Speaker 1: What's going on on rich Demiro And this is rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, this show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. You know,
Speaker 1: I believe that technology should be easy, helpful, and sometimes,
Speaker 1: while worthy, it could also be frustrating. I get that
Speaker 1: phone lines are open at triple A Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
Speaker 1: to one zero one. Give me a call. If you
Speaker 1: have a question about technology, email is also open. Send
Speaker 1: it to hello at Richontech dot TV. Happy. Uh, fourth
Speaker 1: of July weekend? Is that a thing is fourth? It
Speaker 1: is fourth of July weekend, right, because fourth of July
Speaker 1: is coming up, and this is the weekend that precedes it.
Speaker 1: So it is fourth of July weekend. So good weather,
Speaker 1: hopefully where you are. Hopefully you've got some plans, you know.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about if Fourth of July has been
Speaker 1: impacted by technology, and I think it has. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you how. Drone shows, so I think some of
Speaker 1: you will be watching and I know this sounds wild,
Speaker 1: instead of actual fireworks, I think you'll be watching drone
Speaker 1: fireworks shows. I have not personally seen one of these
Speaker 1: in the flesh. But I know they're happening, and i
Speaker 1: know they're happening around town, and I'm sure they're happening
Speaker 1: where you are, so kind of cool. I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't have to pick up all the stuff afterwards. But
Speaker 1: I think the standard I'm gonna have to do a
Speaker 1: comparison of the traditional fireworks show and the drone fireworks show.
Speaker 1: I think that the boom of the fireworks is probably
Speaker 1: more fun. Although if you live in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: I know this from personal experience, the fireworks continue for
Speaker 1: about a week in the LA area. Even though somehow
Speaker 1: fireworks are not allowed in this area, everyone has them.
Speaker 1: And I think last year I had to go to
Speaker 1: work the next morning and I wake up pretty early
Speaker 1: and it was just all night long. I mean, you
Speaker 1: want fireworks in your neighborhood, It's happening in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: So maybe the drone shows are better.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So I've got a lesson to tell you about this week.
Speaker 1: That is a really you know, I'm not I don't
Speaker 1: like to be a downer, but and this is not
Speaker 1: like a downer story. Don't feel sorry for me whatever,
Speaker 1: but I am going to tell you a story, and
Speaker 1: I think there's a pretty good lesson to be learned
Speaker 1: from it. So here's the story. I drove home from work,
Speaker 1: parked my car on the street. My wife was leaving,
Speaker 1: So typically I like to park my car in the driveway, right,
Speaker 1: just because it's a sense of security. My car's in
Speaker 1: the driveway, no one's going to hit it in the driveway. Well,
Speaker 1: I park it on the street, and sure enough, you know,
Speaker 1: I do my thing inside, my wife leaves whatever, and
Speaker 1: I come outside. This was late late in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: so this was all the way, you know, six seven,
Speaker 1: eight hours later. And the first thing I do when
Speaker 1: I come outside is look at my car. And it's like, literally, wait,
Speaker 1: what the heck happened to this car? Someone clearly hit
Speaker 1: my car and it was just totally messed up. And
Speaker 1: I said, and they were all outside playing basketball in
Speaker 1: front of the house, and I said, none of you
Speaker 1: notice the car is just totally messed up. And they
Speaker 1: all look at it like, oh my gosh. First thing
Speaker 1: I do is look at my car. This is a
Speaker 1: habit that I just look at my car to see
Speaker 1: what has happened to it since the last time I
Speaker 1: was in my car, and so immediately I've got one
Speaker 1: of these cars that has the full DVR system, right,
Speaker 1: so it records from all angles. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I didn't want this to happen in
Speaker 1: my car, but it did. And I've got the best
Speaker 1: possible outcome. I have got picture, video proof of what
Speaker 1: just happened. And so I open up my car and
Speaker 1: I go to the dash cam which is built into
Speaker 1: the car to it's like a little DVR basically, and
Speaker 1: I wait for it and it's slow. It's not the best.
Speaker 1: It's just like it takes a while to get warmed up,
Speaker 1: and it gives you a list of all the things
Speaker 1: happened that all the things that happened in your car
Speaker 1: while you weren't there. And sure enough it's not there.
Speaker 1: Wait what I don't have this on video? The hit
Speaker 1: and run driver, the license plate, whatever, it's not there. Ugh.
Speaker 1: And I remember I turned off the DVR functionality when
Speaker 1: I'm in my home area because I park my car
Speaker 1: in the driveway. Why would I need that, right? And
Speaker 1: so first off, I just think to myself, Okay, that
Speaker 1: was really not a smart move. Rich, But the good
Speaker 1: news is I've got some other cameras around the house.
Speaker 1: So let me check the ring cam. So I go
Speaker 1: to the ring cam, and the ring cam does not
Speaker 1: capture it because guess what, there's a giant tree in
Speaker 1: front of where I parked my car, so it captures
Speaker 1: everything accept my car. I could literally see everything happening
Speaker 1: outside my house except where my car is parked. This
Speaker 1: tree is huge. Okay, let me try the other cameras.
Speaker 1: I've got some nest cams that record twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: Let's check those cameras well. Sure enough they got Well
Speaker 1: the tree again blocks it. But the audio is there,
Speaker 1: but none, you know, it's just you can't see it again,
Speaker 1: the tree is blocking it. So what are my lessons?
Speaker 1: And actually I misspoke on the ring cam. The ring
Speaker 1: cam seese my car, but the ring cam only does
Speaker 1: motion alerts, so it actually didn't capture whenever this damage
Speaker 1: happened to the car recorded either before or after or whatever.
Speaker 1: So here's my lesson. And this is what I said.
Speaker 1: Don't feel sorry for me. Look, the car is a
Speaker 1: mechanical thing, right, so nobody got hurt. Yes, it's a
Speaker 1: pain in the you know what to get this thing
Speaker 1: fixed because I already brought it to a place and
Speaker 1: all parts are a month, and you gotta do this,
Speaker 1: and it's a whole big thing to get it back
Speaker 1: to square one. And by the way, don't get me
Speaker 1: started on spending money on things that gets you back
Speaker 1: to where you were.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: If you've ever gotten your tire replaced or something like that,
Speaker 1: your car literally drives exactly the same, except now you
Speaker 1: just spent a whole bunch of money on a new tire.
Speaker 1: So don't get me started on that. But my point is, yes,
Speaker 1: the car will get repaired. Everyone's safe, it's okay. But
Speaker 1: here's the lesson I learned from this situation. Number one.
Speaker 1: We've got these cameras. Check your settings. Know the limitations
Speaker 1: of your cameras. So you probably set up these cameras
Speaker 1: like your ring cam or your security cameras or your
Speaker 1: car dash cam and you never thought about it ever. Again,
Speaker 1: take the minute to go through the app, go through
Speaker 1: the settings and see how this thing is set up.
Speaker 1: For instance, on my ring cam, if I would have
Speaker 1: had the setting to record motion events longer, maybe I
Speaker 1: would have captured this. Because the way the ring cam
Speaker 1: works is it starts to record and then it'll record
Speaker 1: for like ninety seconds, it'll send that clip to the
Speaker 1: cloud whatever. But then it stops and there's usually a
Speaker 1: timeout period to save the battery where it doesn't record
Speaker 1: right away, because if it just kept doing that, you know,
Speaker 1: every time the tree moved in front of it, it
Speaker 1: would just record the whole day and the battery'd be
Speaker 1: done in like ten minutes. So check the settings on
Speaker 1: these things. Also check to see the angles of these things,
Speaker 1: so in the future, I will probably not park where
Speaker 1: this big giant tree blocks the view from the cameras,
Speaker 1: because this whole system would be a little bit easier
Speaker 1: if I had some information about who hit my car.
Speaker 1: So go through the settings. Know the limitations of your cameras.
Speaker 1: Are they on at certain times, are they off at
Speaker 1: certain times? When do they trigger? How do they trigger?
Speaker 1: And also probably consider getting a dash cam because it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where when something like this happens
Speaker 1: to you, it's a big headache. And if you can
Speaker 1: feel just a little bit better knowing that, you can
Speaker 1: get maybe some recourse on your insurance or your deductible.
Speaker 1: So go for a dash cam. And when you look
Speaker 1: at dash cams, you want to find one that has
Speaker 1: a motion sensor, so it can have some sort of
Speaker 1: motion detection or some sort of G you know, G sensor,
Speaker 1: so if it senses your car moves, it will start recording.
Speaker 1: And uh, if you have ring already, they've got something
Speaker 1: called the Ring Cam, which I really like. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the first generation, so it's obviously they're going to
Speaker 1: build upon it, make it better. But that one does
Speaker 1: record if something you know, uh hits your car, not motion,
Speaker 1: It won't do motion, but it will do if something
Speaker 1: actually moves your car. So in this case, that would
Speaker 1: have definitely triggered.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you have one of these cars that actually
Speaker 1: has a system in it that records, and there are
Speaker 1: several of them, just check out the settings, make sure
Speaker 1: that it's actually recording, make sure that it actually works,
Speaker 1: make sure they're familiar with how it works. Because in
Speaker 1: my case, it's all too late. There's nothing I can
Speaker 1: do at this point except you know, I even went
Speaker 1: to my neighbor who had cameras, and I got I
Speaker 1: made friends with my neighbor, and you know, he checked
Speaker 1: all of his cameras and couldn't find anything either. So
Speaker 1: maybe it was a mysterious uh you know self, maybe
Speaker 1: the car just like self imploded. I don't know. But again,
Speaker 1: just just be aware of this stuff and don't cry
Speaker 1: for me. It's not a big deal. The car will
Speaker 1: be fixed, but it does ruin my perfect record of
Speaker 1: I guess hitting runs. I don't know, does that go
Speaker 1: on your record? First thing, I asked the guy at
Speaker 1: the car place. I was like, Hey, does this make
Speaker 1: my insurance go up? He's like, oh, it'll just go
Speaker 1: up a little bit next time you get your renewal.
Speaker 1: But no, it doesn't really go up. I'm like, you
Speaker 1: just said two different things, Like what all right? Coming
Speaker 1: up on this show, We've got some great guests this week.
Speaker 1: We've got Sam Rutherford, senior writer for n Gadget. He's
Speaker 1: gonna have his review of the pixel Fold smartphone. Then
Speaker 1: we've got Roger Anderson. You might have seen him in
Speaker 1: the news. He came up with an AI chatbot system
Speaker 1: that just messes with telemarketers and robo callers. Then later
Speaker 1: we've got Buttam Laskin, the co founder and CEO of Swimpley.
Speaker 1: He's gonna explain how you can make money renting out
Speaker 1: your backyard pool, which they've been doing for a while,
Speaker 1: but now also your backyard tennis court if you happen
Speaker 1: to have one of those you're really fancy, or a
Speaker 1: pickleball court. You're really on the cutting edge there. And
Speaker 1: then later in the show, Jefferson Graham, friend of the show,
Speaker 1: is going to join to talk about how to take
Speaker 1: photos of fireworks or should you even bother taking photos
Speaker 1: of fireworks? But first, as always, it is your turn.
Speaker 1: Your call is coming up next at triple eight rich
Speaker 1: one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Give me a call if
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology. My name is Richdmuro
Speaker 1: and you are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with
Speaker 1: you talking technology on this holiday weekend. You know you
Speaker 1: can follow me on social media. I am at rich
Speaker 1: on Tech on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And if you
Speaker 1: follow me on Instagram, you're wondering why haven't you posted
Speaker 1: in a while? Well, I had something go viral, and
Speaker 1: anytime something goes VI or you pick up a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of new people that really don't know who you are.
Speaker 1: And so I've been like paralyzed with fear about posting
Speaker 1: something new because I just imagine all those people are
Speaker 1: just going to be like, wait, who's this? Let me
Speaker 1: unfollow them. So I'm just kind of letting it percolate.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Shana in Brea, California. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hi, Rich, thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 1: Thanks for calling. What's up?
Speaker 4: You're welcome. So my mom had something happen this week
Speaker 4: where she got text messages from her bank that she
Speaker 4: banks with, but it was for charges that she didn't recognize,
Speaker 4: and it asked her to click on a link to
Speaker 4: talk about what the charges were. And thank goodness that
Speaker 4: she called her bank with the number that she knows,
Speaker 4: but she still was so tempted to click on those links.
Speaker 4: And I was trying to explain to her that you
Speaker 4: can't do that, and she pretty much knows that. But
Speaker 4: I know that because I get training at work. I
Speaker 4: have to watch tutorials for five minutes.
Speaker 1: And they're so boring, but they are.
Speaker 4: Helpful, they are, and that's why I know about those things.
Speaker 4: And I find not to click on an email link,
Speaker 4: even if it's somebody that I know, if I'm not
Speaker 4: expecting the email and it's got hey have you seen this?
Speaker 4: And it's got a link for me to click.
Speaker 1: I know not to do that now, even though you're tempted,
Speaker 1: I know people.
Speaker 4: That aren't in the workforce that don't get that training.
Speaker 4: Is there somewhere that they can go to.
Speaker 5: Get that knowledge?
Speaker 1: Great question, And I'm glad that your mom didn't click
Speaker 1: on those links because and this is the thing they
Speaker 1: you know, I get these texts my wife this morning,
Speaker 1: we're sitting down for breakfast, and she like shows me
Speaker 1: her phone. She goes, oh, I just got a link.
Speaker 1: I need to confirm this delivery address for this shipment
Speaker 1: that I didn't order. And so, you know, we had
Speaker 1: a little laugh. But the reality is people do fall
Speaker 1: for these They fall for them all the time. And
Speaker 1: it's a great, great question about Yes, those of us
Speaker 1: in the workforce, we are constantly being reminded if you
Speaker 1: get an email from outside your organization, it's marked with
Speaker 1: big red letters. This came from outside your organization. Do
Speaker 1: not click on the links. Be cautious. And of course
Speaker 1: we have to go through those training videos and those
Speaker 1: little quizzes and things to make us more aware of
Speaker 1: all this stuff. So here are two great resources I
Speaker 1: think are perfect for anyone that's got a loved one
Speaker 1: that they want to teach this stuff to the first
Speaker 1: one is called scamspotter dot org. Scam spotter dot org
Speaker 1: and this is almost like what you do at work,
Speaker 1: where it lets you go through you can watch some
Speaker 1: videos about some of the scams that are actually happening
Speaker 1: out there. You can learn more about those scams, and
Speaker 1: then you can test your knowledge about these scams. And
Speaker 1: this is brought to you by the Cybercrime Support Network
Speaker 1: and also Google. They work together to create this and
Speaker 1: it goes through all the different scams that are popular nowadays.
