Speaker 1: Calls for a ban on TikTok surface once again, the
Speaker 1: new iPhone app to help you clear out duplicate and
Speaker 1: blurry photos. The new website that lets you search through
Speaker 1: millions of old newspapers. Plus your tech questions answered. What's
Speaker 1: going on on rich dmiro and this is rich on
Speaker 1: Tech broadcasting live from Los Angeles, coast to coast. This
Speaker 1: is the show where I talk about the tech stuff
Speaker 1: I think you should know about. It's also the place
Speaker 1: where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that
Speaker 1: tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and open up the phone lines at triple eight Rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Give me a call. If
Speaker 1: 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: We've got some great guests this week. Jose Brionez is
Speaker 1: a digital minimalist. He literally gave up his smartphone. He
Speaker 1: now runs a website called dumbphonefinder dot org. We will
Speaker 1: talk about digital minimalism and what you can do to
Speaker 1: spend less time on your phone. Yanco Rutgers, author of
Speaker 1: the low Pass newsletter, is going to talk about the
Speaker 1: Roku message that surprised many users, how Max is cracking
Speaker 1: down on passwords, and why you should download a video
Speaker 1: app called VLC. And I've got interviews from Rivian's R
Speaker 1: to launch, including the CEO and head designer. They came
Speaker 1: out with quite the nice car. This week, I finally
Speaker 1: got my hands on a review unit of the Apple
Speaker 1: Vision Pro, and boy do I have some thoughts. So
Speaker 1: it is amazing. I will tell you that this is
Speaker 1: the first product that I am at the same time
Speaker 1: in love with, but I can't fully recommend purchasing it
Speaker 1: unless you've got four grand burning a hole in your pocket,
Speaker 1: then by all means go ahead. So if you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with the Apple Vision Pro, it's a headset that
Speaker 1: combines virtual reality and augmented reality, so you can either
Speaker 1: see screens and apps and entertainment and content kind of
Speaker 1: projected onto the world around you, or with one turn
Speaker 1: of a wheel, you can be completely immersed in a
Speaker 1: virtual digital world. So I've tried a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: things for starters. The headset is definitely heavier than I
Speaker 1: remembered it when I did my tests. It can be
Speaker 1: kind of uncomfortable to find just the right fit and
Speaker 1: the position to wear it and sit with it. But
Speaker 1: this is mostly due to the first generation of this product.
Speaker 1: This thing is going to get lighter, it's going to
Speaker 1: get smaller. I did drop the battery pack one time
Speaker 1: because I kind of forgot it was sitting next to me.
Speaker 1: It is tethered to the pack or to the headset,
Speaker 1: I should say, And yeah, it fell off the couch
Speaker 1: and onto the floor. No big deal. The software is incredible.
Speaker 1: This is where Apple excels. This is where they are
Speaker 1: literally just showing off. They have thought of everything. You
Speaker 1: are inside this helmet I call a helmet, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of like Disneyland. It's so magical. But it's also
Speaker 1: quite limited. So for instance, if you search the app store,
Speaker 1: we're used to finding any app you can imagine on
Speaker 1: your iPhone. Not many streaming apps inside. I couldn't find Netflix,
Speaker 1: I couldn't find YouTube. Now there is Max, and there
Speaker 1: is Disney Plus, and of course there's Apple TV Plus.
Speaker 1: But when I tried to log into Max, because I
Speaker 1: was like, let me try watching a movie on Max,
Speaker 1: it was nearly impossible because it wanted me to type
Speaker 1: this super long password that I have on my account
Speaker 1: into this virtual keyboard, which required looking at my phone
Speaker 1: to get the password, which I had to have off
Speaker 1: to the side, and I couldn't see because my helmet
Speaker 1: was on or headset, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: But once I ended up watching a show on Apple
Speaker 1: TV Plus, which is what they wanted me to do, right.
Speaker 1: I watched the show called Hijack. It was great. The
Speaker 1: picture was bright, it was crystal clear, the audio was
Speaker 1: just incredible. The screen rivaled in imax. It was huge,
Speaker 1: at least to my brain. But I did struggle to
Speaker 1: sort of get comfortable to watch this show. Towards the end,
Speaker 1: I found myself like itching to be done. Now. I
Speaker 1: did use the device as a spatial computer, which is
Speaker 1: what Apple is saying. This thing is really good at
Speaker 1: that's what they're calling it. It's really really cool, but
Speaker 1: again it's exhausting. When you look at your Mac computer
Speaker 1: screen on your desk, the vision pro uses AI and
Speaker 1: it recognizes that, says, oh, this must be a computer,
Speaker 1: and it says do you want to project this screen
Speaker 1: onto my virtual screen? And you say yes, Then your
Speaker 1: laptop screen becomes a giant screen in a virtual world,
Speaker 1: and you can have a whole bunch of windows and
Speaker 1: things happening and make it large. It's really cool, and
Speaker 1: you use your physical laptop, keyboard and trackpad to control it,
Speaker 1: and you're controlling it in any sort of environment you want.
Speaker 1: So again, you turn that dial. And I was checking
Speaker 1: my emails in the middle of the Joshua Tree desert.
Speaker 1: I was surfing the web and planning this radio show
Speaker 1: a top mount hood, and I could even hear birds
Speaker 1: chirping in the distance. It was very relaxing, but the
Speaker 1: image wasn't as razor sharp or the use as straightforward
Speaker 1: as using my MacBook. So what I do? I switched
Speaker 1: back to my MacBook.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I did do a FaceTime call with some folks from
Speaker 1: Apple who are showing me how to set things up.
Speaker 1: That was pretty cool. But then my wife called on FaceTime,
Speaker 1: which she never typically does, but I said, hey, call
Speaker 1: me on FaceTime. I'll take it inside the headset. And
Speaker 1: her reaction was pretty wild. She was like, why do
Speaker 1: you look so weird? I said, that's my persona, a
Speaker 1: digital representation of myself. So you take the helmet off.
Speaker 1: I keep calling it a helmet, it's a headset, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, and you take pictures of
Speaker 1: yourself with the three D cameras and it stitches them together.
Speaker 1: It says, Okay, smile, don't show your teeth, blink, don't blink,
Speaker 1: and then it stitches all this stuff together to make
Speaker 1: this kind of floating head of yourself. If you've ever
Speaker 1: been on that ride at Disney, the Haunted Castle, Haunted Mansion,
Speaker 1: that's what it looks like. One of those little floating heads,
Speaker 1: and that's you, except you're not dead. You're very much alive. Uh,
Speaker 1: but this is what people chat with on FaceTime.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Apple pushed out a software update yesterday to make this better,
Speaker 1: so I haven't tried that, but hopefully it's better. My
Speaker 1: kid really wanted to try the headset. It's not meant
Speaker 1: for kids under thirteen, although I'm sure many of them
Speaker 1: will be using it. He loved it. His reaction was priceless.
Speaker 1: Just he was like, wow, think about it. This is
Speaker 1: a technology that ninety nine point nine percent of the
Speaker 1: world has not tried yet, so it is really incredible
Speaker 1: when you put this on, because it's unlike any entertainment
Speaker 1: form you've ever seen. It's like imagine being inside of
Speaker 1: a three D movie. That's what it feels like so
Speaker 1: he was playing with dinosaurs and the coolest thing, and
Speaker 1: this is a representation of how cool Apple is with
Speaker 1: their software and how they nailed it. He was able
Speaker 1: to figure out the hand gestures and the navigation within seconds,
Speaker 1: no teaching necessary. Now the headset is paired to you.
Speaker 1: It's got some sort of like optical sensor to like unlock,
Speaker 1: just like your iPhone does. You can use a passcode
Speaker 1: or optic sensors, but you can also put it into
Speaker 1: guest mode so someone in your house or a friend
Speaker 1: can try it out. Now, guest mode is kind of
Speaker 1: tricky because you have to put the headset on, unlock it,
Speaker 1: snap it into guest mode, and then take it off
Speaker 1: within five minutes and hand it to someone else. They
Speaker 1: put it on, they go through this whole setup routine
Speaker 1: of you know, adjusting the inside lenses and looking at
Speaker 1: things and selecting them so it knows how to track
Speaker 1: your eyeballs. It's kind of an involved process, and once
Speaker 1: they take the headset off, they've got to do it
Speaker 1: all over again to try it again. So if you've
Speaker 1: got multiple people in your house, I'm sure there's a
Speaker 1: way to set up multiple accounts on this thing. But
Speaker 1: for guests just giving them a look inside this, it's
Speaker 1: kind of tricky, but again their reaction is priceless. So overall,
Speaker 1: my journey with Apple Vision pro has just begun, and
Speaker 1: I think so has Apples. This is a really emerging
Speaker 1: technology and I think Tim Cook kind of nailed it
Speaker 1: when he said this is tomorrow's technology today. I think
Speaker 1: the price tag reflects that it is thirty five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: It is not something that most people can just go
Speaker 1: out and buy on a whim. Even if you come
Speaker 1: to my house and say, rich, this is the coolest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever tried in my life. I want this.
Speaker 1: With other forms of technology, you might be able to
Speaker 1: get it. With this, you're gonna think twice, you're gonna
Speaker 1: think three times, and you're gonna say, eh, probably not. Now.
Speaker 1: I want this to work. I want this technology to succeed,
Speaker 1: and I have no doubt it will. I have no
Speaker 1: doubt that one day you're just gonna put on a
Speaker 1: pair of glasses. You're gonna watch a movie, You're gonna
Speaker 1: check email, you're gonna make FaceTime calls or some sort
Speaker 1: of video chat with people. You're gonna use AI to
Speaker 1: talk and interact with different things. But that moment is
Speaker 1: not here just yet. It is, but it's not attainable
Speaker 1: for most people. This is a rare anomaly. Anomally, did
Speaker 1: I add an extra syllable to that word? See? Even
Speaker 1: vision pro can't fix my speech? Maybe it can. This
Speaker 1: is a rare anomaly where the virtual technology is here.
Speaker 1: The technology is here, and it's really really good. But
Speaker 1: it's going to be a matter of time before the
Speaker 1: world catches up to this technology. My advice, do yourself
Speaker 1: a favor. Go to the Apple Store, make an appointment
Speaker 1: first and set yourself up for a demo. You have
Speaker 1: to see this technology to believe it now. I'm not
Speaker 1: expecting you to get this today, tomorrow, the next day,
Speaker 1: even in a year. This price really has to come
Speaker 1: down to a place where someone sees this and says
Speaker 1: I want that now. I don't know what that price
Speaker 1: point is. Maybe it's under one thousand dollars, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, their main thing right now
Speaker 1: is getting a phone every couple of years for one
Speaker 1: thousand bucks. That's tough enough. And so imagine trying to
Speaker 1: layer this on top. Imagine trying to layer a computer
Speaker 1: on top, and so it does all these things in
Speaker 1: a really interesting way. But does it take over something
Speaker 1: that you already have and replace that. Not yet right now.
Speaker 1: This is just to value add on. Is it really
Speaker 1: cool to watch movies inside this thing? Absolutely? It was
Speaker 1: it really cool to have my computer screen inside this thing? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Was it cool to have a web browser and some
Speaker 1: music off to the side and have a bunch of
Speaker 1: windows on top of a mountain in Hawaii? Absolutely? Was
Speaker 1: it cool to sit on the moon and watch a
Speaker 1: TV show? Yes, it's very cool. But again, this is
Speaker 1: brand new. Apple has done an incredible job, and I
Speaker 1: think the halo effect here is going to be real.
Speaker 1: We're going to see more of an interest in virtual reality.
Speaker 1: We're going to see more applications for this, and you
Speaker 1: know what, I am here for the ride, But I
Speaker 1: will say my initial thoughts on this remain the same.
Speaker 1: It is incredibly cool, but it's incredibly expensive, which makes
Speaker 1: it a really tough recommendation unless again, you've got that
Speaker 1: money to burn, so applevision pro I will continue to
Speaker 1: check it out. I'm going on a flight soon. I
Speaker 1: will take it on the plane. I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: that's all about, and continue to update you on the
Speaker 1: progress with this amazing technology. All right, coming up, will
Speaker 1: TikTok get banned in the US. The chatter is happening again,
Speaker 1: But first it's your turn. Your calls coming up next
Speaker 1: at Triple A rich one on one that's eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. You
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at Triple A Rich one O one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website rich on Tech dot tv. Anything I mentioned
Speaker 1: on the show, the links are there. Just look for
Speaker 1: the big red banner at the top that says heard
Speaker 1: it on the radio. Click here and you'll get the
Speaker 1: links in real time. You can follow me on social media.
Speaker 1: I am at rich on Tech. So once again, the
Speaker 1: fate of TikTok is up for debate in the US.
Speaker 1: This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted fifty
Speaker 1: to zero to advance this bipartisan bill that would require
Speaker 1: byte Dance that's TikTok's Chinese parent company, to divest its
Speaker 1: ownership of the app within one hundred and sixty five days.
Speaker 1: If this bill passes still needs to be introduced into
Speaker 1: the Senate before it reaches the President's desk. But this
Speaker 1: is interesting. President Biden has kind of said, yeah, he
Speaker 1: would support the bill that would result in this nationwide
Speaker 1: ban if it's passed. But what's also interesting is that
Speaker 1: the White House recently joined TikTok in an effort to
Speaker 1: reach young voters.
Speaker 4: HM.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, former President Trump, who previously pushed for a TikTok
Speaker 1: ban back in the day, now opposes that. He says
Speaker 1: he thinks Facebook will gain from this ban and he
Speaker 1: doesn't like that idea. Now, opponents of the bill, obviously,
Speaker 1: there are many of them civil liberties groups. They argue
Speaker 1: that it would infringe on the freedom of expression and
Speaker 1: violate the Constitution. And of course TikTok does not like
Speaker 1: the idea. You think. They actually sent out a push
Speaker 1: notifications to push notification to users warning about this potential ban,
Speaker 1: and they said, you know what, why don't you call
Speaker 1: your representative and they gave them the info on how
Speaker 1: to do that, and many users flooded the phone lines
Speaker 1: in DC and they actually had to turn off the
Speaker 1: phones for a bit in some of these offices there
Speaker 1: because so many people called so obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: people use TikTok not just for fun, but also for business, artists, creators.
Speaker 1: There are so many things that ride on top of this.
Speaker 1: It is an interesting debate to watch. I have my
Speaker 1: thoughts on TikTok. I think, of course, it's incredible for
Speaker 1: self expression and to be able to go viral and
Speaker 1: to build a business, and I know so many people
Speaker 1: that have done that. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of junkie junk on there, just like
Speaker 1: there is any other social media platform. And does TikTok
Speaker 1: get more information about the American people than any other
Speaker 1: app out there? No, but you have to wonder where
Speaker 1: this information is going and how it could be used.
Speaker 1: So there are some real interesting debatable areas of this
Speaker 1: whole thing. But we've heard it once before, no doubt
Speaker 1: we're going to hear this once again. Something to be
Speaker 1: aware of. Let's go to Janice in Redondo Beach. Janis
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich, Well, Hi, how's it going? It
Speaker 1: is going?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 1: What can I help you with?
Speaker 6: I got the new update on my Apple Watch and
Speaker 6: nothing works the same way as it used to. Is
Speaker 6: there any way to go back to the version before
Speaker 6: or somehow learn all the little intricacies of this new update.
Speaker 1: There is no way to go back on the Apple
Speaker 1: Watch to previous software. Apple does not let you do
Speaker 1: that easily. Now, yes, is there a way, of course,
Speaker 1: there's always a way. But is it easy for you,
Speaker 1: Janie to do this? Probably not unless you have a
Speaker 1: lot of knowledge about techie stuff and you know, it's
Speaker 1: just one of those things that Apple is kind of
Speaker 1: like a one way street. Once you upgrade, you are upgraded. So, yes,
Speaker 1: everything has changed on the Apple Watch, and I am
Speaker 1: still annoyed by it myself. When I tech. There's only
Speaker 1: two buttons on my Apple Watch, and every time I
Speaker 1: press the wrong button because it's not what I want
Speaker 1: to do. So here's the best thing to do. Now,
Speaker 1: do you have an iPhone?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you've got an iPhone? Obviously you probably do
Speaker 1: if you've got that. Okay, So the best thing to
Speaker 1: do is open up There is a books app on
Speaker 1: the iPhone, and you open up the books app and
Speaker 1: type in and I hope I'm doing this in real time?
Speaker 1: I hope, yes, Okay, it is there. So you open
Speaker 1: up the books app and then you search Apple Watch
Speaker 1: and this is probably the best kept secret of Apple
Speaker 1: in the world. But Apple actually posts and creates a
Speaker 1: really good user guide for every operating system that they
Speaker 1: come out with, whether it's the one for the Watch,
Speaker 1: whether it's for the iPhone. And so you search Apple
Speaker 1: Watch and look for the user guide that has the
Speaker 1: latest Watch OS, and so I've got to figure out
Speaker 1: which one that is. But right now I see nine
Speaker 1: point four. I think the latest Watch OS is ten.
Speaker 1: Let's see if they've got that, So search that up
Speaker 1: and of course I'm not seeing Let's see. I got
Speaker 1: to make sure which Apple Watch, which one it is?
Speaker 1: The late Yeah, Apple Watch OS ten. So if you
Speaker 1: go into books and you look for Apple Watch OS,
Speaker 1: Apple usually publishes a user guide, and so that's what
Speaker 1: you want to look for, and that's what you want
Speaker 1: to have as your guide for this. Now I'm looking
Speaker 1: right now it says Watch OS nine point four, eight
Speaker 1: point six, five point two. Definitely don't want that one
Speaker 1: four point three and six point two. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if they gave up and they just stopped putting
Speaker 1: these things out, but I'm not seeing the ten just yet,
Speaker 1: which is kind of odd. Obviously, there are many third
Speaker 1: party books on the Apple Watch. But what I would
Speaker 1: do is first search for that Apple Watch user guide
Speaker 1: no matter what version of Apple Watch you're using. They
Speaker 1: don't have it just yet, they will soon, but I
Speaker 1: can tell you the side button and the top button
Speaker 1: look on the Apple They've run a great Apple Support
Speaker 1: website where they have a lot of interesting tutorials and things.
Speaker 1: That's going to be the best way to learn it. Also,
Speaker 1: YouTube is your friend. Go on YouTube and just search
Speaker 1: Apple Watch new os or OS ten, and you will
Speaker 1: see all of the interesting tutorials that people spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time making that will give you the basics.
Speaker 1: The basics have changed what the actual buttons do on
Speaker 1: the watch, but the watch functions in mostly the same way.
Speaker 1: But I get it. It is frustrating. This is why
Speaker 1: people don't do software updates, because they are so worried
Speaker 1: about what it's going to change, and they're worried about
Speaker 1: being able to operate these things just when they figure
Speaker 1: it out. Thanks for the call, Jannis. Coming up, digital
Speaker 1: minimalist Jose Brionez is going to talk about why you
Speaker 1: might want to ditch your smartphone. You are listening to
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech. What's going on rich Tomuro here Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, welcome back to the show. Joining me now
Speaker 1: is Jose Brionez. He runs a website called Dumb phone Finder.
Speaker 1: He is a digital minimalist. Jose, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Rich, you embraced.
Speaker 1: Digital minimalism a couple of years ago. Tell me why
Speaker 1: and what that journey's been like.
Speaker 2: So for me, I think the idea is that I
Speaker 2: was spending too much time online, and that's because I
Speaker 2: went from one environment to another. So I got out
Speaker 2: of college, I went to university, and I had a
Speaker 2: very structure life, going to school, going to work hours,
Speaker 2: and then going home. But then I went out of
Speaker 2: that structure life to the life that I had to
Speaker 2: build myself, and I found myself spending too much of
Speaker 2: that lifetime online.
Speaker 3: So when I got my first.
Speaker 2: Job, I was spending roughly about twelve to thirteen hours
Speaker 2: online work and leisure all together. And I did not
Speaker 2: want to do that. So I started to find alternatives
Speaker 2: in my life that will allow me to live what
Speaker 2: I call a better life, a more balanced life, and
Speaker 2: interact with technology but not be overcome by it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the first thing you did in this journey
Speaker 1: I assume was get rid of the smartphone. What tell
Speaker 1: me about that aspect you switched. What did you try
Speaker 1: to do, like, what was your goal in Did you
Speaker 1: try to reduce your time on the smartphone or just
Speaker 1: get rid of it all together?
Speaker 2: So I think at first I was trying to keep
Speaker 2: my smartphone and use the tools that are with it,
Speaker 2: so screen time or other you know, kind of like
Speaker 2: little hacks. But at some point in time I realized
Speaker 2: that I am not a smartphone person. If I have
Speaker 2: something available and I have the technology available to me,
Speaker 2: I want to use it. If I have a smartphone
Speaker 2: in my hands, I want to use it.
Speaker 1: I want to.
Speaker 3: Get the most out of it.
Speaker 2: So taking that and going to a simpler phone at
Speaker 2: the time, I tried a light phone too, which has
Speaker 2: been my device for the past four years, and it
Speaker 2: had enough. It had enough things that I liked, I
Speaker 2: liked the company, and it wasn't perfect, but it had
Speaker 2: the things that I wanted and appreciate it, and I
Speaker 2: started to look for alternative ways to do all of
Speaker 2: the other smart things that I had become accustomed to.
Speaker 1: And real quick I have tested the light phone. It's
Speaker 1: basically a Kindle like a Kindle screen on a phone.
Speaker 1: It's really small, it's very minimalistic. It's not a color
Speaker 1: screen as far as I know, the one I tested
Speaker 1: wasn't and it's very basic. I mean I had a
Speaker 1: couple of functions on it. I can't remember everything it did,
Speaker 1: but you know, you could text on it, you can
Speaker 1: make phone calls, and I believe Verizon for a while
Speaker 1: was allowing you to add it as a secondary line,
Speaker 1: so theoretically you could have your smartphone during the week
Speaker 1: and then your light phone on the weekends or nights
Speaker 1: when you go out to dinner. What has been the
Speaker 1: biggest challenge in trend positioning away from a smartphone?
Speaker 2: I think the biggest challenge for me is that you
Speaker 2: have to relearn how to operate in the twenty first
Speaker 2: century but with twentieth century principles.
Speaker 3: So when you go to a restaurant and they have a.
Speaker 2: QR code, you need to ask, hey, can I get
Speaker 2: a paper menu? Or when you go to the airport,
Speaker 2: instead of having the QR code ready for you to
Speaker 2: use and board your plane, you have to be mindful
Speaker 2: of printing it at home or going to the kiosk
Speaker 2: and talking to somebody so that you can get those things.
Speaker 2: And of course navigating that's a new thing, right, Like
Speaker 2: you know GPS, so we don't have the bulky ones anymore,
Speaker 2: so you kind of have to go back a couple
Speaker 2: of years and say, Okay, I'm going to bring this
Speaker 2: bulky GPS on my car instead of having my phone
Speaker 2: with Android auto and everything really nicely laid out. It's
Speaker 2: difficult in the beginning because we're used to all of
Speaker 2: this convenience, but over time you start finding and you
Speaker 2: start asking more questions, and you find the alternatives that
Speaker 2: you need to find for the things that you need
Speaker 2: to do, and you live normal life as normal as
Speaker 2: it is. It's definitely simpler and less convenient. But for
Speaker 2: me at least, it has been quite an improvement in
Speaker 2: my personal life, my relationships, and my.
Speaker 3: Work as well.
Speaker 1: What have the improvements been.
Speaker 2: I think the main improvement is that I can have
Speaker 2: a conversation with my wife and not be distracted by
Speaker 2: the notifications on my phone because I'm not deeply attracted
Speaker 2: to it anymore.
Speaker 3: Even when we go on a trip.
Speaker 2: I do have a smartphone that I keep for international
Speaker 2: trips because when.
Speaker 3: I'm international, I don't know the language.
Speaker 2: You know, I may not be able to figure it
Speaker 2: out all the things that I have figured out here
Speaker 2: in my local context, but even when we go international,
Speaker 2: I'm definitely more present, more available, you know, in my
Speaker 2: personal relationships. I can go to a place and not
Speaker 2: take my phone and I don't feel wow, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: like what's going on in the world out there, because
Speaker 2: I get to cherish the experiences. When it comes to work,
Speaker 2: I finish quite faster, you know, just because I don't
Speaker 2: have a lot of distractions pinging me or grabbing my attention.
Speaker 2: You kind of remain more focused in your work, and
Speaker 2: you do it faster, and then you get more time
Speaker 2: for relaxation and other activities that I want.
Speaker 1: Do you ever feel like you're missing out?
Speaker 2: I do miss out, But I think that's a mindset
Speaker 2: that you had to accept. I did not start this
Speaker 2: in order to have the niceties of the twenty first
Speaker 2: century and the principles of the twentieth century and then
Speaker 2: you know, kind of like interact back and forth between them.
Speaker 2: I started this as a lifestyle change. I wanted my
Speaker 2: lifestyle to change. I wanted to start interacting more with
Speaker 2: print media. I wanted to kind of have a little
Speaker 2: bit more of a slower life. So, yes, I am
Speaker 2: missing out, but I'm okay with that. I have accepted that,
Speaker 2: and that's one of the hardest parts.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: I've missed out on a couple parties that my friends
Speaker 2: organized because I'm not in the group message or I
Speaker 2: don't have that app that everybody has. I missed out
Speaker 2: on quote unquote posts that are important, and one time
Speaker 2: I did miss out on some email communication that was
Speaker 2: pretty prompt.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a super emergency.
Speaker 2: Because this is something that I tell everybody, if it's
Speaker 2: a true emergency, somebody will find you somehow someway. They
Speaker 2: will call you, they will get your coworker, they will
Speaker 2: try to find your family member. Because when it's a
Speaker 2: real emergency, they will do that.
Speaker 1: You run a website called dumbphones dot org. Tell me
Speaker 1: about the website and what that helps people do.
Speaker 2: So about three years ago I started this website and
Speaker 2: the animus or the idea was to help people find
Speaker 2: their perfect phone. When people hear dumb phones, they usually think, oh,
Speaker 2: it's an old flip phone, it doesn't have any capabilities,
Speaker 2: but actually they do. It's just that you know, it's
Speaker 2: not in the media as much. You don't get the
Speaker 2: shiny new announcement from Samsung or Apple out there. So
Speaker 2: if you go to the Dumbphone Finder, you can find
Speaker 2: the perfect phone for you. So the website just runs
Speaker 2: different filters and you can explo and it has a
Speaker 2: lot of other useful resources for people to start the journey.
Speaker 1: What's a dumb phone run these days? And do you
Speaker 1: have a top pick?
Speaker 2: Yes, I do have three top picks, and they all
Speaker 2: range from different price points. I think most people associate
Speaker 2: the sub one hundred dollars, but they can go all
Speaker 2: the way to three hundred dollars, like the light phone.
Speaker 2: You know, the light phone is more of a minimal device,
Speaker 2: you know, something that you really want for a lifestyle change.
Speaker 2: The Cats twenty two flip is more of the smarter device.
Speaker 2: You can still have apps and you know, all of
Speaker 2: the nice city and convenience of the world. That one
Speaker 2: runs you about seventy nine to one hundred dollars, depending
Speaker 2: on the condition. You can get them on Amazon. And
Speaker 2: then something more like in the middle will be a Nokia.
Speaker 2: You know, there's still Nokia devices out there. The twenty
Speaker 2: seven to eighty can run you eighty bucks or so,
Speaker 2: and there is everything in between. You know, different companies
Speaker 2: are coming out with different concept and I'm really excited
Speaker 2: about the space growing in the next few years.
Speaker 1: If I'm not ready to give up my smartphone and
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to get a dumb phone, give me
Speaker 1: a tip to sort of be more intentional and have
Speaker 1: less screen time. I'll give you two quick tips.
Speaker 2: The first one is give your screen time password to
Speaker 2: someone else. So that's one of the biggest things that
Speaker 2: has helped me. Whenever I go, you know, and I
Speaker 2: have to use my smartphone for whatever reason, my wife
Speaker 2: has set up the screen time passcode. So if I
Speaker 2: try to bypass it, I can't because I don't know
Speaker 2: the passcode. And if I really want to do it,
Speaker 2: I'll have to factor reset, and I really doubt you're
Speaker 2: going to do that.
