Speaker 1: Applevision Pro is now on sale. Another streaming service cracks
Speaker 1: down on password sharing. The hot new video game lots
Speaker 1: of people are suddenly playing. Plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm richdmiro and this is Rich on
Speaker 1: Tech broadcasting live from Los Angeles, coast to coast. This
Speaker 1: is the show where I talk about the tech stuff
Speaker 1: I think you should know about. It's also the place
Speaker 1: where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that
Speaker 1: tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. With that said,
Speaker 1: let's open up the phone lines triple A rich one
Speaker 1: O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one eight eight eight rich one on
Speaker 1: one give me a call. If you have a question
Speaker 1: about technology. Email is also open. Just go to rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv and hit contact guests. This week,
Speaker 1: Scott Stein of cnet will join me to talk about
Speaker 1: his experience with Apple Vision Pro. Then we've got Lisa Plagamaier,
Speaker 1: executive director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance. She's going to
Speaker 1: join to talk about the simple ways you can protect
Speaker 1: your privacy and data online. Later, Robin Gelbert, president of
Speaker 1: fair Health, will join to explain their new online tool
Speaker 1: that helps you figure out the cost of a medical
Speaker 1: procedure just by pointing to it on a map of
Speaker 1: the body. And special guest Matt Swider of The Shortcut
Speaker 1: is going to join. He took a flight with the
Speaker 1: Apple Vision Pro already, so he's going to explain what
Speaker 1: it's like to wear this headset on the plane, so
Speaker 1: as you might imagine. The big story of the week,
Speaker 1: Apple launched its thirty five hundred dollars Vision Pro virtual
Speaker 1: reality headset in the US, and uh, it's off to
Speaker 1: a running start. Lots of you know, the marketing machine
Speaker 1: of Apple is in full swing here and it's for
Speaker 1: good reason. Apple CEO Tim Cook was at the New
Speaker 1: York City Flagship store, which is so wild. I was
Speaker 1: at that store back in two thousand and seven for
Speaker 1: the launch of the iPhone. It's so wild to think
Speaker 1: that in twenty twenty four that store is still there.
Speaker 1: Apple's still going strong. This is a company that has
Speaker 1: had so many breakthrough products, so many transformative products.
Speaker 2: His thing.
Speaker 1: When he was asked about it on ABC Good Morning America,
Speaker 1: the host asked why it's so expensive thirty five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars Can a lot of people afford that? He said,
Speaker 1: it is tomorrow's technology today, and yes it is tomorrow's
Speaker 1: technology today. This thing is not fully figured out. We
Speaker 1: do not know how this will work in our world,
Speaker 1: in our lives, but I do believe that this is
Speaker 1: now going to be a thing. At launch, over six
Speaker 1: hundred apps available. And remember when the iPhone came out,
Speaker 1: there were only the apps that were built in, and
Speaker 1: they were very basic, but it did a lot of
Speaker 1: cool things and it did it all in one device.
Speaker 1: And this vision pro is just the beginning. It is
Speaker 1: very expensive. In fact, I will tell you that I
Speaker 1: did not purchase one. Do I want one, absolutely? Do
Speaker 1: I want to spend time in this thing, absolutely, But
Speaker 1: the way I see it is that you are spending
Speaker 1: thirty five hundred dollars, which really, when you add in
Speaker 1: tax and accessories, you're talking northwards of four thousand bucks here.
Speaker 1: And this is a product that I say will last
Speaker 1: a year, because yes, it'll work past a year, but
Speaker 1: you're gonna want the new one in a year because
Speaker 1: it's going to be so much better. Now. I've struggled
Speaker 1: with this because, of course I want to get this
Speaker 1: as a tech person. Of course I want to have
Speaker 1: this in my home, But do I want something that
Speaker 1: is a solo experience. You can get a TV for
Speaker 1: a quarter of the price and everyone in your house
Speaker 1: can enjoy it. This is something that is very personal,
Speaker 1: very solo. It is not a shared experience, which is fine,
Speaker 1: and I have no problems if you purchase this thing.
Speaker 1: You just have to understand that this is money that
Speaker 1: you have to burn. And yes, if you look on
Speaker 1: social media, there are so many people that have said
Speaker 1: they have purchased this thing, which is great. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are going to make money off of purchasing it,
Speaker 1: whether they're developing an app, whether they're making videos, whether
Speaker 1: they're going to figure out a new business use case scenario.
Speaker 1: That is all fine. Those are all great reasons. Or
Speaker 1: if you just want to have it to have it,
Speaker 1: that's all fine. I have no problem with this. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say that this thing is going to fail.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that this thing is stupid.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that this thing is not
Speaker 1: worth it. It is worth it if you can afford it.
Speaker 1: I have been inside this headset. It is absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1: Now I cover technology for a general audience and I
Speaker 1: will tell you can I recommend that if you're going
Speaker 1: to finance this thing over a year to get this
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Can I recommend that you take out a
Speaker 1: loan to get this thing? Absolutely not. It's just it's
Speaker 1: not worth that to the average person.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I asked my followers on Instagram and Facebook and here's
Speaker 1: some of the responses I got. Number One, they were
Speaker 1: most concerned about the high price point. Many people feel
Speaker 1: it's too expensive, not affordable or justifiable to them personally.
Speaker 1: They say it's overpriced, too expensive, etc. I would agree
Speaker 1: with all of that for the average person. Number Two,
Speaker 1: many people are unsure of the purpose or usefulness of
Speaker 1: this headset. They question what it's going to be used for.
Speaker 1: Is it a toy or do you actually work inside
Speaker 1: of it? And I'm not even sure Apple knows. At
Speaker 1: this point, they have been calling this a spatial computer.
Speaker 1: I will tell you I am not ready to give
Speaker 1: up my laptop to do work in virtual reality. I'm
Speaker 1: just too comfortable with doing my work on a computer
Speaker 1: without having a giant head piece on to do work
Speaker 1: inside there. And when it comes to entertainment, it is
Speaker 1: incredible watching a movie on this thing. Incredible Again, are
Speaker 1: you going to watch a movie on a Friday night
Speaker 1: by yourself in a headset for two plus hours. Last
Speaker 1: movie I watched was three hours and thirty minutes. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine sitting in this thing for three hours and
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. Maybe an hour, maybe twenty minutes, maybe thirty minutes. Again,
Speaker 1: with the comments, many people indicated they've tried VR headsets,
Speaker 1: but they lose interest over time, and that's true. I've
Speaker 1: had the metaquest in my house for a couple of
Speaker 1: years now, and what do I do. I charge it
Speaker 1: up every once in a while when I hear something
Speaker 1: new about it, I put it on. It is amazing,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. I take it off, and I forget about it.
Speaker 1: There hasn't been that one single experience just yet that
Speaker 1: has convinced me that this is something I need in
Speaker 1: my life every single day. I'm not saying that's not
Speaker 1: going to happen. It will, or perhaps it will for
Speaker 1: many people, but a lot of people are very uncertain
Speaker 1: about spending all this money and whether they're going to
Speaker 1: use it on a regular basis. Number Three, people are
Speaker 1: concerned about the design and comfort. So yes, it looks
Speaker 1: like a pair of ski goggles, and it's big, and
Speaker 1: it's bulky, and it's going to get smaller over time.
Speaker 1: People are worried about motion sickness, vertigo, eyestrain, that those
Speaker 1: are all very valid things to be concerned about. I'm
Speaker 1: concerned about having a screen that close to my eyeballs.
Speaker 1: Remember what mom said growing up, don't sit too close
Speaker 1: to the TV screen. Now we're just putting the TV
Speaker 1: screen on our eyes. Like, how much closer can it get?
Speaker 1: Some are waiting for a more refined, lighter, and less
Speaker 1: intrusive design. That is a very good thing. Now, this
Speaker 1: is a product that has to happen. This is a
Speaker 1: product that you can't jump to the final product of this,
Speaker 1: which is going to happen in you know, two or
Speaker 1: three years, where this thing is refined and perfect. This
Speaker 1: has to happen. You have to get this out there
Speaker 1: because people have to start figuring out what the use
Speaker 1: case is and how they're gonna make apps for this,
Speaker 1: and what people are gonna enjoy doing inside of this thing.
Speaker 1: Number four In the comments lack of mass market appeal,
Speaker 1: Many express that only appeals to certain users. Many say
Speaker 1: they are simply not interested in this type of device.
Speaker 1: Now I would say the not interested, Yes, I understand
Speaker 1: people are like, look, I've got my phone, I've got
Speaker 1: my computer, I've got my TV, I've got my tablet.
Speaker 1: How many more screens am I gonna look at on
Speaker 1: a daily basis? I understand that. I totally understand that,
Speaker 1: But I also think that you should, as a service
Speaker 1: to yourself, go to an Apple store and try this
Speaker 1: thing out. You can do it, You can book an appointment,
Speaker 1: maybe you can just walk in and check it out,
Speaker 1: but I highly recommend you do that because the experience
Speaker 1: that they have created inside of this thing is incredible.
Speaker 1: It is the it is tomorrow's technology today. I will
Speaker 1: agree with Tim Cook there, He's right, It's just are
Speaker 1: we ready for this right now? Is the mainstream person?
Speaker 1: Is the average person ready for this right now? Many
Speaker 1: people do see the positive in the future iterations, and
Speaker 1: one hundred percent I would agree with that. At launch,
Speaker 1: like I said, six hundred new apps that are designed
Speaker 1: for the three D interface. Some of the main apps NBA,
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, IMAX, HBO, Microsoft apps like Outlook. You
Speaker 1: can check your email on this Zoom. NBA apps like games,
Speaker 1: super Fruit, Ninja, Ja Crue has a shopping app, Low's
Speaker 1: has a home design app, Zillow has an app that
Speaker 1: lets you look at homes. I think there are going
Speaker 1: to be so many amazing uses of this that we
Speaker 1: just can't imagine. Right now. People that already got this thing,
Speaker 1: they're experiencing it, they're figuring it out there saying, wow,
Speaker 1: this is incredible. But imagine when you want to look
Speaker 1: for a house or an apartment, you will do ninety
Speaker 1: percent of your research from home on your couch. You
Speaker 1: will walk through the apartment or the home, and you
Speaker 1: will say, nine out of ten times, all right, I
Speaker 1: don't need to go there in real life. Imagine shortcutting
Speaker 1: that process. Imagine you want to go travel to Italy.
Speaker 1: You put on the headset, you walk down the streets
Speaker 1: of Rome. Okay, yeah, I want to go there. Or
Speaker 1: a place that you can never really visit in your
Speaker 1: lifetime due to money or other restrictions that may be
Speaker 1: in your life. Imagine looking at a resort that you're
Speaker 1: trying to decide should you stay at this resort or
Speaker 1: that resort. You walk into the resort from the main
Speaker 1: lobby and you walk out and you just see what
Speaker 1: the grounds look like. You walk upstairs to a room
Speaker 1: you're trying to decide do I want this room or
Speaker 1: that room. These are all things that are going to
Speaker 1: happen inside this headset. It is going to be a
Speaker 1: wild ride. I'm glad Apple launched this. I'm glad it
Speaker 1: is out there in the world, and I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see what the future of this display will be. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have some guests to talk about it a little
Speaker 1: bit later on in the show, but first it is
Speaker 1: your turn. Give me a call Triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. My name is rich d'amiro, and
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 at Triple eight rich one on one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Website for the show is rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: If I mentioned something, you can get the link immediately.
Speaker 1: There's a big red banner at the top of the website.
Speaker 1: It says heard it mentioned on the radio links here.
Speaker 1: You click that and that is updated in real time
Speaker 1: as we do the show. And uh I got an email?
Speaker 1: Email is also open. You can go to rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. UH hit the contact link. That's what Fred.
Speaker 1: He said, Rich, you did a segment on smart TVs
Speaker 1: a while ago. I'm in need of a sixty five
Speaker 1: inch smart TV and I was wondering if you can
Speaker 1: direct me to the radio podcast. Thanks. Yes, I will
Speaker 1: put that link on the website. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I actually it says expert reveals best TVs
Speaker 1: for the Big Game on the website. So if you're
Speaker 1: looking to upgrade your TV, and I was not, this
Speaker 1: is funny, this is I call this the halo effect.
Speaker 1: So I was thinking of purchasing the Vision Pro, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, four thousand dollars is an insane amount
Speaker 1: of money for something that I know I'll use casually.
Speaker 1: I've been wanting a new TV for a long time.
Speaker 1: Should I put a fraction of that price towards a
Speaker 1: new big screen? And so this morning in my house,
Speaker 1: we were taping off the wall and we were seeing
Speaker 1: what a sixty five inch versus a seventy seven inch
Speaker 1: TV would look like on the wall. And every single
Speaker 1: person I've talked to says, go bigger or go home.
Speaker 1: And so I guess we'll be the proud owners of
Speaker 1: a seventy seven inch Samsung Old ad TV. Very soon.
Speaker 1: Let's go to UH Spencer in North Carolina. Spencer, you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich. Welcome.
Speaker 2: Hey, Rich, do you think people need to start planning
Speaker 2: for the upcoming total solar eclipse because it's going to
Speaker 2: be eclipsed all over the United States as a partial
Speaker 2: and somewhere between Texas and Maine you will have one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifteen mile wide path where it will become total.
Speaker 2: And it's very, very critical that you have the correct
Speaker 2: solar viewing apparatus so that you can see the partials.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited, this is this is I remember my
Speaker 1: in laws actually went to the They actually flew to
Speaker 1: Montana to see this the last time it happened a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and they they said it was
Speaker 1: just incredible.