Speaker 1: It tells you can you spot these things, you know,
Speaker 1: be skeptical of urgent pop ups, which I've talked to
Speaker 1: people who get caught on those. Investigate the company on
Speaker 1: usual payment methods.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: This person emailed me or I think it was through Instagram.
Speaker 1: I forget what it was. But they're like, hey, Rich
Speaker 1: I've got someone in the hospital. I need to get
Speaker 1: them a gift card, but I can't make it to
Speaker 1: the store and buy it myself. And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: let me help you get that, just to mess with them,
Speaker 1: and they said, okay, great, can you go to the
Speaker 1: store buy an Apple gift card and send me the number,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, no, no, you can easily do this yourself.
Speaker 1: And I sent them the link to the Apple website
Speaker 1: where they can buy a gift card. They stop replying. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't recommend that you do that. In fact, my
Speaker 1: wife said that she an eight hundred number or some
Speaker 1: sort of number called her yesterday and she wanted to hear,
Speaker 1: like was this person real? And so she pressed one.
Speaker 1: And so I never recommend that you interact with these
Speaker 1: whether it's a text, whether it's a phone number, whether
Speaker 1: it's an email. Do not interact, even though I'm telling
Speaker 1: you I do it. I do it out of research
Speaker 1: and out of helping you, and I want to see
Speaker 1: where these things go so I can understand these scams better.
Speaker 1: But please do not interact with these things, because what
Speaker 1: happens is imagine they're like we got a live one.
Speaker 1: They send to a bunch of phone numbers. If you
Speaker 1: reply back to them, now they know they can really
Speaker 1: target you. And it may not be with that scam,
Speaker 1: it may be with others. So again, scamspotterer dot org.
Speaker 1: And the second one is actually from the Better Business
Speaker 1: Bureau BBB dot org. Slash scam tracker. And this is
Speaker 1: really handy because you can not only report scams, but
Speaker 1: you can also understand the scams that are out there.
Speaker 1: So you can look up a keyword. So right now,
Speaker 1: some of the biggest scams going around are pet scams,
Speaker 1: pyramid schemes, consumer fraud lawyers, cash app scams, and tax fraud.
Speaker 1: And so you can literally type in a keyword usps
Speaker 1: and see what other people are reporting about that scam.
Speaker 1: Type in the word piano. I'm looking at all these
Speaker 1: different things. Type in an app, blood work. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many different scams. If you type in one keyword,
Speaker 1: you can teach your loved ones that, hey, other people
Speaker 1: are having these same exact texts come to them and
Speaker 1: they are totally totally a scam. Great question, Shana, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for calling in appreciate it. Phone number is
Speaker 1: triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four to one zero one. A lot
Speaker 1: of people asking about this apple my photo stream. I
Speaker 1: will explain what you need to know about that a
Speaker 1: little bit later in the show. We talked about it
Speaker 1: on a previous show. But for sure, I know it's
Speaker 1: kind of percolating in the news media again, so I
Speaker 1: will explain what it means that Apple is shutting down
Speaker 1: my photostream. But coming up next, we've got a great guest.
Speaker 1: We've got Sam Rutherford, senior writer for n Gadget. He
Speaker 1: is going to have his review of the Pixel fold smartphone.
Speaker 1: This is Pixel, this is Google's eighteen hundred dollars smartphone.
Speaker 1: It's a foldable and he says it's got some good
Speaker 1: things going for it, but also need to know the bad.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Rich on Tech. Joining me now is
Speaker 1: Sam Rutherford, senior writer at n Gadget. Sam, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, good to be here. So let's talk about the
Speaker 3: Google tax soel fold.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of foldable phones on the market, but
Speaker 1: now Google is getting into it with this eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars phone. You have reviewed it, So what is your
Speaker 1: first impression of this device?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, and you think right away when you
Speaker 7: look at the competition. What Google did with the design
Speaker 7: is really interesting because they have a wider exterior display,
Speaker 7: which has a lot of impacts on how you use device.
Speaker 7: But most importantly, it just makes the exterior screen a
Speaker 7: lot more usable when you compare it to something like
Speaker 7: Samsung's Galaxy z Fold four the skinny. The skinny design
Speaker 7: on Samsung's device feels really cramped, especially when you're trying
Speaker 7: to type. But on the pixel Fold, it means you can,
Speaker 7: you know, all your apps behave normally, and you know,
Speaker 7: you never feel like you need to open it up,
Speaker 7: which is kind of an interesting juxtaposition for a foldable device,
Speaker 7: but it allows you to you know, do more with
Speaker 7: the outside screen, and then when you open it up,
Speaker 7: you feel like, hey, this is what I'm going to
Speaker 7: use for you know, watching movies or multitasking and stuff
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 1: So pixel Fold has a five point eight inch exterior screen,
Speaker 1: when you open it up it has a seven point
Speaker 1: six inch interior screen. Now, you set in your review
Speaker 1: for nd Gadget that you have been using a foldable
Speaker 1: device as your daily driver for three years. Now tell
Speaker 1: me about that.
Speaker 7: I mean, I was really interested in, like the whole
Speaker 7: flexible screen technology, and so I jumped on with the Galaxy.
Speaker 3: Z Fold two and I've been using their devices.
Speaker 7: For the last three years, partially because you know, I
Speaker 7: like the technology, but they were also the only kind
Speaker 7: of real game in town, especially outside of China, where
Speaker 7: you know, our options are a little bit less or
Speaker 7: more more limited when it comes to foldable devices.
Speaker 1: Foldable devices are clearly going to be a thing because
Speaker 1: we have upcoming foldables from one plus now Google has
Speaker 1: one on. Samsung is of course going to launch their
Speaker 1: new foldables at the end of July, and then people
Speaker 1: are of course waiting for Apple to come out with theirs.
Speaker 1: But what makes a foldable device so compelling to you?
Speaker 1: For me, it's really all about adaptability.
Speaker 7: So you know, if I just want to do something quick,
Speaker 7: or you know, check an app or check a notification,
Speaker 7: respond to a text, whatever, you have the outside screen.
Speaker 7: But when you want to watch a movie, everyone's talking about, Oh,
Speaker 7: I always want to watch a movie or video on
Speaker 7: the biggest display I can. So you open it up
Speaker 7: and suddenly you have a significantly bigger screen. It just
Speaker 7: makes everything better, you know, whether you're playing games, you're
Speaker 7: watching videos, or you're trying to multitask, which is something
Speaker 7: that like a lot of people don't necessarily think of
Speaker 7: as possible on a standard device or a standard phone,
Speaker 7: just because the screen is a little smaller, it's a
Speaker 7: little more limited, and you don't really necessarily always have
Speaker 7: the right controls to be able to manage multiple apps
Speaker 7: at the same time.
Speaker 1: When I was testing the Samsung Fold for I really
Speaker 1: fell in love with the idea that this phone did everything.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing was, I ended up doing everything
Speaker 1: on my phone. So I was reading my kindle ebook
Speaker 1: on there, I was watching movies on there, and it
Speaker 1: just seemed like I was, you know, even though that
Speaker 1: time might have been divided between a phone, a computer,
Speaker 1: and a tablet, it felt like, oh my gosh, I'm
Speaker 1: literally using this phone twenty four to seven now. Because
Speaker 1: it's so flexible.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because, like you kinda that's a group of good point,
Speaker 7: because you it combines so many devices into one. Like
Speaker 7: you said, it's an e reader, it's a movie watcher.
Speaker 3: You know. You have a little taskbar on both.
Speaker 7: The Samsung z Fold four and the Pixel Fold that
Speaker 7: allows you to like, you know, do simultaneous multitasking. And
Speaker 7: so to me, I love that simplification because I think
Speaker 7: a lot of people nowadays they want less devices in
Speaker 7: their life, less devices I have to.
Speaker 3: Worry about, they have to worry about keep charged.
Speaker 7: And so if you can get rid of, you know,
Speaker 7: a tablet and an e reader and you only have
Speaker 7: to worry about your phone and maybe your laptop two.
Speaker 3: To me, that.
Speaker 7: Simplification is just a great weight off my mind.
Speaker 1: So let's get back to the Google Pixel fold. So
Speaker 1: the software is pretty much Google Pixel software. Anything notable
Speaker 1: or different about the software that you liked in this phone.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean the main thing is for definitely per
Speaker 7: power users. You have that taskbar, and Google is doing
Speaker 7: something a little bit different with the taskbar because instead
Speaker 7: of having something in that does permanently there all the time,
Speaker 7: there's a new gesture that you can use to sum
Speaker 7: in the taskbar. It's a you know, short swipe up
Speaker 7: from the bottom of the screen and from there, like
Speaker 7: you can open your app into a multi window mode,
Speaker 7: and then once you're done with that, the taskbar disappears.
Speaker 7: So it appears when you need it and then it
Speaker 7: gets out of the way when you don't. And it's
Speaker 7: a really interesting approach to make multitasking a little bit
Speaker 7: more easier but also less kind of in your face
Speaker 7: all the time.
Speaker 1: And what about the optimizations of some of these apps
Speaker 1: because Android has kind of been all over the place.
Speaker 1: You know, Apple, you've got the iPhone, you've got the iPad.
Speaker 1: Developers are pretty pretty clear about what they do for
Speaker 1: those devices, but Android it could be all over the place.
Speaker 1: Did you find that apps were like that or were
Speaker 1: they pretty much optimized?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, That's a big part of it, and I think
Speaker 7: that actually speaks to part of the reason why Google
Speaker 7: launched this phone in the first place, because you know,
Speaker 7: with the introduction of the pixel Fold, Google was able
Speaker 7: to get more than fifty first party apps optimize for
Speaker 7: devices like the pixel fold that has a flexible to screen,
Speaker 7: and that means you're talking about supporting things like adaptive
Speaker 7: screen resolutions, but also more interesting UI and app layouts
Speaker 7: that take advantage of the pixel folds design. So you know, say,
Speaker 7: for things like YouTube, you can fold it in half
Speaker 7: and rest it on the table and you'll get a
Speaker 7: different UI that makes it you know, so, hey, you
Speaker 7: want to sit down for lunch and watch a quick
Speaker 7: video on your lunch, but you don't have the laptop
Speaker 7: with you.
Speaker 3: This is perfect.
Speaker 7: You don't have to hold the device that sits up
Speaker 7: on its own, and it's great for that. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 7: problem with that is that it takes a little bit
Speaker 7: of extra work on the developers part. You know, they
Speaker 7: need to convince developers that like, hey, these optimations are
Speaker 7: or optimizations are worth making, but also get enough devices
Speaker 7: out in the real world that there are enough customers
Speaker 7: demanding that developers like, hey, I love what your app
Speaker 7: is doing, but hey, is there something else that we
Speaker 7: can do to really take advantage of, you know, this
Speaker 7: uncoming wave of foldable devices.
Speaker 1: What about the camera on this device? I mean, clearly
Speaker 1: pixels are known for having excellent cameras. Is that any
Speaker 1: different here?
Speaker 3: Actually?
Speaker 7: That's one of like the really big achievements with the
Speaker 7: pixel fold is that, from you know, my testing, I've
Speaker 7: to me, it seems like the pixel fold de delivers
Speaker 7: pretty much a very very close experience to what you
Speaker 7: get on the Pixel seven Pro.
Speaker 3: You still get a really great five x optical.
Speaker 7: Zoom, which is longer than what you get on the
Speaker 7: Samsung z Fold four. And then on top of that,
Speaker 7: you get Google's you know, really good image processing and
Speaker 7: night sight low light mode, and so you combine that
Speaker 7: and it's like, you know, that was one of my
Speaker 7: big gripes about the z Fold four is that it
Speaker 7: feels like Samsung had to cut a little corners to get,
Speaker 7: you know, a good camera, but not as good they
Speaker 7: can get on, say like the Galaxy S twenty two Ultra,
Speaker 7: And so you know, the pixel folds cameras doesn't feel
Speaker 7: nearly as compromise, which is a really big achievement because
Speaker 7: you know you're working with a completely different design, different
Speaker 7: form factor, and it's really hard to fit, especially something
Speaker 7: like a five be ex tel photo lens on a
Speaker 7: foldable device.
Speaker 1: You said one of your gripes was that it the
Speaker 1: phone never fully opens. So yeah, is that like a
Speaker 1: deal breaker or just something that Google work on for
Speaker 1: the next one.
Speaker 7: I think that, you know, that's one of those challenges
Speaker 7: because you know, Google has a lot of things that
Speaker 7: they need to solve. Because you know, the pixel fold
Speaker 7: when you fold it, it folds completely flat, unlike this
Speaker 7: evil four And that doesn't sound like a huge difference,
Speaker 7: but in practice it makes such a big improvement over
Speaker 7: general usability. It just feels a little bit more waldy,
Speaker 7: doesn't feel as clunky in your hand, and you know
Speaker 7: they were able to move the hinges around. That said,
Speaker 7: you know you do have to have those tight hinges
Speaker 7: because you know, who knows how many times you're going
Speaker 7: to open and close this thing over years, and you
Speaker 7: know people are holding onto their phones longer, and so
Speaker 7: at I think it's just one of those things that
Speaker 7: you have to get used to. And it's sort of like,
Speaker 7: you know, it is a flexible screen. It's made out
Speaker 7: of plastic. You can't you know, it's a little bit
Speaker 7: more delicate than your standard glass phone, and so that
Speaker 7: means you got to kind of take care of it.
