Speaker 1: What's going on rich dmiro And this is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
Speaker 1: that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
Speaker 1: up those phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Give me a call if you have a
Speaker 1: question about technology. Email is also an option. Just go
Speaker 1: to rich on tech dot TV hit contact. While you're there,
Speaker 1: you might see a light bulb on the website. That
Speaker 1: is where you can find the show notes for today's
Speaker 1: show in real time. So if I mentioned something you
Speaker 1: want to link to it, just go to rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV, hit that light bulb and you'll see
Speaker 1: the show number and all the show notes. All right.
Speaker 1: Coming up guests this week, I'll talk to the founder
Speaker 1: of Airbnb plus. They're head of public policy. They're going
Speaker 1: to talk about their new icons off. This is where
Speaker 1: Airbnb is kind of putting out these whimsical places you
Speaker 1: can stay at and it's a new thing that they're
Speaker 1: doing and many of them are free. I will explain
Speaker 1: that we've got Jack Winston joining us. He is founder
Speaker 1: of the app called Be Present, and he will talk
Speaker 1: about how the app can help you use your smartphone less.
Speaker 1: And friend of the show, John Faulkner of Clean Fleet
Speaker 1: Report will join us to give a review of Accura's
Speaker 1: first I think it's their first all electric car, the
Speaker 1: zd X. Well this week, I figured i'd start the
Speaker 1: show a little bit differently. I get a ton of
Speaker 1: emails from you each and every week, and I don't
Speaker 1: get to all of them on the show each week.
Speaker 1: So I figured i'd start the show by going through
Speaker 1: some of your emails and answering the questions that you
Speaker 1: have sent me in the past week or so. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's start with Victor. Victor says, I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you know if Apple is going to introduce
Speaker 1: a new iPad this year, iPad pro. As always, thanks
Speaker 1: for your time, you are always a great help. Best regards, Victor. Victor,
Speaker 1: you are just in time, because yes, Apple is expected
Speaker 1: to launch new iPads this week. In fact, May seventh
Speaker 1: is the date of the event. They're calling it Let Loose,
Speaker 1: and this is a virtual event. It's gonna be taped.
Speaker 1: I don't believe there's any sort of live audience or
Speaker 1: anyone going up to Coopertino. It's just one of these
Speaker 1: things where they will broadcast the event online and they
Speaker 1: will launch the new products. What are we expecting, Well,
Speaker 1: new iPad pro models. Like you said, they will have
Speaker 1: better displays, of course, faster chips. The rumor is that
Speaker 1: they're going to skip that M three chip and go
Speaker 1: straight to the M four, which may give them some
Speaker 1: AI potential. There may be price increases because these are
Speaker 1: going to be better displays. But yes, the iPad Pro
Speaker 1: is sort of the main thing here. It's due for
Speaker 1: an update, so if you're looking for a new iPad Pro,
Speaker 1: it will be the time to get it. But I
Speaker 1: would wait right now. You've got a couple of days
Speaker 1: before these new models come out. If you're in the
Speaker 1: market for an iPad, it's best to wait. No matter what.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for an old iPad, those prices typically
Speaker 1: go down when the new ones are launched. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for a new one, you'll get brand new specs.
Speaker 1: They're also looking at maybe a new generation of the
Speaker 1: Apple pencil and that M four chip. That M four
Speaker 1: chip is a big deal. Because it's the next generation
Speaker 1: of chip from Apple, and it's supposed to have some
Speaker 1: AI smarts built in. That is the big thing with
Speaker 1: Apple right now. If you looked at their earnings report,
Speaker 1: you noticed and I don't think you did, but I did.
Speaker 1: You notice that the iPhone for the first time, if
Speaker 1: you can believe it, sales, I guess our revenue was
Speaker 1: down ten percent. That is huge for Apple because it
Speaker 1: marks a shift, or a potential shift for this company
Speaker 1: where they have been very iPhone driven for many years.
Speaker 1: But the thing that was up was the software and services.
Speaker 1: What is that that's basically iCloud. So that was up
Speaker 1: fourteen percent. And what does that tell me? I talked
Speaker 1: about this in my newsletter. It tells me that you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of people using iPhones out there, like
Speaker 1: over a billion people, and they're storing all of their
Speaker 1: stuff in the cloud. And the more you store in
Speaker 1: the cloud, the more money Apple makes. So they're not
Speaker 1: making as much on the iPhones anymore, but they're starting
Speaker 1: to make more and more every quarter on that cloud
Speaker 1: storage and Apple TV Plus and all these other little
Speaker 1: things that are much more service based. So it's a
Speaker 1: smart move by Apple because they know the iPhone is
Speaker 1: not going to be the Golden Goose forever. Let's see
Speaker 1: Tish in Georgetown, Kentucky says, I currently have AT and
Speaker 1: T DSL. I've been informed that AT and T is
Speaker 1: switching over to Internet air. My concern, based on their
Speaker 1: mailing is that they limit you to twenty devices. My
Speaker 1: household has around twenty five. Spectrum Fiber has come into
Speaker 1: my area. They're offering one terabyte speeds. I believe that's
Speaker 1: one megaba. Yeah, this is a very fast fiber speed
Speaker 1: for fifty five dollars for two years, unlimited devices, no contract,
Speaker 1: no caps. I currently pay sixty four dollars a month,
Speaker 1: seventy four or five over just interesting. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts about the two I only need internet services, no TV,
Speaker 1: mobile or anything else. Thanks. Personally, I would go with
Speaker 1: the Spectrum Fiber. You're gonna get much much faster speeds
Speaker 1: up and down. Also, the price fifty five dollars for
Speaker 1: two years is an incredible price for that I'm paying
Speaker 1: more like ninety dollars a month, so I think fifty
Speaker 1: five is an incredible price. Ride it out for the
Speaker 1: two years, and then you can decide if you want
Speaker 1: to switch. Over to the AT and T Internet air
Speaker 1: that is Internet that is delivered over their five G network,
Speaker 1: so it's not available. It's only available in places where
Speaker 1: they don't have fiber, so that's why they're offering that
Speaker 1: to you. And the limit for twenty devices that is
Speaker 1: probably twenty devices simultaneously, so I don't think you'd have
Speaker 1: all twenty five devices in your household on the Internet
Speaker 1: at the same time. But in general, if you can
Speaker 1: go with fiber versus you know, cellular, I'd go fiber
Speaker 1: every day. Great question there, Michael. Is this another person
Speaker 1: in Kentucky? Wow, Glasgow, Kentucky. Michael says, I enter some
Speaker 1: online newsletters and contests, but I don't really want to
Speaker 1: give my phone number to someone because I'm sure they're
Speaker 1: going to sell it to third parties and then that
Speaker 1: of course results in junk mail and scam calls. Is
Speaker 1: there a free service where I can get a disposable
Speaker 1: phone number to use and change anytime I want. I
Speaker 1: have an iPad iPhone Pro fifteen. Thanks. I listened to
Speaker 1: the podcast of the radio show every week before I
Speaker 1: go to sleep. All right, well, thank you. A couple
Speaker 1: of ways you can do this. Number one, there are
Speaker 1: full scale services. There's a service called Cloaked, and I
Speaker 1: think we're going to see more of these types of services.
Speaker 1: This is like an all in one service that lets
Speaker 1: you generate one time email addresses, one time phone numbers,
Speaker 1: as many as you need. That's going to run you
Speaker 1: anywhere from ten dollars a month to maybe one hundred
Speaker 1: bucks for the year. That is like a real strong
Speaker 1: solution to this. But you said you wanted something for free,
Speaker 1: so that is probably not going to fit the bill.
Speaker 1: But that's really if you started from scratch. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a password manager, but for your identity. Again, that's
Speaker 1: called Cloaked. Cloak Ed. You can also do if you
Speaker 1: have T Mobile, they have an add on called digits
Speaker 1: and I believe that's a free add on. It's like
Speaker 1: a free virtual phone number. And their pitch when they
Speaker 1: came out with this a couple of years ago was
Speaker 1: give this to all the different companies that you do
Speaker 1: business with, you know, the grocery store, the you know,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say video rental store, but we don't
Speaker 1: do that anymore. But you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: anytime you have to sign up with a phone number,
Speaker 1: just give them that number, and that's T Mobile digits.
Speaker 1: You can just add a line there. Verizon also has
Speaker 1: a feature what do they call it. They call it
Speaker 1: second Number. It's very very similar to a virtual phone number,
Speaker 1: and that will also ring your phone. But that's ten
Speaker 1: dollars a month. So again, these are options that I'm
Speaker 1: giving you, but they all cost money. And there is
Speaker 1: another option called Burner. This is an app that's independent
Speaker 1: and it lets you generate phone numbers on demand. So
Speaker 1: if you were selling something on Craigslist, for instance, and
Speaker 1: you didn't want to give out your real phone number,
Speaker 1: you only wanted a phone number that you can text
Speaker 1: or maybe have a couple of voice calls for for
Speaker 1: a month, you would set up a phone number a
Speaker 1: couple bucks and then it would expire at the end
Speaker 1: of that time, or you can choose to extend it.
Speaker 1: You can have a Burner number that lasts indefinitely, or
Speaker 1: you can have them expire, you know, after thirty sec
Speaker 1: thirty days or something like that. But the freeway to
Speaker 1: do this is definitely Google Voice looks like you can
Speaker 1: still sign up for a free Google Voice phone number.
Speaker 1: So that is personally what I would do, and that
Speaker 1: is what I do I've got a Google Voice number.
Speaker 1: I've had them since day one. When they first launched,
Speaker 1: they were called I think it was called Grand Central,
Speaker 1: and it was such a cool concept because back in
Speaker 1: the day, you had a landline, you had your work number,
Speaker 1: you also had your cell phone number, and you didn't
Speaker 1: want to give out your cell phone number to everyone
Speaker 1: because it was more like a guarded phone number. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: of course that's the standard, but I think people are
Speaker 1: realizing we need to protect these more. So with all
Speaker 1: that said, you can look into those options, Michael and
Speaker 1: see which one fits you best. But you wanted something
Speaker 1: for free, so I think that maybe you just go
Speaker 1: for the free Google Voice. And Sue from Missoula, Montana, says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I've watched you from the beginning. My so and my
Speaker 1: so so. What's that my anyway, we have old phones
Speaker 1: iPhone success. We're looking to get new phones. We have Verizon.
Speaker 1: My question is I accidentally synced our phones together. Is
Speaker 1: there a way I can unsync them before we buy
Speaker 1: our new phones? Yes, Sue, I get this question all
Speaker 1: the time, and the main thing you need to do
Speaker 1: is set up a different Apple I id oh, Kim
Speaker 1: says so means significant other. There we go. See you
Speaker 1: learn something new every day. Bobo and I were looking
Speaker 1: at each other like we don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So you need to set up a second
Speaker 1: Apple ID so you can each have your own Apple IDs.
Speaker 1: That will unlink these accounts, so you can have your
Speaker 1: own text messages, your own payment methods, your own phone.
Speaker 1: It's not all inter SYNCD and you know, synced up
Speaker 1: like that. But what you want to do is after that,
Speaker 1: you want to set up Apple Family Sharing and that
Speaker 1: will link up the two accounts. So let's say you
Speaker 1: buy an app on your account, you're still able to
Speaker 1: have your family download that same app on the other account.
Speaker 1: So set up the secondary Apple ID, link it up
Speaker 1: with the family Sharing, and that will make everything work
Speaker 1: out perfectly and things will not be all intertwined. A
Speaker 1: lot of parents have that issue with their kids. When
Speaker 1: they get give them their phone, they have like you know,
Speaker 1: or an iPad, They log in with their ID and
Speaker 1: all their text messages are going to the kid's iPad.
Speaker 1: Eight to eight rich one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one Coming up. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you about Peacock's price increase and how Roku is adding
Speaker 1: ads to the home screen. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. Operators are standing by ready to take
Speaker 1: your call. Let's go to Bonnie in Santa Barbara. Bonnie,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: Rich.
Speaker 4: I have a question about download and upload speeds. Sure
Speaker 4: right now, I'm paying for probably the premium of five hundred,
Speaker 4: you know, up to five hundred download and I think
Speaker 4: it's ten upload, and they keep raising our rates, and
Speaker 4: so they've given us an alternative that's download of up
Speaker 4: to one hundred upload up to five. And I'm just
Speaker 4: trying to figure out if that'll work. I have two televisions,
Speaker 4: two computers. We watch a lot of we stream sometimes,
Speaker 4: we watch a lot of YouTube videos. We're on both
Speaker 4: televisions and computers all at the same time.
Speaker 1: Are you are you uploading stuff ever?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: Are you uploading large files? Are you uploading videos?
Speaker 4: Very rarely?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, in that case, the one hundred down and
Speaker 1: the five up would work, But that is that's pretty paltry.
Speaker 1: What what type of service. Is it is from a
Speaker 1: cable company? Is it from Okay, so this is interesting.
Speaker 1: So the cable companies typically have a fast download speed
Speaker 1: and a very slow upload speed, and then if you've
Speaker 1: got fiber, it's typically the upload and download are the same.
Speaker 1: So if you have five hundred on fiber down, it's
Speaker 1: typically five hundred up. Now for someone like myself who's
Speaker 1: uploading large video files and this weekend, I'm not kidding,
Speaker 1: I downloaded. I downloaded my entire Google Drive to a
Speaker 1: computer and it took maybe two hours. I mean we're
Speaker 1: talking a terabyte of data. It was. It was really incredible.
