Speaker 1: Social media's impact on teams under scrutiny, Costco recalls a
Speaker 1: popular phone charger. New tech lets anyone appear on a
Speaker 1: Times Square billboard, including me plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich dmiro and this is Rich on Tech. This
Speaker 1: is the show where I talk about the tech stuff
Speaker 1: I think you should know about. It's also the place
Speaker 1: where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that
Speaker 1: tech should be interesting, useful and fun. Let's open up
Speaker 1: those phone lines at triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Once again, triple eight rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: Give me a call.
Speaker 1: If you have a question about technology. Email is also open.
Speaker 1: Just go to rich on tech dot tv and hit contact.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you want to link to anything
Speaker 1: I mentioned on today's show, just go to the website
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot tv. Hit the light bulb right
Speaker 1: at the top of the screen that will bring you
Speaker 1: to links in real time. Guests this week Ryan McLoud,
Speaker 1: creator of the Apple Design Award winning game black Box.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you perhaps you've played it on your iPhone and
Speaker 1: we've got Derek Ting, co founder and CEO of Text.
Speaker 1: Now he's gonna explain how you can get free calls,
Speaker 1: free messaging, and even free essential data on your smartphone.
Speaker 1: Plus I've got a special guest. Well, in case you
Speaker 1: can't notice, I am literally broadcasting live from my parents'
Speaker 1: basement in New Jersey. This has been a lifelong dream
Speaker 1: of mine and here we are. Well, I'm actually kind
Speaker 1: of visiting home and this was the best place. And
Speaker 1: I got to say, my dad really set this studio up.
Speaker 1: He had so much fun setting up all the cables
Speaker 1: and running them throughout the house and taping them down.
Speaker 1: He thought he was like a real gaffer. So if
Speaker 1: the show sounds good, if it works good, it is
Speaker 1: all thanks to him and the quick thinking of a
Speaker 1: door dash delivery. Now, my dad lives in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere in New Jersey, and we needed this cable
Speaker 1: that was like one hundred feet long, an Ethernet cable
Speaker 1: to run for the show. And I said, let me
Speaker 1: just see if DoorDash can bring this from Best Buy
Speaker 1: And sure enough, I'm not kidding. By the time I
Speaker 1: ordered it, it was at his door within forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: So once again technology comes through. It is just an
Speaker 1: incredible way to kind of It's just changed our lives
Speaker 1: in so many ways, even in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: So thanks, not thanks to them, because I did pay
Speaker 1: for it, but I can't believe how well that worked now.
Speaker 1: You know, whenever I go home, I become the unofficial
Speaker 1: tech support for my family, as I'm sure some of
Speaker 1: you do for yours, And whenever I'm home, the challenges
Speaker 1: of technology are immediately clear to me. The stuff that
Speaker 1: you are up against on a daily basis becomes so
Speaker 1: clear to me that it just it immediately like resets
Speaker 1: my entire life. Just when I think I've made progress
Speaker 1: on this show, on my segment on KTLA for thirteen
Speaker 1: years now and running, it's all reset because I see
Speaker 1: that the work has just started. The dark patterns on
Speaker 1: the smartphones of these apps that try to get you
Speaker 1: to download stuff or to try to subscribe to things,
Speaker 1: or the stuff that's just not clear to anyone becomes
Speaker 1: very clear to me. So, for instance, I'm at a
Speaker 1: family gathering, I take a bunch of pictures on my phone,
Speaker 1: which happens to be an Android right now, and my sister,
Speaker 1: who has an iPhone, says, hey, can you share those
Speaker 1: with me? And that is sort of the ultimate, like,
Speaker 1: oh no, how am I going to do this? That
Speaker 1: is a moment that is make or break in the
Speaker 1: tech world right now, How are you gonna share pictures
Speaker 1: from an iPhone to an Android or an Android to
Speaker 1: an iPhone. Now, obviously the iPhone person does not want
Speaker 1: to download any extra apps. They don't want to do
Speaker 1: anything differently than what they typically do. And so I said, okay,
Speaker 1: let me try this quick share scan this QR code
Speaker 1: on my phone and it will give you a link
Speaker 1: to all these pictures. Oh, that didn't work because the
Speaker 1: pictures were ninety megabytes worth and I had limited connectivity.
Speaker 1: They were not uploading fast enough, so that didn't work. Okay,
Speaker 1: let me try Google Photos. Use Google Photos, right, She
Speaker 1: says yes, And I say, okay, I just sent them
Speaker 1: to you through Google Photos.
Speaker 2: She opens up the photos app on her phone.
Speaker 1: I said, that's not Google Photos, that's the that's Apple's
Speaker 1: Photos app.
Speaker 2: Let me open up Google Photos. I open up Google Photos,
Speaker 2: which she.
Speaker 1: Did have on our phone, and sure enough, it had
Speaker 1: never been opened on her new iPhone ever. So it
Speaker 1: started going through the motions of signing up and you know,
Speaker 1: getting everything up to speed. I said, okay, that's not
Speaker 1: gonna work either. So I don't know how I ended
Speaker 1: up sending them to her. I think I just used telegram.
Speaker 1: That was, you know, my first entree to you know,
Speaker 1: these tech issues that happened logging onto guest Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: So of course everyone is heightened about security at this point.
Speaker 2: So you go to someone's house.
Speaker 1: Some people may be fine about sharing their home Wi
Speaker 1: Fi with you. Others may be a little bit more
Speaker 1: hesitant to share that password, and for good reason, your
Speaker 1: device is getting onto their home network, which potentially could
Speaker 1: do bad things. So my advice number one, I do
Speaker 1: think you should have a guest network setup. So if
Speaker 1: you haven't set up a guest network on your Wi
Speaker 1: Fi router, please do that.
Speaker 2: It'll make it much easier.
Speaker 1: It'll make it much less awkward for when people want
Speaker 1: to join your Wi Fi because you can give out
Speaker 1: that password no problem.
Speaker 2: But here's what I recommend number one.
Speaker 1: Don't assume everyone has an iPhone in this world, so
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, just open up to the password thing
Speaker 1: and I'll share it through my iPhone. Not everyone can
Speaker 1: do that, especially if you're on iPhone and Android, so
Speaker 1: have a QR code that they can scan. So all
Speaker 1: you have to do is go to a website like
Speaker 1: QR dash Code dash generator dot com and they can
Speaker 1: generate a Wi Fi QR code for you. You can print
Speaker 1: out that QR code. It not only includes the password
Speaker 1: to your Wi Fi, but it's also a scannable QR
Speaker 1: code that phones when they see that QR code. No,
Speaker 1: I can just join this one without a lot of work.
Speaker 1: It's very easy. So if you don't have a QR
Speaker 1: code that you have printed in your house and posted
Speaker 1: on your fridge, please do that. It makes life a
Speaker 1: lot easier. Now when it comes to my dad's business. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he runs a small business like many people in America,
Speaker 1: and technology is always an issue because you know, you
Speaker 1: are good at your small business, your trade, whatever you do,
Speaker 1: but maybe technology does not come as easy to you
Speaker 1: as it does for maybe someone that is much more
Speaker 1: technology focused or a digital native. So my dad's been
Speaker 1: doing his trade, which happens to be roofing, for a
Speaker 1: very long time. He's very good at it. But he
Speaker 1: does these things called proposals and invoices. You know what
Speaker 1: those are, right, proposal estimate for the job invoice. You
Speaker 1: got to get paid for your job. Well, he's been
Speaker 1: using these pre printed invoices forever and proposals, which, of course,
Speaker 1: back in the day when he was using an old
Speaker 1: school computer and it had the software from the company
Speaker 1: that he bought the invoices from, it would fill everything
Speaker 1: in in a nice way. And back before then, by
Speaker 1: the way, it was a typewriter, which was really easy
Speaker 1: to fill in because you just move the typewriter to
Speaker 1: the part of the paper that you wanted to type
Speaker 1: on and you typed very easy. Well, nowadays he's still
Speaker 1: using that pre printed paper, which he likes because it
Speaker 1: looks professional. But he tries to type it out on
Speaker 1: his computer and like, I think it's Microsoft word or
Speaker 1: something like that, and he tries to align where he's
Speaker 1: typing on the proposal on his computer just by eyeballing it.
Speaker 2: So what does that mean.
Speaker 1: He's typing in a bunch of times, he's printing it
Speaker 1: out a bunch of times things are misaligned. I said, Dad,
Speaker 1: you can't do that anymore. We've got to get you
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century and make this easy because
Speaker 1: it'll save you a lot of time. So of course
Speaker 1: I embark on this journey while I'm trying to hang
Speaker 1: out with my family, while I'm trying to have conversations.
Speaker 1: So immediately I try to create him a new logo
Speaker 1: on Canva, which I did. He actually liked it, so
Speaker 1: I said, okay, you can use this. Then I just
Speaker 1: tried to make the form fillable on Adobe so he
Speaker 1: can just type everything in. I kind of scanned it
Speaker 1: all and Adobe kind of found the form fields that
Speaker 1: didn't work for some reason. It didn't get everything aligned.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know what, let's just make this
Speaker 1: from scratch, and so I made I took that new
Speaker 1: logo I made, I put it into Google Docs, and
Speaker 1: I retyped out the entire proposal. And I knew my
Speaker 1: dad was going to be particular about it because he
Speaker 1: has a certain way he likes things. But he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I actually liked that. And we kind
Speaker 1: of cleaned up some of the wording that he's been
Speaker 1: using for thirty years, and I showed my dad how
Speaker 1: to fill it out. I saved it as a template
Speaker 1: on Google Docs, showed him how to make a copy
Speaker 1: of the template, fill it out, save it, and then
Speaker 1: we even emailed his first one through DOCU sign and
Speaker 1: I'm telling you he got the signature within a couple
Speaker 1: hours from the other person, and he was so impressed,
Speaker 1: and so was I. But here's my lesson that I learned.
Speaker 1: Even basic tech skills that you might take for granted,
Speaker 1: depending on your level of technology, can be confusing for
Speaker 1: the average person. So please have the heart of a teacher.
Speaker 1: Please explain this stuff to your friends and family in
Speaker 1: a very calm way. And it may take a while.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be immediate. So something like a
Speaker 1: right click, I said, hey, write click on that. Now
Speaker 1: he's got a laptop that of course, I gave him
Speaker 1: one of my old MacBook pros And he said, how
Speaker 1: do you write click when there's no button on the
Speaker 1: right And I said, that's a great question. Now for me,
Speaker 1: I just natively write click thousands of times a day
Speaker 1: without even thinking about how I write click. And I
Speaker 1: had to sit there and put my thumbs on the
Speaker 1: track pad and figure out, wait, how do I write
Speaker 1: click on here? And of course I figured it out
Speaker 1: and I showed him. And again it's those little things
Speaker 1: that you do and you take for granted that someone
Speaker 1: that's less tech savvy may not so when you hear
Speaker 1: about these people that fall for scams, you know, through
Speaker 1: the phone, or through a text or through a phishing link,
Speaker 1: and you say, how could anyone ever fall for that?
Speaker 1: This is how they're just regular people. That's what these
Speaker 1: scam artists take advantage of their good nature and the
Speaker 1: fact that they're not up on technology in every possible
Speaker 1: way like you and I are, or someone that knows
Speaker 1: about this. Now, I will tell you one thing that
Speaker 1: even tricked me. So I was downloading I wanted to
Speaker 1: print to his printer, which happened to be an HP printer.
Speaker 1: I have a similar printer at home. I know I
Speaker 1: use the HP Smart app to print. So I just
Speaker 1: said to my phone, you know, download the HP smart
Speaker 1: print smart app, and it came up with the first
Speaker 1: link on Google Play. I clicked it, downloaded it. I
Speaker 1: started opening it and wanted like all this weird access
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wait a second, hold on, did I
Speaker 1: just get scammed by downloading this bogus app?
Speaker 2: Even I can fall for this stuff.
Speaker 1: So if I can fall for anyone, can please be
Speaker 1: careful out there. There are a lot of things you
Speaker 1: need to know and a lot of things we need
Speaker 1: to teach to people, and that's what this show is
Speaker 1: all about, which is why I'm very excited to be
Speaker 1: here each and every week. All Right, I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you more about my trip here to New York City
Speaker 1: and New Jersey. I'll tell you how I ended up
Speaker 1: on a billboard in Times Square taking my kids on
Speaker 1: a hike, how TikTok changes that experience, and much much more.
Speaker 1: Triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. My name is Richdmiro.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at Triple A rich.
Speaker 2: One oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two one zero one.
Speaker 1: Give me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: You can also go to the website and send me
Speaker 1: a message. Just go to rich on Tech dot tv
Speaker 1: and hit the contact link up at the top. If
Speaker 1: you want to link to something I mentioned, you can
Speaker 1: hit the light bulb icon up at the top of
Speaker 1: the page. And yes, I am broadcasting live from New Jersey.
Speaker 1: That's why we have some great New Jersey artists singing
Speaker 1: on the show. Well, not live, but you know, there's songs,
Speaker 1: I guess. And also if you want to see highlights
Speaker 1: from my trip, I've been talking a lot about my
Speaker 1: trip to New York and New Jersey. I've got it
Speaker 1: all on my Instagram. So go to my instagram at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Check the highlights on the profile page
Speaker 1: and you can see all the fun stuff I did here,
Speaker 1: all the places I ate, all the place I stayed,
Speaker 1: all the things I did. And of course the theme
Speaker 1: is technology. I'm always telling you the coolest, best tech
Speaker 1: that I used throughout my trip, and I will talk
Speaker 1: about how I ended up on a New York City
Speaker 1: billboard as well. But first, let's take a call. Let's
Speaker 1: go to Tony in van Ey's. Tony in van.
Speaker 2: Eyes, you're on with rich Welcome to the show, Tony.
Speaker 2: You there.
Speaker 1: Oh, we gotta have so this Because it's a remote show,
Speaker 1: Bobo's got to actually bring up Tony and Van Eyes.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that's ready to go yet.
Speaker 1: So let's be while we until Bobo tells me that
Speaker 1: we've got our caller. Okay, oh Tony here, can you
Speaker 1: hear me? I cannot hear Tony. Well, we thought we've
Speaker 1: done this before. There Hello, yeah, okay, there you go. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: I can you hear me?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I feel like I've an entire ad campaign was built
Speaker 1: from that. What can I help you with?