Speaker 7: You got to baby just a little bit more. But
Speaker 7: you also have to deal with things like a crease
Speaker 7: because you know, Google wasn't entirely able to eliminate the
Speaker 7: crease on their flexible display. That said they were able
Speaker 7: to minimize it, and you know, from my perspective, I
Speaker 7: don't really notice it at all. It's not you know,
Speaker 7: it's just like you know, the notch on an iPhone
Speaker 7: or puntole selfie camera in that you know, after a while,
Speaker 7: you just kind of get used to it and it
Speaker 7: doesn't even become distraction anymore.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So, knowing that we've got a new device from one
Speaker 1: Plus coming up that's foldable, We've got several new from
Speaker 1: Samsung that are foldable, what's your guidance on the pixel
Speaker 1: fold This is an expensive phone. It's eighteen hundred dollars
Speaker 1: and what's your guidance.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean that that's really the crust of it, right,
Speaker 7: is like, you know, I would love this phone to
Speaker 7: be in other foldable devices, to be warmer, widelyailable. But
Speaker 7: you know, we you have to acknowledge that we're still
Speaker 7: in the very early stages of you know, the whole
Speaker 7: flexible foldable phone trend, and so this is you know,
Speaker 7: it's still really for early adopters. You know, this is
Speaker 7: Google's first phone, and you know they've been able to
Speaker 7: take bits and pieces from you know, previous rivals and competitors.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that price is really.
Speaker 7: A sticking point and I you know, it's something that
Speaker 7: I really would like to see come down in the future.
Speaker 7: And you know, I think you know, both like companies
Speaker 7: like Google, Samsung, they're very aware that like eighteen hundred
Speaker 7: dollars is a lot to ask for a phone, and
Speaker 7: so hopefully, you know, future generations, so we will bring
Speaker 7: that price down.
Speaker 1: Sam Rutherford, Senior writer at n Gadget. How can folks
Speaker 1: find you online?
Speaker 7: Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at Sam Rutherford
Speaker 7: and as always on engadget dot com.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Rich on Tech more of the
Speaker 1: show coming up after this, plus your calls at Triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four two four one zero one back after this. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich Tomuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you talking technology at Triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. Tanuga is in Pasadena, California. Am I
Speaker 1: pronouncing that right? Tanuga at Tanusha Tanusia? Got it? Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 8: Yeah, thank you. I love you on KTLA. And now
Speaker 8: that I know you have a podcast, you keep me
Speaker 8: coming on my way to work.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, appreciate that.
Speaker 9: Thanks.
Speaker 8: I have a question for you.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 8: Recently, I was at a Dodgers game and I, like usual,
Speaker 8: my sister and I put our stuff in the trunk,
Speaker 8: move everything into the clear bag, but we leave stuff
Speaker 8: in the trunk. Came back to find that someone had
Speaker 8: gotten into my car, into the trunk, still my driver's license,
Speaker 8: credit cards, all kinds of things. So when I talked
Speaker 8: to LAPD, I said, you know, I'm not positive I
Speaker 8: always lost my car, but maybe I didn't. They did
Speaker 8: say sometimes people have devices they can override cars and
Speaker 8: these locks and so I wanted to see if you
Speaker 8: had any advice or ideas of how to sort of
Speaker 8: prevent that as possible.
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry, that happened. It's like, that's the worst because
Speaker 1: you did your due diligence of putting everything in the trunk.
Speaker 1: It was out of sight, so and we don't know
Speaker 1: if a car was locked or not, which obviously, you
Speaker 1: know you probably did lock it because most of us
Speaker 1: do that without thinking if you do that typically, But
Speaker 1: unfortunate that this happened, So sorry to hear that. There
Speaker 1: are several ways that people can get into cars. Obviously,
Speaker 1: people just check, you know, to see if cars are unlocked.
Speaker 1: That's one of the simplest ways. The other thing is
Speaker 1: this thing called a relay attack, which is what I
Speaker 1: think lapd was was talking about. And this is when
Speaker 1: someone uses sort of a wireless relay system to capture
Speaker 1: the code off of your key, your keyfob, and then
Speaker 1: relay that to the car at a different time. So
Speaker 1: your little key fob that you have in your pocket,
Speaker 1: it's always generating like a code that will unlock your car.
Speaker 1: And so there are systems out there that can capture
Speaker 1: that information and then use that and sort of pretend
Speaker 1: emulate that this device is your key and use it
Speaker 1: to unlock the car. Now, this has been going on
Speaker 1: for a long time. Obviously, manufacturers have ways of getting
Speaker 1: around this. They use something called a rolling passcode, so
Speaker 1: every couple of seconds the code changes on both ends
Speaker 1: to keep this from happening. But it can still happen,
Speaker 1: and obviously if someone is really targeting cars that this
Speaker 1: just works with, it can happen and it's definitely a thing.
Speaker 1: So couple things you can do. I think that the
Speaker 1: number one is to just be aware that this can happen.
Speaker 1: That's the awareness is number one. Number two, there are
Speaker 1: Faraday bags you can get for your your keyfob, which
Speaker 1: you can put them in so that when you're not
Speaker 1: using the keyfob it is not emitting any sort of signal.
Speaker 1: And some of the keyfobs may have a switch on
Speaker 1: them to turn off the sort of emitting that signal
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven, so maybe only when you're actually
Speaker 1: using it it emits it. And of course it depends
Speaker 1: on the car manufacturer too what they've done to mitigate this.
Speaker 1: So there's a pretty famous issue with Hyundai's and kias
Speaker 1: they have a free software update for millions of their cars. Basically,
Speaker 1: cars could start low ard a fake KEYFOP and so
Speaker 1: now there is a software update that's free to Kia
Speaker 1: and Hyundai owners that will update the alarm software on
Speaker 1: the car where the alarm will happen longer. And also
Speaker 1: it requires the key to be in the ignition for
Speaker 1: the switch to turn the car on. So that's that's
Speaker 1: a little thing that they did in response to this
Speaker 1: whole TikTok challenge. I don't know if you heard about
Speaker 1: that whole thing. But the two bags that you can
Speaker 1: get two companies that I've talked about in the past.
Speaker 1: One is called Silent sln T formally Silent Pocket, and
Speaker 1: the other one is the off Grid Fold. This is
Speaker 1: like a little bag you can put your keyfob in
Speaker 1: and it'll block all signals going to it, GPS, Wi Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, RFID. Now, look,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I'm sorry this happened
Speaker 1: to you. I think that this is something that does
Speaker 1: happen in the world, and it's unfortunate, but it is
Speaker 1: definitely something that is tougher than it sounds like like.
Speaker 1: This is definitely more of a targeted sort of attack
Speaker 1: where they have to get this information off your keyfob.
Speaker 1: The other thing you can do if you have your
Speaker 1: keyfob in your house, some of the things I'm reading
Speaker 1: recommend that you don't keep it by your front door.
Speaker 1: Of course, we all keep our car keys by the
Speaker 1: front door, and that can definitely be an issue because
Speaker 1: they could pick up the signal from the key and
Speaker 1: if your car's in the driveway, they may be able
Speaker 1: to relay that signal to the car in the driveway.
Speaker 1: So those are just a couple of the ways that
Speaker 1: you might be able to mitigate this. Definitely on fortunate.
Speaker 1: It's definitely sad that people do this, but look, these
Speaker 1: are crimes of opportunity, and if you look on YouTube,
Speaker 1: you'll see all kinds of videos about this relay attack
Speaker 1: and the systems that these folks can use to do it.
Speaker 1: It's not an easy thing to do, but it can
Speaker 1: be easy if you know what you're doing and if
Speaker 1: you have the right hardware. The one story that I watched,
Speaker 1: it looked pretty complicated to do this to pull this off,
Speaker 1: but again, people do it all the time. So Tanuja,
Speaker 1: I hope that helps you. I hope that helps you
Speaker 1: figure out what you need to do in the future.
Speaker 1: I would look first at your car and sort of
Speaker 1: look up on the internet what type of car you have,
Speaker 1: what type of system they have for theft, and see
Speaker 1: if that is a known system that needs an update
Speaker 1: or has something that may be able to help you.
Speaker 1: That's probably the first place to start. If it's an
Speaker 1: older car, it definitely is probably more susceptible to these
Speaker 1: sorts of attacks, but it may have a software update
Speaker 1: for the manufacturer, so definitely check into that. All right,
Speaker 1: good question. Let's see here. Let's go to Steve. Steve
Speaker 1: is in Mariata, California. Steve, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 6: That's right, Rich. I'm thinking about a Pixel of seven
Speaker 6: or eight right now, I have a Samsung. What are
Speaker 6: your comments on those two phones at seven or eight?
Speaker 1: Well, the Pixel eight hasn't come out yet, so it'd
Speaker 1: be tough to give my opinion on that phone. So
Speaker 1: the Pixel eight is typically launched in October. So right
Speaker 1: now we're about halfway through the cycle with the with
Speaker 1: the pixels, the Pixel seven, the seven pro, the sixth
Speaker 1: A just came out. So my I guess question is, Steve,
Speaker 1: what do you need to do on this phone. Is
Speaker 1: there anything in particular you want to do on this device?
Speaker 6: You know, I already have I think two hundred thousand photos,
Speaker 6: so I'm using it mainly downloading documents, okay away from
Speaker 6: the computer, and you know, pretty mundane thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the basics. So you you know, you may
Speaker 1: not even need What do you have right now? What
Speaker 1: do you have for oh wow? Oh gosh, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I think you'll you'll. I think, look, it depends what
Speaker 1: you want. I've tested the Pixel seven and the seven
Speaker 1: A sorry and this and the seven Pro. They are
Speaker 1: excellent devices. They have everything you need. I think you'll
Speaker 1: be very happy with them. I think it depends on
Speaker 1: the size of the phone you want. I think that
Speaker 1: the Pixel seven is a much easier phone to hold.
Speaker 1: The six A or the seven A is going to
Speaker 1: be a lot cheaper than the seven. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be as it's not gonna be as full featured as
Speaker 1: that device. And then the Pixel A, if you want
Speaker 1: to wait for it, is coming out in October. Obviously
Speaker 1: that's gonna have some upgrades and some polish, But I
Speaker 1: think I think you'd be very happy with the Pixel seven.
Speaker 1: That's probably what i'd go with at this point, so
Speaker 1: good question. Of course, if you love those pictures, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get great photos off of the pixel, no matter what.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up more of your calls at triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight, seven
Speaker 1: four to two, four to one zero one. Please rate
Speaker 1: and review this show on your favorite audio app and
Speaker 1: share with your friends that you listen. That's the best
Speaker 1: way we're gonna grow here, all right. Our number one
Speaker 1: in the can our number two of rich on Tech
Speaker 1: coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Tomuro here hanging out with you, talking technology on
Speaker 1: this holiday weekend. Happy July fourth. Is it July fourth
Speaker 1: or fourth of July? I think there's like a there's
Speaker 1: a difference. I think it's fourth of July. Oh, there's
Speaker 1: no difference, okay. Producer Adam says, no difference. Okay, Happy
Speaker 1: fourth of July or July fourth, whatever you prefer. Eighty
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one eight eight eight. Look at this,
Speaker 1: Look at all the fours in our phone numbers seven,
Speaker 1: four to two, four to one zero one. Grace is
Speaker 1: in Rancho, Cordova, California. Grace, you're on with Rich hi rich.
Speaker 8: So I keep getting emails from Gmail that your Gmail
Speaker 8: is out of storage despite the least oh no, so
Speaker 8: asking me to buy storage?
Speaker 4: Will I lose all my.
Speaker 8: Emails if I don't buy the storage.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what's going to happen. What how much storage
Speaker 1: do you have on there? The fifteen gigs?
Speaker 8: Fifteen?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 1: Do you use Google Photos at all?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you use Google Drive?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: Okay? So it sounds like you are up against your
Speaker 1: storage limit. And the way you can check to see
Speaker 1: what's going on is go to one dot Google dot com.
Speaker 1: Have you gone to that website?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, it's O n E, not the number O N
Speaker 1: E dot Google dot And this will give you a
Speaker 1: rundown of your storage and where it's being used. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I actually have five terabytes of storage because
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of stuff on Google. So it
Speaker 1: tells me that one hundred and thirty one gigs is
Speaker 1: being used in Google Drive, thirty three gigs in Gmail,
Speaker 1: which is just absolutely ludicrous because how are Gmail? How
Speaker 1: are emails taking up thirty three gigabytes of storage? Like
Speaker 1: that's wild? Google Photos two and a half terabytes. Then
Speaker 1: I've got some family storage situations going on at two
Speaker 1: hundred gigabytes. So here's what you need to do. You
Speaker 1: need to go through your storage and figure out what's
Speaker 1: taking up all of this storage. If it's stuff that
Speaker 1: you can get rid of, then dump it. If it's
Speaker 1: stuff you can't, then you're going to have to pay
Speaker 1: for more storage to get to continue using this. Now,
Speaker 1: your Gmail is not going to stop working. You're just
Speaker 1: gonna not be able to receive or send messages because
Speaker 1: it's gonna say sorry, storage full. There may be a
Speaker 1: tiny little grace period in there, but the reality is
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to upload Google Photos. You're
Speaker 1: just not gonna be able to do a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Storage starts at two bucks a month, I believe. For
Speaker 1: I think two hundred gigabytes, which would be more than
Speaker 1: enough for you at this point. But that's what you
Speaker 1: need to do. So there are various ways to free
Speaker 1: up account storage when you go to that area of
Speaker 1: one dot Google dot com. And so if I'm looking
Speaker 1: at my ways to do it, I've got items in
Speaker 1: trash on trash or spam in Gmail. So I've got
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty one megabytes in trash one megabyte
Speaker 1: in spam, and then I've got five hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: megabytes of files and trash on drive. I can get
Speaker 1: rid of all those, free up almost less than a gigabyte.
Speaker 1: Then we've got large items, three hundred gigabytes of large items,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at emails with large attachments and I
Speaker 1: can already tell I can review and get rid of
Speaker 1: a bunch of these. Then I've got large files, and
Speaker 1: I've got large photos and videos. So again you just
Speaker 1: have to go through the storage manager on that Google
Speaker 1: one area and clean up some of these files that
Speaker 1: you may not need, that may be too big, that
Speaker 1: are just you know, you just don't need them anymore,
Speaker 1: or they're in the trash. Get rid of those. See
Speaker 1: if that frees up enough space to keep you going
Speaker 1: for a while. But it sounds like grace. Eventually, if
Speaker 1: you're going to continue using these products, you're going to
Speaker 1: have to pay up. And this all goes into my
Speaker 1: theme for the tech world in twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 1: that is the free ride is over. We have gotten
Speaker 1: so used to all of these services that just want
Speaker 1: to give us their services for free, and for many
Speaker 1: years it was great. It was a free ride, and
Speaker 1: now the free ride is over. The layoffs have happened.
