Speaker 1: This is rich On Tech. Before we start the show,
Speaker 1: I'd like to remember a colleague of mine, Sam Rubin.
Speaker 1: Those in Los Angeles know him best as a longtime
Speaker 1: entertainment anchor at KTLA, the TV station that I've worked
Speaker 1: for for thirteen years. Sam was also on this very
Speaker 1: show talking about his experience at the Sphere Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: Sam's segment would often run right before mine, and we
Speaker 1: also shared a studio where we tape things, so we
Speaker 1: chatted throughout the day. Our most popular topic was EV's,
Speaker 1: in particular Rivian, but we also chatted about all kinds
Speaker 1: of random topics, and he always asked me how things
Speaker 1: were going with my career and lately this show. Sam
Speaker 1: always had a smile on his face. He had a
Speaker 1: sharp sense of humor and a wide range of knowledge
Speaker 1: about people and places. I've never told anyone this story publicly,
Speaker 1: but Sam would often go longer than his allotted segment time.
Speaker 1: The guy like to talk something that would cut into
Speaker 1: the time of my segment, and early on in my
Speaker 1: career at KTLA, when I ask the producers about this,
Speaker 1: they politely told me that Sam is the show, and
Speaker 1: I guess that's right. I always have KTLA on in
Speaker 1: the background all morning while I'm at work, and when
Speaker 1: Sam comes on, the volume goes up. Sam died unexpectedly
Speaker 1: at sixty four. They say life is short, but in
Speaker 1: his case, it was way too short. Please let your friends,
Speaker 1: your family, your colleagues know how much you love, appreciate
Speaker 1: and respect them while they're still here.
Speaker 2: Embrace the people around you every day.
Speaker 1: Ah, When something like this happens, it tells me that
Speaker 1: we as humans are not truly equipped to understand the
Speaker 1: mystery of our existence here. But we can love, we
Speaker 1: can find joy and connection. We can help others and
Speaker 1: make the most out of every moment we have. And now,
Speaker 1: as they say, on with the show, Apple unveils new iPads,
Speaker 1: Google has a five hundred dollars phone, and Sam's song
Speaker 1: rolls out a major update for older devices. There's a
Speaker 1: new cellular plan that gives you calling and texting for free,
Speaker 1: plus access to essential apps. We'll explain five G home Internet,
Speaker 1: and of course your tech questions answered.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech. This
Speaker 1: is the show where I talk about the tech stuff
Speaker 1: I think you should know about. It's also the place
Speaker 1: where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that
Speaker 1: tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up
Speaker 1: those phone lines at triple A Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one.
Speaker 2: Give me a call.
Speaker 1: If you have a question about technology. Email is also open.
Speaker 1: Just go to Rich on tech dot tv and hit contact.
Speaker 1: Guests this week include Chris Sheldric, creator of the app
Speaker 1: called What Three Words. He's gonna explain how to use
Speaker 1: it to tell someone your exact location using three simple words. Later,
Speaker 1: Eli Blumenthal of cnet will explain how your cell phone
Speaker 1: carrier tracks you and how to change that, and later
Speaker 1: in the show, Michael Motamedi we'll talk about how he
Speaker 1: traveled the world for a year using AI. This week,
Speaker 1: Apple held an event virtually called let Loose, and it
Speaker 1: was all about new iPads. Apple has a big event
Speaker 1: coming up next month called WWDC. This was sort of
Speaker 1: the appetizer to that event where they get these new
Speaker 1: iPads out into the world, and I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: a rundown of exactly what they're all about. Let's start
Speaker 1: with the iPad Air. This is sort of almost like
Speaker 1: a mid mid level model. You've got the iPad, then
Speaker 1: the iPad Air, then the iPad Pro. So the iPad
Speaker 1: Air gets the new M two chip. It typically came
Speaker 1: in that eleven inch design, so they still have that,
Speaker 1: but now they have an all new thirteen inch size
Speaker 1: as well, so now you get the choice of two sizes.
Speaker 1: Do you want something that's small and compact or a
Speaker 1: little bit bigger so you can get more work done
Speaker 1: on the screen. It also comes in a new blue
Speaker 1: and purple color along with the standard starlight and space gray.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else. Front facing camera they moved, so
Speaker 1: now it's at the top of the iPad when you
Speaker 1: have it horizontal, which means when you are video chatting,
Speaker 1: your face is not off to the side. It's a
Speaker 1: straight on view, which makes a lot of sense for
Speaker 1: video calling and video chatting and zooming and all that
Speaker 1: good stuff. Some people are a little disappointed this did
Speaker 1: not get Wi Fi seven. It does have support for
Speaker 1: Wi Fi six E. It starts at five hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars for the eleven inch iPad Air. Then
Speaker 1: you've got seven hundred and ninety nine dollars starting price
Speaker 1: for the thirteen inch iPad Air. Keep in mind that
Speaker 1: is for a one hundred and twenty eight gigabyte model.
Speaker 1: I do not think that's going to be enough for
Speaker 1: most people. You can download a few movies to these
Speaker 1: iPads and that will fill up that entire one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight gigabytes practically with your pictures and your videos.
Speaker 2: So you may want to consider the step up from that.
Speaker 1: I thought Apple should have gone with two fifty six starting,
Speaker 1: but it's still one twenty eight to get that nicer
Speaker 1: price point. Availability beginning Wednesday, May fifteenth. All right, now,
Speaker 1: onto the iPad Pro. This is where they put a
Speaker 1: lot of their new features. This is available also in
Speaker 1: a eleven inch model and a thirteen inch model, so
Speaker 1: you get to choose if you want the high end.
Speaker 1: You also get those two sizes for the first time
Speaker 1: in an iPad. They've got O lead technology. Apple calls
Speaker 1: it tandem O lead, so apparently they sandwiched two old
Speaker 1: screens on top of each other to make it brighter
Speaker 1: than a standard O LEAD and so you know the
Speaker 1: wizards that Apple did that. They also introduce a brand
Speaker 1: new chip, the M four chip. So this is a
Speaker 1: chip that they say is even more powerful than before.
Speaker 1: But it's more power efficient as well. So Apple has
Speaker 1: really done a great job with their M chips and
Speaker 1: this is no different and it's probably gonna have a
Speaker 1: very long life because we're looking at the M two
Speaker 1: in the iPad Air, which came out a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, and they're still getting some great use out
Speaker 1: of that. Apple did not make a huge deal out
Speaker 1: of AI as expected at WWDC, but they did say this.
Speaker 2: Is going to be great for running AI.
Speaker 1: They've got a new neural engine on it, which is
Speaker 1: the stuff that kind of computes that area of things,
Speaker 1: so they did talk that up just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Eleven inch iPad pro starts at nine hundred ninety nine dollars.
Speaker 1: The thirteen inch iPad pro starts at thirteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: We're getting into laptop territory here and these are available Wednesday,
Speaker 1: May fifteenth. And of course they did make these with
Speaker 1: the two hundred and fifty six gigabyte storage standards, so
Speaker 1: they did know that the real serious pro users need
Speaker 1: a lot of storage. They did start at two fifty
Speaker 1: six for that base storage. When you add the keyboard
Speaker 1: and all the different things to this, it adds up
Speaker 1: very quickly. They also introduced a new Apple Pencil Pro.
Speaker 1: The features they added to this squeeze so you can
Speaker 1: now squeeze it to do some things. It also has
Speaker 1: haptic feedback, so it will vibrate to let you know
Speaker 1: that it's doing some things. And for the first time,
Speaker 1: they have put fined my on the Apple pencil, which
Speaker 1: means if you lose this thing, you can find it
Speaker 1: more easily.
Speaker 2: The Apple Pencil Pro is one hundred and twenty nine dollars.
Speaker 1: If you want to figure out which Apple pencil works
Speaker 1: with which iPad, you're going to have to consult the
Speaker 1: Apple website. At least two different Apple pencils work with
Speaker 1: every different iPad, so there is a matrix there. You
Speaker 1: get your choice of a cheaper Apple pencil and a
Speaker 1: slightly more premium Apple pencil for every one of these iPads.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be a little bit of a decision
Speaker 1: there to make that stuff. They came out with the
Speaker 1: new Magic Keyboard. This starts at three hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: It's got a.
Speaker 1: Bigger, bigger trackpad area, which is nice if you're doing
Speaker 1: a lot of computing work. They've got new smartfolios. This
Speaker 1: is sort of the it's almost like a case or
Speaker 1: a cover that magnetically attaches to the iPad.
Speaker 2: I have one of these things. It's great.
Speaker 1: The thing that's new here is that it now supports
Speaker 1: multiple viewing angles instead of just one viewing angle. Those
Speaker 1: start at seventy nine dollars. And finally a couple of
Speaker 1: new apps to talk about. Final Cut Pro got a
Speaker 1: major upgrade. Last time, it was all about the Apple pencil.
Speaker 1: This time it is all about touch. The cool thing
Speaker 1: is Apple came out with this new app called Final
Speaker 1: Cut Camera. This lets you connect up to four iPhones
Speaker 1: to an iPad to do a multicapture. So if you
Speaker 1: want multi camera capture, let's say you want it to
Speaker 1: record a podcast or your band, you can now just
Speaker 1: link up all of your iPhones to an iPad and
Speaker 1: it will record all of those feeds simultaneously.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the kind of.
Speaker 1: Stuff that would take a huge setup and an engineer
Speaker 1: to figure out. Now you can do it with just
Speaker 1: you and your friends iPhones and an iPad. That is incredible.
Speaker 1: It's called Final Cut Camera that is available. This will
Speaker 1: all be available later this spring as.
Speaker 2: Well. Final Cut Camera is free.
Speaker 1: Final Cut Pro two is either five dollars a month,
Speaker 1: or fifty dollars for the year.
Speaker 2: Final Cut for Final Cut.
Speaker 1: Pro for iPad also allows you to edit projects directly
Speaker 1: from external storage, which is really nice.
Speaker 2: And then finally Logic Pro.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not a big audio editor, even though I
Speaker 1: should be with this podcast, I guess, but if you
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast, you know the levels could be
Speaker 1: a little all over the place sometimes, so that's why.
Speaker 1: But Final Cut Final Sorry. Logic Pro for iPad two
Speaker 1: and Logic Pro for Mac eleven also got a big update.
Speaker 1: They've got this new feature called Session Players, which is
Speaker 1: basically like having your own little background orchestra. They've got drummers,
Speaker 1: they've got bass players, they've got keyboard players. Pretty amazing
Speaker 1: stuff that is going to be available May thirteenth as
Speaker 1: a free update for existing users, one two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for new users, and if you're on the iPad, it's
Speaker 1: available May thirteenth, five bucks a month, fifty dollars for
Speaker 1: the year.
Speaker 2: So there you have it.
Speaker 1: Updates to the Apple products and services.
Speaker 2: Apple does a really nice job.
Speaker 1: They did get a little bit of backlash for this
Speaker 1: sequence they showed called Crush. I will talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit later in the show. Basically, they showed
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of creative tools like a piano and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, drums and just things people use to write
Speaker 1: and create. They showed that all being crushed down and
Speaker 1: then out came an iPad at the end. And some
Speaker 1: people are very offended by that because they said, Apple,
Speaker 1: how dare you? Our world is already black mirror enough
Speaker 1: and to actively exploit that.
Speaker 2: Come on, you're better than that, all right?
Speaker 1: Phone line for the show Triple eight Rich one oh
Speaker 1: one eight eight two four one zero one. The website
Speaker 1: is Rich on tech dot TV. Give me a call
Speaker 1: if you have a question about technology. My name is
Speaker 1: Rich Dmiro and you are listening to Rich on tech.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Jeff in Fort Worth, Texas. Jeff, you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich. Hi.
Speaker 3: Rich, thanks so much for taking my call. And my
Speaker 3: question is has to do with connectivity with devices to
Speaker 3: my WiFi. So my neighborhood they dropped high speed internet,
Speaker 3: and so I purchased the Google Wi Fi Mesh system
Speaker 3: to bring me up to five G which is great,
Speaker 3: love it. But a few years ago I put in.
Speaker 4: Led lights around my swimming pool and they run on
Speaker 4: the two point four and so now I can't enact,
Speaker 4: and I try to go through all the settings of
Speaker 4: the Google Mesh and am I going to have to
Speaker 4: replace my lighting system to five g year? Is there
Speaker 4: a way to make my LG the lights talk to
Speaker 4: my match system at two point four while keeping five
Speaker 4: point oh everywhere else? If that makes sense?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And I get this question a lot, and it seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, the new devices are a lot better than
Speaker 1: the older devices, and it sounds like you've had these
Speaker 1: up for a while and that's why this is happening.
Speaker 1: So the Google Wi Fi does support all three bands,
Speaker 1: so it's got a two point four gigahertz, a five gigaherts,
Speaker 1: and a six gigahertz band. Most of the devices will well,
Speaker 1: it depends on the Wi Fi, you know, the Google
Speaker 1: Wi Fi that you have, But most of the time
Speaker 1: all of those bands are active simultaneously, and the problem
Speaker 1: is the device may not recognize the fallback to that
Speaker 1: two point four gigaherts. So everyone, every device sort of
Speaker 1: functions differently in this aspect, and I think that's why
Speaker 1: you're running into issues. It's just you have a modern
Speaker 1: network with a device that's older and it's just they're
Speaker 1: not talking to each other. So the thing to do,
Speaker 1: according to Google, is that you have to go into
Speaker 1: the Google Home app and turn on WPA three. This
Speaker 1: is kind of an older protocol that is not used
Speaker 1: as much anymore, and so that should toggle the two
Speaker 1: point four gigaherts. So you go into the Google Home app.
