Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
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Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
Speaker 1: the tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Phone lines
Speaker 1: are open at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Give me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: Once again, the phone line is eight eight eight rich
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Speaker 1: also an option. Just go to Rich on tech dot
Speaker 1: tv hit contact Guests. This week, I'm gonna talk to journalists, creators,
Speaker 1: and analysts who attended Galaxy Unpacked in Paris for their
Speaker 1: take on Samsung's new gadgets. Later, we've got shopping expert
Speaker 1: Trey Bodge. She's gonna share smart tips to maximize this
Speaker 1: year's Amazon Prime Day. And later we've got the co
Speaker 1: founder of the Oco app. He's gonna explain how his
Speaker 1: app helps the visually impaired safely cross streets. Well, this
Speaker 1: week I was in Paris, France, my first time ever.
Speaker 1: Samsung brought me there for Galaxy Unpacked. This is their
Speaker 1: event that they held in the basement of the Louver
Speaker 1: and are also sponsoring the Olympics, so I think it
Speaker 1: all seemed fitting for Samsung to have their event in Paris.
Speaker 1: This is where they showed off foldaboles, a new watch,
Speaker 1: a new ring, new earbuds, all kinds of great stuff.
Speaker 1: This was my first time in Paris. I'll share some
Speaker 1: observations with you. Great historic city. The food was just
Speaker 1: as rich as I imagined.
Speaker 2: It would be.
Speaker 1: People love to sit outside at bistro tables and just
Speaker 1: talk and eat and drink all day long, it seems,
Speaker 1: and surprisingly smoke. Lots of smokers over there, like they
Speaker 1: did not get the message about how smoking is bad
Speaker 1: for you. So my first night sitting I sat downwind
Speaker 1: of like a table of well everyone was smoking outside
Speaker 1: so anyway, but I will say every time I take
Speaker 1: an international trip, technology continues to make international travel easier.
Speaker 1: So this trip was I think the first or the
Speaker 1: second time that I did not have to go to
Speaker 1: an ATM even once. My Tap to pay on my
Speaker 1: phone worked every single time except once. Translation apps make
Speaker 1: it so much easier to understand signs. I was even
Speaker 1: able to download the Metro app for their subway there,
Speaker 1: buy a ticket on my phone and use tap to
Speaker 1: go all for my phone. I was so impressed, although
Speaker 1: I will say New York City's implementation is the best
Speaker 1: I've found because you do not need to do anything special.
Speaker 1: They made it so that if you have a credit
Speaker 1: card or a debit card set up on your phone
Speaker 1: is tap to pay. That serves as your ticket to
Speaker 1: ride the subway. All you do is tap and go.
Speaker 1: And if you ride it like a certain amount of times,
Speaker 1: like let's say nine times in a week, there's like
Speaker 1: a cutoff. They will then just billy the flat rate
Speaker 1: for that week, so you're not getting overcharged if you
Speaker 1: take it a bunch. So I thought New York City
Speaker 1: did a really nice job there. My phone worked perfectly.
Speaker 1: I did not need an eSIM this time around. I
Speaker 1: had enough days banked in my travel pass. But I
Speaker 1: did try out one of the sims that I talked
Speaker 1: about here on the show gig Sky. They offer a
Speaker 1: free one hundred megabyte e SIM, so I downloaded that
Speaker 1: just to try it out and see if it worked.
Speaker 1: It worked perfectly, but I will tell you one hundred
Speaker 1: megabytes is not enough to do anything overseas. It ran
Speaker 1: out of the megabytes without me doing anything, So anything
Speaker 1: that was happening in the background on my phone.
Speaker 3: That burned it all up.
Speaker 1: One of the cool things I did was board the
Speaker 1: plane using facial recognition outside of LAX so you've probably
Speaker 1: seen TSA using more facial recognition, but this was actually
Speaker 1: to get on the plane. I did not show my
Speaker 1: boarding pass. I literally just scanned my face and the
Speaker 1: doors opened and I got on the plane. So instead
Speaker 1: of having a line of people and one person checking
Speaker 1: boarding passes, now it is just like four or five
Speaker 1: little areas you stand in and there's kind of like
Speaker 1: glass doors and you just show your If you're good,
Speaker 1: it turns green, the doors open up, you get on
Speaker 1: the plane. So watch for that to happen more often
Speaker 1: because guess what, less people needed to do anything, And
Speaker 1: that's kind of the trend we're seeing with technology.
Speaker 3: Internet much more private in Europe.
Speaker 1: I noticed that those cookie choice screens, you know when
Speaker 1: you go to a website it's like, hey, do you
Speaker 1: mind if we use cookies? Well over in Europe they
Speaker 1: have much stronger privacy protection and data protection laws, so
Speaker 1: it will tell you very clearly do you want to
Speaker 1: accept all the cookies or reject them? They don't play
Speaker 1: games with you like they do here in the US. Also,
Speaker 1: I noticed when your data is being shared, it tells
Speaker 1: you how many people it's sharing that data with. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I was setting up one of the Samsung
Speaker 1: test devices and I said, hey, do you mind if
Speaker 1: we share your data with these seven hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: eight partners we have.
Speaker 3: I said, what, no comment there?
Speaker 1: Everyone walking around Paris is looking at their phone, So
Speaker 1: that is a universal thing at this point, seems like
Speaker 1: phones are you know, phone zombies are everywhere. But I
Speaker 1: still think there's lots of opportunities to help people find
Speaker 1: their way around new cities with the smartphone, also learning
Speaker 1: about landmarks and helping people choose restaurants. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: I do not have a good method for finding good
Speaker 1: restaurants around me. Let's say I'm staying at a hotel.
Speaker 1: It's really tough to vet restaurants and figure out like
Speaker 1: is this a tourist trap, is it a good place?
Speaker 1: Is it recommended? Does it just have a lot of reviews?
Speaker 1: Because you know it's on Instagram? So at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, how did I get most of my
Speaker 1: recommendations from other people and concierge? So there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of opportunities for technology to make that easier. Uber
Speaker 1: definitely making the world an easier place to get around.
Speaker 3: I took Uber. I was in where was I last weekend?
Speaker 1: Bendorgon last weekend, and we took so many Ubers because
Speaker 1: we decided not to rent a car, and this time
Speaker 1: in Paris. Of course I did not I'm not going
Speaker 1: to rent a car. Took it everywhere, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's truly remarkable to me how a product that was
Speaker 1: created here in the US is just had an impact
Speaker 1: around the world. There's a little bit of a language barrier.
Speaker 1: I was trying to meet my driver at the airport
Speaker 1: and they were in a different place than I was.
Speaker 1: I could tell they were in a different place because
Speaker 1: of the bubble on the phone or the blue dot
Speaker 1: that shows you where they were and where I was.
Speaker 1: But they kept calling me, and I can't speak French,
Speaker 1: so I you know, there's like a language barrier there.
Speaker 1: But then we started texting through the Uber app because
Speaker 1: that seemed to be easier, and I noticed under our
Speaker 1: text is said translated from French to English, like, so
Speaker 1: it's doing that on the fly. So literally, not only
Speaker 1: can you get a ride anywhere, but now you can
Speaker 1: chat with the driver and it's instantly going to translate that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just brilliant things like this that are
Speaker 1: making life a lot easier.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Bobo.
Speaker 1: Also, don't disregard the feature that lets you reserve an
Speaker 1: Uber in advance. A lot of people may not know
Speaker 1: about this, but basically, you can reserve a car so
Speaker 1: that it's there for you waiting, and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be a fancy car. I'm not talking like, you know,
Speaker 1: super expensive town car service. But you can just get
Speaker 1: a car in advance so you don't have to think about,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're waking up early trying to catch
Speaker 1: a flight. And what I liked about this, I'd never
Speaker 1: seen this before. Uber was like, hey, try this new
Speaker 1: feature where you just type in your flight number and
Speaker 1: we'll take care of figuring out when to pick you up.
Speaker 1: Same thing on the back end, So just put in
Speaker 1: your flight number and we'll take care of when you
Speaker 1: land and.
Speaker 3: When we should pick you up.
Speaker 1: Now I will say the driver that picked me up,
Speaker 1: you know, because my flight was delayed. They said it
Speaker 1: didn't work out so perfectly. But for me on the
Speaker 1: front end, getting to the airport from my hotel to
Speaker 1: the Paris airport. I didn't really know, do I need
Speaker 1: to leave early? Do I need to you know, give
Speaker 1: myself enough time? And sure enough Uber figured it all
Speaker 1: out and it worked out perfectly, And yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: that was great. The event itself well organized, but Samsung
Speaker 1: held this thing in the middle of a major tourist attraction.
Speaker 1: They unveiled multiple products, two foldable phones, two smart watches,
Speaker 1: two sets of your duds, and a new health tracking ring.
Speaker 1: All of the new products are going to be available
Speaker 1: on July twenty fourth, So just to give you a
Speaker 1: quick rundown, I've been playing with almost all of these
Speaker 1: products except the ring, the Flip six, and the Fold six.
Speaker 1: These are their foldable phones. These new models are the
Speaker 1: slimmest and lightest yet. Also they have improved durability, so
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar, the Flip is the one that
Speaker 1: kind of looks like the old school Motorol eraser. It's
Speaker 1: got a small screen on the outside, big screen on
Speaker 1: the inside that got the most improvements. The cameras are
Speaker 1: finally on par now with the S twenty four, So
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about getting the entry level Samsung, you
Speaker 1: can go with this little Flippy phone and get the
Speaker 1: same camera quality. They upgraded to a fifty megapixel main
Speaker 1: camera and a twelve megapixel ultra wide. I was taking
Speaker 1: this phone around Paris taking pictures. It works great. It's
Speaker 1: if you want something that's different. The Flip six is
Speaker 1: really cool. That starts at eleven hundred dollars. I know
Speaker 1: they went up by one hundred dollars. I can't believe.
Speaker 1: It is the one that opens and closes like a book,
Speaker 1: so you get this kind of narrow screen on the outside,
Speaker 1: which has gotten wider over the years. But then when
Speaker 1: you open it up, it is a nice tablet sized
Speaker 1: screen seven point six inches on the inside. That is
Speaker 1: a huge screen. Now that is nineteen hundred dollars. They
Speaker 1: didn't really improve the cameras on this. They said they
Speaker 1: put AI on it to make the cameras better. But
Speaker 1: this is the phone for kind of This is the
Speaker 1: top of the line Samsung phone when it comes to technology.
Speaker 1: Maybe not the cameras because the S twenty four camera
Speaker 1: ultra cameras are still better. But if you want something
Speaker 1: that's super unique and different, I think they got the
Speaker 1: form factor to a place where it feels.
Speaker 3: Good in the hand, it's slim, it's light.
Speaker 1: It's going to get better, but I think at this
Speaker 1: point they've made a device that is foldable and very,
Speaker 1: very usable. So again, that is the z Fold six
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred dollars. You're talking the price of a laptop
Speaker 1: for a phone. But the good news is you don't
Speaker 1: really need anything else besides that because it's going to
Speaker 1: function in so many great ways. They also talked about
Speaker 1: their AI features. Samsung really pushing AI, and they're pushing
Speaker 1: it in a different way than Apple because they're bringing
Speaker 1: it to a lot of older models. So right now
Speaker 1: you can get all their AI features on the S
Speaker 1: twenty two, S twenty three series, S twenty four series,
Speaker 1: and the foldables, Whereas when Apple comes out with Apple
Speaker 1: Intelligence rumored for later this year or early next year,
Speaker 1: that's going to work on the iPhone fifteen Pro models
Speaker 1: and up, which means a lot of the older models
Speaker 1: are not going to get them. And no surprise here.
Speaker 1: The number one AI feature that Samsung has introduced is
Speaker 1: called Circle to Search with Google, and it means you
Speaker 1: can circle anything on your screen. You can translate the text,
Speaker 1: you can reverse search the picture, you can search the
Speaker 1: text whatever you want to do.
Speaker 3: It is very very useful.
Speaker 1: In fact, it is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: have been loving the S twenty four Ultra so much, because,
Speaker 1: especially when you're traveling internationally, it is just like it's
Speaker 1: it feels very very smart, and it feels like a
Speaker 1: feature that we need on our phones and you get
Speaker 1: it there. All right, Coming up, I'll tell you some
Speaker 1: more about the products. We still have two more products
Speaker 1: to go through, an ultra watch and a ring, plus
Speaker 1: some earbuds. Eight eight eight rich one oh one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 3: This is rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: So I was talking about Samsung and some of the
Speaker 1: products that they unveiled. They unveiled a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you that this is Samsung's moment.
Speaker 1: They now have an ecosystem that is so rich and
Speaker 1: so wide ranging that you are not giving up anything
Speaker 1: by being in it. The reason why this Ultra watch
Speaker 1: fills a need of people that want kind of a
Speaker 1: nicer watch that's more geared towards hiking and on all
Speaker 1: the extreme sports kind of stuff. And then the ring
Speaker 1: is they are the first major company to have a
Speaker 1: ring that sort of integrates with everything else. So, yes,
Speaker 1: there's the Aura ring out there, but you know, you're
Speaker 1: using its own app, and it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: it's an island, and there's nothing wrong with Aura. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the big ring right now. But the fact
Speaker 1: that Samsung has one that works in their ecosystem and
Speaker 1: it works with the watch. So if you're wearing the
Speaker 1: watch and the ring, they will take the best readings
Speaker 1: off of whichever device is working at the best at time.
Speaker 1: So if you're sleeping, it'd probably be the ring. If
Speaker 1: you're out on a bike ride, it'd probably be the watch.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you about this Ultra Watch. This
Speaker 1: is six hundred and fifty dollars. It's fantastic. It's it's
Speaker 1: got a titanium frame. It's got good water resistance, it's
Speaker 1: got good altitude so you can go from five hundred
Speaker 1: meters below sea level to nine thousand meters high. It's
Speaker 1: got all kinds of different tracking, so it's got really
Speaker 1: accurate tracking. It's got the addition of a quick button,
Speaker 1: which means you can instantly start a workout. Yes, just
Speaker 1: like the Apple Watch. Ultra It's got an emergency siren. Yes,
Speaker 1: just like the Apple Watch Ultra. It's got a bright
Speaker 1: display up to three thousand knits which is actually very bright, yes,
Speaker 1: just like the Ultra from Apple. And it's got the
Speaker 1: longest battery life on a Galaxy Watch, so up to
Speaker 1: one hundred hours in power saving mode. Now that's not
Speaker 1: gonna be realistic for most people because you want to
Speaker 1: track your stuff, but it's nice to have that option
Speaker 1: otherwise you're gonna get for me after a whole day
Speaker 1: of travel yesterday, I was down to about I think
Speaker 1: it was about fifty percent sixty percent, and you're talking
Speaker 1: almost twenty four hours of travel yesterday. So but I
Speaker 1: didn't do a workout. So again, six hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: There isn't LTE version, which means cellular, so you can
Speaker 1: leave your phone behind and still get your text and
Speaker 1: your calls. It's a forty seven millimeters watch size. It's
Speaker 1: available in gray, white, and silver. My choice is the gray.