Speaker 3: Tony Pleasure speaking with Geez, question about VPN on smartphone? Ah,
Speaker 3: what do you recommend? I have one, but sometimes it
Speaker 3: just goes out and I have to turn it back
Speaker 3: on and that's.
Speaker 2: An iPhone thing.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, so okay, so here, Yeah, here's my recommendations
Speaker 1: on the The VPN, which by the way stands for
Speaker 1: virtual Private network. Uh, this sort of creates an encrypted
Speaker 1: tunnel if you want to use the Internet a little
Speaker 1: bit more private privately, I guess private focused. So if you,
Speaker 1: for instance, don't want anyone to be able to see
Speaker 1: what you're doing, or you don't want your ISP or
Speaker 1: your wireless carrier, it makes the connection between you and
Speaker 1: the servers a little bit more private. Now I say
Speaker 1: a little bit more because people would argue that you know,
Speaker 1: nothing is one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: But with that said, the.
Speaker 1: iPhone, by the way, has a has a history of
Speaker 1: turning off VPNs every so often, so as far as
Speaker 1: I've seen now, these VPN apps try to turn it
Speaker 1: back on, but it doesn't always work. So if you
Speaker 1: are using a VPN on iPhone, uh, sometimes it just
Speaker 1: toggles off and you have to go back in and
Speaker 1: toggle it back on. Or the app might have a
Speaker 1: setting for a persistent connection. But I don't think you
Speaker 1: need a VPN all the time. So Number one, when
Speaker 1: do you need to use a VPN? If you ever
Speaker 1: want to protect your browsing history, or you want to
Speaker 1: get access to a block site. So for instance, if
Speaker 1: you're in China or another country that may not allow
Speaker 1: you to access a certain site, you might want to
Speaker 1: use a VPN. Like I said, it can also help
Speaker 1: you protect yourself. So if you want to use say
Speaker 1: the public Wi Fi at a hotel or a library,
Speaker 1: but you want to access something that's a little bit
Speaker 1: more sensitive or something that is like your financial information,
Speaker 1: you'd probably want to use a VPN. So what do
Speaker 1: you want to look for? Number one A no log VPN.
Speaker 1: These are VPNs that promise not to keep your user data.
Speaker 1: Typically you want to look for an independent audit to
Speaker 1: verify those privacy claims. And you have to understand that
Speaker 1: a VPN can slow down your Internet connection, so it
Speaker 1: may not be as fast as a direct connection. On
Speaker 1: your phone, and if you're looking for the different protocols
Speaker 1: that they have, there's a couple of them. Wire Guard
Speaker 1: is the one that you want. It's just I think
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more modern. That's the one that
Speaker 1: you want to look for. So how do you choose
Speaker 1: a VPN? So you want a VPN that works across
Speaker 1: various devices. Free VPNs typically not so great. Historically, there
Speaker 1: are lots of companies that promise free VPN. You know,
Speaker 1: you can try one of those, but you know it
Speaker 1: may not tick all of these boxes that I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: So let me see this Proton vpn. I think they
Speaker 1: offer a free level of VPN. So yeah, so Proton,
Speaker 1: if you want one that's free, that's pretty very trusted.
Speaker 1: If you go to protonvpn dot com, they have a
Speaker 1: free level. You get one device, no ads, no logs,
Speaker 1: unlimited and free forever and that works across various various devices.
Speaker 1: So obviously there's probably some sort of catch that that
Speaker 1: they have on that free plan, and it looks like
Speaker 1: it's because it's limited to just one device at a time,
Speaker 1: But that is an option for a free VPN. Some
Speaker 1: of the other things to look for if you're purchasing
Speaker 1: a VPN, like on a paid program, you want one
Speaker 1: that works across multiple devices, so you can use it
Speaker 1: on both your iPhone but also an Android, also a computer.
Speaker 1: Multiple server locations. Sometimes you want to spoof where you are,
Speaker 1: so you say, you know they have server locations in
Speaker 1: various places, obviously no bandwidth caps, and you're probably gonna
Speaker 1: pay anywhere from five to ten dollars a month. Some
Speaker 1: of the trusted brands in the past that I've talked
Speaker 1: about on KTLA include molvad, surf Shark, IPVN, and tunnel Bear.
Speaker 2: So those are some of the.
Speaker 1: Brands that you need to look into, but again, pick
Speaker 1: one that works for you. Great question. Thanks for the call.
Speaker 1: Eighty to eight Rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. The website
Speaker 1: for the show Rich on tech dot TV. Coming up
Speaker 1: so much to talk about uh AT and T is
Speaker 1: raising prices. I've got a recall that a power device
Speaker 1: that was sold at costco a portable charger, So if
Speaker 1: you've bought one of those, you want to stay tuned.
Speaker 1: And of course coming up, I will tell the story
Speaker 1: of how I ended up on that New York City Billboard.
Speaker 2: It is pretty wild. My name is Rich d'miro.
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 oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: Give me a call.
Speaker 1: If you have a question about technology, you can also
Speaker 1: go to the website and send me a message. Just
Speaker 1: go to that same website rich on Tech dot TV
Speaker 1: and hit the light bulb icon and that will bring
Speaker 1: you to it. We just played my Chemical Romance. They
Speaker 1: are from Newark, New Jersey. That is where I've flown
Speaker 1: into more times than I can tell you. I can't
Speaker 1: tell you because I use an app called Flighty, which
Speaker 1: keeps track of all of the different flights that you've taken,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty incredible. So it told me that I
Speaker 1: have spent I think, like, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to miss quote here. I think it was like
Speaker 1: one hundred and fourteen thousand hours in the air flying
Speaker 1: to New Jersey. Now that's just the ones that the
Speaker 1: flights that it found. I'm sure there are many more.
Speaker 1: But yes, I've been flying back and forth between LA
Speaker 1: and New Jersey for many many years now. On that note,
Speaker 1: Sarah from Los Angeles writes in Rich, sounding good from
Speaker 1: New Jersey, I'm glad you had that experience with your
Speaker 1: dad and had to write click, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: you didn't explain. I'm sure it's frustrating with some questions
Speaker 1: that have you thinking, wait.
Speaker 2: You don't know how to do that, But you're one of.
Speaker 1: The only resources for super basic questions, so please try
Speaker 1: to remember that some people need very simple explanations.
Speaker 2: Thanks Sarah.
Speaker 1: That is a good reminder, and I do try to
Speaker 1: make things simple, but yeah, I do have to remember
Speaker 1: that even some of the most basic things don't come
Speaker 1: easy to everyone. So by the way to write click,
Speaker 1: I did figure it out. It is two fingers on
Speaker 1: my truck pad. It took me a while to kind
Speaker 1: of figure out what my motion was, but yes, two fingers.
Speaker 1: That's just one way to write click. I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are many others on the mac.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Thomas in Carlsbad, California. Thomas in Carlsbad
Speaker 1: at California, Line one.
Speaker 2: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hey, Rich, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 5: Rich. I'm on an old school, AT and T hookup
Speaker 5: WI took an Internet table to my router my Wi
Speaker 5: Fi connections in the house. Given their system is terrible
Speaker 5: to get things to work, I want to disable their
Speaker 5: router and put in a new mesh system. Any advice
Speaker 5: in the pass through looks like something I'm not quite
Speaker 5: capable of handling.
Speaker 2: And what do you mean past So they.
Speaker 5: Talked about use that router, Oh right, right, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then you have to go on a pass through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and okay, So I when I set mine up.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since I set mine up, but
Speaker 1: I remember there's a lot I put a lot of
Speaker 1: thought into that. The idea is that there's that AT
Speaker 1: and T is handling the routing of the network. So
Speaker 1: what they want you to do is disable their kind
Speaker 1: of router and use the Well, what I use is
Speaker 1: EO E E R O and that will handle all
Speaker 1: of the routing. Now, as far as I remember, and
Speaker 1: like I said, it's been a while since I actually
Speaker 1: set this up, so I need to remember if I
Speaker 1: actually did that or not. But as far as I know,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I just plugged my ERO into the
Speaker 1: back of the UH into the back of the AT
Speaker 1: and T router and just let it go. But the
Speaker 1: pass through if you need to change that or toggle
Speaker 1: that off, you will find that in the settings on
Speaker 1: the AT and T device. Now, turning off the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi is very very easy. So on pretty much every
Speaker 1: router from like a cable company or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your Internet from, you know, they give you that box.
Speaker 1: And nowadays these boxes include both a router which takes
Speaker 1: that Internet signal and kind of helps figure out where
Speaker 1: to route things throughout your home. So if you go
Speaker 1: to a website on your computer, that router will get
Speaker 1: that information, it will send it back to AT and
Speaker 1: T or whoever your ISP is, and it will get
Speaker 1: that website for you, and it will give you that information.
Speaker 1: But when you're using your own system, and by the way,
Speaker 1: most of these modern systems that they're giving you include
Speaker 1: Wi Fi, so that Wi Fi, that same box that's
Speaker 1: also a router also serves as your Wi Fi hub
Speaker 1: and that it emanates this Wi Fi connection that you know,
Speaker 1: sends a signal throughout your house. Now, typically these have
Speaker 1: been pretty low powered in the past. Nowadays, I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of these companies are actually upgrading to more
Speaker 1: you know, even a mesh network. Sometimes, like some of
Speaker 1: these companies, you can even ask for a little satellite
Speaker 1: mesh network, you know, like an extra router or an
Speaker 1: access point they're called, and they can give them to
Speaker 1: you as well.
Speaker 2: But I say skip all that.
Speaker 1: Go get yourself an euro E E R O system
Speaker 1: or an ORB. There's so many different brands that are
Speaker 1: out there that are all pretty good, but you know,
Speaker 1: those are two that I really like. And once you
Speaker 1: plug it in, it will it will guide you through
Speaker 1: the setup. And the main thing that you want to
Speaker 1: do is is definitely turn off the Wi Fi that
Speaker 1: emanates out of that router box that the cable company
Speaker 1: supplies you. That way you don't have two competing Wi
Speaker 1: Fi signals throughout your house. And again what I was
Speaker 1: saying is that the on the bottom of these boxes
Speaker 1: there's usually a place where you can log into the
Speaker 1: box and change some settings. Now, before you do that,
Speaker 1: just be warned that, you know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of settings and they're not very easy to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not, so just
Speaker 1: beware when you go in there that it may take
Speaker 1: you know, like, just be informed.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The other thing is you may not have access to
Speaker 1: your computer during this time because you're gonna be accessing
Speaker 1: the router itself, and you need to usually plug in
Speaker 1: your computer directly hardlined to that box because you're gonna
Speaker 1: be changing settings on that box. It's gonna restart, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be doing some things. So you want a hard
Speaker 1: connection because if you're not hardwired, as soon as you
Speaker 1: turn off that Wi Fi on that cable box, your
Speaker 1: computer's gonna have no Internet connection. So you need to
Speaker 1: keep all these things in mind before you go and
Speaker 1: change stuff. But when it comes to the access point,
Speaker 1: I feel like and I really need to kind of
Speaker 1: school myself in this and see if I actually change
Speaker 1: those settings since it's been so long. But there are
Speaker 1: some settings where you can set it up as a
Speaker 1: pass through, and that means that the router is saying
Speaker 1: they're putting their hands up on your router and saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, We're not doing anything. We're gonna let
Speaker 1: your new euro handle everything on your network, and we're
Speaker 1: literally just going to be a cable modem that takes
Speaker 1: the signal in and we're gonna give give that signal
Speaker 1: to your Eero, and Ero's gonna serve as both the
Speaker 1: router and also the Wi Fi and so that's what
Speaker 1: they're saying when they talk about that pass through mode.
Speaker 1: Other than that, it's very easy to set up. Most
Speaker 1: people are just plugging these things into the back of
Speaker 1: their cable router and it's pretty much plug and play,
Speaker 1: and the app is where it will log you in
Speaker 1: and get you through everything that you need to know
Speaker 1: about how to set this thing up. But again, I
Speaker 1: would check out EURO, I would check out ORB and
Speaker 1: make sure you have a cable physical cable that you
Speaker 1: can connect your router. And the password and user name
Speaker 1: is usually printed on the bottom of your router as
Speaker 1: well as the log in which is typically something like
Speaker 1: a one nine to two dot one six eight number.
Speaker 2: So if you see that, you type.
Speaker 1: That into your web browser and you log in with
Speaker 1: the username and password that's on the bottom of your router,
Speaker 1: that will give you access to these settings on that
Speaker 1: black box that sits under your TV.
Speaker 2: Just be careful. You can always reset it back to
Speaker 2: the factory.
Speaker 1: There's probably a little pinhole that you can push a
Speaker 1: paper clip in. If you really mess things up, you
Speaker 1: can always get it back to the factory. Good question,
Speaker 1: and yes, get that Mesh network, because it really does
Speaker 1: make a difference. You will get a signal that's throughout
Speaker 1: your house. So the way the Mesh network works is
Speaker 1: that it takes that one signal that you're getting from
Speaker 1: your router box now it's the EURO and it sends
Speaker 1: it throughout your home by using these access points that
Speaker 1: are additionally located throughout your house. You've got the one
Speaker 1: box under your TV. Now that's the signal coming in
Speaker 1: from the cable company that goes into your ERO, and
Speaker 1: then the EERO takes that signal and kind of boomerangs
Speaker 1: it around your house through the use of these little
Speaker 1: access points that you place in locations.
Speaker 2: Throughout your house.
Speaker 1: So they all work together to blanket your home in
Speaker 1: Wi Fi versus just imagine one little box that's under
Speaker 1: your TV. It's crowded under there. The signal is being
Speaker 1: blocked in a million different ways, and that signal does
Speaker 1: not make its way throughout your house. These eros and
Speaker 1: the similar systems have figured out a way to kind
Speaker 1: of tune each other specifically to carry that Wi Fi
Speaker 1: signal and manage it throughout your house, and that's why
Speaker 1: the signal works better. And of course over the years
Speaker 1: I've been using this since day one. We actually had
Speaker 1: Nick Weaver, the one of the I think he was
Speaker 1: the creator of Ero. He kind of came up with
Speaker 1: this whole concept and made it commercial. He came to
Speaker 1: KTLA to do an interview, and I'm not gonna joke.