Speaker 1: In the tech world, the VC funding is tightened up.
Speaker 1: People want to actually make money. It's not just this
Speaker 1: free flowing thing where like, let's just get a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of customers and hopefully the money comes later. No,
Speaker 1: we've got to we've got to make some money now.
Speaker 1: And Google, you know, they've got a lot of folks
Speaker 1: using Gmail, They've got a lot of folks using Google Photos.
Speaker 1: They want to make money on those products too. But
Speaker 1: I do think they're pretty good about giving people the
Speaker 1: fifteen gigs of free storage. If you look at Apple,
Speaker 1: they only give you five. And that's been happening since
Speaker 1: like day one. So really, if you're using an iPhone,
Speaker 1: you're probably paying for iCloud storage immediately right off the bat.
Speaker 1: Great question, Grace. Let's talk about Apple for a second. Here,
Speaker 1: my photostream this is percolating in the news once again.
Speaker 1: We talked about a couple weeks ago. But Apple is
Speaker 1: shutting down this my photostream feature, so it already it
Speaker 1: already stopped uploading pictures as of June twenty sixth, and
Speaker 1: now on July twenty six they're just going to eradicate
Speaker 1: the feature fully. So everyone's whoa, whoa, whoa all these
Speaker 1: headlines online. Let me just let me type this in
Speaker 1: photo Apple shutting down. Okay, let me just let me
Speaker 1: just look at the photo the headlines here. Okay, Apple's
Speaker 1: my photostream shutting down. Here's what to do. Let me
Speaker 1: actually take out photostream because a lot of these headlines.
Speaker 1: Well okay, anyway, my point is these headlines are scary.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, I would say ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of people are not using this feature, nor have they
Speaker 1: used this feature in like five years. So if you're
Speaker 1: using the feature, you probably know about it. And so
Speaker 1: here's what you need to do. Bottom line. Look at
Speaker 1: your iPhone, go into your photos app, go into your
Speaker 1: albums and look for an album called my Photostream. If
Speaker 1: you do not have that album, you do not need
Speaker 1: to worry about this. Go on your Mac computer, open
Speaker 1: up photos, look for my photostream. Go on your iPad,
Speaker 1: open up your photos app, look for my photostream. If
Speaker 1: you don't see that album on your devices, you don't
Speaker 1: need to worry about it. Stop thinking about this. If
Speaker 1: you do see that album, then you need to do
Speaker 1: one of two things. If you're using iCloud, chances are
Speaker 1: those pictures are already backed up to iCloud because they
Speaker 1: were taken on one of these devices and they backed
Speaker 1: up to iCloud. If you're not using iCloud, then what
Speaker 1: you want to do is go into my photostream, click
Speaker 1: that album, look in there, see what photos are in there,
Speaker 1: and then if there's any photos that you want to save,
Speaker 1: just tap the photo and then tap the share icon
Speaker 1: and it says save image. Save that image to your
Speaker 1: regular camera role, and then it will back up. However
Speaker 1: you back up your photos, whether that's iCloud, whether that's
Speaker 1: Google Photos, whether that's Amazon Photos, it's all the same.
Speaker 1: It will go in there. You could select several photos
Speaker 1: at once and do the same thing. So if there's
Speaker 1: every photo you want to save to your camera role,
Speaker 1: just go ahead and hit the select up in the
Speaker 1: upper right hand corner. You can select a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of photos at once and then just press save and
Speaker 1: you should be good to go there. It's one of
Speaker 1: these things where, yeah, it makes a it makes for
Speaker 1: a sexy headline because it's scary when Apple changes anything,
Speaker 1: but the reality is most people do not need to
Speaker 1: worry about that, but at least you know what's going on.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to see that information once again, you
Speaker 1: can go to my Instagram. It is at rich on
Speaker 1: Tech and I pinned this information, so it's the first
Speaker 1: thing you'll see on my Instagram and it's an Instagram
Speaker 1: reel that says will be shut down on July twenty sixth.
Speaker 1: Tap that reel, listen to what I say, read, understand,
Speaker 1: and then share that to your stories so that your
Speaker 1: friends who are asking you about this and freaking out,
Speaker 1: can you know since you're listening to rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: you know what's going on. Now you can share that
Speaker 1: wealth of knowledge with your friends. Niantic, the company behind
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go, it's been it's been a rough run for
Speaker 1: this company because Pokemon Go is such a great success.
Speaker 1: It's like, how do you follow that up? Right? It's
Speaker 1: like a It's like an amazing artist that has like
Speaker 1: a one hit. They're under so much pressure to come
Speaker 1: up with something that's amazing, and I feel like that's
Speaker 1: been Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go, for so long now.
Speaker 1: They had this amazing thing, Pokemon Go. Nobody had ever
Speaker 1: seen anything like it before, and now they've been struggling
Speaker 1: to come up with something just as amazing ever since
Speaker 1: they tried a Harry Potter game and didn't really work out.
Speaker 1: They've got this new new game called Paradot, which is okay,
Speaker 1: but again it hasn't seen the buzz like Pokemon Go.
Speaker 1: With all that in mind, they are closing their Los
Speaker 1: Angeles studio. They're laying off two hundred and thirty people,
Speaker 1: and they're basically saying, look, our expenses were growing faster
Speaker 1: than the money we're making.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: We saw a lot of people playing these games during
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Of course, people are at home. They had
Speaker 1: nothing to do except walk around their neighborhoods. Now that
Speaker 1: people are out and about, it's a little bit tougher.
Speaker 1: So what is going to happen to Pokemon Go. It's
Speaker 1: going to keep happening. It's going to keep going. But
Speaker 1: Niantic is going to slow down on some of their
Speaker 1: third party games that they're creating. I think there's one
Speaker 1: for the NBA or something. They're not going to really
Speaker 1: invest in those anymore. They're going to invest in their
Speaker 1: first party games. So if you're playing Pokemon Go, you
Speaker 1: see these headlines about Niantic. It's not going anywhere. But
Speaker 1: I think what Pokemon Go is they're saying, Look, we
Speaker 1: were onto something a long time ago, these augmented reality games,
Speaker 1: and now that we see technology like Apple coming out
Speaker 1: with their Vision Pro headset, these games are going to
Speaker 1: be good in the future. People are going to want
Speaker 1: to play these games. In fact, Pokemon Go may have
Speaker 1: a whole new life inside the Apple headset, but it's
Speaker 1: going to be a while. So they've got to kind
Speaker 1: of get back to the basics, narrow down some of
Speaker 1: those expenses, and you know, get ready for what the
Speaker 1: future is, which is ar but it's just not here
Speaker 1: just yet in a big way with these goggles. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I figured i'd tell you about that because Pokemon Go
Speaker 1: is so popular. Coming up, we're going to talk to
Speaker 1: a guy who created an AI chatbot system for messing
Speaker 1: with telemarketers and robo callers. I can't condone this behavior,
Speaker 1: but it certainly is fun to talk about. You're listening
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech triple eight rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four to one
Speaker 1: zero one. If you want to get a hold of me.
Speaker 1: Nobody likes getting spam calls. Robocalls and uh, one person
Speaker 1: decided to do something about it. This company, Jolly Roger,
Speaker 1: uses AI technology to troll telemarketers and waste their time.
Speaker 1: They generate different characters that distract the telemarketers and keep
Speaker 1: them on the line as long as possible. The goal is,
Speaker 1: I guess the theory is that if they're on the
Speaker 1: line with this this AI chatbot, they can't be calling
Speaker 1: someone else. Roger Anderson is joining me. Roger, you came
Speaker 1: up with this technology?
Speaker 11: Yes, Rich, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for joining me. So it sounds
Speaker 1: like you did this a while back, but it just
Speaker 1: bubbled up in the New World. Was there like an
Speaker 1: article or something that featured you. Is that what happened?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 11: The Wall Street Journal reached out to me and asked
Speaker 11: if I was doing anything with chat GPT in relation
Speaker 11: to this, which was quite timely because I have been
Speaker 11: looking into it. So, yes, I plugged the Jolly Roger
Speaker 11: telephone service, these these chatbots. I basically plugged them into
Speaker 11: chat GPT, and it kind of opened up a whole
Speaker 11: new layer and possibility and level of entertainment as these
Speaker 11: chatbots now talk to telemarketers and scammers on the phone.
Speaker 1: So Jolly Roger is the company, and explain how it works.
Speaker 1: So I sign up for this, How much does it cost?
Speaker 1: And then what do I do? Do I forward my calls?
Speaker 1: Or how does it work?
Speaker 11: Well, it's it's two dollars per month per line, so
Speaker 11: less than twenty four dollars per year, and you basically
Speaker 11: just forward your phone, forward your unanswered calls to us
Speaker 11: and will either answer with regular voice if you know
Speaker 11: who they are, or or will treat them kindly if
Speaker 11: we don't know who they are, but if they're scammers,
Speaker 11: if you tell us this numbers as a scam, or
Speaker 11: if we we use some third party tools to determine
Speaker 11: if the calls are are unwanted or not, and then
Speaker 11: we'll pick up with robots. And the robots are kind,
Speaker 11: they're patient, they're polite, but they will never divulge personal
Speaker 11: information or financial information. But they sound gullible, so it's
Speaker 11: just the right mix of gullible, funny, realistic, and the
Speaker 11: telemarketers will will chat with them for as long as
Speaker 11: they're willing and and your phone is clear, you can
Speaker 11: keep making and receiving calls, or just go about your
Speaker 11: day and our robots will chat with your scammers while
Speaker 11: you while you do whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at some of the names. Whitey Whitebeard is
Speaker 1: a bumbling senior citizen, Is that right?
Speaker 11: That's right, another one of our favorites.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another one is a salty sally, an easily distracted mother. Adam,
Speaker 1: do we have a clip that that we got sent
Speaker 1: about these things? Let's let's hear the clip.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Rich on Tech with Rich DeMuro. Follow
Speaker 3: Rich for tech News, how to videos, gadget reviews and
Speaker 3: useful tips and tricks.
Speaker 11: Well, there we go. You're doing a promo for you.
Speaker 11: That's our Whitey white Beard.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's Whitey white Beard. Okay, so that's why do
Speaker 1: you have Do you have another one? We have another
Speaker 1: clip too, so we're gonna we're gonna play that one
Speaker 1: to Roger Hangem. This is at white Beard.
Speaker 5: I am a robot from the Jolly Roger Telephone Company.
Speaker 1: He actually sounds pretty realistic, Like I'm quite impressed. So
Speaker 1: how are you using chat GBT? How is the AI
Speaker 1: mixed into this whole world?
Speaker 11: Well, it's so we've got a phone system and then
Speaker 11: behind the scenes there's just a giant Rude Goldberg machine
Speaker 11: of of you know, a bunch of tasks that are
Speaker 11: frantically feeding the next thing that Whitey Whitebeard should say.
Speaker 11: So it's using voice cloning technology from a company that
Speaker 11: sound called play dot ht, which.
Speaker 6: Is very good.
Speaker 11: Just a short clip of Whitey white Beard. The voice
Speaker 11: talent behind that is actually a friend of the family,
Speaker 11: is the father of Steve Burts and our co founder.
Speaker 11: So Sid is a farmer in Vermont, dairy farmer and
Speaker 11: Vermont and recorded some stuff for us years ago, and
Speaker 11: we just fed some of those old recordings into played
Speaker 11: dot ht. They clone the voice and now we can
Speaker 11: have Whitey say whatever chat GPT wants wants to say.
Speaker 11: So we've kind of given chat GPT a voice by
Speaker 11: using voice cloning technology.
Speaker 1: Do you think this is mean to the telemarketers, to
Speaker 1: the scam artists, the scam callers.
Speaker 11: Well, I don't think that because the robots, again, they're friendly.
Speaker 11: The robots are friendly. And sometimes we have telemarketers who
Speaker 11: are just bored out of their minds and they're somewhat
Speaker 11: delighted to get a laugh when talking because they don't
Speaker 11: really know if it's you know, in some cases they
Speaker 11: don't know what's going on. I think it's mean to
Speaker 11: the industry. Our goal is to is to really fight
Speaker 11: the industry of unsolicited telemarketing robocalling. There's certainly a lot
Speaker 11: of scam and a lot of fraud taking place. So
Speaker 11: our goal really is to entertain you, protect the network,
Speaker 11: and really fight these telemarketers and prevent prevent them from scamming.
Speaker 11: You know, the vulnerable out there, such as the elderly
Speaker 11: or or anyone else that might be susceptible to be scams.
Speaker 11: So really we're just we're it's sort of a whimsical service,
Speaker 11: but a serious mission, and that is to fight telemarketing.
Speaker 1: All right, Roger Anderson of Jolly Roger Telephone dot com,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me today. I appreciate the information.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Rich.
Speaker 1: All Right, keep those robocallers busy so they're not calling me,
Speaker 1: as we've all gotten those calls. All right. Coming up
Speaker 1: a little bit later, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: startup that can help you rent out your backyards. If
Speaker 1: you have a backyard pool, you've got a backyard tennis court.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're doing that, maybe you don't need
Speaker 1: the extra cash, but backyard pickleball court. Or you can
Speaker 1: also use this website to rent one of these things.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk to them a little bit later. First,
Speaker 1: more of your calls at triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. This is rich on Tech, your friendly tech show.
Speaker 1: And No, I am not AI. No, I'm not a robot.
Speaker 1: This is a real voice. I swear. How do I
Speaker 1: prove this? I don't know if there is a way
Speaker 1: to prove it anymore. You're listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: I guess because I make mistakes. Jay is in Guardina, California. Jay,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich Welcome to the show.
Speaker 12: Our age. Thank you for your great program. I have
Speaker 12: a question about this iMac that I have. It's about
Speaker 12: twelve years old, very good processor. I hardly used it.
Speaker 12: I wanted to be able to reset it to a
Speaker 12: point that I can only open the Internet to my banking,
Speaker 12: pay my bills, nothing else. That's a question about Apple.