Speaker 1: But then I'm uploading large files too. So if you
Speaker 1: want that ability, you want the fast upload. But for
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, for just downloading our streaming, one
Speaker 1: hundred is going to be just fine. Even if you
Speaker 1: were even if you were streaming on two TVs at once,
Speaker 1: you'd still be just fine. Netflix posts a there's a
Speaker 1: page where they post what they're streaming kind of suggested
Speaker 1: speeds are, and they their speeds are really really slow.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's like you don't even here. I'll
Speaker 1: go through them real quick. I'm trying to bring up
Speaker 1: the website, so they're right. So you know, these streaming companies,
Speaker 1: part of what their their magic sauces. They figured out
Speaker 1: a way to stream stuff really fast, like over a
Speaker 1: slow connection. So for high definition, their recommendation is three
Speaker 1: megabits or higher. Okay, you're at one hundred. You're talking.
Speaker 1: Full HD is five megabits of speed, and then ultra
Speaker 1: HD is fifteen megabits or higher. So you're at one hundred.
Speaker 1: So you're you're doing okay, and you're going to be fine.
Speaker 1: Do you know about the websites that help you test
Speaker 1: your speed? Have you tried that on your computer?
Speaker 4: I have? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And what are you getting on that when you do that?
Speaker 4: Pretty close to five hundred maybe like four fifty or
Speaker 4: something like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, and what's the price differential here?
Speaker 4: It is about thirty five dollars different.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, thirty five a month? Yeah? Would I would
Speaker 1: try it? And you can always go back, right, So
Speaker 1: now you have to.
Speaker 4: Lock in for twenty four months. So my concerned, Oh,
Speaker 4: I don't you know, I don't want to get it
Speaker 4: and then find out that the YouTube videos are buffering,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: I really don't don't think they're going to be But
Speaker 1: is there any sort of like thirty day window where
Speaker 1: you can I'm sure there's a thirty day window where
Speaker 1: you don't have to where you can exchange it back.
Speaker 4: I would ask them that I could find out about Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would ask them that also, Yeah, I would. I
Speaker 1: would ask about that. Do you have any other providers
Speaker 1: in your area?
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't really, I don't want to shop around. Yes,
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 1: You do? Okay, Well, you might get a better price
Speaker 1: and a better speed. You know, it's a little annoying
Speaker 1: to shop around to take that time. I totally understand that,
Speaker 1: but you know you could get a significantly better speed
Speaker 1: by by shopping around, so you might. You might check that.
Speaker 1: And speed test has a good isp kind of you know,
Speaker 1: where you can check to see in high speed Internet
Speaker 1: dot com you can check to see what's in your area.
Speaker 1: So there's a couple of different ways to that. But
Speaker 1: I would I think you're gonna be fine. I would
Speaker 1: ask them about the the thirty days if you can
Speaker 1: switch to say, look, if this doesn't work for me,
Speaker 1: you know, can I go back? But I don't like
Speaker 1: the idea of locking in for two years. I hate
Speaker 1: tracks and I just it's you know, we're we're in
Speaker 1: a tech focused world where things are getting better every day.
Speaker 1: Like what if a new provider came to your neighborhood
Speaker 1: and said, hey, we're gonna give you a thousand down,
Speaker 1: one thousand up for ten bucks a month and you're
Speaker 1: stuck in this contract for two years. I don't like that,
Speaker 1: but but Bonnie, thanks for the question. Appreciate it. Eighty
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Peacock is getting more expensive.
Speaker 1: They are raising prices by two dollars on both the premium,
Speaker 1: which is their ad supported plan, and their ad free plan.
Speaker 1: They're both going up by two dollars a month. This
Speaker 1: is the second time Peacock has raised prices in two years.
Speaker 1: The free AD supported plan, which they launched with is
Speaker 1: no longer available to new subscribers, So if you have that,
Speaker 1: do not cancel it like I did, very very stupid
Speaker 1: of me, because I can never get it back. I
Speaker 1: am paying for Peacock and I got it on Black
Speaker 1: Friday last year for twenty bucks for the whole year,
Speaker 1: and now it's up to sixty For my renewal, new
Speaker 1: customer will pay more starting July eighteenth, just in time
Speaker 1: for the Olympics. Existing subscribers August seventeenth, they give you
Speaker 1: the Olympics, they save you two bucks there. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about Airbnb. They have a new
Speaker 1: offering called Icons. I'll explain. You're listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Get those calls in. I'll get
Speaker 1: to the lines in just a moment, but first, let's
Speaker 1: talk Airbnb now. This week, Airbnb had an event called
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four Summer Release. This is sort of where
Speaker 1: they give an update about the platform and introduce new features,
Speaker 1: and this year they had a whole bunch of new
Speaker 1: features aimed at making group stays easier. They said that
Speaker 1: eighty percent of stays are booked by groups, which is
Speaker 1: news to me. But the second thing they introduced in
Speaker 1: this this is really interesting, is called icons. This is
Speaker 1: a new category of sort of whimsical places inspired by
Speaker 1: famous people, places and things. So for example, they recreated
Speaker 1: the uphouse from the Disney movie. They actually had it
Speaker 1: on display, we could walk through it. That's going to
Speaker 1: be located in New Mexico. People will be able to
Speaker 1: stay the night in that house. They've got another experience
Speaker 1: where you can stay in the Ferrari Museum in Italy.
Speaker 1: They painted an entire house to look like a cartoon
Speaker 1: from X Men. You can stay there in Westchester, and
Speaker 1: the list goes on and on. There are eleven icons
Speaker 1: in all this is just the beginning. First up, I
Speaker 1: spoke with Airbnb co founder Brian Chesky about the new experiences.
Speaker 6: I think it was better than I imagined. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 6: just really surprised. If you can dream it, you can
Speaker 6: do it. While Disney said, and I think we did it, so.
Speaker 1: And what do you hope to impart on the people
Speaker 1: that stay at places like this, these iconic places.
Speaker 6: I think it's just like that you can these worlds
Speaker 6: that exist in your imagination, they're now real and the world,
Speaker 6: the real world is magical. I know we spend a
Speaker 6: lot of time on devices and AI is ushering in
Speaker 6: all these like magical digital worlds, but there's still a
Speaker 6: lot of magic left in the real world, and I
Speaker 6: hope more people spend more time in it. And really
Speaker 6: enjoy it, and we just want to. I think that's
Speaker 6: what we're trying to do, is just bring magic into
Speaker 6: the real world.
Speaker 1: Do you ever think you would come this far with
Speaker 1: Airbnb when you started it.
Speaker 6: When I inflated three air mattresses my roommate.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
Speaker 6: I mean, we just started as a cheap, affordable alternative
Speaker 6: to hotel and to be able to come here. But
Speaker 6: I mean this is kind of you want to go
Speaker 6: where your imagination takes you, you know, and this is
Speaker 6: the beginning. I think this is the beginning of the
Speaker 6: next chapter of the company.
Speaker 1: Next up. I spoke with Jay Carney at length about
Speaker 1: the new features on Airbnb. He's their global head of
Speaker 1: policy and Communications.
Speaker 5: It started as an idea of our two co founders
Speaker 5: when they needed a little extra money. They had a
Speaker 5: department in San Francisco and a spare room and they
Speaker 5: rented it out and that was Airbedandbreakfast dot com, which
Speaker 5: became Airbnb dot com.
Speaker 1: And today you've got places everywhere.
Speaker 5: Right, You've got places in more than two hundred countries
Speaker 5: around the world, tens of thousands of cities, and all
Speaker 5: of every state in the nation. And it's an extraordinary thing,
Speaker 5: the growth of the company, the success, the fact that
Speaker 5: Airbnb is you know, sort of become a noun and
Speaker 5: a verb, right, I mean, they get an Airbnb. I'm
Speaker 5: going to Airbnb and this city or that city. So
Speaker 5: it's amazing. What's happened.
Speaker 1: What do you think the advantages of an Airbnb versus
Speaker 1: standard hotel?
Speaker 5: Sure, I mean, there are lots of accommodation options. One
Speaker 5: thing we know for sure is that Airbnb is better
Speaker 5: for group stays. It turns out more than eighty percent
Speaker 5: of Airbnb bookings are for group stays. I think that's
Speaker 5: because you get more space. Generally, you can get a
Speaker 5: whole home if you have kids, if you're traveling with
Speaker 5: your family, you know, the kids get a bedroom, you
Speaker 5: get your own bedroom, you get living space.
Speaker 1: What is the most notable aspect of the group planning?
Speaker 5: At this point, group trips have become sort of the
Speaker 5: you know, the foundation of Airbnb, and people love to
Speaker 5: use Airbnb for group trips, but our app wasn't designed
Speaker 5: for that. So the improvements are really designed to make
Speaker 5: it more delightful and easier for folks who are planning
Speaker 5: group trips, so that the key factors are shared whistless.
Speaker 5: We've always had wishless, or not always, but we had
Speaker 5: had them for a long time, but they were really
Speaker 5: hard to share and so people would make you know,
Speaker 5: you know, spreadsheets and send them around to their fellow travelers.
Speaker 5: Now you can easily within the app build a wishless,
Speaker 5: share it with your co travelers. They can give a
Speaker 5: thumbs up or a thumbs down or you know, other feedback,
Speaker 5: so you can decide whish home you want a book.
Speaker 5: And the other key feature is co travelers get to
Speaker 5: sort of join the reservation and interact with the hosts.
Speaker 5: So if you're coming from different places your group, you know,
Speaker 5: that way, you know, your co traveler sees the same
Speaker 5: information from the hosts about the address, how to check in,
Speaker 5: how to open the door, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 5: we find those features are going to make it a
Speaker 5: lot easier, a lot more fun for group travelers. Why
Speaker 5: the icons, we've discovered over the years that these things
Speaker 5: we've been doing in sort of more you know, one
Speaker 5: off fashion we call them, most recently only on Airbnb,
Speaker 5: have been you know, tremendously successful in terms of the
Speaker 5: attention they've gotten and the excitement they've created. So we
Speaker 5: decided like why not, why not scale this, let's turn
Speaker 5: it into a category on the app, so it's easy
Speaker 5: to find, uh and and you know, and make them
Speaker 5: even bigger and more exciting and driven by this sort
Speaker 5: of principle that they should be experiences that are unlike
Speaker 5: any other and in many ways are often only existed
Speaker 5: in your imagination, but we were able to make them real.
Speaker 1: So okay, this all sounds incredible, but how do you
Speaker 1: actually book it? Like who's going to get to do
Speaker 1: these things? And how are you offering it for zero dollars?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean we're offering it for zero dollars in
Speaker 5: most cases and under one hundred dollars in every case,
Speaker 5: because we want these you know, otherworldly, beyond your imagination
Speaker 5: experiences to be affordable and not not just for people
Speaker 5: who have a lot of means. When it drops, and
Speaker 5: there'll be a countdown clock for each of the eleven icons.
Speaker 5: Some of them have dropped today, others will drop later
Speaker 5: this week or early next week, and all will drop
Speaker 5: between now and October. Yeah, there's a period where you
Speaker 5: can request a book. You push that button, you fill
Speaker 5: in your information, you write a little statement about why
Speaker 5: you're excited why you want this to particular icon and
Speaker 5: then all of those applications, all those requests will go
Speaker 5: into a system where basically a chunk will be pulled
Speaker 5: out randomly and then they will be examined by a
Speaker 5: third party that we'll look at and I think from there,
Speaker 5: you know, we'll make a selection if you if you
Speaker 5: get it, you'll get a golden ticket electronic ticket, and
Speaker 5: hopefully have the experience of a lifetime.
Speaker 1: You know, Airbnb has had, you know, some stumbles and
Speaker 1: things throughout the years. Tell me about how it has
Speaker 1: approached things like cleaning fees and you know, unreasonable demands,
Speaker 1: stuff like that, even cities cracking down on you know
Speaker 1: someplace you just can't even get an Airbnb.
Speaker 5: Well some I mean, the general approach is to accept
Speaker 5: feedback and criticism as something that's important and valuable to
Speaker 5: help us improve the service.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: So, you know, especially in the wake of the pandemic
Speaker 5: or during the pandemic, cleaning, you know, clean cleanliness, you know,
Speaker 5: and making sure the listings were safe and clean was
Speaker 5: a high priority. That drove a lot of cleaning fees,
Speaker 5: and we got that feedback and as you know, in
Speaker 5: the previous launches. We've taken steps to address that and
Speaker 5: try to, you know, make create more clarity abound around
Speaker 5: what the actual the full cost is for a booking.
Speaker 5: We work with you know, I run policy as well
Speaker 5: as communications. We work with cities around the world towards
Speaker 5: the sensible regulation that helps address any concerns they might
Speaker 5: have about short term rentals and the growth of short
Speaker 5: term rentals in their city, as well as you know,
Speaker 5: balance that with you know, the hope and the expectation
Speaker 5: that hosts their constituents will be able to be host
Speaker 5: and do so successfully. We think, you know, hosting can
Speaker 5: bring a lot to a community economic impact for sure,
Speaker 5: but also introduce people from outside of town to.
Speaker 1: Parts of a city, or parts of a state or
Speaker 1: parts of.
Speaker 5: A country that don't always get or ever get tourists.
Speaker 1: If you're booking in Airbnb, it can be overwhelming. So
Speaker 1: there's so many choices. Give me the secret tip on
Speaker 1: how to narrow down the right Airbnb for you.
Speaker 5: I love the new future. We announced not that long
Speaker 5: ago guest Favorites. So this is a new system that
Speaker 5: basically feature highlights you know, through information and data that
Speaker 5: we collect around ratings and you know, incident rates, and
Speaker 5: you know, time hosting where we we we elevate to
Speaker 5: the level of guest favorites the very best listings on Airbnb.