Speaker 2: A little more than six days away, So people need
Speaker 2: to be planning for this. And the observing solar filters
Speaker 2: will always have the ISO number ISO one two three
Speaker 2: one two DASH two and those will be safe for
Speaker 2: viewing this partial eclipse. And like I said, it will
Speaker 2: be partial everywhere, including in the path of totality. It
Speaker 2: will be partial up until the three or four minutes
Speaker 2: when the moon completely covers the Sun. And when that happens,
Speaker 2: if you know that the moon completely covers the Sun,
Speaker 2: you can take them off and observe the alle that
Speaker 2: is part of a total solar eclipse.
Speaker 1: And you're talking this is on Monday, March April eighth.
Speaker 1: Is that the one you're talking about?
Speaker 2: April eighth? Now, depending upon where you are in that path,
Speaker 2: it will be like twelve ish two three ish somewhere
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at the NASA has a great website.
Speaker 1: I'll link it up on the h on the show
Speaker 1: notes that you can check it out. But you sound
Speaker 1: like a quasi expert in this stuff. Huh. I've seen five,
Speaker 1: You've seen five.
Speaker 2: Total solar eclipses, and I've seen two annular eclipses and
Speaker 2: angular is a little bit different.
Speaker 1: So my question for you is the solar eclipse glasses
Speaker 1: and the filters that you can get for your phone,
Speaker 1: the photo filter. Are those safe that you see on Amazon.
Speaker 2: As long as they have the ISO one two three
Speaker 2: one two DASH two designation on them. Uh, they are
Speaker 2: probably good. But the best thing to do is to
Speaker 2: look at suppliers that are in this business, and some
Speaker 2: of those suppliers are American Paper.
Speaker 4: Optics, Yep, Star Filter, Yeah, I meant.
Speaker 2: Rainbow Symphony, Thousand Oaks Opticle, and Seymore Solar.
Speaker 1: Okay, say those one more time. Thousand Oaks Opticle.
Speaker 2: Rainbow Symphony, okay, day Star, American Paper Optics Okay, Flipping Shades,
Speaker 2: and Seymore Solar.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Now there's the website. You can go to the hash
Speaker 2: all this stuff on it. It's called Eclipse dot aas
Speaker 2: dot org and that is the American Association. Well, my
Speaker 2: tongue is all tangled up American Astronomical Society, and they
Speaker 2: run sky and Telescope, they run all of these other things,
Speaker 2: and they are well versed in what you can and
Speaker 2: cannot do for solar eclipses.
Speaker 1: I love it. This is a great website, Spencer, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for the call. This stuff is exciting. You've
Speaker 1: got some time to plan. It's February March April, so
Speaker 1: you've got two months. But I will link all of
Speaker 1: this stuff that we just talked about on the website
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Some great information and I'm sure people will be taking
Speaker 1: some cool pictures. Just be safe, that's the main thing.
Speaker 1: This is, Uh, this is real all right, Scott Scott
Speaker 1: Stott Scott Stein of CNET Coming up next. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at triple eight Rich one oh one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Website rich on Tech dot tv links to everything I
Speaker 1: mentioned is at the top of that page. Joining me
Speaker 1: now is Scott Stein of c NEET. He is one
Speaker 1: of the early reviewers of Apple Vision Pro. He's been
Speaker 1: all over the place with this thing. Scott, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 4: To talk to you, Rich.
Speaker 1: So you've had this thing for a little bit now,
Speaker 1: and you are the king of VR. You've been covering
Speaker 1: VR and headsets for as long as I can remember
Speaker 1: now at CNET, so you're pretty well versed. Like, give
Speaker 1: give me a little background on your VR experience.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, I mean I saw Oculus back from the
Speaker 6: first demo, you know, and I reviewed Google Glass for CNET,
Speaker 6: and I went to Microsoft for Hollins to Magic Leap
Speaker 6: headquarters when that started metas Reality Labs research. I've been
Speaker 6: all over and so it was really interesting to compare
Speaker 6: this against pretty much most of the things that I've seen.
Speaker 1: And so what is sort of your thesis is I mean,
Speaker 1: because as someone who's been using VR for a long
Speaker 1: time and ar this is like, this is a new
Speaker 1: take on it, but it's not necessarily new to you.
Speaker 1: So kind of give us, like your thoughts on this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when I came out of the first demo, a
Speaker 6: lot of those feelings still hold true. I was just
Speaker 6: talking to a friend who came out of his demo
Speaker 6: at the Apple Store. But it was a bit like
Speaker 6: Jurassic Park in the sense of not like the dinosaurs
Speaker 6: are alive, but you did it, you know, like you
Speaker 6: did it, you crazy guys, you did it. And what
Speaker 6: I mean is that I've seen all these pieces individually
Speaker 6: coming from a lot of directions, so I wasn't surprised
Speaker 6: by the blending of reality or even the fidelity, which
Speaker 6: I've seen on one other headset and these things. But
Speaker 6: it's that they synthesized it and then it runs iOS,
Speaker 6: which is a familiar os. So it's all the futurism
Speaker 6: of a VRAR headset. But then when you're inside, it's
Speaker 6: trying to be like, oh, this is an iPad, you know.
Speaker 1: This, Yeah, so explain what it is like to be
Speaker 1: inside this thing, because many people have not tried VR yet,
Speaker 1: so and this is probably the best or one of
Speaker 1: the best like implementations of it. So explain what sort
Speaker 1: of AR is and VR and what this headset is.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so VR, it's been around for a while.
Speaker 6: You're you're in a virtual world in three D and
Speaker 6: it's immersive and you're not seeing the real world AR.
Speaker 6: You're seeing the real world and virtual things are being
Speaker 6: put into it and mixed reality the way Apple's doing
Speaker 6: it some other com beanies. It's not technically see through.
Speaker 6: It's using cameras to bring in the real world into
Speaker 6: the headset in a way that it looks like you're
Speaker 6: blending the virtual and real. And so what you see
Speaker 6: is a really good camera feed in three D of
Speaker 6: the world around you, and it's not the same as
Speaker 6: your everyday vision, but it's good enough to watch TV
Speaker 6: if you needed to, or look at your phone.
Speaker 4: You know, almost like your RoboCop.
Speaker 6: And then you see these floating displays which are incredibly
Speaker 6: high resolution that is like the retina moment that they
Speaker 6: look as good as any monitor I've seen, and videos
Speaker 6: look better than my home TV, which I don't I
Speaker 6: don't have a seventy inch o lead, but you know,
Speaker 6: it beats the four K TV that's in my home,
Speaker 6: and they can move all over. You're floating and dragging
Speaker 6: these windows all over and you can occasionally open up
Speaker 6: one that feels like VR, but you're multitasking and Siri
Speaker 6: is there, and then there's a control center and so
Speaker 6: things you're like, it's like my iPad exploded, you know,
Speaker 6: all over the place.
Speaker 1: And you can with the screens anywhere, and you can
Speaker 1: have multiple screens. You can watch movies inside of this thing.
Speaker 1: What are some of the apps and experiences that you're
Speaker 1: sort of coming away with thinking, okay, these are really
Speaker 1: good inside this headset.
Speaker 6: Well, you can see a little taste of it. Cinema,
Speaker 6: which Apple is touting on this thing is amazing. The
Speaker 6: I mean, thirty five hundred dollars for that is a
Speaker 6: lot for anyone to consider. But if you do happen
Speaker 6: to get an experience doing it, it feels like sitting
Speaker 6: in a movie theater. It feels like looking sitting in
Speaker 6: an amazing movie theater with the audio visual experience, which
Speaker 6: I don't have a good home theater setup at home,
Speaker 6: so it's like a little magical dream to play with
Speaker 6: that the spatial video stuff Jopple's talking about that plays
Speaker 6: at a scale and a sort of immediacy that like
Speaker 6: cognitively makes you feel like you're there. And it's amazing
Speaker 6: to see reactions from colleagues like Bridge of Carriot seen
Speaker 6: it and others where I think, am I just kind
Speaker 6: of you know, am I fooling myself here? But they
Speaker 6: get stunned by it. And if you see a video
Speaker 6: of it, it doesn't sure the feeling of being in it.
Speaker 6: It's like a window into that world almost, and then
Speaker 6: you get a little taste elsewhere. You know, I played
Speaker 6: with Jagspace like dropping, which is an app that drops
Speaker 6: realistic three D models and they look like an F
Speaker 6: one race car looks really enough.
Speaker 4: To feel like it could be there.
Speaker 6: And you know, Apple's Keynote app allows you to rehearse
Speaker 6: in Steve Jobs Theater and look around the audience or
Speaker 6: look around the the not the empty stage. There's a
Speaker 6: lot of ways that can transport you. Even the environments
Speaker 6: look incredibly real. But you know, I want to see
Speaker 6: what else can happen. I want to I want to
Speaker 6: see who makes dreams up new ideas.
Speaker 4: For this headset?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that is what is super interesting to
Speaker 1: me is that this is now unleashed into the world
Speaker 1: and there are many bright thinkers out there that will
Speaker 1: come up with things that maybe even Apple didn't think of.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the iPhone and the iPad. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Apple puts these tools out there, they kind
Speaker 1: of give you a little push, and then people just
Speaker 1: go to town and come up with all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So that is going to be really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: What about the whole idea of the weight of this thing,
Speaker 1: the sort of idea of having a you know, strap
Speaker 1: to your head, the battery, all of the kind of
Speaker 1: the negativity that people have been placing around this thing.
Speaker 1: I mean that will be refined over time obviously.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: This feels like a lot of people have compared this
Speaker 6: to like, you know, you're building the best thing you
Speaker 6: can to show you the vision of what's going to happen,
Speaker 6: and I think that's exactly it. This feels like, you know,
Speaker 6: maybe the very first Mac or even the Lisa. You know,
Speaker 6: this is like something where you go, I can see
Speaker 6: the future through all of these pieces, But the battery
Speaker 6: is big and you have to dangle it with a
Speaker 6: battery cord. The headset is like the same size as
Speaker 6: any VR headset that's out there, but the weight of it,
Speaker 6: depending on the strap, can be frustrating. They didn't do
Speaker 6: any better, you know, like they didn't They didn't make
Speaker 6: it feel any more like a pair of glasses. It's
Speaker 6: still much more size wise VR headset, and I think
Speaker 6: that that will limit people. Plus it doesn't work with
Speaker 6: my glasses, so you have to get prescription inserts. There's
Speaker 6: a lot of things that are going to make that
Speaker 6: feel clunky, but then when you're in it for a while,
Speaker 6: you go, oh, wow, this is really cool.
Speaker 1: So in your review at cnet dot com you mentioned
Speaker 1: the person detection, you know how that's interesting and kind
Speaker 1: of tell me about that aspect, like when someone walks
Speaker 1: up to you or you kind of you know they
Speaker 1: you know you're in this headset. And I never really
Speaker 1: thought about this idea that you're like in this thing,
Speaker 1: you don't know if someone's like creeping up on you,
Speaker 1: but I guess you do with this one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there were a million things of this where I
Speaker 6: thought there's so many new parts that it was like
Speaker 6: a really tough thing to review because even covering this landscape,
Speaker 6: there was a lot to attend to. And then it's
Speaker 6: true they do a lot of things.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: The usually the way a.
Speaker 6: VR headset works is you have to set it up
Speaker 6: for room detection, to set up your boundaries so that
Speaker 6: you can tell it where the safety zone is.
Speaker 4: This headset doesn't do any of that.
Speaker 6: It just starts and if you get too close to
Speaker 6: Fern will tell you you still.
Speaker 4: Could bump into something.
Speaker 6: But when people come close, any face it recognizes and
Speaker 6: then it passes through that face into your environment like
Speaker 6: a ghost, and you can turn that off, but it's
Speaker 6: it's kind of like a the way Apple's cameras already
Speaker 6: kind of recognize people.
Speaker 4: They must have applied that here.
Speaker 6: There's also a way that they can see you because
Speaker 6: the outside of the headset has these this kind of
Speaker 6: three D like display that shows an animated version of
Speaker 6: a virtual version of your eyes, and it's dim, but
Speaker 6: it shows up like almost like it's under the glass,
Speaker 6: and then they can see if you're blinking or looking
Speaker 6: at them, so it's you can make contact.
Speaker 1: Wow. So what's your sort of advice to people that
Speaker 1: may want this? But you know the price is very expensive,
Speaker 1: and I and I talked earlier in the show. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, this thing is effectively good for a year,
Speaker 1: because Apple notoriously comes out with a better version of
Speaker 1: their products, like on a really cycle pretty much. But
Speaker 1: what's your advice, what's your guidance.
Speaker 4: I kind of feel like this one may even you
Speaker 4: never know, you're right.
Speaker 6: It could be next year, or maybe it's even two years.
Speaker 6: It'll be interesting to see. My guidance is this is
Speaker 6: a totally different model of product reveal for them. It
Speaker 6: seems very aspirational. I think they're leaning very much on
Speaker 6: the demos, and it reminds me of like a concept car,
Speaker 6: you know. I think you go like Epcot, and you
Speaker 6: go and get a demo of it and check it out.
Speaker 6: And I think that's also Apple's intent, is to kind
Speaker 6: of start easing people into understanding the idea over time
Speaker 6: that the early adopters may get this now people who
Speaker 6: have the money at this time somehow to spend on
Speaker 6: this luxury device, but that you understand it so the
Speaker 6: next time they roll around, you'll have unders understood all
Speaker 6: these various parts. So I wouldn't recommend anyone I know
Speaker 6: get it unless they felt compelled. But definitely try it,
Speaker 6: because at least they're making that easy. They're they're giving
Speaker 6: a lot of time for people to demo this, which
Speaker 6: is also very unusual for them.
Speaker 1: Now you said you wouldn't recommend anyone get it, See,
Speaker 1: I feel like I would one hundred percent say, like,
Speaker 1: absolutely get this if if you have four thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to burn, like, if this is not a big deal
Speaker 1: to you, one hundred percent jump on the future today.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's a good point.