Speaker 12: My other question is what happened to Maya Space. What
Speaker 12: was the difference between my space and Facebook that just
Speaker 12: become a region dollar company and the other one disappeared?
Speaker 5: Thank you?
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Well the second question I think I need a whole
Speaker 1: radio hour to answer because that's a little in depth,
Speaker 1: but I'll attempt to do it. Jay. My Space was
Speaker 1: simply before its time. It was the first of its kind,
Speaker 1: and of course when you have the first of its kind,
Speaker 1: it is emulated and people see the weaknesses in that
Speaker 1: platform and they figure out what they can do better.
Speaker 1: And I think, quite simply, Facebook came along and did
Speaker 1: things better than my Space. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: like Facebook did the feed, and my Space didn't really
Speaker 1: have a feed, and I think that's what made Facebook
Speaker 1: take off in such a big way, is that you
Speaker 1: saw what your friends were doing versus going to their pages.
Speaker 1: My Space was sort of like a glorified personal website
Speaker 1: that lets you see how you were connected to your friends.
Speaker 1: And by the way, that was the best feature ever
Speaker 1: about MySpace was it gave you how you were linked
Speaker 1: up to someone, because you could look up anyone on
Speaker 1: that platform and it would show you exactly how you
Speaker 1: were linked to them. It would say, your friend Jan
Speaker 1: knows Jim, and Jim knows Bob, and that's how you
Speaker 1: know Frank. Wow, that's amazing and I've always wanted that
Speaker 1: feature on Facebook. The degrees of separation, let's call it,
Speaker 1: and it just never never came. So that's to answer
Speaker 1: your question. And I don't know if that's the full answer.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's people that could write a documentary about
Speaker 1: how Facebook took over my Space. But with that said,
Speaker 1: and I think that all major platforms are always at
Speaker 1: risk of It's almost like the Roman Empire, right, you
Speaker 1: have this thing, you built it up, and there's some
Speaker 1: sort of a achilles heel that someone else figures out
Speaker 1: and they take over. And so we've seen the major
Speaker 1: platforms at this point kind of keep their rain for
Speaker 1: a while, the YouTube's of the world, the Instagrams of
Speaker 1: the world. But when you look at something like TikTok
Speaker 1: that came along, it rocketed to the top very quickly.
Speaker 1: And who would have thought vertical video on an app
Speaker 1: would take over the mind space and mind share of
Speaker 1: all these other apps so quickly, and then the government
Speaker 1: tries to take it down. But anyway, that's a whole
Speaker 1: another talk for another day. But let's talk about your
Speaker 1: first question, how to make this mac wow? You have
Speaker 1: a twelve year old iMac. iMac twelve years old, that's
Speaker 1: a that's doing the math that's yeah, that's a long
Speaker 1: time ago. So I was gonna say, the new Macs
Speaker 1: have a way, and you want to kind of clear
Speaker 1: this thing out to get it nice and fresh and
Speaker 1: clean and just just surf the web on it and
Speaker 1: do your banking on it. And that's that's understandable. You
Speaker 1: want to get rid of all the crud. So the
Speaker 1: new Max actually have and all new computers, the Windows
Speaker 1: computers and the Mac computers have a very easy way
Speaker 1: to reset to factory settings, just very similar to the
Speaker 1: way the cell phones have it. In your settings. You
Speaker 1: can go back to eraseol factory reset and it just
Speaker 1: brings it back to that factory finish and the way
Speaker 1: it was set up. There's nothing there except the out
Speaker 1: of the box software. So the Max have that feature.
Speaker 1: The new Max do, and also the new Windows computers do,
Speaker 1: but the old Max do not. Now they have it,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit more. You got to look
Speaker 1: for it. So what you have to do, and you
Speaker 1: may not have this, but you have to reinstall the
Speaker 1: entire operating system from scratch. So what you have to
Speaker 1: do is you have to start up your computer into
Speaker 1: what's called mac os recovery mode and the max are
Speaker 1: a little unique. The way you do this. You turn
Speaker 1: on your Mac and you immediately press and hold. When
Speaker 1: you see the app, press and hold command plus R,
Speaker 1: and when you see an Apple logo, then you can
Speaker 1: let go of those So command R, turn on the computer,
Speaker 1: hold down command R, and just hold that down until
Speaker 1: you see your Apple logo. Once you do that, you
Speaker 1: unlock this magic disc utility. And when you're inside disc utility,
Speaker 1: you can then use that to erase your entire disc.
Speaker 1: And then once you erase it, you can reinstall your software.
Speaker 1: And now this is where it gets tricky. You may
Speaker 1: have that software available on the computer and maybe on
Speaker 1: like a partition. I know it's getting very complicated, but
Speaker 1: you may have to use the original disc that came
Speaker 1: with your computer. So if you still have that in
Speaker 1: the box, that'll help. That's all very complicated, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's something the average person wants to tackle.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I've done this in the past on computers. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward system. I used to. I actually still do
Speaker 1: wipe my computers once a year to get them back
Speaker 1: to whenever I do a new install of the latest
Speaker 1: software update, like if it's you know, the new Mac
Speaker 1: operating system. I will factory refresh my computer just to
Speaker 1: get all the little things off of there and then
Speaker 1: start fresh again. I don't recommend you do that, but
Speaker 1: I like to do it. I'm a nerd and I
Speaker 1: like to start fresh because I test a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, So it's like all these little programs that
Speaker 1: are all just lingering on there anyway. So I tell
Speaker 1: you all that because it's probably not something that's very
Speaker 1: simple to do, but it is doable, and it is
Speaker 1: Once you do it, it's done. And you can find
Speaker 1: the instructions on the Apple support website. You can find
Speaker 1: YouTube videos. But just make sure you sort of like
Speaker 1: print everything out before you tackle this, or you have
Speaker 1: a second screen nearby that you can use to follow
Speaker 1: these instructions, because there will be something that happens that
Speaker 1: you will not expect and then you will be scrambling
Speaker 1: to try to figure out how to recover from that.
Speaker 1: Believe me, it has happened to me, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, this took way longer than I expected
Speaker 1: it to take. The other thing you could do, and
Speaker 1: I've talked about this a lot, is you can just
Speaker 1: turn it into a Chromebook, and you can use what
Speaker 1: Google has for free software. It's called Chrome os Flex
Speaker 1: and you can install that on your old iMac And
Speaker 1: what that does is it just turns it into a
Speaker 1: basically a Chromebook and you'll just have Chrome on there.
Speaker 1: You'll be able to, you know, do basic things that
Speaker 1: you could do on a chromebook, surf the web, just
Speaker 1: whatever whatever you could do on a basic Chromebook you
Speaker 1: could do on there. And that would probably be a
Speaker 1: nice way of using it. You said, the processor is
Speaker 1: pretty good, but that'll run really fast and speedy, and yes,
Speaker 1: you'll be able to do your banking on there. So
Speaker 1: great question, Jay, thanks for the question. I've told you this,
Speaker 1: and I told you how this Tesla charging standard continues
Speaker 1: to just become the charging standard and another company has
Speaker 1: now signed on, so Electrify America. If you have an
Speaker 1: EV you've probably heard of this company. They make charging
Speaker 1: stations around the US. They've got eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: charging stations, four thousand individual chargers in the US and Canada.
Speaker 1: And they said, you know what, Okay, fine, we're in.
Speaker 1: We're gonna start building these Tesla chargers into our charging stations.
Speaker 1: So by twenty twenty five, they will add what's called
Speaker 1: the North American Charging Standard connector to its charging network. Now,
Speaker 1: they're not going to drop support for the other charging standards,
Speaker 1: which is the cs CCS one. They're just going to
Speaker 1: add this new connector. So when you get up to
Speaker 1: their charger, you're gonna have the option to charge via
Speaker 1: the Tesla charger or via the standard chargers that have
Speaker 1: been on the other evs for a while now. So
Speaker 1: again Electrify America. By twenty twenty five, they will start
Speaker 1: adding these things to their network. So the reality is
Speaker 1: Tesla came out with their own charging system, and now
Speaker 1: other companies have adopted this charging system. The first out
Speaker 1: of the gate was GM. They said, okay, fine, we're
Speaker 1: switching over to TESTS. Then Ford said, okay, we'll do
Speaker 1: the same, Volvo okay, we'll do the same, Rivian Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll do the same. Who does that leave two of
Speaker 1: the biggest car companies out there, Hondata I just mixed Honda, Honda,
Speaker 1: and Hyundai. So you got Hyundai, You've got Honda, You've
Speaker 1: got Toyota. Out of those three companies, only Hyundai has
Speaker 1: really shown interest in EVS. Toyota and Honda still have
Speaker 1: yet to have a mainstream ev car, and so we're
Speaker 1: still waiting for them to come out with even an
Speaker 1: ev car. In general, they still think hybrid is the
Speaker 1: way to go, So Electrify America jumping on board. And
Speaker 1: before we go, finally to break YouTube limiting video views
Speaker 1: if you have an ad blocker. So, if you have
Speaker 1: an ad blocker on your computer and you're trying to
Speaker 1: use YouTube and getting around those ads, guess what. YouTube
Speaker 1: is doing an experiment where they are only letting you
Speaker 1: watch three video before they show you a message that says,
Speaker 1: you know what, buddy, enough your ad blocker, stop blocking us,
Speaker 1: or else you can't watch any more videos. And so
Speaker 1: you'll get to watch three with your ad blocker before
Speaker 1: you have to allow YouTube to show you ads. It
Speaker 1: also suggests that you subscribe to YouTube Premium, which is
Speaker 1: what I do. It's very expensive, but then you don't
Speaker 1: have to deal with any of the ad situation on
Speaker 1: YouTube in general. But again, if you're wondering what's happening
Speaker 1: with this whole YouTube situation when you have an ad blocker, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's by design. Google's saying enough of you getting
Speaker 1: around our revenue source here, stop blocking our ads, so
Speaker 1: you'll get three videos before they give you that warning
Speaker 1: that you got to pay up or disable your ad blocker.
Speaker 1: All right, more rich on Tech coming up after this.
Speaker 1: The phone number to call in triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Coming up next, we're going to
Speaker 1: tell you about a website that lets you rent out
Speaker 1: your backyard and make some money doing it. It's the
Speaker 1: Airbnb of swimming pools and more. Coming up. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology, and you know, the gig economy is a
Speaker 1: big part of our world. It started with Uber, it
Speaker 1: continued with door dash, and now people are renting out
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, including their cars and their backyard.
Speaker 1: Swimply is a startup that lets you rent out your
Speaker 1: backyard pool. They've been doing that for years now. They're
Speaker 1: expanding into backyard pickleball and tennis courts. Recently I chatted
Speaker 1: with swimpley co founder and CEO Buham Laskin about how
Speaker 1: people are renting out their backyards to make some extra cash.
Speaker 13: Somebody's an app where if you have a beautiful ribbit pool,
Speaker 13: they spend a lot of money on it, you barely
Speaker 13: use that. You get to actually earn a passive income
Speaker 13: by sharing it with local families and friends in the
Speaker 13: area that are just looking to get together and celebrate privately.
Speaker 13: And if you don't have a pool, you could actually
Speaker 13: go on the app and find different private pools. Different
Speaker 13: you can put in filters so how many people you are,
Speaker 13: whether you want to bring your pet, whether you want
Speaker 13: to be child friendly or event friendly, and then you
Speaker 13: can just preserve it by the hour. Since twenty nineteen,
Speaker 13: we've hosted over a million people and over one hundred
Speaker 13: and twenty five cities and now we're we're available also
Speaker 13: in Australia and.
Speaker 1: Canada, and so it's been quite successful. People like this idea.
Speaker 3: Yes, we've been.
Speaker 13: Going every year obviously, people love swimming, people love spending
Speaker 13: time together, and as the pandemic is eased, that is
Speaker 13: only accelerated.
Speaker 1: What gave you the idea to expand to pickleball and tennis?
Speaker 13: From the beginning, we've been about democratizing luxury and finding
Speaker 13: creative ways of bringing people together in ways they could
Speaker 13: only have dreamed of. And with the rise of pickleball
Speaker 13: growing so fast, and the people not being able to
Speaker 13: build courts fast enough for people, for people to even
Speaker 13: find one to play in. It was something that we
Speaker 13: felt like it's our mission to provide, and so we've
Speaker 13: taken the formula we created with pools and we simply
Speaker 13: brought it to the pickleball community.
Speaker 1: And what do you know about pickleball? And we all
Speaker 1: know tennis, but pickleball is like this kind of people
Speaker 1: are discovering it.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 13: The reason why we love pickleball so much is because,
Speaker 13: like pools, people from all ages love it. Right. A
Speaker 13: pool is friendly for kids, parents, senior citizens, and pickaballs
Speaker 13: has the same origins where it actually started in senior
Speaker 13: citizen community and has trickled this way downwards and now
Speaker 13: everybody's playing pickaball. Everyone gets together and it's something that's
Speaker 13: healthy and gets people outside and puts.
Speaker 3: Their phone away.
Speaker 13: So that's enough for what we needed to know for
Speaker 13: us to be proud to be able to bring that
Speaker 13: to some point.
Speaker 1: Obviously, whenever you do a story like this, there's always
Speaker 1: that idea of strangers coming to your house or you
Speaker 1: as a stranger going to someone else's house. Do you
Speaker 1: have any problems with this everything work out most of
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 13: So I launched swimply because my mother had her twelfth
Speaker 13: child and we need a way to get out of
Speaker 13: the house, and so we paid my neighbor to let
Speaker 13: us use her pool without needing to bother her. And
Speaker 13: so safety has always been a priority from day one,
Speaker 13: and as we've grown, it's become more and more the
Speaker 13: epicenter of how we operate. And so with pickleball, we're
Speaker 13: applying pool level safety standards to pickleball. We verified but
Speaker 13: sids in the marketplaces reviews. Most of our owners are home,
Speaker 13: but you don't have to be home. We've hosted over
Speaker 13: a million people with no incidents today.
Speaker 1: How much money are people making doing the pool thing
Speaker 1: and how much can they make.