Speaker 1: He was very seem very young at the time. I said,
Speaker 1: you created this new technology and he said, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it kind of revolutionized how we access Wi Fi in
Speaker 1: our homes. It's because it's gotten so much better thanks
Speaker 1: to what he did with this idea of a mesh network.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that is what I think you need. I
Speaker 1: think it'll help and I think it'll be a lot better.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for the question. Eighty eight rich one
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. I promised you the story about how I
Speaker 1: got on the Wi Fi billboard.
Speaker 6: In New York City.
Speaker 2: I will tell you that.
Speaker 1: Story coming up right here on rich On Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh
Speaker 1: one eighty eight seven.
Speaker 2: Four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: So this week I've been hanging out in New Jersey
Speaker 1: and New York visiting some family, doing some things, and
Speaker 1: we stayed at this hotel in Times Square that turned
Speaker 1: out to have this like incredible view of Times Square,
Speaker 1: Like it's literally at the top of Times Squares, so
Speaker 1: you have the view of the entire square, which we
Speaker 1: didn't realize until we went to breakfast and wow, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, what this is. This is wild. So it
Speaker 1: took us a bit to figure this out too. We
Speaker 1: saw the billboards obviously in Times Square, but one of them,
Speaker 1: after like seeing it cycle through the billboard probably one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty times, I realized I was like, wait
Speaker 1: a second. It said something about you can download an
Speaker 1: app and be on the billboard, and so I said,
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. An eighteen thousand square foot billboard
Speaker 1: at the corner of forty seventh Street and Seventh av
Speaker 1: in Time Square, about four hundred thousand people see it daily.
Speaker 1: And you download this app called the TSX app, and
Speaker 1: you upload a picture, you type in some text whatever
Speaker 1: you want, or you can upload some video and next
Speaker 1: thing you know, you pay a couple of bucks and
Speaker 1: your video or clip or whatever shows up on this
Speaker 1: billboard in Times Square. And so I said, well, of course,
Speaker 1: I have to do this as the tech guy, right.
Speaker 1: I got to figure out how this works and if
Speaker 1: it really does work, and how cool it is. So
Speaker 1: I just took one of the pictures that we took
Speaker 1: on our trip and it uploaded to the app. I
Speaker 1: typed in New York City twenty twenty four at rich
Speaker 1: On Tech and it had some rules as to what
Speaker 1: you can do, what you could say on the billboard.
Speaker 1: Social media handles are allowed, things like QR codes and
Speaker 1: URLs are not allowed. And once you upload it, you
Speaker 1: pick your time where it's gonna appear on the billboard.
Speaker 1: I picked like seven to fifteen PM, and you pay
Speaker 1: forty dollars and of course they took Apple pay or
Speaker 1: Google pay, so it was very easy to do the
Speaker 1: entire process. I would say it took me less than
Speaker 1: a minute. And then someone, obviously a human has to
Speaker 1: approve what you're doing, because you know, they don't want
Speaker 1: you to put something up there that's you know, bad,
Speaker 1: And so it was approved and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it said, okay, your time is seven fifteen pm. Seven
Speaker 1: fifteen is seven to seventeen. So we sat there in
Speaker 1: the restaurant at the hotel, all of us and we
Speaker 1: watched our pictures show up on this billboard in Time
Speaker 1: Square for fifteen seconds, and I got to say, what
Speaker 1: a smart business. By the way, this could be replicated
Speaker 1: anywhere that there is a large group of people. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure this is just the first of its kind,
Speaker 1: but this is a very very smart business. I paid
Speaker 1: forty dollars to have my billboard up in Times Square
Speaker 1: for fifteen seconds. And by the way, if you want
Speaker 1: to see it, you can check out my Twitter at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. I posted the picture of me looking
Speaker 1: at the picture. I'll also put it on my Instagram
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech. But I thought this was such
Speaker 1: a smart idea.
Speaker 2: The amount of.
Speaker 1: Money that they make from these fifteen second clips throughout
Speaker 1: the day is probably incredible and throughout the year, and
Speaker 1: it's just a billboard that makes money in New York City.
Speaker 1: Of course, all billboards make money because they're showing ads,
Speaker 1: but the fact that this one shows user generated ads
Speaker 1: is just really really cool. So again, the app is TSX,
Speaker 1: and I guess it's TSX Entertainment is the company that
Speaker 1: came up with this brilliant idea. We had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun, and you know, you saw other people doing
Speaker 1: it as well. So it's kind of cool to see
Speaker 1: yourself on a billboard in New York City. And now
Speaker 1: I can say I've done that all right. Eighty to eight,
Speaker 1: rich one, oh one, let's take a call here. Let's
Speaker 1: go to line one. That is Nicole in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Nicole in Los Angeles. You are on with.
Speaker 7: Rich Hi, thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, what can I help you?
Speaker 7: With my Apple MacBook Pro to adath and with display
Speaker 7: or doesn't work. I can't get an image. And when
Speaker 7: I took it back to Apple, they said it was
Speaker 7: going to toss around to hundred dollars. And I purchased
Speaker 7: this lab.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, I was going to say
Speaker 1: six hundred bucks. That's how much it costs me. When
Speaker 1: I got my uh my kid threw a toy at
Speaker 1: my computer screen and cracked it, and uh, six hundred
Speaker 1: bucks the price.
Speaker 2: So go ahead. What's your question whether you should got
Speaker 2: a new one, should I.
Speaker 7: Get a new one and my or should I fix it?
Speaker 7: Or I'm also thinking about getting a Samsung laptop because
Speaker 7: I didn't use all the all the features that the
Speaker 7: MacBook Pro had to offer. I'm just not that kind
Speaker 7: of a.
Speaker 8: User, it's really just for my leisure. It being a
Speaker 8: lot of online search emails, that's about the extent of it.
Speaker 8: I do open up a lot of pages, a lot
Speaker 8: of web pages all at once, and that's it.
Speaker 7: I'm not editing. I'm not looking at videos. I don't
Speaker 7: really watch TV.
Speaker 1: What do you like about the What do you like
Speaker 1: about the Samsung versus the like? Are you not liking
Speaker 1: the MacBook anymore? Do you not like gample?
Speaker 7: Really? An Android user, I have a fan stung tone,
Speaker 7: so I kind of like that idea that it's you know,
Speaker 7: working together. I have STANSTUNGD appliances. But I do have
Speaker 7: some Apple products, like I have an iPad that I love.
Speaker 7: You know, I didn't like my MacBook Pro, but again
Speaker 7: I didn't use already had to offer me, which was fine.
Speaker 7: I was okay with that, but now that it's broken,
Speaker 7: I don't necessarily want to pay that price bag again.
Speaker 1: So I hear you, well, look, I mean I see
Speaker 1: this in two ways. Number one six hundred dollars solves
Speaker 1: your problem for another couple of years.
Speaker 2: So that's what I end up doing.
Speaker 1: Because of course, anytime you have a repair, you think,
Speaker 1: do I get a new one, do I you know?
Speaker 2: Or do I pay for this?
Speaker 1: So a new computer is going to cost you easily
Speaker 1: one thousand bucks, right, but it's going to last you
Speaker 1: at least, you know, four or five six years from today.
Speaker 1: For that amount of money, the six hundred dollars you're
Speaker 1: going to spend is going to last you at least.
Speaker 1: I would say, I'm looking at the Mac os Sequoia
Speaker 1: because that's how I go by how long your Mac
Speaker 1: is going to be supported?
Speaker 2: What your Mac?
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 4: I've purchased it.
Speaker 1: A little bit, so it's probably probably a twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: MacBook pro Sequoia is going to be compatible with a
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen and later. That tells me that you're probably
Speaker 1: going to get at least two more years of software
Speaker 1: updates from Apple on this computer, So that three hundred
Speaker 1: dollars divided by two at a six hundred divided by
Speaker 1: two is three hundred dollars for the next two years.
Speaker 1: So I would probably lean towards just repairing this because
Speaker 1: you've got at least two more years out of it.
Speaker 1: And then, by the way, it's still worth something that
Speaker 1: you can sell it for even if it's one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or something, versus the new Mac versus the new Samsung, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I will tell you if you have
Speaker 1: a Samsung phone, I've been testing their Samsung their new
Speaker 1: Galaxy books, and it is amazing. Like you take a
Speaker 1: picture on your Samsung phone, it immediately shows up on
Speaker 1: your Windows computer because it's all in sync like the
Speaker 1: the just the way the iPhone works with the Max,
Speaker 1: the Samsung phones work with these Samsung Galaxy Books.
Speaker 2: So if you really.
Speaker 1: Want that and you're trying to go for a change,
Speaker 1: then you know, I say go for the new Galaxy Book.
Speaker 1: But if you just want to spend the six hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: be done. Your computer, you know, is good to go.
Speaker 1: You've already had it, you're comfortable with it. Maybe you
Speaker 1: want to just plan a little bit more because we're
Speaker 1: just seeing these new AI computers come out, so it
Speaker 1: might be best to maybe wait one cycle on those
Speaker 1: because I'm all brand new right now. So maybe in
Speaker 1: the next two years, you just kind of plan for
Speaker 1: this new Galaxy PC.
Speaker 7: Okay, I like that. Yeah, I I'll have a problem.
Speaker 7: Yeah it actually makes sense.
Speaker 2: I like it. Yeah, that's what I would do.
Speaker 1: Just make sure you if you can back up your
Speaker 1: computer before you send it in, because they may have
Speaker 1: to wipe the drive in the process of replacing that
Speaker 1: screen or whatever they do in the repair, So just
Speaker 1: be aware that you may lose data and if you
Speaker 1: can't see the screen, you're going to have to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to mirror the screen or connect your
Speaker 1: computer to a like a TV screen or something to
Speaker 1: see the screen while you secure every thing and get.
Speaker 2: Everything backed up there. All right, thanks so much for
Speaker 2: the call.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Coming up, we got
Speaker 1: lots more of rich on Tech. I'll tell you about
Speaker 1: a recall on a portable chargers sold at Costco.
Speaker 2: This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple A rich.
Speaker 2: One oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. The website for the show is richon Tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. If you want to send me an email,
Speaker 1: you can do it there by hitting contact, or if
Speaker 1: you want to link to something I mentioned on the show,
Speaker 1: just hit the light bulb icon. Coming up in this hour,
Speaker 1: We've got a lot we've got a special guest. The
Speaker 1: special guest is later on. We've got a guest that
Speaker 1: is a Apple Design Award winning game creator black Box.
Speaker 1: Don't know if you've played it on your iPhone. We
Speaker 1: will talk to Ryan McLoud about that, and later on
Speaker 1: we'll talk to Derek Ting, co founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: text Now about how you can get free calling and
Speaker 1: texting on your smartphone and even free data now. If
Speaker 1: you bought one of these portable chargers at Costco in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, you might want to return it.
Speaker 1: My charge is recalling five hundred and sixty seven thousand
Speaker 1: power Hub portable chargers due to fire risk. This is
Speaker 1: a ten thousand million amp hour portable charger. They got
Speaker 1: a couple of models affected. There is it's basically a
Speaker 1: it's tough to read on the radio here, but a
Speaker 1: zero ten or AO ten FK, Dash A, Dash B
Speaker 1: and Dash C. These can overheat while charging, posing a
Speaker 1: fire and risk burn. They were sold at Costco from
Speaker 1: January twenty twenty two to November twenty twenty three. They
Speaker 1: cost about forty dollars. You can get a free replacement.
Speaker 1: So far, there's been one hundred and twenty reports of overheating,
Speaker 1: including two residential fires with one hundred sixty five dollars
Speaker 1: reported in property damage. Plus a bunch of these were
Speaker 1: returned to Costco mentioning various issues. So immediately stop and
Speaker 1: contact my charge for a replacement. I will put the
Speaker 1: information on the website rich on tech dot TV. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: another week, another price hike, AT and T raising prices
Speaker 1: on older unlimited plans starting in August. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: all these price hikes are pushing people to the mv
Speaker 1: and os mobile virtual network operators like the Mint Mobiles
Speaker 1: of the world, and the Tings, all these different companies,
Speaker 1: the Tellos, the let's see what's the other one. I like,
Speaker 1: there's just so many of them mobile X. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just that people are noticing that their costs are
Speaker 1: no longer fixed. When you've got a streaming service or
Speaker 1: your cell phone built.
Speaker 2: It just keeps going up.
Speaker 1: AT and T increasing prices on older unlimited plans according
Speaker 1: to c NEET, starting in August ten dollars a month
Speaker 1: for single lines, twenty dollars a month for multiple lines.
Speaker 1: That is significant. Affective plans include various AT and T
Speaker 1: unlimited options. You can check the cnet article for all
Speaker 1: of the the plans. Now AT and T is doing
Speaker 1: something kind of nice. They are going to increase your
Speaker 1: high speed hot Spot data allowances on these plans. So
Speaker 1: if you had thirty gigabytes, now you're getting seventy five.
Speaker 1: If you had sixty gigabytes of hot Spot, now you're
Speaker 1: getting one hundred. But again, this is the second price
Speaker 1: hike by AT and T. They raised prices on their
Speaker 1: newer plans by ninety nine cents earlier this year. So again,
Speaker 1: lots of price hikes come in your way from all
Speaker 1: of these services.
Speaker 2: All right, eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Let's go to Martin In
Speaker 1: at Anza California line too. Martin, you are on with
Speaker 1: Rich Martin?
Speaker 2: Can I help?
Speaker 3: Hi?
Speaker 4: Rich? Thanks? Look taking my call. I was wondering I
Speaker 4: have an iPhone seven ass and evidently Apples quit updating
Speaker 4: and supporting this up the fifteen point eight point two
Speaker 4: or something, So it is just it's an obsolete phone.
Speaker 1: Uh is it an obsolete phone? Well, I mean you
Speaker 1: can still use it for other stuff. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: the phone is not going to stop working. It's just
Speaker 1: not getting software updates, and some of the apps are
Speaker 1: just going to start barking at.
Speaker 4: You right right, No security updates, no nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is the problem. I'm trying to scroll
Speaker 1: through the list and see what's supported here. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the latest software supports the iPhone ten are and up.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at the iPhone seven, you're talking
Speaker 1: iPhone seven, iPhone eight. There was no iPhone nine. Not
Speaker 1: going to get tripped up on that one again if
Speaker 1: you've listened to the Phone the Show for a long time.