Speaker 1: I really like that. The white is really cool too.
Speaker 1: I don't think I saw the silver. Let's see what else, Okay, now,
Speaker 1: the Galaxy ring. So this is the Galaxy ring. And
Speaker 1: if you've seen like the Aura Ring, it's just like
Speaker 1: that twenty four to seven health monitoring, up to seven
Speaker 1: days battery life. It's lightweight. I tried it on. It's
Speaker 1: weird because Samsung says, oh, these sizes are not standard,
Speaker 1: so you have to get a sizing kit or you
Speaker 1: have to go to a store to get sized before
Speaker 1: we'll let you order this thing. But I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: give me size ten and sure it up. It fit
Speaker 1: me just like a size ten ring. So take it
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. But you're not going to be
Speaker 1: able to order this apparently without getting some sort of
Speaker 1: sizing kit first, and I think that's because they don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with all the returns on the wrong sizes.
Speaker 1: But this is really a big thing to track your sleep.
Speaker 1: So it's got sleep tracking, it's got skin temperature monitoring,
Speaker 1: it's got this new energy score, which all of these
Speaker 1: rings are doing. Kind of this like energy score. Aura
Speaker 1: has it, the Amaze fit has it. But that's kind
Speaker 1: of a score of your day, So how are you doing?
Speaker 1: And this is looking at your sleep, your activity, your
Speaker 1: sleeping heart rate, and your sleeping heart rate variability to
Speaker 1: let you know how prepped you are for your day.
Speaker 1: So if your scores a little low, it's going to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe today is not the best day
Speaker 1: to work out. Maybe take it as a recovery day.
Speaker 1: It also has automatic walking and running tracking. It's got
Speaker 1: heart rate alerts, so it will give you a real
Speaker 1: time notification if you have an unusual heart rate issue happening.
Speaker 3: And gesture controls.
Speaker 1: So if you have this ring on and you set
Speaker 1: your phone up on a tripod or you just have
Speaker 1: your phone in your hand for a selfie, you can
Speaker 1: pinch your two fingers together and that will take a photo.
Speaker 1: You could also pinch your two fingers together to dismiss
Speaker 1: the alarm on your smartphone, which I think is a
Speaker 1: very dangerous feature because I think people are going to
Speaker 1: be doing that a lot.
Speaker 3: Might want to.
Speaker 1: Disable that one. The Rain comes in three colors, silver, gold,
Speaker 1: and black. It is four hundred dollars. There are no
Speaker 1: subscription fees. That was a big rumor that Samsung was
Speaker 1: going to start charging subscription fees. That is not the case,
Speaker 1: so that into consideration again. All of these products from
Speaker 1: Samsung are available on July twenty fourth, And you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, I've been playing with them and I've
Speaker 1: been really impressed. I wore the Galaxy uh Buds three
Speaker 1: Pro all day on the plane yesterday. They sounded fantastic.
Speaker 1: They have two new Galaxy Buds Pro. They now have
Speaker 1: a stalk which before they come they almost look like
Speaker 1: beans before that you put in your ear. Now they
Speaker 1: look like, you know, very standard earbuds. So again that's
Speaker 1: kind of a wrap up on the Samsung stuff. You
Speaker 1: have any questions about it, give me a call. Eight
Speaker 1: eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Now to continue
Speaker 1: with the Samsung I know it's a lot coming up.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to some of the folks that
Speaker 1: were at the event with me to get their take
Speaker 1: on this stuff. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. We'll get back to the phone lines
Speaker 1: in just a moment, but first let's take you back
Speaker 1: to Paris for a deeper dive into Samsung's announcements. They
Speaker 1: showed off two new foldable phones, plus an ultra watch,
Speaker 1: earbuds and a smart ring. First up, I talked to
Speaker 1: Bob O'Donnell, President and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research. Bob
Speaker 1: shares his thoughts on Samsung's focus on digital health. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought the event was great.
Speaker 4: I mean doing it in Paris right before the Olympics,
Speaker 4: of course was exciting. It gave it an international feel
Speaker 4: and flair, and it's important for Samsung. I mean, Europe
Speaker 4: is their second largest market, so I think that was great. Obviously,
Speaker 4: do we end the louver made it even more exciting,
Speaker 4: So I thought that was great, you know, And then
Speaker 4: the big story for me is digital health. Like they
Speaker 4: really focused on digital health. Obviously, they added the ring,
Speaker 4: which is the big new edition. They added the Watch
Speaker 4: Ultra with fis looks just like Apple's Watch Ultra, but
Speaker 4: I wish they would have did a little bit different design.
Speaker 4: But anyway, it's still important to their whole digital whole
Speaker 4: hell story. And of course they focused on AI. But
Speaker 4: the interesting thing for me was, hey, it's censors from
Speaker 4: wearables with AI to do digital health, and that is
Speaker 4: I think a really interesting story and frankly it puts
Speaker 4: them ahead of everybody else because they're the only big
Speaker 4: company that's got that complete suite. You know of devices
Speaker 4: with the watch ring and of course the smartphone with
Speaker 4: the app that's it's combining all that data. So to me,
Speaker 4: that's the big takeaway from this show, and it was
Speaker 4: pretty exciting.
Speaker 3: In that regard.
Speaker 4: I've been a big foldable fan for a long time,
Speaker 4: and frankly, this year's iteration is a pretty modest upgrade
Speaker 4: compared to previous ones. But then I also have to remember,
Speaker 4: look for the mainstream audience, foldables are still kind of
Speaker 4: a new thing and we're really just starting to see
Speaker 4: it take off. And the fact that Samsung now has
Speaker 4: more competition from other vendors is actually making the foldable
Speaker 4: market one of the few areas of the smartphone market
Speaker 4: that's act growing because it as a small base to
Speaker 4: grow from, but it's a new and different form factor
Speaker 4: and a lot of people are excited by that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I think a couple of things are going to make
Speaker 4: that foldable purchases happen. Number one, of course, the price
Speaker 4: points are kind of high and that's a challenge for
Speaker 4: a lot of people. But as we start to see applications,
Speaker 4: and I think some of the AI applications that can
Speaker 4: leverage the foldable screen, like the interpreter application, those kinds
Speaker 4: of things that leverage those two screens that are foldable
Speaker 4: has and then combine that with AI. All of a sudden,
Speaker 4: there are things you can do with that phone that
Speaker 4: you cannot do with any other phone. It's not about
Speaker 4: just having a bigger screen.
Speaker 3: It's a completely.
Speaker 4: Different experience, and I think those kinds of things is
Speaker 4: what will trigger it. But look, at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, it's going to be a price point. Obviously
Speaker 4: we've seen some level of component price issues. That's always
Speaker 4: a factor. But I think Samsung also is trying to
Speaker 4: make clear that they've got a premium line of devices
Speaker 4: and prices are not quite as big of an issue
Speaker 4: for those premium phone buyers. So I think they're continuing
Speaker 4: to position the foldables there. The big question will be
Speaker 4: when will they go to a mainstream price point for
Speaker 4: those foldables, And we'll see maybe next.
Speaker 1: Year next I talked to Rebecca Isaac's consumer tech and
Speaker 1: electronics editor at Forbes Vetted.
Speaker 3: Rebecca gives us her.
Speaker 1: Take on the Galaxy Ring and its potential impact on
Speaker 1: the wearable tech market.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, the ring is really exciting. It's the
Speaker 5: person it's kind from Samsung. I mean, sure, we've seen
Speaker 5: products like the Aura Ring Gen three, and there are
Speaker 5: a few others out there, like Ring Kong produces the
Speaker 5: one that I'm aware of, but the first one from Samsung.
Speaker 5: It feels light to wear, It's really comfortable, It's made
Speaker 5: of a super durable titanium fild, and daring my hands
Speaker 5: on of it, it felt very sturdy, like it's not
Speaker 5: going to break, It's not going to slide off of
Speaker 5: my hand as I'm washing the dishes. I really like
Speaker 5: the battery life. That seven day battery like that it
Speaker 5: promises is really exciting because I don't know about you,
Speaker 5: but I'm always forgetting to charge my watch, very guilty
Speaker 5: of daki, but I'm really excited for it. It's gonna
Speaker 5: have some really great use cases for someone who maybe
Speaker 5: wants the smart technology but doesn't want to wear a
Speaker 5: bulky watch on their wrist.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: I love social media content creator Parker Burton. He makes
Speaker 1: Android focused content on TikTok and Instagram. He told me
Speaker 1: he appreciates the refinements in Samsung's latest foldables, but something
Speaker 1: has to give.
Speaker 3: For people to really want one.
Speaker 7: And at this event, I'm really excited for the refinements
Speaker 7: with the Z flip and.
Speaker 3: The Z fold.
Speaker 7: I love the flattened up edges and the matt rails
Speaker 7: and the map backs, heels a lot more premium than before.
Speaker 7: Also love the ring and how it's like now connecting
Speaker 7: with the watch, so you don't need a separate app
Speaker 7: for your ring and a separate app for your watch.
Speaker 7: They all connect together, which is great. And the earbuds
Speaker 7: a little bit interesting. It looks like some other earbut
Speaker 7: that we know. But I guess I'll try them out
Speaker 7: and see if they're good. I think once they introduce
Speaker 7: a lot more features that could be more compelling, Like
Speaker 7: I mean, they've showed us features like taking hands free selfies,
Speaker 7: which that can be compelling. But I think for people
Speaker 7: who aren't already fold or flip users, there's got to
Speaker 7: be something big that people are like, oh yeah, now
Speaker 7: I want it, which I don't know if we're there
Speaker 7: yet for some people. For some people, yes, for sure
Speaker 7: they love their folds and flips, but for others, I
Speaker 7: don't know what's gonna make them switch.
Speaker 3: But in the future we could get something come.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's probably people who want a folding phone,
Speaker 7: but just because of the price, they just like can't
Speaker 7: get it, and so if somehow the price goes down,
Speaker 7: then there's people that'll probably just snatch at it immediately.
Speaker 1: Next up at abung Ata also known as thunder E
Speaker 1: from Board at Work.
Speaker 8: And this impact was quite interesting because we saw some
Speaker 8: really new stuff, some upgrades, and honestly, I've got a
Speaker 8: little mixed feelings on it. I love the ring, I
Speaker 8: love the idea of the ring. I like when it's
Speaker 8: smart rings, the buds. I like the improvements I'm seeing there.
Speaker 8: The new Watch Ultra looks kind of similar, but I
Speaker 8: still love the fact there's a ton of features.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 8: When it comes to the Galaxy Z Flip six Z
Speaker 8: Fold six as well, I kind of I'm leaning towards
Speaker 8: the Flip six. I think there's more upgrades on that device.
Speaker 8: The fifty megapixel, new sensor, the new ultra, why you know,
Speaker 8: just a little accents on the design look really nice.
Speaker 8: The fold is thinner and lighter, but I'm gonna lean
Speaker 8: to the Flip six overall. I think this is pretty
Speaker 8: good on the health department from Samsong. When it comes
Speaker 8: to the phones, we just have to wait and see.
Speaker 8: As an Android used, I like the flexibility that Android brings,
Speaker 8: and Samsung, as the market leader, does bring a lot
Speaker 8: of features in a more polished fashion. Plus they have
Speaker 8: honestly the best camera on an Android device. And I've
Speaker 8: been using the Galaxy Notes since the very first note,
Speaker 8: So for me, the S twenty four Ultra makes sense.
Speaker 8: I write a lot of notes. I still try and
Speaker 8: write something or else, you know, I'll forget how to
Speaker 8: write anything at all, So I love it for that feature.
Speaker 1: Finally, lance Yulenov, Editor at large at tech Radar, He's
Speaker 1: particularly impressed with Samsung's progress in creating a cohesive ecosystem
Speaker 1: of devices.
Speaker 9: So I think, you know, the ring is really the
Speaker 9: hot thing to me because it follows the trend of
Speaker 9: you know, lower impact or you don't have to have
Speaker 9: a screen where you can go to bed with the
Speaker 9: tracking device because we really don't want to sleep with
Speaker 9: our watches, you know, because if we look at that
Speaker 9: Samsung Galaxy Watch Aultra, that thing is a beef thing.
Speaker 9: I'm not going to sleep with that. But the ring
Speaker 9: I'll sleep with. Then seven days of battery life. That's
Speaker 9: kind of exciting.
Speaker 2: I like the new.
Speaker 9: Help you know technology, They've got the AI stuff that's
Speaker 9: built into it. I also like that Samsung is starting
Speaker 9: to really deliver on the ecosystem idea either getting closer
Speaker 9: to doing that thing that's going to excite people about
Speaker 9: owning a whole bunch of Samsung devices. ICE is going
Speaker 9: to be a big leason. Guess what, the Samsung Galaxy
Speaker 9: D fault six just got one hundred dollars more expensive.
Speaker 2: I'm honestly really.
Speaker 9: Success, you know, surprised about that.
Speaker 10: I do like the device.
Speaker 9: I think the design is really good.
Speaker 2: I like that then, or I like that it's lighter.
Speaker 9: They did not really upgrade the cameras to what I wanted,
Speaker 9: So I'm not really sure why I'm going to spend
Speaker 9: one hundred dollars more.
Speaker 2: If they want to expand the.
Speaker 9: Market, they've got to make these things cheaper.
Speaker 3: Well, it's good.
Speaker 9: That's a race of AI, right, So we have, you know,
Speaker 9: the Galaxy AI versus Apple Intelligence, and Samsung seems like
Speaker 9: maybe they're going to deliver some of these features sooner
Speaker 9: than what Apple's capable of. Some of our Apple Intelligence
Speaker 9: features again puts to twenty twenty five, so maybe Samsung
Speaker 9: gets a lead there. But it's really about how many
Speaker 9: people are using these things. Will they use them on
Speaker 9: the Samsung Galaxy devices? And that depends on how easy
Speaker 9: they are to find and how effective they are every
Speaker 9: time they use them.
