol the best. I think the camera is still my
Speaker 16: favorite of the bunch of all the phones in the US. Anyway,
Speaker 16: the second would be the glass z Phone four because
Speaker 16: I am fully on board the foldable phone BANDWRAG and
Speaker 16: I like having a larger screen that fits into my pocket.
Speaker 16: And then number three would probably be the iPhone fourteen
Speaker 16: Pro Max.
Speaker 2: In the US.
Speaker 16: And then if you care to know about my non US,
Speaker 16: there's like two you know, brands that Americans have never
Speaker 16: heard of, so maybe they're not relevant.
Speaker 1: Give me give me your top non US because I
Speaker 1: know this is why you travel a lot, so I mean,
Speaker 1: you see these things in other countries that we don't
Speaker 1: have access to here.
Speaker 16: So my overall number one phone would probably be the
Speaker 16: shaw Me thirteen Ultra. Shaw Mei is one of the
Speaker 16: biggest tech companies in China, and the thirteen Ultra phone
Speaker 16: has in my opinion, the best overall cameras were now
Speaker 16: even better than the Pixel seven pros. This main camera
Speaker 16: has a one inch image sensor from Sony. It's the
Speaker 16: same sensor used in like point and shoot Sony camera,
Speaker 16: so it's it's like almost like a real camera.
Speaker 1: Wow. And are you excited? Do you think that the
Speaker 1: Samsung folds that are coming out in a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks do you think they're gonna be something to rival
Speaker 1: what we have right now.
Speaker 16: I think they're going to from the leagues i've seen,
Speaker 16: they are going to be improvements, but maybe not as
Speaker 16: big as a lot of people have hoped for. The
Speaker 16: Full five in particular look almost identical to the Full four,
Speaker 16: but the Flip five gets a big upgrade because outside
Speaker 16: screens are gonna be much bigger.
Speaker 2: So that will be fun.
Speaker 1: That's the trend that we're seeing with those flippables. You
Speaker 1: got the flippable and the foldable, Ben Sin, We're gonna
Speaker 1: leave it there. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: I know it's early in Thailand. Thank you. I will
Speaker 1: see you in a couple of weeks in Korea, and
Speaker 1: I've got all the information on the website. If you
Speaker 1: want to follow Ben on Twitter, it's Ben c Sin
Speaker 1: s I N and check out his review on XDA
Speaker 1: developers of the Nothing Phone two. Ben, thanks for joining
Speaker 1: me today. Thanks for having me on all right, appreciate
Speaker 1: it all right. Coming up next it is the feedback segment.
Speaker 1: We're going to close out the show with everything you
Speaker 1: had to say this week. You're listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you closing out the show with the feedbag segment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said feedbag. It's your feedback, but I called it
Speaker 1: the feedbag one time, and I guess that stuck. Got
Speaker 1: an email from Daniel. He said, hey, Rich, you had
Speaker 1: a caller on that said they couldn't get an NTFS
Speaker 1: drive to work on their Mac. I only use NTFS
Speaker 1: drives because I can share between my MAX and PCs.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is buy a program called
Speaker 1: NTFS for Mac from Paragon Software. It's not expensive and
Speaker 1: I think you get a thirty day free trial. There
Speaker 1: you go. I've used it for yours. Thank you, Daniel
Speaker 1: and Barry. Now you have it. Check it out. Paragon
Speaker 1: Software NTFS for Mac and says it's fully compatible with
Speaker 1: Apple Silicon M one and M two. So this is
Speaker 1: why I love this show. Listeners contribute to the show.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, all right. Message from Data, Hey Rich, I
Speaker 1: have an Apple iMac that's from twenty thirteen. It's no
Speaker 1: longer getting security updates. I just purchased a new Mac Mini.
Speaker 1: How can I transfer my data from my old Mac
Speaker 1: to the new one. I've not done a backup. I
Speaker 1: really don't have many files on it. Can I just
Speaker 1: put my files on a flask drive and upload to
Speaker 1: the new computer, or is there a way to transfer
Speaker 1: some other way? Thanks? Yeah, you know what I would say.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a lot of files, just put
Speaker 1: them on a flask drive and move them over. You
Speaker 1: can do a time machine backup and restore it that way.