Speaker 1: So we went iPhone seven, iPhone eight. So the reality
Speaker 1: is this phone is already a couple of years out
Speaker 1: of service. I would say it's probably time to get
Speaker 1: a new one. Yes, you can still use it, but
Speaker 1: you are putting yourself at risk. You can trade this
Speaker 1: phone in, you can sell it. There's a website like
Speaker 1: gizmo Go that I like. You might get a couple
Speaker 1: of bucks for this. You can also turn it into
Speaker 1: a security camera. A lot of people like to do
Speaker 1: that with their old phones. You know, you can download
Speaker 1: some software and turn it into a security camera. That
Speaker 1: might be an option, but otherwise I think I think
Speaker 1: it's time for a new phone. This is this how
Speaker 1: long do you have this phone?
Speaker 4: I bought it in twenty eighteen, so it's six years.
Speaker 4: Is that about the life spanities?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: In fact, yeah, so on the iPhone side, the lifespan
Speaker 1: published is officially about five years. Traditionally, Apple has supported
Speaker 1: their phones for about six years on the dot. Now
Speaker 1: when it comes to the Android side of things, the
Speaker 1: trend that we're seeing there is seven years. So will
Speaker 1: Apple do seven years? I'm not sure, but Apple has
Speaker 1: been really good. I know there's a lot of conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories out there that Apple tries to put these software
Speaker 1: updates out there just to ruin your phone. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the case. I think that software is getting
Speaker 1: better and better and better. It requires more horsepower. And
Speaker 1: if everyone's using an iPhone seven, that's putting them at
Speaker 1: risk of you know, viruses and malware and all kinds
Speaker 1: of different things, you know, phishing attempts, all that stuff
Speaker 1: happening on their phone. If people are if a lot
Speaker 1: of people are using that, what happens then the experience
Speaker 1: of using that device dwindles and people start complaining to Apple.
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, five six years is a
Speaker 1: pretty reasonable clip for a phone. If you do the
Speaker 1: math on those things. So, Martin, what do you what
Speaker 1: are you thinking about getting?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm thinking of going backwards. Do you know anything
Speaker 4: about the Nokia twenty seven twenty or twenty seven eighty
Speaker 4: flip phones.
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people are starting to
Speaker 1: use them, and I have no problem with you going
Speaker 1: backwards as well. If you're not using the smart features
Speaker 1: on this phone, why not. Your battery is going to
Speaker 1: last a long time. The phone's going to cost you
Speaker 1: under one hundred dollars, and you know you'll still be
Speaker 1: able to text, but it's just going to take you
Speaker 1: a lot longer to text on that phone. But that's
Speaker 1: the major downside. But otherwise, don't retired.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm at home, I'm on why Fi. I got
Speaker 4: like I have, okay, twenty five dollars a month after
Speaker 4: the discounts from Verizon for a five gigabyte plan and
Speaker 4: that's all I need. I don't use three two streak
Speaker 4: gigga guy by in a month on just the outside,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean it sounds to me, It sounds to me like
Speaker 1: you just want to be connected and all you need
Speaker 1: is that phone line, maybe a text or two occasionally
Speaker 1: you're not surfing YouTube on there, you're not surfing the
Speaker 1: web on your phone. But yeah, I think that the
Speaker 1: only thing is you just have to figure out if
Speaker 1: that Nokia is compatible with your Verizon network.
Speaker 4: That's the only thing you'll have to I know the
Speaker 4: twenty seven twenty is. But did you have a add
Speaker 4: or some them for dumb Wireless a while back?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, we did a segment with them on kJ.
Speaker 4: Twenty that I could get through from them from Verizon
Speaker 4: or go just down to the Verizon store to Meca
Speaker 4: and get to twenty seven twenty. So you know, that's
Speaker 4: what I probably do in the meantime until the next
Speaker 4: sc comes out, hopefully next year. What is that to
Speaker 4: be the fourth generation?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Actually, uh, let's see, I was just looking this up
Speaker 1: the iPhone SE. There's there's a new rumor about when
Speaker 1: it's coming out, and the website that I typically go
Speaker 1: to is mac Rumors Buyer's Guide, and if you go there,
Speaker 1: let's see what the rumor is on the SE. So
Speaker 1: it's been eight hundred and thirty seven days since they
Speaker 1: came out with an iPhone SE. Again, this is the
Speaker 1: only iPhone remaining that has that fingerprint reader on it,
Speaker 1: you know, the little touch ID kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: the rumor says that the iPhone SE with face oh
Speaker 1: with face ID, oh no, they're going to get rid
Speaker 1: of that thing, is going to be under five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars and the launch is supposed to be according to
Speaker 1: mac rumors, let's see here. Oh, according to the information
Speaker 1: that mac Rumors is quoting, let's see design similar to
Speaker 1: iPhone fourteen is going to come out in spring of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, so you still got a while.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 4: That's always. They're going to get rid of the home
Speaker 4: button at the bottom of the of the phone like
Speaker 4: on the cheven Ass.
Speaker 2: That's what they're saying here.
Speaker 1: If this rumor is accurate, the iPhone SE would finally
Speaker 1: gain face ID in a notch instead of touch ID
Speaker 1: and a home button. So uh, that will probably be
Speaker 1: Apple's least expensive phone when it launches.
Speaker 4: But yeah, they're saying like fourne or something. So what's
Speaker 4: that mean? Senior edition or.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: I can't it's been so long since that launched. I
Speaker 1: can't remember what officially stood for. I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: it stood for anything. I think the rumor was like
Speaker 1: simple addition, but yeah, you can. You can coin it
Speaker 1: senior editions. I know a lot of people like that,
Speaker 1: like that simplicity of the phone. So Martin, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for the call today. I really appreciate it. And
Speaker 1: you know, upgrade to the downgrade. Why not, right, get
Speaker 1: that flip phone and make life a little bit simpler.
Speaker 1: That's a great thing. Speaking of phones, I have been
Speaker 1: using a five hundred dollars phone throughout my week here
Speaker 1: in New York City and New Jersey. It's the Pixel
Speaker 1: eight A from Google. And I'm telling you, I challenged myself.
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I recommended this thing on Katiela.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use it as my only phone for
Speaker 1: a couple of days throughout the city. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: I am so impressed with this phone. It does everything
Speaker 1: you need for five hundred dollars and it's really good.
Speaker 1: And by the way, so far we have not seen
Speaker 1: a substantial price drop on this phone. It hasn't gone
Speaker 1: on sale in a big way just yet, but I
Speaker 1: still fully expected to go on sale for anywhere between
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty four hundred and fifty three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty four.
Speaker 2: Hundred fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking for a really good phone at
Speaker 1: a very inexpensive price, I really still like the Pixel
Speaker 1: eight A.
Speaker 2: Check out my instagram at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: All the pictures you see there, a majority of them
Speaker 1: were taken with this Pixel eight A. More rich On
Speaker 1: Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: talking technology at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
Speaker 1: zero one. Give me a call if you have a
Speaker 1: question about technology, you can also email me. Just go
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech dot tv hit contact. Noel wrote
Speaker 1: me and said, if you really flew one hundred and
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand hours between Lax and Newark, that's twenty thousand
Speaker 1: flights at an average of six hours each way. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of flights. Don't get me started on the radiation.
Speaker 1: So my math was a little bit wrong. I looked
Speaker 1: up in my flighty app to see what it actually is,
Speaker 1: and flight time about three hundred and three hours.
Speaker 2: That's one way.
Speaker 1: So if you double that, maybe about six hundred hours
Speaker 1: distance one hundred and forty five thousand miles so times
Speaker 1: two three hundred thousand miles. So yes, I've flown between
Speaker 1: Newark and Los Angeles many times since I moved to
Speaker 1: LA for college. And this Flighty app, now, it's not
Speaker 1: I don't think it's one hundred percent accurate because sometimes
Speaker 1: it loops in like friends and family members flights that
Speaker 1: might they might have emailed me. But again, it's a
Speaker 1: lot and it's a cool app. It's a really neat
Speaker 1: app that will kind of tally up all of your
Speaker 1: flying and it finds even your old flights too, So
Speaker 1: if you want to download it, it's only on iOS,
Speaker 1: but it is called Flighty fli gh t y. It
Speaker 1: is really the best app for flying period. It doesn't
Speaker 1: book your flights, it doesn't do anything like that. It
Speaker 1: just helps you track your flights, get on them on time,
Speaker 1: see your baggages, get heads up on delays before they
Speaker 1: even happen. It is and it's all done in a
Speaker 1: very beautiful way. So check it out. Flighty is the
Speaker 1: is the app f l i g h t Y.
Speaker 1: There is a premium upgrade. If you fly a lot,
Speaker 1: then you might want to look into that. Otherwise you
Speaker 1: can use it for free. Check it out. You won't
Speaker 1: get all of the features for free, but it's still great.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to line. Let's see here. Where
Speaker 1: are we Let's go to himI in Torrance, Line one. himI,
Speaker 1: you're on with.
Speaker 9: Rich Can I call?
Speaker 2: Yeah, welcome to the show. What can I help you with?
Speaker 9: Well, a few months ago you mentioned Q like I
Speaker 9: won't charge your and UH for traveling for travel, but
Speaker 9: I have stated why, and now I need it. I
Speaker 9: was wondering if you have something similar or something better
Speaker 9: or the same ones you can't recommend.
Speaker 1: Well, are you trying to Are you trying to charge iPhones?
Speaker 1: Apple stuff or Android? No?
Speaker 4: Apple?
Speaker 2: Okay, so I think.
Speaker 1: What you're referring to is the Mofi three and one
Speaker 1: travel charger with mag Safe. So it's kind of expensive.
Speaker 1: It's one hundred and fifty dollars. There may be a
Speaker 1: cheaper price available if this was a couple months ago
Speaker 1: that I mentioned it. But what I love about this
Speaker 1: is that it's simple. It charges your iPhone, Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: and AirPods all at the same time. It comes in
Speaker 1: this fabric case. Everything fits in there. It charges the
Speaker 1: iPhone wirelessly at the maximum speed. But it's it's expensive.
Speaker 1: The other ones I mentioned, twelve South has one called Butterfly,
Speaker 1: and this is a two in one charger. So this
Speaker 1: this will charge two items at once. It will charge
Speaker 1: an iPhone in an Apple Watch. It will also charge
Speaker 1: AirPods if you have the wireless charging case, but it
Speaker 1: just won't do them at the same time.
Speaker 2: You can only choose two items to charge it once.
Speaker 9: That one also the first one.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry Mophy M p h I E and so
Speaker 2: I will.
Speaker 1: I will link these up on the website as well,
Speaker 1: so you can go to rich on tech dot tv
Speaker 1: as soon as I'm as soon as I'm done here,
Speaker 1: and I will link them up as well. So the
Speaker 1: other one I mentioned was the twelve South and that
Speaker 1: one is called the Butterfly, and the twelve South Butterfly
Speaker 1: is a two in one charger. That one's one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty dollars and again it will charge those things.
Speaker 1: It will charge everything you need, it just may not
Speaker 1: do three that well, won't do three at the same time.
Speaker 1: That also comes with four wall adapters, so if you
Speaker 1: are traveling internationally, that's kind of nice because those are
Speaker 1: all in the box. Another one I mentioned is the
Speaker 1: STM Goods Charge Tree mag Now, this one's the cheapest
Speaker 1: out of the bunch. It's one hundred dollars and I
Speaker 1: love this thing. It charges all three at once. I
Speaker 1: used to use the old version. This is the new
Speaker 1: version that has mag Safe, which means pretty much all
Speaker 1: the modern iPhones or many of the modern iPhones have
Speaker 1: that magnet ring on the back that will help this
Speaker 1: to charge very easily and line it up properly and
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. But this one folds up. It's
Speaker 1: super compact. Again, it's one hundred dollars, so it's the
Speaker 1: cheapest of the bunch. But the trick here is that
Speaker 1: it does not come with a wall adapter, so that
Speaker 1: is sold separately, or maybe you have one at home.
Speaker 1: You need one that's at least twenty watts to get
Speaker 1: the full charging capacity out of this device. Again, that
Speaker 1: one is called the STM Goods Charge Tree mag and
Speaker 1: that's one hundred dollars and I've been carrying around for
Speaker 1: a while now. I really love this one because it
Speaker 1: solves the problem of I don't need an extra charger
Speaker 1: for my Apple Watch. It's called the Belkan Boost Charge Pro.
Speaker 1: Now it is pricey, it's one hundred dollars, but it's
Speaker 1: a it does a couple of things really well. Number one,
Speaker 1: it's a ten thousand portable battery pack, So that means
Speaker 1: when you're on the go, you can just plug your
Speaker 1: phone into this device and it will charge your phone.
Speaker 1: But it also has a built it's in Apple Watch
Speaker 1: charger on it, so you never need to bring a
Speaker 1: separate cable to charge your Apple Watch. Apple has a
Speaker 1: very proprietary cable for the Apple Watch. It's annoying if
Speaker 1: you travel a lot, you got to bring it everywhere.
Speaker 1: This boost charge pro means you only have to carry
Speaker 1: one device, a portable charger, which by the way, I
Speaker 1: recommend everyone carry anyway, and you also have your Apple
Speaker 1: Watch charger so when I get to my hotel room.
Speaker 1: So when I'm on the plane, I charge my phone
Speaker 1: with the battery bank. Then when I get to a
Speaker 1: hotel room, I charge the battery bank by plugging it in,
Speaker 1: and then I just put my Apple Watch on top.
Speaker 1: So everything gets charged up and it's one less thing
Speaker 1: to carry and it's really really convenient. Again, I will
Speaker 1: link all of these up on the website. Rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV hit the light Bulb. That's where you'll
Speaker 1: find the show notes. This week's show is show number
Speaker 1: seventy seven. So if you want to find links to
Speaker 1: anything I mentioned here, I just said someone email about
Speaker 1: the Times Square app.
Speaker 2: You can find the link on the website as well.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, we're gonna talk to Ryan McLoud,
Speaker 1: creator of the the app called black Box. This is
Speaker 1: a puzzle game for the iPhone that's coming up right
Speaker 1: here on rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: We are talking with winners of Apple's Design Awards at
Speaker 1: WWDC twenty twenty four. This is Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.
