Speaker 1: Hands on with Google's new Pixel smartphones, details on the
Speaker 1: DNA website that was hacked. Ring We'll give you a
Speaker 1: cool million bucks if you catch an alien on their cameras,
Speaker 1: plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro and this is rich on Tech broadcasting live
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles, coast to coast. This is the show
Speaker 1: where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
Speaker 1: should know about. It's also the place where I answer
Speaker 1: your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting,
Speaker 1: useful and fun. And phone lines are open triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two, four to one zero one. Give me a
Speaker 1: call if you have a question about technology. Email is
Speaker 1: also an option. Just go to rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: That's the website, hit the contact button and your email
Speaker 1: will make its way to my inbox immediately. All right,
Speaker 1: We got some great guests this week. Coming up on
Speaker 1: the show. Stephanie Scott from Google is going to discuss
Speaker 1: the new Pixel eight smartphones. We've got san Deep Warriach.
Speaker 1: He is the product manager for Google Wearables. He's going
Speaker 1: to discuss the Pixel watch too. Sam Rubin KTLA Entertainment
Speaker 1: anchor is going to talk about his experience seeing you
Speaker 1: two at the Las Vegas Sphere, and we've got David Werta.
Speaker 1: This is a great guest to talk about how to
Speaker 1: pick the best VPN. I know I get a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about VPNs, whether you need one, when you
Speaker 1: should use one. David is going to explain all, welcome
Speaker 1: to another episode of the show. Hope you're having a
Speaker 1: great day. So my kid slept over his friend's house
Speaker 1: last night. We did a swap, like one kid slept
Speaker 1: over my house. My kids slept over another kid's house.
Speaker 1: And so it's just a sign of the time how
Speaker 1: this stuff works. Number one, my kid he's over at
Speaker 1: the uh you know, his friend's house, sleeping over, and
Speaker 1: he's texting me, Dad, can I use Can I use
Speaker 1: my watch as a Wi Fi hotspot for my iPad?
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, Like, what do you mean? Just connect
Speaker 1: to their WiFi? He goes, it's not very good. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, okay. And so this morning when he
Speaker 1: came home, I said, how is a sleepover? And I
Speaker 1: kid you not? He said, eh, not so good. Their
Speaker 1: internet was only two bars. That is now the the
Speaker 1: delineation of how good a sleepover is how good the
Speaker 1: internet is at your friend's house. I was cracking up
Speaker 1: at that. And then my other kid, my older kid,
Speaker 1: who had his friend over. You know, I've had lots
Speaker 1: of sleepovers in my day, and we played. You'd go outside,
Speaker 1: you'd explore their house, you'd polish rocks, whatever you did,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And these kids, I kid you not.
Speaker 1: They had the door closed to the playroom and I
Speaker 1: kind of.
Speaker 2: Like just sneak up a little bit.
Speaker 1: Not that I was being sneaky, but I just kind
Speaker 1: of was listening a little bit to see what they're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: Don't hear much.
Speaker 1: I kind of opened the door quietly that the room
Speaker 1: is dark, there's nothing, no lights on in there.
Speaker 2: I opened the door. What do I see?
Speaker 1: One kid on the floor on his iPad with his
Speaker 1: screen lit up and or the screen lighting up his face.
Speaker 1: The other kid on the couch with the iPad lighting
Speaker 1: up his screen, and they're literally doing the exact same
Speaker 1: thing they'd be doing on a Friday night if they
Speaker 1: were not in the same room. They're just sitting there
Speaker 1: playing Rodblocks or I think it was Minecraft on their iPad,
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, man, how times have changed? When
Speaker 1: we had sleepovers, like it was, you know, the best
Speaker 1: thing ever because you just you know, you're in person anyway.
Speaker 2: I thought that was just wild. The sign of the times.
Speaker 1: With today's youth, it's like they're literally doing the same
Speaker 1: thing except in person. It's there's really no difference whether
Speaker 1: they're in person or apart. All right, So this week
Speaker 1: I was back in New York for the launch of
Speaker 1: the Pixel eight smartphones. Google had an event at Pere
Speaker 1: fifty seven in New York's and I like to get
Speaker 1: real specific because I was there, so why not I
Speaker 1: can remember where I was.
Speaker 2: It was fun.
Speaker 1: I actually picked a hotel that was close to the event,
Speaker 1: and it was nowhere near the event. It was a
Speaker 1: half an hour walk from the event, which was fine.
Speaker 1: It just makes you realize that when a hotel says
Speaker 1: it's like Chelsea, it's really Chelsea adjacent sometimes. So that's
Speaker 1: the neighborhood that I guess Pure fifty seven was in. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you don't care about that. All you care about these
Speaker 1: new phones. And I gotta say I've been using the
Speaker 1: Pixel eight pro ever since, and I will tell you
Speaker 1: that I think and I can't give you my full
Speaker 1: review yet. Because there's these things called embargoes. But I
Speaker 1: will tell you I think this is the best phones
Speaker 1: that Google has ever made. Now, I know Apple says
Speaker 1: that every time they make a new phone, but I
Speaker 1: will say, there's a thoughtfulness to this pixel that I
Speaker 1: feel like has been missing since the early days of
Speaker 1: the pixels. So what did you get? New Pixel eight?
Speaker 1: New Pixel eight pro. Pixel eight has a six point
Speaker 1: two inch screen. Pixel eight pro has a six point
Speaker 1: seven inch screen. These are slightly smaller than last year,
Speaker 1: and so they actually the Pixel eight pro is much
Speaker 1: It just feels much better in the hand, like it's
Speaker 1: actually something that you can hold much easier, and so
Speaker 1: I got to give them credit for that because it's
Speaker 1: it's just so much easier. They also have the brightest
Speaker 1: displays yet on the pixels, and I haven't really noticed that,
Speaker 1: but it does seem a little bit better. I've got
Speaker 1: to see it more outside because that's really where the
Speaker 1: pixel used to be not very good, was outside. They
Speaker 1: have this new temperature sensor on the phone, which is
Speaker 1: super super odd. I don't know why you'd ever need that.
Speaker 1: You can't take your temperature of humans, you can only
Speaker 1: take of things, So why do you need a thermometer
Speaker 1: like we needed this during COVID maybe but not now. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's on there and they ask the FDA if they
Speaker 1: can get approval for taking the temperature of things, not
Speaker 1: just objects. Kind of an odd inclusion. Cameras are upgraded
Speaker 1: on the standard Pixel eight, but they're really upgraded on
Speaker 1: the Pixel eight Pro. Better low light, better macro, better telephoto.
Speaker 1: It's got a five time zoom, and it's so far
Speaker 1: the camera and the photos on this phone are looking really,
Speaker 1: really good. I in fact took it out against the
Speaker 1: iPhone fifteen PROX in New York City. I posted that
Speaker 1: to my Instagram at rich on Tech if you want
Speaker 1: to take a look at the side by side some
Speaker 1: cases the Pixel eight Pro one. I had people vote
Speaker 1: on these things and in some cases the iPhone fifteen
Speaker 1: Pro Max one. So but these are very very good cameras.
Speaker 1: There's a new camera interface. They added pro camera I
Speaker 1: guess a pro camera mode that is for the first
Speaker 1: time on the pixel which is nice if you know
Speaker 1: how to do all those little things that I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't use a pro camera mode. I like just
Speaker 1: take the picture, snap and shoot, and that's at point
Speaker 1: and shoot and it's done. But they do have a
Speaker 1: couple of new features. One is called best Take, and
Speaker 1: this is wild you take. You know if you have
Speaker 1: ever taken a group picture of people where one person
Speaker 1: since blinking, one person's looking off, one person's not smiling,
Speaker 1: but generally you take six or seven pictures of that
Speaker 1: group and you're like, one of these should turn out
Speaker 1: good and one of them doesn't. So now it will
Speaker 1: look at all the faces in those six or seven pictures,
Speaker 1: you hit this best take and it will automatically just
Speaker 1: take the best head and the best expression on that
Speaker 1: person's head, and just automatically fix everyone's head in the picture.
Speaker 2: So you don't even have to do anything.
Speaker 1: Now if you want to, you can go through and
Speaker 1: actually pick the exact facial expression you want for each
Speaker 1: person in that picture.
Speaker 2: It is a wild AI editing feature.
Speaker 1: I put a video on Instagram, we demoed it on
Speaker 1: the KTLA Morning News and people are just even the anchors.
Speaker 1: I talk about technology every single day on KTLA and
Speaker 1: there's only a handful of times when the anchors are
Speaker 1: actually impressed with what I'm talking about. This was one
Speaker 1: of those times where it was like an aha, moment,
Speaker 1: they were just like, wow, that's wild, and so you
Speaker 1: can see that on my Instagram at rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: The other new feature is called audio Magic Eraser, and
Speaker 1: this reduces background sounds in your videos. So I was
Speaker 1: in New York City. There was a police sirens in
Speaker 1: the background. I just tapped audio Magic Eraser and the
Speaker 1: sirens were erased. And it's not even just that simple,
Speaker 1: like you can do that and have Google do the
Speaker 1: audio edit for you, but if you're a little bit
Speaker 1: more like DIY, it will separate and identify all the
Speaker 1: different sounds in your videos and it will let you
Speaker 1: bring them down like almost as if you had an
Speaker 1: audio mixer.
Speaker 2: So that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Then they've got this new feature which is it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a video edit or sorry, a photo editing feature.
Speaker 1: And the name is evading me right now, but it's
Speaker 1: just basically like AI editing for your entire photo and
Speaker 1: it is really really cool. I've been playing with that,
Speaker 1: and so I just took a picture of a hamburger
Speaker 1: that I took and it not only can erase the
Speaker 1: hamburger in the picture, but also recreates the background. So
Speaker 1: you can see this on my Twitter. They whatever they
Speaker 1: call it X but it's called magic editor. Okay, there,
Speaker 1: it is magic editor. So it not only can erase
Speaker 1: entire objects, but it recreates the background. You can drag
Speaker 1: and like move a person in a picture, you can
Speaker 1: zoom them in. I mean, it's pretty wild. So the
Speaker 1: three examples I did. I took a hamburger out of
Speaker 1: a picture and it recreated the background. I moved myself
Speaker 1: in a picture and made myself bigger. And then I
Speaker 1: had this cotton candy picture where it was a little
Speaker 1: tiny cotton candy. I made the cotton candy giant. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really really wild what you can do there. Then
Speaker 1: they have these new spam reducing features. Google says that
Speaker 1: people get fifty percent less spam calls because of the
Speaker 1: pixel and seven years of software and security updates. That
Speaker 1: means if you bought this pixel phone today, the Pixelate
Speaker 1: or the Pixelate Pro, you're gonna be able to use
Speaker 1: it until twenty thirty and the software is gonna be
Speaker 1: up to date.
Speaker 2: That is new from Google.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to see how they do with that,
Speaker 1: because you know, Google has a history of kind of
Speaker 1: like giving up on things and kind of losing interest.
Speaker 1: Let's hope they don't do that with this, but seven
Speaker 1: years of security updates. Pre Orders are open now. These
Speaker 1: are available on October twelfth. The Pixel eight starts at
Speaker 1: six ninety nine. The Pixel eight Pro starts at nine
Speaker 1: to ninety nine, one hundred dollars more than last year.
Speaker 1: They kind of snuck in a little price increase. I
Speaker 1: will tell you, I think the Pixel eight is a
Speaker 1: great phone. I think the Pixel eight Pro is really
Speaker 1: the phone to get here because you get more features,
Speaker 1: you get better zoom, you get a better display, you
Speaker 1: get more ram so it's gonna run faster. And also,
Speaker 1: I will tell you it just fits in your hand
Speaker 1: way better than some of these bigger phones these days,
Speaker 1: Like they just made this thing so it fits really nice.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the case that Google made this year,
Speaker 1: there's their own silicone cases actually feel really good. I've
Speaker 1: never been able to use a Google case on my phone,
Speaker 1: and this is the first year which I've not ripped
Speaker 1: it off after using it for fifteen minutes. So that's
Speaker 1: the Pixel eight pixelate Pro. Bay blue is the color
Speaker 1: that everyone's talking about.
Speaker 2: Not for me.
Speaker 1: I'm not like a bright phone color person, so I
Speaker 1: didn't go with that one. But they also have a
Speaker 1: black and also a obsidian, which is pretty much white.
Speaker 2: It's like a grayish white.
Speaker 1: But that's the features on the Pixel eight Pixel a Pro.
Speaker 1: Coming up in the show, I'll talk more about the
Speaker 1: pixel watch too, but let's have some of your calls.
Speaker 1: Triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. My name is
Speaker 1: rich d'miro and you are listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. My kid
Speaker 1: loves this song, says it's so peaceful. Kids are so
Speaker 1: funny these days. Kids are just not like we were
Speaker 1: as kids. Like I don't think I knew one song
Speaker 1: when I was nine years old, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is so peaceful, like it was just, you know,
Speaker 1: just different. Let's go to Michael and Long Beach. Michael,
Speaker 1: you're on with Writch.
Speaker 3: Yes, Laguna Beach.
Speaker 4: Uh Hi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bought a I went to Google flights and
Speaker 3: bought an airplane ticket off of a of a site
Speaker 3: that came up there and put in my credit card
Speaker 3: information and uh, you know, everything they asked for, and then,
Speaker 3: you know, thought I had it booked, and then somebody
Speaker 3: sent me a text and said your card has been
Speaker 3: declined and called this number. So I called the number
Speaker 3: and very clearly he says what the guy says, Well,
Speaker 3: you'll have to rebook everything and we'll get you on
Speaker 3: another flight or that flight. So I gave him all
Speaker 3: the information and I think it was including the last
Speaker 3: four of my social Security But anyway, I figured out
Speaker 3: finally because it happened, they wanted me to do it again.
Speaker 3: I said, something's wrong here, and the uh. But but anyway,
Speaker 3: I called the American Express and told them what had happened,
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, they they didn't seem to be
Speaker 3: very interested in the fraud.
Speaker 1: Well, they hear it every day, they hear these stories.
Speaker 1: They just it's just another number for them, and they just,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because you think you have this
Speaker 1: like great story and you're gonna and they're gonna really
Speaker 1: be invested in it. When you call and I've had
Speaker 1: this happen to me, they just they don't care. It's
Speaker 1: just like a numbers, like they're like Okay, just do this,
Speaker 1: do this, do this, we'll send you a new card.
Speaker 2: We're done.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I'm more concerned that the hackers now
Speaker 3: have possibly my fort last four of my social plus
Speaker 3: all the credit card information.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: I thought American Express would want to give me a
Speaker 3: new card, you know, say, okay, we'll cancel that card
Speaker 3: and you give you another one, And they didn't seem
Speaker 3: to even I didn't ask them for it, but they
Speaker 3: didn't seem to even want to do that.
