Speaker 1: Ring cameras can now help you find a lost dog.
Speaker 1: Amazon and Google are in a battle for smart home supremacy.
Speaker 1: Meta isn't listening to your phone, but they will start
Speaker 1: eavesdropping on your AI chats. Plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on on rich dmiro And this is rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. This is the show where I talk about
Speaker 1: the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's
Speaker 1: also the place where I answer your questions about technology,
Speaker 1: and yes you have a lot of them. I believe
Speaker 1: that tech should be interesting, useful and fun. Let's open
Speaker 1: up those phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Give me a call if you have a
Speaker 1: question about technology. Email is also an option. Just go
Speaker 1: to the website richon Tech dot tv, hit contact, submit
Speaker 1: your email there. Yes, it goes right to my screen.
Speaker 1: All right, Guests, This week, friend of the show is
Speaker 1: going to join us once again. She is a smart
Speaker 1: shopping expert at truetrade dot com. She's going to talk
Speaker 1: about scoring the best deals on Amazon Prime Day, which
Speaker 1: is coming up this week. Later, Steven Roboles, tech journalists
Speaker 1: and content creator, is going to share insights on Apple.
Speaker 1: He came out with a cool shortcut that went viral
Speaker 1: to help you find a stolen iPhone. He'll talk about
Speaker 1: that and later in the show. Mark Vina, CEO and
Speaker 1: principal analyst at Smart Tech Research, always a guy that
Speaker 1: I hang out with when I go to these tech events.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk gadgets. We're going to see what
Speaker 1: he likes these days. All right, this was a big
Speaker 1: week for Amazon and Google. The two companies are locked
Speaker 1: in a battle for smart home supremacy. So on one side,
Speaker 1: you've got Echo speakers, You've got Ring cameras, and Alexa Plus.
Speaker 2: You might want to.
Speaker 1: Mute that right now because we're going to be hearing
Speaker 1: it a lot. On the other side, you've got Google,
Speaker 1: Nest cameras, Thermostats, Home Speed, and Gemini. So which one
Speaker 1: is gonna win? You've probably got some of these gadgets
Speaker 1: in your house. Let's start with Amazon. They held an
Speaker 1: event this week in New York City. Now, typically I
Speaker 1: say I went to New York City for this event.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was invited, No, I did not go.
Speaker 1: I was celebrating my kid's birthday this week, and I
Speaker 1: am not gonna be out of town when it's my
Speaker 1: kid's birthday. So I'm just putting that out there, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like you got, I gotta ride
Speaker 1: the line of family and this stuff. And so I
Speaker 1: watched from Afar. I got all the info, but you know,
Speaker 1: it would have been nice to be there. But you know,
Speaker 1: I do what I can. But Amazon's game is to
Speaker 1: just throw a lot at the wall, right and see
Speaker 1: what sticks. Usually they have pretty good prices on their
Speaker 1: tech stuff, and this is what they came out with
Speaker 1: new this time around, So new Kindle Scribes. These are
Speaker 1: the kindles that you can write on. So the new
Speaker 1: one they have their flagship, is thinner and lighter than
Speaker 1: ever larger screen eleven inch.
Speaker 2: It's got glare free.
Speaker 1: That's one trend we're seeing with all these screens is
Speaker 1: glare free, which is really nice on the ice make
Speaker 1: that's a big difference. There's also a new color Soft
Speaker 1: that's a color version of the kindlescribe.
Speaker 2: Now these are expensive.
Speaker 1: The scribe starts at five hundred bucks, the color version
Speaker 1: starts at six hundred and thirty dollars. You might be saying, rich,
Speaker 1: why not just get an iPad at those prices, Well,
Speaker 1: these are much easier on the eyes because it's e ink,
Speaker 1: which means it looks more like the printed page. Now
Speaker 1: these are color well, the second one is only get
Speaker 1: the color e inc reader if you read comic books
Speaker 1: or something that is colorful, or you need the color
Speaker 1: screen because you're highlighting or something like that, or you're
Speaker 1: writing and you need that color because the contrast of
Speaker 1: the black ink on the color ones are not as
Speaker 1: good as it is on a standard black and white
Speaker 1: e ink screen.
Speaker 2: Just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's nice to see the book cover in color,
Speaker 1: but do you really need that if that's your only thing?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Next up, Ring Ring is releasing their first ever four
Speaker 1: K cameras, so more details in your videos. That means
Speaker 1: you can zoom in on things like if you have
Speaker 1: a license plate you're trying to make out, or face
Speaker 1: you're trying to make out. They call this retinal vision.
Speaker 1: Not to be confused with something else. You don't want that.
Speaker 1: This is mostly for wired cameras right now. They also
Speaker 1: have two K cameras for a bit more clarity there.
Speaker 1: They've got that on their indoor camera and a wired doorbell,
Speaker 1: so basically the standard battery doorbell that everyone has doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to have gotten an update, but there are a
Speaker 1: few new features that will make their way to a
Speaker 1: lot of these cameras that are already out there. Number one,
Speaker 1: Alexa Plus Greetings, So basically you can now have Alexa
Speaker 1: Plus this is their smart Ai answer the doorbell for you.
Speaker 1: So right now, if you have a ring doorbell, if
Speaker 1: someone rings it, you can have a canned response that
Speaker 1: says something back to them like hey, sorry, no solicitors,
Speaker 1: or please leave a message or whatever. But now you
Speaker 1: can actually have Alexa Plus say hey, can I help you?
Speaker 1: What do you what are you here for? Okay, can
Speaker 1: you come back? Or whatever, so Alexa can relay that
Speaker 1: info to your phone. Well, so that's kind of a
Speaker 1: neat thing. I've not played with that, but I'll be
Speaker 1: curious to see how that works. Then they have this
Speaker 1: feature called familiar Faces. So this cuts down on notification
Speaker 1: spam because it will ignore the regulars at your house
Speaker 1: if you choose, and you won't get a notification when
Speaker 1: your kid takes out the trash, but it will get
Speaker 1: a notification when a stranger walks up to your door. Now,
Speaker 1: the most interesting new feature, it's probably already getting a
Speaker 1: lot of publicity is called Search Party. This one uses
Speaker 1: AI to help find lost dogs. So if your pet
Speaker 1: goes missing, you can upload a picture to the Ring app.
Speaker 1: And they said last year a million people did this
Speaker 1: alone and just last year but they didn't have this feature.
Speaker 2: It was more manual.
Speaker 1: Ring will use AI to comb through the video footage
Speaker 1: of nearby cameras. Yes hear that again. Ring will take
Speaker 1: the picture of the dog and use AI to try
Speaker 1: to find an image of that dog on your neighbor's cameras.
Speaker 1: What if it finds a match, it will alert the
Speaker 1: owner of that camera, not the pet owner, and it
Speaker 1: will ask you, hey, do you want to share your
Speaker 1: footage or this location with the other person that's pet
Speaker 1: is missing and you can decide. So they're trying to
Speaker 1: put privacy in first place here.
Speaker 2: But you can see the ramifications. You can see where
Speaker 2: this could go.
Speaker 1: It's pretty wild to think that Ring can scour so
Speaker 1: much footage for a match of a pet. When you
Speaker 1: think about pets, they all look kind of similar anyway,
Speaker 1: don't they. I mean, I know, if it's your dog,
Speaker 1: they're different. I know your cocker spaniel is unique. But
Speaker 1: imagine if they expanded this to other things like Silver
Speaker 1: alerts for missing people, child abductions, car license plates. They're
Speaker 1: not doing any of this right now. Right now it's
Speaker 1: just dogs and eventually cats and other pets. But the
Speaker 1: tech is clearly there for a surveillance scenario. I mean,
Speaker 1: what if you commit a crime and the Ring cameras
Speaker 1: can track you down instantly? Now this feature is they're
Speaker 1: not doing that. They're not saying they're doing that, but
Speaker 1: I'm just saying the technology is there clearly.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This feature is turned on by default in the Ring app.
Speaker 1: If you don't like the idea of finding other dogs
Speaker 1: helping people find their lost pets, you can go into
Speaker 1: the app and turn it off. So go into your
Speaker 1: Ring app if you just want to see the option.
Speaker 1: It's under menu, control center and search party and it
Speaker 1: is enabled by default. So that's an interesting one. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: they're wading into this with dogs. Who doesn't want to
Speaker 1: find a lost dog?
Speaker 2: I mean, come on.
Speaker 1: But it's the other stuff that this could potentially be
Speaker 1: used for that is very interesting. There's also new Blink
Speaker 1: cameras with higher resolution and a way to combine two
Speaker 1: Blink cameras for a one hundred and eighty degree panoramic view.
Speaker 1: People love these Blink cameras because they have a super
Speaker 1: long battery life.
Speaker 2: That's like what Blink invented.
Speaker 1: That's why Amazon paid so much for them. These are
Speaker 1: good if you just want to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: an area of your home or outside. That's just simple
Speaker 1: and easy. You put the batteries in last for like
Speaker 1: a year. Then we got some new Fire TVs, a
Speaker 1: new Fire TV stick that's forty bucks. And then the
Speaker 1: interesting thing is Echo speakers. They've got a new Dot
Speaker 1: Max for one hundred bucks and an Echo studio that's
Speaker 1: even bigger for two hundred and twenty dollars. So right
Speaker 1: in on Sonos right now, they're getting in on their game.
Speaker 1: You can now connect up to five of these speakers
Speaker 1: to a Fire TV stick for instance surround sound.
Speaker 2: How cool is that?
Speaker 1: Affordable and easy instance surround sound wireless, And this is
Speaker 1: a trend we're seeing with a lot of the streaming devices,
Speaker 1: almost all of them at this point, whether it is Roku, Google,
Speaker 1: Apple TV, and now fireTV. You can connect their speakers
Speaker 1: wirelessly and have a simple wireless home theater setup. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. There's also two new Echo shows these are
Speaker 1: the echo speakers with a display on them.
Speaker 2: Now powering all.
Speaker 1: Of this is Alexa Plus, which I have been testing
Speaker 1: and I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: I think it's a big upgrade.
Speaker 1: But I have gotten some mixed responses from listeners about
Speaker 1: all the smart home controls and what works right now
Speaker 1: and what doesn't. Remember, this is pretty early days, so
Speaker 1: if you have a complex smart home setup, it might
Speaker 1: not be the best time to accept that upgrade email
Speaker 1: when you get it from Amazon that's inviting you to
Speaker 1: use Alexa Plus. But overall, Alexa plus is very conversational,
Speaker 1: just sounds much smarter. You can go back and forth.
Speaker 1: All of these ais are great if you're just trying
Speaker 1: to have a conversation. They seem smart, they sound smart.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they make mistakes, just remember that, and they're not
Speaker 1: your friend, even though they sound like your friend. We
Speaker 1: literally were using an AI the other day in the
Speaker 1: car and it laughed. I was like, wait, what did
Speaker 1: you just laugh at me? I had never heard an
Speaker 1: AI do that. This was grock by the way, the
Speaker 1: AI from x I guess. I couldn't believe it. It sounded
Speaker 1: human like. I was like, wait, what you laughed? Is
Speaker 1: it gonna cry next. Overall, I think Amazon has built
Speaker 1: a compelling and affordable smart home ecosystem with its own
Speaker 1: products and thousands more work with Alexa. So while I
Speaker 1: don't think their announcements are super groundbreaking, I do think
Speaker 1: there are some good upgrades. If you're in their ecosystem,
Speaker 1: if you want to be again, you don't need to upgrade.
Speaker 1: If your fire TV stick is working from three years ago,
Speaker 1: stick with it, no pun intended. But the Echo speakers
Speaker 1: to me are really interesting because I've had my ups
Speaker 1: and downs with Sonos over the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: But I will say they finally fixed that one feature
Speaker 1: I wanted, which is the ability to adjust all the
Speaker 1: volume across all my speakers at.
Speaker 2: The same time. So I'm excited about that. All right.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we're going to talk about what Google announced
Speaker 1: with their hardware and software this week. They're doing some
Speaker 1: big changes as well.
Speaker 3: Eight eight to eight.
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one the website rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot TV.
Speaker 2: Good to have you here.
Speaker 1: We'll take some more of your calls coming up next
Speaker 1: right here on rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology.
Speaker 2: Oh do you recognize this song? Not yet?
Speaker 1: Oh you will. This will be played a lot in
Speaker 1: the next couple of months. Taylor Swift's new album dropped.
Speaker 1: Whatever you think of Taylor, you know whatever. My wife
Speaker 1: is obsessed. She was sending me all kinds of things yesterday,
Speaker 1: all about Taylor's album. Yes, I listened to it twice
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's good.
Speaker 2: Look my wife said it today.
Speaker 1: She goes, if you don't like Taylor, you know, it's fine,
Speaker 1: you know, don't tell anyone. So anyway, I'm enjoying it,
Speaker 1: and it's it's darker and deeper than her previous albums,
Speaker 1: and also not so much for kids. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of things she says in there that
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to explain to your kids. I'll just
Speaker 1: leave it there.
Speaker 2: Eight to eight.
Speaker 1: Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one the website for the show
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot TV. I mentioned this on my
Speaker 1: Instagram stories at rich on Tech and people were like, wait,
Speaker 1: what what? So I got my nest thermostat replaced yesterday.
Speaker 1: The guy comes to my house to replace it. First
Speaker 1: thing he says, like rich On Tech. I'm like, oh okay.
Speaker 1: Like every time when you're on TV when someone comes
Speaker 1: to your home, there's always this moment of like is
Speaker 1: this person going to recognize me or not? And I
Speaker 1: think it's an amazing thing that people know who I am.
Speaker 1: That's great because it means I'm doing something right. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, you're welcoming someone into
Speaker 1: your home, a stranger, and it's like, so long story short.
Speaker 1: He's like rich On Tech and then I was like
Speaker 1: so embarrassed because he's like, how come you're not doing this?
Speaker 1: I said, I said, look, I do a lot of
Speaker 1: my stuff myself. I go, but when it comes to
Speaker 1: something that my wife is going to be using on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, I don't mess around.
Speaker 2: I do not want to.
Speaker 1: Have to say, honey, I messed up on the thermostat.
Speaker 1: I missed a wire. It's not working. And then it's
Speaker 1: like I got to hear it. So he comes in.
Speaker 1: It took him about, you know, seven minutes to replace
Speaker 1: this thing and so and you know, a couple hundred
Speaker 1: bucks later, which, by the way, you know these people
Speaker 1: ask for a picture at the end, you.
Speaker 2: Know, hey, can I a selfie? I'm like, sure, sure, sure,
Speaker 2: no discount.
Speaker 1: Ever, I feel like you pay more because they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're on TV, you could afford it. I don't think so,
Speaker 1: not the case, just putting it out there. Uh okay,
Speaker 1: So my story. The reason why I tell you all
Speaker 1: of that is because I posted to my Instagram that
Speaker 1: I replaced this, and people are like, wait, the original
Speaker 1: Nest thermostat is like going away.
Speaker 2: Yes it is.