Speaker 1: These are the apps and games recognized for their excellence
Speaker 1: in design and technical achievement. Joining me now is Ryan McLoud.
Speaker 1: He has created an app called black Box. This was
Speaker 1: originally available on the iPhone. Now it is on Apple
Speaker 1: Vision Pro. It got the award for Spatial Computing. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining me.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much. This is so cool.
Speaker 2: So explain what the black Box game is?
Speaker 10: Yeah, it depends where you're talking about it. It started
Speaker 10: as a game for iOS collection of over forty now
Speaker 10: over eighty puzzles that don't involve touching the screen and
Speaker 10: has sort of evolved to the Vision Os to be
Speaker 10: this spatial concept of puzzles that kind of enter the
Speaker 10: room and you have to sort of take your curiosity
Speaker 10: and figure out how to solve them.
Speaker 1: So what made you come up with this game? Because
Speaker 1: you said you've been doing it for this came out
Speaker 1: many years ago ocasionally.
Speaker 6: Yeah, over eight years now, okay.
Speaker 1: So what were you doing and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you said, okay, I'm making this game.
Speaker 10: I think there was a long period of getting frustrated
Speaker 10: kind of how it felt to me that people weren't
Speaker 10: taking advantage of the full potential of iPhone iPad and
Speaker 10: using the full context sensor platform that was there. There's
Speaker 10: so much there to kind of understand your world and
Speaker 10: make better experiences based on that, not just something that
Speaker 10: can exist under any slab of multi touch glass, so
Speaker 10: to speak.
Speaker 1: So it's a game that takes advantage of the different
Speaker 1: sensors and things on the iPhone. Explain that a little bit,
Speaker 1: because it's kind of tough to it is. When you
Speaker 1: see it, you understand, but when you're visually representing it,
Speaker 1: it's tough. It's like you might turn your phone on
Speaker 1: its side and that might solve.
Speaker 6: A yeah, exactly.
Speaker 10: It really tries to turn things on its head immediately,
Speaker 10: Like touching the screen is kind of discouraged and sends
Speaker 10: you back to the main menu.
Speaker 6: Right, So it's really.
Speaker 10: The goal is to get people thinking outside the phone
Speaker 10: and in their world. Whether that sends you on a
Speaker 10: hike or sends you looking for a musical instrument, it's
Speaker 10: really all over the place. But to get people thinking
Speaker 10: really critically. There isn't just something that you learn as
Speaker 10: a skill like an arcade game and get good at.
Speaker 10: Once you solve one, the next one is completely different,
Speaker 10: and people are better and worse at different ones. It's
Speaker 10: really interesting. We're all very different in that way.
Speaker 1: How many games did you launch with on the iPhone
Speaker 1: and how many are you up to?
Speaker 10: I think I launched with somewhere around forty two and
Speaker 10: now it's up to eighty one at eight years later.
Speaker 6: Yeah, twelve million players.
Speaker 10: Now it's kind of has a cult viral status. Certain
Speaker 10: people have done a lot of crazy things trying to
Speaker 10: play Black Box.
Speaker 1: So you had this idea in your head, you did it,
Speaker 1: and you had twelve million people play your idea. How
Speaker 1: does that make you feel?
Speaker 6: It's wild?
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's it's I get so many stories constantly from
Speaker 10: people and the places that's taken them, and it's yeah,
Speaker 10: it's just a privilege. It's fun to share something that
Speaker 10: I wanted to play and wanted to exist, and to
Speaker 10: see that touch so many other people that feel the
Speaker 10: same way.
Speaker 1: Who do you think this type of game appeals to.
Speaker 10: A lot of people that play it and love it.
Speaker 10: Tell me they're like, I don't I don't play games,
Speaker 10: but like I love black Box.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 10: It's like, you know, there's nothing wrong with being a game,
Speaker 10: But I think.
Speaker 6: The kind of person who loves.
Speaker 10: Easter eggs and loves surprises and loves kind of is
Speaker 10: curious to check things out and figure out how they
Speaker 10: work and take something apart put it back together, or
Speaker 10: just someone that likes, you know, the kind of art
Speaker 10: that's at a gallery that you want to touch.
Speaker 6: You should be able to touch, but you're not allowed
Speaker 6: to here.
Speaker 10: You know, you can't touch the screen, but try everything else,
Speaker 10: you know, Lock your phone in a box, put it
Speaker 10: under a pillow, go walk outside.
Speaker 1: So you won the award for Spatial Computing. You brought
Speaker 1: this to Apple Vision Pro. Yeah, what made you want
Speaker 1: to bring into Apple Vision Pro and what was the
Speaker 1: new challenge of bringing this type of game to that headset.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I wouldn't even say I brought the game to
Speaker 10: the headset, so to speak. I really stripped the concept
Speaker 10: down back to its essence, not even on a phone,
Speaker 10: and had to grow it back onto this sort of
Speaker 10: thing into your space. It was always an interesting idea
Speaker 10: to have black Box be more physical, I think, but
Speaker 10: there just wasn't the means to do so, so it
Speaker 10: had always been kind of reduced to this two D plane.
Speaker 10: It was really fun once I had tried vision pro
Speaker 10: to think of how would these things exist? And I
Speaker 10: really didn't want it to feel like puzzle Box, or
Speaker 10: like some sort of puzzle creator had locked you in
Speaker 10: a room and you were escaping or something like that.
Speaker 10: Those are fine experiences, but I wanted black Box to
Speaker 10: be a bit more of like this phenomenon, not like
Speaker 10: an alien thing, but kind of this like agnostic.
Speaker 6: Kind of blob something.
Speaker 10: It's not really clear if there's any person involved, so
Speaker 10: to speak, and this was the perfect way to do
Speaker 10: it once I figured out how we could pull off
Speaker 10: the visuals and call together the friends and team to
Speaker 10: make it happen.
Speaker 1: So briefly, explain what the game is like Inside Vision Pro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you showed me a little bit earlier. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like there's bubbles, there's all kinds of stuff going on.
Speaker 1: It's like very mysterious.
Speaker 6: Lots of bubbles.
Speaker 10: I like if you've played Black Box on iOS, you
Speaker 10: know there's very little language. I try to get away
Speaker 10: from words as quickly as possible. It's the same here.
Speaker 10: Starts with kind of this mysterious splash screen. You click
Speaker 10: away from that, and then bubbles come in all around
Speaker 10: the room and that gets you away from any sort
Speaker 10: of menu or this concept that the puzzle is only
Speaker 10: in one place, which I think is great because as
Speaker 10: you look in over your shoulder a little bit to
Speaker 10: see if there's more. These bubbles work if you're in
Speaker 10: a living room or an office, or you're outside and
Speaker 10: they just kind of float there waiting for you, and
Speaker 10: they sort of I.
Speaker 6: Think bubbles just beckon interactivity.
Speaker 10: You want to catch them or poke them, and as
Speaker 10: soon as you do that, you're kind of rewarded. And
Speaker 10: it might just pop if it's empty, but if it's
Speaker 10: a colored bubble that contains a puzzle, then popping it
Speaker 10: will cause it to kind of, yeah, wiggle into the
Speaker 10: room and become its thing, start responding to you somehow,
Speaker 10: or you can do that bubble gesture with your hands
Speaker 10: and put it back and choose a new one.
Speaker 1: Now, this idea of augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality
Speaker 1: is still very new for a lot of people. You
Speaker 1: have developed a game for one of the most cutting
Speaker 1: edge headsets out there. What do you make of this
Speaker 1: emerging technology? Do you think it's going to be a
Speaker 1: force in our world?
Speaker 10: Definitely, it's a long road, I think, and it's really
Speaker 10: fun to be a part of the very beginning of
Speaker 10: it how it will evolve. This is just such a
Speaker 10: great platform to get to experiment with on I think
Speaker 10: I was always interested in doing this sort of stuff,
Speaker 10: but the technology just didn't exist, at least in forms
Speaker 10: that I felt I could approach, and I didn't know
Speaker 10: how to do any of this a little over a
Speaker 10: year ago. So it's been fun to have the tools
Speaker 10: to sort of build these weird, wacky dreams and then
Speaker 10: take off the headset and be confused that that thing.
Speaker 6: That you made is not there in the room with you.
Speaker 2: Do you get a lot of feedback?
Speaker 1: Are like people emailing you like every day, like asking
Speaker 1: like for help on this game?
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, And what do you do?
Speaker 1: You can't reply to all that, can you try?
Speaker 6: I try.
Speaker 10: I think when I was a kid, I had emailed
Speaker 10: some game doves and when they replied it was I
Speaker 10: remember all those So I try to reply to all
Speaker 10: those emails, even if I'm really coy about it and
Speaker 10: won't give an answer, and just you know, a wink,
Speaker 10: and well.
Speaker 6: You should try a little looking at a different place.
Speaker 1: You know, keep playing, keep playing. So what's your advice
Speaker 1: for aspiring developers? People always come to me, they say, Rich,
Speaker 1: I have an idea for an app. Is it tough
Speaker 1: to do this? You did it on your own. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like there's enough tools out there and resources
Speaker 1: to be able to for the average person to figure
Speaker 1: this out?
Speaker 10: Yeah, there's I don't think there's ever been more resources
Speaker 10: and better time to get started with it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 10: I'm jealous of people learning now that don't have to
Speaker 10: deal with some of the sort of things that I
Speaker 10: did coming into this field many, many years ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 10: I think just paying attention to what people find they
Speaker 10: like in other apps, and what experiences work really well
Speaker 10: and what is intriguing to them, and really keeping track
Speaker 10: of that and chasing that sort of how I developed
Speaker 10: my sense of what I wanted to create and add
Speaker 10: more too.
Speaker 1: All Right, the app is called black Box. It's available
Speaker 1: on the iPhone. Is it on? And then of course
Speaker 1: Apple Vision pro so search for it, download it and
Speaker 1: enter this world of mystery and see if you can
Speaker 1: solve some of these puzzles.
Speaker 2: Ryan McCloud, thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much. Yeah, keep thinking outside of the bucks.
Speaker 1: I'll put a link to the game on the website.
Speaker 1: Richon Tech dot TV more rich on Tech coming your
Speaker 1: way right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here talking technology with you. Bad week for
Speaker 1: social media and teens. A lot of legislation to kind
Speaker 1: of curb the use also help teens be on their
Speaker 1: cell phones less. So let me talk about three different
Speaker 1: things that happen. One in LA, one in New York,
Speaker 1: and then one from the Surgeon General. Let's start with
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. LA Unified School District wants to vote on
Speaker 1: a proposal for student cell phone ban during school hours.
Speaker 1: This aims to improve learning, reduce bullying, distraction, and anxiety.
Speaker 1: If past staff would develop policies within one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty days, including input from experts, staff, students, and parents.
Speaker 1: Some of the ideas they're running by including cell phone lockers,
Speaker 1: cell phone pouches, or even just technology to block social
Speaker 1: media access. If this policy was approved, it would take
Speaker 1: effect in January of twenty twenty five. While it sounds
Speaker 1: like it's a good idea, not everyone is happy about it.
Speaker 1: Parents are concerned about safety and communication with their kids
Speaker 1: because if their kids didn't have access to their smartphones
Speaker 1: all day, a lot of parents use them to get
Speaker 1: in touch and also track where they are. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 1: New York, they actually enacted enacted a law to protect
Speaker 1: minors from social media. Governor Hokul signed a bill targeting
Speaker 1: addictive feeds and data collection. So two things they did.
Speaker 1: Two bills signed into law on June twentieth, the Stop
Speaker 1: Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Acts Safe Act and then
Speaker 1: the New York Child Data Protection Act. So the Safe
Speaker 1: for Kids Act requires parental consent for social media companies
Speaker 1: to use quote addictive feeds. So already you can see
Speaker 1: they turbocharge what they call these things. They're going to
Speaker 1: need user parent consent on users under eighteen. It would
Speaker 1: also prohibit notifications to minors between midnight and six am
Speaker 1: without parental consent, and this would take effect one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty days after they figure out how to age
Speaker 1: verify kids on these apps. A lot of kids just
Speaker 1: lie about their aide, so clearly that will not work.
Speaker 1: Violators would face fines of five thousand dollars per infraction.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the Child Data Protection Act. This limits
Speaker 1: data collection on miners without consent, restricts the sale of
Speaker 1: miners information. This one does not require age verification. It
Speaker 1: will take effect in one year. So a lot of
Speaker 1: states looking at these different laws to protect miners from
Speaker 1: social media because if left on checked, kids would be
Speaker 1: on their phone unlimited amounts of time, unlimited amounts of time.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The Surgeon General meanwhile, did an op ed piece arguing
Speaker 1: that we need urgent action to protect the youth's mental
Speaker 1: health from social media risks.
Speaker 2: Vivic H.
Speaker 1: Murphy says adolescents spend over three hours a day on
Speaker 1: social media. If they do, they face double the risk
Speaker 1: of anxiety and depression. Average social media use for adolescents
Speaker 1: was four point eight hours as of last summer. Half
Speaker 1: of adolescents say social media negatively impacts their body image,
Speaker 1: and he is proposing a Surgeon General's warning on social
Speaker 1: media platform similar to what they did for cigarettes and
Speaker 1: other things. Of course, all of this is debatable. I
Speaker 1: think that some kids are very healthy with their social
Speaker 1: media use, others are greatly impacted, and then you have
Speaker 1: the majority that are probably in between. But I think
Speaker 1: what we're seeing here is that left unchecked, these social
Speaker 1: media platforms would of course take advantage of these impressionable
Speaker 1: youth and the fact that we're all on our phones.
Speaker 1: It's not just the young kids that are on their
Speaker 1: phones all the time. It's just that they're not maybe
Speaker 1: as evolved in their brains as an adult to be
Speaker 1: able to figure out when to say enough is enough,
Speaker 1: just like anything else.
Speaker 2: Uh, we'll continue to watch those.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the phone lines triple eight Rich
Speaker 1: one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four to one zero one. Let's go to line three,
Speaker 1: Ron in Laguna Noguel, California. Ron, you are on with
Speaker 1: rich Welcome to the show.
Speaker 11: Hey, hey you're rich Man. Prosperable information each week. Thanks
Speaker 11: so much for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Of course, question my question. There are companies out there
Speaker 11: that offer up services to delete your name from well
Speaker 11: being and Google searches. And I know we can do
Speaker 11: it manually, and thanks for your education that way. But
Speaker 11: are these things useful?