Speaker 6: And actually I've had some friends like that, and I said,
Speaker 6: you know, I still say to them, listening, no money
Speaker 6: means something to everybody, And I'll go, you know, you
Speaker 6: can wait on this. But because I prefer to be
Speaker 6: a little take the under on amazing them, because usually
Speaker 6: people will try this thing and then be even.
Speaker 4: More amazed than how I described it.
Speaker 6: And I'll say, if I mean, if you just get
Speaker 6: it for the cinema part and you have the money,
Speaker 6: it's incredible for that, and then all the other things
Speaker 6: become increasingly good benefits. The computer part is unbelievably fascinating,
Speaker 6: but I think there are still parts that need to
Speaker 6: be kind of finessed with it, and apps that need
Speaker 6: to be folded in. But when that is finessed, possibly
Speaker 6: this year, that becomes a whole other dimension of this,
Speaker 6: using it as your floating monitor interface and doing all
Speaker 6: sorts of stuff with that.
Speaker 1: All right, Scott Stein of cnet, We're gonna leave it there,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me. Check out Scott's review.
Speaker 1: It is Apple Vision Pro, a mind blowing look at
Speaker 1: an unfinished future at cnet dot com. Eighty to eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. 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: O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. Is the website. You've got the email
Speaker 1: on the website as well if you want to contact
Speaker 1: this show that way and uh oh, Kevin rode In
Speaker 1: or Ken rode In on the website rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot tv contact. He said, I would caution all perspective
Speaker 1: Samsung TV buyers that Samsung does not support Dolby Vision.
Speaker 1: That's a deal breaker for me. That is a great point.
Speaker 1: They do support HDR, but not Dolby Vision as far
Speaker 1: as I know, so that is something to look out
Speaker 1: for you know, I guess it depends on your setup, right, So,
Speaker 1: but that is a great point, Ken, thanks for bringing
Speaker 1: that up. Let's go to Sean in Palmdale, California. Sean,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Hi, Rich, thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, what's up?
Speaker 3: So I made a little bit of a mistake. I
Speaker 3: was super excited to put smart lights in my house.
Speaker 3: So I did the whole house in the smart lights,
Speaker 3: and I bought myself a new Wi Fi mesh router also,
Speaker 3: and I saw that they're both compatible for WPA two.
Speaker 3: But then I learned there's one that is ae S
Speaker 3: and send out. They're not compatent. I'm I'm not sure
Speaker 3: what to do at this point. I'm thinking maybe I
Speaker 3: could do a switch with a second router.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what's the Okay, so what's the problem. The
Speaker 1: lights don't connect to the router.
Speaker 3: That's correct. So the lights are the new whiz app
Speaker 3: lights on the side of the boxes. It does WP
Speaker 3: A two and I couldn't give the connect. I tried
Speaker 3: and tried, and then I found out that the router.
Speaker 3: I have a Arrow Pro six E and it says
Speaker 3: it does WP A PSK A s E. Okay, I
Speaker 3: think the a SE, the Advanced Encrypted Standard, is what's
Speaker 3: killing me because it can't the lights can't do the encryption.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, because the lights are I mean,
Speaker 1: that's like an older protocol, isn't it, the wp A two.
Speaker 3: You're correct. And the funny thing is these are brand new.
Speaker 3: They just came out, well here, the latest.
Speaker 1: And greatest, and so they won't they won't connect to
Speaker 1: the router at all. No, And is this a known
Speaker 1: issue or is this just something that it just seems
Speaker 1: to be happening, Like if you go online, does it
Speaker 1: say like these lights don't work with Euros specifically?
Speaker 3: I have not found anyone who said that. Okay, and
Speaker 3: everything I can read on it, all the helps and everything.
Speaker 3: I even went on the arrow and they said I
Speaker 3: know how to manually take it down to two p Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was gonna hurt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna recommend that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then they also have something called legacy, so if
Speaker 3: you have older devices, yeah, switch over legacy. I did
Speaker 3: that and they still connect. And then that's when I
Speaker 3: found out. I never knew there was such thing as
Speaker 3: AES and those are two completely different things. And I
Speaker 3: didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting. I'm looking at the euro website and okay,
Speaker 1: says euros well, it says Euro supports WPA two PSK
Speaker 1: and AES. Oh it does say that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and as or only AES.
Speaker 1: Well, it says Euro only supports wp A two PSK,
Speaker 1: AES network security. It does not support w EP, WPA
Speaker 1: or wps as. These are known to be insecure. So
Speaker 1: I think that these will work with your Euro because
Speaker 1: I and here's the thing I will tell you, I've
Speaker 1: an Euro as well. I've had it since day one.
Speaker 1: I've had a bunch of different models of it. There's
Speaker 1: only been one device that I could not connect to it.
Speaker 1: It was a an outdoor plug. And I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I went nuts trying to get this thing connected. And
Speaker 1: I did the whole like two point four gigahertz. I
Speaker 1: mean I was sitting out there. At some point I
Speaker 1: just like looked at myself as like, rich, this is
Speaker 1: not this is a twenty dollars plug like this, we're
Speaker 1: not doing this, you know what I mean? But this
Speaker 1: the fact that you did all these lights in your house,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a little.
Speaker 4: Bit of how many sixty five oh.
Speaker 1: My gosh, sixty five. Okay, So I guess at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I think that you need to
Speaker 1: do a little bit more research on whether this will
Speaker 1: actually work. I would try, have you contacted Eero to
Speaker 1: like talk to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't get very far. They kept giving me
Speaker 3: their automated stuff. I couldn't get to a real person.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I would try to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get someone there. I would also I just I feel
Speaker 1: like these lights are going to work with this given
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing on the frequently asked questions here. So
Speaker 1: I would try to continue to get a set of
Speaker 1: these to work with your Eero if you find out
Speaker 1: that they don't. I mean, yes, the secondary network is
Speaker 1: an option, and you could even try. By the way,
Speaker 1: with Eero, they have a guest network. You can try
Speaker 1: to set that up and see if you can set
Speaker 1: it up with a different SSID or you know, Wi
Speaker 1: Fi network and see if you can connect them to that.
Speaker 1: Maybe because it's a guest network, you can tweak some
Speaker 1: of the settings to bring it down a little bit.
Speaker 1: That might be an option. But the other thing you
Speaker 1: could do at the end of the day is maybe
Speaker 1: just get another router that you plug in and these
Speaker 1: lights just connect to this router. I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: you can get a router for you know, fifty sixty
Speaker 1: bucks and just use that one. But I have a
Speaker 1: feeling that these do work. I would explore a little
Speaker 1: bit more on the euro website and also the lighting
Speaker 1: website and see, like talk to someone from the companies,
Speaker 1: maybe from Halo themselves, and see what happens there, because
Speaker 1: I have a feeling this is going to work. Sean,
Speaker 1: keep me posted, okay, Rich on tech dot TV, hit
Speaker 1: that contact button and let me know so we can
Speaker 1: do a follow up. Thanks for the call today. Eight
Speaker 1: a to eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. News this
Speaker 1: week that Amazon and I Robot terminated their one point
Speaker 1: seven billion dollar acquisition deal. They agreed to do this
Speaker 1: because they couldn't get approval from the EU. And at
Speaker 1: this point, we have seen so many big deals fall
Speaker 1: through and almost all of it is driven by the
Speaker 1: European Union and their standards and what they allow and
Speaker 1: what they don't allow is quite different from the US.
Speaker 1: They are much stricter than we are here in the US,
Speaker 1: and they really do seem to have kind of like consumers'
Speaker 1: best interest in mind. Now, I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: the best thing for this I robot, because these robotic
Speaker 1: vacuums have become almost a commodity over the years. Amazon
Speaker 1: says this deal is going to be a loss for consumers,
Speaker 1: competition and innovation in robotics. They also have to pay
Speaker 1: I robot a breakup fee of ninety four million dollars,
Speaker 1: and already I Robo on the heels of this said
Speaker 1: that they're gonna have to lay off workers and it's
Speaker 1: just not going to be as good. And of course
Speaker 1: they probably say that just to say it, because you know,
Speaker 1: they want everyone to feel bad for them. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you know, have we really seen a
Speaker 1: lot of innovation and I think Amazon is probably the
Speaker 1: biggest customer for or the biggest seller of I robot devices.
Speaker 1: So that happened this week. A breakup fee, Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you do these big deals, if they don't go through,
Speaker 1: you got to pay because there's a cost of that
Speaker 1: not happening. Yeah, Bobo wants some eighty eight rich one
Speaker 1: on one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. This is rich On Tech Welcome to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: t talking technology at Triple eight rich one on one
Speaker 1: eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
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 website richon tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Joining me in just a minute here will be Matt
Speaker 1: Swider of the Shortcut. He was probably one of the
Speaker 1: first people to use the applevision pro on an airplane,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna get his thoughts on that. But first,
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you about this social media
Speaker 1: executives back on Capitol Hill being grilled by senators. Meta TikTok,
Speaker 1: snapchat x, and discord uh heads were there to talk
Speaker 1: about child safety on their platforms. Lawmakers press them on
Speaker 1: sexual exploitation, predators, and harms to mental health, and also
Speaker 1: the self image children face online. Even Mark Zuckerberg was
Speaker 1: kind of not forced, but it was an interesting moment
Speaker 1: where he turned around in a apologize to some parents
Speaker 1: who lost a child to suicide that was possibly linked
Speaker 1: to social media use. That was a really interesting moment
Speaker 1: senators from both parties, and that's what's interesting about this.
Speaker 1: A lot of people on both sides agree that stronger
Speaker 1: protections for kids are needed, but so far, we don't
Speaker 1: know what those protections should look like. We don't know
Speaker 1: how they would be implemented. And these tech companies, of course,
Speaker 1: they want to do it on their own accord. They
Speaker 1: don't want to be legislated to do this. Except for Snap,
Speaker 1: they actually said they would back a bill to create
Speaker 1: a legal liability if they recommended harmful content to minors.
Speaker 1: But most of these companies say, look, we're spending a
Speaker 1: lot of money on safety tools, so we're doing all
Speaker 1: we can. But are they I don't know. Having two kids,
Speaker 1: I can tell you as a parent that knows technology,
Speaker 1: it is extremely tough to filter or to limit or
Speaker 1: to monitor what your kids do online. And that's with
Speaker 1: kids with a parent that knows about technology. So imagine
Speaker 1: the ninety nine percent of people out there who are
Speaker 1: just giving their kids, you know, a pack of cigarettes basically,
Speaker 1: which is a smartphone and letting them go to town.
Speaker 1: And nobody really knows how bad this is. But we
Speaker 1: are seeing the repercussions, which is, you know, you go
Speaker 1: to any sort of school and all this stuff really
Speaker 1: rules the social media, the texting, the cyber bullying, the
Speaker 1: images they're seeing, the talk of suicide. It is bad.
Speaker 1: It's really bad, and I don't know what to do
Speaker 1: because we can't stop this stuff from happening. It happens
Speaker 1: in real life too. This is just amplified. But are
Speaker 1: you recommending this stuff to kids? If they look at
Speaker 1: one thing, do you show them more? Do you make
Speaker 1: them obsessed? These are the issues we have to figure
Speaker 1: out with these apps that these kids love to use.
Speaker 1: All right, let's bring on Matt Swider of the shortcut
Speaker 1: dot Com. Matt writes about tech tips and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. Matt, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 8: Good to be here, Rich and greetings from Montreal.
Speaker 1: Oh Montreal. Is that where you took your flight with
Speaker 1: the Vision Pro?
Speaker 8: I did? I wanted to take an international flight and
Speaker 8: that was the shortest way to get across the border
Speaker 8: and test out the Apple Vision Pro on a flight
Speaker 8: and in another country.
Speaker 1: Why did you want to why the international aspect?
Speaker 8: Well, I'm kind of curious to see if you know
Speaker 8: you could log in as easily and download some stuff
Speaker 8: from the app store that you couldn't normally do if
Speaker 8: you were, say logged into a foreign account.
Speaker 1: Ah, got it. Okay. The first time I went to Japan,
Speaker 1: it was such a nightmare. Now things have gotten a
Speaker 1: lot better, But like the first time I went there
Speaker 1: the app store, my entire phone changed. It was like
Speaker 1: it was such a night where like I couldn't download music,
Speaker 1: I couldn't like update apps. It was like my whole
Speaker 1: phone just kind of like stopped. Now that was like
Speaker 1: ten years ago, but it was just so like wait,
Speaker 1: I was like wait what Okay, So you got the
Speaker 1: Vision Pro. You waited outside at the Apple Store in
Speaker 1: New York City and you put this thing on, You
Speaker 1: got on a flight. What was it like to wear
Speaker 1: it on the flight? Were people looking at you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: So I actually wore it in the Delta lounge and
Speaker 8: it was kind of an interesting thing because there was
Speaker 8: another one other person there who happened to have one,
Speaker 8: and we were both wearing it, and we got so
Speaker 8: many looks and a lot of video being recorded. So
Speaker 8: we had a little bit of a fan club of
Speaker 8: people wanting to experience it. And I gave it to
Speaker 8: the bartender and he tried it on.
Speaker 9: So that was before the flight.
Speaker 1: You gave someone your your headset just like some random
Speaker 1: person put on your headset.
Speaker 8: The bartender made a good drink, so I was busy
Speaker 8: sipping on a cocktail and he was, you know, experiencing
Speaker 8: the AR technology for the first time, and that was
Speaker 8: it was a delight for me to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine what was his reaction.
Speaker 8: He loved it, you know it it was very intuitive.