Speaker 5: So if you're new to Airbnb and you want to
Speaker 5: be sure you're getting like a highly reliable, great experience
Speaker 5: filter for guest favorites, that's what I do.
Speaker 1: Will there ever be a rewards program to compete with
Speaker 1: the likes of Mariott and Hilton.
Speaker 5: You know there, we don't have one, Like we're you know,
Speaker 5: we're still a new business and anyways, it feels that way,
Speaker 5: kind of like a startup, even though the company's public now,
Speaker 5: so we're you know, we're open to a lot of ideas,
Speaker 5: but certainly nothing to announce along those lines today.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I think it's incredible what Airbnb has done with their platform,
Speaker 1: especially when you hear about their humble beginnings. Personally, I
Speaker 1: fancy myself a hotel guy. I kind of like the
Speaker 1: routine and the standardness of a hotel room. But I
Speaker 1: get why Airbnb is so incredible. It's for those times
Speaker 1: when you want something much more unique and in my experience,
Speaker 1: and yes, I've used the platform several times, it is
Speaker 1: excellent for group travel and when you want that very
Speaker 1: unique experience in a city or a place. We'll see
Speaker 1: how the new icons category does. Obviously it's very limited
Speaker 1: and who actually gets to stay in these icons, But
Speaker 1: it seems like the whole point is to get folks
Speaker 1: to open up that Airbnb app and experience and explore
Speaker 1: all the different options there. All right, more of your
Speaker 1: questions coming up at triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: My name is Rich d'muro and you are listening to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple
Speaker 1: A rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Give me a call
Speaker 1: if you have a question about technology. You can also
Speaker 1: go to the website rich on Tech dot tv. Right
Speaker 1: on the homepage. I've got a brand new newsletter. This
Speaker 1: is something I send out weekly. You can get on
Speaker 1: the list. Just pop your email address in there and
Speaker 1: you will get that to your inbox mostly every week.
Speaker 1: As long as I can keep up with that. Let's
Speaker 1: go to us. Sarah in Ventura, Sarah, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 7: I started to get a message on my phone. It
Speaker 7: says miss uh required, SMS permission needed. So I have
Speaker 7: two factor authentication on my email, so I need to
Speaker 7: keep my phone number. I changed my password.
Speaker 1: Tell me what this message says. Again, I didn't quite
Speaker 1: understand it.
Speaker 7: Miss m I s S required. Then it says s
Speaker 7: M S permission needed. I didn't know what that meant,
Speaker 7: and someone told me it means the SIM card. So
Speaker 7: I had changed my password on my phone and then
Speaker 7: I saw the option to put a password on the
Speaker 7: sim card. So I thought, oh, I wonder what's that's like.
Speaker 7: So I clicked on it and then it said what
Speaker 7: is your password that you have set? And I hadn't
Speaker 7: set one, and then I I guessed, But then it's
Speaker 7: it wouldn't let me leave leave setting it up. So
Speaker 7: then I tried going back, and then I tried turning
Speaker 7: off the phone and removing the SIM card. Then I
Speaker 7: switched it from one side to the other.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, she did a lot. I like, what,
Speaker 1: uh what? This is an Android? Correct?
Speaker 4: It is?
Speaker 1: Okay, So what app are you using for your text messages?
Speaker 7: It's just called messages?
Speaker 1: Okay? So what I would do? It sounds like, well,
Speaker 1: the so at this point, can you use your phone
Speaker 1: or not?
Speaker 7: No, it just has the thing scrolling saying you know
Speaker 7: that the SIM card is the activated. So I used
Speaker 7: my another person's phone and they said when I called
Speaker 7: my provider, they said, well, you'll have to leave our
Speaker 7: service and then when you signed up with someone else,
Speaker 7: then we can pourt it back to ours. Otherwise you
Speaker 7: have to get a new SIM.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so's your phone number. Here's what you need
Speaker 1: to do. You got to go to your carrier store.
Speaker 1: Do you is your carrier a virtual carrier or an
Speaker 1: AT and T T mobile kind of thing.
Speaker 7: It's unfortunately it's one of those virtual side branch ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so that could be an issue. So you know,
Speaker 1: they they've run things a little bit differently. But what
Speaker 1: I would do is just call them and say that
Speaker 1: you need a new SIM card and see if they
Speaker 1: can just send you a new SIM in the mail.
Speaker 1: Or better yet, what type of phone do you have?
Speaker 7: It's an Android? But my carrier said that they would
Speaker 7: send me another SIM card, but it would have to
Speaker 7: be a different number. But I'm locked out of all
Speaker 7: my emails because I put up a two factor authentication.
Speaker 1: Why does it have to be a different phone number.
Speaker 1: That that part I'm not really understanding. So I would
Speaker 1: I would call the provider and ask for a supervisor
Speaker 1: and say, you know here, you know, basically I set
Speaker 1: a lock on my SIM card. Uh, and I need
Speaker 1: a new SIM that does not have a lock or
Speaker 1: help me unlock this. But it's interesting. I mean, it
Speaker 1: may be tied to your phone number, but that's that
Speaker 1: seems to be odd, Like I would think on the
Speaker 1: back end they could just clear that.
Speaker 7: Yes, I talked to the text and they said from
Speaker 7: the back end that they couldn't get it to unblock.
Speaker 7: It looked like it was semi okay.
Speaker 1: So what they're saying is you need to switch providers
Speaker 1: and then port that number out to a new provider
Speaker 1: and then they can pot it in again.
Speaker 8: Yes, that's what they said. I just think that's the
Speaker 8: same range. And then they're going to cause ast me
Speaker 8: hundreds of dollars just to switch over. And then they said, oh,
Speaker 8: we don't.
Speaker 7: Actually accept that virtual provider, so we're going to charge
Speaker 7: you hundreds of dollars to.
Speaker 1: What do you mean we don't accept that virtual provider
Speaker 1: who said that T Mobile And.
Speaker 7: My provider said, you know, we're with T Mobile, So
Speaker 7: go there. But then T Mobile said no, we don't
Speaker 7: actually accept it. And she said the other people main
Speaker 7: AT and T and Horizon will also charge me hundreds
Speaker 7: of dollars, and so.
Speaker 1: I said, well hundreds of dollars for what to just
Speaker 1: switch it over? Now, there's no there's no switching fees.
Speaker 1: I switched my wife last weekend. There was zero fees
Speaker 1: involved unless you unless you owe money on your phone.
Speaker 9: No I don't.
Speaker 7: And then they said, well, actually we don't interface with that.
Speaker 7: We're going to have.
Speaker 1: To have you the company. What's the MV and L.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what's the MV and OL? What's a cellular company?
Speaker 7: In touch?
Speaker 1: In touch, I've never heard of that one.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: In touch wireless.
Speaker 7: Huh okay, it starts with an E E N T
Speaker 7: O U C H.
Speaker 1: I never heard of that. Oh it's a okay, so
Speaker 1: it's a it's a lifeline service. Yeah, oh okay, Well
Speaker 1: that's okay. All right, Well look I think, uh and
Speaker 1: that might be why okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 7: Well, you're inexpensive place to buy a new phone, they said,
Speaker 7: I'd have to get another type of phone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how much do you spend on this a month.
Speaker 7: Not very much, it's very well how much virtually nothing?
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well, look, I think the problem is
Speaker 1: this is this is a this wireless company is they
Speaker 1: work on the government subsidy, so they are they're doing
Speaker 1: the Lifeline service. They get money from the government and
Speaker 1: then they provide you with the service at a very
Speaker 1: very low cost, and they're they're basically making money on
Speaker 1: how much they provide you the service and how much
Speaker 1: they get paid. So it sounds like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a mess. And obviously because this is such a
Speaker 1: virtual system and because it's related to the government, it
Speaker 1: just sounds like you're in a really interesting situation here,
Speaker 1: especially with the fact that you've set up your phone
Speaker 1: number with a you know, with all of your two
Speaker 1: factor authentication. So in general, this is why I'm getting
Speaker 1: away from using my phone number for two factor authentication.
Speaker 1: So when possible, I would use an app like Authye
Speaker 1: or Duo or any one of these Microsoft authenticators. That way,
Speaker 1: your two factor authentication codes are not linked to your
Speaker 1: phone number. Because when you come into a situation like this,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a real problem. Now, I think what
Speaker 1: I would do is just go online to another provider
Speaker 1: if you can, and try to pourt out that phone number.
Speaker 1: But the problem is you need a code, typically from
Speaker 1: your previous provider, and you also need the account number.
Speaker 1: So uh, this is really tricky. I think that if
Speaker 1: you've talked to a supervisor, I would call again and
Speaker 1: call again and just explain to them the problem. Say, look,
Speaker 1: my phone line is locked up. I need this unlocked
Speaker 1: so I can access my accounts. If you can't do that,
Speaker 1: say look, I'd like to poort out my number. Can
Speaker 1: you please give me the pin number to port out
Speaker 1: my line? And I would go to something like a
Speaker 1: very inexpensive provider like a mint Mobile or Tello to
Speaker 1: get a cheap line that you can get for very
Speaker 1: few dollars per month. Eighty eight rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology the website rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. There you can see all of the stories
Speaker 1: I do for TV my tech updates. I also have
Speaker 1: been taking some of the notable interviews from this show
Speaker 1: and breaking them out so you can see the key takeaways.
Speaker 1: Could we do interview a fair amount of people here.
Speaker 1: They've got some great stuff to say. You can listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast, sign up for the newsletter. There's a lot.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv. The phone line for the
Speaker 1: show eight eight eight Rich one one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. If you
Speaker 1: go to the website, you can submit your question there
Speaker 1: as well via email. Just hit contact. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: Tim did. He said, Hey, Rich, I'm stuck. I'm replacing
Speaker 1: my Google six Pro. It's got a crack screen with
Speaker 1: a new phone. But which one Google eight Pro, Samsung
Speaker 1: S twenty four plus or an Apple fifteen Max. I
Speaker 1: never had an Apple, but my wife and daughter love them.
Speaker 1: I am a T Mobile customer. If that matters, I
Speaker 1: would appreciate your input on this. Help Tim. So the
Speaker 1: three phones you mentioned, one is not like the other.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the Google eight Pro, which is their high end,
Speaker 1: the Apple fifteen Mac Promax, which is their high ends,
Speaker 1: and then you said the Samsung S twenty four plus
Speaker 1: that's their middle of the line phone. So if you're
Speaker 1: truly comparing which phone to get, you got to go
Speaker 1: ultra with the Samsung. Personally, my pick out of these
Speaker 1: three would be the Ultra. The eight Google eight Pro
Speaker 1: is great, but only if you are sort of ah
Speaker 1: if you already have the Google six, so I think
Speaker 1: you're used to that situation. But the Samsung really is
Speaker 1: the best phone of the year, the s twenty four
Speaker 1: Ultra specifically, It's got this incredible screen that is like
Speaker 1: non reflective, It's fast, it's got great software. I know
Speaker 1: Bobo likes it. That's why he's partial to the Samsung.
Speaker 1: That's why he's clapping. The Apple is great, but you know,
Speaker 1: if your wife and sister daughter have them, it's nice
Speaker 1: to be on the same page with them. I will
Speaker 1: admit that is really nice. But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: you're an Android guy. You've had Android for a while,
Speaker 1: and the biggest issue with switching to the Samsung would
Speaker 1: be the software. The Google software, in my opinion, is
Speaker 1: way better than the Samsung software. With that said, Samsung's
Speaker 1: gotten a lot better. So did I help you decide?
Speaker 1: Probably not. So If you want to be on the
Speaker 1: same page with your wife and daughter and you want
Speaker 1: to be I messaging them, then go with the Apple.
Speaker 1: But if you want to go your own way and
Speaker 1: continue with the Android that you know and love, then
Speaker 1: I would go with the Samsung. The Google's great, the
Speaker 1: pixel is fine. It's just the problem is it's underpowered
Speaker 1: compared to the Samsung. Samsung is like a beast does everything,
Speaker 1: and it does it really well, and the camera's better,
Speaker 1: in my opinion. T Mobile this week completed its acquisition
Speaker 1: of Mint Mobile and Ultramobile, so now these are one company.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I think that any major acquisition of a startup is
Speaker 1: never a good thing for consumers. The you know, prices
Speaker 1: are eventually going to be higher, you know, the features
Speaker 1: are going to be less. But right now they're talking
Speaker 1: a good game and they're saying that it's gonna be
Speaker 1: great for Mint Mobile customers. And Mint Mobile and Ultra
Speaker 1: already used T Mobiles networks, so that's pretty much gonna
Speaker 1: be the same. But T Mobile has a commitment that
Speaker 1: they are going to keep a fifteen dollars a month plan.
Speaker 1: That was the reason why a lot of people went
Speaker 1: to Mint. They love that really inexpensive plan that Mint
Speaker 1: Mobile offered. So T Mobile says we're gonna keep that
Speaker 1: plan in place. They didn't say what the data limits
Speaker 1: would be on that plan, so right now I think, oh,
Speaker 1: is it fifteen gigs a month, So they said the
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars a month. They didn't say what the gigabytes
Speaker 1: are gonna be. They're also gonna roll out scams call
Speaker 1: scam call screening for Mint customers, and they're gonna give
Speaker 1: Mint customers free roaming in Canada and enhance data roaming
Speaker 1: in Mexico for Ultra customers. Ryan Reynolds is gonna stay
Speaker 1: on as creative for Mint Mobile. He was kind of
Speaker 1: the brains behind that whole thing. So look, you know,
Speaker 1: it's we're just seeing so much more consolidation in the
Speaker 1: mobile industry. These mv and os they pop up to
Speaker 1: kind of challenge the big networks, and then they get
Speaker 1: absorbed by the big networks. When the big networks say, oh,
Speaker 1: people seem to like them, let let's take them over.
