Speaker 1: Is your iPhone spying on you? We'll dive into Apple's
Speaker 1: evesdropping settlement. Plus, Samsung's got a new fitness tracker that
Speaker 1: won't break the bank. And I'll explain the connection between
Speaker 1: Turo and two recent attacks. It's all happening right here,
Speaker 1: right now on rich on Tech. What's going on? I'm
Speaker 1: rich Dmiro and this is the show where we make
Speaker 1: tech interesting, useful and fun. Got a burning tech question?
Speaker 1: Need some expert advice. The lines are now open for
Speaker 1: the first time in twenty twenty five. Dial up eight
Speaker 1: eight eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four to one zero one, or
Speaker 1: you can go to the website rich on Tech dot
Speaker 1: tv and hit contact guests. This week, got a lot
Speaker 1: of great guests to kick off the new year. Kaiitwan
Speaker 1: Move from All Trails is gonna share expert tips on
Speaker 1: exploring the outdoors with one of my new favorite apps.
Speaker 1: Then later we've got professional photographer Christa Kowalchek. She's going
Speaker 1: to share how to preserve and organize both your digital
Speaker 1: and print photos. And later on Gerald Cassulis from nord
Speaker 1: VPN war REVIALE twenty twenty five's top cyber threats, the
Speaker 1: stuff to watch out for, from dark web dangers to
Speaker 1: AI driven scams. Well, I hope you had a great
Speaker 1: holiday season. It is the new year. Happy twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: This is the first show of the new year. Very
Speaker 1: happy to be back in this seat talking with you.
Speaker 1: Got some good time off. In fact, towards the end,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm ready to get back. I am
Speaker 1: ready to get back to work. You know, as much
Speaker 1: as I love my family and I love the time off,
Speaker 1: I always feel like I'm unemployed after a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time. Like it literally it's like, wait, do I
Speaker 1: still have a job? Does my email still work? I
Speaker 1: wondered if my card would still swipe when I went
Speaker 1: into the studio because I just wondered if it still
Speaker 1: everything was still working, But it is. We got a
Speaker 1: nice quick trip into Sedona, Arizona, over the break. If
Speaker 1: you have not been, I highly recommend it. It is
Speaker 1: a I know from LA. It's a nice drive, probably
Speaker 1: about eight hours or so. That's what we did. I
Speaker 1: love road trips.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: My wife was kind of fighting the road trips. You
Speaker 1: don't want to go that far. I said, let's just try.
Speaker 1: It'll be great. Kids loved it. You know, road trips
Speaker 1: are so much more comfortable now than they were back
Speaker 1: in the day. Right, like when I was driving with
Speaker 1: my parents, Think about the cars that we were in
Speaker 1: compared to today today's cars are. They're comfortable, they're quiet.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got all the endless entertainment you could
Speaker 1: ever imagine at your fingertips. All right, the big story
Speaker 1: of this week, Apple has agreed to pay ninety five
Speaker 1: million dollars to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that
Speaker 1: Siri violated users privacy. Now, this has been percolating for
Speaker 1: a while since twenty nineteen. A lot has changed since then,
Speaker 1: but Apple finally decided to say, you know what, we're
Speaker 1: gonna stop fighting this. We're just gonna settle it. And
Speaker 1: as you might expect, ninety five million dollars is not
Speaker 1: a lot of money when it comes to Apple's monopoly money.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a company that made fifteen billion
Speaker 1: dollars in the last quarter. So this is just, you know,
Speaker 1: a gnat that they're swatting away. But there are some
Speaker 1: lessons to be learned from this. So here's what happened.
Speaker 1: The lawsuit claimed that Siri was evesdropping on conversations and
Speaker 1: sharing those recordings with third parties. Now, I think the
Speaker 1: term evesdropping is very sexy for this lawsuit. I think
Speaker 1: that it gets a lot of people's attentions, but that
Speaker 1: shows intention of Apple to listen, and I don't think
Speaker 1: that that was Apple's intention. Did it happen? Absolutely? Does
Speaker 1: it happen all the time.
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah. If you have one of these voice assistants, whether
Speaker 1: it's Siri, whether it's Alexa, whether it's Google, a speaker,
Speaker 1: a watch, a phone, how many times have you have
Speaker 1: you been talking to someone and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: your voice assistant chimes in and it gives you an answer,
Speaker 1: or it says I don't know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: or here's what you're talking about, or I don't have
Speaker 1: an opinion on that or whatever, and you're surprised and
Speaker 1: you go, ah, okay, you were listening. Now these things
Speaker 1: are listening, but the way that they're listening is typically
Speaker 1: local for that hot word, that keyword, and then if
Speaker 1: it thinks it has that keyword identified, it will then
Speaker 1: send what it hears after that to the server to
Speaker 1: figure out what you're trying to do, Whether it's asking
Speaker 1: for the weather, whether it's asking for information, a question,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Now. Back in the day and Apple
Speaker 1: and a lot of these companies still do this, you know,
Speaker 1: shared recordings with third parties for quality control. So the
Speaker 1: idea behind this lawsuit was that not only was Siri
Speaker 1: triggering without these users knowing, but then the information contained
Speaker 1: in those recordings was with third parties. And so most
Speaker 1: of the time those third parties were there to sort
Speaker 1: of quality control and see, Okay, here's what the person said.
Speaker 1: Do we get their answer right, did we get the
Speaker 1: hot word right? Whatever. You know, they're trying to make
Speaker 1: sure that these systems are working and they're trying to
Speaker 1: make them better. Now, typically this was probably in the
Speaker 1: user's you know, terms and conditions that said, hey, if
Speaker 1: you're going to use Google Assistant, if you're going to
Speaker 1: use Siri, if you're going to use Alexa, you agree
Speaker 1: to this happening. And I think people since twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: a lot has changed. Like I said, we've gotten more
Speaker 1: hip to these privacy controls, and so since then a
Speaker 1: lot of these companies have given us more control and
Speaker 1: more choices over these assistants. When we first set up
Speaker 1: our devices, it's not perfect, but it's it's better than
Speaker 1: it was now. The original lawsuit and you'll probably hear
Speaker 1: about this as well, also claim that Apple shared recordings
Speaker 1: of what these people were saying with advertisers, and they
Speaker 1: mentioned a whole bunch of ads that popped up in
Speaker 1: their news feed after they talked about things in front
Speaker 1: of their phone. But I don't think this was fully
Speaker 1: substantiated in the lawsuit. I don't think it made it
Speaker 1: to the final settlement because Apple has been very very
Speaker 1: clear about how they share user data and the user
Speaker 1: privacy that they keep in mind with almost every product
Speaker 1: that they make, and I just don't see Apple sharing
Speaker 1: what we're talking about with advertisers.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I know casual conversations. Everyone believes this is happening, but
Speaker 1: you know, I think the perpetrator there would most likely
Speaker 1: be Facebook and Instagram if that was happening, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, think about the billions and billions of conversations
Speaker 1: that are happening in phones in front of phones on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, It would be quite the undertaking to
Speaker 1: scan all of those conversations for keywords and to show
Speaker 1: up ads for those things. I'm not saying it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Believe me, I've talked about stuff in front of a
Speaker 1: friend or family member and all of a sudden that
Speaker 1: ad shows up in my news feed. It's happened to
Speaker 1: all of us. Facebook, of course, says they have certain
Speaker 1: ways of making that happen. It's all magic, based on
Speaker 1: things that you search, and your phones close to each
Speaker 1: other and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: Apple settle settling this means that they're not admitting any wrongdoing.
Speaker 1: They just want this to go away. What are you
Speaker 1: going to get? Individuals will likely get up to twenty
Speaker 1: dollars per device that they had activated since twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: so it might have been even earlier than that. This
Speaker 1: was a large swath of time. But it's a maximum
Speaker 1: of five devices, so even if you upgraded your phone
Speaker 1: a couple of times, the most you can get as
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. And most likely you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: say that, yes, Siri was accidentally enabled on my device.
Speaker 1: I attest to that, and I want my money. And
Speaker 1: the final settlement is slated for February fourteenth with the judge,
Speaker 1: so we're not gonna have anything until, you know, later
Speaker 1: this year. And then of course you have the time
Speaker 1: period where you have to submit your claim or you know,
Speaker 1: get yourself out of the class action all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's not gonna happen overnight, but just something to
Speaker 1: keep your mind on now. I think that this case
Speaker 1: really highlights the import of understanding privacy settings on your
Speaker 1: devices and the terms and conditions whenever you set up
Speaker 1: a device. Ninety nine percent of the time, the selections
Speaker 1: that are sort of pre selected are going to be
Speaker 1: in the company's best interest, not yours. Right, they want
Speaker 1: the most that they can get out of you because
Speaker 1: they're collecting as much data as possible to make their
Speaker 1: products better and of course make money off of what
Speaker 1: you do. And so there are a couple things you
Speaker 1: can do to you know, improve your privacy. Number one,
Speaker 1: on the iPhone, you can turn off this entire area
Speaker 1: where you're improving Siri and dictation with your interaction. So
Speaker 1: if you go into your settings Privacy and Security, then
Speaker 1: Analytics and Improvements, that's where you can say turn off
Speaker 1: Siri and Dictation. The other thing you can do is
Speaker 1: also flip your phone over. If you don't want your
Speaker 1: iPhone listening to you, just flip it over and so
Speaker 1: if it's screened down, Siri will not be listening. Go
Speaker 1: ahead and try it, say Hey s with your phone
Speaker 1: face up, it'll spring to action. Flip your phone over,
Speaker 1: it will not spring to action. So that's another way
Speaker 1: to do it. Now. On Android, there is a way
Speaker 1: to sort of manage your voice and audio activity. So
Speaker 1: if you go into your settings, you tap on Google,
Speaker 1: You've got your name and an email address at the top.
Speaker 1: You can go into Manage your Google Account, Data and Privacy,
Speaker 1: scroll down to history, tap Web and app activity, and
Speaker 1: then you can uncheck the box next to include voice
Speaker 1: and audio activity. Yeah, they don't make this stuff very
Speaker 1: easy to find. Alexa same thing. You can go into
Speaker 1: your Alexa app and delete your existing voice recordings, or
Speaker 1: you can prevent Alexa from saving your future voice recordings
Speaker 1: and using what you say and interact to help improve
Speaker 1: the service. There's also a setting on Android which is
Speaker 1: quite handy. They don't have the same sort of flip
Speaker 1: over to disable Hey Google, but there is a setting
Speaker 1: on there where you can toggle the mic off globally,
Speaker 1: which is really handy. So if you don't want your
Speaker 1: phone listening, you don't want the microphone on at all.
Speaker 1: You can go into your quick settings up at the top,
Speaker 1: and there is one that you can add for your microphone.
Speaker 1: So right now I have microphone access toggled off, which
Speaker 1: means my phone will not listen to me in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form while that is off. And that means
Speaker 1: you can go ahead and try it, try voice typing,
Speaker 1: whatever you want, it will not listen.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I know those directions were a lot, so I put
Speaker 1: them all on the website rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Just go there right at the top. It says how
Speaker 1: to stop your devices from evesdropping, and I've got all
Speaker 1: the instructions right there. Also put it on the show
Speaker 1: notes as well. All right, eight a eight rich one
Speaker 1: O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: to one zero one. Coming up, we'll talk about Turrow
Speaker 1: and your questions right after this. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking
Speaker 1: technology at triple A Rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Let's take our first call from riverside. Joe, You're on
Speaker 1: with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hey, Rich, how are you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic. What's up?
Speaker 4: So I've been trying to find information on LG's M
Speaker 4: four O lead TV and I can't as far as
Speaker 4: what I've researched. It was supposedly supposed to come out
Speaker 4: in the middle of twenty twenty four, and I can't
Speaker 4: find any one, whether it's Costco, best Buy, anybody in
Speaker 4: the States selling the M four. So I was wondering
Speaker 4: if you have any information on that.
Speaker 1: Interesting. So this is a four case let's see with
Speaker 1: wireless video and audio transfer, ninety seven inch TV.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at the eighty three inch.
Speaker 1: Play you're looking at three? Oh, just eighty three Huh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't have you know, forty fifty thousand dollars for
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand for TV.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was gonna say, so these are I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a very expensive model. I mean I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the one, so I guess it's launched in other countries.
Speaker 1: So this one looks like it was launched in Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: the one that I'm looking at. So the thing about
Speaker 1: LG is that, Okay, So let's see. So it's supposedly
Speaker 1: going to be launched globally. This is the latest article
Speaker 1: I could find. It's going to be launched globally on
Speaker 1: July first. That clearly didn't happen. Huh. Yeah, Now, they
Speaker 1: did just launch this transparent TV here in the States,
Speaker 1: which is that was like sixty thousand dollars. So was
Speaker 1: the M Was the M three here or no.
Speaker 4: I've seen I've seen the M three available. I think
Speaker 4: it was being resold like by just a reseller on
Speaker 4: like Walmart dot com or something.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, I mean, I guess my
Speaker 1: I guess the main answer to this is I don't
Speaker 1: know when this is coming out to the US. But
Speaker 1: the other answer is CES is happening this week, And
Speaker 1: so I guess I will check for this over in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas when I visit the LG booth and see
Speaker 1: what they say about it. Maybe I think that what
Speaker 1: aspect of this TV is appealing to you, the wireless aspect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So from my research, I'm guessing the G four
Speaker 4: and the M four are essentially the same TV. It's
Speaker 4: just the M four has the wireless HDMI connectivity, which
Speaker 4: that sounds extremely appealing to me.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, they've been they've been touting the wireless box, which
Speaker 1: you know you can plug, So basically the wireless boxes
Speaker 1: where you can plug everything in to the box, which
Speaker 1: can sit in a corner or a closet or whatever
Speaker 1: you need away from the TV, and then you can
Speaker 1: have the TV somewhere else and it will beam that,
Speaker 1: you know, data to the TV wirelessly. You still have
Speaker 1: to plug in the TV, but that's the main thing. Okay.
Speaker 1: So what I'll do is I will note this and
Speaker 1: I will with them and see what they say about
Speaker 1: this TV. I mean, there's so many models that are
Speaker 1: available that.