Speaker 2: Do they work?
Speaker 11: I mean they say they're on an online basis up
Speaker 11: per month where they monitor it. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2: Well, my thought is this Number one. Do they work? Yeah,
Speaker 2: they might work for some of them.
Speaker 1: I've been testing one called Mozilla Monitor to see just
Speaker 1: how well these work. And so according to that, this
Speaker 1: has auto removed two hundred and nineteen pieces of my
Speaker 1: information from the web, including my physical address one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty four times, family members names ninety three times,
Speaker 1: phone numbers thirteen times. So yes, they do work. But
Speaker 1: here is We talked to an expert on this very
Speaker 1: show a couple of weeks ago about this, and I
Speaker 1: asked him that question because he's all about your information
Speaker 1: on the web, mostly when it comes to the dark web,
Speaker 1: you know, the really bad stuff. So let's let's put
Speaker 1: it this way. Number one, most of the information out
Speaker 1: there is your phone number, your address, if they get
Speaker 1: that right. All of that stuff is on public records.
Speaker 1: That's how these companies get it. They put it out
Speaker 1: there and someone searches for you and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it says, hey, we've got Rich's address. Do you want
Speaker 1: to you know, want to see it? And by the way,
Speaker 1: it takes an hour to get to the final page
Speaker 1: that shows you the actual address, if it shows you
Speaker 1: that at all. So the information is out there. Number one,
Speaker 1: Do you need to take it down? That's number two.
Speaker 1: That's a personal preference. I think if you want your privacy,
Speaker 1: it's a game of whack a mole. You can take
Speaker 1: this stuff down, like I took two hundred and thirty down.
Speaker 1: That does not mean that it's all gone, but I
Speaker 1: would say you might want to get it down from
Speaker 1: some of the key places. And I did this myself
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. I went to a website
Speaker 1: I think it was just delete me. What was it,
Speaker 1: delete me, delete me DIY. So delete me is one
Speaker 1: of these companies that will will do this for you.
Speaker 1: But they also have opt out guides on their website
Speaker 1: that you can follow for some of these popular websites,
Speaker 1: so you can get your information off of you know,
Speaker 1: truth Finder and Spokeo and background checks and all these
Speaker 1: different things. So I did that myself. It takes a
Speaker 1: lot of time. It's annoying, but it did work. The thesis
Speaker 1: that the expert I talked to was that this information
Speaker 1: is not the most useful information. You know, your phone number,
Speaker 1: your email, your you know, your your physical address. It's
Speaker 1: really the dark web information that you should be concerned
Speaker 1: about the most. And that's your user name, that's your password,
Speaker 1: that's your date of birth, that's your email address, that
Speaker 1: is your password for your different websites, your social Security number.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff that is much much harder to get
Speaker 1: taken down off the web because it's up there by
Speaker 1: you know, companies that are not operating in in a
Speaker 1: you know, reputable area, more of a gray area that
Speaker 1: they're operating in, or the dark web in general. So
Speaker 1: with all of that said, do I think you should
Speaker 1: pay for one of these things. It's up to you
Speaker 1: to do you want to pay for it, go ahead
Speaker 1: if if you want to try it out and see
Speaker 1: what information you can have taken down, try it. But
Speaker 1: most of them wants you to do it on a
Speaker 1: yearly basis or a monthly basis, where they just keep
Speaker 1: charging you to get this information down. But again it's
Speaker 1: a game of whack a mole. So new information just
Speaker 1: pops up every single day, so you'd be doing this forever,
Speaker 1: you'd be paying them forever, which obviously is the business
Speaker 1: model that everyone really likes. Now, the one thing that
Speaker 1: I do recommend that I think is incredible and it
Speaker 1: is free, is Google Results about you. And this is
Speaker 1: completely free. You go in, and I think this is
Speaker 1: the more important way to do it. You basically put
Speaker 1: in the information that you don't want on Google search results.
Speaker 1: Every time Google finds that information in a search result,
Speaker 1: it will give you an email and a notification and
Speaker 1: will give you the opportunity to take that information off
Speaker 1: of Google search results. When I say that, that's the
Speaker 1: only thing it takes it off of, but think about it.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine percent of people just go to Google, they
Speaker 1: search your name, they look in those results for your information.
Speaker 1: So if the result isn't there, they're probably not going
Speaker 1: to go to Spokio or all these other websites that
Speaker 1: actually have the data. So it's like a good first
Speaker 1: line of defense and it's completely free.
Speaker 2: I use it.
Speaker 1: I get notifications on a daily basis. Google takes down
Speaker 1: that result very quickly and it's gone out of Google,
Speaker 1: and it's just a nice easy freeway to get your
Speaker 1: information removed once again.
Speaker 2: It is called Google Results about you.
Speaker 1: I'll put the link on my website rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot TV.
Speaker 2: Hit the light bulb coming up.
Speaker 1: We've got a special guest plus much more of the
Speaker 1: show right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology. The website for the show rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. There you can find my newsletter. You can
Speaker 1: find me on on social media. I am at rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. You can email the show by hitting contact,
Speaker 1: or just kind of look at the different stories I
Speaker 1: do for KTLA and my TV segments, or listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast of the radio show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me. Glad you're here.
Speaker 1: I've actually have a special guest with me. I am
Speaker 1: broadcasting live for my parents' basement in New Jersey, no joke,
Speaker 1: that's actually where I am. My dad set up the studio.
Speaker 1: He was so excited to hang the blankets for the
Speaker 1: noise cancelation and run the cables on the floor. He
Speaker 1: said he felt like a real Hollywood gaffer. So thank
Speaker 1: you Dad for doing that. My brother, though, joins me,
Speaker 1: he did not do anything except join me here.
Speaker 2: To talk technology. Justin DeMuro, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on. Oh wait, hang on, let
Speaker 1: me get your I gotta actually turn on your mic.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, say that again. Justin DeMuro, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Okay, there you are. Okay, So I think we have
Speaker 1: a little bit more so Justin is just as much
Speaker 1: into technology as I am. We are going to be
Speaker 1: talking about all of the good stuff that we love
Speaker 1: to talk about offline here on the show in just
Speaker 1: a moment. First, I just wanted to get through a
Speaker 1: couple of notable news pieces this week. So number one,
Speaker 1: California rejected AT and t's bid to end their landline obligations.
Speaker 2: This is according to Ours Technica.
Speaker 1: The California Public Utilities Commission rejected AT and t's request
Speaker 1: to end its carrier of last result obligation last resort
Speaker 1: That means that they were required to keep land lines
Speaker 1: up and running in.
Speaker 2: These various rural areas.
Speaker 1: And they debated with the CPUC saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: come on, people have ways of making calls here, and
Speaker 1: they said no, they don't. So, according to the CPUC,
Speaker 1: AT and T failed to demonstrate the availability of suitable
Speaker 1: replacement providers for the service, and the Commission clarified that,
Speaker 1: by the way, these rules are technology neutral. They don't
Speaker 1: prevent AT and T from upgrading these areas to fiber.
Speaker 1: So what is AT and T gonna do? They're gonna
Speaker 1: lay fiber everywhere?
Speaker 2: Just kidding.
Speaker 1: No, They're now focusing on lobbying to change the state
Speaker 1: law so that they can support legislation that allow it
Speaker 1: to remain the Cohler in rural regions but being released
Speaker 1: from obligations elsewhere. So if you got a landline, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to keep it and pay those high
Speaker 1: prices for a little bit longer. Amazon eliminating plastic air
Speaker 1: pillows in North American shipments, so you know, you get
Speaker 1: those little plastic like air pillow thingies and your shipments,
Speaker 1: they're replacing them with recycled paper. Companies already removed ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of plastic cushions. They aim to eliminate the
Speaker 1: rest by the end of this year twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Amazon plans to replace its plastic mailers with paper sleeves.
Speaker 2: In the coming months.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I'm actually getting things
Speaker 1: delivered to my house that are much more like just
Speaker 1: in the box or just in like almost like a
Speaker 1: clear plastic wrapping, like you can see what's inside. By
Speaker 1: the way, if you want to reach a person quickly,
Speaker 1: like a real person at Amazon Customer Service quickly, life
Speaker 1: Hacker has the way, you can bypass all of their
Speaker 1: automated systems and speak directly with an Amazon representative. All
Speaker 1: you have to do is visit Amazon's contact us page,
Speaker 1: select something else, choose I need more help, and in
Speaker 1: the customer service chat that pops up, type in request
Speaker 1: a phone call, and then select Okay, I'll enter my
Speaker 1: phone number. They will call you. And yes, I've done
Speaker 1: this before. They do actually have real people that will
Speaker 1: call you. My advice is this, do not google search
Speaker 1: an Amazon customer service phone number. You will get scammed.
Speaker 1: Whatever the result you see may or may not be
Speaker 1: a real phone number, So be very careful with any company,
Speaker 1: not just Amazon. But if you're googling for a phone number,
Speaker 1: make sure that phone number is originating from the official
Speaker 1: web page and not some random thing that pops up
Speaker 1: and you call it. And before we get to my brother,
Speaker 1: let me just mention this. A Tesla battery died in
Speaker 1: Arizona and a toddler was inside and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, the car was hot. And so the takeaway
Speaker 1: from this adults might know how to use the manual
Speaker 1: door releases inside these cars, but younger people cannot. So
Speaker 1: this Tesla lost power. It trapped a twenty month through
Speaker 1: twenty month toddler inside the hot car. Firefighters had to
Speaker 1: break the car's window to rescue the child. Again, all
Speaker 1: of these cars had these electronic door releases, and people
Speaker 1: are unaware that there is a manual release mechanism. So
Speaker 1: if you have an electric car and you've got these
Speaker 1: doors that are electronic, figure out where the mechanical release
Speaker 1: is and make sure you tell anyone who's in the
Speaker 1: car with you where those releases are, because you never
Speaker 1: know when you're gonna need them.
Speaker 2: Now, this is not just a Tesla problem.
Speaker 1: A lot of these new fangled cars are using these
Speaker 1: push button doors and all these electronic doors, so know
Speaker 1: where they are. In fact, when I was at the
Speaker 1: Chicago Auto Show, I asked the Tesla rep because I
Speaker 1: was in the car, and I said, Hey, how do
Speaker 1: I open this car if I'm like falling into a lake?
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm like the car is like falling
Speaker 1: into water, Like, how would I open this door?
Speaker 2: Because it's all electronic, isn't it gonna short circuit?
Speaker 1: And they said, yeah, there's a little pull latch on
Speaker 1: the door, so familiarize yourself with where it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so welcome to the show. Justin Demiro.
Speaker 1: This is my brother, and Justin's a tech person as well.
Speaker 1: So why your love of technology? Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: actually comes from you. You always had the computers growing up,
Speaker 1: and I just started tinkering around with them and just
Speaker 1: grew up loving them as well, playing video games and
Speaker 1: getting into coding and eventually went to school for it.
Speaker 1: So I've always loved technology. So you're much nerdier than
Speaker 1: you're like, you're much more into tech. It's funny I
Speaker 1: do a tech radio show in a TV segment, but
Speaker 1: you're actually nerdier, probably smarter, and know more about this
Speaker 1: stuff in your house. Like he's got his whole house
Speaker 1: set up with like all these Google like routines and
Speaker 1: they all have like the nerdiest names, like don't you say,
Speaker 1: like okay computer and all this weird stuff. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: give I give all of my smart devices cute little
Speaker 1: names like like bed you and Jamo and Fie, they're
Speaker 1: all just I got tired of saying living room lights.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, see that's nerdy. I love it.
Speaker 1: And you're also an Android guy, So what makes you
Speaker 1: keep Android all these years? When the you know that
Speaker 1: that rush of that wave of iPhone, like everyone is like, hey,
Speaker 1: share that picture, air drop it to me, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I can't, Like, what makes you still stick to Android?
Speaker 1: What do you love about it? That's the worst I've
Speaker 1: I've lost so many dates because of that.
Speaker 2: No Android, I mean.
Speaker 1: It's just it's so flexible. I've I've never been able
Speaker 1: to not do what I need to do other than
Speaker 1: synergize with other iPhone users. So it's it just does
Speaker 1: everything I need to do. There's I know, back when
Speaker 1: they first came out, iPhone had the advantage and they
Speaker 1: had all the apps, and you go look on Android,
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, we don't have an app or it's
Speaker 1: like some weird, like shady app that like is definitely
Speaker 1: not is like a virus or something. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they've polished up over the years. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: a pixel and it's great. I mean it does everything
Speaker 1: I needed to do. It's got great battery life. The
Speaker 1: pictures aren't incredible. It just does everything I need to do,
Speaker 1: and it's out of my way. I've used iPhones before,
Speaker 1: and I'm not really a fan personally, but you know,
Speaker 1: to each his own, they get to they get the
Speaker 1: job done.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk about this story.
Speaker 1: So I lent my my knowledge to this KTLA story
Speaker 1: on the vinyl revival, a resurgence of analog and a
Speaker 1: digital age. So vinyl record sales continue to climb, which
Speaker 1: makes no sense in today's streaming world. But I said,
Speaker 1: it does kind of make sense. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: number one, people want their ownership and control over music, right,
Speaker 1: you don't get that with streaming. That's not a huge reason,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of you know, it's one of them.
Speaker 1: The tangible, collectible nature of vinyl records I think people
Speaker 1: really like, and the nostalgia factor and sensory experience is
Speaker 1: also I think what people really like. Plus it's simple
Speaker 1: and you can focus on it. Now. I went to
Speaker 1: your house this weekend. You have a record player, and
Speaker 1: I was impressed by that. So what do you like
Speaker 1: about the record player? Why do you have one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we actually use it. It's not just there for show.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I bought it for my girlfriend for I don't know,
Speaker 1: some some gift at some point, and you know, because
Speaker 1: she has a collection of records, but I wanted her
Speaker 1: to actually play them and I thought it would be cool,
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize I would like it as much
Speaker 1: as I do. I mean, most of the time you
Speaker 1: want to play music, you go on your phone, you
Speaker 1: open up Spotify or a music streaming app, and you
Speaker 1: just hit play and then it plays forever. With this,
Speaker 1: it's it's a bit more of a a conscious experience.