Speaker 1: Samsung has always been on the cutting edge with new features,
Speaker 1: new products, and just overall putting a lot out there.
Speaker 1: Apple might be considered the more premium ecosystem, but Samsung
Speaker 1: continues to push the envelope and deliver new ideas, sometimes
Speaker 1: years before the competition. Keep in mind, these foldables have
Speaker 1: been around now for five years and they just seem
Speaker 1: to be getting started. I'm rich Demiro more rich on
Speaker 1: Tech right after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple A Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one. I know you're
Speaker 1: anxious for me to get to the phone lines. I
Speaker 1: had a lot to get through with the Samsung stuff.
Speaker 1: Hopefully that explained a lot of it, and you have
Speaker 1: a better understanding of all the products that they have
Speaker 1: put out and the website for the show rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot TV. I've got everything that I mentioned written
Speaker 1: up in today's newsletter, So just go to the website
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot tv UH. You can find the
Speaker 1: newsletter there and if you want to read more about
Speaker 1: the Samsung stuff, it is all there. Let's go to
Speaker 1: Sally in Los Angeles. Sally, you're on.
Speaker 3: With Rich.
Speaker 11: Hi.
Speaker 10: Hi. So my question is I'm traveling to China in
Speaker 10: a few weeks and I know there's a lot of
Speaker 10: apps or website or band in China that we can
Speaker 10: use here in the US. So I'm trying to figure
Speaker 10: out what is the best Do I purchase at ethan,
Speaker 10: do I get a VPN? What is the best way
Speaker 10: so that I can still use all the apps that
Speaker 10: I can use here?
Speaker 3: There good question.
Speaker 1: So if you are using your cellular service that you
Speaker 1: have here, pretty much everything is going to work as normal.
Speaker 1: So that it's weird because when I was last over there,
Speaker 1: there were things that if I was on my cellular
Speaker 1: everything would work just fine. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's because it's an American cellular company or what, but
Speaker 1: in general things worked pretty well. So I was able
Speaker 1: to access a lot of the stuff that you typically
Speaker 1: you can't there. Now if you're not if you're not
Speaker 1: using your own cellular, like if you are going to
Speaker 1: get like an eSIM, that's for China, then yes, you'll
Speaker 1: probably need to use like a VPN to access things
Speaker 1: like Twitter, to access Google, to access Facebook. I mean
Speaker 1: pretty much everything over there is banned. So what are
Speaker 1: you going for? Is it work or fun?
Speaker 10: Or what for fun?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm going for a couple.
Speaker 1: Of weeks, Okay, So yeah, so it might be just
Speaker 1: mostly social media that you're going to be impacted, obviously, Google,
Speaker 1: Google Maps, things like that. It's been a while since
Speaker 1: I was at in China, so it's I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 1: Like the last time I was there, I felt I
Speaker 1: felt like everything pretty much worked as long as I
Speaker 1: was on my cellular. But if I wasn't on cellular,
Speaker 1: like if I was on the work or the hotel
Speaker 1: Wi Fi, that's when things stopped working. So I personally,
Speaker 1: just to prepare, would get the VPN, and that way,
Speaker 1: when you're over there in China, you would log onto
Speaker 1: the VPN and you would choose a US server as
Speaker 1: your host on that VPN. So if you want to
Speaker 1: look at, you know, some of the recommended VPNs, I've
Speaker 1: got I've got an article that you can you can
Speaker 1: google just Ktla DeMuro VPN and uh.
Speaker 3: The article is.
Speaker 1: It says, do you do you need a VPN, here's
Speaker 1: what the experts recommend, and there's some recommendations for what
Speaker 1: you should look for in a VPN, So you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's probably what I would do, just to be
Speaker 1: sure and make sure that your VPN is working before
Speaker 1: you go over there. And then for e SIM I
Speaker 1: like arlow A I R A l O. You've probably
Speaker 1: heard me talk about them on the show. Let me
Speaker 1: check if they have one for China. Let's see if
Speaker 1: they have a VPN for China or sorry, a.
Speaker 10: SIM China for a low because I'm going to China
Speaker 10: and after China, I'm going to Japan. Uh, what they
Speaker 10: have when an ethan that will work in both countries
Speaker 10: or in China is a very.
Speaker 1: Specific sometimes they do. So there are regions, so if
Speaker 1: you type in China, it will give you all of
Speaker 1: the all of the SIMS that will work there. So
Speaker 1: I think China is kind of its own thing. So
Speaker 1: I'm looking on the website and it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: they have a regional one. So and Japan, by the way,
Speaker 1: is a little tricky with eSIMs. So when I was there,
Speaker 1: do you have an iPhone or an Android, Okay, you
Speaker 1: should be fine because on Android specifically, pixels in Japan
Speaker 1: with the eSIMs do not like to work. And it
Speaker 1: was driving me nuts the last time I was there
Speaker 1: because I all, you know, typically I travel with an
Speaker 1: Android in an iPhone and my iPhone I fired up
Speaker 1: the eSIM, no problem. Then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: get to the pixel and it's like it's just not working,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what is the problem here? And then
Speaker 1: I finally cross reference talked to a couple of friends
Speaker 1: and they said, yeah, for some reason, the pixel specifically
Speaker 1: just has it or did have an issue with this
Speaker 1: with this Aralow sim. If you look on the sim,
Speaker 1: if you and read the terms on the sim card,
Speaker 1: it will tell you that certain devices do not work
Speaker 1: with that sim. So for my purposes, the pixel was
Speaker 1: one of those devices. It just did not work on there. So,
Speaker 1: but it's gotten a lot easier. You can buy all
Speaker 1: these things before you go, so that you're ready to go.
Speaker 1: You're all set up. What service do you have on
Speaker 1: your cellular? Is it AT and T, Verizon, T Mobile,
Speaker 1: AT and T Okay, so with AT and T, depending
Speaker 1: on the plan you're on, I would call them and
Speaker 1: see if you have any like what your data passes,
Speaker 1: because sometimes you know, if you're only there for a
Speaker 1: week or so, it might you might get a couple
Speaker 1: of free days on their on their roaming.
Speaker 3: So call AT and T. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So on my last trip to Paris on my account,
Speaker 1: I had twelve days of free roaming.
Speaker 3: So it depends on your play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so call The first thing to do is call
Speaker 1: AT and T say hey, do I have any international
Speaker 1: days included in my plan? And they will look that
Speaker 1: up and say, oh, yeah, you've got five days free,
Speaker 1: so you know, you know that you've got Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that's that's good to know.
Speaker 10: So as long as I let's let's just say I
Speaker 10: I call AT and T let them know I'm traveling,
Speaker 10: and I stay on my cellular plan while I'm in China,
Speaker 10: everything should work.
Speaker 3: It should.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just you know, I'm telling you from
Speaker 1: my memory of when I was on my US you
Speaker 1: know SIM, when I was just roaming. It seemed to
Speaker 1: work because I don't know if they have like you know,
Speaker 1: because you're on an American SIM card. It's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well you're an American, you have access to these things.
Speaker 1: But I you know, okay, but I'd be prepared just
Speaker 1: for the you know, for the for the reality of
Speaker 1: the VPN, but in general, you know, and things have
Speaker 1: it might have changed over there. I'm not really sure,
Speaker 1: but you know, in general, be prepared with the VPNs
Speaker 1: that you have connections no matter what, and that you
Speaker 1: can access to things that are important to you once
Speaker 1: you're over there.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a little bit of a.
Speaker 10: It's a vp in like a pretty easy like do
Speaker 10: I just turn it on while I'm there and then instead?
Speaker 10: Do I need to do any settings on my iPhone
Speaker 10: in order for the VPN to work.
Speaker 1: No, but you you know, you have to set it up,
Speaker 1: set up everything here so that when you get there
Speaker 1: you just have to toggle it on. And so it's
Speaker 1: very Most of the VPNs are very very simple to use.
Speaker 1: Once you install it on your phone, it will say hey,
Speaker 1: can we install a VPN profile? You install that VPN profile,
Speaker 1: and then some apps will say, hey, do you want
Speaker 1: us to be on all the time. I don't recommend that,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's a way to toggle on inside
Speaker 1: the app. Usually I have like a big power button
Speaker 1: looking thing you press that you'll see VPN in the
Speaker 1: upper right hand corner of your phone.
Speaker 3: You know you're.
Speaker 1: Connected to the VPN, and then you know you can
Speaker 1: you can go on as normal. But again I would
Speaker 1: set this all up here so that you kind of
Speaker 1: have an idea you could try the VPN out here. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so try all this stuff here and get familiar
Speaker 1: with it before you get there. And again the first
Speaker 1: stop is to call your cellular company and just see
Speaker 1: what they say about roaming in China, to say, hey,
Speaker 1: do I have any days included? Don't make the mistake
Speaker 1: I did of leaving my dry box on because I
Speaker 1: racked up an eight hundred dollars bill because it tried
Speaker 1: to upload all of my photos in the background.
Speaker 3: So that's another thing. When you're traveling internationally.
Speaker 1: If you have any sort of backup running on your phone,
Speaker 1: like a photos program like Amazon Photos or Google Photos
Speaker 1: or iCloud, make sure that cellular is turned off for
Speaker 1: that sinking, because you do not want it sinking over cellular.
Speaker 1: Make sure you have it turned on where it's just
Speaker 1: backing up over Wi Fi. Very important, or you're gonna
Speaker 1: run through all your data or get a huge bill.
Speaker 1: Eight to eight rich one on one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two poor one zero one. Coming up,
Speaker 1: I'll talk about the AT and T data breach how
Speaker 1: it might affect you. Welcome back to rich on tech
Speaker 1: eight to eight rich one oh one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one. The website rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot TV. If you want links to anything
Speaker 1: I mentioned, hit the light bulb. If you want to
Speaker 1: prouse the stories I do for TV, they are there.
Speaker 1: Also my newsletter. Be sure to sign up for that
Speaker 1: and you can get that delivered to your inbox every week.
Speaker 1: It includes a lot of great information, just like I
Speaker 1: share on this show Richontech dot TV. This week, AT
Speaker 1: and T revealed another massive data breach affecting millions of customers.
Speaker 1: AT and T is in the process of notifying about
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten million customers about this new data breach.
Speaker 1: The stolen data includes phone numbers and call and text
Speaker 1: records from May one, twenty twenty two, to October thirty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Some data from January twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: was also compromised. This affects both cellular and landline customers,
Speaker 1: including those who used another carrier on AT and t's network.
Speaker 1: Like a cricket so what did they get metadata such
Speaker 1: as who you called, who you texted, and how long
Speaker 1: you talk to them for. Some of the records also
Speaker 1: include cell site identification numbers, which might be able to
Speaker 1: be used to reveal your approximate locations of where you
Speaker 1: made those calls.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 1: AT and T says they learned of the data breach
Speaker 1: on April nineteenth, twenty twenty four. They say that the
Speaker 1: stolen data does not contain the contents of calls or
Speaker 1: the contents of the texts. This is the second security
Speaker 1: incident for AT and T in twenty twenty four. They
Speaker 1: had that passcode reset earlier in the year. So AT
Speaker 1: and T says the stolen data is not currently publicly available,
Speaker 1: which means you can't search through it. Lots of thoughts
Speaker 1: on this number one. You just have to assume that
Speaker 1: your data is going to be out there at some point,
Speaker 1: because we are entering a world where it's not a
Speaker 1: matter of who might get breached, it's a matter of when. Also,
Speaker 1: you got to be careful about the information that you share.
Speaker 1: I've been watching the documentary on Netflix, the Ashley Madison
Speaker 1: data breach. That was just devastating to people. Not defending
Speaker 1: what Ashley Madison was doing. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: thirty seven million people that kind of data out there.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal, and this is just going
Speaker 1: to continue to happen. It's just going to continue to happen.
Speaker 1: Now you can check to see if your data was
Speaker 1: included in this. AT and T set up a special website.
Speaker 1: You can go to AT and T dot com slash event,
Speaker 1: slash lander, l A n d Er and I checked
Speaker 1: my account. I got a big green check. Marcus as
Speaker 1: accounts not affected. Bobo checked his account and it says
Speaker 1: sure enough, account affected. So you can go to this
Speaker 1: website ATT dot com slash event slash lander to see
Speaker 1: if your data was involved in this breach.
Speaker 3: It's the good news is here.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like they got names, addresses, social Security numbers,
Speaker 1: credit card information. Doesn't sound like they got that. But
Speaker 1: they did get a lot of call data. So theoretically,
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, looking to the most nefarious purpose
Speaker 1: of this. Someone could theoretically set up a database if
Speaker 1: this data gets out where you'd be able to search
Speaker 1: and see if someone you know called a phone number
Speaker 1: that you also know. So that's just one way and
Speaker 1: just on this same note. While we're here surf Shark,
Speaker 1: this is a VPN company. They introduced a new feature
Speaker 1: called alternative Number. So this is a new tool to
Speaker 1: protect your real phone number from online threats and spam.
Speaker 1: They basically will give you a virtual US based phone
Speaker 1: number that you can access through the app. You can
Speaker 1: receive phone calls, you can receive messages, and you can
Speaker 1: reply to messages with this alternative phone number. And the
Speaker 1: whole purpose here is to help you safeguard your real
Speaker 1: phone number from strangers, spam, and untrusted websites. You cannot
Speaker 1: use this phone number to make outgoing calls or to
Speaker 1: initiate messages. It's just for incoming and to reply. So
Speaker 1: why would you want this, Well, you can use it
Speaker 1: in place of your real phone number anywhere where you
Speaker 1: don't think your real phone number is necessary. So maybe
Speaker 1: you're signing up for a club card at a grocery store,
Speaker 1: or you're just signing up for you know, online sweepsteakes, whatever,
Speaker 1: you can use this phone number. So right now, it
Speaker 1: only works with US phone numbers. It's anywhere from three
Speaker 1: to five dollars a month. And I'm telling you this
Speaker 1: idea of using a secondary phone number.
Speaker 3: I do it.
Speaker 1: I use my Google Voice number when I sign up
Speaker 1: for almost anything as sort of a buffer between me
Speaker 1: and all of these data breaches. Because your real phone
Speaker 1: number is valuable, It's linked to a lot of things,
Speaker 1: and I think people are just understanding that if they
Speaker 1: want to protect their privacy, they have to start giving
Speaker 1: out information that is much much less linked to their
Speaker 1: real identity. Let's go to Dory in Westlake Village, California. Dory,
Speaker 1: what's your question?