Speaker 1: If you've had a Nest in your house like I
Speaker 1: have for like ten years, you need to know this
Speaker 1: Nest Learning thermostat the first gen from twenty eleven and
Speaker 1: the second gen from twenty twelve. Google is ending support
Speaker 1: for them on October twenty fifth, So after that date, yes,
Speaker 1: your thermostat will still.
Speaker 2: Work manually on the wall.
Speaker 1: You can adjust the temperature up and down, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to connect to Nest or the Google Home app.
Speaker 1: So that means no more remote control, no more status,
Speaker 1: no more notifications, no more app settings, no more home
Speaker 1: away assists, no more third party assistants that can control it.
Speaker 1: So basically it becomes a dumb thermostat you've had ten years,
Speaker 1: and yes, I got a lot of good life out
Speaker 1: of this thing, and the new one's very nice, so
Speaker 1: everything on device will still work. There's not going to
Speaker 1: be any software, no security updates. So if you have
Speaker 1: one of these original Nests, look in your email. Google
Speaker 1: sent you an email that said important service update for
Speaker 1: your Nest Learning Thermostat, and they gave you a special price.
Speaker 1: It's like one hundred and fifty bucks to upgrade to
Speaker 1: the new one. So that's what you need to do.
Speaker 1: So October twenty fifth, that's the date. And of course, yes,
Speaker 1: I procrastinate, just like every other good American and waited
Speaker 1: until the last minutes to do that. Daniel writes in
Speaker 1: I use Apple Photos with iCloud and Google Photos with
Speaker 1: backup on my iPhone fourteen pro. When I delete a
Speaker 1: photo from Google it deletes from my Apple too. Is
Speaker 1: there a way to stop this? If I delete the
Speaker 1: Google Photos app, will it delete my Apple Photos? Is
Speaker 1: it a good idea to even have both on my phone? Okay,
Speaker 1: so here's the thing. It's when you delete something when
Speaker 1: you have Google Photos and you delete a photo out
Speaker 1: of Google Photos, Yes, it will delete it off your iPhone.
Speaker 1: If you delete something off the iPhone Photos app, it
Speaker 1: will not delete off Google Photos. So think of Google
Speaker 1: Photos as sort of a one way street. Everything goes
Speaker 1: up into Google Photos but does not come back down. Now,
Speaker 1: if you delete something in Google Photos, yes, it will
Speaker 1: carry over that change to the Photos app, So just
Speaker 1: remember that. The best way to do what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: Like if you want to clean up your Google Photos
Speaker 1: without deleting them off your iPhone, is to go to
Speaker 1: the Google Photos website photos dot Google dot com on
Speaker 1: a desktop computer. Any changes you make there will not
Speaker 1: be reflected on your iPhone. Now they will inside Google Photos,
Speaker 1: but not in the Apple Photos app.
Speaker 2: I know this is very complicated.
Speaker 1: If I delete the Google Photos app, will it delete
Speaker 1: my Apple Photos? No, because again you're just deleting the app,
Speaker 1: and it's data your Google Your Apple Photos stays there.
Speaker 1: I use Google Photos for all my photo management.
Speaker 2: I love it. It's great.
Speaker 1: But of course you want to keep your pictures in
Speaker 1: two places, so I think it is a good idea
Speaker 1: to have both on your phone. And there's some things
Speaker 1: I do inside the Photos app on iPhone, and there's
Speaker 1: some things I do inside Google Photos. Sue writes in Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you have any suggestions for an
Speaker 1: app on my iPhone to monitor my blood pressure.
Speaker 2: No, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: It doesn't there's no blood pressure monitoring built into the iPhone. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have a third party device, you can so
Speaker 1: Apple Watch series nine or later can give you alerts
Speaker 1: if you may be experiencing hypertension, but it does not
Speaker 1: take real time blood pressure readings. They just added this feature,
Speaker 1: so yes, it will say, hey, we think you might
Speaker 1: have hypertension, but they're not going to say here's your
Speaker 1: blood pressure. So that's one thing. If you want accurate
Speaker 1: tracking through your phone, you have to get a cuff
Speaker 1: right now. In the future maybe not, but right now
Speaker 1: you do need a cuff Withvings Witings. They really are
Speaker 1: the leader in this area. They've got FDA cleared models
Speaker 1: that sync with your iPhone and let you keep a
Speaker 1: detailed history of your numbers. So that's the best way
Speaker 1: to do that right now. If you suspect you have hypertension, Oh,
Speaker 1: we got to go eight eight eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one coming up more. We'll take some of your
Speaker 1: calls and we're going to talk about Amazon Prime Day.
Speaker 1: Don't shop until you hear this. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology at triple A rich one
Speaker 1: on one eight eight eight seven four to.
Speaker 2: Two four one zero one.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Notes on the website if you hear something I mentioned
Speaker 1: you need more information like that nest thermostat end of support.
Speaker 1: Everything is on the website rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: And while you're there, be sure to subscribe to my
Speaker 1: free newsletter. It's got all the goodies that you need
Speaker 1: to know about the tech world each and every week. Now, well,
Speaker 1: Prime Day is coming up coming up this week. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's yet another Prime Day, and there are some new
Speaker 1: things happening this year and there are some deals you
Speaker 1: can score right now. So let's hear from Trey Boge,
Speaker 1: smart shopping expert at Truetrey dot com with all the
Speaker 1: tips and tricks.
Speaker 2: What is Prime Day and why does Amazon continue.
Speaker 5: To do it as a Prime Day is a member's
Speaker 5: only sale. There are sales on millions of items, from
Speaker 5: say a small countertop appliance to paper towels, and so
Speaker 5: it's a great time for Prime members to save money.
Speaker 5: Prime Bay started about ten years ago. Amazon and other
Speaker 5: retailers have been trying to figure out a way to
Speaker 5: generate excitement in a slow period in July, and Amazon
Speaker 5: figured it out with Prime Day, and so now it's
Speaker 5: a very big shopping period. And of course now we
Speaker 5: have the second one of the year, which is October,
Speaker 5: and Amazon again has done it. They've created a lot
Speaker 5: of excitement around this time, and many other retailers throw
Speaker 5: their hats into the ring as well.
Speaker 1: That's a big part of it is when Amazon throws
Speaker 1: these events, Target gets on board, Walmart gets on board.
Speaker 2: So should we look around or just stick to Amazon?
Speaker 5: We should absolutely look around. You know, Amazon will have
Speaker 5: millions of things on sale, and that's very exciting.
Speaker 2: But like you said, we've.
Speaker 5: Got best Buy, Walmart, Cohle's so many other retailers having
Speaker 5: big sale moments. So it is really important for cost
Speaker 5: conscious consumers, which is you know, pretty much all of us.
Speaker 5: We should be shopping around. We should be comparing prices
Speaker 5: because the best price may be on Amazon, or it
Speaker 5: may not.
Speaker 2: Be anything new about this year's Prime Day.
Speaker 5: So around Prime Day, Amazon will launch special things on
Speaker 5: and just kind of reframing certain sales as well. And
Speaker 5: so that's what I would look for. They are always
Speaker 5: really good credit card offers. There's a one medical offer
Speaker 5: right now, There's an Amazon Unlimited music offer right now,
Speaker 5: so look for those, and then a lot of the
Speaker 5: deals will be held on the Today's Deals page. And
Speaker 5: this is a page that lives on Amazon, but it
Speaker 5: will also house Lightning deals as well, So that's kind
Speaker 5: of a good go to if you're a consumer looking
Speaker 5: for those best deals on Prime Day or otherwise.
Speaker 2: Now, I always see a lot of discounts on Amazon products.
Speaker 2: Can you give me some of the ideas of the
Speaker 2: Amazon brand names out there that we should look for
Speaker 2: on this Prime Day for those discounts.
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 5: So, of course Amazon owns many many brands. They have
Speaker 5: Amazon Basics, Amazon Essentials, and there are other brands that
Speaker 5: they own like Ring Fire, Kindle. Those are where you're
Speaker 5: going to be seeing the bigger, more generous discounts because
Speaker 5: Amazon has more wiggle room with the price. So I
Speaker 5: always say start with those brands, and then we will
Speaker 5: see many, many other sales from brands big and small.
Speaker 5: So be sure to look around when you're shopping on
Speaker 5: Amazon Prime Day because the deals are going to be
Speaker 5: very widespread.
Speaker 2: That brings me to my next question, how do you
Speaker 2: know if a deal is actually a deal. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a great question.
Speaker 5: And you know this is it takes a couple of minutes,
Speaker 5: it's totally worth it because we do see these other
Speaker 5: retailers having sales as well. So it's good to use
Speaker 5: a tool like Yahoo Shopping or Google Shopping. Enter the
Speaker 5: name of the item that you're interested in, and then
Speaker 5: you'll see where it's being sold in how much. PayPal
Speaker 5: Honey has a historical pricing feature, as does a tool
Speaker 5: called Camel Camel Camel, which is specific to Amazon, and
Speaker 5: they will give you a sense of whether it's a
Speaker 5: good deal right now or not. And I think it's
Speaker 5: really good to use one or two of those tools
Speaker 5: just to really get a sense of if this is
Speaker 5: a great deal, it's the very best deal, and if
Speaker 5: you should make.
Speaker 2: Your move now. There's been so many Prime Days over
Speaker 2: the years, and now twice a year, are we getting
Speaker 2: Is there any sense of Prime Day fatigue among consumers?
Speaker 5: So that's an interesting question. I mean, Amazon experimented in
Speaker 5: July with a four day Prime Day, and from what
Speaker 5: I could hear, people didn't need four days to shop
Speaker 5: on Amazon. So they've pulled back and now they're at
Speaker 5: two days. Again, I don't necessarily think there's fatigue. I
Speaker 5: think that these Amazon Prime sales have created a shopping
Speaker 5: moment one in July and one October. So I don't
Speaker 5: think there's fatigue necessarily. But it's really important for Amazon
Speaker 5: and these other retailers to keep things fresh and exciting,
Speaker 5: because then, of course you do risk that fatigue if
Speaker 5: it becomes kind of the same old, same old.
Speaker 2: And what do you make about all this, anything that
Speaker 2: people ask you about Prime Day or any observations on
Speaker 2: this as someone who's covered shopping for a long time now, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 5: The main thing that question, the main question that comes
Speaker 5: to me, and it's usually by DM. It's like what
Speaker 5: should I buy?
Speaker 6: What should I skip?
Speaker 5: So I'm always trying to share that information in my
Speaker 5: segments and on Instagram. I think that's a big question.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Obviously we have those brands that Amazon owns where you
Speaker 5: can really find those deep discounts. But then we do
Speaker 5: see discounts on things like Apple products. I mean, that's
Speaker 5: very exciting and that doesn't happen too much. The way
Speaker 5: I like to approach Amazon Prime Day is what are
Speaker 5: the things that I need maybe from my home, what
Speaker 5: are the things that I'm maybe thinking of buying for
Speaker 5: holiday gifts and then kind of approach it that way,
Speaker 5: and I'm looking for deals. I'm only buying things that
Speaker 5: are on sale on Amazon Prime Day because otherwise I
Speaker 5: could just get.
Speaker 2: Them another time. All right, there you have it.
Speaker 1: Trey Bodge from Truetrey dot com Amazon Prime Day. My
Speaker 1: advice every year is to put the items you want
Speaker 1: in your like, stop buying stuff right now in Amazon
Speaker 1: and just put the stuff you want in your cart,
Speaker 1: and that way you can watch for price drops over
Speaker 1: the next couple of days, because pretty much everything goes
Speaker 1: on sale.
Speaker 2: Thanks for that interview. That was great.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Hank in South Michigan. Hank Southeast Michigan.
Speaker 7: You're on with Rich Southeast Michigan. I got you on
Speaker 7: nine to ten am on my drive to work. This
Speaker 7: is Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 6: Love it Rich.
Speaker 7: Rich. I just bought a brand new Gateway computer Windows
Speaker 7: eleven unit because my ten year old Ace Windows ten.
Speaker 7: Actually it was a Windows eight point one that I
Speaker 7: upgraded at ten, but it's not upgradeable to eleven. So
Speaker 7: I bought the eleven unit and I got it all
Speaker 7: set up Microsoft of cloud one drive, transfer all my
Speaker 7: settings and everything to the new computer. But I don't
Speaker 7: know how to get my local files for my seed drive,
Speaker 7: all my documents and photos that weren't on one drive,
Speaker 7: and that to my new computer without you know. My
Speaker 7: missile thought was just and I just did a USD
Speaker 7: cord and and find the seed drive and transfer that.
Speaker 7: But I don't want to clone it because I don't
Speaker 7: want the operating No.
Speaker 1: So what, there's a couple. I mean there's many many
Speaker 1: ways you can do this. You can use a program.
Speaker 1: But how I mean? Are we talking.
Speaker 7: Without?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 7: My missile thought was just and I just did a
Speaker 7: USD cord and and find the seed drive and transfer that.
Speaker 7: But I don't want to clone it because I don't
Speaker 7: want the operating No.
Speaker 1: So what, there's a couple. I mean, there's many many
Speaker 1: ways you can do this. You can use a program.
Speaker 1: But how I mean? Are we talking like terabytes of files?
Speaker 1: Are we talking thousands of files?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 7: No, no, no, no. The the SSD on the new
Speaker 7: computer is five to twelve okay, and the seed drive
Speaker 7: on the old computer was one terabyte. But I think
Speaker 7: I've only got I didn't look at it today but
Speaker 7: I think there's maybe three hundred gigs total.
Speaker 1: Do you have do you have a good well okay, do.
Speaker 2: You have a good Internet connection?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I mean you've already got one drive. Is
Speaker 1: one drive built into your old computer? Yes, okay, So
Speaker 1: you can just create a folder on one drive as
Speaker 1: long as you have some space there and just drag
Speaker 1: all the files into there. And it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a clim which I think is good anyway,
Speaker 1: because you probably have a lot of stuff to accumulated
Speaker 1: on that old computer.
Speaker 2: But just go ahead and drag all the stuff that
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 1: And if you don't want to deal with it all,
Speaker 1: as long as you have enough storage and one drive,
Speaker 1: I think they give you like five gigs. As long
Speaker 1: as you have enough in there, you can put in
Speaker 1: all your files and there may you know, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're talking a lot of videos and photos, then
Speaker 1: you may have to get a USB drive like a
Speaker 1: flash drive or a hard drive.
Speaker 7: Okay, but that was my thought too. Get a couple
Speaker 7: of decent size flash drives and just move those files
Speaker 7: out of that and then plug it into the new computer.
Speaker 1: And well, so here's here's how I attack this, Hank.
Speaker 1: It all depends on how much you have to transfer.
Speaker 1: So if it's a couple of gigabytes, go with the cloud.
Speaker 2: It's easy.