Speaker 13: Host them so big an expect to earn anywhere between
Speaker 13: fifteen hundred and three thousand dollars a month passively. Some
Speaker 13: of our owners actually get so passionate about their business
Speaker 13: that they've earned the six figures on the platform. Today,
Speaker 13: owners are in full control. They can set up all
Speaker 13: the rules. There are charge of their own pricing, how
Speaker 13: many guests they allow, how experience they need to be,
Speaker 13: how many adults versus kids, ratio so we give the
Speaker 13: full control to the owners to operate their business however
Speaker 13: they want to, and guests gearable to see previous reviews
Speaker 13: from other players in the area, the families that have
Speaker 13: enjoyed the experience, and for even more peace of mind,
Speaker 13: simply offers up to two million dollars per reservation and
Speaker 13: protection and free of charge.
Speaker 1: I then spoke with bell Air resident Aubrey Stark. She
Speaker 1: rents out her home for film shoots. Now she's renting
Speaker 1: out her backyard pickleball court through Swimply.
Speaker 2: This court, I.
Speaker 14: Think is pretty unique because it has the Thrive sound
Speaker 14: speakers which are top of the line. We have a
Speaker 14: seating area that can fit twelve people, mini fridge, We
Speaker 14: have a pickleball machine which you can use, fire pit
Speaker 14: with included propane. And then we have a couple add
Speaker 14: ons like our sauna area we called our zen Zone,
Speaker 14: but it includes a sauna and a cold plunge. It's incredible.
Speaker 14: I actually have made that into a full on business myself.
Speaker 14: I am renting out the house, the property, the court
Speaker 14: usually like three times a week now, so it's become
Speaker 14: a major avenue of revenue for us.
Speaker 1: And what do you think about the people that come here, like,
Speaker 1: are they pretty nice for the most part?
Speaker 14: Yeah, everyone's pretty nice. We have a couple bad apples
Speaker 14: here and there, but for the most part, everyone's amazing
Speaker 14: and really respectful of the property.
Speaker 1: What do you think makes pickleball fun?
Speaker 14: It's great because it's really competitive. I think just about
Speaker 14: anyone can pick it up and learn it pretty quickly.
Speaker 14: But if you play one on one then it's actually
Speaker 14: a workout as well, so it kind of encapsulates all
Speaker 14: three of those things.
Speaker 1: And what is a court like this rent for? What
Speaker 1: do you what do you put this on swimply for?
Speaker 14: I believe our court is currently I mean there's a
Speaker 14: range depending on a number of people in number of
Speaker 14: hours that I think we're currently around eight or ninety
Speaker 14: bucks an hour with maybe a two hour minimum.
Speaker 1: Are people renting it?
Speaker 14: Yeah, people are renting it. And they just launched this
Speaker 14: platform on Swimplea, so it's very very new, but we've
Speaker 14: had consistent rentals just about every week.
Speaker 1: And do you think swimpley is gonna have to change
Speaker 1: their name now that they're doing all these other things
Speaker 1: sides swimming pools.
Speaker 14: It's a really good question. I don't know I guess
Speaker 14: it depends on how much press they do. Potentially. I
Speaker 14: think pick a Ball is a major I mean, it's
Speaker 14: the fastest screen sport in America right now, So it
Speaker 14: wouldn't surprise me if there had to be a little
Speaker 14: bit of rebranding around the name.
Speaker 1: And what do you think of you know, like, what's
Speaker 1: your advice to other people that may have an asset
Speaker 1: at their home that they can rent out, whether it's anything,
Speaker 1: I mean it's strangers coming to your house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's always a little bit of trepidation there, absolutely.
Speaker 14: I think you just have to design around what you're
Speaker 14: comfortable with. I was candidly, very nervous about it in
Speaker 14: the beginning, but I do a good amount of research
Speaker 14: and make sure to get to know the person. I
Speaker 14: always do the check ins myself, make sure I feel
Speaker 14: comfortable with a person, and for the most part, we've
Speaker 14: had really great experiences. I would say that definitely keep
Speaker 14: someone on site at all times.
Speaker 1: All right, there you have it, swimply renting out your
Speaker 1: backyard pool. I ran that idea by my in laws
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, you can make a couple
Speaker 1: thousand bucks a month, and they were like, no way.
Speaker 1: So your mileage may vary. If you want information on
Speaker 1: swimply how to rent out your pool, your tennis court,
Speaker 1: your pickleball court, or if you want to rent one
Speaker 1: of these things, you can go to my website. It's
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot tv. Look for rich on Tech
Speaker 1: Radio show and then look for the show notes and
Speaker 1: I will have the link in there. Swimple dot com
Speaker 1: is the place to go. By the way, did you
Speaker 1: know you can listen to this show as a podcast.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe so you never missed an episode
Speaker 1: just searching your favorite audio app. Rich on Tech. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up, we've got much more of the show. Many
Speaker 1: the phone lines are still still filled up. Eighty eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to one zero one, rich on Tech. Back after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech, kicking off our number
Speaker 1: three of the show. Thanks for joining me at triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Coming up in this hour,
Speaker 1: we've got friend of the show Jefferson Graham. He's going
Speaker 1: to talk about how to take photos of fireworks? Should
Speaker 1: we even bother? I'll ask him that question. Also, he's
Speaker 1: got a hot tip for travel that is a little
Speaker 1: low tech, so I'll ask him about that as he
Speaker 1: embarks on a thirty day road trip. Then we've got
Speaker 1: this app that I think you should download. It's a
Speaker 1: life saving tool. Tell you about that and the new
Speaker 1: password manager that also protects your email. But first let's
Speaker 1: kick it off with Mark in Lomita, California. Mark, you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich.
Speaker 11: Hey, Rich, thank you for what you do here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for saying that.
Speaker 11: My question, Yeah, my question is I'm going to Switzerland
Speaker 11: next week and I've heard about an e simcard, but
Speaker 11: I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 2: What do you recommend I want.
Speaker 1: To when I'm obile in Switzerland?
Speaker 11: I want to post on What's app Facebook and maybe
Speaker 11: call back a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Okay. And who's your carrier for your phone? Okay?
Speaker 11: I have an S twenty one Verizon.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're on Verizon? Yeah, okay. And have you
Speaker 1: checked to see if you get any free days on
Speaker 1: your international travel?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I have none?
Speaker 1: Okay, So first thing you got to do call Verizon
Speaker 1: and say do I have any travel past days? And
Speaker 1: so that's number one. So for instance, on my account,
Speaker 1: I've got four travel past days which means I can
Speaker 1: roam for free for four days. Usually that's ten dollars
Speaker 1: a day, and I will get that for free. So
Speaker 1: that's the first thing you want to do is see
Speaker 1: if you have anything available on your account, and it
Speaker 1: depends on your plan, how long you've been with them,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. But if you use your phone,
Speaker 1: just you know, standard you turn on your phone and
Speaker 1: open it up in a different country, like they're going
Speaker 1: to say, okay, welcome to Switzerland. You're now paying ten
Speaker 1: dollars a day for your your global pass and that'll
Speaker 1: only give you I think it's half a gig of
Speaker 1: data a day, which might be enough just to get
Speaker 1: through what you need. But that's ten dollars a day,
Speaker 1: so that can that can add up quickly. But if
Speaker 1: you're only there for you know, three four days, if
Speaker 1: you don't mind paying the extra forty bucks, it's very
Speaker 1: very simple. You don't really have to change anything at all.
Speaker 1: That's number one. Now you're talking about is an eSIM.
Speaker 1: So an eSIM is built into the new phones. You've
Speaker 1: said you have a S twenty one YEAP and have
Speaker 1: you confirmed that that does have SIM?
Speaker 12: No, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, so I'm going to look this up and
Speaker 1: see if it has an eSIM. Let's see the S
Speaker 1: twenty one does have SIM support. Okay, so you're good there.
Speaker 1: The newer iPhones, I think it was iPhone thirteen and up.
Speaker 1: Don't quote me on that, but I they came out
Speaker 1: with them and kind of standardized this technology which is
Speaker 1: in most of the new phones. But what eSIM is,
Speaker 1: instead of a physical SIM card, you can activate a
Speaker 1: SIM card through your phone, so you don't need to
Speaker 1: do anything except just download, download an app, sign up
Speaker 1: for the app, and it'll say, okay, let's activate a
Speaker 1: phone line. And so what you do is you can
Speaker 1: either turn off your other SIM, your standard SIM which
Speaker 1: is your Verizon, and that way you don't get charged
Speaker 1: or anything. Or better yet, you can just turn off
Speaker 1: the data portion and turn on Wi Fi calling and
Speaker 1: you'll be able to use your phone if you have
Speaker 1: Wi Fi, and you'll be able to make and receive calls,
Speaker 1: send your text, all that good stuff. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of the options now with the eSIM. There are two
Speaker 1: ways I recommend doing the eSIM route. One company is
Speaker 1: called US Mobile, and you download the app and you
Speaker 1: sign up for a plan that is pretty inexpensive. So
Speaker 1: for instance, you're going to Europe, this is twenty dollars,
Speaker 1: will give you ten gigabytes of data for thirty days.
Speaker 1: So for twenty bucks you can roam all around Europe
Speaker 1: for thirty days and get ten gigabytes of data, which
Speaker 1: is more. I think that'll be more than enough for you.
Speaker 1: So that's very very simple. The other app I like
Speaker 1: is called er low air Alo. Now their ten gigabyte
Speaker 1: plan just for Switzerland is going to cost twenty four dollars,
Speaker 1: and so again you buy that through the app and
Speaker 1: then it leads you through the step by step directions
Speaker 1: on how to install that on your Samsung phone. I've
Speaker 1: done this a dozen times. It's very very simple. I've
Speaker 1: only had one problem with it when I was in
Speaker 1: Japan on an Android phone. It worked fine on my iPhone,
Speaker 1: but it would not work on my Android for some reason.
Speaker 1: But I've not had that same problem in other places.
Speaker 1: That was just a specific problem I seem to have.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it works pretty well. But again, Mark, that's what
Speaker 1: I'd recommend. Call Verizon first, see if you have any
Speaker 1: travel past days, see how many days you have use
Speaker 1: that first. If you want to just have the simplest process,
Speaker 1: or if you don't mind paying. Let's say let's say
Speaker 1: you have three travel past days, you're going for a week,
Speaker 1: and then you don't mind paying the ten dollars every
Speaker 1: additional day you're only there, you know, three extra days.
Speaker 1: That would be thirty dollars total to use your phone
Speaker 1: as you use it in America. Otherwise, I would look
Speaker 1: into the eSIM from US Mobile or Ara Loo. I've
Speaker 1: got both of those linked up on the website, and
Speaker 1: I think those would work for you. Does that sound
Speaker 1: like something you could do?
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, I'm going there for three weeks, so oh
Speaker 11: check all that just okay.
Speaker 1: So for three weeks that that definitely changes things. I'd
Speaker 1: probably I'd probably steer away from the Verizon situation because
Speaker 1: twenty one days times ten dollars a day, that's two
Speaker 1: hundred and ten dollars. I would not do that. I
Speaker 1: personally would go with the US Mobile twenty dollars for
Speaker 1: ten gigs for thirty days. That'll be more than enough data.
Speaker 1: And just obviously hop on a Wi Fi network whenever possible,
Speaker 1: don't do your banking on the Wi Fi. Always use
Speaker 1: a VPN when you're doing any sort of banking, or
Speaker 1: just use a cellular connection disconnect from Wi Fi whenever
Speaker 1: you're doing something like banking.
Speaker 11: All right, gotcha, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All right, Mark, have a safe trip and a fun
Speaker 1: trip over there. I've heard Switzerland is beautiful. I've been
Speaker 1: there when I was a kid, but only to fly
Speaker 1: in and then drive out to another country. But it
Speaker 1: was as far as I remember. Maybe I'm just making
Speaker 1: this up in my head, but I just remember mountains
Speaker 1: with snow. That's probably just what I've seen on TV.
Speaker 1: All right, I think we have time for another call here.
Speaker 1: Let's go to uh Jan in Orange County. Jan you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich.
Speaker 9: Oh, Hi, thank you Rich.
Speaker 12: I just was wondering.
Speaker 9: I have a Samsung and I've always been an Android user,
Speaker 9: and I'm thinking of switching the iPhone and I was wondering, well,
Speaker 9: everything from my Samsung transfer over to an iPhone?
Speaker 1: Ooh, yes, the short answer. The short answer is yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm someone who uses both platforms on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: much to my wife's what's is chagrin a word? Okay, chagrin? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what she feels is She's like, which phone are
Speaker 1: you using today? So, Jan, why do you want to
Speaker 1: switch to the iPhone?
Speaker 9: Basically because my son's saying, just get an iPhone, so
Speaker 9: much easier. But I'm used to, you know, my Samsung.
Speaker 9: So will it be easy for me to learn an iPhone?
Speaker 9: I'm not. I mean, I'm pretty I feel I'm a
Speaker 9: little maybe a little above average in technology.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I like that. So here's the thing. Everyone says,
Speaker 1: just get an iPhone, Just get an iPhone, Just get
Speaker 1: an iPhone. It's easier. So you change your whole life
Speaker 1: just to make their life easier. Okay, I mean, I look,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to debate the merits of that conversation,
Speaker 1: but I know what happens across the US on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, and it's mostly to do with I message.
Speaker 1: Everyone wants their messages to, you know, go between these
Speaker 1: phones easily. And the one thing you have going for you.
Speaker 1: I will tell you if you switch over to an
Speaker 1: iPhone because of your son, is that many people have
Speaker 1: an iPhone and they will be able to help you
Speaker 1: with that iPhone. So when I wrote a book, I
Speaker 1: wrote one hundred and one handy tech tips for the iPhone.
Speaker 1: Why did I choose iPhone because it's almost universal here
Speaker 1: in the US. People have an iPhone, they know how
Speaker 1: to they have it, and they know the basics, but
Speaker 1: they didn't know all the little things you could do
Speaker 1: on top of the basics. And so I wrote the
Speaker 1: book because it would reach so many people with that phone.
Speaker 1: Android devices are all very different. If you have a Samsung,
Speaker 1: it's different than a Motorola, it's different from a one Plus,
Speaker 1: it's different than a pixel. So that's the reason why
Speaker 1: these tips and tricks and people helping each other out
Speaker 1: with the Android side of things doesn't happen as much
Speaker 1: because you know, chances are if your friend has an Android,
Speaker 1: they have a totally different model than you have, Whereas
Speaker 1: if they have an iPhone, it's running pretty much the
Speaker 1: same software. So they can say, oh, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: how to turn on the hot spot here, let me
Speaker 1: show you. So I do think in that case you're
Speaker 1: going to be better off. But what type of Android
Speaker 1: phone do you have?