Speaker 1: And Roku, you're gonna start seeing ads on your home screen.
Speaker 1: Roku says they reach one hundred and twenty million people
Speaker 1: a day. What does that mean. It means those are
Speaker 1: a lot of eyeballs for ads, and so now home
Speaker 1: screen video ads are going to be a thing. We
Speaker 1: just saw this happen on Amazon fireTV. When you fire
Speaker 1: up the Fire TV, it starts to AutoPlay an AD.
Speaker 1: You know what I did. I switched to the Apple
Speaker 1: TV because I couldn't stand it. At first. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Why am I seeing an AD
Speaker 1: every time I turn on my fireTV? And I love
Speaker 1: the fireTV, but it just got annoying. When you stop
Speaker 1: moving the remote for a second, an AD would come up.
Speaker 1: Now we are gonna I think Apple's gonna be the
Speaker 1: last one, because this is really tough to avoid, even
Speaker 1: on the individual apps. At this point, when you're appausing
Speaker 1: them or you're just kind of not doing anything with
Speaker 1: those apps, they're showing ads. So what does this all mean?
Speaker 1: It means the free ride is over. I've said this
Speaker 1: so many times. When all this streaming stuff started, it
Speaker 1: was a big alternative to kind of like watching linear
Speaker 1: TV and renting stuff and paying for all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and you've got ad free experiences. Nowadays, it's all about
Speaker 1: the ads once again, because these big companies they want
Speaker 1: somewhere to advertise, and these other companies, the streaming companies,
Speaker 1: they've got the eyeballs and they make extra money, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't want to pay twenty three
Speaker 1: dollars a month for Netflix. They're perfectly happy paying six
Speaker 1: ninety nine a month and sitting through ads, which is
Speaker 1: perfectly fine. But be prepared for Roku to now start
Speaker 1: showing new ads at every corner. That's the way it is.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's go to Kathy in Laguna Niguel. Kathy,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 7: Hi.
Speaker 10: Rich, I love your show, and I'll try to make
Speaker 10: my question as easy as possible to understand. Sure, Okay.
Speaker 10: So in twenty eighteen, we had a solar system installed
Speaker 10: on our home through a large solar company which has
Speaker 10: now gone out of business, and that system included a
Speaker 10: cellular motor modem that was connected to a two G
Speaker 10: network system that allowed us to monitor our usage using
Speaker 10: the solar Edge monitoring platform. We just got a letter
Speaker 10: from solar Edge saying that as of April to second,
Speaker 10: they were discontinuing the two G network system, so we
Speaker 10: were going to have to get a new modem and
Speaker 10: they would provide us that new five G modem free
Speaker 10: of charge by contacting them or having our installer contact them.
Speaker 10: We don't have an installer because they're out of business now,
Speaker 10: so we've tried to contact them.
Speaker 7: We looked at a.
Speaker 10: Couple of YouTube videos. Didn't look like it was too
Speaker 10: hard to replace that modem, but they've never contacted us again.
Speaker 10: There's also another option besides getting a new replacement modem,
Speaker 10: which you have to buy online. It's about two hundred
Speaker 10: and fifty three dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, okay, and so what's the question.
Speaker 10: Okay, Well, there's another option that you can buy just
Speaker 10: a wire connector to connect it to our existing five
Speaker 10: G system routered here that we have.
Speaker 3: In our house.
Speaker 11: Yeah, as another option.
Speaker 10: And that's cost you know, next to nothing. Yeah, because
Speaker 10: you just have to buy that little wire piece. Well,
Speaker 10: the kicker is here. It's after April the second, and
Speaker 10: we're still able to monitor that solar Edge platform never
Speaker 10: did go down. So I don't know if it was just.
Speaker 9: To come on.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, they would want to upgrade.
Speaker 1: No, No, it's not a come on. It's the I mean,
Speaker 1: a two G network is very old. It's probably either
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm surprised they even have that because a
Speaker 1: lot of these companies have sunseted their two G networks.
Speaker 1: So maybe it's on AT and T. Maybe they still
Speaker 1: have a little bit of two G running for like
Speaker 1: emergency situations. But I would I personally, go with the
Speaker 1: option for the wire connector. If you can easily just
Speaker 1: run a wire to your modem, that's going to be
Speaker 1: probably what under twenty five dollars for that connector or something, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would do that and the modem. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you this is just to monitor your system, right, Like
Speaker 1: you don't really need this to run the system? Correct,
Speaker 1: That's correct? So I mean in California, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: do you check on this thing all the time or
Speaker 1: what we do?
Speaker 10: Because if we did not have this monitoring here on
Speaker 10: our computer, we would have to wait each month when
Speaker 10: we got our San Diego Gas and Electric bill to
Speaker 10: see what our usage.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I would just go with the wire connector.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want, if you think you
Speaker 1: can pop out the old cellular I had the same
Speaker 1: exact thing happened to me with an alarm system I had,
Speaker 1: and it was an older network. They're upgrading and they
Speaker 1: said I will send you a new modem and you
Speaker 1: got to pop it in yourself. I'm like really like,
Speaker 1: like I get it, Like I can do it, because
Speaker 1: of course I can pop this thing open and pop
Speaker 1: in the new modem. But I was like they make
Speaker 1: regular people do this. That's kind of weird, but sure enough,
Speaker 1: it was very simple. It was very straightforward. I don't
Speaker 1: even think I had to pay for the new modem.
Speaker 1: But in this case, if you want to do the
Speaker 1: new modem and pay the money, I don't know. If
Speaker 1: you can run the wire that's a lot cheaper. It's
Speaker 1: going to be you know, a good, a good kind
Speaker 1: of system to do that with.
Speaker 10: I think, okay, okay, good. It doesn't look like I
Speaker 10: have an empty port on the back of my modem here,
Speaker 10: but we'll have to we'll address that. We'll figure out
Speaker 10: if there's something we can eliminate or yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: Just get you can get a switch, a small switch
Speaker 1: that you can get on Amazon that will extend extend
Speaker 1: the ports on the back of there. So just look up,
Speaker 1: just look up a switch on it Amazon and I
Speaker 1: have one connected to mind. That'll that'll increase the amount
Speaker 1: of ports you have on the back of your device.
Speaker 1: But that's probably the way to do it. Just you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to pay the money for the modem
Speaker 1: and you just want it to be wireless, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I have no problem with that. But the cheaper solution
Speaker 1: if you're if this is close to your router, why
Speaker 1: not just do it that way and just plug it in.
Speaker 10: Yeah, okay, great, Well that's the advice I needed. So
Speaker 10: thank you very much.
Speaker 1: We'll do that, all right, Kathy, appreciate it. Good luck. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, thanks for the call today. Eight eight eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Uh man, it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: I have not personally gone solar, and I always say
Speaker 1: I wish I would have done it when I first
Speaker 1: bought my house, because now we're many years in and uh,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things you have to have for
Speaker 1: a long time for it to sort of pay for itself.
Speaker 1: So and then of course you have the issue of,
Speaker 1: you know, the company that does it, how long are
Speaker 1: they going to maintain it for Coming up this hour,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to Jack Winston, founder of an
Speaker 1: app called be Present, such a cool app. We'll have
Speaker 1: more on that and more of your calls coming up
Speaker 1: right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: On Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at Triple eight rich one one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Let's see.
Speaker 1: We got an email from Tony. Tony says, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a digital frame. You've recommended the Aura
Speaker 1: digital frame in the past. Is this still the best
Speaker 1: choice or are there other options? I really enjoy listening
Speaker 1: to your show. Keep up the good work, Thanks, Tony.
Speaker 1: Great question. So I still think the Aura frames are
Speaker 1: probably over all the best. But I was in Target
Speaker 1: yesterday and I saw a new brand that I had
Speaker 1: never seen before. It's called Skylight, and I said, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: If they're in Target, they must be pretty decent. Because
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of digital frames over the years
Speaker 1: that I've tested. None have come close to the quality
Speaker 1: of the Aura frames. And the reason I like them
Speaker 1: the most is really it's it comes down to the app.
Speaker 1: So I mean the quality of the frame. The frame
Speaker 1: looks really good, but it's the app that makes life
Speaker 1: so much easier because it's just such a well designed app.
Speaker 1: And these digital frames, if you don't have one, makes
Speaker 1: a great gift because you can get them for your
Speaker 1: loved ones, someone that lives far away. The toughest part
Speaker 1: is really setting it up for them. But with the
Speaker 1: even with the Aura frame, you can like preload the
Speaker 1: Wi Fi and preload the pictures so that when they
Speaker 1: open it up, it just kind of connects to their
Speaker 1: WiFi and the pictures are already on there, or I
Speaker 1: guess it downloads them the first time they open it
Speaker 1: and connect. But it's a pretty great experience, So highly
Speaker 1: highly recommend if you're looking for a gift for someone,
Speaker 1: these are always a crowd pleaser. And then the beauty
Speaker 1: of these app of frames is that you can just
Speaker 1: email the pictures from your phone to the frame they
Speaker 1: show up instantly, or you can use the app. In
Speaker 1: the case of Aura, you can use the app and
Speaker 1: just get those pictures there. Now I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: Skylight and I kind of like it. It looks like
Speaker 1: it's very competitive with the Aura. The big difference is
Speaker 1: is that it looks like you may have to pay
Speaker 1: a little bit for extras. So the Aura has or sorry,
Speaker 1: the Skylight has a basic free plan which you can
Speaker 1: send photos by email or mobile app anytime from anywhere.
Speaker 1: That is included for free. But on the plus it's
Speaker 1: forty dollars a year and you can send photos, you
Speaker 1: can send videos, you can make captions, greeting cards, doodles,
Speaker 1: cloud backup, online access and albums. So it seems to
Speaker 1: me like the play with Skylight is a little bit
Speaker 1: more towards that yearly fee, which some people may be
Speaker 1: turned off by. So again I think Tony, the option
Speaker 1: that I still like is the Aura. They have some great,
Speaker 1: beautiful frames. I would check them out, but if you
Speaker 1: want that alternative, the Skylight looks like it's a nice alternative.
Speaker 1: Is also has a touch screen, which is nice too.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Sam's Club. This this week
Speaker 1: kind of interesting news from Sam's Club. You know how
Speaker 1: when you go to one of these big box retailers
Speaker 1: like a Walmart or Sam's Club or a Costco, they
Speaker 1: check your receiat on the way out. Well, Sam's Club
Speaker 1: is putting in some new technology that it kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a metal detector that you walk out, but
Speaker 1: it's using AI and computer vision and they are going
Speaker 1: to ditch the physical people that check your receipts in
Speaker 1: lieu of AI. And let's see, they unveiled this technology
Speaker 1: at CS this year. I did not see this at CES,
Speaker 1: so I guess I missed it. But right now it's
Speaker 1: in one hundred and twenty clubs Sam's Clubs and it
Speaker 1: basically compares what's in your shopping cart to your receipt.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure how it's doing that, but it
Speaker 1: says the technology seamlessly confirms that members have paid for
Speaker 1: all items in their shopping carts without requiring associate verification.
Speaker 1: Now they're still going to be an associate at the exit,
Speaker 1: but they're more just to kind of supervise the system.
Speaker 1: Kind of interesting, and this is they took a direct
Speaker 1: job at Amazon in their press release saying as some
Speaker 1: people are ditching their computer vision technology, we are embracing it.
Speaker 1: And that was a direct job at Amazon giving up
Speaker 1: on their just walk out technology. Now, the biggest comment
Speaker 1: I got about this when I put this on my
Speaker 1: social media, everyone was saying, Oh, Rich, are you sure
Speaker 1: that this is not powered by people in India? Because
Speaker 1: if you saw the big thing about the Amazon just
Speaker 1: walk out someone one person said that Amazon's just walk
Speaker 1: out technology was powered by people in India watching the
Speaker 1: cameras a thousand people. Give me a break. They did
Speaker 1: not have people in India watching cameras from all the
Speaker 1: Amazon stores in real time. No, what those people were
Speaker 1: doing is when there was an issue that would be
Speaker 1: flipped to the people in India, and they would say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you look at this and see what happens here?
Speaker 1: Did this person pick up a box of fruity pebbles
Speaker 1: when our system said they looked at cocoa pebbles?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: It wasn't someone watching every single camera in real time.
Speaker 1: That's insane. Nobody's doing that. Amazon would not base their
Speaker 1: technology on people in a call center watching cameras in
Speaker 1: real time to see what kind of peanut butter I
Speaker 1: pick up? Come on, but people, that was literally the
Speaker 1: comment I got over and over if you believe that
Speaker 1: Amazon would do that. I mean, just one person reporting
Speaker 1: something in our world, and I use reporting with air quotes.
Speaker 1: Just because one person posts something and fifty thousand other
Speaker 1: blogs I call them klingons all rewrite with that person
Speaker 1: wrote and put it as fact and truth. That does
Speaker 1: not make it fact and truth. Come on. And Amazon,
Speaker 1: by the way, is not ditching the just walkout technology.
Speaker 1: They're getting rid of it in their stores, but they
Speaker 1: are all these other third third party retailers are using it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Let me calm down here, all right? Coming up? Oh
Speaker 1: I need I need this app. It's called be Present.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to the founder of an app
Speaker 1: that helps you be on your phone a little bit less.
Speaker 1: You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology. If you want to get on the phone lines,
Speaker 1: we'll take a couple of calls after this interview. Eight
Speaker 1: eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Well, I'm very
Speaker 1: excited for my next guest because it's always interesting to
Speaker 1: me when we have an app that tries to keep
Speaker 1: you on your phone less, and that's exactly what be
Speaker 1: Present does.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Jack Winston, founder of an app
Speaker 1: called be Present. Jack. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Great, thanks for having me Rich.