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm probably gonna end up going with
Speaker 4: the G four. But it's just like, man, like all
Speaker 4: my research was saying, like this should have already been out,
Speaker 4: and it's like nobody's carrying it, Like what the heck
Speaker 4: is going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah? That is, that's It's interesting. But I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes these TVs are very similar. They might just have
Speaker 1: different model numbers in different states or different countries. Rather,
Speaker 1: I think with this one, it seems like because I'm
Speaker 1: looking at this the rollout of the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: O led EVO TV lineup. This was in February, right
Speaker 1: after CS obviously last year. But let's see what they
Speaker 1: do this year. Let's see what they do for cs.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that you're going to see more
Speaker 1: of that wireless connectivity on more TVs. I think LG
Speaker 1: was sort of like the first that really pushed that.
Speaker 1: I remember them showing us that, and I think more
Speaker 1: companies maybe will have that this year, so it'll probably
Speaker 1: be standard in a couple years.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's that's kind of my guess.
Speaker 1: So what's the G four go for?
Speaker 4: So during Black Friday, I was looking at the G
Speaker 4: four and it was it was five thousand dollars at
Speaker 4: Costco and it came with UH install free installation as well.
Speaker 4: If you check Costco's website right now, it's at fifty
Speaker 4: four ninety nine. Okay, so you were getting like a
Speaker 4: five hundred dollars discount. But that's really not a big
Speaker 4: deal to me. It's neither here nor there when you're
Speaker 4: when you're talking about spending this kind of money on
Speaker 4: a TV. But I was just like, I want to
Speaker 4: see I want to see the price point on the
Speaker 4: m for you know, and see if it makes sense
Speaker 4: to get that wireless or if it just makes more
Speaker 4: sense for me to fish my HDMI cables through the
Speaker 4: back of the drywall, which is not terribly hard.
Speaker 1: No, I mean I've I've not done it myself, but
Speaker 1: I've seen the installer do it at my place a
Speaker 1: couple of times, and they do it in seconds, so clearly,
Speaker 1: I mean, and I show he showed me how he
Speaker 1: did it. I was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. It's
Speaker 1: like this little I don't know, it's like a cable
Speaker 1: with a magnet, I don't know, whatever it was. It
Speaker 1: was pretty simple. And I mean to him, not to me,
Speaker 1: But you know, if you know what you're doing, you
Speaker 1: can do it all right, Joe. I will make a
Speaker 1: note of it to check at CES this year. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the call, appreciate.
Speaker 4: It, Thank you, have a great day.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one o one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Uh before
Speaker 1: we go to break here, Uh, you know, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this over the holidays, the Amazon error. You know,
Speaker 1: we we all get these gifts from Amazon, and we
Speaker 1: literally had this this situation where I feel like the
Speaker 1: gift giving world has changed because of Amazon. So now
Speaker 1: I don't know if this happens with you, but people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, what do you want for the holidays
Speaker 1: for your kids? And literally you send your loved ones
Speaker 1: a list of stuff and they just ship it to
Speaker 1: your house. And we were getting boxes. We're like, who's
Speaker 1: this from? Had like, no, noe, no nothing. It's like,
Speaker 1: is that really the meaning of gift giving? All right?
Speaker 1: Coming up, we're gonna talk about one of my new
Speaker 1: favorite apps. It's called All Trails. I'll explain coming up
Speaker 1: right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking
Speaker 1: technology at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show richon Tech dot TV. If
Speaker 1: you've got a Samsung phone, Samsung is releasing a very
Speaker 1: inexpensive fitness tracker, the Galaxy Fit three. It will be
Speaker 1: available in the US on January ninth. This thing is
Speaker 1: just sixty dollars, so it looks like a smart watch.
Speaker 1: If you've been wanting to get on that smart watch
Speaker 1: fitness tracker sort of thing, but you didn't want to
Speaker 1: spend two three hundred dollars for something. This is a
Speaker 1: great deal at this price. So it's got a small touchscreen, monitors,
Speaker 1: obviously over one hundred workout types, running, swimming, cycling, tracks
Speaker 1: your sleep, you're snoring, blood, oxygen, heart rate, even your stress.
Speaker 1: May not want to check that one when you're at work.
Speaker 1: Up to thirteen days of battery life if you've got
Speaker 1: the display sort of like turned off. If you have
Speaker 1: it always on, you're gonna get like three days. Like
Speaker 1: I said, it's got everything you need for sixty bucks,
Speaker 1: so not a bad deal. I like how Samsung has
Speaker 1: a wide variety of products, right, Like they don't just
Speaker 1: do the premium, high end stuff. They've got stuff for
Speaker 1: everyone's budget. And this Fit three has been available in
Speaker 1: other countries for a while now, but they're bringing it
Speaker 1: to the US on January ninth, so kind of cool.
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that it works with all
Speaker 1: the Samsung phones and apps that they already have all right,
Speaker 1: speaking of getting fit, Like I said, I was in
Speaker 1: Sidona recently and we did a lot of hiking, and
Speaker 1: this is an app that I've had on my phone
Speaker 1: for a while, but I had sort of a light
Speaker 1: bulb moment in Sodona with this All Trails app and
Speaker 1: it just really really helped us explore the outdoors. So
Speaker 1: joining me now, Kai Twan Mo from All Trails, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Thanks Rich thanks for having me so
Speaker 1: explain what All Trails is for the person that doesn't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, All Trails is the world's most popular and
Speaker 6: most trusted platform for outdoor exploration. We are an app
Speaker 6: that's available through the Apple App Store and the Google
Speaker 6: Play Store.
Speaker 7: We also have a website. But we help help.
Speaker 6: People discover new places outside and enhance their experiences when
Speaker 6: they're on the trail.
Speaker 1: And so this has been around for a while. I
Speaker 1: looked back to my original email I sent to All
Speaker 1: Trails saying, oh, I love this app. It was like
Speaker 1: in I don't know, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen. It's been
Speaker 1: a while. So I've had it on my phone for
Speaker 1: a long time and I used it. But now I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm sort of like an expert because I
Speaker 1: started looking at like the filters and things. So in Sedona,
Speaker 1: I know there's so many different hikes. I wanted to
Speaker 1: find stuff that was appropriate for my family, right, like
Speaker 1: my two kids, and so I put on like literally
Speaker 1: the I switched the filters to say, like, I only
Speaker 1: want four and a half stars, right like the top
Speaker 1: rated trails. I want stuff that's you know, easy or
Speaker 1: maybe moderate great views, Like, there's so many different sliders
Speaker 1: you can you know, kind of dial in exactly what
Speaker 1: you want. So how do you figure all this stuff out?
Speaker 6: Well, first, i'd say twenty sixteen. That is a little
Speaker 6: while ago. So thank you for being such a long
Speaker 6: standing member of the all trails community.
Speaker 7: What you're describing.
Speaker 6: You know, we have a incredible team of more than
Speaker 6: two hundred people at this point who were united by
Speaker 6: a passionate love for the outdoors. So we spend all
Speaker 6: day every day thinking about exactly the type of thing that.
Speaker 7: You just teed up.
Speaker 6: You know, how are people going to find hikes that
Speaker 6: they can do with their kids? You know, how are
Speaker 6: they going to get out there and find sort of
Speaker 6: exactly the right trail for them. So we're we're building
Speaker 6: new features all the time. You hit on a few
Speaker 6: that are relatively new to us. So yeah, I think
Speaker 6: that definitely qualifies you as an expert all trails user
Speaker 6: at this point.
Speaker 1: Well, the feature that really was the light bulb moment
Speaker 1: is you know, I have an Apple Watch, and you
Speaker 1: know when you're on a trail, the last thing you
Speaker 1: want to do is get lost right or take like
Speaker 1: the wrong fork or whatever. Especially when you're with your family, right,
Speaker 1: And so there's this feature on the Apple Watch where
Speaker 1: it is basically a compass and it highlights where you're
Speaker 1: supposed to go in green. And so if you come
Speaker 1: up to like a fork in the trail, you know
Speaker 1: how sometimes people walk off trail and they kind of
Speaker 1: make an area that's really not the trail. And all trails,
Speaker 1: by the way, does a good job of like showing
Speaker 1: you where the trail is on your phone. But I
Speaker 1: love the idea that literally you look at your watch
Speaker 1: and you just kind of move your watch left and
Speaker 1: right and it will highlight the correct path. That to
Speaker 1: me is like it just gives you so much reassurance
Speaker 1: that you're not going to get lost out there.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I saw your Instagram post about your Apple Watch.
Speaker 7: That we relaunched our.
Speaker 6: Apple Watch app last year in the second half of
Speaker 6: last year. So that's all a relatively new offering for us.
Speaker 6: And I'm slightly embarrassed to admit, as an employee of
Speaker 6: an outdoor tech company that I just got an Apple
Speaker 6: Watch for Christmas.
Speaker 7: So while I had I had.
Speaker 6: Of course seen our Apple Watch app in action before this,
Speaker 6: I now can use it every day myself.
Speaker 7: And it's fantastic.
Speaker 6: It's you know, we recognize that while we are an
Speaker 6: app that you have on your phone, we're here to
Speaker 6: help people get outside and enjoy their time outside. So
Speaker 6: I'm having your watch and your stats and your navigation
Speaker 6: at a glance.
Speaker 7: Really great feature.
Speaker 2: We love it.
Speaker 1: So how much of this is sort of like crowdsource?
Speaker 1: Like when I take a walk or a hike or whatever, like,
Speaker 1: do I help build the database of like, Hey, here's
Speaker 1: where the trail is, Here's where you know the markings are.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I know people can submit pictures and
Speaker 1: things like that, but how much of this is crowdsource
Speaker 1: versus like, I don't know, do you guys go out
Speaker 1: there and like look at trails yourself?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I love this question.
Speaker 6: So you absolutely, as a member of our community, are
Speaker 6: contributing to our collection of more than four hundred and
Speaker 6: fifty thousand trails that so many trails are on the
Speaker 6: platform today by far the biggest and most comprehensive collection
Speaker 6: of trails in the world, and the community is.
Speaker 7: A big part of helping grow that collection.
Speaker 6: But something that a lot of people, I think don't
Speaker 6: know about us is we have a dedicated team of
Speaker 6: trail data integrity specialists who all day, every day are
Speaker 6: monitoring and digitally maintaining that collection of trails. So when
Speaker 6: you get out there with all trails, you're doing so
Speaker 6: with not just the support of our community of seventy
Speaker 6: five million members, but with the knowledge and expertise of
Speaker 6: people whose literal job it is to help you get outside,
Speaker 6: have a great time, and do it safely.
Speaker 1: And that's cool. I mean I can't speak enough to
Speaker 1: like how much. I mean, we're in front of screen
Speaker 1: so much during the day, and so the ability to
Speaker 1: sort of look for a trail that has you know,
Speaker 1: epic views or waterfalls. Every time I do one of these,
Speaker 1: I just feel like I've done something good for myself.
Speaker 1: And if I can get my kids to join me
Speaker 1: or someone else, you know, it's it just feels really
Speaker 1: really nice. So explain the I guess the other thing
Speaker 1: I want to talk about is privacy. So, you know,
Speaker 1: since this is a community, you know the things that
Speaker 1: you do sometimes could be put on your profile that
Speaker 1: could be public explained like what's public versus private, like
Speaker 1: without changing any settings, and what people should look at
Speaker 1: if they want to change those settings.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, so privacy and safety of our community are
Speaker 6: of the utmost importance, and we think mainly you know,
Speaker 6: we think about getting outside all the time, but we
Speaker 6: think about that all the time too, you know, as
Speaker 6: a community based platform, you know, by default a lot
Speaker 6: of activity is public, but we have built the ability
Speaker 6: for any activity that you do with All Trails to
Speaker 6: be adjusted in your privacy settings. You can make it
Speaker 6: either totally private so that only you can see it
Speaker 6: if you don't want to share your outdoor adventures with
Speaker 6: anyone else. You can also set it to just people,
Speaker 6: you know, a sort of smaller group, or you can,
Speaker 6: of course, like you said, have it be public and
Speaker 6: our public trove of you know, reviews and photos. That's
Speaker 6: a huge part of what makes All Trails special and
Speaker 6: our communities united by love of the outdoors. So we're
Speaker 6: really grateful that people continue to pick us outside that way.
Speaker 1: And what do you get for the free versus sort
Speaker 1: of the upgrade to All Trails Plus?
Speaker 6: Yes, great question. So All Trails is it's available for
Speaker 6: free to download like I said, in the Apple or
Speaker 6: Google app stores. All Trails Plus is really our you know,
Speaker 6: that's our premium and paid offering, and.
Speaker 7: You get so many.
Speaker 6: Features with All Trails Plus things that you mentioned like
Speaker 6: wrong turn alerts. That's an Ultrails plus feature. It allows
Speaker 6: you to go offline, which is huge. You can either
Speaker 6: download an individual trail for offline use or actually, just
Speaker 6: a few weeks ago, we introduced offline parks where you
Speaker 6: can download an entire park, every single trail in the park,
Speaker 6: recent reviews, photos, plus essential park information like ours, fees,
Speaker 6: accessibility info. Really kind of game changing if you're planning
Speaker 6: a trip to a place where there might not be
Speaker 6: great service, and so many spectacular outdoor places are exactly
Speaker 6: that way.
Speaker 1: And I just saw you can print maps. Look at this.
Speaker 1: You can print your own customizable maps for backup on
Speaker 1: through the website. So that's neat. I mean, you go
Speaker 1: to these national parks, a lot of them do not
Speaker 1: have sell connectivity, so that offline feature is really crucial.
Speaker 1: So Kit, tell me about you. What what got you
Speaker 1: interested in all trails why? I mean, are you a
Speaker 1: hiker or you do you like doing that stuff or
Speaker 1: what already have to do?