Speaker 10: Yes, I thank you for taking my call. My question
Speaker 10: may be a little funny.
Speaker 12: That Samsung ring you were talking about? Can you wear
Speaker 12: it on your toe?
Speaker 3: Oh? Like a toe ring? Interesting question that those rings
Speaker 3: really down match with the rings I always wear in
Speaker 3: my hand.
Speaker 12: But I love the idea of that ring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question, and I totally get it
Speaker 1: because you know, not everyone would match with these things.
Speaker 3: Let's see.
Speaker 1: So I don't have the information from Samsung specifically, but Aura,
Speaker 1: who makes a smart ring. They replied in a tweet
Speaker 1: to someone that asked about this exact same question, and
Speaker 1: they said, we do not recommend wearing the ring on
Speaker 1: a toe because the toe differs from the fingers in
Speaker 1: the pulse signal it gives, so the readings are going
Speaker 1: to differ and they're not going to be as accurate
Speaker 1: as fingers. So bottom line, you probably could wear it
Speaker 1: as a toe ring. You're not going to get the
Speaker 1: right readings. But you know, I just don't think the
Speaker 1: blood flow to the toe is as pronounced as it
Speaker 1: is to your fingers, because that's an extremity. And Bobo's
Speaker 1: just walking out. He's done, This show is over for him.
Speaker 1: Like that question, I thought it was as a it's
Speaker 1: a look, toe rings are a thing. In fact, we
Speaker 1: were joking at the Samsung event that they might come
Speaker 1: out with the nose ring.
Speaker 3: That's a smart nose ring. Why not smart ring?
Speaker 13: But the reason is because it doesn't match the jury
Speaker 13: that she already wears.
Speaker 1: Well, look, people are particular. When we were looking at
Speaker 1: the rings, they have him in three colors. They've got black, silver,
Speaker 1: and gold, And because my wedding ring is silver, I
Speaker 1: was I like the black the most. It looks the best.
Speaker 1: It's like a nice matte black. But to me it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd have to go silver because it matches my ring. Look,
Speaker 1: people want to match. You gotta Bobo, your your hat
Speaker 1: is matching your shirt? I noticed, are your sneakers matching
Speaker 1: everything too? What you don't know about Bobo? Yes, he's
Speaker 1: a sneaker head and he comes in here every week
Speaker 1: with fully matching clothes. His shirt matches, his hat matches
Speaker 1: his sneakers. And yeah, if I wear my crocs here,
Speaker 1: they only match, you know, my cross.
Speaker 3: All right, let's go to Mark and Woodland Hills. Mark,
Speaker 3: you're on with Writch.
Speaker 6: Yes, good afternoon. My problem is is that a lot
Speaker 6: of the subsidies were dropped for telephone, and I only
Speaker 6: had bundled already landline and internet service. Now the landline
Speaker 6: prices are just going out of the roof costs wise.
Speaker 6: But I also recall when I used to have consumer cellular,
Speaker 6: they had a base unit that was that ran on wife.
Speaker 6: I believe it was or a cellular service. But there's
Speaker 6: something similar I'm interested in. It's called Umama, and what
Speaker 6: apparently what it does is it uses your internet and
Speaker 6: I can have all my cordless phones all over the house,
Speaker 6: so I don't have to run around to get to
Speaker 6: one of them. And I was wondering if you had
Speaker 6: that or any other alternatives. I've seen all the videos
Speaker 6: on YouTube, but you never know what hucksterism is and
Speaker 6: what's right, So I thought i'd run it by you.
Speaker 6: You're the expert.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. UMA is fantastic. It's been around forever. It works,
Speaker 1: it does what it says. You buy the unit. The
Speaker 1: way it works, you plug the unit into your Internet
Speaker 1: and they also actually have a Wi Fi unit at
Speaker 1: this point, so you don't even need to plug it
Speaker 1: into a physical ethernet jack, although I probably would recommend
Speaker 1: that just for the best signal. But you plug that in.
Speaker 1: It's a little box and that box takes that Internet
Speaker 1: signal and gives you a phone line. So it's using
Speaker 1: voiceover IP, which you know, most of the cellular services
Speaker 1: and all of the voice services, almost all of them
Speaker 1: now are using voiceover IP. You know, the landlines, you know,
Speaker 1: the physical copper cables may not be, but everything else.
Speaker 1: If you're getting a line from Spectrum, if you're getting
Speaker 1: a line from your cable company, it's all using voiceover IP.
Speaker 3: So UMA.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about the way they work is that
Speaker 1: you basically buy the device for anywhere from seventy to
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars and then the phone service is free.
Speaker 1: You just have to pay the monthly taxes and fees
Speaker 1: and you can put your phone number or your zip
Speaker 1: code in online and it will tell you how much
Speaker 1: the taxes and fees are. For where I live, It's
Speaker 1: under ten dollars a month, so highly recommend it. It
Speaker 1: will work with your phones. The other thing to look
Speaker 1: at is called magic Jack.
Speaker 12: This.
Speaker 1: When I first covered this, I was working at c
Speaker 1: Net decade probably over a decade ago, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it, Like it's just like I couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: you can get something that turned Internet into a phone line.
Speaker 1: And of course now it's very common, but this would
Speaker 1: solve your problems if you want a home phone service
Speaker 1: that does not cost as much as getting something from
Speaker 1: the cable company. So again, UMA isom A. Like I said,
Speaker 1: they've been around forever. I personally tested them. I had
Speaker 1: it in my house for a very long time, and
Speaker 1: it does exactly what it says it does. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a virtual phone number that basically lets you plug
Speaker 1: in a real phone, so you can go to Walmart,
Speaker 1: you can buy a cordless phone like the old school phones.
Speaker 1: And that little jack, I forget what it's called, like
Speaker 1: the RJ oh gosh, what's a phone jack RJ something
Speaker 1: r J eleven is that it You plug that in
Speaker 1: to the back of this Uma and now you have
Speaker 1: a real phone line that is all going through the Internet.
Speaker 1: So the other one, like I said, magic Jack Vonage
Speaker 1: used to be the third. It does not look like
Speaker 1: they do a consumer product anymore. So those are the
Speaker 1: two I go with Mark, markn Widlin Hills, Thanks for
Speaker 1: the call. Definitely to go for it all right. Eighty
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one oh one more tip wait
Speaker 1: until Amazon Prime Day because the Uma is sold on
Speaker 1: Amazon and it might be on sale on Amazon Prime Day.
Speaker 3: You've got a couple of days to wait.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one more rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: come in your way right after this. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: talking technology. The phone line for the show eight eight
Speaker 1: eight rich one one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. I know you got a
Speaker 1: burning question about technology, something on your mind. Give me
Speaker 1: a call. The phone line is free, the call is
Speaker 1: toll free. The answer is uh, you know who knows.
Speaker 1: It may not be worth as much may be worth
Speaker 1: the price of the phone call. Who knows you never know?
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight Rich one on one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. The website
Speaker 1: for the show rich on tech dot TV. The more
Speaker 1: you call, the more you keep our lovely call screener
Speaker 1: Kim Company. Uh, dark patterns? Are you familiar with what
Speaker 1: a dark pattern is? This is pretty much a manipulative,
Speaker 1: manipulative design. And we see this all the time. I
Speaker 1: see this all the time.
Speaker 3: Every day.
Speaker 1: I download a lot of apps, I sign up for
Speaker 1: a lot of websites, and I notice these dark patterns
Speaker 1: almost every single time. And they're just and the FTC
Speaker 1: they support my thoughts that this is happening a lot.
Speaker 1: So Actually, the FTC teamed up with a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of international partners to study six hundred and forty two
Speaker 1: websites and mobile apps offering subscription services and guess what.
Speaker 1: Nearly seventy six percent of them employed at least one
Speaker 1: possible dark pattern. Sixty seven percent used multiple dark patterns. Now,
Speaker 1: what's a dark pattern? It's something that makes you do
Speaker 1: something that you wouldn't normally do if you had all
Speaker 1: the information at your disposal. Let me explain the most
Speaker 1: common dark pattern. You are signing up for, or you
Speaker 1: download a new app and it says that screen where
Speaker 1: it says, hey, would you like to sign up for
Speaker 1: a free trial or a subscription, and you don't really
Speaker 1: want to, You just want to try out the app,
Speaker 1: but you can't seem to get past that page. But
Speaker 1: if you look very closely, there's a very faint X
Speaker 1: in the corner that you don't see when you first
Speaker 1: look at that window, and so you think that you
Speaker 1: have to either sign up up for a free trial
Speaker 1: or sign up for a subscription to actually even just
Speaker 1: try out the use of that app.
Speaker 3: But in reality, you can.
Speaker 1: Click that little X and deal with that later and
Speaker 1: try the app and see what happens before you sign
Speaker 1: up for anything. That is one dark pattern, and that's
Speaker 1: the most common I see. So if you're ever signing
Speaker 1: up for an app, and believe me, the reason I
Speaker 1: know this is because I try a lot of apps
Speaker 1: and I feature them on TV and of course here
Speaker 1: on the radio, and people will email me invariably and
Speaker 1: be like, Rich, I can't believe you're promoting an app
Speaker 1: that you can only you know you have to sign
Speaker 1: up for it and I said, oh, no, you missed
Speaker 1: the dark pattern. They had a little X that you
Speaker 1: missed during that sign up flow. This happens a lot,
Speaker 1: so the two patterns, and I didn't know they had
Speaker 1: a term for this. The most that they encountered was
Speaker 1: called sneaking practices. This involves hiding or delaying the disclosure
Speaker 1: of information that might affect your purchase decision. That's the
Speaker 1: one I just talked about. And then interface interference. This
Speaker 1: is obscuring important information or pre selecting options in a
Speaker 1: frame that steers you towards making a decision that's more
Speaker 1: favorable for the business. So if you're just clicking through
Speaker 1: all the next, next, next, next, next, next, next, all
Speaker 1: the stuff that's pre selected benefits the company. And I
Speaker 1: see this a lot when I'm setting up new phones.
Speaker 1: Every single new phone and almost every single tech device
Speaker 1: that I set up has an option that says, do
Speaker 1: you want us to send diagnostic data back to the
Speaker 1: company about how you use this product?
Speaker 3: Now, you don't need to do that.
Speaker 1: You don't need to be their little, you know, feedback
Speaker 1: response person for this stuff. Like you paid for this product,
Speaker 1: you you know, should get to use it without having
Speaker 1: to send back exactly how you're using this product. iPhone
Speaker 1: does it, Android does it, Samsung does it?
Speaker 3: They all do that.
Speaker 1: You I always unclick that box because why should I
Speaker 1: send you all this rich data about how I'm using
Speaker 1: this phone? Now, By the way, what are they collecting everything? Everything,
Speaker 1: how you swipe, the time you turn your phone on,
Speaker 1: the time you turn your phone off, when you use
Speaker 1: your phone, when you're not using your phone, how many
Speaker 1: apps you download. Everything's being collected if you're sending back
Speaker 1: that diagnostic data. And of course that box is checked
Speaker 1: by default. In fact, here's another dark pattern. When you're
Speaker 1: setting up a product, it will say accept all. And
Speaker 1: when you press accept all, you think that you have
Speaker 1: to tap yes to all these different things.
Speaker 3: You do not.
Speaker 1: If you tap them individually, you'd notice only the first
Speaker 1: two are required. The rest are optional. So be very
Speaker 1: careful when you download stuff and sign up for stuff,
Speaker 1: because you are bombarded with these dark patterns and they.
Speaker 3: Trip people up. Seventy six percent of sites have them.
Speaker 3: That's wild.
Speaker 1: Xbox raising Xbox game Pass prices. So if your kid
Speaker 1: uses this like mine does, Yeah, typically this was seventeen
Speaker 1: bucks a month. Now it's going up to twenty dollars
Speaker 1: a month for the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Now the
Speaker 1: PC Game Pass they're raising that from that's going up
Speaker 1: to twelve dollars a month previously ten. Now the nice
Speaker 1: thing they're doing is introducing a new tier that's cheaper
Speaker 1: than all of these tiers at fifteen dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And this is called Xbox Game Pass Standard. But what
Speaker 1: are they doing. They're taking away your access to day
Speaker 1: one first party games. What does that mean. The news
Speaker 1: here is that everyone was so excited that the brand
Speaker 1: new Call of Duty was going to be available on
Speaker 1: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and everyone was chatting when they
Speaker 1: heard about this. They were tweeting saying, oh, Microsoft is
Speaker 1: so great because they're giving us access to this game
Speaker 1: on this service without raising prices. Well, they did a
Speaker 1: dark pattern. They announced the exciting news a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago that Call of Duty would be available, but
Speaker 1: they held back the price increase until a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks later. And so now you get I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just these companies are wild and look, this is just
Speaker 1: the way of the world, folks. We are just paying
Speaker 1: and paying and paying and paying more. Like I say,
Speaker 1: the free ride is over. Those price increases start on
Speaker 1: September twelfth. Eight of eight Rich one O one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 3: It's not all bad.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the free service that Google is making
Speaker 1: available to everyone.
Speaker 3: Coming up.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on tech. Rich Demiro here talking
Speaker 1: technology at eight eight eight rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: I see a holding on the lines. We'll get back
Speaker 1: to those in just a moment. But first, let's talk
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Day tenth and well, i'd say annual, but
Speaker 1: they now do it a couple times a year. But
Speaker 1: this is their tenth Prime Day event. It's happening July
Speaker 1: sixteenth and seventeenth. Of course, they're promising millions of deals,
Speaker 1: over five million deals available for Prime members. Remember you
Speaker 1: have to be a Prime member to take advantage UH
Speaker 1: savings on all kinds of stuff. To talk about this,
Speaker 1: I spoke with Deal's expert Trey Bodge. She had some
Speaker 1: great tips on how to maximize your savings. Prime Day obviously,
Speaker 1: it seems to be happening every year, sometimes twice a year.
Speaker 1: Why does Amazon do Prime Day?
Speaker 14: Well, Amazon does Prime Day in an effort to create
Speaker 14: their own shopping holiday.
Speaker 2: July.