Speaker 8: So that was really nice because I didn't have to
Speaker 8: explain much. And you know, it's just like dealing with
Speaker 8: your phone, but with windows floating up in the air.
Speaker 1: So what was it like to wear it on the plane?
Speaker 1: Did you get sick? Is it great? Is it amazing?
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 8: I didn't get sick, which was good news, and I
Speaker 8: loved wearing it on the plane because I didn't have
Speaker 8: to take out my laptop. And surprise, a Delta flight
Speaker 8: in going to an international country did not have a
Speaker 8: TV in the seatback, so I thought I was stuck,
Speaker 8: you know, being bored. But I'm like, oh, I have
Speaker 8: this headset, so I got to watch episodes of Ted
Speaker 8: Lasso in you know, when everybody else was bored around me,
Speaker 8: I was like, all right, I can take care of
Speaker 8: that situation. And that was really nice. I also, you know,
Speaker 8: fixed or remedied the situation of battery life. So if
Speaker 8: I had to give people some tips on traveling it
Speaker 8: in an Apple travel case. They have a travel case
Speaker 8: that they sell or some other case that protects protect
Speaker 8: your investment.
Speaker 1: So that's really Wait does it not come with a case?
Speaker 8: So it it does not come with the case then,
Speaker 8: and that is you know it comes with a you
Speaker 8: have to buy that separately.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, so you gotta you need a travel
Speaker 1: case for the vision pro Yeah. I mean if you're
Speaker 1: gonna take this thing on a plane, you do not.
Speaker 1: Because I've already seen pictures I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: fake or not of the front glass cracked.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, I think those were dropped tests.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they were real. Wow, because this is the
Speaker 1: front is glass. So the travel case two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: This is an expensive investment.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 1: I know for you, obviously you cover this stuff and
Speaker 1: you're gonna be making a lot of content from it,
Speaker 1: so it's well worth it. But do you think that
Speaker 1: if you travel a lot and you're doing a lot
Speaker 1: of international trips, is this just game changing?
Speaker 3: It is?
Speaker 8: And like it's like you were talking about with Scott
Speaker 8: before it's gonna you're gonna have to have version two,
Speaker 8: three four, get a lot cheaper, and that's when it
Speaker 8: becomes game changing. But this reminds me of the iPhone one.
Speaker 8: You know, it was too expensive. That iPhone one costs
Speaker 8: six hundred dollars when it first came out, and there
Speaker 8: was no app store, there was no front facing camera.
Speaker 8: This is the iPhone one of augmented reality. The other
Speaker 8: thing I did fix was when I was at the
Speaker 8: Apple store, I got a Mophy charger, the power Station Pro,
Speaker 8: and I got a Gan charger from that, the Mope brand,
Speaker 8: and I was able to put the you know, last
Speaker 8: more than two hours. That's like one of the biggest
Speaker 8: problems with something like this is like the battery life
Speaker 8: goes so quickly, so if you're on a flight across
Speaker 8: the country, you're not going to be able to use
Speaker 8: it for even half of the flight. So, uh, definitely
Speaker 8: I recommend to people getting an external battery, get a
Speaker 8: good one. Mine was twenty thousand millions, so definitely something
Speaker 8: you need for t Now.
Speaker 1: You can also plug this in though, to do continuous power, right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, So that's why I kind of upgraded the charge
Speaker 8: of the charge that it comes with the Apple Vision
Speaker 8: Pro is thirty lots. And while that's all well and
Speaker 8: good to you know, power that up, I feel like
Speaker 8: I don't want to carry a thirty charge around, so
Speaker 8: I wanted to consolidate and have one that will charge
Speaker 8: my MacBook, my iPad, whatever I throw at it.
Speaker 1: Okay, And so again, do you think that this is
Speaker 1: a nice addition to watching a movie on the plane
Speaker 1: or is it kind of like just too much effort?
Speaker 1: Or is it I mean I tried one time to
Speaker 1: bring a VR headset on a plane and I was
Speaker 1: like so embarrassed to wear it. Do you think that
Speaker 1: that happens here or not? Do you think people are
Speaker 1: familiar enough with this that that's not going to happen.
Speaker 8: I think you're definitely going to be embarrassed by wearing
Speaker 8: it if you're self conscious about it, because it will
Speaker 8: draw looks, especially in this first year. But like anything,
Speaker 8: as soon as it's adopted and everybody else can afford
Speaker 8: and get one, as those that drops in price, it'll
Speaker 8: become a commonplace. I do think that the movie watching
Speaker 8: experience is really nice because, say you lean back in
Speaker 8: your seat, you don't have to crank your neck to
Speaker 8: watch the TV if you do have one in your seatback,
Speaker 8: because it'll be you can move the floating window around
Speaker 8: and it kind of goes with you, you know, no
Speaker 8: matter where you are, So that is kind of one
Speaker 8: of the killer apps for me is having multiple windows
Speaker 8: to work or watch a movie.
Speaker 1: I've got about thirty seconds. What about the flight attendant
Speaker 1: when they came up to you to you know, ask
Speaker 1: for a drink or whatever. Did did the pass through
Speaker 1: sort of work or what it does work?
Speaker 8: And people, you know don't really they still communicate with you.
Speaker 8: So that's kind of nice because you can kind of
Speaker 8: see your eyes through it.
Speaker 1: So they talk to you. Wait, hold on your eyes
Speaker 1: like your eyes were on the outside screen. The flight
Speaker 1: attendant came up to you and you literally talked to
Speaker 1: them through this headset, right.
Speaker 8: And that is and no one batter than I it was.
Speaker 8: I was expecting people to, you know, question it more,
Speaker 8: but no one just like it was normal.
Speaker 1: What a world we live in. Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: this is so wild. I'm sure flight attendants around the
Speaker 1: world are going to be telling stories about this stuff,
Speaker 1: like in the next couple of weeks of just how wild.
Speaker 1: This is going to be Matt Swider of the shortcut
Speaker 1: dot com. He's got a great write up about his
Speaker 1: Apple Vision pro airplane flight and all the accessories you
Speaker 1: just mentioned. I will link that up on my website.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv. Matt, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today. Thanks Rich all right, thanks for being on.
Speaker 1: Before we go to break, let me just tell you
Speaker 1: about Disney UH and ESPN and Hulu. Okay, so Disney Plus,
Speaker 1: remember they were talking about getting this password sharing crackdown
Speaker 1: started while Hulu is doing this. So Hulu announced, they
Speaker 1: emailed subscribers and they said the game, the free ride
Speaker 1: is over. If you want to share your password, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna allow it anymore. So this starts on March four, fourteenth,
Speaker 1: and basically they said they're going to use technology to
Speaker 1: figure out if your account is sharing your password with
Speaker 1: people outside of your household. Now what does that mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit blurry, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: the IP address of the systems, if it's a TV,
Speaker 1: if it's a laptop, if you travel and have a
Speaker 1: Hulu account, yes, you'll be able to watch this wherever.
Speaker 1: You travel to. But if you have a Hulu account
Speaker 1: and you live in California and your you know, family
Speaker 1: member or friend logs in from Georgia, probably not going
Speaker 1: to be allowed. So again, this starts on March fourteenth,
Speaker 1: and this is you know Netflix did this first, because
Speaker 1: here's the deal. These these streaming services. For a long time,
Speaker 1: the growth was just unlimited. People just kept signing up,
Speaker 1: they just kept paying and it didn't really matter if
Speaker 1: people were sharing their accounts. Now they're to a point
Speaker 1: where these streaming services are spending a lot of money
Speaker 1: on original content. Not as many people are signing up.
Speaker 1: Some people are canceling, and so there's saying no, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna let you share these things anymore. And we
Speaker 1: know if you're sharing, they have the systems in place
Speaker 1: to figure it out, they just weren't enforcing it. So
Speaker 1: if you have Hulu, if you have Disney Plus, you
Speaker 1: got ESPN again, free ride is over. You gotta stop
Speaker 1: sharing your account eighty eight rich one on one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Give me a call if you have a question about technology. Wow,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm at the uh middle school dance
Speaker 1: That slow dance. You know, you're like nervous to ask
Speaker 1: someone to dance with you. Remember how nervous you were
Speaker 1: back in the day, those little dances. It's all part
Speaker 1: of growing up. You'd stand, you know, hands apart, didn't
Speaker 1: really want to touch. Oh, bobos got in close. Okay.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on tech eighty to eight Rich
Speaker 1: one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 1: Let's go to John in Fallbrook, California. John, you're on
Speaker 1: with Rich.
Speaker 2: Thanks Rich, Thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 3: I get two questions, but the most important.
Speaker 7: One is.
Speaker 2: My phone calls, my mis calls, and.
Speaker 7: My phone messages show up on my wife's phone.
Speaker 10: She's got Ice thirteen and I have an S.
Speaker 1: Are you sharing? Are you sharing the same Apple ID? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what's happening. That's it.
Speaker 7: Can I use the same iCloud with the do IDs?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: So well, So Apple has something called family sharing, and
Speaker 1: that's what you got to do. So you can share,
Speaker 1: like if you have iCloud storage, whatever, you have apps
Speaker 1: that you download, anything that you do, you can share
Speaker 1: across those devices. But if you have the same Apple
Speaker 1: ID on both devices, it will share the calls and
Speaker 1: the voicemail. It's interesting. This is a change that is
Speaker 1: not really wasn't really announced in iOS seventeen, but I've
Speaker 1: got enough calls about it where I guess it happened
Speaker 1: and they made this change and it's not like a
Speaker 1: documented thing. But the reality is I see this all
Speaker 1: the time. So many the parents I know their kids
Speaker 1: are logged in with their Apple ID, and so their
Speaker 1: kidds on their iPad and they're seeing all their text
Speaker 1: messages the whole time, and it's like, you got to
Speaker 1: get this kid their own Apple ID. So everyone in
Speaker 1: the family should have their own Apple ID, you and
Speaker 1: your wife, not just for privacy reasons, but also even
Speaker 1: if you have nothing to hide, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just better for the security of that
Speaker 1: device and the security of the account, and also the
Speaker 1: way that Apple has set things up, it's best not
Speaker 1: to share an Apple ID with two different users, because,
Speaker 1: like you just noticed, you're going to run into issues
Speaker 1: like this. So set up a secondary Apple ID. It's free,
Speaker 1: and then you link them up under what called Apple
Speaker 1: Family Sharing. And once you have that set up, you
Speaker 1: can then your wife can download any of the apps
Speaker 1: that you've paid for. You can share the iCloud account.
Speaker 1: If you have Apple Music family, you can share that.
Speaker 1: But you get up to I think it's six people
Speaker 1: to share on the account. But set up that John
Speaker 1: and that should take care of it. The voicemail situation,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's interesting that that would show up to.
Speaker 1: But I think maybe that's the way Apple changed the
Speaker 1: voicemail to kind of they're now intercepting the voicemails. It's
Speaker 1: a little complicated. I don't want to get into it,
Speaker 1: but that's probably what's going on there. But yes, separate
Speaker 1: those Apple IDs you should be just fine. Let's go
Speaker 1: to Paul in Columbus, Ohio. Paul, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 7: Thank you and your congratulations on your year plus.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Paul, appreciate that. What can I help you with?
Speaker 7: Okay, I was looking at a TV that was a
Speaker 7: high sense and they've had some pretty good sales and
Speaker 7: I know for a lower end cost either pretty good.
Speaker 7: So I was looking at the fifty five inch U
Speaker 7: seven K Okay, that's the primary numbers in the model yep.
Speaker 7: And then there was one the same one at Costco
Speaker 7: except it was a seven to five K and I
Speaker 7: remember hearing about this before that some large companies purchases
Speaker 7: big Knox stores or whatever will get ones that aren't
Speaker 7: exactly the same number, and I'm just curious what would
Speaker 7: be different about those too when I would get without
Speaker 7: the seventy five the seven.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the High Sense, by the way, Great TV
Speaker 1: so highly recommended the U seven series. The U eight
Speaker 1: series was recommended by the expert we had on a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. So the reason why Costco has
Speaker 1: different model numbers I was just talking about this with
Speaker 1: another person the other day, is that basically it's it's
Speaker 1: mostly for price comparison, like they don't want to make
Speaker 1: it easy to do that, but also Costco sometimes adds
Speaker 1: a little something extra to what they do versus the
Speaker 1: spies of the world or the targets, so they want
Speaker 1: to have their own unique model number to make things
Speaker 1: a little bit trickier for you. I think at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, though, I think that if you
Speaker 1: are getting the TV from Costco, check the specs. There
Speaker 1: might be something that's slightly different, But in many cases
Speaker 1: I think it's probably better than what you'd get out
Speaker 1: there on the open market. Since Costco operates under our membership,
Speaker 1: But that's really what it is. I know it's frustrating
Speaker 1: when you're typing it into Costco to try our Google
Speaker 1: to try to do that search, but I think you'll
Speaker 1: be just fine with what they're offering there at Costco.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the call, Paul. Coming up, we'll talk online
Speaker 1: data privacy. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with
Speaker 1: you at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. The
Speaker 1: website is rich on Tech dot tv. If you want
Speaker 1: to link to something that I mentioned here on the show,
Speaker 1: just go right to the top it says mentioned on
Speaker 1: the radio. Just click there and you can get links
Speaker 1: in real time. Cybersecurity is such a huge deal in
Speaker 1: our lives privacy. If you're online, you know, chances are
Speaker 1: your information is out there and it is yours to protect.
Speaker 1: So let's bring on Lisa Plagomaire, executive director at the
Speaker 1: National Cybersecurity Alliance, to talk about some of the ways
Speaker 1: we can protect our privacy. Lisa, thanks for joining.
Speaker 12: Me, happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Thanks you so explain to me what the National Cybersecurity
Speaker 1: Alliance is So.
