Speaker 1: Apple unveils the newest features for iPhone and a whole
Speaker 1: new look called liquid Glass. Google brings one of my
Speaker 1: favorite apps back from the dead, and Anchor recalls one
Speaker 1: of its most popular products. I'll have details on what
Speaker 1: to look for, plus your tech questions answered. What's going
Speaker 1: on on rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
Speaker 1: the tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
Speaker 1: up those phone lines at triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one eight eight eight rich one oh one. Give
Speaker 1: me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: Email is also open. Just go to richon Tech dot
Speaker 1: tv and hit contact. We've got a couple of good
Speaker 1: guests this week. Stephanie Whitesman joins me to talk about
Speaker 1: Speech a Fly. If you're not familiar, this is the
Speaker 1: popular text to speech app that helps people listen to.
Speaker 2: The information they want to learn or absorb.
Speaker 1: I showed my wife that app last night and she
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, that's really cool. John Mills and Dave Merritt.
Speaker 1: You'll probably remember the name of this app, Watch Dudy.
Speaker 1: They're gonna explain how their app became a must have
Speaker 1: download during the LA wildfires back in January. Well, this
Speaker 1: week I drove up to Cooper Tino for Apple's Worldwide
Speaker 1: Developers Conference twenty twenty five. You might be saying, Rich,
Speaker 1: why do you always drive? Are you afraid to fly?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I am not.
Speaker 1: In fact, I love to fly, but I also love
Speaker 1: driving even more now I get it. It might be
Speaker 1: a couple of hours in the car, but this is
Speaker 1: a time for me. It's me time, time to think,
Speaker 1: time to reflect, and of course listen to audiobooks. I
Speaker 1: finished two of them on the trip. I actually did
Speaker 1: something I've never done before. I started reading the physical
Speaker 1: book and then I finished it with the audio version.
Speaker 1: Like I got halfway through the print and I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, I can listen to the rest of
Speaker 1: this thing, and of course flip around the dial. It's
Speaker 1: just fun to be in the car the open road.
Speaker 1: Isn't that like the dream? Just be there and enjoy things.
Speaker 1: So I got up to Apple Park, and I've been
Speaker 1: going to Apple events for years. The Bay Area feels
Speaker 1: very familiar to me. The Apple campus, if you've never been,
Speaker 1: is a very interesting place. I mean it's very new.
Speaker 1: You know, they just built this giant, spaceship looking campus.
Speaker 2: What is it like?
Speaker 1: It is just like the iPhone, It's polished, it's elegant.
Speaker 1: There's so much thought put into the design. Think glass stone,
Speaker 1: curved edges, free snacks for the journalists, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And I'm not kidding. They've got the visitor center that
Speaker 1: anyone can go to. You can't get on campus as
Speaker 1: a lay person, but anyone can go to the visitor center,
Speaker 1: which includes sort of a cafe and then an Apple Store.
Speaker 2: And it's a nice big Apple store. And I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: There are lines out the door to buy stuff at
Speaker 1: this Apple store because they sell shirts and things that
Speaker 1: you can only get at Apple Campus up in Coopertino.
Speaker 1: One sweatshirt in particular, they just launched It's only there
Speaker 1: thing sells for like eighty dollars.
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: There's a line all day to buy that. All day long.
Speaker 1: I was gonna get a couple for the kids. By
Speaker 1: the time I got in there, I was like, na way,
Speaker 1: I'm not waiting this line. Sorry, kids, But the best
Speaker 1: part about getting to these Apple events is not only
Speaker 1: being their first person, but you know, seeing all the
Speaker 1: other tech people mingling, but also talking with the Apple
Speaker 1: folks who build this stuff. And I talk about this
Speaker 1: with every event I go to, whether it's Samsung, whether
Speaker 1: it's Google, whether it's Apple, any event, you get to
Speaker 1: talk to the people who build this stuff, who know
Speaker 1: it best, They know the features inside and out. Plus
Speaker 1: you get to see it all before the public does,
Speaker 1: so that's really cool. An Apple, of course, runs these
Speaker 1: events almost like a tech version of cirqu Da Sila.
Speaker 2: Right. It's all smooth.
Speaker 1: They've got everything figured out and nothing is left to chance.
Speaker 1: Although I will say, first time I've ever seen this
Speaker 1: at an Apple event, there was a protester. Someone jumped
Speaker 1: up in the audience, said he was an Apple employee
Speaker 1: and he was protesting something. But you know, and it
Speaker 1: was very interesting the way Apple handled it. They didn't
Speaker 1: jump on the guy. They sort of let him say
Speaker 1: what he wanted to say. No one skipped a beat
Speaker 1: on stage, but they just let him out. And I
Speaker 1: can guarantee you that guy's not an Apple employee anymore,
Speaker 1: probably not, But Anyway, if you want to get a
Speaker 1: similar experience to what it feels like going to the
Speaker 1: Apple campus, just walk into any Apple stores the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's like a little slice of tech utopia in a
Speaker 1: world that's not always perfect.
Speaker 2: So what did Apple do?
Speaker 1: They previewed all their updates across the iPhone, the iPad,
Speaker 1: the Mac, the watch, Apple TV, and much more. They
Speaker 1: didn't really talk much about AI per se, and they
Speaker 1: didn't admit that Siri is behind in a but they
Speaker 1: did say that, you know, Siri is not where they
Speaker 1: want it to be, where they promised it would be
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 2: Apple has a way with words.
Speaker 1: I'm sure this was very thoughtfully scripted, but they basically
Speaker 1: said the Smarter, the Smarter SII is coming next year
Speaker 1: or sometime in the next year. They said, So for now,
Speaker 1: what do we get? We get a lot of new stuff,
Speaker 1: but mostly software updates. Apple's new design style is called
Speaker 1: liquid Glass. Think smooth, rounded, translucent. Yes, kind of inspired
Speaker 1: by the campus that I just mentioned. It's also going
Speaker 1: to look bubbly and modern, and I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be very polarizing. I had a chance to play with this,
Speaker 1: and it's very, very different than what we're used to
Speaker 1: on the iPhone. They also add a lot of depth
Speaker 1: and motion to the screen, so they have like these
Speaker 1: three D lock screens you can do like your pictures
Speaker 1: pop out. Almost Apple never uses the term three D,
Speaker 1: they use spatial. But yes, it's all very much inspired
Speaker 1: by that headset they came out with a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago called the Vision Pro and so all this
Speaker 1: is sort of inspired by Vision OS. And the other
Speaker 1: big announcement was that the version numbers will now match
Speaker 1: the year, so it's not gonna be iOS nineteen, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be iOS twenty six, kind of like the way
Speaker 1: car car designers do it. The model year for the
Speaker 1: car is like the next year, So now iOS twenty
Speaker 1: six is what we're getting on the iPhone. That was
Speaker 1: front and center. Lots of new features on the iPhone.
Speaker 1: Call screening is number one, so unknown callers will have
Speaker 1: to say why they're calling, and that will show up
Speaker 1: on your lock screen. So once they say hey, it's
Speaker 1: Jan from the furniture company, that will show up on
Speaker 1: the lock screen. You can decide if you want to
Speaker 1: answer it, ignore it, or block, but your phone won't
Speaker 1: even ring until this person says why they're calling, which
Speaker 1: is pretty smart. So that'll help get rid of a
Speaker 1: lot of the spam calls that just are nonsense. Then
Speaker 1: in messages, same thing, you've got a new filter for
Speaker 1: your unknown senders, because we get all these messages and say, hey,
Speaker 1: we've got a great job opportunity. You don't have to
Speaker 1: do anything, but we'll pay you up to three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a day to do nothing. It's remote, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's bogus, So that's gonna be filtered into its own thing.
Speaker 1: Then they've also got whold assist. So when the iPhone
Speaker 1: hears hold music, like if you're calling an airline utility company,
Speaker 1: your phone will say, hey, do you want us to
Speaker 1: hold for you?
Speaker 2: Now? It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It just basically listens to the music and it waits
Speaker 1: for the person to pick up the customer service rep.
Speaker 1: And as soon as they pick up, they say, hey,
Speaker 1: hang on, hold on, I'm gonna go grab the person,
Speaker 1: and then your phone will make a sound. You run
Speaker 1: to your phone and now you can talk to them.
Speaker 1: So basically you can just do what you need to
Speaker 1: do while your phone is listening. What else, in messages,
Speaker 1: they've got these animated and colorful chat backgrounds, so now
Speaker 1: you can customize your chats. They've also got polls in
Speaker 1: your group chats, so if you want to ask everyone
Speaker 1: what they want for dinner on a Friday night, Hey,
Speaker 1: do you want pizza? Do you want tacos? You want Italian? Whatever,
Speaker 1: you can ask it in a poll. The Camera app
Speaker 1: is getting simplified, so now at the bottom there's just
Speaker 1: two big clear options, photo and video. If you want
Speaker 1: all your other options, you can tap or swipe and
Speaker 1: they're all there. It's just they're kind of hidden away
Speaker 1: until you need them. In the Photos app, they are
Speaker 1: bringing back the tabs that we miss so much, So
Speaker 1: now at the bottom you will see two tabs, one
Speaker 1: for your library, which is all of your pictures, and
Speaker 1: one for collections, which is the way it used to be.
Speaker 1: Live translation is getting expanded. Now you can live translate
Speaker 1: your calls, your messages FaceTime. Apple Maps is going to
Speaker 1: save a searchable list of all the places you visit often,
Speaker 1: which not everyone's gonna like.
Speaker 2: Thankfully, you can turn that off.
Speaker 1: Visual Intelligence this is kind of Apple's version of Circle
Speaker 1: to Search. Not as good, but it's a start and
Speaker 1: it does work, so you can search photos you can
Speaker 1: copy text, search that text whatever you want. Let's see
Speaker 1: accessibility upgrades, Braille access, accessibility reader, and better live list
Speaker 1: and support. This is where you can use your iPhone
Speaker 1: mic to send audio to your air or your hearing aids.
Speaker 1: So your iPhone sort of acts as like a remote microphone.
Speaker 1: You can aim it towards the person you're trying to
Speaker 1: listen to. The Apple Watch gets a new AI workout
Speaker 1: Buddy Custom Motivation. It'll say, hey, you just ran you know,
Speaker 1: five miles. If you do zero point twenty five more,
Speaker 1: it'll be past your best mileage. Ever then they've got
Speaker 1: a new risk gesture on the Apple Watch. So now
Speaker 1: you can flick your risks, sort of rotate your wrist
Speaker 1: up and that will dismiss a notification or it will
Speaker 1: bring you back to the home screen. So are these
Speaker 1: updates revolutionary, No, but they're good little upgrades for the
Speaker 1: billion plus iPhone users out there, and to iPhone users
Speaker 1: they're new.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I know, if you're using an Android you're saying, rich,
Speaker 1: come on, give me a break. We've had these features forever.
Speaker 1: Yes you have, but you have to come from the
Speaker 1: aspect of the iPhone user. They're not interested in switching.
Speaker 1: They're not interested in changing things up to them. This
Speaker 1: is new on Android, you can download an app and
Speaker 1: customize anything you want on your phone. On Apple, it's
Speaker 1: just not that way. So they have to wait until
Speaker 1: Apple gives them these features, and for them, it's new.
Speaker 1: So what do you need to get these new features?
Speaker 1: I iPhone eleven or newer to get iOS twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six or iOS twenty six, or an iPhone se two
Speaker 1: or later, that's the twenty twenty model, of course. To
Speaker 1: get the AI features, you'll need an iPhone fifteen Pro
Speaker 1: or later. Now, there will be a public beta in July,
Speaker 1: but that could be filled with bugs, so I don't
Speaker 1: recommend that you put it on your phone or your
Speaker 1: phone that's your daily driver, but if you're curious, you
Speaker 1: can test it out in July.
Speaker 2: The final software will land in September. So there you
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 1: All the updates from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. I'll have
Speaker 1: more about what they announced throughout the show, but first
Speaker 1: let's get some of your calls eight a' eight rich
Speaker 1: one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you about
Speaker 1: the anchor recall they are recalling one of their power banks.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you which one and how to identify it
Speaker 1: and what you can do. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this happened to you, but this
Speaker 1: happened to me this week. I was trying to do
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things on my phone. None of
Speaker 1: them were working. This was Thursday, and I'm sitting there, Okay,
Speaker 1: first service doesn't work, second service doesn't work, third service
Speaker 1: doesn't work. And that I'm like, Okay, something is a
Speaker 1: little bit odd here. Well, turn out there was a
Speaker 1: major Google cloud outage that caused all kinds of disruptions
Speaker 1: across the Internet. And affected services were cloud Flare, Spotify, Discord, Snapchat,
Speaker 1: and even some AI coding tools.
Speaker 2: So what happened? Let's see do we know what happened?
Speaker 1: Doesn't really say why it happened, but they're still assessing
Speaker 1: to see what.
Speaker 2: I guess just went out.
Speaker 1: But here's the takeaway from this is number one, you know,
Speaker 1: when these things happen, they seem to be to a
Speaker 1: cloud provider, and we often wonder, like what is going
Speaker 1: on here? So when in doubt, you got to go
Speaker 1: online and see. So I ended up posting to my
Speaker 1: Instagram saying here's what's happening, and of course the comments
Speaker 1: started flooding in from people saying, yeah, it's happening to
Speaker 1: me too. But the other thing is this just under
Speaker 1: this shows how much we are reliant on these cloud providers.
Speaker 1: Like you think you're using a service, but a lot
Speaker 1: of these services are relying on one of the big
Speaker 1: back end providers, which is Google, Amazon with AWS, and
Speaker 1: Microsoft with Azure. So these are the providers that are
Speaker 1: sort of the back end for a lot of these
Speaker 1: products that we use. So none of them are safe
Speaker 1: from this stuff. So again, major Google Cloud outage happened
Speaker 1: last week. That's what explains all of the issues that
Speaker 1: you might have experienced with some of your cloud services.
Speaker 1: Dario writes in on the website, I was recently shown
Speaker 1: a black and white photo of mine that was colorized, sharpened,
Speaker 1: and even animated. I'm curious what app would you recommend
Speaker 1: that can do this at a decent price. Well, there's
Speaker 1: a couple that I've tested, and I will tell you
Speaker 1: my favorites. Number one, if you want something that's just
Speaker 1: on the website, you can try my Heritage. They have
Speaker 1: a feature called in color and this is just a
Speaker 1: website where you can go to You do have to
Speaker 1: log in, but you can drop in a black and
Speaker 1: white photo and it will basically turn it into a
Speaker 1: color photo. The images will have a watermark, but it's
Speaker 1: free to use and it works. Then you've got remedy
Speaker 1: r e m I NI. This is an app that
Speaker 1: can restore old photos. Again, a lot of these apps
Speaker 1: are sort of freemium where they want you to subscribe
Speaker 1: or pay, but they'll do stuff even for free. And
Speaker 1: then the other one is photomine PHO t O m
Speaker 1: y N and this allows you to even scan your
Speaker 1: photos if you have them, old pictures, even slides and
Speaker 1: it will do all the stuff that you said. And
Speaker 1: of course they do have a free version, but if
Speaker 1: you want unlimited, you're gonna have to pay. But those
Speaker 1: are the three. I think the animated one is my heritage.
Speaker 1: I think they have the one's that animates your pictures.
Speaker 1: But that's that's an interesting effect. It kind of brings
Speaker 1: your old pictures to life. And it's a little little creepy,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. I tested it out. So one of
Speaker 1: the more interesting things out there. Okay, we've got coming up,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you about the Anchor recall. Anchor is
Speaker 1: a company that makes portable chargers very popular. This is
Speaker 1: a product that has been recommended by many tech folks
Speaker 1: over the years. It's one of those portable battery banks.
Speaker 1: And yeah, they are recalling it because of a potential fire.
Speaker 1: So I will tell you what to look for on
Speaker 1: that device, and I will tell you how to identify
Speaker 1: it and also what you can get replacement or some cash.
Speaker 1: And the website rich on tech dot tv I for
Speaker 1: we want more information. This is episode number one, twenty five.
Speaker 1: So if you go to the websit I search episode one,
Speaker 1: you can get show notes to every single thing that
Speaker 1: I talk about. And while you're there, please don't forget
Speaker 1: to sign up for my free newsletter. It's all online
Speaker 1: at richontech dot tv. My name is rich Demiro. More
Speaker 1: show coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking
Speaker 1: technology at triple eight rich one O one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Easy way to submit your emails there, just hit contact
Speaker 1: and you can get your question on the air. That way,
Speaker 1: it seems like sometimes it's interesting. Sometimes people prefer the website,
Speaker 1: sometimes people prefer the phone line.
Speaker 2: Just sort of depends on.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I guess where the moon is that weekend.
Speaker 1: I told you about this Anchor recall, So if you
Speaker 1: bought a portable charger from Anchor in the last few years,
Speaker 1: it could pose a fire hazard. This is a recall
Speaker 1: between Anchor and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. They're
Speaker 1: recalling their powercre ten thousand power bank. This is a
Speaker 1: very popular model of their power bank, model number A
Speaker 1: twelve sixty three. Again A twelve sixty three. These were
Speaker 1: sold in the US between June twenty sixteen and December
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. They could overheat and catch fire. It's
Speaker 1: a very popular device. Many many folks tech folks have
Speaker 1: recommended Anchor products over the years, so there's probably a
Speaker 1: lot of these out there. The issue is obviously the battery.
Speaker 1: It could melt, smoke, or ignite. So check your unit.
Speaker 1: Look on the bottom from model A twelve sixty three,
Speaker 1: or you can go online to Anchor's online serial number
Speaker 1: checker to see that yours to confirm that yours is affected.
Speaker 1: If it qualifies, you can get a replacement or a
Speaker 1: thirty dollars gift card.
Speaker 2: My tip is, the.
Speaker 1: Numbers are so tiny on this thing that you're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to see them with your naked eye
Speaker 1: unless you are Superman. So you My advice is to
Speaker 1: take a picture of the little area with the model
Speaker 1: number and the serial number, and then zoom in on
Speaker 1: that picture once you take it, so you can actually
Speaker 1: read the numbers. You'll thank me later for that one. Again,
Speaker 1: if you have one of these, don't use it. Do
Speaker 1: not throw it in the trash. You have to dispose
Speaker 1: of it at a certified hazardous waste site, not your
Speaker 1: curb side recycling container. So go on my website. Rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv. I've got all the information on
Speaker 1: that anchor recall. That's a big one. A lot of
Speaker 1: people do have that. Let's see here. We got a
Speaker 1: question from Let's see. Christina from Los Angeles writes in
Speaker 1: Hey there, I was hoping you can help me with
Speaker 1: a few things.
Speaker 2: Recently, I got a new iPhone.
Speaker 1: My iCloud space is very limited because the things, mostly
Speaker 1: photos from my last phone, were carried onto the new one.
Speaker 1: I would really like to upload my photos onto one
Speaker 1: of those SD card readers. However, I would like to
Speaker 1: get one where an app isn't necessary. Do you know
Speaker 1: anything like that. Well, number one the caveat is I
Speaker 1: do not recommend that you only have these things on
Speaker 1: an SD card because if that card gets lost, stolen, ruined,
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 2: There goes your photos.
Speaker 1: So I do recommend that you expand your iCloud space
Speaker 1: if possible, keep these things in the cloud. That is
Speaker 1: the best way to keep them backed up, in addition
Speaker 1: to on your phone. Right, the ideal backup is in
Speaker 1: three places. Place number one is the original That would
Speaker 1: be your phone, Place number two would be iCloud, and
Speaker 1: place number three would be the SD card. So that
Speaker 1: is the ideal situation. Is everyone going to do that?
Speaker 1: Probably not. It's a lot of work to do that.
Speaker 1: So at the very least I would like them on
Speaker 1: your phone and an iCloud. iCloud is not very expensive.
Speaker 1: I understand the long term of this, but if you
Speaker 1: lose your pictures, like I get so many emails from
Speaker 1: people that do, it's a real bummer. People do not
Speaker 1: like losing their pictures, understandably. So with that said, I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: you can drag these onto a flash drive that you
Speaker 1: plug into the bottom of your phone. But that's going
Speaker 1: to take a really long time. I'm not sure why
Speaker 1: you don't want an app. So there's a great one
Speaker 1: from sand Disc. It's called the Phone Drive for iPhone. Mean,
Speaker 1: let me look this thing up sand Disc Phone Drive
Speaker 1: for iPhone.
Speaker 2: Okay, very very simple. It's forty dollars.
Speaker 1: You plug this into the bottom of your phone and
Speaker 1: it comes with an app that will back up the
Speaker 1: photos from your phone onto this little drive. It's a
Speaker 1: flash drive, same thing you've been using for years that
Speaker 1: you plug into your computer, but it plugs into the
Speaker 1: bottom of your phone. Did you mention the model number
Speaker 1: your phone, Well, you said you got a new iPhone,
Speaker 1: so I'm guessing it's USBC. So you plug this in
Speaker 1: forty dollars, gives you sixty four gigabytes. One hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight gigs is fifty dollars, and two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty six gigs is seventy dollars.
Speaker 2: Plug it into the bottom your phone and.
Speaker 1: It's it's got the nice fast speed and it's going
Speaker 1: to back up the photos from your phone.
Speaker 2: That's what I would do.
Speaker 1: This also by the word by the let's see, yeah,
Speaker 1: iPhone iPad a sand disc mobile app, So I don't
Speaker 1: see why you wouldn't want to use this with the
Speaker 1: app now, I think when you set app, maybe you
Speaker 1: meant you didn't want to use like an Amazon Photos
Speaker 1: or something like that. And by the way, that's another
Speaker 1: great way to back up your pictures. If you're an
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Member, you can download the Amazon Photos app
Speaker 1: and back up your photos for free, unlimited amounts of them.
Speaker 1: As long as you are a Prime member, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to keep that. If you're not a Prime member,
Speaker 1: you'll want to download those. But the good news is
Speaker 1: you got to get these things into a couple of
Speaker 1: different places. So again, this is called the sand disc
Speaker 1: phone drive for iPhone. It's a little flask drive. You
Speaker 1: can plug it right into the bottom of your phone,
Speaker 1: back up those pictures and it's gonna be super easy.
Speaker 2: Let's see. Is it even cheaper on Amazon?
Speaker 1: Probably is, No, it's not same price on Amazon thirty
Speaker 1: nine to ninety five, thirty nine ninety nine. That's a
Speaker 1: great gift for dad too, Father's Day weekend. Why not
Speaker 1: get him that, get his pictures backed up?
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Nintendo switched to We talked about this on the show.
Speaker 1: Officially the fastest selling game system of all time, Nintendo
Speaker 1: says it sold three point five million switch to consoles
Speaker 1: in just four days. That makes it the fastest selling
Speaker 1: home video game console ever. Yes, ahead of the PS
Speaker 1: five and PS four for comparison.
Speaker 2: This is from the Verge.
Speaker 1: They said the PS five took seven weeks to reach
Speaker 1: four point four million units, the PS four took two
Speaker 1: point one sold two point one million in sixteen days.
Speaker 1: So people were excited. Why well, pent up demand this thing.
Speaker 1: It's been eight years since they had a new switch console.
Speaker 1: Nintendo very smart and the way they marketed this, and
Speaker 1: there were some tariff concerns. People want to buy early
Speaker 1: because they're not sure if the price is going to
Speaker 1: go up. We haven't seen that happen with this, but
Speaker 1: we did on the accessories. They did raise some prices there,
Speaker 1: but not on the switch itself. Nintendo wants to sell
Speaker 1: fifteen million of these by March twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Seems like they will.
Speaker 1: The original Switch sold one hundred and fifty million, but
Speaker 1: that's been out for eight years. The question is can
Speaker 1: Nintendo keep this momentum going. They need some really good
Speaker 1: titles to get this thing going, that's for sure. Right now,
Speaker 1: they've got the Mario Kart World, which is different but
Speaker 1: it's familiar. And then they've got Donkey Kong Bonanza coming
Speaker 1: out and that. You know, those are two good games,
Speaker 1: but they are not console selling games. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: If you have one of the old consoles, what's the
Speaker 1: reason to upgrade? You got to be a diehard Nintendo fan.
Speaker 1: It sounds like they found those three point five million
Speaker 1: diehards in the first four days. Now they've got to
Speaker 1: find many more, and of course we've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of months until the holidays. This thing is not as
Speaker 1: easy to get as walking into a stor right now,
Speaker 1: but if you put your mind to.
Speaker 2: It, you'll be able to get it again. That's a
Speaker 2: Nintendo switch too.
Speaker 1: If you want to see my thoughts on that, you
Speaker 1: can go to my website rich on Tech dot tv
Speaker 1: look at last week's newsletter. All right, coming up, I've
Speaker 1: been playing with this downloaded the Developer beta iPad os
Speaker 1: twenty six.
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: It turns your iPad into more like a Windows machine.
Speaker 1: I'll explain coming up right here on rich on Tech
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: O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. The website for the show rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot TV. I know a lot of you
Speaker 1: are looking for the show notes on the Anchor recall
Speaker 1: that is in the show Notes episode one twenty five.
Speaker 1: You can find the link there to check your serial
Speaker 1: number see if you can get a replacement for your
Speaker 1: Anchor PowerCore one thousand, model number twelve sixty three. It's unfortunate,
Speaker 1: you know, Anchor I think has had a pretty good
Speaker 1: track record up until now. But you know, these things happen.
Speaker 1: They're manufacturing these things at scale. We never want to
Speaker 1: see a recall, especially on such a popular product, but
Speaker 1: it does happen. Did they say how many they had
Speaker 1: out there? Let's see, they didn't. Trying to see if
Speaker 1: they have a number. Sometimes they'll include like a number
Speaker 1: of how many they've had. Now they didn't say that.
Speaker 1: So earlier I was talking about the WWDC announcements. One
Speaker 1: of those, one of the biggest changes I would argue
Speaker 1: bigger than the iPhone is iPad OS twenty six and
Speaker 1: Apple made a huge change here to the way that
Speaker 1: the iPad works. The software is getting a complete overhaul
Speaker 1: and it is now more like a desktop computer. This
Speaker 1: is something that people have been wondering when Apple would
Speaker 1: do for a long time. The problem is it's very
Speaker 1: confusing for Apple because they've got this iPad and then
Speaker 1: they've got the Mac laptops. What's the difference at this point.
Speaker 1: They both can have a keyboard, they both can have
Speaker 1: a lot of different apps. So one is touchscreen, one
Speaker 1: is not. Now with this software, you could probably install
Speaker 1: this software on a MacBook. I mean you can't, but
Speaker 1: I'm just saying if they wanted to, and it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. It's it's basically Windows. I mean a windowing
Speaker 1: It's not Windows like Microsoft, but a windoing system. So
Speaker 1: each app now can be in its own window. And
Speaker 1: I was playing with it this morning and yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's not polished just yet, like I think it's
Speaker 1: a little quirky, but it's there and it's what people wanted.
Speaker 1: You could just open up a whole bunch of apps,
Speaker 1: arrange them, resize, put them all over your screen. It's
Speaker 1: not like the old days of the iPad operating system
Speaker 1: where you had to snap everything into grids. No, now
Speaker 1: everything is free floating. Now, don't forget. This does not
Speaker 1: come out until September, so you can't get this right now.
Speaker 1: But the developers have access. So I have the developers beta,
Speaker 1: which means I can play with this. And I also
Speaker 1: got the hands on up at Apple's campus in Coopertino,
Speaker 1: so I've gotten to play with this extensively from the
Speaker 1: experts that showed me how to use it.
Speaker 2: So you've got your windows where you can put them
Speaker 2: anywhere you want.
Speaker 1: You can also tile them if you've got an expose
Speaker 1: a view, which means you can move your there's like
Speaker 1: a swipe up or I'll show you all of your
Speaker 1: windows at once. And this brings that new liquid glass design.
Speaker 1: So again the liquid glass thing. I think some people
Speaker 1: are gonna love it. Some people are not gonna like it.
Speaker 1: It's very polarizing if you ask me, because it's such
Speaker 1: a departure from what we've had. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: you can now have background tasks on the iPad. That's
Speaker 1: something that's never been done before. Why well, if you
Speaker 1: want to edit a video and final cut on the iPad,
Speaker 1: you can export it and do other things while that's
Speaker 1: exporting in the background. Yeah, this is a whole new
Speaker 1: way to think about the iPad. What else here folders.
Speaker 1: The folders now were in the dock, so you can
Speaker 1: put folders in your dock, which means you can access
Speaker 1: files much easier.
Speaker 2: Again just like a Mac computer.
Speaker 1: The files app is all new, so you've got all
Speaker 1: kinds of customizations you can have in the files app.
Speaker 1: You can have it you view the files in different ways,
Speaker 1: you can list them, sort them whatever you want. You
Speaker 1: can also make them color like you can make all
Speaker 1: the files different colors to file folders, and you can
Speaker 1: add emojis to them as well. So again big departure.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the new Preview app which is
Speaker 1: coming to the iPad. So before you could look at
Speaker 1: PDFs on the iPad, no problem. Now this is like
Speaker 1: the entire Preview app is on the iPad. So if
Speaker 1: you want to view a PDF, market up fill in things,
Speaker 1: Apple pencil is on there, autofill is on there, again,
Speaker 1: more like a computer. The Journal app is also coming
Speaker 1: to the iPad. If you use that, they've got three
Speaker 1: D graphing and the math notes they've got a calligraphy
Speaker 1: pen in the notes app, which is interesting. I used
Speaker 1: to love cligraphy pens when I was a kid. I know,
Speaker 1: I was a Weirdoh I still am.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: Cligraphy is cool, Like I used to have the clicker,
Speaker 1: like I used to have to get the cligraphy pen
Speaker 1: and then the ink cartridge. You would snap into it
Speaker 1: and that thing nine out of ten times would leak
Speaker 1: all over you and you would just have ink everywhere.
Speaker 2: But it was super cool.
Speaker 1: Yes, So the public beta coming next month, that is
Speaker 1: in July, and the full release will be in this fall.
Speaker 1: This is gonna support iPads with the A sixteen chip
Speaker 1: or later or the M one chip or later, So
Speaker 1: a sixteen chip, M one chip. If you want to
Speaker 1: see what you've got in your iPad, you can go
Speaker 1: into the settings about type that into Google and see
Speaker 1: what you've got inside. Sometimes it says it on the
Speaker 1: iPad the chip. I think, all right, I've done a
Speaker 1: lot about Apple. Let's give you a Samsung users something fun.
Speaker 1: If you have a Samsung Galaxy, you can get a
Speaker 1: year of Perplexity Pro for free right now, no strings attached.
Speaker 1: This is one of the top AI assistants. If you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with Perplexity check it out Perplexity dot ai
Speaker 1: what perplexity. What's unique about Perplexity is the way that
Speaker 1: it gives you a full answer to your question. And yes,
Speaker 1: these are things that Google can do, these are things
Speaker 1: that chatcybt can do, things that copilot can do, but
Speaker 1: Perplexity kind of they kind of came out with this first.
Speaker 1: So if you say something like give me a full
Speaker 1: biography on actually say, that's not even a good idea.
Speaker 1: You can just type in something like someone's name, like
Speaker 1: a famous actor, Adam, give me a famous actor's name.
Speaker 2: Okay, Tom Cruise.
Speaker 1: So when you type in Tom Cruise, immediately says Tom Cruise, movies, age,
Speaker 1: net worth, height, mission impossible. Maybe I just want to
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise bio boom. Type that in and now it
Speaker 1: gives me a full response of everything you need to
Speaker 1: know about Tom Cruise, stuff that previously you might have
Speaker 1: had to look up on Google click a million links
Speaker 1: and find this stuff. No, now it's got everything, and
Speaker 1: by the way, it's all recent and in real time,
Speaker 1: and then at the end it gives you a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of related questions. So it's really really a nice
Speaker 1: way of learning. And I love their feature which is
Speaker 1: Current Events, so you can search all their current events
Speaker 1: are sorry. Discover is their main kind of like almost
Speaker 1: like their news, so you can go through and look
Speaker 1: up just all the current events, all the stuff that's happening,
Speaker 1: and it's all in real time. It's really really well done.
Speaker 1: So how do you get this for free? What do
Speaker 1: you get with the pro Well, you get unlimited pro searches,
Speaker 1: access to all the different models, they have image generation
Speaker 1: file uploads, AI summaries.
Speaker 2: All kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's basically just the best that they have to offer
Speaker 1: for twenty dollars a month, but you're getting it for free.
Speaker 2: If you have a Galaxy phone, how do you do this?
Speaker 1: If you have Perplexity on your Samsung phone, go ahead
Speaker 1: and delete it and then you have to re download
Speaker 1: it from the Samsung Galaxy Store. Did you even know
Speaker 1: that Samsung had their own store? Probably not, but now
Speaker 1: you do. And that's why they're doing deals like this,
Speaker 1: because they want you to go in that store and
Speaker 1: see what there is to offer. Download Perplexity from the
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy Store, sign up or log in, do not
Speaker 1: give any credit card, no information about payment, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it will upgrade you magically to
Speaker 1: Perplexity Pro for a year, and you should get an
Speaker 1: email that says you've been upgraded and now you have
Speaker 1: access to all this great stuff. I went ahead once
Speaker 1: I did this and installed this now in all my phones,
Speaker 1: and that's what they want you to do. They want
Speaker 1: you to use Perplexity Pro because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: competition in the AI world.
Speaker 2: You've got Perplexity Now.
Speaker 1: I think that Google's AI mode is excellent, and I
Speaker 1: would say it's the closest to Perplexity. I would say
Speaker 1: it's a direct response to Perplexity. That's why they had
Speaker 1: to make.
Speaker 2: This in Google. So but again, Perplexity's been doing it longer.
Speaker 2: They do a great job.
Speaker 1: I'll put the information on how to claim the free
Speaker 1: year Perplexity Pro on my website.
Speaker 2: Rich on Tech dot TV. All right, coming up, I'll
Speaker 2: tell you which.
Speaker 1: App is back with a surprise redesign on the iPhone.
Speaker 1: This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple eight Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. The website
Speaker 1: for the show rich on Tech dot TV. There you
Speaker 1: can go to get show notes. You can also sign
Speaker 1: up for my newsletter and uh see what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here on the rich On Tech Radio show. Coming
Speaker 1: up this hour, we've got some guests. Well, we've got
Speaker 1: Stephanie Weitzman to talk about speech a FI. If you
Speaker 1: haven't tried this app, it is really it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: It basically takes any article pretty much anything you want
Speaker 1: to read, uh, but it makes it so you can
Speaker 1: listen to it. So it's a text to speech app.
Speaker 1: Works on your phone, works on your computer. And I
Speaker 1: even did my own voice, Like I recorded my own
Speaker 1: voice into this app last night. You can create an
Speaker 1: AI clone so you can listen to yourself talking. Should
Speaker 1: I see if I can play that? Let's see here,
Speaker 1: Uh so you it doesn't take very long to do
Speaker 1: it at all. So let's see this is uh oh gosh,
Speaker 1: this is Steve Job's speech that he gave many years
Speaker 1: ago at a commencement. Of course, it's got to process
Speaker 1: the file, so maybe that's not going to work so
Speaker 1: well right now, I might have to come back to that.
Speaker 1: Let's see if I have a something that's already processed.
Speaker 1: There we go, okay, right now Gwyneth Paltrow is my voice.
Speaker 1: But here's here's my own voice rich on tech. Let's
Speaker 1: see if this sounds like me.
Speaker 2: Tell me if you.
Speaker 1: In a more theoretical discussion about the simulation.
Speaker 2: Theory, like I don't know if that sounds like living
Speaker 2: in a digital facsimile.
Speaker 1: Of I don't think so. Okay, So here's what I did.
Speaker 1: I think I re courted it. I was in like
Speaker 1: a very echoe room, and I did it kind of
Speaker 1: very in passing. So I'm gonna do it in the
Speaker 1: studio here. I'll, you know, I'll do it during the break.
Speaker 1: I'll record it. Only takes like twenty seconds, so I'll
Speaker 1: pretend that never happened. But we do have Stephanie Weisman
Speaker 1: to talk about Speech of five, really really interesting app
Speaker 1: that reads anything to you out loud.
Speaker 2: And then we've got more.
Speaker 1: Of your questions, emails, calls, all that good stuff, plus
Speaker 1: the tech news of the week. This was really interesting.
Speaker 1: Sam Altman, I don't know if you're reading his blog posts,
Speaker 1: but the guy has a lot of thoughts. He's the uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the guy behind open ai chat EBT. He's
Speaker 1: got a lot of thoughts on things. He says that
Speaker 1: the gentle singularity is underway. So he says, AI superintelligence
Speaker 1: is already in motion, and we're already in the early stages.
Speaker 1: It's very gradual, right. Systems like CHATCHYBT says, are he
Speaker 1: being used by hundreds of millions already every day, and
Speaker 1: they're more capable than any individual human in some areas.
Speaker 1: Think about that, they've already created kind of like the
Speaker 1: smartest being in the world.
Speaker 2: And it's not like Google.
Speaker 1: Right, Google's very smart, has all the answers, but it's
Speaker 1: not the same as a chat GPT where it synthesizes
Speaker 1: things from a lot of different places. So here's his
Speaker 1: timeline of AI growth twenty twenty five, AI agents doing
Speaker 1: meaningful cognitive work that's sort of happening right now, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six. Next year, he believes that AI systems will
Speaker 1: make original scientific discoveries. They will see things that humans
Speaker 1: have missed or never we're able to do. They will
Speaker 1: figure them out, and then in twenty twenty seven robots
Speaker 1: capable of real world tasks.
Speaker 2: Think about that.
Speaker 1: Right now, AI lives in a little chatbot, little chat
Speaker 1: screen on your computer, on your phone, But imagine when
Speaker 1: this this smarts, these smarts are built into a humanoid robot,
Speaker 1: which many companies are working on right now, and you
Speaker 1: can teach them to do things like right now, if
Speaker 1: you go into chat GBT and you need to do something,
Speaker 1: you can teach it how to do that. So that
Speaker 1: is the main thing that you need to know about that.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to teach chat GBT, it will figure
Speaker 1: it out. You say, here's how I do this, Now
Speaker 1: do it, and yes, it will do it. But imagine
Speaker 1: when you can put that into a robot. That's when
Speaker 1: it's going to get really interesting. So he believes that
Speaker 1: intelligence and energy will become abundant, removing long standing barriers
Speaker 1: to progress. And if you're wondering, by the way, about
Speaker 1: this whole have you heard this thing like, oh, just
Speaker 1: one question on chat GBT uses a gallon of water
Speaker 1: or you know, enough electricity to power up a whole city.
Speaker 1: So he addresses that a single question on chat GBT,
Speaker 1: a single query uses about point three four wat hours
Speaker 1: of electricity. Now what does that mean? Nobody knows, but
Speaker 1: he says it it's about what an oven uses in
Speaker 1: one second. And then how about the water point zero
Speaker 1: zero zero zero eight five.
Speaker 2: Gallons of water?
Speaker 1: Per query that's around one fifteenth of a teaspoon of water,
Speaker 1: so probably had to use chat GBT for those conversions.
Speaker 1: He compares what we're going through is a slow motion singularity,
Speaker 1: massive changes that feels gradual because we're living through it.
Speaker 1: Two years ago. If you would have thought about the
Speaker 1: stuff that chatchbt could do, you wouldn't believe it. Now
Speaker 1: people are doing it every day, synthesizing things, summarizing things,
Speaker 1: coming up with business plans, proofreading things, writing essays, writing stories.
Speaker 1: I was using Google's vo today VO three, which is
Speaker 1: their AI video generator. Oh, I haven't even talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show. It is so incredible. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It creates high quality eight second videos with AI. You
Speaker 1: type what you want it to do and it makes
Speaker 1: that and you can do anything. It is unbelievable. By
Speaker 1: the way, it also has speech and audio, so if
Speaker 1: you want a bird pecking at a tree in a
Speaker 1: sci fi world, it can do that. It generates stuff
Speaker 1: that is just so realistic. I'm my mind is boggled
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: You do have to, I think, to use this you
Speaker 1: have to have a membership to Google's AI, which I do,
Speaker 1: but unbelievable.
Speaker 2: The ultra plan.
Speaker 1: If you want the real like right now, I only
Speaker 1: have access to Vo three Fast, which is just their
Speaker 1: fast generation. That's like twenty dollars a month. If you
Speaker 1: want VO three, which is their ultra like high quality,
Speaker 1: you gotta pay for the Google's ultraplan, which is two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars a month. And some people will
Speaker 1: do that, Like there will be someone who uses this
Speaker 1: to create an entire music video, an entire movie. But
Speaker 1: again it's got to be eight second clips. But again,
Speaker 1: it's got native audio generation as well, which is the
Speaker 1: new thing. So it's called they call it flow, that's
Speaker 1: their video generator. I mean all these things like we're
Speaker 1: gonna need like a class just in the names of
Speaker 1: all these AI products. But is he what does Altman
Speaker 1: continue to say? Here's a great examp. I thought he
Speaker 1: gave the greatest example in this blog post about how
Speaker 1: AI is being used versus how social media algorithms were
Speaker 1: being used. He warned about the risks of misaligned AI,
Speaker 1: and the best example he gave was social media algorithms
Speaker 1: who do they favor?
Speaker 2: Not us? They don't benefit us in any way, shape
Speaker 2: or form.
Speaker 1: They only benefit the platform, But his argument is that
Speaker 1: AI actually benefits the people using it if it's used properly.
Speaker 1: He also believes that wealth creation will outpace job loss,
Speaker 1: So all these things about you know, people worried about jobs,
Speaker 1: he will. He says that there will be new opportunities.
Speaker 1: So again he says, we are living it, this gentle singularity.
Speaker 1: If you want to, I'll put a link to his
Speaker 1: blog post on my website. Rich on tech dot TV
Speaker 1: just I mean, these people are thinking.
Speaker 2: About so much stuff real quick before we go to break.
Speaker 1: Mattle in from La Crescenta writes in I recently deleted
Speaker 1: my account on How's Houzz. I think that's one of
Speaker 1: those home apps. I was advised by them to please
Speaker 1: delete our cookies from your browser. Is that necessary? I
Speaker 1: don't think so, Madeline. I don't think you need to
Speaker 1: delete those cookies after you closed an account, unless you're
Speaker 1: worried about staying logged in or them tracking you. If
Speaker 1: you want to clear them out, it's a pretty simple process.
Speaker 1: It all depends on your browser. But if you have Chrome,
Speaker 1: just tap the three dots in the upper right hand corner.
Speaker 1: It'll say history or sorry, says delete browsing.
Speaker 3: Data.
Speaker 1: You tap that and you can do time range, last hour,
Speaker 1: last twenty four, all four weeks, all time. The thing
Speaker 1: you have to know about that if you delete your
Speaker 1: browsing data, it's not only a delete House, but it
Speaker 1: might delete a lot of other logins from other websites.
Speaker 1: So for that reason I probably would not do it. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to delete it for just how you
Speaker 1: can go to their website. Is it house dot com? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then tap the two little looks like a setting
Speaker 1: icon next to the website and it says cookies and
Speaker 1: site data, and there you can delete all that just
Speaker 1: for House. Okay, I just deleted that, so now the
Speaker 1: log in everything will be reset.
Speaker 2: Great question eight.
Speaker 1: To eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. You got a
Speaker 1: question about technology, Give me a call website for the
Speaker 1: show richon Tech dot.
Speaker 2: Tv coming up.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about two really cool apps for taking
Speaker 1: pictures and editing them.
Speaker 2: This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. So, uh,
Speaker 1: earlier I was talking about speech of five and cloning
Speaker 1: my voice. We're gonna have the guests on very soon.
Speaker 1: But uh, I just recloned my voice. So tell me
Speaker 1: if you think it took about fifteen seconds. Tell me
Speaker 1: if you think this sounds like me.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 3: I'm Rich Tomiro and this is is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 3: This iss the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 3: stuff I think you should know about and answer your
Speaker 3: questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting,
Speaker 3: useful and fun. Phone lines are open a te triple
Speaker 3: eight Rich one hundred and one. That's eight eight eight
Speaker 3: seven four two four.
Speaker 2: One zero one. Give me a call if you have
Speaker 2: a question about technology. I mean there's a resemblance there.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's much more robotic than my voice,
Speaker 1: but you know, in a pinch, yeah, it's a it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a little high.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: Interesting, but hey, you know what, it's a start. I
Speaker 1: mean this and that, by the way, that took about
Speaker 1: took about ten seconds to do. You record fifteen seconds
Speaker 1: of your audio and that's it. So we're gonna have
Speaker 1: the uh Stephanie Weitzman speech of SPEECHIFI on the show
Speaker 1: in this hour and she gonna explain what that app
Speaker 1: is all about, what it's useful for.
Speaker 2: And by the way, there's a lot of other voices.
Speaker 2: That's just me. They also have Snoop Dogg.
Speaker 4: Here Snoop Dogg, Big, Snoop deal Wg and I'm an
Speaker 4: English voice from the United States.
Speaker 2: They also have Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Speechify. Speechify can read to you in the
Speaker 4: highest quality digital voice.
Speaker 2: They also have mister Beast.
Speaker 5: Basically, I hate reading, so I just upload every document
Speaker 5: I get to speech I find.
Speaker 2: My kids know who that is.
Speaker 1: And then they have all these other, you know, just
Speaker 1: regular voices. So I mean, it's it's really if you
Speaker 1: like to listen to stuff, it's a great way to
Speaker 1: listen to articles. Anyway, I will we'll have more about
Speaker 1: that interview in just a little bit. Samsung is back
Speaker 1: at it. I cannot believe that it's almost been a
Speaker 1: year since their foldables came out, but now they're teasing
Speaker 1: new foldables coming out soon, a thinner, lighter generation of
Speaker 1: Galaxy Z foldables. They say they are the thinnest, lightest,
Speaker 1: and most durable foldables yet. If you remember Samsung Star
Speaker 1: this journey in twenty nineteen with the original Galaxy Fold.
Speaker 1: I still remember being invited to the Samsung store and
Speaker 1: they said, hey, we have a new phone for you
Speaker 1: to check out, and I couldn't believe I'd never seen
Speaker 1: a folding screen in my life before like that. And
Speaker 1: sure enough they had to recall it from the reviewers
Speaker 1: because they had some growing pains there.
Speaker 2: But you got to give Samsung credit.
Speaker 1: They do try a lot of stuff, and they've definitely
Speaker 1: polished it since then, and I do see a fair
Speaker 1: amount of these things out in the wild now. They're
Speaker 1: very popular over in Asia and in Europe. They have
Speaker 1: not been as popular here in the US, but they
Speaker 1: are definitely growing in popularity. The whole idea is that,
Speaker 1: you know, merging a smartphone, the portability of a smartphone
Speaker 1: with the productivity of a tablet.
Speaker 2: It's all in one. But the problem is that I've
Speaker 2: seen is that the screens on the outside were just too.
Speaker 1: Small to be truly useful. So now theoretically we'll see
Speaker 1: a bigger screen on the outside. Samsung says this year's
Speaker 1: models were engineered to be even easy. You're to use
Speaker 1: one handed and fit more comfortably in your pocket. They
Speaker 1: promise an ultra experience, so more performance.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The thing on these was that the cameras were not
Speaker 1: as good as the standard you know as twenty five ultra.
Speaker 1: Now if they can get that ultra camera on the foldable,
Speaker 1: there's nothing stopping it.
Speaker 2: Theoretically.
Speaker 1: They also say there's gonna be new hinge designs and
Speaker 1: materials to make them tough enough for daily use. And
Speaker 1: they have not given an official launch date just yet,
Speaker 1: but let's be honest, these things typically happen in July
Speaker 1: or August, So that's what I'm guessing, is a July
Speaker 1: or August launch date for the Samsung Unpacked event, which
Speaker 1: they would have sometime this summer. Don't know where it is,
Speaker 1: where it's going to be, what the dates are. But
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a new foldable hold off, maybe
Speaker 1: this whole twenty three and ME thing. Remember this all
Speaker 1: this they went to bankruptcy, they got purchased by this
Speaker 1: other company. While tech Crunch reports that fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: twenty three and MES users about two million people asked
Speaker 1: the company to delete their genetic data. This was after
Speaker 1: the biotech company Regenerate Regeneron won a court approved auction
Speaker 1: to buy twenty three and meters for two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty six million dollars. By the way, when I was
Speaker 1: up in the Bay Area, I drove past the twenty
Speaker 1: three and ME headquarters. I didn't know I was going
Speaker 1: to drive past it, but I happened to, and not thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a big headquarters. I just thought about it.
Speaker 1: I was like, Ah, all those people in there that
Speaker 1: are wondering, like what their fate is. It's probably such
Speaker 1: a high you know, high flying company for so long
Speaker 1: and now you know, purchased for mere pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 1: This thing used to be worth like six billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Twenty four states, twenty twenty three and plus one states,
Speaker 1: including New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania, are suing to block
Speaker 1: the sale of private DNA data without user consent. Twenty
Speaker 1: three and Me's data privacy trust was shaken after a
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three breach exposed data from six point nine
Speaker 1: million users. The company blame their customers for not enabling
Speaker 1: multi factor authentication, but come on, you don't let you
Speaker 1: don't let all that data get out anyway. People are
Speaker 1: getting rid of their data from twenty three and meters quickly.
Speaker 1: All right, I told you about this app that got
Speaker 1: a surprise redesign. Google just dropped a new version of Snapseed,
Speaker 1: version three point oh. This was one of my most
Speaker 1: recommended apps for so many years because it was so
Speaker 1: simple to use and all the features were free as
Speaker 1: opposed to like the photoshops and all these other photo
Speaker 1: editing apps that would charge, Snapseed kept it free. So
Speaker 1: Snapseed three point zero is brand new. If you don't
Speaker 1: have it on your iPhone, I highly recommend you ad
Speaker 1: it or if you have it.
Speaker 2: Update it.
Speaker 1: It's the first big update in years. Many people thought
Speaker 1: that Google abandoned the app, but it's all gotten a redesign.
Speaker 1: It's got a nice new clean interface, new floating button
Speaker 1: to add your pictures to it, and they've got a
Speaker 1: new just all kinds of stuff, a new film style filter,
Speaker 1: and it's just really easy to use. So my favorite
Speaker 1: feature that I've recommended it for is called healing, so
Speaker 1: you can easily if you have a little blemish on
Speaker 1: your picture you want to get something out of there,
Speaker 1: you just tap healing and just rub over like the
Speaker 1: area that needs to go and goodbye. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the simplest possible way to remove like a little
Speaker 1: blemish or anything you don't want in your photo.
Speaker 2: Now I get it. We have AI for all this stuff.
Speaker 1: You can erase things, change pictures, but this was kind
Speaker 1: of the OG way of doing it, and so that's
Speaker 1: still available, still free. And then of course the tools.
Speaker 1: The new film style is really cool because if you
Speaker 1: go to these apps on the iPhone or Samsung, a
Speaker 1: lot of them costs money to change the film styles.
Speaker 1: This one has like I don't know, it looks like
Speaker 1: two dozen of them, all for free. Polaroids six hundred,
Speaker 1: Fuji Pro four hundred. H If you're a film person,
Speaker 1: you know how to do this. Technicolor. Oh, that one
Speaker 1: looks really good. I took a picture of me outside
Speaker 1: of the Arawan. If you've never been to La, if
Speaker 1: you visit La, you gotta go to an arawon. It
Speaker 1: is it's its own world. You've never seen prices like
Speaker 1: this at a grocery store. It's wild. I mean it
Speaker 1: really is. And all this stuff is happening in the world.
Speaker 1: You go into Arawan, You're like, Wow, this is just
Speaker 1: a whole different world of that I'm not really privy
Speaker 1: to on a daily basis. But it's fun. I have
Speaker 1: one thing that I go to. Yeah, Kim just chimed
Speaker 1: in said, I'm not paying twenty five dollars for a smoothie. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're known for smoothies that are literally twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: that's before the ad ins. But I guess it makes
Speaker 1: your skin glow. I cannot bring myself to buy one
Speaker 1: of those. All right, coming up, we're gonna talk to
Speaker 1: Stephanie Witzman about speech a fi right here on rich
Speaker 1: On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you talking technology at triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one. That's eight seven four two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. Give me a call if you have
Speaker 1: a question about technology. We'll get back to those phone
Speaker 1: lines in just a moment. But first we are here
Speaker 1: at WWDC at the Apple Podcast Studios, and we are
Speaker 1: talking to some winners of the Apple Design Awards. One
Speaker 1: of those apps is called Speechify. It is very cool,
Speaker 1: and here to talk to me about it is Stephanie Weitzman.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 6: Thank you Rich for having me.
Speaker 2: Now you're actually the mom of the creators of this app,
Speaker 2: Cliff and Tyler. Yes, but you also work there I do.
Speaker 6: I work as a recruiting manager at Speechify and a
Speaker 6: recruit engineers from all over the world.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing. So, first off, explain what Speechify is
Speaker 1: all about.
Speaker 6: Yes, of course, so Speechify is a text to speech app,
Speaker 6: but a whole lot more than that. And our goal
Speaker 6: is that learning should not be a barrier because of reading.
Speaker 6: And our goal is that every human being in the
Speaker 6: world should have the best possible reading experience and we
Speaker 6: really focus on that.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting about this app it won the Apple
Speaker 1: Design Award for Inclusivity correct, And so this app supports
Speaker 1: fifty plus languages, and it's also really helpful for users
Speaker 1: with dyslexia, ADHD and vision impairments because it allows you
Speaker 1: to consume content in the way that's best.
Speaker 6: For you exactly exactly. So Specify is great for everyone,
Speaker 6: but it's life changing when it comes to people with disabilities.
Speaker 6: And this is something that I have experienced being Cliff's
Speaker 6: mom who has he's severely dyslexic, and this is how
Speaker 6: he came up with the idea for the app because
Speaker 6: there was no software out there when he was seventeen
Speaker 6: eighteen going into college. The only software available, was very
Speaker 6: clunky and it worked at a one x speed and
Speaker 6: cliff because all of his reading was consumed through his
Speaker 6: ear at three x speed. It was very boring for
Speaker 6: him because he also has add so people have dyslexia
Speaker 6: add low vision. The funny story is that our co founder,
Speaker 6: my other son, Tyler, is blind in one eye and
Speaker 6: he was born blind in one eye, so he also
Speaker 6: had He has myopia, so he gets eyestrained. But he's
Speaker 6: also a phenomenal coder and so he started coding when
Speaker 6: he was ten. When the app store opened, he had
Speaker 6: apps on the app Store in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 6: He came to us when he was eleven years old
Speaker 6: and said, Mom, can I have ninety nine dollars please?
Speaker 6: And I said why and he said, there's this think
Speaker 6: of the app Store and I want to be on it.
Speaker 6: So he taught himself to code, but still with the eyes,
Speaker 6: it was a lot of strain. So he uses speechify
Speaker 6: because of his vision. And then there are people other
Speaker 6: situations such as people who've had concussions, or people who
Speaker 6: have encephalitis who cannot talk, autism, have speech apraxia. We've
Speaker 6: had people who are mute who said You've changed our
Speaker 6: lives because the app is being read. We can use
Speaker 6: the app to talk, it's our mouth. So we constantly
Speaker 6: get stories of people who have disabilities saying I'm crying,
Speaker 6: I've found your app. This has changed my life.
Speaker 2: How long has this journey been?
Speaker 6: So the company was founded eight years ago and we've
Speaker 6: been partnership with Apple for the last eight years on
Speaker 6: the iOS app twenty seventeen, and we really started before
Speaker 6: the AI boom, So we started with the speed variability.
Speaker 6: I think the core part of the product is the
Speaker 6: fact that you can see the words and listen at
Speaker 6: the same time and have the words highlighted out to
Speaker 6: you at any speed that you choose. And then with
Speaker 6: the AI boom, Tyler went to Stanford. He has a
Speaker 6: master's degree. He specialized in and AI. It was the
Speaker 6: right timing. He already had many apps under his belt
Speaker 6: and he just built a phenomenal AI model, which is
Speaker 6: probably the most sophisticated AI audio model that exists. And
Speaker 6: that was the started to train the voices. So now
Speaker 6: we have over two hundred voices in all languages, and
Speaker 6: by the way, people who want to learn the language,
Speaker 6: people who don't have English mother tongue, for instance, really
Speaker 6: enjoy using the app because maybe their visual reading is
Speaker 6: weaker than their ability to understand, so they can use
Speaker 6: the app to help with their English, and they can
Speaker 6: also listen in their own language if they want. They
Speaker 6: can slow down the speed if they want, They can
Speaker 6: go faster if they want. For people with add sometimes
Speaker 6: they actually want to speed up so they won't be bored.
Speaker 6: And we have all these amazing voices in different languages
Speaker 6: and even different accents.
Speaker 1: So the way I understand the app, and I've used
Speaker 1: it before, I've actually so for my radio show, I
Speaker 1: listened to a lot of articles, right, and so sometimes
Speaker 1: reading those articles can get be time consuming.
Speaker 2: And it's just a handsome time. It's easier to consume
Speaker 2: them via audio.
Speaker 1: Can you explain kind of like how that works, that
Speaker 1: process of what people are feeding into this app to
Speaker 1: learn from.
Speaker 6: Yes, so it's extremely streamlined, streamlined, and you can really
Speaker 6: do it from the most basic level of selecting texts,
Speaker 6: copying it and then pasting it physically into the app.
Speaker 6: That's one way. Another is just to copy a link
Speaker 6: paste it into the app. Another way would be to
Speaker 6: take a PDF and share it like you would share
Speaker 6: you know, to I Message or to any other application.
Speaker 6: Specify has that ability that you just share that in.
Speaker 6: You might not know this, but we're fully integrated with Gmail,
Speaker 6: so you can connect your Gmail and your Google Drive
Speaker 6: inside the app and then have your emails read out
Speaker 6: to you automatically from within the app.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 1: And so once you share into the app, it will
Speaker 1: read to you whatever you put in there. Yes, but
Speaker 1: also you've got these celebrity I mean, there's so many
Speaker 1: voices to choose from their very realistic sounding. Yes, and
Speaker 1: then you've got celebrity voices. How did you get people
Speaker 1: like Snoop Dogg and Gwene Paltrow on board?
Speaker 6: Yes, so I think Gwinnos was the first. So Cliff
Speaker 6: and Gwinnos were friends and she said, yeah, I'm in.
Speaker 6: So she has beautiful intonation. A lot of people really
Speaker 6: enjoy listening to her voice, and I think it started
Speaker 6: to work from there. We also have mister Beast.
Speaker 2: Is there one voice that's the most popular?
Speaker 6: One's voice? It's probably the most popular.
Speaker 2: Yes, son, Yes, so he has a voice on the app.
Speaker 6: Oh, of course he's had a voice. Yeah. I think
Speaker 6: he had the first AI voice on the app that
Speaker 6: we used.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, that's so wild.
Speaker 6: And his AI voice is pretty much indistinguishable from his
Speaker 6: real voice, and I'm his mom. Wow, and the intonation
Speaker 6: is perfect and sometimes I get goosebumps because it really
Speaker 6: is hard to differentiate.
Speaker 2: That's wild.
Speaker 1: Now, speaking of AI, you have some AI features in
Speaker 1: the app, like AI summaries.
Speaker 2: Can you explain that?
Speaker 6: Yes, So say, for example, Rich, you're prepping for a
Speaker 6: podcast and you have an article that you want to,
Speaker 6: you know, learn very quickly, so you can upload that
Speaker 6: to the app, listen to it, but then say, okay,
Speaker 6: actually I would like you know, a summary to go
Speaker 6: just before that I can glance at. So then you
Speaker 6: can choose a short version, a medium version, or a
Speaker 6: long version. And you can even generate an AI quiz
Speaker 6: and say I want to have ten questions about what
Speaker 6: I just read, and it will ask you the questions
Speaker 6: and give you a multiple choice option. So if anyone
Speaker 6: is studying, they can like take the material they want
Speaker 6: to prep for the exam and then make a little
Speaker 6: quiz out of it.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's great for learners. That's really incredible.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned the accessibility and the inclusivity. Yes, but
Speaker 1: really anyone can.
Speaker 6: Use this app absolutely, I, for instance, don't I probably
Speaker 6: you as well. I don't have a lot of time,
Speaker 6: and if I have time, I want to go out
Speaker 6: hiking and walking and that's when I do my reading.
Speaker 1: So Ever since I started my radio show, I've realized
Speaker 1: how much information when you consume a lot of information
Speaker 1: it is. It's strenuous when you're reading, yes, but when
Speaker 1: you're listening it is, like you said, very natural. And
Speaker 1: I never I kind of like thought about that. The
Speaker 1: way our brain processes things. It just seems much easier
Speaker 1: to process the audio version of things versus like sitting
Speaker 1: there reading and you have to be comfortable, and you
Speaker 1: have to have a good lighting and this and that.
Speaker 1: There's like a lot that goes into reading that just
Speaker 1: audio is so much easier.
Speaker 6: Yes, because we evolved to storytelling. That's how we evolved.
Speaker 6: And so if you know, you have kids at home,
Speaker 6: and for anyone listening out there, if they have kids
Speaker 6: at home and they want them to be ahead of
Speaker 6: the game, they need to practice their listening more than anything.
Speaker 1: Well, we say that as parents all the time and
Speaker 1: in various ways. All Right, we're talking with Stephanie Weisman
Speaker 1: of Speechify. They want a twenty twenty five I have
Speaker 1: Apple Design Award for Inclusivity.
Speaker 6: I think one of the things that's special with our
Speaker 6: company is it draws people who really have a passion
Speaker 6: for helping people with disabilities. One of our key principles
Speaker 6: is leading with love, and you really feel that throughout
Speaker 6: the company.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today, Stephanie. The
Speaker 1: website speechified dot com.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 1: It's the number one speech to text reading app and
Speaker 1: it does have some incredible features.
Speaker 2: I'll put a link on my website.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv thanks to Apple for lending
Speaker 1: us their podcast studios today eighty eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one.
Speaker 2: Back after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, Talking technology eighty
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. The website for the show
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot tv. You can send an email
Speaker 1: just by hitting contact. That's what John did. He says,
Speaker 1: I love all your tech information. I watch you on KTLA,
Speaker 1: follow you on Instagram, listen to your podcast, and get
Speaker 1: your weekly newsletter. Oh my gosh, that's one, two, three,
Speaker 1: four things. Okay, well, I don't think you missed a
Speaker 1: thing there, John. Here's my question. If someone steals your iPhone,
Speaker 1: can you require a passcode or face ID to power
Speaker 1: it off? That's the first thing thieves do to prevent tracking.
Speaker 1: If Apple doesn't do this, maybe they should.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can require a passcode to turn
Speaker 1: off the iPhone, but it does make sense that that
Speaker 1: would be something that's smart. But here's the thing. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think if they have the iPhone off, they can
Speaker 1: do less with it than on. So if it's on,
Speaker 1: at least it's secured and it's locked, and they can't
Speaker 1: really do anything.
Speaker 2: But it is a good question.
Speaker 1: There is something that Apple introduced called Stolen Device Protector.
Speaker 1: I's two things about this. Number one, if you ever
Speaker 1: turned off your iPhone, you notice that there is a.
Speaker 2: Where's my iPhone here? It is.
Speaker 1: It basically says this iPhone is still trackable even when
Speaker 1: it's off. So even with the power off. A lot
Speaker 1: of these devices are still trackable even with the power off.
Speaker 1: So that's a recent feature that they've added to these things.
Speaker 1: So they keep a little power reserve that even when
Speaker 1: it's off it's still going to be trackable as far
Speaker 1: as I know. And then the other thing is the
Speaker 1: stolen Device protection. This is something that is optional that
Speaker 1: Apple added that you can turn on and basically, when
Speaker 1: your phone is away from familiar places like your house
Speaker 1: or your work, it will require face ID or touch
Speaker 1: ID only, which means even if they figured out your passcode,
Speaker 1: which is a problem. There is this big thing where
Speaker 1: where thieves would watch people in a bar put in
Speaker 1: their passcode on their phone and then swipe the phone
Speaker 1: out of their hand and then go run away and
Speaker 1: type in the passcode, and now they have access to
Speaker 1: the whole phone, and then they would immediately do things
Speaker 1: like change your Apple password, they would go into your
Speaker 1: bank account, all that stuff, They would open up every
Speaker 1: app and they would just keep your phone unlocked, and
Speaker 1: of course they'd probably change the timeout on the phone
Speaker 1: as well. So Apple did this thing called stolen Device protection.
Speaker 1: So now when your phone is away from a familiar place,
Speaker 1: so let's say you are not at home, you're not
Speaker 1: at work, someone swipes your phone, they can't do anything
Speaker 1: to that phone unless they have face ID or touch ID.
Speaker 1: They cannot try the passcode to access things like saved
Speaker 1: passwords or your payment information or anything else. There's also
Speaker 1: a one hour delay to do anything like changing your
Speaker 1: Apple ID password, and this gives you time to mark
Speaker 1: your iPhone as lost and protect your account. And you
Speaker 1: can turn this on permanently, so it works anywhere that
Speaker 1: is in settings. Let's see if I can find this
Speaker 1: stolen device protection. So if you just okay, it's under
Speaker 1: passcode stolen device protection, you got to type in your
Speaker 1: passcode to get that access. And if you turn that on,
Speaker 1: let's see where is it down stolen device protection. So
Speaker 1: this adds another layer of security to your iPhone. And
Speaker 1: the event that is stolen and someone knows your passcode
Speaker 1: seems like something that would be a small number of people,
Speaker 1: but no, this was a major problem. Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: was very instrumental in reporting about this, and they basically
Speaker 1: got Apple to change this because if you think about it,
Speaker 1: if someone knows your passcode, they could get anything on
Speaker 1: your phone. So anyway, if you're worried about that, turn
Speaker 1: on stolen device protection. But yes, Apple and these other
Speaker 1: software companies continue to figure out ways of getting you know,
Speaker 1: of protecting us from the bad guys. Let's see another
Speaker 1: question here, Robert writes in good afternoon. I'm a recent
Speaker 1: finder of your show and I've been loving every minute
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Robert.
Speaker 1: Is there any update on the Apple Watch having a
Speaker 1: built in continuous glucose monitor CGM, thanks Robert.
Speaker 2: Not yet.
Speaker 1: We know that Apple has been working on this non
Speaker 1: invasive glucose monitoring tech for years, but it is still
Speaker 1: in development and they have not mentioned a word about it.
Speaker 2: But it is Apple.
Speaker 1: They've got lots of smart people and they are not
Speaker 1: the only company that is working on this so right now,
Speaker 1: and if you look at the FDA, they put out
Speaker 1: a big blog post that says there is no product
Speaker 1: that does continuous glucose monitoring from a smartphone non invasive
Speaker 1: right now. You still need a separate sensor like those
Speaker 1: from Dexcom or Abbot, and a lot of those can
Speaker 1: actually sync through your iPhone or Apple Watch through apps.
Speaker 1: But right now, there is not a dedicated wearable that
Speaker 1: does this like an Apple watch or smart watch.
Speaker 2: So if you see those advertised, it's just not possible
Speaker 2: right now. There will be.
Speaker 1: I did actually test a couple of years ago at CS,
Speaker 1: the big electronics show in Vegas. I tested a watch
Speaker 1: that did the CGM, but it was more of like
Speaker 1: an algorithm, so it was and it wasn't perfect. But
Speaker 1: you know, and I've never heard anything more about this watch,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a lot of companies working on this,
Speaker 1: and I think we will have a breakthrough at some point,
Speaker 1: maybe with Apple even and maybe twenty twenty seven or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 2: Who knows.
Speaker 1: But this is the holy grail of technology when it
Speaker 1: comes to health because so many people need these monitors
Speaker 1: right now. You have to have one of those little
Speaker 1: things you kind of stamp onto your skin, usually last
Speaker 1: like maybe one to two weeks. I've actually got one
Speaker 1: at home that I picked up at cs'. They're marketing
Speaker 1: it as a way to monitor this stuff for anyone
Speaker 1: if you're just interested in your glucose. I've yet, I'm
Speaker 1: a little scared to put it on my skin. They
Speaker 1: say you don't feel anything because there's a little part
Speaker 1: that goes in you almost I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: a little needle or what, but it does go in
Speaker 1: your skin. But yeah, that's so Robert. Nothing to update
Speaker 1: just yet there, Jeffrey writes in from Beaverton, Oregon, listening
Speaker 1: on FM one on one point one in Portland. I
Speaker 1: recently upgraded from a sixty five inch to a seventy
Speaker 1: five inch high Sense TV. After watching for an hour
Speaker 1: or two, the audio gradually goes out of sync with
Speaker 1: the video. I've tried adjusting sound settings. Nothing seems to
Speaker 1: fix the problem. Am I doomed to have Costco replace it?
Speaker 1: What are my options? Thank you great show by the way,
Speaker 1: Well thanks for tuning in, Jeffrey. That is definitely frustrating.
Speaker 1: I'd say it's a deal breaker for this TV. So
Speaker 1: get it back to Costco and replace it and see
Speaker 1: if you have the same problem. Sounds like you've already
Speaker 1: done the whole adjustments. If you go into your settings,
Speaker 1: they usually have some sort of like lip sync adjustment.
Speaker 1: I would try all those if they're not working. If
Speaker 1: it says you've already adjusted sound settings, so but look
Speaker 1: for this specifically the lip sync adjustment. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: using an external sound bar, they usually have their own
Speaker 1: lip sync adjustments as well, so you might want to
Speaker 1: try that. You could try a factory reset on both
Speaker 1: the TV and your soundbar. If none of that works,
Speaker 1: get it back to Costco. This is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why people like buying electronics at Costco. They will
Speaker 1: take it back and they will they will make good
Speaker 1: on that. Sounds like you just got it. So I
Speaker 1: have a High Sense personally. I've had no problems with it.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: My neighbor came over the other day, she was looking
Speaker 1: for a new TV and I said, I love this thing.
Speaker 1: And people are a little they're a little concerned. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know about the High Sense brand. I haven't
Speaker 1: really heard about it. I'm like, believe me, gets recommended.
Speaker 1: It's really good for the price, and I've i've we
Speaker 1: love it. It took a little bit of getting used to,
Speaker 1: but it works great. And yeah, you know, the Lgs
Speaker 1: and the Sonys of the world, they're probably better picture wise,
Speaker 1: but you're going to pay a whole lot. More eighty
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four two
Speaker 1: four one zero one website rich on tech dot Tv.
Speaker 1: If you want links to anything I mentioned, or send
Speaker 1: me an email, it's all right there. More rich on
Speaker 1: Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, I'm my I don't know where my
Speaker 1: manners are. I told you that I finished two books
Speaker 1: earlier today, and I did not tell you which books
Speaker 1: they were, did I? I don't think I did. Uh
Speaker 1: So let me tell you about the two books that
Speaker 1: I did read. Uh So, there's this whole thing about
Speaker 1: listening versus reading the books or reading books, like I
Speaker 1: is there a difference, I don't know. I mean I
Speaker 1: like to do both. I like to read physical books.
Speaker 1: I also like to listen to them as well. I
Speaker 1: think they both work. And typically I'm listening to a
Speaker 1: nonfiction book in the car, and then I'm reading a
Speaker 1: fiction book at home. That's kind of like my delineation.
Speaker 1: But I did read two nonfiction books. First was Retail Gangster,
Speaker 1: So if you grew up on the East Coast, you
Speaker 1: might remember Crazy Eddie. This was the iconic New York
Speaker 1: City area electronics chain from the eighties and the nineties.
Speaker 1: They had ads everywhere. They were known for undercutting competitor prices.
Speaker 1: But if you read this book behind the scenes, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, the entire thing was built on fraud, and
Speaker 1: the book dives into how it all unraveled. You know
Speaker 1: it's going to end bad, but the build up is
Speaker 1: just so well done. This was actually a listener Jeffrey
Speaker 1: that recommended this book to me. Retail Gangster, The inside,
Speaker 1: real life story of Crazy Eddie. And the interesting part
Speaker 1: that I didn't realize as a kid is that the
Speaker 1: guy in the commercials was not it was not the
Speaker 1: owner of the store. Now maybe that was clear when
Speaker 1: I was, you know, back in the day, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't clear to me until I read this book. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Retail Gangster, if you grew up in the New York
Speaker 1: City area and you're curious about Crazy Eddy, it's a
Speaker 1: deep dive. I mean, you're you're gonna get the full story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody beats The Whiz was another. That was another. I mean,
Speaker 1: there were electronics chains back in the day. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of competition. It's not like today, we're Best
Speaker 1: Buys the only game in town. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of regional chains in just the New
Speaker 1: York City area. I mean there was the regional chains
Speaker 1: like the Whiz, PC, Richard and Son, Crazy Eddy, and
Speaker 1: then you had all the tiny, small, kind of like
Speaker 1: mom and pop places, but they would all have these
Speaker 1: advertisements in the back of like the newspapers with how
Speaker 1: much their prices were, and you would basically bring that
Speaker 1: newspaper into one of the other stores and say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you beat this price and they would buy like
Speaker 1: a dollar or two, but you felt like you were
Speaker 1: getting a good deal. But anyway, Retail Gangster was excellent.
Speaker 1: Listen to the audiobook if you like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you like audiobooks, or you can read the book. The
Speaker 1: other one I read, which I finished. We had the
Speaker 1: guests on the show Patrick McGee Apple in China and
Speaker 1: this book. I started reading the physical book and then
Speaker 1: I finished with the audiobook. Now, this is all about
Speaker 1: Apple's manufacturing ties with China and how every decision that
Speaker 1: Apple and China made kind of affected China's tech economy.
Speaker 1: And I would say that the book argues that that
Speaker 1: China learned how to build the most complex consumer tech
Speaker 1: products from Apple, and now they're taking that knowledge and
Speaker 1: using it to power their own rise of electronics brands
Speaker 1: like the Huaweis of the world, the Shaomis of the world.
Speaker 1: This is a really now talk about crazy eddy anyone
Speaker 1: can understand and like that story. Apple in China is
Speaker 1: a much more inside baseball story.
Speaker 2: So if you were not.
Speaker 1: If you're not into supply chain logistics, if you're not
Speaker 1: really into the whole geopolitics of Apple and China and
Speaker 1: contract manufacturing, global supply Chaine, you're probably not gonna like
Speaker 1: this one because it's a lot.
Speaker 2: It's a lot.
Speaker 1: But Patrick does an amazing job of weaving this story,
Speaker 1: and I think the thesis. I don't want to give
Speaker 1: away the story, but like all this stuff about building
Speaker 1: an iPhone in America or the tariffs and all these things,
Speaker 1: I mean, Apple is in a really precarious position with
Speaker 1: their relationship with China because it is so intricate. It
Speaker 1: is not something they can easily just ditch and still
Speaker 1: be the company they are.
Speaker 2: They're trying.
Speaker 1: They're trying to build some stuff in Vietnam, build some
Speaker 1: stuff in India, but it's not like what they're doing
Speaker 1: in China, And so Apple and China is a really
Speaker 1: a great deep dive if you're into this. By the way,
Speaker 1: I was at a little cocktail party with Apple. They
Speaker 1: invited some folks that went up to the event for
Speaker 1: a party the night before, like a little get can't
Speaker 1: even tell this. I'm Apples are so secretive with everything,
Speaker 1: like just by telling you this, I might I may
Speaker 1: be extra Apple forever, hopefully not. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a it was a you know, secret that there was
Speaker 1: a little party. But anyway, so they this was like
Speaker 1: I think the first time they did this, but they
Speaker 1: had a lot of the journalists just kind of mingling. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the PR person comes up to me and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you listen to an audiobook on the way up? Would
Speaker 1: you listen to the I'm like, probably don't want to
Speaker 1: hear this. But Apple and China, it's not the book
Speaker 1: that the company really not necessarily something the company would
Speaker 1: promote or have it an Apple store. Let's put it
Speaker 1: that way, all right. Uh, let's see here Yahoo Mail.
Speaker 1: If you're using Yahoo Mail the app, they've got a
Speaker 1: new feature called Ketchup, not catch up like the condiment
Speaker 1: catch up, c atch catch up, to catch up feature
Speaker 1: to fight inbox overload. It's AI powered design for people
Speaker 1: who check email often but feel overwhelmed. It gives you little,
Speaker 1: scannable previews of unread messages with two simple options, delete
Speaker 1: it or keep it in your inbox so you can
Speaker 1: tap and go.
Speaker 2: This happens this.
Speaker 1: I do this all day long on my phone I
Speaker 1: use Gmail, but I swipe left and right swipe to
Speaker 1: get rid of the emails out of my inbox. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily check the whole thing. But this is great
Speaker 1: because it gives you a little AI preview of what
Speaker 1: the email is all about, so you say, okay, I
Speaker 1: need to keep this, or no, I can get rid
Speaker 1: of it. So it's built like a game with a
Speaker 1: celebration screen when you finish. Yahoo says almost half of
Speaker 1: its younger users have missed events because of inbox chaos.
Speaker 1: This is only available on the Yahoo Mail app for
Speaker 1: iOS and Android, and so my other advice to you
Speaker 1: is unsubscribe liberally. Unsubscribe to the emails that you do
Speaker 1: not need to get. I am brutal when it comes
Speaker 1: to unsubscribing, So do it. When you get an email,
Speaker 1: like let's say it's from the company that you just
Speaker 1: ordered food from.
Speaker 2: The other day.
Speaker 1: Now they're sending you, oh, hey, we have a new
Speaker 1: uh you know, a new type of beef for the
Speaker 1: new flavoring.
Speaker 2: No, you do not need to know that.
Speaker 1: When you feel like that bowl again, you will order
Speaker 1: from that company again. You don't need to get their
Speaker 1: emails every day because these companies are relentless. You order
Speaker 1: one thing from a department store, now you're getting an
Speaker 1: email every single day. Delete them. You're not gonna miss out.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get You're not gonna miss out in
Speaker 1: the promo codes, who cares unless it's a company that
Speaker 1: you really need to order from. Often get rid of
Speaker 1: the emails. You can always go to simplycodes dot com
Speaker 1: and find a promo code there, or you can sign
Speaker 1: up for the newsletter again and they will send you
Speaker 1: a new promo code. But my wife, uh, I want
Speaker 1: to name names.
Speaker 2: Whoops.
Speaker 1: I look at a lot of people while they're checking
Speaker 1: their email over their shoulder, and I cannot believe the
Speaker 1: nonsense and garbage and trash that is in there, just
Speaker 1: clogging up their inbox. I get emails from all over
Speaker 1: the world every day, from all of you, and my
Speaker 1: inbox is pristine. Right now, I have thirty two messages
Speaker 1: in there. You know why, because I barely get any
Speaker 1: junk stuff. I've got my I've got my inbox down
Speaker 1: to a science. I even have a filter that when
Speaker 1: the word unsubscribe is in an email anywhere in there,
Speaker 1: if there's a non subscribe link, I get my it
Speaker 1: gets flagged the big red message that says unsubscribe eligible.
Speaker 1: I've set up a filter in Gmail to search for
Speaker 1: that word unsubscribe in a message, and then it flags
Speaker 1: it with that big giant label that says unsubscribe eligible
Speaker 1: and big red text, and that reminds me immediately that
Speaker 1: this is not a personal email. This is not something
Speaker 1: I need to have in my inbox. I can get
Speaker 1: rid of this and be off that list at any
Speaker 1: given time, and I do it often. I mean I'm
Speaker 1: talking often. I mean it's sad. I feel bad for
Speaker 1: these companies that I just I unsubscribe, Like sorry, yes,
Speaker 1: I bought a candle from your shop ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I don't need your email. Eighty eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. The website for the show rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. If you want those two book recommendations, I'll
Speaker 1: put him in the show notes. This is episode one
Speaker 1: twenty five. My name is rich Demiro. You are listening
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 2: That's eight eight eight.
Speaker 1: Seven four to two four one zero one. The website
Speaker 1: for the show Rich on tech dot TV. We got
Speaker 1: an email from Let's see here, Betsy from Gainesville, Georgia.
Speaker 1: My husband uses an Android volt strictly for phone calls.
Speaker 1: No apps, no web, no photos. Despite being on the
Speaker 1: Donut call registry, he still gets fifteen to twenty five
Speaker 1: spam calls a day. Burn that phone, Betsy, I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if he should get a new phone.
Speaker 2: Oh, she didn't say that. I did.
Speaker 1: He's wondering if he should get a new number. Is
Speaker 1: there a better way to stop these calls?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Number one, I am not familiar with the Android vault.
Speaker 1: What is the Android vault?
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a phone. There is no Android
Speaker 1: vault that I know of. But anyway, he's got an
Speaker 1: Android phone. Fifteen to twenty five spam calls a day
Speaker 1: is a lot, So there's a couple of things he
Speaker 1: could do. Number one, I would go into the phone
Speaker 1: app on this device and look for any call blocking
Speaker 1: or spam protection features, because a lot of Androids have
Speaker 1: these tools to silence suspected spam. Now, the other thing
Speaker 1: you can do, let me see, I thought at some
Speaker 1: point you could download the Google phone app. Let me
Speaker 1: see if that's still a possibility because they have built
Speaker 1: in spam protection. Okay, I'm on my Samsung Phone by Google.
Speaker 1: We're learning as we go along here on the show today,
Speaker 1: So I opened up this Okay, set as default phone.
Speaker 1: Can only start and receive calls if it's your default
Speaker 1: phone app.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, this is the magic of Android that you can
Speaker 1: literally change your phone app. Who would have thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just change it.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Let's see if it's got the spam protection settings. Yes
Speaker 2: it does. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Okay, Betsy, we just solved your problem. Go into the
Speaker 1: Google Play. Tell your husband to go into Google Play
Speaker 1: and you can download search for Google Phone. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me just make sure that comes upright Google Phone, and
Speaker 1: make sure it says phone by Google from Google LLC.
Speaker 2: Tap that.
Speaker 1: Install it. And then when you install it, you want
Speaker 1: to go into the settings.
Speaker 2: So let me find it. Here it is.
Speaker 1: Go tap the the three dots in the upper right
Speaker 1: hand corner. It says settings, caller ID and spam. Turn
Speaker 1: that on, identify businesses and spam numbers and there you go,
Speaker 1: and then you can even block numbers. Block. There you
Speaker 1: go block calls from unknown numbers, it'll automatically block high
Speaker 1: risk scam calls. Oh my gosh, this is like I
Speaker 1: didn't even realize they had this. I remember reading about
Speaker 1: I mean I did because clearly I said something, but
Speaker 1: it's been a while since I realized that you can
Speaker 1: actually download a new caller app. So if you're struggling
Speaker 1: with spam calls on your Android phone, try the phone
Speaker 1: app from Google. So that's number one. I would do that, Betsy,
Speaker 1: That'll probably help you out. The other thing you can
Speaker 1: do depending on the phone brand that you have, the
Speaker 1: cellular brand, or the cellular carrier you have, they all
Speaker 1: have their own call filter app. So T Mobile has
Speaker 1: scam shield at and T has something called Active Armor.
Speaker 1: Verizon has something called call Filter. So you can download
Speaker 1: those whatever whatever carrier you have, download that turn that on,
Speaker 1: and then they also have free apps that you can download.
Speaker 1: But sometimes people report with the free apps they actually
Speaker 1: get more spam calls. But I mean that who knows.
Speaker 1: But there's a couple brands here. I'm trying to see
Speaker 1: if they still have it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so hia h I y a.
Speaker 1: They've got some apps you can get Hya's spam Blocker
Speaker 1: Block spam and spam calls displays caller ID that may
Speaker 1: cost something, It may may have a cost involved in it,
Speaker 1: but that's another way to do it. And then True
Speaker 1: Caller is another app that some people like that can
Speaker 1: help you cut down on spam calls.
Speaker 2: So you got a lot of options there, Betsy.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need to get a new phone
Speaker 1: number if you try some of those, but that's what
Speaker 1: I'd recommend. I'll put it all linked up on my website.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv Susan, I love the radio show,
Speaker 1: but I'm too scared to call in. I have an
Speaker 1: iPhone fourteen plus and I keep getting an email that
Speaker 1: says your cloud storage iCloud space is full, and then
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of weird numbers and letters. I get
Speaker 1: a I get one of these every day. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: should I open it? And if so, what should I do? No,
Speaker 1: this is totally bogus. Yeah, that is totally bogus, Susan.
Speaker 1: You do not need to open that up. You do
Speaker 1: not need to worry about this. These scammers, what they
Speaker 1: do is they are trying to trick you into clicking
Speaker 1: a fake link that will will basically make you give
Speaker 1: up your personal information. You may log into iCloud, you
Speaker 1: may whatever it is. They're trying to trick you, and
Speaker 1: that's really what's happening here. So if you are truly
Speaker 1: concerned about your iCloud storage, number one, you'll know, oh,
Speaker 1: because your phone will tell you. You'll get a little
Speaker 1: pop up notification that says iCloud is full. They don't
Speaker 1: send a text to tell you that, as far as
Speaker 1: I know. But if you're worried about your iCloud storage
Speaker 1: and you want to check, you can go directly to
Speaker 1: the settings on your phone. Go to settings, tap your
Speaker 1: name at the top and you'll see it says iCloud.
Speaker 1: You tap that and it will say storage. Mine says
Speaker 1: one point four used of two terabytes. Oh, how am
Speaker 1: I using two terabytes of storage on iCloud. That's that's
Speaker 1: a lot. It's all because of my kids. A lot
Speaker 1: of that, let's see a lot of that is my
Speaker 1: family usage.
Speaker 2: No, it's all me. It's my iCloud drive.
Speaker 1: I've got eight hundred gigabytes in there and then four
Speaker 1: hundred gigs of backups. By the way, pro tip, if
Speaker 1: you're trying to free up space on your iCloud, look
Speaker 1: at your backups. Sometimes when you get a new phone,
Speaker 1: you actually have a couple of backups you do not
Speaker 1: need in there. So for instance, I'm looking at this,
Speaker 1: it's got my iPhone in here, but then it has
Speaker 1: my old iPhone that I do not need backed up.
Speaker 1: So keep in mind you can get rid of some
Speaker 1: of those sometimes and clear out space. Just be careful
Speaker 1: if you're deleting anything that you know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: But Susan, yeah, you can safely ignore those. It's unfortunate
Speaker 1: that these people do this, but yes they are. They're
Speaker 1: really trying to trick you. And by the way, on
Speaker 1: my Instagram at rich on Tech, I'm always posting people
Speaker 1: are forwarding me the latest greatest scam messages they're getting
Speaker 1: and I will break them down and kind of explain
Speaker 1: why they're a scam on my Instagram. So if you're
Speaker 1: not following me there at rich on Tech, follow me
Speaker 1: there for sure. All right, I've got a minute. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can get through another question, but
Speaker 1: I can. Oh, I can tell you about this app
Speaker 1: real quick in a minute. If you're looking for I'm
Speaker 1: a sucker for some of these apps that make your
Speaker 1: photos look really cool. I'm always jealous of people when
Speaker 1: they post like super cool looking photos to Instagram because
Speaker 1: I never really edit mine. But there's an app called
Speaker 1: west w e st. It's a photo app. It's like
Speaker 1: a camera app that makes your pictures look like old
Speaker 1: school film. And it's made by an independent developer college student.
Speaker 1: And it's only on iOS. But take pictures and it
Speaker 1: looks like film. It's so cool. It's got grain, light leaks,
Speaker 1: bloom glitches. It's totally free. If you want to upgrade
Speaker 1: for the pro features, it's eight dollars, but you don't
Speaker 1: need to do that.
Speaker 2: It's one time fee. But I took a picture in
Speaker 2: a bar the other night with this app.
Speaker 1: It looks so cool. I mean, it's just really really cool.
Speaker 1: So again, the app is called west w e st
Speaker 1: Camera App. Try it out. You are listening to Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. We are here at Apple's
Speaker 1: WWDC in the Apple Podcast Studios, and my guests are
Speaker 1: founders of a app that was used very much through
Speaker 1: the LA wildfires, and of course continues to be used
Speaker 1: to update folks on any sort of wildfires. John Mills
Speaker 1: and Dave Merritt are co founders of Watch Duty.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, Thanks for having us. Thank you
Speaker 2: so this app.
Speaker 1: The reason we're talking to you is you got an
Speaker 1: Apple Design Award for Social Impact and that is an
Speaker 1: understatement for this app. During the LA wildfires, pretty much
Speaker 1: every person in La I know downloaded this app.
Speaker 2: Can you explain what watch Duty is all about?
Speaker 4: Well, Watch Judy started out of the problem that folks
Speaker 4: in LA first encountered. There's not a lot of information
Speaker 4: when these disasters are striking. We've been doing this for
Speaker 4: about four years and so I live out in the
Speaker 4: woods and really experienced this problem firsthand, and it's been
Speaker 4: a growing issue. And then unfortunately La found out just
Speaker 4: why we exist in early January.
Speaker 1: How long had the app been around before these wildfires
Speaker 1: sort of thrust it to the forefront.
Speaker 4: Well, we started, David and I started writing software in
Speaker 4: May of twenty twenty one. We launched in August of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, and it's been growing ever since. And
Speaker 4: there's been plenty of fires that we've been covering and
Speaker 4: they're just not affecting massive communities, right, the effect our
Speaker 4: community is where we live out in the woods. But
Speaker 4: unfortunately La again found out just why we exist now and.
Speaker 1: What was the reason for creating the app. I mean
Speaker 1: you said it was just bringing the information to folks
Speaker 1: that need it.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I've been through a bunch of fires
Speaker 4: where there's no information.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: If a helicopter is over my head, flying in circles
Speaker 4: dropping water on a neighboring ranch with no alert and
Speaker 4: no warning, and you're just sitting there trying to figure
Speaker 4: out is this real? Is this happening? Why is this
Speaker 4: not being told to us? And so it turns out
Speaker 4: that is just the underlying problem that continues to happen honestly, And.
Speaker 1: Dave, how did you get the people to actually update
Speaker 1: this app? Like where's it getting this information from? Because
Speaker 1: the app presents on a map all the fires and
Speaker 1: then live updates about what's happening with those fires.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think something that's not always readily apparent is that
Speaker 5: there's a huge team of expert volunteers and paid staff
Speaker 5: that are doing this reporting, that are verifying and vetting
Speaker 5: with a code of conduct all of the potential new
Speaker 5: fire starts all of the updates about the fires. So
Speaker 5: you know, what you see in reports, what you see
Speaker 5: in push certifications around a new fire is really just
Speaker 5: the tip of what's happening behind the scenes with a
Speaker 5: big community of really concerned community members and paid staff
Speaker 5: that are trying to bring relevant and timely information to people.
Speaker 2: Well, who are these people that are doing this? And
Speaker 2: I know you have like volunteers and people, So.
Speaker 5: It all started as volunteers. You know, a lot of
Speaker 5: these people started out on Facebook and Twitter in their
Speaker 5: own communities kind of doing this dissemination of information, listening
Speaker 5: to radios, and a lot of what we did was
Speaker 5: build a platform for them to just do this in
Speaker 5: a better place.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: We we believe that these push notifications, these life like,
Speaker 5: potentially life altering notifications, shouldn't be kind of filtered in
Speaker 5: between your niece's birthday and the next ad you might
Speaker 5: get on another social media.
Speaker 2: So by giving them a platform.
Speaker 5: To do this, you know, we've allowed you know, X
Speaker 5: first like X firefighters, retired first responders kind of you know,
Speaker 5: radio enthusiasts, people that have been tracking fires for a
Speaker 5: long time to work together and collaborate as opposed to
Speaker 5: doing it independently and a place to share that in
Speaker 5: a really cohesive way in the application.
Speaker 2: How do you think the app did during the LA wildfires.
Speaker 4: Well, and we were number one app in the abstor nationwide.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately Dave and the team and I was I used
Speaker 4: to be an engineer, so I pretend to be useful
Speaker 4: when that stuff happens. But you know, Dave and the engineers,
Speaker 4: we're sleeping in shifts. You know, we're doing one hundred
Speaker 4: thousand requests a second, which is twice what Wikipedia does
Speaker 4: with a team of four engineers at the time. And
Speaker 4: so you know, I'm making phone calls to you know,
Speaker 4: our donors and vendors, whether at Schoogle, Apple Book, a
Speaker 4: HEROICU salesforce and others who are giving us infrastructure to
Speaker 4: keep this thing up. And then they you know, the
Speaker 4: reporters themselves listening to radios day and night. Right we're
Speaker 4: door toashing them food, We're trying to get them to
Speaker 4: go to sleep, and others are stepping in for them.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was an all hands on deck, you
Speaker 4: know event for probably two weeks, I'd say, to not
Speaker 4: sleep right for probably about a month after that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was very humbling.
Speaker 5: You know, it's like you build these things for potential
Speaker 5: scenarios like this, you see it in action and it's
Speaker 5: staggering to see the impact. I never imagined when John
Speaker 5: and I were developing this thing as a group of
Speaker 5: volunteers that ten million people would be using it in
Speaker 5: a week and a lot of life altering kind of
Speaker 5: decision making points. Just seeing the numbers roll by. Honestly,
Speaker 5: during the actual thing, it was like John said, all
Speaker 5: hands on deck.
Speaker 2: I wasn't.
Speaker 5: I didn't really have enough time for the daydreaming about impact.
Speaker 5: But afterwards it was very humbling and very rewarding to
Speaker 5: see kind of that we were able to help people
Speaker 5: in those moments of you know, real real stress and panic.
Speaker 1: Now this is sort of set up as a nonprofit,
Speaker 1: but the app, can you explain that relationship between you
Speaker 1: asked for donations and I'm sure people came through during
Speaker 1: the fires, but can you explain that side of the
Speaker 1: app because it's a little unique compared to most apps.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's actually very simple. We're just a nonprofit organization,
Speaker 4: so there's no you know, there's no other strange things
Speaker 4: going on. A parent company and a for profit nonprofit
Speaker 4: is just a nonprofit organization, similar to like AARP and
Speaker 4: Triple A and other nonprofits are just a nonprofit that
Speaker 4: provide a service. And so it's actually much more straightforward
Speaker 4: than one would think. I just think that with a
Speaker 4: world of open AI, people like, what's the catch here,
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, there isn't a catch, which is kind
Speaker 4: of hard for people to believe, right, But like, we
Speaker 4: live in this community, it is important to us that
Speaker 4: this stays the same, it stays independent and doesn't change.
Speaker 4: And frankly, all of us through work at Watch Duty,
Speaker 4: use the thing every day just like everyone else does.
Speaker 2: Can you give me an idea of where it's available.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're currently in twenty two states. When we first started,
Speaker 4: it was just in three counties in California. The next
Speaker 4: year was all of California. That I was I think
Speaker 4: six or seven states, then ten, now twenty two, and
Speaker 4: we're trying to make it all the way across the
Speaker 4: East coast. And then we're going to be launching our
Speaker 4: flood monitoring and other programs for other natural disasters.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're going to do that's next? Is flood monitoring.
Speaker 4: Any natural disaster? Really is our purview, right, So if
Speaker 4: there's unseen danger that you can't see or get information about,
Speaker 4: we want to be there to help.
Speaker 5: Like John mentioned, I think what we're really looking at
Speaker 5: now is deepening our product around fire and continue to
Speaker 5: be the best that there is there, but also realizing
Speaker 5: that you know, a lot of disasters people have that
Speaker 5: same problem of what I do? Where do I go
Speaker 5: to get good information to help me make decisions during
Speaker 5: these moments unpacking the car and these figure like do
Speaker 5: I leave the house, do I stay? Do I go
Speaker 5: get my grandmother? So that problem exists everywhere. So we're
Speaker 5: seeing where we fit into the rest of the ecosystem
Speaker 5: around natural disasters to help people out.
Speaker 1: Now, you guys got the Apple Design Award for Social
Speaker 1: Impact for It's especially the help during the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five California wildfires. What does this mean to you to
Speaker 1: get this award for this app?
Speaker 5: It's a big honor, you know, it's it's really you know,
Speaker 5: I think more about the community of people that did
Speaker 5: this reporting than the app itself. You know, the app
Speaker 5: is again this like the visible aspect, But you know,
Speaker 5: we wouldn't be here accepting this reward if it wasn't
Speaker 5: for what the reporters did and all the time and
Speaker 5: effort that that's really a whole nonprofit put into it.
Speaker 2: What about people that want to get involved? Can people
Speaker 2: get involved in if they want to be a reporter
Speaker 2: for their area?
Speaker 4: They do, And we find a lot of volunteers. I
Speaker 4: mean watchdidty dot org, slash volunteers where people show up
Speaker 4: and and bring the skills whether it's you know your
Speaker 4: engineer or you're a radio operator x firefighter. So we
Speaker 4: have lots of people who show up for us and
Speaker 4: join the band and make this thing bigger and bigger
Speaker 4: and more powerful. What's on the horizon for Watch Judy, Well,
Speaker 4: I think what's interesting is, like, you know, we it's
Speaker 4: a shame that we're so popular, right, And so what
Speaker 4: we've come to realize is that first responders and governments,
Speaker 4: telecommunication companies, power companies are also relying on watch duty.
Speaker 4: So we have a business to business and business to
Speaker 4: government arm where we're able to sell them more features
Speaker 4: which allow them to get better situational awareness, and then
Speaker 4: all that money goes to support the nonprofit operations. So
Speaker 4: we're trying to do is actually build a healthy nonprofit
Speaker 4: that can stand on it zone two feet and really
Speaker 4: be a help to those who serve us.
Speaker 2: And so anything you learn from this that you can
Speaker 2: share with people that might have an idea for an app.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think for you know, young developers or people
Speaker 4: building apps, like, focusing on value creation is all that matters. Right,
Speaker 4: Like people look at us and they say nonprofit for profit,
Speaker 4: what's this? What's that? I'm like, you're missing the point.
Speaker 4: The point is how do you create an immense amount
Speaker 4: of value for people that really need it? Right, So,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of apps that are copycats, there's very
Speaker 4: few that are original and focusing on original ideas and
Speaker 4: focusing on your customer humanity for in our case, right
Speaker 4: like all humans on earth, and so we didn't really
Speaker 4: worry about money. We worried about impact and how do
Speaker 4: we make a difference.
Speaker 1: John Mills and Dave Merrick, co founders of the app
Speaker 1: watch Duty. It is available in the app Store and
Speaker 1: the website watchduty dot org.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me today, Thank you for
Speaker 2: having us. Thank you.
Speaker 1: More rich on Tech coming your way right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology. The website for the show
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot TV. Before we get to the feedback,
Speaker 1: just a couple of two more items of note number one.
Speaker 1: There's a great app called Voice Notes Voice Nototes dot Com.
Speaker 1: I've been using this since day one. It continues to
Speaker 1: get better and better. Think of this as a notepad
Speaker 1: but AI powered, and it's also dictation based, or you
Speaker 1: can write in notes as well. So now they have
Speaker 1: their first they have their first app for the Mac computer,
Speaker 1: Windows coming soon, but they've got them for Android, they
Speaker 1: got them for iPhone, they've got a web app.
Speaker 2: It's really great.
Speaker 1: And what I use this as is sort of a
Speaker 1: voice memo app, transcription tool, memory bank, like all in one.
Speaker 1: So what I really use it for is when people
Speaker 1: tell me stuff about themselves, I put it in here
Speaker 1: so I remember. And then the best part is you
Speaker 1: can use AI to ask later about your notes. So
Speaker 1: you can say, tell me everything I know about John, right,
Speaker 1: if you know you work with John, or he's a salesperson,
Speaker 1: whatever you do business with them, mentions he got a
Speaker 1: couple of kids going off to college. You can, you know,
Speaker 1: just dictate all this information in here or whatever. Just
Speaker 1: you can apply it to any aspect of your life.
Speaker 1: But really really cool. They've got voice notes, meeting recorder,
Speaker 1: AI summarizer ask AI and it's really really cool. Definitely
Speaker 1: check it out. It's called Voicenotes dot com. They just
Speaker 1: came out with their MacApp. I'm a big believer, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. The other thing to do is there's
Speaker 1: an article from the Intelligence dot com about how to
Speaker 1: upgrade unsupported Windows ten PCs to Windows eleven. They basically
Speaker 1: talk about using a tool called rufus that can help
Speaker 1: you bypass the official requirements we've talked about, like the
Speaker 1: TPM Secure Boot four g four gigabytes a RAM. Now
Speaker 1: this a little techier than this show gets. But if
Speaker 1: you're trying to upgrade an unsupported Windows PC to Windows eleven,
Speaker 1: try it out. I mean, it's a great step by
Speaker 1: step guide. I'll put on the website at Richontech dot tv.
Speaker 2: Now for the feedback.
Speaker 1: Bill from Kingston, Pennsylvania writes in, Hey, rich just a
Speaker 1: heads up. The little light bulb at the top of
Speaker 1: your rich On Tech website isn't working. I try to
Speaker 1: on chromin Edge cleared cookies, it still leads to a
Speaker 1: blank page. Is there another way to see past episodes.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy the weekly podcasts bill. The light bulb
Speaker 1: has been removed and now it is replaced with episodes.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a little bit clearer for people.
Speaker 1: So if you want to listen to a past episode
Speaker 1: or get links to anything I mentioned, just tap episodes
Speaker 1: up at the top of the list.
Speaker 2: Let's go to uh, let's see here.
Speaker 1: Mike from California writes in thanks for your tip in
Speaker 1: your email about the AT and T Senior Plan. I
Speaker 1: chatted with an AT and T rep and in order
Speaker 1: to get that discount, you can only have up to
Speaker 1: two lines on your account. It's actually forty five dollars
Speaker 1: per line. If you have three, like I do. That
Speaker 1: is correct, Mike. The forty dollars monthly rate only applies
Speaker 1: to two lines max. It's still a pretty good discount.
Speaker 1: This is the new AT and T fifty five plus
Speaker 1: Senior Plan. If you have two lines, it's actually thirty
Speaker 1: five dollars a month. Forty dollars is for the one line.
Speaker 1: So if you've got that, if you're on any other
Speaker 1: plan with AT and T and you're a senior citizen,
Speaker 1: definitely Why does senior citizens sound so old? Fifty five
Speaker 1: plus is not that old, but senior plan a fifty
Speaker 1: five plus plan, let's call it. But anyway, a lot
Speaker 1: of people wrote to me saying they requested that plan
Speaker 1: from AT and T. It's brand new, so I would
Speaker 1: jump on it if you can. It'll save you a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Steve from Scranton, Pennsylvania, listening on WTRWFM
Speaker 1: rights in that call you had about hacking Windows eleven
Speaker 1: onto an old computer, way too technical and too long
Speaker 1: for your audience. In my opinion, I keep it shorter
Speaker 1: and just point people to search online for those kinds
Speaker 1: of instructions. Steve, great point. Yes it got a little Techye.
Speaker 1: I allowed it to go because I was impressed at
Speaker 1: the caller's knowledge and getting this out there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I told you about the the intelligence dot com unsupported
Speaker 1: Windows upgrade and that's.
Speaker 2: Just as easy. So I'll put that on the website.
Speaker 1: Jay writes in let's see. A wonderful website for searching
Speaker 1: family history is FamilySearch dot org. It's completely free and
Speaker 1: it's the largest family history database in the world. Also
Speaker 1: connected to the site are hundreds of family family search
Speaker 1: centers around the globe with volunteers who can help people
Speaker 1: build out their family tree FamilySearch dot org.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go.
Speaker 1: Another website suggested by Jay moving right along Neil from Ohio,
Speaker 1: oh I should have grouped this in with the earlier person.
Speaker 1: I just heard your amazing caller talk about MBR to
Speaker 1: GBT GPT.
Speaker 2: Great tip.
Speaker 1: I recently got a refurbished laptop with Windows ten and
Speaker 1: noticed a couple of things during the upgrade process. First,
Speaker 1: Windows Update offered me an older version of Windows eleven.
Speaker 1: I skipped that and check the optional update section, and
Speaker 1: sure enough I had the most recent official version, which
Speaker 1: I installed.
Speaker 2: Also, while my system was.
Speaker 1: Already using GPT, secure boot wasn't enabled, Windows warned me
Speaker 1: that some security features wouldn't work unless I turned it on,
Speaker 1: so I did. Feels like Windows eleven is evolving in
Speaker 1: some strange ways.
Speaker 2: I love your show. I look forward to it every week.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Neil.
Speaker 1: See you know it just goes to show we've got
Speaker 1: a wide range of folks on this show. Tom from
Speaker 1: more Park writes in hey, Rich, I saw your newsletter
Speaker 1: mention of just watch. Great recommendation. I use that site,
Speaker 1: along with Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb to find where movies
Speaker 1: and shows are streaming, whether free or paid. But I've
Speaker 1: also got a new site to share Next dash episode
Speaker 1: dot net. It's been super helpful for tracking when new
Speaker 1: episodes drop. You can build a custom calendar with only
Speaker 1: the shows you're watching, and it will show you exactly
Speaker 1: what airs and when. For anyone juggling multiple streaming shows,
Speaker 1: this is a game changer. Wow, Tom, that is That's
Speaker 1: a good one. Next dash Episode dot Net. Unfortunately, with
Speaker 1: my timeframes of watching shows, I basically can binge them
Speaker 1: when the entire season's done, after like four seasons of
Speaker 1: the show, because I just don't have that much time
Speaker 1: to watch TV.
Speaker 2: But if you do, that sounds like a great thing
Speaker 2: to do. Let's see here, Okay.
Speaker 1: Guy from mar Vista writes in thanks for your piece
Speaker 1: about the wise old camera with the lens oh telescopic lens.
Speaker 1: It was exactly what I needed for my outdoor camera
Speaker 1: fixture and it works great. I love your segment on
Speaker 1: KTLA and KFI. Keep up the great work keeping us
Speaker 1: consumers informed.
Speaker 2: Thank you guy.
Speaker 1: And then we've got let's see here a couple of
Speaker 1: Carol from San Fernando. Thanks for your tech tips. I
Speaker 1: wanted to share feedback on my experience using whisper Flow. Sadly,
Speaker 1: it's no better than the built in Apple Mic. I
Speaker 1: was hoping for something more accurate. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: report my unsatisfactory experience with the flow app and hope
Speaker 1: better solutions are coming.
Speaker 2: Carol, I think you have the wrong app.
Speaker 1: It's whisper wispr Flow, and it is the best voice
Speaker 1: to text dictation I've ever seen on the iPhone.
Speaker 2: I think you downloaded the wrong app.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, because it is definitely better than the
Speaker 1: built in Apple Mic and you will experience that in
Speaker 1: just one try. Rain from California says hey, Rich, thanks
Speaker 1: for the tip on whisper Flow. I'm using my Microsoft
Speaker 1: Surface tablet and just like you said, it works seamlessly.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: There you go see and uh, Steve writes in I
Speaker 1: have a form of als and my speech is affected.
Speaker 1: Siri has done an okay job, but whisper flow is
Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent accurate. It is by far the
Speaker 1: best dictation software I've ever tried, and I am so
Speaker 1: grateful to have found it. Thank you one hundred times
Speaker 1: over for telling me about it.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: It's whisper flow wispr flow on the iPhone. It'll change
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 2: That's going to do it.
Speaker 1: For this episode links to everything I mentioned on my
Speaker 1: website rich on Tech dot TV, follow me on social
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech. Next week we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to Mollie Defrank about her two week tech reset for kids,
Speaker 1: and the CEO of Clicks is going to talk about
Speaker 1: their keyboard case. Thanks so much for listening. There are
Speaker 1: so many ways you can spend your time. I really
Speaker 1: do appreciate you spending it right here with me. One reminder,
Speaker 1: please do not text and drive. Whatever it is, it
Speaker 1: can wait. It's not just for your safety, but for
Speaker 1: the safety of everyone around us, including our kids, which
Speaker 1: will soon be driving. Thanks to everyone who makes this
Speaker 1: show possible. Adam on the board today, Kim on the phones,
Speaker 1: I know we had some issues with the phone lines today.
Speaker 1: In case that wasn't clear, I can tell you at
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 2: Now it's over.
Speaker 1: Thanks for hanging with me Kim today. My name is
Speaker 1: rich Demiro. I will talk to you real soon.