Speaker 6: Now that you work there, certainly I see getting outside
Speaker 6: as something that not that I have to do, but
Speaker 6: that I love to do. I had been in the
Speaker 6: outdoor industry before this, Prior to that, I worked at
Speaker 6: Nike for a long time. I'm coming to you here
Speaker 6: from Portland, Oregon, near where the company's based. But you know,
Speaker 6: I was just I was really drawn to All Trails
Speaker 6: as this incredibly interesting intersection of outdoors and tech. You know,
Speaker 6: this is a company that is so focused on innovation
Speaker 6: and moving incredibly quickly, but also fundamentally so deeply committed
Speaker 6: to being intentional technology. You know, you mentioned earlier. We're
Speaker 6: on our screens so much, we're at our desks so much.
Speaker 6: We know that time outside is essential to physical and
Speaker 6: mental health, and so we want to make sure that
Speaker 6: people can do that as part of their everyday life.
Speaker 6: That is not a special occasion to go outside. And
Speaker 6: so just that that mission, the commitment to the mission
Speaker 6: to get the world, help the world find its way outside.
Speaker 5: Let me in.
Speaker 7: And it's been a really fun ride so far.
Speaker 1: All right, Kaitwan, move from All Trails the website AllTrails
Speaker 1: dot com. If you go to the website, rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot tv, I've got a link for a month
Speaker 1: free of the premium, so just go to the show
Speaker 1: notes for that. Kai, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 7: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, I'll tell you about Turo, explain
Speaker 1: what that's all about, plus more of your calls at
Speaker 1: eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on tech rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at triple eight rich one O one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website richon tech dot TV. If you want notes
Speaker 1: for today's show, just hit episode one oh three, and
Speaker 1: if you want to email me, just hit contact up
Speaker 1: at the top. Rich on tech dot TV. So no
Speaker 1: doubt you heard about these two attacks, one in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: one in Las Vegas. They both involved cars that were
Speaker 1: rented through a service called Turo. And this is not
Speaker 1: the publicity they wanted, but obviously a lot of people
Speaker 1: are now just hearing about Turo for the first time.
Speaker 1: So what is Turo. Turo is like Airbnb, but for cars.
Speaker 1: So if you have a car, let's say, you know,
Speaker 1: use it a couple of days a week, but the
Speaker 1: rest of the time it just sits there. You can
Speaker 1: rent this out to other people. And this has been
Speaker 1: around for a long time. It's not like a new thing.
Speaker 1: I've personally not used Turo. I'm well aware of it.
Speaker 1: For me, it's always been a matter of every time
Speaker 1: I look to rent a car on there, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, it started out really cheap, but now I
Speaker 1: feel like it's not anymore. It was just always kind
Speaker 1: of like the same price and more hassle than getting
Speaker 1: from Hurtz or Avis or something like that. So what's
Speaker 1: the deal with this Turo thing? So they have what's
Speaker 1: called a Turo risk score algorithm. So when someone rents
Speaker 1: a car from you, you know, they put all the
Speaker 1: information into the app, their driver's license, stuff like that
Speaker 1: credit card number, and then they, according to Bloomberg, look
Speaker 1: at fifty different data points to screen renters. Now I
Speaker 1: don't know how both of these renters got through this
Speaker 1: risk score with no problem, but Turo did confirm that
Speaker 1: both of these cars were rented through them. One was
Speaker 1: a Tesla cyber truck. Obviously you know that because that
Speaker 1: was very much in the news. The Ford f one
Speaker 1: point fifty was a lightning, which is their electric car
Speaker 1: or electric truck, I should say, So what went wrong here?
Speaker 1: I mean, this just brings up the idea of you've
Speaker 1: got these peer to peer platforms and they're everywhere. You've
Speaker 1: got Airbnb, I mean Uber is really peer to peer.
Speaker 1: You're driving your car picking up strangers. Turo is where
Speaker 1: you're literally renting someone else's car from them and they
Speaker 1: may drop it off to you at the airport. You
Speaker 1: may pick it up at a parking lot if it's
Speaker 1: something like a Tesla or another car that has like
Speaker 1: you know, easier sort of digital key access. That makes
Speaker 1: life a lot easier with renting these things out. But
Speaker 1: you know, it just it just raises a lot of
Speaker 1: questions about like what's the vetting process of these companies?
Speaker 1: Are we safe using them? Are you safe renting through
Speaker 1: them or you know, driving through them? How are these
Speaker 1: people screened? You know, you think about Uber, you know
Speaker 1: this driver, It's like, how do you know what this
Speaker 1: driver's all about? And every time I've asked Uber or
Speaker 1: Lift about their screening process, you know, they do a
Speaker 1: very if you ask me, it's a very light background check.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'll tell you the story that I told
Speaker 1: when I went to Nashville last year or year before.
Speaker 1: I think it was my driver, you know, I got
Speaker 1: to the area of my hotel I said, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a really nice area, Like, what's the deal with it?
Speaker 1: And he's like, Oh, I don't know. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just driving for my brother who's in the hospital. What like.
Speaker 1: He literally just used his Relatives app to sign in
Speaker 1: and you know it was just picked up his phone
Speaker 1: and started driving the car. Now, that is something I
Speaker 1: never thought of in a million years, Right. You think
Speaker 1: that the driver that you have is the driver on
Speaker 1: the app that you ordered. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever looked at the picture of the driver on
Speaker 1: the app, but it's always blurry. It's not like the
Speaker 1: clearest thing. It's not like you could tell exactly who
Speaker 1: this person is. And so ever since then I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's an a fear unlocked that I never really thought about.
Speaker 1: Someone could just literally drive with someone else's app. So
Speaker 1: I know that Uber does sort of like because I
Speaker 1: looked into it. Afterwards, they will ask drivers to take
Speaker 1: like a selfie at the beginning of their shift or
Speaker 1: something like that. But again, these systems aren't perfect, and
Speaker 1: so being aware of the implications of these is always
Speaker 1: a good thing. And for me now I always check
Speaker 1: the driver. I always check their picture I always kind
Speaker 1: of try to make sure it's the person that's driving me.
Speaker 1: But again, you know, it's just one of these things
Speaker 1: where we have to think about this stuff. Turo, for
Speaker 1: their part, they said they're, you know, cooperating with law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Neither attacker had a criminal background according to their research
Speaker 1: that they did. And this is a company where you know,
Speaker 1: they've got like four hundred thousand cars listed for rent,
Speaker 1: billions of dollars that's been done through this. I look
Speaker 1: at Turro reported hundred and twenty two million dollars in
Speaker 1: revenue in the first nine months of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: So people are using it for the most part. It's fine,
Speaker 1: but it's just stuff to keep in mind when you're
Speaker 1: using this stuff. Let's go to Mike in Los Angeles. Mike,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 2: Hey, Rich, thanks Jay, and I call yeah.
Speaker 8: I don't know if you have an answer to this,
Speaker 8: but maybe you have some insight. I have at my email.
Speaker 2: Is with hotmail. Lately the past year or.
Speaker 8: So, whenever I email someone with a dot net packed
Speaker 8: all dot net, att dot net, Sbcglobal, dot net, its
Speaker 8: returned to me undeliverable. I went online and found out
Speaker 8: this is happening to everybody, from hotmail to dot net,
Speaker 8: and some people have speculator or maybe they know more
Speaker 8: than I do that across the board atp, dot net,
Speaker 8: et cetera is rejecting all emails from Hotmail, possibly due
Speaker 8: to they say something about it has the most hacking
Speaker 8: or scamming.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of this or do you know anything
Speaker 2: about it?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean so number one, I've not heard of this.
Speaker 1: I know that emails get rejected for various reasons. I
Speaker 1: don't think that this is something that's across the board
Speaker 1: with Hotmail, although you know, hotmail is one of those
Speaker 1: services that I know people still use it, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely not the most up to date email. So what
Speaker 1: I would try to do is use an alternative email
Speaker 1: address and see if the same thing happens, and when
Speaker 1: you send to those people, maybe use that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it depends how much you're sending. But just taking a
Speaker 1: quick look online, you know, some people are reporting that
Speaker 1: the dot net domains are sometimes associated with more spam,
Speaker 1: so maybe Hotmail has sort of flagged these servers, but
Speaker 1: it's odd that it's happening with all of those domain emails.
Speaker 1: Now the other side of this is that you know,
Speaker 1: Yahoo has taken over sort of servicing all of those
Speaker 1: email addresses that you mentioned, the Cox email, the SBC,
Speaker 1: the AT and T that's all being done by Yahoo now,
Speaker 1: so there could be something there as well. I would
Speaker 1: just make sure sure before you send these, just make
Speaker 1: sure that your account is on the up and up,
Speaker 1: like you're you're not at your limit, you know, these
Speaker 1: attachments things like that, and see if that helps. But
Speaker 1: I'll keep an eye out on this. That's an interesting
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four two four one zero one. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four to one
Speaker 1: zero one. The website for the show is rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot tv. If you want links to anything I mentioned,
Speaker 1: just hit the episode number one oh three, and coming
Speaker 1: up this hour, we're gonna talk pictures. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've scanned in your pictures yet or if you
Speaker 1: have a way to kind of organize and manage your
Speaker 1: digital photo collection, which mind just grows by the dozens
Speaker 1: every day, every single day. We're gonna have Christa Kowalchik
Speaker 1: talk to us about preserving and organizing both your digital
Speaker 1: and print photos. We'll have her on just a little
Speaker 1: bit later. Greg writes in through the website. When I
Speaker 1: open up the passwords app on my iPhone and select
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi option, I see my Wi Fi information
Speaker 1: and other networks I've accessed. Some are listed as WPA
Speaker 1: two personal, and I can unmask their passwords, including my own.
Speaker 1: I have two big concerns. Can I unmask my Wi Fi?
Speaker 1: Can others unmask my Wi Fi password using the passwords app?
Speaker 1: How can I prevent this? Is it normal for me
Speaker 1: to see passwords for other networks? This feels like a
Speaker 1: security issue. I'm worried my Wi Fi password could be
Speaker 1: exposed to anyone nearby. Has Apple addressed this as a
Speaker 1: security flaw? Good question, Greg. For many years password Wi
Speaker 1: Fi passwords were sort of hidden on the iPhone, mostly
Speaker 1: inaccessible unless you really knew what you were doing. But
Speaker 1: now they are all inside the passwords app. So this
Speaker 1: does bring up some good concerns. Number One, there there's
Speaker 1: not a security flaw here. This is just what's new,
Speaker 1: and so Apple has by default put all of your
Speaker 1: passwords for Wi Fi networks that you've connected to in
Speaker 1: the past in your Passwords app. That's the new app
Speaker 1: they introduced with iOS eighteen. It's on most iPhones at
Speaker 1: this point if you've upgraded to the software, the latest software,
Speaker 1: and so before there were ways of seeing the passwords
Speaker 1: for Wi Fi networks that you connected to with previous
Speaker 1: iOS versions, but it wasn't clear and it wasn't easy.
Speaker 1: Now this is much easier. So I understand the concern there.
Speaker 1: These are networks that you have connected to, So these
Speaker 1: are not random networks. These are not networks that our secret.
Speaker 1: They are everything that you've connected to. So the answer
Speaker 1: to your first question, can others unmask your Wi Fi password? Yes,
Speaker 1: they can, only if you've given them access to your
Speaker 1: Wi Fi network. So that's the main thing to know here. Now,
Speaker 1: I understand that a lot of people scan QR codes
Speaker 1: to log onto Wi Fi networks and the password is
Speaker 1: just in there. It's not secretive. So typically what I'd
Speaker 1: recommend is that you do not use a password for
Speaker 1: your Wi Fi network that is easily guessed or that
Speaker 1: accesses other stuff anywhere. And I take it a step further,
Speaker 1: I would not allow people in your home to use
Speaker 1: your primary Wi Fi network, I would set up a
Speaker 1: guest network. And I understand there's a little bit of like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little bit of social awkwardness when
Speaker 1: someone comes to your house and they're like, oh, what's
Speaker 1: the coach pat your WiFi and you're like, oh, here's
Speaker 1: the guest network. I get it. It's a little awkward,
Speaker 1: but for security reasons, and I usually just tell people, Hey,
Speaker 1: for security reasons, I have everyone log onto my guest network.
Speaker 1: In case there's a major issue, I can wipe all
Speaker 1: those off the network very easily. So I would suggest
Speaker 1: having a guest network in general. Is it normal for
Speaker 1: me to see passwords of other networks? This feels like
Speaker 1: a security issue, Yes, now it is. So again, it
Speaker 1: goes back to that whole idea of don't use a
Speaker 1: password that is easily guessed or that accesses other stuff
Speaker 1: in your life. So do not use your email password
Speaker 1: as your Wi Fi password. Let's see, I'm worried my
Speaker 1: WiFi password could be exposed to anyone nearby. No, that's
Speaker 1: not true. They would have to connect to your network
Speaker 1: before they can see the password, and you would have
Speaker 1: to give them the password for them to connect to
Speaker 1: the network, so it's a chicken versus Egg kind of thing.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to give them the password. Once
Speaker 1: they have that password, they'd be able to see that
Speaker 1: password even if they sign in with a QR code.
Speaker 1: That QR code has the password embedded in it, so
Speaker 1: anyone with a QR code reader could look at that.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking through all my passwords and it's actually
Speaker 1: kind of funny like looking through these because people do
Speaker 1: use some interesting passwords for their works, so yes, be
Speaker 1: aware of that. It is available. And on the Android
Speaker 1: side of things, you can see the passwords as well.
Speaker 1: So if you go into your settings, you go into
Speaker 1: connections and you look at let's see here, I got
Speaker 1: to find where they are on here, but if you
Speaker 1: look at the let's see, I'd have to look for it.
Speaker 1: But if you look for oh, managed networks there it is.
Speaker 1: So if you go to manage networks, you tap one
Speaker 1: of those networks, you can easily see the password for
Speaker 1: that network as well all the networks that you've connected to.
Speaker 1: I actually think it's kind of fun to see all
Speaker 1: the networks you've connected to because it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a little who's who list of where you've been. But yeah,
Speaker 1: please be careful with your Wi Fi passwords. Don't just
Speaker 1: give them to anyone and set up a guest network.
