Speaker 1: A massive data breach. What you need to know and do?
Speaker 2: A popular app finally makes its way to the iPad
Speaker 2: fifteen years later, and the iPhone sixteen takes the crown.
Speaker 2: It's now the world's best selling smartphone. Plus your tech
Speaker 2: questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich DeMuro and this
Speaker 2: is Rich on Tech. This is the show where I
Speaker 2: talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 2: It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
Speaker 2: I believe the tech should be interesting, useful and fun.
Speaker 2: Let's open up those phone lines at triple eight rich
Speaker 2: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 2: two four one zero one eight eight eight rich one
Speaker 2: oh one. Give me a call if you have a
Speaker 2: question about technology. Email is also an option. Just go
Speaker 2: to my website rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: We've got some great guests this week, one from our Apple,
Speaker 2: one for Microsoft. While they're going to be discussing Apple
Speaker 2: and Microsoft, Patrick McGee is going to explain the high
Speaker 2: stakes relationship between Apple and China, as revealed in his
Speaker 2: new book Apple in China, which I have just been devouring.
Speaker 2: It is such an amazing read. Can't wait to have
Speaker 2: him on and later in the show, we've got ed Bot,
Speaker 2: longtime tech journalists covering all things Microsoft. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about everything you need to know about the end
Speaker 2: of Windows ten, upgrading to Windows eleven, and all the
Speaker 2: changes that are happening with that process. Well, I hope
Speaker 2: you're having a fantastic day wherever you are, and thanks
Speaker 2: for tuning in. Maybe you're listing on KFI AM six
Speaker 2: forty in Los Angeles or seven to ten WR in
Speaker 2: New York City, or maybe one of our many affiliates
Speaker 2: across the country catching the podcast or streaming the first
Speaker 2: ten minutes of the show for free on the KTLA
Speaker 2: plus app. However you are joining me, thank you for
Speaker 2: being here. I really mean that. Well, it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: another week in technology if we didn't have another massive
Speaker 2: data breach. This time one hundred and eighty four million
Speaker 2: logins and passwords are just floating around on the Internet,
Speaker 2: discoverable by anyone. This was found by cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler.
Speaker 2: So this database was found online without any password or encryption,
Speaker 2: and it contains nearly fifty gigabytes of emails, usernames and passwords,
Speaker 2: and there are credentials for big name sites out there.
Speaker 2: We're talking Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Roadblocks, and much more. The
Speaker 2: data includes logins to everything from bank accounts to government portals.
Speaker 2: This is a big one. It's a lot of stuff,
Speaker 2: and the breach is linked to malware called info stealer,
Speaker 2: and this malware steals your login info from your computer, cookies,
Speaker 2: even screenshots potentially, and cyber criminals love this stuff. Why
Speaker 2: is it dangerous? You might say, Oh, come on, they
Speaker 2: got one one password that I don't use anymore. Nope,
Speaker 2: they probably have a lot of stuff. Because here's what
Speaker 2: they do with this information. They take it and they
Speaker 2: use it for something called credential stuffing, which means the
Speaker 2: chances are you have used that same password at a
Speaker 2: variety of counts of accounts online. So even though they
Speaker 2: found a password to some random photo sharing site or
Speaker 2: photoprinting site that you signed up four years ago, they
Speaker 2: have a hunch that I wonder if that person used
Speaker 2: that same password at other sites. And what they do
Speaker 2: is they go in and they try that username and
Speaker 2: password on a whole bunch of other sites to see
Speaker 2: if any of them stick and if they can get in.
Speaker 1: This means they can take over your account. They can
Speaker 1: use it for phishing.
Speaker 2: They can send you an email that says, hey, we've
Speaker 2: got this password, we know you're using it, and you
Speaker 2: know they could try to trick you into logging in
Speaker 2: to fix something. They can also get into your email
Speaker 2: account if they have something like a Microsoft or a
Speaker 2: Google log in.
Speaker 1: Imagine how much stuff is in your email account.
Speaker 2: People store all kinds of sensitive information in there, tax forms,
Speaker 2: medical documents, contracts, very very sensitive info. So you can
Speaker 2: check to see if your information was exposed. Not necessarily
Speaker 2: for this database just yet. I haven't seen this one
Speaker 2: put up online on one of these checkers, but the
Speaker 2: common websites. Have I been pned? Have I been poned? Pwned?
Speaker 2: Dot com? This site just got a major makeover, and
Speaker 2: we've had the Troy Hunt, the guy who runs it
Speaker 2: on this show. You pop in your email address and
Speaker 2: basically it will tell you if it's been involved in
Speaker 2: any of these breaches, and the redesign is much faster.
Speaker 2: It's really nice, Like I just popped mine in, says
Speaker 2: thirty one data breaches. And what's interesting is it now
Speaker 2: does it as a timeline so you can see all
Speaker 2: the different databases that your information showed up in over
Speaker 2: the years, going all the way back for me to
Speaker 2: June twenty twelve. And then it talks about the paste
Speaker 2: records where your information is in just one of these
Speaker 2: public data dumps like we just talked about, and so
Speaker 2: it even tells you where it found January eighth, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: This next list combo list share than this other. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's two other ones, and it's just wild. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot of information on here that you can see
Speaker 2: where your data and how it was leaked. So for instance,
Speaker 2: there was a national public data which we talked about
Speaker 2: a lot, trello at and t minted chat books. These
Speaker 2: are all the things that I used over the years.
Speaker 2: Signed up for MGM, and now it is of course
Speaker 2: on the Greater Web. So here's what you need to do.
Speaker 2: You really need to number one, be aware of this information.
Speaker 2: Number two, you need to lock down your most important
Speaker 2: accounts with unique passwords and unique logins and two factor authentication.
Speaker 2: So if you're looking for a password manager, there are
Speaker 2: many many choices out there. They've got them built into
Speaker 2: Google with Chrome, they've got it built into the iPhone
Speaker 2: with the Passwords app. Here's why I don't necessarily like
Speaker 2: using the built in stuff because if they get your Chrome,
Speaker 2: if they get your Google, if they get your iPhone,
Speaker 2: your Apple ID, they may get access to all of
Speaker 2: your passwords. Because now they've figured out how to get
Speaker 2: onto your phone, why wouldn't they just open up that
Speaker 2: passwords app. So for that reason, I like using a
Speaker 2: third party app that is sort of disconnected from the
Speaker 2: other stuff, and.
Speaker 1: There are so many out there.
Speaker 2: Bitwarden is excellent if you are just looking for a
Speaker 2: free password manager. I don't even know how this thing
Speaker 2: is free because it's so good that it puts all
Speaker 2: these other password managers, Like, why would you pay sixty
Speaker 2: to eighty bucks a year when you could just get
Speaker 2: this for free. I know I'm the only person that
Speaker 2: says that in the world. But Bitwarden is really really good.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are others. Nord pass is good one password.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many. You can choose any of
Speaker 2: them if you want to pay. There are benefits to
Speaker 2: paying as well. But Bitwarden will do the basics for free,
Speaker 2: and it is basic, but it does everything you need
Speaker 2: run antivirus, so Windows security. It's built into your computer.
Speaker 2: If you've got a Windows computer, just type in on
Speaker 2: the search bar Windows Security, and then you'll see where
Speaker 2: it's got security at a glance where it says virus
Speaker 2: in threat protection. Do a quick scan. Make sure your
Speaker 2: computer is not at risk because they talked about this
Speaker 2: malware that they installed, Infostdealer that could be running on
Speaker 2: your computer.
Speaker 1: So run that.
Speaker 2: Make sure that everything's okay, and then be careful about
Speaker 2: the stuff that you click. And actually, our guest later
Speaker 2: is going to talk about how he doesn't believe you
Speaker 2: need to have a secondary antivirus on your computer. He
Speaker 2: thinks what's built into Windows is just fine. There's another website.
Speaker 2: Malware bytes has a digital footprint portal and it's at
Speaker 2: malwarebytes dot com slash digital dash footprint. And this one
Speaker 2: was new to me. I tried this this morning. I
Speaker 2: haven't really seen this one before, but it is excellent.
Speaker 2: Same kind of thing. You pop in your email address.
Speaker 2: They're going to text you a code to your email
Speaker 2: and then it will give you all the places that
Speaker 2: you've been breached, and it is quite thorough. And what
Speaker 2: this does differently than the haviben poned site is that
Speaker 2: actually shows you the information that's floating around out there
Speaker 2: about you. Now they redact it just to make sure,
Speaker 2: you know, so you can see the beginning in the end.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I look on there, I'm like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: one of my passwords that I used to use. That's,
Speaker 2: you know, one of my logins that I used to use.
Speaker 2: So you get an idea of how easy it is
Speaker 2: for these hackers to use this stuff to their advantage. Again,
Speaker 2: that's malware bytes Digital footprint, and it's free. You just
Speaker 2: pop in your information and see what's in there. The
Speaker 2: other thing you need to do is get a two
Speaker 2: factor authentication app. I don't know if you've noticed, but
Speaker 2: when you sign up for half the websites these days,
Speaker 2: they don't even ask you for a password. They just
Speaker 2: they say, we're gonna send you a magic link to
Speaker 2: your email address. Why are they doing that because so
Speaker 2: many people are reusing passwords. They don't even want to
Speaker 2: deal with passwords anymore. They'd rather just every time you
Speaker 2: log in, text you a code to your email address.
Speaker 2: You put that code in on the website and that
Speaker 2: logs you in. Because it's secure. It's safer than having
Speaker 2: some random password that's going to be hacked. And so
Speaker 2: you do need a two factor authentication app. If you're
Speaker 2: going to lock down your accounts now again, I would
Speaker 2: say don't use the one that's built into your password manager.
Speaker 2: Why because if they open up your password manager now
Speaker 2: they have access to all of your two factor authentication codes.
Speaker 2: And so I would recommend a separate two factor authentication app.
Speaker 1: It's better than texting.
Speaker 2: Texting could be hacked, So get something like auth theau thy.
Speaker 2: Google has one, Microsoft has one. Those are good, but
Speaker 2: a lot of the places online, a lot of the
Speaker 2: security experts recommend two fas and duo duo. They like
Speaker 2: those a lot. The thing is you need to make
Speaker 2: sure if you're using moremultiple devices that this works across
Speaker 2: multiple devices, and if you're not, then you'll just be
Speaker 2: fine with any of these. I'd probably recommend the two
Speaker 2: fas or the duo because a lot of them don't
Speaker 2: work cross platform AUF THEE, Google and Microsoft do, but
Speaker 2: that brings a whole other level of security sort of
Speaker 2: concerns as well. So just get this stuff in order.
Speaker 2: It's it's really important, especially with a hack like this.
Speaker 2: All right, coming up.
Speaker 1: On the show.
Speaker 2: Fifteen years fifteen years, we've had the iPad. This popular
Speaker 2: app just made its way there. I cannot believe it.
Speaker 2: I use it every weekend with Kim. I'll tell you
Speaker 2: what app that is. Plus we'll have your calls and
Speaker 2: questions eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight
Speaker 2: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Get
Speaker 2: those calls in. Go to the website rich on tech
Speaker 2: dot tv.
Speaker 1: Hit contact. We'll see you right back here in a moment.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding.
Speaker 2: This whole live like AI thing where you can just
Speaker 2: aim your camera at something is absolutely transformative. So Gemini,
Speaker 2: which is Google's AI, they have it, which it just
Speaker 2: rolled out like it just became available on my iPhone yesterday.
Speaker 2: It's free, and then it's available and Android of course.
Speaker 2: And then you've got Chatchy BT which also has live video.
Speaker 2: So these are a little bit different than your standard
Speaker 2: just chatting with chat GYBT or Gemini.
Speaker 1: So what you do is you open up the app
Speaker 1: and then.
Speaker 2: The lower right hand corner of both apps, instead of
Speaker 2: tapping the microphone, it almost looks like an audio wave
Speaker 2: and you tap that and that will get you into
Speaker 2: chatting live like voice to voice, like your voice to
Speaker 2: an AI voice. But then you'll see there's a new
Speaker 2: option when you do that, a little video camera. So
Speaker 2: if you tap that video camera, now you can share
Speaker 2: your whatever your camera is seeing on your phone with AI.
Speaker 2: Why is that helpful? Oh my gosh. I mean, we
Speaker 2: haven't even figured out how this is helpful yet. But
Speaker 2: for instance, yesterday I had some work done on my sprinklers,
Speaker 2: right and after the folks left, they weren't turning on.
Speaker 2: I was like, what's going on here? And I had
Speaker 2: a hunch that they forgot to turn the you know,
Speaker 2: like the handle off, like on the valve or whatever
Speaker 2: that like turns off all the water for everything. I
Speaker 2: had a feeling because they were working on it, they
Speaker 2: had to let things dry whatever. So I aimed my
Speaker 2: Gemini at the sprinkler valve system and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: is this like my sprinklers aren't the water's not coming through?
Speaker 2: Like what am I doing wrong here? Like what needs
Speaker 2: to be changed? And it literally said grab that handle,
Speaker 2: the yellow handle and turn it to the left or
Speaker 2: right whatever. Said sure enough, that opened up the flow
Speaker 2: of water. I mean, this is the kind of stuff
Speaker 2: that back in the day you would either have to
Speaker 2: call a friend that knew what they were doing, call
Speaker 2: a professional that knew what they were doing. Look it
Speaker 2: up online, try to describe what you're looking at. But
Speaker 2: now it's just like boom, it's all there. So I
Speaker 2: can't wait to go to like a museum where I'm
Speaker 2: looking at art and I just want to say, like, hey,
Speaker 2: tell me about this artist. What was the artist thinking
Speaker 2: at the time? What was the world like? Or what
Speaker 2: does this painting mean? Or what does this sculpture mean?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm talking. It just opens up entirely new
Speaker 2: ways of interacting with information. Quite incredible. Let's go to
Speaker 2: Greg in Minnesota. Greg, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Hello. Rich, Hello, got a question for you. Wonder if
Speaker 3: you're familiar with an app that would help me out.