Speaker 9: H it's a Samsung A forty two. It's not a
Speaker 9: very good one.
Speaker 1: I don't really like it, Okay, so okay, well there
Speaker 1: you go. Now you don't like it, So I in
Speaker 1: that case then the A forty two is sort of
Speaker 1: their basic models. You know, I think you'd probably be
Speaker 1: happy with an iPhone and being on that group message
Speaker 1: chat with your kids and your friends and the blue
Speaker 1: bubbles and all that stuff. So to answer your original question,
Speaker 1: will things transfer over? Yes, there is an app that
Speaker 1: you would download called move to iOS, and this is
Speaker 1: what you download on your Samsung. It's called move to iOS.
Speaker 1: And once you download that, this will help you transfer
Speaker 1: everything over to your iPhone. And so once you have
Speaker 1: your iPhone, you will literally just connect these two devices
Speaker 1: and you can move them over. And so it's a
Speaker 1: very simple, simple process and it basically just connects these
Speaker 1: things over a Wi Fi network that it creates between
Speaker 1: these two devices. So what will transfer over? Your contacts,
Speaker 1: your message history, your camera photos, your videos, your photo albums,
Speaker 1: your files, your accessibility settings, your display settings, your web bookmarks,
Speaker 1: reading this off the Apple support page, your mail accounts,
Speaker 1: your WhatsApp, your calendars, and any app that is available
Speaker 1: on both platforms will transfer over. Now, not the actual app,
Speaker 1: but it will just download that app to the iPhone.
Speaker 1: So if there's any app that you don't see, you
Speaker 1: can just go ahead and download that later. But from
Speaker 1: what you're telling me, if you're not really happy with
Speaker 1: this Samsung phone and it's a pretty basic phone, I
Speaker 1: say get a new iPhone. You can go with the iPhone.
Speaker 1: I would probably go with the iPhone fourteen at this
Speaker 1: point and just get the standard iPhone. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be leaps and bounds ahead of what you
Speaker 1: have already. And you could even go to the Apple
Speaker 1: website and see if they'll give you any money for
Speaker 1: that trade in. I don't think they will give you
Speaker 1: much for that phone, but you may get something now.
Speaker 1: If you also go through a carrier, they may try
Speaker 1: to give you a free iPhone. Just know, if they're
Speaker 1: giving you a free phone, it's not necessarily free. It's
Speaker 1: pretty much a three year contract where you have to
Speaker 1: stick with that carrier for three years. And yeah, the
Speaker 1: phone you won't be paying a payment for, but you
Speaker 1: will be paying to stay with that carrier for the
Speaker 1: time being. So good question, Jan, Thanks so much. But yes,
Speaker 1: Apple has created an app again called move to iOS
Speaker 1: that will help you transfer an Android phone to an iPhone.
Speaker 1: Switching phones these days is quite quite simple, all right,
Speaker 1: Coming up? More of your calls at Triple eight, Rich
Speaker 1: one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to one zero one. We got my friend Jefferson
Speaker 1: Graham on tap. He's going to talk about taking pictures
Speaker 1: of fireworks, and then we've got some more news. I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you about a new password manager that
Speaker 1: actually looks pretty good and an app that you should
Speaker 1: download that I use probably on a weekly basis. You
Speaker 1: are listening to Rich on tech. Rich Demiro here, rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, hanging out on the holiday weekend, talking technology,
Speaker 1: technology arrests. The phone line is U eight eight eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to one zero one. Let's go to Jack in
Speaker 1: uh Riverside, California. Jack, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 5: Hey, Rich, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic. How are you?
Speaker 5: I'd be great if you can help me and tell
Speaker 5: me what I did wrong with my Windows desktop?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Oh, what happened?
Speaker 5: Well, it used to be a Windows seven. Then I
Speaker 5: rolled up the Windows ten. So but I was using
Speaker 5: a Sea cleaner and it said I have programs slowing
Speaker 5: me down, so I turned them off. Then I couldn't
Speaker 5: get into my Yahoo at and T mail, so I
Speaker 5: tried to restore to an earlier day, and now I
Speaker 5: won't do anything. I tried hitting this, turn it out
Speaker 5: and hitting the state they were restoring it to an
Speaker 5: early day, but he says, there's no restoring dat and
Speaker 5: it still won't come back up.
Speaker 12: What did I do wrong?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 1: So, where does your computer stand right now? Is it?
Speaker 1: What's on the screen?
Speaker 2: That? Oh?
Speaker 1: Nothing? Okay, Well, it sounds like you might have it
Speaker 1: sounds like you're in the middle of a restore, but
Speaker 1: it but it stopped and then it now it doesn't
Speaker 1: know what's what it's doing. Is that sound about right?
Speaker 5: Sounds like it, yeah, because I was trying to restore
Speaker 5: it from an earlier date, but it never gave me
Speaker 5: a date. And then I took a couple hours. Then
Speaker 5: I said, oh shoot, so that's when I hit turned
Speaker 5: it out, turned it back on. It started hitting the
Speaker 5: skate and then I was able to get that little menu.
Speaker 5: But then it said there's no restort point.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it sounds like you might have lost what's
Speaker 1: on this computer. The first thing I would do is, uh,
Speaker 1: unplug it from the wall, let it sit for a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then plug it back in and then.
Speaker 2: Start it up.
Speaker 1: If you're still getting an error message, then it sounds
Speaker 1: like you you've lost some data on this drive. I
Speaker 1: would probably boot it up in safe mode, and so
Speaker 1: safe mode will let you see what's happening on this
Speaker 1: computer if there's anything that is you know, if you
Speaker 1: can still somehow boot up this computer into a basic
Speaker 1: Windows shell and see what's going on there and then
Speaker 1: see if you're you know, and then once you get
Speaker 1: into there, you can troubleshoot a little bit more. But
Speaker 1: that is probably what I would do. Now if none
Speaker 1: of that stuff works, If you really can't rescue this,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that you're backed up, because that's uh, sounds
Speaker 1: like you're gonna have to reinstall Windows on this thing,
Speaker 1: or at least restart Windows into a uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a factory. You've got Windows ten on there, you said,
Speaker 1: So hopefully you should just be able to go into
Speaker 1: safe mode and restart or reinstall this program. But I
Speaker 1: I this is why I recommend always having a backup,
Speaker 1: because it just you never know when something like this
Speaker 1: is going to happen. You're using a program, you're deleting something,
Speaker 1: you're changing a little setting here or there, and next
Speaker 1: thing you know, the world goes dark, and now you're like, uh,
Speaker 1: what do I do? So again, unplug it, let it
Speaker 1: rest for a minute, plug it back in, see if
Speaker 1: it comes back to life, if it doesn't, go into
Speaker 1: safe mode, and see if you can troubleshoot from there.
Speaker 1: But otherwise, if that, if none of those things work,
Speaker 1: you might think about bringing it in somewhere that they
Speaker 1: can troubleshoot before you delete anything off of this computer.
Speaker 1: You don't want to, you know, fully lose everything. So
Speaker 1: that's what I would do, and maybe bring it into
Speaker 1: a place like a Shurion or you know, find a
Speaker 1: local you know, local data doctor and if you have
Speaker 1: stuff on this that you need, maybe they can help.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Stella in Santa Monica. Stella, you're on
Speaker 1: with Rich.
Speaker 13: Hi.
Speaker 1: Rich, I'm doing fantastic. How are you?
Speaker 10: I'm doing well. I just want to to say thank
Speaker 10: you for everything that you do. I love your show
Speaker 10: and it's awesome because you help all of us that
Speaker 10: don't know anything about what you know.
Speaker 1: Ah, thank you. Well I try. I'm coming up against
Speaker 1: a break. So what's going on? Stella?
Speaker 10: Okay, my phone's getting hot and also my battery is
Speaker 10: like running like really low, like really fast. Is it
Speaker 10: time for new phone? Is it time for a new battery?
Speaker 1: What kind of phone do you have?
Speaker 10: It's an iPhone Mini twelve, okay, So what you need
Speaker 10: to do is figure out why it's running hot and
Speaker 10: why the battery is running out so fast.
Speaker 1: So what I want you to do is go into
Speaker 1: settings on your iPhone, go into battery and the first
Speaker 1: thing you got to check is the battery health. See
Speaker 1: what your maximum capacity is, and then go in there
Speaker 1: and make sure that it says optimized battery charging, and
Speaker 1: see what's running down your battery. So for me, I
Speaker 1: can tell what's been running down my battery. It'll give
Speaker 1: you a list of all of those things inside there.
Speaker 1: If something is making your phone run hot, delete that app,
Speaker 1: get rid of it, or update your apps and figure
Speaker 1: out what's going on with that battery. Stella all right,
Speaker 1: Coming up Jefferson Graham, we'll talk fireworks photo. So you're
Speaker 1: listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology and
Speaker 1: on the line my friend Jefferson Graham, formerly of USA Today,
Speaker 1: now of Photo Walks TV. Jefferson, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me.
Speaker 2: Thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1: Hey, you sound great. Photo Walks TV on YouTube. Definitely
Speaker 1: subscribe because Jefferson is you are everywhere. You are all
Speaker 1: over the US traveling taking pictures, and the best part
Speaker 1: is you're doing everything with your smartphone. I think it
Speaker 1: was a couple of years back when you told me
Speaker 1: Rich I'm ditching the giant DSLR and I'm going with
Speaker 1: the smartphone. How is that going?
Speaker 2: It's doing great. I actually I have a video that's
Speaker 2: going to run next week where I did it back
Speaker 2: back on the iPhone video versus the Canon DSLR the
Speaker 2: eos R six, and I defy you to see the difference.
Speaker 2: If there's anything, you're getting a better video quality from
Speaker 2: the iPhone on a smaller camera that does not make
Speaker 2: people get their backs up when you walk in the door.
Speaker 2: That is small, it's portable, it's light. It works in
Speaker 2: so many great situations, and it has been fantastic for
Speaker 2: me as a run and gunner going all over the
Speaker 2: place from France and Japan and solve it. You know,
Speaker 2: Solvang I was in Columbus, Ohio, and I'm about to
Speaker 2: go on a big thirty day shoot between LA and
Speaker 2: South Dakota, stopping in Colorado and Utah and Arizona and Nevada,
Speaker 2: in Wyoming and Idaho, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to be doing a lot of episodes
Speaker 2: doing it this way. So I just got my box
Speaker 2: full of smartphones and accessories.
Speaker 1: I love it. And I will say tell you we
Speaker 1: shoot a lot of our TV segments on the iPhone
Speaker 1: because it's easier, it's simpler, it can go anywhere. Nobody
Speaker 1: bats an eye because it's an iPhone versus a big
Speaker 1: old camera.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: We started out with that on the shoulder camera. Then
Speaker 1: we went to a DSLR, which we still use primarily.
Speaker 1: But now with the wireless mics and all the iPhone,
Speaker 1: the quality of the iPhone is just so good. It
Speaker 1: really is the gold standard in video and in photos
Speaker 1: too in a lot of ways. Okay, so first off,
Speaker 1: you mentioned your thirty day road trip, so you had
Speaker 1: a tip in your newsletter today. Jefferson is very prolific
Speaker 1: with his newsletter, and I'm very jealous of how good
Speaker 1: you are at writing these things. But you had a
Speaker 1: tip this week about booking hotel rooms, which is sort
Speaker 1: of anti to everything we would think of tell me
Speaker 1: what that tip is.
Speaker 2: Okay, the tip is and I learned it from the
Speaker 2: hotel rep in Deadwood, South Dakota. Okay. She said, never
Speaker 2: look online at the hotel site booking dot com, hotels
Speaker 2: dot com, you name it, because you're being you're being
Speaker 2: asked to pay a giant commission. And it started because
Speaker 2: I was on the Windom site. Windom owns super eight.
Speaker 2: It's hard to find hotel rooms right now, and so
Speaker 2: you know it, particularly if you're going for thirty days,
Speaker 2: you've got to go cheap, right. Yeah, So it was
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars a night, I believe on the Windom site.
Speaker 2: When I called, she said one fifty, and I said,
Speaker 2: what gives? And she goes, Oh, the commissions. The commissions
Speaker 2: are built in, and they're baked into all the sites.
Speaker 2: Even when you go direct, the commissions are built in.
Speaker 2: So you always got a call and I'll tell you
Speaker 2: go ahead.
Speaker 1: One thing I learned about those commissions, so the website,
Speaker 1: there's some sort of weird agreement with like you know,
Speaker 1: all these like third party websites that the hotel can't
Speaker 1: be cheaper because then basically they could put the websites
Speaker 1: out of business. And so the agreement is that the
Speaker 1: website from the hotel will have the same price as
Speaker 1: like Booking dot Com or Expedia. And so what you're
Speaker 1: saying is when you call, of course that's a one
Speaker 1: to one transaction. They can do that for you and
Speaker 1: save you that money. Now, fifteen dollars may not sound
Speaker 1: like a lot twenty bucks, thirty bucks, but if you're
Speaker 1: going for thirty days like you just mentioned, that's you know,
Speaker 1: I cut add up to like one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Well, wait a minute, I'm talking about five oh fifty
Speaker 2: dollars less for two nights. It was one hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: The place I'm staying in Monument Valley is seventy dollars
Speaker 2: less a night. I'm staying there two nights. That's one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty. Every hotel I called was cheaper I
Speaker 2: I when I called instead of doing the online thing.
Speaker 2: And the other knock we have to give on booking
Speaker 2: and hotels is you get to the place you hate it,
Speaker 2: You're booked for four nights, you say I want out,
Speaker 2: and they say, sorry, there's nothing we can do because
Speaker 2: you went through Booking dot Com. Had you gone direct
Speaker 2: with us, it would have been no problem. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a little more work. So I get it.
Speaker 1: People want to do everything on the line, and they
Speaker 1: want to you know, book things and you know, but
Speaker 1: I get it. If you want to, if you want
Speaker 1: to save money at a hotel, just call them direct
Speaker 1: and the best you can do is just ask them
Speaker 1: and see what they say. If they give you fifty
Speaker 1: bucks off times two nights, three nights, you know, that's
Speaker 1: a little extra spending money for food or drink or whatever.
Speaker 1: So great, great tip. All right, so let's talk fireworks.
Speaker 1: I know people will love to share their fireworks photos
Speaker 1: this coming weekend. Do you even bother taking pictures? Can
Speaker 1: the can the average person get a good fireworks photo?
Speaker 2: Oh, the average person can get a great fireworks photo
Speaker 2: on their smartphone. I got some great ones last December
Speaker 2: because in the city that I live in, in Manhattan Beach, California,
Speaker 2: we have our fireworks in December, not in July.
Speaker 1: So that's okay. So what so so heroes I see
Speaker 1: are never good, They're always blurry, they're always how do
Speaker 1: you get a good one?
Speaker 2: Okay, go there with your smartphone, use the wide lens,
Speaker 2: which is the one X that's the sharpest. It's the
Speaker 2: lens that's the best in low light. Don't go ultra wide,
Speaker 2: don't go close up. Just use that one X lens
Speaker 2: and then shoot video of the of a segment. You know.
Speaker 2: I used to tell people they had to use a tripod.
Speaker 2: Now they don't because the image stabilization is so good.
Speaker 2: You can handhold a two minute shot, believe it or not,
Speaker 2: and run videos. So you have the whole thing. And
Speaker 2: on the iPhone the minute you start recording with the
Speaker 2: red button. Right next to the red button is a
Speaker 2: white button and that's for taking pictures. And you could
Speaker 2: just hit that over and over again while you've got
Speaker 2: your backup video going and you can get some great photos.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I like that. The so the one two punch,
Speaker 1: you've got the video because everyone wants the video with
Speaker 1: the oohs and ah's, and then you get the actual
Speaker 1: still shots. I would actually you gave me an idea
Speaker 1: because you're taking the video anyway. You can also go
Speaker 1: into Google Photos if you use that, and then they
Speaker 1: have a feature called export frame. Now do you think
Speaker 1: that frame would be clear with the You know, if
Speaker 1: you try to do that with the fireworks photos or
Speaker 1: no with the video.
Speaker 2: I think it'll be fine. The people at Apple told
Speaker 2: me that you're always going to get a higher resolution,
Speaker 2: better photo if you take it as a photo this way,
Speaker 2: and if you do the frame grab. Now. I do
Speaker 2: frame grabs all day, every day. And for web work,
Speaker 2: it's fine. And I don't know that you're going to
Speaker 2: hang fireworks shots on your wall, but you know, the
Speaker 2: safety thing is run the video because you can't go wrong.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get the shot right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. Any other tips for this for
Speaker 1: the fireworks specifically.
Speaker 2: I get there early, if you can grab your spot,
Speaker 2: you know, get your best spot, Get as close as
Speaker 2: you can to the front of the line. You don't
Speaker 2: want people's heads in the shot though you are going
Speaker 2: in the sky, so it's okay, but they're always you know,
Speaker 2: scouted out, and don't run all over the place. Just
Speaker 2: pick your spot and you're probably not gonna have a
Speaker 2: tripod and do several video clips. Do you know? Remember
Speaker 2: the best one is the last one, right, So do
Speaker 2: it a few times and you're gonna get some great stuff.
Speaker 1: And what do you do with these pictures if you
Speaker 1: don't put them on your wall? What do you social media,
Speaker 1: social media, Okay, social media is where it's at. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you're going on this thirty day trip. You're going
Speaker 1: all different places. You have a whole bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: that you pack, and I can't go through it all
Speaker 1: because you've got a lot of it.
Speaker 2: But I love how do you find the newsletter? Jefferson
Speaker 2: Graham dot substack dot com. I'd love to have you
Speaker 2: as a reader. Many people are charging I do not.
Speaker 2: It's free and it comes to your indocks every Saturday
Speaker 2: and Sunday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like clockwork, I get it every Saturday and Sunday,
Speaker 1: and I go, oh, I wish I would have started
Speaker 1: mine again. You're the one who made me start this
Speaker 1: in the first place. Okay. So some of the things
Speaker 1: that you carry, the inst three sixty x three, the
Speaker 1: Go Pro Hero eleven, a Dji, Mavic Air. You've got
Speaker 1: your USB car adapter, which I think is very smart,
Speaker 1: AirPods Pro, You've got a selfie stick, You've got a microphone.
Speaker 1: Let's see the other thing you're you're carrying now is
Speaker 1: a Samsung S twenty three? Is that the Ultra?
Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, so at the Ultra, but recently the question
Speaker 2: is why.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that,
Speaker 1: because I know there's always this big debate of the
Speaker 1: iPhone versus Android with photo quality. How are you noticing
Speaker 1: the pictures are coming out from that Samsung?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, first of all, I just got it
Speaker 2: the other day. Okay, so it's new. There's two features
Speaker 2: in here that I'm very excited about. One is that
Speaker 2: they have a way better telephoto lens. So you have
Speaker 2: basically the equivalent of a two hundred millimeter that's a
Speaker 2: ten X right now, you have a three X on
Speaker 2: the iPhone. So I used the S twenty one in
Speaker 2: Japan when I was there. I got some really nice
Speaker 2: telephoto work. I got the new one because of the
Speaker 2: astro star lighting start us. What's it called, Yeah, the
Speaker 2: astrophotography feature. Yeah, photography. Sure, Well, a three hundred X
Speaker 2: you can and you can run it for one hour.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be in the bad Lands National Park
Speaker 2: in South Dakota doing star trails and I really wanted
Speaker 2: to get it for that. I also like the fact
Speaker 2: that you can do varial speed time lapses, which you
Speaker 2: cannot do on the iPhone. I am a time lapse freak.
Speaker 2: I do them all the time, and basically put you
Speaker 2: put the camera on a tripod, you press record, and
Speaker 2: you let us stay there for an hour. But you
Speaker 2: don't have any choices. So with the Samsung, they're giving
Speaker 2: you a choice of five X and ten X, basically
Speaker 2: making it much faster. And I think that's great. And
Speaker 2: the other reason I bought the camera, just so everybody
Speaker 2: knows is I do lead a lot of photo workshops
Speaker 2: and seminars and I say, here's how you do stuff
Speaker 2: on the iPhone, and there's always somebody who says, yeah,
Speaker 2: but how do I do it on the Galaxy? So
Speaker 2: I want to be better well versed.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love it. I love it. The other thing
Speaker 1: I was going to mention is that there's a huge,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, like over a
Speaker 1: two gigabyte update for the S twenty three Ultras. So
Speaker 1: just before you head out, if you haven't updated it,
Speaker 1: it's it's literally with like in the past three days.
Speaker 2: Okay, check that out.
Speaker 1: All right, Jefferson, We're gonna leave it there. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining me. Where can folks follow you?
Speaker 2: Well, lease come to my YouTube which is YouTube dot
Speaker 2: com slash photo walks TV folks, I'm going to go
Speaker 2: live to three o'clock if you're listening live today, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to show off all the gear in my box.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: You can find me on Twitter at Jefferson Graham. Ditto
Speaker 2: for Instagram and the newsletter Jefferson Graham do stufstack dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks so much for joining me, Ja jeff
Speaker 1: and have a great road trip. Thanks all right, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Coming up, it is the end of the show and
Speaker 1: your favorite section of the show. I guess we call
Speaker 1: it the feedback. I got a couple more stories to
Speaker 1: tell you about, plus your feedback. Right here, you are
Speaker 1: listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on
Speaker 1: Tech feedback time. Not to be confused with feedback feedback.
Speaker 1: This is the section of the show where it's kind
Speaker 1: of like rapid fire. It's probably too fast for any
Speaker 1: of us to understand, but I'm going to do my
Speaker 1: best because there's a lot to get through. First off,
Speaker 1: a couple stories. Proton Pass so new password manager from
Speaker 1: the folks that make proton Email, which is a secure email,
Speaker 1: encrypted email service. They've been running that since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: Proton Mail now they came out with a password manager.
Speaker 1: And what I like about this password manager is it
Speaker 1: is free. Now, of course it's limited in the free scope,
Speaker 1: but it's still free, and I think it's actually pretty
Speaker 1: good for what they offer for free. So what they do,
Speaker 1: what their thing is proton password Manager. I want to
Speaker 1: just make sure I have this on here. Okay, So
Speaker 1: it's open source number one, but it also covers your
Speaker 1: email address. So that's the main difference between this encrypted,
Speaker 1: open source password manager from proton mail and the others
Speaker 1: is that this one also generates a one time email
Speaker 1: address for your login, similar to what Apple does. They
Speaker 1: have a program that does that, but then you're linked there.
Speaker 1: The more hidden email addresses you generate with Apple, the
Speaker 1: more you are linked to Apple forever. And that's why
Speaker 1: they do that, because they want you to stay in
Speaker 1: that walled garden for as long as humanly possible. And
Speaker 1: I'm not knocking Apple. It's a very smart method of
Speaker 1: getting you in there and keeping you there. But if
Speaker 1: you're using third party apps and websites, I always prefer
Speaker 1: those because then you can switch when something better comes along.
Speaker 1: Right now, the iPhone is amazing. What if in in
Speaker 1: three weeks, some phone comes out that's just incredible, and
Speaker 1: you want to get out of the Apple ecosystem. Well,
Speaker 1: it's going to be tough if all your passwords and
Speaker 1: email addresses are all linked to Apple iCloud. So anyway,
Speaker 1: proton pass check it out. Let's see. It creates email aliases,
Speaker 1: so it's a randomly generated email address. And their argument
Speaker 1: is that you know these email If a website is hacked,
Speaker 1: not only do they get their password, your password, which
Speaker 1: should be random, but then they get your email address,
Speaker 1: and they say it could be embarrassing depending on the
Speaker 1: email or the website rather, but it does all these things.
Speaker 1: The free version of proton pass supports unlimited logins, unlimited
Speaker 1: encrypted notes, and a limited number of hide my email
Speaker 1: addresses and two factor authentication logins. So if you want
Speaker 1: everything unlimited, you can subscribe. They're offering an eighty percent discount.
Speaker 1: It's available for just a dollar a month with an
Speaker 1: annual subscription until the end of July forever, they say,
Speaker 1: so basically twelve bucks a year. That sounds like, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna go up to its regular price of four
Speaker 1: dollars a month, so forty eight dollars a year. After July,
Speaker 1: so check it out. It's called Proton Pass and I
Speaker 1: have not used this personally, but I actually think it
Speaker 1: looks pretty good. California State Parks teaming up with What
Speaker 1: three Words. If you watch me on KTLA, you know
Speaker 1: I've talked about this app in the past. It's called
Speaker 1: What three Words. They have divided up the entire world
Speaker 1: into ten by ten foot squares. Every one of those
Speaker 1: squares has a unique three word label. So the label
Speaker 1: for and why would you need this when we have GPS, Well,
Speaker 1: when you're in a national park, or you're in anywhere,
Speaker 1: there may be a space in that area that you
Speaker 1: want someone to meet you at. Let's say you need
Speaker 1: help your stranded hiker. You're not gonna say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: at Dunswood Park. I'm at this ten by ten square
Speaker 1: foot area, and that way you can find me a
Speaker 1: lot easier. And so that's why California State Parks is
Speaker 1: teaming up with this What three Words app, so dispatchers
Speaker 1: can find exactly where you are if you have this
Speaker 1: app and you know how to use it, So download
Speaker 1: this app What three Words to your phone. And this
Speaker 1: means every park bench, every parking space, every camp site,
Speaker 1: any remote spot on a parking trail or a hiking
Speaker 1: trail has its own what three words address, so you
Speaker 1: can tell someone exactly where you are with precision down
Speaker 1: to ten by ten. How do you use this in
Speaker 1: the regular world if you're not stranded. Let's just give
Speaker 1: you an example. My photographer and I we meet at
Speaker 1: Anaheim Convention Center. There are ten million places you can
Speaker 1: meet at the Anaheim Convention Center. I send him my
Speaker 1: what three words for the exact bench that I'm sitting on,
Speaker 1: and he can navigate right to that bench. It's brilliant.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else here? Two minutes here, Jose says,
Speaker 1: can you help me with a free video editing? And
Speaker 1: what kind of connection do I need to play the
Speaker 1: video from an iPhone to a TV for free video editing?
Speaker 1: I'd recommend cap cut. They also have an adapter Lightning
Speaker 1: AV adapter that'll give you an hdm MY output on
Speaker 1: your iPhone. You plug that into your TV. Otherwise, you
Speaker 1: can use an app called Replica to wirelessly beam the
Speaker 1: content from your phone to the TV if you have
Speaker 1: a Smart TV or an Apple TV. Jeremy, commenting on
Speaker 1: last week's story about Uber, how my driver said, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't live here. I'm just filling in for my
Speaker 1: brother on his app. He said, hey, rich, Uber does
Speaker 1: have facial recognition for drivers. It's not every time they
Speaker 1: log in, it's just occasionally a request to verify who
Speaker 1: they are through facial recognition. So yeah, they should probably
Speaker 1: do that every time they get in the seat. And finally,
Speaker 1: Angel last week was asking about earbuds with no microphone.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, I need to find these for my
Speaker 1: wife because I still want to live in my house. Haha.
Speaker 1: I asked my friend Lauren Dragon over at Wirecutter. She
Speaker 1: took time out from her vacation to find these best
Speaker 1: Buy sleep A ten earbuds. She said these are pretty
Speaker 1: much the only things she can think of that do
Speaker 1: not have a mic because are meant for sleeping. All right,
Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: Check out the show notes at richontech dot tv. Next
Speaker 1: week the app that can take your vitals just by
Speaker 1: snapping a selfie once again. You can find me on
Speaker 1: social media at rich on tech. My name is rich Dmurro.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
Speaker 1: you can spend your time. I do appreciate you spending
Speaker 1: it right here with me. Congrats to Bobo who got
Speaker 1: married today, Producer Bobo, thanks to Kim on the phones,
Speaker 1: Adam filling in for Bobo, and everyone who makes this
Speaker 1: show possible. Thank you so much for spending part of
Speaker 1: your weekend with me. My name is rich Dumuro. I
Speaker 1: will talk to you real soon