Speaker 1: According I'm looking at the support document here, tap Wi
Speaker 1: Fi and then go into settings and then it says
Speaker 1: advanced Networking and it says use Wi Fi Protected Access three.
Speaker 1: And then when you toggle that on, your network's going
Speaker 1: to reset. Your devices will lose connectivity for a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it should it should find that. So now it says, okay,
Speaker 1: some smart home devices that only use the two point
Speaker 1: four gigahertz band will not be available for setup if
Speaker 1: your phone is on the five gigahertz or six gigahertz band.
Speaker 1: So if you're trying to use that phone as like
Speaker 1: a middle man between the connection, you may have to
Speaker 1: also try to manually connect your phone to that two
Speaker 1: point four gigahertz band, and that may involve going into
Speaker 1: your Wi Fi's settings as well. I have had in
Speaker 1: the devices that I've set up over the years I
Speaker 1: have only found one device that I could not get
Speaker 1: to set up with any success at all, and it
Speaker 1: was an outdoor plug that was on the two point
Speaker 1: four gigahertz network. And I did everything in my power.
Speaker 1: I've got the Ero at home, and in the Eero
Speaker 1: there is a ten minute mode where your euros will
Speaker 1: restart into just two point four gigaherts to give those
Speaker 1: devices an opportunity to just see that network and connect.
Speaker 1: But even with that, it would not connect. And I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. I probably spent a half an hour just
Speaker 1: sitting there trying to get this thing to connect before
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, not only can I not
Speaker 1: do this, but I'm also never recommending this outdoor plug.
Speaker 1: And I ended up buying a different one on Amazon
Speaker 1: and it connected immediately.
Speaker 2: So that's my advice.
Speaker 1: Try that advanced networking setting, make sure that your phone
Speaker 1: is also on that setting, and that hopefully will.
Speaker 2: Get that bridge to your network and keep those on there.
Speaker 1: If that doesn't work, you may have to consider replacing
Speaker 1: the lights unfortunately, or maybe just buy a cheap router
Speaker 1: that just uses that for the you know, an older
Speaker 1: router that only uses that network to.
Speaker 2: Connect those lights. Good question.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jeff for finding us out there in Fort Worth, Texas.
Speaker 1: Open Ai on Monday, the day before Google's event, is
Speaker 1: holding an event to announce updates to Chat, GPT and
Speaker 1: GPT four. Now a lot of people are saying that
Speaker 1: this might be a new Chat GPT search engine to
Speaker 1: rival Google. Sam Altman, the founder of Chat of open ai, says,
Speaker 1: that is not true. We're not releasing a search engine
Speaker 1: that day, but we do have new updates we think
Speaker 1: people are gonna love. He just gribe the updates is
Speaker 1: feeling like magic to him.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing here is that this event is scheduled
Speaker 1: just twenty four hours before Google Io. This is where
Speaker 1: Google shows off its latest AI products and advancements.
Speaker 2: So Google is.
Speaker 1: Certainly feeling the heat right now from open AI and Chat,
Speaker 1: GBT and Perplexity and Claude and all of these search
Speaker 1: engines that are really gunning for what Google has done.
Speaker 1: And we've taken for granted for so many years. But
Speaker 1: now Google, you know, they've got to show us that
Speaker 1: they are going to continue to really be the search
Speaker 1: provider that we know and love for for years to come.
Speaker 1: So we'll see what happens with open AI and then
Speaker 1: we'll have Google as well, all next week eighty eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. You are listening to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. We'll get to the phone lines
Speaker 1: in just a bit, but first I want to tell
Speaker 1: you about an app called What three Words. This is
Speaker 1: an app that if you've listened to me for a while,
Speaker 1: you've probably heard me talk about it before. I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. It basically divides the world up into
Speaker 1: ten by ten squares ten feet by ten feet squares,
Speaker 1: which means you can give someone a really precise idea
Speaker 1: of where you are. So let's say you're in a field,
Speaker 1: GPS might lead that person to the middle of the field.
Speaker 1: This will lead them to exactly where you are in
Speaker 1: that field no matter what. It also works offline, which
Speaker 1: is really cool. Recently I spoke with Chris Scheldrick. He
Speaker 1: is the creator of the app called What three Words.
Speaker 1: He's explaining how you can use it to tell someone
Speaker 1: your exact location using three simple words.
Speaker 6: So I grew up on a farm where nobody finds
Speaker 6: where I live because my address points in the middle
Speaker 6: of a field. So I wanted to make a really
Speaker 6: simple system for anyone in the world to talk about
Speaker 6: any location. So I divided the world into ten foot
Speaker 6: by ten for squares, and named each one with three
Speaker 6: words from the dictionary.
Speaker 1: Now, did you give us yourself the three words or
Speaker 1: did you come up with some program? Like how did
Speaker 1: you decide what words to use?
Speaker 6: So I came up with this idea with a couple
Speaker 6: of friends of mine, a mathematician and a linguist. We
Speaker 6: put together this word list of forty thousand words, so
Speaker 6: like table chesso anything like that.
Speaker 7: So there's a unique one for each tenth for square
Speaker 7: on Earth.
Speaker 1: Some people might wonder, well, don't we already have GPS.
Speaker 1: Isn't that just fine for helping people find where they
Speaker 1: need to go? What's the difference here?
Speaker 6: Well, a lot of people obviously navigate with ZIP codes
Speaker 6: or if you want to be precise, GPS coordinates. But
Speaker 6: I think for the everyday person, if there is no address,
Speaker 6: the points to the right place, GPS coordinates are kind
Speaker 6: of confusing and complicated. I mean, nobody really in everyday
Speaker 6: life does that. So the idea of what three words
Speaker 6: is just to make a big load of numbers super simple,
Speaker 6: like as easy as just saying something like table, chess,
Speaker 6: spoon and you refer to one point in the world.
Speaker 1: Somewhere and how are people using this and how are
Speaker 1: you getting this into the hands of people?
Speaker 6: So we're really doing a huge awareness drive about what
Speaker 6: three words. We're already a household name here in the
Speaker 6: UK and at the moment we're trying to do exactly
Speaker 6: the same in the US. So a big part of
Speaker 6: how we get the word out is through emergency services,
Speaker 6: police forces, fire ambulance. But we're also doing many other
Speaker 6: vertical notes now and a lot of those are around
Speaker 6: big stadiums, big parks, California's day Parks, and our most
Speaker 6: recent partnership, which is really exciting, is with LAFC.
Speaker 2: And so tell me about that partnership. What do you
Speaker 2: think this is.
Speaker 1: How do you think it's going to enhance the guest
Speaker 1: experience at this stadium?
Speaker 6: So I think now that LAFC have added three with
Speaker 6: addresses to each of their entrances and key points around
Speaker 6: the site, this is going to make it super simple
Speaker 6: for anybody to show up at exactly the right place,
Speaker 6: because when you go to a stadium, there are so
Speaker 6: many different gates where you might want to park your
Speaker 6: car or where your ticket actually brings you to. An
Speaker 6: entrance doesn't really have an address that you can type
Speaker 6: into an app. So if you just go to an
Speaker 6: NFC website, you'll now see that there are threewhere addresses
Speaker 6: for every single place that you might want to go
Speaker 6: around that entire stadium site, which will make it so
Speaker 6: so easy.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that GPS takes you to a
Speaker 1: generic or a general location, and this takes you to
Speaker 1: a specific ten by ten area within that location exactly.
Speaker 6: I think you know, the GPS probably takes you to
Speaker 6: the exact center point of the field, but really, unless
Speaker 6: you're playing, nobody needs to go there. So really this
Speaker 6: is for everybody who wants to go to a specific
Speaker 6: part of a specific site, which is basically everyone except
Speaker 6: for the players.
Speaker 1: You also mentioned for fans with accessibility challenges that this
Speaker 1: can help. Is there a way that this can help
Speaker 1: with people with varying level of ability as well?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think for fans with accessibility challenges, it's really
Speaker 6: important that you get to the right place or where
Speaker 6: you want to go as easily as possible. And if
Speaker 6: you've got ten foot precision in means you can exactly
Speaker 6: get to that right gate. Maybe you need to leave
Speaker 6: the car somewhere very precise as well, And it just
Speaker 6: simplifies that whole experience so that you haven't got to
Speaker 6: be around crowds of people if all you want to
Speaker 6: do is just get to that pint where you're going
Speaker 6: to watch the game. So I would really encourage any
Speaker 6: fans with accessibility challenges check out what three was.
Speaker 7: It could really really help.
Speaker 1: Any locations you can rattle off the top of your
Speaker 1: head that might be notable.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I mean the LAFC HQ is at Spice
Speaker 6: June's Cowboy. I know that the door dash Gate, which
Speaker 6: is their north east entrance is at feast Lane's Affair.
Speaker 6: So you know you'll find plenty more of these on
Speaker 6: the LAFC website.
Speaker 1: And how do people get these names? How do they
Speaker 1: figure out where they are? And how do you send
Speaker 1: it to a friend that may not be using the app?
Speaker 6: So you can use the word three words, You could
Speaker 6: use the what three words websites and literally you'll see
Speaker 6: a map of the world that you're used to, and
Speaker 6: as you click around, you'll just see the three random
Speaker 6: words they'll appear. It could be custard, crayon, door knob,
Speaker 6: anything like this, And as you click the different squares,
Speaker 6: you'll see what we've named your front door, your back door,
Speaker 6: or anywhere else in the world. Because literally every ten
Speaker 6: for square is covered.
Speaker 2: For like search and rescue situations.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is pretty handy because it gets you,
Speaker 1: like exactly where you are versus you know, the park
Speaker 1: that you're at or something like that.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're finding to be true?
Speaker 6: What three words has been really instrumental in a lot
Speaker 6: of search and rescue situations because there are so many
Speaker 6: times if you don't know where you are, you think
Speaker 6: your cell phone might be able to communicate its exact location,
Speaker 6: but there are problems, and so if you're calling nine
Speaker 6: on one in a lot of cases now you can
Speaker 6: then give them the three words for exactly where you
Speaker 6: are or where help is needed, and they will get
Speaker 6: it straight to that point.
Speaker 7: So I think in nearly all fifty.
Speaker 6: States now we have search and rescue, police and many
Speaker 6: other first responders using what three was on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: And what about the partnerships with different automakers and like,
Speaker 1: tell me where you're trying to go with us.
Speaker 7: Well, we want what three was to be a global standard.
Speaker 6: So whatever you put an address into, we want you
Speaker 6: to be able to put a threeword address into it.
Speaker 6: So for example, with auto makers like Mercedes, Benz with subru,
Speaker 6: with Mitsubishi, Lotus, Lamborghini, you can now start putting three
Speaker 6: addresses into your car. And we're also working with e
Speaker 6: commerce and logistics players. So really it's trying to transform
Speaker 6: the whole way that we think about addresses.
Speaker 1: How has this journey been for you creating this product
Speaker 1: and getting people to believe in it?
Speaker 7: I mean creating what three words?
Speaker 6: Has been this kind of mind blowing journey where we
Speaker 6: came up with this concept of three words for any
Speaker 6: ten for square in the world. To have household name
Speaker 6: status in our home country in the UK is just
Speaker 6: astonishing and to feel like this is really now coming
Speaker 6: alive in the US, it's just truly awesome. So the
Speaker 6: fact that it's car makers, the fact that it's national parks,
Speaker 6: we've now stas, we're in pretty much every fifty states now,
Speaker 6: it really feels like, well three words is coming to
Speaker 6: the US in a huge way, and that's brilliant.
Speaker 2: Once again.
Speaker 1: That is Chris Sheldrick, creator of the app called What
Speaker 1: three Words. I love this app. It's handy to have
Speaker 1: on your phone. Get used to it, download it, and
Speaker 1: you never know when you might need it, especially if
Speaker 1: you like to hike or it's just we find useful
Speaker 1: in this app. When my photographer and I are meeting
Speaker 1: at a location, and let's say we're in like a
Speaker 1: huge area where there's multiple entrances, I will share my
Speaker 1: what three words location with him that's exactly where I am,
Speaker 1: so that he can find me very easily instead of
Speaker 1: trying to like walk all around looking for me.
Speaker 2: So I'll put a link up on the website. Just
Speaker 2: go to Rich on tech.
Speaker 1: Dot tv, hit the light bulb that will take you
Speaker 1: to the show notes for this show and you'll see
Speaker 1: in real time the link to what three Words. All right,
Speaker 1: before we go to break here, let me just tell
Speaker 1: you about this. If you have an older Samsung phone,
Speaker 1: they are just on a roll here with this AI
Speaker 1: stuff Galaxy AI. So rolling out now is the new
Speaker 1: update for one UI six point one and this is
Speaker 1: going out to the Galaxy S twenty two series, the
Speaker 1: Galaxy Z Flip four, the Galaxy Z Fold four and
Speaker 1: tab S eight users. These are phones that came out,
Speaker 1: you know, two years ago, and they are now getting
Speaker 1: the update for Galaxy AI.
Speaker 2: This means you're gonna get.
Speaker 1: My favorite favorite favorite feature called Circle. To search with Google,
Speaker 1: you literally just press a hold on the home button
Speaker 1: and then just scribble on anything on your screen and
Speaker 1: that will search it on Google, whether it's a picture, text,
Speaker 1: whatever it is.
Speaker 2: It's really a cool way to search.