Speaker 1: You're you're selecting the music. Like when we go to
Speaker 1: play a record, we're talking to each other and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you want to play? We have this pile
Speaker 1: of records that mostly that we stole from my parents' house,
Speaker 1: so they're records. Yeah, but we also have new records.
Speaker 1: I mean she has several Taylor Swift albums. I just
Speaker 1: bought two records the other day from a concert that
Speaker 1: I went to, and it's great playing them. I mean
Speaker 1: you get that tactle experience with it. I will say,
Speaker 1: something you don't realize is how short a record is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like what twenty minutes aside or forty minutes aside
Speaker 1: forty five that yeah, yeah, it's only it's like it's
Speaker 1: maybe like ten songs max. And that goes by quickly,
Speaker 1: you don't even realize it. But again, that goes back
Speaker 1: to what you were saying about that kind of like
Speaker 1: you're you're focused on it, like it's you understand, Like
Speaker 1: you know, you play music on a streaming service.
Speaker 2: It just plays forever and ever and ever.
Speaker 1: You can just leave it on for the entire weekend
Speaker 1: and never and you one might not even know a
Speaker 1: song that plays in the background. Sure with the record
Speaker 1: you're placing it there. So I asked my Facebook page
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash rich on tech what they like
Speaker 1: about records. The commenters came in Number one, nostalgia and tangibility.
Speaker 2: That's what people like. Number one.
Speaker 1: Number two sound quality, you know, they like they think
Speaker 1: it's superior compared to digital formats, which may or may
Speaker 1: not be true. It may just sound richer. Perhaps, I
Speaker 1: guess the convenience of streaming. People do like that.
Speaker 2: They do acknowledge the fact that streaming is more convenient.
Speaker 1: For sure. Sure, coexistence people say, hey, look, both of
Speaker 1: these things can exist at the same time, and you're
Speaker 1: you're saying that as well.
Speaker 2: Generational differences.
Speaker 1: People say older listeners, the older listeners say they preferred vinyl,
Speaker 1: the younger listeners say they're exploring the formats you've got,
Speaker 1: you know, one two there. Some people said that there's
Speaker 1: concerns about vinyls, you know, longevity when it comes to
Speaker 1: like how fragile the records are. Have you scratched one?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm playing records that our parents had from
Speaker 1: they're probably from the seventies, and they still work. You know,
Speaker 1: you might get a couple of skips here and there,
Speaker 1: but that's part of the charm of the medium. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't think about music skipping these days at all,
Speaker 1: but that used to be a very real thing that
Speaker 1: we had to deal with, Like just CD players, remember
Speaker 1: they had to the anti shock feature on portable on
Speaker 1: like Walkman's Yeah, and that never worked, never worked. No,
Speaker 1: it was always skipping. I remember running with a with
Speaker 1: a Walkman and it was just it just was not
Speaker 1: a perfect thing. All right, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 1: You're talking, and you're hearing from me Rich Demiro and
Speaker 1: my brother Justin DeMuro. We are talking technology. We're going
Speaker 1: to answer some emails that we got. Plus we've got
Speaker 1: an interview with the co founder of text Now and
Speaker 1: later on. It's the feedback Everyone's favorite. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: If you need a link to something I mentioned, hit
Speaker 1: the light bulb. If you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with the show, just hit contact. Sitting here with my brother,
Speaker 1: Justin DeMuro, Justin, Welcome.
Speaker 2: To the show once again.
Speaker 1: Thanks again. So we have a bunch of emails that
Speaker 1: you have sent in and we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of these. So go ahead with the first email. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we got one from Al from New Mexico rights in.
Speaker 1: Is there a reason that you rarely speak about open
Speaker 1: source Linux in general? We all report would frequently talk
Speaker 1: about its benefits. I'm currently retired and live in a
Speaker 1: community with other retired folks, some of whom I've converted
Speaker 1: to Linux. Though not an expert, I have about twenty
Speaker 1: years experience with telemetry and other security and privacy issues
Speaker 1: that plague both Windows and Apple. I believe open source
Speaker 1: is the better option. Unless one must use specific software
Speaker 1: for certain business applications. Your thoughts, uh, well, I will
Speaker 1: tell you my thoughts and I'll talk. I'll defer to
Speaker 1: you because I know you're much more linuxy than I am.
Speaker 1: So my thought is that this show is for the
Speaker 1: average person. And in my twenty plus years of experience
Speaker 1: covering technology, I don't know if it's been that long,
Speaker 1: maybe it's been a little bit less. Maybe well being
Speaker 1: in technology obviously, I've used technology myself, so I'm aware
Speaker 1: of it. I understand it to a certain extent, but
Speaker 1: it's just not what I'm seeing the average person using,
Speaker 1: nor am I pushing it to the average person. Now
Speaker 1: when it comes to open source and my big thing,
Speaker 1: I do love open source stuff. I think it's open
Speaker 1: source software is incredible. I think third party software is incredible,
Speaker 1: like software that runs on all platforms.
Speaker 2: So if you listen to this show, you know I.
Speaker 1: Give Apple a hard time because Apple stuff is great,
Speaker 1: but it's very much proprietary to Apple, and most other
Speaker 1: tech companies in the world are working to unite the
Speaker 1: world with software that works everywhere, and you know, the
Speaker 1: Internet itself. If you think, can you imagine if you
Speaker 1: went on a website that just didn't work on a
Speaker 1: computer because it wasn't you know, a certain type of computer.
Speaker 1: Or you plugged in a phone to an old school
Speaker 1: like you know, Jack and it just didn't work because
Speaker 1: it wasn't the right kind of phone, you know. So
Speaker 1: that's the kind of stuff that I do understand. But
Speaker 1: I don't think the average person to me is looking
Speaker 1: to use Linux or adopt it in a big way.
Speaker 1: I have nothing against it, justin what do you say? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have used Linux a lot. I use it professionally.
Speaker 1: Linux as a desktop, which is sounds like what you're
Speaker 1: talking about is is a thing, right. I Mean, there's
Speaker 1: Ubuntu and Linux Mint, and they have they have really
Speaker 1: user friendly interfaces and they're completely free, but there is
Speaker 1: still a level of technical aptitude that you need in
Speaker 1: order to run these even though they're they're very user friendly,
Speaker 1: So which is great. I mean, that's that's what I
Speaker 1: started using years ago when I was working at a
Speaker 1: web design place. Uh. They they got me working on Linux,
Speaker 1: and I just I was like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: going full in. I uninstalled Windows from my laptop and
Speaker 1: I installed Ubuntu and I didn't stop configuring it for
Speaker 1: the entire time I worked there, and that's the fun
Speaker 1: of it. That is the fun of it. Sure, it
Speaker 1: kind of like reminds you of Android. When I was
Speaker 1: putting like ROMs on my phone, It's like I was
Speaker 1: ever happy with it. I just kept like tweaking and
Speaker 1: tweaking and tweaking. And I think that's what people like
Speaker 1: about the Apple side of things, is that you don't
Speaker 1: have to think about that stuff like Apple thinks about
Speaker 1: it all for you. So I think that there's a
Speaker 1: world that exists where these things can work and they
Speaker 1: can happen. But like at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: my show, what I do on TV, what I do
Speaker 1: on the radio is trying to reach an average person
Speaker 1: of average aptitude, that is just trying to get things
Speaker 1: at work. And if it doesn't, you know, they're gonna
Speaker 1: come emailing me more.
Speaker 2: So thank you. Next question. Let's go to the next question.
Speaker 1: Sure. So we have Kim from Kay Smith Interiors and
Speaker 1: she writes in saying, Hi, Rich, love your show. I'm
Speaker 1: writing on behalf of my boss. At the end of
Speaker 1: most jobs we have professional photography done. Some are posted
Speaker 1: on How's Yeah that's how website. I've stumbled upon that site.
Speaker 1: Before this week we found a photo of our client's
Speaker 1: entry on Amazon. They're selling several chandeliers using our clients
Speaker 1: entryway photo with different light fixtures photoshopped in how do
Speaker 1: we have Do we have any recourse here? Given this
Speaker 1: exact photo was on How's Thank You in advance? Good question,
Speaker 1: of course, this is the web. People take stuff all
Speaker 1: the time. It is tough. We're seeing this with AI
Speaker 1: where it's just grabbing, you know, photos on the web
Speaker 1: and using it to regurgitate new photos. So I think
Speaker 1: it's again a game of whack a mole, like I
Speaker 1: mentioned with the data stuff. But it is Amazon. It
Speaker 1: is a company that's selling stuff, and nobody should be
Speaker 1: taking your photo without your permission. So if you look
Speaker 1: on an Amazon product listing, there is a tiny link
Speaker 1: that says report an issue with this product or seller.
Speaker 1: Use the control F on your computer find report this
Speaker 1: reporting issue, click that link and then say, hey, look
Speaker 1: this is my picture. Why is this listing using my picture?
Speaker 1: And it's probably some third party listing that's just you know,
Speaker 1: grabbing stuff off the web and using it. So that's
Speaker 1: the best you can do. But yeah, if you put
Speaker 1: it on the web, chances are someone's going to steal
Speaker 1: it and use it for their own good Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think I think I'll come up against the break
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, like ten seconds.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Something else that might help is adding a water mark.
Speaker 1: So add a watermark to your images to help track
Speaker 1: them down a little bit.
Speaker 2: All right, good advice.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, we're going to talk to you
Speaker 1: Derek Ting, co founder and CEO of text Now. This
Speaker 1: is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Joining
Speaker 1: me now, Derek Ting, CEO and co founder of text Now.
Speaker 2: Derek, thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 12: Thanks for having me Rich.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm very excited to talk to you because text
Speaker 1: now has a new free Essential Data plan which lets
Speaker 1: you get free essential data on your smartphone. But first,
Speaker 1: before we get to that, just explain to me what
Speaker 1: text now is all about.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 12: Text now is about free phone service through an app.
Speaker 12: So we created a free phone service where you can
Speaker 12: go to the app store, Play Store, search for text Now,
Speaker 12: you down or app and in a few simple steps
Speaker 12: you get a free phone line that's ad supported, and
Speaker 12: then if you pay five dollars for a SIM card,
Speaker 12: we ship a sim car to your door, and then
Speaker 12: the app will also work without Wi Fi and get
Speaker 12: nationwide five D coverage.
Speaker 2: It's like two levels.
Speaker 1: The first is you could just download the app, get
Speaker 1: a free phone number, text with friends and family, make
Speaker 1: phone calls. Or you can pay that five dollars to
Speaker 1: get a physical sim that you can put in your
Speaker 1: phone and actually kind of unlock some more features, which
Speaker 1: is free calling and texting and also some other stuff,
Speaker 1: but through you know, a five G network like a
Speaker 1: regular cellular plan, but minus the monthly fee exactly exactly.
Speaker 12: And then our goal isn't to just be another app
Speaker 12: on your phone, like our goal is to help people
Speaker 12: cut the cord from their expensive wireless carrier and not
Speaker 12: have to pay high monthly phone bills. That's where that's
Speaker 12: the aim of our service.
Speaker 2: So how'd you come up with this? What made you
Speaker 2: create text Now?
Speaker 6: It started when we.
Speaker 5: Were in college.
Speaker 12: I got tired of paying AT and T twenty bucks
Speaker 12: a month for calling, twenty bucks a month for data,
Speaker 12: and then another twenty bucks a month for texting. So
Speaker 12: actually started from a pet project in college where we
Speaker 12: want to make an app to make texting free. We
Speaker 12: didn't want to pay for texting, and then what we
Speaker 12: realized was a lot of people use their app not
Speaker 12: just to make texting free, but they were actually using
Speaker 12: our app instead of paying for phone service. So then
Speaker 12: that got us obsessed with the idea of how can
Speaker 12: we figure out how to make phone service free? And
Speaker 12: then it's snowball from there and so ever since then
Speaker 12: we've made texting free, but we also figure out how
Speaker 12: to make calling free, and then now we've made a
Speaker 12: free data plan.
Speaker 1: What's the catch, you say, ad supported, What does that
Speaker 1: mean exactly?
Speaker 12: Yeah, so there's no catch, but it's a little different
Speaker 12: from the traditional wireless plan model. So we are phone
Speaker 12: service through an app. So think of us as any
Speaker 12: other free internet service that you use, like Facebook or
Speaker 12: Spotify or YouTube where you see some ads in the app.
Speaker 12: So we deliver phone service through an apps instead of
Speaker 12: going to a phone store and waiting for an hour
Speaker 12: for them to get your phone working. We're phone service
Speaker 12: through an app. So you download our app and then
Speaker 12: you get phone service from the app. What that means
Speaker 12: is you text through app, you call through her app,
Speaker 12: and then while you do that, there are some ads
Speaker 12: in the experience, but they're not intrusive. At all, and
Speaker 12: then we get advertisers to sponsor the free service and
Speaker 12: that helps people save money.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about this new plan.
Speaker 1: This is free essential data, and so can you explain
Speaker 1: what that plan is? So you get the simcard for
Speaker 1: your phone. I've tried this. I popped it into my phone,
Speaker 1: download the app. It finds a five G signal, and
Speaker 1: of course you can make your calls, you can do
Speaker 1: the text just like you could regularly. But now you're
Speaker 1: also adding some free data into the mix that you
Speaker 1: can use for certain apps.
Speaker 2: Explain that part.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 12: The idea is that we want to give people maximum
Speaker 12: flexibility and more ways for them to save money from
Speaker 12: their phone bill. And then so we identified these apps
Speaker 12: that people use a lot that we can afford to
Speaker 12: give for free. So then we create a free data
Speaker 12: plan where you could just use the essential apps and
Speaker 12: it's free. So it's email, it's maps, it's transportation. We're
Speaker 12: able to figure out how to make those apps like
Speaker 12: free and like a free data plan, so then we
Speaker 12: so then when you can't pay, you still have these
Speaker 12: apps you can use when you're on the go, and
Speaker 12: then when you can pay, you can upgrade to the
Speaker 12: full data plan. But the idea is you don't have
Speaker 12: to pay for what you don't need. And also if
Speaker 12: you are in a tight financial situation, you still have
Speaker 12: phone service. It's reliable and you can access all the
Speaker 12: essential things you need to get access to.
Speaker 1: So if I'm paying, if I paid that five dollars
Speaker 1: to get the simcard, I would have access to free calling,
Speaker 1: free texting. I could also check my email wherever I am.