Speaker 13: We're a nonprofit organization. We're actually the founders of Cybersecurity
Speaker 13: Awareness Month every October, and our mission is around empowering
Speaker 13: a more secure, interconnected world. So what that means is
Speaker 13: empowering consumers and everyday people with the information they need
Speaker 13: to stay secured, to keep your information private when they
Speaker 13: choose to, and so it's StaySafe online dot org. We
Speaker 13: have a lot of very plainspoken advice. You won't find
Speaker 13: a lot of techt speaker legalleese on our website. We
Speaker 13: have all kinds of advice for the average average citizen
Speaker 13: easy to understand.
Speaker 1: So let's first talk about kind of like where we're
Speaker 1: at with cybersecurity, like how much are we at risk
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, Like we always hear about hacking
Speaker 1: and you know these data breaches and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: Like how much is the average consumer kind of what
Speaker 1: are they up against?
Speaker 13: They're up against highly highly sophisticated organized crime in nation
Speaker 13: states like the Big Four, so Russia, China, Iran in
Speaker 13: North Korea, and you might have seen Director Ray testifying
Speaker 13: this week about the Chinese infiltrating our critical national infrastructure
Speaker 13: things like the power grids and water treatment plants things
Speaker 13: like that. They used everyday citizens, normal Americans hardware to
Speaker 13: do that. So they used routers in people's homes and
Speaker 13: in small businesses to create essentially a bot that they
Speaker 13: could use to infiltrate our own infrastructure, So using our
Speaker 13: own hardware against.
Speaker 12: Us, if you will.
Speaker 13: So this has gone way beyond, unfortunately, way beyond sort
Speaker 13: of data breaches and things like that. We still have
Speaker 13: to be concerned about those, but it's also escalated to
Speaker 13: the level of being a national security issue.
Speaker 1: So it used to be back in the day if
Speaker 1: you didn't change the password on your router, that was
Speaker 1: kind of like a you know, well, big deal, What's
Speaker 1: what's someone going to do get into my house?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: But nowadays, obviously a lot of these companies have taken
Speaker 1: steps to do that and make sure that you're not
Speaker 1: using like a basic, you know, factory password. But what
Speaker 1: about the average consumer, Like, what what are kind of
Speaker 1: like the first steps we can take to protect our
Speaker 1: privacy online?
Speaker 12: So there are a couple of things that are really
Speaker 12: really basic.
Speaker 13: There's there's four main things that everybody can do, and
Speaker 13: if we all did them, they would make a massive
Speaker 13: debt in the problem.
Speaker 12: So The first one is passwords.
Speaker 13: We have some really bad habits about using the same
Speaker 13: password on multiple websites or a similar one. Those are
Speaker 13: really easy to hack. They're using software to hack them,
Speaker 13: password cracking tools. So don't use the same password on everything.
Speaker 13: You probably need a password manager to help you to
Speaker 13: keep it all straight. Then multi factor authentication. That's that
Speaker 13: thing where you know, when you go to sign onto
Speaker 13: your bank account, you have to have a text or
Speaker 13: a push notification from authenticator app before you can get
Speaker 13: into your bank account. So turn that on on every
Speaker 13: single account that offers it. Keeping things up to date,
Speaker 13: so when you get that remind.
Speaker 12: Me later option, do not take that.
Speaker 13: Make sure you run whatever update is trying to run,
Speaker 13: whether it's hardware, software.
Speaker 12: The firmware and your router operating.
Speaker 13: System on your phone or any device. Keep everything up
Speaker 13: to date, especially your anti virus. And then watching out
Speaker 13: for phishing and social engineering, so not every you know,
Speaker 13: instant message you get is going to be from a
Speaker 13: legitimate person.
Speaker 12: That you really know.
Speaker 13: We've all gotten, you know, phishing emails that are really obvious.
Speaker 12: They're not so obvious anymore. With the help of AI.
Speaker 13: The bad guys are getting a lot better at creating
Speaker 13: phishing emails, texts, phone calls that make it harder and
Speaker 13: harder for us to tell that somebody's trying to trick us.
Speaker 13: And I'll add one more, and that's checking your privacy
Speaker 13: and security settings on your devices and all.
Speaker 12: The apps that you use.
Speaker 13: Those are not usually set to, you know, to have
Speaker 13: a default to be maybe the most private option. So
Speaker 13: you might not be comfortable when you start being amp
Speaker 13: to those settings. You might be sharing stuff that you
Speaker 13: don't feel comfortable sharing, and so maybe dial those things
Speaker 13: to a level that you feel more comfortable with, for example,
Speaker 13: making your friends less private on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Now, when you say that these aren't made private, you
Speaker 1: know they're not in the best interest of the consumer
Speaker 1: generally when they're at their de faults. That's probably because
Speaker 1: these companies want to collect as much information on us
Speaker 1: as they can, right, so that they can monetize it.
Speaker 13: Yeah, because at their core, most social media companies are
Speaker 13: essentially advertising vehicles, and so the more information they have
Speaker 13: on us, the more targeted those ads can be, the
Speaker 13: more they can charge for that advertising.
Speaker 1: Now, the big, the big kind of flip side to
Speaker 1: all of this I get from many, many people When
Speaker 1: I say you got to use good passwords, you got
Speaker 1: to use multi factor, you got to update your software,
Speaker 1: you got to do all this stuff, they say, look rich,
Speaker 1: I got nothing to hide, They got nothing to worry about.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal, Like who wants to come
Speaker 1: into my you know? Uh so I was. I got
Speaker 1: one of my accounts I used to make like a
Speaker 1: Christmas card one year, and that like that account was hacked, right,
Speaker 1: And so the password that I used there, and my
Speaker 1: address and my phone number and my everything is just
Speaker 1: out there on the web because they were hacked. And
Speaker 1: so that's kind of like the thing that I don't
Speaker 1: think people realize is that when you share this information
Speaker 1: with one company, it can be out there in a
Speaker 1: multitude of ways if that company is hacked.
Speaker 12: Right, And a.
Speaker 13: Lot of these criminal organizations recreated massive databases that where
Speaker 13: they're they're trading in your data, just like you know
Speaker 13: the data companies and the legitimate ones in the business world.
Speaker 13: They're building these massive data warehouses with a lot of information.
Speaker 13: So if your password has already been compromised, you might think, well,
Speaker 13: I don't have anything in that specific account that have
Speaker 13: the breach.
Speaker 12: I don't have anything in their value. Like you said,
Speaker 12: who cares.
Speaker 13: The problem is they're going to take that password and
Speaker 13: versions of it, you know, little click it a little bit.
Speaker 13: Using software. They can do this at scale really quickly,
Speaker 13: and they're going to try that on every other account
Speaker 13: out there, and they can do it in minutes using
Speaker 13: technology to do it. Because these are these are businesses
Speaker 13: and time is money for them, so they're going to
Speaker 13: use technology to their advantage. And that's why it's so
Speaker 13: important not to use the same password or similar password
Speaker 13: on multiple accounts and to use MFA the other thing.
Speaker 12: That can happen.
Speaker 13: You might think, oh, this, this doesn't matter to me,
Speaker 13: I don't have anything of value there. When when they
Speaker 13: take over one of your accounts, if they have access
Speaker 13: to one of your accounts, we can use that account
Speaker 13: to try and to harm.
Speaker 12: To somebody else.
Speaker 13: Right, So we've all seen the Facebook instant message that
Speaker 13: looks like it's from ariunt Betty, but it's not harriunt
Speaker 13: Betty or aunt Betty had her Facebook account. It's taken
Speaker 13: over because she's probably using a weak password and no MFBT.
Speaker 13: So you don't want to be the launch pad for
Speaker 13: somebody to go try and defraud other people. You also
Speaker 13: don't want the Chinese coming into your house using your
Speaker 13: router to lob an attack on your local power company.
Speaker 12: I mean, I think that.
Speaker 13: That's really rhythmic, couragious, and most of us can agree
Speaker 13: we wouldn't want our homes exploited in that way by
Speaker 13: a foreign country.
Speaker 1: And can you explain the concept of the dark web?
Speaker 13: So basically, the current Internet was not designed to be
Speaker 13: secure or private. It was designed for the free and
Speaker 13: open flow of information. And if they could build it
Speaker 13: all again today, they would not build its own the
Speaker 13: way it's developed, you need a special browser to get there.
Speaker 13: What's on the dark web is essentially marketplaces. Mainly the
Speaker 13: deal in data, credit card information, social security numbers that
Speaker 13: are for sale, bank account credentials to somebody, and including
Speaker 13: your bank balance so that somebody knows whether or not
Speaker 13: you're worth trying is deal from. And also things like drugs,
Speaker 13: guns and humans, human trafficking, Every bad, possible criminal thing
Speaker 13: that you could think of to buy and sell is
Speaker 13: available on the dark web.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Wow, it sounds like we're up against a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff here, Lisa, But I like the couple of
Speaker 1: tenants that you mentioned about you know, keeping our stuff private.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: stuff that we need to stay up on, right, and
Speaker 1: we need to stay aware of this stuff because I know,
Speaker 1: I just I keep hearing in my mind over and
Speaker 1: over people say, come on, they're not what do they
Speaker 1: need to do with me? But when you build this
Speaker 1: profile of someone, there's a lot you can do with that,
Speaker 1: and the time and energy it takes to dig out
Speaker 1: of that if something happens to you is really just
Speaker 1: not worth it.
Speaker 12: We need to think about our loved ones too.
Speaker 13: So older folks, aging Americans, they don't get defrauded as often,
Speaker 13: but when they do, the dollar amounts are high.
Speaker 12: The bad guys are going to go where.
Speaker 13: The money is, Right, why do I steal the bank
Speaker 13: because that's around the bank is, that's where the money is.
Speaker 12: And our aging loved.
Speaker 13: Ones have accumulated their life savings and so when they
Speaker 13: get defrauded, and it happens way too often, it's.
Speaker 12: For large dollar amounts.
Speaker 13: So I spend a lot of time with trying to
Speaker 13: keep my mom safe online for example.
Speaker 12: And then younger people.
Speaker 13: Gen X, gen Y, they click a lot, they move
Speaker 13: really fast through the technology and so they're actually more
Speaker 13: likely to click on something malicious, but when they suffer
Speaker 13: a loss of their data or money.
Speaker 12: Those losses are much smaller.
Speaker 13: But they're moving pretty fast and sometimes not quite paying
Speaker 13: enough attention.
Speaker 1: Lisa Plagamaire, executive director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance, the
Speaker 1: website staysafeonline dot org. Uh, really really good information. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 12: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: All right, that just this stuff. And I'm telling you
Speaker 1: since since I'm here and I get all the emails,
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that this stuff happens on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. People are getting hacked, they're getting scammed,
Speaker 1: they're falling for tricks. Please tell your loved ones, please
Speaker 1: get educated on this stuff. It really will make a difference.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology at triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. On the website rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv links to everything I mentioned there,
Speaker 1: and you can follow me on social media. I am
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech on Instagram, on x on Facebook.
Speaker 1: You see the trend here it's pretty much rich on
Speaker 1: Tech everywhere. Trending this weekend on Instagram is the free
Speaker 1: TV I told you about a couple of weeks ago. Telly.
Speaker 1: They're giving away free TVs with advertising. So if you
Speaker 1: want to check out that, go to my Instagram at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. They're in thousands of homes right now.
Speaker 1: They hope to be in millions of homes. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of you are on the list, but they
Speaker 1: are working through it. It is not a guaranteed thing.
Speaker 1: You have to be accepted. You basically apply for the
Speaker 1: free TV. They accept you at some point and then
Speaker 1: they'll send you the TV. But you know, check the terms, conditions,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. Let's see Robert writes in let's
Speaker 1: see help. I used to have access to a router
Speaker 1: slash modem to plug hardwired devices into, but now our
Speaker 1: household has switched to wireless internet. I cannot plug my voipe,
Speaker 1: magic jack device plus other Ethernet devices in order to
Speaker 1: access internet. Is there a hub I can plug these
Speaker 1: into and then wirelessly connect to t mobiles wireless Internet.
Speaker 1: Thanks for your show and your help, Robert, So Robert, Yes,
Speaker 1: very easy. You need what's called a network switch. So
Speaker 1: if you look on the back of that T Mobile device,
Speaker 1: they call it a gateway. So the way this wireless
Speaker 1: home Internet works, it's the same thing that you have
Speaker 1: from your cable company or the phone company, except the
Speaker 1: signal is delivered via a cellular signal. So you get
Speaker 1: this little device it's called a gateway. You put it
Speaker 1: by your window that pulls in a strong cellular signal
Speaker 1: from outside. It takes that cellular signal and it converts
Speaker 1: it into a Wi Fi signal that then beams throughout
Speaker 1: your house. So instead of that coax cable or a
Speaker 1: DSL cable or any other sort of five cable coming
Speaker 1: into your home like a physical cable, the Internet is
Speaker 1: delivered through a cellular signal. And because we have five
Speaker 1: G ultra wideband and these really robust five G networks,
Speaker 1: these cellular companies like AT and T, T Mobile and
Speaker 1: Verizon are really pushing this idea of your Internet coming
Speaker 1: in through cellular and so yes, you have that little
Speaker 1: gateway box. It's kind of a router that used to
Speaker 1: have from your cable company. But on the back there
Speaker 1: should be a couple of ports that you can plug
Speaker 1: a switch into, so you can get something like a
Speaker 1: net gear switch. I'm looking at best Buy's website thirty
Speaker 1: five bucks for a five port switch. You plug that
Speaker 1: into the back of the gateway and then this will
Speaker 1: give you five Ethernet jacks to plug your stuff into,
Speaker 1: so you can plug your magic jack into there. You
Speaker 1: can plug whatever else you need to plug in that's
Speaker 1: wired your other Ethernet devices. So yes, you can do it.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking at the T mobile website. It says
Speaker 1: third party equipment patibility network switches that connect to the
Speaker 1: gateways Ethernet port are compatible with T Mobile gateways. So
Speaker 1: grab a network switch, Robert, and you will be all
Speaker 1: set up. Sarah in Ventura, California, Sarah, you're on with
Speaker 1: rich Bye.