Speaker 1: Kia is recalling over twenty two thousand of their EV
Speaker 1: nine electric SUVs. The reason some of the back seats
Speaker 1: might be missing their bolts. Yeah, not a good not
Speaker 1: a good look, Kia. So this apparently was an assembly
Speaker 1: line worker error at their plant in South Korea. The
Speaker 1: good news is no one's been hurt. There's not been
Speaker 1: any reports of injuries or accidents. But this is this
Speaker 1: is twenty over twenty two thousand EV nine electric SUVs
Speaker 1: from model years twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five. Now,
Speaker 1: these are the SUVs that have second and third row seats.
Speaker 1: This was a hot this is still a hot suv.
Speaker 1: It's all electric, it's got third row seats. This was
Speaker 1: one of the first EV's that had third rows besides
Speaker 1: like the Rivian, and so you know, this was a
Speaker 1: very popular car, still is. And so this is not
Speaker 1: exactly the look that Kia wanted with this car because
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably got it thinking oh this
Speaker 1: is cool, this is new, and now this is happening.
Speaker 1: So not every car has the issue, but Kia will
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to bring this car into a dealer
Speaker 1: to have them inspect it and put in the bolts
Speaker 1: if they're not there. So Key is going to start
Speaker 1: notifying affected owners by male starting January twenty fourth. This
Speaker 1: will all be free, of course, for the fix. But
Speaker 1: you know loose, You might hear loose or rattling seats
Speaker 1: and if that was driving you nuts, because you have
Speaker 1: one of these cars, it's not just you, it's them.
Speaker 1: Let's go to eight eight eight rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Diane in a menafee. You're on with rich.
Speaker 9: Dian. Hi, I have a Samsung Galaxy phone and when
Speaker 9: I take pictures, I have it on pictures. But it
Speaker 9: wants to take a movie. Come, how can I change?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you say it's taking a movie, does
Speaker 1: that mean when you're looking back through your picture it
Speaker 1: moves a little bit?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think that's a feature called motion photo.
Speaker 1: So what this is is it's basically capturing a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds of video before and after you hit that
Speaker 1: shutter button or right when you hit that shutter button,
Speaker 1: and some people like that because you can go back
Speaker 1: and let's say someone blinked in your picture, you can
Speaker 1: go back and choose a different frame of that photo,
Speaker 1: almost like going back in time and changing the look
Speaker 1: of that picture. But it's because it's capturing. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a think of a film strip, right, So you've
Speaker 1: got when you take a picture, you're taking just one
Speaker 1: of those frames of that film strip. But what this
Speaker 1: phone is doing, it's capturing a couple of those film stripped,
Speaker 1: you know, those frames. So if you want to turn
Speaker 1: this off, it's actually quite easy. It's a feature called
Speaker 1: motion photo. And in the upper part of your frame
Speaker 1: of your phone, when you're taking a picture, you should
Speaker 1: see a little square box that almost looks like a
Speaker 1: play button, and if you press that, you can toggle
Speaker 1: it on or off. It's called motion photo. And so
Speaker 1: that is that is the feature that I would toggle off.
Speaker 1: You can also go into your settings for camera and
Speaker 1: toggle it off that way as well. So if you
Speaker 1: can't find it on your screen, you can go into
Speaker 1: your camera settings and you can switch it off inside there.
Speaker 1: So if you go, let's see, I'm looking for my
Speaker 1: camera settings, let's see here is it in there? Let's see, Yeah,
Speaker 1: shooting methods, okay, settings to keep let's see. I'm on
Speaker 1: a beta version of the software, which I realized quickly
Speaker 1: that I should not have done that for the purposes
Speaker 1: of this show, because my settings are completely different. But Bobo,
Speaker 1: you've got the Samsung. Do you see that little when
Speaker 1: you open up your camera? Do you see a little
Speaker 1: almost like looks like a play button inside you know,
Speaker 1: a square? Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 10: Is that the second to last thing on the right? Okay, right,
Speaker 10: that's okay, So on my it's the last thing on
Speaker 10: the right. So if you toggle that, this a motion
Speaker 10: photo off?
Speaker 9: Okay, on, Oh, I see it now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 8: Diane, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for listening to us. There and Menafie
Speaker 1: appreciate it. There you go, see solving problems, changing lives. Bobo,
Speaker 1: I feel useful. I hoped you did help. I realized
Speaker 1: I realized that I downloaded the new software, the beta software,
Speaker 1: on this Samsung S twenty four Ultra, and I realized
Speaker 1: that is the wrong thing to do when you're on
Speaker 1: a radio show where you're trying to tell people how
Speaker 1: to find things. All of my stuff is different it's
Speaker 1: all in different places eight eight eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero
Speaker 1: one The website rich on tech dot tv more after this,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. The website for the show
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot TV. While you go there, be
Speaker 1: sure to sign up for my free newsletter rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot TV. Hit sign up. It will arrive at
Speaker 1: your inbox usually every Saturday morning. It's filled with a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of tips, tricks, stuff I'm thinking about that week.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a version of this radio show,
Speaker 1: but in newsletter form, so you get a lot of
Speaker 1: good information, a lot of useful information and things that
Speaker 1: I think you should know. Let's go to Steve in Edmunds, Washington. Steve,
Speaker 1: you're on with rich.
Speaker 2: Hi, Rich, thanks for taking my call. I really like
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: My question is about Google. I added that to my
Speaker 2: phone at Galaxy S twenty one. I have a five
Speaker 2: twelve gigabytes. I have a lot of pictures, family pictures,
Speaker 2: and they're all organized files and all that, and so
Speaker 2: I do have them backed up at My kids were
Speaker 2: telling me, you know, get the Google Photos and you
Speaker 2: can never go wrong. Well, as soon as I loaded it,
Speaker 2: and I have because I have a lot of photo
Speaker 2: files on my and videos on my phone, Google Photos
Speaker 2: started backing those up and telling me, oh, you you've
Speaker 2: exceeded the free level. You're going to have to pay,
Speaker 2: And so I thought, well, you know, what's a few bucks?
Speaker 2: Well just kept Now I'm paying like ten dollars a
Speaker 2: month because of the level that I'm at for a
Speaker 2: five to twelve phone, and so I thought, well, they
Speaker 2: I'll just do this on my own. I'll turn off
Speaker 2: Google Photos. I know there's a lot of tips online
Speaker 2: about doing that, but I don't see anything that works.
Speaker 2: And I'm reading about that people complaining you really can't
Speaker 2: turn it off, and so if you do, try to
Speaker 2: just nuke it on your phone, you risk losing all
Speaker 2: your pictures. There's no assurance that I can see that
Speaker 2: you're gonna that I can survive that. Even if I
Speaker 2: do have back my pictures back up backed up, I
Speaker 2: just don't want to go through that hassle. So so
Speaker 2: that's why I'm I'm wondering about how do I.
Speaker 1: Okay, you want to Google phone, you want to cease
Speaker 1: using Google Photos, Okay, I actually think it's it's relatively
Speaker 1: easy compared to anything with iCloud. So this I think
Speaker 1: that's the good news here. So my first concern though,
Speaker 1: where your pictures backed.
Speaker 2: Up a couple of external drives.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what happened was, just to understand your question,
Speaker 1: you have all your pictures on your phone, right, so
Speaker 1: you said you have like a five hundred and twelve
Speaker 1: gigabyte phone. You've got a whole bunch. Let's say you
Speaker 1: have one hundred gigabytes of pictures on there, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: ten gigs, whatever it is, it's definitely over the fifteen
Speaker 1: gigs that Google gives you, right, four hundred gigs. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got four hundred gigs of photos and videos. Oh wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a lot I've got. I mean, I'm saying that
Speaker 1: I've got like two terabytes. It's I mean, my my
Speaker 1: Google photos is a whole other concern. But ill, let's
Speaker 1: get through yours. So what i'd recommend is, you know
Speaker 1: what you need to do is, first off, I would
Speaker 1: just back up all these photos from your phone to
Speaker 1: an external drive. Once you know you have them all
Speaker 1: backed up, are good, then you can go into Google Photos,
Speaker 1: and you can turn off Google Photos. There's a setting
Speaker 1: on there that just says, you know, back up, and
Speaker 1: if you go into your settings, you just turn off backup.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: Look at it with me, go to the there. So
Speaker 2: if you go to their version, I don't see it.
Speaker 1: Go to photos upper right hand corner and you're in
Speaker 1: Google Photos for sure, right. Okay, do you see where
Speaker 1: it says backup. I don't know if you're says backup
Speaker 1: complete or backup in progress whatever it says, so backup complete?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Do you see that.
Speaker 2: Going there? Now, let's see backup, getting ready to back
Speaker 2: up and storm.
Speaker 1: So if you go so, once you go into Google Photos,
Speaker 1: you should see your own picture in the upper right
Speaker 1: hand corner. That's your Google account profile, right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: tap that and then it should say either backup complete
Speaker 1: or in backup or there's things waiting to be backed up.
Speaker 1: It says something about backup on like the second section there.
Speaker 1: If you see that, yeah, what does it say?
Speaker 2: I'm getting ready to back up?
Speaker 1: Okay? So tap that and it should bring you to
Speaker 1: where it says backup is on. Yes, okay, so now
Speaker 1: how much does it say? Now in mind it says
Speaker 1: I've got two hundred and fourteen, six hundred and ten
Speaker 1: photos and videos backed up to Google Photos. That's a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do not see a number.
Speaker 1: Okay, well mine, Yeah, mine's backup of complete. So that's
Speaker 1: probably why it's showing the number. But now, is there
Speaker 1: a toggle that says backup photos and videos on this device?
Speaker 1: Is there a toggle that you can turn off? So
Speaker 1: turn that off now? Now that's going to stop your
Speaker 1: photos from being backed up to Google Photos if you're
Speaker 1: getting those error messages because your Google Photos is still
Speaker 1: all filled up. There's a couple of things you can
Speaker 1: do there. So you can go to one dot Google
Speaker 1: dot com from your computer. Don't do this on your phone.
Speaker 1: Do this on your computer and you'll see where it
Speaker 1: says storage. You tap that and it says clean up space.
Speaker 1: And once you go in there, you can clean up
Speaker 1: either large files. Like what I would do is for
Speaker 1: you just get rid of some of the big photo files, right,
Speaker 1: some of the big photos or videos that you have
Speaker 1: inside there. So you can do that and that's very easy.
Speaker 1: It'll organize all your pictures by large and you can
Speaker 1: just delete, like whenever I need more space or want
Speaker 1: to get rid of some stuff. I just literally go
Speaker 1: through there and delete, you know, ten or twenty files whatever.
Speaker 1: The other thing you can do is, if you want
Speaker 1: to get rid of these photos from Google but keep
Speaker 1: them on your phone, go to photos dot Google dot
Speaker 1: com from a web browser and you can now delete
Speaker 1: pictures out of your Google account, but they will not
Speaker 1: delete off your phone. And that's what I would do there.
Speaker 1: So those are the two things that I would do.
Speaker 1: One dot Google dot com free up storage. If you
Speaker 1: want to get rid of these pictures completely, go to
Speaker 1: photos dot Google dot com and you can select a
Speaker 1: whole bunch at once and just delete them. They'll remain
Speaker 1: on your phone, and make sure that backup has turned off.
Speaker 1: Great question today, Steve eighty eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk more about pictures and videos coming up
Speaker 1: right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one. The website for the show
Speaker 1: is rich on Tech dot tv eighty eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. I was just checking
Speaker 1: my Facebook. I forgot that I posted about this, but
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech. My kid got
Speaker 1: this uh weighted blanket for Christmas. My my mother in
Speaker 1: law gave it to him. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: asked for it or what, but I was like, what
Speaker 1: is the deal with a weighted blanket? And so he
Speaker 1: said he loved it, and I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: let me try this thing. You put this thing on.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever been to the dentist
Speaker 1: where they put that extray blanket, that's what it feels like.
Speaker 1: But I'm not kidding. I've had my like three best
Speaker 1: naps I've ever had in my life. We were joking
Speaker 1: because my wife put it on on our drive to Sodona.
Speaker 1: She put it on in the car. She never falls
Speaker 1: asleep in the car, fell asleep like a baby. So
Speaker 1: we think this is like a magic blanket. You know it.
Speaker 1: I have one, You have a weighted Why is everyone
Speaker 1: keeping these a secret?
Speaker 11: It's amazing, bro, I swear to you, I love this
Speaker 11: thing so much. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So I didn't know this was a thing. So people
Speaker 1: my bit all the time. That is hilarious. People are
Speaker 1: commenting all about them. They say it improves their sleep, relaxation.
Speaker 1: Some people say it takes them getting used to because
Speaker 1: it is heavy. Uh, some people buy them too heavy.
Speaker 1: So I guess there's different you know, weights of these things.
Speaker 1: But and now someone also said, try a weighted sleep mask.
Speaker 1: That's next. I do like my sleep mask. I'm telling you. See,
Speaker 1: I thought the sleep mask was the way to fall asleep,
Speaker 1: and now it's like the sleep mask, the weighted blanket.
Speaker 1: Slept like a baby yesterday. All right, joining me now.
Speaker 1: Professional photographer Christa Kowalcik. Christa, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 8: Rich.
Speaker 1: So you worked with helping Hurricane Ian survivors recover some
Speaker 1: of their damaged photos and memory. So you've built quite
Speaker 1: the following online talking about Well, I'll let you explain.
Speaker 1: So how did you I mean, you've been doing this,
Speaker 1: you're photographer, but what sort of like pushed you into
Speaker 1: you were on a bunch of TV shows to talk
Speaker 1: about preserving memories? Explain what happened?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So I am a lifelong photographer. I've
Speaker 3: loved photography since I was a child. It's the only
Speaker 3: real job I've ever had. So I've just always been managing,
Speaker 3: way back to the film days, I've managed my photos,
Speaker 3: managing digital photos. But it wasn't until Hurricane Ian came
Speaker 3: and it just devastated my area where I live here
Speaker 3: in southwest Florida. And when that storm came thru it
Speaker 3: was floodwater and it just destroyed homes. There were over
Speaker 3: five thousand homes that they lost every they lost their photos.
Speaker 7: They were just gone. Everything was gone.
Speaker 3: But then there was another forty some thousand homes that
Speaker 3: had severe damage, and I was able to just jump
Speaker 3: in and start volunteering to help people to try to
Speaker 3: sell bitch some of those water damaged photos.