Speaker 1: Chat Assist, which can translate your text messages, Live Translate,
Speaker 1: no Assist, Transcript Assist, browsing Assist, Generative Edit, which means
Speaker 1: you can edit your pictures using AI and AI generated wallpapers. Again,
Speaker 1: this is all rolling out to the Galaxy S twenty
Speaker 1: two series, so if you have an older Samsung phone,
Speaker 1: this isn't your app update. This is actually a software
Speaker 1: update that is in the settings, So check it out.
Speaker 1: Go there and definitely download that because it's almost like
Speaker 1: getting a new phone with all these new AI features.
Speaker 1: First thing you should try doing is recording something with
Speaker 1: the voice recorder and then using AI to summarize it.
Speaker 1: It is quite quite incredible. Eighty eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. The website for the show Richontech dot TV.
Speaker 1: You can find me on social media. I am at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Coming up, we're gonna get to those phone lines.
Speaker 1: Let's go to John in Lake Forest, California. John, you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich Hi Rich.
Speaker 8: The situation I have is my mom's eighty nine years
Speaker 8: old on the East Coast and she's got a problem
Speaker 8: with QBC, Home Shopping Network, KTV all the rest of them,
Speaker 8: and how do I dabypoof for TV too? So she
Speaker 8: can't get on those channels?
Speaker 1: What type of service is she using to watch these channels?
Speaker 8: Like you said, on the East Coast or whatever, the
Speaker 8: local cable is, like Verizon, that's the local cable there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so she's just using a cable box, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so like traditional cable comes into the house connected to
Speaker 1: the box sort of.
Speaker 8: Thing, simplic TV.
Speaker 2: Okay, got it?
Speaker 1: Uh, Well, look, without understanding exactly what Verizon offers, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be something that you'd probably have to go
Speaker 1: and do yourself, or do you have a family member
Speaker 1: that might be able to go because This is gonna
Speaker 1: be like a physical You're gonna have to go and
Speaker 1: change some settings on there.
Speaker 8: I can have somebody. I can have somebody to do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think this is gonna be It's gonna
Speaker 1: sound silly, but you're probably gonna have to elve into
Speaker 1: prontal controls on this cable box, and inside those prontal
Speaker 1: controls will probably be a way to block these channels,
Speaker 1: almost like restricting the access to certain rating. But most
Speaker 1: of them have a channel have most cable boxes, I
Speaker 1: would say, and even streaming devices have a way to
Speaker 1: lock out certain channels with a PIN. So I think
Speaker 1: that's gonna be the best way to do it is
Speaker 1: to go into settings and look for the prontal controls.
Speaker 1: You said it was a Verizon box. Prontal controls, I'm
Speaker 1: assuming they have them built into that box. You have
Speaker 1: you tried looking for that, Yeah, it looks like they
Speaker 1: do have it on Verizon TV. Go into Menus, Setting System,
Speaker 1: p Rental Purchase Controls and follow the TV prompts to
Speaker 1: create your pin and then you can decide from there
Speaker 1: what you want to restrict on there. Have you talked
Speaker 1: to mom about this and what's her response.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's only five payments, five easy payments.
Speaker 2: I mean, I get it.
Speaker 1: I've seen these channels and I'm you know, every time
Speaker 1: I flip through, I'm I'm taken in. I want to
Speaker 1: buy this stuff and I don't even need it, so
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a world people get involved in, right,
Speaker 2: I keep.
Speaker 8: Telling me, they do the super salespeople, you know, it's
Speaker 8: it's just stuff that goes wow that I know somebody
Speaker 8: who could use that And no, yeah, all right, it
Speaker 8: was the menu settings and parental control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I would look for and uh and
Speaker 1: report back because I'm always curious, uh you know, if
Speaker 1: that's the case. But I think you send someone over
Speaker 1: there and just uh, you know, have them go through
Speaker 1: the prontal controls and block out these channels. And I
Speaker 1: don't think Mom's going to be that happy.
Speaker 8: Oh no, oh no, But that's okay, We're ready for that.
Speaker 1: It's it's wild how things come full circle here. You know,
Speaker 1: parents have to have to take care of the kids,
Speaker 1: and then the kids have to take care of the
Speaker 1: parents at some point.
Speaker 8: Yep, yep, that's that's what we're trying to do here.
Speaker 2: All right, John, I appreciate the call. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's uh, that's wild, that just happens.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Seraphine in uh studio city. I know
Speaker 1: you've called before or you've emailed before. Did I say
Speaker 1: your name right?
Speaker 9: Correct? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: All right? What's going on today?
Speaker 9: Okay, I have an eye injury that's going to be
Speaker 9: permanent forever. Well, that's exactly the same thing. And I'm
Speaker 9: light sensitive on my computer. On my laptop, I have
Speaker 9: a button that I while I'm watching something, if it
Speaker 9: gets too bright, I can dim it or I can
Speaker 9: go to the opposite direction. Okay, what I'm wondering is
Speaker 9: there is there a television, a small television like for
Speaker 9: a kitchen, with that kind of control on say the remote,
Speaker 9: because sometimes I have to look away when the brightness
Speaker 9: comes on it hurts my eyes. Oh often to see
Speaker 9: if I could find something that I could live with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I have not ever seen a TV with
Speaker 1: dedicated brightness controls on the actual device, like physical controls.
Speaker 1: Obviously all of them have them built into the settings.
Speaker 1: But that's not what you want. You want something that
Speaker 1: is a media and fast and you can just adjust
Speaker 1: on the fly.
Speaker 2: Correct, right, So.
Speaker 9: You know, within a couple of seconds, I can just
Speaker 9: press the button and it dims it, and then when
Speaker 9: the show comes back on or something or the scenes
Speaker 9: get too dark, I can brighten it up again.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that that's going to be something
Speaker 1: you're going to find a TV that has that dedicated.
Speaker 1: You know, TVs are getting less buttons in general. A
Speaker 1: lot of the new TVs you know, just have one
Speaker 1: or two if any on the actual physical device. So
Speaker 1: I don't think you're going to find a TV that
Speaker 1: has that. I mean, you can go take a quick
Speaker 1: look at best Buy and see, but I just I've
Speaker 1: never seen a TV that has that, you know, functionality.
Speaker 1: But with that said, there might be some ways that
Speaker 1: you can program the remote to do it quickly. If
Speaker 1: you have, like maybe a streaming device connected to the TV,
Speaker 1: you might be able to use your voice to say
Speaker 1: dim or brighten the screen.
Speaker 2: So you might be able to do that.
Speaker 1: Or you might look into sort of a universal remote
Speaker 1: that has a shortcut button on it and that way
Speaker 1: you can assign that shortcut to do what you want
Speaker 1: to do. I'm looking at Wirecutter for their universal remote
Speaker 1: picks right now. Their top pick is called the Sofa
Speaker 1: Baton and that is a sixty dollars remote, and so
Speaker 1: that may be a nice way of doing it because
Speaker 1: you can program tasks onto that remote. So that might
Speaker 1: be a good way to do it if you want
Speaker 1: just something that's simple. And then their other pick is
Speaker 1: the Insignia eight device Universal Remote that's only thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: They say the setup is a little bit tricky on
Speaker 1: that one, and I'm not sure. I've got to look
Speaker 1: at it a little bit more closely to see if
Speaker 1: it has like a programmable shortcut button. But that's another
Speaker 1: way to do it. I mean, the universal remote might
Speaker 1: be the easiest way you can program that functionality of
Speaker 1: dim or brightness into the TV. Have you looked around
Speaker 1: for a TV that has anything like this?
Speaker 10: Excuse me say that again.
Speaker 2: Have you looked at any of that?
Speaker 1: Have you gone to like best Buy and just taken
Speaker 1: a look at the TVs to see if anything else?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I know this is just a fantasy in my head,
Speaker 9: so because I've been getting very irritated with my TV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 9: It makes the sofa, but that's all.
Speaker 1: It's just a company called Sofa Baton. So it's six company, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sixty bucks on Amazon. You know, Logitech used to have
Speaker 1: a really nice universal remote, but this other one, this
Speaker 1: insignia is thirty bucks. It does look like they have
Speaker 1: some action buttons. I think the problem is it may
Speaker 1: be trickier to program. The sofa baton looks like it
Speaker 1: has a companion app, which would make it a little
Speaker 1: bit simpler to uh to program in like a quick shortcut.
Speaker 1: So if you're willing to spend you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes to program this thing, you may be able
Speaker 1: to program that. Universal remotes, in my experience, are just
Speaker 1: tricky in general. They just kind of you really have
Speaker 1: to spend some time with them to get them programmed properly.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you have that time to
Speaker 1: deal with, but you know, that could be the best
Speaker 1: way of doing this. The other thing is what about
Speaker 1: just leaving the dimness? Is it is it too much?
Speaker 1: Just leave it dim the whole time that like, maybe
Speaker 1: go to like a white screen, see what what level
Speaker 1: looks good to your eyes, and then lower that to
Speaker 1: that level and leave it there. That might be the
Speaker 1: other way to do it. Surfing, Thanks for the question today.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one. Rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot tv is the website. My name is Richdmiro. We'll
Speaker 1: have more of your questions and tech news coming up
Speaker 1: right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at Triple eight. Rich one oh one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one is
Speaker 1: the phone number to call if you'd like to talk
Speaker 1: to me about technology. Website is rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Coming up this hour, we are going to talk to
Speaker 1: Eli Blumenthal of Cnet. He's gonna explain how your cell
Speaker 1: phone carrier tracks you and how to change that. Plus
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why T Mobile and Verizon might be
Speaker 1: buying a US cellular And Google's got a new smartphone
Speaker 1: for just five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: And it's actually pretty good. Let's go to Marcel in Brooklyn. Marcel,
Speaker 2: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 11: Good afternoon, Rich. I'm so sorry about your city on
Speaker 11: the passing of Sam Rubin yesterday. Yeah, the prayers are
Speaker 11: with him and his family work at KTLA over the years.
Speaker 11: I've never seen Sam Ruben all in my life. When
Speaker 11: I was here in New York as well too. Thoughts
Speaker 11: and prayers, right, thanks for that, mister Sam Ruben. Now,
Speaker 11: mister demo, I have a question about my social media
Speaker 11: and their way to keep away from my hackers to
Speaker 11: protect me everything I can, even my Instagram and threads
Speaker 11: seriously activity the one thing is going to be controlled.
Speaker 11: No one's hacking and even and I have to say,
Speaker 11: I can tell you about my photos, my threads and everything,
Speaker 11: et ceterud to keep away from all of it from
Speaker 11: protecting themselves. So what can I do to keep away
Speaker 11: from hackers and even the return of my Instagram and
Speaker 11: threads from serious activity in not just one but it's
Speaker 11: gonna be a so much, so much of it, so
Speaker 11: use to FA and even the email as well before
Speaker 11: not going to be the activatest. So what could I
Speaker 11: do to keep away from hackers on my Instagram and threat?
Speaker 2: Okay, great question?
Speaker 1: And this is so number one, uh, the main way,
Speaker 1: even if you have well number one, you got to
Speaker 1: have two factor authentication. It sounds like you're aware of that,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you have perhaps enabled.
Speaker 2: That on these accounts.
Speaker 1: But the actual thing that a lot of the hackers
Speaker 1: get in number one, it's people reusing their passwords. So
Speaker 1: you may be using the same password for Instagram that
Speaker 1: you're using for some random website you signed up for
Speaker 1: a long time ago. That information was leaked out on
Speaker 1: the web due to a data breach, and now they're
Speaker 1: trying that information on Instagram. That's one way that hackers
Speaker 1: get in. Another way is they trick you, and so
Speaker 1: they may trick you into a notification comes up on
Speaker 1: your Instagram or your Facebook and it says, hey, you
Speaker 1: are out of line. You posted something that is not
Speaker 1: within the regulations of Facebook or Instagram. Please log in
Speaker 1: here and dispute that. And people go, what what did
Speaker 1: I post? And then they log in real quick, They
Speaker 1: capture your they capture your password when you log in,
Speaker 1: and then they log in on your behalf somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Now Instagram does have some built in safeguards. They will
Speaker 1: say are you sure you're logging in from some foreign
Speaker 1: country somewhere halfway across the world, and you say, what, no,
Speaker 1: And then that's one way that they may capture that,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't always work. So the best way to
Speaker 1: protect yourself is, like you mentioned, two factor authentication, but
Speaker 1: also being aware of this because if you're not aware
Speaker 1: that people are trying to get in twenty four to seven,
Speaker 1: you could have some issues. You got to turn on
Speaker 1: the two factor authentication. There are two ways of doing it.
Speaker 1: You can use an app or you can use a
Speaker 1: phone number. Now I personally think that the phone number
Speaker 1: is old school.
Speaker 2: You should be using an app.
Speaker 1: That is the recommended authentication method at this point. What
Speaker 1: you need to do is download an app. Some of
Speaker 1: the popular apps are called Duo Mobile. There's also Google Authenticator.
Speaker 1: Microsoft has an authentication app. A caller recommended an app
Speaker 1: called two fas dot com two fas dot com, so
Speaker 1: that's another way you could do it. But no matter what,
Speaker 1: you download one of these apps, you link it up
Speaker 1: with a one time kind of linkage.
Speaker 2: It's usually scanning a QR code.
Speaker 1: And then every time you want to log into Instagram,
Speaker 1: not every time you open the app, just every time
Speaker 1: you need to log in fresh, it will say, okay,
Speaker 1: we saw that you logged in.
Speaker 2: Now give us a code from that app. And the
Speaker 2: idea is that the.