Speaker 1: So this is a problem. People are on their phones
Speaker 1: way too much, and myself included. You know, I am
Speaker 1: a tech person, so obviously I have an excuse to
Speaker 1: myself and to my family members, you know, like my
Speaker 1: kids when they're like, Dad, look at this amazing picture
Speaker 1: I just drew. I'm like, kid, come on, I'm doing
Speaker 1: my emails for work. Just kidding. Yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 2: It's a massive problem, both in terms of the time
Speaker 2: that we spend, but I think even deeper than that.
Speaker 2: It's it's more than just the time, but it's the
Speaker 2: fact that most people aren't even alone with their own
Speaker 2: thoughts today. So more than just spending you know, X
Speaker 2: amount of time on their phone, every free moment that
Speaker 2: we have, whether where, like you said, with our kids,
Speaker 2: or even in an uber or in line for coffee,
Speaker 2: we're always pulling on our phones trying to distract ourselves.
Speaker 2: And I truly believe, you know, this is one of
Speaker 2: the defining problems of our generation today, and we're kind
Speaker 2: of just waking up to just how big of a
Speaker 2: problem it is.
Speaker 1: It's almost it's so odd that like the standard has
Speaker 1: become staring at your phone, and I will literally say
Speaker 1: something to someone, like at a Starbucks or like in line,
Speaker 1: people think you're weird because they just to like, what,
Speaker 1: why are you talking to me? I don't know. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't you be looking at your email?
Speaker 4: We don't.
Speaker 2: We don't talk to strangers anymore. We missed that serendipity.
Speaker 2: And I truly believe, Like I live in New York
Speaker 2: City and I go on the subway, everyone is on
Speaker 2: their phone as you're in the subway, and I think
Speaker 2: we're going to look back at this time and pictures
Speaker 2: and movies, and it's going to be like how we
Speaker 2: look back at people smoking cigarettes, you know, everyone on
Speaker 2: their phone. We're going to realize just how detrimental it is,
Speaker 2: both of the societal level but also personal health. And
Speaker 2: we're going to think, you know, what were we doing
Speaker 2: at that time? Right now, it's weird to do the opposite,
Speaker 2: but I think in the future, you know that that
Speaker 2: the tides are turning.
Speaker 1: So explain to me what the app does. What is
Speaker 1: be Present all about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the general idea be Present is, you know,
Speaker 2: social The reason why we can't get off our phones
Speaker 2: is because social media companies and other apps use powerful
Speaker 2: psychological techniques essentially to keep us addicted to engineer our
Speaker 2: constant engagement. That's why it's so tough to really reduce
Speaker 2: your screen time and why current solutions don't really work.
Speaker 2: And the thesis and insight behind our app is we
Speaker 2: actually use those same psychological techniques that keep us addicted,
Speaker 2: but instead to enforce healthy behaviors. So our mobile app
Speaker 2: it sinks with your screen time and then incorporates features
Speaker 2: that are proven to impact behavior change. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: you set screen time goals and then you earn streaks
Speaker 2: over time as you stick to your goals. You also
Speaker 2: earn points by reducing your screen time in blocking apps,
Speaker 2: and then you use those points to compete on weekly
Speaker 2: leader boards and challenge friends and even earn real life
Speaker 2: rewards that improve your life. We also have the ability
Speaker 2: to challenge your friends and keep accountability partners so that
Speaker 2: you can keep accountability to your goals and really like
Speaker 2: the idea here is, instead of just making the phone
Speaker 2: as frustrating as possible to use so that you use
Speaker 2: it less, which is what most of the current solutions
Speaker 2: are around app blocking or deleting apps, we actually want
Speaker 2: to make it fun, motivating, delightful, and empowering to use
Speaker 2: your phone how you want to use it, kind of
Speaker 2: replacing that dope mean hit you used to get from
Speaker 2: scrolling with dope mean for staying off your phone.
Speaker 1: What I liked about it number one is that it
Speaker 1: sort of works with the screen time functionality built into
Speaker 1: the iPhone. So that really surprised me, Like it kind
Speaker 1: of helped me set the screen time parameters, which I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that was really cool because I've done
Speaker 1: this with my kids. You know, with the screen time,
Speaker 1: it's a pain like Apple does not make it easy
Speaker 1: to kind of set up those limits, and so this
Speaker 1: made it a lot easier for me to do that
Speaker 1: for myself. And then in one tap, I was able
Speaker 1: to tap and say, you know, you set kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, when do you want to be off your phone? Okay?
Speaker 1: Right now? How long do you want to be off?
Speaker 1: An hour? And I was at my kids basketball game
Speaker 1: and typically, you know, every time there's a timeout or something,
Speaker 1: you know, you look at your phone, and it was
Speaker 1: just like, nope, you're on the present time. And it
Speaker 1: was just like, oh, I can't use my phone. That's
Speaker 1: just fine. And of course I made it so I
Speaker 1: can still use the camera if I needed it. But
Speaker 1: I thought that those two features a loan, we're like
Speaker 1: really really great exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we integrate with Apple's native screen time API,
Speaker 2: so we're able to you know, create a seamless user
Speaker 2: experience around customization and just like the blocking that you mentioned,
Speaker 2: and yeah, like adding these points of friction I think
Speaker 2: is important because a lot of our usage is mindless,
Speaker 2: right like whenever we have a free moment or like
Speaker 2: you know, people are afraid to be along with their
Speaker 2: own thoughts today, and so whenever they're still, you know,
Speaker 2: they take out their phone to try and stimulate themselves,
Speaker 2: but a lot of that is unconscious, and so adding
Speaker 2: like the blocking features that you mentioned, adding a little
Speaker 2: friction creates more awareness and intentionality around how.
Speaker 1: We use our phone.
Speaker 2: And so it's really just creating these features that can
Speaker 2: help people achieve the goals that they already want to achieve,
Speaker 2: Like you want to be present totally for your son's
Speaker 2: basketball game. You didn't want to be on your phone,
Speaker 2: and you were able to use these features to then
Speaker 2: create that accountability in the future for yourself, and so
Speaker 2: that's really our goal with what we're building now.
Speaker 1: The fear people may have is that if they do this,
Speaker 1: I call it kind of zen mode almost you call
Speaker 1: it blocking session. To me, it's almost like a zen mode.
Speaker 1: But is there a way to get around it? Like
Speaker 1: let's say you start a blocking session for an hour
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you need to do something
Speaker 1: like you have to do it. Can you get out
Speaker 1: of it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So the way it works is you can customize which
Speaker 2: apps are blocked in the first place. So if you
Speaker 2: want to use certain specific apps that you know are
Speaker 2: utility focused or you can't be locked out of then
Speaker 2: you can customize that as well. We do have you
Speaker 2: have the ability to get out of the blocking session
Speaker 2: if you need to. But the main point around that
Speaker 2: is we actually later on gamification on top of the
Speaker 2: blocking session. So if you end the blocking session early,
Speaker 2: you lose the points that you were going to earn,
Speaker 2: and so you can end it. If something is so
Speaker 2: dire that you need to access it, then yeah, you'll
Speaker 2: lose the points. But the point of the gamification is
Speaker 2: just to create an awareness whenever you're ending that blocking session, like,
Speaker 2: is ignoring this blocking session and accessing this app these
Speaker 2: apps worth you know, losing points or losing my streak
Speaker 2: or having my friends text me telling me that they
Speaker 2: can tell, you know, with the social features that I've
Speaker 2: been on my phone for too long, and it's really
Speaker 2: just you know, the gamification kind of creates that constant
Speaker 2: awareness of, you know, in the back of your head
Speaker 2: whenever you're using your phone, like, is this worth losing
Speaker 2: the game that I'm playing through? Be present so you
Speaker 2: can always use the apps that you want to use
Speaker 2: with our app, But it creates a mindfulness and awareness
Speaker 2: around it.
Speaker 1: Now there is a b present pro version. Explain what
Speaker 1: you get with the paid kind of pro version.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have a couple of great features in there.
Speaker 2: So going back to blocking sessions, we have a mode
Speaker 2: called beast mode within the pro version where you actually
Speaker 2: can't give up. So before I mentioned you can give
Speaker 2: up the blocking session right now. You'll just lose points.
Speaker 2: But some people don't even want that. They want like
Speaker 2: it totally blocked. So you enable beast mode, and uh,
Speaker 2: you won't be able to give up no matter how
Speaker 2: much you tried.
Speaker 1: Really, if you reset your phone, what if you've restarted, No.
Speaker 2: If you restart you it Uh. You know we sync
Speaker 2: with the Apple Screen Time ap I, so we're on
Speaker 2: uh you know, system level. And yeah, you you can't
Speaker 2: get around it through that. Now it will end when
Speaker 2: the timer ends. You know, you set you set the
Speaker 2: amount of time that you want and you won't like
Speaker 2: lose your phone forever. So I don't want to scare
Speaker 2: people out there, but it's just like, let's say you're
Speaker 2: you really need to get something done. You know, whether
Speaker 2: you're a student and you have you know, you waited
Speaker 2: too long to study for finals, or you know you're
Speaker 2: working and your boss really needs something and you're working remote,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be on your phone like you
Speaker 2: enable beast mostly that you really uh, you know, can't
Speaker 2: access your phone and be tempted.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got about a minute left here. I'm
Speaker 1: just curious. So you've seen kind of like how people
Speaker 1: are using the app. Are you seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: take up from this? Like you're people enjoying this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean as a founder and entrepreneur, one of
Speaker 2: the best things about my job is hearing the success
Speaker 2: stories of our users and our customers and really having
Speaker 2: an impact on people's lives. You know, we talked with
Speaker 2: users every every week and we hear some incredible stories.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One person just told us that they were able to
Speaker 2: finish the first draft of their novel because our app.
Speaker 2: Because of our app. Another person was and this is
Speaker 2: a little scary, and we're hearing this more and more.
Speaker 2: They were afraid of losing their job. You know, they
Speaker 2: work remotely, and they were just spending six, seven, eight
Speaker 2: hours a day on TikTok and they had tried everything before,
Speaker 2: nothing at worked and our app was the first thing
Speaker 2: that it worked for them. And so it's great hearing,
Speaker 2: you know, stories like this, but even more broadly, you know,
Speaker 2: we hear consistently that one of the main things people
Speaker 2: are rediscovering is just like the enjoyment of everyday life
Speaker 2: that people are getting back, and I think that's beautiful
Speaker 2: as well as people rediscover, you know, the the extraordinary
Speaker 2: world that we been that sometimes seems ordinary, but you know,
Speaker 2: we really can get a lot of enjoyment out of
Speaker 2: it if we just pick our heads up from the
Speaker 2: screens and learn to be present.
Speaker 1: I so agree. The website bpresentapp dot com. It is
Speaker 1: available for iOS right now. There is an Android wait list,
Speaker 1: so you are working on an Android app right, Yes,
Speaker 1: we are. That's very exciting, all right. Jack Winston, founder
Speaker 1: of the b Present App. I love it. I love
Speaker 1: what you're doing. I love the idea of this. I
Speaker 1: think we are seeing sort of a renaissance with people
Speaker 1: realizing that, yes, it is fun to see all those
Speaker 1: little numbers light up when you open up Instagram and
Speaker 1: the likes and the hearts and stuff, but it's a
Speaker 1: slot machine. That's exactly what it is. You're getting that
Speaker 1: dopamine hit based on posting stuff and looking for that feedback.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, and to your point, in the renaissance, like
Speaker 2: I think we're at the beginning of an inflection point,
Speaker 2: like a massive movement in the creation really of an
Speaker 2: entire new category of health and wellness around digital wellness
Speaker 2: that people will put right up there in the future
Speaker 2: in five years with fitness, nutrition, sleep, mental health. Like
Speaker 2: I think people will recognize this is an essential pillar
Speaker 2: for health, and I think we're just at the beginning
Speaker 2: of that, and that's why it's so exciting with what
Speaker 2: we're building right now and being in this space.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you having me on rich Thanks well.
Speaker 1: When I download an app and use it and love it,
Speaker 1: like I want the people on my show because I
Speaker 1: just like it's there's a lot of apps out there
Speaker 1: that I try, and this one really really hit a nerve. Jack,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me today the website rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv. Hit the light bulb and you
Speaker 1: can download the app or just go to the website
Speaker 1: bpresentapp dot com eight eight eight rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero
Speaker 1: one more of your calls and questions right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology. The phone number eight eight
Speaker 1: eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. If you hear me mention
Speaker 1: something on the air and you'd like a link, like
Speaker 1: maybe the app we just talked about, just go to
Speaker 1: the website Rich on tech dot tv. Hit the light
Speaker 1: bulb up at the top. That will bring you to
Speaker 1: the radio show wiki page. This has every show I've
Speaker 1: almost every show I've ever done, with all of the
Speaker 1: show notes in order. So for instance, this is show
Speaker 1: number seventy. You tap that and you can see all
Speaker 1: of the previous callers and all of the topics I've mentioned,
Speaker 1: as well as links to the pertinent information that you're
Speaker 1: looking for. Let's go to John in Los Angeles. John,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Oh hey, Rich, great show.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 11: I have a a Dell all in one desktop and
Speaker 11: it has one terabyte of HDD and two fifty six
Speaker 11: of FSD memory, and everything is going into my seed drive.