Speaker 7: So that's kind of how I got started in this.
Speaker 3: But it was really then that I realized the things
Speaker 3: that I do every day managing all of those photos
Speaker 3: that I have, that a lot of people just don't
Speaker 3: know how to manage their photo collection.
Speaker 7: So I started to help people.
Speaker 3: After that experience, I realized that most of the people
Speaker 3: I was helping, they didn't know that there was even
Speaker 3: an option to get a digital copy of those photographs
Speaker 3: before disaster.
Speaker 7: Happened and have that memory saved.
Speaker 3: So now I just coach people every day and I
Speaker 3: share the easy, easy tips and tricks to get digital
Speaker 3: copies of those pictures and also make sure that digital
Speaker 3: pictures are safe too.
Speaker 1: All right, So what's the first step that people should
Speaker 1: take to protect their pictures from natural disasters? What's you know?
Speaker 1: These are the printed pictures.
Speaker 7: Yeah, for sure, absolutely.
Speaker 3: The very first thing you need to do is get
Speaker 3: a digital copy of those pictures. I've heard there's a
Speaker 3: lot of myths about ways to store photographs to keep
Speaker 3: them safe, but at the end of the day, there's
Speaker 3: just so many things can go wrong. The one way
Speaker 3: to just make sure those pictures are always safe and
Speaker 3: that memory is always safe is to just get that
Speaker 3: digital copy of.
Speaker 7: All of the photographs.
Speaker 1: Okay, And so what I mean, where do they do this?
Speaker 1: Do they send it out to someone? Do they do
Speaker 1: it themselves? I know it takes a long time to
Speaker 1: do it yourself. I sent all mine out. What do
Speaker 1: you like to do? You know?
Speaker 7: I think it's it's The answer is different for different people.
Speaker 3: It depends on what your budget is and the amount
Speaker 3: of time that you have to commit to it. There
Speaker 3: are some really fabulous scanning options now though, that make
Speaker 3: it easy. So if you are somebody has a little
Speaker 3: bit of time and you want to diy it, EPSN
Speaker 3: has a photo that has a feater, you can scan
Speaker 3: as many as thirty or forty pictures a minute with
Speaker 3: the scanner, so you just put them in and it zips,
Speaker 3: it's it, It scans up.
Speaker 7: It's so easy a child could do it.
Speaker 3: So I think it's an easy project to diy if
Speaker 3: you want to. There's also phone apps that allow you
Speaker 3: to get a digital copy of your pictures too, So
Speaker 3: there's ways to diy and do it. But there's also
Speaker 3: fabulous services. There's there's a company in Gosha, Wisconsin. I
Speaker 3: believe they're it's Pixology. They are a small business that
Speaker 3: will digitize your pictures for you. They even have a
Speaker 3: service where they will come right to you. They have
Speaker 3: a few clients a year. They go right to them
Speaker 3: and help them to organize and digitize their pictures.
Speaker 7: So there's there's a lot of ways to do it.
Speaker 3: I think as long as you are getting that digital copy,
Speaker 3: it's that's the only thing, no matter.
Speaker 7: How you do it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the phone apps. Is there an app that
Speaker 1: you like? Because I tested one called I think it
Speaker 1: was photo Mine or something. Is there one that you
Speaker 1: like that works better than others?
Speaker 7: You know, photo Mine is the best that I've seen
Speaker 7: of the phone apps.
Speaker 3: You know there is the quality is not as good
Speaker 3: as a traditional scanner. If you get a desktop scanner
Speaker 3: or that apps and scanner with the feeder, that's going
Speaker 3: to be your best quality scan But if you have
Speaker 3: just old memories that you want to keep, and a
Speaker 3: lot of our photographs are that they aren't pictures we're
Speaker 3: going to be printing again, but we'd be devastated if
Speaker 3: we lost them. They're you know, the birthday party or
Speaker 3: the baby shower, just things that we have old print
Speaker 3: photos of that aren't necessarily being passed down for generations,
Speaker 3: but we want to have that memory saved, and I
Speaker 3: think photomine is a fabulous app for that.
Speaker 1: What about a picture that's like damage, Like is there
Speaker 1: a good app that you like that will fix it up?
Speaker 7: So, you know, one thing that's.
Speaker 3: Neat with photomine and also the apps, the epps and
Speaker 3: photo scanners is they have some enhancements that they can do.
Speaker 7: Just that's easy.
Speaker 3: You're getting the scan of the photo and they get
Speaker 3: that enhancement for you. So that's the first thing I
Speaker 3: usually suggest. You'd be surprised how they can Either of
Speaker 3: those can just bring back to life an old photo.
Speaker 7: But there's also.
Speaker 3: Lots of services online if you have something that has
Speaker 3: damaged to it that you can send a photo off
Speaker 3: And it's amazing what you can do. Now anybody with
Speaker 3: just a tiny bit of photoshop skills can use the
Speaker 3: AI tools in Photoshop and can restore almost anything. So
Speaker 3: I do tell people if you have a damaged photo,
Speaker 3: don't just throw it out.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of times that you can save, even
Speaker 7: things that look pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Now, do you recommend scanning the actual film negatives or
Speaker 1: the actual picture? Like, if you have both, which one
Speaker 1: would you prefer?
Speaker 3: So that's you know, that just depends on the situation.
Speaker 3: The negative is going to give you the best quality.
Speaker 3: So I think if you're looking for the best quality scan,
Speaker 3: if this is an heirloom photo and it's so important
Speaker 3: to you, I'd.
Speaker 7: Go with the negative.
Speaker 3: But what I found is ninety percent of people's photo
Speaker 3: collections or just great memories they want to keep, And
Speaker 3: I think it's easier to get a scan of a
Speaker 3: print photo.
Speaker 7: So if you're just looking to make sure.
Speaker 3: That that memory is safe, I think that using using
Speaker 3: the print is just fine.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk digital photos. I take so many.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to go through them. I usually go through
Speaker 1: them at the end of the day to kind of
Speaker 1: get rid of all my screenshots and random images. But
Speaker 1: what do you recommend for someone who's trying to start
Speaker 1: the decluttering process.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, I think what you're doing is great.
Speaker 3: I think having a routine is the is the key.
Speaker 3: I personally, I'm similar to you. I am going through
Speaker 3: my pictures once a day, you know, I have been
Speaker 3: been at night, I do a quick roll of the
Speaker 3: pictures I took that day. I think favoriting your best
Speaker 3: pictures is just an easy way to narrow down your
Speaker 3: best ones, deleting things at that point, or you know,
Speaker 3: even once a week doing that.
Speaker 7: There's also an app it's called Daily Delete. I love
Speaker 7: this app. It really makes it mindless. So it does
Speaker 7: go through all of your pictures. It shows your photos
Speaker 7: in a calendar.
Speaker 3: Basically, you select the date you want to look at
Speaker 3: and it will show you all the pictures from that date,
Speaker 3: and then it uses an AI technology to tell you
Speaker 3: which ones it thinks you need to delete.
Speaker 7: But then it also learns your preferences.
Speaker 3: So let's say you have a pet and you never
Speaker 3: want a single photo of that pet to be deleted.
Speaker 3: It will learn that you've decided you don't want those,
Speaker 3: So you're kind of correcting its work as it goes along.
Speaker 3: And after a few days or a week of just
Speaker 3: kind of correcting what Daily Delete has done, it's going
Speaker 3: to start doing it mindlessly for you.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Okay, what about storage apps? Like I always
Speaker 1: recommend Google Photos, that's my favorite. But what do you
Speaker 1: like for different photo storage apps?
Speaker 3: So I'm an Amazon Photos user just because it's free
Speaker 3: with Amazon Prime.
Speaker 7: So you know, that makes it easy.
Speaker 3: It's got an app that just automatically is backing up
Speaker 3: my photos. But Google Photos was free.
Speaker 7: Everything is.
Speaker 3: I don't believe it's going to be free forever, so
Speaker 3: I think that's just you know, something to well.
Speaker 1: It's free with Prime, so as long as we're and
Speaker 1: it's also the photos only, just to be clear, the
Speaker 1: videos are an extra you know, costs. But I always
Speaker 1: mention to people, if you have Amazon Prime and you're
Speaker 1: gonna stick with it, which most people do, it's a
Speaker 1: great way to kind of back up your photos as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: No, I think it's great. I think Google Photos is great.
Speaker 7: I think they're all great.
Speaker 3: There's one storage called forever storage that is dedicated towards photos.
Speaker 7: They it says it guarantees.
Speaker 3: Your photos will be there for one hundred years or
Speaker 3: something ridiculous. I personally don't trust anywhere. I think everything
Speaker 3: needs to be stored in multiple places, and I think
Speaker 3: that's the only safe way to keep your photos.
Speaker 1: I would agree like anything that I mean forever storage.
Speaker 1: I love the idea forever, but we know nothing's really forever.
Speaker 1: So I always have two places where they are backed
Speaker 1: up and any and we have like less than a minute.
Speaker 1: Common to mistake. You see when people are trying to
Speaker 1: organize their photos, taking on too much.
Speaker 3: I think that it's huge having a lifetime of photographs
Speaker 3: or photos going back your parents photos. Sometimes, if you
Speaker 3: have a lifetime of photos, don't don't sit down and
Speaker 3: try to do it all at once. Break it into
Speaker 3: small projects and just check off one month or one year.
Speaker 3: It's not like cleaning the garage. It's an emotional it's
Speaker 3: an emotional project and sometimes you need to walk away
Speaker 3: from it for a minute. So break it into small
Speaker 3: projects and just get a little.
Speaker 5: Bit done at a time, all right.
Speaker 1: Christa Kowalchik the website the christak dot com the Krista
Speaker 1: with a k k dot com. So the k R
Speaker 1: I s t a k dot com and I picked
Speaker 1: up one of your tips from your Instagram to get
Speaker 1: a photo album for the year and then print out.
Speaker 1: So this year my goal is I got like a
Speaker 1: six hundred one. I'm going to print out a couple
Speaker 1: of pictures each month at the end of the month
Speaker 1: of my favorites and put them in this album that's
Speaker 1: gonna sit on my coffee table. So at the end
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, I should have a full photo
Speaker 1: album of like some of my favorite pictures. I think
Speaker 1: that's very exciting.
Speaker 7: Oh absolutely, I think you'll love it.
Speaker 1: Printed, by the way, not just on my phone where
Speaker 1: I'm showing people my phone. Christa, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today. Thanks rich Christa Kowalcik. Follow her on
Speaker 1: social media. I love the tips that she offers the
Speaker 1: christak dot com. I'll link it up on my website.
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech dot tv. Coming up, I'll explain what
Speaker 1: advanced data protection is on the iPhone and explain if
Speaker 1: you should keep it on, turn it on, or keep
Speaker 1: it off. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: talking technology took me a bit there. I was furiously
Speaker 1: typing up the show notes for all the things that Christa,
Speaker 1: our photo guest, mentioned. It's all on the website rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv. So everything that she just mentioned,
Speaker 1: all the different ways to organize your photos, it's all
Speaker 1: right there on the website rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Let's see here coming up, Let's see. Oh that's next hour.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about that next hour. Let's talk about Gloria.
Speaker 1: She wrote in is it a bad idea to buy
Speaker 1: electronics like cell phones, tablets or laptops from shopping channels?
Speaker 1: Good question, Gloria, I don't think so. I would say
Speaker 1: my main concern would be to make sure the return
Speaker 1: policy is good, like make sure it's easy to return,
Speaker 1: because you're getting these site on scene, and that the
Speaker 1: warranty matches what you're getting if you bought it from
Speaker 1: somewhere else. That's the main thing. The other thing I
Speaker 1: would say is just, you know, just make sure you
Speaker 1: know what you're buying and if it's actually a good deal.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times are these home shopping
Speaker 1: networks and these home shopping channels you know, the whole
Speaker 1: point is like you've either have credit with them or
Speaker 1: it's for easy pay or something like that, so you
Speaker 1: may be spending more than you need to on these gadgets.
Speaker 1: So i'd always look up the actual model number on
Speaker 1: something like an Amazon or Best Buy and just see
Speaker 1: if it's the same price. If it is, it might
Speaker 1: be easier just to buy it from a place you
Speaker 1: already go to. But and then also make sure that
Speaker 1: it's the current model. So sometimes you may be getting
Speaker 1: a really good deal on these things because it's the
Speaker 1: previous model or a model that's no longer being made.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't know, I have no problem
Speaker 1: with this. I actually I actually have always thought that
Speaker 1: I'd be a great person to be on these channels,
Speaker 1: Like I love talking about gadgets. In fact, it's funny
Speaker 1: when you do kind of like a first look at gadgets,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what you're doing. You're you're basically like
Speaker 1: if you're talking about it to camera, you're kind of
Speaker 1: memorizing all these different little features and then kind of
Speaker 1: selling it to camera. So I always thought it'd be
Speaker 1: really fun to be on like a home shopping channel.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of people just buy this
Speaker 1: stuff because it sounds really cool, and then they get
Speaker 1: it and I don't know do they open it or
Speaker 1: use it. But Gloria, if you like it, it looks good,
Speaker 1: go ahead get it. I have no problem with it.
Speaker 1: I got an email from someone asking about advanced data protection. Actually,
Speaker 1: this person contacted me on Instagram. They said, hey, I
Speaker 1: saw this reel tells me to turn on advanced data
Speaker 1: protection on the iPhone. Should I do it? So, let
Speaker 1: me explain what advanced data protection is. This basically gives
Speaker 1: you end to end encryption on your iCloud data. So
Speaker 1: iCloud data is pretty much a lot of your stuff
Speaker 1: that's on your iPhone is already end to end encrypted,
Speaker 1: but this increases that protection from certain categories, like certain
Speaker 1: things like already it's end to end encrypted, but this
Speaker 1: increases that protection of more categories, including your entire device, backup,
Speaker 1: your photos, and your notes, which means only trusted devices
Speaker 1: can access them. So with ADP, which Advanced Data Protection activated,
Speaker 1: Apple cannot access your encrypted data in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. So this means that if there's a data
Speaker 1: breach on Apple servers and your stuff got out there,
Speaker 1: no one would be able to see your pictures, or
Speaker 1: your data or your info. Sounds great, right, But the
Speaker 1: downside is if you forget your password or you forget
Speaker 1: the recovery key for your iCloud, there is no way
Speaker 1: you'll be able to recover this data ever, never, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: So if you're someone that loses your passwords can't remember things,
Speaker 1: this might not be the best thing to turn on.