Speaker 1: You drop the files in on the one computer, they'll
Speaker 1: show up on the other computer. If we're talking hundreds
Speaker 1: of gigabytes, you may be able to get a flash drive,
Speaker 1: but those get kind of expensive, you know, so and
Speaker 1: they top out. You know, you can get one for
Speaker 1: like one terabyte, two terabytes, but those are going to
Speaker 1: be a lot more expensive than something like one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight gigs. So Elf, my advice to you there,
Speaker 1: to anyone listening when you're cleaning up your cloud drive,
Speaker 1: slowly but surely, because I made the mistake of trying
Speaker 1: to move like hundreds of gigabytes of stuff all at once.
Speaker 1: It really messes up your computer. So slowly but surely
Speaker 1: clean this stuff up. But Hank, I'm glad you got
Speaker 1: onto the Windows eleven I know it's a big thing
Speaker 1: with this Windows ten end of support. So glad you're
Speaker 1: on the right page there and getting those old files
Speaker 1: over again. Cloud drive, flash drive, hard drive, depending on
Speaker 1: how much you have, easiest way to do it.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the call.
Speaker 1: Today. Appreciate you listening there on nine ten am in
Speaker 1: Southeast Michigan eight eight eight rich one oh one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
Speaker 1: Coming up, We're going to take some more of your calls.
Speaker 1: Plus I still have to promise you the the Google
Speaker 1: stuff I'm going to talk about. Google came out with
Speaker 1: the whole bunch of smart home stuff. Bobo producer Bobo's
Speaker 1: talking about the rice increases from Microsoft on the game Pass.
Speaker 1: We also have some price increases from Peloton. A lot
Speaker 1: going on in the tech world. We'll talk about all
Speaker 1: of it coming up right here.
Speaker 2: I'm rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at Triple A rich one
Speaker 1: oh one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
Speaker 1: one zero one.
Speaker 2: I see we've got a caller.
Speaker 1: Carla wants to talk about the Taylor Swift film last night.
Speaker 1: I guess they they screened it in the movie theaters,
Speaker 1: like if you're a real diehard. So we'll see if
Speaker 1: we can get to her in just a bit.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But first Tim writes in, I've been listening to you
Speaker 1: for years. I love the weekend show on the Radio.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tim. I usually buy otter box to protect
Speaker 1: my phone, but I just purchased the new iPhone seventeen Promax.
Speaker 1: Nice going. Do you have any cases you recommend? Oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, of course. You know how many cases I
Speaker 1: get sent when a new phone comes out. It's so
Speaker 1: many that I can't even Literally, I'm sitting there just
Speaker 1: trying them all on my phone to see what which
Speaker 1: one I like. I'll tell you the ones I like,
Speaker 1: over and over and over. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: did drop my iPhone seventeen Pro Max and it did
Speaker 1: suffer some damage even with a case on. And that's
Speaker 1: not a case I'm going to recommend, So that's not
Speaker 1: None of the recommendations I'm about to.
Speaker 2: Give you were the one that was on when I
Speaker 2: dropped it.
Speaker 1: But if you want something, I like something that's thin
Speaker 1: and simple and usually clear to show off the color
Speaker 1: of the phone. So if you like that outer box
Speaker 1: symmetry you mentioned, outter box auto box symmetry I think
Speaker 1: is great. It's simple, it's clean, it's clear. I love
Speaker 1: that and it's a great great protection for your phone.
Speaker 1: UAG if you've heard of them urban armor gear, that's
Speaker 1: what it stands for. They make really rugged styles, so
Speaker 1: some of their cases I think can are drop tested
Speaker 1: up to like eighteen feet, so it all sort of depends.
Speaker 1: And they have some cool it's just cool looks. They
Speaker 1: do less of the clear stuff, but they do a
Speaker 1: lot of like looking cases. And then if you just
Speaker 1: want the case that I put on every single one
Speaker 1: of my test phones as soon as I get it,
Speaker 1: except this new one, I like the Spegan Ultra Hybrid,
Speaker 1: which is just a simple clear case has got the
Speaker 1: charging ring on the back, and it's like dirt cheap.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can get those on Amazon for under
Speaker 1: twenty five bucks usually and it works. I've dropped many
Speaker 1: phones with that on there and it just works perfectly.
Speaker 1: So those are my choices. There are many many others
Speaker 1: out there, but those are the ones that I really
Speaker 1: like over and over and over. Hey, this segment is
Speaker 1: sponsored by Shopback. What if best Buying Amazon actually paid
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Speaker 1: you can see all of them. I mean there's names
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Speaker 1: dot com. That's shopback dot com to download the mobile app,
Speaker 1: the desktop, and the browser extension. Amazon rates available for
Speaker 1: a limited time only. That brings us to our Gear
Speaker 1: of the week. If you want to charge your phone faster,
Speaker 1: you gotta upgrade your charging gear. So I've been testing
Speaker 1: a couple of things. First off, this Belkan Ultra Charge
Speaker 1: Pro three to one magnetic charging doc. This is what's
Speaker 1: called CHI two. So you might be hearing this terminology
Speaker 1: G two and it's written out QI so when you
Speaker 1: see it's that said CHI.
Speaker 2: So G two is the.
Speaker 1: Newest wireless charging standard. It's faster than it was before.
Speaker 1: So if you're using the newest iPhone with an old charger,
Speaker 1: not getting the fastest charging speeds. So this one is
Speaker 1: twenty five watts of charging, which means zero to fifty
Speaker 1: percent around twenty five minutes on new iPhones or newer
Speaker 1: phones in general, because some of the other phones support
Speaker 1: G two as well. It also has this chill boost,
Speaker 1: which is this active cooling situation which speeds up your
Speaker 1: charging because it's cutting the heat. You know, these phones
Speaker 1: heat up when they charge. I do notice there's a
Speaker 1: little tiny bit of a fan sound. It took me
Speaker 1: a minute to realize that. I was like, wait, what's
Speaker 1: that sound? And so you might hear that once in
Speaker 1: a while. But the cool thing is this can charge
Speaker 1: your phone, your Apple Watch, and your AirPods all at once.
Speaker 1: And it ships with a forty five watt USBC power
Speaker 1: adapter in the box, which is nice because you don't
Speaker 1: have to go find something. So if you've got an
Speaker 1: iPhone sixteen are up, you probably want to upgrade to
Speaker 1: this and take advantage of those faster charging speeds, especially
Speaker 1: if you have the seventeen. That one really can charge fast.
Speaker 1: Price is about one hundred and thirty bucks. The other
Speaker 1: thing if you don't want to spend that much, is
Speaker 1: the U Green forty five watt USBC wall charger. And
Speaker 1: this specifically if you got an iPhone seventeen model this year,
Speaker 1: even the standard one or the Pro, it can now
Speaker 1: support two times faster wired charging, so you need to
Speaker 1: upgrade your charging plug that you plug into the wall,
Speaker 1: not your cable. The USBC is still fine, but this
Speaker 1: supports up to forty five watts of USBC charging, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a lot faster charging. The new iPhone
Speaker 1: basically charges twice as fast, so that's only gonna cost
Speaker 1: you on Amazon. I think it's about twenty five bucks. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Gear of the Week, thanks to shop Back. Let's go
Speaker 1: to Let's go to Carla. Let's hear Carla. How was
Speaker 1: the Taylor Swift film last night?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 9: Hi, Rich, thank you for talking with me today.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, how was it?
Speaker 9: Well, you know, I want to we heard you talking
Speaker 9: about Taylor Swift and your reaction. We feel it was
Speaker 9: a little muted her because your boys went a little
Speaker 9: higher when you said it was good.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I mean, look, yeah, go ahead, keep going.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So, my daughter and I, you know, I'm a moderate
Speaker 10: adult swiftie and my daughter, she's thirty, and we went
Speaker 10: to you know, I bought tickets last week and we
Speaker 10: head down to Century City to watch.
Speaker 11: The film.
Speaker 9: And we had to leave because we started laughing because
Speaker 9: our expectations were completely different from what we were seeing
Speaker 9: on the screen.
Speaker 2: What was on the screen.
Speaker 9: Well, I'll tell you, I don't know how old your
Speaker 9: kids are, but I would say a seventh or eighth
Speaker 9: grader would have probably been able to produce a film
Speaker 9: that was just higher quality than I would expect from
Speaker 9: this list.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, Okay, that's not right.
Speaker 10: And I'll tell you I'm a little nervous because I
Speaker 10: feel like we're not going to get honest reviews.
Speaker 1: Well, we got one from you, we got I got
Speaker 1: a run. But sounds like, look, as with anything in
Speaker 1: pop culture, reviews are going to be mixed. Eight to
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one back after this. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Show notes are
Speaker 1: up at the website. Just go to rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. This is episode one forty Show notes are
Speaker 1: up at the website. Just go to rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. This is episode one forty two. And if
Speaker 1: you missed the show live, yes, you can follow the podcast.
Speaker 1: Just search rich on Tech in your favorite audio app.
Speaker 1: And while you're at the website, by the way, don't
Speaker 1: forget to subscribe to my newsletter. Laura writes in on
Speaker 1: the email listening on KOA, Hey, Rich, I love the show.
Speaker 1: My question is the al one of to switch or
Speaker 1: not to switch from a Samsung S twenty two plus
Speaker 1: to an iPhone. The reason is aging mom and mother
Speaker 1: in law both live independently and have new medical issues.
Speaker 1: I want to track them FaceTime with them and their
Speaker 1: medical teams. Additional factors out of state daughter is also
Speaker 1: an iPhone. Most important feature beyond beyond what I stated
Speaker 1: above is photo quality. I do consider myself tech savy
Speaker 1: thoughts suggestions, thanks Laura. Yes, well, okay, She says she
Speaker 1: used a Microsoft Surface and a Samsung tablet, which is
Speaker 1: mostly used for reading.
Speaker 2: I would say switch because.
Speaker 1: You're gonna find that it's going to be easier to
Speaker 1: keep in touch with these folks because of the FaceTime situation.
Speaker 1: As much as I hate that whole FaceTime thing, like
Speaker 1: the fact that it's a you know, yes, you can
Speaker 1: FaceTime someone on Android, but it's not very easy.
Speaker 2: You gotta sent them a link and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Like Apple, please just.
Speaker 1: Come out with an app make these things independent where
Speaker 1: you can use face time on an Android. You can
Speaker 1: use I message on an Android, just please make these apps.
Speaker 1: Why are we dividing folks, Let's bring them together. So anyway,
Speaker 1: until that happens, you do have to switch. And I
Speaker 1: would say switch because the medical stuff that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: a lot of those things work better with the iPhone.
Speaker 1: The tracking you can all be on find my FaceTime
Speaker 1: is simple, medical teams. It's just a lot easier when
Speaker 1: you're all on the same page. So for that reason,
Speaker 1: i'd say switch. Otherwise, I typically tell people stick with
Speaker 1: what you like, but I think it sounds like in
Speaker 1: this situation it might be a better fit. Now let's
Speaker 1: go to the other side of things. Debbie is wondering
Speaker 1: about Debbie and Murieta. You're worrying about Gemini.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 12: Yes, Hi, Rich, thank you for your show. First of all,
Speaker 12: great information.
Speaker 2: Happy to do it. Thank you.
Speaker 12: Yes, I have a question for you about Gemini on
Speaker 12: the cell phone. And I just bought a new samsong
Speaker 12: a sixteen to five g okay, a cell phone, Okay,
Speaker 12: So I was using it. I started to use it.
Speaker 12: Everything's going fine, nobody said anything about Gemini whatever. I
Speaker 12: had it for about two days and then all of
Speaker 12: a sudden, a screen came up and a prompt and
Speaker 12: it said, would you like Gemini something like this, would
Speaker 12: you like Gemini loaded? To load Gemini on your phone
Speaker 12: for efficiency or something like that, better use see your phone.
Speaker 12: I'm a senior. I'm kind of reluctant about that. I
Speaker 12: didn't want that option. So I was like, oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 12: I don't want this. And before I could even do anything,
Speaker 12: I swear I didn't phone. It's all there, all of
Speaker 12: a sudden, I've got Gemini, Well my phone?
Speaker 2: What what are you worried about? What don't what don't
Speaker 2: you want about? It? Is it the AI aspect?
Speaker 12: Okay? Rich It's it's like I feel like it's taking
Speaker 12: over my phone. It started doing things. It changed things
Speaker 12: on my phone immediately, like it went to a dark
Speaker 12: screen for better efficiency of the battery or whatever. I
Speaker 12: don't want a dark screen. I don't want that. So
Speaker 12: it started doing that, and then the other thing, I'm
Speaker 12: having trouble shutting it off, and then it constantly is
Speaker 12: giving me these prompts about AI. Do you want as.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I think I think I know what's happening.
Speaker 1: So I think that a simple reassignment of the power
Speaker 1: button might help.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So basically, once you have AI, the side button turns
Speaker 1: into the Google Assistant.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I think if you go into your settings okay,
Speaker 1: and I think this, I think that's gonna this is
Speaker 1: gonna make you a lot happier.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: Yes, uh, you go go into your settings and you
Speaker 1: go into Advanced Features and underside button and I will
Speaker 1: I will tell you how to find this in a second.
Speaker 1: But under side button right now, your long press. If
Speaker 1: you press your side button, like if you want to
Speaker 1: turn off your phone, it's bringing up Google Assistant, which
Speaker 1: is Gemini, right, and it's like.
Speaker 2: Saying all this UF.
Speaker 13: You don't want that, that's right.
Speaker 14: You want to go.
Speaker 1: Back to the old school method of powering off your phone.
Speaker 2: You press the power button.
Speaker 1: So all you have to do is go into that
Speaker 1: long press menu and it says Google Assistant, Bixby or
Speaker 1: power off menu. Once you select power off menu. Now
Speaker 1: when you press your power button, your phone will actually
Speaker 1: turn off. Oh my gosh, there's an idea. People spend
Speaker 1: hours trying to figure out how to turn off their
Speaker 1: phone because the side button's been reassigned to all those things.
Speaker 12: So, yes, I talked to other people. It's a common process.
Speaker 1: It is a common problem just in the future, and
Speaker 1: I'm testing this right now in the future. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to There is a way to
Speaker 1: turn off your phone like manually. If you swipe down
Speaker 1: from the upper right hand there's a little power button.
Speaker 13: But I tried that.
Speaker 1: Okay, anyway, so here's so here's I got to find
Speaker 1: out how to how to get to this advanced features.
Speaker 1: So if you go into your settings, uh, and then uh,
Speaker 1: let's see here advanced features. Okay, Okay, got that, and
Speaker 1: then we're going to go to side button to see that.
Speaker 2: Right now, you see where it says long press digital assistant.
Speaker 12: Okay, I'm just I'm taking notes on back and I'll.
Speaker 2: Put these in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1: But anyway, you press as long as you tap words
Speaker 1: says long press, and you switch it from where it
Speaker 1: says digital assistant to power off menu and Debbie, I
Speaker 1: think that's going to save you a lot of headaches
Speaker 1: over the time. Now, Google Assistant, when you want to
Speaker 1: call it up, if you want to, you can always
Speaker 1: just open up the Gemini app to activate it. You
Speaker 1: could also say hey Google to your phone that may
Speaker 1: activate it. But I think just having that power button
Speaker 1: reassigned to the actual power is going to make a
Speaker 1: big difference.