Speaker 1: I could check Google Maps wherever I am. I could
Speaker 1: get an uber if I needed it, or you know,
Speaker 1: and those are just example apps. You do have various
Speaker 1: apps in those categories like you mentioned. And then of
Speaker 1: course I can connect to Wi Fi to get data,
Speaker 1: you know, if I'm out and about. But you also
Speaker 1: have these kind of data one off plans where you
Speaker 1: can get data for an hour, you can get data
Speaker 1: for a day, you can get data for a month.
Speaker 12: What we do know what's common with most people is
Speaker 12: there and Wi Fi most of the time, and then
Speaker 12: they're paying for these expensive data plans when they don't
Speaker 12: need to, and we're able to help them save a
Speaker 12: lot of money.
Speaker 2: How long have you been doing this with text now.
Speaker 12: We've been doing it since I was in college. So
Speaker 12: twenty ten. We've been at it for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 12: what's really exciting is that we started off what's the
Speaker 12: simple goal of just not having to pay for texting,
Speaker 12: and then now we're at a point where like text
Speaker 12: now can replace your entire phone plan, you don't need to.
Speaker 4: Pay for a phone plan.
Speaker 12: And every day goes on, we're adding more to our
Speaker 12: free service, and we envision a future where just the
Speaker 12: free service just keeps getting better and better. And then
Speaker 12: there's we're like the only phone company that's trying to
Speaker 12: find ways to charge people less, not find ways to
Speaker 12: charge people more. And that's exciting because we're approaching a
Speaker 12: future where phone service can be completely this thing that
Speaker 12: no one has to pay for, and that's very exciting.
Speaker 2: So who do you think your service is for.
Speaker 12: It's for consumers, it's for small businesses that don't want
Speaker 12: to overpay for phone service that definitely have better use
Speaker 12: for their money besides over paying for phone service. And
Speaker 12: the average household spends two k a year on phone service,
Speaker 12: which is a lot of money. And if we can
Speaker 12: help families put more money in their pocket, ninety nine
Speaker 12: percent of them have some better use for it that
Speaker 12: benefit their family.
Speaker 1: So tell me about some of these add on costs.
Speaker 1: Because we talked about the data plans. I also noticed
Speaker 1: inside the app, you know, you can park your phone
Speaker 1: number for a couple extra bucks. You can receive you know,
Speaker 1: one time authorization codes like two factor authentication codes like
Speaker 1: are there any limitations that you think people should be
Speaker 1: aware of and the fees that people should be aware
Speaker 1: of before they get into this.
Speaker 12: Yeah, we try to make it as simple as possible.
Speaker 12: We have our free tier, which is like you get
Speaker 12: always free tier, always get free talk through text, free
Speaker 12: Central Data. And then we do have some Alkhart options
Speaker 12: in case people don't want to pay the bundles, they
Speaker 12: can do things alakarte. So we have options for people
Speaker 12: to lock in their number. For example, on the free service,
Speaker 12: if you don't use your number for a month, then
Speaker 12: we have to give the phone number to someone else.
Speaker 12: But if you pay five bucks, we can lock in
Speaker 12: your numbers. So these are examples of some ala Caharte
Speaker 12: things people can can buy. And then also if we
Speaker 12: don't like ads, there's option to remove ads for ten
Speaker 12: bucks a month, and then more and more more more
Speaker 12: more commonly, if the free Central Data plan you need
Speaker 12: more than the free Central Data plan. You can get
Speaker 12: these data passes. So for an hour is a dollar.
Speaker 12: For a day it's five dollars. And then we offer
Speaker 12: an unlimited data plan for forty bucks a month if
Speaker 12: you want unlimited for the whole month.
Speaker 2: Can you give me an idea of how many people
Speaker 2: are using the service?
Speaker 12: Yeah, we have over ten million unique visitors, unique customers
Speaker 12: that use text now a month, and then in the
Speaker 12: given day, we have over two million unique people that
Speaker 12: use text Now.
Speaker 1: Direkting of text now dot com, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today.
Speaker 12: Thanks so much for having me Rich. Pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate it. You can find a link to text
Speaker 2: now on my website. Just go to rich on Tech
Speaker 2: dot TV. Rich on Tech coming your way right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. Closing out the show. Three
Speaker 1: hours always go by so fast. We've been playing New
Speaker 1: Jersey music all show long to celebrate the fact that, yes,
Speaker 1: I have been visiting New Jersey, hanging out friends and
Speaker 1: family and also New York City. One of the best
Speaker 1: things I did when I went to New York City
Speaker 1: was dragging my family.
Speaker 2: To a hot dog cart. They did not want to go.
Speaker 2: But I found.
Speaker 1: This this YouTube where I like that does all the
Speaker 1: New York City stuff here. We bar definitely follow him.
Speaker 1: He mentioned that he likes this guy up on ninety
Speaker 1: third in Central Park West. He's been there for thirty
Speaker 1: years selling these can I say dirty water dog? Is
Speaker 1: that like a mean thing to say? That's just makes
Speaker 1: it sound better. Greek immigrant and the guy we went
Speaker 1: up there. My family did not want to go on
Speaker 1: the subway and ride all the way up there, and
Speaker 1: I said.
Speaker 2: Let's just go. Let's just go. We get there.
Speaker 1: It was the best experience of New York City. The
Speaker 1: guy was so nice. Billy's called Billy's Dogs, and the
Speaker 1: experience was just great.
Speaker 2: And the dogs, by the way, two bucks.
Speaker 1: Anything for two dollars nothing, that's that's my brother justin.
Speaker 1: By the way, James rode in and said on the
Speaker 1: radio program today, your brother sounds just like you. As
Speaker 1: I listen, I cannot differentiate between the two voices. Just
Speaker 1: a fun little fact from Jim and Dana point. William
Speaker 1: rode in while we talked about Android versus iPhone. He said,
Speaker 1: I would love to know why you your brother and
Speaker 1: others feel it's okay to use an Android operating system
Speaker 1: products that was basically started by theft from Apple. I
Speaker 1: don't patronize any company who steals, and you shouldn't neither.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I agree with that. I think
Speaker 1: what they steal exactly, I don't know. I'm not really
Speaker 1: sure I think that. Yeah, everything's in iteration anyway. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to one more question before we have to
Speaker 1: close out the show with the feedback segment. Oh right,
Speaker 1: So we have Terry who wrote in saying, I'm just
Speaker 1: your average seventy four year old lady who loves to
Speaker 1: dabble in doodle. I have the newest iPad pro and
Speaker 1: an Apple Pencil Pro. Can you recommend a good free
Speaker 1: sketching drawing app with the ability to attach photos and
Speaker 1: other graphics? She tried using free Form but found it
Speaker 1: unfriendly and can't find a way to save as JPEG
Speaker 1: only PDF files, So thanks in advance. Okay, she said free,
Speaker 1: which is the key word. Everyone wants everything for free.
Speaker 1: And I understand that, Terry, because you're just dabbling, right.
Speaker 1: But I just did a segment with Apple about their
Speaker 1: Apple Camp for Kids, and they were using Pages, which
Speaker 1: is something I would like never think to use on
Speaker 1: an iPad because I generally just delete all those programs.
Speaker 2: But it does.
Speaker 1: Exactly what you want. It works with the Apple pencil,
Speaker 1: works on the iPad. You can attach photos, you can
Speaker 1: attach graphics. I assume you can export as a JPEG.
Speaker 1: I mean I would assume that. I think that's gonna
Speaker 1: work one hundred percent for free. So download Apple Pages
Speaker 1: and try it out. The other two apps I recommend
Speaker 1: Sketchbook and pro Create. Sketchbook might have like a freemium
Speaker 1: version of it, and pro Create, I know, is a
Speaker 1: one time fee, but a lot of people love pro Create.
Speaker 1: It might be too much for what you need, justin
Speaker 1: what do you think? Yeah, I use something on my computer.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not sure if this is actually
Speaker 1: supported on iPad, but it's called photop dot com Photo
Speaker 1: p EA, and it's a Photoshop clone. It looks just
Speaker 1: like Photoshop. You can do everything you can do with
Speaker 1: that you can do in Photoshop in this app. It's great.
Speaker 1: Definitely check it out. And if you can't sketch with it,
Speaker 1: which I believe you can, you can certainly go ahead
Speaker 1: and edit your sketches and add embellishments to them. So
Speaker 1: check that out. Okay, wow, that looks like how do
Speaker 1: you know it's not called photo pia?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Actually okay, I was calling it that for a while
Speaker 1: and then someone said photo pi, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Try out. Vincent into Hunga, California, wrote in and said,
Speaker 1: my friend has a hard time reading his text messages.
Speaker 1: Is there any way for the phone to read them
Speaker 1: out loud for him? He has an Android? Uh yes,
Speaker 1: there is a feature, an accessibility feature called select to Speak.
Speaker 2: Did you know about this? I did not.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you if you look in the accessibility section
Speaker 1: of the settings on your on your phone iPhone or Android,
Speaker 1: there are so many hidden features that can help you
Speaker 1: use your phone, especially if you have any sort of
Speaker 1: you know, a varying ability. This one's a really great one.
Speaker 1: So I tried it on Android. Works perfectly. Once you
Speaker 1: turn it on, you tap anything on your screen and
Speaker 1: it will just read it out loud to you. And
Speaker 1: it's really good to get. Yeah, it's called select to Speak.
Speaker 1: All right, Do you have one more before we get
Speaker 1: to the feedback?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So Sam from Fort Collins Colorado rights in I've
Speaker 1: I've had Yahoo forever, and I'm glad to here they're
Speaker 1: doing some updating. I receive many spam emails every day,
Speaker 1: mostly most recently offering free awards that require completing surveys.
Speaker 1: He's tried unsubscribing from each one, which takes forever, and
Speaker 1: he recently started blocking emails. Is there a better way
Speaker 1: to get rid of all these spam emails?
Speaker 2: All right, I'll let you go first.
Speaker 1: What do you think? So my number one thing is
Speaker 1: to switch to Gmail if you can.
Speaker 2: Okay, he doesn't want to do that.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you sure you get all of his emails
Speaker 1: in Yahoo. Yeah, and I totally understand that. I get it.
Speaker 1: There's something you could do called plus addressing, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you sign up for something,
Speaker 1: you make a new account somewhere, they sell your data,
Speaker 1: which includes your email address, to advertisers, and then you
Speaker 1: start getting spam emails. If you add a plus symbol
Speaker 1: at the end of your address, like say it's sam
Speaker 1: plus website at yahoo dot com, you will see that
Speaker 1: when you get all these emails coming to you from
Speaker 1: that plus address, you'll see where you wrote it from.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely. That's something that I use for almost
Speaker 1: every website right now, and you can see if any
Speaker 1: spam is coming from a website that you signed up for. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at some support online. I don't know if
Speaker 1: Yahoo supports the plus, so be sure to check to
Speaker 1: see if your email provider supports it, but they might
Speaker 1: also they might also support temporary email addresses, so if
Speaker 1: you just need there's also a website. I think it's
Speaker 1: called ten Minute Mail. Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 1: So ten minute Mail. You go to this website and
Speaker 1: it basically gives you a ten minute email address, so
Speaker 1: you can go on there and it gives you this
Speaker 1: random email address and basically once you do that, let's
Speaker 1: see here, you've got a countdown of ten minutes, and
Speaker 1: you see this email address, just some random email address.
Speaker 1: You can put that in and then the email that
Speaker 1: you get will arrive on the website. So if you
Speaker 1: just want to sign up, I also use duck dot com,
Speaker 1: so I've I guess I can say that the email
Speaker 1: I have I don't know if I should say it,
Speaker 1: but I have an email address at duck dot com.
Speaker 1: You can put that in there and that it's another
Speaker 1: kind of temporary disposable email address. My rule of thumb
Speaker 1: when it comes to spam, unsubscribe to anything, be brutal anything.
Speaker 1: Let's say you just signed up for like home Details,
Speaker 1: home depots, ten ten percent off or whatever. Right, just
Speaker 1: as soon as you get that coupon, unsubscribed. Scribe legitimate emails,
Speaker 1: you can unsubscribe. It's the emails that come in as spam.
Speaker 1: Do not open them, do not unsubscribe, do not click
Speaker 1: any links, delete them immediately. All right, let's get back.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the feedback. This is your feedback plus
Speaker 1: the mail bag. Susan from California rights in, we watch
Speaker 1: you every day on TV. You're so informed and seem
Speaker 1: to be a really nice guy. Where your grandparents' age?
Speaker 1: So we need trustworthy information. Thank you, Susan. Natalie writes,
Speaker 1: love your TV segments, but they're often too short. I'm
Speaker 1: subscribed to the website. A friend ask chat GBT to
Speaker 1: write a song about being human. I'll figure out a
Speaker 1: way to send the lyrics to you. Crazy interesting as expected.
Speaker 1: Steve writes in I learn from you when I listen
Speaker 1: on the radio and when I read your emails. I'm
Speaker 1: not a Channel five watch, but I do record your
Speaker 1: appearances on my DVR. And finally, a listener writes in,
Speaker 1: I am an older person trying to keep up with
Speaker 1: your ever changing tech information. Your TV and radio segments
Speaker 1: keep me in the loop and knowledgeable. You always provide clear,
Speaker 1: easy to understand, and learner friendly information that I can
Speaker 1: actually use. Your enthusiasm for tech and problem solving keeps
Speaker 1: me interested in sharing what I learned. I wish you
Speaker 1: wrote a name in because I'd love to thank you.
Speaker 1: But thank you Justin, thanks for being on, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. That's my brother, Justin Demiro. That's going to
Speaker 1: do it for this episode of the show. You can
Speaker 1: find links to everything I mentioned on my website. Just
Speaker 1: go to rich on tech dot TV. You can find
Speaker 1: me on social media. I am at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Next week I'll take you to Vigcon twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: that's happening in Anaheim. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways you can spend your time.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible, especially complex
Speaker 1: remote shows like this, Kim Bobo, the engineers, everyone, Justin,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2: My name is rich Darmiro. Talk to you real soon.
Speaker 1: Justin I'll give you the last words.
Speaker 2: Did you have fun.
Speaker 1: I had a great time. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: All right, We'll see you next week.
Speaker 3: Mhm