Speaker 1: Bad people may have your password, but they don't have
Speaker 1: the app on your phone that's generating this what's called
Speaker 1: two factor authentication.
Speaker 2: So that is the best way to.
Speaker 1: Protect it, along with being aware that hackers are always
Speaker 1: trying to get into your account, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: they prey upon our good nature.
Speaker 2: So, for instance, the.
Speaker 1: Other day, I got an actual notification from Instagram that
Speaker 1: said they took down one of my posts because it
Speaker 1: violated their terms of service. Now I've seen that a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of times, and usually it's a hacker trying
Speaker 1: to get my information, but this time it actually was real.
Speaker 1: It said, we removed your post that I posted September sixteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and it was a little tiny image of
Speaker 1: a post.
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell what the post was. And I said,
Speaker 2: it said why, And I said why did you do this?
Speaker 1: And I said, we don't allow people to share nudity
Speaker 1: or sexual activity. I said, what, I wouldn't post that
Speaker 1: on my account, and examples of things we don't allow,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to say what they are, but
Speaker 1: it's pretty specific what they sent me. And then it said,
Speaker 1: you have freedom of expression. We want you to share
Speaker 1: freely with others. We only remove things or restrict people
Speaker 1: to keep the community respectful and safe. And I said, well, respectfully,
Speaker 1: I would like a human to look this over because
Speaker 1: there's no way I posted something nude or sexual on
Speaker 1: my account, and it said, how did we make this decision?
Speaker 1: Our technology found out your content does not follow our guidelines.
Speaker 1: As a result, our technology took action. What does that
Speaker 1: tell me? AI was going through old posts. Somehow something
Speaker 1: in that post triggered their system to remove it. Now,
Speaker 1: I said, I dispute this, and I would like a
Speaker 1: human to look at it. And sure enough, a couple
Speaker 1: hours later, it said, Hi, mister Demiro, we found our
Speaker 1: technology made a mistake taking your post down. Thank you
Speaker 1: for taking the time to request or review and helping
Speaker 1: us improve our systems. Our priority is keeping the community
Speaker 1: safe and respectful. Sometimes we have to take precautions, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, my post is back up. I looked at
Speaker 1: the post once it was back up. It was me
Speaker 1: talking about the blood oxygen feature on the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: Nothing in there was sexual or nudity. Let's go to
Speaker 1: Craig in Iowa. Craig, you're on with rich need going.
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic. What can I help you with today?
Speaker 12: Okay, I have a Champion dollars twenty four, the little one,
Speaker 12: you know, the nine hundred dollars one can I get
Speaker 12: AI on my own. I had to have been Mobo
Speaker 12: doing and what.
Speaker 1: Okay, I lost you there at the end. But you
Speaker 1: have the S twenty four. You said it was a
Speaker 1: little one, but you said it was nine hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: so's that's a good one. That's the there's three models
Speaker 1: of the S twenty four. You've got the S twenty four,
Speaker 1: the S twenty four Plus and the S twenty four Ultra.
Speaker 1: They all have Galaxy Ai built in. And this is
Speaker 1: a great question because it got me thinking, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you find the Galaxy Ai features that Samsung
Speaker 1: is rolling out? I just mentioned earlier they rolled it
Speaker 1: out to the S twenty three a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I mentioned that, and then today I mentioned that the
Speaker 1: S twenty two series is getting it. So all of
Speaker 1: these Samsung phones have it. How do you find it? Ready, Craig,
Speaker 1: I am going to tell you. Go into your settings
Speaker 1: on your Samsung device, and this is for all Samsung
Speaker 1: phones if you have Galaxy Ai. So go into Settings
Speaker 1: and then you tap Advanced Features. Okay, it might take
Speaker 1: you a second to find that, and then you tap
Speaker 1: Advanced Intelligence. And when you get there, you are going
Speaker 1: to see you've got a whole list of AI features
Speaker 1: and they explain each feature and you can tap to
Speaker 1: learn more about it and see where to find it.
Speaker 2: So what are these features? I mentioned them earlier.
Speaker 1: On the phone app, you get real time translation during
Speaker 1: voice calls. You can call someone in Tokyo. They can
Speaker 1: speak Japanese and it will translate on your screen. Samsung Keyboard,
Speaker 1: you can get spelling and grammar suggestions and translate messages,
Speaker 1: interpreter live translation of spoken conversations available as voice or text.
Speaker 1: In Samsung Notes, you can automatically summarize, correct, translate, and
Speaker 1: generate covers for your notes. The voice recorder you can
Speaker 1: transform recordings into text, transcripts and summaries, and Samsung Internet
Speaker 1: will give you simple summaries of web page text along
Speaker 1: with full translations. And don't forget about the photo editor.
Speaker 1: You can reimagine photos by moving, removing or resizing people
Speaker 1: and objects, and even generating new backgrounds. So again that
Speaker 1: is all built into your phone. Go into Settings Advanced Features,
Speaker 1: Advanced Intelligence, and that will give you all of those
Speaker 1: features and tell you how to find them. Great question,
Speaker 1: Craig in Iowa. Thanks for the call today. Eight eight
Speaker 1: eight rich one Oh one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: Coming up.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why T Mobile and Verizon want to
Speaker 1: split up US Cellular and how Google has a brand
Speaker 1: new phone for five hundred dollars and it's a good one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: My name is rich Dumiro. You are listening to Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Let's go to Brad in West Los Angeles. Brad,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 13: Hi, Rich.
Speaker 14: So, my wife's traveling to Spain in France in the
Speaker 14: next month with an iPhone fifteen plus pro sorry pro?
Speaker 14: Is there anything she needs to do technology wise or
Speaker 14: just keep everything running smoothly with text and email whatever
Speaker 14: she needs to do out there?
Speaker 2: What service does she have? What cell phone service?
Speaker 1: Okay, So the way the way Verizon works is there's
Speaker 1: really nothing you need to do. I mean, you may
Speaker 1: you may need to turn on roaming in the settings,
Speaker 1: But the way Verizon works is that they charge you
Speaker 1: ten dollars a day for the service when you're overseas. Now,
Speaker 1: is she on like an unlimited plan or what type
Speaker 1: of plan is she on?
Speaker 15: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So the good news about that is that you
Speaker 1: can if you're linked into the the Verizon app, you
Speaker 1: can go online and see how many days you get free.
Speaker 1: So typically it all depends on the plan. But the
Speaker 1: way the Verizon plans work is sometimes you will get
Speaker 1: one day of roaming free for every month that you're
Speaker 1: a subscriber. Some plans have more, some plans have less.
Speaker 1: But the last time I checked, I had like fourteen
Speaker 1: days for my last trip of free roaming for ten
Speaker 1: dollars a day.
Speaker 2: So I mean, that's how much the value was.
Speaker 1: That's not how much it costs me, so the first
Speaker 1: So this is my recommendation. What I would do is
Speaker 1: either call Verizon or if you're logged linked into the app,
Speaker 1: just go on the app and kind of look around
Speaker 1: a little bit for the international section, and it should
Speaker 1: tell you how many days of their Verizon what do
Speaker 1: they call it international, like day pass or something. So
Speaker 1: when you go there, it'll tell you, like, hey, a
Speaker 1: travel pass, that's what they call it. So it'll say
Speaker 1: you have ten travel pass days, and depending on how
Speaker 1: many days she's going, that may cover it, or you
Speaker 1: can just pay the ten dollars a day when she
Speaker 1: gets over there. There's nothing really that you have to
Speaker 1: do if you're going for the first time. I would
Speaker 1: call Verizon and just say, hey, I'm going to be traveling.
Speaker 1: I just want to be sure that this is going
Speaker 1: to activate on my account. There's no block or anything
Speaker 1: on that travel pass. Otherwise, you can get an eSIM.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more complicated, but that's another thing
Speaker 1: you can do, is you can download an eSIM from
Speaker 1: a company like Aralow, install that on her phone, and
Speaker 1: then you can turn off the Verizon service or go
Speaker 1: to Wi Fi only. The other thing I would do
Speaker 1: is make sure that you have Wi Fi calling and
Speaker 1: texting turned on before you leave. So make sure that
Speaker 1: that's turned on, and that way most of her calling
Speaker 1: and texting will route through Wi Fi when she's over there.
Speaker 2: And I mentioned that you should turn on roaming. I
Speaker 2: think that.
Speaker 1: It's probably actually better to It sort of depends, like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember the last time I went international
Speaker 1: if I had roaming on or off. Because you don't
Speaker 1: want to roam onto a different network and then get
Speaker 1: charged from Verizon for roaming on that network.
Speaker 2: So let me see here. I'm going into my settings as.
Speaker 1: We speak, and let's see phone and let's see here,
Speaker 1: where am I looking cellular there we go, so cellular
Speaker 1: data you can go in there, and yeah, I would,
Speaker 1: I would just check the roaming situation. I would go
Speaker 1: on just Google like Verizon roaming on or off, but
Speaker 1: for the travel past. But I think you want that
Speaker 1: turned off as far as I remember, because that way
Speaker 1: you're not roaming on different networks when you get there.
Speaker 1: But I will tell you the roaming and the international
Speaker 1: has gotten a lot easier in recent years. It's almost
Speaker 1: seamless when you get to when she lands wherever she lands,
Speaker 1: when she turns on her phone, it'll say welcome to
Speaker 1: you know, whatever country you're in, this is Verizon, and
Speaker 1: you know you're all good to go, so good question.
Speaker 2: It's it's a little.
Speaker 1: Daunting because we all remember the nineties and the two
Speaker 1: thousands where you would go to a different country and
Speaker 1: you'd come back with a giant surprise bill two months later.
Speaker 1: It happened to me in China once I was I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. I did everything right except I forgot to
Speaker 1: turn off my dropbox up loloft codes and it only
Speaker 1: uploaded like thirty six megabytes.
Speaker 2: But I'm not kidding. The bill was so expensive.
Speaker 1: I think I called at and T At the time,
Speaker 1: it was my carrier, and I just was like, there's
Speaker 1: no way I'm paying this, Like, you have to figure
Speaker 1: out a way, and they actually backdated my international plan
Speaker 1: and it worked pretty well. So things have gotten a
Speaker 1: lot better, all right. Speaking of cellular carriers, T Mobile
Speaker 1: and Verizon are in talks to split up US Cellular.
Speaker 1: According to the Wall Street Journal, T Mobiles close to
Speaker 1: a two billion dollar deal to acquire some of US
Speaker 1: Cellular's operations and wireless spectrum. Verizon also in discussions for
Speaker 1: a separate transaction that may or may.
Speaker 2: Not happen, they says. They say US Cellular.
Speaker 1: Has over four million customers, mostly rural customers in twenty
Speaker 1: one states from Oregon to North Carolina. The company has
Speaker 1: four thousand cellular towers, and we have seen a lot
Speaker 1: of consolidation in the United States. I think that's why
Speaker 1: one company is probably not going to take this over.
Speaker 1: I think they're going to split it up between the two.
Speaker 1: Kind of sad to see that final company go, but
Speaker 1: it's not a done deal just yet. But it makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. We will have three major carriers
Speaker 1: in the US that will pretty much control everything, even
Speaker 1: the smaller mv and os, the smaller carriers like the
Speaker 1: Mint mobiles and all these companies, they're getting gobbled up
Speaker 1: by the big companies as well. We just saw that happen.
Speaker 1: T Mobile bought Mint Mobile. All right, coming up, speaking
Speaker 1: of wireless carriers, Eli Blumenthal of cnet is going to join.
Speaker 2: He's going to talk.
Speaker 1: About how your wireless carrier is spying on you and
Speaker 1: what you can do about it.
Speaker 2: You are listening to Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: We'll get back to the phone lines in just a moment.
Speaker 1: But joining me now is Eli Blumenthal, senior editor at cnet.
Speaker 1: He covers all things wireless. Eli, welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So your latest article got my attention. It's called data privacy,
Speaker 1: All the ways your cell phone carrier tracks you and
Speaker 1: how to stop it. You say that data tracking in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four seems inevitable, So as a consumer, do
Speaker 1: we have any sort of hope of maintaining privacy in
Speaker 1: this digital age?
Speaker 5: We do, And that's some little bit of good news
Speaker 5: there is that as much as it seems inevitable, these
Speaker 5: companies do give you at least to varying degrees and
Speaker 5: ability to control what data they're collecting from you, and
Speaker 5: what you can turn on and turn off.
Speaker 1: The main thing is that a lot of people probably
Speaker 1: don't go in and change those settings. Many of them
Speaker 1: are on by default. And I'm guessing that the reason
Speaker 1: you wrote this article is because of this new thing
Speaker 1: T Mobile rolled out called profiling and automated decisions. Explain
Speaker 1: what that means.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so T Mobile basically over the last month or
Speaker 5: so has started to put this new pool in there
Speaker 5: and that they're not necessarily using today, but that they
Speaker 5: could use in the future to basically create profiles about
Speaker 5: you and make some actions based off of that profile.
Speaker 5: I was picked up by Reddit users and a website
Speaker 5: called the Mobile Report, and it got me wondering what
Speaker 5: other things are being tracked by these carriers and what
Speaker 5: can you do to turn them off? And looking at
Speaker 5: the major carriers at and T, Verizon and T Mobile,
Speaker 5: you could pretty easily see that you have a host
Speaker 5: of different things that they're collecting, and thankfully a host
Speaker 5: of different things that you can turn off pretty easily
Speaker 5: just by going into your account settings.