Speaker 12: Okay, Rich, Still that's one problem with so turn up.
Speaker 12: But let me ask you this second part question.
Speaker 2: Sorry, but how do I charge for the second?
Speaker 12: I want to get gem Andi like off my phone.
Speaker 12: It's on my phone now, and I went into the
Speaker 12: carrier store and even they don't know how to shut
Speaker 12: it down.
Speaker 1: There you can't, you can't. I've looked into it.
Speaker 2: There really not all.
Speaker 1: There's not a way, not an easy way that I
Speaker 1: know of, to disable it. But here's the thing, Debbie,
Speaker 1: embrace it. Embrace the AI. Have some fun with it,
Speaker 1: ask it, some fun questions.
Speaker 2: Ask it.
Speaker 1: Here's what's what I think gets people when you can
Speaker 1: ask it a really complex question, maybe something from your childhood,
Speaker 1: maybe a movie that you love.
Speaker 2: Like it.
Speaker 12: It's true, I've already done that. I do like it
Speaker 12: for that, but I don't want it loaded on my phone.
Speaker 14: I like when you have.
Speaker 12: Old style and it says AI answer to that, yes
Speaker 12: that you're right. It's great, it's great. But I so
Speaker 12: there's no way to once it's loaded, No no getting at.
Speaker 1: All there's not an easy way. I will I will
Speaker 1: look into an easier way, but there's not like a switch.
Speaker 1: Let's put it that way, because these things, you know,
Speaker 1: these companies are making. You know, this is the future
Speaker 1: of Google and and Apple, and they all want to
Speaker 1: put this stuff on us. And right now they're not
Speaker 1: giving us the off switch. But the other thing you're
Speaker 1: talking about, and thanks for the call, by the way,
Speaker 1: is the dark mode I think you were talking about.
Speaker 1: You're just dark mode went on on your screen, So
Speaker 1: you can go into your display settings and turn that
Speaker 1: feature off. So if you want your phone to you know,
Speaker 1: like my phone goes into dark mode at night and
Speaker 1: then in the morning and then it comes into the
Speaker 1: standard mode throughout the day. But you can go into
Speaker 1: display and you'll see it says dark mode settings and
Speaker 1: you may have turn on as scheduled. You can just
Speaker 1: toggle that switch off and you can also see the
Speaker 1: setting to go dark or light. Thanks for the call,
Speaker 1: Debbie and Mirietta really appreciate it. I know this stuff.
Speaker 1: These companies like to change stuff, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: their way or the highway a lot of the times,
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, we're changing this.
Speaker 2: You have to deal with it.
Speaker 1: And you know, millions of people are using these devices,
Speaker 1: and so when something changes substantially, it affects a lot
Speaker 1: of people all at once.
Speaker 2: What do we have about two minutes? Two minutes?
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna try to get through this this Google stuff.
Speaker 1: So Google, you know, we talked about the Gemini stuff.
Speaker 1: Google had their own hardware announcements this week. No fancy event,
Speaker 1: just pressure releases. But the the main thing to know,
Speaker 1: as we just spoke, is that Gemini is going to
Speaker 1: replace Google Assistant on your smart home speakers.
Speaker 2: That is rolling out right now.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: I know that deb was not a fan of Gemini,
Speaker 1: you know, being forced on her phone, but I think
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty good on the speakers because it's going
Speaker 1: to be much more helpful. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: lot smarter. It can answer complex questions. You can also
Speaker 1: have natural conversations, so that means you'll be able to
Speaker 1: control your smart home more easily. The other thing, another change.
Speaker 1: The Google Home app is getting a big redesign. You
Speaker 1: might have already seen it. It just hit mine yesterday.
Speaker 1: It looks a little bit different, some things are moved around,
Speaker 1: but I think I can get used to that. The
Speaker 1: big new feature is called Ask Home. This means you
Speaker 1: can use AI to ask questions about things that your
Speaker 1: camera sees. You can say, hey, find the red bicycle
Speaker 1: that went in front of my house yesterday, and it
Speaker 1: will find that footage on your camera. The other nice
Speaker 1: thing is that if you're paying for Google One, So
Speaker 1: if you're paying for AI or storage through Google, you're
Speaker 1: now going to get more premium features included in your
Speaker 1: Google Home products, like your cameras and your Nest So
Speaker 1: you might have more features and included now, like more
Speaker 1: recording history. And by the way, Gemini is going to
Speaker 1: go on all Google Home devices and Nest devices shipped
Speaker 1: in the past decades, So if you have one of
Speaker 1: these things in home, you're probably going to be hearing
Speaker 1: a new Gemini voice that's going to be a little perkier,
Speaker 1: a little more excited to talk to you than Google
Speaker 1: Assistant was.
Speaker 2: They also have a couple.
Speaker 1: Of new cameras and doorbells, so those are getting better,
Speaker 1: and then they're going to start selling Google cameras at Walmart,
Speaker 1: So twenty three dollars for an indoor camera at Walmart
Speaker 1: for their on brand, and then fifty dollars for a
Speaker 1: wired doorbell. Of course, all through Google as well. The
Speaker 1: name of the game is AI. Again, we just talked
Speaker 1: about it. If you have Google or Amazon, everything is
Speaker 1: getting these smart upgrades. Apple, where are you? We're still
Speaker 1: waiting on your smart home strategy. What's going on there?
Speaker 1: They've been kind of a slow go. All right, good conversations,
Speaker 1: good calls. We'll take more of them after this. Eight
Speaker 1: eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. My name is Richdimiro,
Speaker 1: and you are doing something smart for yourself.
Speaker 2: You are listening to rich on tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: rich on tech.
Speaker 1: Meta is going to start using your chats with AI
Speaker 1: to personalize the ads that you see on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 1: Yes you heard me right, So anything you say canon
Speaker 1: will be used.
Speaker 2: To show you ads. Uh so.
Speaker 1: This is with Meta AI. So if you are chatting
Speaker 1: with Meta AI. Uh So, for example, if you ask
Speaker 1: about hiking, you're asking about trails. Whatever your vacation, you
Speaker 1: may start seeing ads for hiking trail. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: hiking boots, you may see ads for anything related to that.
Speaker 1: Or let's say you say you're going to Hawaii, you
Speaker 1: might see ads for Hawaii hotels. You're going to start
Speaker 1: getting notifications about this this week and then changes. So
Speaker 1: this will take effect on December sixteenth. So until then,
Speaker 1: anything you say will be fine, won't It won't be
Speaker 1: used for this new ad gathering, but after December sixteenth,
Speaker 1: it will be. Meta says more than a billion people
Speaker 1: use Meta ai every month, and this is everything else
Speaker 1: that you know. This goes into everything else that Meta
Speaker 1: collects about you, your likes, your comments.
Speaker 2: Who you follow.
Speaker 1: That all shapes the things that you see on Instagram.
Speaker 1: People are always saying, oh, Instagram's listening, Facebook's listening to
Speaker 1: my phone. They're not listening to your phone. You're doing
Speaker 1: all these things on your phone that they are noticing.
Speaker 1: So when you like an artist because they just posted
Speaker 1: something to Instagram, they're going to show you ads for
Speaker 1: that artist concert coming up.
Speaker 2: That's how this works.
Speaker 1: This is this is very sophisticated and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of signals that go into the ads that you see,
Speaker 1: and that's why they're so good. Meta might be the
Speaker 1: best at ads because we give it the information, we
Speaker 1: feed it where we're going, what we're doing, and by
Speaker 1: the way, they have the location of our phone at
Speaker 1: all times, so when you're on vacation in another state,
Speaker 1: they can start serving you ads for that too. In
Speaker 1: addition to everything else you've looked up over the past,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five years of using Instagram. Meta says
Speaker 1: sensitive topics like political, health, religion, all the fun stuff
Speaker 1: to talk about around the dinner table, that's all off off,
Speaker 1: off limits for AI ads. They're not going to use that, thankfully.
Speaker 1: You cannot turn off. You can't opt out of this.
Speaker 1: You can adjust what you see, but you can't entirely
Speaker 1: turn off this anyway. So just remember anything you say
Speaker 1: to AI on Meta is going to be used for
Speaker 1: ads on Facebook and Instagram or Messenger. Speaking of wild stuff,
Speaker 1: open ai released this new app called Sora, and it
Speaker 1: is basically a deep fake.
Speaker 2: Version of Instagram.
Speaker 1: And if you want to see an example, go to
Speaker 1: my Instagram average on tech I posted a video that
Speaker 1: I created of myself.
Speaker 2: It's a deep fake video. It's a fake video of me.
Speaker 1: Now they call it something nice, they call it a cameo,
Speaker 1: so it sounds nice and sweet and you know, not dangerous,
Speaker 1: but it's really a deep fake. It's a fake version
Speaker 1: of you saying something. By the way, So Sora is
Speaker 1: Sora too is open Ay's new audio and video model.
Speaker 1: It's much more realistic at making things than before videos.
Speaker 1: And then they came out with this app that uses
Speaker 1: Sora on the back end, and it's also called Sora.
Speaker 1: It's a iPhone only. It's invite only right now, so
Speaker 1: you have to know someone to get it. But basically,
Speaker 1: you take a little video of yourself in the app.
Speaker 1: It only takes about ten seconds. You record yourself, you
Speaker 1: look you left, you look left, you look right, and
Speaker 1: you say a couple numbers to the phone and then
Speaker 1: it uses that to make videos of you, and you
Speaker 1: make the videos, or your friends can also make videos
Speaker 1: of you, including you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just wild.
Speaker 1: I mean it's really like, I'm actually surprised that open
Speaker 1: ay launched this so easily without a lot of uproar.
Speaker 2: Maybe there is a lot of uproar.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it's pretty much they've put guardrails
Speaker 1: in place so you can't make things that are you know,
Speaker 1: political videos, this kind of stuff. You know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of fun videos like you could say, put me riding
Speaker 1: a roller coaster, a wild roller coaster through flames or
Speaker 1: whatever and they'll do that, but they won't do other
Speaker 1: stuff that might be a little bit dicey. Anyway, Sora
Speaker 1: is pretty popular already in the app store, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm like blown away that this is a
Speaker 1: thing right now. It's just one of those things that
Speaker 1: you see and you're like okay now. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the Sora app itself is pretty much a version of Instagram,
Speaker 1: but filled with all these fake videos of people of
Speaker 1: your friends, so it's like interesting. Like you see your friend,
Speaker 1: like you know, as a farmer or something, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're doing something wild and you're like, Okay, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: And then you see another crazy video and another crazy video.
Speaker 1: And if you see a crazy video that you like,
Speaker 1: you can remix that with yourself in that video.
Speaker 2: It's just anyway, check it out. It's called Sora.
Speaker 1: I'm on there at rich On Tech if you want
Speaker 1: to see me, but you can also see the video
Speaker 1: that I posted. You can download these videos that it
Speaker 1: generates and put them on your Instagram or other places.
Speaker 1: So I put out on my Instagram at rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: I said, does it give me the prompt of what
Speaker 1: I said to make you can basically prompt it with anything.
Speaker 2: But I said, uh, let's see. Does it give?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I said, how about a video of me saying
Speaker 1: you should listen to my radio show in a cool
Speaker 1: radio studio, futuristic, high above the city scape.
Speaker 2: And that's what it came up with. So you can
Speaker 2: see what that looks like. Uh, you said, two minutes?
Speaker 2: Oh see here?
Speaker 1: Oh one? Now, oh my god. By the time I
Speaker 1: get to a call, it'll be zero. All right, I'll
Speaker 1: do an email because a little bit simpler to get
Speaker 1: to here. Sherry writes in We've had Verizon for mobile
Speaker 1: and Spectrum for internet, but Spectrum just raised our bill
Speaker 1: by twenty five dollars a month after telling us our
Speaker 1: rate was locked. When I called, the rep actually said
Speaker 1: it's a game. Wait until your bill closes, then threaten
Speaker 1: to leave. I told her it's not a game, and
Speaker 1: we're canceling. So my question is, viewer fifty five, who
Speaker 1: would you pick for home internet? Maybe bundled with mobile?
Speaker 1: I work from home sometimes, so reliability is huge. Do
Speaker 1: any providers not raise prices after the first year? The
Speaker 1: price hikes are a part of this world. Sadly they've
Speaker 1: been going on forever, And yes it is somewhat of
Speaker 1: a game. Some companies will play with you and kind
Speaker 1: of give you a better deal if you say I'm leaving.
Speaker 1: Some won't. Last time I called my company was like, Nope,
Speaker 1: we don't care.
Speaker 2: You can leave.
Speaker 1: We don't change prices. Spectrum, I think may play ball
Speaker 1: a little bit more. If you can get fiber in
Speaker 1: your area, that's always my first pick. It's the fastest
Speaker 1: and most reliable. You can also look into wireless home
Speaker 1: options from T Mobile or they have good prices right now.
Speaker 1: Just make sure you have a good signal and good speed.
Speaker 1: Do a speed test on your phone or a friend's
Speaker 1: phone before you sign up. All right, coming up, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk all things Apple and smart home and
Speaker 1: shortcuts and all things Apple coming up next right here
Speaker 1: on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple eight Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Joining me
Speaker 1: now is Steven Roblez. He is a tech journalist and
Speaker 1: content creator, and he had a shortcut go viral recently
Speaker 1: that would basically help you locate your stolen iPhone.
Speaker 2: Steven, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for having me. So first off,
Speaker 1: give me the website. Where do you post all your stuff?
Speaker 3: I mean you can go to beardfm. That's my website
Speaker 3: and have links to my YouTube channel where most of
Speaker 3: my content is. And yeah, find on my up there.
Speaker 2: And beard fm.
Speaker 1: So I must have gotten The reason I got in
Speaker 1: touch with you is because I must have gotten like
Speaker 1: twenty people that sent me your real about this shortcut
Speaker 1: that you know does all these things if your iPhone
Speaker 1: gets stolen. So explain to me, first off, what do
Speaker 1: you do typically, Like what do you cover most of
Speaker 1: the time, Like, what do you focus on?
Speaker 2: And then tell me about this shortcut how it came
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll to cover a lot of iPhone tips, Apple software,
Speaker 3: I'll do hardware reviews as well, but a big part
Speaker 3: of my content is Shortcuts, which is an app that's
Speaker 3: on every iPhone, iPad and the mech And what's really
Speaker 3: powerful is you can automate a ton of stuff everything
Speaker 3: from being as simple as when my battery falls below
Speaker 3: twenty percent, turn on low power mode automatically. That's just
Speaker 3: simple one that a lot of people could probably benefit from.
Speaker 3: But you can create more complex shortcuts that are also
Speaker 3: triggered via automations. And so I actually seen someone post about, oh,
Speaker 3: here's some shortcut things you can do when someone steals
Speaker 3: your phone, and I kind of wanted to take it
Speaker 3: to the end degree. What can you do? And basically
Speaker 3: one of the triggers can be when someone texts you
Speaker 3: with a certain phrase, it can fire off a shortcut,
Speaker 3: and a shortcut can do a number of things like
Speaker 3: turn on low power mode so your battery will last longer.