Speaker 1: So what what can I help you with? You just
Speaker 1: want to make sure you're not going to be hacked again.
Speaker 3: And yeah, how can I protect myself?
Speaker 1: So why didn't MX give you a new card?
Speaker 3: They didn't offer it. I mean I didn't ask for it,
Speaker 3: but they didn't offer it.
Speaker 1: Did they find any charges on the card that were fraudulent?
Speaker 1: Did they reverse any or dispute any.
Speaker 3: They did find the They did find the It was
Speaker 3: very interesting. The base flight information was in there. The
Speaker 3: flight I was going from Honolulu to La Hui and
Speaker 3: the flight costs seventy nine dollars, and then they said
Speaker 3: we need to charge you an excise tax and that
Speaker 3: was like eighty nine dollars. And they said, there's going
Speaker 3: to be two separate charges on your card. There's going
Speaker 3: to be one for the uh, you know, seventy nine
Speaker 3: dollars and another one for the excise tax, which American
Speaker 3: Express saw, so they saw the charge made to the
Speaker 3: excise tax.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, here's here's the thing. I think that the
Speaker 1: I feel like the two things maybe unrelated. Like I
Speaker 1: think that you got a legitimate ticket through Google Flights,
Speaker 1: and perhaps this text came in at the right time
Speaker 1: to grab your information and that's why you were, you know,
Speaker 1: willing to hand it over because you had just booked
Speaker 1: this flight. So that's kind of my initial thought. But
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of key things to learn
Speaker 1: from this. Number One, I would ask AMX for a
Speaker 1: new card. And I think I typically don't recommend credit cards,
Speaker 1: but I do think in the in terms of travel,
Speaker 1: they are helpful because when stuff like this happens, it
Speaker 1: puts a little buffer between you and your money. So
Speaker 1: if you had used a debit card with this, now
Speaker 1: you'd be fighting to get back your own information. And
Speaker 1: also it would be a problem because now they have
Speaker 1: your debit card information, when they have your credit card information,
Speaker 1: like who really cares. I mean Amex, They're all Amex
Speaker 1: is going to do is they're going to cut off
Speaker 1: you know, this card number, which they should do anyway,
Speaker 1: and then they're going to reverse any sort of charges
Speaker 1: that this card, you know, any fraudulent charges. They're just
Speaker 1: not going to pay on those. So whoever has that
Speaker 1: account that was placing those fraudulent charges, they're just not
Speaker 1: going to get paid. And if it was a scam anyway,
Speaker 1: then it's not that big of a deal for the
Speaker 1: company because they they're just not paying out.
Speaker 2: So I think the main things.
Speaker 1: Here is that you did give out your personal information,
Speaker 1: which I think we need to be very very careful,
Speaker 1: especially when we give out our social I have said
Speaker 1: that you pretty much never need to give that out
Speaker 1: unless you are applying for some kind of financial product.
Speaker 1: But any sort of business that asks you for it, doctors,
Speaker 1: you know, airline, I mean, there's just not a reason.
Speaker 1: So I would ask for a new card, and I
Speaker 1: would be careful. I might sign up for some sort
Speaker 1: of credit monitoring, you know, you can look at something
Speaker 1: like these free ones like credit Karma or wallet hub.
Speaker 1: They will do some level of free credit monitoring for you.
Speaker 1: So Michael, that's probably what I'd recommend for you to
Speaker 1: do is monitor your credit. Just make sure nothing is weird,
Speaker 1: and just be aware if you're getting text messages that
Speaker 1: ask for your personal information or any sort of emails,
Speaker 1: just be on guard because you did give out that
Speaker 1: level of information. So please protect your personal data. That
Speaker 1: is the most important thing you can do. Be on
Speaker 1: guard all the time. Coming up next, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to Stephanie Scott of Google about the Pixel eight
Speaker 1: and the Pixel eight Pro.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here on location in New York City where
Speaker 1: Google has just announced their latest Pixel eight smartphones. You've
Speaker 1: got the Pixel eight and the Pixel eight Pro. Joining
Speaker 1: me now to talk about them is Stephanie Scott with Google,
Speaker 1: and you are the product manager for Pixel.
Speaker 6: Yes, I lead the Pixel eight and the Pixel eight
Speaker 6: Pro lines.
Speaker 1: So pixel phones to me have always been all about
Speaker 1: the camera, all about AI. Are you really sort of
Speaker 1: doubling down on those two areas this year?
Speaker 6: I would say we have amazing advancements in both of
Speaker 6: those areas this year. For the camera, we've upgraded all
Speaker 6: of the hardware on the Pixel eight Pro. So you're
Speaker 6: going to see huge leaps and improvements there, as well
Speaker 6: as bringing amazing new post capture and editing tools, things
Speaker 6: like Audio Magic Eraser that let you take out unwanted
Speaker 6: noise in your videos. We have things like best take
Speaker 6: that will let you help select images of faces where
Speaker 6: people really look their best, and brand new features like
Speaker 6: Magic Editor that let you reimagine a shot maybe a
Speaker 6: little bit more like how you remembered it. And then
Speaker 6: for helpful AI, we have a number of new features
Speaker 6: there as well. New features like Summarize that can help
Speaker 6: sort of read a web page and synthesize it for you,
Speaker 6: or even things like direct my Call where you actually
Speaker 6: have more ambient or helpful, helpful tips and tricks for
Speaker 6: answering a phone call.
Speaker 1: So I will say, every time I use the Pixel devices,
Speaker 1: I truly feel like it is a smart phone, like
Speaker 1: it puts the smart in phone because it almost thinks
Speaker 1: for you. And with these AI editions you almost feel
Speaker 1: like you have super control over a lot of your
Speaker 1: photos and videos and things like that.
Speaker 2: Let's break down some of these features.
Speaker 1: Okay, so first off, you mentioned a new one which
Speaker 1: is the audio eraser.
Speaker 2: Explain that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so Audio Magic Eraser is an amazing new feature
Speaker 6: that we've added for videos. And when you take videos,
Speaker 6: a lot of times you're trying to capture the sound
Speaker 6: from a subject. So maybe it's a musician or a
Speaker 6: child doing a performance, but there could be unwanted background noise.
Speaker 6: So if you're recording in New York City, there could
Speaker 6: be you know, sirens or an ice cream trucks that
Speaker 6: goes by, or a bird chirping, And the feature intelligently
Speaker 6: separates those sounds out into layers and then lets you
Speaker 6: have the ability to turn those those unwanted noises down
Speaker 6: so you can really listen to the intended subject.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was playing with this feature and it really separated
Speaker 1: out like the voice versus the background noise, and you
Speaker 1: can adjust each of them like its own level, like
Speaker 1: almost as if you recorded them independently.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, it's really great, and it's great because it makes
Speaker 6: it so easy. It really gives you those three options
Speaker 6: in the UI and lets you have complete control over
Speaker 6: all of them.
Speaker 1: Now, this next feature I think is going to be
Speaker 1: the most controversial when it hits the you know, the
Speaker 1: open marketplace. The best take because it's so unique and
Speaker 1: it's it's stuff that you could do before if you
Speaker 1: are a photo editor, but now anyone can do this
Speaker 1: in the palm of their hand. This best Take feature.
Speaker 1: You take a group picture or you take even a selfie,
Speaker 1: and it will let you it's like, you know, change
Speaker 1: the way the face looks.
Speaker 2: It can give a smile. Will you explain it?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, so I can explain.
Speaker 6: So this feature is really built for those group shots
Speaker 6: where you're taking a picture, you know, with a group
Speaker 6: of friends or maybe family. And I don't know about
Speaker 6: you and your friends, but with me, a lot of
Speaker 6: times someone's blinking, someone's looking away from the camera, and
Speaker 6: so you end up with a shot where most people
Speaker 6: look good, but someone's not looking at the camera. So
Speaker 6: it's taking from that series of photos that you took
Speaker 6: at that time.
Speaker 7: And helping you actually choose from the.
Speaker 6: Faces in that that series or group of photos, another
Speaker 6: face where someone maybe looks a little bit better, or
Speaker 6: is looking at the camera or has their eyes open,
Speaker 6: to create one amazing shot where everyone looks their best.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you take six or seven photos and you go
Speaker 1: through them, you swipe, and every single one you analyze,
Speaker 1: you zoom in on the person's face. There's always something
Speaker 1: a little bit off, and so now it's taking the
Speaker 1: best of all those photos merging them into one great picture.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it gives you again a lot of control,
Speaker 6: so you can go in and choose the smile maybe
Speaker 6: you like, because not everyone wants that big goofy smile,
Speaker 6: you know, maybe someone wants a little more muted expression.
Speaker 6: So I can't wait personally to use this for my
Speaker 6: holiday card this year. We take it with my cat.
Speaker 6: It's always a little chaotic, and so it's just nice
Speaker 6: to be able to have a little bit more editing control.
Speaker 8: There.
Speaker 2: Will it work on animal faces?
Speaker 7: No, it does not work on animal faces.
Speaker 6: But I can choose a picture where my cat is
Speaker 6: looking good and then correct my face.
Speaker 1: Ah, okay, got it. Well, maybe next year the upgrade
Speaker 1: for the dogs. People love the dog and cat features.
Speaker 1: These like photo apps. All right, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the operating system updates because Google announced that they will
Speaker 1: do seven.
Speaker 2: Years of updates for the Pixel. Explain what that means.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so for Pixel, we've you know, we've offered you know,
Speaker 6: multiple years of feature updates in the past. We also
Speaker 6: have featured drops, which brings newer features to people that may.
Speaker 7: Have a Pixel that's several years old.
Speaker 6: But this year we have a new offering that's really meaningful,
Speaker 6: which is seven years of OS security and feature drops,
Speaker 6: so offering users and sort of for Pixel eight and
Speaker 6: eight pro a guarantee that we will be supporting these
Speaker 6: devices for that time.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a really long time, so this phone
Speaker 1: will pretty much be good to go for that long.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: We're excited to have this exciting announcement for users and
Speaker 6: being able to support them as if they're planning on
Speaker 6: using the device even longer.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They also announced on stage that if you're kind of
Speaker 1: the tinkering per you can fix your own phone.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So we have a partnership with I fix it
Speaker 6: and so where we make parts.
Speaker 7: And repair manuals available.
Speaker 6: So looking to again help support users that are looking
Speaker 6: for longevity in their devices.
Speaker 1: I may have to try to just replace a screen,
Speaker 1: because the last time I did that was many many
Speaker 1: years ago with an iPod. I replaced the battery and
Speaker 1: I was so proud of myself, But that was like
Speaker 1: many many years ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say it's definitely an area that's progressing
Speaker 6: and worth trying.
Speaker 2: Again. What about people that have the current Pixel phones.
Speaker 1: Are there any features you announced that they can see
Speaker 1: on their phones now?
Speaker 2: I think the.
Speaker 6: Only one we announced today was the new Fold feature
Speaker 6: that provides translation using taking a capability of the two screens,
Speaker 6: so being able to do an interpreter mode and use
Speaker 6: the dual screens on the Fold display to be able
Speaker 6: to more easily do a translation between two people having
Speaker 6: a conversation.
Speaker 2: What's been the response on the Fold I.
Speaker 6: Am honestly, I think it's a really innovative product. It's
Speaker 6: a sort of a cutting edge and we're really bringing
Speaker 6: and taking advantage of the larger screen to do even
Speaker 6: more in terms of you know, photo editing or camera features,
Speaker 6: So a really amazing space to innovate.
Speaker 1: AI is a huge part of the Pixel devices. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's always been a big part with Google
Speaker 1: Assistant and all the photo features.
Speaker 2: But now you've got these call screening features.
Speaker 1: You say that people with Pixel phones get like fifty
Speaker 1: percent less spam calls.
Speaker 2: Tell me about some of those features that you announced today.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I absolutely love our calling features. So we have
Speaker 6: a number of different features, everything from you know, direct
Speaker 6: my Call, which helps you when you're calling a business
Speaker 6: for example, to be able to navigate phone trees, to
Speaker 6: things like Crystal Clear Calling that remove background noise using AI,
Speaker 6: to things like Hold for Me that literally save you
Speaker 6: hours of your day by not having to wait on hold.
Speaker 6: The new one we announced today is in advancement to
Speaker 6: direct My Call and call screen, where you actually have
Speaker 6: more intelligent response suggestions, so you don't even have.
Speaker 7: To pick up a call to respond to a call.
Speaker 6: So if you imagine, for example, a UPS driver is
Speaker 6: calling and.
Speaker 7: Asks where should I leave the package? Or can I
Speaker 7: leave the package?
Speaker 6: You'll actually get suggested responses and you can say things
Speaker 6: like leave it by the door, you know, and not
Speaker 6: even have to pick up the phone to give them
Speaker 6: that instruction, which is great.
Speaker 1: So you work with this phone on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: I imagine you're pretty much invested in the pixel lineup
Speaker 1: and you feel like it's probably one of the best
Speaker 1: phones out there. If someone is thinking about switching to
Speaker 1: this phone, that is a really tough thing for the
Speaker 1: average smartphone user to do because they've got a big
Speaker 1: life in their previous phone.
Speaker 2: What's your advice for them?
Speaker 6: My advice is to give it a go. I think
Speaker 6: there's a lot of new features here, amazing cameras to
Speaker 6: try all the new helpful calling features and smart features
Speaker 6: on board. So it's a really great time to try
Speaker 6: a pixel all right.
Speaker 1: So you've got Pixel eight startup at six hundred ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars. You've got Pixel eight Pro starting at nine
Speaker 1: hundred ninety nine dollars. Also there's a deal I saw
Speaker 1: if you pre order, you might get a free watch.
Speaker 6: I think we have some amazing pre order promotions going
Speaker 6: on right now, so definitely worth giving those a try.
Speaker 2: And when are these available?
Speaker 7: These are available October twelfth.
Speaker 2: Okay, October twelfth. There you go.