Speaker 3: I want to be able to listen to a radio
Speaker 3: program such as yours or any other radio program using
Speaker 3: a digital tuner on my Android phone. And if I'm
Speaker 3: interrupted and I have to leave, but I'm seriously interested
Speaker 3: in the program content, I'd like to be able to
Speaker 3: open an app and record the remainder of the session.
Speaker 3: Have you seen an app could do that? Rich?
Speaker 2: There are many ways to do this, specifically on the
Speaker 2: Android phone.
Speaker 1: Do you have a Samsung Moto Moto G okay, So.
Speaker 2: I mean it really depends on there are two There's
Speaker 2: a couple of ways to do this. There's like an
Speaker 2: app that you can look into. I've not used it,
Speaker 2: but this app called audios au D I A l
Speaker 2: S and it looks like it records radio stations. It
Speaker 2: says it's got forty thousand stations. I have not personally
Speaker 2: used this, but that looks like it's probably your best bet.
Speaker 2: And so I'm assuming there's some sort of limit on
Speaker 2: the free version of that, But that's the thing I
Speaker 2: would try first. Au D I A L S. I'm
Speaker 2: wondering because it's probably doing it live. I'm wondering if
Speaker 2: your phone has to be open and sort of unlocked
Speaker 2: for this to happen, or if it does it somehow
Speaker 2: in the cloud. But that's the first place i'd look.
Speaker 2: When it comes to the desktop machine, there's a there's
Speaker 2: a lot of options. I mean, desktop is so much easier.
Speaker 2: You can record with so many apps.
Speaker 3: Ors.
Speaker 2: One I like from a Rogue Amiga called Piezo Pi
Speaker 2: e z O that's on the Mac side of things.
Speaker 2: Super simple recording of anything that's on your Mac. That's
Speaker 2: a great one. And then although I have not tried this. Audacity.
Speaker 2: I've tried it, but not for this purpose. But it
Speaker 2: looks like it can record things that are from your
Speaker 2: computer as well, like audio that's streaming on your computer,
Speaker 2: so Audacity and that's completely free and open source.
Speaker 1: So that's another way of doing it.
Speaker 2: The other way you can try to do it is
Speaker 2: just using the built in recording functionality on your phone.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the screen recorder, that typically
Speaker 2: records audio that's passing through your phone as well. So
Speaker 2: if you go depending on your phone, you know, if
Speaker 2: you look at your your screen recording functionality, it will
Speaker 2: say record sound in the options, and you can say
Speaker 2: non media or me and Mike. So if you had
Speaker 2: that selected as media, that would just record your screen
Speaker 2: and the audio that's playing on that station.
Speaker 1: So a couple ways of doing.
Speaker 2: It, Greg, You know, it's so many of these uh systems.
Speaker 2: You know, like back in the day when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, I used to when I heard a song
Speaker 2: on the radio I wanted to keep, I would run
Speaker 2: to the radio or run to my you know, cassette
Speaker 2: player and press record. I think you have to press
Speaker 2: like play and record at the same time to get
Speaker 2: that to go but that's the way I did it.
Speaker 2: You always had a little bit of the DJ at
Speaker 2: the beginning of all your songs, and then you stop it,
Speaker 2: and then the next time your song plays, you'd run
Speaker 2: up there again and get it. But that's what we
Speaker 2: did back in the day. I mean, of course, then
Speaker 2: if then we have all these iTunes and MP three's
Speaker 2: and but yeah, if you want to record something that's live,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to use a little bit of creativity
Speaker 2: there because now everything is on demand. And of course
Speaker 2: that is the way everyone likes it because you can
Speaker 2: control it that way. Good question, Greg eighty eight rich
Speaker 2: one on one eight eight eight seven four two four
Speaker 2: one zero one. Google Photos is celebrating ten years. We'll
Speaker 2: talk about that coming up next. WhatsApp is finally getting
Speaker 2: a dedicated iPad app.
Speaker 1: Can you believe it took fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I don't know what Meta has against the iPad, but
Speaker 2: they still don't have an Instagram app for the iPad either,
Speaker 2: not an official one. Don't send me the angry email
Speaker 2: saying rich, I can download Instagram. Yes, it's the one
Speaker 2: for the iPhone. It works on the iPad, but they
Speaker 2: have no native iPad app for Instagram, but now they
Speaker 2: have it for WhatsApp, so you can take advantage of
Speaker 2: the big screen, works with the Apple pencil, keeps your
Speaker 2: chats linked up across all your devices, the iPhone, the Mac,
Speaker 2: the iPad, I guess thee Android two. So it's available
Speaker 2: in the app store. Just search WhatsApp make sure you
Speaker 2: get the official one. And you still need a phone
Speaker 2: number to activate your account. But this is a big
Speaker 2: upgrade from using the website on the iPad for WhatsApp.
Speaker 2: So fifteen years in we finally got it. Yay. Not
Speaker 2: that I use it very much. I only use WhatsApp
Speaker 2: for one person, Kim, our call screener.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: I guess in a chat from my kids' school too.
Speaker 2: But that's basically if it was my choice, I'd have
Speaker 2: everyone use WhatsApp because it works the same across everything,
Speaker 2: so and it's very secure end to end, encrypted by default.
Speaker 1: David is in Michigan. David, you're on with Rich. What's up?
Speaker 4: Hi? Hi? Rich.
Speaker 5: I've got a Android phone. It's a LGG eight. Had
Speaker 5: it for a while and I really like it. But
Speaker 5: I also have a Samsung, but I don't like it
Speaker 5: nearly as much. It's too big, but that anyway, that
Speaker 5: g eight. I. I was on the internet and for
Speaker 5: some reason it locked up. I'm guessing some kind of
Speaker 5: a phishing scam or I don't know what, some kind
Speaker 5: of a bug. Anyway, I had to it down by
Speaker 5: googling how to power it down, and I did that,
Speaker 5: and then when I repowered it back on, it seemed
Speaker 5: to be doing some glitchy stuff. So I went ahead
Speaker 5: and did a factory resett.
Speaker 1: Oh no, what did you lose?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I lost photos?
Speaker 2: Oh no, because you did it fast and any kind
Speaker 2: of thought as soon as you started like, oh wait
Speaker 2: a second, yeah I did.
Speaker 5: I wasn't thinking about the photos, but I probably should
Speaker 5: have had them backed up on the memory card because
Speaker 5: it has a memory cards.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, oh one of the Yeah, I didn't do.
Speaker 5: That, but but I looked on I googled it and
Speaker 5: it said that as long as I didn't re right
Speaker 5: over top of that, that I probably I could potentially
Speaker 5: get those back. Is but I'm I'm calling phone with
Speaker 5: beer people and they're saying, no, you can't, you can't
Speaker 5: get it back.
Speaker 2: You probably can't get it back, but it's definitely worth
Speaker 2: trying because someone that knows what they're doing. Can plug
Speaker 2: that phone into a computer and kind of look at
Speaker 2: the files on there and see if there's anything that's
Speaker 2: resembles your photos. Now I think they're probably gone. But
Speaker 2: here's the thing. This is a Google phone. Did you
Speaker 2: have Google Photos set up at all in that device?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: I no, no. In fact, I I uh no. Every
Speaker 5: time you take on something like a different app or
Speaker 5: something like that, then you got to figure out how
Speaker 5: to use it. So it seems like, uh, it would
Speaker 5: be the prudent thing to do, but I haven't taken
Speaker 5: the time to do. In fact, I don't know. I
Speaker 5: only have a couple of apps on my phone.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, well here's what I would do. Number one,
Speaker 2: you had a Google log in on this phone, so
Speaker 2: I would, at the very least if you haven't done
Speaker 2: this before. Have you gone to a web browser and
Speaker 2: typed in photos dot Google dot com.
Speaker 1: Have you done that?
Speaker 5: They have not?
Speaker 2: Okay, so go there. There There could be a chance
Speaker 2: that when you first set up this phone, is said
Speaker 2: or you you know, you opened up Google Photos. Now,
Speaker 2: this is an older device, so I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: even Google Photos was sort of an option back in
Speaker 2: the day. By default, on this device, but you never know,
Speaker 2: So go to photos dot Google dot com and check
Speaker 2: to see if any of your pictures were backed up there.
Speaker 2: That's number one. Number two I would go, you're in Michigan.
Speaker 2: I would look up on Yelp like a data doctor
Speaker 2: and see if and just maybe get a quote from them,
Speaker 2: say hey, look here's what I've got I formatted. Basically,
Speaker 2: you formatted your phone, and can you check to see
Speaker 2: if you can recover the pictures off this device? Now,
Speaker 2: if you have a memory card in there, have you
Speaker 2: popped the memory card out and see if you can
Speaker 2: access these from a computer.
Speaker 5: I've looked at the memory card and actually I downloaded
Speaker 5: a bunch of YEA on my laptop and then I
Speaker 5: put that music onto the memory card, and that's what
Speaker 5: the memory card could change.
Speaker 2: Okay, so only the music is on the memory card,
Speaker 2: none of the photos. Yeah, So I mean it's unfortunate
Speaker 2: that this happened, and I really, you know, I feel
Speaker 2: for you because I it's one of these things where
Speaker 2: I've done it before too, you'd you know, I test
Speaker 2: a lot of phones and sometimes I'll like format it
Speaker 2: when I'm done with it, and I'll be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I needed to get that file off of there or whatever.
Speaker 2: But most of the time, you know, I'd recommend having
Speaker 2: this stuff backed up.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah.
Speaker 2: So the bottom line is a couple places to look,
Speaker 2: you know, the photos dot Google dot com, see if
Speaker 2: they're there. I don't think LG had any sort of
Speaker 2: like built in backups to their devices back in the day,
Speaker 2: so I don't think it's anywhere on an LG site.
Speaker 2: But the photos, you know, the Google photos might be
Speaker 2: an option. If it was Samsung, I would say one drive.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they back up to one drive on there. But
Speaker 2: let's see, so you got that. And then the only
Speaker 2: other thing I can say is is really, you know,
Speaker 2: you might download like a file manager like and check
Speaker 2: to see if you can look on the files there,
Speaker 2: or just look up Google file manager and you can
Speaker 2: download that Google files and kind of browse through. But
Speaker 2: I think everything has probably been a race when you
Speaker 2: did that format. But if you look on YELP data
Speaker 2: doctor kind of person, they might be able to look
Speaker 2: into it. The other places you break ifix dot com,
Speaker 2: they may be able to help with data recovery, so
Speaker 2: you can contact them see if they're in your area
Speaker 2: and get sort of a free estimate on how much
Speaker 2: it would cost for them to do that, but I
Speaker 2: think it depends on how much these photos are worth you, like,
Speaker 2: are they valuable? Because this may cost you some time
Speaker 2: and effort to get something like that back. But thanks
Speaker 2: for the call, David, really appreciate it. Please please please
Speaker 2: back up. I sound like Sabrina Carpenter.
Speaker 1: Please please please back up your photos.
Speaker 2: Please please please back up your photos. Just do it it,
Speaker 2: Just please do that because you don't want to lose
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 1: And I get it. You got the cloud. It's scary.
Speaker 1: You don't know where they are.
Speaker 2: But just if you have an Android phone, Google Photos
Speaker 2: very simple, get them in there. Or if you have
Speaker 2: Amazon on Prime, you get free photo backup unlimited, so
Speaker 2: download Amazon Photos. If you have Amazon Prime, it's not
Speaker 2: gonna work for your videos because it only gives you
Speaker 2: five gigs for your videos, so go into settings and
Speaker 2: turn off the videos thing unless you have it just
Speaker 2: a tiny amount of videos. But I have so many videos.
Speaker 2: But back these things up please. And then if you're
Speaker 2: on Apple iCloud, I guess is okay. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I'm not a huge fan of iCloud, but I guess
Speaker 2: it's fine. It's better to have them in there. I
Speaker 2: think icloud's a little bit more confusing, but you know,
Speaker 2: one drive anywhere. Just get these things backed up because
Speaker 2: you do not want a situation like David. By the way,
Speaker 2: I mentioned that we're going to talk about Google Photos
Speaker 2: celebrating ten years.
Speaker 1: Ten years.
Speaker 2: I've been using them since day one, absolutely love it.
Speaker 2: In fact, I was using them before they became Google Photos.
Speaker 2: Remember Picasa, that's what it was called. Google acquired Picasa
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four, and this was a desk
Speaker 2: app that would scan your whole computer and it was
Speaker 2: so cool. It would go through every single file on
Speaker 2: your computer and find every single picture and then put
Speaker 2: them in this giant scrollable timeline. It was super cool,
Speaker 2: but it kept them all where they were. And then
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, Google officially shut down Picasa. And back in
Speaker 2: the day, I don't know if you remember this, but
Speaker 2: Google Photos launched with unlimited free storage.
Speaker 1: For high quality photos.
Speaker 2: So if you took you know, most phones back then
Speaker 2: were only like twelve megapixels, so you'd get like free
Speaker 2: storage of all your photos.
Speaker 1: And then of course that ended.
Speaker 2: Then they gave you fifteen gigs and you can really
Speaker 2: find anything in Google Photos. I love the search functionality.
Speaker 2: It is incredible how I can find any picture I
Speaker 2: want in seconds. Now Google Photos has over one point
Speaker 2: five billion monthly users. And get this, nine trillion, nine
Speaker 2: trillion photos and videos. So get yours in there, or
Speaker 2: get them anywhere, or just back them up. I don't
Speaker 2: care if you connect your phone to your computer download
Speaker 2: them there, as long as you them in a second place.
Speaker 2: But that's not as good. I think cloud and then
Speaker 2: somewhere else. Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight
Speaker 2: eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Coming up, what do I want to talk about?
Speaker 2: Let's see, I'll give you my review of the S
Speaker 2: twenty five Edge. I'll tell you what that's all about.
Speaker 2: Coming up right here on rich On Tech. If you
Speaker 2: want to keep up with the latest scams and all
Speaker 2: things on Instagram, that's what I post there mostly these days.
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech at rich On Tech on Instagram.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The thing is at this point, because I've posted so
Speaker 2: many scams on my feed, people now love to forward
Speaker 2: me the scams that they're getting, which is great. I
Speaker 2: don't mind it because I can see the trends that
Speaker 2: are happening. So, uh, Friday, I get a bunch of
Speaker 2: emails from people saying, hey, what's up with this DMV scam?
Speaker 1: And sure enough, there it is.
Speaker 2: Everyone is sending them, and I guess it's getting you know,
Speaker 2: hitting all kinds of phones. California and New Jersey, all
Speaker 2: these different states. It's just customized for like various states,
Speaker 2: and you don't even have to live in that state
Speaker 2: to get it anyway. So if you get a new
Speaker 2: DMV text that says, hey, you have an outstanding traffic ticket,
Speaker 2: my favorite part is it says it's going to report
Speaker 2: to the DMV. Okay, suspend your vehicle registration, suspend your
Speaker 2: driving privileges, and then whatever, what does this mean? Transfer
Speaker 2: to a toll booth and charge a thirty five percent
Speaker 2: service fee?
Speaker 6: What does that even mean?
Speaker 2: These scammers are just like throwing stuff at the wall
Speaker 2: to see if it sticks. Like they're just like, ah,
Speaker 2: that sounds good, We'll transfer it to a toll booth
Speaker 2: and charge the thirty five percent extra.
Speaker 1: What does that even mean?
Speaker 2: Scammers come on like it's called chatch ebt get better okay,
Speaker 2: Like you know, you know you can use that to
Speaker 2: like fix yourself and don't send me the angry email, say, Rich,
Speaker 2: why would you give them that hint?
Speaker 1: I am not.
Speaker 2: Teaching the scammers what to do. They know what they're doing.
Speaker 2: I mean, clearly not. Rita writes in from Huntington Beach.
Speaker 2: I'm using passwords as my password manager. If I go
Speaker 2: to a third party service, is there an easy way
Speaker 2: to transfer the information or do I need to transfer
Speaker 2: each one individually? Also, what happens the information from passwords?
Speaker 2: I just did this recently, very very simple. You just
Speaker 2: export your passwords to a file and then the new
Speaker 2: program will import it and pretty much everything comes over perfectly.
Speaker 1: Now here's the caveat.
Speaker 2: You have to be very careful because that file that
Speaker 2: you have with all your passwords, if that's not encrypted,
Speaker 2: which is probably not, it's probably comm a separated value
Speaker 2: file plain text. Anyone who gets that file could could
Speaker 2: have access to all of your passwords. You need to
Speaker 2: be really careful when you're switching password managers, like get
Speaker 2: the file, move it to the new device, move it
Speaker 2: to the new app, and then delete that file like
Speaker 2: burn it. Now I'm looking at Apple passwords and I
Speaker 2: don't see a way to export on the iPhone. Let's
Speaker 2: see if I can do it on the Mac computer.
Speaker 2: Let's see if that works. Let's see is there an
Speaker 2: export file export passwords? Yes, so you can export rita.
Speaker 2: You'd have to do it from your computer.
Speaker 1: I don't. Let's see.
Speaker 2: Can you do it from your phone? Maybe in like
Speaker 2: the settings. Let's see, you got to go to apps,
Speaker 2: so you gotta go all the way to apps. And
Speaker 2: let's see if I can find the passwords app. They
Speaker 2: changed everything on iPhone to put all the apps in
Speaker 2: like the same place.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's see Apple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't see a way to export from the
Speaker 2: iPhone as far as I can tell. I mean, doesn't
Speaker 2: really look like there's a way to export. See, And yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't want to knock Apple for not putting that
Speaker 2: functionality there. But anyway, what would you do with the
Speaker 2: passwords that are still on your phone? You would just
Speaker 2: go through and deletos. Now, what I would do is
Speaker 2: overlap the two for just a little bit, Like if
Speaker 2: you're switching to something like a bitwarden, use it for
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks before you go and destroy the
Speaker 2: passwords on your old password.
Speaker 1: Man, that's my advice.
Speaker 2: Wesa writes in what did companies do with all of
Speaker 2: our data, I see no change in my life.
Speaker 1: Am I missing something?
Speaker 2: Basically, the more data they have on you, the more
Speaker 2: they can build a profile of you, and the clearer
Speaker 2: that profile is, the better they can market products and
Speaker 2: adds to you more effectively. So you're not going to see,
Speaker 2: like you know, the change in your life directly, but
Speaker 2: all these ads that are targeted towards you become more personalized.
Speaker 2: The more data that companies collect on you. Now you
Speaker 2: may argue that's a good or a bad thing. Like
Speaker 2: if I'm watching Hulu, which by the way, I didn't
Speaker 2: pay for it. Last night, I wanted to watch this
Speaker 2: new show on there. I think it's called Adults and
Speaker 2: it's like a comedy. I have not watched it, so
Speaker 2: I can't vouch for it, but I wanted to check
Speaker 2: it out. But I refuse to pay the ten dollars
Speaker 2: a month for Hulu because I pay for so many services,
Speaker 2: and so last night I'm literally like, my wife is
Speaker 2: kind of getting a little annoyed at me because she's like,
Speaker 2: can we please just watch something. I'm like, I want
Speaker 2: to watch this new show, but I refuse to pay
Speaker 2: for it, and she's like, well, how much is it?
Speaker 2: I'm like ten dollars. She's like, and you can cancel
Speaker 2: any time. Like yeah, She's like, what's the problem. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I just refuse because I pay for so many other
Speaker 2: things that I want this to be included.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we didn't watch that.
Speaker 2: We did end up watching Hacks, which I do enjoy,
Speaker 2: and that's on my HBO Max. Now well now it's
Speaker 2: it's still called Max, but it will change anyway. I
Speaker 2: don't know what my point was. Oh yeah, if I'm
Speaker 2: watching Hulu and the ads that come up are targeted
Speaker 2: towards me, like I probably would like those better. Like
Speaker 2: if they're serving up diaper ads, I don't need those, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess I did for the kids. I
Speaker 2: may need them in the future for myself, so I guess,
Speaker 2: you know, everything is cycles in life, right, but I
Speaker 2: don't need them right now. But if they serve those,
Speaker 2: I'd be like, Okay, well I don't need those now.
Speaker 2: If they served up an ad for I don't know,
Speaker 2: a new car, sure. Anyway, my point is that's that's
Speaker 2: what they use those for. So yes, you may not
Speaker 2: feel the influence immediately, but that's what's happening. Maria writes
Speaker 2: in Hey there, I'm been a loyal fan for years.
Speaker 2: I do enjoy all the different subjects you talk about.
Speaker 2: Let's see, I'm wondering if you're familiar with any work
Speaker 2: from home websites or how to recognize what's legitimate versus
Speaker 2: a scam.
Speaker 1: I noticed you showed us the Amazon scam email. Thanks
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 2: On Facebook, there's a few groups inviting people to click
Speaker 2: a link to see a seminar about digital marketing and
Speaker 2: working remotely from anywhere? Are those safe? What do you think, Maria?
Speaker 2: They are not safe?
Speaker 1: No number one.
Speaker 2: No just I'm sorry, but companies are not putting groups
Speaker 2: about digital marketing to remote jobs like marketing to you
Speaker 2: on there, Na run, just just close your computer screen
Speaker 2: and run far away. If you want a legitimate remote job,
Speaker 2: you got to check a trusted site LinkedIn. And then
Speaker 2: there's this website called flex Jobs. I have not used
Speaker 2: it to acquire a job, but it it's the number
Speaker 2: one job site to find remote jobs. No ads, no scams,
Speaker 2: no junk find legitimate work from home jobs with options
Speaker 2: for flexible hours and hybrid work. I mean, who doesn't
Speaker 2: want that? Who doesn't want to just work from home.
Speaker 2: I mean I did during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I hated it. I could not deal with it.
Speaker 2: I enjoy okay, I enjoyed it for a little bit,
Speaker 2: like making my coffee. But let's be completely honest. When
Speaker 2: you are working from home, you are not doing the
Speaker 2: same job.
Speaker 1: Oh I can't wait for the emails.
Speaker 2: You are not doing the same job that you would
Speaker 2: be doing at the office. Now, I'm not judging you.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that that's good or bad. It is
Speaker 2: just different. So, for instance, if I ever worked from home,
Speaker 2: what do you do? People schedule things. Oh, I've got
Speaker 2: the plumber coming at eleven, I've got the person checking
Speaker 2: this at twelve. You got to pick up the kids
Speaker 2: at two. You got to do this. Oh and by
Speaker 2: the way, can you go grab some groceries.
Speaker 1: I need those.
Speaker 2: People think when you're working from home, you're not actually working. Yes,
Speaker 2: you do need to get work done, but it is
Speaker 2: more flexible, and so I think it's actually more stressful
Speaker 2: being at home for some people like myself, because of
Speaker 2: all these other external factors like oh, I gotta get milk,
Speaker 2: and I gotta you know, pick up the kids, and
Speaker 2: I gotta do this It's like you're still trying to
Speaker 2: get your job done, but now you've got a hundred
Speaker 2: other things. We're at the office. You get your job
Speaker 2: done because you're at the office. It's meant to be boring.
Speaker 2: Eighty to eight rich one on one eight eight eight
Speaker 2: seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Looks like we've got a special guest.
Speaker 2: My brother just went to Europe and I recommended a
Speaker 2: few things tech wise for him, so he's gonna have
Speaker 2: his observations coming up. U Plus Claude has added a
Speaker 2: new feature, so is Google Calendar. I'll tell you about
Speaker 2: those coming up right here, and I'll link everything up
Speaker 2: on the website rich on tech dot TV. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 2: talking technology at Triple eight rich one O one eight
Speaker 2: eight eight seven four to two four to one zero
Speaker 2: one the website rich on Tech dot tv. Got an email?
Speaker 2: You got a message? You want to email me? Just
Speaker 2: go there hit contact. Be sure to sign up for
Speaker 2: my newsletter while you are there. We've got a great
Speaker 2: guest coming up later this hour. Patrick McGee. I cannot
Speaker 2: get enough of his book. It's called Apple and China,
Speaker 2: and I have a lot of authors on here, and
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding. This is like one of the best
Speaker 2: books that I just surprised me how good it is.
Speaker 2: So we'll talk to him all about that, and very
Speaker 2: relevant with what's going on. I've got a special guest
Speaker 2: right now. My brother just got back from Europe and
Speaker 2: I recommended a couple of techy things and I'm curious
Speaker 2: how those worked or any tech observations he had over there.
Speaker 1: Justin Welcome to the show.
Speaker 7: Hey, Rich, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well? You jet lagged or what? I am?
Speaker 2: Yes, very much already. Didn't you just get home? Didn't
Speaker 2: you just land?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well no, no, I got home yesterday, but I woke
Speaker 4: up today at like five am. I could not sleep.
Speaker 2: Oh that's called late for me. So so you went
Speaker 2: to Europe? What what countries did you hit up?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So we went to Spain, Germany and Czech Republic.
Speaker 2: Okay, and you went there for a Dual Lipa concert.
Speaker 2: Can I say that? Or is that embarrassing?
Speaker 4: Great? Now everybody knows.
Speaker 2: You literally like went you flew overseas to see Dual Lipa.
Speaker 2: But I understand why. I saw her at the iHeart
Speaker 2: Fest in Vegas and yeah, I get.
Speaker 4: It, big fan. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what how did the tech work overseas, because
Speaker 2: you know it's always intimidating. I assume you got a
Speaker 2: an E sim I did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I went with one of those allow super easy
Speaker 4: to set up. I gotta say they had instructions that
Speaker 4: were really detailed for Android, which is a big challenge,
Speaker 4: especially how fast the interface changes and how many different
Speaker 4: interfaces and menus there are. So that was actually pretty
Speaker 4: nice and it worked perfectly the entire trip.
Speaker 1: So what you set it up?
Speaker 2: You bought it from here, you bought it like on
Speaker 2: the app, and then when you landed, what did you do?
Speaker 1: Just toggle it on?
Speaker 4: So it's had to enable it before you go. Oh,
Speaker 4: it did, and it just said that once it detects
Speaker 4: the network in the foreign country, it'll just start your
Speaker 4: time period then.
Speaker 1: Right, So it doesn't.
Speaker 2: It doesn't start the timer until you land and it
Speaker 2: finds the network that you're.
Speaker 1: Supposed to be on.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it worked flawlessly.
Speaker 2: What about like the Wi Fi calling, did you get
Speaker 2: any like calls to your phone number?
Speaker 1: Did that work? Or what about texting?
Speaker 4: No, texting didn't work. My phone number didn't work. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I don't know. You know that all goes through
Speaker 4: my main SIM with my main carrier, So I disabled
Speaker 4: that so I don't get charged for international roaming. It's
Speaker 4: like ten dollars a day. So yeah, no, no SMS
Speaker 4: worked at all. WhatsApp worked, Telegram worked, I would imagine
Speaker 4: signal works. I don't think I tested it though, but
Speaker 4: I didn't have a need for any SMS, so I
Speaker 4: was out there.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 2: And any other tech observations, any anything they do differently
Speaker 2: over there that you noticed versus here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will say, tap to pay is like the
Speaker 4: main way to pay for everything, and it is everywhere
Speaker 4: you used tap to pay for all your meals. You
Speaker 4: used to have to pay for transit, you know in
Speaker 4: Europe in a lot of places they have public bathrooms
Speaker 4: that you have to pay for. It's usually like sixty
Speaker 4: cents of euro even they had taped to pay pretty
Speaker 4: much on all of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was one of.
Speaker 4: The main things that I noticed, said that tap to
Speaker 4: pay was like the primary way.
Speaker 1: To pay for anything, even tapped to toilet.
Speaker 4: Huh yep, that's a toilet.
Speaker 2: Interesting okay, And what about iPhone versus Android? You notice
Speaker 2: any I love like kind of seeing. You know, are
Speaker 2: people using iPhone Android?
Speaker 4: A lot of people were using Android out there. I
Speaker 4: think I wasn't paying too close the attention to what
Speaker 4: people's phones were. Actually a lot of people weren't really
Speaker 4: sitting on their phones too much. I did notice that.
Speaker 4: But when I did notice phones, it was a lot
Speaker 4: of a lot of Android. And I did spot a
Speaker 4: one plus in the wild.
Speaker 2: Oh wow on my flight home and I get a
Speaker 2: ding adam my, you know my boardops. Love when I
Speaker 2: just like asked for things like that. Okay, any other observations,
Speaker 2: any other thoughts? Would you recommend it?
Speaker 4: Ye? I mean going to Europe, Yeah, definitely a lot
Speaker 4: of fun. The public transit was also pretty high tech.
Speaker 1: Google Maps had.
Speaker 4: Every single stop, every train line, tram line, everything down
Speaker 4: to the most minute detail. It was extremely helpful. I
Speaker 4: remember the last time. I haven't been to Europe in
Speaker 4: like ten years at this point. This is the next
Speaker 4: time I was here. But the first time I went,
Speaker 4: I didn't have any Internet on my phone. I just
Speaker 4: went with a non Internet connected phone, so I don't
Speaker 4: know how I even made it around, to be honest, Yeah.
Speaker 3: We were on it.
Speaker 4: We were using it all the time to navigate. One
Speaker 4: difference I noticed with Android versus iPhone because my fiance
Speaker 4: Darcy has an iPhone and navigating the streets of let's
Speaker 4: say Prague, especially you're kind of nestled in these buildings,
Speaker 4: lots of concrete buildings, stone buildings, and they have the navigation.
Speaker 4: The GPS was unable to figure out which way we
Speaker 4: were facing a lot of times on the iPhone, but
Speaker 4: Android it worked out pretty much falllessly.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Okay, So I have a thought on this.
Speaker 2: So number one, I have found that it's so interesting
Speaker 2: you say that because I've always recommended it if you
Speaker 2: use if you're walking directions, like if you need walking
Speaker 2: directions in a city, I find that the iPhone excels
Speaker 2: at that, especially with Apple Maps, not with Google Maps,
Speaker 2: but with Apple Maps.
Speaker 4: So we were Google Maps on both phones.
Speaker 1: Oh darn it.
Speaker 2: I should have told you about the Apple Maps trick,
Speaker 2: because I'm not kidding. Apple Maps walking directions in any
Speaker 2: city are incredible, but especially in big cities, and I
Speaker 2: don't know why they seem to be better than Google.
Speaker 2: But I'm surprised that your phone got the lock, because
Speaker 2: even in New York City, I have trouble walking around
Speaker 2: with my phone because it you know, if I'm not
Speaker 2: using Apple Maps, it's like the Android maps for some reason. Anyway, Okay,
Speaker 2: good to know. All right, Well, thanks for calling in.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: My brother justin you heard that. Yeah, he's getting married
Speaker 2: next year. So yeah, there you go. Very exciting. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be the uh. I should have asked him if
Speaker 2: I'm still doing that, I'm supposed to be the officiant.
Speaker 2: I gotta get my like efficient license or whatever. Let's see,
Speaker 2: that'll be something new I do. Okay, told you about
Speaker 2: a couple of things. Google Calendar has a new privacy
Speaker 2: setting on Android. You might have gotten a pop up
Speaker 2: to ask, you know if you want to toggle it on,
Speaker 2: but it's basically inside the app. It lets you block
Speaker 2: other apps from accessing your calendar data. So if you
Speaker 2: turn this on inside your Google Calendar app on your phone,
Speaker 2: no other app will be able to tap into the
Speaker 2: calendar data from your phone or from your Google Calendar.
Speaker 2: So before this third party apps could access your calendar,
Speaker 2: you know your calendar information. So you can find the
Speaker 2: toggle in Google Calendar menu settings General, and it says
Speaker 2: share Google Calendar with data with other apps. If you
Speaker 2: don't want it to share with other apps, turn that off,
Speaker 2: but just be warned. This could break other calendar related apps,
Speaker 2: like if you're using another app that taps into it,
Speaker 2: widgets or video meeting tools, so pretty much anything. And
Speaker 2: this setting only applies to the official Google Calendar, not
Speaker 2: Samsung or other versions. And then Claude has added voice mode.
Speaker 2: Claude is sort of the competitor to chat Ebt. They
Speaker 2: added voice mode, so if you want to talk to
Speaker 2: Claude and hear its responses, you can talk to AI
Speaker 2: on Claude and yes it does work on the iOS
Speaker 2: and Android apps. In beta, you get free users get
Speaker 2: about twenty to thirty voice messages. If you're on a
Speaker 2: paid plan you can get more. You can also connect
Speaker 2: your Google Docs, your Google Calendar, and your Gmail to
Speaker 2: Claude so you can ask about that. But overall, Claude
Speaker 2: is still sort of a little bit playing catch up
Speaker 2: to chat, g Ebt and Google Gemini when it comes
Speaker 2: to voice features and then also the video features. All right,
Speaker 2: coming up the best free PC cleaners? Is your PC
Speaker 2: kind of run a little gunky, you want to clean
Speaker 2: it out? I will tell you what you need to know,
Speaker 2: and you can do most of this for free. You
Speaker 2: are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 2: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking
Speaker 2: technology at Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight
Speaker 2: eight seven four to two four.
Speaker 1: One zero one.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you about the best free PC cleaners
Speaker 2: clean up your machine, plus the Galaxy S twenty five Edge.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what the reviews are on that, including mine.
Speaker 2: Uh And we've got a great guest this hour as well,
Speaker 2: Patrick McGee, to talk about Apple in China, his book
Speaker 2: that is doing really well. I did something this weekend
Speaker 2: that I've not done ever in my life. Actually, I
Speaker 2: bought two records visited a record store. I know, my
Speaker 2: music journey started with tapes and then went to CDs
Speaker 2: and then went to MP three's and then went to
Speaker 2: streaming and h but this was great.
Speaker 1: So I'm testing this record player.
Speaker 2: It's a US it's a radio shack record player. It's
Speaker 2: kind of an all one. It actually does a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff. But I needed an album to play on it,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of fun.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I've got kids who all this stuff is really new
Speaker 2: to them, so they had never seen this before. So
Speaker 2: we went to the record store, and you know, there
Speaker 2: happened to be one that I found very close by,
Speaker 2: and so I was like, all right, let me try
Speaker 2: this place. And so we went in there, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's just it's a blast from the past immediately, and
Speaker 2: there's all these albums and it's just like physical media
Speaker 2: is so kind of like feels so outdated at this point, right,
Speaker 2: Like we used to go into these stores and shared
Speaker 2: experiences of picking things out and sorting through stuff, and
Speaker 2: now it's like everything's just a tap on your phone screen.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of fun to go back to a
Speaker 2: physical experience like this. So anyway, so we walked through.
Speaker 2: We're looking and at everything there. But we walked through,
Speaker 2: looked to the records, and we were trying to buy
Speaker 2: a couple. First off, didn't realize how expensive they are.
Speaker 2: I mean, these things are like twenty thirty dollars up
Speaker 2: maybe forty dollars, and I thought like, wow, I thought
Speaker 2: these were going to be a lot cheaper. Anyway, this
Speaker 2: was the funniest part. So I I was looking for
Speaker 2: a record I settled upon like a Miles Davis something classic, right,
Speaker 2: And I asked this guy who's looking through the album
Speaker 2: and say said, hey, can you help me find this?
Speaker 1: He goes, dude, I don't work here.
Speaker 2: It's like, whoops, like you look like you worked there.
Speaker 2: I said, well, you look like you know what you're doing,
Speaker 2: and he said all right, and he didn't. He wasn't
Speaker 2: really he didn't have that much of a sense of humor.
Speaker 2: But the best part was then we were looking for
Speaker 2: a secondary album and my kid, unbeknownst to me, walks
Speaker 2: up to some other person in the store and says, hey,
Speaker 2: can you help me find this album?
Speaker 1: The guy goes, I don't work here.
Speaker 2: So my point is, I mean, look, everyone that was
Speaker 2: in the store maybe a little bit on the older,
Speaker 2: like maybe an old timer kind of person. And so
Speaker 2: we just both I just thought that was so funny
Speaker 2: that we both mistake these people for working at the store.
Speaker 1: Both of them didn't. Anyway.
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Speaker 2: the first thing he wanted to do was speed up
Speaker 2: the album so that the other album we got was
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Speaker 2: you want to clean up your PC. The S twenty
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Speaker 2: their thinnest phone yet. It is impressive. I put my
Speaker 2: review of this on TV under six millimeters thick. It's lightweight.
Speaker 1: I've been using it for the past three weeks almost exclusively.
Speaker 2: It's great. I mean, there's nothing I find wrong about
Speaker 2: this phone. If you like a Samsung, It's got a
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Speaker 2: got good memory. The main camera is really good two
Speaker 2: hundred megapixels. If you want to see the pictures, go
Speaker 2: to my website. Rich on tech dot TV. Very impressed
Speaker 2: with all the main pictures in good light, seven years
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Speaker 2: Ultra wides, it's great. Charging is pretty fast, not as
Speaker 2: fast as some other phones, but I found it to
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Speaker 2: I think this is an excellent phone. I think it's
Speaker 2: a great Samsung phone. The Galaxy S twenty five Edge
Speaker 2: starts at eleven hundred dollars, I know, very expensive, but
Speaker 2: they do have deals that knock that price down, trade ins,
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff. So if you want to see
Speaker 2: my video review, go to the website rich on tech
Speaker 2: dot tv popping the keyword S twenty five Edge or Samsung,
Speaker 2: or just look on the home screen.
Speaker 1: It's all right there.
Speaker 2: Eighted eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 2: four to two four one zero one. Coming up, we're
Speaker 2: gonna talk Apple in their relationship with China, that's coming
Speaker 2: up right here.
Speaker 1: I'm Rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: I've been very excited to talk with my next guest
Speaker 2: because I have been absolutely devouring his book. It's called
Speaker 2: Apple in China, The Capture of the World's Greatest Company.
Speaker 2: It is on sale now, it's getting great reviews. And uh,
Speaker 2: Patrick McGee, welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: Thanks Rich, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable book, really really well done, and it's a it's
Speaker 2: a topic that you would think would not be the
Speaker 2: easiest to read, and it's this is a page turner.
Speaker 2: So how did you, I mean, where did you start
Speaker 2: by getting all these stories and the information that you
Speaker 2: put in this book?
Speaker 1: I mean, how long does it take you?
Speaker 6: It took about two and a half years.
Speaker 9: I did do the manuscript, like I took one year
Speaker 9: off to write the manuscript, but at that point I
Speaker 9: had already been a seventy page pitch. I had already
Speaker 9: written some big articles about the topic for the financial time.
Speaker 9: So I think if you look at it, it's two
Speaker 9: and a half years. I would say the starting point
Speaker 9: was really discovering what.
Speaker 6: A manufacturing design engineer is.
Speaker 9: That it's a unit called MD within Apple, and it's
Speaker 9: the third level of the of what Apple calls the
Speaker 9: pyramid structure product development. So without getting too wonky, everyone
Speaker 9: knows the first tip of the pyramid. That's ID industrial design,
Speaker 9: that's Johnny I've deciding that the iPod is going to
Speaker 9: have a chrome back and an all white front, and
Speaker 9: then goes over the fence to product design. These are
Speaker 9: the people who have to fit in all the electronics
Speaker 9: into the dimensions that Johnny Ive and team have specified.
Speaker 9: They have to go, you know, find the materials, et
Speaker 9: cetera that Johnny IV specified manufacturing design.
Speaker 6: That the group that we don't really know about.
Speaker 9: These are the people who have to go on the
Speaker 9: airplane to get to Asia, scour plants and figure out
Speaker 9: where are we going to actually build this stuff, And
Speaker 9: in that process they are co inventing a whole bunch
Speaker 9: of parts and components and the.
Speaker 6: Processes behind those parts.
Speaker 9: So that's where you get the technology transfer in because
Speaker 9: inherently these are geniuses who are going off to Asia
Speaker 9: to work with suppliers that are of course now in
Speaker 9: an adversarial country to sort of train them up, if
Speaker 9: you will, up arm them in the world of advanced electronics.
Speaker 6: And that's where it just became really interesting because the development.
Speaker 9: Of that unit was really driven during a time when
Speaker 9: China was like our next great ally, we were going
Speaker 9: to inculcate a democracy and so forth. But because instead,
Speaker 9: under Sesion Pinging, the country turned to belligerent and authoritarian.
Speaker 6: Just as iPhone.
Speaker 9: Volumes just explode to near their quarter billion per year,
Speaker 9: that's where you get this really problematic state of affairs.
Speaker 9: So a standard corporate history becomes feal political really quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, everyone, you know, we've heard so many stories.
Speaker 2: I mean, fox con has become a household name, and
Speaker 2: of course you talk about the rise of that company
Speaker 2: and how they assemble the phones in just all the
Speaker 2: ways that you know. My main takeaway, and I'm not
Speaker 2: done with the book just yet, but my main takeaway
Speaker 2: is that Apple just keeps getting deeper into China without
Speaker 2: actually trying. But it just keeps happening and happening and happening.
Speaker 2: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, so things are a little bit in
Speaker 9: a sense worse than they were in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 6: So by two thousand and nine, virtually everything was already.
Speaker 9: In China, but very little of the value add was
Speaker 9: Chinese company it was mostly multinationals operating in China. But
Speaker 9: over time what's happened is the iPhone like within itself,
Speaker 9: has become more Chinese. And that's because the Taiwanese company
Speaker 9: is like Fox KHN, like Pegatron, wistraan Quanta, They've basically
Speaker 9: been pushed out because under Seshin Ping, there's this directive
Speaker 9: to prioritize what.
Speaker 6: He calls indigenous innovation.
Speaker 9: The grand policy behind this is called Made in China's
Speaker 9: twenty five and so basically like companies that are closer
Speaker 9: to this state, so companies that are Chinese, they are
Speaker 9: able to get you know, better access to land, better
Speaker 9: access to tooling and machinery, better access to people that
Speaker 9: man the factories, and by doing so they're able to
Speaker 9: operate at lower margins. Right, they also get state subsidies,
Speaker 9: and so by offering lower margins to Apple, they increasingly
Speaker 9: win the deals. And so they're often you know, hiring
Speaker 9: directly from the Fox con parking lot, let's say, like
Speaker 9: grabbing people and saying I'll double your pay on the spot.
Speaker 9: And so you're really seeing this like red supply chain
Speaker 9: development really being accelerated over the last six seven years
Speaker 9: in particular, and that of course is concerning as well,
Speaker 9: because it used to be the case that multinationals had
Speaker 9: the experiential know how of how to do this, but
Speaker 9: at this point they're actually several years behind. It's the
Speaker 9: Chinese companies that are getting all the latest and greatest
Speaker 9: cutting edge development.
Speaker 1: Now unless you live under our rock.
Speaker 2: You've seen the news, and you wrote this book and
Speaker 2: it came out even before a lot of this tariff stuff.
Speaker 2: But Trump said, you know, they want a twenty five
Speaker 2: five percent or what's the latest of that? I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess he said he wants to make the iPhone
Speaker 2: here in the US. And if it's not, it's got
Speaker 2: they've got to pay like a twenty five percent tariff.
Speaker 2: What do you make of all of that stuff? Like
Speaker 2: could the iPhone be made in the US? And you know,
Speaker 2: Apple and Trump or Tim Cook and Trump seem to
Speaker 2: be like frenemies at this point.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, I would stridently say the iPhone is
Speaker 9: never going to be built in America, except that Tim
Speaker 9: Cook is under such political pressure to do it that
Speaker 9: it would not be surprising.
Speaker 6: It'd be interesting, but it wouldn't be surprising.
Speaker 9: If you had some press release announcing that some combination
Speaker 9: of parts or iPhones or something to deal with Apple
Speaker 9: was being made in America.
Speaker 6: I say that in part because that's actually what happened.
Speaker 9: After the Obama Romney debates in twenty twelve, Apple really
Speaker 9: came under political pressure and so they created this plan
Speaker 9: to build the Mac Pro out of Texas. It was
Speaker 9: an unmitigated fiasco. To quote one engineer on the product.
Speaker 9: I spoke to seven people on the project who all
Speaker 9: say it was really, really bad. And in a sense,
Speaker 9: what happened is they had to fly in Chinese engineers
Speaker 9: that they had trained at Fox Con to basically come
Speaker 9: complete the product and then stamp it made in America.
Speaker 9: So it didn't do well in terms of volumes, didn't
Speaker 9: do well in terms of margins, and didn't do well
Speaker 9: in terms of being actually made by American workers.
Speaker 6: And that was for a.
Speaker 9: Product being made in about five hundred and six hundred
Speaker 9: volume per day. An iPhone is being made at peak
Speaker 9: season at a million a day, So it's unfortunately, I mean,
Speaker 9: I just am not optimistic about it being made in America.
Speaker 9: We can talk more about why, but there's a whole
Speaker 9: host of reasons. There's probably fifteen or twenty things to overcome.
Speaker 9: What do you think the biggest is? What's the biggest
Speaker 9: is it? I mean, what do you think that is?
Speaker 6: It's the density of talent. I mean that's actually how
Speaker 6: Tim Cook has put it.
Speaker 9: So in other words, like a Jung Joe factory that's
Speaker 9: called iPhone City has four hundred thousand people working on
Speaker 9: the iPhone at peak season. But then those people aren't
Speaker 9: just sort of siddling id by waiting for the iPhone
Speaker 9: to come out. They're doing something else, right, So it's
Speaker 9: not like Tim Cook needs to open an Apple factory.
Speaker 6: He would need to convince someone like fox Con to
Speaker 6: do it.
Speaker 9: But fox Con knows that it only makes sense if
Speaker 9: there's a whole host of other industries operating because to
Speaker 9: have that number of people, which is already impossible in America,
Speaker 9: you can't just be working on the iPhone because the
Speaker 9: iPhone only gets made in peak volumes for two to
Speaker 9: four months of the year, So what do you do
Speaker 9: with the people for the other eight months? Like fox
Speaker 9: one is a master of allocation, you know, efficiently sort
Speaker 9: of tailor tailor, making all the all the right policies
Speaker 9: so that you know they've got their labor, going from
Speaker 9: one plant to another to manufacture different products and working
Speaker 9: with different competitors. Right, that's why third party outsourcing is
Speaker 9: more efficient than vertical integration. But that only makes sense
Speaker 9: if you're working within an industrial cluster the size of China,
Speaker 9: and we just.
Speaker 6: Don't have anything like that.
Speaker 9: So, you know, even in a dream scenario of Tim Cook,
Speaker 9: you know, saying I'm going to do it, I'm going
Speaker 9: to commit to America, he would frankly need dozens, if
Speaker 9: not hundreds of other companies evolved just to make it feasible.
Speaker 1: We're chatting with Patrick McGee.
Speaker 2: He has written the book Apple in China, and it's
Speaker 2: a It's an incredible read. I think what's most interesting
Speaker 2: to me is I've been covering Apple for a long time,
Speaker 2: and I would say about eighty percent of the stories
Speaker 2: that I'm hearing this book are brand new to me,
Speaker 2: Like I like, you've taken a layer, Like we've heard
Speaker 2: so many reports about Apple and Steve Jobs and all
Speaker 2: the products and this and that, but this is like
Speaker 2: a new layer built on top of everything that we've
Speaker 2: heard in the past, like stuff that's brand new.
Speaker 1: So I really think that's what's most interesting.
Speaker 6: To me is I'm thrilled to hear that. Sorry it
Speaker 6: cut out there. Yeah, I didn't mean to speak over you.
Speaker 6: I'm thrilled to hear that. Because I wrote the book
Speaker 6: for the layperson.
Speaker 9: You don't really need to know anything about Apple to
Speaker 9: understand the book. It takes you through the supply chain
Speaker 9: and through its history and multiple countries, you know, in
Speaker 9: a handholding way.
Speaker 6: I think it's pretty easy to read. And it's fast paced.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: People have compared to like a thriller, which which is
Speaker 6: which is great for me.
Speaker 9: But I also had someone like you in mind, right,
Speaker 9: and and basically like if any Apple story was.
Speaker 6: Already well known, if it had already been in a book.
Speaker 9: Unless it was just like absolutely necessity, you had to
Speaker 9: mention that like Steve Dobbs standing on stage to announce,
Speaker 9: you know, the one device.
Speaker 6: I didn't want it in the book. I wanted someone
Speaker 6: in a Barnes.
Speaker 9: And Noble to pick up the book and basically think
Speaker 9: I know Apple and go to the table of contents
Speaker 9: and be like, what on earth it's the sewing machine
Speaker 9: repair shop? What does five alarm fire refer to? Who
Speaker 9: are the yellow cows? And what is the gray market, Like,
Speaker 9: I just wanted the reader to be like, I don't
Speaker 9: know any of this, and so I know that you
Speaker 9: know tech really well, and so if that was your feeling,
Speaker 9: then that makes me feel wild pride.
Speaker 2: That's so amazing because that's exactly what I felt. I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm like, this is these are stories that
Speaker 2: have not been told before, and anything that was you
Speaker 2: sort of get a little bit of it, but not
Speaker 2: the full thing because you know that people kind of
Speaker 2: have an idea of what you're talking about with the
Speaker 2: main stories that we've all heard before.
Speaker 1: So a great job on this book. Again, I don't
Speaker 1: know how you.
Speaker 2: Make a thriller page turner out of this story, but
Speaker 2: it is incredible. The book is Apple in China. Patrick,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: Cheers.
Speaker 6: I hope you like the conclusion.
Speaker 1: All right, I can't wait to finish it. There it is.
Speaker 2: Find it now Apple in China, search it up. I'm
Speaker 2: telling you it's a great gift any for anyone that
Speaker 2: likes Apple in your life, just get it for him.
Speaker 2: It's stories that have not been told before. Put it
Speaker 2: on the website. Rich on tech dot TV, all right,
Speaker 2: coming up, let's see here we've got a question about
Speaker 2: scams and what Google's doing to help. Plus more of
Speaker 2: your calls eighty eight rich one O one eight eight
Speaker 2: eight seven four to two four one zero one. This
Speaker 2: is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Speaker 2: triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 2: four to two four one zero one. We were just
Speaker 2: talking about the Apple iPhone sixteen is the world's best
Speaker 2: selling phone. iPhone sixteen best selling smartphone in the world
Speaker 2: for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. This is
Speaker 2: the first time a base model has led the first
Speaker 2: quarter sales since twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the numbers, let me bring
Speaker 1: them up here. If you look at the numbers.
Speaker 2: Apple held five of the top ten spots and the
Speaker 2: iPhone six teen doing well in Japan and the Middle East.
Speaker 2: The sixteen E also had a pretty strong debut. It
Speaker 2: was number six in March, not the whole quarter, but
Speaker 2: that was just for March. Now here's the thing. I
Speaker 2: said that the iPhone sixteen would do really well when
Speaker 2: I did my review, I said this is going to
Speaker 2: sell a lot. Why because it was the first sort
Speaker 2: of like iPhone with the AI stuff that seemed like
Speaker 2: it would be a good one to upgrade two and
Speaker 2: it had everything going for it. I mean, everything on
Speaker 2: this phone is really good. So you've got the number one,
Speaker 2: iPhone sixteen, number two, iPhone sixteen Pro Max, number three,
Speaker 2: iPhone sixteen Pro, number four, iPhone fifteen, number five is
Speaker 2: a Samsung six, Samsung seven, Samsung Galaxy S twenty five
Speaker 2: Ultra number eight. The only non Samsung or Apple phone
Speaker 2: the Red Me fourteen C four G that's from Shaomi
Speaker 2: out of China. The only non Apple or Samsung phone
Speaker 2: in the top ten. The fastest growing segment globally phones
Speaker 2: priced under one hundred dollars. And then finally we've got
Speaker 2: another Galaxy and then number ten is the iPhone sixteen plus,
Speaker 2: So I mean, what a sweep. iPhone sixteen is like
Speaker 2: almost every phone on here, every model is top selling.
Speaker 1: That's just incredible, is it not? Wow?
Speaker 2: If you have T Mobile might have heard this story
Speaker 2: about the screen recording being added to its te Life app.
Speaker 2: The latest update to the te Life app included a
Speaker 2: screen recording tool. It was turned on by default, and
Speaker 2: users were not notified nor were they happy about it.
Speaker 2: T Mobile says it only records activity within the app.
Speaker 2: I guess to help them figure out how people use
Speaker 2: the app. Nothing outside, no sensitive info, nothing on your phone.
Speaker 2: You can turn off this feature if you go into
Speaker 2: the te Life app in settings under preferences. Now I've
Speaker 2: got the te Life app on here. I don't seem
Speaker 2: to have it on mine, but I guess it depends
Speaker 2: on you know, your version of the app which you've
Speaker 2: got going on your phone. But yeah, if you go
Speaker 2: into your Tea Life app, go under let's see your manage,
Speaker 2: and then settings, and then under preferences, it'll say the
Speaker 2: screen recording thing, So if you want that off, toggle
Speaker 2: it off.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Users were mostly upset because they didn't hear anything about this.
Speaker 2: They're like, wait a second, shouldn't you tell me when
Speaker 2: you're doing something like this? And yes, you should. I mean,
Speaker 2: any tool that's this privacy invasive should have should be
Speaker 2: opt in, not opt out by default. Dennis writes in
Speaker 2: for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I'm surprised that companies like
Speaker 2: Google can't flag scams before people get taken. With all
Speaker 2: their tech and AI, why can't they automatically detect if
Speaker 2: something is phony? Or real Yes, they can actually and
Speaker 2: they do. Google is doing a lot with AI to
Speaker 2: detect scams. In fact, I have mentioned on this show
Speaker 2: why I like Chrome better than the other browsers out there,
Speaker 2: because Chrome is actually scanning the websites that you're going to,
Speaker 2: that you're clicking the links on, and it's giving you
Speaker 2: warnings in near real time if those sites are sketchy.
Speaker 2: This is a let's see where is it? If you
Speaker 2: go into your settings Privacy and security, Let's see where
Speaker 2: is it there? It is security safe browsing. You've got
Speaker 2: enhanced protection, which is real time AI powered protection against
Speaker 2: dangerous sites, downloads and extensions that's based on your browsing
Speaker 2: data getting sent to Google. Then you've got standard protection.
Speaker 2: When you visit a site, Chrome sends a portion of
Speaker 2: the URL to Google. If a site seems suspicious, it
Speaker 2: will flag it, and you can also do no protection.
Speaker 2: So there is a lot going on here, Dennis. Let's
Speaker 2: see there's also another thing that they're doing. They've got
Speaker 2: a whole thing. Let's see, here's let's see, here's how
Speaker 2: we're using AI. So Google came out the whole blog
Speaker 2: post about how they're using AI to combat the latest scams.
Speaker 2: And the other thing they're doing is on the Pixel phone.
Speaker 2: They've got a filtering spam unwanted notifications they're now using
Speaker 2: AI to do, and then also phone calls. So this
Speaker 2: is a feature on the Pixel phone. It's called scam detection.
Speaker 2: So it's not only in Google Messages. So if you
Speaker 2: get a message that's suspect, it will tell you. But
Speaker 2: if you're on a live phone call and the person
Speaker 2: on the phone call starts to say like, hey, can
Speaker 2: I get your credit card information, literally your phone will
Speaker 2: cut in on the conversation and say this could be
Speaker 2: a scam, do not do this. They announced it last
Speaker 2: year at Google Io. I have yet to see this
Speaker 2: on my phone, so I'm not using the Pixel on
Speaker 2: a daily basis. But yeah, it will literally warn you,
Speaker 2: and I guess it listens to the call somehow.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I gotta don't quote me on that because I gotta
Speaker 2: figure out how is it knowing that says likely scams,
Speaker 2: suspicious activity detected for this call. And then it'll do
Speaker 2: the same thing inside the messages app as well. So
Speaker 2: there must be a setting in the phone in the
Speaker 2: phone app. Let's see, I'm gonna go into settings Scam
Speaker 2: Detection Beta Okay, alert you during a call if likely
Speaker 2: scam is detected. Scam detection will automatically run in the
Speaker 2: background of calls that have the potential to be scams.
Speaker 2: Your contacts are never screened by using scam detection. You
Speaker 2: agree to our terms of service. Scam detection will beep
Speaker 2: at the start of the call and every few minutes
Speaker 2: after to let participants know the call is being monitored.
Speaker 2: Scam detention is as detection is working fully on device
Speaker 2: and call content is not saved or recorded. Scam detection
Speaker 2: is not one percent accurate, and scammers constantly change their tactics.
Speaker 2: Always use caution when answering calls from unknown numbers. Okay,
Speaker 2: so it's turned on on my phone, but I guess
Speaker 2: it's only from numbers that are unknown or likely a
Speaker 2: scam to begin with.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Dennis, I think that that Google is doing
Speaker 2: some amazing things with their with their AI and scam detection.
Speaker 1: It's just you may not realize.
Speaker 2: And what I'll do sometimes is I'll take like the
Speaker 2: same exact URL that I get, and I will put
Speaker 2: it in both Chrome and then Safari and Chrome will
Speaker 2: give me this big red screen that says watch out
Speaker 2: likely scam. Safari just lets you go right to the website,
Speaker 2: not knock an apple. But they're just not doing the
Speaker 2: same thing. I don't think when it comes to this
Speaker 2: scam detection stuff. Good question eighty eight rich one on
Speaker 2: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 2: zero one the website rich on tech dot tv. If
Speaker 2: you have a message you want to send me, you
Speaker 2: can submit it there. That's what Diane did. She said,
Speaker 2: how do I find this Genesis app that fix problems?
Speaker 2: I see a few in the app store. No, it's
Speaker 2: Gemini g E, M I N I and uh, yes
Speaker 2: there's apps.
Speaker 1: This is very important.
Speaker 2: When you hear me mention an app, go to the
Speaker 2: website and get the direct link. I usually put the
Speaker 2: direct link rich on tech dot tv in the show notes,
Speaker 2: this is show episode one twenty three.
Speaker 1: The reason I tell you that is.
Speaker 2: Because so many of you go to the the app store,
Speaker 2: you search for what you think I said, and these
Speaker 2: apps they they play on that they make their name
Speaker 2: just like a main app, and you get the wrong one.
Speaker 2: So always go to the website. But it's Gemini Gemini
Speaker 2: by Google. Rich On tech.
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: Rich Demiro here, rich on Tech talking technology with you
Speaker 2: at Triple A rich one oh one eight eight eight
Speaker 2: seven four two four one zero one, the website, rich
Speaker 2: on Tech dot TV. Hit contact if you want to
Speaker 2: your question that way. I've got a lot of you
Speaker 2: doing that today, so I'm gonna get through some of those. Well,
Speaker 2: you knew this was happening. Went to a new parking
Speaker 2: lot for a new store and no tickets. It's all
Speaker 2: based on your driver's your your license plate, which I
Speaker 2: guess makes a lot of sense, Like why do you
Speaker 2: need to do this extra level? I've noticed a lot
Speaker 2: of the parking lots are now reading your license plate.
Speaker 2: In addition, if you look at your little ticket, sometimes
Speaker 2: your license plate is even printed on the ticket you get,
Speaker 2: you know, like the parking ticket you get, and then
Speaker 2: at the end, after you pay it like sometow you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes you just can go out, like the the arm
Speaker 2: raises because it scans your driver's like your driver's license
Speaker 2: keep saying that your license plate, uh, and then it
Speaker 2: just realizes that you paid and it lets you go.
Speaker 2: But anyway, this one had none of that. It just
Speaker 2: had ticketless, so you you go in it reads your
Speaker 2: license plate, and then when you go out, it reads
Speaker 2: it again. I guess it charges you if he needs to.
Speaker 2: If not, you know, you can just it just opened up.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 2: It was confusing some folks at the entrance because they're like,
Speaker 2: where's my ticket that I pull?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: No, there is no ticket. It's a big sign, says
Speaker 2: ticketless parking lot.
Speaker 1: Now I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't mean there's no you have to still have
Speaker 2: a ticket to get in, Like you still have to
Speaker 2: like there's like an arm there that lifts. Wow, how
Speaker 2: did I make a story that was so easy? So confusing?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Basically instead of the ticket, they're just scanning your license plate.
Speaker 2: Sandy writes in I guess after my visit to the
Speaker 2: record store, my twelve year old is asking for a Walkman.
Speaker 2: We don't have any tapes. Are Walkman's coming back? I
Speaker 2: don't think so, Sandy. I don't think there's anyone extolling
Speaker 2: the virtues of tape of cassettes, right, Adam, you're a
Speaker 2: big music person.
Speaker 1: You're not no one. No one thinks cassettes are good.
Speaker 8: Okay?
Speaker 2: Oh oh cool kids, oh, he says, cool kids like them. Uh, well,
Speaker 2: if you want to get a Walkman for your kid. Uh,
Speaker 2: there's a website called tro spect r E t R
Speaker 2: O sp E kt Retrospect, but they leave out one
Speaker 2: of the letters and they've got all this stuff that
Speaker 2: is I guess refurbished. I mean everything you're talking cassette players,
Speaker 2: CD players, vinyl iPods.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: I think this is what they made their name with,
Speaker 2: is refurbishing. Like you can buy a refurbished iPod on
Speaker 2: this website, and so they do it all. I think
Speaker 2: they're out of like Minnesota. Maybe let's see VHS you
Speaker 2: can get a VCR. How much is a VCR? One
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy nine dollars for a VCR refurbished? Oh wow,
Speaker 2: that's actually pretty cool. If you want to digitize your
Speaker 2: old tapes, right, let's see what else do they have? Polaroid?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's and then oh they do repairs too. I
Speaker 2: guess you can send stuff in all repairs ship free
Speaker 2: both ways.
Speaker 1: Within the US they'll repair looks. It's like, yeah, a
Speaker 1: couple things there.
Speaker 2: Anyway, if you want to get your kid a Walkman,
Speaker 2: retrospect dot com r E t R O s P
Speaker 2: s P E k T dot com.
Speaker 1: Let's see.
Speaker 2: Forrest writes in from twenty nine Palms. I'm moving to
Speaker 2: Puerto Virta this July and wondering what to do about
Speaker 2: mobile phone coverage. I currently use Visible, but I've heard
Speaker 2: T Mobile works best in Mexico. Should I switch to
Speaker 2: a US based T Mobile plan or get T Mobile
Speaker 2: Mexico when I arrive Forrest, I think if you're moving there,
Speaker 2: you have to get a plan that's based in Mexico.
Speaker 2: You can't use a plan that's based here in the US.
Speaker 2: I mean you could maybe for a while, but that's
Speaker 2: not really the terms of the service. If you're using
Speaker 2: T Mobile, yeah, you can maybe roam there for a while,
Speaker 2: but if as soon as they realize that you're like
Speaker 2: not going back to the US, they're gonna either cancel
Speaker 2: your plan or call you or something. So if you're
Speaker 2: moving permanently, you got to get a local plan. So
Speaker 2: whatever's good in Mexico. I don't even know what the
Speaker 2: carriers are there, but that's what I go is, just
Speaker 2: do some comparison. Once you get down there, I think
Speaker 2: your plan will probably work to roam for a little bit,
Speaker 2: but if you're staying there, you have to get a
Speaker 2: plan from there. That's you know they reserve that right.
Speaker 2: Let's see here, Diane writes in Everyone's writing in today
Speaker 2: iPhone cleanup? Do you recommend any iPhone cleanup apps? No?
Speaker 1: I don't. Actually there's so many of them out there.
Speaker 1: But the way the.
Speaker 2: iPhone is engineered, the operating system is not like Windows.
Speaker 2: You do not need cleanup apps. You don't need to
Speaker 2: clean up anything on the iPhone. iOS is not meant
Speaker 2: to be cleaned up. The only thing you can do
Speaker 2: because here's the reason. Everything in iOS is sandboxed, which
Speaker 2: means no app can interapp interact or look at another
Speaker 2: app's data. It's just I mean, yes, there are provisions
Speaker 2: for them to build that, but they can't. You can't
Speaker 2: go in and run a cleaning app and have it
Speaker 2: kind of like delete all the extra files and things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Like it just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: So the only thing you could do is like get
Speaker 2: rid of duplicate photos with an app, and for that,
Speaker 2: I like clean my phone. They will do that, but realistically,
Speaker 2: just go through your camera, just go through your list
Speaker 2: and just like get rid of duplicates yourself. I don't
Speaker 2: recommend any iPhone cleanup apps. I don't think you need them.
Speaker 2: Let's see here, we've got Paula from Los Angeles says
Speaker 2: I the Galaxy nine Plus that I love. I want
Speaker 2: to upgrade, but want a phone most similar to the
Speaker 2: one I have functionality, functionally, what would you suggest, I'd
Speaker 2: suggest the phone I was just talking about the Galaxy
Speaker 2: S twenty five Edge. It's available. It's gonna be a
Speaker 2: little bit more expensive than the S nine plus. I
Speaker 2: don't know if they're even going to give you. Let's
Speaker 2: see how much you'd get for that, so it starts
Speaker 2: at eleven hundred dollars. But I think what's great about
Speaker 2: this is that you're a Samsung user. It's going to
Speaker 2: be a very easy transition. Clearly you've used this phone
Speaker 2: for a long time, and you could probably trade it in.
Speaker 2: Let's see how much you can trade it in. So Samsung,
Speaker 2: the S nine or the nine plus even go back
Speaker 2: that far. Let's see here, Oh, oh it doesn't. It
Speaker 2: goes back to the ten. So for the for the
Speaker 2: S ten plus, you'll get fifty five dollars. For any
Speaker 2: other Samsung, you'll get fifty bucks. So hey, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that's better than nothing. If you don't need
Speaker 2: this phone, But they also have a lot of other
Speaker 2: upgrade deals and things like that. Oh, a lot of
Speaker 2: those might have changed now that the phone is available.
Speaker 2: But I'd say the S twenty five Edge. If you
Speaker 2: don't want something, if you don't want to spend something
Speaker 2: that's that expensive, I would just go with the Pixel
Speaker 2: nine A.
Speaker 1: That's what is it?
Speaker 2: Four hundred bucks, five hundred dollars and yeah, four ninety
Speaker 2: nine and that gives you really good camera, seven years
Speaker 2: of updates. But it's not gonna have that Samsung software
Speaker 2: that you're used to, so you may want to stick
Speaker 2: with a Samsung. If you're using Microsoft Authenticator, it is
Speaker 2: getting rid of its password autofill.
Speaker 1: It's going away.
Speaker 2: They're removing the password autofill feature from Microsoft Authenticator, So
Speaker 2: starting in June next month, you cannot save new passwords
Speaker 2: in the Authenticator app. In July, the feature is going
Speaker 2: away completely, and by August you won't even be able
Speaker 2: to access any saved passwords in the app. Now, this
Speaker 2: is different than your codes. Your one time codes will
Speaker 2: still remain no problem, but if you had any passwords
Speaker 2: saved in there, you will not be able to access them.
Speaker 1: Past August, but you can switch to.
Speaker 2: Microsoft Edge for autofill, and it's not there by default.
Speaker 2: You do have to tap a button to turn it
Speaker 2: on and transfer those over, but it is easy if
Speaker 2: you have if you're going to use Edge, if you're
Speaker 2: going to use something else like a password manager, you
Speaker 2: can export all of your passwords to a CSV file
Speaker 2: and move them over.
Speaker 1: But yes, you do have to do that.
Speaker 2: Microsoft says everything is synced, it's all in your account,
Speaker 2: but you have to give them permission to start using
Speaker 2: Edge for autofill versus what you're using. So if you're
Speaker 2: using Authenticator for passwords, Microsoft Authenticator specifically, you do need
Speaker 2: a plan to get your stuff out of there and
Speaker 2: to transfer it to something else. And Disney Plus just
Speaker 2: rolled out a new perks program. I'm not impressed, but
Speaker 2: you know, you might as well check it out and see.
Speaker 2: But it's it's a I don't even understan why they're
Speaker 2: doing this. It's got discounts on Adidas, fun Co and
Speaker 2: Walt Disney World hotels. I should just go to the
Speaker 2: website and see what they have, because it's I was
Speaker 2: not impressed. It's like I didn't really need any of
Speaker 2: the stuff that they put on there, but it was
Speaker 2: it's just random stuff.
Speaker 1: Dash Pass.
Speaker 2: You can get like six months of that Clear Super
Speaker 2: dual LINGO two months of that. My kids actually probably
Speaker 2: would like that. Uh, but yeah, these are this is
Speaker 2: what you get.
Speaker 1: Oh. You can also enter sweepstakes.
Speaker 2: So they've got tickets to freak your Friday premiere Disney Cruise,
Speaker 2: but you do need an active Disney Plus subscription to enroll.
Speaker 2: You can check out your perks at Disney plus dot
Speaker 2: com slash perks. I mean, I don't know, I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm not sold on this. I don't understand it why
Speaker 2: they're doing this. I mean, I get it, they're just
Speaker 2: selling more stuff to you. I guess some are freebies,
Speaker 2: but to me, like, come on, twenty percent off at Adidas,
Speaker 2: I don't know, is that a big deal. Maybe you
Speaker 2: can't get twenty percent off Adidas six months of dash Pass,
Speaker 2: I mean so many credit cards include that anyway, Three
Speaker 2: months of Clear, I mean.
Speaker 1: That's something you could easily get.
Speaker 2: I feel like anyway, if you want to see what
Speaker 2: you got Disney Plus dot Com slash perks eighty eight
Speaker 2: rich one O one eight eight eight seven four two
Speaker 2: four one zero one everything I mentioned is linked up
Speaker 2: on the website rich on tech dot T. Coming up
Speaker 2: this hour, we're gonna talk to ed Bot, longtime journalist
Speaker 2: on all things Microsoft, plus more right here on rich
Speaker 2: on Tech. Still coming up, We've got ed Bot, a
Speaker 2: longtime tech journalist, expert on all things Microsoft. He's gonna
Speaker 2: guide us through some of the things that's happening with
Speaker 2: Windows right now. You know, you've got this big transition
Speaker 2: to Windows eleven. We've got end of life support for
Speaker 2: lots of these apps on there, and oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: there's just so much to ask. I hope we'll get
Speaker 2: through a lot of it, and then later we've got
Speaker 2: the feedback. These are all the email comments and things
Speaker 2: that you send in, so if you want to get
Speaker 2: those in now, well you've already been doing it. Everyone's
Speaker 2: emailing today for some reason. Julie writes in Hey, rich
Speaker 2: your show is amazing. I'm on my own with any
Speaker 2: tech and it's difficult. Recently, I got rid of TV
Speaker 2: and purchased the YouTube TV app through Frontier. I then
Speaker 2: bought the Roku Ultra, which was recommended. We had a
Speaker 2: power outage from our electric company and somehow I lost
Speaker 2: the YouTube TV app I've tried everything I can think of,
Speaker 2: but can't seem to get it back. Any suggestions would
Speaker 2: be appreciated. Thank you, Julie. Julie, how did a power
Speaker 2: outage get rid of this app? Is so strange, But basically,
Speaker 2: as I understand it, the YouTube app is just an
Speaker 2: app on your Roku So if it somehow got deleted
Speaker 2: in that power outage, which I've got to figure out
Speaker 2: how that happened, you can just reinstall it. And so
Speaker 2: if you go, you can do this a couple ways.
Speaker 2: If you go to the Roku store on your streaming
Speaker 2: device just search YouTube TV, or you can do it
Speaker 2: even from the mobile app or the website. You can
Speaker 2: go to channelstore dot Roku dot com, you log in,
Speaker 2: go to YouTube and press install and that will send
Speaker 2: it to your TV. Or if you have the Roku
Speaker 2: mobile app, you can do that as well. So a
Speaker 2: couple of ways to do that. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: from your device, just go to the store like press home,
Speaker 2: select store and then search for the app. That's the
Speaker 2: way I would do it, but if you want to
Speaker 2: do it for mobile app, but I would just do
Speaker 2: it right from the ultra But hopefully you get it
Speaker 2: back I know it was it like I've never heard
Speaker 2: of a something zapp in it. Okay, let's see here.
Speaker 2: Amazon this week launched a new, budget friendly, blank video doorbell.
Speaker 2: It's very confusing with Amazon because they've got Blink, which
Speaker 2: they purchased for I don't know, ungodly sums of money,
Speaker 2: and then they also purchase Ring and they both do
Speaker 2: very similar things. But I guess the difference is Blink
Speaker 2: is much more interested in sort of The technology that
Speaker 2: they brought to the table was this really long battery life.
Speaker 2: And you know the cameras they have, some of them
Speaker 2: work on like two years or a year of just
Speaker 2: double A batteries. And so this new Blink video doorbell
Speaker 2: is sixty bucks. Three double A batteries give you up
Speaker 2: to two years of power. So if you want a
Speaker 2: video doorbell without charging it every couple of months like
Speaker 2: I have to do, you could just get this don't
Speaker 2: have to worry about replacing the batteries for two years.
Speaker 2: The improvements include a one hundred and fifty degree field
Speaker 2: of view, so you're gonna get a wider field of view,
Speaker 2: night vision, head to toe view, and person detection.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing.
Speaker 2: This doorbell does require a separate sink module, so you
Speaker 2: do need to get that, which I guess you can
Speaker 2: use your other cameras. I don't have any Blink cameras,
Speaker 2: nor have I ever tested them, actually, so I really
Speaker 2: should to see how these things work. I've interviewed people
Speaker 2: from the company, but I never really tried them out.
Speaker 2: The bundle is seventy dollars, so keep in mind unless
Speaker 2: you already have that sink module, you have to buy
Speaker 2: that with the doorbell, and then if you want local
Speaker 2: storage that base that coursing module does not give you
Speaker 2: local storage, so if you want local storage, like to
Speaker 2: put a little SD card, you have to get the
Speaker 2: Sink Module two or the Sink Module XR. Otherwise, if
Speaker 2: you get this little doorbell, you got to pay for Cloud,
Speaker 2: which is three dollars a month.
Speaker 1: Also keep in mind is limited to the two point.
Speaker 2: Four gigahertz Wi Fi thirty second clips and push to
Speaker 2: talk audio only, so no back and forth. It's like
Speaker 2: kind of more like a walkie talkie style. So again,
Speaker 2: you get what you pay for. These things are inexpensive,
Speaker 2: but you're not getting the most full featured video doorbell
Speaker 2: out there like you would get from ring. Assume it
Speaker 2: in Orange County, Orange, California.
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 7: Hello Raach, Hi, Hey Rich, Sorry, let me get you
Speaker 7: off speakable fish.
Speaker 1: Okay, well wait do we have the whole music?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Hey Rich, Rich, Yes, you know, love your show.
Speaker 1: Thank you well.
Speaker 7: I I have at least four questions, maybe one or
Speaker 7: two if you could answer a question. One is you know,
Speaker 7: whenever I go, you know, then they make me, you know,
Speaker 7: use a strong password on the website. Yes, And I
Speaker 7: was just wondering whether it pownts first, because sometimes I
Speaker 7: use my laptop, sometimes I use my phone, So how.
Speaker 3: Does that work?
Speaker 2: It does, so whatever password manager you're using will sync
Speaker 2: in the background between your different devices. So I would
Speaker 2: recommend a good cross platform password manager like Bitwarden, I
Speaker 2: think does a great job. You basically would install it
Speaker 2: on your browser and you would install it on your phone,
Speaker 2: and in the background, it would just sink those So
Speaker 2: once you create a password on your browser, it would
Speaker 2: make its way to your phone the next time you
Speaker 2: go to log into that website on your phone. And
Speaker 2: they all pretty much work that way because that's just
Speaker 2: kind of the nature of how they work.
Speaker 1: So the only thing I've noticed is.
Speaker 2: The the quality of the sync. Sometimes, like you know,
Speaker 2: it may not be a media because, especially with the iPhone,
Speaker 2: apps are not doing a lot in the background, and
Speaker 2: so if you haven't sort of like called up your
Speaker 2: password manager app in a while, it may not be
Speaker 2: fully up to date with the entire sink of every
Speaker 2: password that you just created like a second ago on
Speaker 2: your computer. So that's the only thing I've sort of
Speaker 2: run into when it comes to the passwords. But yeah,
Speaker 2: most of the time, if you're creating a strong password,
Speaker 2: the password manager will not only let's say you're signing
Speaker 2: up for a new website, the password manager will notice
Speaker 2: that and it will immediately spring into action and suggest
Speaker 2: a password and then save that password after you enter it.
Speaker 1: So and then again it will be available across all
Speaker 1: your devices.
Speaker 2: But again, when you're looking for a password manager, look
Speaker 2: for one that works on all the devices that you're using.
Speaker 2: Most of them do, with the exception of course, of
Speaker 2: the Apple on is not going to have for Android.
Speaker 1: The Apple passwords. Good question.
Speaker 2: Sorry, we can get to all of them, but you
Speaker 2: know we've got other shows to do, so coming up next,
Speaker 2: ed Bough Talk All Things Microsoft. Ed bo is a
Speaker 2: longtime tech journalist and expert on all things Microsoft. He's
Speaker 2: joining me now to talk about some of the pressing
Speaker 2: issues in the Microsoft community.
Speaker 3: Ed.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 8: Hey, it's great to be here.
Speaker 3: Rich.
Speaker 1: So what is the latest?
Speaker 2: I mean, we've got this big transition to Windows eleven,
Speaker 2: We've got support for Windows ten ending in October this year.
Speaker 1: What do people need to know about this?
Speaker 10: So, the biggest issue is compatibility check that Windows eleven
Speaker 10: does before it will allow you to upgrade a PC
Speaker 10: from Windows ten. And it goes in and it checks
Speaker 10: about a half a dozen things, but there's two that
Speaker 10: really matter. One is the CPU in the system, and
Speaker 10: the second one is a thing called a Trusted Platform
Speaker 10: Module or a TPM that's an encryption chip. And there's
Speaker 10: a list of compatible CPUs, and basically, any system that
Speaker 10: was built twenty nineteen or later qualifies for an upgrade
Speaker 10: to Windows eleven. Anyone that was built earlier than that
Speaker 10: is probably going to fail the compatibility test. And then
Speaker 10: there are also a number of PCs that are newer
Speaker 10: than twenty nineteen that will still fail the test because
Speaker 10: they've been configured using the kind of settings that hobbyists
Speaker 10: typically do a legacy BIOS and turning off secure boot
Speaker 10: and not enabling the TPM so things like that. So
Speaker 10: there's a pretty big population, hundreds of millions of PCs
Speaker 10: that are going to be told by Microsoft in October, sorry,
Speaker 10: you're not going to get any more security updates for
Speaker 10: Windows ten and you can't upgrade to Windows eleven.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So what's the chance that this actually happens on time?
Speaker 2: Were my not going to say okay, you can find
Speaker 2: We'll give you another six months or a year. Now
Speaker 2: I've heard there's like a program that you can sign
Speaker 2: up for an extra year, two or three if you're
Speaker 2: a business. Is that coming to play?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 10: So, uh, there's a one hundred percent chance this is
Speaker 10: going to go down exactly as it's been announced.
Speaker 8: Uh for years.
Speaker 10: But there are there are basically five things that people
Speaker 10: can do to get past this one. The thing that
Speaker 10: Microsoft wants them to do, of course, is to go
Speaker 10: out and buy a new PC and recycle their old
Speaker 10: one into parts.
Speaker 2: Of course, a copilot PC, you know with that snap
Speaker 2: Dragon chip inside exactly exactly.
Speaker 10: The second thing they can do is, as you mentioned,
Speaker 10: they can pay for updates. Now, businesses and educational institutions
Speaker 10: can pay for up to three years. For businesses, that'll
Speaker 10: cost a lot. For educational institutions, it'll cost next to
Speaker 10: nothing a dollar per pc per year for the first year,
Speaker 10: and then two dollars for the second year, and then
Speaker 10: four dollars for the third year. But consumers can pay
Speaker 10: thirty dollars a month if they want to wait a
Speaker 10: month or a year.
Speaker 1: Thirty dollars a month. A month, Oh my gosh, that's going.
Speaker 10: To Yeah, I should I should double check that because
Speaker 10: I haven't looked at it lately. But yeah, it's not
Speaker 10: it's not cheap, and frankly, I don't think it's an
Speaker 10: option for most people unless you have a business that
Speaker 10: you're running, a small business that you're running, and you
Speaker 10: really need to do that, and you're not eligible to
Speaker 10: go through the standard business you know, the standard business
Speaker 10: program of updates that they have. You know, you need
Speaker 10: to be an enterprise customer to do that kind of thing.
Speaker 10: But I don't think most people are going to pay
Speaker 10: for updates. The third thing people can do is simply
Speaker 10: ignore this and you know, use antivirus.
Speaker 8: Use Uh.
Speaker 10: There's a program called zero Patch, a service that you
Speaker 10: can subscribe to that's about two.
Speaker 8: Dollars a month.
Speaker 10: And they'll take care of patching any vulnerabilities that are
Speaker 10: discovered in Windows ten and they're going to do.
Speaker 8: That for years.
Speaker 1: And what they're an update, they'll give you what they'll.
Speaker 10: Give you what they give you what they call micro patches,
Speaker 10: where they actually literally go in and they patch the
Speaker 10: code on your PC to UH to prevent that particular
Speaker 10: vulnerability from executing. It's a you know, it's a pretty
Speaker 10: fascinating concept and and I think it's I think it's
Speaker 10: legitimate for someone who doesn't want to pay Microsoft a
Speaker 10: lot of money for updates, but also doesn't want to
Speaker 10: go completely without updates.
Speaker 8: It's a it's a good middle ground.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm looking at the thirty dollars figure, and
Speaker 2: it looks like it seems to be for individual home users.
Speaker 2: It says a one year ESU program, which is what
Speaker 2: end of extended security updates.
Speaker 8: Extended security updates.
Speaker 1: It looks like it is thirty dollars for one year,
Speaker 1: which kind of makes okay.
Speaker 10: Thirty dollars per year, right, I think it's I think
Speaker 10: it's like thirty dollars a month for the business plan,
Speaker 10: and that one doubles in the second year, and then
Speaker 10: doubles in the third year. So the third year, it's
Speaker 10: like by the third year year up to thirty or
Speaker 10: forty dollars.
Speaker 8: And I think it's I think it.
Speaker 10: Works out to something like four hundred and twenty dollars
Speaker 10: per PC for a business over the course of three years,
Speaker 10: which is you know, you could you could practically buy
Speaker 10: a new PC.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's the thing.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I understand the look, I mean, number one,
Speaker 2: in these companies, if you're running like some sort of
Speaker 2: software and you don't want it to break or something,
Speaker 2: you just don't want to mess with what you've got right,
Speaker 2: everything's working, So I understand why you made want to
Speaker 2: extend that. But my other thing is if Microsoft's going
Speaker 2: to be making these updates anyway, I mean, why do
Speaker 2: they want people to switch to Windows eleven? Is it
Speaker 2: just because it's like the time has come?
Speaker 10: There's well, not to get two technical about it, but
Speaker 10: in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, there were some very
Speaker 10: significant security flaws that were discovered in Intel's chip lines.
Speaker 10: Those are the things that power all those hundreds of
Speaker 10: millions of older PCs, and so those those vulnerabilities, specter
Speaker 10: and meltdown they were called, and they were a very
Speaker 10: very big deal. And so basically they represent kind of
Speaker 10: a dividing line between an old, insecure generation of Intel
Speaker 10: based Windows PCs and the newer ones that have taken
Speaker 10: care of those issues. And so Microsoft, you know, basically decided,
Speaker 10: although they've never come out and said this publicly, but
Speaker 10: they basically decided to draw that line right there and
Speaker 10: say we're this is where we're going to begin support
Speaker 10: for this. God now, now there is a thing. However,
Speaker 10: I've written about this. It's one of the most popular
Speaker 10: articles that I've ever written, and I.
Speaker 8: Continue I continue to get email from people.
Speaker 10: You if if you have a PC that runs that
Speaker 10: successfully runs Windows ten, you can force it to upgrade
Speaker 10: to Windows eleven.
Speaker 8: You can bypassibility checks.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do we do this? Should we find the article?
Speaker 8: Yeah, you could find that article.
Speaker 1: Will it be as secure? Though?
Speaker 2: That's the thing, like will your computer be because once
Speaker 2: you're in Windows eleven, will it be just as secure
Speaker 2: as another computer running Windows eleven?
Speaker 10: If you force yeah, you know, the difference will be
Speaker 10: ninety nine point eight versus ninety nine point nine percent secure.
Speaker 10: You know, you're you're not you're not in any danger.
Speaker 10: Uh you know, you're you're running the exact same Windows
Speaker 10: eleven that's running on on a newer PC. All you're
Speaker 10: doing is you're bypassing the technical compatibility checks. But Windows
Speaker 10: ten and Windows eleven are for for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 10: Windows eleve even is a feature update two uh uh
Speaker 10: to Windows ten with some security to faults turned on
Speaker 10: and uh, you know, and with a slightly tweaked interface
Speaker 10: and something.
Speaker 8: But it's very very similar. They're you know, they're they're.
Speaker 10: Nearly uh that it's more of like additional features versus
Speaker 10: exactly a big gange exactly exactly. You know, they could
Speaker 10: easily have called Windows eleven, you know, Windows ten point five.
Speaker 2: Oh and the article has how to upgrade your incompatible
Speaker 2: Windows ten PC to Windows eleven two free options on
Speaker 2: zd net dot com.
Speaker 1: And real quick before we go, I've got like a
Speaker 1: minute left.
Speaker 2: You wrote an article last year, your your your your
Speaker 2: columns are the gift that keeps on giving, and you
Speaker 2: wrote about how you said, basically, people modern PCs don't
Speaker 2: need antivirus. Can you just explain real quick what your
Speaker 2: thought is behind that?
Speaker 10: Well, they don't need third part you don't need to
Speaker 10: pay for anti virus, and you don't need to download
Speaker 10: a third party antivirus program. There is a capability built
Speaker 10: into Windows ten and Windows eleven called Windows Defender Windows
Speaker 10: Defender Anti Virus, and it used to be kind of
Speaker 10: an also ran, but these days it ass every single
Speaker 10: test that the independent labs do and it's not just
Speaker 10: good enough, it's it's it's perfectly acceptable. And the only
Speaker 10: thing you're going to get by by paying.
Speaker 8: For a third party program is more up sells.
Speaker 2: Okay, so look it up under I guess Windows Security.
Speaker 2: Windows Defender is the program that actually does it. If
Speaker 2: you've got that on your computer, make sure it's up
Speaker 2: to date, and Ed says it's gonna be okay, ed Bot,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining me today. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: The website Ed bought. Let's see what which website you
Speaker 2: want me to give out. You've got a couple of them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, let's go ahead and do. If you go to ZDNet.
Speaker 10: Dot com, slash blog, slash bot, that should get you there.
Speaker 10: But you know you can put it in the show notes.
Speaker 10: But ZDNet dot com is where I do most of
Speaker 10: my publishing these days.
Speaker 2: All right, Wealth of Information, great interview, Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for the information, and get those PCs upgraded or
Speaker 2: figure out it's coming soon October. All right, coming up next,
Speaker 2: we are going to open up the feedbag that's coming
Speaker 2: up right here on rich on Tech, and if you
Speaker 2: need the link to Ed's columns, I'll put it right
Speaker 2: on the website rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Back after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The
Speaker 2: feedbag is just overflowing this week, so we're going to
Speaker 2: get right into it so I can get through as
Speaker 2: many of your emails as possible. Alan from San Diego says,
Speaker 2: I listened to your segment with Dave Citron and his
Speaker 2: explanation of what personal information Google collects on us. It
Speaker 2: was very misleading. He made us sound like they collect
Speaker 2: very little and that we are in full control. I
Speaker 2: asked Gemini, Well Google collects it's a lot. I also
Speaker 2: asked how to control that data for the average user.
Speaker 2: Finding and adjusting those settings is very difficult and some
Speaker 2: things just can't be controlled. As you said, when the
Speaker 2: app is free, we are the product that couldn't be
Speaker 2: more true than with Gemini. I felt like there wasn't
Speaker 2: enough discussion about the loss of privacy during your excitement
Speaker 2: over the product. Okay, it sounds like you might be
Speaker 2: talking about Google or Gemini. Sounds like you're talking about
Speaker 2: about Gemini.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, all of these chatbots are collecting data. If you're
Speaker 2: using them, they are collecting data. Google says, conversations, uploaded files, feedback,
Speaker 2: things are kept for anywhere from auto delete after eighteen
Speaker 2: months even with the if you turn that feature off.
Speaker 2: Conversations are saved for up to seventy two hours to
Speaker 2: provide the service and processed feedback, and some conversations are
Speaker 2: reviewed by human reviewers and retained up to three years.
Speaker 2: So look, yes, if you're using one of these chatbots,
Speaker 2: what you say to it is going to be seen,
Speaker 2: or it could have the potential to be seen. Oh
Speaker 2: more criticism of the AI stuff rich I caught the
Speaker 2: tail end of your interview with the Google AI rep.
Speaker 2: It reminded me of two kids gushing over a new toy.
Speaker 2: AI isn't a harmless voice assistant. It's serious and potentially dangerous.
Speaker 2: Quantum computing is changing everything. Garbage in, garbage out used
Speaker 2: to apply but not anymore. Google, in my opinion, is
Speaker 2: inordinately evil. Most people don't realize it. They've strayed far
Speaker 2: from don't be evil. Please, no more Google reps. They
Speaker 2: don't deserve airtime. Wow, here's the thing. All that is
Speaker 2: fine and dandy until you use Google Gemini for what
Speaker 2: I did last night with the sprinklers, and it's incredible.
Speaker 2: So yes, there's always a good side to things and
Speaker 2: a bad side. Brian writes it on Instagram, Rich I
Speaker 2: love notebook LM. Thanks for putting me into it. I
Speaker 2: use it for my law work, but my guilty pleasure
Speaker 2: is feeding it the detailed notes I take on TV
Speaker 2: shows and movies. The results are mind blowing. I uploaded
Speaker 2: a couple pages of notes on the plot of Twin Peaks,
Speaker 2: very Lynchian, very weird, and it turned my dry recap
Speaker 2: into a podcast that was more compelling than most of
Speaker 2: the real person twin Peaks podcasts than iTunes ouch. It
Speaker 2: understands nuanced plot holes, mysteries, and explained what's explained and
Speaker 2: what's not. This feels empowering, not scary.
Speaker 1: There you go. Lots of thoughts about AI this week.
Speaker 2: Nick writes in another Fear AI could become too powerful,
Speaker 2: even while still dumber than us. We already struggle to
Speaker 2: stop humans from making bad decisions. What happens when flawed
Speaker 2: AI is driving decisions at scale with large language models,
Speaker 2: hallucinations might not be caught until it's too late.
Speaker 1: Best Nick, Wow, let's see here.
Speaker 2: Jojo writes in A friend of mine was scammed on
Speaker 2: WhatsApp by someone posing as a longtime friend. The message
Speaker 2: asked him to zell my to someone else because she
Speaker 2: had hit her monthly limit. Since he trusted her, he
Speaker 2: sent the money, only to learn her account had been compromised.
Speaker 1: Ooh, that's a new one.
Speaker 2: The scammers had access to her entire contact list, and
Speaker 2: at least four others were tricked the same way. Be
Speaker 2: careful if someone's asking you to sell someone else money
Speaker 2: or venmo, double check, call them or FaceTime them directly.
Speaker 1: That is that's a big one.
Speaker 2: Jess from California rites in, My mom in New Hampshire
Speaker 2: has never been into tech.
Speaker 1: No phone, no email, no internet.
Speaker 2: But I got her a grand Pad from Consumer Cellular
Speaker 2: and now we've been video calling and sharing photos for
Speaker 2: over seven years.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: The best part I manage it remotely as the account admin.
Speaker 2: I can update settings for my phone, send her photos,
Speaker 2: and even pipe in my Facebook post so she doesn't
Speaker 2: have to deal with the actual site. It's secure, easy
Speaker 2: for her to use, and gives us a way to
Speaker 2: stay closed despite the distance. When one device stopped working,
Speaker 2: they sent a replacement right away, no hassle. Every person
Speaker 2: we've dealt with has been kind, patient and helpful. I'm
Speaker 2: just a fan who hopes more people find out about
Speaker 2: this great option for older family members. Yeah, the grandpad
Speaker 2: is I actually interviewed the CEO or the founder at cs.
Speaker 2: I didn't get a chance to ever air that, but
Speaker 2: it is interesting and we probably should do a little
Speaker 2: bit more on that.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Finally, Germo from Los Angeles writes, and I've been trying
Speaker 2: out the text ai tool. It seems okay, but it
Speaker 2: didn't answer all my questions. I asked for tequila recommendations
Speaker 2: and it responded I can't help with that. I asked
Speaker 2: chat GBT the same thing, and it gave me a
Speaker 2: full list. Not that I drink, but the subject came up.
Speaker 1: Okay, what thank you, Germo.
Speaker 2: Julie writes in I listened to your podcasts each morning
Speaker 2: as I get ready for work and sometimes in the
Speaker 2: car if I'm driving.
Speaker 1: I have learned a lot and take notes on things
Speaker 1: you talk about. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Julie Mindy writes in I started listening about a month ago.
Speaker 2: Very useful, understandable, and you really go into depth with
Speaker 2: everyone who calls in. I got tired of politics, but
Speaker 2: tech always fascinates me.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you, Mindy.
Speaker 2: And Loretta writes in I'm back after almost three weeks
Speaker 2: in Egypt. I really missed your show, your texts, your newsletters.
Speaker 2: I've been busy catching up. You're the only one I
Speaker 2: can truly rely on for tech info, and you explain
Speaker 2: it in a way even I can understand.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Loretta. I love that.
Speaker 2: Three weeks in Egypt. Wow, that's a nice vacation. All right,
Speaker 2: that's gonna do it for this show. Rich on Tech
Speaker 2: dot tv is the website. Find me on social media
Speaker 2: at rich on tech don't forget. Subscribe to my free
Speaker 2: newsletter is at rich on tech dot tv. I've got
Speaker 2: I think we're just at almost fifty thousand, so that's
Speaker 2: very exciting to hit that number. And of course you
Speaker 2: can watch my TV segments if you want to submit
Speaker 2: something to the feedback, go to rich on tech dot
Speaker 2: tv and hit contact. Don't forget there is a podcast
Speaker 2: version of this show. Search rich on tech. Next week,
Speaker 2: we've got the CEO of Clicks, they make that little
Speaker 2: keyboard attachment you can put on an iPhone or some
Speaker 2: other we'll talk to them, and then we've got representative
Speaker 2: from the Fido Alliance. They're going to talk about past keys.
Speaker 2: This is a way to ditch passwords completely using past keys.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening. There are so many
Speaker 2: ways you can spend your time. I really do appreciate
Speaker 2: you spending it right here with me. We've got Adam
Speaker 2: today on the board. Thank you, Adam. We've got Kim
Speaker 2: working the phone lines today. Thank you Kim. My name
Speaker 2: is rich Dmiro. So much great stuff in this show
Speaker 2: to share with you. I really do appreciate you sitting
Speaker 2: here and enjoying it. I hope you enjoy it just
Speaker 2: as much as I do. Uh yeah, that's amazing. We've
Speaker 2: got so much. Just go to the website rich on
Speaker 2: tech dot TV if you want to learn more. All right, Adam,
Speaker 2: is there anything else you want to add to the show. Nope, okay,
Speaker 2: I guess that I guess that sound means it's time
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: My name is rich dmiro. I will talk to you
Speaker 1: real soon.