Speaker 14: I was trying to log into a zoom meeting for
Speaker 14: the first time. I downloaded the app and then I
Speaker 14: tried typing the the event what linked letter thing into it,
Speaker 14: and then it only accepted the letters like hdtts, and
Speaker 14: then it went't accept the coal and blash slash, just
Speaker 14: the letters, So then I tried to copy and paste
Speaker 14: it into it, and then only the punctuation showed up.
Speaker 14: I just gave up. Do you have any ideas what
Speaker 14: caused that.
Speaker 1: So when you're joining a Zoom meeting, there's basically a
Speaker 1: meeting ID. So if you get that meeting ID from someone,
Speaker 1: So everyone that uses Zoom has a personal meeting ID.
Speaker 1: That's a number that does not change. So if you
Speaker 1: want to connect with that person over and over, you
Speaker 1: can just ask them for their personal meeting ID. It
Speaker 1: is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine
Speaker 1: ten letters, almost like a phone number. So if you
Speaker 1: get that from someone, like if they send you an
Speaker 1: invitation to a Zoom meeting, that ID is in there.
Speaker 1: So if you look at the link that you're getting, uh,
Speaker 1: the it says you know zoom dot us slash j
Speaker 1: and then there's a there's a number after that that
Speaker 1: is the meeting ID. And usually it depends how they
Speaker 1: copy and paste that link to you. But no matter what,
Speaker 1: if you look at a link that someone sends you
Speaker 1: for a Zoom meeting, if you see ten characters in there,
Speaker 1: that is the meeting ID. You can open up the
Speaker 1: Zoom app, you can type tap the join icon, and
Speaker 1: you can type that meeting ID into there. Now, some
Speaker 1: meetings are most meetings have some sort of password on them,
Speaker 1: and so there will also be a password that you
Speaker 1: will probably have to type in as well, and that
Speaker 1: passcode is also inside the meeting ID. If you're using
Speaker 1: a link, typically the link does not have the password in.
Speaker 1: The password is a code, so it will not be
Speaker 1: the same passcode that you can type in. So if
Speaker 1: someone's giving you a link to a Zoom meeting, you
Speaker 1: should just be able to paste that link into a
Speaker 1: browser and it will open up in the Zoom app.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to open up the Zoom app,
Speaker 1: there's usually an option that says, just open up in
Speaker 1: my browser, But they kind of trick you because they
Speaker 1: don't want you to do that. They want you to
Speaker 1: open up in the app, so they kind of make
Speaker 1: you wait a little bit. But if you type in
Speaker 1: that link, and you know on Chrome it might say
Speaker 1: open Zoom, you can say cancel and then and it
Speaker 1: says launch meeting in the browser and you can launch
Speaker 1: that inside your browser if you don't want to download
Speaker 1: any other software. But again, every single Zoom meeting has
Speaker 1: a unique ID or some sort of ID and password
Speaker 1: to join that. Your browser should be able to just
Speaker 1: pass that information into the app and make that happen
Speaker 1: pretty easily. So if you don't have that information. Talk
Speaker 1: to the person that's sending the link. They should be
Speaker 1: able to do that for you. Thanks for the call.
Speaker 1: In Ventura. Amazon launching a new AI shopping assistant called rufus.
Speaker 1: This is on the mobile app. This is generative AI
Speaker 1: trained on Amazon's product catalog and other data. You can
Speaker 1: ask it customer service questions. It can make recommendations, it
Speaker 1: can help refine your search. You can type or speak questions.
Speaker 1: It's basically a chat GPT, but just for Amazon. It's
Speaker 1: called rufus. You're going to see it in the next
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and it's going to give you all
Speaker 1: kinds of recommendations. More ways to spend your money my advice,
Speaker 1: use third party review websites. I mean, Amazon's great, but
Speaker 1: get your buying advice from outside of Amazon. Go to
Speaker 1: Amazon to actually buy the stuff. Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: O one eighty to eight seven four to two, four
Speaker 1: to one zero one. Welcome to another hour of Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Website
Speaker 1: for the show Richontech dot TV. If you want links
Speaker 1: to anything I mentioned. Big red banner at the top
Speaker 1: of the website. It says mentioned or heard it mentioned
Speaker 1: on the radio links here. There's also a big YouTube
Speaker 1: video you can watch my latest stories that I file
Speaker 1: for KTLA TV in Los Angeles. So if you want
Speaker 1: to see the TV segments that I do, they are
Speaker 1: all there as well. Let's see what else and emails
Speaker 1: also an option just hit contact at the top of
Speaker 1: the page if you want to send your email. That
Speaker 1: is exactly what Michelle did. This is a random, non
Speaker 1: tech question. It's about Bobo, great nickname. A big thank
Speaker 1: you to him for whatever he does for your show.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that, what does he do for your show? Well,
Speaker 1: Bobo is the board operator here and he basically gets
Speaker 1: the show on the air. He runs the music, he
Speaker 1: runs the calls. She does it all. If you're hearing
Speaker 1: my voice, it's because of him. You say his name often,
Speaker 1: but we don't know what he does for your rock
Speaker 1: and radio show. Well, now you know, so can he
Speaker 1: say hi to us?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Does your mic work? We have a mic for Bobo,
Speaker 1: but he's very shy. He doesn't necessarily like to No,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, Bobo actually does his own radio stuff too,
Speaker 1: So anyway, he'll set up the mic and say Hi,
Speaker 1: But great question. You hear me talk about him often.
Speaker 1: But yes, Bobo is the glue for this show. Phoneer
Speaker 1: triple eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Let's go to
Speaker 1: uh Walt in Oxnard, California. Walt, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 15: Hey, Hi, Rich, I have a question. I have a
Speaker 15: question about Peacock TV.
Speaker 1: Okay, what's your question?
Speaker 15: How do you talk to an actual person?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a great question. You know the answer to that?
Speaker 1: You can't that way. I don't think so. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a person that you can talk to at Peacock.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. What are you trying to do?
Speaker 15: Just get re signed back up? Because I had to
Speaker 15: change my credit card account and I had an automatic payment,
Speaker 15: and of course I have to give them my new
Speaker 15: credit card number, and I can't get through to anybody.
Speaker 2: To do that.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm looking at their website. Peacock TV. This is
Speaker 1: the streaming serve that's owned by Comcast, NBC Universal, whatever
Speaker 1: that all is. But let's see contact us for customer service.
Speaker 1: We are here to help. You can use our help
Speaker 1: center to search through many articles to answer your questions. Additionally,
Speaker 1: our Peacock Helper bop can be accessed through the icon
Speaker 1: in the bottom right, so that's something you can do.
Speaker 1: You can also sign in and use our get in
Speaker 1: Touch page to send us an email message or chat
Speaker 1: with a live agent from nine am until one am Eastern.
Speaker 1: So my recommendation is that if you can sign into
Speaker 1: your account sign in, you should be able to change
Speaker 1: the email or the credit card through there directly. If not,
Speaker 1: you can chat with someone. But here's the big warning
Speaker 1: I have walt because this happens a lot people like
Speaker 1: yourself and many others. They will Google for a phone number,
Speaker 1: so they'll say like Peacock phone number and on Google.
Speaker 1: And what happens is scam artists will actually buy advertising
Speaker 1: or even set up a website with a phone number
Speaker 1: that you could purportedly call to get in touch with
Speaker 1: Peacock or whatever customer service you know you're looking for,
Speaker 1: and that will be a direct line to a scam
Speaker 1: artist that is that is going to take you for
Speaker 1: all you.
Speaker 15: Got, yeah, and they want you to pay a dollar
Speaker 15: for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So be careful with that That's the main thing
Speaker 1: that I've seen happen over and over with people. You know,
Speaker 1: they need help with their cable or their TV or
Speaker 1: one of these services that notoriously do not have live
Speaker 1: customer service agents over phone, and they will immediately ask
Speaker 1: for your credit card like you said, Oh, we just
Speaker 1: need a dollar to get this started. What they're really
Speaker 1: trying to do is get your numbers so that they
Speaker 1: can really scam you. But I would you do you
Speaker 1: know your log in for your website for this Peacock
Speaker 1: stuff or no, it's.
Speaker 15: Just the only way I've ever done it in the
Speaker 15: past is my email address.
Speaker 1: Okay, so yeah, so go in there sign in. If
Speaker 1: you forget your password, just do a forgot password. But
Speaker 1: you should be able to just go in and update
Speaker 1: your your information yourself. If you can't Google, well, make
Speaker 1: sure you're on the peacocktv dot com website, but look
Speaker 1: for help. There should be a link at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the website that says help. If you click that,
Speaker 1: you can find the customer service bot or I would
Speaker 1: sign into your account and chat with them. But you
Speaker 1: should be able to go in there and update your
Speaker 1: credit card number yourself. I signed up for Peacock when
Speaker 1: they did the the streaming game. I forget which one
Speaker 1: it was, but I paid like a couple bucks for
Speaker 1: the year. I think it was twenty dollars. No, no, sorry,
Speaker 1: it was not for the game. It was during Black
Speaker 1: Friday and I got the Cyber Monday deal. It was
Speaker 1: like twenty or something dollars for the whole year. It
Speaker 1: was incredible. Thanks for the call, Well appreciate it. Bobo
Speaker 1: has his headphones on, So is this the one and
Speaker 1: only Boboah see, we can't hear you. We got this
Speaker 1: is the problem with Bobo has a mic, but it
Speaker 1: like doesn't No, I can't. No a little bit, I can.
Speaker 1: It's just very faint. Yeah, it's very faint. But Bobo
Speaker 1: is uh, he's got a great voice. You just can't
Speaker 1: hear it right now. So uh, let's go to in
Speaker 1: the meantime, Frank in Denver, Colorado. Frank, you're on with Rich?
Speaker 9: Okay, Hi, Rich, do you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 1: I can hear you? Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 10: We just had six inches of snow this morning, and
Speaker 10: I think that kind of affects the internet, and.
Speaker 1: I think it can. I think we're we're in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: We're getting about six inches of rain in the next
Speaker 1: couple of days. So no matter where you live, you
Speaker 1: know you're getting something. What's up?
Speaker 10: I should stay it up. Oh, my granddaughter called last night.
Speaker 10: Did that my wife's cell phones an iPhone?
Speaker 9: Can I think it is? She said, she thinks it's
Speaker 9: been had, And then well, how do you know whether
Speaker 9: they he dancers, you know her h whatever for for
Speaker 9: Facebook and other people. And then she set my wife's
Speaker 9: pictures changed because it's an over picture. So how do
Speaker 9: I circle in general? And they have to do in
Speaker 9: order to get around me? Is going to hack it?
Speaker 1: So the picture on your daughter's phone changed when your
Speaker 1: wife called?
Speaker 9: No what she called my wife? She said, the picture
Speaker 9: from Facebook change?
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I mean look there and these are two iPhones, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I don't. I don't think that the iPhone is
Speaker 1: hacked because it is really tough to hack an iPhone
Speaker 1: unless you know. Yeah, I don't. I don't think that
Speaker 1: her iPhone is hacked. So iPhone has a feature that
Speaker 1: is new in iOS seventeen. Gosh, I can't remember what
Speaker 1: it's called, Oh, gosh, contact posters, and so this is
Speaker 1: a new feature that basically lets you set up what
Speaker 1: you look like to someone else's phone when you call them. Now,
Speaker 1: your your wife may or may not have set that up.
Speaker 1: But there are a variety of places that the iPhone
Speaker 1: will pull a contact picture from. That could be a
Speaker 1: Google account, it could be another online account that you're
Speaker 1: linked up with your contact. It could be your iCloud account,
Speaker 1: It could be your iPhone when you update your profile picture.
Speaker 1: But I think what's happening is is the contact poster
Speaker 1: in iOS seventeen was set up somehow, like your wife
Speaker 1: maybe said share photos. Sometimes when you text someone it
Speaker 1: says share share information, and so I think that's what happened.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that the phone is hacked. I
Speaker 1: don't think that your wife was hacked unless it is,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's Facebook. The way that that happens
Speaker 1: is once you're hacked on Facebook, they immediately reach out
Speaker 1: to all of your contacts on like Facebook Messenger and
Speaker 1: they try to like say something to them. So if
Speaker 1: that's happening, then yes, you might have been hacked. But
Speaker 1: the way to safeguard from all of this stuff is
Speaker 1: two ways. Number One, strong password. Make sure that that
Speaker 1: is strong and unique on every account that you have
Speaker 1: number two, make sure that you have two factor authentication
Speaker 1: ton on for all of your important accounts. So those
Speaker 1: two things in combination should really protect you from ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of the hacks out there. There will always
Speaker 1: be something else, but that's it. And if you want
Speaker 1: to update your contact poster, you can go into your
Speaker 1: contacts and you can look at your own contact and
Speaker 1: that's up at the top it says my card. You
Speaker 1: can go in there and you can edit your contact
Speaker 1: photo and poster. And that's what you look like to
Speaker 1: other people when you call their iPhone. It only works
Speaker 1: from iPhone to iPhone like a lot of the Apple
Speaker 1: features do. Thanks so much for the call, Frank, stay
Speaker 1: stay snow free. I guess out there in Denver. I
Speaker 1: want to tell you about the new game everyone's playing.