Speaker 1: Uh Stephanie Scott with Google, thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: me today.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Rich.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll have more about the Pixel eight and Pixel
Speaker 1: eight Pro my website. Just go to richon Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: We'll take more of your calls after this. Give me
Speaker 1: a call Triple eight Rich one O one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology at triple
Speaker 1: eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on social media. I am at rich on tech, I'm
Speaker 1: on in, I'm on Facebook X and am I still
Speaker 1: on Threads? I'm not sure. I haven't really logged into
Speaker 1: that one in a while. It's been a bit, but
Speaker 1: I know they're trying, but I feel like Twitter is
Speaker 1: still there and Threads is like, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: just tough to like try to be everywhere all at once,
Speaker 1: and Threads just doesn't feel alive enough for me at
Speaker 1: this point. So I'm there, but it's just not like
Speaker 1: I'm not putting a lot of effort into it. Mary
Speaker 1: wrote in on the website rich on tech dot TV. Hey,
Speaker 1: Rich I have an iPhone fourteen and there's one little
Speaker 1: glitch that drives me crazy. I like to keep the
Speaker 1: brightness at its highest level. On its own, the brightness
Speaker 1: will decrease. I've read message boards and watch YouTube videos
Speaker 1: followed various directions, and yet no matter what I do
Speaker 1: in settings, the brightness diminishes with no direction from me,
Speaker 1: all on its own. Any ideas, Thanks?
Speaker 9: Mary?
Speaker 1: I enjoy your radio show on KFI. Mary, you should
Speaker 1: have just emailed me first. You would have saved yourself
Speaker 1: a lot of time. So yeah, yes, the iPhone on
Speaker 1: its own will adjust the brightness the brightness that you have.
Speaker 1: That slider is kind of a suggestion, and the iPhone
Speaker 1: learns kind of like do you like it brighter?
Speaker 2: Do you like it dimmer?
Speaker 1: And at the same time you can always adjust it,
Speaker 1: but the iPhone's going to do it at the end
Speaker 1: of the day by itself. But there is in the
Speaker 1: accessibility settings a way to override this. So Mary, I
Speaker 1: hope you're still listening. Go into these settings app tap
Speaker 1: accessibility and then tap display and text size and scroll
Speaker 1: to auto brightness. So again settings, go to settings Accessibility,
Speaker 1: Display and text Size, scroll all the way down and
Speaker 1: at the bottom it says auto brightness and you can
Speaker 1: toggle that off and whatever you set the brightness to be,
Speaker 1: that's where it will stay. Now, keep in mind the
Speaker 1: iPhone does the brightness on its own because it manages
Speaker 1: the battery and the power, and so if you set
Speaker 1: your brightness at a level that's really high, you're going
Speaker 1: to eat through your battery a lot faster. So great question,
Speaker 1: and thanks for emailing and thanks for listening. So to
Speaker 1: Robert in Seal Beach, Robert, you're.
Speaker 2: On with Rich.
Speaker 10: Hello, Rich, good to you. I know you have a
Speaker 10: guest coming up, or maybe you already had it and
Speaker 10: I admitted it about VPNs.
Speaker 2: Correct, hasn't hasn't been on yet?
Speaker 10: Okay, good, I'll look forward to hearing it then. So
Speaker 10: my question is this on my iPhone, on my iPad,
Speaker 10: on my MacBook. I installed VPN several years ago, and
Speaker 10: I use it word even if I'm at home. I
Speaker 10: use the VPN, and my friend said that I shouldn't
Speaker 10: do that because it's not necessary. Number one, And he
Speaker 10: thinks his interference with my if I'm engaging with Best
Speaker 10: Buys or I'm engaging with Staples, he thinks that using
Speaker 10: my VPN can alter my my information with those companies.
Speaker 10: But I think that. I mean, I can scroll. I
Speaker 10: see all these different Wi Fi addresses of my neighbors,
Speaker 10: so therefore I think they can see mine. So I
Speaker 10: just try to I don't know, mask it or hide it,
Speaker 10: or I just don't want somebody trying to hack in
Speaker 10: because they know I'm living next door or I'm met
Speaker 10: this at the dinner table next to them. Is there
Speaker 10: such thing as overusing a VPN.
Speaker 2: Well, let's put it this way. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I was just having this conversation with my wife last night.
Speaker 1: Because I travel, and you know that, you hear so
Speaker 1: many ads for VPNs, and so many people are promoting
Speaker 1: VPNs because there's a lot of money in VPNs. So
Speaker 1: wherever there's money, there's going to be a lot of promotion.
Speaker 1: And so people love to talk about why you need
Speaker 1: a VPN. Now I will tell you that I don't.
Speaker 1: And look, we have this guest coming up, David Werta
Speaker 1: is going to talk to us about this, so I
Speaker 1: think he's more of an expert in this than I am,
Speaker 1: but I'll get his take on when you should use one.
Speaker 1: But I think in general, if you're at home, I
Speaker 1: don't think you need a VPN. You are on your
Speaker 1: home network, you are secured. Just because someone could see
Speaker 1: your Wi Fi network name does not mean they're able
Speaker 1: to hack into your network, and there are ways of
Speaker 1: actually hiding that as well. On your router settings, you
Speaker 1: can turn off what's called broadcast SSID, which means when
Speaker 1: you go on there, you will not see your home
Speaker 1: Wi Fi network. So if you want to add a
Speaker 1: layer of mystery and cloak your WiFi, no one else
Speaker 1: could see that if you turn off broadcast SSID. So
Speaker 1: most people do not do that. It makes life a
Speaker 1: little bit more complicated. But to connect to your Wi
Speaker 1: Fi network, all you'd have to do is manually type
Speaker 1: in your network ID and your password, and it would
Speaker 1: still find it and log in obviously if you're within range.
Speaker 1: But other people would not be able to see that.
Speaker 1: So that's one kind of barrier between you and someone
Speaker 1: that's trying to get in on your network. Now, most
Speaker 1: of the time people are not trying to get into
Speaker 1: your Wi Fi network at home. If you live in
Speaker 1: a place with a lot of networks, sure, I get it,
Speaker 1: you don't want your stuff. Also, I was just helping
Speaker 1: my sister set up her network, and her Wi Fi
Speaker 1: name was a combination of her and her kid, and
Speaker 1: then the password was something that was also similar, And
Speaker 1: I said, look, no, no, no, no, no, you never want
Speaker 1: to set your home Wi Fi as something that identifies
Speaker 1: who you are. Don't put in your name, don't put
Speaker 1: in your address, don't put in your pets name, because
Speaker 1: those are all signals. So if someone's driving across your
Speaker 1: street and oh gosh, there used to be a term
Speaker 1: for this that I'm trying to remember. Oh it was
Speaker 1: like Wi Fi warring or something, But I kind of
Speaker 1: remember what that term was. But you know, people used
Speaker 1: to do this when Wi Fi first came out. They'd
Speaker 1: have a little fun with it and try to figure
Speaker 1: out the network and the password and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: And they still do.
Speaker 1: But my point is, please use a nondescript Wi Fi
Speaker 1: name and a nondescript Wi Fi password that is very strong, because, yeah,
Speaker 1: if someone gets into your password on your Wi Fi network,
Speaker 1: they're going to be able to access all of those
Speaker 1: things that are on your network, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: your smart home stuff. They can sniff on your network
Speaker 1: see what you're you know, trying to pass by on there.
Speaker 1: So yes, you want to lock down your network. But
Speaker 1: to answer your question, Robert, when do I think you
Speaker 1: need a VPN. I think you need a VPN when
Speaker 1: you are on a public Wi Fi network and you
Speaker 1: are accessing a sensitive website like your banking information, your
Speaker 1: credit card, things like not even your credit card really
Speaker 1: just your banking you know, your personal bank, And so
Speaker 1: that's when I think you need it. I travel a lot,
Speaker 1: I'm on different Wi Fi networks all the time, and
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of the time websites are encrypted to
Speaker 1: begin with, the connection between you and that website is locked.
Speaker 1: And so most of the time what you're passing through
Speaker 1: those websites is secured. But if you want that extra
Speaker 1: level of security, go ahead use the VPN. It's not
Speaker 1: going to mess things up. In fact, when I tried
Speaker 1: to log into my bank using my VPN on a
Speaker 1: mobile network, they wouldn't let me. I had to actually
Speaker 1: turn off the the VPN to get in. So again,
Speaker 1: if you're on a cellular connection, you do not need
Speaker 1: a VPN. That connection is very, very secure. If you're
Speaker 1: on your home Wi Fi network, I don't think you
Speaker 1: need it. If you're on a public Wi Fi network
Speaker 1: and you're accessing something that's very sensitive, that's when I
Speaker 1: think it kicks in. But again, we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: VPN expert a little bit later on in the show.
Speaker 1: We will ask him this exact question and he will
Speaker 1: give us some information about that.
Speaker 2: Good question.
Speaker 1: Robert, thanks for calling the show at triple eight rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eighty eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: for one zero one. Speaking of hacking, this is the
Speaker 1: way people get hacked. So twenty three and meters has
Speaker 1: confirmed that user data is being sold on hacker forms
Speaker 1: following a attack on their website. And how did these
Speaker 1: hackers get into their website? They didn't sit there and
Speaker 1: try one thousand different combinations of user name and passwords.
Speaker 2: What did they do?
Speaker 1: They went on the web. They found a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of leaked usernames and passwords for other websites, and they
Speaker 1: tried them on twenty three and Me and guess what,
Speaker 1: a bunch of them worked. A bunch of them gave
Speaker 1: them the login. Because what happens. People reuse the same
Speaker 1: username and the same password across a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: different websites thinking it'll be fine, nobody's targeting them, and
Speaker 1: guess what, this is what happens. So the initial leak
Speaker 1: was one million lines of ancestry data. Now they're selling
Speaker 1: this twenty three in me account data for a dollar
Speaker 1: to ten dollars per profile. The data includes names, usernames, photos, sex,
Speaker 1: birth date, ancestry results, and location. That's a lot of information.
Speaker 1: So if you did the swab for twenty three and
Speaker 1: Me and a lot of you have, and you reused
Speaker 1: your password and user name somewhere else, your information could
Speaker 1: be out there. Twenty three in me says affected accounts
Speaker 1: had opted into the DNA relatives feature. What do they
Speaker 1: say to protect yourself in the future. Encourage two factor
Speaker 1: use two factor authentication, and use a unique password. Good
Speaker 1: advice for any website that you sign up for. You
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple eight rich one O one eighty eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Give me a call
Speaker 1: if you have a question about technology, you need a recommendation.
Speaker 1: Something's troubling you with technology, whatever it is, give me
Speaker 1: a call eight eight eight rich one O one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four.
Speaker 2: One zero one.
Speaker 1: You could also go to the website. It is rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv. Up at the top it says
Speaker 1: contact you hit that and you can put in your name, email,
Speaker 1: and your message and it arrives right to my inbox.
Speaker 1: So this week, you know, we are in the slide
Speaker 1: to the holidays. I called the slide because it is
Speaker 1: just like a slippery slope. You know, it's like Halloween's
Speaker 1: coming up, Thanksgiving then the Holidays. I know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to rush it, but for me, when it comes
Speaker 1: to technology, this is kind of the busiest time because
Speaker 1: people want to know about gifts. All the tech companies
Speaker 1: have new phones coming out and new gadgets coming out
Speaker 1: because there is money to be made on selling this stuff.
Speaker 1: So this week we got the new Pixel phones and
Speaker 1: the new Pixel Watch, which are in stores next week.
Speaker 1: I've also noticed a new trend too with all of
Speaker 1: this technology. It's getting announced and then available a lot
Speaker 1: quicker than before. Used to be like they would announce
Speaker 1: it and then it was available in like a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. Now it's becoming like a week to two weeks.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you bought one of those
Speaker 1: new iPhone fifteens recently that were hot, you know, if
Speaker 1: you went on a ski trip, you wouldn't need to
Speaker 1: bring anything except an iPhone fifteen as your handwarmer because
Speaker 1: they were getting that warm. So if you had that
Speaker 1: problem and update your phone to iOS seventeen point zero
Speaker 1: point three, and this supposedly fixes the iPhone fifteen overheating bug.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it's running less warm than it
Speaker 1: was before, but seventeen point zero point three fixes the
Speaker 1: bugs that were causing the models to run hot. Lots
Speaker 1: of people were complaining about overheating iPhones after the launch,
Speaker 1: Apple said it was not a hardware or design flaw.
Speaker 1: Some people said it was due to the titanium. Apple
Speaker 1: says it was just software related and this should resolve it.
Speaker 1: They actually blame some third party apps like Instagram and
Speaker 1: Uber for overloading the processor. Come on, really, like Instagram's
Speaker 1: been around forever, Uber's been around forever. You're telling me
Speaker 1: that this phone is like made running hot because of that.
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever, whatever it was, they seem to
Speaker 1: have fixed it. We'll see in a week or so
Speaker 1: if people are still complaining now. The thing is, anytime
Speaker 1: you set up a new phone, it's always gonna run
Speaker 1: a little bit hotter. You're using it more because you're
Speaker 1: trying to like get all the apps downloaded, try out
Speaker 1: the new features, all that stuff. But Apple says, in
Speaker 1: stall this and hopefully it should fix any overheating issues.
Speaker 2: It's weird.
Speaker 1: There were like three updates for the brand new iPhone
Speaker 1: within two weeks. That's pretty rare with Apple. Let's see
Speaker 1: what else we got. An email from Jennifer says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I've got an iPhone thirteen Pro and a one year
Speaker 1: old iPad. I'm at a campground in Tennessee with great WiFi. However,
Speaker 1: my devices will not stay logged in. You can imagine
Speaker 1: how annoying it is to re enter the password multiple
Speaker 1: times each day. I have the network saved with both
Speaker 1: auto join and auto login. My phone is running iOS
Speaker 1: sixteen point six point one. We stayed here last year,
Speaker 1: same devices didn't have this problem. Do you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for additional settings I should try? Do you think
Speaker 1: this is something with the provider's Wi Fi. I always
Speaker 1: value your input and look forward to listening to you
Speaker 1: on your show via the app while I'm on the road. Jennifer,
Speaker 1: I had this same exact problem at my hotel in
Speaker 1: New York City, and I don't understand what the deal is,
Speaker 1: but I think I may have something you can try.
Speaker 1: But yes, I was logged into the hotel Wi Fi
Speaker 1: and every single day, even though I selected like two
Speaker 1: or three days for the Wi Fi connection, it kept
Speaker 1: making me log in. Now, maybe that's because I have
Speaker 1: like fifteen devices that I log in on the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi and most people don't. And I've also noticed that
Speaker 1: hotels are now kind of making you pay if you
Speaker 1: have more than two devices on your WiFi in the room,
Speaker 1: so watch out for that. But here's the only thing
Speaker 1: I can think of. On the new versions of iOS,
Speaker 1: and this may be different than last year, they do
Speaker 1: have this like private Wi Fi address, So sometimes the
Speaker 1: iPhone will generate a different address that makes your phone
Speaker 1: look like it might be a different device. And so
Speaker 1: when it does that, it does that to protect your
Speaker 1: privacy so they can't track you as much. But the
Speaker 1: Wi Fi network may see that and it may say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a new device, so we need to log
Speaker 1: in again. So you can try this, go into the
Speaker 1: once you're kind of it's to the Wi Fi network
Speaker 1: on your iPhone, tap the I next to the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi network's name, and there's a setting that says private
Speaker 1: Wi Fi address. Turn that off and see if that
Speaker 1: helps with the reconnection. That's really the only thing I
Speaker 1: can think of that's causing the reconnection unless you're using
Speaker 1: a VPN and it's cloaking your phone and your iPad's
Speaker 1: information and that's why it's wanting to reconnect.