Speaker 1: That's one of the downsides. The other downside is that
Speaker 1: all of your devices that are linked to your iCloud
Speaker 1: account have to be updated to the latest operating system
Speaker 1: to have this benefit turned on. So that means if
Speaker 1: you're running a combination of devices on your account, all
Speaker 1: of them have to be updated. If some of them
Speaker 1: can't be, then you cannot. You either have to remove
Speaker 1: that device from your account or you can't activate this.
Speaker 1: The other downside is that a lot of functionalities of
Speaker 1: act accessing your iCloud data via the web will be
Speaker 1: disabled because you cannot access this stuff via the web
Speaker 1: because it's a whole complicated situation, but because it's not
Speaker 1: a trusted device that has the key to unencrypt your information,
Speaker 1: it can't access it. And the web browser is not
Speaker 1: equipped to do that, So that means you just can't access.
Speaker 1: So if you ever said, oh, I lost access to
Speaker 1: my phone, let me go to iCloud and grab my
Speaker 1: pictures or grab my contacts, No, not going to happen
Speaker 1: because you have this ADP on. So this would fall
Speaker 1: under the category of stuff you see online and it
Speaker 1: looks really good and you see this expert quote unquote
Speaker 1: telling you what to do and you don't realize there
Speaker 1: are implications, pros and cons of every action in this world.
Speaker 1: And so I get these things all the time. Cybersecurity experts,
Speaker 1: data experts, iPhone experts, Android experts, expert, expert, expert. If
Speaker 1: someone calls themselves an expert, I'm always concerned, right because
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Do you have a PhD and iPhone?
Speaker 1: You have a PhD and Android? Like, what is expert
Speaker 1: mean you've studied these or does it mean that you
Speaker 1: just you know? Like I always, I don't consider myself
Speaker 1: an expert anything. I just know a lot about technology
Speaker 1: and I don't even know everything about technology. I just
Speaker 1: cover this stuff on a daily basis, so I'm versed
Speaker 1: in it. And again, when it comes to answering tech questions,
Speaker 1: you know people think you have all the answers. I
Speaker 1: don't have all the answers. But the difference between someone
Speaker 1: like myself and you know, people that are smart about
Speaker 1: technology is that you understand how to figure out the answer,
Speaker 1: Where to go for the answer, who to talk to
Speaker 1: for the answer, what the implications of that answer is,
Speaker 1: the pros and cons of things that, to me is
Speaker 1: much more useful than expert tells you to turn on
Speaker 1: this setting, turn off this setting. If you look at
Speaker 1: all the stuff that I post to Instagram, Facebook, I
Speaker 1: explain the pros and cons. I explain what's going on,
Speaker 1: so you understand and you can make an informed decision.
Speaker 1: I don't just say you should turn this feature on.
Speaker 1: I explain what the feature is and why you might
Speaker 1: want to turn it on. So with this advanced data protection,
Speaker 1: in all these advanced security features, there's a reason why
Speaker 1: Apple doesn't just turn them on for you, or Android
Speaker 1: doesn't just turn them on for you. It's because there
Speaker 1: usually are reasons why you may want them on and
Speaker 1: you may want them off. If you're smart, you know
Speaker 1: what you're doing, You're with it. You understand technology, turn
Speaker 1: it on, understand it, you understand the pros and cons
Speaker 1: This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: My name is rich Demiro, hanging out with you talking technology.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: If you want to send me an email, go to
Speaker 1: the website rich on tech dot tv. Hit contact and
Speaker 1: there you can submit feedback, submit questions, comments, whatever you'd like.
Speaker 1: That's what KL did. KL wrote in about my comments
Speaker 1: about the weighted blankets, saying kids have died using weighted
Speaker 1: blankets and that was news to me, but I did
Speaker 1: look it up and apparently, yes, there were a couple
Speaker 1: of kids that did die in April twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: by these weighted blankets sold by Target, which led to
Speaker 1: a huge recall. Now those were apparently a design flaw,
Speaker 1: but you know, just looking at the tips here, it's
Speaker 1: saying that you got to be age appropriate, not recommended
Speaker 1: for babies or toddlers. Check the manufacturers age recommendations, proper
Speaker 1: size and weight. Kids should be supervised. And you know
Speaker 1: this is all common sense. It goes without saying. But
Speaker 1: you know, since I did mention them, I should probably
Speaker 1: say that. You know, if you're going to use one
Speaker 1: of these blankets, you know, probably make sure that your
Speaker 1: child can handle something like this.
Speaker 10: With all these lawsuits going on, you should realize common
Speaker 10: sense isn't all that common anymore.
Speaker 1: Is there anything as common sense? No? I mean, look,
Speaker 1: you know when you're talking about I am a big
Speaker 1: believer in if there are issues with the product, Like
Speaker 1: clearly this had a design flaw with the zipperk so
Speaker 1: got like entangled in this thing, that makes sense. Like
Speaker 1: if it's a if it's a design flaw, if there's
Speaker 1: a problem, like yes, But common sense in general, I
Speaker 1: feel like has gone out the window with a lot
Speaker 1: of things in life.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 11: The blanket that I have isn't a zipper blankets.
Speaker 10: It's like a almost like knitted Yeah, it's a weighted
Speaker 10: knitted blanket.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 11: And it's not big. It literally just covers me from
Speaker 11: my chest down on my feet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The one that my kid has is a smaller one.
Speaker 1: But again, I mean, if I had an infant, I'm
Speaker 1: not putting a weighted blanket on the infant. Like that's
Speaker 1: just to me, that would be common sense, right. I
Speaker 1: think if you're a parent in general, there are so
Speaker 1: many things that you need to learn and understand, and
Speaker 1: there's just I mean, look, there's things that our parents
Speaker 1: did with us that you would never do now. My
Speaker 1: father in law was telling me, you know, they're in car.
Speaker 1: I mean there wasn't even seatbelts. I mean kids would
Speaker 1: sleep like on the you know they had these big
Speaker 1: old station wagons, right and kids would sleep on like
Speaker 1: the back like you.
Speaker 10: Know, I don't know what you call it. I can
Speaker 10: get my dad in trouble with this one corvette. My
Speaker 10: dad had an older corvette, was at eighty six, and
Speaker 10: me and him my mom would ride in this corvette,
Speaker 10: but I would ride in the trunk of the car
Speaker 10: and the closed trunk like the back where the yeah, yes,
Speaker 10: laid back there. Yes, And to me it was the
Speaker 10: most coolest thing ever you did. No, no, no, not
Speaker 10: at all. But back then it was fun.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I mean just this, if you look at
Speaker 1: some of the pictures of things, the stuff we take
Speaker 1: for granted now, the safety measures we have, the everything,
Speaker 1: it's all just like it's because something bad happened. And
Speaker 1: I mean I remember we've test drove like this uh
Speaker 1: big old giant station wagon when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and it had like the two seats that faced backwards,
Speaker 1: you know, like out the back, and it was like,
Speaker 1: that was the coolest thing ever. And now when you
Speaker 1: think about, like how these rear end crashes, like maybe
Speaker 1: not the best place to put your kids something so.
Speaker 11: Simple drinking from a water holes as a child.
Speaker 1: Yes, nobody ever died doing that, did they?
Speaker 11: But I wouldn't now what you wouldn't no now right now?
Speaker 1: Uh huh? Well, I guess I've had no BPA in
Speaker 1: the I'll get out everything. I mean, you mentioned anything
Speaker 1: and someone has some sort of issue. Ron writes into
Speaker 1: my Instagram at rich On Tech. Hey, rich I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your radio show since day one. I'm curious
Speaker 1: can we actually see you live? You always post a
Speaker 1: pick with you in the station, but I was wondering
Speaker 1: if we can see you live in some of these episodes.
Speaker 1: Keep up the great content in twenty twenty five. This
Speaker 1: has been an ongoing question since day one of this show.
Speaker 1: The short answer is no. The other answer is if
Speaker 1: you want to see the first ten minutes of the
Speaker 1: show that is part of my rich On Tech Weekly show,
Speaker 1: which airs on KTLA plus, part of the TV station
Speaker 1: I work for here in Los Angeles, you can see
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes of the show that you would
Speaker 1: have to download the KTLA plus app on your Roku,
Speaker 1: your Apple TV, your Fire TV, or your Samsung Smart TV.
Speaker 1: And that's a weekly show that airs and you can
Speaker 1: see the first ten minutes of the radio show. Don't
Speaker 1: really have plans for live right now. I'm on TV
Speaker 1: Live every day, and so this is sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, a time when I'm not doing live unless
Speaker 1: something changes, we'll see. Let's go to Deborah in Santa Monica. Deborah,
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich by Rich.
Speaker 9: Okay, the reason I'm calling them is I have a
Speaker 9: one plus seven pro Android phone.
Speaker 2: Okay, I've had it for years.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: It's a wonderful phone.
Speaker 9: However, in the last couple of weeks, something has happened
Speaker 9: to the settings that I didn't do anything with. Okay,
Speaker 9: I didn't change it.
Speaker 1: Oh no, nobody ever changes anything on their phone.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 2: I said, that's the.
Speaker 9: Way I want it, and then I leave it alone
Speaker 9: unless it's something you know, serious, Okase, But I would
Speaker 9: remember that if I had been anything to the setting.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 9: So what's been happening, and it's very annoying, is when
Speaker 9: there's when the system apparently when a here's talking, it'll revert.
Speaker 2: It to text.
Speaker 9: Which will stream across my screen. It'll do it. And
Speaker 9: any app or program that I'm aware of when I
Speaker 9: was on and anytime I've been on X recently. If
Speaker 9: there's talking and I'm listening to a tweeter watching a tweet,
Speaker 9: it'll it'll put the put the talking right.
Speaker 1: It's almost like close captions, right, Is that kind of
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 9: Calling live cat Yes. I cannot figure out in any
Speaker 9: of the apps or on my Android phone, even in settings,
Speaker 9: and I've spent hours going through the settings to see
Speaker 9: that it's in somewhere. You know, I have to drill down.
Speaker 9: It's not there. I even did a Google search and
Speaker 9: they actually said, yes, there's a way to do it.
Speaker 9: Go to settings, go to this good event. Guess what
Speaker 9: what they say to go through is missing on my phone.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, so you have stumbled upon a fee. Sure
Speaker 1: that is quite helpful for people.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of things going on here.
Speaker 1: Number one, So what you're talking about is live captions.
Speaker 1: This is available on both iPhone and Android, and it's
Speaker 1: a feature that on Android, it came a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. On iPhone, I think it's within the last
Speaker 1: year or so. But what it does is it listens
Speaker 1: to the audio on the phone and it transcribes it
Speaker 1: in real time and puts it in a little box.
Speaker 1: And so for people that you know could be hard
Speaker 1: of hearing, they want this on their screen. That's one
Speaker 1: reason to use it. Another reason is you just want
Speaker 1: captions because you're, you know, watching something in class. You
Speaker 1: don't want to disturb someone else. You know, there's lots
Speaker 1: of reasons why you might activate this. I made the
Speaker 1: joke Tebra about no one ever changes features, because it's
Speaker 1: an ongoing joke. When someone comes to me with a problem,
Speaker 1: they say, I didn't change anything. But you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: what happens is we tap a button by accident. We
Speaker 1: you know, just something you know, gets hit in our pocket,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And so that's just kind of my
Speaker 1: inside tech show for anyone. My mom calls me with
Speaker 1: a problem and I'm like, she's like, and I didn't
Speaker 1: touch a thing. I was like, Okay, no one ever
Speaker 1: touches anything. But here's how we do it. So this
Speaker 1: is an accessibility feature. So there are a couple of
Speaker 1: ways to turn it on and off. The first way
Speaker 1: is to go into settings and tap accessibility and to
Speaker 1: choose live captions and turn that on or off. Are
Speaker 1: you is that the feature that's not there?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 9: When I go into my settings, there's no specific accessibility.
Speaker 9: You have to go to something like it's either in
Speaker 9: system or Apps and Notifications. I'm going to see apps
Speaker 9: and notifications.
Speaker 1: Well, it wouldn't be under Apps and Notifications. There's usually
Speaker 1: a separate setting just for accessibility on almost every Android phone.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, the one day I did not bring the
Speaker 1: Android phone that I'm testing with me, I said, nobody's
Speaker 1: gonna have a question about one plus today, and of
Speaker 1: course you have the question about one plus, so I
Speaker 1: don't have it in front of me. But typically if
Speaker 1: you go into settings accessibility, that's going to be the
Speaker 1: first place to and then you should find it under privacy. Okay,
Speaker 1: what's that.
Speaker 9: You have to in settings? There is something called privacy okay,
Speaker 9: and permissions and personal data.
Speaker 1: No, that's not going to be it. Okay. So the
Speaker 1: other way to look for it, it's.
Speaker 9: On it is because there's accessibility usage. That's the only
Speaker 9: way I found anything having to do with assessibility.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, accessively, that's not it though, that's not the
Speaker 1: that's not the part. So the other way to do
Speaker 1: it is to go in the upper right hand corner
Speaker 1: when you go into your settings and type in live captions. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you can type in live caption and that should
Speaker 1: bring up the setting of where to find it. So
Speaker 1: on this Samsung phone I'm looking at, it's under hearing enhancements,
Speaker 1: under accessibility accessibility, So settings accessibility, hearing enhancements. That's one
Speaker 1: way of bringing it up. The other way to bring
Speaker 1: it up is to press the volume button on your
Speaker 1: Android phone, and when you press that volume button, there
Speaker 1: is a little captions icon. So if you press volume
Speaker 1: up and then press Settings, you should see a little
Speaker 1: live caption's icon. In that main settings page of your volume.