Speaker 1: It's called Pale World. It's kind of a twisted version
Speaker 1: of Pokemon. Yes, many people playing this. It is Nineteen
Speaker 1: million copies were sold in the first two weeks. Xbox
Speaker 1: says it is the largest third party game ever on
Speaker 1: their Xbox Game Pass. It's also bailable on Steam, sold
Speaker 1: five million copies there. It kind of looks like Pokemon.
Speaker 1: Some are criticizing it because It's like a twisted version
Speaker 1: of Pokemon. It's a game where you catch these cute
Speaker 1: little creatures called pals, and you not only battle them,
Speaker 1: but you also force them to work and you monitor
Speaker 1: their well being, their mental well being. It is a
Speaker 1: weird game, and a lot of people are spending their
Speaker 1: time playing this game. Why because it's so weird and
Speaker 1: it's so different than Pokemon. You get away with stuff
Speaker 1: in this game that you'd never get away with in Pokemon.
Speaker 1: But people are saying, what's Pokemon going to do? Because
Speaker 1: it looks like it's a ripoff. There's been apparently a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about that if Pokemon's going to try
Speaker 1: to shut this down. I don't think it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's a video game. Yeah, there's a resemblance to the
Speaker 1: little creatures, but apparently it's pretty wild. I have not
Speaker 1: played it personally, but I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: that are, and it's one of those things that happens
Speaker 1: and people really like. Again, it's called Powe World, rated
Speaker 1: tea for teens, so if your kids are playing it,
Speaker 1: kind of get to know what they're doing in there.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four to one zero one. Coming up
Speaker 1: this hour, we're going to talk to Robin Gilbert, president
Speaker 1: of fair Health. They've got a new tool that can
Speaker 1: tell you what a medical procedure would should cost by
Speaker 1: pointing to a map of the body part. You are
Speaker 1: listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four to one zero one. Give me
Speaker 1: a call if you have a question about technology. Coming
Speaker 1: up this hour, we've got Robin Gilbert, president of fair Health.
Speaker 1: She's going to join to explain their new online tool
Speaker 1: that can help you figure out how much a medical
Speaker 1: procedure should cost just by pointing to the body part.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting. So if you're looking to get some
Speaker 1: sort of medical procedure and you're wondering, like what should
Speaker 1: this cost or what what what's the range of the cost,
Speaker 1: you can literally just like point to the foot and
Speaker 1: like it'll tell you all the different things that you
Speaker 1: know you may do to that. So that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: We'll have her in just a little bit. I see
Speaker 1: Bobo with the headphones on. Does this mean you've gotten
Speaker 1: access to the ah there he is, So Bobo, explain
Speaker 1: what you do.
Speaker 4: I am your tech producer, so pretty much.
Speaker 16: I am in charge of making sure that your mic works,
Speaker 16: but apparently not my mic, and I play the music,
Speaker 16: make sure the commercials are in, and just make sure
Speaker 16: you sound crisp and the show's flowing properly.
Speaker 1: And how do you think the show is flowing today?
Speaker 1: It is amazing.
Speaker 16: I've never had a bad time coming here. I love
Speaker 16: coming to work on Saturday mornings.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, this is why I love
Speaker 1: Bobo because he always has a smile on his face
Speaker 1: and he has a positive attitude and it's just and
Speaker 1: he always gets things right, like, you know, except for
Speaker 1: your own mic. For some reason, I know, it's like
Speaker 1: a cruel joke that your mic doesn't work when you're
Speaker 1: in charge of all this stuff, Like there's so much
Speaker 1: equipment that you're sitting in front of that I am
Speaker 1: the tech person and I can't even I would never
Speaker 1: be able to figure out how to get on the
Speaker 1: air here. I guess that's for good reason.
Speaker 16: I think it's just so the board ops us tech
Speaker 16: people won't talk too much like yeah, so like the
Speaker 16: show is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: It's not Rich and Bobo. Bobo is a nickname. My
Speaker 1: real name is Aaron.
Speaker 16: It was a family nickname that I've had since I
Speaker 16: was like one, and when I got in radio twenty
Speaker 16: years ago.
Speaker 1: It just kind of stuck. Yeah, I was gonna say
Speaker 1: the nickname. You have to explain it, so now you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you're listening, you hear me talk about Bobo.
Speaker 1: He is the guy that gets everything on the air.
Speaker 1: Thanks for explaining that. We've got a call in a second.
Speaker 10: Here.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you about this. If you bought
Speaker 1: one of these snap drones, it's called the Pixie, they
Speaker 1: are recalling it. I don't think you bought one, only
Speaker 1: seventy one thousand people did. But if you happen to
Speaker 1: have one of these things, you can get your money back.
Speaker 1: This was a flying camera drone. It was actually pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Its well reviewed, but the batteries on it can overheat
Speaker 1: and bulge, causing fires. They had one fire and one
Speaker 1: minor injury reported. These Pixie drones were sold by Snap
Speaker 1: It's that Snapchat and also Amazon dot Com. If you
Speaker 1: have one, stop using it immediately, take the battery out.
Speaker 1: Don't recharge it. If you want a refund, which you
Speaker 1: should probably get, you have to return the drone body
Speaker 1: to Snap, not the battery. They have instructions on the
Speaker 1: website support dot Pixie dot com, Pixy dot com. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get your full purchase price back. Whether you refused
Speaker 1: a card, they'll put it back on that card, or
Speaker 1: if you don't have that anymore, they'll send you a check.
Speaker 1: But this is a recall again of the Snap Pixie
Speaker 1: flying drone could catch on fire. If you bought one,
Speaker 1: seventy one thousand of you did get your money back.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's been sitting in a closet for the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. Go ahead, get that money back. Let's
Speaker 1: go to Mickey in Camarillo, the home of Try, the
Speaker 1: first place I ever tried. Try Tip Mickey your own rich.
Speaker 11: Yes, I just wanted to know about that duck go
Speaker 11: that they I've heard of now is that you cannot
Speaker 11: if you use it, that you can't be I guess
Speaker 11: it doesn't follow you or you know, I mean compared
Speaker 11: to Google. I mean, you've got our setting step, but
Speaker 11: I'm just wondering what that is that legit it is?
Speaker 1: Yes, Duck Duck Goo is both a search engine and
Speaker 1: it's also a web browser as well, so you can
Speaker 1: get well, there's actually three levels, so you've got the
Speaker 1: search engine if you just go to duck duckgo dot com.
Speaker 1: You can use that in place of Google. Or you
Speaker 1: can download an extension, which means you can use it
Speaker 1: inside of your web browser and it will try to
Speaker 1: make your web browsing more private. Or you can get
Speaker 1: the entire browser from Duck duck Go and that will
Speaker 1: really make things much more private. So they're kind of pledge.
Speaker 1: This was founded in two thousand and eight. Their whole
Speaker 1: mission is to protect your privacy. They run this search
Speaker 1: engine that doesn't track your search history, so as far
Speaker 1: as I know, you don't sign in to this. They've
Speaker 1: got downloads for all the different browsers and let's see
Speaker 1: what else do you need to know? Uh, it's just
Speaker 1: it's one of these things where you've seen the ads
Speaker 1: on the billboard, and I guess my thing is that, yes,
Speaker 1: this is if you want to if your only mission
Speaker 1: is to protect your your browsing privacy, like you want
Speaker 1: to get on the web and not be tracked and
Speaker 1: not you know, you don't want anyone to know what
Speaker 1: you're doing on there. Now, I say that with a
Speaker 1: caveat there's always like your internet service provider, your work,
Speaker 1: your school, they will probably know what you're doing on
Speaker 1: your computer at all times. So just be aware of that.
Speaker 1: Nothing is truly private when you're online. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: ways to make it that way, but it's very, very
Speaker 1: tricky for the average person. It's not something where you
Speaker 1: can just you know, you know, log on and make
Speaker 1: it easy. So, but this browser does have over a
Speaker 1: dozen different privacy protections built in. They have a whole
Speaker 1: website dedicated to how they protect you. Third party tracker
Speaker 1: loading protection, Global privacy control, link tracking protection, CE name
Speaker 1: cloaking protection, Google AMP protection. They basically try to make
Speaker 1: sure that when you are surfing the web, all the
Speaker 1: ways that these companies try to latch on to the
Speaker 1: data and the trackers and to see what you're doing,
Speaker 1: they try to stop that from happening. And so, yes,
Speaker 1: they do that, and they do a pretty good job
Speaker 1: of it. But the search results that you get may
Speaker 1: not be as good as Google. That's the main thing
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 at Triple A rich one on one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one,
Speaker 1: the website, rich on tech dot TV. If you want
Speaker 1: to contact me, just hit the contact link and we'll
Speaker 1: get to the feedback segment in just a bit. There's
Speaker 1: an app called Together. I've talked about this app for
Speaker 1: a little bit here on the show. We did an
Speaker 1: interview with the doctor that doctor Rene Dua, that invented it.
Speaker 1: She's also the doctor behind Heel, which was still is
Speaker 1: doctor on demand service kind of came up big during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. But she has an app called Together, and
Speaker 1: this is an app that uses AI to scan pill
Speaker 1: bottles and also help you keep all of your health
Speaker 1: information in one place. And it's really helpful if you
Speaker 1: are assisting someone like a family member or a loved
Speaker 1: one with their medications and their appointments and you're trying
Speaker 1: to keep track of all this. It's like a shared experience,
Speaker 1: so of course with their mission, but this app, you know,
Speaker 1: it not only keeps track of all the medications, but
Speaker 1: it provides all these health related insights. So you can
Speaker 1: take a selfie with this app, and this might ring
Speaker 1: a bell. It can help figure out your blood pressure,
Speaker 1: your heart rate, your oxygen levels. And now they've added
Speaker 1: a new feature where you can speak into the app
Speaker 1: and it will detect signs of anxiety and depression. So
Speaker 1: you speak for about thirty seconds, you say whatever you want,
Speaker 1: and it will tell you if there's any sign of
Speaker 1: anxiety or depression. I tried it out and I'm happy
Speaker 1: to report that I did not show any signs, thankfully,
Speaker 1: But it's serious if you do, and you know, and
Speaker 1: we need to be more honest about this stuff. And
Speaker 1: I think that we need to be more accepting of
Speaker 1: this stuff. And so by having an app like this
Speaker 1: where you can just speak into it and see this,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty interesting. So it is available on iOS
Speaker 1: right now. It's called Together by Renee, and they told
Speaker 1: me that the Android version is launching on February fifth,
Speaker 1: So I know many people have been waiting for the
Speaker 1: Android version. It will be available on February fifth. It's
Speaker 1: been a little delay in that, but it is now
Speaker 1: going to be there, so iOS android Together by Renee.
Speaker 1: It is a free app that can really help you
Speaker 1: take charge of your medical situation. Speaking of medical joining
Speaker 1: me now is Robin Gelbert, president of fair Health. They
Speaker 1: have a new tool that can help you figure out
Speaker 1: how much a medical procedure is going to cost by
Speaker 1: using a map of the body. Robin, thanks for joining
Speaker 1: me today.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1: So tell me what fair Health is.
Speaker 4: First off, So fair Health.
Speaker 5: Is independent, not for profit organization and we really have
Speaker 5: elevating health insurance literacy around the country as well as
Speaker 5: pulling back the window and the curtains, if you will,
Speaker 5: on healthcare costs. That has been so mystifying to many
Speaker 5: and to help people plan and just become more informed
Speaker 5: than confident as they navigate this very complex healthcare system and.
Speaker 1: Where you're breaking up just a little bit, so if
Speaker 1: you have a place where you can move, that might
Speaker 1: get a better signal. Try to do that in the meantime.
Speaker 1: But I will tell you how in my experience medical
Speaker 1: medical billing works. You go to the doctor, they do whatever,
Speaker 1: You come home. Six weeks later, you get a bill
Speaker 1: and you have no idea how much that's going to be.
Speaker 1: Is that pretty much how most people deal with it.
Speaker 5: I would say that's exactly right. People get their bills
Speaker 5: or they get their explanation of benefits, and they have
Speaker 5: no idea how to evaluate it, whether to ask questions,
Speaker 5: whether to negotiate on behalf of themselves, and to really
Speaker 5: just be a better advocate as they really try to
Speaker 5: deal with these very costly procedures and understand what their
Speaker 5: journey has been. So, as you mentioned, we did try
Speaker 5: to add a body procedure locator that adds yet another
Speaker 5: avenue to get to the information you need, another way
Speaker 5: of really experiencing that journey, in addition to looking at
Speaker 5: other kinds of tools on our website.
Speaker 1: So explain to me this body procedure locator. So it's
Speaker 1: basically a map of the body and you kind of
Speaker 1: point to the well. First you go through a couple
Speaker 1: of questions are you in network? Are you out of network?
Speaker 1: And then it gets finally to the body part like tool,
Speaker 1: It asks your location, I'm gonna I'm just doing this
Speaker 1: in live time real quick to kind of see okay,
Speaker 1: and then it pops up and so you've got head,
Speaker 1: spine and spinal cords, skin, chest, abdomen extremities and joints.
Speaker 1: So you basically go through and you just look at
Speaker 1: the picture and if you're getting a procedure with your shoulder.
Speaker 1: You tap shoulder and it tells you casts imaging, injections,
Speaker 1: orthotic surgery, and then it will tell you how much
Speaker 1: these things may cost. And it also gives you what
Speaker 1: it was called a CPT code. So explain what the
Speaker 1: purpose of all this is.