Speaker 2: Or it could just.
Speaker 1: Be that this Wi Fi is set up on the
Speaker 1: network side to ask you to reconnect every twelve hours,
Speaker 1: every twenty four hours, so that may be what's happening here.
Speaker 1: But that's the only thing I can think of is
Speaker 1: go into your Wi Fi settings, tap the I next
Speaker 1: to the network that you're connected to, and disable the
Speaker 1: private Wi Fi address and see if that helps. Jennifer,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to the show from the road. Let's
Speaker 1: see what else do I want to talk about. I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about the new pixel Watch too, so
Speaker 1: I've been it for just a day now. It looks
Speaker 1: a lot like the first pixel Watch. This is Google's
Speaker 1: new pixel Watch that is upgraded last year's pixel Watch.
Speaker 2: I honestly, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Even review it because I wore it for a week
Speaker 1: and I just was not impressed. It was kind of underpowered,
Speaker 1: kind of felt like a glorified Fitbit. It just was
Speaker 1: not something that I think i'd recommend to my audience.
Speaker 1: So I just kind of like didn't really do much
Speaker 1: on it. I talked about it that it's there, but
Speaker 1: I didn't really recommend it. This year, they say everything
Speaker 1: has changed. We'll have an interview with the product manager
Speaker 1: for Google Wearables coming up later this hour, so he'll
Speaker 1: talk more about it, but I'll just give you the basics.
Speaker 1: Better performance. Got a new quad core cpu. They went
Speaker 1: out to Qualcom this time instead of their own, and
Speaker 1: so it's faster, they said. The battery life is greatly improved.
Speaker 1: Now it's twenty four hours and it's always on by default.
Speaker 1: Last year it wasn't you could toggle it on, but
Speaker 1: they took that feature, you know, they made it so
Speaker 1: it was just the screen would go dark when you
Speaker 1: weren't using it because the battery wasn't that good, and
Speaker 1: they knew that. This year, always on is on by default,
Speaker 1: which of course is shit. Be new health sensors for
Speaker 1: the health rate, heart rate, stress. I love that it
Speaker 1: tracks your stress and also sleep tracking, so I wore
Speaker 1: it to bed last night tracked my sleep. I got
Speaker 1: very very good sleep last night, so thank you fitbit
Speaker 1: for telling me that, although my rating was only eighty
Speaker 1: one out of one hundred. So that is the reason
Speaker 1: why I don't like wearing these things to bed, because
Speaker 1: you wake up, you feel great, and then you look
Speaker 1: at your score and it's horrible, and I'm like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, what could I do better?
Speaker 2: Stress? I think is awesome.
Speaker 1: It will actually tell you when you're stressed out, so
Speaker 1: you may not want to wear this new watch to work.
Speaker 1: It also now has fall detection, emergency SOS, and safety check.
Speaker 1: Those are really important features because obviously, if you take
Speaker 1: a fall, it can call for help. Emergency SOS can
Speaker 1: call your friends in the event of an emergency, and
Speaker 1: safety check you can set like an hour and say hey,
Speaker 1: if I don't respond in an hour or do something,
Speaker 1: please tell people that they need to check on me.
Speaker 1: Comes with six months of free Fitbit Premium.
Speaker 2: It works with a Fitbit at it is this app.
Speaker 1: It sort of is still like a glorified Fitbit, but
Speaker 1: this watch definitely feels better, has some new watch faces.
Speaker 1: It's three hundred and fifty dollars. It's available October twelfth,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's overall seeming like it's better. I
Speaker 1: still think that the Apple Watch is the king of
Speaker 1: smart watches, but I think if you don't need something
Speaker 1: that robust, I actually really enjoy this watch, especially because
Speaker 1: it has a lot of the googlely things built in.
Speaker 1: So it's got Google Assistant, it's got Google Maps, it's
Speaker 1: got Google YouTube Music if you like that.
Speaker 2: It's got Spotify if you like that.
Speaker 1: So it's got a lot of little things that the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch has some of those things, But if you
Speaker 1: really like Google. I think that this watch is a
Speaker 1: nice thing that if you don't expect too much from
Speaker 1: your watch, it's not a bad device. By the way,
Speaker 1: I talk about my wife lock because we chat about
Speaker 1: this stuff at home. I know, I always say, I
Speaker 1: know you don't care about this stuff, but I'm telling
Speaker 1: you anyway because it's my life. But we were talking
Speaker 1: about the different watches, and she was like, isn't it
Speaker 1: funny that people always want an iPhone but they use
Speaker 1: so many Google products, Like they use Gmail, they use
Speaker 1: Google Chrome, they use you know what, Google maps, they
Speaker 1: use YouTube, but yet everyone wants an iPhone. I said,
Speaker 1: hold on, are you punking me right now? Because this
Speaker 1: is Google's advertisements. Did you watch an ad for this?
Speaker 1: Because Google's new ad for the Pixel phones is kind
Speaker 1: of riffing on that. They say, oh, you want a
Speaker 1: brand you can trust because you want the iPhone and
Speaker 1: maybe they don't name Apple, but they say they go,
Speaker 1: but you also use Google, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube.
Speaker 1: You're already using so many Google products. Why not make
Speaker 1: your phone a Google product? And so I thought that
Speaker 1: was really funny that she picked up on their entire
Speaker 1: marketing without seeing that ad, which is kind of true.
Speaker 1: But I will say I'm not knocking the iPhone. I
Speaker 1: still think that the iPhone software and hardware is incredible.
Speaker 1: I think that for a lot of people, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of the default. It's the one that people get
Speaker 1: because their friends have it. They want to be on
Speaker 1: I message, they just want to be part of the crowd.
Speaker 1: And I totally understand all of that stuff. Have you
Speaker 1: ever been in a crowd where you say, oh, let
Speaker 1: me share that picture with you and they say, oh cool,
Speaker 1: let me air drop it, and You're just like, wait,
Speaker 1: not everyone on this earth has air drop.
Speaker 2: They just assume you have an iPhone.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really gotten to the point where we just,
Speaker 1: you know, people just assume everyone else has one, and
Speaker 1: it's not always the case. And yes, iPhone is amazing,
Speaker 1: and I think the ecosystem is really incredible, the fact
Speaker 1: that they have all these things that work really well
Speaker 1: with it. But again it's all sort of like Apple
Speaker 1: telling you what to do, Apple telling you what to have.
Speaker 1: But then again, on the flip side, the accessories for
Speaker 1: the iPhone are also amazing. I was saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: just the amount of accessories that I get sent on
Speaker 1: a monthly basis that deal with the iPhone. They're all
Speaker 1: really fun. Like I was using this little mofed Moft.
Speaker 1: This is a company that makes like magnetic stands, like
Speaker 1: magnetic accessories for the iPhone, and they're just really cool.
Speaker 1: They like unfold and it's like a little tablet stand
Speaker 1: for my, uh my iPhone in the plane. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just so cool and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is so cool. But it doesn't work on anything Android.
Speaker 1: Because these companies know they sell so many iPhones every year.
Speaker 1: If they can just tap into a little bit of
Speaker 1: that magic, they can sell a whole bunch of accessories
Speaker 1: for them as well. All Right, we got some calls
Speaker 1: lined up at Triple eight. Rich one O one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: My name is Richdimiro. You are listening to Rich on tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Let's go to Elsa
Speaker 1: in Plia del Rey, California.
Speaker 2: Elsa, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hey, Rich, how you doing today?
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic. Hope you can hear it my voice?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, okay, So I had an email forever I
Speaker 4: was married, I got divorced, and I want to create
Speaker 4: a new one with my with my going back to
Speaker 4: my dad name in any event I want to. I'm
Speaker 4: in social media. I try to stay away from all
Speaker 4: that stuff because I don't want to expose myself. So
Speaker 4: I'm just wondering what's a good email of email company
Speaker 4: or whatever provides that I have MS in right now,
Speaker 4: and I was looking at Max, but I don't want
Speaker 4: to do Gmail because I know they get a lot
Speaker 4: of your information and like I said, I try to
Speaker 4: minimize getting my information out. There is there one email
Speaker 4: provider that's better than another?
Speaker 1: Well, I think Gmail is the best, but and actually
Speaker 1: they don't get your information, so Google does, but Gmail.
Speaker 1: So when Gmail first started, they actually used to scan
Speaker 1: your emails to serve up ads.
Speaker 2: They no longer do that. They stop doing that years ago.
Speaker 1: So I think Gmail is still one of the best,
Speaker 1: one of the most secure. But with that said, if
Speaker 1: you don't want it, there are plenty of options out there.
Speaker 1: So some of the other popular ones are something like Outlook,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these are connected to other service
Speaker 1: So to use something like Outlook, you got to sign
Speaker 1: up for a Microsoft account. To use Gmail, you got
Speaker 1: to sign up for a Google account to use Yahoo.
Speaker 2: You got to have a Yahoo account.
Speaker 1: So to me, if you want something that's sort of
Speaker 1: by itself and just kind of independent of anything else,
Speaker 1: then maybe you want to go with one of these
Speaker 1: smaller providers that is kind of independent. So if you
Speaker 1: want something that's really secure in private, which elsa sounds
Speaker 1: like you do, I would check out proton Mail. So
Speaker 1: proton mail is they're known for security, they're known for privacy,
Speaker 1: and so that's a provider that is going to be
Speaker 1: end to end encrypted, and it's just it's a really
Speaker 1: kind of more secure email. Now, the downside to it
Speaker 1: is that you can use it for free, but it
Speaker 1: depends how much storage you're going to get. You're only
Speaker 1: gonna get one gigabyte of storage for free, and once
Speaker 1: you go above that, if you want a little bit more,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to pay three ninety nine a month
Speaker 1: or about fifty bucks for the year. So I feel
Speaker 1: like with email, unless you have a reason to go
Speaker 1: with a paid account, it's kind of nice to have
Speaker 1: something that's free because you don't really want to think
Speaker 1: about it. But even Google and all of the free
Speaker 1: email providers typically give you about fifteen gigabytes of storage
Speaker 1: for free, so proton mail is something i'd check out.
Speaker 1: The other one is iCloud. If you already have an
Speaker 1: iPhone and you already have kind of like all that
Speaker 1: stuff set up, you can just go onto your iPhone
Speaker 1: and set up a free iCloud email account. So if
Speaker 1: you want to go do that, all you have to
Speaker 1: do is go to your Apple ID and then go
Speaker 1: to iCloud and right there it'll say, let's see where
Speaker 1: is it iCloud mail, and you just tap set up,
Speaker 1: and we'll ask you for your email name and you
Speaker 1: just type that in and your email address would be
Speaker 1: something aticloud dot com. So those are a few of
Speaker 1: the popular ones. Obviously, things like AOL are still around,
Speaker 1: but I can't really wholeheartedly recommend that one. Yahoo who
Speaker 1: even though it's old, it actually they still work on
Speaker 1: it and they still do a lot with it. So
Speaker 1: Yahoo's not a bad way to go. But I think
Speaker 1: those are some of the providers that I would look at.
Speaker 1: And if you have an iPhone, I think the iCloud
Speaker 1: one's pretty simple, but again that does kind of lock
Speaker 1: you into all things Apple, so if you don't, I
Speaker 1: personally prefer third party, independent platforms for everything. I do,
Speaker 1: so I personally do not use that one, but I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people do if they just want
Speaker 1: to stick to Apple stuff.
Speaker 2: So good question, Elsa.
Speaker 1: And you know, no matter what you do, when you
Speaker 1: set up your account, please use a unique password and
Speaker 1: immediately turn on two factor authentication and you will be
Speaker 1: good to go. Thanks for the call, Triple eight rich
Speaker 1: one on one eighty eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one, coming up on October tenth. Oh you
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna say, coming up on the show,
Speaker 1: coming up on October tenth. This is Amazon. I'm Big
Speaker 1: Deal Days. How many Prime Days can we have in
Speaker 1: a year? We just got through Prime Day that was
Speaker 1: a dud. Now we've got the new Prime big Deal Days.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but here's what I bought
Speaker 1: on Prime Day last time. I think I bought like
Speaker 1: those phizzy tablets, like those Electrolyte tablets. Like how boring
Speaker 1: is it when you're buying like a Gatorade tablet for
Speaker 1: your Prime Day? But maybe this won will be better.
Speaker 1: This one starts on October tenth, and it seems like
Speaker 1: Amazon has to keep reminding us of reasons why we
Speaker 1: should pay this one hundred and thirty nine dollars a
Speaker 1: year to keep our Prime memberships, which I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I use a lot of forty eight hour shopping event.
Speaker 1: This is happening before Black Friday. They're trying to get
Speaker 1: a head start on the holiday shopping season. Again, this
Speaker 1: is for Amazon Prime members only. Deals will start at
Speaker 1: three am Eastern on October tenth. Of course, like they
Speaker 1: always say, there's gonna be millions of discounted items. Deals
Speaker 1: on electronics, toys, home fashions, sixty five Amazon devices, and bundles.
Speaker 1: That's where you really save money Amazon stuff. The one
Speaker 1: thing I thought was very interesting this year. Gift cards
Speaker 1: are going to be up to twenty percent off for
Speaker 1: different brands, and they have this new buy Again feature,
Speaker 1: so they're trying to help you figure out the stuff
Speaker 1: you've purchased in the past, is it going to be
Speaker 1: on sale this time around. So now they're going to
Speaker 1: put that front and center on Prime Day. So all
Speaker 1: the stuff you've purchased in the past, if it's on sale,
Speaker 1: your towels, your you know whatever, it'll say, Hey, this
Speaker 1: is on sale again, buy it again. Amazon Prime Big
Speaker 1: Deal Days happening October tenth.
Speaker 2: More rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Right after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here on location once again in New York City
Speaker 1: to talk all things Google products. Google had their big
Speaker 1: pixel launch event here and I was in the audience.
Speaker 2: It was very fun. We got to go hands on
Speaker 2: with the new products.
Speaker 1: Joining me now is san Deep Barach, product manager for
Speaker 1: the pixel Watch.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me. Thanks Rich.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about pixel Watch too. This is the
Speaker 1: follow up to last year's model. What are some of
Speaker 1: the biggest improvements to the watch this time around?