Speaker 3: The second one is find an app that works for you.
Speaker 2: There's one that is called unpluck with a queue or Brick,
Speaker 2: which is the Brick app. They both lock you down
Speaker 2: with physical devices. You tap the physical device and it
Speaker 2: blocks everything from your smartphone, and if you tap it again,
Speaker 2: you have access to it again, so you can leave
Speaker 2: it at home. You can have a relaxed day. You
Speaker 2: come back, you may not need to have to check email.
Speaker 2: You tap and then you have access to all of
Speaker 2: the things again.
Speaker 1: All right, Jose, this has been great. Tell folks how
Speaker 1: to how to find you online.
Speaker 3: So the best way is to go to the don't
Speaker 3: phone finder.
Speaker 2: Dombphones dot org is my main website where I run
Speaker 2: all the things for digital minimalism. I also have a
Speaker 2: personal website at Jose brionez dot org and you can
Speaker 2: find email and different ways in there to contact me.
Speaker 1: Jose Brione is a founder of dumbphones dot org. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, I will link up all of Jose's websites
Speaker 1: on mine. Just go to rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: Lots to unpack, their lots to think about.
Speaker 5: Could you give up your smartphone?
Speaker 1: Give me a fall Triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology at triple
Speaker 1: A rich one oh one. Phone number for the show
Speaker 1: is eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. You can also go to the website richon
Speaker 1: tech dot TV. Hit contact and that will send me
Speaker 1: a message. Let's go to Rod in Los Angeles. Rod,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich. Hey, Rich, you're doing I'm doing great.
Speaker 8: So I use one of the well known anti virus programs,
Speaker 8: and they're often trying to get me to buy additional
Speaker 8: services from them, right, And I was kind of wondering
Speaker 8: if you have any opinion on the value of these things,
Speaker 8: Like they've got dark wed monitoring, they've got one that's
Speaker 8: the driver updated, and I think they've got one that
Speaker 8: does registry updates.
Speaker 1: I think the the dark web stuff might be useful,
Speaker 1: the registry updates, and what was the other one you mentioned,
Speaker 1: the driver updates in you're on Windows. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot a lot of that stuff is like built
Speaker 1: into the operating system, so I wouldn't I wouldn't worry
Speaker 1: about that too much. Are you having a lot of
Speaker 1: issues with your computer.
Speaker 8: Other than just slow but it's necessarily small processor and
Speaker 8: that's really the main thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so that's the thing. Yeah, So these
Speaker 1: things sort of prey upon you know, every computer user
Speaker 1: has issues with you know, whether it's slow startup, whether
Speaker 1: it's things not working perfectly. So of course, you pay,
Speaker 1: and you pay, and you pay, and doesn't get any better.
Speaker 1: So I think that you could probably ignore most of
Speaker 1: those things. I do think that the when it comes
Speaker 1: to the actual dark web stuff and all that personal
Speaker 1: information stuff, that might be worth it because there is
Speaker 1: surprisingly a lot of information about us on the dark web,
Speaker 1: and just in general. Have you done the Google results
Speaker 1: about you yet? Okay? So if you look up Google
Speaker 1: results about you. This is a free service that Google
Speaker 1: offers where it will search on the web for public
Speaker 1: displays of your name, your phone number, your email address,
Speaker 1: anything like that that's been involved in some sort of
Speaker 1: data leak or on one of those like data websites
Speaker 1: like a you know, name shopping website kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and it will offer to take those down for you. Now,
Speaker 1: it only takes those down from Google search results. It
Speaker 1: does not actually take it down from the website. So
Speaker 1: if you want to take that down from the website,
Speaker 1: there are tools, probably this Dark Webfinder tool that you're
Speaker 1: talking about will assist you with that. Mozilla also has
Speaker 1: one which is called Mozilla Monitor that's brand new. You
Speaker 1: can check that out and they will help you get
Speaker 1: things down as well. You can also go through and
Speaker 1: kind of diyatt too, so you can go through, there's
Speaker 1: a website just delete Let's see, it's just delete me.
Speaker 1: And I got to always find this such a bookmark this,
Speaker 1: but they have if you look up, let's see it's
Speaker 1: I think it's just delete me DIY. But there's a
Speaker 1: way if you look up, like you know, any of
Speaker 1: these websites that offer to sell your information. Towards the
Speaker 1: bottom of the website, there are instructions for how to
Speaker 1: opt out of that, so you can do that as well.
Speaker 1: But those are the things that I would recommend. I
Speaker 1: also did an article for KTLA about starting the year
Speaker 1: off with a clean computer, and basically my general steps
Speaker 1: are to uninstall any programs that you no longer use,
Speaker 1: look at your web browser any extensions that you no
Speaker 1: longer use. Obviously, check all of the software updates, whether
Speaker 1: it's for the system or for the apps, clear your
Speaker 1: browsing data, and get rid of anything in the trash
Speaker 1: and that should go a long way to make your
Speaker 1: computer running better. If The other thing I would check
Speaker 1: for you is to see sort of what programs are
Speaker 1: starting up when you start up your computer. So if
Speaker 1: it's a program that just keeps opening every time you
Speaker 1: open up your computer. That's using resources. So I would
Speaker 1: get rid of those as well if you don't need
Speaker 1: them to open up as soon as you do that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, these programs, they will sell you on anything,
Speaker 1: believe me. You know, they make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: You see them on the news all the time or
Speaker 1: you know on TV where it's like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: speed up your PC? Do they really work? So sometimes
Speaker 1: they do more damage than they actually help. Let's go
Speaker 1: to uh Mark, Mark and Lake Elson or Mark you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich?
Speaker 9: Yeah, Hi, Rich, Hi, I get the cell phone issue.
Speaker 9: When it's a little coiler there we go like normal.
Speaker 9: I'm on about the two years of the life of
Speaker 9: my cell phone. I'm having issues with the screen. I
Speaker 9: want to upgrade it. I really don't want to spend
Speaker 9: another thousand bucks for a song for two years. Been
Speaker 9: shopping for other stuff, and you know, I'm looking at
Speaker 9: phones for anywhere from one hundred and fifty barks up.
Speaker 9: If I go with something like a Motorola I think
Speaker 9: it was a five G five What am I going
Speaker 9: to lose in quality and stuff versus going with the
Speaker 9: newer Samsung you know the S series.
Speaker 1: Well, you're going to lose a lot. So Number one,
Speaker 1: I don't think that everyone needs the Samsung S series
Speaker 1: of phones, which are you know, Samsung has the premium s,
Speaker 1: they've got the budget A and then they've got the
Speaker 1: foldables which are their Z line. So I don't think
Speaker 1: that anyone needs or that everyone needs the S lineup,
Speaker 1: you know, the Samsung Galaxy US twenty four, Ultra S
Speaker 1: twenty four, S twenty four Plus. So I think really
Speaker 1: what it comes down to when you get these budget phones,
Speaker 1: it comes down to the processor. It comes down to
Speaker 1: the quality of the materials. A lot of times they're
Speaker 1: plastic versus you know, glass and metal. The camera is
Speaker 1: really where you take a big step back with a
Speaker 1: lot of these cheap phones. Software not only the blow
Speaker 1: on there, but also the updates that you get like
Speaker 1: how long is this phone supported? And also you know
Speaker 1: the memory, the RAM, so whether it's two gigs or
Speaker 1: maybe four gigs, you're you're probably gonna get less of that.
Speaker 1: So my advice when it comes to these budget phones,
Speaker 1: I would actually go with a brand like OnePlus. So
Speaker 1: they've got a great series called the Nord series. Have
Speaker 1: you heard of that?
Speaker 9: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is a this is a company that's
Speaker 1: a little bit off the radar. A lot of people
Speaker 1: in the tech world know about it, but the one
Speaker 1: plus Nord is just a great value. It's like probably
Speaker 1: the favorite budget phone out of most reviewers out there.
Speaker 1: So what I like about it is that not only
Speaker 1: is it less expensive than the big phones, but it's
Speaker 1: the software is really good, and so I think that's
Speaker 1: a big advantage here is that your phone is not
Speaker 1: going to low down. Now, I will say Motorola, I
Speaker 1: will give it credit. They actually do a pretty good
Speaker 1: job with the software on their phones because they keep
Speaker 1: it kind of clean, but I think it ends there,
Speaker 1: like the cameras on the Motorola phones have really just
Speaker 1: not been that great, even for their higher end phones. Now,
Speaker 1: the phone that I would recommend without any hesitation immediately
Speaker 1: is the Pixel seven A or the Pixel eight And
Speaker 1: those two phones they're gonna be a little bit more expensive,
Speaker 1: but I think the reality of those phones, like especially
Speaker 1: if you got the Pixel eight mark, they are supporting
Speaker 1: that phone for seven years, so you're talking you would
Speaker 1: not have to worry. I mean, yeah, is it going
Speaker 1: to slow down in the next seven years, Probably, But
Speaker 1: you've got software support for seven years, So do the
Speaker 1: math if that phone costs you. Now that phone, the
Speaker 1: Pixel seven A is about five hundred dollars it goes
Speaker 1: on sale. I would definitely recommend waiting for it to
Speaker 1: go on sale. The Google phones always do. The Pixel
Speaker 1: eight is a little bit more expensive. I think it
Speaker 1: starts at six ninety nine. Let's see how much that is,
Speaker 1: and I know we're getting up there in the price. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's six ninety nine. But again, you know, if you
Speaker 1: do that math over seven years, that is a pretty
Speaker 1: good deal. And again that will go on sale. So
Speaker 1: my advice, look at the OnePlus Nord, look at the
Speaker 1: Pixel seven A. I think that's overall your best bet
Speaker 1: for a budget phone that is not going to give
Speaker 1: you any grief, and it has an incredible camera up
Speaker 1: and amazing software. Those are my recommendations. But I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of these budget phones give people more headaches.
Speaker 1: They save the money in the short term, but they
Speaker 1: give them more headaches in the long term, So just
Speaker 1: be aware of those limitations. Great question, Thanks for calling
Speaker 1: in today from Lake Elson or all right, rich on
Speaker 1: Tech website, richontech dot TV phone number for the show
Speaker 1: Triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Coming up, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about the big Meta outage this week and
Speaker 1: what in Instagram is doing to upgrade messaging. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at triple eight Rich one O one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Did you survive the big Facebook outage of twenty twenty four?
Speaker 1: It happened. Uh believe it was this week now now
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember. Was it this week?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was this week? Yes, sorry, it was Super Tuesday.
Speaker 1: That's right, Okay, thank you, Bobo. Uh get my weeks
Speaker 1: mixed up here. So this was a global outage that
Speaker 1: lasted over two hours. Everyone was freaking out. It actually
Speaker 1: started with my mom. She texted me and said I
Speaker 1: can't log into my Facebook and I said that's odd,
Speaker 1: and then the flood of message I mean, I'm talking
Speaker 1: everyone emailed me and was like, Rich, what's going on.
Speaker 1: I can't get onto Facebook marketplace, I can't get onto Instagram.
Speaker 1: I can't do this. And I said, well, why are
Speaker 1: you emailing me? What can I do about this? But
Speaker 1: that was enough to set the wheels in motion for
Speaker 1: me to figure out what was going on, which you know,
Speaker 1: looking at the Facebook status pages, the meta status pages,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was. It was a big outage. Everyone
Speaker 1: of course wondered was it due to hacking, was it
Speaker 1: due to cybersecurity. There was lots of reports of various things.
Speaker 1: You know, they've got three billion users for Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: Meta Quest, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger. There are so many people
Speaker 1: that use this stuff, and everyone went to Twitter. That's
Speaker 1: where people went. Everyone went to Twitter to complain and
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Of course, Twitter owner Elon Musk
Speaker 1: took a job at Meta saying, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: reading this, our plur if you're if you're seeing this,
Speaker 1: our servers are working. And you know, the funny thing
Speaker 1: is that Twitter probably had the most issues back in
Speaker 1: the day when they were just starting that they had
Speaker 1: this thing called the fail whale, and whenever Twitter wasn't working,
Speaker 1: you would just see this picture of a whale that
Speaker 1: was failed. And that happened probably the most out of
Speaker 1: any platform I can remember. But the difference now is
Speaker 1: that these platforms are bigger and bigger and bigger, Like
Speaker 1: we saw with the AT and T outage huge affects
Speaker 1: large swaths of people because these companies keep getting bigger,
Speaker 1: so when they go down, more people are affected. So
Speaker 1: what was this all about? A technical issue? They said,
Speaker 1: some sort of software technical issue caused it, and that's it.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can do. You can't file your grievances
Speaker 1: because it's all free now. Instagram did roll out some
Speaker 1: major updates to their messaging this week, so a couple
Speaker 1: things to know. Number One, if you send a direct
Speaker 1: message to someone, you now have fifteen minutes to edit
Speaker 1: that message, which is kind of cool. So just press
Speaker 1: and hold on the message. You'll get a little edit icon.
Speaker 1: You can tap that just like I message. You can
Speaker 1: edit that message for fifteen minutes. And you can now
Speaker 1: pin up to three chats for quick access up at
Speaker 1: the top of your messaging you know the messaging screen
Speaker 1: on Instagram, So if you always message no your partner
Speaker 1: or your group or whatever, you can pin those to
Speaker 1: the top, press and hold press the pin. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that is available just yet, but it is
Speaker 1: coming soon, so go into your messaging and just let's
Speaker 1: see if I can do that. Nope, not there just yet.
Speaker 1: I think you have to swipe on them to do it.
Speaker 1: It's not available on my app just yet. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing is read receipts. So you know how
Speaker 1: when you look at someone's you send someone a message
Speaker 1: in that you see that little scene at the bottom
Speaker 1: where it says they saw the message. You can turn
Speaker 1: off that ability for someone to see if you've read
Speaker 1: their message. You can go into your read you can
Speaker 1: go into your messaging settings, and so how do you
Speaker 1: do that? Go to your profile, Tap the three lines
Speaker 1: in the upper right hand corner, Tap settings in privacy,
Speaker 1: tap messages and story replies, tap show read receipts, and
Speaker 1: you can toggle that off. I know that's a lot,
Speaker 1: but if you want to see those instructions, just go
Speaker 1: to my Instagram and look for the one that says
Speaker 1: new Instagram feature. You can now turn off read Receipts.
Speaker 1: The downside to this, if you toggle this off, it's
Speaker 1: a two way street. If you toggle off read Receipts,
Speaker 1: you will no longer be able to see when people
Speaker 1: read your messages. So they kind of made that as
Speaker 1: an incentive for you to leave it on, because you
Speaker 1: can't sneak around Instagram thinking, oh, nobody could see when
Speaker 1: I read my messages, but I'll see when other people
Speaker 1: read them. Uh huh, doesn't work that way. Let's go
Speaker 1: to Let's go to Jenny, Jenny and San Diego. You're
Speaker 1: on with Rich Hi there.
Speaker 4: I'm going to France and Netherlands next month, and I
Speaker 4: just got new phones from Spectrum which they do not
Speaker 4: have an international plan, and I'm on TEAE with them,
Speaker 4: so I don't believe that I can use an ETHM.
Speaker 4: So I've been looking online for different like pocket Wi Fi,
Speaker 4: like hip pocket and some other things on Amazon, and
Speaker 4: I was just wondering if you had any you're familiar
Speaker 4: with hip pocket, or if you have maybe there's something
Speaker 4: else I'm not thinking of.
Speaker 1: So hip Pocket is a is a Wi Fi rental.
Speaker 1: I'm actually not familiar, but I've heard of the the
Speaker 1: you know the way this works. These used to be
Speaker 1: very very popular. So you rent the Wi Fi over
Speaker 1: in Europe and then they ship it to you here
Speaker 1: in the US, so you have it before you get there.
Speaker 4: Yes, you can either do that or you can like
Speaker 4: reserve it and when you get to the airport, or
Speaker 4: they'll send it to your hotel. But I have enough
Speaker 4: time where they could ship it to my house and
Speaker 4: then when I get there, me and my husband, you know,
Speaker 4: to connect on it because it said it could connect
Speaker 4: it to like kid devices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a hot spot, so it'll you know, it'll
Speaker 1: connect any of the devices that you know, just like
Speaker 1: any other hot spot. So I'm looking at their plans,
Speaker 1: so you can get a fourteen day rental plan which
Speaker 1: includes delivery to the US. So it seems like the
Speaker 1: more you pay, the more they'll deliver it to the US. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you're getting like the cheaper plan, you have
Speaker 1: to get it delivered to your European hotel, which I
Speaker 1: personally think that would be a pain to do because
Speaker 1: you're going to want your connectivity from the airport the
Speaker 1: second lang yep, yep.
Speaker 4: Because you're going to have to, like if you're going
Speaker 4: to do uber or exactly figure out where you're going
Speaker 4: and things like that.
Speaker 1: So I'd rather have it at your house, you know.
Speaker 1: So it looks like for fourteen days rental in Europe,
Speaker 1: they're looking at ninety six euros, which is probably what
Speaker 1: a little bit about one hundred dollars in US dollars.
Speaker 4: That would actually cheaper than when we had Verizon. They
Speaker 4: would charge you ten dollars a day, you know, So
Speaker 4: it's expensive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is. So there's a couple of other ways. Well,
Speaker 1: so what I used when I went to Europe, I
Speaker 1: tested a product called Solace Wi Fi s O l
Speaker 1: I s H. But this is something that you purchase,
Speaker 1: and so that's the so that these Wi Fi rental
Speaker 1: hotspots used to be super popular, Like any country you
Speaker 1: went to, there used to be one hundred different companies
Speaker 1: that would rent these things out. That has gotten way
Speaker 1: less over the years because people have hot spots on
Speaker 1: their phone, they have the e sims, they have the
Speaker 1: international calling plans, so those are all things that have
Speaker 1: have lessened this product. So while I can't vouch for
Speaker 1: the hip pocket Wi Fi, it's definitely an idea that
Speaker 1: has been around for a long time and it's been
Speaker 1: very successful. I have done it in the past. The
Speaker 1: company that I used in the past is no longer
Speaker 1: around due to these you know, it's just the demand
Speaker 1: for this is not as great as it used to be.
Speaker 4: Okay, And then what if I have a phone that
Speaker 4: that when I replaced it, I have like an old
Speaker 4: note Sansung Note twenty that's unlocked. It's and I don't
Speaker 4: know if if I don't know, should I or I
Speaker 4: could take that.
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, use that as a hotspot and use.
Speaker 4: That and then use that phone as a hotspot for
Speaker 4: our phone.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That that's just I thought of that and I wasn't
Speaker 4: sure if if that would work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'll work. I would do that. So if you
Speaker 1: have that old phone, I mean that's a you have
Speaker 1: a note, that's a pretty big battery on there, So
Speaker 1: that's gonna work pretty well. Uh yeah, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't see any problem with doing that. So you set
Speaker 1: up the phone. What I would do is I would
Speaker 1: format that phone, like I would clear it out, like
Speaker 1: I would do a factory reset so that there's nothing
Speaker 1: on it. Set it up fresh, you know, get the
Speaker 1: E sim on it. I like RL A I R
Speaker 1: A l O. There are others. But you can get that.
Speaker 1: You can get a you probably want a pretty big
Speaker 1: allotment on there, and then you can flip that into
Speaker 1: a hot spot. The only thing is that's going to
Speaker 1: be just a little bit trickier, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more unknown and a little bit
Speaker 1: uncharted than the hippo. So the Hippo is giving you
Speaker 1: one hundred megabits. Let's see if high speed four g
Speaker 1: l t E unlimited internet and unlimited data in Europe,
Speaker 1: so you're getting unlimited for about one hundred dollars. You know,
Speaker 1: travel is expensive to begin with. I think one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars is pretty reasonable. Are you going for more than
Speaker 1: fourteen days?
Speaker 4: No, they're going out just under okay, twelve days.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that this little hippo thing is
Speaker 1: probably a pretty nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just put I'm kind of leaning towards but
Speaker 4: I just I'm so glad I got to talk to
Speaker 4: you because IVE been thinking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I would. My only thing is I
Speaker 1: would I would try to find some real reviews. I'm
Speaker 1: just looking at the website, which looks legitimate and it
Speaker 1: looks fine. I would just try to find some real
Speaker 1: reviews from people on you know, maybe search, you know,
Speaker 1: just search the web for some good reviews from like
Speaker 1: actual travelers that you trust, people that run a decent blog,
Speaker 1: and just make sure that this is legitimate. But it
Speaker 1: seems like it is, and I love the fact that
Speaker 1: they will deliver it here to the US. You have it,
Speaker 1: you get off the plane, you turn it on, your
Speaker 1: phone's are already linked up to it and it works.
Speaker 1: I've had a couple of trips in the past, Jenny,
Speaker 1: where I've landed and my phone does not work, and
Speaker 1: it is the most frustrating thing you could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: That trip from the airport to the hotel is probably
Speaker 1: the longest trip of your life when that's happening. So
Speaker 1: make sure this works. But I think that's a good
Speaker 1: way to do it. And the other phone would work
Speaker 1: as a hot spot, but it's a little bit more involved,
Speaker 1: and I would say it's probably not worth the headache,
Speaker 1: to be honest, because.
Speaker 4: It's it's kind of an older phone. Yeah, all right, well,
Speaker 4: thank you so much.
Speaker 1: All right, Jenny, thanks for the call, and have fun.
Speaker 1: I'm jealous. We've been trying to plan a trip to
Speaker 1: the dream trip to Paris and London with the kids,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot. You know, travel it's expensive. I
Speaker 1: used to travel when I was coming out to California,
Speaker 1: when I was just myself, it was one ticket. It
Speaker 1: turns out when you have a family of four and
Speaker 1: you're traveling, you're buying four tickets and that's just the
Speaker 1: entry price. Travel gets very very expensive when you have
Speaker 1: a family, and believe me it is. Travel is not cheap,
Speaker 1: so enjoy it, have a great time, and stay connected.
Speaker 1: All right. Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give
Speaker 1: me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: Coming up, I'm going to tell you about the new
Speaker 1: website that lets you search old newspapers. Very cool. You
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Let's go to uh Craig in Des Moines, Iowa. Craig,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 10: Yea, that's how you're doing Rick.
Speaker 1: I'm doing great.
Speaker 10: I have a Dawnton S twenty four, one of the
Speaker 10: new phone, and I want to know, Yeah, I can
Speaker 10: get the website like poor emudgency, like the enderware or
Speaker 10: whatever the phone got.
Speaker 1: Oh good question.
Speaker 10: I don't have the one with the dialist Okay, so't
Speaker 10: have that one. I have the little one.
Speaker 1: You've just got a standard Samsung S twenty four, which
Speaker 1: is a great phone, brand new. It's it's uh you know,
Speaker 1: it's the smaller of the Samsung's. So the Samsung devices,
Speaker 1: they're actually lagging a little bit in this emergency area,
Speaker 1: which is not very good. So if you look at
Speaker 1: the iPhone, they've got not only the newest models, have
Speaker 1: emergency satellite service, so if you are in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere and you need help and there's no cellular,
Speaker 1: they will use satellite to get you help. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: But they also have fall detection and they've got car
Speaker 1: crash detection. So those are some really useful things that
Speaker 1: will help you get help in an emergency. Now, the
Speaker 1: Pixel does not have this. That's Google's phone. They do
Speaker 1: not have the satellite service, although it's rumored that it
Speaker 1: is coming soon to the Pixel, perhaps with the next model.
Speaker 1: But they do have car crash detection, and so if
Speaker 1: you're in a car in a crash, it will attempt
Speaker 1: to dial nine one one. And the Watch also has
Speaker 1: fall detection. So when it comes to Samsung, they have
Speaker 1: something called Emergency SOS and that is it basically. But
Speaker 1: as far as I know, none of this is automatic,
Speaker 1: and so that is the thing that you need to
Speaker 1: know is that you can set up the emergency SOS
Speaker 1: feature on the Samsung, but it's not gonna be automatic
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have satellite, so you are going to
Speaker 1: be at the mercy of the cellular networks. So to
Speaker 1: set this up, go into settings Safety and Emergency and
Speaker 1: look for something. There's a couple of things that you
Speaker 1: want to fill out. Number one your medical info. Number
Speaker 1: two your emergency contacts. Number three emergency SOS. Get familiar
Speaker 1: with that, and that involves turning on the feature and
Speaker 1: when you press the side button five times in emergency,
Speaker 1: it will call the emergency number and it will send
Speaker 1: an SOS to your emergency contacts. And then the other
Speaker 1: thing they have is called emergency Sharing, and so emergency
Speaker 1: Sharing is another feature on the Samsung that will share
Speaker 1: your location another info with your emergency contacts if you
Speaker 1: need help. So you can share with your emergency contacts
Speaker 1: that you set up earlier, and it will actually share
Speaker 1: a picture of your front and rear cameras and include
Speaker 1: them the message and also a five second of audio
Speaker 1: if you ever need to activate that feature. So it's
Speaker 1: not as automatic as some of the other phones, but
Speaker 1: that's the feature that you get. I think that because
Speaker 1: Apple has had this SOS feature now for two years
Speaker 1: on the last two phones they've put out, the iPhone
Speaker 1: fourteen and the iPhone fifteen. That is a huge feature.
Speaker 1: And there are some third party products that would give
Speaker 1: you that feature, notably the Motorola Defy satellite link. But
Speaker 1: the problem with that is the company that makes it
Speaker 1: is I believe they filed bankruptcy. They licensed the Motorola
Speaker 1: name from them, and I think the company that puts
Speaker 1: this out is trying to reorganize or something. So the
Speaker 1: fate of that product is up in the air right now.
Speaker 1: So where does that leave you, Craig. That leaves you
Speaker 1: with setting up the emergency SOS feature once again. Go
Speaker 1: into settings, look for safety and emergency and just go
Speaker 1: through all of those settings and get that set up
Speaker 1: because that is very important to have that on. Great question.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the call today from des Moines, Iowa. I
Speaker 1: always feel like I'm gonna say des Moin wrong because
Speaker 1: it's looks like des Moines. All right. My Heritage has
Speaker 1: launched a new website. This is pretty cool. It's called
Speaker 1: oldnews dot com. This helps you explore historical newspapers. They
Speaker 1: have scanned millions of newspapers from various countries, including the US,
Speaker 1: and you can search for them. You can search a name,
Speaker 1: you can search an event, you can search all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. I've had a lot of fun with this website.
Speaker 1: This week, I searched my own name. I found an
Speaker 1: article about myself from two thousand and seven in some
Speaker 1: newspaper from Maine. I was on the Today Show showing
Speaker 1: off an antenna actually our guests last week, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about anyway, there's an article about how
Speaker 1: that went viral back in the day and they were
Speaker 1: selling out. But it's cool because it shows you the
Speaker 1: actual newspaper article and it highlights your search term in yellow,
Speaker 1: so you can see what it looked like on the page.
Speaker 1: You can download that newspaper page. And what's this good for?
Speaker 1: This is good for obviously ancestry reasons. You want to
Speaker 1: look up obituaries, you want to look up birth announcements,
Speaker 1: you want to look up events. You want to look
Speaker 1: up your hometown. You want to look up your high school,
Speaker 1: anything that happened in your hometown when you were young.
Speaker 1: It's really cool, it's really good. I don't know how
Speaker 1: thorough it is with the newspapers, but it looks like
Speaker 1: it has a lot. It is not free, but they
Speaker 1: do offer a free seven day trial, so if you
Speaker 1: want to try it out, I recommend signing up for
Speaker 1: that and canceling immediately so that you don't get charged,
Speaker 1: no surprises, and then if you want to later on
Speaker 1: you can sign up. If it's really amazing, you can
Speaker 1: sign up for an annual plan. The problem is they
Speaker 1: don't offer a monthly plan. They only offer an annual plan.
Speaker 1: It is ninety nine dollars for the year, twenty five
Speaker 1: percent off for the first year. Again, the website is
Speaker 1: oldnews dot com. You can find a link on my
Speaker 1: website go to richontech dot tv. All right, coming up,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk the future of streaming TV and
Speaker 1: why you should download an app called VLC. You are
Speaker 1: listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology. Triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. We've got some lines open,
Speaker 1: so if you have a question about technology, give me
Speaker 1: a call. If you want to link to something I mentioned,
Speaker 1: just go to richon Tech dot TV. Yanco Rutgers is
Speaker 1: author of the low Pass newsletter. He has written about
Speaker 1: TV and our changing world and streaming for many many
Speaker 1: years now. Uh Janko, welcome to the show. So tell
Speaker 1: me about the newsletter real quick. What do you write about.
Speaker 11: I write about a VA streaming, all the fun stuff
Speaker 11: that's basically on the intersection of technology and entertainment.
Speaker 1: It's so wild because you know, I just find got
Speaker 1: my hands on the Vision Pro in my home and
Speaker 1: I watched an episode of Hijack, like an Apple TV show,
Speaker 1: and it was quite incredible. Like I was like looking
Speaker 1: at people's faces and stuff. I'm like, this is like
Speaker 1: extremely clear and vivid and pretty amazing. It's just so
Speaker 1: darn expensive that it's like, are people going to experience
Speaker 1: this anytime soon?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 11: It's a I think it's gonna stay a small, small
Speaker 11: footprint device for some time to come until they come
Speaker 11: out with somebody said the vision on Pro.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were debating names today. Maybe it's gonna be
Speaker 1: like Vision Vision plus Vision Pro. So we'll see. But
Speaker 1: they need they need different pricing tiers for sure. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the story this week. I always know something's
Speaker 1: the story when people email me A bunch and a
Speaker 1: lot of people are very upset about this Roku situation.
Speaker 1: I guess they saw a message on their screen that said,
Speaker 1: we have some new terms of service and people just figure,
Speaker 1: you know, you can cancel out of it. You couldn't,
Speaker 1: You couldn't proceed unless you accepted this.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and all companies do this all the time. But
Speaker 11: they sort of revised the terms of service, or in
Speaker 11: this case, it was sort of the dispute resolution terms,
Speaker 11: basically saying you can't sue Roku, but they decide to
Speaker 11: put it front and center and you had to agree
Speaker 11: to it right then and there on the TV screen,
Speaker 11: and that ended up being a major hazard for many
Speaker 11: people because you know, if you build up your TV system,
Speaker 11: maybe you have a sound Ball, maybe every Universe or remote,
Speaker 11: maybe even use the other device to reallydo all your
Speaker 11: streaming and connected Xbox, and you don't even touch the
Speaker 11: Roker remote anymore. So some people didn't have the remote anymore,
Speaker 11: and then they couldn't agree to this, and they couldn't
Speaker 11: access any of their other stuff anymore either. They've basically
Speaker 11: been stuck for like days in this weird limbo of
Speaker 11: having to agree to these terms that they can't agree to.
Speaker 11: So they really messed up how their world is out.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I didn't realize that aspect of it
Speaker 1: that people were you know, yeah, that's so true. Like
Speaker 1: if you didn't if you don't have your remote handy,
Speaker 1: if you're using like a third party device and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, this pops up on your screen and
Speaker 1: you just want to be like, please dismiss, you know,
Speaker 1: like you want to use your voice or something. But
Speaker 1: that's wild. Now people were saying, you know, I saw
Speaker 1: an article that says the only way to opt out
Speaker 1: is to write Roku's lawyers a letter. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's worth it?
Speaker 9: Here?
Speaker 1: I mean, is there any reason why someone's going to
Speaker 1: sue Roku? Like they don't like to show they're watching
Speaker 1: and they want their money back.
Speaker 5: I mean, so here's the thing about this.
Speaker 11: Roku is a streaming device maker and now they make
Speaker 11: TVs as well, but they make all the money with
Speaker 11: the advertising and with the advertising that comes from downsides
Speaker 11: when it comes to like profiling collecting data on people.
Speaker 11: So sometimes people do get upset about it. And there's
Speaker 11: try lawyers obliviously who want to make money with that,
Speaker 11: collect make class action lawsuits. And this was all about
Speaker 11: Rocu saying no, you can't do a class action lawsuit
Speaker 11: against us for any of those things because you have
Speaker 11: to go into arbitration. And again, a lot of companies
Speaker 11: do that. You know, maybe it's not the greatest thing
Speaker 11: for consumers, but it's just the wealthy we live in today.
Speaker 5: But in this case, they just messed up the role up.
Speaker 1: Ah, that makes sense, okay, because they do collect a
Speaker 1: lot of data. Speaking of data, So Walmart bought Visio
Speaker 1: and Visio actually I feel like they had a big
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit over their data collection practices a while back,
Speaker 1: So this is a big data play, right, Like Walmart,
Speaker 1: why are they buying Visio.
Speaker 11: It's basically the same story for Visio and Roku, all
Speaker 11: these companies that make relatively affordable TV. So you can
Speaker 11: go into a store right now and you can buy
Speaker 11: like a fifty five inch TV for three hundred bucks,
Speaker 11: which is insane, right because ten years ago you had
Speaker 11: to spend ten x as much. So TV prices have
Speaker 11: gone down completely. They're not making money on hardware anymore.
Speaker 11: Everybody's making money on advertising. As soon as you turn
Speaker 11: these things on as ads on the home screen, you
Speaker 11: get a lot of free channels on there. All of
Speaker 11: them have advertising, any third party ads or do any
Speaker 11: of those TVs has to share ad revenue or slots
Speaker 11: with them. So that's where the money is. And that's
Speaker 11: why Walmart also wants again and they want to grow
Speaker 11: more revenue. They don't just want to sell your stuff,
Speaker 11: but they want to then have a way to make
Speaker 11: money with that stuff that they already sold you every
Speaker 11: month for years to come, and TVs are a good,
Speaker 11: good avenue for that, so that's why they wanted to
Speaker 11: get into this space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty wild. I don't think people realize just
Speaker 1: how much these TVs collect. I mean, everything's a smart
Speaker 1: TV now and they're all collecting so much data that
Speaker 1: is monetized and you know Roku and all these things,
Speaker 1: like they make a cut on even the streaming services
Speaker 1: that they have on there, like you think I downloaded
Speaker 1: you know, HBO Max or whatever, like they have these
Speaker 1: deals that they somehow get a little piece of the
Speaker 1: action for ads that are even served up on these
Speaker 1: third party services.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's right, and I mean, to be fair, it's
Speaker 11: the only way that can make money. And we all
Speaker 11: like GPS, right, so that's the downs that we have
Speaker 11: to accept with that. And to be fair, if you
Speaker 11: buy a really expensive TV, if you go out and
Speaker 11: buy Samson TV for two thousand dollars, it's still gonna
Speaker 11: have the same ads on there, it's still gonna have
Speaker 11: the same services, and it's still going to collect this
Speaker 11: type of data. Now, some of these team makeers, you
Speaker 11: can actually opt out of some personalization.
Speaker 5: If you google that.
Speaker 11: There's articles that tell you how to opt out of
Speaker 11: a lot of the data collection. You're still going to
Speaker 11: you know, there's still some service level profile. You never
Speaker 11: can completely opt out of it unless you like go
Speaker 11: back to DVD's correct you over the antenna basically.
Speaker 5: But that's just the world we live in these days.
Speaker 1: And I guess you could disconnect it from Wi Fi
Speaker 1: if you're not using it as your you know, primary
Speaker 1: uh streaming service like my tea. I just got a
Speaker 1: TV and I opted out of all of the uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the data collection stuff. But they make it
Speaker 1: sound really scary. They make it sound like your TV
Speaker 1: is not going to work, you know, like we make
Speaker 1: your experience better and we make sure you know. They
Speaker 1: they at one point tried to sell me on they
Speaker 1: scan what you're watching to adjust the TV picture to
Speaker 1: look its best or something, and I'm like, oh, come on,
Speaker 1: like give me a break. Okay. So Max is the
Speaker 1: latest to say they are going to crack down on
Speaker 1: password sharing. This has gotten really bad, I mean really
Speaker 1: sad for us, well people who people have been sharing
Speaker 1: their passwords for a long time, and I know a
Speaker 1: lot of families and households and things. You know, no
Speaker 1: one ever enforced it, and now they're enforcing it in
Speaker 1: a pretty big way. And Max is the latest to
Speaker 1: do this. When's that starting.
Speaker 11: They haven't put a firm data on it, but they
Speaker 11: have said later this year and possibly up into twenty
Speaker 11: twenty five.
Speaker 5: And it's all because Netflix.
Speaker 11: Was the first company to come up with this, and
Speaker 11: obviously they have the biggest streaming company, they have the
Speaker 11: biggest footprint, so they also were at some point seeing, oh,
Speaker 11: accounts aren't beingly growing anymore in the US, but people
Speaker 11: are still obviously streaming a lot of a lot of
Speaker 11: different households, so they start to experiment with it, and
Speaker 11: actually it turned out to be really successful for it.
Speaker 11: Netflix added like thirty million around thirty million subscribers last year,
Speaker 11: which was like almost ten million more than the year before,
Speaker 11: primarily because of this aicond sharing stuff. So now everybody
Speaker 11: else is trying to do it as well. Disney is
Speaker 11: trying to do it, Hulu is trying to do it.
Speaker 11: I think YouTube with their premium so has started. Now
Speaker 11: Max is going to be the next one. It's somewhat
Speaker 11: under standable. I think for these companies they do have
Speaker 11: to make money somehow, but I think it really comes
Speaker 11: down to how they implement it. With Netflix, you can
Speaker 11: decide to either like spin someone out, so if somebody
Speaker 11: is used your account and they have profile data and
Speaker 11: then they're like, oh, okay, I guess I have to
Speaker 11: pay now. They can actually take so all the stuff
Speaker 11: that you're collected in the past, like they're watch listens
Speaker 11: of what to that new account, which is quite quite nice.
Speaker 11: And you can also decided, you know, if it's your
Speaker 11: parents and they're maybe not technical savvy and they don't
Speaker 11: want to set up there on Netflix account, you can
Speaker 11: pay to keep them on your account.
Speaker 5: That's a pretty way to do it.
Speaker 11: I don't know the details and how Max is going
Speaker 11: to do that, and I think the devil is always
Speaker 11: in the detail on how they rule it out, how
Speaker 11: they frame it and really how consumer affact did they
Speaker 11: make it?
Speaker 1: So in your newsletter this week We've just got about
Speaker 1: a minute to go, you mentioned you kind of had
Speaker 1: a deep dive on this app that is kind of
Speaker 1: the Swiss Army Knife of video apps called VLC. So
Speaker 1: why do you think someone should learn about VLC and
Speaker 1: download that app?
Speaker 5: App?
Speaker 11: It helps with playing anything that you might have on
Speaker 11: your heart drive, any old family videos, any videos you
Speaker 11: may have downloaded somewhere years ago and you can't really
Speaker 11: quite figure it out. It can play any video file,
Speaker 11: basically any music file. It's just a really good thing
Speaker 11: to have, and it has been downloaded five billion times.
Speaker 11: It's available fourmacs, four PCs, so people have a Linux system.
Speaker 11: It's mobile apps spread so basically anywhere. It can play everything.
Speaker 11: It's always a good thing to have in your back pocket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always been something that I've had downloaded, and
Speaker 1: it's surprising sometimes. I mean I think it's even available
Speaker 1: for like iOS and Android right right, right right, so
Speaker 1: you can it's just yeah, like all those weird formats
Speaker 1: that like maybe you have like in your Google drive
Speaker 1: somewhere that you're like, how do I open this? Like
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten. It just figures it out exactly.
Speaker 1: And is it open source?
Speaker 11: That program it's free, it's open source, and it's basically
Speaker 11: one of the most popular open source projects ever. Point
Speaker 11: it's around, been around for twenty years. They just had
Speaker 11: a big open source community around that supported it. Yeah,
Speaker 11: and that's been going strong.
Speaker 1: And the it's like video land player, I think, like
Speaker 1: the website is a little bit it's like video land
Speaker 1: dot org. So don't get thrown off by the website.
Speaker 1: But it's VLC is the media player. All right? Tell
Speaker 1: folks how they can find the newsletter.
Speaker 11: It is lowpass dot CC, so that's l Owpass dot
Speaker 11: CC and otherwise you can also just google it, all right.
Speaker 1: Yanco Rutgers, author of the low Pass newsletter, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today anytime, all right, more of
Speaker 1: your calls coming up next at triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. I'll tell you what's new with
Speaker 1: Rivian and what's new with iOS seventeen point four. You
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's
Speaker 1: go to h. Richard in Lancaster. Richard, you're on with rich.
Speaker 12: Hello rich Hi, thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what can I help you with?
Speaker 12: Okay, I have a Window seven computer and I need
Speaker 12: to get security software. Do you have one that you recommend?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 1: What do you what do you mean by security software?
Speaker 12: Well, like I've been using McCafe okay.
Speaker 1: So like antivirus kind of software. Yeah, oh okay, so
Speaker 1: Windows seven. You've had this computer for a while huh yes,
Speaker 1: and you're not you're not ready to give this up?
Speaker 5: Huh correct?
Speaker 1: Why is that just curious?
Speaker 12: Well, because it satisfies my needs for what I do
Speaker 12: on the computer. First of all, I won't tell you.
Speaker 12: I don't do any banking or online purchases on it.
Speaker 12: Just search the internet.
Speaker 1: Okay. Now I'm curious because I don't have a Windows
Speaker 1: seven system anymore. But does like Chrome and all these
Speaker 1: are I mean, what do you use like your web browser?
Speaker 1: And is it still supported with updates?
Speaker 12: It notifies me that it will not accept Windows.
Speaker 1: Seven also, Okay, I was curious because I'm looking at this,
Speaker 1: so there's a good website endof life dot date and
Speaker 1: I'm looking up Windows seven, Windows seven Service Pack one,
Speaker 1: so let's see it was released, Oh my gosh, this
Speaker 1: was released thirteen years ago. The software support active support ended,
Speaker 1: let's see here ended nine years ago, and then security
Speaker 1: support ended four years ago, so not too bad with that.
Speaker 1: But that means that this computer has not gotten any
Speaker 1: active software updates with relation to you know, software, but
Speaker 1: also more importantly security for four years. So what does
Speaker 1: that mean. I'm sure you're aware, but that means that
Speaker 1: any exploit that has been found with this software could
Speaker 1: be used and there's no patch available for that as
Speaker 1: of this point because the security updates ended on January fourteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. So it's a good it's a good idea
Speaker 1: to eventually upgrade this and to start planning for that upgrade,
Speaker 1: mostly because you know, you don't want to be put
Speaker 1: in a position where someone is able to access everything
Speaker 1: on this computer or can exploit some sort of security
Speaker 1: issue with this system that is that is in the
Speaker 1: ut wild. So what happens is anytime you have software
Speaker 1: that's been around for a long time, it's no longer
Speaker 1: actively supported. You know, there's there's forums and things that
Speaker 1: percolate with this information and people know like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is a known exploit of this software, let's find machines
Speaker 1: that are running it, and let's actively, you know, explore it.
Speaker 1: So with that said, I did a quick search of antivirus.
Speaker 1: So the way I usually look up antivirus software as
Speaker 1: I go to avdash test dot org. I like their
Speaker 1: ratings of antivirus software and a vast is typically highly rated,
Speaker 1: and I searched a VAST for Windows seven, and it
Speaker 1: turns out they say this is They actually have a
Speaker 1: whole landing page set up for this. It says, protect
Speaker 1: your Windows seven PC with a VAST free antivirus. Microsoft
Speaker 1: no longer supports Windows seven, but a VAST does. Our
Speaker 1: top rated antivirus protection will stay fully updated on Windows seven,
Speaker 1: and that is a free download. A Vast obviously has
Speaker 1: paid services, but you can get the free service as well.
Speaker 1: So I would probably say go for that and download it.
Speaker 1: And in fact, they have a whole fact on this
Speaker 1: page faq is Windows seven still safe to use? And
Speaker 1: it says Microsoft doesn't provide updates anymore? How do I
Speaker 1: protect Windows seven from viruses? But I would go with this,
Speaker 1: So a VAST Windows seven antivirus looks like it's still supported,
Speaker 1: but I would again think about getting this system updated
Speaker 1: in the near future. So good question, Richard. I understand
Speaker 1: there's a lot of hesitation to upgrade things, but because
Speaker 1: they people want things to work the way they've always worked,
Speaker 1: and if it's working for you, why not. But you
Speaker 1: have to remember that there are people that are looking
Speaker 1: for these exploits, so keep yourself protected there. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the question. Triple eight rich one on one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Rob says,
Speaker 1: I'm an Android user from day one. My oldest daughter
Speaker 1: now works for Apple and her position involves travel to China,
Speaker 1: so she purchased an iPhone fifteen Promax for me for
Speaker 1: Christmas and she would like me to switch over, as
Speaker 1: any good daughter that works for Apple would. Is there
Speaker 1: any app that will transfer my text messages and associated
Speaker 1: foot potos from my Samsung to the iPhone without losing
Speaker 1: the texts and the photos. Apple actually makes their own
Speaker 1: app called move Let's see. It's called Move to iOS
Speaker 1: and you can download it on the Android device. So
Speaker 1: if you go on the Google Play Store, you can
Speaker 1: download move to iOS on that device. It will create
Speaker 1: an ad hoc Wi Fi network that the iPhone will
Speaker 1: then latch onto and transfer all of your stuff. So
Speaker 1: what will it transfer? Let's see it will transfer. I
Speaker 1: got to find the information here, message history, contacts, camera photos, videos,
Speaker 1: photo albums, files and folders, accessibility settings, display settings, bookmarks,
Speaker 1: mail accounts, WhatsApp calendars if they're available on both Google
Speaker 1: Play and the App Store. Some of your free apps
Speaker 1: will also transfer, so this is probably your best bet.
Speaker 1: That is the official way move to iOS app. If
Speaker 1: you want some unofficial ways, there are some apps Doctor Phone,
Speaker 1: dr Phone, Foe from wonder Share. We'll also do something
Speaker 1: similar in an app called any trans a n Y
Speaker 1: t r A n S. These are probably just a
Speaker 1: little bit more full featured, a little bit more robust
Speaker 1: when it comes to what you can transfer and the
Speaker 1: control that you get. The Apple one is going to
Speaker 1: be very basic. It's just going to move things over
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a very basic way to
Speaker 1: do that. But there you have it. Three good options.
Speaker 1: But hey, kudos to you for having such an awesome
Speaker 1: daughter to work for Apple and get to travel to China.
Speaker 1: That is super cool, very very cool. All right, speaking
Speaker 1: of iOS iOS, seventeen. Update this week new Emoji podcast transcripts,
Speaker 1: So if you have iOS seventeen, you can download it
Speaker 1: for the iPhone ten s and later. Those are the
Speaker 1: phones that are supported. There's new emoji. I don't get
Speaker 1: excited about these, but you can do a mushroom, a
Speaker 1: lime shaking head. Apple podcast now has transcripts, So if
Speaker 1: you want to follow along with a show like mine,
Speaker 1: search rich on Tech and you can see the full
Speaker 1: transcript of the show. And if you're interested in your
Speaker 1: battery health in the settings, you can now see more
Speaker 1: information about your battery cycle count, manufactured date, and first use.
Speaker 1: That's only for the iPhone fifteen and fifteen pro eighty
Speaker 1: to eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four to one zero one. More rich
Speaker 1: on Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome to
Speaker 1: another hour of rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Coming up this hour, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about the Rivian. This is a hot car, the
Speaker 1: Rivian R two. I was at the launch event this
Speaker 1: week in Laguna Beach, which by the way.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: There was a TV show, what was it, Laguna Hills
Speaker 1: or Laguna Beach Laguna Hills that I actually watched at
Speaker 1: one point, and I still didn't realize how beautiful that
Speaker 1: area was. It's really really nice down there. It took
Speaker 1: me a couple hours to get home from there, so
Speaker 1: that was, yeah, not easily. I guess you can't get
Speaker 1: there very easily if you're driving in the afternoon rush
Speaker 1: hour after a long day. But with that said, it
Speaker 1: was amazing. Let's see talk about tech. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you how you can get ESPN Plus included if you
Speaker 1: have Spectrum TV. At this point, the FCC is warning
Speaker 1: that the Affordable Connectivity program is coming to a close,
Speaker 1: and oh my gosh, I have a list of stuff.
Speaker 1: I've got literally one hundred things still to tell you,
Speaker 1: so we'll try to get through as much of that
Speaker 1: as possible. The website for the show rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. If you need a link to something I mentioned,
Speaker 1: and while you're at it, go ahead and follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram at rich on tech is where you can
Speaker 1: find me. I often post a lot of stuff in
Speaker 1: my stories throughout the week that will end up making
Speaker 1: its way to this show and the newsletter. The newsletter
Speaker 1: is available. It's free. I sent out my third issue today,
Speaker 1: So if you listen to the earlier part of the show,
Speaker 1: at the beginning, I talked about vision Pro. That was
Speaker 1: a lot of that was in my newsletter. So just
Speaker 1: go to richon tech dot TV and look for the
Speaker 1: newsletter pop in your email address. It is free and
Speaker 1: I will send you a little updates throughout the week.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Kathy in Denver, Colorado. Kathy, you're on
Speaker 1: with Rich Rich.
Speaker 13: Thank you so much for taking my call. And I
Speaker 13: want to thank one of your prior callers, also named Rich,
Speaker 13: because he asked you a question about Windows seven and
Speaker 13: some antivirus software. I too have a Windows seventh laptop
Speaker 13: and I wanted to find out if I can upgrade
Speaker 13: it or if I just need.
Speaker 7: To go out and buy a whole new laptop. So
Speaker 7: that's my question.
Speaker 8: I wasn't I'm just not sure what to do next
Speaker 8: to get it upgraded.
Speaker 7: Can I upgrade it?
Speaker 1: It probably is upgradeable, but it's probably not easy at
Speaker 1: this point. So it was free to upgrade these computers.
Speaker 1: Let's see, I'm trying to see let's see a Microsoft's
Speaker 1: free upgrade offer ended on July twenty ninth, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: so it's been a while. Let's see the installation path
Speaker 1: to obtain the Windows seven eight free upgrade is now
Speaker 1: removed as well. Upgrades to Windows eleven from Windows ten
Speaker 1: are still free, so it doesn't look like it's free anymore.
Speaker 1: It also, when you go into your settings, does it
Speaker 1: allow you to update or no, to say, doesn't say
Speaker 1: Windows ten or eleven anymore?
Speaker 13: Huh no it doesn't.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so don't paying for it. I just didn't know
Speaker 7: if I could update, you know, update my current Lenovo,
Speaker 7: or whether I have to spend the bigger bucks and
Speaker 7: go buy a new laptop, or whether the constant of
Speaker 7: being about the same.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I let's see here. So Windows seven to
Speaker 1: Windows ten upgrade take place in your existing device, although
Speaker 1: Microsoft recommends using Windows ten on a new PC to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the latest features and security improvements. So
Speaker 1: that is the main thing. I think with Windows ten,
Speaker 1: they introduce some new security like some there's like two
Speaker 1: types of computers, some that take advantage of these new
Speaker 1: security systems and some that do not. So the older
Speaker 1: computers are not and so that's probably where yours is
Speaker 1: going to fall into that category. So my advice, if
Speaker 1: you can, I would say it's probably a good idea
Speaker 1: to get a new computer. Does that mean you can't
Speaker 1: upgrade from Windows seven to Windows ten or eleven? No,
Speaker 1: But is it going to run very well on your computer?
Speaker 1: Probably not. You're looking at a computer that is pretty
Speaker 1: old at this point, and so these modern operating systems,
Speaker 1: you know, they take a lot of resources, and so
Speaker 1: I just don't know if it would be the best
Speaker 1: experience to do that. With that said, if you want
Speaker 1: to go ahead and try it, you can, and you
Speaker 1: probably will have to pay, So I will post the
Speaker 1: instructions on you know where to look to do that
Speaker 1: on the website in the show notes rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. That's probably where i'd go. But I think
Speaker 1: at this point it's, you know, again, you're talking something
Speaker 1: that's very, very many years out of date. And I
Speaker 1: know that a lot of people did not want to
Speaker 1: go to Windows ten at the time because they were
Speaker 1: happy with Windows seven, and there were some holdouts. But
Speaker 1: at this point, Windows ten, Windows eleven is the way
Speaker 1: of the world for Windows and it's probably a good
Speaker 1: idea to either get the modern machine that can handle that,
Speaker 1: or see if your machine can upgrade through the Windows website.
Speaker 1: So I will post the link on that when I
Speaker 1: have a little bit more time to get that for
Speaker 1: you not live on air here. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: the call. Kathy in Denver, Colorado. Do appreciate that if
Speaker 1: you have ESPN or if sorry, if you have a
Speaker 1: Spectrum TV, if you're paying for Spectrum TV, you can
Speaker 1: now get ESPN Plus included at no extra cost. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, a couple months ago,
Speaker 1: I announced that Disney Plus was free for Spectrum TV customers.
Speaker 1: So now they're doing the same thing with ESPN Plus.
Speaker 1: They said they were going to do this, and now
Speaker 1: they're actually doing it. So if you have a Spectrum
Speaker 1: TV Select, then you can get this ESPN Plus. So
Speaker 1: ESPN Plus what does it have? It's usually ten dollars
Speaker 1: a month, ten ninety nine a month, as over thirty
Speaker 1: thousand live events, UFC, NHL games, college sports, just a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of stuff to watch if you like sports.
Speaker 1: So how do you get this? You have to go
Speaker 1: to the website Spectrum dot com slash ESPN Plus and
Speaker 1: just like the Disney Plus and the Disney Plus is
Speaker 1: still that offer still stands as well. So if you
Speaker 1: go to Spectrum dot com slash Disney Plus you can
Speaker 1: get that. But ESPN and it looks like it's the
Speaker 1: plus sign. It's just kind of weird. Let me just
Speaker 1: make sure. I just want to be sure that I'm
Speaker 1: sending you to the right website. Let's see here, ESPN YEP,
Speaker 1: ESPN and then the plus sign after it. So ESPN
Speaker 1: Plus it says now available with your Spectrum Plan start.
Speaker 1: If you're on the Spectrum TV Select Plus plan, you
Speaker 1: can sign in with your ESPN Plus account. And I
Speaker 1: would read all of the questions and answers before you
Speaker 1: do this, because there is some confusion if you're already
Speaker 1: paying for it. If you already have a sign in,
Speaker 1: you're gonna need both sign ins. You're gonna need your
Speaker 1: Spectrum sign in and you're also gonna need your ESPN
Speaker 1: Plus account. So just read through everything before you embark
Speaker 1: on this. But if you're paying ten nine a month
Speaker 1: and you're also paying for Spectrum, you might as well
Speaker 1: get it. So it's a nice thing they've been doing there.
Speaker 1: Speaking of internet, FCC is saying the Affordable Connectivity Program
Speaker 1: funding is out and that program is going to end.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you remember this, but this
Speaker 1: was during the pandemic. They rolled out this thing called
Speaker 1: the Affordable Connectivity Program and they put a bunch of
Speaker 1: money into it, and they were giving out discounts on
Speaker 1: your monthly internet to eligible households. It was thirty dollars
Speaker 1: a month discount and it was if you were on
Speaker 1: different government programs, you would qualify for this program. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people took advantage of it, and now
Speaker 1: that funding has dried up, and so according to their surveys,
Speaker 1: they said more than two thirds of ACP households had
Speaker 1: inconsistent or no connectivity prior to enrolling in the program,
Speaker 1: and more than three quarters will have a service disruption
Speaker 1: if the program ends. So what's going to happen is
Speaker 1: all the people that were on this program, they are
Speaker 1: going to pay either thirty dollars more a month, which
Speaker 1: is going to bring their bill up, or they're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to continue because they're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to pay this. So what's happening, Well,
Speaker 1: there are some senators and representatives that have introduced the
Speaker 1: Affordable Activity Program Extension Act, which would give an additional
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars in funding for this program, but they
Speaker 1: have stopped accepting new applications and the last fully funded
Speaker 1: program month is April. So at the end of April,
Speaker 1: there will be some surprises for people in May, either
Speaker 1: their bill will pop up or they will have to
Speaker 1: cancel this. But I have a feeling that there will
Speaker 1: be a continuation to this program, just because it is
Speaker 1: such a big program. The phone Affordability program has been
Speaker 1: going on for a while and now they've got this Internet.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where you know, you've got
Speaker 1: to get people on both sides to agree to say yes,
Speaker 1: and it does help a lot of people. And I
Speaker 1: believe the funding is through other people's bills. Don't quote
Speaker 1: me on that one, but I think that the funding
Speaker 1: for these programs comes from the people that pay their bills,
Speaker 1: and there's like an extra couple of dollars a month.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't you know what strike from
Speaker 1: the record on Usher if that's true, but I think
Speaker 1: that's how they do it. All right. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you about this cool app called clean my Phone. So
Speaker 1: if you have an iPhone and you've got all these
Speaker 1: pictures on it that are always cluttering up your storage.
Speaker 1: Everyone's always asking me for a way to declutter and
Speaker 1: optimize the storage on iOS. So this is a new
Speaker 1: app called clean my Phone. It evolved from Gemini Photos,
Speaker 1: another popular app I recommend it for many years, that
Speaker 1: was launched in twenty eighteen, but this one is kind
Speaker 1: of a new version of that. So what it'll do
Speaker 1: is scan your camera role for duplicates, blurry images, screen recordings,
Speaker 1: and anything else that might be unnecessary. Uses AI, oh
Speaker 1: there's that keyword AI to analyze and organize photos into
Speaker 1: folders based on themes or subjects. Whether you need it
Speaker 1: or not, I don't know. And then it has a
Speaker 1: it's kind of weird. It's got a network module which
Speaker 1: lets you test your Internet connection speed inside the app.
Speaker 1: So the app, again is called clean my Phone. I
Speaker 1: expect it to be very, very popular. It is twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars for the year, but they did a three
Speaker 1: day free trial and I did download it. I did
Speaker 1: sign up for the twenty five dollars for the year,
Speaker 1: but again you just cancel as soon as you sign
Speaker 1: up and you can still use it for those three days.
Speaker 1: You could do a lot of cleaning in three days
Speaker 1: if you want to organize your camera role. So again,
Speaker 1: it comes from a trusted publisher called MacPaw, who I
Speaker 1: like very much. They're actually based in Ukraine. They develop
Speaker 1: a lot of software. Another program I like called Clean
Speaker 1: my Mac. Now they are making clean my Phone. So
Speaker 1: if you want to download that, I'll put it in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Rich on Tech dot tv is the
Speaker 1: place to look for the show notes. All right, let's
Speaker 1: give you the phone number one more time, eight eight
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one, the website rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. Coming up, we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about the Rivian R two launch. Seventy thousand reservations for
Speaker 1: this new electric car overnight. I'll tell you why so
Speaker 1: many people are liking it. That's coming up right here
Speaker 1: on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two, four one zero one. The website rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. You can hit contact and send in
Speaker 1: your messages. I'll get to the feedback segment at the
Speaker 1: end of the show. So if you have a comment
Speaker 1: about something that was mentioned here. Submit it now, go
Speaker 1: to the website richontech dot TV, hit contact and I
Speaker 1: will read it at the end of the show. You
Speaker 1: can also submit your questions, which a lot of you do.
Speaker 1: Let's see Shamika says, I need to know the best
Speaker 1: audio transcribing device for a conference room to record then
Speaker 1: type texts, to word documents to take notes. Well you're in. Look,
Speaker 1: there's lots of ways to do this these days, especially
Speaker 1: thanks to AI transcription tools. I will tell you my favorites.
Speaker 1: So number one, I mean, the easiest thing you can
Speaker 1: do nowadays. I mean, there used to be apps like
Speaker 1: Otter otter ai, o t t er Ai and that
Speaker 1: app would transcribe things for you, and you know, but
Speaker 1: it was only give you like a certain amount of
Speaker 1: free every month. But now the new phones have a
Speaker 1: lot of transcription built in. So if you have a Samsung,
Speaker 1: the latest SAMSUNGS, the S twenty three, the S twenty
Speaker 1: four will give you transcription built into the recorder app.
Speaker 1: The latest Pixels also give you transcription built into the
Speaker 1: recorder app on those phones. iPhone does not have built
Speaker 1: in transcription, but you can use the audio app on
Speaker 1: the iPhone to record the meeting and then you can
Speaker 1: transcribe it using one of these tools. So on Mac,
Speaker 1: my favorite tool is called mac whisper. And on Windows,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm trying to remember I the name
Speaker 1: of the app is evading me right now, But there
Speaker 1: is an app on Windows that will give you the
Speaker 1: transcription as well. I'll think of that in a second.
Speaker 1: But those there's also another app called descript D E
Speaker 1: S c R I P T, and descript will give
Speaker 1: you transcription as well. If you have a membership to
Speaker 1: Office three sixty five, there's actually a tool inside Office,
Speaker 1: inside word that will let you upload an audio file
Speaker 1: and it will transcribe it there for you. So there
Speaker 1: are many, many ways to transcribe things, and so many
Speaker 1: of them are free, and so many of them are
Speaker 1: really good because of because of the AI systems that
Speaker 1: they use on the back end. Oh, here it is.
Speaker 1: It's called buzz Buzz. So buzz is in an It's
Speaker 1: powered by open AI's Whisper, which is a same one
Speaker 1: that mac whisper does. But I'm not kidding. Transcription used
Speaker 1: to be such a chore and it used to be
Speaker 1: so expensive. I now transcribe every single thing that I do,
Speaker 1: every interview that I do, all my radio shows, all
Speaker 1: the podcasts, anything, if I'm in a meeting, I will
Speaker 1: just record it and transcribe it because it's so easy
Speaker 1: and it's so simple now, and then you can just
Speaker 1: throw that transcription into AI and it will summarize it
Speaker 1: for you. And some of the phones, like I mentioned
Speaker 1: the Pixel and the Samsung, they will summarize that for
Speaker 1: you as well. So so many ways to do that
Speaker 1: and it's just gotten so much, so much easier. Story
Speaker 1: this week about thieves using Wi Fi jammers to break
Speaker 1: into homes to disable the wireless smart home security systems.
Speaker 1: So there's multiple reports. There's one out of Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: there's one out of Minneapolis, there's one out of Arizona
Speaker 1: about these Wi Fi jammers to block signs. And I'm
Speaker 1: not telling you this to scare you, but it's just
Speaker 1: kind of to know what's out there. It's not really
Speaker 1: a whole lot you can do about this. I mean,
Speaker 1: the recommendation is that you can go with a wired
Speaker 1: security camera system, but that's not very realistic. But some
Speaker 1: of these, you know, many of these security devices, these
Speaker 1: cameras use radio frequencies like two point four gigahertz, which
Speaker 1: can be overpowered by these jammers that send a signal
Speaker 1: on the same frequency. Now, these jammers are banned in
Speaker 1: the US by the FCC, but that doesn't mean people
Speaker 1: don't get them from other sources, especially online. So apparently
Speaker 1: these burglars research houses online before they burglarize them, and
Speaker 1: they target the primary bedrooms and steal high value items
Speaker 1: from there. So just be aware. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are blurring out their homes on Google Maps and things
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, you can do that, but just
Speaker 1: be aware of this stuff. And I think having lights
Speaker 1: in a system and you know, signs will really go
Speaker 1: a long way. Rivian this week unveiled a new suv
Speaker 1: that's smaller. It's called the R two forty five thousand bucks.
Speaker 1: It's set to launch in twenty twenty six. This was great.
Speaker 1: They did this in Laguna Beach. I was there. The
Speaker 1: pricing is right, forty five grand for a small electric suv.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. It doesn't come out for another
Speaker 1: year and a half two years. A lot can change
Speaker 1: in that time. But that did not keep them from
Speaker 1: getting a lot of reservations. Sixty eight thousand reservations overnight
Speaker 1: for the new R two. Reservation is one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: It's a deposit that is refundable. They expect to ramp
Speaker 1: up these cars when they start making them a normal
Speaker 1: Illinois that's where the plant is. They're expecting to make
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifteen thousand vehicles per year there. That
Speaker 1: may sound like a lot, but when you look at
Speaker 1: what Tesla's selling, they're selling a whole lot more. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up, I've got interviews from my event at the
Speaker 1: Rivian launch event in Laguna. We're going to talk to
Speaker 1: the CEO. We're going to talk to the head of
Speaker 1: design and some other folks all about the Rivian R two.
Speaker 1: Coming up right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with
Speaker 1: you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: So this week I went to the unveiling of the
Speaker 1: new Rivian electric vehicles. The company was expected to announce
Speaker 1: one smaller suv. They surprised the world by announcing three
Speaker 1: new cars. The R two, which is a smaller version
Speaker 1: of their suv. It's expected to go over three hundred
Speaker 1: miles on a charge, and it's going to cost forty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. It is a five seater small suv.
Speaker 1: So first up, I talked to Rivian's head of design,
Speaker 1: Jeff Hamoud. They kept saying throughout their entire presentation that
Speaker 1: Rivian is all about adventure, So I asked him how
Speaker 1: do they design for that.
Speaker 14: When you think about adventure, we really have to think
Speaker 14: about broad strokes.
Speaker 5: What adventure could be.
Speaker 14: I mean with obviously answer are things that we've shown
Speaker 14: on our one is whether that's camping, kayaking, surfing, things
Speaker 14: like that. But adventure could be many things. Adventure could
Speaker 14: be moving to another city. Adventure could be taking your
Speaker 14: kids off to college, or as I just said, adventure
Speaker 14: could be going to Ikea. So we really want to
Speaker 14: look at what are the things that people do and
Speaker 14: try to make their lives easier.
Speaker 1: Two models of the Rivan, both the pickup truck and
Speaker 1: the suv, have been out in the wild for a while.
Speaker 1: I next asked Jeff how they learned from that experience
Speaker 1: and what they improved on these new cars.
Speaker 14: Well, with R two being able to scale and get
Speaker 14: a lot more people in our brand obviously is trying
Speaker 14: to get something that is more affordable. The size of
Speaker 14: the vehicle as well, while having the vehicle be smaller,
Speaker 14: more more notevable, and more athletic. But there's things that
Speaker 14: we also carried over from our one that we really
Speaker 14: appreciated in our too. We got a lot of positive
Speaker 14: feedback and have some of the details. As I've mentioned,
Speaker 14: is the map pockets in the door. You know, how
Speaker 14: do we use our UI screens? We still have two screens.
Speaker 14: We still think that's really important. Proved on things like
Speaker 14: our steering wheel controls because I think there's was room
Speaker 14: for improvement on that for our one, and carried over
Speaker 14: some of the core features of accessibility, but with it
Speaker 14: with R two we went even further with It's like,
Speaker 14: well the car is smaller, but we know that we
Speaker 14: had a lot of feedbackward customers. We're using the vehicles
Speaker 14: to sleep in it, but with this smaller.
Speaker 5: Wheelace, what do you do?
Speaker 14: So that's why the seats are able to fold flat completely,
Speaker 14: including the front front road.
Speaker 1: Next to those curious who the R two is for,
Speaker 1: I think that RB two could be for everyone.
Speaker 14: Honestly, That's that's really what we're doing, and it's people
Speaker 14: that resonate well hopefully with our brand. You look at
Speaker 14: the EV space, there's a lot of vehicles that have
Speaker 14: a lot of similar feeling, and I think for EV
Speaker 14: adoption to take off is the ability to have choice,
Speaker 14: and for Rivian having that very two box suv, higher
Speaker 14: ground clearance, more capability off road or an inclement weather.
Speaker 14: Being able to have that confidence really expands sort of
Speaker 14: the market offering out there and helps differentiate us from others,
Speaker 14: but still gives the customers the ability of choice.
Speaker 1: Rivian recently had layoffs, the stock price was at an
Speaker 1: all time low recently, so many are saying that this
Speaker 1: is sort of a make or break moment for the company.
Speaker 14: I think this product is very important for us to scale. Absolutely.
Speaker 14: I wouldn't call it our make or break moment, but
Speaker 14: it's the ability to make Rivian become a global brand,
Speaker 14: to really expand our volumes and get the brand to
Speaker 14: more people. The price point of our one, it's an
Speaker 14: excellent vehicle, but it's going to limit the amount of
Speaker 14: people that can afford it, or even limit the amount
Speaker 14: of see it people that see it, so it has
Speaker 14: a lot of reminiscence obviously of Our one, but that's
Speaker 14: something we really wanted to build off of because this
Speaker 14: could be the very first experience that a lot of
Speaker 14: people have with the Rivian product. So we wanted to
Speaker 14: build off of what was great about our one, but
Speaker 14: offer it at something at a much more affordable price
Speaker 14: point so we can get more people into the brand.
Speaker 1: This is one of the first electric vehicles I've seen
Speaker 1: that actually has Tesla's charger built in Natively, that means
Speaker 1: you won't need an adapter to use a Testless supercharger.
Speaker 1: So I asked Jeff if he thinks that's going to
Speaker 1: make a big difference here.
Speaker 5: I think it will.
Speaker 14: Test has obviously got a very amazing charging network and
Speaker 14: being able to utilize that is going to help not
Speaker 14: only Rivian, but all the other brands that have signed
Speaker 14: up to do that. And that's something that I think
Speaker 14: is really helpful for everyone to get ev adoption. We
Speaker 14: really need a lot of charges everywhere. With that, we're
Speaker 14: continuing to build out our adventure network, which is something
Speaker 14: we continue to add sites every day, which will also
Speaker 14: help with.
Speaker 12: A lot of that.
Speaker 14: So being able to have options I think is what's
Speaker 14: most important to people. Being able to charge at home
Speaker 14: is a huge one. I think if you've got the
Speaker 14: vehicle at home, being able to plug it in and
Speaker 14: just drive off.
Speaker 1: My wife first time, first time EV.
Speaker 14: Owner was with a Rivin R one S and her
Speaker 14: being able to charge charge at home and never having
Speaker 14: to go into gas station again is a really great experience.
Speaker 14: And I think the more people will get to live
Speaker 14: with these vehicles and vehicles, whether it's an EV or
Speaker 14: whether it's a Rivian or any other AEV, the really
Speaker 14: starts to find the benefits of actually dry and owning
Speaker 14: an evy.
Speaker 1: Next up, I spoke with John Reddinger. He is a
Speaker 1: popular YouTuber and he happens to own two Rivians.
Speaker 5: I mean, I love it.
Speaker 15: I've got thirty thousand miles on my R one T
Speaker 15: the truck. My wife has the R one S about
Speaker 15: twenty thousand. I've had mine for two years, year and
Speaker 15: a half. It's been perfect. I just put my first
Speaker 15: set of tires on the truck after thirty thousand miles,
Speaker 15: which is incredible. And I think the R two looks
Speaker 15: like a baby version of the R one S like
Speaker 15: everybody's expecting, like Rivian's model why but I think what
Speaker 15: they delivered is more of a Wrangular Bronco competitor kind
Speaker 15: of off road but with some luxury inside the price
Speaker 15: of forty five thousand dollars if it actually you know,
Speaker 15: prices are subject to change, right, if it comes out
Speaker 15: at that price, I think we've got a home run
Speaker 15: on their hands. I think there are two people buying.
Speaker 1: Tessels, right.
Speaker 15: They're those that are very into Elon, and they're those
Speaker 15: that just want a cool electric car. I think for
Speaker 15: the folks that want a cool electric car, they're options
Speaker 15: from and I think this is going to be one
Speaker 15: of those many, many options.
Speaker 1: I'd get some time to chat with Rivian's forty one
Speaker 1: year old billionaire founder and CEO RJ Scringe. I was
Speaker 1: impressed not only with his presentation he did the entire
Speaker 1: thing without a teleprompter, but his enthusiasm too.
Speaker 5: Beyond excited.
Speaker 16: I mean, we've been working on these for years, and
Speaker 16: I think people expected to see R two, but it's
Speaker 16: sibling platform variant. The R three was like to show that.
Speaker 16: We were so nervous it was going to leak over
Speaker 16: the last few months. But I mean, it's such a
Speaker 16: cool product, so we're really excited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I asked r J, how did you keep
Speaker 1: this so quiet?
Speaker 16: Really carefully, really carefully. We don't put him out on
Speaker 16: public roads. We keep them even in the studio. There's
Speaker 16: lots of security around not showing them. We had the
Speaker 16: same thing with R one where we didn't want it
Speaker 16: to leak. There was a few leaks around R two,
Speaker 16: but nothing with R three, which is great.
Speaker 1: I asked RJ, what do people need to know about
Speaker 1: this brand?
Speaker 16: You know, when we think about Riven as a company,
Speaker 16: so much around the product is built around creating these experiences.
Speaker 16: So every decision, the interior, the package, the powertrain, the
Speaker 16: efficiency is designed to create amazing experiences to really drive
Speaker 16: massive adoption electric vehicles. And the market needs choice. The
Speaker 16: market needs lots of interesting choices, so we need lots
Speaker 16: of successful car companies making lots of really interesting products.
Speaker 16: So we hope these help give customers a choice to
Speaker 16: move from the combustion world into the eving world.
Speaker 1: Finally, I was curious what keeps RJ going?
Speaker 16: I mean, the team, the products, and then the importance.
Speaker 16: I mean, we're at such a critical juncture where we
Speaker 16: do have to electrify the world, and you know, how
Speaker 16: lucky are we to be in the middle of that
Speaker 16: where we can help drive that change.
Speaker 1: Now, for a little perspective, I talked to Abigail Bassett.
Speaker 1: She is a freelance journalist who is covering the Rivian
Speaker 1: event for The Verge.
Speaker 17: It's a little bit, it's a little bit of a
Speaker 17: difficult time right now. They're sort of in the ev
Speaker 17: Valley of death, if you will, where their production costs
Speaker 17: and their demand are geting each other. They can't make
Speaker 17: those things meet at this point. They've got some production
Speaker 17: issues with their factory. They're building a new in Georgia.
Speaker 17: We're really hoping that we'll be able to see these
Speaker 17: vehicles because there's a lot riding on them.
Speaker 1: I was curious what she thought of these cars and
Speaker 1: how they compare to the Teslas of the world. I
Speaker 1: think the R two is really competitive.
Speaker 17: If you look at the market right now, you've got
Speaker 17: things like the Mustang Mode, You've got the Tesla Model Wide,
Speaker 17: which all come in around that level at forty five
Speaker 17: thousand dollars. Now, of course, you're talking about a base level,
Speaker 17: so in order to get like all wheel drive and
Speaker 17: a bigger battery pack, you're probably going.
Speaker 1: To have to step up a little bit more. So,
Speaker 1: I would expect, like if.
Speaker 17: You want the top of the line features for the
Speaker 17: R two, you're probably going to spend around around fifty
Speaker 17: thousand dollars to get there, and then of course with Rivian,
Speaker 17: it's inevitable that they'll probably offer a whole lot of
Speaker 17: other features, things like bike add ons. You know, they
Speaker 17: had the camp stove and the R one T which
Speaker 17: they've since sort of discontinued to reconfigure, but you can
Speaker 17: expect a whole lot more features that are available or
Speaker 17: coming for the R two. I would say this is
Speaker 17: for a different demographic. Ultimately, if you're a Tesla bar buyer,
Speaker 17: you're buying into sort of the Elon Musk infrastructure. You're
Speaker 17: buying in to his persona, You're buying into a lot
Speaker 17: of that environment.
Speaker 13: RJ.
Speaker 17: Rivian, the whole environment that they're building.
Speaker 15: Is very different.
Speaker 17: They take a different sort of software approach to their consumers,
Speaker 17: so it's a very different buyer I think. And I
Speaker 17: think given sort of the politicized environment we live in
Speaker 17: and the way that we express to our politics is
Speaker 17: through what we buy or what we don't buy, I
Speaker 17: think this will just be another option for folks out
Speaker 17: there who want something that's adventurous, off rody.
Speaker 1: And a lot of fun. You can put a reservation
Speaker 1: down for the R two right now. It is one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars and it is refundable. The company says they
Speaker 1: got over sixty eight thousand reservations in less than twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. The R two is expected to ship in
Speaker 1: the first half of twenty twenty six. The R three
Speaker 1: and the R three X expected to follow after that.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, it's the feedback segment or rich on
Speaker 1: Tech coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: On Tech. Man, I'm still recovering from that tap dancing.
Speaker 1: You know what, Once in a while you're really thrown
Speaker 1: for a loop, and why not? I welcome it all
Speaker 1: right Before we get to the feedback segment, just two
Speaker 1: more items of no. Apple this week launched new fifteen
Speaker 1: inch MacBook Airs and thirteen inch models with a new
Speaker 1: M three chip. So I'm actually gonna buy one of these.
Speaker 1: I was at the Apple store yesterday making my decision.
Speaker 1: I bought the I think I got like a fourteen
Speaker 1: inch MacBook Pro or something like that, and I just
Speaker 1: I've hated it since day one because the screen is
Speaker 1: just too small. So I got to get this fifteen
Speaker 1: inch so I can have more on my screen. Here anyway,
Speaker 1: these things are the new kind of go to MacBook.
Speaker 1: Airs got support for up to twenty four gigs of
Speaker 1: memory on board. They support two external displays when the
Speaker 1: laptop lid is closed, and they've got Wi Fi six E,
Speaker 1: so that's a little bit faster download speeds than the
Speaker 1: previous generation. The thirteen inch model starts at one thousand
Speaker 1: ninety nine. The fifteen inch model starts at twelve ninety nine.
Speaker 1: They do have education pricing available. Don't forget about that.
Speaker 1: My color is the Midnight looks pretty nice. The only
Speaker 1: problem is, even though they said they put this coding
Speaker 1: on it to make the fingerprints less of an issue,
Speaker 1: there's still a fingerprint issue. Out of all the colors
Speaker 1: I looked at yesterday in the store, the Midnight one
Speaker 1: still has the most fingerprints on it. The guy at
Speaker 1: the store said, Oh, it's just because a lot of
Speaker 1: people touch it. I don't know about that. Dreamscape is
Speaker 1: closing down their immersive VR experience. This is kind of
Speaker 1: a local story in LA but they did have locations
Speaker 1: planned or in other places, but that's it. They are
Speaker 1: closing down the Century City Mall location. If you follow
Speaker 1: me at all, you know I love this experience. Dreamscape
Speaker 1: in Immersive was there for six years, and this was
Speaker 1: kind of like a movie brought to life. So I
Speaker 1: did like the Dinosaur one, I did the Aliens one.
Speaker 1: I did the How To Train a Dragon one. You
Speaker 1: put on all this VR equipment and then you go
Speaker 1: into this little room and you kind of walk around
Speaker 1: the room for the adventure, and it was very realistic.
Speaker 1: It was very cool, but it was very expensive and
Speaker 1: it was very tough to kind of scale because you
Speaker 1: had to have a backpack on with all this VR stuff.
Speaker 1: It took a long time to set it up and
Speaker 1: it was very ambitious, and I just don't think they
Speaker 1: could ever scale it to the way they wanted to.
Speaker 1: AMC Movie theaters had like an interest in it. It
Speaker 1: just never really worked out. So now they're going to
Speaker 1: focus on education. They are partnering with the Arizona State
Speaker 1: University to launch Dreamscape Learn, So a lot of the
Speaker 1: company and a lot of what they did will be existing,
Speaker 1: but in a different way. So it's closing on March tenth,
Speaker 1: so not much time to see it, but if you
Speaker 1: saw it, it was really cool. I always recommended people
Speaker 1: do that. All right, Now, time for the feedback. Segment
Speaker 1: feedback plus the mailbag equals feedback. Let's see what you
Speaker 1: had to say. Ken says, switching from Android to iPhone,
Speaker 1: even with Apple's transfer program, is never perfect. Be prepared
Speaker 1: for days of frustration and save your Android phone for
Speaker 1: data that didn't transfer. Just because the app was created
Speaker 1: does not mean the data will. Learning the iOS system
Speaker 1: is another issue, absolutely, Ken. That's why I always recommend
Speaker 1: that you really just don't do the switch programs. Just
Speaker 1: try to move things over on your own accord. Gail says, Yo, Rich,
Speaker 1: another great show. You just did it again. Transcription. Let
Speaker 1: me get on this. I'm going to your web page
Speaker 1: right now. I take a lot of notes as a
Speaker 1: producer reporter on hundreds of stories. This sounds like something
Speaker 1: I need immediately. Keep teaching me, and oh, keep teaching
Speaker 1: all of us listeners. Gail, That, by the way, is
Speaker 1: Gail Anderson. I work with Gail and I love Gail
Speaker 1: at KTLA, and I'm not kidding. Every week Monday morning
Speaker 1: I walk in and she's like, Rich, we got to
Speaker 1: talk about your show for like an hour. Neil on
Speaker 1: Broadcast HD. I was there when it first started, and
Speaker 1: he got pretty decent signal on the main channel, although
Speaker 1: early football was a bit blocky until they figured it out. However,
Speaker 1: if you go there today, you'll find they've split their
Speaker 1: channel into multiple sub channels where only a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of the quality goes to the main and they have
Speaker 1: a ton of really low quality subchannels for various reruns.
Speaker 1: Why did they do this? Probably advertising anyway, Sorry for
Speaker 1: the grump, Thanks for your service, Neil in Ohio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that happens, Tom. When you discussed HP ink cartridges subscriptions today,
Speaker 1: I don't think you mentioned the big downside. If you
Speaker 1: sign up for automatic ink shipments for your new printer,
Speaker 1: they remotely disabled that printer's ability to ever use aftermarket cartridges.
Speaker 1: You're forced to only use HP OEM cartridges for the
Speaker 1: life of the printer. They don't make this very obvious.
Speaker 1: I suspect a lot of users are caught unaware. It's
Speaker 1: buried in the fine print and seem somewhat deceptive. This
Speaker 1: was the case when I bought my last printer a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and the reason I may ever
Speaker 1: buy another HP printer. Huh Okay, that's interesting. I did
Speaker 1: not know that, Pete says Rich. I understand that TikTok
Speaker 1: is directly associated with the CCP, China's Communist Party, Why
Speaker 1: then do you even mention its use. I personally wish
Speaker 1: it were banned completely from its access on US soil.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's owned directly by the Chinese Communist Party,
Speaker 1: but yes, it does have connections to China. It's very
Speaker 1: complicated and I don't think anyone knows the specific answer,
Speaker 1: but byte Edance owns TikTok. They both have offices in China.
Speaker 1: They also have something in the Cayman Islands. They also
Speaker 1: have an office in Los Angeles. This is why there's
Speaker 1: a lot of debate around TikTok. There is a lot
Speaker 1: of unknowns and I don't have a good answer for
Speaker 1: you on that, but thanks for the feedback there, And okay,
Speaker 1: I think that's it. Oh, let's just end with Bruce
Speaker 1: love your show, Bruce and Claremont. We'll leave it there,
Speaker 1: all right, if you can believe it, that's going to
Speaker 1: do it for this episode of the show. If you
Speaker 1: want to find links to everything I mentioned, you can
Speaker 1: go to the website. Just go to richon tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: I keep really good notes something new I'm doing. If
Speaker 1: you want to check out the show on YouTube. I'm
Speaker 1: actually putting in some time codes on YouTube, so if
Speaker 1: you want to skip to a particular topic or a guest,
Speaker 1: you can go into the show notes on YouTube. You
Speaker 1: click the time and it will bring you directly to
Speaker 1: that area of the show. It's audio only, but some
Speaker 1: people like to listen on YouTube. Even though it's YouTube's
Speaker 1: primarily video, the show is just on audio. Of course,
Speaker 1: you can find me on social media. I am at
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech. Thank you so much for listening. There
Speaker 1: are so many ways you can spend your time. I
Speaker 1: do appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone who makes this show possible. My name is
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro. I will talk to you real soon.