Speaker 3: It can take a picture from the front facing or
Speaker 3: rear facing camera and then automatically texted back to the
Speaker 3: number that texted the phone. It can play a sound
Speaker 3: like this phone is stolen out loud of the out
Speaker 3: of the speaker, and you can even disable silent mode
Speaker 3: and turn the volume all the way up. All of
Speaker 3: those you can do inside of a shortcut action. And
Speaker 3: that's the one I created that you can download. I
Speaker 3: think it's a beard dot FM slash stolen and you
Speaker 3: can just download that shortcut and run it yourself.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that the iPhones, you can text the
Speaker 1: phone and the shortcut app is like sort of monitoring
Speaker 1: the text for that whatever you say, that keyword is well,
Speaker 1: and Shortcuts.
Speaker 3: Is built by Apple. Apple it's Apple's application, and so
Speaker 3: it is access to the phone you're you know, it
Speaker 3: can be triggered by emails that come into your phone
Speaker 3: to text messages. And I've actually had a lot of
Speaker 3: my followers and community ask for those text automated responses
Speaker 3: for people who have clients and businesses because they want
Speaker 3: to when they're on vacation to be able to auto
Speaker 3: respond to texts but not have to do it themselves.
Speaker 3: And so I have helped people create where if someone
Speaker 3: texts you that's not in your context, or if it's
Speaker 3: anyone besides these two or three people like your family,
Speaker 3: that it's going to fire off an auto response that says, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm on vacation. And so that's not something you can
Speaker 3: do in the text message by default. You can do
Speaker 3: it for your email. But a lot of contractors and
Speaker 3: people who work in like that kind of field, they
Speaker 3: get a lot of texts, and so little automations like
Speaker 3: that for texts emails they can be really useful for people.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you're aware of this app, but you know,
Speaker 1: I used to be an Android guy, like through and
Speaker 1: through and I what I liked about it is because
Speaker 1: it lets you tinker with things more than the iPhone.
Speaker 1: And they had this app called Tasker and that was
Speaker 1: like it, but it was so nerdy. I mean like
Speaker 1: like shortcuts is nerdy, but it's like you can, you know,
Speaker 1: the average person can kind of see and create a
Speaker 1: couple of simple things on their own. Tasker was like really,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you have to really take a
Speaker 1: deep dive into like all these automation things, but you
Speaker 1: could do make your phone do whatever you want. And
Speaker 1: so I was very surprised when Apple brought shortcuts to
Speaker 1: the iPhone because it's really like it's simple but very powerful.
Speaker 3: One it's powerful because one I've I have Android phones
Speaker 3: and I use Tasker because I have tried to use it.
Speaker 3: It's actually not as powerful as shortcuts, because every one
Speaker 3: of my YouTube videos where I talk about shortcuts, someone
Speaker 3: will inadvertently comment, oh, Tasker for Android does all this.
Speaker 3: It actually does not have as many actions and capabilities
Speaker 3: as shortcuts. With shortcuts, you can use APIs from third
Speaker 3: party websites and developers. So I have a shortcut that
Speaker 3: uses the movie database API, where I can search for
Speaker 3: a movie find out where to stream it, get the
Speaker 3: link exactly to stream it, and then add that information
Speaker 3: to my Apple Notes. And that's something I can do
Speaker 3: all within shortcuts, and you can build upon that with
Speaker 3: external sources. Make dot com is another great resource that
Speaker 3: can integrate with shortcuts using some of those web hooks.
Speaker 3: But Apple Intelligence actually just came out with io was
Speaker 3: twenty six built into shortcuts, and not a lot of
Speaker 3: people know about this because shortcuts still struggling to get mainstream,
Speaker 3: but those Apple Intelligence actions are actually really powerful. And
Speaker 3: another reel that went viral was actually to save recipes
Speaker 3: that you see in incogram reels two notes, and I
Speaker 3: actually created a shortcut that uses Apple Intelligence to pull
Speaker 3: the caption. So if the creator put the ingredients and
Speaker 3: the steps in the caption, it will get the raw HTML,
Speaker 3: it will pull those ingredients out, format it nicely, format
Speaker 3: the steps, and then create an Apple note with that
Speaker 3: recipe and a link back to the reel. And that'll
Speaker 3: also one viral. You can get that one at beard
Speaker 3: dot fm slash recipe. Oh my, I mean you just
Speaker 3: sold me on that one. That's that's an incredible thing.
Speaker 3: I was just literally.
Speaker 1: Saving a recipe from Instagram yesterday and I was like
Speaker 1: copying and pasting and like all this time. I put
Speaker 1: into chat ebt to like, you know, hey, clean this up,
Speaker 1: like all this stuff, but this is great. I mean,
Speaker 1: so you've got okay, So she had the stolen one
Speaker 1: go viral, you had the the AI recipe to notes
Speaker 1: go viral. What really resonates with your followers?
Speaker 3: You know, it's all about everyone has very specific needs,
Speaker 3: and so a lot of my content is just tweaking
Speaker 3: shortcuts to be specific to certain people. And so like
Speaker 3: I've had airline pilots reach out to me and say,
Speaker 3: can you create a shortcut that when I run it,
Speaker 3: I will run it at the hotel that I arrive at.
Speaker 3: I can put my room number in and it finds
Speaker 3: restaurants near me, and then when I run it again,
Speaker 3: it'll get me walking directions back to the hotel and
Speaker 3: remind me of my room number. And so just that
Speaker 3: simple thing, which a lot of people could use it
Speaker 3: if you travel a lot to go on vacation. But
Speaker 3: when people realize that you can tailor shortcuts to really
Speaker 3: meet your specific need and ease your workflows, that's when
Speaker 3: it really starts becoming powerful and resonates with people, and
Speaker 3: I could not create the amount of content I do
Speaker 3: without shortcuts. I have shortcuts that pulls news from RSS
Speaker 3: feeds from popular websites, runs those articles through chat GPT,
Speaker 3: summarizes them and turns them into a podcast, a script
Speaker 3: for a daily news show, and I can do it
Speaker 3: all with one click and it happens in the background.
Speaker 3: And even as simple as like well, I create a
Speaker 3: daily journal and I just want to be able to
Speaker 3: create a note with today's date, a couple headings, and
Speaker 3: I don't want to have to type or copy and
Speaker 3: paste that every day. Well, a shortcut can do that.
Speaker 3: And I created a shortcut that when you tap it,
Speaker 3: it creates an Apple note, says today's date up at
Speaker 3: the top, a couple headings, and prompts some questions and
Speaker 3: then people can get off writing. And so just a
Speaker 3: little simple like that just takes one shortcut that you
Speaker 3: could use every day, and it starts you on the
Speaker 3: rabbit's trail of finding some great ones.
Speaker 1: Again, we're talking with Steven Roblez at Beard dot Fm.
Speaker 1: He does YouTube videos reels and he primarily talks about
Speaker 1: the Apple ecosystem and especially shortcuts on your phone making
Speaker 1: your phone do all these cool things. The app, if
Speaker 1: you want to find it on your phone, it's pre
Speaker 1: installed on the iPhone. It's called Shortcuts, and you can
Speaker 1: go in there and just see some of the things
Speaker 1: that you're able to do that are kind of pre loaded.
Speaker 1: But then you can also create your own or you
Speaker 1: can import these from other places. So if you go
Speaker 1: to Steven's website and you find something you like, like
Speaker 1: you just mentioned this stolen phone one the recipes shortcut,
Speaker 1: you can just bring those into your system kind of
Speaker 1: like someone else did the programming for you. So that's
Speaker 1: another fun thing about this community is that people come
Speaker 1: up with these and they share the shortcuts that work.
Speaker 1: Is there any danger in downloading a shortcut that you
Speaker 1: find online that could do something nefarious to your phone?
Speaker 3: You know, you do need to be careful. It is
Speaker 3: possible not for shortcuts to like install viruses or get
Speaker 3: your information. But you know, you can create a shortcut
Speaker 3: that automatically emails some information or like pulls your device
Speaker 3: infoe and then text to someone. But what's great is
Speaker 3: it's always going to warn you before you download the shortcut.
Speaker 3: You can always go in and see the actions and
Speaker 3: if you see one that looks too complicated, then just
Speaker 3: don't install it. You know, you don't have to put
Speaker 3: it on your phone before previewing.
Speaker 13: Just tap.
Speaker 3: When you tap a shortcut link, you just have a
Speaker 3: little three dots and you can kind of see how
Speaker 3: it's built. Get them from a trusted source. Of course,
Speaker 3: there's actually an amazing Reddit community are slash shortcuts that
Speaker 3: build shortcut It's there, and that's why I also created
Speaker 3: a private community where we just talk about shortcuts. I
Speaker 3: share some that I don't put in videos, and I
Speaker 3: just put one there and I'll just I can't actually
Speaker 3: share share this one on YouTube because it's against their
Speaker 3: community guidelines, but I'll share it on your show with
Speaker 3: no guidelines. Well, the reason why video Yes, okay, yes,
Speaker 3: it's to download YouTube video, but more so to be
Speaker 3: able to do it through shortcuts in your phone. And
Speaker 3: what I've done is I created this Rube Goldberg machine
Speaker 3: where I use an app on my iPhone called Transloader.
Speaker 3: So if I'm on YouTube on my phone, I tap Transloader,
Speaker 3: it actually sends that link to a Mac at my house.
Speaker 3: That Mac can open that link in an app called downy,
Speaker 3: which can download any Internet video. Could be YouTube and Instagram,
Speaker 3: rail TikTok or video on a website. Download that video
Speaker 3: and now with mac os Tahoe, the latest software, it
Speaker 3: can actually take a video, transcribe it, summarize it with
Speaker 3: Apple Intelligence, create an Apple note with that information, and
Speaker 3: then I can move that video file to my Plex
Speaker 3: server or so in just a few seconds after I
Speaker 3: tap that button on my phone, I can watch that
Speaker 3: video from my Plex server either from my phone. My kids,
Speaker 3: you know, they can watch videos. That's how we do
Speaker 3: a lot of video stuff. They just use the Plex
Speaker 3: app on their iPads. And so that one I can't
Speaker 3: put on YouTube because you can't put how to download
Speaker 3: videos there. But you can go to create beard dot fm.
Speaker 3: That's my shortcuts community and that's actually what I shared
Speaker 3: for my paying supporters directly, and so that's you can
Speaker 3: find that there.
Speaker 2: That's wild. I love the stuff that.
Speaker 1: Now can your kids and other people in your house
Speaker 1: figure out all these automations that you do, because that's
Speaker 1: the important part.
Speaker 2: That's when you know you have a winner.
Speaker 3: They do, and we've helped them create little automations like
Speaker 3: you can have an automation that whenever you open an app,
Speaker 3: something happens. And so for my middle son who struggled
Speaker 3: to have all his tasks done, but there's apps that
Speaker 3: he always opened, whether it's a game or whatever, admit
Speaker 3: a little shortcut that says, when this app opens, pop
Speaker 3: up this pdf which is his schedule for the school day.
Speaker 3: So when every open of that app, it pops up.
Speaker 3: And so you can do things like that a simple
Speaker 3: Another simple one is you could set up yourself if
Speaker 3: you ever lock the orientation on your iPhone, you know
Speaker 3: how to make sure so it stops rotating when you
Speaker 3: turn it, which is great unless you want to look
Speaker 3: at the photos and the photos app and then that
Speaker 3: rotation is locked. Well, with shortcuts, you can go to
Speaker 3: the automations tab, tap new automation and when an app
Speaker 3: is opened, and you can choose photos and say, when
Speaker 3: photos is opened, unlock my orientation. So when you open
Speaker 3: the photos app, now you can rotate it the photo rotates,
Speaker 3: and then you can create another automation that says when
Speaker 3: I close the photos app, meaning when you swipe to
Speaker 3: go home, it locks the orientation back up. Now. I
Speaker 3: just share that on my Instagram reels and just a
Speaker 3: simple little orientation like that is a little quality of
Speaker 3: life improvement every day. You multiply that by creating dozens
Speaker 3: of shortcusts for yourself. They're really powerful.
Speaker 1: All right, this is fun Beard dot FM, Steven Roblez,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me. I have realized from
Speaker 1: this conversation that most of us are using about one
Speaker 1: percent of the capacity of our iPhones.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one on one eighty eight seven
Speaker 1: four two four one zero one. Rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: I'll put a link to Steven's website back after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on tech Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. Eighty eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Cheryl in Phoenix, Arizona. Cheryl, you're on
Speaker 1: with Rich. Welcome to the show. Hi Rich, thanks for
Speaker 1: taking my call absolutely.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 4: I have a question about the subscription service delete me
Speaker 4: dot com. Okay, I've been told that if they search
Speaker 4: the web, the Dark Web, the Purple Web, the white
Speaker 4: webs and find your information on data brokers and they
Speaker 4: remove that and you get a month they report it's
Speaker 4: especially nine dollars a month. Do you have any insight
Speaker 4: on this, So.
Speaker 1: You're okay, well, number one, I mean the dark web.
Speaker 1: No one can remove stuff from the dark Web. So
Speaker 1: if you're looking for that, that's not worth it. Now
Speaker 1: what these what these data of removal services typically do
Speaker 1: is they remove your personal data from websites that display
Speaker 1: it and also data brokers that sell it. So if
Speaker 1: you're looking to do that, these can do a lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff. And there's there's you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of them out there. Not just delete me. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of there's a bunch of others. I've other
Speaker 1: Well okay, well, let me give you a a great
Speaker 1: tip that this will work for pretty much anything that
Speaker 1: you're you're looking for in the future. So if you
Speaker 1: go to Google, do you use Google or use something else.
Speaker 4: I use Safari on the phone, but I can sign
Speaker 4: on to Google.
Speaker 1: So if you just type in something and you say
Speaker 1: delete me versus, okay, this is I love. This is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite searches in the world. You type
Speaker 1: in delete me versus and you will see Google automatically
Speaker 1: gives you every single competitor to that company. So you've
Speaker 1: got Incogniti, one rep or a optery privacy, be cloaked, LifeLock,
Speaker 1: and you now have a lot of options to choose from.
Speaker 1: So where do you go? So Consumer Reports did a study.
Speaker 1: They found that some of these are worth it, some
Speaker 1: of them are not. And the two that they liked
Speaker 1: the best is called easy opt Outs and optery. Now
Speaker 1: that was a year ago, but you know, I'll put
Speaker 1: this in the show notes as well. There is a
Speaker 1: place that you can start for free, and it's called
Speaker 1: Google Results About You. So you can go there and
Speaker 1: Google will actually find a lot of the personal information
Speaker 1: that's in the search results. So if you search your name,
Speaker 1: you know, Ryl and Phoenix and it comes up with
Speaker 1: your home address, you can actually remove some of those
Speaker 1: results from Google. It doesn't remove the website, it just
Speaker 1: removes the Google results. So you know, okay, it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: So it's there's a there's a varied prong approach. Now
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things that I've done in the past.