Speaker 5: All of this is to basically virtually hold you by
Speaker 5: the hand and walk you through this healthcare journey. As
Speaker 5: you mentioned, we have high level categories like spine, skin, chests,
Speaker 5: and so forth, Extremities and joints for example, you click
Speaker 5: on that and then it takes you slightly deeper into
Speaker 5: those extremities and joints, just as an example, to arm, hip, ankle,
Speaker 5: shoulder for example. Then you click on that where you
Speaker 5: may be interested in learning more about your medical procedure
Speaker 5: than it takes you deeper into those procedures. As you mentioned,
Speaker 5: it's codes, which are the official codes that all doctors
Speaker 5: are required to build you at that level. And so
Speaker 5: we try to provide a consumer friendly description of those
Speaker 5: procedure codes and then take you to the cost information.
Speaker 5: And what's really unique about fear help consumer dot org
Speaker 5: it's not just the one way to learn costs because
Speaker 5: there are many different venues of care where you can go.
Speaker 5: You can tell health to examine or to explore your procedure.
Speaker 5: You could be going to a retail clinic and urgent
Speaker 5: care center or a doctor's office. Costs differ depending on
Speaker 5: where you present yourself. So really it's just a welcome
Speaker 5: that and as it as sort of a virtual handholding
Speaker 5: experience to really take very complex information and to really
Speaker 5: eliminate all of the anxiety people have when they help,
Speaker 5: you know, really when they enter the healthcare insurance and
Speaker 5: the healthcare world.
Speaker 1: The website is fairhealth consumer dot org. So once you
Speaker 1: get to the final page, it'll give you the cost
Speaker 1: out of network. In network, it'll give you all the
Speaker 1: different like related things like if you need anesthesia or
Speaker 1: radiology or anything like that, so you can see the
Speaker 1: price of all that stuff. It gives you some local
Speaker 1: price comparisons, so if you put in your zip code,
Speaker 1: it'll tell you kind of like if you have the
Speaker 1: procedure done like right where you live or maybe a
Speaker 1: different section of town, it might be a different price.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about it, and then it says questions
Speaker 1: to ask as well, So it's a really comprehensive kind
Speaker 1: of like all the stuff that you may not even
Speaker 1: think of when you're getting a procedure done. Do you
Speaker 1: think that there is room in the healthcare industry for
Speaker 1: more kind of transparency?
Speaker 5: And it's really more than transparency what we try to
Speaker 5: strive for and hopefully others will as well as clarity.
Speaker 5: Just transparently making information available is not enough. You have
Speaker 5: to connect it to context to really people the opportunity
Speaker 5: to understand what they're digesting and looking at. And yes,
Speaker 5: we're finding more and more people are becoming much more
Speaker 5: animated in their conversations and health plans and really trying
Speaker 5: to assert themselves in their vote, better understand and negotiate
Speaker 5: for themselves. So absolutely transparency is critical, but as I said,
Speaker 5: it really has to rise to the level of clarity.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm still getting a little bit of breakup in
Speaker 1: your saying such interesting stuff that I don't want. I
Speaker 1: don't want to miss anything that you're saying, but I'm curious.
Speaker 1: So my my thing with my uh, you know, any
Speaker 1: sort of medical bill that I get, I always call
Speaker 1: before I pay it and just make sure that it's
Speaker 1: the right amount, make sure that there's no changes. Is
Speaker 1: that the right thing to do? Should we be doing
Speaker 1: that or is that just more work for the doctor's office.
Speaker 5: No, you should be doing that that extra homework and
Speaker 5: asking them the important questions there as I said, because
Speaker 5: more information is being disseminated. So yes, people should feel
Speaker 5: empowered to do that and ask questions of their provider or.
Speaker 1: All right, Robin Gilbert of fair Health, definitely check out
Speaker 1: the tool, check out the website a lot of information
Speaker 1: on their fairhealth consumer dot org. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today.
Speaker 5: You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 1: This is a really like I said, and here's my
Speaker 1: biggest issue with the payment websites of every almost every
Speaker 1: doctor number one, there's not an easy way to pay.
Speaker 1: And I'll give you a little hint. There's an app
Speaker 1: called Papaya pap a Ya Papaya Payments, and this app
Speaker 1: is incredible because you basically scan any medical bill that
Speaker 1: you have with this app and it will help you
Speaker 1: pay that bill. It's really really good and it's I
Speaker 1: use it all the time. It is incredible. I've done
Speaker 1: a story with them and it's legit and it works.
Speaker 1: So Papaya, just like the fruit Papaya pay dot com
Speaker 1: I find is incredible. But here's my advice. Don't pay
Speaker 1: medical bills before you call, because sometimes there is a
Speaker 1: change in the time that they printed that bill and
Speaker 1: the time that you get it. Your insurance might have
Speaker 1: paid an additional amount, they might have written off some
Speaker 1: of the amount that you might have to pay. So
Speaker 1: always call your doctor and make sure that the amount
Speaker 1: is right. I know it's a pain because sometimes it's
Speaker 1: tough to get through or sometimes it's tough to find
Speaker 1: the time to do that, but it really does help.
Speaker 1: The other thing is that when you go to the
Speaker 1: website for like ninety nine percent of medical bills, they
Speaker 1: don't tell you how much you owe. They will let
Speaker 1: you go to the website and pay the bill, but
Speaker 1: it's on you to type in the amount that you
Speaker 1: want to pay. And I find that to be really
Speaker 1: odd because almost any other bill that you pay in America,
Speaker 1: they show you the total, like they show you how
Speaker 1: much you owe, But for some reason, with medical billing,
Speaker 1: they say, okay, now, type in the amount you want
Speaker 1: to pay now. Maybe that's because people do partial payments
Speaker 1: all the time. They do what they can afford, so
Speaker 1: maybe that's part of it. But it would be nice
Speaker 1: if there was some sort of standard where they had
Speaker 1: to show you what the current amount of that bill was.
Speaker 1: Doesn't seem to happen, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: when you are ready to pay, I do like this
Speaker 1: app Papaya Pay. It is very handy. I'll put the
Speaker 1: link on the website rich on Tech dot tv again,
Speaker 1: the website for the the Body Part Indicator, Fairhealthconsumer dot Org. Ah.
Speaker 1: This is why I love this show. I love just
Speaker 1: getting this great information out there to help you and
Speaker 1: then to empower you as a consumer when it comes
Speaker 1: to all of this tech stuff. Coming up next, we'll
Speaker 1: do some more news and the feedback segment coming up
Speaker 1: right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, giving
Speaker 1: you the tech news and information you need to know
Speaker 1: to feel smart and really empowered with all this stuff,
Speaker 1: because it is it is not easy to navigate this
Speaker 1: world we live in, and I'm telling you, with the
Speaker 1: scam artist around every corner, it's just getting trickier and trickier.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're learning. Let's
Speaker 1: get through a few news topics before I get to
Speaker 1: the feedback segment. Yelp has a new feature, AI powered
Speaker 1: Business Summaries. This is gonna show you the insights you
Speaker 1: need to know about a business. So it's gonna show
Speaker 1: you things like the atmosphere, the service, the amenities, the
Speaker 1: value or a popular dish. It's AI powered Business Summaries
Speaker 1: are available on iOS now. They're gonna roll out to
Speaker 1: Android and desktop later this year. That is brilliant because
Speaker 1: if you go look up a place on Yelp and
Speaker 1: it says, oh, this place is known for their you know,
Speaker 1: certain fish dish or whatever, their dessert, their cinmon role,
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, that's what I wanted to know. Brilliant
Speaker 1: feature there. We're seeing AI everywhere. TikTok is removing Universal
Speaker 1: Music after their licensing deal expired. TikTok has removed all
Speaker 1: music from Universal Music Group. The deal expired January thirty first.
Speaker 1: This affects artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish,
Speaker 1: Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber. Universal says TikTok is not properly
Speaker 1: compensating artists. TikTok says Universal is greedy. Yeah, two big
Speaker 1: companies with a lot of money fighting. There's something new.
Speaker 1: So if you had one of these songs on your
Speaker 1: TikTok it's muted. At this point, Fossil is getting out
Speaker 1: of the smart watch business. The last watch they launched
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty one. It was the Gen six.
Speaker 1: If you have a Fossil smart watch, they will continue
Speaker 1: to provide software updates for existing users for quote the
Speaker 1: next few years. Ford is giving away free Tesla chargers
Speaker 1: for their EV buyers. They're going to give free adapters
Speaker 1: to its EV buyers so they can use Tesla's charging network.
Speaker 1: This was announced by the Ford CEO model you're twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one to twenty twenty four Mustang Mock E and
Speaker 1: F one fifty lightning vehicles are going to get the
Speaker 1: free adapter. This is huge. If you own a Ford
Speaker 1: and you can now charge on Tesla's network, it is
Speaker 1: a game changer. This is so amazing. They didn't say
Speaker 1: when this is going to happen, but very soon. So
Speaker 1: we're going to start seeing a lot more people at
Speaker 1: the Tesla chargers, that's for sure. But pretty much every
Speaker 1: major automaker has pledged support for this Tesla charging standard,
Speaker 1: which they invented. They now call it the North American
Speaker 1: Charging Standard because it pretty much is so Tesla dominates.
Speaker 1: But the fact that if you bought a ford in
Speaker 1: the past three four years, Ford ev you're gonna get
Speaker 1: one of these adapters. That is incredible. Speaking of Tesla
Speaker 1: recalling two million vehicles, Oh my gosh, that sounds scary.
Speaker 1: That was the headline in the Wall Street Journal, among
Speaker 1: many others. But guess what the fix is a software
Speaker 1: update that probably already reached most Teslas. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: getting out of control. Every time Tesla has a software update, Recall,
Speaker 1: it's a big headline on all the news places and
Speaker 1: then if you read it, it says, oh, it's a software update.
Speaker 1: So tech Crunch as well as myself, believes that we
Speaker 1: need to come up with a new word instead of safety.
Speaker 1: Recall that was when it was a car that had
Speaker 1: a gas engine. They need to replace something on that car,
Speaker 1: fix something, tweak something. When it's a software update, it
Speaker 1: sounds really scary and people get very concerned. But if
Speaker 1: you're talking a software update. For this one, it was
Speaker 1: a font size. They had to change the font on
Speaker 1: some of the visuals, the warning indicators. So we need
Speaker 1: a new word for this new new world we live
Speaker 1: in of software updates for evs because recall sounds very
Speaker 1: scary and it gets people necessarily up in arm unnecessarily
Speaker 1: up in arms. Bard can now generate AI images. If
Speaker 1: you go to Bard dot Google dot com, you can
Speaker 1: type in what you want it to make an image
Speaker 1: of and it will make two images. If you want more,
Speaker 1: it'll do that too. This is completely free, so use
Speaker 1: your imagination. You can use this to make all kinds
Speaker 1: of cool images and they're very realistic. So Bard dot
Speaker 1: Google dot com you can now ask it to make images.
Speaker 1: Google is really soup and up it's AI. And Filo
Speaker 1: now available on Visio smart TVs. Filo is a very
Speaker 1: inexpensive streaming service. They focus on sort of entertainment options.
Speaker 1: They sort of stay away from the sports because that's expensive.
Speaker 1: So I think their plans start at twenty five bucks
Speaker 1: a month for seventy channels plus a DVR. If you
Speaker 1: have a visiotv you can just find the Filo app
Speaker 1: on there. It is now available on the Visio smart TVs.
Speaker 1: And finally, did I already say finally, there's a new
Speaker 1: app for the iPhone called arc Search by the browser company.
Speaker 1: I told you about Perplexity AI. A couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: This is similar. Basically, they do a thing where they
Speaker 1: will use AI to search for you. So if you
Speaker 1: type in a topic, you say search for me, or
Speaker 1: come up with a whole page with a summary of
Speaker 1: that whole topic. It's called arc search arc search by
Speaker 1: the browser company. It's a really cool way of searching
Speaker 1: the Internet. That's different. They still do the standard Google searches,
Speaker 1: but this is a new way to search. I also
Speaker 1: love Perplexity. Perplexity AI is the app that I've been
Speaker 1: using a lot more so instead of going to Google
Speaker 1: for something, I would just go to Perplexity and type
Speaker 1: in a name or something or a place, and it
Speaker 1: will give me like a whole almost like a book
Speaker 1: report you would do back in the day, but it's
Speaker 1: coming up with everything on the fly. Feedback time. Gilbert says,
Speaker 1: love your podcast. Rich on Tech is a great follow
Speaker 1: up to Leo. I feel sorry for the guy in
Speaker 1: last week's show who fell asleep and accidentally bought courtside
Speaker 1: Laker seats. You should play Steve Goodman's vegimatic song for him.
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work. I'm not familiar with that song,
Speaker 1: but thank you, Gilbert. Let's see let's see what else here? Oh.
Speaker 1: Neil says, Hey Rich, I loved yesterday's show. Your guests
Speaker 1: have been very good at making the topics understandable yet
Speaker 1: covering what we need to know. Your brother's radio persona
Speaker 1: was excellent. I bet your parents are pretty cool. Thanks
Speaker 1: for your great service. Neil from Ohio. Neil, I know
Speaker 1: is a listener that I like. Hey Rich, Kevin says,
Speaker 1: I enjoy your show whenever I get a chance to listen,
Speaker 1: and mainly for the help you give to older ones.
Speaker 1: One thing people can do on Windows is to create
Speaker 1: a restore point before an update, just in case the
Speaker 1: update goes heywire. That way it can be easily reversed.
Speaker 1: Good job on the show. Thank you, Kevin. That's gonna
Speaker 1: do it for this episode. You can find links to
Speaker 1: everything I mentioned on the website. Just go to richontech
Speaker 1: dot tv. You can find me on social media. I
Speaker 1: am at rich on Tech. Next week I'm headed to
Speaker 1: the Chicago Auto Show, so I'll tell you all about
Speaker 1: the cool stuff I see there. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
Speaker 1: your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here
Speaker 1: with me. My name is rich Demiro. I will talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon