Speaker 1: The latest devices from Google and their emphasis on AI.
Speaker 1: What to do if your personal information was exposed in
Speaker 1: that massive data breach. The free VPN that's actually good
Speaker 1: and you can use right now. Plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on. I'm 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. I
Speaker 1: answer your questions about technology and cut through all the
Speaker 1: clutter so you can live a better tech life. I
Speaker 1: believe that tech should be interesting, useful and fun. Let's
Speaker 1: open up those phone lines at triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Give me a call. If you
Speaker 1: have a question about technology, Let's open up that email
Speaker 1: as well. Just go to rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: Hit contact rich on tech dot tv. That's the website.
Speaker 1: Go there at the top, hit content and you can
Speaker 1: send your email straight to my inbox. Guests this week
Speaker 1: on the show, Ryan Montgomery, founder of the cybersecurity firm
Speaker 1: pen Tester. He's going to talk about that big Social
Speaker 1: Security number breach and he made the tool that lets
Speaker 1: you check to see if your numbers floating out there,
Speaker 1: and he'll talk about that. Then we've got some folks
Speaker 1: from Google to talk about all of their new devices,
Speaker 1: Google Home, Google Pixel, Google Pixel Wearables. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a great conversation with them. And later in the
Speaker 1: show we're expecting to talk to Max Tegmark of the
Speaker 1: Future of Life Institute. He is expected to talk about
Speaker 1: the good and bad of AI. But first this week,
Speaker 1: I took a road trip to Mountain View, California. Yes,
Speaker 1: I took a road trip in an all electric suv.
Speaker 1: That's another story. I was testing it out. The new
Speaker 1: Rivian software lets you charge at Tesla superchargers, so I
Speaker 1: tested out that functionality on my way up to Google
Speaker 1: their bay View headquarters in Mountain View. This is a
Speaker 1: brand new building. It's got like a lizard skin ceiling
Speaker 1: or I don't know what you call it, roof tiles.
Speaker 1: They're kind of solar. It's really really cool looking. And
Speaker 1: that's where they held there Made by Google event. Typically
Speaker 1: they hold this event in New York City every year.
Speaker 1: This time they brought it home to San Francisco and
Speaker 1: it was a good one. First off, all about AI.
Speaker 1: Google is going all in on AI. Now, we already
Speaker 1: heard this same story from Samsung We heard the same
Speaker 1: story from Apple. But Google is in a unique position
Speaker 1: because they have been working on AI for a very
Speaker 1: long time. Most of it has been behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: powering a lot of the features on their products. Now
Speaker 1: they're saying, you know what, no, we're front and center.
Speaker 1: This stuff is out there. Gemini is our baby, and
Speaker 1: that's sort of their answer to chat GPS, and we
Speaker 1: are going to put that in every product that we make.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you've noticed.
Speaker 1: If you log onto Gmail, if you log onto Google Search,
Speaker 1: if you go onto Docs, YouTube, it has AI built
Speaker 1: in in various ways. So for email, it might say
Speaker 1: summarize this email. At the top of your search results,
Speaker 1: you might get an AI powered search result. In Google Docs,
Speaker 1: Gemini pops up and says, hey, do you want some
Speaker 1: help with this document? So they are all over the
Speaker 1: place with their AI, and they made a point to
Speaker 1: take a dig at Apple saying, hey, we're making AI
Speaker 1: that everyone can access. We're making AI that's built into
Speaker 1: all of our products, not just our flagship top of
Speaker 1: the line products. If you remember with Apple their AI,
Speaker 1: Apple Intelligence is only going to be available on the
Speaker 1: iPhone fifteen Pro and higher. That means a lot of
Speaker 1: people have to upgrade this next cycle with their phone
Speaker 1: if they want to get access to Apple's AI. With Google,
Speaker 1: they are bringing it across all kinds of products and
Speaker 1: all kinds of phones.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The new lineup includes the Pixel nine, the Pixel nine Pro,
Speaker 1: and the Pixel nine Pro x L. They've got this
Speaker 1: new processor inside called the Tensor G four. Not the
Speaker 1: best processor in the world. Hopefully it's a little bit better.
Speaker 1: Runs kind of warm, runs kind of slow, but it's
Speaker 1: been their little baby for a while now hopefully it's
Speaker 1: a little bit better. In these new phones, improved durability,
Speaker 1: larger display options. So what I like that they've done.
Speaker 1: You've got the basic phone, which is the Pixel nine.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the Pixel nine Pro that comes in
Speaker 1: two sizes, so you can now get the same specs,
Speaker 1: but choose the size phone that you want to carry around.
Speaker 1: So if you're like me, I've been carrying a big
Speaker 1: phone for a while, I'm kind of ready for a
Speaker 1: smaller device, So you can get it in a six
Speaker 1: point three inch size or a six point eight inch size.
Speaker 1: They also went with an improved camera setup, improved front
Speaker 1: camera on the Pro models and the RAM. These things
Speaker 1: have minimum twelve gigabytes of RAM in the Pixel nine.
Speaker 1: In the Pixel pros they've got sixteen gigabytes of RAM,
Speaker 1: that is as much as a laptop computer. And Google
Speaker 1: says they're doing that because of the AI intensive tasks.
Speaker 1: If you had an older Pixel and you notice the
Speaker 1: fingerprint reader was a little slow, little wonky, it's now
Speaker 1: fifty percent faster. I have not noticed any issues on
Speaker 1: the review unit that I have, which is the Pixel nine.
Speaker 1: Can't give you my full review just yet, but I
Speaker 1: will tell you I am loving it all right. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the new features on these devices.
Speaker 1: First off, Gemini Live. This is wild. This is their
Speaker 1: version of sort of a conversational AI assistant. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you people are going to have relationships with these ais
Speaker 1: because they sound so lifelike. You can choose from ten
Speaker 1: different voices. They are all incredibly realistic, and you can
Speaker 1: talk to them back and forth like you would a friend.
Speaker 2: So you can just chat.
Speaker 1: You can put your earbut in and chat back and forth,
Speaker 1: or you can just chat with them on the phone.
Speaker 1: You can interrupt them. You could just say stuff like
Speaker 1: this morning, I was asking about the new pans that
Speaker 1: I bought, like, what's the deal with nonstick pans?
Speaker 2: Are they good for you? Bad for you?
Speaker 1: And and I just answered like a regular person what
Speaker 1: It was pretty incredible And it stays around in the background,
Speaker 1: so even if your phone is closed you can are locked,
Speaker 1: you can still talk to it.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Scary, scary, but kind of cool at the same time.
Speaker 1: Some of the other new AI features. Pixel Studio is
Speaker 1: now a new app on these phones that is an
Speaker 1: image generator, and it's one of the best I've seen
Speaker 1: using AI. It's fast, it's simple, it's free, and it's
Speaker 1: scary good. Pixel Screenshots is a new app that sounds
Speaker 1: very simple, but it's actually quite powerful. So you know
Speaker 1: all those screenshots you do on your phone to remember stuff, Well,
Speaker 1: this index is them, so you can go back and
Speaker 1: easily search the information in those. So if you get
Speaker 1: an invite to a party, you screenshot it, next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, you could just search a keyword on that
Speaker 1: invite find the information fast. It also kind of categorizes
Speaker 1: these things. It gives all the original information from the
Speaker 1: website that you screenshotted. So if you screenshot it a
Speaker 1: purse that you're looking to get as a gift, for someone.
Speaker 1: You can actually tap that information and go back to
Speaker 1: that original website, so it keeps more of that rich
Speaker 1: mat of data. Really really useful. Kind of cool pixel
Speaker 1: weather app. I don't know why Google made such a
Speaker 1: big deal out of redoing their weather app. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's weather app, but it has AI generated reports right now.
Speaker 1: So for instance, where I am, let me do the
Speaker 1: weather report, So you tap the AI generated weather report.
Speaker 1: It doesn't automatically, I guess it does automatically show it.
Speaker 1: It says warm day with a high UV index, so
Speaker 1: be sure to protect yourself from the sun. And then
Speaker 1: it gives a couple other little insights. So AI Weather
Speaker 1: Report kind of cool, kind of fun. Then you've got
Speaker 1: this new adme feature. This is kind of a wild one.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're taking a picture with someone and
Speaker 1: it's only just two of you, you got to take
Speaker 1: a selfie. Maybe you ask someone else take can you
Speaker 1: take our picture? Well, now you have the first person
Speaker 1: stand there, take their picture. Then you swap. You go
Speaker 1: have that person take the phone. You go stand there
Speaker 1: and it merges the two photos together. You kind of
Speaker 1: see a little ghost of the other person, so you
Speaker 1: can line up the picture just right, and it merges
Speaker 1: the picture.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: In my experience testing this over the past couple of days,
Speaker 1: it's not perfect, but it is brand new, and I
Speaker 1: think they're still working on.
Speaker 2: It, but it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: We'll see if it actually lives past like you know,
Speaker 1: the the interesting novelty of it, versus like you know.
Speaker 2: Later on.
Speaker 1: They improve panoramic pictures. I mean, have you taken a
Speaker 1: panoramic picture in a while? I haven't, but they improve those.
Speaker 1: They also have a new call notes feature, so the
Speaker 1: phone will record your conversations and give you a transcript
Speaker 1: and summary when you're done. I know it sounds scary,
Speaker 1: but Apple's doing the same exact thing. And for me,
Speaker 1: my wife tells me a list of things I have
Speaker 1: to do, I hang up the phone that I go, Now,
Speaker 1: wait a second, what I have to do?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: I'm going to be I'm going to be a better
Speaker 2: husband because of this feature. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1: Satellite SOS again, something that debuted on the iPhone two
Speaker 1: years ago, is now coming to the Pixels. It's on
Speaker 1: there so if you are in an area without cellular
Speaker 1: or without Wi Fi, you can text for help. That
Speaker 1: is incredible. Samsung can't believe they didn't come out with that,
Speaker 1: because now the Pixel's got it, Now the iPhone has it.
Speaker 1: Samsung better have that with the next go around on
Speaker 1: their devices. Seven years of operating system updates and security
Speaker 1: updates and new features seven years, So this phone's gonna
Speaker 1: last for a while. Eight hundred bucks for the Pixel nine,
Speaker 1: one thousand bucks for the Pixel nine Pro, eleven hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for the Pixel nine pro Xcel. These are in
Speaker 1: stores beginning on August twenty second. The Pixel nine Pro
Speaker 1: is September fourth. By the way, they come with two
Speaker 1: terabytes of cloud storage. The iPhone comes with five gigabytes.
Speaker 1: Two terabytes of cloud storage. That's only for a year,
Speaker 1: so if you fill it up, be prepared to pay
Speaker 1: for you know, storage after that. Also, they came out
Speaker 1: with the Pixel nine Pro fold This is their brand
Speaker 1: new foldable phone, and again it's a much better version
Speaker 1: of the original foldable. It's much thinner, it looks like
Speaker 1: two phones kind of slap together, and it's much lighter.
Speaker 1: Not much lighter, but it's lighter. That's eighteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: That arrives on septem number fourth. The fold is much
Speaker 1: better and I think they're going to find a much
Speaker 1: bigger audience for this phone, but I still don't really
Speaker 1: see the universal appeal of a foldable phone for the
Speaker 1: average person who is not looking to spend eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars on a smartphone. All right, there you have it
Speaker 1: from Made by Google. You can find more on the website.
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech dot TV. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk more tech news. But first it's your turn. Your
Speaker 1: calls at eighty eight rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
Speaker 2: Gimme a call.
Speaker 1: You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Well,
Speaker 1: I had no idea this morning when I posted a
Speaker 1: little video to u Instagram my Instagram at rich on
Speaker 1: Tech just how controversial evs are. I posted a video
Speaker 1: of me charging o Rivian at a Tesla supercharger, and
Speaker 1: I said, does this change your mind about getting an
Speaker 1: EV And wow, did the comments come.
Speaker 2: In hot and heavy.
Speaker 1: I did not realize that half of America doesn't like
Speaker 1: the idea of an EV maybe more. And the reasons
Speaker 1: for not liking it range from too expensive, don't feel
Speaker 1: like charging, takes too long to charge, just everything, the
Speaker 1: batteries are not good for the environment. Lots of different reasons.
Speaker 1: So anyway, if you want to post your comment, I
Speaker 1: am reading them because I'm getting a kick out of them.
Speaker 1: Just go to at rich on tech on Instagram. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go to the phones. Let's go to Corey in Costa, Mesa. Corey,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Hey man, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what can I help you with?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 5: I saw on your Instagram the post about freezing your
Speaker 5: credit and I read the blog post, but I must
Speaker 5: have missed it, and I was a little confused. How
Speaker 5: exactly do you do it?
Speaker 2: Okay, good question.
Speaker 1: So freezing your credit A lot of people have been
Speaker 1: asking me about this because this big data hack of
Speaker 1: two point seven billion records, including social security numbers. So
Speaker 1: you can go online, you can check this database and
Speaker 1: it will tell you if your information was leaked, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, for a lot of people it has been.
Speaker 1: So I never really thought about doing a credit freeze before.
Speaker 1: But basically, once you freeze your credit and you can
Speaker 1: do it all online. Nobody can open up as far
Speaker 1: as I know, nobody can open up any credit account
Speaker 1: in your name or pretty much any account in your
Speaker 1: name because it's frozen. So when they put your social
Speaker 1: into the bank computer, it says, nope, we gotta this
Speaker 1: is frozen.
Speaker 2: We can't do anything with this person.
Speaker 1: So it protects you basically from identity theft as I
Speaker 1: understand it, and it seems scary, it's it seems like
Speaker 1: a lot of work, but honestly, I did it yesterday
Speaker 1: morning in about i'd say thirty minutes for all three bureaus.
Speaker 1: So there's three major credit reporting bureaus. There's Equifax, there
Speaker 1: is TransUnion and Experience. And the thing is what's tricky
Speaker 1: about them is that they are all at this point
Speaker 1: trying to sell you on services like credit monitoring, credit improvement,
Speaker 1: credit lock, whatever it is. But a credit freeze is free,
Speaker 1: and it is instant, and it's very simple to do.
Speaker 1: So I put the links. I'll put them on the
Speaker 1: show notes. But Rich on tech dot TV hit the
Speaker 1: light bulb up at the top. This is show number
Speaker 1: eighty five. I'll put all the links there so you
Speaker 1: can get the direct links because once you log in,
Speaker 1: it's kind of tricky to find the links on these
Speaker 1: different websites because they hide them.
Speaker 2: They don't want people to do this.
Speaker 1: Obviously, TransUnion, their entire business is selling these credit reports
Speaker 1: to banks and other places credit cards that they subscribe
Speaker 1: to get this information, so they don't want people frozen
Speaker 1: because it MUCKs up the whole system. But it's in
Speaker 1: your best interest if you're exposed on one of these
Speaker 1: data breaches. So anyway you go to the website, you
Speaker 1: sign up for the websites, you have to create a
Speaker 1: log in. When you create a log in, be sure
Speaker 1: to create a strong, unique password. You do have to
Speaker 1: provide some information, some personal information to verify you are
Speaker 1: who you say you are. And then once you're logged in,
Speaker 1: you can then navigate to these links that let you
Speaker 1: freeze your credit and you can place a freeze in
Speaker 1: a moment, you can unfreeze in another moment, and it's
Speaker 1: very very simple. So that is the process. I found
Speaker 1: it to be very easy. And the main thing is
Speaker 1: that you do need to keep track of your log
Speaker 1: in for these these different credit reporting agencies because if
Speaker 1: you don't, if you ever need to unfreeze your credit.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're buying a house, you would need to
Speaker 1: unfreeze your credit report. So that is the main thing
Speaker 1: to know. If you're not opening up a credit card
Speaker 1: or a bank account or a house loan, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: it's not an issue. It's only an issue when you
Speaker 1: need to do something with your credit. So it's probably
Speaker 1: a good idea. You know, they have made it a
Speaker 1: lot easier than in previous years now that everything's online.
Speaker 1: But good question, Corey, Thanks for that question, appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people we're going to talk about this
Speaker 1: with our next guest, but a lot of people reeling
Speaker 1: from this major data breach. Two point seven billion records
Speaker 1: of personal information for US residents were leaked on a
Speaker 1: hacking form name social security numbers, physical addresses, aliases. It
Speaker 1: all comes from a company named National Public Data. This
Speaker 1: is a company that collects and sells access to personal data,
Speaker 1: mostly for background checks. This was two hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: seven gigabytes of data. I checked mine, I checked my moms,
Speaker 1: I checked other people's and it's a lot. It's out there,
Speaker 1: and it's scary because we've seen data breaches before, but
Speaker 1: this is very very complex information on a lot of
Speaker 1: people all at once, and so you can guarantee that
Speaker 1: this will get into the wrong hands and we're gonna
Speaker 1: start seeing a lot of issues. This is only you know,
Speaker 1: three four days in The information was leaked back in
Speaker 1: April apparently, but it wasn't available on the open web
Speaker 1: or the dark web. So now that it's available and
Speaker 1: it's out there, that's when the scam artists start taking
Speaker 1: this information and they start doing stuff with it. Now,
Speaker 1: some of the information is out of date. It even
Speaker 1: had my phone number from when I was growing up
Speaker 1: was on this database. I mean I still remember it
Speaker 1: like it was yesterday. I can still recite that phone number.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many phone numbers can you remember? At
Speaker 1: this point I was going through with my mom. I
Speaker 1: was like, can we how many phone numbers can we recite?
Speaker 1: And it's really only a couple. But teacher, kids, you know,
Speaker 1: the the vital ones, yours and your grandparents whatever, All right?
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give
Speaker 1: me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we're gonna talk more about this data brea
Speaker 1: each with the smartest guy in the room, Ryan Montgomery,
Speaker 1: founder of the cybersecurity firm pen Tester.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. The phone lines are open
Speaker 1: at eight eight eight rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
Speaker 1: If you have a question about technology, give me a call.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you can go to the website rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot TV hit contact, send your message that way. We'll
Speaker 1: get back to the phones in just a moment here.
Speaker 1: But first, uh, bringing on the man of the hour,
Speaker 1: Ryan Montgomery, founder of the cybersecurity firm pen Tester.
Speaker 2: Ryan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: Hey, nice to meet you, Rich. I spoke to you
Speaker 6: last oh yeah, a couple of days ago. But it's
Speaker 6: it's awesome being on the show and I appreciate you
Speaker 6: inviting me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I know you've you've had quite the whirlwind week.
Speaker 1: So mediately you run this cybersecurity firm. Explain what Pentester
Speaker 1: does briefly.
Speaker 6: Okay, so the short form of what Pentester does is, originally,
Speaker 6: we built the platform around if anyone knows who I am,
Speaker 6: we built the platform around investigating individuals, so you know,
Speaker 6: I hunt down child predators and counter human trafficking. So
Speaker 6: we figured, okay, let's build some build some tools for
Speaker 6: open source intelligence, which is just a fancy word for
Speaker 6: finding things about people online. Our platform, we figured, okay,
Speaker 6: we can put this in the in the standard person's
Speaker 6: hands and they can see their entire digital footprint and
Speaker 6: then give them the option to remove all of that data,
Speaker 6: you know, from all of these data broker websites, et cetera,
Speaker 6: and know what breaches they're in with their passwords, their
Speaker 6: credit cards, their socials, you know, the family members, you
Speaker 6: name it. It's basically it's out there. There's just not
Speaker 6: a centralized place to view it all. So originally we
Speaker 6: built it for businesses and we didn't have the complete
Speaker 6: function for personal, and then we realized the demand for
Speaker 6: personal and we decided we're going to do whatever it takes.
Speaker 6: And we were told literally by an attorney that it
Speaker 6: would be a disservice to our customers if we did
Speaker 6: not get breaches immediately as they were released to the public,
Speaker 6: so we got to go ahead on that. We have stayed,
Speaker 6: you know, true to that mission, and we have the
Speaker 6: largest database in the world of breach credentials as well
Speaker 6: as personal information as the other indicators. I just told
Speaker 6: you recently, this database just came up. I was you know,
Speaker 6: I downloaded it immediately as I saw it became public.
Speaker 6: There's you know, roughly three billion records in it. It
Speaker 6: was one one heck of a task to get all
Speaker 6: of that into a database that was searchable for the
Speaker 6: average person to and make it fast in the process
Speaker 6: and handle like the traffic at the moment, we're getting
Speaker 6: about twenty thousand users on the website, you know, at
Speaker 6: per moment. So we had a huge, huge technical job
Speaker 6: basically to make that thing stand up. And it's standing tall, thankfully.
Speaker 6: But yeah, it's a it's it's very bad. What we're
Speaker 6: what we're dealing with right now is probably the worst
Speaker 6: breach in the United States that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: That's wild, I I I would agree with that. And
Speaker 1: and so a couple of things. First off, the regular
Speaker 1: scan that you give, the digital footprint and scan that
Speaker 1: you've always had on your website at pentester dot com
Speaker 1: is just unbelievably complete and wild. The information that you
Speaker 1: reveal on there, So just that is like all the
Speaker 1: old stuff before this new stuff, and it's like so
Speaker 1: eye opening more so than any other like data broker
Speaker 1: kind of remover website I've ever seen. But the new
Speaker 1: tool is at NPD dot pentester dot com and that's
Speaker 1: where you have this new database of this uh social
Speaker 1: security number breach. I mean, so once you see your
Speaker 1: information in there, what do you think people should do?
Speaker 1: Is it the freeze the credit report? Is that the
Speaker 1: best advice?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So so when you when you look up your information,
Speaker 6: so NPD like National Public Database dot penttester dot com.
Speaker 6: But it's the acronym as you said, we threw it
Speaker 6: up there. You put in your first name, your last
Speaker 6: name that that's any state that you've ever lived in,
Speaker 6: not just the current state. Make sure you tried different
Speaker 6: variations of spelling for your name, if you have a
Speaker 6: maiden name or a different last name. Also searched that
Speaker 6: because we can't you know, there's no way for us
Speaker 6: to relate one record to another, so you know, make
Speaker 6: sure when you're searching, you don't just assume, you know,
Speaker 6: the state that you're living in with your current name
Speaker 6: is not in there. I found, you know, I found
Speaker 6: data that comes back twenty thirty years, Like yeah, my mom.
Speaker 6: For example, my mom, her her credit I'm sorry, not
Speaker 6: her credit, her her address from when she was a
Speaker 6: teenager is in this database.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a really wide ranging database. Like I,
Speaker 1: like I said, I found my phone number from when
Speaker 1: I was grown up as a kid was part of
Speaker 1: this database.
Speaker 2: So this is like, yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Like where they got it. You know, I know there
Speaker 6: were a background check company, but who gave them this data?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And so so now that this is out there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's an example. You know, there's this idea of the
Speaker 1: dark web, right, so can you explain what that means exactly?
Speaker 1: And also, like, once your information's out there in the
Speaker 1: dark web, it's kind of tough to like get it
Speaker 1: out of there, isn't it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, it's actually impossible. So when something you know,
Speaker 6: the word dark web can mean many things. In the
Speaker 6: technical realm, it means you're connecting to a network called
Speaker 6: tour t R. The dark web, in most people's eyes
Speaker 6: is just like the scary, dark, black black market of
Speaker 6: the Internet. But really, in regards to this, it just
Speaker 6: means the database is released two hackers, good or bad,
Speaker 6: or for people that just commit fraud, maybe they're not hackers.
Speaker 6: They can download these this database, they can search through it.
Speaker 6: They they'll be able to see your entire social Security number,
Speaker 6: along with every address that you've lived at, maybe your
Speaker 6: current phone number, maybe an old one, and then the
Speaker 6: rest of your family. And that's that's basically enough information
Speaker 6: to open up a credit card, run a credit report,
Speaker 6: buy a car, are maybe you know, do whatever they
Speaker 6: want to do with your information, and that data is
Speaker 6: gonna is going to circulate on the dark web, as
Speaker 6: you asked forever, that's never going to go away as
Speaker 6: well as you know. You know, we can remove your
Speaker 6: data from data brokers and we can alert you of this,
Speaker 6: but we cannot remove your data off of individual people's
Speaker 6: computers when they download the data for themselves. So my
Speaker 6: recommendation is really what you said as well, is is
Speaker 6: to just freeze your credit. Whether you're in this database
Speaker 6: or not, freeze it. It doesn't hurt it in any way,
Speaker 6: it doesn't benefit it doesn't benefit me in any way
Speaker 6: to tell you to do it. It's it's and another good
Speaker 6: thing that people I got a lot of questions about this.
Speaker 6: By freezing your credit, it doesn't stop your score from
Speaker 6: going up or down. It doesn't. It doesn't affect your
Speaker 6: credit in any negative way. The only inconveniences if you
Speaker 6: if you go to you know, upgrade the limit on
Speaker 6: your credit card, or buy a car, all the things
Speaker 6: I mentioned. You just sign into all the three bureaus
Speaker 6: individually on your phone, or if you don't know how
Speaker 6: to do that, you can call into all three and
Speaker 6: unfreeze it. It's a click of a button on their
Speaker 6: website or a phone call way for each one of them,
Speaker 6: and you freeze it or unfreeze it, and as soon
Speaker 6: as you're done doing what you're doing with your credit,
Speaker 6: just freeze it again. And and you know with with
Speaker 6: you know almost certainty that you're not going to be
Speaker 6: affected by this breach.
Speaker 1: Wow, So what do you make of all this? You know,
Speaker 1: this information that's floating around out there. You've got average
Speaker 1: people who are working, they're busy, they've got kids, family,
Speaker 1: you know, other things they're dealing with, and there's this
Speaker 1: whole world of just like we're always inundated with like
Speaker 1: scams and texts and links and phishing.
Speaker 2: I mean, your job's never going away.
Speaker 6: No, I mean it's a it's good and bad at
Speaker 6: the same time. It's a it's a it's very unfortunate
Speaker 6: that that, you know, almost our entire country was breached
Speaker 6: in the last few days. Yeah, my uh, my job,
Speaker 6: Tensester dot com is not going anywhere, you know, it's
Speaker 6: it's a blessing and a curse. To be honest with you, Rich.
Speaker 1: And how do you think the average person if you
Speaker 1: can give them some advice, what would it be.
Speaker 2: In the last minute here.
Speaker 6: My advice would be to to you know, this is
Speaker 6: this is not me trying to sell my platform. I
Speaker 6: just as Rich said, he saw other data broke removal
Speaker 6: platforms and what they do is great. The thing that
Speaker 6: they don't do is show you your entire digital footprint,
Speaker 6: which is something that you should all know. You should
Speaker 6: know if you're in a wedding photo from ten years ago,
Speaker 6: when you search your face, you know, maybe maybe you
Speaker 6: want to do reverse facial recognition on yourself, or you know,
Speaker 6: maybe you want to see what passwords were associated with
Speaker 6: every email you've ever had, or maybe you forgot about
Speaker 6: an email that you had back in the AOL days
Speaker 6: and that has a password or some private information associated
Speaker 6: with you. And then lastly, uh, you know, do the
Speaker 6: social accounts so we identify based on your phone number
Speaker 6: and email addresses which accounts you're signed up for, so
Speaker 6: you know, for yourself, it's nice to know out what's
Speaker 6: out there, and the way to get rid of that
Speaker 6: is just to lead that account if you don't want it.
Speaker 6: And then another thing for your children, if you you know,
Speaker 6: if you don't want your children on certain websites or
Speaker 6: you want to know what sites they're on, you can
Speaker 6: add them as an identity and you could do this
Speaker 6: securely through our website and and then we'll be able
Speaker 6: to tell you with absolute certainty which websites that they
Speaker 6: are they're registered to, which is a very unique offering
Speaker 6: that no one else has either.
Speaker 1: Wow, and a couple other things, real quick virus protection
Speaker 1: on your computer. Do you recommend that or do you
Speaker 1: think Windows Defender is good enough? And also VPN When
Speaker 1: should someone use that?
Speaker 6: Okay, so Windows Defenders has gotten better over the years,
Speaker 6: I'd recommend some other ones. I like Bitdefender. I also
Speaker 6: like e set, e S, e T. I like them
Speaker 6: as well. Bitdefender has a free version. I'm not sure
Speaker 6: if e set does, but I know for sure bitdefender does.
Speaker 6: And then the other question was what did you say VPN.
Speaker 2: Do you think people should use a VPN?
Speaker 6: Ever, Yeah, well, VPN can hurt so if you're in
Speaker 6: a public place. And I've made many videos about Wi
Speaker 6: Fi hacking and networks vulnerabilities just in general, and I
Speaker 6: like to simplify my contest so people understand it. But
Speaker 6: something interesting about a VPN is it stops a lot
Speaker 6: of these attacks that the average hacker could do on
Speaker 6: your network. Not only does it protect your privacy on
Speaker 6: the other side of things when you connect to a website,
Speaker 6: but on your local network where if you're on a
Speaker 6: public network I got Starbucks or at the airport, it
Speaker 6: protects you from those attacks as well. So I'd highly
Speaker 6: recommend a VPN. There's there's gonna be people out there
Speaker 6: that care about if a VPN logs what you do
Speaker 6: or they don't log what you do. All of them,
Speaker 6: for the most part, they're gonna claim they don't log it.
Speaker 6: I know that IVPN doesn't log mole because that was
Speaker 6: proven in the Supreme Court. That's one I know for sure.
Speaker 6: Of the second one, Mullavad you can mail them cash
Speaker 6: and with an account number and they'll activate it. So
Speaker 6: even if they do store logs, which I don't think
Speaker 6: they do, but let's say they do. They don't even
Speaker 6: know who you are. Wow, So you know it's nice
Speaker 6: to have. It's it's it's to be extra safe.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: All right, Ryan Montgomery, We're gonna leave it there, founder
Speaker 1: of pen Tester, the cybersecurity firm. Definitely go to NPD
Speaker 1: dotpentester dot com.
Speaker 2: And Ryan, what's the best way for folks to follow
Speaker 2: you online?
Speaker 6: The best way to follow me if you want to
Speaker 6: learn more than obviously the MPD breach right now is
Speaker 6: something that definitely, you know, act on, but if you
Speaker 6: want to follow and learn some more stuff about, you know,
Speaker 6: get cars being hacked, your garage door being hacked, how
Speaker 6: people can steal your credit card, hack your phone. I mean,
Speaker 6: I make short videos thirty sixty seconds long on all platforms,
Speaker 6: but right now, the most active is my Instagram and
Speaker 6: that's at zero, like the digit zero day, like day
Speaker 6: night is zero day. So Instagram is the best ways
Speaker 6: the place to find me at the moment, at the moment.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna leave it there. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining me on the show today. But I'll put
Speaker 1: all those links on the website Richontech dot TV eight
Speaker 1: eight eight rich one oh one. Coming up, Samsung is
Speaker 1: expanding its AI powered Circle to search feature to more devices.
Speaker 2: Is it yours?
Speaker 1: Find out? Coming up right here on rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. The phone number for the
Speaker 1: you know, eight eight eight rich one on one, that's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero on.
Speaker 1: We just got some great information about that massive data breach.
Speaker 1: It is all linked up on the website. Our guests
Speaker 1: shared some great tools, not only a way to check
Speaker 1: to see if you've been breached, but also some of
Speaker 1: the security programs that he recommended for free free anti virus,
Speaker 1: and also the VPNs and his Instagram. So I've got
Speaker 1: to all linked up on the website. Go to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot TV. Hit the light bulb icon up
Speaker 1: at the top and that should bring you to the
Speaker 1: show notes. We're show number eighty five today, so you
Speaker 1: can just look for that and the guest Ryan Montgomery,
Speaker 1: all of his information is there really really good information.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Eric in the Inland umpire. Eric, you're
Speaker 1: on with rich.
Speaker 8: Hey, rich thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how can I help.
Speaker 8: I jumped on.
Speaker 5: Jumped in the truck right at the top of the show.
Speaker 9: And you were mentioning something about AI tools embedded in
Speaker 9: your phones that transcribe your phone calls. And given the context,
Speaker 9: I missed what the name of it was, but given
Speaker 9: the context, it sounded like a Google service. Our company
Speaker 9: uses Apple products. Is there a service similar to that
Speaker 9: that we can implement for our program managers and stuff
Speaker 9: to utilize these tools? And then I have another question
Speaker 9: when you when you answer that one great question.
Speaker 1: So yes, the feature that I mentioned is coming to
Speaker 1: the Pixel. It's called call notes and basically, when you're
Speaker 1: in a call, you can tap and it will record
Speaker 1: the phone call. Yes, there's privacy concerns, but the according
Speaker 1: to the Google folks I spoke to, it says a recording.
Speaker 1: It says, hey, this call is being recorded by Google.
Speaker 1: You know, you can hang up if you don't want
Speaker 1: to be a part of that whatever. So that's happening
Speaker 1: with with the Pixel side of things. And basically when
Speaker 1: you hang up, it will give you the transcript of
Speaker 1: your phone call and it will summarize that transcript as well.
Speaker 1: So if someone set a phone number or an account number,
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, notes that you have in that call.
Speaker 1: It'll summarize that, which is very handy. You said you
Speaker 1: use the iPhone side of things. Apple's also coming out
Speaker 1: with this as well. So iOS eighteen will have a
Speaker 1: feature that I don't know if they've given it a name,
Speaker 1: a proper name, but it's basically a call recording, same
Speaker 1: exact feature, it's the same exact thing. So it's built
Speaker 1: into the iPhone. When you download iOS eighteen and you
Speaker 1: get this Apple Intelligence, it will let you record the
Speaker 1: phone call and it will summarize the call and give
Speaker 1: you a transcript afterwards. So that is the main thing
Speaker 1: to know here is that it has to be on
Speaker 1: compatible devices.
Speaker 2: So the question is it's okay.
Speaker 1: It looks like it's going to be available on any
Speaker 1: device that works with iOS eighteen. Do't need an iPhone
Speaker 1: fifteen proto unlock it, so only the transcript summary uses AI.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's a good, good thing for your for your company.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's gonna come out. That's going to come
Speaker 1: out in September, So basically, come September, you know we've
Speaker 1: got this. I've got the new pixel here. I didn't
Speaker 1: see that feature just yet on the pixel that they
Speaker 1: provided me as my review unit. But I assume maybe
Speaker 1: it's just it's coming out any day now on there,
Speaker 1: but then on Apple it'll be usually September where this
Speaker 1: stuff is coming.
Speaker 9: Out awesome, So we don't have to wait much longer.
Speaker 2: Not much longer. I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: In the future, every phone, everything's going to be recorded,
Speaker 1: not just phone calls. There's like there are pendants that
Speaker 1: people are going to be able to wear that will
Speaker 1: record all the time, so that you can transcribe your world,
Speaker 1: like your life and just remember notes. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's quite incredible. I know it's scary, it sounds weird,
Speaker 1: but you know, there are some business use cases for
Speaker 1: this stuff, like you mentioned. You know, even if you
Speaker 1: go to the doctor, you know, they always tell you
Speaker 1: all this stuff at the end of your appointment and
Speaker 1: you don't remember any of it, you know, and then
Speaker 1: they give you this.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't give you notes. What was the
Speaker 2: second question?
Speaker 9: So the second part of my question is our company
Speaker 9: we process ap uh daily and we are just getting
Speaker 9: absolutely buried in invoices and packing slips and whatever other
Speaker 9: nonsense you can you can picture. For a large construction company,
Speaker 9: of the paperwork flow. Is there a program that you
Speaker 9: like the best or that you recommend the best that
Speaker 9: AI can help us optimize this this constant barrage of paperwork,
Speaker 9: whether that be.
Speaker 6: An email inbox that.
Speaker 9: Is dedicated to an AI reader, AI process, or how
Speaker 9: how can we optimize this better? Because we're getting our
Speaker 9: our rear ends sticked uh with this just constant barrage
Speaker 9: of paperwork fairly large company, so it needs to be
Speaker 9: a pretty uh you know.
Speaker 6: Heavy duty solution.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that so that's the thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, so a lot of people have been using
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of consumer aspect of chatchybt Claude
Speaker 1: Gemini for their you know, very consumer oriented things, and
Speaker 1: of course anyone who works at a company, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe kind of dabbling with these tools to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out how they can use them in their in
Speaker 1: their workflow, you know, writing emails better, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. When it comes to a large corporation, you've
Speaker 1: got to have a uh an enterprise solution for that,
Speaker 1: because number one, you've got data security. You cannot just
Speaker 1: be putting in your private uh you know, accounts payable
Speaker 1: information into some random uh AI.
Speaker 2: So you're going to have to go. I'm guessing the big.
Speaker 1: Providers that you're already using for some of these workflows
Speaker 1: are probably working on AI integrations. I think right now
Speaker 1: it's a little tricky because it's all about the privacy,
Speaker 1: and so you need to know that the stuff that
Speaker 1: you're using is not going to be feeding your information
Speaker 1: out into the larger web or into the database of
Speaker 1: these AI companies. So I know, you know, you got
Speaker 1: to look at the enterprise stuff from Microsoft, Salesforce, all
Speaker 1: those kind of big companies that are working on the
Speaker 1: enterprise side of things. I don't have a company or
Speaker 1: a solution that I like personally because I'm not really
Speaker 1: dealing with the corporate side of things. Mostly I'm doing
Speaker 1: the consumer side. But that's kind of where I would
Speaker 1: look is the companies that you're already dealing with, see,
Speaker 1: you know, see what they're looking at when it comes
Speaker 1: to AI. Maybe they already have the solutions, maybe they don't,
Speaker 1: or it might be that you have to go with
Speaker 1: one of these startups. But again, a lot of them
Speaker 1: on the back end are using something like the chat
Speaker 1: GBT or the the open AI APIs great questions today, Eric,
Speaker 1: thanks for the calls. Eight eight eight rich one oh
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one coming up. I'll tell you why Peloton and
Speaker 1: fit it are teaming up. You can get some free classes.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to another
Speaker 1: hour of Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology, having a lot of fun, giving
Speaker 1: out good information that's usable. Yes, people are always surprised
Speaker 1: when they listen to this show because they're like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, I'm learning a lot. I know it's a
Speaker 1: foreign concept sometimes in today's day and age of clickable
Speaker 1: click baity headlines and quick takes and hot takes and
Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok. No, this is the real deal. This
Speaker 1: is where I actually tell you the stuff that I
Speaker 1: think you should know. Because I am covering this stuff
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, I'm keeping track of it, I'm
Speaker 1: organizing it. I'm making sure the stuff that I think
Speaker 1: you should know is on this show. That's why I
Speaker 1: say it at the beginning of every show. It's not
Speaker 1: just random stuff to get you to listen, or random
Speaker 1: stuff to you know, get you mad or angry. It
Speaker 1: is stuff that I think you need to know as
Speaker 1: a person that's busy, someone that's working, someone that has
Speaker 1: things to do. That's why you listen to me so
Speaker 1: that I can break this stuff down for you. And
Speaker 1: I do thank you for tuning in and listening. The
Speaker 1: website for the show Rich on tech dot TV. The
Speaker 1: phone number eight eight eight Rich one oh one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: This show a lot of it does focus on Google
Speaker 1: because Google just had their event this week, and so
Speaker 1: I'm still going through some of the different products that
Speaker 1: they announced.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you about two.
Speaker 1: More of those, and then later on in this hour,
Speaker 1: we do have some interviews with the Google folks to
Speaker 1: go more in depth on those. Sophie wrote in on
Speaker 1: the website, Hey, Rich, I'm listening today. You mentioned it
Speaker 1: so fast I cannot get the name of the app.
Speaker 1: I take a lot of screenshots. It's an app to
Speaker 1: help categorize them and pull them up. It's Google something. Also,
Speaker 1: I have an iPhone fourteen. Is it just for Android
Speaker 1: or no, thanks Sophie. Sophie, it is called the Pixel
Speaker 1: screen Shots app, and yes, it's built into the new
Speaker 1: Pixel smartphones. No word yet whether this is going to
Speaker 1: come to other Android phones, but It's a really smart app. Basically,
Speaker 1: every time you take a screenshot on your phone, it
Speaker 1: indexes the information and that screenshot to make it searchable.
Speaker 1: You can also categorize them. So let's say you're taking
Speaker 1: screenshots of gifts or gift ideas or places you want
Speaker 1: to go on your vacation. You can put them into
Speaker 1: categories as well. It's using a lot of AI plus
Speaker 1: you can tap the screenshot to go back to the
Speaker 1: original website, which is smart as well. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling someone is going to make something like this for
Speaker 1: the iPhone. It's not unheard of to make an app
Speaker 1: like this for the iPhone pretty easy and pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I mean it should be Google because they already have
Speaker 1: the technology. The problem is these companies like to have
Speaker 1: stuff exclusively for their products. We're seeing a tech world
Speaker 1: where more and more it's getting highly competitive, and so
Speaker 1: these every company pretty much kind of holds back a
Speaker 1: little bit where they have these things start on their
Speaker 1: products specifically or a specific model of a tech product
Speaker 1: that's new, and then eventually later on it will come
Speaker 1: to other products. Case in point, Google Circle to Search.
Speaker 1: This is something that launched on the Samsung S twenty
Speaker 1: four lineup of smartphones. It's a very cool way to search,
Speaker 1: where you press and hold on the home button and
Speaker 1: then you can tap or circle or highlight anything on
Speaker 1: your screen to search Google. And this was a collaboration
Speaker 1: between Samsung and Google to come up with a killer
Speaker 1: new feature that would sell a lot of smartphones. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's sold a lot of smartphones,
Speaker 1: but it's really helpful. In fact, when I am not
Speaker 1: using an Android phone, I feel lost on the iPhone
Speaker 1: because you just can't tap the screen to like search something.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're scrolling through Instagram and you see something cool,
Speaker 1: You're like, I want more information about that restaurant or
Speaker 1: those you know, that gadget or whatever you see. You
Speaker 1: could just literally circle to search and it will give
Speaker 1: you all the information. It's really really helpful, and that
Speaker 1: has made its way to more phones.
Speaker 2: It's on a lot of the.
Speaker 1: Pixel smartphones, and now it's coming to the Samsung budget
Speaker 1: line smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy A series, So this is
Speaker 1: going to be available on the Galaxy A fifty five,
Speaker 1: the A four, the A thirty five, and the A
Speaker 1: thirty four. So if you don't have a Samsung Galaxy
Speaker 1: S series or Z series. The A series is sort
Speaker 1: of the budget line. You're getting Circle to Search, which
Speaker 1: is a really helpful feature, especially for homework. Recent things
Speaker 1: that they added a full page translation homework help QR
Speaker 1: barcode scanning. It's a really handy feature if you want
Speaker 1: to see if your phone has it. If you have
Speaker 1: an Android phone, at the bottom of your screen, just
Speaker 1: press and hold right at the bottom, like almost where
Speaker 1: this screen meets the end of your phone. Just press
Speaker 1: and hold right there and your phone should vibrate and
Speaker 1: kind of light up the screen. And so you do that,
Speaker 1: and then just scribble or circle on your screen and
Speaker 1: you can see if your Circle to Search is on there.
Speaker 1: It's a really really handy feature. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: It's something that I don't think can come to the iPhone.
Speaker 1: The closest you've got in the iPhone is a screenshot
Speaker 1: with Google Lens, which is very similar, but it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier of a movement on the on the Android
Speaker 1: side of things. All right, A couple more products quickly
Speaker 1: here from Google pixel Watch three. This is bigger, brighter,
Speaker 1: and all about fitness. Two sizes now they added a
Speaker 1: larger size. It comes in the forty one millimeter and
Speaker 1: a new forty five millimeter option, much bigger screen. I
Speaker 1: think it is a much better looking smart watch because
Speaker 1: the screen is actually usable brighter displays. You get forty
Speaker 1: percent more screen on that forty five millimeter display. They
Speaker 1: even made the smaller one have a little bit more display,
Speaker 1: ten percent more, so they pushed it out to the
Speaker 1: edges a little bit more. They've got some new fitness features.
Speaker 1: Everyone's doing this kind of like daily readiness score, and
Speaker 1: so now the pixel watch is doing that as well.
Speaker 1: They've got this really interesting new feature called loss of
Speaker 1: pulse detection. So a couple weeks ago on this show,
Speaker 1: we were talking about how these wearables can detect a
Speaker 1: high pulse rate or a low pulse rate. Now this
Speaker 1: is detecting no pulse rate whatsoever. That's something you don't
Speaker 1: ever want to have, obviously, but now this watch will
Speaker 1: detect that. Now, this is only approved in Europe at
Speaker 1: the start, so we're not getting this feature in the
Speaker 1: US at least not right now, but I imagine they're trying
Speaker 1: to get the proper approving with the FDA. To get
Speaker 1: that or whoever they have to go through the government
Speaker 1: agency here in the US to get that loss of
Speaker 1: pulse detection, because basically, if it detects no pulse, it
Speaker 1: will call for help and text your emergency contacts. There's
Speaker 1: also a new ultra wideband chip in this pixel Watch three,
Speaker 1: which means you can use your phone to unlock digital
Speaker 1: car key functionality, which is neat and pricing three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars for the forty one millimeter and four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for the forty five millimeter that does not
Speaker 1: include cellular. Cellular is going to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more expensive. Release date is September tenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Then you've got some new pixel buds pixel Buds Pro two.
Speaker 1: These are all about AI. They've got GEM, which is
Speaker 1: Google's AI assistant built in. I did take a demo
Speaker 1: of these up at Google's headquarters and they actually were
Speaker 1: very comfortable my ears, very lightweight. Google says they're twenty
Speaker 1: four percent lighter twenty seven percent smaller than the previous
Speaker 1: pixel Buds Pro, which I did not like. They did
Speaker 1: not stay in my ears very well. These stayed in
Speaker 1: my ears much better. They felt much more comfortable and
Speaker 1: much smaller than the old ones. They also have a
Speaker 1: new custom chip inside, so that's gonna be good for
Speaker 1: improved audio, and of course the AI. The noise cancelation
Speaker 1: was excellent. They put me in a booth. They played
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of noises, really loud noises, like being
Speaker 1: on an airplane, being on a city street, and then
Speaker 1: they turn on the automatic noise cancelation active noise cancelation,
Speaker 1: and all the noises just blended away. So they made
Speaker 1: me listen to that. Oh what's that song right now?
Speaker 1: That hot song right now? Sabrina Carpenter, Espresso. What's the
Speaker 1: other one?
Speaker 2: Oh? Please, please please? I don't know. They made me.
Speaker 1: I think that was Espress. They may be listened to
Speaker 1: by Sabrina Carpenter. That's like all over the radio right now.
Speaker 1: They also have this new twist to fit feature, so
Speaker 1: you kind of push it into your ear and then
Speaker 1: you twist it and then that makes it fit securely.
Speaker 1: These start at two hundred and twenty nine dollars. I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of expensive because there's so many great
Speaker 1: earbuds out there for a lot cheaper. The good news
Speaker 1: is stuff from Google typically gets discounted, So would I
Speaker 1: would earmark these? No pun intended maybe about a two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars price tag, but that's still kind of expensive.
Speaker 1: I know it's in line with like the air Pods,
Speaker 1: but the AirPods Pro. But I think there's in maybe
Speaker 1: I guess the Samsung, but I feel like there's some
Speaker 1: other earbuds that you can get for cheaper that are
Speaker 1: just as good. But again, these work with all the
Speaker 1: Google stuff. These are going to be available on September
Speaker 1: twenty six. Once again, that's the pixel Buds Pro two.
Speaker 1: All right, eighty eight Rich one O one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four to one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show is rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Let's go to uh max in uh Lake Worth, Florida.
Speaker 2: Max. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Follow rage Max as you're talking to you, Yeah, thanks
Speaker 4: for coming on.
Speaker 7: Your program A lot. I know that, sudd you. We're
Speaker 7: discussing the security breach and credit freed.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 7: So there are three create reporting agencies and as you described,
Speaker 7: people can go and read their credit there's the fourth
Speaker 7: one that you also need to consider. Okay, the four
Speaker 7: post politic check he as Charlie HS Henry he as
Speaker 7: Edward x as x Ray Systems check systems essentially walks
Speaker 7: with banks. But when someone wants to open a checking
Speaker 7: account or setting account, the bank's checks their credit through
Speaker 7: that system. You also have to go there the website,
Speaker 7: the checksystems dot com and uh, go to the post.
Speaker 2: Of putting free Oh yeah, I see it on.
Speaker 10: The records on that system as well.
Speaker 2: Oh good tip, thanks Max.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at the website checksystems dot com and
Speaker 1: uh at the bottom of the website there is a
Speaker 1: link to place a freeze. And so you're saying, this
Speaker 1: is this is Oh yeah, okay here it is designed
Speaker 1: to prevent approval of checking savings, credit accounts, loans or
Speaker 1: other services being approved in your name without your consent.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a good one. Good to know about that.
Speaker 1: Have you done this yourself? Is it easy?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 11: I've uh yeah, actually have full gone by the record
Speaker 11: accounts of records many many moons ago because I realized
Speaker 11: that you cannot thrust anything or anybody the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't even trust you, Max, but I like,
Speaker 1: I like what you're talking.
Speaker 7: But I may be a box here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do I know I'm not talking to How
Speaker 1: do I know I'm not talking to AI?
Speaker 7: And the senior side. Rich you have to be what
Speaker 7: I call these days, you have to be an intelligent paranoid.
Speaker 2: Yes, I ask you.
Speaker 11: If you are not an intelligent paranoid, then everybody can
Speaker 11: take advantage of you.
Speaker 1: Max I one hundred percent agree. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: the call. I am so critical of everything. Even when
Speaker 1: my mom calls me, I ask her some verification questions.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what's your mother's maiden name? Mom?
Speaker 1: Just to make sure we could be tricked very easily.
Speaker 1: You are listening to rich on tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: talking technology at eight eight eight rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: If you want to send an email, just go to
Speaker 1: the website rich on tech dot TV. Hit contact up
Speaker 1: at the top. And if you want show notes for
Speaker 1: anything you hear me mention, just go to the website
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot TV and hit the light bulb icon.
Speaker 1: I take very good notes. Everything I mentioned in real
Speaker 1: time is on there. So if you're looking for something
Speaker 1: I mentioned, I know I talk fast, it is all
Speaker 1: on there. Rich on tech dot TV. Let's go to
Speaker 1: Mark in Woodland Hill's Mark.
Speaker 2: Ri Hi him.
Speaker 12: I'm a very high miles annually on cycling, so I'm
Speaker 12: out there quite often for hours at a time cycling,
Speaker 12: and I run an app that gives me in real
Speaker 12: time speed odometers, things of that nature that I can
Speaker 12: tap into. My problem is, with course, here in southern California,
Speaker 12: particularly this season, I need a phone that is heat resistant.
Speaker 12: What I find is a lot of my phones are
Speaker 12: just shutting down from the direct lights, you know, the
Speaker 12: direct sunlight, and I hate to have to, you know,
Speaker 12: I want to be able to look at the display.
Speaker 4: Do you have any.
Speaker 12: Suggestions for heat tolerant smartphones by any chance?
Speaker 2: Good question.
Speaker 1: This happens all the time, especially in southern California. And
Speaker 1: you're running GPS on your phone, so that's definitely contributing
Speaker 1: to the heat. Are you using an iPhone or an Android? Currently?
Speaker 12: Android?
Speaker 2: Okay? Android? And which model?
Speaker 12: I'm not really a a cell phone cultured person, but.
Speaker 1: I guess it's a maybe like a Samsung or a
Speaker 1: pixel Samsung.
Speaker 12: Okay, yeah, it's a Samsung.
Speaker 2: Well it's okay. So a couple of things.
Speaker 1: First off, the the older phones don't have as much
Speaker 1: older and less expensive phones don't have as much cooling
Speaker 1: built into them, so that could be number one. But
Speaker 1: in general, I find that when you are out and
Speaker 1: about and your phone is in direct sun, no matter
Speaker 1: what brand I've used, they all overheat, and so it's
Speaker 1: gonna be tough if you're if you're trying to look
Speaker 1: at your screen on your bike at the same time
Speaker 1: that you're using it at the same time it is
Speaker 1: directly in the sun. So that is, uh, that's going
Speaker 1: to be a problem no matter what phone you have.
Speaker 1: But I think you know what I was going to
Speaker 1: recommend in general, there's actually kind of a cool case
Speaker 1: for a phone called the Fouzi phoo z Y. And
Speaker 1: I was not a believer, and I was at I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I got this at CS or somewhere.
Speaker 1: I got a sample of this thing, and I was like,
Speaker 1: come on, there's no way this thing works. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's like a thermal bag for your phone, and
Speaker 1: so you pop your phone in it and if you're
Speaker 1: bringing it to the uh you know, whether you're skiing
Speaker 1: or if it's cold outside, or whether you're bringing it
Speaker 1: to the beach and it's hot outside, you keep your
Speaker 1: phone in this little pouch. And sure enough, it keeps it,
Speaker 1: It keeps it cool, it keeps it from overheating or
Speaker 1: over freezing. That's phoo z Y, And so I'm looking
Speaker 1: to see h Mark if they have a version that,
Speaker 1: you know you might be able to put your phone
Speaker 1: in while you're on your bike. You know, that might
Speaker 1: be your best bet. The problem with this is that
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to see the screen when
Speaker 1: it's in here.
Speaker 2: But let's see.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm looking at they've got a cycle collection, so
Speaker 1: let's see maybe they have one that's uh, it's like
Speaker 1: a bike specific one that would work, but they do
Speaker 1: mention biking. Yeah, the cycle series. So I'm looking to
Speaker 1: see maybe if they have like a clear one. But no,
Speaker 1: I don't see a clear one. But anyway, that is
Speaker 1: probably my best bet if you want to just keep
Speaker 1: your phone not from overheating is to use something like this,
Speaker 1: and you're just gonna you may not be able to
Speaker 1: keep your phone where you can see the screen, but
Speaker 1: at least it's not gonna overheat, and the times that
Speaker 1: you do pull it out to see your screen, it
Speaker 1: will still work. So phoo z Y is the uh
Speaker 1: is the device. It's just a pouch. Basically, let me
Speaker 1: see how much these things cost. Usually it's about let's
Speaker 1: see here, thirty, about thirty anywhere from thirty toady to
Speaker 1: forty dollars. They've got a NASA one. That one's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Now I'm telling you this thing works. I mean it really,
Speaker 1: it really does work. I'm very impressed with this thing.
Speaker 1: So that's the website to go to. Thanks for the
Speaker 1: call today, Mark, appreciate you. Let's see, since you mentioned biking, Google,
Speaker 1: Fippit and Peloton are teaming up. So if you're a
Speaker 1: paid Fitbit premium user. This is a paid user, not
Speaker 1: just if you have a Fitbit, you have to be
Speaker 1: paying for their subscription. You'll be able to access some
Speaker 1: Peloton classes starting in September. You're going to get to
Speaker 1: access strength pilates, running, boxing, and oh some classes will
Speaker 1: be available to non premium Fitbit users, but I'm guessing
Speaker 1: it's a smaller percentage. And then Peloton members they're going
Speaker 1: to cross sell, so they're going to give you special
Speaker 1: offers on the Pixel Watch and Fitbit Charge six. This
Speaker 1: is all coming in September.
Speaker 2: This is a.
Speaker 1: Multi year, multi country partnership by Peloton and fitbit.
Speaker 2: So you know you got to check these things.
Speaker 1: Everything's so expensive nowadays, so if you can get some
Speaker 1: stuff for free, why not, right, take advantage eighty eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one. Get those calls in, we'll get
Speaker 1: to them in just a bit. Coming up, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk to some of the Google folks about some of
Speaker 1: the products they announced this week.
Speaker 2: This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to one zero one. Give me a call if
Speaker 1: you have a tech question. We'll get back to the
Speaker 1: lines in just a moment. But first we're taking a
Speaker 1: deeper dive into Google's latest announcements this week. I was
Speaker 1: up in Mountain View at their beautiful Bayview headquarters, and
Speaker 1: I got to talk to some of the key folks
Speaker 1: helping to make their products from smartphones to smart watches
Speaker 1: and smart home devices. First up, Shanaz Zach, senior director
Speaker 1: of Product management for Pixel First. Zach explained how AI
Speaker 1: is changing the game for pixel users.
Speaker 13: It's a phone that is with you almost the whole
Speaker 13: day and the evening and the night. So I me
Speaker 13: think about Pixel as a phone and a device that
Speaker 13: is your personal device. We think of the whole staff,
Speaker 13: the hardware, the software, and the silicon, and then we
Speaker 13: think about, Okay, what are the problems the Pixel is
Speaker 13: going to help you solve to lead a happier, more fruitful,
Speaker 13: more productive life. Right now, that's how we think about it,
Speaker 13: think of how do we help people with their problems
Speaker 13: and making their lives more fruitful? And in termline too,
Speaker 13: AI and the technology, what is it enabling further enabling?
Speaker 13: Right and you saw that today when Sali Demo did
Speaker 13: with the ear buds. Right now, Gemini Live is in
Speaker 13: my ear bus try to my phone, so if I
Speaker 13: go on a walk, I can just talk to Gemini Live.
Speaker 13: Like I've been literally having these conversations because I have
Speaker 13: a dog. My kids want me to get another dog,
Speaker 13: and so I'm like, okay, which dog should I get?
Speaker 13: If I get a dog? My dog is eight? Like
Speaker 13: should I get a puppy?
Speaker 6: Should I get?
Speaker 13: I'm literally having these conversations with Gemini Live on my walk.
Speaker 13: It's really answering me these questions rather than I'm doing
Speaker 13: a search and then I get distracted with something else,
Speaker 13: I'm like, I'm on my walk and it's given me
Speaker 13: good examples, whether it's a small dog a big dog.
Speaker 13: So again, again I can think of like not so
Speaker 13: much the how do we really help our users? How
Speaker 13: does a phone make your lives better?
Speaker 1: Next, I asked about some of the standout new features
Speaker 1: in the latest Pixel models.
Speaker 13: I have a lot of favorite features, but I would
Speaker 13: say a couple that stand out for me is adme.
Speaker 13: Call notes is another one which is amazing. Again, like
Speaker 13: it's solving the problem of here's the number somebody. Especially
Speaker 13: when I'm driving and somebody gives me a number on
Speaker 13: the phone, I'm like, oh my god, I don't have
Speaker 13: a pen and paper. Can I call you back? Or
Speaker 13: then I have to like park, take bring out my phone,
Speaker 13: type the number, and the keep notes app. Now I
Speaker 13: don't have to do that. I can just turn on
Speaker 13: call notes. It takes the transcript, it summarizes that and
Speaker 13: just puts the phone number right there, or a confirmation
Speaker 13: number or any of those numbers right. So I think
Speaker 13: that's another one that I really use.
Speaker 1: In title helpful private see is always a concern, especially
Speaker 1: with phone calls. I was curious how the new call
Speaker 1: notes feature protects user data.
Speaker 13: When you enable call notes, it will read out a
Speaker 13: promt that this call is being recorded and is using
Speaker 13: for call you. So if we do that prompt to
Speaker 13: both the parties so that you know that the call
Speaker 13: is being recorded. And that's how it works, and it's
Speaker 13: completely on device private using chemin I Nano.
Speaker 1: It can be a very iPhone centric world. So I
Speaker 1: want you to know Zach's reasons why someone should consider
Speaker 1: a switch to the pixels.
Speaker 13: So many reasons, so many reasons. And I will say,
Speaker 13: I know a lot of people is you said ecosystem,
Speaker 13: but it's also inertia right because it's moving to a
Speaker 13: different device and you have all of this data and
Speaker 13: that's a lot of time you're spending also as well
Speaker 13: as like making sure users can easily transfer and move
Speaker 13: all their data, a lot of which we did not mention.
Speaker 13: A lot of focus, a big portion of the team
Speaker 13: things through that because you want to make sure that
Speaker 13: you seamlessly Mower to Pixel can use do everything that
Speaker 13: you've done in the past.
Speaker 6: And better right.
Speaker 1: Next up San deep Riot, Senior director of product management
Speaker 1: for Pixel Wearables. He's been on this show before and
Speaker 1: this time I asked him, what's new with the pixel
Speaker 1: Watch three.
Speaker 14: There's no one size fits all here, and these two
Speaker 14: sizes really give you that expression. We see people then
Speaker 14: looking for more in their watch, so when they're out
Speaker 14: and about, they want to add a glancy, more information.
Speaker 14: So we are bringing more information utilizing that larger screen.
Speaker 14: And they're also looking for more battery life from the watch,
Speaker 14: and again larger size can give that. So that has
Speaker 14: been the number one request in pixel Watch one and two,
Speaker 14: and finally we are bringing the second size with three.
Speaker 14: The feedback we get is that people really love pixel
Speaker 14: Watch for sleep tracking, for their workout tracking, for general
Speaker 14: during the day activity tracking, and on top of that,
Speaker 14: what they're really seeking is that now it's on the wrist,
Speaker 14: now that I like it, give me more help Like
Speaker 14: Google brings some extensions, bring the helpfulness, and that's what
Speaker 14: our goal has been.
Speaker 1: From what I'm hearing, it seems that Google is all
Speaker 1: about adding helpful features, and there are some notable ones
Speaker 1: on the pixel Watch three. Some will likely make their
Speaker 1: way to previous models.
Speaker 14: So from helpfulness standpoint, we are really bringing even more
Speaker 14: helpful extensions off Google and pixel So there are so
Speaker 14: many examples of that recorder app, so on the go,
Speaker 14: if you want to just take a quick memory, you
Speaker 14: can now do that. You can now live stream your
Speaker 14: Nest doorbell and camera. So for example, somebody's at the door,
Speaker 14: you're cooking dinner. You can now live stream that camera
Speaker 14: right on your wrist and do a two way conversation
Speaker 14: as well. You can say drop the package right from
Speaker 14: your wrist, you don't have to lay it. And then
Speaker 14: in terms of bringing even more helpful extensions, you can
Speaker 14: now unlock your pixel phone but just your watch. And
Speaker 14: then there are other smaller aspects of that extension, things
Speaker 14: like now you can They are smaller, but they're big
Speaker 14: features like coll assists, for example, so you can screen
Speaker 14: calls on wrist, but then also put the call on
Speaker 14: hold and call assists will do it for you to
Speaker 14: buy you that minute. So you can now go grab
Speaker 14: your phone or find a quiet place to talk.
Speaker 1: Now our watches can all call for help if you
Speaker 1: take a fall, or notify you.
Speaker 2: About a lower high heart rate.
Speaker 1: Now there's a new safety feature Google's adding that detects
Speaker 1: loss of pulse.
Speaker 14: The research scientist at Google really had this ambitious thing
Speaker 14: onlike can we detect loss of pulse, and that loss
Speaker 14: of pulse is that kind of ambitious thing where it
Speaker 14: really can help you in critical moments of your life.
Speaker 14: And how it works is that it's detecting that the
Speaker 14: pulse on your wrist along with purposeful motion using the
Speaker 14: sensor of fusion, which is taking motion data and heart
Speaker 14: rate data, combining that to see if there's any loss
Speaker 14: of pulse, and then contacting both your emergency contact and
Speaker 14: emergency services to get your quick help.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that feature is only going to be
Speaker 1: available in Europe at least for now. All right, now,
Speaker 1: from our wrists to the living room. Rishi Chandra heads
Speaker 1: up Health and Home at Google. First I asked about
Speaker 1: Google's decision to kill Chrome cast in favor of a
Speaker 1: new set top box.
Speaker 15: So yeah, we launched Chrome casts in twenty thirteen and
Speaker 15: it changed TV in particular. Most TVs didn't have streaming
Speaker 15: apps at that time. It made it super simple to
Speaker 15: plug in something and you get apps as quickly as possible.
Speaker 15: What we've now found is almost every TV in the
Speaker 15: world has apps already built into it. So what we
Speaker 15: feel like is the next stage of where TV is
Speaker 15: going to go is how do you think about a
Speaker 15: really premium TV experience.
Speaker 2: Combined with the smart home experiences.
Speaker 15: So for example, today, like my monthly bill for streaming
Speaker 15: is actually pretty snificent between Netflix, YouTube, Premium Hulu, Apple TV,
Speaker 15: what have you. But we have these really cheap dongles
Speaker 15: powering my premium TV experience. Well, now we want to
Speaker 15: build a device that's actually optimized for premium TV, so
Speaker 15: you get the best YouTube TV experience, you get the
Speaker 15: best Netflix experience, and we want to bridge smart home
Speaker 15: as part of it, so I should be able to
Speaker 15: see directly from my TV who's at the front door,
Speaker 15: turn off the lights, automatically change my heating settings. So
Speaker 15: we're combining those two things in this new box torm factor,
Speaker 15: which is called Google TV Streamer. A box will always
Speaker 15: be leading edge inter technology. So your TV, you want
Speaker 15: to buy that for five to ten years, so it'll
Speaker 15: give you access to apps. But if you want the latest,
Speaker 15: for example, smart home technology like matter and Thread, you're
Speaker 15: going to need a device, a separate device today until
Speaker 15: that gets embedded in TV. So we always see the
Speaker 15: box is going to be a little bit head of
Speaker 15: the curve of the latest technology, the fastest processor, the
Speaker 15: most capable AI, so that's the role of the box
Speaker 15: is that you can upgrade a little bit faster than
Speaker 15: your television. Where you know, you buy a four K TV,
Speaker 15: I want it to last, you know, five to ten
Speaker 15: years potentially, whereas a box you might want upgrade every
Speaker 15: two three years.
Speaker 2: And that's how we think about it.
Speaker 1: Chandra has been at Google for quite some time. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know his thoughts on how AI is shaping
Speaker 1: the future of home and health products.
Speaker 15: I would say it's an incredibly exciting time because AI
Speaker 15: has this huge potential to change how we think about
Speaker 15: technology products. I helped launch the original Croncast, I help
Speaker 15: launch the original Google Home products.
Speaker 4: With the Google Assistant.
Speaker 15: And the fact that we can actually now apply this
Speaker 15: new technology like LMS and really think see a step
Speaker 15: function change in capability. It's super excit in my mind
Speaker 15: of where we can take health, or we can take home,
Speaker 15: or you can take personal assistance. All of that is
Speaker 15: going to change over the next two years. So I
Speaker 15: think it's really exciting time to be in technology in general.
Speaker 1: There you have it all the updates from Google's latest event,
Speaker 1: and although Google has been working on AI for quite
Speaker 1: some time, it seems we're finally at a turning point
Speaker 1: where it can actually benefit products and make our lives easier.
Speaker 1: Of course, nothing comes without downsides, AI included. All right,
Speaker 1: more of your calls coming up at eighty to eight
Speaker 1: rich one on one that's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two or one zero one.
Speaker 2: My name is Rich Damuro and you are listening to
Speaker 2: rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology at triple A rich one
Speaker 1: on one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four one zero one. The website for the show rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot TV. You can find me there. You
Speaker 1: can sign up for the newsletter. You can see my
Speaker 1: TV reports and also email me. Just hit contact up
Speaker 1: at the top and that should get your message right
Speaker 1: to my inbox. Let's see here. Let's go to Jack
Speaker 1: in north Ridge. Jack, you're on.
Speaker 2: With rich.
Speaker 10: Hello.
Speaker 2: Hi, Hello, Yeah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 10: Hi, thank you for call.
Speaker 8: Let's go with the customer. My question is I have
Speaker 8: an ex girlfriend who is tracking me. She knows where
Speaker 8: I'm going. I think she can read my text messages.
Speaker 8: So I don't know if I need to get a
Speaker 8: track software on my phone or if there's something I
Speaker 8: can buy to see if there's something on the bottom
Speaker 8: of my car. But it's getting kind of scary, so
Speaker 8: I need your help.
Speaker 2: Well, how do you think she's tracking you?
Speaker 8: Well, she knows. She's mentioned in the conversations where I
Speaker 8: was at like physically with out like oh you were here,
Speaker 8: you were there, And I don't think she's following me.
Speaker 8: So I don't know what's going on. And some I
Speaker 8: think she had access to my text messages somehow because
Speaker 8: she knows what I was saying and a message to somebody,
Speaker 8: and she doesn't have access to my phone.
Speaker 2: Are you on iPhone?
Speaker 4: I am?
Speaker 2: Okay? And is she on iPhone?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 8: She is no longer like part of my she used
Speaker 8: to be part of like my Apple.
Speaker 2: ID right right, that's her.
Speaker 8: Own because that was a whole mess doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so she has a different company now, she's with
Speaker 8: T Mobile with AT and T and yeah. So I
Speaker 8: have an Apple phone and she has an Apple phone,
Speaker 8: but she's not on my network anymore. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, but I guess the question is is she
Speaker 1: still somehow on your Apple I d like, maybe you disconnected,
Speaker 1: but she's still kind of either in your family or
Speaker 1: you know, in the Find My app, because I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, there's either an air tag that's tracking you,
Speaker 1: which you know, if there's an air tag on your
Speaker 1: on your person or something like that, it would it
Speaker 1: would show up on your iPhone, you know, would say like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's an there's an unknown tracker nearby. So my feeling
Speaker 1: is that there's either Okay, so the things that I
Speaker 1: would think that could be happening here, there's either somehow
Speaker 1: somewhere along the line, you exchanged, uh sharing with that person.
Speaker 1: So for instance, my kids can see where I am
Speaker 1: on their iPhone because we've exchanged at one point, we
Speaker 1: set up some sort of you know, hey, we're in
Speaker 1: the family, and I can see where they are, they
Speaker 1: can see where I am. So I think maybe I
Speaker 1: would go through and check that on your Apple account,
Speaker 1: see if you're sharing your your location with anyone. That's
Speaker 1: what I would look at, because otherwise.
Speaker 8: I mean, I don't think I am I think I
Speaker 8: did that, but I'll tell you, I'll double check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I would double check because that's the only
Speaker 1: one unless she has a physical tracker on you.
Speaker 2: That's really the only way.
Speaker 1: Now there's other third party apps like if there's something
Speaker 1: that you know, maybe you know, like a Life three
Speaker 1: sixty or something like that, maybe you forgot about it,
Speaker 1: but again that would have to be on your phone
Speaker 1: and active. So maybe what I would do if you're
Speaker 1: on the iPhone, you know there's a there's a locations,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's got to be some link to
Speaker 1: your iCloud account in some way, So I would go
Speaker 1: through all of those, like where it says family, and
Speaker 1: then in your privacy and security, I would go through
Speaker 1: like your location services, and I would go through all
Speaker 1: of those and make sure that there's no app in
Speaker 1: there that might get access to your location that she
Speaker 1: may also have access to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well just just go through.
Speaker 1: And like make sure like for me, you know, I've
Speaker 1: got you I don't know, sixty sixty apps or have
Speaker 1: access to my location. Yeah, I mean, maybe she's just
Speaker 1: tap it into one of those. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways that you can do this, but you know,
Speaker 1: if it's if it's somehow on your account, that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that you can kind of stop on
Speaker 1: your end and then hopefully she can't. But I mean
Speaker 1: what I would do also is you know, maybe is
Speaker 1: she texting you this information.
Speaker 2: How she's saying I know where you.
Speaker 8: Are to a conversation. We were talking and she goes,
Speaker 8: oh you were here and this and now I was like,
Speaker 8: oh my gosh, okay, and I said, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 8: was it was so.
Speaker 1: I mean, she could have also been she could have
Speaker 1: been calling your bluff. I would you know, she might
Speaker 1: She might just be saying.
Speaker 2: Some of the stuff.
Speaker 8: I don't think so, but maybe maybe.
Speaker 2: I mean it just you know, it depends.
Speaker 1: Like There's my point is I would look for ways
Speaker 1: to actually to actually know if she knows where you are.
Speaker 1: The other thing you can do is just turn location
Speaker 1: services off on your phone altogether for a week and
Speaker 1: see if she can still work her magic and figure
Speaker 1: out where you are.
Speaker 2: I know it's.
Speaker 1: Tricky, but if anyone's using sort of an air tag
Speaker 1: or on the Google side, one of the find my
Speaker 1: devices gadgets, they all will report, whether it's iPhone or Android,
Speaker 1: it will report back to you and tell you that
Speaker 1: you have an unknown tracker following you. So you got
Speaker 1: to look for the ways that she may have access
Speaker 1: that could be, you know, as much as just going
Speaker 1: through your settings. Let's go to Melody and Carl's Bad Melody.
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich?
Speaker 16: Hi, Rich, listen. I several years ago was building a
Speaker 16: house and in the process looking for building materials, and
Speaker 16: I'd be out and.
Speaker 1: Take pictures of the door or.
Speaker 16: That window and whatever, and anyways, I deleted all of
Speaker 16: those from my phone once my house was built and
Speaker 16: I moved into it. But now those photos still continue
Speaker 16: to show up on my screensaver.
Speaker 1: Okay, unware screensaver on what on my lap? So your
Speaker 1: mac book my desktop? Okay, so you have like a
Speaker 1: Mac computer.
Speaker 16: I have a Mac and it's on my neck. Okay,
Speaker 16: so I check the library. They're not in the library
Speaker 16: because I deleted them. They're deleted from my other devices,
Speaker 16: so they're not on my other device with my iPad
Speaker 16: in my obviously my phone, but they still show up
Speaker 16: on my screen saver, and I don't know how to
Speaker 16: get rid of them.
Speaker 2: I went to my iCloud, yeah, and they're not there.
Speaker 10: Got deleted photos or to.
Speaker 16: Delete them there, but I can only delete photos that
Speaker 16: have been deleted in the last thirty days.
Speaker 2: So okay, well I get rid of them. A couple things.
Speaker 1: So first off, have you you've gone into your you've
Speaker 1: gone into your settings screen saver, Photos and then options,
Speaker 1: and you've gone in there into that folder where it
Speaker 1: says choose folder. No okay, okay, So that's where you
Speaker 1: need to go. That's the first place to go. So
Speaker 1: I'll put these instructions on the website rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. I'll put them in the show notes. But
Speaker 1: basically you need to go into the screen saver on
Speaker 1: your settings. So system Preferences, screen saver, scroll down to
Speaker 1: where it says photos. Click there and it says source
Speaker 1: and mine currently says colors. But if it says choose
Speaker 1: choose folder or photo library, you have to go in
Speaker 1: there and find the folder where it's picking those pictures
Speaker 1: out of and delete the pictures out of that folder
Speaker 1: and then empty the trash and once you do that,
Speaker 1: it will be a better place. So that's where they live,
Speaker 1: and that's where it's pulling them from. So sometimes when
Speaker 1: you add a picture to a screen saver, or sometimes
Speaker 1: it gets added, it's just in that folder forever and
Speaker 1: it's kind of copied there. So once you decide, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't want these anymore, go in there, check to
Speaker 1: make sure they're not there, and that should do it.
Speaker 1: If that's not working. There is a way to sort
Speaker 1: of clear the cash on the screen saver that's a
Speaker 1: little bit more complicated, So I think you go with
Speaker 1: the first solution first. I'll put the other solution on
Speaker 1: the show notes. But if that doesn't work, you can
Speaker 1: clear the cash for the screen saver, which sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes your computer saying, oh, we know that that Melody
Speaker 1: wants these pictures here, so we're gonna make sure we
Speaker 1: protect them. Even if she deletes them in other places,
Speaker 1: We're still gonna save a copy of those so you
Speaker 1: can delete that copy as well. But I think if
Speaker 1: you go into that folder, you may find that it's
Speaker 1: directed to that folder and those pictures are in there.
Speaker 1: Who wants to see construction photos on their screensaver? Nobody,
Speaker 1: especially when the construction's done. Great question, Melody. I know
Speaker 1: when I see the random pictures that I take on
Speaker 1: my daily basis for my work.
Speaker 2: I take so many pictures.
Speaker 1: And they show up on my Google Home and I'm like, Google,
Speaker 1: why are you showing me these random pictures? They are
Speaker 1: not fun at all. You are listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology at eight eight eight Rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Try to get to a
Speaker 1: couple more calls here. This is the final hour of
Speaker 1: the show this week. Coming up later on in the show,
Speaker 1: I've got a great guest, Max Tegmark, MIT, professor AI researcher.
Speaker 1: He is going to talk about the pros and cons
Speaker 1: of AI. What should we be concerned about because things
Speaker 1: are moving very fast in this AI world, so it's
Speaker 1: going to be an interesting conversation coming up a little
Speaker 1: bit later. The website for the show rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. If you want links to anything I mentioned,
Speaker 1: you can also email me there. Just hit contact up
Speaker 1: at the top. Jim writes in from Prescott Valley, Arizona. Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I've got a Fitbit Charge four. I'm a fan of
Speaker 1: the Fitbit products and wondered if any of them could
Speaker 1: push heart rate alerts to my iPhone like the Apple
Speaker 1: Watch did in the story you shared a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Thanks for all what you do and your help, Jim So, Jim,
Speaker 1: I think you're correct that the Charge four does not
Speaker 1: do the low high heart rate notifications. As far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, looking at a help page on the
Speaker 1: Fitbit help center, it says the Charge five, Inspire three,
Speaker 1: Sense two Versa three versa four, and Google pixel Watch
Speaker 1: will notify you when we detect your heart rate outside
Speaker 1: of your high or low thresholds when you appear to
Speaker 1: be inactive for at least ten minutes. I would also
Speaker 1: assume the Charge six, which maybe this wasn't updated for
Speaker 1: that one, that should also do it as well. So
Speaker 1: it looks like the newer devices do it, just not
Speaker 1: the one that you have. So all the pixel watches
Speaker 1: do that, and it seems like a lot of the
Speaker 1: fitbit watches do that. Plus the Inspire the charge but
Speaker 1: not the Charge force. You got to get a little
Speaker 1: bit higher. I'd go with the Charge six. That's the
Speaker 1: last one that I reviewed, and it's got a lot
Speaker 1: of good features, very simple if you wanted just a
Speaker 1: simple tracker, The Fitpit Charge six is really nice.
Speaker 2: So check out that.
Speaker 1: One great question let's see here from Rick in Peoria, Arizona.
Speaker 2: I love the show.
Speaker 1: My grand order has an eight month old iPhone fifteen.
Speaker 1: It lost its ability to send and receive cell data.
Speaker 1: Works fine if connected to Wi Fi, but no cell
Speaker 1: data phone calls and text work. AT and T is
Speaker 1: blaming Apple. Apple acknowledges the problem, but blames AT and T.
Speaker 1: The phone still under warranty. Apple won't replace it until
Speaker 1: they remove the software and reload it, but she'll lose
Speaker 1: all of her apps. I read on I read somewhere, Oh,
Speaker 1: I read somewhere there's an ongoing issue with Apple and
Speaker 1: AT and T. Any thoughts, Rick, love you, but this
Speaker 1: is the problem with searching for stuff like this online,
Speaker 1: because what's going to come up the forum where all
Speaker 1: the other people that I've ever in the world had
Speaker 1: a problem with AT and T in the iPhone, you know,
Speaker 1: trade notes and No, there is no ongoing issue with
Speaker 1: Apple and AT and T. Apple and AT and T
Speaker 1: are working just fine. It sounds like you have a
Speaker 1: problem with I message because you're telling me that phone
Speaker 1: calls and texts work, and it works fine if it's
Speaker 1: connected to Wi Fi but no cell data. So what
Speaker 1: I would do is I would do what's called a
Speaker 1: network settings reset. So go on your iPhone, go into
Speaker 1: settings and then go into let's see here settings General.
Speaker 2: Tap there.
Speaker 1: Down to the bottom it says transfer or reset iPhone,
Speaker 1: Tap reset, tap reset one more time. And it says
Speaker 1: reset network settings, and once you do that, that will
Speaker 1: reset all of your network settings and you will have
Speaker 1: to reconnect your iPhone to Wi Fi and Bluetooth, but
Speaker 1: it should retrigger the I message. You may have I
Speaker 1: message turned off over cellular. I don't know if that's possible,
Speaker 1: but maybe that's what happened. The other thing you can
Speaker 1: do is turn off I message and turn it back on.
Speaker 1: Maybe it just needs to reconnect the phone line. If
Speaker 1: she got a new phone, this is a relatively new
Speaker 1: phone that could be the case eight month old iPhone.
Speaker 1: But if that doesn't work work, what I would do
Speaker 1: is what they recommended, which is you have to, you know,
Speaker 1: restart the entire phone. Just just go back to that
Speaker 1: transfer or reset, erase all content and settings, and that
Speaker 1: will wipe the phone clean. Now, as long as you
Speaker 1: have an iCloud backup, you're gonna be just fine because
Speaker 1: all of our apps are going to come back from
Speaker 1: the iCloud backup. But if you're having this problem and
Speaker 1: you do the iCloud backup and restore, you may have
Speaker 1: the same problem when you restore the phone, which could
Speaker 1: be pretty frustrating. So it sounds like it's an eye
Speaker 1: message thing, because you're telling me it works fine connected
Speaker 1: to Wi Fi but not on cell data. So it
Speaker 1: sounds like some sort of messaging. Are these text messages
Speaker 1: that won't go through? Or is it? Is it just
Speaker 1: I messages that won't go through. If it's text, I
Speaker 1: think that network setting reset is going to work. If
Speaker 1: it's I message, that's another thing. But you're telling me
Speaker 1: it works connected to Wi Fi, So do the network
Speaker 1: settings reset. I think that's going to fix most of
Speaker 1: the issues you have. Carrie writes in how do you
Speaker 1: remove tickets from Ticketmaster from my wallet? There is no
Speaker 1: more button to select them to delete them. Great question, Carrie,
Speaker 1: and this is something that often comes up. Things go
Speaker 1: into the Apple Wallet and they never come out. So
Speaker 1: I think the problem is what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: activating the Apple Wallet by double pressing the side button
Speaker 1: on your phone, which yes, you're right, it does bring
Speaker 1: up all of your cards and when you tap a
Speaker 1: card you can show it, but there's no way to
Speaker 1: get rid of it. What you have to do is
Speaker 1: actually go into the Apple Wallet app. So open up
Speaker 1: your iPhone, type in wallet find, you know, search for
Speaker 1: the wallet app, and now look at all of your
Speaker 1: your cards there. So, for instance, I have my WWDC
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four pass and in the upper right hand
Speaker 1: corner there is a three dots in a circle. You
Speaker 1: tap that and then it says remove pass and when
Speaker 1: you tap that, you should be able to delete that.
Speaker 1: And so there you go. Once you have that, you
Speaker 1: will be able to delete those things. Let's go to
Speaker 1: uh Elsa in Plia del Rey, California.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey Rich, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic, Elsa.
Speaker 4: I need your help.
Speaker 3: So I have Direct TV satellite that I've had forever
Speaker 3: and I don't want to get rid of it. I've
Speaker 3: been kind of thinking about streaming and figuring it all out.
Speaker 10: But here's the latest issue for me.
Speaker 3: I wanted to keep the box in my living room.
Speaker 3: I got rid of my son's box so he can
Speaker 3: do the Direct TV app in his room, but in
Speaker 3: my TV, I have a Samsung TV and I can't
Speaker 3: do the app there unless I get a row crew.
Speaker 3: Is there something coming to change or I found that.
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: They said, yeah, Samsung doesn't let you.
Speaker 16: I guess it's proprietary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it depends there are. So you're talking about
Speaker 1: DirecTV stream. This is their streaming service. Is that we're
Speaker 1: talking about or are you talking about Direct TV's own
Speaker 1: streaming app, which, like, are you talking about You're just
Speaker 1: trying to stream your own DirecTV account or is this
Speaker 1: through direct TV Stream?
Speaker 3: No, I'm trying to stream my own Direct TV account?
Speaker 2: Okay, which you have one?
Speaker 1: So you have a satellite, You have a satellite, and
Speaker 1: this is kind of included in your in your satellite,
Speaker 1: you can just stream direct TV correct.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the problem because the direct TV
Speaker 1: stream is a standalone app which is supported on some
Speaker 1: Samsung TVs, but Samsung TV has their own kind of
Speaker 1: like app world, and it's not one of the major players.
Speaker 1: So I mean it is, but it's not. The major
Speaker 1: players are fire TV, stick, Apple TV, and Roku. As
Speaker 1: you found out, they said, oh, just get a Roku.
Speaker 1: The problem is you don't. You don't want a Roku
Speaker 1: because you already have the Samsung TV Smart tv right exactly.
Speaker 1: So the problem is you're beholden to what Samsung allows
Speaker 1: on their platform, and Direct TV has decided that there's
Speaker 1: just not enough of a user base on those TVs
Speaker 1: to support another app because their developers have to go
Speaker 1: through and write that app, and they're just seeing that,
Speaker 1: you know what, we don't have the install base that
Speaker 1: we need to make this app. So we're going to
Speaker 1: make it for Roku, We're going to make it for
Speaker 1: Apple TV, We're going to make it for fire Stick.
Speaker 2: But Samsung TV is going to be sort of left
Speaker 2: out of that.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking on the website to see have you
Speaker 1: looked at the direct tv website to see which Samsung
Speaker 1: TV models are supported, because some are.
Speaker 3: You know, I try to get onto my DirecTV account
Speaker 3: on my TV the streaming and it just said, you know,
Speaker 3: I just wouldn't go through. I'm getting that TV would
Speaker 3: not support that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like it looks like it's not on
Speaker 1: a lot of TVs, especially older TVs.
Speaker 2: How old is this TV?
Speaker 4: About five? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at all the TVs on here and
Speaker 1: they're all relatively new.
Speaker 2: So I think the best bet for.
Speaker 1: You if you want to add that that service there,
Speaker 1: you're probably going to have to get a streaming stick,
Speaker 1: and the cheapest one is really, you know, like the
Speaker 1: fire TV. I think that one's pretty cheap. Amazon typically
Speaker 1: has them on sale. I know it's not ideal, but
Speaker 1: what you can do El says, you can breathe new
Speaker 1: life into this TV. Are you using other streaming apps
Speaker 1: on this TV or no?
Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: So the good news is if you get this little
Speaker 1: you know, fire TV stick, you will be able to
Speaker 1: download all of the other apps that you already have.
Speaker 1: You're just going to have to go through that input
Speaker 1: instead of using the native kind of like TV interface
Speaker 1: that you're used to. That's the downside, and you know,
Speaker 1: but the the good news is the the out outlay,
Speaker 1: Like the expense for this is probably about thirty dollars,
Speaker 1: so it's not too much of an expense. It's more
Speaker 1: of a mindset that you've got this TV, you've got
Speaker 1: this smart TV interface, you can't get the app that
Speaker 1: you want on that interface. And so that's that is
Speaker 1: frustrating for sure.
Speaker 3: And one more day before I let you go, because
Speaker 3: as it turns out, direct TV came out with a
Speaker 3: genie that then I can get my apps or I
Speaker 3: don't know. Yeah, so the Technlicson came out and said,
Speaker 3: you know, it's what you just said. It's going to
Speaker 3: be alike because now you have your system going through
Speaker 3: something else. He's like, if you have all your apps
Speaker 3: on your TV like you do now, you don't really
Speaker 3: need it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. I would agree with that.
Speaker 1: So I would say, do you what about just ditching
Speaker 1: the satellite altogether and just signing up for direct TV stream.
Speaker 8: I considered that.
Speaker 3: That was my whole that was the purpose, so I
Speaker 3: could try it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the problem is it's not any cheaper. The problem
Speaker 2: is it's not any cheaper.
Speaker 1: Whatever you do, like Direct TV stream is basically the
Speaker 1: same price, and you may have like a promotion going
Speaker 1: with direct TV.
Speaker 2: So I would just personally, what I.
Speaker 1: Would do is, uh is, just get the dongle, get
Speaker 1: the fire TV stick, all of the apps that you're
Speaker 1: already using on Samsung TV, download them to the fire
Speaker 1: TV stick or the Roku if you want to go Roku,
Speaker 1: go with that. They make a small stick as well,
Speaker 1: and then you know, just use that as your interface
Speaker 1: on this TV and that way you can still use
Speaker 1: your Direct TV. The only thing I would do is
Speaker 1: just check with direct TV to make sure that the
Speaker 1: app that you need to download is available on these
Speaker 1: streaming sticks, because it is. It sounds like it's slightly
Speaker 1: different than the DirecTV stream app, which is more widely
Speaker 1: used than the Direct TV app that I think you
Speaker 1: need to use to sign in with your account.
Speaker 2: More of your calls coming up.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. California is
Speaker 1: going to introduce digital driver's licenses in Apple Wallet. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about that, plus the VPN that is free
Speaker 1: and it installs in your browser quickly. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we are going to talk to Max Tegmark, MIT professor
Speaker 1: and AI researcher about the AI world we live in
Speaker 1: and what could potentially be good and bad about that.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Robert in California. Robert, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 10: Very Rich.
Speaker 17: I have a question, another direct TV question as Yeah,
Speaker 17: what are the chances I just installed five TVs at
Speaker 17: a bar in Venice and their direct TV and there
Speaker 17: used to be a feature on their boxes where you.
Speaker 10: Could have them automatically tuned to a Dodger game, so
Speaker 10: gets the business account, so the bartender didn't have to
Speaker 10: pick up a remote and change it you could program
Speaker 10: another TV that it would change over to, you know,
Speaker 10: the the Rams game, and they got rid of that feature.
Speaker 10: So my thinking was, well, that's cool. If the boxes
Speaker 10: can talk to Google or to Alexa, I'll just do
Speaker 10: a routine and you know, one of the bartenders or
Speaker 10: something a little set it up for the.
Speaker 8: Week or something.
Speaker 10: But they don't talk to Google or Alexa. And I
Speaker 10: don't want to use a Harmony hub.
Speaker 4: I thought about that, but.
Speaker 10: Is there something similar to a Harmony hub where I
Speaker 10: could have it change channels for me on a schedule.
Speaker 1: I think we've had this question on the show before.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember. So the auto tune, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: don't do that anymore. And these boxes the only thing
Speaker 1: I'm okay, the thing that I think might work. And
Speaker 1: maybe you've already thought about this, but what about just
Speaker 1: DVR ing the games and so the DVR switches to
Speaker 1: that channel at that time.
Speaker 10: Shoot, that'll work that it'll just switch once you do
Speaker 10: the DVR.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, the the problem is I think there's probably like
Speaker 1: depends on how many tuners there are on these boxes.
Speaker 1: So let's just say you have the box and there's
Speaker 1: two tuners, you know, because a lot of these DVRs
Speaker 1: have like two tuners built in. So what I would
Speaker 1: do is try to see if you can record the
Speaker 1: game on both tuners, you know, like maybe record like that.
Speaker 1: That's the only downside to that plan.
Speaker 10: And maybe the Genie they're the Genie boxes, so uh,
Speaker 10: I'm not sure that they I didn't even look into
Speaker 10: whether they're recording, but that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's that's the only thing I can each
Speaker 1: has its own box. Yeah, I mean, that's the only
Speaker 1: thing I can think of is just try it program
Speaker 1: the games in, you know, just just I mean anything,
Speaker 1: just record anything and see if it switches. But I'm
Speaker 1: just remembering from the days of TVO. What it would
Speaker 1: do is it would if you had, let's say you
Speaker 1: had a thing recording, it would record that on the
Speaker 1: tuner you weren't using in the background, and then the
Speaker 1: foreground would continue to stay on the show you're on.
Speaker 1: But the way to get around that would be to
Speaker 1: record maybe both. I don't know if it'll let you
Speaker 1: record on two different tuners, but that's the only thing
Speaker 1: I can think of other than other than some sort
Speaker 1: of like ir blaster like you said, like a matrix switch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that that could work.
Speaker 2: But what would that How would that work exactly?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 10: A major switch. Then that's that's that's on the internet
Speaker 10: that I can talk to and have a schedule. Yeah,
Speaker 10: it's like a smart matrix switch. But I've never seen
Speaker 10: anything like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems that seems like you're getting a
Speaker 1: little complicated too, you know, like you want to keep
Speaker 1: this simple because you want it to work and you
Speaker 1: want to run your business. But I think the DVR,
Speaker 1: Try that and see if that works. If not, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of IR blaster or like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to It's just depends on what the genie can.
Speaker 10: You know, Harmony, the Harmony hubs are just they still work, no, right,
Speaker 10: they're just not supporting them anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's just so complicated, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: you're gonna be programming and sitting there and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out you know, all these times. Try the DVR thing.
Speaker 1: I think that might work. But report back, go to
Speaker 1: the website. Let me know, you know, Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. Hit contact sounds like a fun place. Sounds
Speaker 1: like you got a fun place going there. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the call, Robert, appreciate it. California. Speaking of California, if
Speaker 1: you live in California, soon you're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: add your driver's license and state ID to Apple Wallet.
Speaker 2: This is coming soon.
Speaker 1: We don't have a date just yet, but Apple has
Speaker 1: announced it and this is going to happen. So I
Speaker 1: got a demo of this yesterday. You basically scan your
Speaker 1: ID with your iPhone, they verify it through the state.
Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden, you get a digital version
Speaker 1: of your driver's license. And what's neat about this is
Speaker 1: that any business can just use an iPhone to check
Speaker 1: to see the validity of your ID. And the best
Speaker 1: part is it is private. So when you show your
Speaker 1: ID to a bouncer, if they have a photographic memory,
Speaker 1: they could remember everything on your ID, right, everything from
Speaker 1: your age to your weight, height, whatever your address. With this,
Speaker 1: it only presents the information that they need to verify.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you're presenting for like, let's say you
Speaker 1: want to verify that you're twenty one, you tap your
Speaker 1: phone to their phone and it will just verify without
Speaker 1: even exchanging your day to birth. It just says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this person's over twenty one. It's all encrypted. Arizona, Maryland, Colorado, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and Ohio already doing it. Coming soon, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico. Yes, this is happening digital IDs. You still
Speaker 1: need to carry your physical though. Don't forget. This is
Speaker 1: rich On Tech. Welcome, come back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Very excited for my next guest, Max tech Mark. You
Speaker 1: know we're all about AI. Max tech Mark is an
Speaker 1: MIT professor and AI researcher. He's also a best selling
Speaker 1: author and founder of the Future of Life Institute. Max
Speaker 1: is going to talk to us about AI, its potential,
Speaker 1: and what could possibly go wrong.
Speaker 2: Max, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Well thanks for joining me, appreciate it. I'm curious because, well,
Speaker 1: first off, just briefly explain the Future of Life Institute.
Speaker 2: What are you doing there?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so my day job is just being a
Speaker 4: professor at MIT doing AI research many years so I'm
Speaker 4: basically a huge nerd. But ten years ago I also
Speaker 4: started this nonprofit organization to make sure that this ever
Speaker 4: more powerful tech rebuilding actually just used for for good things,
Speaker 4: not for bad things.
Speaker 1: So you were initially very optimistic about AI's potential. What
Speaker 1: made you hopeful? And then I think the landscape has changed,
Speaker 1: So what kind of changed your tune to saying hey,
Speaker 1: we need to be aware of this and kind of cautious.
Speaker 4: Great question, So let's look at the big picture a
Speaker 4: little bit here. You know, the big idea that's given
Speaker 4: us all of computer tech and all of AI so
Speaker 4: far as this idea that the brain is really a
Speaker 4: biological computer and that therefore, you know, we humans should
Speaker 4: be able to build machines that do everything the brain does.
Speaker 4: For a long as time, we struggled with figuring it out.
Speaker 4: And actually, back in nineteen fifty one, Alan Turing is
Speaker 4: kind of the godfather of the whole field to day,
Speaker 4: I said that, you know, befar off, but if it
Speaker 4: ever happened, it's going to be cool. But we might
Speaker 4: also we're probably going to just lose control over it.
Speaker 4: We're going to build a new robot species basically, and
Speaker 4: they're going to take over Earth. But don't worry. And
Speaker 4: then he said, I'm going to give you a canary
Speaker 4: in the coal mine a test, so you know when
Speaker 4: it's close. He said, it's called the Turing test when
Speaker 4: machines get good enough at mastering language and knowledge that
Speaker 4: taken fool a lot of people into thinking they're humans.
Speaker 2: Now we're there.
Speaker 4: This is where we are all of a sudden right
Speaker 4: now with GPTs four oh and so on. So you know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of fascinating debate about this. People. Some
Speaker 4: people are very excited, some people are concerned. I'm actually both.
Speaker 4: The people who are excited, they are like, they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is great, because if we can make we can
Speaker 4: amplify our intelligence, then we secure cancer, all the other diseases,
Speaker 4: fegure out how to lift people out of poverty, solve climate,
Speaker 4: you know, go to space. On the other hand, a
Speaker 4: lot of people wants to remember tourings warning. You know,
Speaker 4: we're the ouphae species here on Earth, not because we're
Speaker 4: are more muscular than tigers, but because we're smarter. Right,
Speaker 4: So it's pretty obvious if we build a robot species
Speaker 4: with ten billion robots that are way smarter than nuts
Speaker 4: in every possible way, better at manipulating us, better at
Speaker 4: building robot factories, better at inventing tech. They don't care
Speaker 4: about us.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, do you think do you think
Speaker 1: there's a scenario where we build the robot and eventually
Speaker 1: it turns on us.
Speaker 4: Well, of course, of course there is, That's what Touring
Speaker 4: was talking about. But there's also a scenario where it
Speaker 4: goes really well, So I'll take that one. Well, the
Speaker 4: thing is we shouldn't stay here and eat popcorn and
Speaker 4: just go to watch the future unfold, right, which is
Speaker 4: we're building it now. So which way it's going to
Speaker 4: go wholly depends on what we do. If we raise children,
Speaker 4: for example, we put a do you have kids?
Speaker 2: I do, yes.
Speaker 4: You probably put a lot of effort into not just
Speaker 4: teach seeing them what a nice is and teaching them
Speaker 4: how to make fights, but also teaching them morality and
Speaker 4: teaching them what's the good ways to use the knife
Speaker 4: and the mass and not the bad ways. Right, And
Speaker 4: we need to do the same with our machines. And
Speaker 4: if we just have if you just take a bunch
Speaker 4: of kids and put them in the kindergarten and give
Speaker 4: them a bunch of chain saws and hand grenades and
Speaker 4: tech that they're they don't quite have the wisdom to handle,
Speaker 4: of course it's going to go badly, right If you
Speaker 4: educate them, well, great, things can happen.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. So, I mean, we live in America,
Speaker 1: capitalist society. We've got companies like Google, We've got open AI,
Speaker 1: We've got Anthropic, We've got so many companies. AI is
Speaker 1: the hottest thing right now. If one company doesn't do it,
Speaker 1: isn't another going to do it? Because it's all in
Speaker 1: the in the you know, they're trying to be the
Speaker 1: biggest and the best depends.
Speaker 4: You know, look at the pharma. Would you say that, oh,
Speaker 4: if one person doesn't thee one medical company isn't allowed
Speaker 4: to build some self sentiment to everybody, someone else is
Speaker 4: going to do that. Of course not. That's where we
Speaker 4: have the FDA, right so there's a safety standard and
Speaker 4: there's a race to the top where companies whatever company
Speaker 4: can first produce safe drugs so they can persuade some
Speaker 4: FDA experts this the benefits of this O way, the harms,
Speaker 4: they make the money. So there's a lot of discussion
Speaker 4: right now in California right about this new law s
Speaker 4: the where will they try to put in place some
Speaker 4: stuff going in that direction to make AI be a
Speaker 4: little bit like more like biotech or airplanes or cars.
Speaker 4: Where where the ultimately you have standards that the companies
Speaker 4: have to meet so that they compete to make space stuff.
Speaker 1: So you think that would be that would work. Now
Speaker 1: that's in America. Do you think that would work worldwide?
Speaker 5: Totally?
Speaker 4: I mean not because other countries like America. But you
Speaker 4: know why is it that China has an FDA, Well
Speaker 4: because a bunch of GIA these companies poisoned the ruse
Speaker 4: of Chinese people in the past with bad drugs, so
Speaker 4: they decided to protect the Chinese. They were going to
Speaker 4: have some laws same in Europe. So actually it's really interesting.
Speaker 4: Europe has a new law now that u AI trying
Speaker 4: to have some shot safety standards for aire. China already
Speaker 4: enacted some so a lot of people in California. Senator
Speaker 4: Weener I really applaud this effort is trying to get
Speaker 4: something similar in California, but California law is much weaker
Speaker 4: so far, but I think it's a it's a good
Speaker 4: first step at least since there's absolutely nothing happening in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: What's the most concerning part about all this is it
Speaker 1: the fact that we don't have these rules in place
Speaker 1: before these companies continue to progress, or.
Speaker 4: What yeah, I think so. It's a there's so much opportunity,
Speaker 4: as we just talked about, right to do amazing things
Speaker 4: with this technology if we do it right, and it
Speaker 4: would be an incredible pity if we squander by having
Speaker 4: creating also the disasters you know last year, it's CEOs
Speaker 4: of all the top companies that you just listened there
Speaker 4: a thropic, Google, Beat, Mime and Open AI, together with
Speaker 4: some of the most famous A researchers in the world,
Speaker 4: find this open statement saying it is to cause human
Speaker 4: extinction if we don't act carefully. So that's all.
Speaker 1: That's a big statement, human extinction from something that we're
Speaker 1: creating on a computer.
Speaker 4: Well, you know again we're not. Yeah, if you think
Speaker 4: people who dismiss this as just ridiculous, they tend to
Speaker 4: think of AI as just a new technology like the
Speaker 4: Internet or the Steam engine, whereas the AI researchers and
Speaker 4: the CEO to sign this, they think of it as
Speaker 4: a new species because you know, if you have something
Speaker 4: which is much smarter than us and can live in
Speaker 4: a robot body and can do absolutely everything we can,
Speaker 4: and build copies of itself and it's own robot factories,
Speaker 4: not even species, right, and I think we should really
Speaker 4: think twice if we do this, to make sure it's
Speaker 4: a species that we liked us and it's going to
Speaker 4: help us flourish, rather than some species that just doesn't
Speaker 4: care about us and just use us as an irritating test.
Speaker 2: Wow, this is so wild.
Speaker 1: I just I really it's it's like it's exciting because
Speaker 1: most of the consumers are just using things like chatchybt uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and and Claude and you know, Gemini and
Speaker 1: so it's it's just text based. But I think the
Speaker 1: next level is what you're talking about, because someone is
Speaker 1: going to build this into a robot form, which you know,
Speaker 1: we're already seeing a little bit of that.
Speaker 4: So of course, I mean it's up driving cars a robot.
Speaker 4: This doesn't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in an Hollywood movie,
Speaker 4: and it has a different shape and there's a huge effort.
Speaker 4: Now it has less Optimus and then a bunch of
Speaker 4: other companies, and you know what's the craziest thing is
Speaker 4: it's that it's happening much faster than that we stought,
Speaker 4: you know, five years ago, almost all my professor nerd
Speaker 4: colleagues thought it's something as good as Chatsypt. Four oh
Speaker 4: was thirty forty years away, and boom it happened. You know,
Speaker 4: it turned out there was an easier way to do
Speaker 4: it than we start. And a lot of people now
Speaker 4: who used to think that this this that's getting totally outsmart,
Speaker 4: My machine might be one hundred years away, or now
Speaker 4: saying maybe it's it's a lot closer, five years away,
Speaker 4: maybe it's two years away. Are you even here people
Speaker 4: one year away? Some people say no, no, it won't
Speaker 4: happen for a long time, won't happen until end of
Speaker 4: the decade, like twenty thirty. So that we're not talking
Speaker 4: anymore about something happening on this timescaled climate change. We're
Speaker 4: to talk a lot. There's a real seriousness thinking now
Speaker 4: that you might just few years away from it, and
Speaker 4: that means we kind of have to get back together.
Speaker 4: And I have some insights from State of California and
Speaker 4: from the governments and so on. Basically, if we can
Speaker 4: have an FBA for AI to make sure that it's
Speaker 4: gifts as we get on the benefits and then other downside,
Speaker 4: we have to start. Now.
Speaker 1: We're gonna leave it there, Max, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Max teg Mark from the Future of Life Institute Futureoflife
Speaker 1: dot Org. Thanks so much for joining me today. That
Speaker 1: is such a wild, wild topic and oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling you I'm having this conversation where I
Speaker 1: just I just got on my phone the Gemini Live,
Speaker 1: which is Google's kind of humanistic version of AI, and
Speaker 1: it is very convincing. So I see a future where
Speaker 1: build this into a robot and game over all. Right,
Speaker 1: coming up, we're gonna read the feedback. These are your comments,
Speaker 1: your questions, your emails, all coming.
Speaker 2: Up right here rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech, closing out the show.
Speaker 1: Our number three here closing it out two stories before
Speaker 1: we get to the feedbag. Rich on Tech dot tv
Speaker 1: is the website, by the way, new world record for
Speaker 1: the most gaming consoles hooked up to one TV four
Speaker 1: hundred and forty four.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: This is a guy from Saudi Arabia has the new
Speaker 1: Guinness World record, uses over thirty RCA switchers and twelve
Speaker 1: HDMI switchers, manages it all via an Excel spreadsheet. He's
Speaker 1: got everything from the nineteen seventy two Magnavox Odyssey to
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty three PlayStation five, Slim his favorite the
Speaker 1: Sega Genesis. And if you're looking for a free VPN,
Speaker 1: I mentioned this on the show. Proton offers a free VPN,
Speaker 1: but now they also offer access to it via a
Speaker 1: browser extension, so you can encrypt your browser traffic with
Speaker 1: just one click. Now available for all Proton vpn users.
Speaker 1: Even the free users extension is compatible with Firefox and
Speaker 1: Chrome Edge Brave operates independently, no need for a desktop app.
Speaker 1: This means that you can install this on your browser
Speaker 1: and very quickly and easily protect your browsing with a VPN.
Speaker 1: The free plan offers one connection. Paid plans allow up
Speaker 1: to ten, and this is good. If you're in a
Speaker 1: country where you can't get a VPN on your desktop
Speaker 1: store maybe it's blocked. You can just install it through
Speaker 1: an extension, So check out Proton vpn in the Chrome
Speaker 1: web Store and Firefox add ons. All right, now, time
Speaker 1: for the feedback. This is the emails, the comments, the
Speaker 1: questions you email into me. Jay writes in hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I have an Amazon Echo plugged into my PC running
Speaker 1: Windows ten, but it has no microphone. I want an
Speaker 1: Alexa app for my PC so I can add remove
Speaker 1: Alexa functions via the app on the computer. The only
Speaker 1: apps I can find it for smartphones. Thanks for any help.
Speaker 1: There is an Alexa app for Windows. I would try that,
Speaker 1: but yes, most of the functionality is through the smartphone apps.
Speaker 1: Do you not have a smartphone, because that's pretty rare
Speaker 1: these days, but yes, try downloading the Amazon Alexa app
Speaker 1: for Windows. Look in the Windows Store search Amazon Alexa.
Speaker 1: Neil's writes in I thought AltaVista did extremely well with
Speaker 1: its search results. I could hardly tell the difference between
Speaker 1: what Google returned and what AltaVista returned. In the late
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, Google drowned out Alta Vista, Yahoo and others
Speaker 1: because of perception of marketing not necessarily superior results. Had
Speaker 1: Alta Vista survived and had the marketing power Google had,
Speaker 1: they might be major competitors.
Speaker 2: You said it yourself.
Speaker 1: Google has thrown billions at companies over the years to
Speaker 1: be to the fault search engine.
Speaker 2: Alta Vista didn't have those billions. I do agree.
Speaker 1: I think AltaVista back in the day was very good,
Speaker 1: but I do think Google had better search results. At
Speaker 1: a certain point people realized they did have better search results,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's what powered Google in the
Speaker 1: early days, and I think what solidified their power was
Speaker 1: some of those deals you talked about. Thanks for the email.
Speaker 1: Harry writes in from North Carolina. I just heard a
Speaker 1: segment about a solar powered electric car. I was wondering
Speaker 1: when someone would put a solar collector on the roof
Speaker 1: of a Tesla. You were the caller recommended mention the
Speaker 1: automatic driving mode of the Tesla. I'm sorry, but in
Speaker 1: my opinion, there's no place for automatic driving mode. I've
Speaker 1: been driving since nineteen fifty six, including semi trailers. My
Speaker 1: driving career ended due to an accident, but my driving
Speaker 1: education remained. Too many people wrongly depend on cruise control
Speaker 1: set at slightly above the speed limit and sit alone
Speaker 1: in the passing lane, oblivious to their surroundings. I'm concerned
Speaker 1: about allowing an automatically driven vehicle to ride alongside trucks
Speaker 1: and tires.
Speaker 2: Where's where's the intelligence? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Use my automatic driving a lot, and it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: You gotta keep an eye on it like anything else.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the email. Dylan from Saint Louis writes in
Speaker 1: months ago, you mentioned raise now called c GCX. I've
Speaker 1: become a huge fan of the site. I now only
Speaker 1: buy Starbucks, Amazon, and many other gift cards from this
Speaker 1: site to get a discount. I don't go into any
Speaker 1: store online or in person without checking if GCX has
Speaker 1: a discounted gift card. I don't know why everyone doesn't
Speaker 1: use it. You might want to mention it again on
Speaker 1: your program. I'm a devoted fan who listens to your
Speaker 1: podcast every week. Thanks for your hard work and all
Speaker 1: you do in helping us understand tech. Yes, raise, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize they changed the name to looking looks like
Speaker 1: it's Gift Card Exchange or something GCX.
Speaker 2: It is a great site. You save money.
Speaker 1: It takes a little bit of work, and not everyone
Speaker 1: wants to do the work, but yeah, if you do it,
Speaker 1: you can get it. Let's see what else here. David
Speaker 1: from Northridge writes in thanks for carrying the torch for
Speaker 1: free tech on the air and on podcasts. Keep up
Speaker 1: the great work with all the new stuff and helping
Speaker 1: other PE people. Dave from North Rich thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Daniel from Ruther for ten rights in where's that? Ruther
Speaker 1: for ten a North Carolina Rich just wanted to say thanks.
Speaker 1: I love the podcast and I always get a little
Speaker 1: knowledge to help me my tech life.
Speaker 2: You're the best. Well, thank you, that is my goal.
Speaker 1: Harley from Tallahassee rites in, mister Demiro, I always enjoy
Speaker 1: your informative show. I listen on Sundays at seven pm
Speaker 1: Eastern on WFLA one hundred and seven FM. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening there in Tallahassee, Florida. Macy from Coast
Speaker 1: to Mesa writes in, I've been watching you on KTLA
Speaker 1: since you first started. Oh my gosh, I probably didn't
Speaker 1: have the gray hairs on the side. I've used your
Speaker 1: advice on so many issues. You are more helpful to
Speaker 1: the quote common people than you probably know.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what.
Speaker 1: That's probably because I'm a common person. You know.
Speaker 2: This is the thing.
Speaker 1: I am not a tech expert. I'm not a tech
Speaker 1: like you know. I'm not like an IT person. I'm
Speaker 1: just an average person that loves this stuff. And that's
Speaker 1: why I try to tell you what we need to
Speaker 1: know about this stuff, because I'm just the same.
Speaker 2: I get a gadget just like you.
Speaker 1: I just happen to get a lot of them, so
Speaker 1: I get to play with a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: and tell you the good, the bad, what we need
Speaker 1: to know, the websites that are useful. That's the best
Speaker 1: part is it's all for you that's going to do
Speaker 1: it for this episode of the show. You can find
Speaker 1: links to everything I mentioned on my website. Just go
Speaker 1: to rich on tech dot tv. You can find me
Speaker 1: on social media. I am at rich on tech if
Speaker 1: you want to check my Instagram Instagram, that's where I
Speaker 1: am the most. Next week, I'll tell you about a
Speaker 1: set top box that's made just for seniors in mind.
Speaker 2: It's really cool.
Speaker 1: And if you want to sign up for my newsletter,
Speaker 1: go to the website rich on tech dot tv pop
Speaker 1: in your email.
Speaker 2: It is free.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate if you become a paid subscriber. That
Speaker 1: is something that is completely optional. It's just to support
Speaker 1: my newsletter and the work I do there. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. There are so many ways you
Speaker 1: can spend your time. I really do appreciate you spending
Speaker 1: it right here with me. Thanks to everyone who makes
Speaker 1: this show possible. My name is rich d'miro. It has
Speaker 1: been an honor to hang out with you for the
Speaker 1: last couple of hours. I'll talk to you real soon.