Speaker 1: So, first off, explain kind of like what these internet
Speaker 1: service providers, for a lack of a better term, are
Speaker 1: collecting and what they're able to see. I mean, even
Speaker 1: if you're using something like in incognito window or a VPN,
Speaker 1: will that protect you from what they see?
Speaker 5: It touched on some aspects of it. But because these
Speaker 5: are providers, they have access to the actual pipe. It's
Speaker 5: not just looking at one particular app or one particular browser.
Speaker 5: It's the actual connection itself. So sometimes this will be
Speaker 5: information like demographic data that they know about you because
Speaker 5: you have an account with them. You gave them your age,
Speaker 5: you gave them your location. It knows your zip code
Speaker 5: and knows a whole host of information just from regular
Speaker 5: day to day business aspects, and it puts that into
Speaker 5: a profile. Other times they could look at, you know,
Speaker 5: certain activities you're using their networks for if you're going
Speaker 5: to say, websites for news, or you're watching a lot
Speaker 5: of particular type of content. They're not necessarily capturing exactly
Speaker 5: what you're doing, but they can make general assumptions because
Speaker 5: you're going to YouTube dot com or you're going to
Speaker 5: Netflix dot com. And having the ability in some of
Speaker 5: these settings, you can actually provide a little bit of
Speaker 5: a anonymity or take back some of that control.
Speaker 1: So you've got three major carriers, AT and T, T Mobile, Verizon.
Speaker 1: Are there any settings that you think people should change
Speaker 1: immediately or is it more of a preference thing.
Speaker 5: Almost all of these I think you should go and
Speaker 5: and turn off. You're not really gaining much data there.
Speaker 5: The biggest thing that will change is that the ads
Speaker 5: that these companies show you won't be as personalized. And
Speaker 5: I don't really know of anybody maybe maybe rich you
Speaker 5: know of folks who like seeing more personalized ads. I
Speaker 5: personally don't care for them. Most people I speak to
Speaker 5: don't particularly care for them and would rather not have
Speaker 5: their data being used the market of other services. That said,
Speaker 5: some of these features should be left on, particularly something
Speaker 5: called identity verification. AT ANDT and Verizon both have distinct
Speaker 5: tabs that explain what this is, and it basically helps
Speaker 5: prevent fraud, whether it's from a bank or for your account.
Speaker 5: Leave that one on. That's actually pretty useful and pretty valuable.
Speaker 1: And of course I'll link up the article, the CET
Speaker 1: article that explains you go through in the article exactly
Speaker 1: what to change and how to change it once you
Speaker 1: do this. Is there a way to fully opt out
Speaker 1: of this or is there still some information that the
Speaker 1: carriers collect.
Speaker 5: You can ever fully opt out. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 5: they're still going to create profiles, but this is taking
Speaker 5: a little bit of that control back and hopefully that
Speaker 5: will allow you to own a little more of your
Speaker 5: digital life in a way that these companies won't necessarily market.
Speaker 5: You're still going to see ads that doesn't go away.
Speaker 5: They're still going to be able to get information from
Speaker 5: any number of other sources that they collect from, whether
Speaker 5: it's other websites or services or partners. So these companies
Speaker 5: still know a lot about you. They are still going
Speaker 5: to know a lot about you, but maybe this gets
Speaker 5: you a little bit more peace of mind.
Speaker 1: Do you think the wireless carriers are enough to educate
Speaker 1: and inform consumers about what they're doing and what they're collecting.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming most of the time it's in an email
Speaker 1: buried at the bottom, or a text message, or the
Speaker 1: terms of service, or do they tell us.
Speaker 5: It would be great if they were more proactive about this.
Speaker 5: As you mentioned, it's in the terms of service or
Speaker 5: a privacy policy or buried somewhere. Maybe you'll get an email,
Speaker 5: but you probably delete that email pretty quickly, or you
Speaker 5: get a notification on your phone, swipe it away just
Speaker 5: as fast as it comes in, if you even see
Speaker 5: it at all. It would be great if companies were
Speaker 5: more proactive, and that goes not just rewireless carriers, but
Speaker 5: just our general providers that we use for everything from
Speaker 5: social media to browsing to content consumption. It's always better
Speaker 5: to have people be more active telling you what they're
Speaker 5: doing with your data. But carriers aren't alone, and it
Speaker 5: is nice to have, at least for the main carriers
Speaker 5: and their main plans. I should note that people reach
Speaker 5: out to me spensus article one life. I focus primarily
Speaker 5: on the main plans offered by AT and T Rise
Speaker 5: and that T Mobile. Obviously, there are a lot of
Speaker 5: other smaller providers or prepaid providers, and some of those
Speaker 5: carriers don't give you that much flexibility or control on
Speaker 5: your privacy settings, so your mileage will vary. And it's
Speaker 5: certainly nice though that the main providers on their main
Speaker 5: plans allow you to have this level of control.
Speaker 1: So, if you're not very tech savvy, is there a
Speaker 1: particular setting you think that you know, the simplest thing
Speaker 1: you can do, the simplest change you can make for
Speaker 1: the average person is or one thing that you'd recommend
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 5: I would recommend honestly, since they're all generally bunched together
Speaker 5: just logging in. If you log in and look at it,
Speaker 5: it's not blanketed under one particular setting. It's not just
Speaker 5: one on off switch. It's usually a few, as I
Speaker 5: explained in the article, So there's not like a catch
Speaker 5: all that could say turn this one off and you're good.
Speaker 5: But once you log in you can very quickly see
Speaker 5: exactly what's going on and make those decisions.
Speaker 1: Now, Eli, I know you cover the big wireless carriers
Speaker 1: pretty closely. The plans are always changing, the services are
Speaker 1: always evolving, the pricing. Is there any difference between the
Speaker 1: big three at this point? Do you feel like there's
Speaker 1: a clear front runner when it comes to what they
Speaker 1: offer at a particular price or is it all just
Speaker 1: kind of what works for you and what system you're
Speaker 1: already on.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of what works for you. The differences
Speaker 5: between the big three providers AT and T, Verizon and
Speaker 5: T Mobile is honestly, for most people in most places,
Speaker 5: probably not that large. But what works for you and
Speaker 5: Los Angeles and me and New York may not work
Speaker 5: for one of your viewers in a more rural area,
Speaker 5: for example. The benefit there is, especially with the rise
Speaker 5: of virtual sin cards, is you can now with an
Speaker 5: unlocked phone pretty easily pessed out Verizon or AT and
Speaker 5: T or T Mobile for anywhere between two weeks to
Speaker 5: a month, I think T mobiles case three months, and
Speaker 5: see how that data performs for you where you live.
Speaker 5: So I've had friends who were debating switching from Verizon
Speaker 5: to T Mobile. They travel in an area where they
Speaker 5: don't always get It's on an interstate, they don't always
Speaker 5: get good service, and they're worried if they go to
Speaker 5: T Mobile, would they lose service, would their experience be
Speaker 5: that much worse? They tried this thing. After a couple
Speaker 5: of months, they still kept their Verizon number, so text
Speaker 5: called everything was still coming through, but they were able
Speaker 5: to without giving a credit card, without adding anything or
Speaker 5: changing too much on their phone, download this T Mobile
Speaker 5: trial which T Mobile offers through their AT and tried
Speaker 5: it out. They were happy with it, said some money
Speaker 5: made the switch.
Speaker 1: Eli Blumenthal, senior editor at CNAT what's the best way
Speaker 1: for folks.
Speaker 5: To follow you? I'm available on x or Twitter at
Speaker 5: Eli Blumenthal and of course dot com.
Speaker 1: I'll link up the article data privacy, all the ways
Speaker 1: your cell phone carrier tracks you and how to stop
Speaker 1: it on my website. Just go to rich on Tech
Speaker 1: TV for the link. Eli, thanks for joining me, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me or rich on Tech coming your way
Speaker 1: right after this. Give me a call triple eight Rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Let's go to another rich Rich
Speaker 1: in Colorado Springs.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 10: Thank you. Two questions for you. I am set up
Speaker 10: for two factor authentication on my I fourteen, but most
Speaker 10: of the time when I started and then it says, okay,
Speaker 10: we're gonna send you a message back, you know, for
Speaker 10: the second factor, I never get anything.
Speaker 1: It depends on the service. So sometimes that number that
Speaker 1: is sending from could be blocked. Are using a standard
Speaker 1: phone number or a like a Google Voice.
Speaker 5: Or something regular?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: And is it with a particular service or is it
Speaker 1: with all services?
Speaker 10: No, I've noticed that it's pretty much everybody. Once in
Speaker 10: a while it'll work right, but usually it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: I would talk to your carrier and see if there's
Speaker 1: any sort of block on texts, because those should be
Speaker 1: coming through I know onmine I have issues with just one,
Speaker 1: but it's only through Google Voice, not through my standard line,
Speaker 1: so that shouldn't be happening on a standard phone line.
Speaker 1: I would also the only other thing I would look
Speaker 1: into is sometimes on your iPhone there's two different message banks,
Speaker 1: and you could go into your settings and look for
Speaker 1: a section called unknown senders, and the verification codes could
Speaker 1: be in there, because that's where all mine live, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Scrolling down. I've got tons. What's the second question.
Speaker 10: How do I know if I should get a vp Internet?
Speaker 15: Oh?
Speaker 2: Good question.
Speaker 1: So VPNs are very heavily advertised and they're great for
Speaker 1: protecting privacy, but in average you don't necessarily need one
Speaker 1: all the time. Now, there are some reasons why you'd
Speaker 1: want a VPN. Number one my rule of thumb is
Speaker 1: to use a VPN if you want the most sort
Speaker 1: of protection for what you're browsing, Like if you just
Speaker 1: want to not deal with any company knowing where you're going,
Speaker 1: what you're looking at, what you're doing, a VPN could
Speaker 1: be a good way to do that. Now, you have
Speaker 1: to also understand the quality of the VPN. There are
Speaker 1: many many different VPNs out there. You typically want one
Speaker 1: that's a no log VPN. And I did a segment
Speaker 1: on VPNs and we had an expert that talked a
Speaker 1: lot about this stuff. And by the way, VPN stands
Speaker 1: for virtual Private network. So what it's doing is it's
Speaker 1: creating a little tunnel that your data is. Imagine a
Speaker 1: tunnel between your computer and the website that you're visiting.
Speaker 1: So it's a little tunnel that is private, and nobody
Speaker 1: can peer into that tunnel and see what you're doing.
Speaker 1: So the reason I would recommend a VPN is if
Speaker 1: you want to access things that you can't typically access
Speaker 1: in the place you are. So for instance, when I
Speaker 1: was in China, I couldn't access various social media networks,
Speaker 1: so I used a VPN to get around that. The
Speaker 1: other time you want to use a VPN is when
Speaker 1: you are on public Wi Fi and you want to
Speaker 1: protect what you're doing. Now, for most websites, I would
Speaker 1: say a majority of websites, that is not necessary.
Speaker 2: But if you are checking your.
Speaker 1: Your bank account, something like that, something that's very sensitive,
Speaker 1: then you might want to use a VPN in that aspect.
Speaker 1: But my recommendation is if you are on your smartphone.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're at a hotel, you're on your smartphone
Speaker 1: and you need to check your bank account. Instead of
Speaker 1: being on the Wi Fi at that hotel, turn off
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi and use your cellular connection and that
Speaker 1: will be much more private than the Wi Fi connection
Speaker 1: at the hotel. But in general, the web has gotten
Speaker 1: a lot better about privacy, and the Web's gotten a
Speaker 1: lot better about secure websites. So in general, it just
Speaker 1: really depends. It's more people just want VPNs to feel
Speaker 1: like they're being protected, and it's not a bad idea.
Speaker 1: Like I've used one in the past, and I have one.
Speaker 1: I just use it, you know, at the times when
Speaker 1: I think I need to use it. And also the
Speaker 1: other thing about VPNs is you can connect using different profiles,
Speaker 1: so if you want to. For instance, I was testing,
Speaker 1: someone said that on travel websites in Ireland they have
Speaker 1: to display the total including tax and everything, all the
Speaker 1: fees up front versus at the end when you get
Speaker 1: to that final screen. So I was like, oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: let me try that out, and so I fired up
Speaker 1: a VPN. I said I was in Ireland using the
Speaker 1: VPN because you can change your location and you know,
Speaker 1: I checked out the website, the travel website, and sure
Speaker 1: enough everything was added up at the beginning. So Rich,
Speaker 1: those are my suggestions for the UH the use of
Speaker 1: a VPN. But I would also check. I will link
Speaker 1: up an article that I did about the top VPNs.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you what the the main VPNs.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's a lot of good information here. Because
Speaker 1: the downside of a VPN is it could slow down
Speaker 1: your connection. So you want one that supports the WireGuard protocol.
Speaker 1: Look for one that works on all your devices. I
Speaker 1: would not use a free VPN. They're typically not very good.
Speaker 1: And the article also goes through a couple of recommendations
Speaker 1: that this expert I talked to recommended for good VPNs, and.
Speaker 2: I will put that on the website.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv and just click the light
Speaker 1: bulb and that will bring you right to the show notes.
Speaker 2: Let's go to UH. Let's go Let's go to Linda
Speaker 2: in Burbank. Linda, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 16: Hey, I heard you mention how ag int Verizon. I
Speaker 16: forget the name of the other one. You know, I'll
Speaker 16: just say like a dictory, Yeah, are going to you
Speaker 16: are going to eat up all the other cell phone
Speaker 16: companies and they'll be the only ones. Well, what about
Speaker 16: Pure Talk, what about Patriot Mobile? And what about Lively?
Speaker 16: Lively that's mainly for senior citizens, That's what I have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question.