Speaker 1: It'll ask you during setup if you have an old
Speaker 1: Mac that you want to move from personally, because this
Speaker 1: computer's so old. I would just take what you need,
Speaker 1: put it on the flask drive, set up the computer fresh,
Speaker 1: the new Macmini, and then just drag over the files
Speaker 1: that you have in the flash drive. I think that's
Speaker 1: going to be the easiest way to do it. Data.
Speaker 1: That way, you get a nice, clean new computer with
Speaker 1: your files on there. Alexander says, thoughts on your opening
Speaker 1: monologue accessibility features. Forgive my cynicism, but you really think
Speaker 1: that's the only reason. I mean, there's probably some other benefits,
Speaker 1: but that will come in later. To play right. Alexander
Speaker 1: is referring to the voice situation on the new iOS
Speaker 1: seventeen where you can have it say anything you want.
Speaker 1: And this is my it's called personal voice. This is
Speaker 1: what it sounds like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: I'm Rich Demurou and this is riched on Tech, the
Speaker 3: show where I talk about the text off I think
Speaker 3: you should know about and answer your question.
Speaker 1: So that's what it sounds like. Does it sound just
Speaker 1: like me? I don't know. I mean I could have
Speaker 1: to say anything I want, but I don't think Apple's
Speaker 1: being nefarious. They said. The reason for this is specifically
Speaker 1: they called out als. So if you have that condition
Speaker 1: and you lose your voice over time because of that,
Speaker 1: this is a way to have your computer speak in
Speaker 1: your voice when you're talking to people versus a computerized voice.
Speaker 1: But yes, they're will As long as there's AI, computers
Speaker 1: and technology, there will always be nefarious reasons for people
Speaker 1: using everything. Right, let's see James says, Hey, Rich, any
Speaker 1: suggestions what can I do with this lost air tag
Speaker 1: I left behind when I visited Sedona in February. I'm
Speaker 1: able to activate lost mode, but no one contacted me,
Speaker 1: and now somehow it's moved to Flagstaff. Yeah, James, that's
Speaker 1: a lost cause. Just delete it from your system and
Speaker 1: that's I hope it wasn't attached. And did you just
Speaker 1: lose the air or did you lose what was attached
Speaker 1: to it, because usually the AirTags are connected to something,
Speaker 1: but it says you just lost an AirTag. So number
Speaker 1: one thing to do when you lose an AirTag enable
Speaker 1: the lost mode and if you find an air tag,
Speaker 1: use your phone, make sure the NFC is on and
Speaker 1: tap the top of the AirTag to the top of
Speaker 1: your phone and it should give you the information. I'll
Speaker 1: bring up a website with a person's information. Let's see here.
Speaker 1: Laura says, Hey, Rich, I purchased the ring dash cam
Speaker 1: in January after you did a segment on it. It was
Speaker 1: supposed to be delivered by today. Now the delivery date
Speaker 1: pushed to March twentieth, twenty twenty four. Why is there
Speaker 1: such a delay? Don't know. Maybe either they're recalling this
Speaker 1: cam or there's just I think Amazon delivery days change
Speaker 1: a lot, so hopefully March twenty twenty four. Wow, I
Speaker 1: think that's a fluke. Hopefully maybe a lot of people
Speaker 1: ordered them during Prime Day and they just pushed it,
Speaker 1: but hopefully you'll get it earlier. Keep me posted hosted. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's see, Leo says Leo. Leo says, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're boomerang Email yourself is still working, but mine's not.
Speaker 1: It appears to be gone from both the Apple and
Speaker 1: Android store. Even if you can install it, it does
Speaker 1: not work. This leaves me with email myself. Yes, I
Speaker 1: switched to email myself as well, Leo, and I don't
Speaker 1: like it as much because I don't like the icon,
Speaker 1: but it does the trick. And finally, David says, is
Speaker 1: there a way to convert American airlines miles into gift cards? Google?
Speaker 1: Bard says to create an account at points dot com,
Speaker 1: but I can't find a way. If you have an idea,
Speaker 1: I don't think you can do it. David. I think
Speaker 1: points dot com is now doing sort of white label stuff.
Speaker 1: They're not doing their own. They used to exchange points
Speaker 1: in their own way, but apparently they don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: Check out the notes at richontech dot tv. Next week,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about new AI enforcement technology
Speaker 1: cities are using to help buses write tickets to cars
Speaker 1: blocking their lanes. My name is rich DeMuro. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. There are so many ways to spend
Speaker 1: your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here
Speaker 1: with me. I'll talk to you real soon.