Speaker 1: I have done this manually. So there's a website called
Speaker 1: joindelete me dot com and they have a bunch of
Speaker 1: opt out guides that are DIY. So you can go
Speaker 1: to all these websites and you can find the little
Speaker 1: tiny thing at the bottom of the website and say,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, you know, can you take me off
Speaker 1: your page? I don't want my information there, And so
Speaker 1: you can do that manually. It just takes a lot longer.
Speaker 1: And my experience with these data brokers personally, I use Incognate.
Speaker 1: It's a sponsor of my newsletter, and I I have
Speaker 1: found great a great response with that, Like it works
Speaker 1: really well, and so it's not going to get rid
Speaker 1: of everything, and I think you have to be realistic
Speaker 1: about what it can remove. But they do go through
Speaker 1: and on their own, they'll just remove hundreds of sites
Speaker 1: that they know. They can just go and send an
Speaker 1: email on your behalf and they've remove it. Some you
Speaker 1: are a lot tougher to remove. But this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is a very popular thing on the Internet because
Speaker 1: there's so many companies at this point that are trying
Speaker 1: to profit off of our personal information.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of scary too.
Speaker 1: Like the other day, a website popped up on my
Speaker 1: dashboard and had all of my information about my house
Speaker 1: and pictures and all this stuff, and you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want that there, and so I submitted the link
Speaker 1: and got it removed, and so it can be done.
Speaker 1: It's just not and it's not gonna be overnight. By
Speaker 1: the way, it's a game. I always say this, it's
Speaker 1: a game of whack a mole. So one, you know,
Speaker 1: you may get rid of one of these websites. Two
Speaker 1: more pop up.
Speaker 4: Okay, well it sounds like it as the thing to
Speaker 4: start working on, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would check it out.
Speaker 1: Do your research, see which see which one of these
Speaker 1: services appeals to you the most, which one has the
Speaker 1: best deal for you, which one seems to do the.
Speaker 2: Most for what you want.
Speaker 1: So they all kind of approach it a little bit differently,
Speaker 1: but you know, they all at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: they try to do the same thing, which is really
Speaker 1: just remove as much as your information from the Internet
Speaker 1: as possible. Just keep in mind none of them can
Speaker 1: remove information from the dark web. The dark web is
Speaker 1: not a business. It is not professional. It is people
Speaker 1: moving large amounts of your information amongst each other and
Speaker 1: selling that information in a way that is not regulated
Speaker 1: or you know, it's not official. And so those websites,
Speaker 1: they're not posted anywhere. You can't visit a dark web
Speaker 1: website on your own and just say hey, can you
Speaker 1: get rid of my information? So when we have these
Speaker 1: data breaches, these AT and T data breaches, these big
Speaker 1: data breaches that have your social and your passwords and
Speaker 1: your user names, that's the stuff that really, once it's
Speaker 1: out there, can never come back down. And so that's
Speaker 1: why I always recommend you have to use a unique password,
Speaker 1: you have to use a two factor authentication because you know,
Speaker 1: let's just say you're secure on your end, but AT
Speaker 1: and T gets breached and you know they have your social,
Speaker 1: they've got your data birth, they've got your password.
Speaker 2: All that stuff is going to go out in the web.
Speaker 1: And now that they've got that password, let's say you're
Speaker 1: using it at five different websites.
Speaker 2: The hackers know that, and they're.
Speaker 1: Going to these other websites trying that same exact username
Speaker 1: and password. And now, by the way, they've got your
Speaker 1: data birth and your social. So you have to be
Speaker 1: very careful. There's only so much you can do to
Speaker 1: protect your information. And when it comes to your social specifically,
Speaker 1: do not give it out unless you absolutely must.
Speaker 2: Every time someone asks you for that, just say do
Speaker 2: you need this? Do you do? I have to give that.
Speaker 1: Most of the time you do not unless it's something
Speaker 1: like a mortgage or something. Eighty to eight Rich one
Speaker 1: on one back after this, Welcome back to rich on tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Eighty
Speaker 1: to eight Rich one oh one. Two quick price hikes
Speaker 1: to tell you about before we get back to the calls. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's start with Microsoft. I know Bobo was interested in
Speaker 1: this one. Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Ultimate going up to
Speaker 1: thirty dollars a month. Okay, he's getting his mic ready,
Speaker 1: he's ready, he's like ready to pounce. What do you
Speaker 1: want to say about this? Are you excited to pay
Speaker 1: fifty percent more?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: Going up from twenty dollars a month to thirty a month. Now,
Speaker 1: what they're saying is that you're getting more value. Four
Speaker 1: hundred titles available, seventy five day one releases up fifty percent.
Speaker 1: She'll get more games you'd be soft plus classics included.
Speaker 2: You're gonna play those, maybe Fortnite crew Membership. That's where
Speaker 2: they get you.
Speaker 1: Battle bucks battle Pass one thousand V bucks monthly.
Speaker 2: How much is a thousand V bucks?
Speaker 15: So when you look at it like that, So right now,
Speaker 15: if you're playing Xbox Ultimate, I pay nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 15: a month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you add.
Speaker 15: In Fortnite Crue, you're paying eleven ninety nine.
Speaker 2: A month for that.
Speaker 15: Okay, so if you add them together, you're paying about
Speaker 15: thirty one to thirty two bucks a month.
Speaker 2: Actually drops it two.
Speaker 1: Bucks only if you're playing that game. Only if you're
Speaker 1: playing four and you have both subscriptions. Yeah, not everyone's
Speaker 1: gonna have both exactly, So but if you do, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's like, okay, fine, I just I'm almost saving
Speaker 1: a dollar a month or two almost, But you know,
Speaker 1: you're still now you're locked into paying this every month
Speaker 1: for yeah, you know, and.
Speaker 15: Before you used to be able to go to a
Speaker 15: game stop or a Target or a Best Buy and
Speaker 15: buy an Xbox Live subscription card.
Speaker 2: You can't do it, dude.
Speaker 15: No, they're all getting rid of those because they're thirty
Speaker 15: bucks a month.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty penny just to play video.
Speaker 15: Games, not including you buying games, right and all the
Speaker 15: stuff you buy in the games.
Speaker 1: But you know, here's the deal. All these prices are
Speaker 1: going up. Everything just keeps going up. People are just
Speaker 1: gonna have to choose, like do I want this to
Speaker 1: want to keep it? Let's see what else PC game Pass,
Speaker 1: if you're on that, that's twelve bucks to seven almost
Speaker 1: seventeen dollars a month. So and apparently I guess is
Speaker 1: Xbox Series X console prices raising this week too.
Speaker 2: They raised fifty bucks, just like PlayStation did.
Speaker 1: Gosh, all right, yeah, Peloton also raising prices. I got
Speaker 1: this email, so you're all access. So if you have
Speaker 1: a Peloton machine, you were paying forty four dollars a
Speaker 1: month for your monthly, that's going up to fifty a month.
Speaker 1: If you're using just the app like I was or
Speaker 1: I am, that's going up from twenty four to twenty nine.
Speaker 1: And if you're on the cheapest app plan, which was
Speaker 1: thirteen dollars, didn't give you access to everything, that's going
Speaker 1: up to sixteen. All the bike prices are going up,
Speaker 1: but they're adding AI to this stuff, and you know, look,
Speaker 1: it's just these streaming services. I say, the free ride
Speaker 1: is over.
Speaker 2: It's just it's.
Speaker 1: They're no longer doing this for their you know, for
Speaker 1: your benefit. It is now for their benefit. They started
Speaker 1: all these during the pandemic. They needed to build as
Speaker 1: many subscribers as possible, and now it is like nope,
Speaker 1: we've got to have a business here. People are you know,
Speaker 1: people are buying less physical games, so what do you
Speaker 1: have to do? They're they're renting them now, so you
Speaker 1: got to make the rental price higher. It's just that's
Speaker 1: what's happening. And I've just continued to report on all
Speaker 1: of these price hikes. It's getting wild. I mean when
Speaker 1: you compare it to what we used to pay, like
Speaker 1: one movie ticket used to be, you know, it's probably
Speaker 1: still is thirty bucks twenty five dollars depending on where
Speaker 1: you live. So it's like, okay, well I get all
Speaker 1: the gaming I want for thirty dollars a month, or
Speaker 1: Peloton you know, you can't get a gym membership for
Speaker 1: I guess you can for fifty dollars a month. I
Speaker 1: mean it's just look, if you got these things, you're
Speaker 1: paying more. Let's see, let's go too. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: the phone lines are Let's go to Bob and Denver.
Speaker 1: Are we on more stations? Like every calls from a
Speaker 1: different state right now? Bob, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 13: Hey Rich, it's good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 13: I have a Mac computer and an iPhone and both
Speaker 13: have music on them. There's at one time there was
Speaker 13: the same things on both the computer and the phone,
Speaker 13: and over time and software updates and stuff, I've lost
Speaker 13: a lot of the music songs from the computer. And
Speaker 13: in talking to Apple Tech, they say you can transfer
Speaker 13: from the Apple to the Mac, I mean to the iPhone,
Speaker 13: but iPhone's the one that's complete. Yeah, So if I
Speaker 13: did that, I'd lose stuff there.
Speaker 2: I know, Oh, I need.
Speaker 13: To transfer from the iPhone back to the Mac or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Apple does not give you a way to
Speaker 1: do that. There's there's always been a one way transfer.
Speaker 1: So when they say sync, it's always been we want
Speaker 1: to go from your computer to your phone. And these
Speaker 1: people have figured out with their iPod they've got all
Speaker 1: this music on there from forever and they go, oh,
Speaker 1: let me just transfer it back to my computer.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: There's no way that Apple gives you officially to do this,
Speaker 1: no easy way. The good news is, Bob, there are
Speaker 1: third party programs. The bad news is you're probably gonna
Speaker 1: have to spend a little bit to buy them. So
Speaker 1: a couple programs I'll give you the names that I know.
Speaker 1: Work number one I Amazing. They make a program that
Speaker 1: basically is kind of like the Swiss army knife that
Speaker 1: Apple does not give you.
Speaker 2: So it allows you to do all these.
Speaker 1: Things on your phone, back up your text messages, print
Speaker 1: them out, back up. I mean basically anything that you've
Speaker 1: wanted to do on your phone where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I should be able to do that, and Apple's just like, Nope,
Speaker 1: you can't do that. This lets you do it, so
Speaker 1: you know, again, download your I messages, transfer photos and
Speaker 1: videos between Mac and PC, transfer your music back and
Speaker 1: forth between those things, local backups, anything you want to do.
Speaker 1: I Amazing will do it. Let's say I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find a price.
Speaker 2: They don't. Let's see do they put the.
Speaker 1: Price subscription five devices for one year's fifty bucks, So
Speaker 1: it looks like they're doing the whole subscription thing there. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's number one. Then you've got one. I've not
Speaker 1: tested this one. I've tested the I Amazing. I've not
Speaker 1: tested this one, but it's recommended. It is called touch
Speaker 1: copy and this is similar. But I have not tested
Speaker 1: this one, but it says it does the same thing.
Speaker 1: So that's another one that is. Let's see how much
Speaker 1: this one is. Lifetime license seventy bucks six months thirty
Speaker 1: dollars twelve months forty dollars, So you can get that one.
Speaker 1: And then the other one, which I have tested, is
Speaker 1: called alt tunes. This is for Windows, all right. Do
Speaker 1: they have it for Mac too? Oh, they do have
Speaker 1: it for Mac. Okay, it started on Windows. I guess
Speaker 1: it came to Mac. But alt tunes lets you back
Speaker 1: up your iPhone transfer any file from your iPhone to
Speaker 1: a Windows PC. Oh it is Windows. Okay, I'm very
Speaker 1: confused here. I thought this was Windows. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: that's another one you can do as well. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned you have a Mac, so I'd probably recommend the
Speaker 1: ie amazing. But if you're listening and you have Windows
Speaker 1: and you've been trying to, you know, pull your hair
Speaker 1: out of your head, trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get files from your phone to your computer, all tunes
Speaker 1: can help you do that. And it can help you
Speaker 1: do the other stuff too. You can get your messages,
Speaker 1: your call history, your photos, your music backups, all that
Speaker 1: good stuff. And it comes from a company called soft Areno,
Speaker 1: which they just make great apps.
Speaker 2: In general.
Speaker 1: I rely on a lot of them on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: so check them out. Company out of Ukraine actually so
Speaker 1: we've talked to them about what's going on over there
Speaker 1: in the past, and we're thinking of them as well. Anyway, Bob,
Speaker 1: that's the way to do it. You got to get
Speaker 1: that third party software. Unfortunately, that's really the best way
Speaker 1: to handle that task. Let's go to Mark in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Mark,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 11: Yeah, Hi, Rich, Thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 11: I just recently retired and I was looking to get
Speaker 11: a new laptop of some sort to Windows eleven, and
Speaker 11: I didn't know whether or not I needed like Microsoft
Speaker 11: Office all those kind of add ons, or go with
Speaker 11: something like a Chromebook.
Speaker 2: What are you going to be doing on the computer?
Speaker 11: Just basic every day surfing, you know, taking care of bills,
Speaker 11: those type of things. I'm not going to be doing
Speaker 11: anything in spreadsheets or word documents or anything. I know,
Speaker 11: I can do that through Chrome, you know, I can
Speaker 11: use their little suite they have. But I just just
Speaker 11: trying to figure out which would be the better way
Speaker 11: to go as far as is it necessary to to
Speaker 11: buy something with a licensed product suite like Office, and I.
Speaker 2: Don't think so.
Speaker 1: I've I've worked for twenty five years now without paying
Speaker 1: for Office because I just don't need it, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I actually think Google Docs is a superior product.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, those are some fighting words right there.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's more flexible, it's easy, it's always
Speaker 1: up to date. It has never failed me, and I've
Speaker 1: been like I said, I've been using it since day one.
Speaker 1: There is a version of Office on the web. They
Speaker 1: have their their answer to Google Docs, and if you
Speaker 1: go on, let's see, I got it. They hide the
Speaker 1: link because they don't want people to know about this.
Speaker 1: But yes, you can access a free version of word
Speaker 1: Excel and power Point on the web for free. You
Speaker 1: don't have to download anything. You can use it just
Speaker 1: like you can Google Docs and the website. I don't
Speaker 1: have like a simple website to find it on, but
Speaker 1: if you Google, it's so funny, like the website is.
Speaker 1: I can't even read it on the air because it's
Speaker 1: just so long. But yes, use Microsoft three sixty five
Speaker 1: apps for free on the web. Get free access to
Speaker 1: word Excel and PowerPoint using Microsoft three sixty five for
Speaker 1: the Web formerly Office sign in and that's it.
Speaker 14: Now.
Speaker 1: There are some things you can't do on the free
Speaker 1: version versus the paid but you can do pretty much
Speaker 1: anything you need the basics. So how much you want
Speaker 1: to spend on this computer?
Speaker 13: Three?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: In that range a couple options. I would say a
Speaker 1: chromebook will probably serve you well. The problem is chromebooks
Speaker 1: are traditionally very underpowered, so at the very least I
Speaker 1: would look at a chromebook. Plus those have the better
Speaker 1: specs compared to the standard chromebooks. So if you're going
Speaker 1: to get a chromebook, go that route, which I think
Speaker 1: is fine for what you're doing. I just think look
Speaker 1: for a high quality screen. That to me is the key,
Speaker 1: because typically chromebook screens are just not very good compared
Speaker 1: to the traditional computers.
Speaker 2: Otherwise.
Speaker 1: The other computer to look into, which are expert recommended
Speaker 1: the other day, is the Lenovo Idea Pad Slim. This
Speaker 1: has got the new Snapdragon X processor, which means the
Speaker 1: battery is going to last a really long time. It's
Speaker 1: got a nice fifteen inch screen. This thing is only
Speaker 1: five hundred bucks. That is an incredible deal, and it's
Speaker 1: got great specs. It's got that snap Dragon processor which
Speaker 1: is kind of a mobile processor, which means its going
Speaker 1: to be very power efficient. Sixteen gigs a RAM one
Speaker 1: terabyte hard drive, it runs Windows eleven. It's got an
Speaker 1: SD card reader. I mean, I don't see a album
Speaker 1: with this computer at all. Lenovo Idea Pad Slim. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the micro center website. Fifteen inch laptops typically
Speaker 1: seven hundred and thirty dollars. It's on sale for five
Speaker 1: hundred that I think is going to be a great
Speaker 1: option for you there as well. So good question Mark,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for the call today. Enjoy retirement. Thanks
Speaker 1: for getting in touch today.
Speaker 2: Eighty to eight. Rich.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't even give out the number. We don't even
Speaker 1: know if we can get to more calls. Eighty to
Speaker 1: eight Rich one O one rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 2: We'll be back after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on tech rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: During the breaks, you know, I am busy, I am
Speaker 1: taking show notes, So they're all on the website rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot TV. Look under where it says radio
Speaker 1: show and this is episode one, and so if you
Speaker 1: click that, you will get the links to everything I mentioned,
Speaker 1: including all those software apps that we just mentioned, any
Speaker 1: of the the articles I mentioned, and I'm putting up
Speaker 1: the computers that I mentioned as well. Let's go to
Speaker 1: let's see here, line four, Kelly in Quartz Hill, California.
Speaker 2: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 16: Rich, I've been watching you on KTLA for years. I'm
Speaker 16: so glad you're on KFI now.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. General here too.
Speaker 16: I generally prefer using Safari on my iMac and it
Speaker 16: doesn't work quite often on banking and other websites, and
Speaker 16: so I have to go to Google and open up Chrome,
Speaker 16: and for some reason, it takes forever to switch, because
Speaker 16: you know, I close down Safari and then I open
Speaker 16: up Chrome and it just takes forever.
Speaker 14: Is there an easier way to go back and forth.
Speaker 1: Between the two, Well, it sounds like your computer might
Speaker 1: be low on something like RAM or you know, the
Speaker 1: memory on the computer, and that's what's causing it to
Speaker 1: take a while, because when you open and close apps,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much the most effort your computer is putting out,
Speaker 1: and so that's probably what's.
Speaker 2: Going on here.
Speaker 1: So basically, when how many apps do you have opened
Speaker 1: when you're doing this? Do you just have the browser?
Speaker 1: And what kind of computer are we talking here?
Speaker 16: I have an IMAX, but it's a twenty.
Speaker 2: Eighteen, okay, so it's older. Yeah, it is older.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's probably feeling the it's probably feeling the
Speaker 1: way of these You know, the computer doesn't slow down,
Speaker 1: it's the apps just keep getting more and more complex.
Speaker 1: So when you open up these apps, they're just demanding
Speaker 1: a lot of resources from this computer. And that's I think,
Speaker 1: what's happening here.
Speaker 17: Okay, okay, that makes sense. I was just thinking maybe
Speaker 17: I could have them both on a tag or something.
Speaker 1: Well, you can leave them both open. You can leave
Speaker 1: Chrome and Safari open at the same time. Does your
Speaker 1: computer allow that?
Speaker 14: I don't know. I guess I've never tried it.
Speaker 2: I mean, so you're saying that would probably drain my computer.
Speaker 14: Well, when I'm both open.
Speaker 1: I actually think it's easier to leave them open once.
Speaker 1: It really depends on how your computer's running. Are you
Speaker 1: when you're running these programs? Are they Is everything kind
Speaker 1: of fine for what you're trying to do?
Speaker 12: Yeah, it works pretty good.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, here's what I would do, and in general,
Speaker 1: since you've had your computer so long, in general, what
Speaker 1: I would do is kind of a little bit of
Speaker 1: a spring cleaning on this computer. So I would go
Speaker 1: through and you know, make sure you're not maxed out
Speaker 1: on your hard drive. So go through and just kind
Speaker 1: of delete some of the files you no longer need.
Speaker 1: I would go through and get rid of some of
Speaker 1: the apps that you no longer use or need, because
Speaker 1: you know that's those could be hogging some resources.
Speaker 2: I would also go to.
Speaker 1: Your your section of your settings where there's a section
Speaker 1: called open at login and that's something that like a
Speaker 1: lot of apps will try to creep in there because
Speaker 1: it's their benefit to always be open and running on
Speaker 1: your system, so they can be doing things like looking
Speaker 1: in the background for software updates and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But you can go through and actually delete some of
Speaker 1: the apps that are trying to open up at startup.
Speaker 1: That means every time you turn on your computer, these
Speaker 1: apps are using a little bit of resources in the
Speaker 1: background to do things. And I just found one that
Speaker 1: I can delete because I don't need that opening every
Speaker 1: single time I turn on my computer.
Speaker 14: So that okay, that's a great idea. I've seen that before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So go to open at login. It's called Login
Speaker 1: Items and Extensions. And then when you're on your computer.
Speaker 1: You know, with these two apps, I would try leaving
Speaker 1: them running at the same time. You can easily do that.
Speaker 1: It's not going to hurt what's going on in one
Speaker 1: or the other. They don't talk to each other that way.
Speaker 1: But you also might want to close out other apps
Speaker 1: that you're not using. So I'm always using different apps
Speaker 1: on my computer, but when I'm not using them for
Speaker 1: a while, I will close them out from time to
Speaker 1: time just to kind of free up some resources.
Speaker 17: Okay, I do try and do that, close them out
Speaker 17: red then keep them all open.
Speaker 14: But that's a good idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I would say, see what your computer can.
Speaker 1: Hell, this is definitely an older machine, so you know,
Speaker 1: like anyone that's gotten a little older in their years.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a little more sophisticated and refined, but
Speaker 1: it also needs a little, very true, a little coddling
Speaker 1: every once in a while, you know what I mean.
Speaker 14: Yes, yes, actually has lasted this long. I'm surprised. It's
Speaker 14: been a great computer.
Speaker 16: But the only reason I haven't switched it is because
Speaker 16: I have the old twenty seven inch the whole computer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the all in one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean look, yeah, again, if it's working for you,
Speaker 1: you don't need to change it. And they do make
Speaker 1: I don't know if they make a twenty seven I
Speaker 1: know they make a twenty four.
Speaker 2: I don't if they do the twenty seven anymore.
Speaker 1: But you know, if a computer's working for you, as
Speaker 1: long as your software is up to date, as long
Speaker 1: as your security, you know you're secure in that aspect.
Speaker 1: I have no problem with keeping up a computer for
Speaker 1: as long as you possibly can. And that's a testament
Speaker 1: to Apple and how they build these things that they
Speaker 1: last a very long time.
Speaker 17: So yes, Apple is the best for sure. I mean
Speaker 17: I've found just great results and it doesn't crash.
Speaker 14: I don't have problems like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and no virus issues usually ninety nine point nine
Speaker 1: percent of the time. All right, Kelly, they're playing us off.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for the call today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Oh oh that was cold. Oh my gosh, that was bobo.
Speaker 2: What back after this?
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology. We had a great call
Speaker 1: from a Mark in Saint Petersburg. He was asking about
Speaker 1: if he should buy Word and I mentioned that you
Speaker 1: can access Excel, Word and PowerPoint for free on the
Speaker 1: web and I just signed in with my Microsoft account.
Speaker 1: I'm not paid on anything on there. It's not a
Speaker 1: corporate account, just my personal account, and sure enough, here
Speaker 1: I am typing in Microsoft Word on the web, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out what's not included here. I
Speaker 1: don't see anything that I can't do. There must be
Speaker 1: some sort of limitation. But I just downloaded my document
Speaker 1: as a maybe let's see, can you download it? Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe that's the catch. So I wonder if you can't
Speaker 1: download it. Okay, you could download his pdf, oh, export
Speaker 1: to Kindle, but maybe you can't download it as a
Speaker 1: word document. Okay, maybe that's the catch. But I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: there you go. So pdf is the way you have
Speaker 1: to download it, looks like. But I put the link
Speaker 1: on the website rich on tech dot tv, So if
Speaker 1: you want to access those, test them out. Google docs
Speaker 1: is gonna be just fine too. But this is another way.
Speaker 1: If you're used to word and you want to check
Speaker 1: it out, it's all there. Let's bring on Mark Vina.
Speaker 1: He is CEO and principal analyst at Smart Tech Research.
Speaker 2: Mark, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. We often chat at these tech events.
Speaker 1: We're often sitting next to each other and near each other.
Speaker 1: How are things going in your world? As an analyst.
Speaker 1: Explain what an analyst does, by the way, because I
Speaker 1: feel like your job is kind of like mine as
Speaker 1: a journalist, but maybe more fun.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 6: Oh well, I think they both have the pluses and minuses.
Speaker 8: I think the big plus is that you can't, you
Speaker 8: know what the work that I do maybe a little
Speaker 8: bit different from you.
Speaker 6: You have an.
Speaker 8: Obligation to cover, you know, work with most clients are
Speaker 8: you don't really call them clients. You're covering businesses that
Speaker 8: are announcing new products, whereas I, you know, cover them
Speaker 8: from an from a market analysis standpoint. Do they have
Speaker 8: really good products? Do they are they write for the marketplace?
Speaker 8: Is there a market for them? I mean, you broadly
Speaker 8: can apply that principle to everything. But the nice thing
Speaker 8: is sometimes I get your customers that come to me, Hey, Mark,
Speaker 8: I've got the greatest product in the world. Please tell
Speaker 8: me that it's going to take over the world, and
Speaker 8: you politely tell them, well, it's really not the next iPhone.
Speaker 8: So but if you know, I've got a podcast, as
Speaker 8: you know, I write quite a bit. If you don't
Speaker 8: like writing, you don't want to be a marketing a
Speaker 8: market analyst.
Speaker 6: So that's what I kind of tell people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine you're just writing a lot of reports
Speaker 1: about stuff, like, you know, company comes to you and says, hey,
Speaker 1: here's our new product, give me a whole rep on
Speaker 1: the you know, the marketplace for this product. And but
Speaker 1: now you can just use AI to write all that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean, I'm not going to say that that
Speaker 8: using Chatchipt or Gemini is not helpful, but it gets
Speaker 8: you you might be sixty percent down the field.
Speaker 6: And then you have to customize the content.
Speaker 8: You're going to make sure the content is accurate, because
Speaker 8: despite what you may think, a lot of the AI
Speaker 8: content that's generated is not always accurate.
Speaker 6: So you've got to make sure that it's it's consistent
Speaker 6: with whatever was announced.
Speaker 8: And you know, most of the time, you know, uh,
Speaker 8: depending on how you use AI, it's not going to
Speaker 8: give you a point of view.
Speaker 6: The point of view is in your head.
Speaker 8: So again, I think it's helpful, But at the end
Speaker 8: of the day, it's all about you.
Speaker 2: Who's winning right now? In AI? To you?
Speaker 6: I you know, I have.
Speaker 8: The open eye and I think Google now with Gemini
Speaker 8: Gemini has been huge improvements.
Speaker 6: They've done some incredible anime.
Speaker 8: I mean, people kind of associate with AI with you know,
Speaker 8: chatchipt and you know, conjure up an article for me
Speaker 8: about this topic. Some of the things that they've added
Speaker 8: to the list iterations of chatch ept and Gemini AI
Speaker 8: is pretty remarkable. I mean, you can go into Gemini
Speaker 8: and say, make a nineteen eighty six baseball card for me,
Speaker 8: and here's a picture of my brother for the New
Speaker 8: York Mets, and it will create a unbelievable not just
Speaker 8: front but back baseball card with fake statistics, with fun
Speaker 8: facts that will blow you away.
Speaker 6: Now that's kind of a goofy thing to do, but.
Speaker 2: People do it.
Speaker 11: Why not.
Speaker 1: You've got a birthday party coming up, You've got an
Speaker 1: anniversary you want to do. I mean, this is the thing,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like people need ideas for how to
Speaker 1: use this stuff because it's all there, like the stuff
Speaker 1: that Gemini can do and open AI with chat GBT.
Speaker 1: Most people are only scratching the surf when you're saying
Speaker 1: what's the best place to go on vacation this summer?
Speaker 1: That is like a no brainer question for these ais.
Speaker 1: But what you can really do is analyze things, and
Speaker 1: especially with Google's AI mode, that is incredible in fact,
Speaker 1: now prompts you right on there, says please ask complex
Speaker 1: questions because that's when you're going to get the best answer.
Speaker 2: So where should I go on vacation.
Speaker 1: In July with two kids eleven and thirteen who don't
Speaker 1: like to do this, that and the other thing, and
Speaker 1: we also like nice restaurants and you know, outdoor activities.
Speaker 1: Then you get an answer that AI can bring you.
Speaker 8: No, I think you're right, because for the last twenty
Speaker 8: five years we've been trained to use Google and kind
Speaker 8: of just a declarative one question. It's not even a question,
Speaker 8: it's really you know, searching on whatever phrase you put
Speaker 8: in there. But the idea of complexity and a prompt
Speaker 8: where you can ask for multiple things at the same time,
Speaker 8: it's pretty amazing. I mean, I'll be very honest with you,
Speaker 8: I don't Google anything anymore. When I have a question
Speaker 8: about a product, you know, how do I do this feature?
Speaker 8: I'll ask that a fairly complex question, and I will
Speaker 8: get a very detailed answer that will say the twenty
Speaker 8: five steps if I were doing things the old fashioned way.
Speaker 8: So it's really amazing, and I'll go one step. What
Speaker 8: we haven't seen, at least with the mainstream and it's
Speaker 8: gonna happen very soon. Is that the ability to use
Speaker 8: video and create video using AI but doing some really
Speaker 8: interesting things. I mean, I'm seeing some demos under the
Speaker 8: coverage with tools like, right, let's say I do a video.
Speaker 6: Of one of your kids at a birthday party, and in.
Speaker 8: The back of it, it's a thirty second clip, and
Speaker 8: maybe let's say the garbage fan is in the backyard
Speaker 8: and he's walking around the back and it's making the
Speaker 8: clip look bad. Now, in the old days, you could
Speaker 8: go into a video, you know, you'd have to be
Speaker 8: a pretty good video video editing person to remove that artifict.
Speaker 6: That those tools did exist. But now you'll be able
Speaker 6: to use a prompt with some of.
Speaker 8: These tools, say please use the moving object in the back,
Speaker 8: and it will, you know, emulate what a studio could
Speaker 8: do twenty five years ago. So I think the video
Speaker 8: implications they are going to be unbelievable.
Speaker 1: We're just just starting that. I mean, because just we
Speaker 1: saw at the Pixel event in New York City when
Speaker 1: they released Ask to Edit, you know, like basically instead
Speaker 1: of you doing edits to your photos on the Pixel phones.
Speaker 1: And now they've expanded this to Google Photos on Android,
Speaker 1: I believe only. But you can just ask for the
Speaker 1: edits you want. So, like you just said, remove the
Speaker 1: person in the background, make this a better background, or
Speaker 1: brighten up my picture, or just reframe my picture so
Speaker 1: it looks better. It'll do all those things without you
Speaker 1: having to actually move the sliders around. That is probably
Speaker 1: coming for video, you know, we have. We've just scratched
Speaker 1: the surface with video.
Speaker 6: No, and the quality is so unbelievable.
Speaker 8: I did the thing the other day with my after
Speaker 8: the Yankees won the other night, I took a picture
Speaker 8: with my dog and simply say, hey, put this picture
Speaker 8: that as if I'm at Yankee Stadium celebrating. Now, I
Speaker 8: clearly wasn't at the game. I wasn't dressed for it.
Speaker 8: You know, most people didn't pick it up. Once I
Speaker 8: put that on Facebook. I must have gotten twenty five people.
Speaker 8: They allowed you to have a dog in the stadium.
Speaker 6: Why, Oh, it's crazy, crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: So this week, and we'll get to we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about some of the gadgets that Mark likes right now.
Speaker 1: But the Gemini Google posted on their Instagram an idea
Speaker 1: of how to use this nano banana thing. They basically said,
Speaker 1: you can make a picture of you with your parent
Speaker 1: that never existed. So they gave the exact kind of
Speaker 1: phrasing you should use, where you upload a selfie of yourself,
Speaker 1: a selfie of your picture of your parent, and then
Speaker 1: you tell it to create this picture of you two
Speaker 1: together like a polaroid. I mean, it's just the stuff
Speaker 1: that's happening here. And nano Banana is what Google's doing
Speaker 1: with their image generation. It's just it's a fancy name
Speaker 1: for like very high end AI. It's really good, like
Speaker 1: scary good. Like you were just mentioning, all right, So
Speaker 1: you came to the table with a couple gadgets. You like,
Speaker 1: every time we go to these events, we always compare
Speaker 1: the gadgets that we're carrying. But you have a couple
Speaker 1: that you like for podcasting if you want to start
Speaker 1: your own podcast.
Speaker 8: But it's not like you you know, now you're you're
Speaker 8: a professional journal assignment. You know, I kind of got
Speaker 8: into this about five or six years ago. And you know,
Speaker 8: I've got a video, I've got a YouTube podcast. It's
Speaker 8: got a lot of it's a lot of views, a
Speaker 8: lot of subscribers. But you know, to me, when people
Speaker 8: approach me and I get that all the time. Hey, Mark,
Speaker 8: how do I become a How do I become a podcaster?
Speaker 8: And I'm really sensitive as I know you are, about
Speaker 8: avoiding that kind of wing wings world effect the men
Speaker 8: years ago, Hey, a couple of kids down in their basement.
Speaker 8: That was that hope, that hope that hold stick on
Speaker 8: sating it live and it was amateur hour. But the
Speaker 8: tools that exist today are broadcast quality tools.
Speaker 6: You know that you don't have.
Speaker 8: You don't adoperate in the studio, you don't have five
Speaker 8: or six highly pain trading people. And I find like
Speaker 8: one thing that I love that I'm a big, big
Speaker 8: time on because it's the first thing that will tell
Speaker 8: people that you're an amateur versus a professional is having
Speaker 8: really good audio. So I'm a big, big believer in
Speaker 8: using these. And there's been a whole plaus throw them
Speaker 8: out there. But the latest DGI Mike three is fantastic.
Speaker 8: It will support the.
Speaker 6: Four wireless mics. They're probably as big as maybe a quarter.
Speaker 6: They have magnets so they can go on discreetly on
Speaker 6: your clothes. They have a great carrying case and you
Speaker 6: pop them in.
Speaker 8: But the fascinating thing is is that up until recently
Speaker 8: you really only could have two wireless mics with a
Speaker 8: bluetooth device like an iPhone. And when you're doing, like Rich,
Speaker 8: what you and I do, sometimes that's a limitation.
Speaker 6: But four is a big deal.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's for you, you know, the conduct conversation with
Speaker 8: four people at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, without any wires. I mean, that's that's unbelievable. I'm
Speaker 1: getting the one minute from my producer here. So we've
Speaker 1: got two more picks. I'll link these up on the website.
Speaker 1: By the way, Rich on tech dot tv. And by
Speaker 1: the way, what's the name of your podcast so folks
Speaker 1: can find it.
Speaker 6: It's a smart tech check podcast.
Speaker 1: Okay, so search that on YouTube and find it. You
Speaker 1: also have a green screen that you use.
Speaker 6: I'm a big believer in that. Now I'm not using
Speaker 6: a green.
Speaker 8: Screen right now because I'm using which is tool to participate.
Speaker 8: But normally speaking, you know, do yourself a favor is
Speaker 8: go out these and these.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of goods green screens out there.
Speaker 8: This one's really good because you know, you don't have
Speaker 8: to put it against the wall. It's like a projector
Speaker 8: that you pull up. You can Stubb it in the closet,
Speaker 8: which is what I do after I use it, and
Speaker 8: it will make all the difference in the world in
Speaker 8: terms of what that artifacting that goes around your head,
Speaker 8: you know when you're doing it then. So I'm a
Speaker 8: big believer that if you're getting into the podcast world,
Speaker 8: get a green screen.
Speaker 6: It will be the best one hundred bucks or so
Speaker 6: you ever spend.
Speaker 2: And you've got this one E Mark green screen.
Speaker 1: It's got like a little a little place to like
Speaker 1: a little projector holder. And then finally this super cage.
Speaker 8: Now that one is really really cool, and you know this,
Speaker 8: I can see Witch getting this. This is a really
Speaker 8: interesting item in that and it's a bit more on
Speaker 8: the professional side. It essentially turns your iPhone or any
Speaker 8: kind of phone into almost like a port replicator. So
Speaker 8: you plug this in, it holds it professionally and it
Speaker 8: gives you three or four other ports. So when when
Speaker 8: you're when you really get good at this and you
Speaker 8: start doing all kinds of advanced stuff, you can you
Speaker 8: can put an external power plug in one thing. I'm
Speaker 8: doing more increasingly that when I'm doing podcasts locally, I
Speaker 8: want to have some type of screen. It's showing the
Speaker 8: person who's in front of the camera what they're looking at. Again,
Speaker 8: that's very common in professional setups. This would allow you
Speaker 8: to do that, and it's just a terrific Godamosi has
Speaker 8: an SD slot.
Speaker 6: If you want to put memory. Oh wow, the store
Speaker 6: big file, very very handy.
Speaker 1: All right, A couple of good recommendations, Mark Vina, thanks
Speaker 1: so much. Smart Techresearch dot Net. Check it out, subscribe
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Always good to see you. See you
Speaker 1: at the next event.
Speaker 6: Rich, go yankees our peculatory.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, we are going to open up
Speaker 1: the feedback. These are the emails you sent all week.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that coming up next.
Speaker 2: Oh now I'm on right.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here I said,
Speaker 1: we got Rick rolled at the end of the show.
Speaker 1: Isn't this the Rickroll song?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got rickrolled. Thanks for rickrolling me.
Speaker 15: Hey, can I do something?
Speaker 2: What can I give?
Speaker 15: A happy birthday shout out to my wife absolutely, Brittany,
Speaker 15: Happy birthday. I love you so much. Enjoy your day.
Speaker 2: And have fun today. And I know sorry I'm at work,
Speaker 2: but I know Bill's got to be paid. It's okay.
Speaker 1: Bobo's got a nice dinner. We're talking five star dinner
Speaker 1: plan for tonight, five star dinners.
Speaker 2: Out on Rich. Thank you, Ron, I appreciate it.
Speaker 15: Rich is gonna send us to a five star restaurant
Speaker 15: for your birthday.
Speaker 1: Let's let's open up the feedback. Happy birthday, Brittany. Anita
Speaker 1: writes in from California. I bought a Mac desktop last
Speaker 1: week and at first struggled to get used to everything.
Speaker 2: I called Microsoft for help. That was frustrating.
Speaker 1: Little by little, I'm learning how to use the Mac
Speaker 1: and using the mail app has made things so much easier.
Speaker 1: I can't say enough how much you taking the time
Speaker 1: to help me has me. By the way, I heard
Speaker 1: you were in an accident, So glad you're all right.
Speaker 1: We need more people who are kind enough to help
Speaker 1: out A quote old lady, Oh thank you.
Speaker 2: Anita.
Speaker 1: Glenn says, I had to switch back from Alexa Plus
Speaker 1: to what I called dumb Alexa. I got two Echo
Speaker 1: show fives that I mainly use as clocks. I love
Speaker 1: the full screen clock that I would customize both Alexa plus.
Speaker 1: Amazon completely changed the home screen. There's no settings to
Speaker 1: restore the old view. Their online help bot just kept
Speaker 1: sending me to menus that did not exist. I bought
Speaker 1: these devices. I should get to decide how they look
Speaker 1: and work. Not Amazon funny enough. After the update, they
Speaker 1: asked me for feedback on Alexa Plus. They should have
Speaker 1: done that before rolling out the changes. Thanks for your show.
Speaker 1: I listen all the time, Robbie. I really enjoy your
Speaker 1: show and learn something new. Every time I was trying
Speaker 1: to enroll in Windows ten Extended Service updates, couldn't find
Speaker 1: the option in settings. You told me to make sure
Speaker 1: all the updates were installed. After switching back to my
Speaker 1: admin account, changing the password, and running all the original updates,
Speaker 1: the option finally appeared. A couple clicks later. I was
Speaker 1: in Thanks for the quick respet rich. I don't know
Speaker 1: how you find the time to answer individual emails, Robbie,
Speaker 1: don't tell people I do that. Pat writes in saw
Speaker 1: your segment on KTLA about updating Windows ten security. I
Speaker 1: followed your instructions, which were the simple and easy to understand.
Speaker 1: Now I have Windows ten Protection for another year. Your
Speaker 1: advice was very helpful. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Pat,
Speaker 1: Mike love the show. I recently replaced the battery on
Speaker 1: my Dell XPS fifteen. I bought it directly from Dell.
Speaker 1: After installing it, the laptop wouldn't power on until I
Speaker 1: plugged in the charger. Some tutorials online suggested it should
Speaker 1: start up right away, but I learned that some computer
Speaker 1: batteries need just a little juice from the charger before
Speaker 1: they start working. Just a friendly word of encouragement for
Speaker 1: anyone else swapping a laptop battery.
Speaker 2: Keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: Chris writes in my five year old Dell was not
Speaker 1: eligible for the Windows eleven upgrade. I asked around and
Speaker 1: people mentioned to work around. Instead, I took it to
Speaker 1: a local shop for two hundred and twenty bucks. They
Speaker 1: put in a new hard drive, bypassed the annoying login screen,
Speaker 1: and installed Windows A. Now my machine runs faster than ever,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have to copy over all my data
Speaker 1: to a new computer. Chris Oh He says he's also
Speaker 1: been watching since the Tech TV days. Oh wow, that
Speaker 1: was my dream job back in the day Tech TV.
Speaker 1: That's where I literally hounded them to let me work there.
Speaker 1: Never got a job there, but anyway, Gary writes in Rich,
Speaker 1: I love your show and I look forward to it
Speaker 1: every week. Great advice on taking photos of rental cars.
Speaker 1: I actually take video when I pick up the car
Speaker 1: when returning to make sure to include the hood, roof
Speaker 1: and glass. Recently I got a letter saying out four
Speaker 1: grand for hail damage on a rental in Phoenix, even
Speaker 1: though I only had the car a few hours. Luckily
Speaker 1: I had the video and never heard anything more. Hurts
Speaker 1: is now doing high resolution cameras at some airport locations
Speaker 1: to inspect cars for damage. If you don't have proof,
Speaker 1: you might get stuck paying. Yes, Gary, definitely, I recommend
Speaker 1: take at least four pictures of the car in the
Speaker 1: highest resolution that your camera will allow.
Speaker 2: Scott, I was.
Speaker 1: Listening to your podcast. I want to call her asks
Speaker 1: how to get a photo of his daughter off an
Speaker 1: old Nokia. I found myself yelling at the show. Just
Speaker 1: bring the picture up on that phone and snap a
Speaker 1: photo of it with your current phone. Then just run
Speaker 1: it through an app like Gemini Nano Banana to clean
Speaker 1: up the graininess. It's fast, free and gets the job done.
Speaker 1: Mary Anne, Yesterday my computer was taken over by a
Speaker 1: spam pop up. It told me to call Apple support
Speaker 1: and not log off with a very loud recording that
Speaker 1: locked up my computer. I didn't use the number on
Speaker 1: the screen. Instead, I just looked up Apple Support's real number,
Speaker 1: just like you always suggest good that you avoided that,
Speaker 1: Mary Anne, that would have been really bad. And Alan
Speaker 1: in Deerfield Beach, Florida, I was walking home from the
Speaker 1: gym listening to your show when you played an Olivia
Speaker 1: Dean song. I didn't recognize it. I loved it, though,
Speaker 1: which one was it? I want to make a ring
Speaker 1: tone from it. I taught electronics and computers for thirty
Speaker 1: two years and always told my students this was a
Speaker 1: great field because you'll always be learning. I never once
Speaker 1: woke up not wanting to go to work. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: That song was Nice to each Other by Olivia Dan.
Speaker 1: It is on repeat in my house for sure.
Speaker 2: Let's see we've got kloy. Chloe says.
Speaker 1: I've never been an alarmist, but when my bankell out
Speaker 1: in ach on my checking account without confirming it, it
Speaker 1: was clear financials are going to be a bigger risk
Speaker 1: going forward. I've also received fake emails from Social Security.
Speaker 1: I asked my provider how they're slipping through. Their long
Speaker 1: reply didn't answer the question. There isn't one be careful
Speaker 1: out there?
Speaker 2: That's going to do it.
Speaker 1: For this show, you can find links to what I
Speaker 1: mentioned on the website rich on tech dot tv. I'm
Speaker 1: on social media at rich on tech. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Next week we'll talk about scams. There are
Speaker 1: so many ways you can spend your time. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you spending it right here with me. Please don't drive distracted,
Speaker 1: put that phone down. Thanks to everyone who makes this
Speaker 1: show possible. My name is rich Dedmiro.
Speaker 2: I will talk to you real soon