Speaker 11: My Sea drive is pretty much maxed out, and I
Speaker 11: have a lot of space left in the d drive,
Speaker 11: but I don't know how to access that. I mean,
Speaker 11: I have everything set up in the file, all my
Speaker 11: documents set up in the files, and you know, it's
Speaker 11: pretty easy now because I pull it up and you know,
Speaker 11: everything is set up, but I'm not sure how to
Speaker 11: access the rest of that storage in the D drive.
Speaker 1: Interesting, it sounds like, is this like a fusion drive
Speaker 1: where it has like the two Like it might do
Speaker 1: kind of temporary things on the SSD, which is a
Speaker 1: solid state drive, which is a lot faster than the
Speaker 1: hard drive. So I think that's what the setup is here.
Speaker 1: And so it may be that it doesn't really wants
Speaker 1: you to install stuff on the SSD because it's just
Speaker 1: using it for temporary kind of usage of running programs
Speaker 1: and things to make that happen faster. So are you
Speaker 1: running out of space on things you want to store
Speaker 1: on the drive or what? Well?
Speaker 11: Yeah, when I to say something, it says storage not long,
Speaker 11: no more storage available. And I called Dell and they
Speaker 11: said if I got a new all in one with
Speaker 11: one terabyte all SSD, then you know everything it would be,
Speaker 11: the entire terabyte would be accessible.
Speaker 1: Oh so Dell told you to solve your problem, well
Speaker 1: you have to do is buy a new computer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's really helpful.
Speaker 11: And I actually thought about it for a minute because
Speaker 11: I was so you know, no I mean, so I'm
Speaker 11: tired of this. I just don't know how to how
Speaker 11: to access through US because when I bought it, I'm like,
Speaker 11: oh wow, a terriblete I'll never use that in my life.
Speaker 11: And and now it turns out that I only have
Speaker 11: two two fifty six and I've used that already, so okay.
Speaker 1: So that so that the SSD is the terabyte.
Speaker 11: Oh no, and the new one if I if I
Speaker 11: purchased it, it would be it would be all SSD.
Speaker 3: Will be all accessible.
Speaker 1: A couple of things. Number one, I think the easiest
Speaker 1: way to expand your your hard drive space is to
Speaker 1: is to you know, if you if you needed to
Speaker 1: do that is to get you could either start using
Speaker 1: the cloud. You know, one drive is obviously built into
Speaker 1: Windows operating system. You can offload some stuff there and
Speaker 1: use it. And you know, the neat thing about that
Speaker 1: is because it's built into Explore, you can put the
Speaker 1: files up into one drive and I think they give
Speaker 1: you like fifteen gigs of free storage. You can put
Speaker 1: the files up there. They'll still be visible on your system,
Speaker 1: but they're not taking up any space. So that's one
Speaker 1: way of kind of just freeing up maybe fifteen gigs
Speaker 1: of storage. You can do that if you want. You
Speaker 1: can add an external drive to your system and you
Speaker 1: can easily expand infinite amounts of storage by you know,
Speaker 1: a two terabyte drive that you plug in with USB
Speaker 1: is going to you know, maybe cost sixty seventy bucks
Speaker 1: at the most. But the other thing I would do
Speaker 1: is try to see what is taking up the space
Speaker 1: on your drive that you have currently. And so there's
Speaker 1: a couple of programs that I would look into. The
Speaker 1: first is Windows Directories Statistics. It goes by the term
Speaker 1: when er stat W I N D I R S
Speaker 1: T A T dot net. So this will kind of
Speaker 1: scan your drives and give you a visual understanding of
Speaker 1: what's taking up the space in those drives. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: if it's being taken up by the Windows operating system,
Speaker 1: or maybe you know a couple of large files that
Speaker 1: you have that you may have forgotten about, you can
Speaker 1: use that to kind of clear up some space quickly.
Speaker 1: And then the other one is bleach bit b L
Speaker 1: E A C H B I T. This will clean
Speaker 1: up some of the clutter on your system, including some cookies,
Speaker 1: internet history, broken shortcuts, just unnecessary files to free up
Speaker 1: valuable disk space, as they say, So this is kind
Speaker 1: of one of those like maintenance programs, and it will
Speaker 1: give you an idea of what's what it might clear
Speaker 1: out before it actually does anything, so you can see.
Speaker 1: But I would run that and see that that could
Speaker 1: clear up some stuff as well. But those are the
Speaker 1: two things i'd recommend, and maybe the external hard drive,
Speaker 1: maybe the cloud drive. I don't think you need a
Speaker 1: new computer. It sounds like you just need a way
Speaker 1: as long as your systems are running, your apps are running,
Speaker 1: your programs are running. Just sounds like you need to
Speaker 1: place the store stuff, and so the external drive would
Speaker 1: probably be your easiest bet with that. This is a
Speaker 1: desktop computer, you're not moving it around a whole bunch.
Speaker 1: That combined with these programs to make sure that you're
Speaker 1: making the most of the disc space that you have,
Speaker 1: would be the best case scenario that I can think of.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's funny that Dell said just
Speaker 1: buy a new computer, because that's not the solution we're
Speaker 1: looking for, folks. We're looking for a solution that does
Speaker 1: not cost any extra money. Appreciate the call today. Thanks
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Speaker 1: fill in the grid. Pinpoint This is a game that
Speaker 1: tests your knowledge and requires you to locate the correct
Speaker 1: answer among various options. And then Queens is a game
Speaker 1: inspired by the chess game, challenging players to strategically place
Speaker 1: queens on a chess board. So if you want to
Speaker 1: try these new games out on LinkedIn, if you have
Speaker 1: the app on your phone, open it up, look at
Speaker 1: the my network tab that's at the bottom. Tap that
Speaker 1: and you can get links to these three new games.
Speaker 1: I have played some of them and it got me
Speaker 1: to open up the LinkedIn app the last two days.
Speaker 1: Two out of two days, I guess they've gotten their goal.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. More show coming
Speaker 1: up after this. Welcome to another hour of Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: My name is Rich DeMuro, hanging out with you talking technology.
Speaker 1: Phone lines are triple eight rich one O one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one
Speaker 1: website for the show. Rich on tech dot TV got
Speaker 1: an email this is what I love about this show.
Speaker 1: So apparently I might have misunderstood the question from the
Speaker 1: caller with the storage, and Samir listening chimed in and said, hey,
Speaker 1: this might be a better way to solve this. And
Speaker 1: so basically, as I understood it, there was two drives
Speaker 1: on that computer. One was one terabyte, one was an
Speaker 1: SSD drive which was smaller. That seemed that that had
Speaker 1: the operating system and solved. So what Samir recommends is
Speaker 1: maybe just change the default storage so where your documents
Speaker 1: or downloads are being stored. So on Windows you can
Speaker 1: do that. I've got a link up the kind of
Speaker 1: tutorial for doing that, But basically you would go into
Speaker 1: file Explorer and change where your documents are stored by default,
Speaker 1: and that is that might be a better solution. I
Speaker 1: didn't really catch that part of the conversation, but that
Speaker 1: could be what was going on. Basically, the operating system
Speaker 1: is taking up that entire solid state drive and all
Speaker 1: of the documents are also trying to be stored there,
Speaker 1: and they've got this one terabyte drive that you can
Speaker 1: put those documents on so go to the website rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot TV, hit the light bulb, and I
Speaker 1: put the instructions on how to change the default document
Speaker 1: folder location in Windows. Thanks Samir. United Healthcare CEO estimates
Speaker 1: that nearly a third of Americans may be impacted by
Speaker 1: the Change Healthcare data breach, which occurred two months ago.
Speaker 1: A total number of affected individuals remains unclear because the
Speaker 1: investigation is still ongoing. But the stolen files include personal
Speaker 1: health information on a substantial portion of people in America.
Speaker 1: Let's see, what are they going to figure out about us? Cholesterol,
Speaker 1: too high, blood pressure, too high weight, to not eating right?
Speaker 1: You know what it's it's But the scary part of
Speaker 1: this is the information about our personal details. And you
Speaker 1: can imagine healthcare companies have a lot of information on us,
Speaker 1: including socials. They haven't said what information is included in this,
Speaker 1: but the fact that a third of Americans may be impacted,
Speaker 1: this is scary. This is a big one. It does
Speaker 1: say there's no evidence that doctor's charts or full medical
Speaker 1: histories have been found. Now, the way that the hackers
Speaker 1: got in this is pretty interesting. There was no two
Speaker 1: factor authentication on a sort of a third party access
Speaker 1: software that they were using. And what does that tell me?
Speaker 1: You need to have your two factor authentication set up
Speaker 1: on your accounts. Please set that up. It will protect
Speaker 1: you in ways that you can't really imagine because they're
Speaker 1: trying to get in, believe me. And if you're looking
Speaker 1: for a new app to play around with, Anthropic has
Speaker 1: launched their free iOS app for their AI assistant called Claude. Now,
Speaker 1: I know chat Ebt gets all the headlines, but Claude
Speaker 1: is actually my preferred AI app. I do pay the
Speaker 1: twenty dollars a month for it. It literally feels like
Speaker 1: I have a personal assistant. This thing is so smart.
Speaker 1: It's funny. No, just kidding. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's funny, but I guess it would be if
Speaker 1: you asked it for funny stuff. But I will tell you, bobo.
Speaker 1: We've been playing all eighties songs today. How did I
Speaker 1: come up with that eighties playlist? AI? All I said
Speaker 1: was sure, I said, give me a list of twenty
Speaker 1: five of the most defini I love saying this, the
Speaker 1: twenty five most definitive eighty songs like who Could Cut?
Speaker 1: You can't come up with definitive anything because you actually
Speaker 1: missing one good song. Oh see, this is why I
Speaker 1: love humans more than AI. What's the song miss in
Speaker 1: Africa by Toto Ooh yeah yeah, play that on the
Speaker 1: way back here It okay, I already replaced. See I
Speaker 1: like that. See this is why we still have humans
Speaker 1: doing things. But the Claude iOS app is available for free,
Speaker 1: and the neat thing about it is that you can
Speaker 1: sync whatever you're doing on the web. You can you
Speaker 1: can sync it to the app. So if you started
Speaker 1: typing something on the web and you wanted to pick
Speaker 1: it up on your phone, you can do that. It
Speaker 1: also has real time image analysis. It can understand things
Speaker 1: you take pictures of and give you information about that.
Speaker 1: And Claude is really good. It's not, maybe not as
Speaker 1: full featured as chat GPT, but it's really good at
Speaker 1: sort of understanding text and so if you have like
Speaker 1: a big document you want to throw at it and
Speaker 1: ask for some information about it, it's really good at that.
Speaker 1: It's good for brainstorming, getting quick answers and analyzing scenes
Speaker 1: and images. And I'm not gonna lie. I used it
Speaker 1: this morning to rewrite my LinkedIn because I was on
Speaker 1: LinkedIn playing those games and of course they've got me now.
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, I haven't looked at my
Speaker 1: LinkedIn profile in like ten years. And I literally just
Speaker 1: said to Claude, hey, can you clean this up? And
Speaker 1: it went through each one of my previous jobs and
Speaker 1: just cleaned up my descriptions. It didn't rewrite them in
Speaker 1: a huge way, but it just cleaned it up. And
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, this is a lot easier to
Speaker 1: read than what I wrote. So I'm telling you this
Speaker 1: AI stuff is very useful. I understand there's a lot
Speaker 1: of downsides. It's very scary, but just think about it
Speaker 1: as a brainstorming buddy. Whatever you need to do. Like
Speaker 1: let's say you write a sentence. You could say how
Speaker 1: would you write this to AI? And just paste it
Speaker 1: in and it's almost like that back and forth that
Speaker 1: you would have with another human or or a team
Speaker 1: member or a colleague. But it's superhuman strength and it's
Speaker 1: it's really incredible. Let's go to Brad in a Key West. Brad,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich Hi, thanks him first involved.
Speaker 9: This is the first time I've.
Speaker 3: Ever heard you, and I like what I near second
Speaker 3: of well, it.
Speaker 9: Just made me a laugh.
Speaker 3: Be good in the eighties, I was.
Speaker 9: A club teacher in Chicago, and I could probably do
Speaker 9: better than the AI.
Speaker 10: And third of all, and I got a big problem
Speaker 10: with my Apple iPhone eleven.
Speaker 9: I updated the I did the update, and all of
Speaker 9: a sudden, I lost a lot of pictures.
Speaker 1: Oh that's not good. Okay, it sounds like, uh, I
Speaker 1: gotta well. Thank you first off for the kind words
Speaker 1: about the show. I do appreciate you finding me. And
Speaker 1: I love to hear that we made you laugh, because
Speaker 1: that's always a nice thing. The pictures on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you did an update and lost some pictures.
Speaker 1: That is very concerning. It does happen, and this is
Speaker 1: why I am always always reminding folks to back things up. Now,
Speaker 1: in this case, if you didn't have a backup, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're maybe on not on a I Cloud
Speaker 1: or something like that. The first place I would look, Brad, is, uh,
Speaker 1: go into your albums, Like, open up the photos app
Speaker 1: on your iPhone and uh look look at the albums
Speaker 1: down at the bottom. There's a tab called albums and
Speaker 1: there's a recently deleted folder. And Apple just recently made
Speaker 1: this where you have to use your biometrics to unlock it,
Speaker 1: which is pretty smart because you know people delete photos
Speaker 1: that are unwanted or maybe you know it could be
Speaker 1: as simple as you don't look good in a picture
Speaker 1: and you delete it, and maybe you don't want that
Speaker 1: to get out. So once you use your face ID
Speaker 1: or your thumbprint, whatever it is, you said you have
Speaker 1: the eleven, so it's face ID, you can unlock that.