Speaker 16: I know Pure Talk and Patriot Mobile are very popular
Speaker 16: by conservative talk show hosts. They're they're national.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: These these little carriers with their you know, we say
Speaker 1: little mv and o's Mobile Virtual network Operator. So the
Speaker 1: way that these carriers work, they all run on one
Speaker 1: of the big three networks. So even if you have
Speaker 1: something like a Lively, if you go to their website
Speaker 1: or you go to Wikipedia, it will tell you what
Speaker 1: network that Lively works on. And the same thing with
Speaker 1: Mint Mobile, the same thing with Cricket, the same thing
Speaker 1: with Visible.
Speaker 2: They all run on one of.
Speaker 1: The main you know, three networks, whether that's AT and T,
Speaker 1: whether that's Verizon or T Mobile. A lot of them
Speaker 1: run on T Mobile and AT and T some of
Speaker 1: them run on Verizon. So these mv and o's are
Speaker 1: not going away anytime soon. So if that was the
Speaker 1: way it sounded, part in my interpretation of that, what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is that there are only three main pipes
Speaker 1: in the United States. All of these other networks run
Speaker 1: on top of those pipes, whether they advertise that or not.
Speaker 1: You might see an advertisement where it says we run
Speaker 1: on the big network or the big or the best
Speaker 1: voice network in America, or the best data network or
Speaker 1: the fastest. They all have different ways of kind of
Speaker 1: signaling that. In the past, a lot of these mv
Speaker 1: and os never talked about the network that they're actually
Speaker 1: running on. But I've noticed more and more, Like we
Speaker 1: had a Mobile X on the other day and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we run on Verizon, which I was sup to hear
Speaker 1: him say that because typically they don't say that, but
Speaker 1: now they do.
Speaker 2: I guess, So that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: And the way that these mvn O is like, why
Speaker 1: would you go with an mv and O, Why would
Speaker 1: you go with a Lively over a Verizon. Well, it's
Speaker 1: because Lively has certain specific features and pricing plans that
Speaker 1: are very appealing to.
Speaker 2: A certain group of people.
Speaker 1: So, for instance, mint Mobile over the years was very
Speaker 1: popular for their fifteen dollars plan, which people like a
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars monthly fee that sounds amazing. Tello is another
Speaker 1: mv and O, which I've been testing and I love
Speaker 1: it because you can just have talk and text no
Speaker 1: data for just a couple bucks a month. You can
Speaker 1: literally build your own plan. So again, these mv and
Speaker 1: os are.
Speaker 2: Not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: They compete on services and pricing and the different plans
Speaker 1: and the different features, whereas the networks just run the network.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Rich on Tech. It is a
Speaker 1: Mother's Day weekend. I would like to give a shout
Speaker 1: out to my mom. She listens to the show, and
Speaker 1: so does my mother in law, Believe, and my wife.
Speaker 1: Lot of women in my life and they are all
Speaker 1: very special to me. Edison Research did a report about
Speaker 1: moms and media in twenty twenty four. Moms smartphone ownership
Speaker 1: has reached ninety eight percent, nearly full saturation. Forty seven
Speaker 1: percent of moms own a smart watch, up from thirty
Speaker 1: seven percent last year. Seventy five percent of moms have
Speaker 1: wireless earphones or headphones, up from seventy one percent last year.
Speaker 1: Forty three percent of moms are weekly podcast listeners and
Speaker 1: eighty two percent have listened in the past week. Moms
Speaker 1: spend an average of four hours and four minutes daily online,
Speaker 1: mostly on their smartphone, and ninety seven percent of moms
Speaker 1: use social media, with ninety six percent having used it
Speaker 1: in the last week. Now, I have a funny story
Speaker 1: about my mom. This week. She calls me out of
Speaker 1: the blue and she's like, uh, well, actually it was
Speaker 1: from a different phone number. It was from a New
Speaker 1: Jersey phone number that I didn't recognize, but I figured, well,
Speaker 1: it's New Jersey, I might as well pick it up.
Speaker 2: And so I pick up the phone. It's my mom.
Speaker 1: She said, Hell, did you recognize the number? I said, no,
Speaker 1: who is this? She said, oh, it's my colleague's phone number.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, okay, well what's going on. Well,
Speaker 1: my phone doesn't work. It says simcard not recognized. I said,
Speaker 1: what what are you talking about? My mom always calls
Speaker 1: me with the oddest tech questions you have ever experienced,
Speaker 1: Like nothing happens to her that is like ordinary. It's
Speaker 1: always the most random things. Like the last time, and
Speaker 1: I think I told this story on the radio. The
Speaker 1: last time. It was like her Roku or her firestick
Speaker 1: just stopped working and I had to go through all
Speaker 1: these troubleshooting tips. And my brother went over there and
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, the thing just burned up like it's
Speaker 1: just done.
Speaker 2: I said, what who does that happen to?
Speaker 1: So long story short, I'm like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to explain this to you, mom, but you've got to
Speaker 1: pop that SIM card out and pop it back in.
Speaker 1: Maybe it got unseated, which I've never heard of my
Speaker 1: entire life. Like I've I've tested so many phones, I've
Speaker 1: never had a phone that says simcard not inserted. The
Speaker 1: only other thing I could think of is that she
Speaker 1: pays for her wireless bill a year at a time
Speaker 1: on one of those mv and o's, and so it
Speaker 1: saves her money to do it that way. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, maybe your cellular service went out, you
Speaker 1: know before, and said no, I just paid the bill
Speaker 1: and I renewed. And I said, okay, well it can't
Speaker 1: be that, So why don't you try popping this SIM
Speaker 1: card out? So she says, well, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to do that. I said, well, there's a little hole
Speaker 1: in the bottom of the phone and you got to
Speaker 1: pop in like a paper clip that you ondo. She goes, oh,
Speaker 1: we tried that my teacher, you know, the teacher she
Speaker 1: works with. We tried it. I said, what do you mean,
Speaker 1: you tried it. Every paper clip I've ever used has
Speaker 1: popped this thing out. She goes, well, it's a coded
Speaker 1: paper clip. I said, well, you got to find a
Speaker 1: paper clip that's not coded so it fits in the
Speaker 1: little hole. She goes, well, there's two holes down there.
Speaker 1: I said, well, one it's a microphone. One is the
Speaker 1: simcard slot. Do not put it in the microphone hole.
Speaker 1: So she goes, okay, we got it. We got the
Speaker 1: they popped it out. I said, oh that was good.
Speaker 1: I go, when you pop it out, just make sure
Speaker 1: you look at how it's seated so that you don't
Speaker 1: put it in.
Speaker 2: The wrong way.
Speaker 1: And so her friend, I guess, pops out the card,
Speaker 1: pushes it back in, and all of a sudden, my
Speaker 1: mom goes, oh my gosh, all my messages are starting
Speaker 1: to come in. I said, really, this thing was physically unseated.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of this in my life. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I start hearing like something happened
Speaker 1: in the background. I said, what are you doing now?
Speaker 1: She goes, oh, my my colleague is blowing air into
Speaker 1: the float to clean it out. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: just the funniest thing sitting there listening to that, but
Speaker 1: she got it to work. She was very proud of herself.
Speaker 1: And I don't understand why these things happen to my mom,
Speaker 1: But love your mom, Happy Mother's Day, and to all
Speaker 1: the moms out there, you do an amazing job. And
Speaker 1: I noticed that a lot of moms do have the technology.
Speaker 1: They've got the smart watch, they've got the phone. And
Speaker 1: I love having my mom personally send me. She is
Speaker 1: my supplier of all of the scams that are happening
Speaker 1: out there. Every day, she's got like an email that's like,
Speaker 1: you know, someone's trying to get her personal information whatever,
Speaker 1: and she forwards it to me.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, thank you. I've never seen this one before.
Speaker 1: Speaking of mobile service, text Now is a company that
Speaker 1: offers free mobile service like free calling and texting. But
Speaker 1: now they're upping the ante. They are introducing a new
Speaker 1: plan called Free Essential Data and this provides you with
Speaker 1: free data for email, map apps, and ride share apps
Speaker 1: along with unlimited calling and texting. They want to make
Speaker 1: sure that customers never lose connectivity due to unpaid bills.
Speaker 1: They say that people spend about two thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year on cell phone bills.
Speaker 2: Many lack emergency money.
Speaker 1: Text now uses advertisers to pay for cell phone service.
Speaker 1: So I have not tested out this service, but I'd
Speaker 1: be curious how it works. I actually asked them to
Speaker 1: send me a SIM card so I can test this out.
Speaker 1: So the way it works, as I understand, is you
Speaker 1: buy the SIM card, which is five dollars one time fee,
Speaker 1: you pop it into your phone, and then you've got
Speaker 1: unlimited talk and tech, unlimited talk and text, and I'm
Speaker 1: assuming there's some sort of ads that are served up
Speaker 1: in some way, but now you get this essential data.
Speaker 1: So if you open up your email, you open up
Speaker 1: a map app, or you open up a ride share app,
Speaker 1: it will understand that and it will give you the
Speaker 1: data to use those three apps or those three types
Speaker 1: of apps. They gave some examples, you know, Gmail, Google Maps, Ways,
Speaker 1: Uber Lift, but this is kind of neat. So you
Speaker 1: can theoretically have voice calling, texting, and then these essential
Speaker 1: apps that can get you around your emails, get your maps.
Speaker 2: All for free every month.
Speaker 1: And of course they're bigger play is to get you
Speaker 1: to buy more data, so they have an hourly data
Speaker 1: pass for ninety nine cents, daily data pass for five bucks,
Speaker 1: and then a monthly data pass for forty bucks. But
Speaker 1: they say that over eighty percent of Text Now users
Speaker 1: are connected to Wi Fi most of the time, which
Speaker 1: means you don't need an expensive data plan. And I
Speaker 1: asked them if you can get these simcards in the store.
Speaker 1: They said, no, you have to order it from the app.
Speaker 1: So I've got the simcard on the way. I'm very
Speaker 1: curious to try this out because this could be a
Speaker 1: good kind of like if you just want like the
Speaker 1: cheapest possible way to connect to the phone services. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like five dollars and then you have access
Speaker 1: to talk, text and these essential apps. Anyway, I'll give
Speaker 1: you an update when I get that and try it out.
Speaker 2: Google this week.
Speaker 1: Launched a new smartphone called the Google Pixel eight A.
Speaker 1: This is their most durable A series smartphone, so the
Speaker 1: A series of the Pixel usually lags behind the standard
Speaker 1: Pixel about six months. And this has a metal frame.
Speaker 1: It's their budget device. It's got IP sixty seven water
Speaker 1: and dust resistance. It's not the highest, but that's still
Speaker 1: pretty good. It's got a scratch resistant display that's kind
Speaker 1: of cool. And the price tag is incredible four hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety nine dollars. Now you've heard me talk about
Speaker 1: the Pixel before. I really love this phone because it
Speaker 1: is simple, it has great software, and it's actually a
Speaker 1: very smart smartphone. It's got the Google Ai features like
Speaker 1: image search, voice typing. The voice typing is next to
Speaker 1: it's the best available on a smartphone live translation at
Speaker 1: a glance, which I just love.
Speaker 2: On the home screen or on the lock.
Speaker 1: Screen, I should say, it'll give you like information about
Speaker 1: upcoming events and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: It's so handy.
Speaker 1: It's got the tensor G three chip, which is not perfect,
Speaker 1: but it's the same chip in their latest Pixel eight
Speaker 1: and Pixel eight Pro.
Speaker 2: It's got the.
Speaker 1: Pixel camera, which of course is one of the best
Speaker 1: point and shoot cameras available on a smartphone for basic
Speaker 1: you know, every day just amazing pictures without a lot
Speaker 1: of fuss.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 1: I might argue that the Samsung is overall a more
Speaker 1: powerful camera, but the Pixel camera is pretty darn good
Speaker 1: if you just want to take a phone out of
Speaker 1: your pocket and take a picture. Now, the coolest part
Speaker 1: about this phone it's going to get operating system and
Speaker 1: security updates for ready seven years.
Speaker 2: What is seven years from now? Are we talking.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty thirty one, twenty thirty one. You could buy
Speaker 1: this phone and not have to think about getting a
Speaker 1: new phone until twenty thirty one because you're you'll be
Speaker 1: covered with security and software updates.
Speaker 2: Also has a built in VPN.
Speaker 1: And it's just I can't speak highly enough of the
Speaker 1: Pixel series. If you're someone that doesn't want an iPhone
Speaker 1: right and you don't need a Samsung with all the
Speaker 1: high end features, you just want something that's basic but
Speaker 1: really good. The Pixel is incredible at that. And uh,
Speaker 1: this is their brand new one Pixel EIGHTA. Do I
Speaker 1: have the availability date? I think it's available next week.
Speaker 1: I don't have the availability date here. Let me say
Speaker 1: I know it's on pre order now, I think it's
Speaker 1: available next week. So I have not gotten this into test,
Speaker 1: but I requested a review unit from Google, and I
Speaker 1: have no doubt that this is going to be a
Speaker 1: great device.
Speaker 2: Eight and eight Rich.
Speaker 1: One O one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: I am at rich on tech, the website for the
Speaker 1: show rich on Tech dot TV. I know I just
Speaker 1: talked about that text now plan if you want to
Speaker 1: check it out and get more information about anything I
Speaker 1: mentioned here. Just go to the website rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. Hit the light bulb icon and that will
Speaker 1: take you to the show notes immediately for anything that
Speaker 1: I mentioned here. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The website
Speaker 1: for the show rich on Tech dot Tv. There you
Speaker 1: can hit contact to send me an email. That's what
Speaker 1: Olga did in Burbank. Olga says, can you refer me
Speaker 1: to someone who can unhack my Galaxy? A fifty one phone?