Speaker 11: Yeah, overall upgraded insight and out. So the big things.
Speaker 11: Starting with the performance itself. It's a quad core processor
Speaker 11: giving you really smooth performance. It's a display that is
Speaker 11: always on. Combined with our core processor, it gives you
Speaker 11: all day battery life with always on display. So that's
Speaker 11: a pretty big improvement both in terms of performance and
Speaker 11: battery life. Moving to the health sensors, we are bringing
Speaker 11: three new health sensors overall, a skin temperature which gives
Speaker 11: you a lot of insights around your night temperature and
Speaker 11: how your body kind of changes the changes in skin temperature, continue,
Speaker 11: stress monitoring, which is a pretty big overall wellness feature,
Speaker 11: and capability which can both detect stressful events during the
Speaker 11: day and give you some interventions suggest some interventions both
Speaker 11: on the watch and on the fitbit app on the phone.
Speaker 11: You're also bringing personal safety features that make the watch
Speaker 11: a really good companion for a peace of mind when
Speaker 11: you're on a trail or walking alone. These are features
Speaker 11: where we are bringing emergency SOS, emergency location sharing with
Speaker 11: your loved ones, but all the also things like safety check,
Speaker 11: which is like a timer for your safety. So let's
Speaker 11: say you go on a run for an hour, you
Speaker 11: can put that timer and then after one hour, if
Speaker 11: you're in a bind and can't respond back to your
Speaker 11: watch that you're all good. It will then send your
Speaker 11: location and the right details to risk first responders and
Speaker 11: do your loved ones.
Speaker 1: So let's start with some of the things that you
Speaker 1: mentioned about the battery life. So you always on display
Speaker 1: means that the display is always on, but you're still
Speaker 1: going to get a full day's worth of use out
Speaker 1: of the watch.
Speaker 2: That is right.
Speaker 11: So that is in a way, what that really brings
Speaker 11: compared to first generation is you don't have to compromise
Speaker 11: on it being a watch. So at a glance, you
Speaker 11: still have this watch which has very expressive watch faces,
Speaker 11: and with always on display, it is your primary watch
Speaker 11: and then when you turn it around, it activates with
Speaker 11: just detecting your tilt of the wrist and then can
Speaker 11: give you a lot more information on the watch face
Speaker 11: itself and you can interact with that. That's a pretty
Speaker 11: big feature because generally it takes away a lot from
Speaker 11: the battery life, but we wanted to have this peace
Speaker 11: of mind that you can go through the day, through
Speaker 11: the night of sleep tracking and still have battery left.
Speaker 2: Ah through this sleep tracking as well.
Speaker 1: So when do you think that people should charge this
Speaker 1: when they wake up in the morning, when they're getting
Speaker 1: ready for work.
Speaker 11: I can tell how I use it and how we
Speaker 11: have found lots of our users use it in our
Speaker 11: trusted testing. There are two primary ways in which charging,
Speaker 11: which is faster by the way, so I forgot to
Speaker 11: mention that it's a faster charging mechanism too. So in
Speaker 11: thirty minutes of charging, you're going to get fifty percent
Speaker 11: of battery, so that equates to about twelve hours. So
Speaker 11: I go through the day and then when I'm having
Speaker 11: dinner with my family, that's when I please check my watch.
Speaker 11: So I have about thirty minutes, I put it on
Speaker 11: the charger, I'm ready for the full night of sleep tracking,
Speaker 11: and then full day as well, and then right around
Speaker 11: the evening I repeat that cycle. Or conversely, you can
Speaker 11: go through the day, sleep track through the night, and
Speaker 11: in the morning, while maybe showering or brushing, you can
Speaker 11: just put it on the charger and very quickly get
Speaker 11: ready for the day.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go.
Speaker 1: Two good ways to charge if you're trying to get
Speaker 1: your sleep tracking in. And what I like about this
Speaker 1: watch is it's so minimal. It's minimalistic so you can
Speaker 1: wear it comfortably to bed and track your sleep without
Speaker 1: it feeling like it's a big clunky watch.
Speaker 11: That is exactly right, that's really well captured. It doesn't
Speaker 11: snag on the jackets like winter season is coming, will
Speaker 11: be wearing like long sleeves all so it's very low
Speaker 11: profile in that regard our design principle and this was
Speaker 11: for it to be fussed a good watch, and I
Speaker 11: think we have succeeded with that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the improved heart rate sensor. If you
Speaker 1: look on the back of the device, it's a much
Speaker 1: more it's kind of a bigger sensor like there's more
Speaker 1: going on there.
Speaker 2: Maybe not larger, but there's a lot more to it.
Speaker 2: So explain that.
Speaker 11: Yeah, So on the sensor there are the two sensors
Speaker 11: I talked about, the skin temperature and the stress monitoring.
Speaker 11: So that's on the electrodes on the back that you
Speaker 11: see are new compared to the previous generation. You also
Speaker 11: see more number of LEDs and photodiodes. That's for the
Speaker 11: heart rate monitoring. Our architecture now is what we call
Speaker 11: multipath optics architecture. What that means is that we have
Speaker 11: ten times the number of LEDs and photodiodes and essentially
Speaker 11: they're sending a signal into the skin and getting that
Speaker 11: signal back and computing the changes in the physiology to
Speaker 11: then detect heart rate with very high accuracy. And why
Speaker 11: that architecture works in that, as you called out, like
Speaker 11: more things going on in the back, is it has
Speaker 11: more points on the wrist to detect that. It's not
Speaker 11: now relying on a single point of failure because your
Speaker 11: watch moves in a very microway. When you're running or
Speaker 11: doing any hit like exercises, your watch is slightly moving
Speaker 11: and we want to have as asshured a signal across
Speaker 11: multiple points on the risk to get a very clean
Speaker 11: signal and.
Speaker 1: Tell you about is stress tracking because I'm very interested
Speaker 1: in this. I think there's a whole new world of
Speaker 1: people kind of realizing their wellness and their kind of
Speaker 1: mental and also physical wellness.
Speaker 2: So tell you about the stress tracking future.
Speaker 11: Yeah. So the CDA sensor electrodermal sensor at a subcutaneous
Speaker 11: skin level mid detect changes and can then detect if
Speaker 11: there are any events of stress that you're having. It
Speaker 11: could be excitement too, which is great, and then that's
Speaker 11: where the intervention it can suggest is either to go
Speaker 11: to the Relaxed app to just breathe and have a
Speaker 11: couple of minutes of rest time, and or go to
Speaker 11: the fitbit app and log that event. So for me,
Speaker 11: for example, sometimes it's just excitement that is detected as
Speaker 11: which is also a very good thing for me to log,
Speaker 11: which is I'm super excited right now, and it could
Speaker 11: be because we had a really good time as a family,
Speaker 11: or like we just achieved something as a team, or
Speaker 11: conversely it's just a stressful event and it then gives
Speaker 11: me a time series for me to see and then
Speaker 11: correlate today obviously you can see in the future things
Speaker 11: could look very different today. I can manually correlate that
Speaker 11: to my sleep score and my heart rate variability. If
Speaker 11: I'm having too many stressful events, I can then correlate
Speaker 11: maybe my sleep score is going down. So these are
Speaker 11: very helpful insights for me to know about my broader wellness.
Speaker 1: Now there's a cellular version of this watch which is
Speaker 1: sort of independent, and then a version that does not
Speaker 1: have cellulars that right, That is right.
Speaker 11: So we have a Wi Fi which is Wi Fi GPS,
Speaker 11: and then we have Wi Fi GPS and LT which
Speaker 11: is that cellular connected?
Speaker 2: And what do you recommend people choose the cellular version for?
Speaker 2: Like what you know?
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get a lot of questions, people say, why
Speaker 1: would I get the cellular versus the standard Wi Fi?
Speaker 1: What do you think makes that delineation worth it?
Speaker 11: Yeah, So there are a few times where you feel
Speaker 11: like it's okay to be without your phone, and that's
Speaker 11: where the cellular connected watch comes and to still have
Speaker 11: that peace of mind that you're connected and you can
Speaker 11: connect to the things you care about. So a few
Speaker 11: examples of that. From a personal standpoint, I generally walk
Speaker 11: with my kids in the evening. During weekdays and certainly weekends,
Speaker 11: where I feel that it's a twenty thirty minute walk
Speaker 11: around the neighborhood, I probably don't want to carry my phone,
Speaker 11: and I'm fully in the present with them. But then
Speaker 11: I also know that my wife can reach me anytime
Speaker 11: or any other person because I'm fully connected. Conversely, I
Speaker 11: can connect with them too if needed. Same thing, if
Speaker 11: I'm going on a run, likely I'm not going to
Speaker 11: carry my phone. It's a thing that probably just adds
Speaker 11: to my bulk. And same thing with weekend excursions or hike.
Speaker 11: So there are all these things in our daily lives
Speaker 11: where we feel that we would like to have that
Speaker 11: freedom for a few moments where we are with our
Speaker 11: loved ones or with ourselves, and then still having that
Speaker 11: peace of mind that you're connected.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: There you have it Google pixel Watch too forty nine
Speaker 1: And when's it available?
Speaker 11: And is available enough of pre order and it'll be
Speaker 11: available on shelf on twelfth o' October.
Speaker 1: Sandy Barach, product manager for pixel Watch, thanks so much.
Speaker 2: For joining me today. Thanks Rich, that was pleasure, all right,
Speaker 2: More Rich on Tech coming your way right after this.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: Rich, Demiro here rich on tech. This is one of
Speaker 1: those songs that just screams wedding. Like you are at
Speaker 1: a wedding if you're listening to this song like this
Speaker 1: September like there are certain like you have to have
Speaker 1: these songs at your wedding. This is one of them,
Speaker 1: and I'm there for I love it. Eight to eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. You know, the song that really
Speaker 1: gets me going at weddings is the one that you
Speaker 1: jump up.
Speaker 2: What's it called?
Speaker 1: Jump around? Jump up, jump up and get down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you see me, I'm not kidding. I am the
Speaker 1: highest jumper in the room every time. My wife hates
Speaker 1: it so much. She is so embarrassed because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're playing this song. I drop whatever I'm doing and
Speaker 1: I run to the dance floor and I go watch this.
Speaker 1: I will be the highest jumper in this entire room.
Speaker 1: And I am most of the time. People are very surprised,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, jump around, House of Pain, stupid shuffle?
Speaker 2: What's that? I got it? I know it by audio.
Speaker 1: We gotta play it, Okay, you you find it and
Speaker 1: I'll and then uh, let's take Kevin in San Diego.
Speaker 1: I feel bad for the people on the podcast because
Speaker 1: they don't hear the music, so they get this part.
Speaker 1: They get one side of the conversation. Here, Kevin, you're
Speaker 1: on with.
Speaker 5: Rich Any white man can't chap you know that?
Speaker 1: Well, this one can so much to my wife's chagrin, right.
Speaker 5: Uh, it's all of it. Yeah, my ex girlfriend hacked
Speaker 5: my iPhone. Uh, and she's just wreaking havoc every day
Speaker 5: on my life with this. We we're so connected to
Speaker 5: our phone and every way at work and just banking
Speaker 5: and everything. She she probably got my passwords back in
Speaker 5: the day when I used to spend the night at
Speaker 5: her house and I used to keep them in a
Speaker 5: book in my overnight bag, and she just started hacking
Speaker 5: all my accounts and so I've been locking it down
Speaker 5: since we broke up, changed all my passwords. But she
Speaker 5: knows where I'm at, how much money I spend when
Speaker 5: I go shopping.
Speaker 2: Sounds like you're still married.
Speaker 5: I know we were never married.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I was gonna say it just sounds like marriage, right, Okay, So.
Speaker 5: I was able to break up with her, but uh, yeah,
Speaker 5: I've been I've been on the phone with Apple for
Speaker 5: two hours at a time, with their tech support, Verizon
Speaker 5: tech support. Nobody seems to be able to help me.
Speaker 5: She's gotten into my phone, I got she hacked my email.
Speaker 5: I've got a private email. She acted that even when
Speaker 5: I was on tech support with my private email company
Speaker 5: and they were mirroring my phone seeing what I was doing,
Speaker 5: and I would block her, go out of that page
Speaker 5: and go back, and she was unblocked, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 5: I've never seen that before.
Speaker 2: I'm like, thought, great, well, it sounds go ahead.
Speaker 1: It sounds like she has access to your passwords from
Speaker 1: that book and she got them all and now she
Speaker 1: is using them to her advantage. So I think that
Speaker 1: the main thing that you need to do is that
Speaker 1: you have to regain control of your accounts. And so
Speaker 1: what that requires is a lot Number one. You're using
Speaker 1: an iPhone, you said, so you've got to change your
Speaker 1: Apple ID password immediately. That is going to be the
Speaker 1: number one thing. So the other thing I'd recommend before
Speaker 1: you even do that is go into your settings and
Speaker 1: tap your Apple ID and then go on that list
Speaker 1: of devices. And so if you look at the main
Speaker 1: page of your Apple ID, it'll give you a list
Speaker 1: of all of the devices that are on your Apple account,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at mine. I've got my iPhone, I've
Speaker 1: got my computer, I've got an iPad, I've got another iPhone,
Speaker 1: which actually now that you remind me, I need to
Speaker 1: get rid of.
Speaker 2: I've got an Apple TV, I've got a watch, and.
Speaker 1: So all of these things are they all have access
Speaker 1: to your account. So her phone may be on there
Speaker 1: because at one point she may have logged in and
Speaker 1: gotten access to your Apple ID that way. So that's
Speaker 1: number one. You can tap one of these devices and
Speaker 1: it will say, let me just tap one of these
Speaker 1: and it will say remove from account. And so then
Speaker 1: you can remove that from account now because she has
Speaker 1: access to that. There's also another place to look. It's
Speaker 1: called find my. So if you go in to find my,
Speaker 1: you'll see all the devices on your account and find my.
Speaker 1: If there's one that you don't recognize there, you definitely
Speaker 1: want to remove that item. So she could have put
Speaker 1: an air tag on your account, and that air tag
Speaker 1: is tracking your location, and because it's on your account,
Speaker 1: your phone is not telling you about it, and so
Speaker 1: that's another way that she could potentially see where you're
Speaker 1: at so I think that whatever she has done is
Speaker 1: clean up a ble. You can clean this mess up
Speaker 1: by changing your Apple ID. As soon as you change
Speaker 1: your Apple ID, you want to enable two factor authentication
Speaker 1: on your Apple account if you don't have that already enabled,
Speaker 1: and that is going to make sure that if she
Speaker 1: had even if she figured out your new password, which
Speaker 1: by the way, it should be a strong password, she
Speaker 1: will not be able to use that to log in
Speaker 1: because she's not going to get that secondary code. And
Speaker 1: even if her device was set up as a trusted
Speaker 1: device on her account, which is your account, because you
Speaker 1: got rid of any devices that are not recognizable, her
Speaker 1: device would no longer get that secondary security code. Now,
Speaker 1: once you do that, I would actually take a third
Speaker 1: step and I would go through and format your phone
Speaker 1: and restart everything, relog in from fresh from the basics.
Speaker 1: So go through and just download all the apps you
Speaker 1: have and relog into those. Now, when it comes to
Speaker 1: things like your email, what you want to do is
Speaker 1: you want to log out of other locations. So pretty
Speaker 1: much every app nowadays has some sort of setting in
Speaker 1: the account settings that lets you log out of all
Speaker 1: active sessions. And what that means is and I was
Speaker 1: looking at this on my phone today. When you log
Speaker 1: into things, they stay for a long time until you
Speaker 1: log out. So she may have an old phone or
Speaker 1: an old computer, or an old web browser that's still
Speaker 1: logged into your Facebook, or that's still logged into your Gmail,
Speaker 1: and so she can still access that, and unless you
Speaker 1: get rid of those, she's still going to be able
Speaker 1: to access those.
Speaker 2: If that's what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Now, if you look on the bottom of Gmail, it
Speaker 1: should say where you're logged in. And if you want
Speaker 1: to log out of other accounts, just Google, you know,
Speaker 1: Google log out of all active devices or Spotify log
Speaker 1: out of all active devices. All these accounts typically have
Speaker 1: a way to log out of all the different places
Speaker 1: that you've logged in. Instagram has it, Facebook has it.
Speaker 1: Now you're going to have to re log in, so
Speaker 1: you better know your new password or maybe change the
Speaker 1: password before you do this. But Kevin, these are all
Speaker 1: things that I know that you're getting the messages from,
Speaker 1: you know, your cellular company and Apple. But these are
Speaker 1: the steps you have to take, and once you take
Speaker 1: these steps, you will be cleaned from her existence on
Speaker 1: your devices. There's no reason why someone should be able
Speaker 1: to continue to have access once you do these things. Now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to your cell phone carrier, if she
Speaker 1: has access to that on the backside, you're log in
Speaker 1: and password for that. Go into where whether it's Verizon,
Speaker 1: whether it's AT and T T Mobile, go in, change
Speaker 1: your password there, and also set up a PIN on
Speaker 1: your account. So if you set up a PIN on
Speaker 1: your account, she's not gonna be able to log in
Speaker 1: unless she has that pin or change anything because of that.
Speaker 1: And also set up two factor there too. So those
Speaker 1: are the steps to take. I think that this is
Speaker 1: easily fixable. It just takes a little bit of work.
Speaker 1: You've got to change those passwords. You've got to log
Speaker 1: out of the active sessions anywhere else and make sure
Speaker 1: that no other devices accept the one that you want
Speaker 1: is logged into your account. So thanks Kevin for the question,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Sorry for the breakup, but it sounds like
Speaker 1: if she's really doing this stuff, you're avoiding a big
Speaker 1: nightmare there by not getting married. Chrome book. Let me
Speaker 1: just quickly talk about chromebooks. You know, chromebooks are known
Speaker 1: for being really simple, easy, they run software, they don't
Speaker 1: really have viruses, but they've been underpowered, and Google knows
Speaker 1: that a lot of you know, schools use them and
Speaker 1: things like that. People get these chromebooks, they spend a
Speaker 1: couple hundred bucks on them, and they get them, and
Speaker 1: they're kind of slow and like sluggish. And so now
Speaker 1: Google has this new spec called Chromebook Plus. And so
Speaker 1: this is a signifier that tells you this chromebook is
Speaker 1: actually pretty decent. And so what does a Chromebook Plus have.
Speaker 1: It's got a starting price of three hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars, it's got double the performance, memory, and storage
Speaker 1: compared to regular chromebooks, guaranteed hardware specs including Intel Core
Speaker 1: I three, AMD rise In three, eight gigabytes of RAM
Speaker 1: and one hundred and twenty eight gigabytes of storage, a
Speaker 1: ten ADP webcam. And because it's got these specs, it
Speaker 1: can have new AI features that Google says they will
Speaker 1: build into these things. These are available starting October eighth,
Speaker 1: and some existing chromebooks, if they have these specs, we'll
Speaker 1: get that Chromebook Plus software update.
Speaker 2: So it just means that it's going to be a
Speaker 2: higher end system.
Speaker 1: So if you want the best chromebook you can get,
Speaker 1: look for a Chromebook Plus in the future.
Speaker 2: I think this was a smart move by Google. Triple
Speaker 2: A rich.
Speaker 1: One O one eighty eight seven four to two four.
Speaker 2: One zero one. You are listening to rich on Tech
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 1: Now we have a new song I can shuffle to
Speaker 1: at the next wedding.
Speaker 2: I go to.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology at Triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one.
Speaker 2: You got plenty more in the show.
Speaker 1: Sam Rubin KTLA entertainment anchor is going to join me
Speaker 1: to discuss his experience seeing you two at the Las
Speaker 1: Vegas Sphere and then ate, By the way, I don't
Speaker 1: like that word sphere. Isn't it really really tough to
Speaker 1: say sphere? Like it's just one of those words that
Speaker 1: I'd rather not say. Globe, Yeah, so much easier globe.
Speaker 1: It just rolls off the tongue. Sphere is like you
Speaker 1: have to actually sit there and think about how to
Speaker 1: say it. David Huerta is the senior digital security trainer
Speaker 1: at Freedom of the Press Foundation. He is going to
Speaker 1: join us for a very important conversation later this hour
Speaker 1: about how to pick the best VPN and some of
Speaker 1: the stories I'll still talk about ring they're giving away
Speaker 1: a million bucks if you catch an alien on your
Speaker 1: ring camera. And Samsung actually has some new products. These
Speaker 1: are the Fan Addition products, and I'll tell you about
Speaker 1: them because they're actually really good and they're inexpensive. But
Speaker 1: first let's go to Jim and Costa Mesa. Jim, you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich?
Speaker 8: Yeah, how you doing? I have a question. I I'm
Speaker 8: seventy four years old, but for my age, I think
Speaker 8: I'm pretty good with technology. And early on I had
Speaker 8: an iPhone and was into the Mac, you know, the
Speaker 8: Apple vironment, but business kind of had me transfer to
Speaker 8: PC because that's just what most of the companies used. Well,
Speaker 8: when smartphones came out, I went to androids. So to me,
Speaker 8: the Androids it's just a better open system. What I
Speaker 8: love to do is put my documents, photos and music
Speaker 8: all on an SD card. And so when I get
Speaker 8: a new phone, I simply log into my Gmail account
Speaker 8: and my Microsoft account, put the SIM card in and
Speaker 8: SD card. I'm ready to go. I never have to
Speaker 8: go to a genius bar or you spend a lot
Speaker 8: of time anywhere. I do it all at home. So
Speaker 8: my question is what am I missing by not having
Speaker 8: an iPhone? Because I'm very happy with the Android system.
Speaker 8: I know I save a lot of money by staying
Speaker 8: on Android, but what do I really miss? I don't FaceTime.
Speaker 8: I just wonder the features that would.
Speaker 2: Me to want to move good question.
Speaker 1: I think it's a question that a lot of people
Speaker 1: wonder that are Android users because you hear about the
Speaker 1: iPhone so much, and I kind of talked about this
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier, but there's this like there's this
Speaker 1: kind of it's almost like a social construct in America,
Speaker 1: at least not so much for the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: but in America, the iPhone is kind of like the
Speaker 1: top device. And so not just the iPhone, but also
Speaker 1: I message and FaceTime to a lesser extent, I don't
Speaker 1: really I think I've done like three FaceTime calls in
Speaker 1: my entire life.
Speaker 2: I don't really use FaceTime.
Speaker 1: And again I'm prefacing all of this with the fact
Speaker 1: that I like third party platforms that work across both sides.
Speaker 1: So when I choose a product, I choose something that
Speaker 1: works on both iPhone and Android, because A I'm switching
Speaker 1: between both all the time, and B I just don't
Speaker 1: want one company to have that much control in my life.
Speaker 1: And when you go iPhone, You're pretty much like seating
Speaker 1: a lot of control to Apple. And I think that's
Speaker 1: what it really comes down to. When you meet certain
Speaker 1: people like that are a little bit more techy. A
Speaker 1: lot of times they like Android because they have full control, Jim,
Speaker 1: Like you said, they like to control their own destiny.
Speaker 1: They like to do things the way they want. I mean,
Speaker 1: just look at the way you have to arrange icons
Speaker 1: on the home screen on the iPhone versus Android. Android
Speaker 1: you can place an icon wherever you want. iPhone you
Speaker 1: cannot do that. And that may surprise some of you
Speaker 1: Android folks. You're like, wait, what, Yes, you have to
Speaker 1: place the icon where Apple wants you to do it.
Speaker 1: Now on the flip side, So what does iPhone offer?
Speaker 1: I think iPhone offers that I message world, where you know,
Speaker 1: you can text easily and it's simple and you can
Speaker 1: send big videos. And that's just something that Apple has
Speaker 1: constructed as a it's almost fake. It's like Apple made
Speaker 1: that barrier itself. So everyone else in the world uses
Speaker 1: something like WhatsApp or you know, a different messaging program,
Speaker 1: or even SMS, which is rcs now. Apple also has,
Speaker 1: you know, they have new stuff every year. They've got
Speaker 1: an ecosystem that just works, so it's very simple. Their
Speaker 1: software updates work on the same day for every device,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to weigh or you don't have
Speaker 1: to say, oh, i'm running this phone, i haven't gotten
Speaker 1: my software update yet because I'm on Samsung, I'm on OnePlus,
Speaker 1: I'm on Google, I'm on Motorola. All those manufacturers do
Speaker 1: software updates at different times. So some people just like
Speaker 1: the fact that Apple just works the same for everyone
Speaker 1: all the time. Now, what's the advantage of Android? Well,
Speaker 1: number one, you control your own destiny with Android. It
Speaker 1: works the way you want it to work. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of little things on iPhone that don't work the
Speaker 1: way they work on Android. Because Android is a little
Speaker 1: bit more open, it's a little bit more user friendly
Speaker 1: when it comes to customizing how you want things to work.
Speaker 1: You want a different keyboard for a long time, you
Speaker 1: couldn't do that on iPhone. And by the way, if
Speaker 1: you do that on iPhone, it still doesn't work as
Speaker 1: well as it doesn't Android. You know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to voice assistance, you can choose which one you want
Speaker 1: to work on your Android phone, and on iPhone you've
Speaker 1: got Siri and so now all of these things are
Speaker 1: getting a little bit better on iPhone.
Speaker 2: Over the years.
Speaker 1: You used to not be able to set your own
Speaker 1: mail application or your own default browser. Apple has made
Speaker 1: it easier to do that, although I argue that sometimes
Speaker 1: those don't work as well as the built in native
Speaker 1: applications like Safari or by the way, tried navigating with
Speaker 1: anything using except Apple Maps on the iPhone doesn't work
Speaker 1: if you're clicking any sort of link, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to This is getting a little bit too in depth,
Speaker 1: but you know, developers have found ways around Apple's weird rules,
Speaker 1: and a lot of Apple's weird rules come down to security,
Speaker 1: and they they've engineered this phone so everything sort of
Speaker 1: runs in its own sandbox. So when you run an
Speaker 1: app on the iPhone, it's not really interacting with other
Speaker 1: apps like it is on the Android side. And so
Speaker 1: what does that do that protects the user from things
Speaker 1: like spam or sorry, viruses Like there's really not a
Speaker 1: virus for the iPhone because it wouldn't really work. And
Speaker 1: all those systems that say they've got anti virus for
Speaker 1: the iPhone, those are all bogus because they can't even scan.
Speaker 1: They can't even get access to the iPhone system to
Speaker 1: be able to scan for viruses. And so if you're
Speaker 1: getting those kind of programs on your iPhone, you don't
Speaker 1: need them. So my point is, I think it really
Speaker 1: comes down to what you want. Jim, I don't think
Speaker 1: you're losing anything on Android versus iOS. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you're very happy with what you've got. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you like the system that you have set up. And
Speaker 1: when it comes to things like the Genius Bar and
Speaker 1: the iPhone, the Apple stores and all the costs associated
Speaker 1: with being an Apple fan, some people like that because,
Speaker 1: for instance, when I was in Japan and I had
Speaker 1: a problem with my laptop, I made an appointment at
Speaker 1: the Genius Bar and I brought it in without even
Speaker 1: thinking if the genius spoke English or Japanese.
Speaker 2: It just worked.
Speaker 1: The person spoke English. And so again Apple has built
Speaker 1: something that's really interesting, that's really the customer friendly and simple,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people like that, and that's just
Speaker 1: absolutely fine. I'm not faulting them for that, but I
Speaker 1: am going to point out the differences between what you
Speaker 1: get on iPhone and what you get on Android, and
Speaker 1: everyone has a different thing that they like a different
Speaker 1: way to run their life, and that's fine. Now on Android,
Speaker 1: you know, there are things that you can do that
Speaker 1: you can't do on iPhone. On iPhone, there are apps
Speaker 1: that you know, a lot of developers develop first for
Speaker 1: iPhone and then maybe they'll develop for Android later on.
Speaker 1: And again, people like to be able to bring in
Speaker 1: their phone to the Apple Store if they have a problem,
Speaker 1: or they like to ask a friend if they have
Speaker 1: an issue. If you have this really unique Android phone
Speaker 1: that you love. Let's say you have the Nothing phone too.
Speaker 1: It's a cool phone, it's a great phone. But who
Speaker 1: are you going to ask if you have a problem
Speaker 1: with that phone, because your friends probably don't have it.
Speaker 1: As with iPhone, you're gonna say, hey, do you know
Speaker 1: how to do this on the iPhone? They say, oh yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: here're going to this setting. So Jim, those are just
Speaker 1: a few of the reasons. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I think that it's great that we have competition.
Speaker 1: I think it's great to have choice, and I think
Speaker 1: it's great if you like iPhone, fine, if you like Android,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely fine. I don't think you're missing out in
Speaker 1: either way. Apple's marketing is just a little bit stronger.
Speaker 1: So it feels like there's a little bit more going
Speaker 1: on with the iPhone, which you know in some cases
Speaker 1: there is. Thanks for the question. Speaking of Android, Samsung
Speaker 1: introduced three new products this week. We call this introduction
Speaker 1: via press release. They didn't have a big event or anything,
Speaker 1: but they did put out three new products. One is
Speaker 1: the Galaxy S twenty three FE. This starts at six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars and this is basically a FE means Fan Edition.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a less expensive version of their flagship device,
Speaker 1: and it's probably really good. I haven't gotten the phone
Speaker 1: in yet, but I have gotten the tablet and the earbuds,
Speaker 1: and so far it took a run.
Speaker 2: With the earbuds, they are excellent.
Speaker 1: The Galaxy S twenty three FE has three cameras, it's
Speaker 1: got all the features that you need, it's got a
Speaker 1: bunch of fun colors, and it's just a little bit cheaper,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't have like the best specs like the
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy S twenty three Ultra, but it has really
Speaker 1: good specs and it's like a really good device if
Speaker 1: you want to spend half the price and still get
Speaker 1: something that's really good compared to the S twenty three Ultra.
Speaker 1: Then they've got the Galaxy tab S nine FE and
Speaker 1: this is a tablet that starts at four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. It's got up to twenty hours of video playback.
Speaker 1: It's available in a bunch of different colors as well.
Speaker 1: I personally think that the iPhone is the way to
Speaker 1: go when it comes to a tablet or sorry, the iPad,
Speaker 1: But I will test this out, put it through its paces.
Speaker 1: But I just think that the tablet apps on the
Speaker 1: iPad are the best in class and Android really needs
Speaker 1: to step things up when it comes to that, and
Speaker 1: then maybe I'll recommend Android tablets. When it comes to
Speaker 1: these Galaxy buds, FI put them in my ears today,
Speaker 1: took with them.
Speaker 2: They are excellent.
Speaker 1: So ninety nine bucks gives you thirty hours of audio playback.
Speaker 1: They've got three microphones, they've got active noise cancelation. They've
Speaker 1: got ambient sound, which lets you hear what's going on
Speaker 1: around you. They don't feel like you're underwater with a
Speaker 1: lot of the cheap noise canceling headphones. They feel like
Speaker 1: you're underwater and your nose is clogged up. These sound perfect.
Speaker 1: They fit in my ears great, they did not fall out.
Speaker 1: They're wireless earbuds. They start at ninety nine bucks. I
Speaker 1: think if you have Samsung specific phone, these are a
Speaker 1: great companion. The Galaxy Buds FE again, will be available
Speaker 1: online on October fifth, so that's already passed. So is
Speaker 1: the tablet and the Galaxy S twenty three FE. The
Speaker 1: phone is going to be available on October twenty six.
Speaker 1: So again look into this Galaxy Fan Edition products. They
Speaker 1: skipped a couple of years. They had them a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, they skipped and now they're back. And
Speaker 1: I think that they're back because people are spending a
Speaker 1: lot of money and they're kind of sick of it,
Speaker 1: and so Samsung realizes, hey, you know what, people want
Speaker 1: an alternative to these ultra premium devices, but they still
Speaker 1: want something that has a lot of these top tier
Speaker 1: features in a lower price point.
Speaker 2: You're listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, we'll talk to Sam Rubin about the
Speaker 1: sphere in Las Vegas. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Talk in technology with you.
Speaker 2: Coming up.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of the show, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to David Huerta, who is going to talk about VPNs
Speaker 1: and when you need one. Now, one of the things
Speaker 1: that's going on in Las Vegas. Las Vegas always looking
Speaker 1: for like new attractions, and they've got one. It's called
Speaker 1: the MSG Sphere. This is a giant I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: seen the videos online. It's this giant like ground building
Speaker 1: that is going to house concerts and also video performances
Speaker 1: and like all kinds of stuff. Like the entertainment that
Speaker 1: they're creating for is brand new because it's a whole
Speaker 1: new format. So I went into this thing when it
Speaker 1: was being built and got like a behind the scenes
Speaker 1: tour before it was finished. Now it is finished, and
Speaker 1: they had the opening concert, which was you two. Last
Speaker 1: night they had the opening I guess experience it was
Speaker 1: like a taped experience. I could not make that, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but I did talk to my pal Sam Rubin at
Speaker 1: KTLA about his experience with you two at the Sphere.
Speaker 1: Sam Rubin is the entertainment reporter for KTLA, and you
Speaker 1: were at the very first show at the Sphere, you two.
Speaker 12: It was really remarkable.
Speaker 13: It's one of those rare circumstances and rich you may
Speaker 13: experience this more than I do at tech shows and
Speaker 13: things where it is a genuine jaw drop where collectively
Speaker 13: eighteen thousand people are like, oh wow, so it really
Speaker 13: is something.
Speaker 12: I think a lot of people have.
Speaker 13: Seen the exterior, which is, you know, a giant billboard,
Speaker 13: and it is cool and inside what is surprising is
Speaker 13: once you go into the lobby level and by the way,
Speaker 13: one thing which I think is an advantage of a
Speaker 13: Vegas location. I walked from my hotel easy. You just
Speaker 13: walk through the back of the Venetian. There you are,
Speaker 13: and once inside in the lobby part, it was kind
Speaker 13: of all futury. It's black and red and you know,
Speaker 13: not wildly distinct from many other venues. Then you go
Speaker 13: through kind of curtains to the seats, and a lot
Speaker 13: of people have suggested there's an analogy to the Soaring
Speaker 13: Over California ride that you feel it's not a dissimilar circumstance,
Speaker 13: but maybe like Soaring in California, it's very it's big
Speaker 13: and very wide, super duper wide, nine stories tall. And
Speaker 13: what I sat in my seat, what I was looking
Speaker 13: at I thought was.
Speaker 12: Like you're in the middle of a cement cylinder.
Speaker 13: I saw the stage and then behind it what looked
Speaker 13: to me just like cement, and then when you two
Speaker 13: takes the stage that cement starts to crack and that
Speaker 13: was a video effect, leading to a parade.
Speaker 12: Of video effects.
Speaker 13: Some are absolutely stunning and spectacular. I think it's a
Speaker 13: very interesting place for people to play. I'm not convinced
Speaker 13: how many artists would really succeed there. Do they have
Speaker 13: the degree of artistic ambition that you need. But it's
Speaker 13: you know, you got to see it.
Speaker 12: It's remarkable.
Speaker 2: So is the venue too big? Is it?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 1: Can you just place a standard concert in this venue?
Speaker 1: I know they're also going to do shows and sort
Speaker 1: of like movies and three D effects.
Speaker 13: This is the thing the thought that I had, and
Speaker 13: I really you know, the phrases that had been bandied.
Speaker 12: About, and it's mind boggling, it's insane.
Speaker 13: And the thought that I had is just because you
Speaker 13: have a Lamborghini and you can drive it one hundred
Speaker 13: and eighty miles an hour, should you drive it one
Speaker 13: hundred and eighty miles.
Speaker 12: An hour all the time?
Speaker 13: And they just sang and played on stage and those moments,
Speaker 13: to me were my favorite moments. That's what I liked best.
Speaker 13: And somehow, you know, it's ten thirty at night in
Speaker 13: Las Vegas. You're out in the middle of the desert,
Speaker 13: and between the video screen and the manipulation of the
Speaker 13: house lights, all of us are outside. And that was
Speaker 13: unbelievably cool. But again, how many people can do all that?
Speaker 12: I think there are few.
Speaker 1: How are the acoustics, Because the sound is supposed to
Speaker 1: be incredible inside this sphere.
Speaker 13: I was extremely sensitive to that, and that was the
Speaker 13: reason primarily I wanted to go.
Speaker 12: I almost would have gone with my eyes closed.
Speaker 13: And I sat next to a woman from the Hollywood
Speaker 13: Reporter who was their technical reporter, and I was because
Speaker 13: I felt recent shows that I've been lucky to attend
Speaker 13: Taylor at SOFI, Beyonce at Sofi.
Speaker 12: Frankly, I thought the sound was terrible. I thought the
Speaker 12: sound was muddy and not good so Fi, I would agree, Yeah,
Speaker 12: really super disappointing.
Speaker 13: You know sometimes when they turn things up really loud
Speaker 13: and it gets over modulated.
Speaker 12: None of that happened.
Speaker 13: I thought the acoustics were really good, and this woman,
Speaker 13: who has more of an expertise than me, I was lucky.
Speaker 13: I had a very good seat.
Speaker 12: She said. She walked all over and the sound was
Speaker 12: good everywhere.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So because it's a new stadium, I feel like every
Speaker 1: time we have a new opening of a venue, the
Speaker 1: prices get higher for everything.
Speaker 2: Did you notice any of that.
Speaker 12: Well, here's the good thing. It's Vegas, so you can walk.
Speaker 13: Parking was one hundred dollars, so obviously I wouldn't park there.
Speaker 12: The concessions, you know, seven.
Speaker 13: Dollars, bottle of water, you know, ten dollars, so to
Speaker 13: that kind of thing. But the same kind of SOFI
Speaker 13: principles come in with nothing cashless. If you carry a bag,
Speaker 13: it can only be a clear plastic bag of a
Speaker 13: certain dimension. And the tickets anywhere for you too, anywhere
Speaker 13: from ninety to five hundred dollars.
Speaker 12: Again, these three figure concert tickets. That's a kind of
Speaker 12: a shock and a surprise to me.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you're going to a concert. It is very expensive.
Speaker 1: One hundred dollars for parking. What, Oh my gosh, David
Speaker 1: where to senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the
Speaker 1: Press is coming up next to talk about how to
Speaker 1: pick the best VPN. Thanks Sam Rubin, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich On Tech. Rich Demiro here are going to get
Speaker 1: right into it because we've got a great guest David
Speaker 1: where To, senior digital security trainer at the Freedom of
Speaker 1: the Press Foundation. We get so many questions about VPNs,
Speaker 1: and David is a great resource to explain when you
Speaker 1: need one, why you might need one, and maybe even
Speaker 1: give us some recommendations about what to look for.
Speaker 2: David, Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 4: Thanks Rich.
Speaker 1: So, first off, let's talk about what a VPN is.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what that is?
Speaker 12: Sure things?
Speaker 9: So VPN just work for virtual private network. Is a
Speaker 9: way for you to use someone else's Internet connection to
Speaker 9: access things on the Internet like websites, apps, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so what's why would you need that? Like, what's
Speaker 1: the main benefit of using that for the average consumer?
Speaker 9: So what's interesting is that VPNs, you know, weren't really
Speaker 9: designed for things like privacy originally, but they became really
Speaker 9: useful as ad networks started to track people's as sort
Speaker 9: of like movements across the Internet. You may have noticed,
Speaker 9: for example, if you, you know, do a search for
Speaker 9: specific things, you may see ads for it following. There's
Speaker 9: a lot of different sort of like things that go
Speaker 9: into figuring out how to present you those ads, one
Speaker 9: of which is what is called an IP address, which
Speaker 9: is basically a little bit like a phone number, Like
Speaker 9: every computer network in the world has one. So if you're,
Speaker 9: you know, browsing for shoes, for example, online on your
Speaker 9: home network, suddenly people also on your home network are
Speaker 9: going to see ads for shoes and VPNs in this case,
Speaker 9: let you use somebody else's ipidras, somebody else's Internet connection basically,
Speaker 9: so that things like advertiser's another other concerns that you
Speaker 9: might have around privacy are a little bit more obfuscated.
Speaker 1: So what's the downside? I mean, so that's the positive.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it protects your privacy. What's the downside
Speaker 1: of using a VPN?
Speaker 9: The downside in this case is that they are blocked
Speaker 9: by a lot of websites. In many cases, some of
Speaker 9: the most popular apps and websites that you might use
Speaker 9: day to day. For example, Yelp will generally block VPN connections.
Speaker 9: A lot of streaming services will do the same thing,
Speaker 9: and it does kind of change the way you see
Speaker 9: you experience the Internet because websites sometimes look at vp
Speaker 9: and connections with a little bit of suspicion.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I was trying to log into one of
Speaker 1: my financial websites. The other day and it would not
Speaker 1: let me and I could not figure out, like what
Speaker 1: is going on here? And I realized that I had
Speaker 1: a VPN on and it would not let me do
Speaker 1: that connection if I had a VPN. Because on the
Speaker 1: flip side, if you, let's say you had a nefarious
Speaker 1: VPN that you didn't really know about on your phone,
Speaker 1: I guess it could be, you know, because they the
Speaker 1: VPN sort of has access to all of the stuff
Speaker 1: that you're doing, right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And that's a really good point, is that in
Speaker 9: this case, when you use a VPN, you're changing the
Speaker 9: direction of your trust from your ant service provider over
Speaker 9: to the VPN company. So the trustworthiness of that VPN
Speaker 9: company is paramount.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I guess that brings me to the million
Speaker 1: dollar question, what should you look for if you're use
Speaker 1: if you're you know, trying to find a VPN, because
Speaker 1: there's so many ads for VPNs, becausere's a lot of
Speaker 1: money in this because anytime you talk privacy, people are like,
Speaker 1: I want to protect my privacy, so I'll pay for that.
Speaker 1: And I guess, you know, how do you pick one
Speaker 1: that's good?
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's definitely a challenge there's many, many, many VPNs
Speaker 9: companies out there. Some of them are a little bit
Speaker 9: better advertising than others, but some of them are also
Speaker 9: better at protecting your privacy than others. The things that
Speaker 9: I always look out for in this case are a
Speaker 9: combination of two sort of areas, policy and technology. On
Speaker 9: the privot privacy policy side, you want to look for
Speaker 9: things like a no logging policy or a low logging policy,
Speaker 9: where they're not keeping records of your online movements. Sometimes
Speaker 9: this is verified with a no logging certification done by
Speaker 9: a third party auditor, sometimes going even further than that
Speaker 9: with a third party security audit done by a cybersecurity company.
Speaker 9: Which goes into the technology side of things, is that
Speaker 9: it's important that whatever VPN company you use, that they
Speaker 9: be incredibly transparent about the types of technologies they're using.
Speaker 9: There's a lot of nuance to running a VPN from
Speaker 9: the back end, and if you have lots and lots
Speaker 9: of technical documentation available to you, that's probably a good
Speaker 9: side that they know what they're doing. Generally, though, you
Speaker 9: want to look for things like WireGuard, which is a
Speaker 9: faster and more modern sort of way to connect to
Speaker 9: a VPN, But then also if they do have things
Speaker 9: like open VPN for example, that that also is fine.
Speaker 1: Okay, So everyone likes free and of course people are
Speaker 1: going to gravitate towards free VPNs. I know, like Opera,
Speaker 1: I think has like a free VPN built in. I know,
Speaker 1: I get a free VPN with Google. I get like
Speaker 1: Google one VPN. So tell me about free VPNs and
Speaker 1: those specifically, like are some better than others when it
Speaker 1: comes to my privacy and also trust?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I would say that, you know, as a general
Speaker 9: rule of them, I generally avoid or recommend avoiding free VPNs,
Speaker 9: mostly because if their business model is not to you know,
Speaker 9: take money from you every day, they have to be
Speaker 9: making money by some other way to get to that,
Speaker 9: to you know, pay their their server builds, and you know,
Speaker 9: Google in this case has plenty of its own money.
Speaker 9: Opera I'm less familiar with in this case of what
Speaker 9: their particular business model is. But in many cases, like
Speaker 9: the sort of like default setting for business models on
Speaker 9: the Internet is basically your data and monetizing that. And
Speaker 9: when you think of the amount of trust that you
Speaker 9: have to put into a VPN, that becomes a very
Speaker 9: important question. It's like, okay, is this VPN free for reasons?
Speaker 9: Is that reason because I am the product here that
Speaker 9: is actually being sold and that can be, you know,
Speaker 9: a very precarious situation.
Speaker 1: So are there any VPNs that you recommend? Can you
Speaker 1: recommend any that you like?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 9: So you know, I did a lot of research for
Speaker 9: vp how to basically pick a VPN a while ago,
Speaker 9: and using sort of those rubrics that I mentioned of
Speaker 9: like looking at a good privacy policy, looking at sort
Speaker 9: of competency on the tech side. There is a short
Speaker 9: list that comes to mind and that keeps kind of
Speaker 9: coming back in this case, tunnel Bear, IVPN, moll Bad.
Speaker 9: Not all of these companies are very good at advertising,
Speaker 9: but from my research, at least from what I can
Speaker 9: tell for my research, they seem to be pretty competent
Speaker 9: on the tech and privacy side of things.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm just gonna go through those one more time.
Speaker 1: You said tunnel Bear, and so that one. Let's see.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at the pricing, and it's a cute website,
Speaker 1: so it's got to it does have a free level,
Speaker 1: so you can actually try it for free unlimited.
Speaker 2: Is looks like it's about three thirty three a month,
Speaker 2: then you've got IPVN.
Speaker 1: Is that what you said, ivpn ivpn ivpn IVPN. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm looking up that one and this one. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: they're really like a little bit not as cute. This
Speaker 1: is more like resist online surveillance. And so they've got
Speaker 1: you can generate an account with no email required, they've
Speaker 1: got their ethics right on the homepage, and they've got
Speaker 1: a standard plan that's about six dollars a month or
Speaker 1: sixty dollars a year. And then the final one you
Speaker 1: said was Molevad.
Speaker 9: Yes, so mole AD's kind of always been sort of
Speaker 9: the perennial sort of always doing exactly what I look
Speaker 9: for sort of option, and that's been the case so far.
Speaker 9: We'll see if that changes, but so far, so good.
Speaker 9: They've consistently being been consistent basically on the tech side
Speaker 9: as well as the policy side. And they have a
Speaker 9: fun animal mascot just like tim ol Bear.
Speaker 1: And that's spelled Mullvad. And it looks like it's a
Speaker 1: European based company because the prices are in euros, so
Speaker 1: it's about five dollars and twenty four cents a month.
Speaker 1: And what I like about them is that it's the
Speaker 1: same price every month. They don't do like pricing game,
Speaker 1: so I also appreciate that. So we've got a couple
Speaker 1: of recommendations. The million I guess the other million dollar
Speaker 1: question is when do you recommend the average person uses
Speaker 1: a VPN. Should we be using this on our Wi
Speaker 1: Fi network at home, when we're in a hotel all
Speaker 1: the time. Sometimes when do we need to use one
Speaker 1: of these?
Speaker 9: It kind of depends on your own sort of personal
Speaker 9: comfort level with ad surveillance. One of the things that
Speaker 9: people like to use to mitigate that risk in addition
Speaker 9: to a VPN is things like an ad blocker like
Speaker 9: privacy Badger. When it comes to using a VPN for
Speaker 9: security reasons, you don't really need it as much as
Speaker 9: you used to. The good news is like things like
Speaker 9: your bank connection. You know, when you do banking stuff
Speaker 9: online or other kind of like basically most other websites,
Speaker 9: you'll have a secure, encrypted connection between you and that website,
Speaker 9: So you don't really need a VPN to protect your
Speaker 9: financial data for example, generally, but if you are looking
Speaker 9: to minimize your sort of IP address data your location
Speaker 9: data from online advertising, then a VPN is very useful for.
Speaker 2: That all right, David Wuerta, we'll leave it there.
Speaker 1: Senior digital security trainer at the Freedom of the Press Foundation,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me today. Some really great
Speaker 1: advice here, and I think it cleared up a lot
Speaker 1: of misconceptions about these things.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, it's the feedback segment. We'll get to
Speaker 1: some of the emails that you sent me throughout the week.
Speaker 1: We'll close out the show. My name is rich Demiro,
Speaker 1: and you are listening to rich on Tech. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'll put all the links on the website rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv, So all those VPNs we just mentioned,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Closing out the show
Speaker 1: with the feedback segment. But first let me tell you
Speaker 1: about this Ring extra Terrestrial Search Contest. Ring is offering
Speaker 1: a one one million dollar prize grand prize if you
Speaker 1: capture scientific evidence of a real extraterrestrial on a ring device.
Speaker 1: So this ain't like you know, kids pressed up as
Speaker 1: et for Halloween. You capture it, That's not what they're
Speaker 1: talking about here. This is like real alien stuff on
Speaker 1: your ring. Any device doesn't have to be The Video
Speaker 1: Doorbell Contest runs from October fourth to November three, you
Speaker 1: can submit creative videos of extraterrestrial sightings for a chance
Speaker 1: to win a five hundred dollars gift card. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's what more people are gonna win. Submissions are
Speaker 1: gonna be reviewed by a space and extraterrestrial expert, and
Speaker 1: you are encouraged to get creative. Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: really like a big ad for all these different you
Speaker 1: know ring features. So, by the way, and the one
Speaker 1: feature I do like is called the quick reply. If
Speaker 1: you're not using that on your ring doorbell, go into
Speaker 1: the settings and choose your quick reply. They usually have
Speaker 1: fun ones for Halloween. You can make your video chime
Speaker 1: the doorbell chime sound like a fun Halloween sound. It's
Speaker 1: really really cool. So if you haven't looked at the
Speaker 1: ring settings lately, they're really fun for the holidays. And
Speaker 1: also quick replies, you can say, like I have mine
Speaker 1: set up where when a solicitor rings the doorbell, it
Speaker 1: just says, sorry, we're not interested. It's so cold, but
Speaker 1: it's like it works. You can hashtag ring million dollar sighting.
Speaker 1: But you know, I always say this, I always say
Speaker 1: look because people and I get I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get into the whole debate whether there's you know, UFOs
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, but like Bigfoot, let's be real,
Speaker 1: we have had cell phones with cameras in our world
Speaker 1: now for twenty plus years, and somehow we have yet
Speaker 1: to see any evidence of this other stuff that people
Speaker 1: somehow see all the time. But yet there's never video evidence.
Speaker 1: Come on, any anything happens to anyone, and there's tons
Speaker 1: of video of it, but somehow UFOs, aliens, Bigfoot never
Speaker 1: gets captured, and if it does get captured, it's the
Speaker 1: worst video you've ever seen in your life. Like, I
Speaker 1: think that could be an alien? Or is that just
Speaker 1: a big rat? Bobo says they're aliens. I want to believe. Oh,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. I want to believe, because there's
Speaker 1: no way that we are the only things in this
Speaker 1: entire universe.
Speaker 2: Come on. But still, all right, let's get to the
Speaker 2: feedback segment. Uh EV suck rights, b I can't say
Speaker 2: the other word.
Speaker 1: If the FORTYV is great, why did why did I
Speaker 1: don't know, Leon Kaplan Motorman take his Mustang back after
Speaker 1: a few weeks and said it was terrible, just awful.
Speaker 1: Why are major USA car makers losing money making these
Speaker 1: cars that people don't want. Why are they so expensive
Speaker 1: that government US has to offer incentives for the elite
Speaker 1: to purchase one? Why is there not enough electricity in
Speaker 1: the grid for our households to run during peak hours
Speaker 1: while EV's get a pass to charge twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2: I thought, so, oh, you got me.
Speaker 12: You're right.
Speaker 2: We should just stop all all all ev work. Just stop.
Speaker 2: We don't need them. Yeah, let's just go back to gas.
Speaker 1: Albert says, I mainly subscribe to Amazon Prime for shipping. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't remember the last time I accessed the Prime
Speaker 1: Video app, referring to the three dollars charge that Amazon
Speaker 1: Prime will now have for.
Speaker 2: Ad freeviewing.
Speaker 1: I am actually watching a video series on Amazon Prime,
Speaker 1: if you can believe it. I was on a plane
Speaker 1: a lot this month, so I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'll tell you why. It's because
Speaker 1: Netflix would not let me download anything and YouTube would
Speaker 1: not because I'm logged into so many different devices and
Speaker 1: family members I guess that are latching onto my account
Speaker 1: that I can no longer download. I am paying for
Speaker 1: my own stuff and I can't download it. So YouTube said, sorry,
Speaker 1: can't download? Netflix said sorry, you can't download.
Speaker 2: So what I do?
Speaker 1: I went to the next best. I just said, okay,
Speaker 1: let me see. Amazon Prime doesn't seem to care. So
Speaker 1: I was able to download a whole show and I
Speaker 1: can't even tell you the title because I can't remember
Speaker 1: what it's called. It's called uh oh, my gosh, uh
Speaker 1: Wilderness and it's not that good all the Amazon shows,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to knock Amazon. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've watched them, but they're lacking like a certain
Speaker 1: like oomph, you know what I mean. Like it feels
Speaker 1: like a show that nobody's watching except you. That's like
Speaker 1: a really bad quality of a show. Uh.
Speaker 2: Neil says.
Speaker 1: My wife has been using Samsung, but in the past
Speaker 1: few months she's been aggravated by frequent updates without asking
Speaker 1: each one, generating notifications for tens of messages from people
Speaker 1: she has blocked, and changing her settings. She's also frustrating
Speaker 1: and trying to get large type in her various apps
Speaker 1: and browsers. Finally, as her lease neared its end, she
Speaker 1: got a great trade and offer and jumped to the
Speaker 1: iPhone fifteen promacs. She likes the large screen and text
Speaker 1: and while she is still learning the Apple way. She
Speaker 1: was immediately impressed and pleased with these settings slash accessibility,
Speaker 1: slash text size, slider miles to go with all the
Speaker 1: app settings. But fingers crossed that she stays happy, have
Speaker 1: a great day, and thanks for serving the community. Yep,
Speaker 1: she switched iPhone and she likes it, so good for her.
Speaker 1: That is great, Bob says, regarding your last radio show,
Speaker 1: you had a call about an old device that a
Speaker 1: person could not get Windows ten or eleven to see
Speaker 1: the files. It's probably because by default Windows ten eleven
Speaker 1: has SMB one the old SMB turned off. I had
Speaker 1: an old nass that I wanted to connect to my
Speaker 1: Windows ten computer and I had to turn on SMB one.
Speaker 1: Here's a website that will walk you through how to
Speaker 1: turn on SMB one. Oh, there you go. So this
Speaker 1: was a caller last week about the little old device
Speaker 1: he had that he couldn't connect to his computer and
Speaker 1: get the files off. So Bob is saying that if
Speaker 1: you turn on SMB one, maybe you'll be able to
Speaker 1: access them. Bob says, keep up the great work. Even
Speaker 1: though I'm a tech guy, I enjoy listening to your show.
Speaker 1: I always learned something Well, I like that you listen
Speaker 1: even though you're a tech guy. And yes, this show
Speaker 1: is definitely aimed at folks who have varying tech abilities,
Speaker 1: and so I'm glad that you do find the enjoyment.
Speaker 1: Matt says, Hey, rich, short and sweet. I'm hard of
Speaker 1: hearing for eleven years hearing aids, and with this new
Speaker 1: iPhone fifteen the update volume level seems to have gone
Speaker 1: down dramatically. I don't mind paying for a good volume
Speaker 1: booster if it's a reasonable amount that will work on music, audiobooks, podcasts,
Speaker 1: and other apps downloaded more than I can remember. That
Speaker 1: seemed to be outrageously expensive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: I feel like Apple has a burr under the saddle
Speaker 1: about this issue. It seems like I should be able
Speaker 1: to get an Audie just to show them that I
Speaker 1: really haven't hearing problem. The big issues if I'm in
Speaker 1: the shower, I can't hear my hearing aids. I can't
Speaker 1: turn up the volume on the phone loud enough to
Speaker 1: hear over the shower. Thanks again, love the show, Matt, Well.
Speaker 1: I think if you update to iOS, the latest iOS,
Speaker 1: maybe they fix some of those problems. Because there's definitely
Speaker 1: a lot of sound issues with the first release, and
Speaker 1: Rita says rich I love watching and listening to all
Speaker 1: your shows. The online information and of course your videos
Speaker 1: traveling to trade shows, etc.
Speaker 2: Make it easy to keep up with.
Speaker 1: All things tech related. I even sound knowledgeable to my
Speaker 1: friends when I share some tidbits I've heard from you.
Speaker 1: You make it easy to understand. Love your Saturday radio show.
Speaker 1: Great job, very smooth, beautiful family, Rita. Can I invite
Speaker 1: you to my family with all the nice stuff you
Speaker 1: say about me? My gosh, I think this is the
Speaker 1: Is this from someone in my family? No, they would
Speaker 1: never be that nice to me, she says.
Speaker 2: Ps.
Speaker 1: I'm eighty and I love my Apple Watch, my iPhone,
Speaker 1: my iPad, and the encyclopedia and World Book.
Speaker 2: Do you remember those held right in our hands? Yes?
Speaker 2: I do, because my family had them.
Speaker 1: The World Book encyclopedia person came to our house and
Speaker 1: my dad bought it. It was like six hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: so expensive. Can you believe that we used to buy
Speaker 1: an encyclopedia of knowledge from someone that came to our
Speaker 1: front door.
Speaker 2: If you can believe it, that's going to do it.
Speaker 2: For this episode, of the show.
Speaker 1: You can find links to everything I mentioned on my website.
Speaker 1: Just go to rich on tech dot tv, and if
Speaker 1: you want to be like Rita and follow me online,
Speaker 1: you can find me on social media at rich on
Speaker 1: on tech.
Speaker 2: Next week, more of your.
Speaker 1: Calls, more of your questions, more great guests.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways you can spend your time.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible, Kim Bobo, Bill.
Speaker 2: And many many more. My name is Richdmiro. I will
Speaker 2: talk to you real soon.