Speaker 1: I would look in there and see if your pictures
Speaker 1: are in the recently deleted It will keep any pictures
Speaker 1: that it deletes for at least thirty days now if
Speaker 1: it's not in there. The other place I would recommend
Speaker 1: looking is an old backup of your phone. So go
Speaker 1: into settings and go into iCloud and there is a
Speaker 1: section of iCloud backup and it says if backup this
Speaker 1: phone is on, that is a complete backup of your phone,
Speaker 1: and you can tap in there and see when the
Speaker 1: last backup was done and how big that backup is.
Speaker 1: So on my phone, for instance, it's one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty gigabytes because my photos are not included in my
Speaker 1: iCloud backup because I back them up to a third
Speaker 1: party service, which is Google Photos. But what you could
Speaker 1: do is you could. If that backup is from before
Speaker 1: you did the update, you can go into that backup
Speaker 1: and retrieve those photos. You might need to use a
Speaker 1: third party program to do that. There's a way to
Speaker 1: download that backup to a computer and then use a
Speaker 1: third party program like i'm azing to kind of go
Speaker 1: through that backup and see if the pictures are in
Speaker 1: there and extract those. If that doesn't work, or if
Speaker 1: you don't want to do that, you could also bring
Speaker 1: back your entire phone from that backup. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit more complicated. You'd have to factory reset your phone
Speaker 1: and then bring it back using that. I don't recommend that,
Speaker 1: but in the dire straits you could do that. But Brad,
Speaker 1: the bigger take way I have is please backup photos.
Speaker 1: Please backup photos to a third party backup, whether it
Speaker 1: is Amazon Photos. Amazon Photos is great if you have
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime. Amazon Photos is free and unlimited at least
Speaker 1: until they decide to change that. But for right now,
Speaker 1: if you have an Amazon Prime membership, you can download
Speaker 1: the Amazon Photos app to your phone iPhone are Android
Speaker 1: and it will back up all of your photos and
Speaker 1: it will do that for free and onlimited at full resolution.
Speaker 1: So at the very least, if you don't want to
Speaker 1: pay for anything else and you have Amazon Prime, do
Speaker 1: yourself a favor and download that app and let it
Speaker 1: back up your pictures. And that way, if anything happens
Speaker 1: to your pictures, it is a one way backup. So
Speaker 1: basically they all go up into Amazon, they will be there,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't sync with your deletes. So if you
Speaker 1: delete something from your phone, it's not going to delete
Speaker 1: out of Amazon. And that is unlimited for photos only,
Speaker 1: not for videos. So I recommend that in the Amazon apps,
Speaker 1: you don't use up all your space. Just go ahead
Speaker 1: and toggle off the videos. And you're saying, well, rich,
Speaker 1: what about my videos? You're going to have to figure
Speaker 1: out a secondary solution for that. Amazon. What they're trying
Speaker 1: to do is get you to use that app. The
Speaker 1: videos use up all the video storage. I think they
Speaker 1: give you five gigabytes for videos, and they say, hey,
Speaker 1: you're out of storage, you want to buy more, and
Speaker 1: of course a percentage of people will do that. The
Speaker 1: other way is just to use an app to back
Speaker 1: up your photos. Whether it is Google Photos, whether it
Speaker 1: is Dropbox, whether it is i edrive, whatever, you do,
Speaker 1: find some way to back up your pictures because these
Speaker 1: things do happen. And if you're updating your phone to
Speaker 1: new software, I would run a backup of your phone
Speaker 1: before you do that, so you can go in and
Speaker 1: toggle and manual backup of your phone. When you go
Speaker 1: into that, I'll tell you how to find it. One
Speaker 1: more time. Settings tap Apple ID up at the top
Speaker 1: and where it says iCloud, it says iCloud backup. You
Speaker 1: tap that and it says back up now. Because a
Speaker 1: lot of times you may go into this and you
Speaker 1: may find that your phone hasn't backed up in months,
Speaker 1: depending on how you charge your phone and how it's
Speaker 1: connected to Wi Fi. So it will tell you last
Speaker 1: successful backup for me was interesting. See it should have
Speaker 1: been last night, but it was not last night. It
Speaker 1: was two nights ago. So that's that's news to me.
Speaker 1: Should have backed up last night. Now it'll I gotta
Speaker 1: figure out why it didn't it was two days ago.
Speaker 1: Coming up this hour, we're gonna talk to John Faulkner
Speaker 1: of Clean Fleet Report. He's gonna tell us about the
Speaker 1: all electric Accura ZDX plus. I've got a couple a
Speaker 1: couple more apps to tell you about. GPS Powered Audio
Speaker 1: Tour Guide. This one's really cool. You are listening to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Eight
Speaker 1: eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Let's go to
Speaker 1: John and Bakersfield. John, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Hello, Rich, Rich, I've had a devil of a time.
Speaker 3: I'm hold on second. Okay, I'm going to be back.
Speaker 3: I got to take this call.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: I've had my accounts hacked, starting with purchase at best
Speaker 3: Buy back in late January of purchasing the new S
Speaker 3: twenty four. And what's happened most recently and disturbing, is
Speaker 3: that they've been able to get account information and then
Speaker 3: we went and to the extent they actually went in
Speaker 3: and did a wire transfer of funds to another account.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately I was monitoring the account and was able to
Speaker 3: see it before Wells Fargo did, but and that was
Speaker 3: only because of a text message. Most recently, I've set
Speaker 3: up new accounts, new user names. Nineteen is your passwords
Speaker 3: and this has been done three times. Wow, and most
Speaker 3: recently one second.
Speaker 1: Please, So we've got We've got John on the line,
Speaker 1: and he's had some issues with fraud on his bank
Speaker 1: account and uh, I guess we're getting to the question here.
Speaker 1: So the question is, how.
Speaker 3: Can I help? My question is that right now, yesterday
Speaker 3: I was in I spent an hour with fraud in
Speaker 3: Wells Fargo and anyway, set up new passwords, everything, new
Speaker 3: user names and the UH and I've had two step
Speaker 3: authentication all along and so we did it again yesterday
Speaker 3: and by at uh uh at uh here this morning.
Speaker 3: I checked the account last night and we're okay it
Speaker 3: this morning I get a note, a note, I get
Speaker 3: a text from Wells that they want to uh give
Speaker 3: me the UH code for two step authentication. Okay, I
Speaker 3: look at it. I am on the account, so I'm
Speaker 3: fine and anyway and here A few minutes later, I
Speaker 3: get another text from Wells that we have and which
Speaker 3: I did not respond. I did nothing, okay, And then
Speaker 3: another a few minutes later that this person a person
Speaker 3: has been added to the Zelli accounts as a payee.
Speaker 1: And that it sounds like someone's got access to your
Speaker 1: to your computer or your phone. What uh, how can
Speaker 1: I help?
Speaker 3: I've been through this thing. Three I've been through I've
Speaker 3: had three people go and check the phone. They all
Speaker 3: the updates have total avvy with everything on it. Everything
Speaker 3: is up to date, and it can systemically comes up lean.
Speaker 1: Are you an Android or iPhone.
Speaker 3: Android the Galaxy S twenty four?
Speaker 1: Okay? And you are you running a VPN?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's good and okay. So the problem is, so
Speaker 1: the question is why does this keep happening? Is that
Speaker 1: the question?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And what's more is that he's like today they
Speaker 3: got in and they transferred a thousand off a Zelli
Speaker 3: via Zellie and and there is no the two step authentication.
Speaker 3: They didn't just like it's being mirrored.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's yeah. Okay, So a couple of things.
Speaker 1: How are you getting the two step authentication code? Is
Speaker 1: it through your phone number?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It comes from my It comes from Wells to
Speaker 3: my phone.
Speaker 1: Okay, So even got to the point.
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
Speaker 1: So first thing I would do is, well, number one,
Speaker 1: I think you need a new bank. Honestly, it sounds
Speaker 1: like their fraud systems are just not detecting this stuff properly,
Speaker 1: and so I would I would I would switch banks personally.
Speaker 1: Number one. Number two, it sounds like instead of using
Speaker 1: the phone number for the authentication codes, the two factor
Speaker 1: authentication codes, I would switch to an app, So download
Speaker 1: an app like AUF the au T h Y Duo duo,
Speaker 1: or you can use Microsoft or Google Authenticator, and I
Speaker 1: would switch to those instead of the text message because
Speaker 1: it sounds like someone has access to your text message.
Speaker 1: I can't exactly tell what's happening here, but this, there's
Speaker 1: this has happened one time too many times for this
Speaker 1: to be for me to be comfortable with this. So
Speaker 1: I know it's a pain to switch banks, but I
Speaker 1: probably would do that. And I would also when you
Speaker 1: set up your new bank, I would maybe look into
Speaker 1: setting up information that is slightly different than before. So
Speaker 1: maybe even you know, I don't know, just you got
Speaker 1: to think differently here because this is just this is
Speaker 1: getting to be a headache. You shouldn't have to be
Speaker 1: dealing with this only basis I'm telling you, folks, protecting
Speaker 1: your personal information is going to be priority number one
Speaker 1: moving forward. Rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology the
Speaker 1: website rich on Tech dot TV. When you're there, be
Speaker 1: sure to join the newsletter. You will get a personal
Speaker 1: message from me, and yes it is very personal. I
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time writing it, and it's just
Speaker 1: packed with like good information that I think you should
Speaker 1: know about. Kind of like this show, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's directed to like all the stuff that happens during
Speaker 1: the week. I just say, oh, let me put that
Speaker 1: in the newsletter, and it's it's kind of taken on
Speaker 1: a life of its own. So if you enjoy that,
Speaker 1: just go to the website rich on Tech dot tv
Speaker 1: and pop in your email address and you will get
Speaker 1: that delivered to your inbox. You can follow me on
Speaker 1: social media. I am at rich on Tech on Twitter
Speaker 1: are now known as x although nobody calls it that
Speaker 1: that I know, Facebook and Instagram at rich on Tech
Speaker 1: on those places. All right, let's bring up our guest,
Speaker 1: John Faulkner of Clean Fleet Report. John is constantly driving
Speaker 1: the latest greatest electric cars, and today he is going
Speaker 1: to tell us about his time in the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four Accura ZDX. John. Welcome to the show, hell Rich,
Speaker 1: welcome to you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Accura in general. Kim and I
Speaker 1: were just having a side conversation about how much we
Speaker 1: loved our Accuras. We both owned one. I had zero
Speaker 1: problems with the Accura. We bought it new and we
Speaker 1: ended up having to get rid of it because we got,
Speaker 1: you know, two kids instead of one and we need
Speaker 1: a little bigger car. But it was a it was
Speaker 1: an excellent excellent cars. That still the case with Accuras.
Speaker 9: It is and you are exactly the customer that Accur
Speaker 9: is hoping to reach with ZDX. Just so people know,
Speaker 9: Accura is the premium division of Honda and they and
Speaker 9: the ZDX is actuallys first ever all electric vehicle in
Speaker 9: the history of the company. And this particular vehicle is
Speaker 9: built in conjunction with General Motors on what is called
Speaker 9: the Ultium platform, and that platform for General Motors is
Speaker 9: actually handling the Blazer EV, the Lyric, the Equinox, the Artique,
Speaker 9: and the Silverado, and so it shares the platform, the motor,
Speaker 9: the batteries and everything. And so what Accura told us
Speaker 9: was that was that their customers wanted to make the
Speaker 9: change to our electric vehicle, they didn't have it. They
Speaker 9: found that the majority of those people went over to Tesla.
Speaker 9: So now Tesla is high on their chart for those
Speaker 9: customers that they're going after. The people who used to
Speaker 9: be accurate loyals like Kim and do. And then people
Speaker 9: that have had Hondas and they want to get back
Speaker 9: in the family again and they want to make the
Speaker 9: move to all electric.
Speaker 1: So what type of what type of range are we
Speaker 1: talking on this car?
Speaker 9: Well, the range depends on which which model that you're
Speaker 9: as you're that you're getting into. There are there are
Speaker 9: three models and they are.
Speaker 3: And so what you have is you have the A.
Speaker 9: Spec which comes in rubal drive and all will drive.
Speaker 9: And then you then have a Type S, which is
Speaker 9: the which is the performance model and it's and it
Speaker 9: comes in overly all will drive. And so the range,
Speaker 9: the range on these vehicles is going to be A
Speaker 9: Spec Ruble drive three hundred and thirteen miles, a Spec
Speaker 9: all will drive three or four, and for the F
Speaker 9: type it will be two hundred and seventy eight all
Speaker 9: electric miles.
Speaker 1: Okay, so around around three hundred, but in reality, you know,
Speaker 1: they want you to charge to eighty percent, so you know,
Speaker 1: two fifty two seventy depending on the model you get.
Speaker 1: I just saw Elon Musk promoting that the model why
Speaker 1: base model now gets three twenty uh standards, So I
Speaker 1: think this three hundred to you know, plus is kind
Speaker 1: of like the new standard. What did you think of
Speaker 1: this car? And by the way, the price on this
Speaker 1: car is it really seventy five grand?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 9: Well, if you get it fully loaded, the one the
Speaker 9: one that we drove on our media press program in Montecito, California. Yes,
Speaker 9: that's the one that we drove. But the pricing on us,
Speaker 9: let's want to just hit that real quick. So these
Speaker 9: prices include the mandatory thirteen hundred and fifty dollars destination charge.
Speaker 9: So the apec Roubill drive sixty five eight fifty aspec
Speaker 9: all will drive sixty nine eight fifty type that's all
Speaker 9: will be seventy four eight fifty. And then if you
Speaker 9: get it with the performance wheel entire package on the
Speaker 9: type will drive, it takes us a seventy five eight fifty.