Speaker 14: Up until ten years ago, in the first Prime Day,
Speaker 14: July was kind of a sleepy time except for the
Speaker 14: July fourth weekend sales. But now, as you see, there's
Speaker 14: so much going on with Amazon Prime Day, and then
Speaker 14: we have Target Circle Week and Walmart Deals Week, and
Speaker 14: the list goes on and on. So Amazon has essentially
Speaker 14: created their own shopping season, and then they do it
Speaker 14: again in October, kicking off the holiday shopping season very early,
Speaker 14: so they're controlling the game here.
Speaker 1: So what do you think are some of the best
Speaker 1: strategies for finding deals during Prime Day?
Speaker 14: So because we're seeing so many competitive deals around Prime Day,
Speaker 14: I would make sure to look around. You want to
Speaker 14: use tools like Yahoo Shopping or Google Shopping to search
Speaker 14: for the items that you're looking for. Get a sense
Speaker 14: of the landscape of where those items are sold in
Speaker 14: for how much the best deal may be on Amazon
Speaker 14: or it may be elsewhere, so it's always worth taking
Speaker 14: a moment to do that. You also want to pair
Speaker 14: that with using a deal site because often deal sites
Speaker 14: have cash back offers that can be combined with retailer sales.
Speaker 14: So one of my favorites is couponcabin dot com. They
Speaker 14: have cash back offers in the four to eight percent
Speaker 14: off range, and then sometimes they may have coupons that
Speaker 14: can be kind of layered on top of the coupons
Speaker 14: that retailers are offering. So I think that's a really
Speaker 14: good thing to do as well. And then during this
Speaker 14: busy time, you just want to make sure to keep
Speaker 14: an eye on your shopping list and avoid impulse shopping
Speaker 14: because there's so much activity.
Speaker 2: You certainly don't want to be kind.
Speaker 14: Of going willy nilly and buying all sorts of things
Speaker 14: that you might rec Brett later.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the other retailers, So this this event sort
Speaker 1: of has like a halo effect where like Target gets
Speaker 1: in on it and Walmart gets in on it. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about that a little bit? Like you know,
Speaker 1: if the price is a good price at Amazon, will
Speaker 1: be the same price at Target.
Speaker 14: Per se it may be or it may be better,
Speaker 14: or it may not be as good. So it's really
Speaker 14: important to look around now. If you are planning to
Speaker 14: shop on Amazon Prime Day, you will find millions of
Speaker 14: deals across thirty five categories and Amazon specifically. A good
Speaker 14: tool to use is Camel Camel camel or their app
Speaker 14: is called the Camelizer. I believe that's a good place
Speaker 14: to get a sense of what the prices are. What
Speaker 14: the prices were, you can set price alerts there and
Speaker 14: then pair that with the other efforts that you're making
Speaker 14: on Amazon to look for sales like they have. You know,
Speaker 14: you can set up wish lists and look for discounts
Speaker 14: on their app. And so there are lots of ways
Speaker 14: to save around Amazon Prime Day.
Speaker 1: What do you think some of the biggest categories are
Speaker 1: that people should be looking at shopping for.
Speaker 14: So on Amazon Prime Day, we've become accustomed to deals
Speaker 14: from Amazon's proprietary brands, and so your kindle, your fire,
Speaker 14: your ring, all of those items will be deeply discounted.
Speaker 2: You'll see lots of bundling.
Speaker 14: So maybe you can get a couple of echoes, for example,
Speaker 14: or you can get a fireTV and a fireTV stick
Speaker 14: or things like that. So I would look for those
Speaker 14: bundles to take advantage of. You do have to be
Speaker 14: an Amazon Prime member in order to enjoy these deals,
Speaker 14: So as you're shopping, look for those Amazon branded items,
Speaker 14: but then also look at other brands. We will see
Speaker 14: lots of deals on especially on small home appliances like
Speaker 14: your robotic vacuum or your air fryer. Things like that
Speaker 14: will be discounted from multiple brands. So while you're within
Speaker 14: the Amazon ecosystem, make sure to shop around and look
Speaker 14: at different brands, read the reviews, and then you're making
Speaker 14: a smart decision.
Speaker 2: You're ready to click buy.
Speaker 1: How does Prime Day compare to something like a Cyber
Speaker 1: Monday or a Black Friday.
Speaker 14: It depends, and so you know, it depends on how
Speaker 14: competitive the landscape is. Amazon tends to discount aggressively in
Speaker 14: both places. You know, I think around Black Friday Cyber Monday,
Speaker 14: you can sometimes expect deeper discounts because retailers are kind
Speaker 14: of entering the finish line for their annual sales, and
Speaker 14: so if they're having a great year, they may pull
Speaker 14: back on the discounts. If they're not having a great year,
Speaker 14: those discounts will be deeper. So it really depends on
Speaker 14: what's going on in the in the climate at the moment.
Speaker 14: Make a list of the things that you need, and
Speaker 14: make a list of the things that you use regularly.
Speaker 2: Because that's an interesting point.
Speaker 14: On Amazon Prime Day, sometimes they get kind of a
Speaker 14: bad rap because you can find discounts on paper towels,
Speaker 14: but frankly, we all use paper towels, and so there's
Speaker 14: nothing wrong with saving on those paper towels on Amazon
Speaker 14: Prime Day. So I do like to have a list
Speaker 14: of sort of those aspirational itea that I'm looking for
Speaker 14: deals on, and then my regular go to grooming products
Speaker 14: and paper products, because if I can save on Amazon
Speaker 14: Prime Day, why wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I any other tools or tips or tricks that you
Speaker 1: want to share that I haven't asked about.
Speaker 14: Yeah, so Amazon has a bunch of different ways that
Speaker 14: you can save, and so I do think utilizing the
Speaker 14: Amazon app on Amazon Prime Day is a good idea
Speaker 14: because there are a few more features on the app
Speaker 14: that you can use to be alerted to available sales
Speaker 14: on the items that you've added to your lists. For example,
Speaker 14: you can use Alexa to let you know if something
Speaker 14: that you want is on sale. And then I would
Speaker 14: also say, you know, utilize all the tools that Amazon
Speaker 14: is telling you about. They may not be telling people
Speaker 14: like me about these things just yet, but as Amazon
Speaker 14: Prime Day of rives, there might be maybe extra features
Speaker 14: that you should know about. It is a way to
Speaker 14: save on those items I know there is a new one,
Speaker 14: the Invite only that I mentioned. That's something that you
Speaker 14: can click on and close to the shopping car and
Speaker 14: then be randomly selected to be notified of a very
Speaker 14: deep discount of an item. And then of course we
Speaker 14: have the Lightning deals as well, so we'll see some
Speaker 14: of that stuff happening on Amazon Prime Day as well.
Speaker 1: Finally, Amazon Prime Day is really to sell Prime memberships.
Speaker 1: I know you can get a thirty eight free trial,
Speaker 1: but what do you think of the value of an
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime membership? Is it still sort of like the
Speaker 1: golden standard of memberships.
Speaker 14: It's an interesting time right now because Amazon Prime is
Speaker 14: not the only membership out there. So we have Target
Speaker 14: Circle three sixty, we have Walmart Plus, and so as
Speaker 14: a shopper, it's really important for you to take a
Speaker 14: look at which platform or retailer you use the most
Speaker 14: and then consider getting that membership, and the membership on
Speaker 14: Amazon in particular.
Speaker 2: I'm a member.
Speaker 14: I find it to be worthwhile because I shop on
Speaker 14: Amazon very frequently. I get cash back at Whole Foods,
Speaker 14: and then there's the free streaming music, the movies, the
Speaker 14: free Kindle book every month, and so if you are
Speaker 14: a user of some or all of those benefits that
Speaker 14: that membership can really pay off.
Speaker 2: But in my opinion, you shouldn't have more than one
Speaker 2: of those retail memberships.
Speaker 14: You know, pick the one that serves you the best,
Speaker 14: and stick with that and shop with that retailer regularly
Speaker 14: to get the best bang for your bock out of
Speaker 14: that annual membership fee.
Speaker 1: All right, Once again, that was Trey Bodge shopping expert
Speaker 1: sharing tips to maximize this year's Amazon Prime Day. I'll
Speaker 1: put a link to her website on mine. Just go
Speaker 1: to Rich on tech dot TV hit the light bulb.
Speaker 1: So my advice for Prime Day is the same every
Speaker 1: single year. Start looking for the things you want now,
Speaker 1: add them to your shopping car, and then when Prime
Speaker 1: Day happens on July sixteenth and seventeenth, check your shopping
Speaker 1: car or your saved items to see if any of
Speaker 1: them dropped in price, and then you can purchase them.
Speaker 1: So instead of just looking on the website, like she said,
Speaker 1: just searching for stuff to spend money on, this is
Speaker 1: kind of like the re the reverse way of doing it. Also,
Speaker 1: you'll notice that things on Amazon when they are on
Speaker 1: Prime Day, they will have a little banner. Next to
Speaker 1: the price, it might say something like limited time deal
Speaker 1: or with Prime or lightning deal. So that's how you
Speaker 1: can tell when something's on sale. I already made my
Speaker 1: first purchase. I bought the new Amazon Echo spot it's
Speaker 1: typically eighty bucks. It was on sale for forty five
Speaker 1: through Prime Day, and I put a list. I actually
Speaker 1: went through because Amazon has not said what all the
Speaker 1: deals are going to be, but they put out like
Speaker 1: a release that says all the brands and stuff that
Speaker 1: will be on sale. So what I did was I
Speaker 1: made it easy for you. I went through and I
Speaker 1: linked up every single brand on my website. So I
Speaker 1: made this page that says Amazon Prime Day twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four top brands to watch for deals. And if you
Speaker 1: scroll down, you'll see all my tips that I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: but you can see the different things that will be
Speaker 1: on sale already announced that you can just click and
Speaker 1: find that device or product or whatever, including the Ring,
Speaker 1: Spotlight Cams, Eero, Blank, fireTV, Echo, what else, Rumbas, Sony headphones,
Speaker 1: all Birds, and even.
Speaker 3: Cosmetics and things.
Speaker 1: So I put all those links on my website rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv. So check it out if you
Speaker 1: want to get a headstart on Prime Day coming up.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about the Google service that used to
Speaker 1: cost money. Now they're making it free and it can
Speaker 1: help protect your privacy. This is rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Go there for all the stuff that I mentioned on
Speaker 1: the show, my TV segments, more information. I just post
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff there so you can find
Speaker 1: a way to subscribe to my newsletter there as well,
Speaker 1: so you can get information in your inbox. It's just
Speaker 1: a wealth of information rich on Tech dot TV. Also
Speaker 1: feel free to follow me on social media. I am
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech on all of the major platforms.
Speaker 1: Sherry writes in Hello Rich, I love listening to your
Speaker 1: program on KFI. I learned something every time. My father
Speaker 1: is nearly blind due to macular degeneration. He's ninety nine,
Speaker 1: but honestly very sharp and social.
Speaker 3: Good for him.
Speaker 1: I would love to find a cell phone for him
Speaker 1: to operate by voice. Is there such a thing, because
Speaker 1: he's obviously old school he's not interested in Alexa or
Speaker 1: any devices that listen or spy on him. Any recommendations
Speaker 1: you might have, yes, I have a great recommendation. The
Speaker 1: only issue is it's pricey, but it is perfect and
Speaker 1: it's exactly what you're looking for. It is a company
Speaker 1: called blind Shell B l I N D S H
Speaker 1: E l L. And they make a smartphone that is
Speaker 1: specifically for the visually impaired and it is fantastic. I
Speaker 1: played with it at the Seasun Assist of Tech conference
Speaker 1: and it is very simple to use. It speaks everything
Speaker 1: that you do. It speaks everything on the screen. It's
Speaker 1: got a nice, bold, big screen. It's got nice easy
Speaker 1: to use physical buttons, so it's got the keypad so
Speaker 1: you can actually type phone numbers on here and I
Speaker 1: guess text as well, but you can also use voice
Speaker 1: to text if you need to.
Speaker 3: But this is what you need.
Speaker 1: The problem is it's five hundred and twenty nine dollars,
Speaker 1: so I get it. That's expensive, but it is going
Speaker 1: to solve the problem. I think your dat is worth it,
Speaker 1: and I think that this would be a great way
Speaker 1: to make him feel like he can use this phone
Speaker 1: to its maximum and not have any issues. The other
Speaker 1: thing you could do is just get a flip phone
Speaker 1: something simple. Did you say you wanted voice, Yeah, operate
Speaker 1: by voice. So I mean the flip phones is they're
Speaker 1: not really going to have the voice operation. The other
Speaker 1: thing you might be able to do is get a
Speaker 1: Samsung device and they've got something called easy Mode. That's
Speaker 1: that's gonna make the phone easier. It's got a built
Speaker 1: in magnifier. The iPhone also has a lot of accessibility features,
Speaker 1: but it's not I mean that that might be too
Speaker 1: much horsepower for what you're looking at. I really do
Speaker 1: think the blind Shehell is going to be the way
Speaker 1: to go. Sadly, this company does have a cheaper phone
Speaker 1: that they just introduced, like a lesser version of the Classic.
Speaker 1: It's called the Classic LTE that does not look like
Speaker 1: it's available in the United States, sadly, So that's the
Speaker 1: way to do it. The other thing you could do
Speaker 1: is you could go on Amazon and just look for
Speaker 1: a simple, you know, smartphone that might be good for
Speaker 1: your father. There they do have a couple of smartphones
Speaker 1: that are specifically for senior citizens. So just be aware
Speaker 1: that you need to make sure that whatever service you
Speaker 1: get is going to work with that. So for instance,
Speaker 1: like Lively, that's a big company that sells a lot
Speaker 1: of phones under the Jitterbug name. That is a senior
Speaker 1: phone and you have to use their plan with that.
Speaker 1: Some of the phones are unlocked. You can put in
Speaker 1: any plan. So those are my recommendations. Check them out.
Speaker 1: And I think that that blind show would be great.
Speaker 1: Maybe wait for a sale or discount on it to
Speaker 1: get it past that high price tag there. Google is
Speaker 1: expanding this dark web feature. In fact, as I mentioned this,
Speaker 1: I just got an email alert from Google about my
Speaker 1: information being on the dark web. You have new information,
Speaker 1: new personal information on the dark web, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: my phone number was involved in a data breach and
Speaker 1: my cell phone number is now available online for anyone
Speaker 1: to find. Thank you for the app that I actually
Speaker 1: love that it's involved in. So what is Google doing.
Speaker 1: This is from a service called dark Web Report, and
Speaker 1: this is excellent. It will tell you if your social
Speaker 1: Security number, if your date of birth, if your address
Speaker 1: is found online somewhere, and there's not much you can
Speaker 1: do about it, because the problem is when your information
Speaker 1: is out there on the dark web, there's no way
Speaker 1: of taking it back. But at least, if you know
Speaker 1: what's out there, you can be ready for what might happen,
Speaker 1: which is someone opening up an account in your name,
Speaker 1: someone spamming you, someone using your phone number, someone using
Speaker 1: your address. So this was something that was previously only
Speaker 1: available to paying subscribers of Google One. Now they are
Speaker 1: making it available to everyone for free. This is going
Speaker 1: to happen later this month. Highly highly recommend that you
Speaker 1: sign up for it. So this is going to be
Speaker 1: part of their results about you. So it's a little
Speaker 1: bit confusing, but they're pretty much the same thing. So
Speaker 1: Google results about you, well, I guess they're a little
Speaker 1: bit different. Results about you. Google, if you sign up
Speaker 1: for it, will find your personal contact information in Google
Speaker 1: search results. So if your phone number shows up on
Speaker 1: one of those like spoke Yo or people find heer websites,
Speaker 1: Google will say, hey, we found your phone number on
Speaker 1: this website. Do you want us to take that off
Speaker 1: of search results? So when someone's searching for you, it
Speaker 1: will not show hey, we can find rich Damiro's phone
Speaker 1: number on this website. And you click through that website
Speaker 1: and you know it's a whole thing to try to
Speaker 1: get the phone number. But Google will take down that
Speaker 1: search result for you. And so this is something that's
Speaker 1: been free. I've been recommending it for years. It's a
Speaker 1: really useful thing if you want to kind of tame
Speaker 1: the information that's out there about you on the open web.
Speaker 1: It does not take down the original website, It does
Speaker 1: not take down your information from Spokyo or people Finder,
Speaker 1: all these other you know, data brokers out there, but
Speaker 1: it does take down that search result. And what do
Speaker 1: most people do. They're just looking at search results trying
Speaker 1: to find information. Now, with this Dark Web report, you'll
Speaker 1: also get that information about your your per details on
Speaker 1: the dark web. It's not going to remove them, it can't,
Speaker 1: but at least you'll know that it's out there, and
Speaker 1: again you can be ready for the ramifications of that.
Speaker 1: So if you want to sign up for this stuff,
Speaker 1: I'll put the link on the website rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv and you can go to the light Bulb
Speaker 1: to get the information about it. At least start with
Speaker 1: the results about you on Google. You sign up for that,
Speaker 1: and then later this month you'll get the dark web
Speaker 1: information as well. Really really handy. I am so happy
Speaker 1: that Google is making that available to everyone for free.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we have time for this, but
Speaker 1: let's go to PAM and venture of PAM, can you
Speaker 1: say your question about thirty seconds?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just have an iPhone six.
Speaker 2: I want to know if it's outa day.
Speaker 10: It has an episode of software on it of seventeen
Speaker 10: point five.
Speaker 1: Seventeen point five, so you're still up to date at
Speaker 1: this point. The problem is, I don't think that that's
Speaker 1: going to be supported with iOS eighteen. So iOS eighteen
Speaker 1: starts with the iPhone ten are and up? Uh wait,
Speaker 1: you said you're you have the which.
Speaker 3: Software do you have on there? It's an iPhone and
Speaker 3: you said you have iOS.
Speaker 10: What seventeen point five point one.
Speaker 1: On the on the iPhone six s Yeah, huh okay,
Speaker 1: I was not aware that that was up to date
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 3: Let me see. So iOS seventeen.
Speaker 1: Uh, if it's supported and you're getting those updates, that's fine,
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's going to be supported with
Speaker 1: the next one. I would plan for a new phone,
Speaker 1: That's what I would do, because you're not going to
Speaker 1: get iOS eighteen.
Speaker 3: You're not going to get this.
Speaker 1: The uh the security updates, and that's the important part.
Speaker 1: So I would any recommendation, I would just get the iPhone,
Speaker 1: you know, a newer model.
Speaker 3: When they uh. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology. I love that you're doing
Speaker 1: something smart for yourself and listening to this show because
Speaker 1: this is the information you need to know about how
Speaker 1: to protect yourself online, how to make sure you're not
Speaker 1: being scammed, how not to overspend on Amazon Prime Day,
Speaker 1: Like I noticed some of us will my wife. I
Speaker 1: was out in Paris and my wife's like, did you
Speaker 1: order a an echo spot from Amazon? I said, yes,
Speaker 1: I already I ordered that sight. On scene they announced it.
Speaker 3: It's this new Uh.
Speaker 1: It's basically a new like alarm clock and I thought
Speaker 1: was kind of cool because it's a speaker, but it
Speaker 1: also is Alexa enabled, uh, and it's got a little
Speaker 1: display on it so it's colorful. It's got like a
Speaker 1: you know, customized clock faces. You can choose from six
Speaker 1: different colors orange, violet, magenta, lime, teal, and blue. You
Speaker 1: can see the weather, the song that's playing, or the
Speaker 1: whatever's playing. You can set alarm play music. They've got
Speaker 1: four new custom alarm sounds, Aurora, Daybreak, Endeavor and flutter
Speaker 1: and you can tap this thing to turn it off
Speaker 1: for a snooze. It it's usually eighty bucks. It's forty
Speaker 1: five dollars for Prime members right now. And I just
Speaker 1: thought it was cool. I just thought it was kind
Speaker 1: of nice to have. So that's the Echo Spot. I
Speaker 1: have not opened it yet, so I'm curious if they're
Speaker 1: What I think Amazon should have done is put a
Speaker 1: USB in the back so you can plug in your phone,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if they did that. So uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. Eighty to eight Rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website rich on tech dot TV. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of you are going for the Google Dark Web information.
Speaker 1: So the way to find that on the website go
Speaker 1: to the website. Up at the top. There is a
Speaker 1: light bulb. If you tap that light bulb, it brings
Speaker 1: you to what's called the show wiki, so you know Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: I keep basically a show wiki for every episode that
Speaker 1: we've ever done. So this is show number eighty. You
Speaker 1: tap that, it should bring you right to the Let
Speaker 1: me tap and just see where it brings you. Actually,
Speaker 1: so I'm not saying the wrong thing here. If you
Speaker 1: tap that little light bulb, it will bring you to
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it'll bring you right to the list of
Speaker 1: every single show. So if you tap show number eighty,
Speaker 1: you'll see all the show notes. Everything I've mentioned is
Speaker 1: linked up there, and you can see at the bottom
Speaker 1: it says Google is making its Dark Web monitoring available
Speaker 1: to all. And so you can click that and get
Speaker 1: more information about that, read about it, sign up for it.
Speaker 1: And right now you can't sign up for the Dark
Speaker 1: Web unless you are paying member, but you can start
Speaker 1: with the feature I talked about, the results about you,
Speaker 1: and then dark Web will come later this month. All right,
Speaker 1: I think we got all that. Oh I want to
Speaker 1: tell a funny story. So today I'm texting with my
Speaker 1: friend this morning, as we typically do on Saturday mornings,
Speaker 1: Jefferson Graham, friend of the show. He writes a great newsletter.
Speaker 1: He does all kind of you know, you worked for
Speaker 1: USA Today forever writing a column there, and now he
Speaker 1: is on his own doing photo walks TV. And so
Speaker 1: we both have newsletters on our substacks, and so Saturday
Speaker 1: morning we usually send them out and we always compare notes,
Speaker 1: and so we're texting this morning and I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: a second, are you on an iPhone right now? Because
Speaker 1: we are texting the way you would text on I
Speaker 1: message where I can see when he's typing. I can
Speaker 1: see when my messages are delivered. And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm running iOS eighteen. I said, you've got to be
Speaker 1: kidding me. This is my first RCS text messaging ever
Speaker 1: in my life with an iPhone person.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: It means that finally, after many many years of this
Speaker 1: whole divide of iPhone versus Android when it comes to messaging,
Speaker 1: come September when everyone finally gets the iOS update. Right now,
Speaker 1: he is probably running a beta update. Then there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a public beta coming out any day now, probably
Speaker 1: you know soon, because they said it's gonna be sometime
Speaker 1: in July. I don't recommend you install that on your
Speaker 1: primary phone though, unless you are a tinkerer or you
Speaker 1: know what you're doing with technology, because you really can't
Speaker 1: go back. So once you get that, it's very tough
Speaker 1: to roll back to a standard, you know, final software release.
Speaker 1: So wait until September. But come September, you will finally
Speaker 1: be able to text message between iPhone and Android in
Speaker 1: a way that everyone can enjoy.
Speaker 3: The same thing.
Speaker 1: You can see when they're typing, you can see when
Speaker 1: your messages are delivered, and most importantly, you can send
Speaker 1: photos and videos that actually look high quality between an
Speaker 1: Android and an iPhone. It's called RCS Rich Communications Services.
Speaker 1: It's a standard that Apple has not adopted until now.
Speaker 1: And so if you're Android to Android, you're already enjoying this.
Speaker 1: If your iPhone to iPhone, you're already enjoying this. But finally,
Speaker 1: come September, iPhone to Android, Android to iPhone, text messaging
Speaker 1: will finally finally get better. And I'm telling you it
Speaker 1: was like a weight was lifted this morning as I
Speaker 1: just smiled knowing that text messaging is finally better. Let's
Speaker 1: go to Clark in Lancaster, California. Clark, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 12: Hey, Rich, thanks for listening to this call.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I've got a question about.
Speaker 12: My home Wi Fi system. I wonder if there is
Speaker 12: an easy way for a non technical person to troubleshoot.
Speaker 1: And see if.
Speaker 12: An intermittent problem with Wi Fi is a problem with
Speaker 12: my router.
Speaker 10: My WiFi router.
Speaker 1: Well, your your your signal to us is pretty bad,
Speaker 1: so I may have to put you on hold. Here
Speaker 1: but what is specifically going wrong, like is it not
Speaker 1: working in certain places?
Speaker 3: Is it not fast?
Speaker 12: It seems to be up and down. It's intermittent. Sometimes
Speaker 12: I get the full mighte of what I'm paying for
Speaker 12: on my uh my uh internet from spectrum and other
Speaker 12: kinds of drops down to half that, and sometimes it's
Speaker 12: almost non existent. And like I said, it's intermitt and
Speaker 12: I can go days or weeks with no problem in them.
Speaker 12: Like today it seems to be up and down. And
Speaker 12: as you're saying, we've got a bad.
Speaker 3: Call, yeah, with my.
Speaker 12: Wife earlier and she complained that actually had to hang out.
Speaker 3: Oh wow wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, So so a couple of things. So first off,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put you on hold just because the
Speaker 1: interference there, So it sounds like there's something that's interfere
Speaker 1: with your Wi Fi. Now, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: were on a Wi Fi call with me, but it's
Speaker 1: been a long time since I actually heard interference on
Speaker 1: a cell call because everything's digital these days, so there's
Speaker 1: really no more static. I don't know if you remember
Speaker 1: back in the day, when you make a call on
Speaker 1: an analog cell phone. Back in the day everything was analog,
Speaker 1: there would actually be static. You would somehow you know,
Speaker 1: hear the person through static, and nowadays you either hear
Speaker 1: the person or you don't, or it drops out because
Speaker 1: it's all digital. So number one, it sounds like something
Speaker 1: is interfering with your Wi Fi. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of devices in the home that can do that, anything
Speaker 1: that's putting out a frequency, like a microwave or a TV.
Speaker 1: So if your router is not in a central location,
Speaker 1: that's the first thing I would do. So if you
Speaker 1: have it in a cabinet, or if you have it
Speaker 1: behind your TV, get that bad boy out into the
Speaker 1: open so that it can spread its wings and fly.
Speaker 1: That signal needs to make its way around your house.
Speaker 1: And if it's constricted in some way by a piece
Speaker 1: of furniture or a wall, or it's in a corner,
Speaker 1: nobody puts baby in a corner. Uh, you gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta put this thing out in the open, right And
Speaker 1: so uh, I love when I get Bobo on a
Speaker 1: reference when he's just sitting there, you know, doing his thing,
Speaker 1: and you know he liked that one. I guess you
Speaker 1: grew up with the dirty dancing household as I did.
Speaker 3: Yes, I did. Yeah, that was that was big back
Speaker 3: in the day.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so central location number one, get it off
Speaker 1: the floor, don't you know the the the signal for
Speaker 1: Wi Fi emanates out of your router in a doughnut shape,
Speaker 1: So think about that as those waves are sort of
Speaker 1: making their way throughout your house, So you want to
Speaker 1: have the least number of obstructions from that signal, and
Speaker 1: again keep it away from electronics. So if you have
Speaker 1: a microwave going on, or a TV or any sort
Speaker 1: of like other device near your router, that can definitely
Speaker 1: impede it the way to try shoot And you mentioned
Speaker 1: that your speed is sometimes not as good, so typically
Speaker 1: the speed that you're going to get over Wi Fi
Speaker 1: is going to be about half of what you are
Speaker 1: getting wired. So if your connection is three hundred through
Speaker 1: Spectrum or whoever your provider is that is coming into
Speaker 1: your router, your WiFi is probably only going to be
Speaker 1: one fifty when it's actually making its way to your device.
Speaker 1: And the reason is just it's not a perfect system.
Speaker 1: But what I would do is I would plug in
Speaker 1: your computer into your actual router, your modem, your router,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and I would test the speed wired
Speaker 1: on your computer. Go to a website like fast dot
Speaker 1: com or speed test dot net and see what your
Speaker 1: speed is and also check out the latency. And there's
Speaker 1: also some diagnostics on there that can give you an
Speaker 1: idea of if your signal is okay, because you know,
Speaker 1: you may have a wire or something that's freight or
Speaker 1: you might you know, chipmunk or something might have We
Speaker 1: have chipmunks California laying caster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do, Okay, we have chipmunks, maybe more like one.
Speaker 1: Are those things called a possum, you know, the things
Speaker 1: with like the really sharp teeth. Maybe they ate through
Speaker 1: the wires, you know. My point is all the yeah,
Speaker 1: some sort of rodent rap, you know whatever. You check
Speaker 1: for those things because that can all be affecting your
Speaker 1: signal and if none of that is working. You can
Speaker 1: also get an app, a Wi Fi analyzer app, so
Speaker 1: if you're on Android, I don't think they have these
Speaker 1: for iPhone, but a Wi Fi Analyzer app you can
Speaker 1: download to an Android device and you can kind of
Speaker 1: walk around the house and see what's going on with
Speaker 1: your signal that way. So those are just a few
Speaker 1: of the ways that you can troubleshoot. If you want.
Speaker 1: You can call your cable company or whatever. They may
Speaker 1: charge you, but you can say, hey, look my signal's
Speaker 1: just not working as well as it should be, and
Speaker 1: they may come out and help you troubleshoot, but they
Speaker 1: probably will charge you for that because they're going to
Speaker 1: do a test from their end saying nope, we're giving
Speaker 1: you the speed that you're paying for and it's on
Speaker 1: your end. So that's another way to look at it.
Speaker 1: But Clark, those are some of the suggestions. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the call today, appreciate it. Eighty eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we are going to talk to the founder
Speaker 1: of the Oco app. This is to help the visually
Speaker 1: impaired safely cross streets. Plus, I'm gonna tell you Spectrum
Speaker 1: is raising their cable and TV prices.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you by how much.
Speaker 1: And Google Maps gets a feature that can help you
Speaker 1: avoid a ticket for speeding. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. One of my all
Speaker 1: time favorite wedding songs. Nothing says a good wedding like
Speaker 1: this song. Hey oh, if you're listening on the podcast,
Speaker 1: it's September by Earth Wind and Fire. Okay, so I
Speaker 1: have a funny story about this song. So we had
Speaker 1: Earth Wind and Fire come to KTLA for a segment,
Speaker 1: and I love this song, and so I you know,
Speaker 1: when in my life did I ever think I would
Speaker 1: be face to face with the guys from earth Wind
Speaker 1: and Fire?
Speaker 3: Right, like never?
Speaker 1: But we have this restaurant in Los Angeles called earth
Speaker 1: Wind and Flower in West Los Angeles. It's a it's
Speaker 1: an Italian restaurant, and it's just a play on words, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm like, you know what I got to
Speaker 1: ask these guys. So I go up to the guy
Speaker 1: from earth Wind and Fire. I'm like, Hey, are you
Speaker 1: aware of the restaurant called earth Wind and Flower? And
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I've heard of it. I just thought
Speaker 1: that was so funny because like, I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: you have a restaurant that plays on your name of
Speaker 1: your band. Isn't that a lawsuit? Kinder n you could
Speaker 1: you could have that? I mean I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a lawsuit. And also it's been around forever.
Speaker 1: Changed my name to Demiro Rich DeMuro. This restaurant has
Speaker 1: been around forever. Like I'm talking, it's got to be
Speaker 1: thirty oh thirty five years there it is anyway, I
Speaker 1: just thought that was funny. Like the guy kind of
Speaker 1: looked at me, like, really, you're asking me this, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, why not. It's so funny. Like working at
Speaker 1: kat La, you know, where we do a news you know,
Speaker 1: a morning news program, and there's always celebrities coming through,
Speaker 1: and most of them are pretty guarded, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's always moments when you can just kind of talk
Speaker 1: to them whatever. And I've had more cool like oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I can't believe I am coming face to
Speaker 1: face with this person who I watched their show when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, or they sing a song that
Speaker 1: I like, or it's just amazing that you meet these people.
Speaker 1: And most of them, I will tell you most people
Speaker 1: are a lot more shy than you think.
Speaker 3: Not shy, but more like introverted.
Speaker 1: Like you think just because you're a celebrity, they're like
Speaker 1: sitting there telling jokes and stuff.
Speaker 3: They're not bubba.
Speaker 11: I know.
Speaker 3: You want to say something that was kind of same thing.
Speaker 13: It's still weird to me being friends with Stevie Wonder
Speaker 13: and I have to.
Speaker 1: Text him that's amazing. Now, that is the weirdest thing
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 3: And when he told me. I thought he was joking.
Speaker 3: What a text? Yeah, he always shows you like text
Speaker 3: me before you call.
Speaker 1: He gave you his burner number. He's like, hold on,
Speaker 1: I can't remember this number off the top of my head.
Speaker 10: Let me look at it.
Speaker 13: But no, it's weird because you text him and he'll
Speaker 13: literally you get a text backer he'll just call you.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: My most LA story about that is I was in
Speaker 1: the movie uh Zoolander two, but I wasn't in it.
Speaker 3: I didn't make the cut, but I was.
Speaker 1: I had a small like news person role that I
Speaker 1: shot for the movie, and I didn't. I didn't make
Speaker 1: the final cut. They ended up using someone else. But
Speaker 1: I still recorded it all and everything check still got
Speaker 1: a check. And the best part was I got a
Speaker 1: text message from and this only in LA. I got
Speaker 1: a text message on my phone that says, HI, this
Speaker 1: is Blah Blah Blah's name, Ben Stiller's assistant.
Speaker 3: Ben would like to go over the lines with you.
Speaker 3: Do you have a moment?
Speaker 1: I said, only in Los Angeles, you get a text
Speaker 1: message like this, I screenshot it. I saved it forever
Speaker 1: and I will never forget. On the phone call with
Speaker 1: Ben Stiller, like I've who am I Rich Demiro speaking
Speaker 1: with Ben Stiller and he's just sitting there telling me
Speaker 1: how he, you know, his thought for like the person
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. And clearly it didn't work because
Speaker 1: I didn't I wasn't good enough. But anyway, I just
Speaker 1: thought that was so funny. It's just these la things.
Speaker 1: I had another point that I was gonna make and
Speaker 1: now I forgot. But that's okay, you know what, It's
Speaker 1: all good. Let's see a spectrum I was gonna tell
Speaker 1: you about. This Spectrum is raising prices for cable TV
Speaker 1: and Internet. This of course depends on where you are
Speaker 1: on you know how much it's going up. But this
Speaker 1: is this is cord Cutter's News reporting that TV prices
Speaker 1: are raising by three dollars in certain states. Internet based
Speaker 1: prices will increase by three to four dollars depending on
Speaker 1: the plan. Cost of renting your cable box will go
Speaker 1: up by a dollar a month, and Spectrum says rising
Speaker 1: programming call that's why they're passing along these increases. So
Speaker 1: number one, I would check to see if your prices
Speaker 1: are going up for ninety nine point nine percent of you,
Speaker 1: you're gonna say what can you do. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just another price increase, just add it to the list
Speaker 1: of all the other things that have gone up. But
Speaker 1: if you want to get a little bit more you know,
Speaker 1: angry about this and do something about it, there are
Speaker 1: things you can switch to. You can switch to a
Speaker 1: streaming service like a DirecTV stream, Fubo, Hulu, Live TV, Filo,
Speaker 1: Sling TV, and YouTube TV. Those are all options. The
Speaker 1: problem is if you are watching cable TV and you
Speaker 1: like cable TV, it's all pretty expensive now. Some of
Speaker 1: these smaller services, like a Sling TV or a Filo
Speaker 1: or a Friendly TV, they ditch the sports, they ditch
Speaker 1: the news, and you can pay a little bit less.
Speaker 1: But if you want stuff like your sports and your news,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be paying for it. Like direct TV stream
Speaker 1: is just the same price as having cable YouTube TV
Speaker 1: is just the same price. The only slight difference is
Speaker 1: that you can kind of pause it and restart your
Speaker 1: membership at will versus spectrum. You know, you can't just
Speaker 1: call them up and say, hey, I want to pause.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you can, but I don't think you can.
Speaker 1: So it's a lot easier to kind of pause and
Speaker 1: decide when you want to pay for these things versus
Speaker 1: having a traditional cable company. When it comes to internet,
Speaker 1: you can check out five G Home Internet. Verizon, t Mobile,
Speaker 1: AT and t All offer five G wireless home Internet.
Speaker 1: That might be a way to save on your internet costs.
Speaker 1: Eight to eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to the founder of the o
Speaker 1: co app, which helps the visually impaired safely cross streets.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking
Speaker 1: tech with you. Recently, I was in Cooper Tino for
Speaker 1: Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. While I was there, I spoke
Speaker 1: with a developer who's making waves inaccessible technology. Willem van
Speaker 1: Demrop is based in Belgium and is co founder of Eyes.
Speaker 1: They make an app called Oco. This won an Apple
Speaker 1: Design Award for Inclusivity.
Speaker 3: OCO. That's Oko uses.
Speaker 1: AI and the iPhone's camera to help visually impaired people
Speaker 1: navigate streets and crosswalks safely. In our conversation, Wilhelm shared
Speaker 1: insights about this groundbreaking technology and his journey as a developer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 11: So, basically, the Oco application uses artificial intelligence and a
Speaker 11: back camera of the phone to recognize the walk and
Speaker 11: the don't walk signal for blind and vision impaired people,
Speaker 11: and then bring that information back to you with vibrations
Speaker 11: and sounds. And then now, especially for dubbed up, we're
Speaker 11: actually launching a completely new version where we're also building
Speaker 11: up Apple Maps basically and adding more information on that
Speaker 11: combined with that artificial intelligence, so basically helping blind and
Speaker 11: vision impaired people to safely ride from A to B
Speaker 11: with that pedestrian navigation and also that pedestrian signal detection
Speaker 11: that we have originally. So it's a whole new, brand
Speaker 11: new version.
Speaker 3: Of the app. Oh wow, And what spent What was
Speaker 3: kind of like the inspiration behind the app?
Speaker 11: Yeah, So myself and my two co founders were AI
Speaker 11: engineers by trade. I used to work on medical computer vision,
Speaker 11: my co founder autuonnel driving trains, and a third co
Speaker 11: founder as well on computer vision AI. And we were
Speaker 11: talking with a mutual friend of us who is officially impaired,
Speaker 11: and he told us about the biggest challenges that he
Speaker 11: had outdoors, and we just figured, well, hey, if a
Speaker 11: tes i can do it on the highway, why we
Speaker 11: do it for people on the sidewalk, and then we
Speaker 11: started building a hecky wearable device with lots of wires
Speaker 11: sticking out of it a camera. But we quickly realized
Speaker 11: if we want to make it affordable and scalable so
Speaker 11: that it works for everyone, we need to be able
Speaker 11: to optimize the AI so that it runs locally on
Speaker 11: the phone that they already own. And so the moment
Speaker 11: that we were able to do that, we could our
Speaker 11: jobs and started full time.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And the beauty of the app is the simplicity of
Speaker 1: it that it just uses the software and sensors on
Speaker 1: the iPhone, and so with that simplicity, it's pretty incredible
Speaker 1: what it's been able to do.
Speaker 3: What has been the reaction to this app, It's.
Speaker 11: Been pretty pretty amazing so far.
Speaker 3: It's really cool.
Speaker 11: For example, I have this one user who told me,
Speaker 11: like beforehand, I used to not be able to reach
Speaker 11: this farmer's market in this part of town. It was
Speaker 11: really like a lucked out zone, almost like in a
Speaker 11: video game. And now because of your app, I just
Speaker 11: am able to unlock this part of town, go to
Speaker 11: the farmer's market, and are able to reach all of
Speaker 11: those destinations. Other people just say without the app, I
Speaker 11: can't cross anymore. So it's really amazing to see that
Speaker 11: we want to provide you with so much more information
Speaker 11: and we want to help you create that independence sometimes.
Speaker 11: Of course, it's so crucial to find that it can
Speaker 11: help at these super difficult intersections and just make it
Speaker 11: so much easier for some people.
Speaker 1: So what goes into programming an app like this to
Speaker 1: work across you know, different languages, different places, you know,
Speaker 1: different types of walk signals?
Speaker 3: How do you do all that? Yeah, so quite a lot.
Speaker 11: Although it's quite simple, it's a very difficult application to build.
Speaker 11: It's building on computer vision, and it needs to be
Speaker 11: super stable and needs to make sure, of course that
Speaker 11: it's safe to use. So we start out by capturing
Speaker 11: a lot of data ourselves. So that's the rain, the sun, snow,
Speaker 11: all icy conditions, every scenario that you can imagine, and
Speaker 11: we build an AI model based on that, and then
Speaker 11: we optimize it so that it runs on the devices
Speaker 11: that they already own. Of course, the entire world has
Speaker 11: pretty similar production signals except for the US and ken
Speaker 11: really yeah, so that's when when we started expanding here.
Speaker 11: We needed to travel a bit here to capture a
Speaker 11: lot of data here. To make sure that the algorithm
Speaker 11: is very powerful here as well. And then now, of
Speaker 11: course as people are using it, we're constantly gathering imaging
Speaker 11: information to maintain that algorithm to make sure that it
Speaker 11: stays performing.
Speaker 1: What's different about the US with respect to our signals.
Speaker 11: Here in the US it's a red hand which is
Speaker 11: the don't walk signal, and then a white walking man
Speaker 11: which is a walk signal. In Europe, Japan or similar places,
Speaker 11: it's just like a red guy which is don't walk,
Speaker 11: and then a green walking man which is the walk signal,
Speaker 11: and they're on top of each other. Is instead of
Speaker 11: one square pedession signal, So it's just like a whole
Speaker 11: different few and different colors, which the AI needs to.
Speaker 3: Learn of course, and how accurate is the app.
Speaker 11: We've helped cross more than three million streets now we
Speaker 11: haven't had any complaints, so we know that there's of course,
Speaker 11: there's so many safety buffers in place to make sure
Speaker 11: that it's not saying that wrong pedession signal. But very
Speaker 11: important is that it's another tool in the toolbox for
Speaker 11: so many binea visually impaired people. They are very independent,
Speaker 11: then they have so many tools at their disposal.
Speaker 3: We're just trying to bring back more information to the user.
Speaker 3: So this is WWDC.
Speaker 1: This is where developers come to kind of learn about
Speaker 1: the tools available to them. So what developer tools are
Speaker 1: you taking advantage of on the iPhone that enables this app?
Speaker 11: So of course the COREML is a big aspect of
Speaker 11: it is that the possibility to run complex AI locally
Speaker 11: on the device that they already own. But now of
Speaker 11: course we're building on met Kit, but also voiceover and
Speaker 11: dynamic typing. Blindness is a spectrum, so that means that
Speaker 11: some people want to see the phone and have it
Speaker 11: super and large information, but we are able to make
Speaker 11: sure that the app really supports all that kind of information,
Speaker 11: all that sooming and I've been and stuff.
Speaker 3: How long has this journey been?
Speaker 11: Right now, we're three years old, so we're really quite
Speaker 11: a young underdog, still a small team, but we're growing
Speaker 11: fast and where we get so many demands to expand
Speaker 11: to so many countries as soon as possible.
Speaker 3: So it's going going great.
Speaker 1: And what's been kind of the biggest challenge for you
Speaker 1: along the way, is it just figuring out all these
Speaker 1: different signals and all the different variables that go into
Speaker 1: this I would.
Speaker 11: Say for us, the biggest challenge is expanding as soon
Speaker 11: as possible because there's so much demand for the app
Speaker 11: and we need to be able to to keep up
Speaker 11: with our resources to expand into those different areas.
Speaker 3: So yeah, just.
Speaker 11: Going as fast as possible is I think one of
Speaker 11: the biggest challenges.
Speaker 1: So this app is it do you monetize this app?
Speaker 1: How is that going to work?
Speaker 11: It's started out by wanting to help out our visually
Speaker 11: impaired friend, and we want to keep it for free
Speaker 11: for the end user. It's similar to kind of like
Speaker 11: a ways model, where you get a very interesting anonymized
Speaker 11: data that you can license to third parties to make
Speaker 11: sure that the stays for free for the end user.
Speaker 11: But there is for example, like bigger companies, they can
Speaker 11: have very very useful information extracted out of the images
Speaker 11: that we capture, and that way you can maintain for example,
Speaker 11: your Google Maps, Apple Maps, and that way you can.
Speaker 3: Keep the application for free for the end user. And
Speaker 3: what advice do you have to someone that has an
Speaker 3: idea for an app? Build it?
Speaker 11: There's there's so many great ideas out there. There's always
Speaker 11: someone being hesitant, like should I build it? Should I
Speaker 11: try it. As long as you one percent miss every
Speaker 11: chance that you don't take, so just try it, go
Speaker 11: for it. I would have never imagined that after three
Speaker 11: years I would be get dubbed up, which is a
Speaker 11: livelong dream, and now I'm here, so it's super amazing.
Speaker 3: How do you find the app?
Speaker 11: Just search for Oco in the app Store and then
Speaker 11: you'll find Oco Accessible maps, accessible navigation.
Speaker 3: And who do you think should download it?
Speaker 11: I think everyone that knows someone who's bindo vision impaired
Speaker 11: can download it, try it out so that they can
Speaker 11: recommend it. Of course, if someone is blind and vision
Speaker 11: impaired themselves, they can try it out and have fun
Speaker 11: with it. Down the line, we're actually expanding to people
Speaker 11: with a mobility disability as well, because we find that
Speaker 11: there's so much information missing on accessible intersection and accessible
Speaker 11: routing that we want to help answer some of those
Speaker 11: questions as well. So down the line will be expanding
Speaker 11: to helping the one in six Americans with a mobility
Speaker 11: disability as well.
Speaker 1: That was my conversation with Willem van Demurop, co founder
Speaker 1: of Oco, an app that's revolutionizing street navigation for the
Speaker 1: visually impaired. It's truly inspiring to see how developers like
Speaker 1: this are using AI and smartphone technology to create more
Speaker 1: inclusive experiences.
Speaker 3: Right now, the app is only available for the iPhone.
Speaker 1: You can find it by searching Oko on the app store.
Speaker 3: I'll put a link on my website.
Speaker 1: Just go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit
Speaker 1: the light bulb at the top of the page to
Speaker 1: find it.
Speaker 3: More rich on Tech coming your way right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. The website for the show
Speaker 1: richon Tech dot tv. Can follow me online at rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. A couple more items before we get to
Speaker 1: the feedback. First off, Apple Launches worked with Google to
Speaker 1: launch a tool where you can now transfer your Google
Speaker 1: Photos directly to iCloud Photos. This is part of their
Speaker 1: data transfer project. This is an open source initiative. A
Speaker 1: lot of the big tech companies are very slowly doing this,
Speaker 1: but you know they're trying to make it so that
Speaker 1: you have data portability between these companies.
Speaker 3: It is a very slow process. It's very limited, but
Speaker 3: you know we're seeing some progress. But if you have
Speaker 3: Google Photos, you can now transfer your collection directly to
Speaker 3: iCloud photos.
Speaker 1: Without downloading it first. It will do it on the
Speaker 1: back end for you. Process may take several hours to
Speaker 1: a few days. Your photos and videos are not deleted
Speaker 1: from Google Photos after the transfer. So the nice thing
Speaker 1: is if you wanted to sort of back up your
Speaker 1: Google Photos to iCloud, maybe you have some extra storage
Speaker 1: and you just want your photos in two places, which
Speaker 1: you should have, this is one way of doing it.
Speaker 1: So again, apples are the new tool to transfer Google
Speaker 1: Photos to iCloud photos and also Google Maps introducing a
Speaker 1: speedometer and speed limits on the iPhone app. So this
Speaker 1: has been available and Android for a long time. If
Speaker 1: you're driving with Google Maps, you'll see in the lower
Speaker 1: left hand corner, it shows the speed limit for the road,
Speaker 1: but right next to it now on iPhone is going
Speaker 1: to show the speed that you're going. Yes, it's a
Speaker 1: little scary because now someone else is tracking your speed.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the privacy policy is with that information.
Speaker 1: Google says it's informational only. You should actually mostly rely
Speaker 1: on your car's actual spinometer, and if you want to
Speaker 1: turn it off, you can go into Google Map settings
Speaker 1: under navigation driving options. The update is to help iPhone
Speaker 1: users avoid speeding tickets. The ironic part is that Uber
Speaker 1: has a very similar feature for the Uber drivers, and
Speaker 1: I always get a kick out of watching them go
Speaker 1: faster than the speed limit signed and it's like in
Speaker 1: red and it's flashing and they're just they don't care.
Speaker 1: Kind of a funny story.
Speaker 3: My mother in law.
Speaker 1: We were out in Oregon last weekend for a wedding
Speaker 1: and my mother in law says, oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: my Apple Watch, I'm not getting notifications on it anymore. Said, huh,
Speaker 1: let me check it out. Let me just see if
Speaker 1: it's connected to your phone. So she gives me a
Speaker 1: watch and I say, this is not connected to your
Speaker 1: phone at all. When was the last time you got
Speaker 1: a notification on your Apple Watch. I don't know, a
Speaker 1: year ago. Was that when you got your new phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you never connected the Apple Watch to your new phone.
Speaker 1: So it is a whole I I just got to
Speaker 1: kick out of that, and it's it's the reason why
Speaker 1: I do this show, because to me, it's a no
Speaker 1: brainer that you know, if I'm not getting a notification
Speaker 1: on my watch, I'm troubleshooting. For the average person, it's
Speaker 1: taking them a year to figure this stuff out. And
Speaker 1: they didn't even realize. So my mother in law is
Speaker 1: a very smart person. It just goes to show that
Speaker 1: technology is tricky. And I just got a good laugh
Speaker 1: out of that because I said, have you gotten any notifications?
Speaker 1: She said she wasn't getting her text. I said, have
Speaker 1: you gotten any notifications? No, Well that's because your phone
Speaker 1: is literally not connected to this watch. So I told
Speaker 1: her she had to format the watch and reconnect it
Speaker 1: to the new phone. Time for the feedback segment. This
Speaker 1: is your feedback plus the mail bag. These are the emails,
Speaker 1: the comments, and the questions I get from you. If
Speaker 1: you want to submit yours, go to Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv hit contact. I was talking about the TikTok
Speaker 1: ban last week at the VidCon conference, Frank writes in
Speaker 1: I think people should understand the reason for the TikTok ban.
Speaker 1: One could argue that content is the reason. But if
Speaker 1: that were the case, Apple and Google could have banned
Speaker 1: the app from their stores or set guidelines, which didn't happen.
Speaker 1: The real issue what are the laws governing TikTok to
Speaker 1: protect privacy and who can access it? The preservation of
Speaker 1: privacy should be dealt with, but where's the law for
Speaker 1: that banning TikTok is just cough medicine for a cough
Speaker 1: caused by severe Capitol Hill pneumonia. That's not dealing with
Speaker 1: the underlying issue.
Speaker 3: Wow. I like the analogy.
Speaker 1: I talked to a friend who explained how the laws
Speaker 1: in China work, and I thought it to be true
Speaker 1: from the US media. What I thought to be true
Speaker 1: from the US media is not accurate. At one time
Speaker 1: I agreed with the ban. Now I disagree. The government
Speaker 1: should pass legislation that deals with the true issues. But
Speaker 1: the real issue here is that it's more political at
Speaker 1: this point and part of the posturing on both sides
Speaker 1: for the election. That is very true, because let's be honest,
Speaker 1: TikTok is not collecting any more data than any other
Speaker 1: app on your phone. Somehow TikTok is a risk and
Speaker 1: all the other apps are not.
Speaker 3: Hmm. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Tony from Syracuse, New York writes in Rich, I love
Speaker 1: your show. I was listening and heard the call about
Speaker 1: a spectrum router that would not connect devices properly. Many ISPs,
Speaker 1: including Verizon, use a feature called SUN self Organizing Network
Speaker 1: that decides which network two point four or five to
Speaker 1: connect devices too While it works okay for some, it's
Speaker 1: often a problem for printers, doorbells, cameras, and thermostats. The
Speaker 1: best solution I've found is to turn this feature off
Speaker 1: all together. You usually need to rename the five G
Speaker 1: network to distinguish it, then manually disconnect problematic device. Oh,
Speaker 1: manually connect problematic devices to the two point four network.
Speaker 1: You can typically do this to the router's login page.
Speaker 1: I hope that helps. It's great to listen to common
Speaker 1: tech problems and keep up to date. Plus US tech
Speaker 1: nerds can't help but absorb as much information as we can.
Speaker 1: Another email about the two point four versus five Dylan
Speaker 1: from MESA, Arizona rights in regarding the person who had
Speaker 1: Cox or some other ISP with a router on those
Speaker 1: two point four and five gigahertz bands and their printer
Speaker 1: no longer worked. I found that some two point four
Speaker 1: gigahertz devices get confused, and if there's the networks have
Speaker 1: the same SSID. The workaround is to give each band
Speaker 1: a different name. For instance, my two point four is
Speaker 1: named mcwireless and my five G is named Mcwireless Fast.
Speaker 1: All the devices still see each other. I segment my
Speaker 1: WiFi putting white bandwidth hogs like smart TVs on the
Speaker 1: fast network while smart appliances, bulbs and switches are on
Speaker 1: the two point four.
Speaker 3: The setup works fine for me.
Speaker 1: Ken writes in feedback on the gig Sky phone service
Speaker 1: unlimited Europlan fifty dollars. I went to Paris and Montpellier
Speaker 1: in France, London and the UK. I probably butchered that
Speaker 1: name and Venice in Italy. Like I said, Mercy in
Speaker 1: France to the guy making my omelet in the morning,
Speaker 1: I was like Mercy, he goes, you mean Merselle and
Speaker 1: I was like, ah, is that how you say? I'm
Speaker 1: so mad at that stuff. I was like, Mercy, No,
Speaker 1: it's not Mercy bonjoor. It worked for the most part
Speaker 1: using iPhone eleven with good tech support via phone, call
Speaker 1: and email. There was an outage in Venice, but now
Speaker 1: it's working. Thanks for talking about it on the radio show. Yes,
Speaker 1: I tried gig sky while I was over there and
Speaker 1: it did work just fine.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I will add that to my recommendations.
Speaker 1: Michael from Florida writes in on your June show, you
Speaker 1: talked about getting data while traveling internationally. I bought a
Speaker 1: Soulless hot Spot about six months ago on sale for
Speaker 1: one hundred bucks. It comes with a lifetime one gigabyte
Speaker 1: a month international service at no cost. I've used it
Speaker 1: here in the US, Canada, and Jamaica. You can purchase
Speaker 1: additional data, which never expires. For me, it was the
Speaker 1: obvious choice for travel. I use WhatsApp to communicate, so
Speaker 1: all I need is the data. Yes, I did talk
Speaker 1: about the Solace. I used that when I was in Berlin.
Speaker 1: I tested it and it worked great. I had the
Speaker 1: five G model, which I think is more expensive than
Speaker 1: the one you got. But yes, soulis. If you want
Speaker 1: your own hot spot, it's a great way to do it.
Speaker 1: Dan from Berkeley writes in Hey Rich, a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I heard you referenced Yakima, Washington. I did a double
Speaker 1: take when you said that. I was the principal at
Speaker 1: a high school and used to watch you on k NDO.
Speaker 1: You even covered our high school while you were up here.
Speaker 1: Two thousand was a big year as we moved to
Speaker 1: our new home in September. It's always fun to recognize
Speaker 1: the names of people who are on TV. During my
Speaker 1: two stints in Yakima, keep up the great work on.
Speaker 3: The radio show.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, bringing back memories can doo my first
Speaker 1: job on TV in the middle of Washington State, Yakima, Washington.
Speaker 1: Let's see one more here. Brian from Watsonville writes in Rich,
Speaker 1: love the show. You're doing a terrific job. My two
Speaker 1: cents regarding Linux, no need to discuss it. It's great
Speaker 1: for those who use it, But I've been the tech
Speaker 1: guy for my family and workplace for years and I've
Speaker 1: never used it. None of the tech wizards I know
Speaker 1: use it either. I appreciate that Leo loves it and
Speaker 1: talked about it every week, but you only have so
Speaker 1: much time with us. Every minute is precious and it's
Speaker 1: best spent talking about iOS, Android, Mac and PC. As
Speaker 1: my dad would say, Linux is the future of computing
Speaker 1: and it always will be.
Speaker 3: Again, I'm not a hater. Linux works great for everybody.
Speaker 1: Great, it's just not what I need help with Your
Speaker 1: tips on iOS and Mac have really helped me. Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 1: That's sort of exactly what I think. That's gonna do
Speaker 1: it for this episode of the show. You can find
Speaker 1: links to everything I mentioned on my website. Just go
Speaker 1: to Rich on tech dot TV. Once you're there, just
Speaker 1: hit the light bulb or after the show is posted
Speaker 1: with the podcast, you can listen to it again and
Speaker 1: also get the links there. You can find me on
Speaker 1: social media. I am at Rich on Tech. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. There are so many ways you can
Speaker 1: spend your time. I do appreciate you spending it right
Speaker 1: here with me. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible, Bobo, Kim.
Speaker 3: The rest of the crew. Do we have more of
Speaker 3: a crew? I don't think so. My name is Rich Demiro.
Speaker 3: I'll talk to you real soon.