Speaker 1: You'll see a whole bunch of sliders you tap there
Speaker 1: and that should toggle it on or off. The third
Speaker 1: way to find it is to swipe down from the
Speaker 1: top of your screen and you see a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of widgets like to turn on and off, the airplane mode,
Speaker 1: the flashlight location, whatever it is. And then if you
Speaker 1: tap the little edit button there, it's like a maybe
Speaker 1: a pencil icon, and then you tap edit on your
Speaker 1: widgets for your These are called quick tiles that it
Speaker 1: should say available buttons, and one of those should be
Speaker 1: labeled live captions. Tap that and you should now it'll
Speaker 1: put it into those quick tiles. Tap done, and then
Speaker 1: once you swipe down to bring up those quick tiles,
Speaker 1: make sure you expand it. You should have a new
Speaker 1: option that says live caption and you can toggle it
Speaker 1: on or off right there. So those are three ways, Deborah,
Speaker 1: to turn that on and off. Please send me an email.
Speaker 1: Go to rich on Tech dot TV. Send me an
Speaker 1: email so I have your email address and I will
Speaker 1: give you when I get home, I will give you
Speaker 1: specific directions for the one plus phone. But that is
Speaker 1: the three ways in general on Android that you can
Speaker 1: turn on and off live caption. If you ask me,
Speaker 1: they should have it right on the captions when they
Speaker 1: show up. That would make the most sense. Let me
Speaker 1: just see, I'm playing a YouTube video and you would
Speaker 1: think it would have them right on, you know, a
Speaker 1: little toggle right on there. But I guess it doesn't
Speaker 1: do that. Eight eight eight rich one O one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four two four one zero one. This
Speaker 1: is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one, the website rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv. Don't forget this show is available
Speaker 1: as a podcast. Just search rich on Tech in your
Speaker 1: favorite audio app. Never miss an episode. Of course, the
Speaker 1: best way to listen is live right here on the radio.
Speaker 1: That's my preferred way. But the podcast is fun as well.
Speaker 1: Apple Fitness Plus. I don't know if you're a person
Speaker 1: that wants to close your rings on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: I know I am. If you have an Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: those rings represent the move minutes that you get on
Speaker 1: a daily basis standing up every hour for like twelve hours.
Speaker 1: And then what's the third one? The steps you take
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. Let me say, I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I'm only worried about the move minutes. Let's see here, Oh,
Speaker 1: great segment, rich You don't even know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Move minutes exercise interesting? Oh move is your calories? Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't worry about that. So you got the calories,
Speaker 1: exercise minutes and then stand minutes. So yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: someone who wants to do that. Apple came up with
Speaker 1: this thing called Apple Fitness Plus a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: During the pan lets you work out from your phone
Speaker 1: or your Apple Watch. It started out you had to
Speaker 1: have an Apple Watch. Now you can do it just
Speaker 1: through your iPhone. But I visited their Apple Fitness Plus
Speaker 1: studio in Santa Monica to get a little preview of
Speaker 1: some of the new programs they have for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: They're launching all of these on Monday, January sixth, largest
Speaker 1: ever lineup of their fitness and mindfulness programming. And they've
Speaker 1: got new strength training. So the thing about strength training,
Speaker 1: it's very intimidating. You've got people like Bobo that work
Speaker 1: out all the time and they know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Every time you go on Instagram, he's with lifting more weight.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I never lift that. But if if you're
Speaker 1: intimidated by that, you know, maybe you just want to
Speaker 1: start small. So this program you can start with any
Speaker 1: weight and it could be anything. So if you if
Speaker 1: you strong and you already want to lift a lot,
Speaker 1: you can start with that, or if you don't want
Speaker 1: to lift a lot, you can start with that. Then
Speaker 1: they've got pickleball conditioning, so that's new. I know pickleball
Speaker 1: is very popular. They've got these programs so you can
Speaker 1: learn like specific yoga poses and then of course breath meditation.
Speaker 1: The other feature I really think is great. If you're
Speaker 1: just trying to move your you know, move yourself, get
Speaker 1: yourself up and out of the house, it's called time
Speaker 1: to walk. And so they interview all these like celebrities
Speaker 1: and notable people and you just walk with them, so
Speaker 1: they're in your ear. You just walk and they talk
Speaker 1: and tell their story and before you know it, you
Speaker 1: got thirty minutes of walk time. Fitness Plus is also
Speaker 1: integrating with Strava for the first time ever in a
Speaker 1: big way, so you can see detailed tracking and workouts
Speaker 1: shared on the app, so it's a bigger integration. I
Speaker 1: don't use Strava, so I'm not totally knowledgeable about that,
Speaker 1: but I know a lot of people love it, especially
Speaker 1: I think it start out with like the biker community,
Speaker 1: not the motorcycle bikers.
Speaker 10: The I use Strava, do you Yeah? I use it
Speaker 10: around my neighborhood. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: What do you do with it?
Speaker 10: You just started like, wherever you go, you hit the
Speaker 10: button to record your pace, and it keeps track of
Speaker 10: your miles, your elevation, and amount of calories that you
Speaker 10: could have possibly burned in the process and the time.
Speaker 1: Okay, so so it's like a tracker app.
Speaker 10: Yeah, but it tracks to your map, like to your
Speaker 10: areash o. God, you like the path that you went
Speaker 10: and everything like that. And there's a friend network on
Speaker 10: it too, so like I can see what you did
Speaker 10: and like it, or you can.
Speaker 1: See what right you don't like it. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what the big improvement is with Fitness Plus is
Speaker 1: that it now shows the specific workout that you did
Speaker 1: to your friends. Fitness Plus is ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: eighty dollars a year. You can share it up to
Speaker 1: six people in your family. You can get a free
Speaker 1: trial by going to like I think best Buy has
Speaker 1: two months. If you have a new Apple device, you'll
Speaker 1: get it. But anyway, it's kind of fun. Let me
Speaker 1: just give you a quick idea of Apple, how they operate,
Speaker 1: you know, and I know I talk about Apple a lot.
Speaker 1: I also talk about Android. I like both, but you
Speaker 1: know they're two very different companies, right, But like Apple,
Speaker 1: So I go to these studios and they open the
Speaker 1: door for me and they're like, hey, before you go in,
Speaker 1: just so you know, we have a lot of energy
Speaker 1: around here. I'm like, all right, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: They opened the door. They had secretly collected every employee
Speaker 1: in the building. So I'm talking like I don't know
Speaker 1: one hundred people at this building, and they were all
Speaker 1: standing there in the lobby when I walk in, and
Speaker 1: all just like clapping and shouting and saying welcome, rich
Speaker 1: and it's just like, you know, these big smiles. And
Speaker 1: I was so taken aback because it's just like this
Speaker 1: is Apple is just such a unique company. I mean,
Speaker 1: to grab everyone. Can you imagine doing that at any
Speaker 1: company you work for? Say, hey, this guy's coming in today.
Speaker 1: Let's let's grab everyone downstairs and let's have them all,
Speaker 1: you know, say hello in the lobby and like cheer
Speaker 1: for him. Bill from Kingston, Pennsylvania, who listens to the podcast,
Speaker 1: writes in I'm considering replacing my Moto Edge twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two with a Pixel xcel Pro. I'm also intrigued by
Speaker 1: the one plus thirteen, which is coming out in January.
Speaker 1: The Pixel has a higher price plus two extra years
Speaker 1: of support, but the one plus looks impressive. What's your take?
Speaker 1: You don't mention one plus often, but I know you're
Speaker 1: a fan of the Pixel. Here's my take historically, and
Speaker 1: I am testing the one plus thirteen, so I have
Speaker 1: been using it. I can't tell you everything I'm under embargo,
Speaker 1: but I will tell you that here's my thought. The
Speaker 1: Pixel is all about the software and camera. One plus
Speaker 1: is all about very very good hardware at a great price.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking for the best camera out there,
Speaker 1: I'd say probably go with the Pixel. If you're looking
Speaker 1: for a great value of hardware and price, I think
Speaker 1: the one plus thirteen might be your best bet. But
Speaker 1: I will have more about the one plus when I
Speaker 1: can talk about it and give my full review. That
Speaker 1: will be coming up soon in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: But I will say the photos are looking good off
Speaker 1: of this one plus thirteen. Coming up next, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk to Gerald Casulis of nord VPN about the
Speaker 1: biggest scams to watch out for in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking
Speaker 1: technology with you. We're going to get to the top
Speaker 1: scams of twenty twenty five in just a second here,
Speaker 1: But first, Kenny from Warwick, Rhode Island, rights in I
Speaker 1: rented a Kia EV six while traveling in North Carolina
Speaker 1: and love the quiet responsive drive. However, finding a reliable
Speaker 1: EV charger was a challenge. I dealt with charging anxiety
Speaker 1: when Google Maps led me to chargers I couldn't use
Speaker 1: or were occupied. Is there an app that makes finding
Speaker 1: chargers easier for non Tesla drivers, Kenny? This is why
Speaker 1: I only rented a EV once, and I drive an EV,
Speaker 1: so believe me, I love them, but I think renting
Speaker 1: one is a little bit different because people are not
Speaker 1: prepared for the fact that you do have to charge
Speaker 1: this thing, and charging a non Tesla EV can be tricky.
Speaker 1: As you experienced, these third party charging stations can be
Speaker 1: very hit or miss. Sometimes they don't work, they're not maintained,
Speaker 1: just it's a mixed bag. So two apps that can help.
Speaker 1: One is called plug Share plug Share. This is a
Speaker 1: really handy app. It's crowdsourced. People put information in about
Speaker 1: apps or sorry about apps, about the charging stations everywhere,
Speaker 1: so you can look for them that way. The other
Speaker 1: one is called a Better Route Planner a Better Route
Speaker 1: Planner and this was actually bought by Rivian, but it
Speaker 1: still operates. It looks like it operates independently, and they
Speaker 1: do have an app and so you can put in
Speaker 1: your information you want to look for, you know, chargers
Speaker 1: along the way, you can say what kind of car
Speaker 1: you have. It's got a lot of great information there,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, like you experience,
Speaker 1: sometimes when you get to these places, the charger may
Speaker 1: just not work. And that's getting better because Tesla is
Speaker 1: opening up its super charging network to third party cars
Speaker 1: and brands. But you need an adapter most of the time.
Speaker 1: And it is a kind of a slow process because
Speaker 1: they've announced this, but not everyone's on board right away.
Speaker 1: So Kenny, thanks for the email, Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast to appreciate it. Gerald casulis now on the
Speaker 1: line from nord VPN. You probably have heard of NordVPN.
Speaker 1: They have all kinds of security programs and VPN programs.
Speaker 1: He's going to talk to us about twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: top cyber threats. Gerald, thanks for joining me today. Hi Rich,
Speaker 1: thanks for having ny So what is NordVPN all about?
Speaker 1: What I mean, I know the VPN, but you guys
Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of products.
Speaker 11: Huh oh yeah.
Speaker 12: Absolutely, we want to make Internet a safer place, so
Speaker 12: we have of course NORDPN to protect your identity online. Also,
Speaker 12: we have Bustard Manager, we have business tools, we have
Speaker 12: cyber Efects Intelligence, So we have a bunch of things
Speaker 12: fully focusing on cybersecurity and you and your business safety online.
Speaker 1: I guess my first question is do people actually get
Speaker 1: scammed on a daily basis? I know that I share
Speaker 1: kind of these scams and text messages and all kinds
Speaker 1: of things that are going around on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Are people falling for this stuff?
Speaker 5: Sadly? Absolutely, people, businesses, everyone does.
Speaker 12: I think we live way too hectic and fast space
Speaker 12: of a life that we easily get tricked by receiving
Speaker 12: an email, clicking on a link that we shouldn't, could
Speaker 12: be text messages Here in US, you know, we get.
Speaker 5: A lot of that as well.
Speaker 12: It's very easy, and if you do fall for something,
Speaker 12: you don't need to feel the silly bad about it.
Speaker 12: It's just obviously what you do about it straight afterwards
Speaker 12: and what tools you implement on digital devices that you
Speaker 12: use to protect yourself better.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're talking about some of these things
Speaker 1: you need to watch out for in twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: combo lists. What does that mean and why are they
Speaker 1: a big concern?
Speaker 12: For cybersecurity, great question, Rich, So, combo list is a
Speaker 12: combination of information that's available in a dark web. And
Speaker 12: when you know, when we talk about dark web, we
Speaker 12: always think of this mythical, mystical place somewhere that is unreachable,
Speaker 12: but actually dark web and deep webs it's very popular
Speaker 12: among cyber criminals. And the combo list is basically a
Speaker 12: list of information that's.
Speaker 5: Originated from breaches.
Speaker 12: So it could be a website got breached somewhere that
Speaker 12: could be your email. There's another website I got breached
Speaker 12: somewhere that could be your address, And that combo list
Speaker 12: is going to be basically everything, all the information accessible
Speaker 12: from numerous different breaches that could potentially have your full
Speaker 12: contact details, your social security number, your telephone number, your addresses,
Speaker 12: a bunch of information that would made for cyber clinels
Speaker 12: to potentially steal your identity a lot easier and purchase
Speaker 12: those type of combolists.
Speaker 1: So they're piecing together information from various breaches. One may
Speaker 1: not be a big deal, Okay, your phone number, but
Speaker 1: now they've got your phone number, your social your address,
Speaker 1: your email address, a couple of your old passwords, whatever,
Speaker 1: all in one place.
Speaker 12: Absolutely, and that's where it all kind of leads to
Speaker 12: account takeovers, which is very popular. You don't necessarily need
Speaker 12: to look at a massive infringement such as someone stealing.
Speaker 5: Your identity, but even account takeover.
Speaker 12: So imagine I get your email address, maybe I get
Speaker 12: a couple of different passwords that you use somewhere that
Speaker 12: on the websites that were breached, and maybe you are
Speaker 12: reusing one of the passwords that you use somewhere else,
Speaker 12: which could be even secure passwords for instance.
Speaker 5: Or maybe using a really weak password.
Speaker 12: Of course, that full cube of criminals utilizing AI tools
Speaker 12: would take only a split second to guess pass get
Speaker 12: that type of password.
Speaker 5: So for me to.