Speaker 1: Someone hacked it at and T keeps giving me the
Speaker 1: run around. Olga, I don't think your phone is hacked.
Speaker 1: Although it can happen, I don't think it's very typical
Speaker 1: for that to happen. More likely there's some malware on there,
Speaker 1: downloaded something that you know is not working right on
Speaker 1: your phone. But what I'd recommend if you do believe
Speaker 1: that your phone is hacked, I would do a factory reset,
Speaker 1: and so I would just I would do a recovery mode.
Speaker 2: That's that's what I would do. This is like full strength.
Speaker 1: So what you want to do make sure that your
Speaker 1: important information is backed up. Let me say that again.
Speaker 1: Make sure your important information is backed up. This will
Speaker 1: erase everything on your phone. And so what you want
Speaker 1: to do is turn your phone off. This is what
Speaker 1: you do on Samsung. It's called recovery mode. You want
Speaker 1: to make sure your phone is turned off, and then
Speaker 1: you want to press the power button and the volume
Speaker 1: up at the same time simultaneously until the Samsung logo appears.
Speaker 1: And when this thing boots up, it's not going to
Speaker 1: look the same as it typically does. It's not going
Speaker 1: to open up into your phone screen. It's going to
Speaker 1: open up into something called Android Recovery, and it's going
Speaker 1: to look like an old school computer screen, and it's
Speaker 1: going to have a couple of options on it.
Speaker 2: It's going to say, reboot.
Speaker 1: System, apply update from ADB, apply update from sd card,
Speaker 1: wipe data, factory reset, wipe cash, partition, view recovery logs,
Speaker 1: run graphics test, run locale test, power off. What I
Speaker 1: would do is wipe the cash and then I would
Speaker 1: wipe the data slash factory reset. That will pretty much
Speaker 1: get your phone back to a place where it is
Speaker 1: completely pristine. Now, there may be someone out there that's listening, this,
Speaker 1: says Rich What about the bios? Could it be you know,
Speaker 1: could there be a malware in the in the firmware
Speaker 1: of this phone. Yeah, there's a potential for that, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that's what's happening here. That would be
Speaker 1: really really tricky to get. So that's what I recommend doing.
Speaker 1: And then once you do that, your phone will be
Speaker 1: factory fresh, reinstall everything, whatever you need to do, and
Speaker 1: I think that your hacking issue should go away. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the email.
Speaker 2: OGA, Let's go to Gary and Laguna Niguel. Gary, you're
Speaker 2: on with Rich.
Speaker 13: Yes, Rich, I got one of these watches here. It's
Speaker 13: called a AM's. Yeah, it's kind of hard to pronounce
Speaker 13: it because I always want to.
Speaker 5: Call it Amazon, oh Amaze fit and yeah.
Speaker 13: I thank you. It's what's called a b ip Repro
Speaker 13: and a good friend of mine, Bob Allen, helped me
Speaker 13: buy it last Sunday. And it is just confused that
Speaker 13: for Jesus out of me.
Speaker 5: Okay, And the thing I.
Speaker 13: Want to know we're here, Rich, is this one if
Speaker 13: you watches that you can get that does not need
Speaker 13: a telephone hooked up to it. Because see, I'm a
Speaker 13: full time nature photographer. I'm out photographing birds, butterflies, reptiles,
Speaker 13: and so many times I'm out and I don't want
Speaker 13: to carry my cell phone on me. I just want
Speaker 13: to carry a minimum amount of equipment in my photo list.
Speaker 13: But yet I do want to know how many steps
Speaker 13: I've taken.
Speaker 2: So okay, well, question, are you using iPhone or Android
Speaker 2: with S?
Speaker 13: I use an Android phone? Okay, I use an old one.
Speaker 13: It's a Samsung Galaxy S tanny.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, S ten, we're going back away bit there
Speaker 1: it works.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hey, look I always tell people, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: sitting here trying to sell you a new phone. If
Speaker 1: your phone that you have works, keep using it as
Speaker 1: long as the security is up to date.
Speaker 2: That's the important part. I'm not sure with. Yes, Okay, good,
Speaker 2: But here's the deal.
Speaker 1: So this, this watch does not It will work without
Speaker 1: a phone nearby, but it's not going to give you
Speaker 1: your texts or cellular calls because this does not have
Speaker 1: cellular built into it. So if you were ever in
Speaker 1: a place where you're taking a picture out in the
Speaker 1: woods and you know there's an emergency or you need
Speaker 1: to reach someone, this watch would not do that. So
Speaker 1: my recommendation is this is fine for you know, just
Speaker 1: basics and a maze fit. Is you know, people like
Speaker 1: these watches because they're inexpensive and they have the features
Speaker 1: they need, like you said, and it basically looks like
Speaker 1: an Apple Watch, but you're not going to get that
Speaker 1: cellular connectivity. So if you want cellular, you got to
Speaker 1: go with a watch that has a cellular connectivity built in,
Speaker 1: and that is a watch from Samsung, a watch from Google,
Speaker 1: the Pixel Pixel Watch, and also the Apple Watch, which.
Speaker 2: Will not work with your Android phone.
Speaker 1: There may be some third party watches out there that
Speaker 1: have it, but I know the recent watch I tested
Speaker 1: from one Plus did not have cellular built in.
Speaker 2: So you have to.
Speaker 1: Decide when you when you have a smart watch with
Speaker 1: your phone, that watch will function when it's not near
Speaker 1: your phone. And it's confusing because when it's by your phone, yes,
Speaker 1: you're going to get your texts, you may even get
Speaker 1: your calls through that watch when you're near your phone,
Speaker 1: but as soon as you leave the range, the Bluetooth
Speaker 1: range of that phone, your watch is only going to
Speaker 1: do things that it can do on its own without
Speaker 1: a cellular connection, which is, you know, track your steps,
Speaker 1: the different you know functionalities on there that all run
Speaker 1: on the watch, and your watch may have WI Fi
Speaker 1: on it as well, but out in the woods, Wi
Speaker 1: Fi is not really going to help. So the bottom line,
Speaker 1: if you want to get your calls and texts on
Speaker 1: a smart watch and be able to use data away
Speaker 1: from your phone anywhere, then you do need to get
Speaker 1: a watch that has a cellular connection and that's in
Speaker 1: you know, typically it's an LTE connection, so you have
Speaker 1: to look it's a different version of the watch. Apple
Speaker 1: sells a different version, Google sells a different version, and
Speaker 1: Samsung they all sell LTE versions of their popular watches.
Speaker 2: That's what you want to look out for.
Speaker 1: Not everyone needs that, but I run a lot by
Speaker 1: myself and I want that on my watch because I
Speaker 1: want to go with just my watch. And also, if
Speaker 1: you want to be less distracted, you don't want your
Speaker 1: phone screen near you. You can use just your watch,
Speaker 1: all right. Coming up, a guy who traveled the world
Speaker 1: for a year just using AI. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: to him about it. Coming up right here on rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you, talking technology. Five G home Internet.
Speaker 1: This is a question that we get from time to
Speaker 1: time on this show because they're being heavily advertised by
Speaker 1: providers including T Mobile, Verizon, and AT and T. So
Speaker 1: I figured all Connect which is a great resource for
Speaker 1: all things like choosing plans and stuff. They had a
Speaker 1: great article about five G home Internet, so if you
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, it uses cellular networks to
Speaker 1: deliver a fixed wireless internet connection to your house.
Speaker 2: So you buy this or you just basically get a box.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a hot spot but for your house,
Speaker 1: so it takes that cellular connection and turns it into
Speaker 1: Wi Fi for your house. Five G Internet speeds range
Speaker 1: from twenty to one thousand, with upload speeds of ten
Speaker 1: to fifty.
Speaker 2: So T Mobile five.
Speaker 1: G has speeds from thirty five to two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty five megabits per second, Verizon five g's a little
Speaker 1: bit faster, eighty five to one thousand megabits per second,
Speaker 1: and then AT and T Internet Air five G has
Speaker 1: up to one hundred and forty megabits per second. There's
Speaker 1: also one called Starry Internet. It's available in much less places,
Speaker 1: but they've got speeds ranging from two hundred to five hundred.
Speaker 2: Now obvious fiber.
Speaker 1: Is going to be faster and more reliable, but five
Speaker 1: G has you know, an affordable, no contract option, and
Speaker 1: usually there's no data caps, although that may be changing.
Speaker 1: So again, the providers here are T Mobile, Verizon, AT
Speaker 1: and T and Starry. Prices are very good right now
Speaker 1: because these carriers are trying to publicize this and try
Speaker 1: to get people to sign up, So right now, price
Speaker 1: or anywhere from thirty five to fifty dollars a month,
Speaker 1: and if you're a subscriber of T Mobile, Verizon or
Speaker 1: AT and T, you may get a cheaper plan. T
Speaker 1: Mobile has sixty percent of the US covered, which is
Speaker 1: pretty good. Verizon's offering it in a bunch of places,
Speaker 1: and AT and T is only offering it where they
Speaker 1: don't have their fiber network, and it's pretty limited compared
Speaker 1: to T Mobile and Verizon.
Speaker 2: So bottom line, five.
Speaker 1: G may not match the speed you're going to get
Speaker 1: from cable or fiber, but it's kind of a good
Speaker 1: low cost option for someone who does not need extremely.
Speaker 2: High speed internet.
Speaker 1: So if you're considering, you know, trying to save money,
Speaker 1: definitely look at these five G home internet plans. All right,
Speaker 1: So Michael Motamedi traveled the world for a year using
Speaker 1: AI as his guide.
Speaker 2: Michael, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic, So tell me we talked. It must
Speaker 1: have been a year ago at this point you used
Speaker 1: an AI tool called guide Geek. Right, so explain to
Speaker 1: me kind of how this call came about, Like, what
Speaker 1: what made you do this?
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean it's actually been a year. Just got
Speaker 15: back to the States about a month ago. It's been
Speaker 15: a crazy twelve months. I'm in a crazy experiment really,
Speaker 15: just to kind of see how it would be to
Speaker 15: have AI control where we travel and what we did
Speaker 15: when we got to those destinations. But guy Geek is
Speaker 15: a pretty cool app. After using it for a year,
Speaker 15: I feel like I'm somewhat of.
Speaker 10: An ex Kurt.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's all through.
Speaker 15: Or Instagram messengers, so there's no app to download, which is,
Speaker 15: you know, obviously a huge benefit. But it's been pretty
Speaker 15: nuts man.
Speaker 2: And you traveled with your family, right, didn't you take
Speaker 2: your wife and kid?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 15: Wife and daughter all the way around everywhere everywhere I go,
Speaker 15: they go.
Speaker 2: And how many places did you go?
Speaker 15: Oh my gosh, I can't even count, but I think
Speaker 15: it was a rat I mean from a country perspective,
Speaker 15: I think it was around nine to ten countries.
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, but place wise you were. I mean
Speaker 1: I watched I watched your journey, and I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: You are a very brave man with the stuff you
Speaker 1: were eating on your Instagram. I I just what was it?
Speaker 1: One of them like live worms or something. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just like tongue or either.
Speaker 3: There was a duck embryo.
Speaker 15: Called Ballot which was in the Philippines, a very international
Speaker 15: one of their national dishes, which was actually pretty fantastic.
Speaker 1: Okay, I shouldn't be saying, oh that's my personal but
Speaker 1: I get it these things. You know, people eat all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. Okay, So that was.
Speaker 15: One, and there was another one where it was like
Speaker 15: just an eel restaurant, all different eels, served ten different ways.
Speaker 2: That's the one.
Speaker 1: I saw it, catch it right in the water. They
Speaker 1: were in this bucket just all it looked like a
Speaker 1: bunch of giant tongues. It's like moving around and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're eating it. I'm just like, okay,
Speaker 1: I I can't right now. So okay, so tell me,
Speaker 1: like how this worked. So every morning, let's say you
Speaker 1: were in like Morocco, would you just say, like, hey, guy, geek,
Speaker 1: like what's the coolest places to go?
Speaker 2: Like, how did you prompt this? Ai? And how how
Speaker 2: accurate was it?
Speaker 15: Yeah, so I think when we started this journey it
Speaker 15: was just like that. It was like prompting it in
Speaker 15: very you know, normal ways, somewhat like how you would
Speaker 15: use Google.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 15: As time went on, we wanted to get more and
Speaker 15: more creative with the way that we prompted it. We
Speaker 15: realized that there's a lot of different ways where you
Speaker 15: can kind of have a conversation with guy geek. In
Speaker 15: some places like Spain, for example, I would say, hey,
Speaker 15: pretend you're Anthony and Bourdaine and plan me a day.
Speaker 15: What would you do if you were Anthony Bourdain in
Speaker 15: Spain and it planned this awesome day?
Speaker 16: Right?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 15: Super super creative with the way that you prompt guide geek.
Speaker 15: It's not just hey, tell me that the best pizza
Speaker 15: place right right, Like, pretend you're whoever and now let
Speaker 15: me experience the city like that, you know, Or Hey,
Speaker 15: I have a hundred in Paris and I have one
Speaker 15: hundred bucks to spend in Paris, which obviously we all
Speaker 15: know is not a lot of money in Paris, I said,
Speaker 15: I have one hundred dollars for the rest of for
Speaker 15: one day, plan my day, and it planned this awesome,
Speaker 15: cool day, you know, So it's super super interesting. I
Speaker 15: think this is definitely where the future is going to
Speaker 15: be going, especially because it's just the ease of being
Speaker 15: able to go into your pocket, right and it's a tool,
Speaker 15: it's not it's your friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's weird because it definitely
Speaker 1: feels that way with the way these ais talk to us.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it don't almost like to me.
Speaker 1: I always think it's like almost like the smartest person
Speaker 1: you can have a conversation with because they just know
Speaker 1: everything about everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I actually used that tip.
Speaker 1: I was in New York City last year and I
Speaker 1: was looking for a restaurant and I asked, Ai, I
Speaker 1: forget what I was using, and I think I might
Speaker 1: have used a little bit of guy Geek and a
Speaker 1: little bit of like Google. I think it was called
Speaker 1: Bard at the time, obviously, but I said, like, give
Speaker 1: me a list of all the restaurants that Bobby Flay
Speaker 1: likes in New York City, and I think it was
Speaker 1: Italian and then also Giata and I said, now cross
Speaker 1: reference them and give me the ones that they both like,
Speaker 1: and it came up with like two places and I
Speaker 1: picked one and we had a great night.
Speaker 2: So it is interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's funny how you can get
Speaker 1: really you know, unique and I don't.
Speaker 2: Know specific with these things.
Speaker 1: So was it accurate, Like did it actually like I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are some things where it told you were
Speaker 1: like I can't really do that, or like how good
Speaker 1: was it?
Speaker 10: You know?
Speaker 15: For the most part, it was pretty bang on. Obviously,
Speaker 15: there are some you know, some improvements that they're making constantly, right.
Speaker 15: I think they made a major improvement by now pulling
Speaker 15: all the locations from the Google Maps API, which makes
Speaker 15: sure that they're open. You know, there were some times
Speaker 15: in the beginning where you know, the place wasn't open
Speaker 15: anymore information, so I'm glad they fixed that.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean from it it also.
Speaker 15: For me it was great because I'm a little bit
Speaker 15: of like a I don't know, a knowledge freak where
Speaker 15: I just like to know everything. So I'll be at
Speaker 15: a restaurant, I'll ask the history of the restaurant. You know,
Speaker 15: even in.
Speaker 8: Spain, I spent the day like.
Speaker 2: Picasso, So how did you do that? Explain that.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 15: I mean they basically said, hey, you're pretending. Oh I
Speaker 15: actually did Salvern Dordali as well too. I said, pretend
Speaker 15: you're Salven Doardalis and what would you do if.
Speaker 3: You were in Spain for a day?
Speaker 15: And it sent me to his favorite bars.
Speaker 2: I love it. That is so wild.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of like kind of the role playing,
Speaker 1: like you know this person who's in there, and you
Speaker 1: kind of get where is guide geek pulling this information?
Speaker 2: You said it gets the Google Maps api?
Speaker 1: Like is it just kind of like program like explain
Speaker 1: for something that may not understand, Like why why is
Speaker 1: this better than like just searching Google?
Speaker 2: Like you know, why why would it be different?
Speaker 15: It is based off a chat GPT model, but with
Speaker 15: guyde Geek, which is really cool about it. They do
Speaker 15: have actual human intervention to ensure that you know your
Speaker 15: stuff is up to date and making sure that it's
Speaker 15: travel oriented right. And there's also the ability to even
Speaker 15: book flights through WhatsApp.
Speaker 2: Now oh wow, So it's awesome.
Speaker 15: And I mean I even use it as a translator
Speaker 15: at one point as well too.
Speaker 1: And so to start this you go to like guide
Speaker 1: geek dot ai on Instagram and then you say chat basically.
Speaker 15: Yeah, So you can either message it or you can
Speaker 15: just go to the website and then it'll message you
Speaker 15: on WhatsApp as well too. You can message it on WhatsApp.
Speaker 15: I use it on WhatsApp just because it feels so
Speaker 15: much more natural for me. But I guess you know,
Speaker 15: people nowadays actually use Instagram DM as a form of
Speaker 15: communication as well.
Speaker 2: It does well.
Speaker 1: I mean, whatever, hey, whatever works, whatever you have installed,
Speaker 1: why not exactly tell me about the podcast you're now
Speaker 1: doing a podcast about all this.
Speaker 15: Yeah, actually the podcast is not about the AI. It's
Speaker 15: it's actually called No Fixed Address, The World's Most Extraordinary People,
Speaker 15: And it's like the one of the only podcasts that
Speaker 15: I know of that's on the road. So we literally
Speaker 15: meet and my wife, who's the producer and co host
Speaker 15: on the show, lug around a suitcase into the middle
Speaker 15: of the villages of the Philippines or into the hills
Speaker 15: of the rice fields in Indonesia, and we go to
Speaker 15: the place where these extraordinary people live and work and
Speaker 15: have a real time conversation with them and actually be
Speaker 15: able to tour their facility or see what they do
Speaker 15: for a living and how we ended up getting here
Speaker 15: in the first place.
Speaker 12: It's it's pretty it's.
Speaker 15: Pretty crazy, actually, I mean there's no studio, there's no nothing.
Speaker 5: We got mics, we.
Speaker 15: Got a mixer, we've got a computer, and we got
Speaker 15: two I Fi and we filmed.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you are following the news about what
Speaker 1: Apple launched with their you know, their camera app with
Speaker 1: Final Cut Pro on the iPad. You can now link
Speaker 1: up those two phones and use it as two different
Speaker 1: angles for your video and and you know, it's like
Speaker 1: a whole production facility inside an iPad. Now, it's pretty incredible,
Speaker 1: like multi Cara shoes. Yeah, it's it's something to look into.
Speaker 1: Michael Motameti. How do people find you on social media?
Speaker 1: What's the best way to follow you and your adventures?
Speaker 15: Michael Mosameti. So Michael M I C H A E L.
Speaker 15: Last name Motamedi m O T A M E b I.
Speaker 15: The latest podcast episode is out now. We actually just
Speaker 15: did an interview with Macy Gray Grammy Award winner Macy Gray,
Speaker 15: which is pretty fun.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, very cool and I've definitely enjoyed watching you
Speaker 1: travel for the past year.
Speaker 2: Where are you off to next.
Speaker 15: We are actually we haven't made the announcement yet, but
Speaker 15: we are on our way to curse ow.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. That be really really fun, amazing.
Speaker 1: I love it, and I love the fact that you're
Speaker 1: able to do this and continue to bring us the
Speaker 1: weirdest stuff that you've eaten in all of these different countries.
Speaker 1: So thank you for doing the stuff that I personally
Speaker 1: won't do because I'm too scared. There you go, one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, Michael MOTAMEDI thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: Check it out guide geek dot Ai. I'll link it
Speaker 1: up on the website and his podcast as well. Richon
Speaker 1: Tech dot TV just hit the light bulb.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we are going to do a couple more items.
Speaker 1: Disney Hulu and Max are teaming up. There's a security
Speaker 1: update for iTunes on Windows, in an iPhone scam you
Speaker 1: don't want to fall for. Plus the feedbag segment you
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on Tech. Let's get through a
Speaker 1: couple items here. Before we get to the feedbag, Disney
Speaker 1: Hulu and Max announce a streaming bundle partnership. Can you
Speaker 1: believe this? Disney and Warner Brothers collaborating to offer a
Speaker 1: streaming bundle that includes Disney Plus Hulu and Max. Now,
Speaker 1: these are two separate companies, but they are teaming up
Speaker 1: to offer a streaming bundle otherwise known as in the
Speaker 1: past cable tv.
Speaker 2: So we've come full circle here.
Speaker 1: There will be ad supported and ad free options. Pricing
Speaker 1: and details are not announced, but it will launch in
Speaker 1: the US this summer. I'm expecting the pricing to be
Speaker 1: attractive at first. And by the way, all these streaming
Speaker 1: companies want you to pay for a year in advance now,
Speaker 1: and they want you to pay for a yur in
Speaker 1: advance so you save the most money. But let me
Speaker 1: tell you why they want you to pay for a
Speaker 1: year in advance, because guess what you are going to
Speaker 1: forget when that renewal time comes up and now you
Speaker 1: have exactly a day to cancel or whatever, because now
Speaker 1: you're gonna get charged for a whole year in advance
Speaker 1: on that next time and you're like, oh, I'll just
Speaker 1: let it ride. Instead of every month, if you're doing
Speaker 1: something by the month, you have every month to cancel this,
Speaker 1: you only have a little window every year where you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna forget and you're gonna get ding for another
Speaker 1: year there, Apple has released a security update for iTunes
Speaker 1: on Windows. As you might remember, Apple has launched standalone
Speaker 1: apps for Apple Music and Apple TV.
Speaker 2: But if you still want to get podcasts.
Speaker 1: Or use iTunes for something on Windows, there's still iTunes
Speaker 1: as a standalone app. It's version twelve point thirteen point two.
Speaker 1: There is a security vulnerability in the app, so if
Speaker 1: you have iTunes for Windows still installed on your system,
Speaker 1: check for updates using the app.
Speaker 2: If you installed it through.
Speaker 1: The Microsoft Store, it should automatically update. But again, if
Speaker 1: you're using iTunes on Windows, check for a security update.
Speaker 1: And speaking of the iPhone, don't fall for this new scam.
Speaker 1: It's called the iPhone activation lock scam. Basically, if your
Speaker 1: phone is lost and it's locked, you might get a
Speaker 1: text from someone claiming they have access to your personal information.
Speaker 1: They say, oh, we have your phone and we found
Speaker 1: it and we just want to erase it. So just
Speaker 1: you know, they try to urge you to remove your
Speaker 1: iPhone from your Apple ID so that you know your
Speaker 1: information is safe. But what they're really trying to get
Speaker 1: you to do is get rid of activation lock. Because
Speaker 1: let's say someone steals your iPhone and you report it
Speaker 1: as lost or stolen. A person who finds that iPhone,
Speaker 1: they can go through the whole motions of factory resetting
Speaker 1: if they know what to do. But when they try
Speaker 1: to activate that phone, it's gonna say sorry, there's an
Speaker 1: activation lock. You got to contact this person to get
Speaker 1: that lock removed. So that's what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1: They're trying to trick you into removing that activation lock,
Speaker 1: and once you do, they then have full access to
Speaker 1: your device. They're not going to have your personal information
Speaker 1: per se, but then they can now set that device
Speaker 1: up as their own. So if anyone says, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: we found your phone, can you please take off this
Speaker 1: activation lock so we can you know, save it for
Speaker 1: you and make sure everything's safe, do not listen to them.
Speaker 1: That is the part that is the scam. If your
Speaker 1: phone is tied to your Apple ID, your personal data
Speaker 1: is safe and the stolen device is useless to thieves.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you might also want to enable
Speaker 1: the new stolen device protection that Apple has enabled. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the feedbag. This is a combination of
Speaker 1: your feedback and also the mail bag. I call it
Speaker 1: the feedbag, And so let's get right into that. Let's see.
Speaker 1: This one's actually funny. This is from my mother in law.
Speaker 1: She said, Hi, Oh, whoops, never mind, I thought it
Speaker 1: was feedback. It's actually a question, so I got it.
Speaker 1: That's another segment.
Speaker 2: Let's see Richard in Hilton, New York. Interesting.
Speaker 1: A couple weeks ago, you mentioned an earbud that was
Speaker 1: selling for about one hundred and twenty dollars. I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, I have an earbud, the best I ever had,
Speaker 1: for ten dollars. It's called the new Bee, available on
Speaker 1: Amazon and Walmart. I use it only for a connection
Speaker 1: to my PC and iPad. I do not use it
Speaker 1: with my cell phone. But it's very clear, excellent range,
Speaker 1: holds a charge forever. It's the best I ever had.
Speaker 1: Love your show, all right.
Speaker 2: I haven't tried it, but Richard says, the new Bee
Speaker 2: on Amazon and Walmart for ten bucks. Why not? Let's see.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, there's so many emails here, Michael says,
Speaker 1: your caller wondered if one hundred slash five is enough.
Speaker 1: My experience, most people think they need way more than
Speaker 1: they actually do. My elderly parents have had thirty down
Speaker 1: five up for two to three TV streaming twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven. I'm always amazed at how much data they use,
Speaker 1: over one terabyte a month. With these slow speeds, you
Speaker 1: could have asked if anyone in the home was a gamer,
Speaker 1: as they're more sensitive to the latency of congestion.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is very true.
Speaker 1: And let's see here. Okay, there's just yeah, there's just
Speaker 1: too many questions here.
Speaker 2: Oh, here we go.
Speaker 1: Here's a comment, Franklin says in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for all the great info, Rich Franklin, and Bruce
Speaker 1: in San Diego says, Hey, Rich, I followed your advice
Speaker 1: and I checked Google for the dark web. Everything turned
Speaker 1: up clean. Also, I was able to add a two
Speaker 1: step verification to my account. Thanks again, Bruce and San Diego.
Speaker 1: All right, that is going to do it for this
Speaker 1: episode of the show. Next time, I'll be more organized
Speaker 1: for my feedback. Caught me off guard. There you can
Speaker 1: find links to everything I mentioned on the website. Go
Speaker 1: to rich on tech dot tv. You can find me
Speaker 1: on social media. I am at rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Next week it is Google Io.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear about all the goodies they
Speaker 1: are going to launch when it comes to AI. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. There are so many ways you
Speaker 1: can spend your time. I do appreciate you spending it
Speaker 1: right here with me. My name is rich Demiro.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you real soon