Speaker 9: So yes, this is a very very excellent entry level
Speaker 9: BV for people the first one and they want to
Speaker 9: get into. They will not be disapplentyed with this vehicle
Speaker 9: at all. However, there are other competitors out there that
Speaker 9: offer similar range, better range, maybe better performance for less
Speaker 9: so people need to they just need to their shopping.
Speaker 1: So I mean you mentioned the Mustang, Machi and the Tesla.
Speaker 1: Why those are probably the two biggest competitors to this car.
Speaker 1: I've driven both of those. I've not driven the ZDX,
Speaker 1: but I imagine since it is an accurate it's you know,
Speaker 1: the fit and finish is great, the quality is great,
Speaker 1: but the pricing is is generally higher than those other
Speaker 1: two models. So what is your takeaway on this car?
Speaker 9: My takeaway that it was that it was extremely comfortable,
Speaker 9: very very comfortable to drive. It was it was roomy. Yeah,
Speaker 9: two digital, two digital displays on the dash and eleven
Speaker 9: entry your gages and eleven point three or for all
Speaker 9: your entertainment touch screen. It has Google built in, Apple
Speaker 9: car Play and Doren Auto. Those are all standards. So
Speaker 9: very comfortable, power everything once you're inside the car. Nice weather.
Speaker 9: But there's a question that I asked accurate. I said,
Speaker 9: since General Motors built this vehicle, and I know you
Speaker 9: they put their touches on, of course, do they consider
Speaker 9: this to be up to accurate premium luxury standards? And
Speaker 9: they said they do.
Speaker 1: So a GM. GM is actually building the entire car.
Speaker 1: I thought they just did the ultium part of it,
Speaker 1: like the battery part.
Speaker 9: No, they're building it in spring Hill, Tennessee. That's that's
Speaker 9: good because it qualifies for all the federal state credit.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well that's interesting. Yeah, so yeah, No, I'm
Speaker 1: curious about the charging connector because obviously this I'm guessing
Speaker 1: has the standard uh what is it CCS or something?
Speaker 1: And then are are they moving to the Tesla charger?
Speaker 1: Did they announce that or talk about that?
Speaker 9: Yes? They are.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's interesting because you're gonna get this car.
Speaker 1: They're going to have an adapter for this car, and
Speaker 1: then I guess future models will have the uh the
Speaker 1: Tesla built in? Is it? Is it smart to get
Speaker 1: a first run of an electric car like this? This
Speaker 1: is accurate as first go with this. People might be
Speaker 1: hesitant to get it because of that reason or is
Speaker 1: that no longer consideration in today's day and age.
Speaker 9: Well, this this vehicle has been again is impost general
Speaker 9: motors vehicles that I discussed, and they've been they've been
Speaker 9: driving them already on the road. So so it's it's
Speaker 9: proven and it's a it's a good technology. There's not
Speaker 9: nothing wrong with it at all. I enjoyed the vehicle.
Speaker 9: It was fast. I went out there and you know,
Speaker 9: it's it's it's got it's got about high four second
Speaker 9: range for Zerovice sixty and when we try to pass
Speaker 9: the big rigs and everything, it just as with all
Speaker 9: of these in support. So it was right there. So
Speaker 9: this is good. This is a vehicle that people will
Speaker 9: get and they will enjoy driving it.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 9: Actress says that they don't expect this to be a
Speaker 9: replacement for another accurate. They expect this to be an
Speaker 9: Actor family or a Honda family to add this to
Speaker 9: their household for because because obviously the range and everything,
Speaker 9: and it's so it's a they're they're they're they're very
Speaker 9: realistic about this. And it's already been announced that General
Speaker 9: Motors and Honda have have put a time limit on
Speaker 9: that that this is the only vehicle they are producer.
Speaker 9: And so the question came up with what's going to happen?
Speaker 9: Is this vehicle going to go away? And the answer
Speaker 9: was no, They're going to continue building this car under
Speaker 9: the ZDX name. However, starting in twenty twenty six, act
Speaker 9: will have their own in house built evs put on
Speaker 9: their own architecture. So what you're going to see is
Speaker 9: you're going to see this vehicle is going to stay around.
Speaker 9: Then there's going to be new accurate evs.
Speaker 1: Well, that sounds a little confusing for the buyer because
Speaker 1: they wonder should they just wait for the accurate built evs.
Speaker 1: But I have no doubt that because this is Accura,
Speaker 1: you know, the quality is there, and of course they
Speaker 1: want to. I saw this car in person at the
Speaker 1: Chicago Auto Show. So it's a nice looking car, you know,
Speaker 1: reminiscent of the m d X and the the rd X.
Speaker 1: But we'll see, all right, John Faulkner, I'm going to
Speaker 1: link up your full review from Clean Fleet Reports on
Speaker 1: the website, rich on tech dot TV. Where you off
Speaker 1: to next? You're always every time I see you on Instagram,
Speaker 1: you are off to somewhere amazing. Where are you going next?
Speaker 9: Well, let's see. Next week in Los Angeles they're having
Speaker 9: the sheet pull on the new Cadillac up Teak, which
Speaker 9: is also being built on this platform. I'll be going.
Speaker 9: I have a trip to Detroit for the Silverado Rev
Speaker 9: and the Ecro CV. I'm going up to Seattle for
Speaker 9: the Mustang mocks E and so there's there's always something
Speaker 9: interesting to drive and to record on.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks and safe travels and have a
Speaker 1: great time.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: These Uh, these John Faulkner of Clean Fleet Report. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can go to the website for the review of
Speaker 1: the Accura z d X. Just go to rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot TV. If you haven't been to one of these,
Speaker 1: uh you know these press events for cars. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I've been to a couple and uh yeah, they are
Speaker 1: fun and those car people know how to party. Let's
Speaker 1: put it that way. You are listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Coming up, it's the feedbag. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you. Ending the show Man.
Speaker 1: This time goes so fast. I don't know how three
Speaker 1: hours goes by so fast. I can't sit through a
Speaker 1: three hour movie, but somehow I can do this. Let
Speaker 1: me get through a few apps before we get to
Speaker 1: the feedbag. Mind Trip dot Ai this is a brand
Speaker 1: new AI powered travel platform and it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny because you know, I get told about a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff before it hits the market, and so
Speaker 1: AI mind Trip emailed me. They said, hey, we're going
Speaker 1: to launch this new travel platform and it's going to
Speaker 1: be incredible and it's all based on AI. And I said, look,
Speaker 1: I've heard that about a thousand times this year alone.
Speaker 1: So let me see, let me check it out, and
Speaker 1: you know, I will get back to you, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: I check it out and it is good. It's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So mind trip dot ai it's a it's a it
Speaker 1: takes like a really full featured approach to not just
Speaker 1: like a chatbot. But it gives you, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you take a quiz and tell it what kind of
Speaker 1: traveler you are, and the chat kind of like adapts
Speaker 1: to that. You can heart things so that if it
Speaker 1: recommends something, you can put it in a list, you
Speaker 1: can create an entire itinerary, you can keep track of expenses.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really really full featured. They did a
Speaker 1: lot of good homework on it. So check it out.
Speaker 1: Mind trip dot ai just one more tool in the arsenal.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind it is using AI, so not everything
Speaker 1: it says, like I asked for a certain type of
Speaker 1: hotel in Sedona that was a Marriott, and it came
Speaker 1: back with a Hilton, you know, even though it said
Speaker 1: it was a Maria, And so you know, you just
Speaker 1: have to be aware of that stuff. The Arc browser
Speaker 1: has launched on Windows, presenting a challenge to Chrome and Edge.
Speaker 1: So Arc is this kind of new fangled brows that
Speaker 1: a lot of people like on mac os and iOS.
Speaker 1: I have not used it extensively, but I know there
Speaker 1: are a lot of fans of it. So that's why
Speaker 1: I'm telling you about it, because it's just one more
Speaker 1: option if you want to check it out the way
Speaker 1: I do things, I just download it, run it, see
Speaker 1: if I like it. If I like it, I'll continue
Speaker 1: using it. If not, you know, you move on. But
Speaker 1: the thing people like about this it's got a collapsible sidebar,
Speaker 1: a command bar for navigation, and various useful browsing tools.
Speaker 1: And again it's available for Windows eleven right now, So
Speaker 1: if you have the latest version of Windows eleven, you
Speaker 1: can download ARC for Windows. If you want to try
Speaker 1: out a different web browser, see how things are done
Speaker 1: a little bit differently. There will be a Windows ten
Speaker 1: version in the future. And if you use this on
Speaker 1: mac os and you also somehow have a Windows computer
Speaker 1: and you download it, you say, rich, this is not
Speaker 1: the same. Well, there are some features that are not
Speaker 1: available just yet, but they say they will have releases
Speaker 1: every week to reach parody between the two platforms. So again,
Speaker 1: the ARC browser, if you want to try something different
Speaker 1: on Windows and Shaka Guide this is an app that
Speaker 1: I met up with when I was in Hawaii. They
Speaker 1: have been doing this for eight years now and in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: so it's an app that turns your smartphone into a
Speaker 1: GPS powered audio tour guide. I love these things. You've
Speaker 1: heard me talk about it various cities that I go to.
Speaker 1: I always try to do a walking tour with an
Speaker 1: audio guide on my phone. It is such a great experience.
Speaker 1: And of course, obviously the real tour guide is always
Speaker 1: the best, like the human but that's not always possible.
Speaker 1: It's expensive, it might be on a timeframe that you
Speaker 1: can't do. So definitely download one of these apps to
Speaker 1: your phone to try out a GPS powered audio tour guide.
Speaker 1: This is mostly for the car, but they do have
Speaker 1: them walking as well. It's called Shaka Guide. They started
Speaker 1: out in Hawaii, so you can drive around Hawaii all
Speaker 1: the different places there. But they also just added national
Speaker 1: park and scenic drives here in the US mainland, so
Speaker 1: they've got Yosemite, Yellowstone, scenic drives like the Blue Ridge Parkway,
Speaker 1: Great Smoky Mountains. They spend a couple months researching each location,
Speaker 1: so this is not just done like from some office
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. No, they actually send people out to the locations.
Speaker 1: They research, they talk to locals, they come up with
Speaker 1: the guide, then they record it, and then they drive
Speaker 1: the guide and see what it's like. So tour start
Speaker 1: around ten dollars. Of course you can get a bundle
Speaker 1: which is a much better value. But Shaka guide, Shaka guide,
Speaker 1: and if you don't know what shaka is, I think
Speaker 1: it's like hang loose kind of thing. That's what I
Speaker 1: learned in Hawaii. All right, let's go to the feedbag.
Speaker 1: This is the feedback and the mail bag from you,
Speaker 1: and let's see this is from I think it was
Speaker 1: Nil's rich. I agree with you if that was this
Speaker 1: is about the Amazon when I went off about Amazon
Speaker 1: and the employees in India. I agree with you if
Speaker 1: that was the actual context of the comment, i e.
Speaker 1: Amazon was watching in real time what you buy as
Speaker 1: you bought it. The comment was completely ridiculous and your
Speaker 1: peers in the media should have put it in proper
Speaker 1: context and not turn that headline into clickbait. You should
Speaker 1: have handled your response better, too. Emotional responses do not
Speaker 1: help clarify the issue either. Wait, what are you talking about? Nils,
Speaker 1: I can't get emotional on this show, Okay, fine, objectivity wise,
Speaker 1: while Amazon, Facebook and among others cannot. It's inhumanly impossible
Speaker 1: to watch all that video in real time and react. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was my point to provide proper context as all
Speaker 1: of you should do. What you should have stated is
Speaker 1: that Amazon, Facebook Open AI can at a later point
Speaker 1: review recorded material and provide feedback to their llm's large
Speaker 1: language models as to whether or not it was right
Speaker 1: or not right. Open AI did that. Facebook does that,
Speaker 1: Amazon does it, Neils, you put this one properly. That's
Speaker 1: exactly That's exactly what I was trying to say that, Yes,
Speaker 1: they don't have a thousand people in an office watching
Speaker 1: every single camera from every single Amazon store in real time,
Speaker 1: but they go back in the review what decision that
Speaker 1: their AI systems made, and then they help guide that
Speaker 1: later on, and that is the training process. So yes,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, thank you for clarifying that. On my behalf,
Speaker 1: Sean says, I just came across your video about the
Speaker 1: starlink on flights to Hawaii. Seems like a monumental improvement,
Speaker 1: which is great to see. Thanks for that video. On
Speaker 1: a separate tangent. I travel a lot, and I noticed
Speaker 1: your laptop seems to be a perfect size for taking
Speaker 1: on a plane. What size kind is it? I might
Speaker 1: end up getting one. Best wishes, Sean, Sean, It's funny
Speaker 1: you should ask this question because it actually wasn't a laptop.
Speaker 1: It was an iPad with the case on it. It
Speaker 1: was the iPad Pro with the smart keyboard Apple smart keyboard.
Speaker 1: The problem was my laptop. I made some major change
Speaker 1: to it, so I actually couldn't bring it to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: I tried to download my entire iCloud or delete everything
Speaker 1: in ie Cloud on my hi Cloud drive, and it
Speaker 1: literally stopped my computer from working for a week. So
Speaker 1: my computer I never felt so naked in my entire life.
Speaker 1: I could not bring my laptop to Hawaii. I was
Speaker 1: beside myself, so I had to bring an iPad. I
Speaker 1: don't recommend that if you actually have to get work done,
Speaker 1: because I think and a laptop is still the way
Speaker 1: to go. Thanks so much for listening. There are so
Speaker 1: many ways you can spend your time. I do appreciate
Speaker 1: you spending it right here with me the website rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv. My name is rich Demiro. I
Speaker 1: will talk to you real soon.