Speaker 12: Gain access into into one of your logins, into one
Speaker 12: of your tools, and it could be banking information and whatnot,
Speaker 12: would be very very simple.
Speaker 1: That's wow. That's why I always tell people you have
Speaker 1: to use a password manager, you have to use a
Speaker 1: unique password. It's just it's vital at this point, I mean,
Speaker 1: you just can't, there's no way around it. Okay, Now
Speaker 1: this one, what is synthetic identity fraud and how does
Speaker 1: it differ from sort of traditional ID theft?
Speaker 12: Yeah, a really good question, and that's actually Sentetic identity
Speaker 12: fraud is actually getting gaining a lot popularity, so to say.
Speaker 12: Synthetic identity fraud basically criminals create a new identity by
Speaker 12: combining real and fixtious information. So potentially could be using
Speaker 12: a real social security and number that has been available
Speaker 12: somewhat and they combine it with fake information like fake
Speaker 12: name to open a pounds of some sort to commit
Speaker 12: fraud somewhere and potentially utilizing AI tools as well or
Speaker 12: deep fake technology. It makes that type of synthetic identity
Speaker 12: fraud a lot easier, and combining the real information with
Speaker 12: fake information will be would be a lot harder for
Speaker 12: you to get triggered to know that's happening in the background.
Speaker 12: And it differs from the traditional identity debt where normally
Speaker 12: your full information would be used where you might find
Speaker 12: out about it a lot sooner because it could come
Speaker 12: up on your credit report a lot easier.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is just wild. We're talking to Gerald Cassulis
Speaker 1: from NordVPN about some of the top cyber threats to
Speaker 1: look out for in twenty twenty five. How are hackers
Speaker 1: using AI to make phishing attacks and social engineering more effective?
Speaker 1: I know this is a big.
Speaker 12: One, absolutely Rich, and that's one of the things we've
Speaker 12: seen sort of rising in sort of say popularity over
Speaker 12: the last year or so.
Speaker 5: Basically, you can imagine AI.
Speaker 12: Tools, you know, a lot of us use it on
Speaker 12: daily basis, you know, to make our lives easier. Could
Speaker 12: be to draft an email for us, to do a
Speaker 12: bit research for work, university, you name it. So in
Speaker 12: a similar manner, there are AI tools in the dark
Speaker 12: word that don't have traditional limitation and security measures, meaning
Speaker 12: that you can ask those type of AI tools to
Speaker 12: put a fraudulent email together, to put deep fake together
Speaker 12: of some sort, to put malware attacked together. Right, So
Speaker 12: meaning that for me, the entry barriers as a potential
Speaker 12: hacker gets very very low, where I don't need to
Speaker 12: know how to code, how to put active activities frogun
Speaker 12: activities together. AI tools would do that for me, and
Speaker 12: I'll be able to target Rich. I could have your email,
Speaker 12: I'd be able to send out automate I think emails
Speaker 12: that would be AI generated with intention of defrauding you.
Speaker 12: So sophistication itself, it goes to the roofs and make
Speaker 12: it makes it a lot easier for individuals to actually
Speaker 12: operate in a negative manner.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean if you ask like a chat GBT
Speaker 1: or a Gemini to do some of these things that
Speaker 1: I'll say, sorry, I can't. But that does not mean
Speaker 1: that there are not one hundred thousand tools out there
Speaker 1: that will do it that are not necessarily in regular
Speaker 1: consumers hands or the mainstream tools. So keep in mind
Speaker 1: that you know, just because you can't do it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that no one else can. Finally, what is reverse
Speaker 1: identity theft?
Speaker 12: Good question, Rich, So, same as with synthetic identity that
Speaker 12: we see a lot of reverse identity theft are now
Speaker 12: gaining popularity as well in the dark web in the
Speaker 12: forums that being discussed as well. Basically, it's it's a
Speaker 12: alarming concept where individuals assume.
Speaker 5: Someone else's identity and not to mention the silly for.
Speaker 12: Financial gain, not to steal your identity, but to actually
Speaker 12: live as you. In a simple way put it where
Speaker 12: they could be securing jobs, they could be accessing certain
Speaker 12: services under false three tenses with different intentions, and those
Speaker 12: type of intentions could be looking to frame person for
Speaker 12: a crime, could be doing credit sabotage, impersonation of some
Speaker 12: sort of online employments, broad so there are many.
Speaker 5: Different factors that play into it.
Speaker 12: So you can think of it reverse identity, where someone
Speaker 12: would actually try to take your identity and live as
Speaker 12: you for fraudulent purposes.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's scary, all right. Have we got about thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: What do you think consumers should do to prepare for
Speaker 1: all these challenges? Like, what do you think are their
Speaker 1: main steps to take to protect themselves?
Speaker 12: Yeah, rich, as you said at the beginning, passive managers
Speaker 12: one of the easiest tools to implement it. So and
Speaker 12: then beyond that, you know, there are three things to consider,
Speaker 12: So make sure you always enable to factors negation on
Speaker 12: tools that you have. You use unique passwords, so never
Speaker 12: reuse the password, and never create a week password like
Speaker 12: passed one two threek and also regular your accounts. Uh,
Speaker 12: you know, as frequently as you can. Make sure you
Speaker 12: update your Internet of Things devices. If you've got like
Speaker 12: a smart refrigerator, make sure you update those devices because
Speaker 12: being they're not tooriously weak in terms of cybersecuity measures,
Speaker 12: some very easy to for hackers to actually get into them.
Speaker 12: So I think that many things that we can do
Speaker 12: so not all of it is lost, which is a
Speaker 12: good thing.
Speaker 1: All right, great information. Wow, a lot of things to
Speaker 1: watch out for in the new year. Gerald casulis from
Speaker 1: nord VPN. The website nord vpn dot com is where
Speaker 1: you want to go if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about some of those products and services. Thanks a lot
Speaker 1: for coming on today, Gerald, appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thanks che stay stay safe online.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Coming up, we're gonna we're gonna open up
Speaker 1: the feedback, get some of those messages you've sent to
Speaker 1: me throughout the week, and we'll see what you said
Speaker 1: right here on rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: On Tech. A couple of things to talk about before
Speaker 1: we get to the feedback here. A couple of little things.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned, I drove to Sedona and on our
Speaker 1: way through Arizona, we drove past this giant, giant manufacturing plant.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is that? It looks so high tech.
Speaker 1: It was like looked brand new. And it turned out
Speaker 1: I was trying to you know. When we passed by,
Speaker 1: I was like to my wife, I was like, I
Speaker 1: got to take a picture of this thing? What is this?
Speaker 1: And sure enough I see a little sign TSMC like
Speaker 1: TSMC What I did not realize they had a giant
Speaker 1: manufacturing facility in Arizona. That's a Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company.
Speaker 1: They make chips for all kinds of devices. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of like the I mean, I know some
Speaker 1: of you will get angry for me saying this, but
Speaker 1: this is almost like the intel of our you know,
Speaker 1: current times. Like they just make all kinds of chips
Speaker 1: and everything. And this was a multi billion dollar plant
Speaker 1: anyway near Phoenix. So the cars in that parking lot.
Speaker 1: You can always tell a good company by the quality
Speaker 1: of the cars in the parking lot, and these were
Speaker 1: some nice cars. The entire parking lot was solar paneled,
Speaker 1: you know, coverage. So you're looking for a good job,
Speaker 1: I don't know, this might be the place. Anyway. I
Speaker 1: thought that was really cool to, you know, remind us
Speaker 1: that all this stuff we take for granted, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of chips that go into these phones and computers
Speaker 1: we have. They got to be made somewhere. This was interesting.
Speaker 1: Someone asked me to test out something like a free
Speaker 1: trial of a program, like some security program, and so
Speaker 1: I signed up. It was like fifteen dollars a month.
Speaker 1: They offered like a seven day free trial. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing, Usually when I sign up for something, I
Speaker 1: cancel it right away, or I snooze the welcome email
Speaker 1: for you know, two or three days after so I
Speaker 1: can check it out and then remind myself to cancel. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't get that welcome email, so I thought, that's
Speaker 1: kind of shady. Come on, if you're signing up for
Speaker 1: something that requires your email address, you should get an
Speaker 1: email from that company that says thank you for signing up.
Speaker 1: Your trial ends on this day. Companies that don't send that,
Speaker 1: I would be wary of doing business with them, because that,
Speaker 1: to me is already getting off on a bad foot,
Speaker 1: because you know, I had no way of remember like it.
Speaker 1: Just a couple like hours later, I'm like, wait, where's
Speaker 1: this email? Never got it, went to the website directly
Speaker 1: and canceled it. But anyway, and finally before we get
Speaker 1: to the feedback, my wife and I the other night
Speaker 1: needed some stuff for you know, like a little like whatever,
Speaker 1: just random stuff around the house. I forget what the
Speaker 1: one thing we needed was. But anyway, I said, why
Speaker 1: don't we try doordashing It Like, by the time we
Speaker 1: drive to Target pick up these three items, like DoorDash
Speaker 1: might be cheaper actually I think it was Uber Eat.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. A lot of these companies are
Speaker 1: doing like first time deals. So Uber was giving like
Speaker 1: fifty percent off your first like non food delivery order.
Speaker 1: So Target, you know, qualified, I'm not kidding. This stuff
Speaker 1: was at our house within twenty minutes. We ordered like
Speaker 1: five items and it was so cheap. It was cheaper
Speaker 1: than going there ourselves. And by the way, when you
Speaker 1: go to Target, you spend extra money because you buy
Speaker 1: stuff that you weren't thinking you were going to get.
Speaker 1: And this thing was at our door, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is wild, Like what world do we live in
Speaker 1: where this stuff is at our door quicker than we
Speaker 1: can drive to Target? And so I thought about that,
Speaker 1: but I was like, you know, the catch about all
Speaker 1: this is that, of course it's fifty percent off right now.
Speaker 1: All they want you to do is try it so
Speaker 1: that the next time, by the way, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be fifty percent off, you'll remember how convenient was
Speaker 1: and maybe you'll do it again. And that's how these
Speaker 1: all these tech companies build business, so that they do
Speaker 1: it really cheap at the beginning, and then when you actually,
Speaker 1: you know, later on, use it again. It's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: where'd that discount go? There's no there's no promo codes anymore.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the feedback. Howard writes in
Speaker 1: I enjoy your segments and radio show. I received an
Speaker 1: email about a one hundred dollars settlement from an auto
Speaker 1: parts antitrust case, but wasn't sure if it was legitimate.
Speaker 1: I searched online and found mixed results, but no news coverage.
Speaker 1: Can you suggest how to verify this? Yes, I can
Speaker 1: go to the website top class actions dot com, topclassactions
Speaker 1: dot com. He actually forwarded me the email and I
Speaker 1: popped it into this website the actual case number, and
Speaker 1: sure enough it came up. And so any class action
Speaker 1: lawsuit type in a keyword into this website and it
Speaker 1: will tell you all the details on that. That's where
Speaker 1: I go to verify Top Classactions dot Com. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of those class action lawsuits, you know, percolating. Make
Speaker 1: sure they're legit before you do anything with them. Let's
Speaker 1: see here. Rudy from San Jose writes in you had
Speaker 1: a caller with an epsoen printer and an AT and
Speaker 1: T wireless internet who mentioned they had printing issues. I
Speaker 1: wanted to share a tip. Many routers create two networks,
Speaker 1: a personal network and a guest network. The phone or
Speaker 1: computers on one network and the printer is on the other,
Speaker 1: they might not see each other. I had a similar
Speaker 1: issue at home and discovered this was the case. Thanks
Speaker 1: Rudy JL from Illinois rights in. I'd love for influencers
Speaker 1: like you to help educate people about the downsides of
Speaker 1: vertical video. It's becomes so common, but many people don't
Speaker 1: realize how much better videos look if they were shot
Speaker 1: and horizontal. Even when the issue is pointed out, the
Speaker 1: trend continues. Can you help spread the word, you know, Jl,
Speaker 1: I used to care about this, and now I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: With TikTok and Instagram reels and all these vertical videos,
Speaker 1: that format is here to stay. My best solution is,
Speaker 1: if you are shooting anything that you're not sharing on
Speaker 1: social media, yes, shoot it in widescreen because that's what
Speaker 1: you see on your TV. But you know it's I
Speaker 1: have no problem with it anymore. I have to shoot
Speaker 1: videos both ways because I'm shooting for TV and social
Speaker 1: It's just kind of the way of the world. Vanessa
Speaker 1: from Nevada rights in this while camping in Montana, my
Speaker 1: e bike was stolen. I tracked it with tile for
Speaker 1: nine hours all around town without success. Then two days
Speaker 1: later it pinged at a storage unit across town. With
Speaker 1: help from my son, daughter in law, her brother, and nephew.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, they brought out everyone. We went to the location.
Speaker 1: I rang the tile, called the Sheriff's department and they
Speaker 1: heard the ring. After getting a warrant and cutting the lock,
Speaker 1: I got my one thousand dollars plus e bike back.
Speaker 1: I listened to you on KFI through iHeart on my echo.
Speaker 1: I love your show. Be careful when you're getting Just
Speaker 1: because you can see the location doesn't necessarily mean you
Speaker 1: should go in like the but you did the right thing,
Speaker 1: got the officer involved. Teresa from Chicago rights in. I
Speaker 1: saw your segment before Christmas and immediately went out and
Speaker 1: got the remote control Geko at my local Target. It
Speaker 1: was the last one. My four and a half year
Speaker 1: old granddaughter loves it. I'm not very tech savvy, but
Speaker 1: I enjoy your segments. Thank you. My kid also loved
Speaker 1: the remote control Geko. We got it for him and
Speaker 1: now we're getting it for can't mention because they might
Speaker 1: be listening. Kids love it, that's gonna do it. You
Speaker 1: can find links on the website rich on Tech dot TV,
Speaker 1: follow me on social media at rich on tech. Very
Speaker 1: important this week because I'll be at CES twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five in Las Vegas sharing the latest and AI wearables, cars, TVs,
Speaker 1: all the other good stuff. Thanks to everyone who makes
Speaker 1: this show possible. My name is Richdmiro. I will talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon.