Speaker 1: Y US intelligence officials are urging Americans to use encrypted
Speaker 1: communications and what does that really mean? The AI powered
Speaker 1: glasses that bring the world to life with real time
Speaker 1: closed captions, the app that transforms your old photos into
Speaker 1: dynamic video clips. Plus your tech questions answered? What's going
Speaker 1: on richdmiro And this is Rich on Tech. This is
Speaker 1: the show where I talk about the tech stuff I
Speaker 1: think you should know about. It's also the place where
Speaker 1: I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech
Speaker 1: should be interesting, useful and fun. Let's open up those
Speaker 1: phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Give me a call if you have a
Speaker 1: question about technology. Email is also an option. Just go
Speaker 1: to Rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact. Guests
Speaker 1: this week include Coinbases Philip Martin. He's going to share
Speaker 1: tips on avoiding online scams and protecting your crypto assets.
Speaker 1: Then we've got Rob Gelick from Yahoo Male. He's gonna
Speaker 1: stop by to talk about some of the new features
Speaker 1: they're adding to the service. And I'm going to have
Speaker 1: him address the whole transitioning from Cox Email and all
Speaker 1: these other providers that Yahoo mal now handles.
Speaker 2: You can understand that.
Speaker 1: And then we've got the Vergess smart home expert Jennifer Twey.
Speaker 1: She is going to talk about matter, the new universal
Speaker 1: standard for connected devices. Well, I hope you are having
Speaker 1: a fantastic weekend back in the saddle here. It is
Speaker 1: the holiday slide, as I call it. We have been busy.
Speaker 1: I am sure you have been busy as well. It's funny.
Speaker 1: The holidays are supposed to be a relaxing time, but
Speaker 1: I feel like for a lot of people, they're very stressful.
Speaker 1: You know, you're talking to a lot of people, you're
Speaker 1: seeing family, there's a lot of events that are out
Speaker 1: late at night, and then you're dragging into work in
Speaker 1: the morning. So it's all this stuff that kind of
Speaker 1: comes together. And by the way, it's six season. My
Speaker 1: wife was like, why does the holiday season have to
Speaker 1: be during the sick time. We've got a couple of
Speaker 1: sick people in our house right now. I'm like the
Speaker 1: last band standing, always like everyone's coughing around me and
Speaker 1: this and that, and I'm just like, please don't get this, please,
Speaker 1: So I take my vitamins and that's the best I
Speaker 1: can do, I guess, right. But anyway, happy holidays to you.
Speaker 1: Hope you're having a great season. And I'm sure you
Speaker 1: heard the news about this whole idea of this China
Speaker 1: spying on us with the text messages and the networks
Speaker 1: that we have here. Apparently they've gotten some of the
Speaker 1: sensitive information that we exchange on a daily basis. Of course,
Speaker 1: this is still under investigation, but you've probably seen the
Speaker 1: headlines where US intelligence officials are urging Americans to use
Speaker 1: encrypted communications. Now, before you say I've got nothing a hide,
Speaker 1: I don't need to worry about this stuff. I'll address
Speaker 1: that towards the end. But let me explain what this
Speaker 1: all means. So first off, you know, anytime you're communicating,
Speaker 1: communicating via email or via text message or browsing the web,
Speaker 1: you've probably heard of the term encryption, right or encrypted.
Speaker 1: There's several flavors of encryption. The most prevalent is well
Speaker 1: number one, no encryption. That's just plain text. That means
Speaker 1: if I wrote wrote something on a piece of paper
Speaker 1: and just handed it to you, you could easily read that,
Speaker 1: no problem, right. And I think we're going to imagine
Speaker 1: all this stuff as kind of sending a letter to
Speaker 1: someone so that you can understand it very easily as
Speaker 1: I can so imagine. No encryption is writing your message
Speaker 1: on a postcard, right you put it in the mailbox.
Speaker 1: Anyone that comes across that postcard can read that message
Speaker 1: because it is out in the open. Then you've got
Speaker 1: your basic encryption. And this means that your letter is
Speaker 1: now in an envelope, but it has a pretty unique
Speaker 1: lock on it, right, and only someone with that lock
Speaker 1: can unlock it and read that message. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If we're talking about email or your provider, they probably
Speaker 1: have the key to that. So if the post office
Speaker 1: wanted to open up your letter and see what's inside,
Speaker 1: they could do it right because you just seal it
Speaker 1: with a lick and an envelope and it's very easily sealed.
Speaker 1: So that's basic encryption. Anyone that's seeing the letter or
Speaker 1: the envelope, they're not seeing what's inside that envelope. But
Speaker 1: people have the ability to open up that envelope and
Speaker 1: see what's in there. But of course, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about encryption, you'd have to have a key. Then you
Speaker 1: have what you really want is what's called end to
Speaker 1: end encryption. So imagine you take that same letter, you
Speaker 1: put it in an envelope, and then you sort of
Speaker 1: put this secret, super duper lock on that envelope that
Speaker 1: not even the post office who's handling this thing can
Speaker 1: unlock and read. And so that's really the type of
Speaker 1: encryption that you want for your messaging and your email.
Speaker 1: But as I'm gonna explain, that's not necessarily.
Speaker 2: What we get. And so that is what we want.
Speaker 1: So what are you getting when you are doing I Message,
Speaker 1: and this is messages between Apple devices. They do offer
Speaker 1: end to end encryption, and Apple has been a big
Speaker 1: proponent of privacy, and this turns out to be a
Speaker 1: very good thing because the millions upon millions of messages
Speaker 1: that are sent on a daily basis through I Message
Speaker 1: are all encrypted. That's when you see a blue bubble. However,
Speaker 1: if you're sending to a non Apple device, say an
Speaker 1: Android device, those are not encrypted. And I'll talk about
Speaker 1: that more in a second here. Now, when you're sending
Speaker 1: Android to Android, Android just recently got this upgrade to
Speaker 1: what's called RCS Rich Communication Services, and Google does encrypt
Speaker 1: that end to end, which means, if you ever notice,
Speaker 1: if you're texting an Android friend and you're on an Android,
Speaker 1: you'll notice there's a little lock next to your message,
Speaker 1: and that means that your message is end to end encrypted.
Speaker 1: That means that no one, not even Google, can read
Speaker 1: the message that you are sending to that other person.
Speaker 1: Not the person, not the wireless provider, not your phone company,
Speaker 1: no one. No one can read that message, just the
Speaker 1: person on the other end. Now here's where it gets
Speaker 1: a little challenging when you're talking about cross platform messaging
Speaker 1: and group texts. Typically, group texts are not encrypted, especially
Speaker 1: if they involve a mix of iPhone and Android. And
Speaker 1: then when you're sending between those platforms, so iPhone to Android,
Speaker 1: Android to iPhone, those are not encrypted either. Now iPhone
Speaker 1: recently got that upgrade to RCS, so yes, you can
Speaker 1: send big photos and files and see the typing indicators
Speaker 1: when you text someone that's on Android. But Apple did
Speaker 1: not implement the end to end encryption protocol that they
Speaker 1: could do. So this is something that Apple could do
Speaker 1: if they wanted to, but it's something they have not
Speaker 1: done yet. So just remember, if your same platform, same platform,
Speaker 1: it's going to be encrypted. Cross platform group message is
Speaker 1: probably not encrypted. Now what can you do if you
Speaker 1: want your messages to be the most secure, Well, you
Speaker 1: can switch to an app that is encrypted and to
Speaker 1: end by default, and there are two prominent apps that
Speaker 1: do this. The first is Signal. This is something that's
Speaker 1: predominantly used by sort of people in the no journalists,
Speaker 1: high ranking officials. They all know about Signal, And maybe
Speaker 1: you have a techie in your family that's tried to
Speaker 1: convince you to switch to Signal, but good luck getting
Speaker 1: anyone in your family to switch to any third party
Speaker 1: messaging app.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So, Signal is end to end encrypted, it is all
Speaker 1: secure by default. Another app that is also secure by
Speaker 1: default is WhatsApp, and WhatsApp has always been end to
Speaker 1: end encrypted, which is super private, and that's on by
Speaker 1: default for all messages. However, this is owned by Facebook,
Speaker 1: which some people may not like. They bought WhatsApp. They
Speaker 1: didn't create WhatsApp, they did purchase it. And also Facebook
Speaker 1: does collect some metadata, so just because they can't read
Speaker 1: your messages doesn't mean that they don't know who you're
Speaker 1: sending them to and some other information surrounding them. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some other messaging apps out there, like Telegram
Speaker 1: that's a popular messaging app, and yes, they offer end
Speaker 1: to end encryption, but you have to toggle it on
Speaker 1: for every single chat that you want end to end
Speaker 1: encryption on. That means that if you're not doing that,
Speaker 1: Telegram can pretty much access the information inside your messages
Speaker 1: if they wanted to. I'm not saying they're reading them all,
Speaker 1: but you know they could. And that also potentially means
Speaker 1: that someone else could access the information of those messages.
Speaker 1: Facebook Messenger is also another popular messaging app. They also
Speaker 1: provide end to end encryption, but again you have to
Speaker 1: do it on a case by case basis, so you
Speaker 1: have to manually enable it. They call it secret Conversations.
Speaker 1: Telegram calls it secret chats. So your standard messages on
Speaker 1: both of these services are not end to end encrypted.
Speaker 1: So you might be seeing that these are encrypted, but
Speaker 1: it's not end to end encrypted. So what does this
Speaker 1: all mean for you? You know, you have to understand
Speaker 1: the limitations of these services. So if you're using something
Speaker 1: like I Message shirt, it's encrypted, US an RCS shirt,
Speaker 1: it's encrypted. If you're using a third party app, it
Speaker 1: may not be encrypted. And it's really tough to get
Speaker 1: friends and family to switch to one app where everything
Speaker 1: is secure. Now here's the big argument I get from people.
Speaker 1: They say, Rich, I've got nothing to hide. Why do
Speaker 1: I need my information encrypted? I don't need encryption. I'm
Speaker 1: not hiding anything. I'm not doing anything wrong, and I
Speaker 1: don't care who sees my messages. And that is one
Speaker 1: hundred percent wrong. Now, I'm not going to say that
Speaker 1: what your thought process is wrong, but I think it's flawed.
Speaker 1: And here's the reason. Why have you ever taken someone
Speaker 1: aside at work and said, hey, can we chat for
Speaker 1: a second? And you know that that conversation is private?
Speaker 2: Right? We do this all the time with people.
Speaker 1: We chat with them, we talk to them, and we
Speaker 1: have an understanding that what we are saying to that
Speaker 1: person is private and it's not being recorded, and it's
Speaker 1: not being shared and it's not public. Could you imagine
Speaker 1: not having that ever online?
Speaker 4: Ever?
Speaker 1: So Number One, privacy as a fundamental right. Privacy should
Speaker 1: be a fundamental right of humans, especially as tech takes
Speaker 1: over more aspects of our lives.
Speaker 2: Misuse.
Speaker 1: Think about how much information you share in your messages
Speaker 1: and in your email on a daily basis. I mean
Speaker 1: it's medical information, it's a password that you share with
Speaker 1: a friend or a family member. There are one time
Speaker 1: codes that help you access your accounts. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so much information that we share on a daily basis
Speaker 1: that would you want that out there on the front
Speaker 1: page of the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 1: Even if it's something that's innocent, you probably don't want
Speaker 1: it out there. And just in general, when you talk
Speaker 1: about democracy, you know, we don't want to be in
Speaker 1: a surveillance society, do we? I mean don't you want
Speaker 1: to have the ability to protect what you say to
Speaker 1: someone else, no matter how you're communicating with them, and
Speaker 1: that includes your online communications. So imagine a US where
Speaker 1: they said, no, you know what, encryption is illegal, you
Speaker 1: can't encrypt your messages. How would you feel about that?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not good. So please don't use the argument that
Speaker 1: says I have nothing to hide, I don't need encryption,
Speaker 1: because that really really, uh, it just affects me in
Speaker 1: a way that like, hold on, you're not understanding the
Speaker 1: entire side of this. By the way, when you email,
Speaker 1: if you're using Gmail or any other email program, it's
Speaker 1: encrypted in transit, but it's not typically end to end encrypted.
Speaker 1: If you want your email to be fully encrypted, you
Speaker 1: have to use a service that offers that something like
Speaker 1: a proton mail. All right eight eight eight rich one
Speaker 1: O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. The website rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Your call is coming up next. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at Triple eight rich one oh one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two.
Speaker 2: Four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Feels good to be back in here this week. I
Speaker 1: don't even can I say that last week was a repeat?
Speaker 2: Why not? You know what it's done?
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, I get a couple of times a
Speaker 1: year where I can do a show that's sort of
Speaker 1: a best of show, and last week after a holiday
Speaker 1: was one of those shows. So everyone had off. Bobo
Speaker 1: had off, Kim had off, I had off. Who didn't
Speaker 1: have off? I think everyone had off? So that was
Speaker 1: really nice. Did you enjoy your time off?
Speaker 2: Bobo?
Speaker 1: Adam didn't have off. Adam didn't have Adam. Adam had
Speaker 1: to do the show. So but he did a good job.
Speaker 1: We were in good hands. So you know, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where it feels good to have that
Speaker 1: time off.
Speaker 2: I did have a good time off. Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 2: I had a chance to help my wife with her
Speaker 2: side venture. And yeah, she does the candles. Yeah, she
Speaker 2: makes candles.
Speaker 1: What's her it's it's on Instagram in the aura, in
Speaker 1: the Aura. Yeah she does. You gave me a couple
Speaker 1: last year and they smell great. And we have the
Speaker 1: room spray too, which is really nice.
Speaker 2: I am my kid.
Speaker 1: Actually, Parker has like taken a liking to like straightening
Speaker 1: up the house. And when he's done straightening everything up,
Speaker 1: and he does a really great job. He does little
Speaker 1: sprits of the stuff. It's it's great. Uh let's go
Speaker 1: to uh Eleana in Berkeley, California.
Speaker 2: You're on with Rich har Rich.
Speaker 5: It's going to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what can I help you with that?
Speaker 5: I love your show.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: I am really frustrated because I have at Mobile and
Speaker 5: I pay for the forty gig and I know they
Speaker 5: says it slows down after the.
Speaker 3: Forty gig youth.
Speaker 5: I'm currently don't have a wireless because I'm you know,
Speaker 5: just paying off debt, you know, trying to get rid
Speaker 5: of before I add another bill in my life blows down.
Speaker 5: This this unlimited and I also pay them up front too.
Speaker 5: I paid them like the whole year in advance, and
Speaker 5: this thing starts slowing down at the two week mark
Speaker 5: and a buffers terribly. And I just feel like it's
Speaker 5: like if your test that decided the buff wrap for
Speaker 5: five hundred bucks and you couldn't accept rate. I just
Speaker 5: don't think it's fair. It's almost a deal breaker.
Speaker 2: So do you notice it?
Speaker 1: So? Number one, have you looked at your have you
Speaker 1: done a speed test on your phone?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: No, okay, So what I would do is I would
Speaker 1: download an app called Meteor met eo R okay, like
Speaker 1: the like the Comet or like a you know, Heavenly body,
Speaker 1: the Meteor app, and then I turn off your Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: You don't have Wi Fi at home? You said, right?
Speaker 4: Not?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so you're running everything through this mint Mobile plan.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Now I have mint Mobile on a test line and
Speaker 1: I use it, and I okay, so I will tell
Speaker 1: you I definitely notice a little bit of buffering and
Speaker 1: a little bit of a slower connection than my standard
Speaker 1: like ninety dollars a month Horizon connection.
Speaker 2: But you know you have to give and you take.
Speaker 1: You know, mint Mobile is significantly less, and you know
Speaker 1: the thing is you're paying for that forty But what
Speaker 1: they don't guarantee necessarily is the speed on that now
Speaker 1: you should get it. For the most part, let's see
Speaker 1: if we can find their broadband. They have this thing
Speaker 1: called Broadband Facts for Mint Mobile, which tells you what
Speaker 1: your speed is supposed to be. So if we look
Speaker 1: at this unlimited that's thirty dollars a month, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to get typical download speeds of seventy nine to three
Speaker 1: point fifty seven and then typical upload of six to
Speaker 1: thirty And that's actually across all their plans no matter what.
Speaker 1: But they also have a network management policy, and so
Speaker 1: that is what they reserve the right to slow down
Speaker 1: your services. And so if you're using a ton of
Speaker 1: data in a place that's very congested, they could slow
Speaker 1: down your data to help other people make sure that
Speaker 1: they get their access. And by the way, also one
Speaker 1: of the big things about these prepaid plans that people
Speaker 1: don't realize is that they are they are limiting your
Speaker 1: video quality as well. So you're getting SD video quality
Speaker 1: no matter what. You can never get HD video quality.
Speaker 1: So you know, that is a big thing that you
Speaker 1: have to take into consideration. If you're streaming a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff on Netflix. According to mint Mobile. They're limiting
Speaker 1: your streaming to one point five megabits per second, and
Speaker 1: so that's for ADP, which is basically SD quality. So
Speaker 1: you have to know, you know, if you're looking at Instagram,
Speaker 1: you're watching reels and all that kind of stuff, like,
Speaker 1: it could be slower. But what I would recommend is
Speaker 1: to kind of monitor this. So Number one, on your
Speaker 1: smartphone itself, there is a way to reset your cellular data.
Speaker 1: So go into your settings, look under cellular and you
Speaker 1: can reset. It says cellular usage statistics on the iPhone.
Speaker 1: You can press reset statistics and that will start keeping
Speaker 1: track of how much cellular you are using. So I
Speaker 1: do that, and then I would do the speed test
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the month, when your bill cycle starts,
Speaker 1: do a speed test and see what speed you're getting,
Speaker 1: and that will tell you if you're actually being slowed
Speaker 1: down or not. And make sure your WiFi is turned
Speaker 1: off on your phone. You don't want to be on
Speaker 1: your Wi Fi. So for instance, right now, I'm just
Speaker 1: getting twenty two megabits per second on this phone. And
Speaker 1: this is on a big Verizon plan, so it depends
Speaker 1: where you are as well. So I would do that
Speaker 1: do the test a couple times a month, once at
Speaker 1: the beginning, once in the middle, once at the end,
Speaker 1: and see if you're getting a completely different speed. And
Speaker 1: the program will log those speeds as well, so you
Speaker 1: can look at your history and see what your speeds were.
Speaker 2: But that's what I would do to kind of see
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 1: But Elena, I use the mid Mobile, and you know,
Speaker 1: for the price, I really don't think it can be be.
Speaker 1: I think they have a pretty good service for the
Speaker 1: price you're paying. And I love that you're paying off
Speaker 1: the debt and you're trying to, you know, save the money,
Speaker 1: so you know, you got to give some, you got
Speaker 1: to take some, and I think you're you're taking a
Speaker 1: little bit right now. Eighty eight rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. The phone line is eighty
Speaker 1: to eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. We'll get back
Speaker 1: to the calls in just a moment here after our guest.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: I've made it a little bit easier to keep up
Speaker 1: with the show notes. You can scroll down on the
Speaker 1: page this is show number one hundred. Oh wow, look
Speaker 1: at that Crisp one hundred dollars bill. We've got show
Speaker 1: number one hundred. And you can also hit the light
Speaker 1: bulb at the top. There we go, and you can
Speaker 1: get the show notes in live time. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you follow the news this week, but I was
Speaker 1: in Disneyland and I don't know why, but I've just
Speaker 1: been checking the bitcoin price because it's been kind of
Speaker 1: like wild lately, and all of a sudden it hit.
Speaker 1: It crossed one hundred thousand dollars, and you know, my
Speaker 1: kids all into it and everything, so we were all
Speaker 1: just like, oh my gosh. And then I run into
Speaker 1: a friend at Disneyland. It was like an event night,
Speaker 1: and he's a big bitcoin guy, and I was like, Rob,
Speaker 1: did you see He's like, see what I'm like, Bitcoin
Speaker 1: it reached one hundred thousand. He's like what he gave me,
Speaker 1: like the biggest hug I've ever gotten from this guy.
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: So bitcoin surpassed one hundred thousand dollars for the first
Speaker 1: time this week, really cementing in a lot of people's minds,
Speaker 1: its status as a mainstream financial asset. A lot of
Speaker 1: people might have dismissed this as a fad in the past,
Speaker 1: myself included. I will admit I had friends back in
Speaker 1: the day that we're all into this, and I kind
Speaker 1: of said, come on, talk to me when it's real.
Speaker 1: And now, of course people are into it because of
Speaker 1: you know, our future president and he has embraced cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: and of course all the Wall Street investments in this
Speaker 1: crypto as well.
Speaker 2: So just keep in.
Speaker 1: Mind it is still highly volatile and you know, nothing
Speaker 1: is guaranteed, but people are excited about this. That all
Speaker 1: kind of goes into my next guest, Coinbase cso Philip
Speaker 1: Martin is joining me to talk about some of the
Speaker 1: things you need to be aware of when it comes
Speaker 1: to online scams and protecting digital assets.
Speaker 2: Phillip Martin, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: Thanks thanks for having me on episode one hundred. Yeah,
Speaker 6: well it's the Moustone.
Speaker 1: It's fitting one hundred thousand dollars and episode of one
Speaker 1: or so. Are people just like, are they just cheering
Speaker 1: at coinbase when it crosses one hundred thousand or what?
Speaker 6: I mean, there's there's always enthusiasm for these moments. But
Speaker 6: I think one of the things you learned being in
Speaker 6: an industry like cryptocurrency is there are ups and their
Speaker 6: downs and they're both going to happen.
Speaker 1: That is very true. I mean, what does that mean
Speaker 1: to you that it's crossed this number? Does that mean
Speaker 1: that it's it's good forever or does that mean that
Speaker 1: it's good right now? I mean, what what does that
Speaker 1: mean to you?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I personally don't anchor kane to it
Speaker 6: to you know, round numbers like this. I think it's great,
Speaker 6: it's it's a moment to celebrate. It really is very special.
Speaker 6: But I joined coinbase it was red round six hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 6: So yep, so huge, huge difference. But I think, you know,
Speaker 6: we're focused on the work ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now let's talk about this because crypto has sort
Speaker 1: of been thrust to the forefront lately in mainstream media
Speaker 1: and just everywhere online because of these milestones. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: scammers follow, right, they always are trying to. I always
Speaker 1: say the scammers are trying to, you know, separate us
Speaker 1: from our hard earned cash, and crypto is no different.
Speaker 1: So Number one are you seeing a lot of scams
Speaker 1: when it comes to cryptocurrency?
Speaker 2: And why sure?
Speaker 6: You know, bad guys like money just like everybody else, right,
Speaker 6: and we we absolutely when when when price action shows up.
Speaker 6: The other interesting thing thing to realize is bad guys
Speaker 6: read the news, right, and so when they see crypto,
Speaker 6: you know, across the milestone, just like any other asset, Uh,
Speaker 6: they turn their attention you know more to that asset
Speaker 6: because they think there's funny there. So so we see
Speaker 6: scams go go up and down, you know, loosely lined
Speaker 6: to the price of big cooin. But you know, it's
Speaker 6: important to note that that we see this across the
Speaker 6: across all financial instruments, right, that that that are vulnerable
Speaker 6: to theft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean people are buying gift cards at Target
Speaker 1: and sending the code to people. I mean, what's the
Speaker 1: difference if you're sending money from a you know to
Speaker 1: a bitcoin wallet number. So what do you think is
Speaker 1: the I mean, is there like a top scam that
Speaker 1: you've identified that you can alert people about.
Speaker 6: So scams, it's important to note scams of all the
Speaker 6: come and go. They change over time, like very frequently,
Speaker 6: as as scammers of all their tactics I think right now,
Speaker 6: probably the biggest name the folks bandilot is a scam
Speaker 6: called pig butchering, which is a type of a romance
Speaker 6: scam right where scammers build trust, you know, maybe through
Speaker 6: dating apps places like that, and use that trust to
Speaker 6: trick a victim into a financial transaction of some sort
Speaker 6: of the benefits of scammer.
Speaker 2: That's so wild.
Speaker 1: So basically you kind of get you know, you talk
Speaker 1: to someone, you get to know them, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they're like, hey, can you send me money?
Speaker 2: And people actually do that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, although it's actually much more nuanced than that, right
Speaker 6: with these these games can take weeks months unpulled, and
Speaker 6: normally the gamers are actually exploiting some piece of information
Speaker 6: they've learned about the victim, their desire to buy a house,
Speaker 6: something like that, and say, hey, you know, I've made
Speaker 6: a lot of money doing this. I can show you how.
Speaker 7: M M.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So what what steps can we take to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, protect ourselves, Like obviously if something sounds too
Speaker 1: good to be true, but I mean realistically, you know,
Speaker 1: these people still get victims, So what what do we
Speaker 1: look out for?
Speaker 6: Yeah, these people are very very good at at their job. Right,
Speaker 6: So one thing two or three components here that to
Speaker 6: me always stream scam right when when somebody is creating
Speaker 6: a sense of urgency in you. And by the way,
Speaker 6: this is also important to think about in sales interactions
Speaker 6: in general, when someone is writing that sense of burned
Speaker 6: if you have to do it right now, now, now, now, now,
Speaker 6: That to me is is a moment that I want
Speaker 6: to slow down right and ask myself, why is it
Speaker 6: so important that this happened right now? What they what
Speaker 6: do they want me to not see? The second thing
Speaker 6: I would say is it's it's very impos when you're
Speaker 6: interacting with somebody who's who perhaps encouraging you to make
Speaker 6: a financial decision or pang voice. If that person is
Speaker 6: encouraging you not to talk to friends and family about it,
Speaker 6: is in fact trying to isolate that decision to just
Speaker 6: you and them. That's also a very important warning sign.
Speaker 6: You shouldn't be able to talk to friends and family
Speaker 6: about important financial decisions that you're going to make.
Speaker 2: MM. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So if they're trying to trying to urge you into
Speaker 1: doing something fast and also trying to make you not
Speaker 1: consult someone else. I mean it sounds like you're talking
Speaker 1: about buying a car. That's like, yeah, this literally sounds
Speaker 1: like the tactics at the car dealership.
Speaker 6: There is a very small difference between the tactics a
Speaker 6: scammer might use and the tactics an aggressive salesperson might use.
Speaker 6: They're all trying to drive you to an outcome that's
Speaker 6: good for them and not good for you necessarily.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Now, I've also heard about a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: stories where people either lose access to their crypto wallet
Speaker 1: or you know that once they send money to someone,
Speaker 1: they can't get it back. In this this situation, can
Speaker 1: you address those two things like can you recover money
Speaker 1: if you send it to someone? And also, you know,
Speaker 1: what do we need to do to make sure that
Speaker 1: when we set up an account and buy crypto we
Speaker 1: don't lose access to that account?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Those are those are great questions. So so first
Speaker 6: of all, is on the can you can you recover
Speaker 6: money that you send somewhere else? You the the the
Speaker 6: consumer of the individual, the person that that sent the
Speaker 6: funds uh no is the is the base of answer.
Speaker 6: Much like a wire transfer or if you put a
Speaker 6: gift card in the mail, or whatever right that those
Speaker 6: funds have already left. Now, this goes into how important
Speaker 6: it is the contact law enforcement. You believe you were
Speaker 6: the victim of a scam, fraud, of theft, whatever it is,
Speaker 6: and report to your local police department, report it to
Speaker 6: IC three, which is a thing run by the FBI.
Speaker 6: They do look at these Uh. It is important that
Speaker 6: that we do reach out because they have tools that
Speaker 6: you know, the average the average individual doesn't, and they
Speaker 6: go after these criminal groups that are largely based outside
Speaker 6: the US. Southeast Asia in particular is a focus area.
Speaker 6: There has been success in law enforcement as they're bringing
Speaker 6: these groups to justice, being able to access those funds
Speaker 6: and in some cases getting those funds back to two victims. Now,
Speaker 6: I don't want to create the the the the impression
Speaker 6: that this happens one hundred percent of the time. It
Speaker 6: absolutely does not. But it is a possibility, got it.
Speaker 1: And what about the second half of getting your money back?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 2: You know, if you lose your if.
Speaker 6: You lose it, yeah, so this this you know, one
Speaker 6: of the promises of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general is
Speaker 6: you can be your own bank, right, you do not
Speaker 6: have to use a third party to customer your assets.
Speaker 6: Part of being your own bank is making sure that
Speaker 6: you have backups in place that you can access these
Speaker 6: funds when you need them, even if something bad happens,
Speaker 6: even if God forbid your house burns down, or if
Speaker 6: something else catastrophic happens. And so, if you're going to
Speaker 6: custody your own bitcoin, protect your own keys, control your
Speaker 6: own keys in that way, and by no means do
Speaker 6: I dissuade anyone from doing that. You have to start
Speaker 6: thinking about, uh, you know, more than just oh, I'm
Speaker 6: going to open the app and it's all it's all
Speaker 6: going to be there. You have to start thinking about
Speaker 6: worst case scenarios were people that use. This is why
Speaker 6: people use platforms like coinbase. Right, we offer a self
Speaker 6: custodial app called coin based Wallet, but we also offer
Speaker 6: a website coinbas dot com, in which you know you're
Speaker 6: you're not custody in keys, you're not putting backups, in
Speaker 6: which case there are processes if you forget your password,
Speaker 6: things like that that we can help you as a
Speaker 6: third party, get those funds back. So really is a
Speaker 6: trade off that that everyone should be thinking about where
Speaker 6: they fall on that spectrum.
Speaker 2: Okay, got it?
Speaker 1: So there are two different ways of doing it, like
Speaker 1: where you kind of control the entire situation, or using
Speaker 1: a third party like a coinbase or another app like
Speaker 1: to be almost your bank or your wallet for this information. Uh, Philip,
Speaker 1: what uh what gets you excited about all this?
Speaker 2: What? What's you know? What's keeping you going on this
Speaker 2: crypto stuff?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: You know, I've been coining I'm going a coinbase, uh
Speaker 6: about eight and a half years, uh low grade and
Speaker 6: half years now at this point. And there's a couple
Speaker 6: of things that really really excite me. One is just
Speaker 6: the amount of innovation in how financial transaction to work
Speaker 6: and run globally. How quickly this has evolved, how many
Speaker 6: new things are showing up, I think is just a
Speaker 6: true order of magnitude larger than any other time that
Speaker 6: at least certainly the you know that I've been alive,
Speaker 6: and I think we can look back in history and
Speaker 6: call it at least one hundred probably more years too,
Speaker 6: And that I think adds ads efficiency, It adds effectiveness.
Speaker 6: It speaks to constituencies that have been historically under unbanked,
Speaker 6: not just in the US, but also globally. Right, the
Speaker 6: idea that a a someone who is who's built a
Speaker 6: thing in Nigeria or in you know, or in South
Speaker 6: America now has the ability through crypto to transact with
Speaker 6: a global audience without having to figure out cross border
Speaker 6: transfers and all that stuff. I don't know if you've
Speaker 6: tried to send money internationally, Rich in the recent past,
Speaker 6: but it is it is not an easy proposition. That
Speaker 6: level of economic freedom and opportunity really is unprecedented I
Speaker 6: think in modern history.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're going to leave it there. Very exciting stuff.
Speaker 1: Coinbase Chief security Officer Philip Martin, thanks so.
Speaker 2: Much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: Thanks Rich all right eighty eight rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Coming up, I will tell you about the app that
Speaker 1: transforms your photos into a video clip. I'll explain right
Speaker 1: here on rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The
Speaker 1: phone line is eight eight eight rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: So there is a new feature of the my Heritage app.
Speaker 1: This is the DNA service. Have you ever had your
Speaker 1: DNA done? I did a long time ago. It's probably
Speaker 1: in some server somewhere percolating with all my information. Someone
Speaker 1: someone making another rich on tech out of my DNA somewhere, copy,
Speaker 1: copy paste, There we go. Why would you want that though,
Speaker 1: I mean, let's be real.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: They have a new feature called live Memory. This uses
Speaker 1: AI to turn your photos into a short video clip
Speaker 1: about a five second video clip, complete with like animation
Speaker 1: and not just like the person moving, it's like the
Speaker 1: whole situation. So if you know it's an old picture
Speaker 1: of like two people getting married, it might show them
Speaker 1: like walking down the aisle a little bit, or like whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever the image is trying to capture, it
Speaker 1: will kind of move, make that move.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting thing.
Speaker 1: I tried this with a couple of photos of my
Speaker 1: old you know, in my collection.
Speaker 2: It's eerie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird, but you know, it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: You might as well try it out. I mean it's
Speaker 1: free for about I think three videos you can try
Speaker 1: for free, and if you want to do more than
Speaker 1: that you have to pay. But again, it's called live memory,
Speaker 1: it's from my Heritage. It's inside the iOS or Android app.
Speaker 1: Takes a little bit for it to generate because it's
Speaker 1: literally making a video clip, but if you want to
Speaker 1: link to that, you can go to the website.
Speaker 2: Richon tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: There is a watermark on the videos to make sure
Speaker 1: people know that they are AI generated and they're calling
Speaker 1: them reenactments. So if you have a picture of like
Speaker 1: a kid taking the nineteen fifties on a bike, it
Speaker 1: will show that kid like sort of riding the bike.
Speaker 1: You got to try it out. I mean, it's really
Speaker 1: it's weird, you know, but this is the beginning of AI.
Speaker 1: It's not always perfect.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Let's go to Michelle in Glendale. Michelle,
Speaker 2: you're on with rich Hi.
Speaker 3: Hi, Hi, I have a question regard I had a
Speaker 3: Yahoo email and then when my accounts were hacked, I
Speaker 3: had to change the password. So when I changed the
Speaker 3: password back in July, and then when I and then
Speaker 3: after that, when I tried to go into that email,
Speaker 3: they said that that password was not was an incorrect password,
Speaker 3: and so they had to ask me to reset the password.
Speaker 3: And I tried to reset the password, and then they
Speaker 3: wanted me they wanted me to put the code, so
Speaker 3: they sent me the code in my text into my phone,
Speaker 3: and then I did, and then they wanted another form
Speaker 3: of authentication by having to send it to another Google email,
Speaker 3: and that Google email I couldn't also get in because
Speaker 3: that was also hacked. So I tried all the passwords
Speaker 3: that I could think of and it was exhausted. So
Speaker 3: I want and then they they I called the number
Speaker 3: of Yahoo and they said that I would have to
Speaker 3: pay how much? So I actually didn't ask. I should
Speaker 3: have asked, but I was when my accounts were severely
Speaker 3: hacked by Router was hacked back in April, including my
Speaker 3: computer phone emails. I was told by the police that
Speaker 3: whenever you're trying to call someone for customer support on
Speaker 3: a phone number usually begins with eight hundred and they
Speaker 3: ask you to pay. Don't do it because that's how
Speaker 3: my accounts were scammed back in April.
Speaker 1: Right now, this this happens a lot. People google phone
Speaker 1: numbers and they call whatever the first you know search
Speaker 1: result that pops up. And a lot of times these
Speaker 1: scam artists will either buy an AD that has a
Speaker 1: phone number in the ad. It I'll say, hey, tech
Speaker 1: support for you know, Spectrum, and I'll have a phone
Speaker 1: number in there that's a total bogus number, or they'll
Speaker 1: you know, set up a website and that has a
Speaker 1: phone number. So that is a good idea. So my
Speaker 1: question for you is do you need this email account?
Speaker 1: How badly do you need?
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is, I really badly need to retrieve
Speaker 3: into my email because I cannot, okay, because when when
Speaker 3: my accounts were had, I made a report to the
Speaker 3: senior leed officer in the North Hollywood Police station and
Speaker 3: I forgot to print it because and so I need
Speaker 3: that report that I did to him in order to
Speaker 3: add that to my report to FBI, because I was
Speaker 3: told by the when I reported it to Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 3: they also told me to also report this what happened,
Speaker 3: you know, not to FBI. But and I started doing
Speaker 3: the report to FBI, and one of the things that
Speaker 3: they ask is if I have any documents?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Well it sounds like, okay, sounds like you
Speaker 1: need to get into this email to get a copy
Speaker 1: of your police report. I would also just maybe call
Speaker 1: you know. I'm looking online at LAPD. It looks like
Speaker 1: they've got a you know, a Record Records and Identification Division.
Speaker 2: I doubt.
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand that you probably have the number
Speaker 1: of the police report, which is probably like key to
Speaker 1: getting it quickly. But I would call them and see
Speaker 1: if you can get that from them and just tell
Speaker 1: them your name and information. I'm sure you can get that.
Speaker 1: I don't see why you wouldn't be able to. So
Speaker 1: that's number one. When it comes to the email account,
Speaker 1: and you know you're wondering about this, Yahoo should you
Speaker 1: pay to talk to them for the support that they offer?
Speaker 1: So Yahoo, does you know if you need to reset
Speaker 1: your password? I'm looking at the Yahoo Plus support right
Speaker 1: and we're actually going to have the Yahoo general manager
Speaker 1: for email on later in the show and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to him about this. But they offer, you know, free
Speaker 1: support for the free accounts, but they also have a
Speaker 1: paid service where you can get a little bit more help,
Speaker 1: and that runs anywhere from about five to ten dollars
Speaker 1: a month. So in this case, it might be worth
Speaker 1: it if you need to get through to that email address.
Speaker 1: But always be careful when calling a randome Hunter number.
Speaker 1: Make sure you're on the Yahoo dot com official support
Speaker 1: site before you call any number and before you pay
Speaker 1: any money. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: talking technology at Triple eight. Rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: If you want links to anything I mentioned, just hit
Speaker 1: the light bulb at the top. You can also sign
Speaker 1: up for my free newsletter there, and you can also
Speaker 1: email me through the website. It's all at richon tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. Amazon is bringing back it's driver program where
Speaker 1: you can thank your driver and give them five bucks
Speaker 1: at no cost to you. So all you have to
Speaker 1: do is gosh, if I say this on the radio,
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna Alex say thank my driver. Or you
Speaker 1: can just search thank my driver on the Amazon app
Speaker 1: and whoever completed your last delivery will get five bucks. Now,
Speaker 1: keep in mind this is limited to the first two
Speaker 1: million thank yous, So when I did it last night,
Speaker 1: they still said your driver got five dollars. So if
Speaker 1: it doesn't say that, you know, it only works once,
Speaker 1: by the way, per customer. I don't think you can
Speaker 1: do this over and over, but kind of cool. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I actually love the holiday
Speaker 1: season like I love tipping people.
Speaker 2: I really do.
Speaker 1: It's like this weird thing that I actually I tipped
Speaker 1: my gardener the other day, and he actually was like,
Speaker 1: you made a mistake.
Speaker 2: You paid me too much. I said, dude, it's the holidays.
Speaker 1: I go enjoy the money, Like come on, like, how
Speaker 1: do you like don't you know, just enjoy it? Like
Speaker 1: people well, you know, they're taking a back sometimes with
Speaker 1: you know, a generosity during this holiday season. So I
Speaker 1: don't I find it really fun. I really do. I
Speaker 1: find it like I save money throughout the year so
Speaker 1: that I can tip people at the end of the year,
Speaker 1: and I just love that, Like it's like a direct
Speaker 1: smile that you get from them because of what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And honestly, people aren't necessarily used to it anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: people are always trying to you know, we're so used to
Speaker 1: that tipping at like a you know, someone grabs a
Speaker 1: muffin from behind the counter and then they flip around
Speaker 1: the screen and they expect to tip. That part I
Speaker 1: can be angry about, right, but I could still enjoy
Speaker 1: tipping people that I feel help me. And so there's
Speaker 1: there's a difference there, right, Like that kind of that
Speaker 1: forced tip versus the enjoyable tip. So anyway, there you go, Alex, say,
Speaker 1: thank my driver. You can send them a tip, and
Speaker 1: that's cool. We went to the new Into It Dome
Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles. The newest arena is called the
Speaker 1: Into It Dome. It's the home of the Clippers, and
Speaker 1: it's like super high tech. I mean, obviously Into It
Speaker 1: is a Techi come company. Steve Balmer is the owner
Speaker 1: of the Clippers, and so he's a very techy guy,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the founders of Microsoft. And so
Speaker 1: this was a very tech forward arena. And finally had
Speaker 1: the it just opened, I don't know, a couple months ago,
Speaker 1: maybe just had the opportunity to go. But here's a thing.
Speaker 1: It's almost too techy even for my taste. Let me
Speaker 1: explain why when you get a ticket to this arena,
Speaker 1: you cannot just number one.
Speaker 2: There's no paper.
Speaker 1: Tickets anymore for any arena, right, It's like everything's digital.
Speaker 1: Everything is tracked through ticket Master and all these different
Speaker 1: ticketing things. It's all like that. And by the way,
Speaker 1: you can't even use a screen capture. It has to
Speaker 1: be like the actual like live barcode. Like if you
Speaker 1: look at some of these ticket barcodes, there's like a
Speaker 1: kit like night rider like thing moving across the barcode
Speaker 1: every second saying like, don't you dare try to screenshot.
Speaker 2: This is not gonna work.
Speaker 1: And so with this particular into it dome, you have
Speaker 1: to sign up, download their app, sign up for an account,
Speaker 1: and then link your ticket Master account and then everything
Speaker 1: happens through the app. So you got to give a
Speaker 1: all of your information like your date of birth, your nickname,
Speaker 1: and just your face if you want. I think the
Speaker 1: face is optional for facial recognition throughout the place. But
Speaker 1: if you don't do that, you have to add their
Speaker 1: card to your digital wallet. So like if you have
Speaker 1: Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, you have to add like
Speaker 1: a card so that you can tap for that. So
Speaker 1: it's like this whole big thing and you have to
Speaker 1: save your payment method. I mean, it's a really it's
Speaker 1: a little invasive if you ask me. But and so
Speaker 1: I kind of grumbled. But then here's once you get
Speaker 1: your tickets. So, for instance, we had four tickets to
Speaker 1: the event. Once you open up your tickets in the app,
Speaker 1: it says, by the way, every single person must have
Speaker 1: their own phone with their own ticket on that phone.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what even my kids? So there
Speaker 1: is an option very small print that says you can
Speaker 1: designate someone as a like a what was it called
Speaker 1: dependent I think, and you can assist them by using
Speaker 1: your phone to scan their ticket, which of course I
Speaker 1: did for my whole family. I was like, they're not
Speaker 1: gonna ask any questions, like come on. But anyway, once
Speaker 1: you get into the actual arena, it's amazing, and I
Speaker 1: understand all the technology because everything is sort of that
Speaker 1: like just walk out technology where you go and you
Speaker 1: grab something off a shelf and it recognizes either your
Speaker 1: face or your phone and it charges the payment method
Speaker 1: on record. Now, not everyone's gonna like that, but it
Speaker 1: is cool. And I noticed too there's a lot of
Speaker 1: cameras everywhere, so the facial recognition is like off the
Speaker 1: charts at this place, which, again, it's cool, it's different,
Speaker 1: it's unique. But as a person who is a lover
Speaker 1: of technology but also kind of critical of technology at
Speaker 1: the same time, I can understand why every single person
Speaker 1: that walks into this place would not want all of
Speaker 1: their information in some sort of database somewhere, which at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, what do you think that's
Speaker 1: going to be used for. It's gonna be to market
Speaker 1: stuff to you, right in a million different ways. So anyway,
Speaker 1: but once you're in there, really really cool, and it
Speaker 1: did use my nickname when I scan my phone, it
Speaker 1: was like, hey, welcome rich On Tech, and I thought
Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. So have some fun with your
Speaker 1: with your nickname there. Let's go to Kathy in uh Linnwood. Kathy,
Speaker 1: You're on with.
Speaker 8: Rich Hi rich On Tech. How are you?
Speaker 2: I am doing fantastic? How are you?
Speaker 8: I'm I'm hanging in.
Speaker 1: There, hanging in there. Oh no, okay, let's let's talk.
Speaker 1: What do you need to help with?
Speaker 8: Okay, I have a challenge. I am trying to figure
Speaker 8: out what is the best thing for me to do
Speaker 8: right now. Both my daughter and I heard you speaking
Speaker 8: of the I don't know how new it is. I'm
Speaker 8: going to say new a I Meta ray band.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 8: So, but you also had mentioned something that that there
Speaker 8: is a couple other companies but the specialty I wear,
Speaker 8: but that the ray bands were the cheapest. So I
Speaker 8: started looking into those, which I have an inherited eye
Speaker 8: disease that at this particular point in my life I
Speaker 8: still can see, but it's very difficult. I'm considered legally blind.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, this is something that recently happened like that developed.
Speaker 8: Yeah, inherited. Okay, it's got this weird name. It's called
Speaker 8: Retinitis pigmentosa.
Speaker 2: Okay, well say that ten times fast.
Speaker 8: I know RP for short.
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go. It's much easier to say.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 8: So my challenge is, you know, I was trying to
Speaker 8: learn about these ray bands and I have Can I
Speaker 8: say the insurance comempany sure Kaiser permanente Okay, I've heard
Speaker 8: of them, Okay. So I have been seeing their I
Speaker 8: specialists for like five years. It's been a progressive thing
Speaker 8: and they're low vision specialist. And I called a couple
Speaker 8: of days ago and nobody knew anything about these AI
Speaker 8: meta ray bands. So I have been educating them. Even
Speaker 8: the low vision specialists that I see didn't know anything
Speaker 8: about it.
Speaker 2: Really wow, Yeah, she.
Speaker 8: Had to ask her manager about it. They all turned
Speaker 8: me down, even though I told them that it should
Speaker 8: be a durable medical equipment.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see you're talking for for sort of like
Speaker 1: a uh uh where they cover the cost of these glasses.
Speaker 8: Right, okay, because I you know, this would help my life.
Speaker 8: And I'm actually in a group on Facebook called Retinitis
Speaker 8: Pigmentosa okay, and it's people who have this inherited eye
Speaker 8: disease and they're from all over the world.
Speaker 1: Gotta love technology, right, Yeah, yeah, that's an incredible uh connection.
Speaker 8: People are so excited about it, and they're getting them
Speaker 8: and actually some of the people their insurance companies are
Speaker 8: paying for it. Oh wow, yeah etna.
Speaker 1: Okay, well here here's the deal. So we're run out
Speaker 1: of time, so I think you're you're okay. So Number one, yes,
Speaker 1: I think that the smart glasses from ray Ban Meta
Speaker 1: they are not marketed as a medical device, but I
Speaker 1: think people are finding a lot of use in them
Speaker 1: as something that can really the visually impaired, right, So
Speaker 1: I think that's number one, is that these haven't been
Speaker 1: made as an FDA approved medical device.
Speaker 2: That's number one.
Speaker 1: There are other companies that are working on these types
Speaker 1: of glasses that are specifically for assistance for the visually impaired,
Speaker 1: but they're thousands of dollars versus the ray Band Metas,
Speaker 1: which are a couple hundred dollars. What I would do is,
Speaker 1: I would I think that there's a gray area here, Kathy,
Speaker 1: where you can probably make your case for these glasses
Speaker 1: and get the reimbursement but I think the problem is,
Speaker 1: and I don't know this, but I feel like the
Speaker 1: insurance companies are working under a framework from the government
Speaker 1: perhaps of what they're allowed to reimburse on what they're not.
Speaker 1: But maybe I would say, if you just push and
Speaker 1: push and push, you can get it through. But I'm
Speaker 1: not a medical expert, so I don't know. The other
Speaker 1: thing is that you know, again, the price is not
Speaker 1: that expensive, so maybe do something like a GoFundMe or
Speaker 1: you know, collection, or it is the holidays coming up,
Speaker 1: friends and family, maybe all chip in to get to
Speaker 1: a pair of these glasses. Uh, you know, about three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars for those glasses, so compared to
Speaker 1: the thousands of dollars that these other glasses cost. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a great, you know, a great savings there. So
Speaker 1: but also check out you know, chat GPT and and
Speaker 1: write some letters. Come up with you know, talk to
Speaker 1: chat GIBT and say, hey, look, I'm trying to convince
Speaker 1: my insurance company to pay for these glasses or to
Speaker 1: reimburse me, and see what it comes up with. It
Speaker 1: may come up with some pretty compelling letters that you
Speaker 1: may able may be able to send to your insurance
Speaker 1: company and you know, stay on them and see what
Speaker 1: you can do about it. But yes, the ray Band
Speaker 1: Meta smart glasses very very incredible, and I think they're
Speaker 1: only going to get better. And I did see the
Speaker 1: be my Eyes integration in them in addition to the
Speaker 1: other stuff they do that's in the app now as
Speaker 1: like a you know, a beta thing.
Speaker 2: So great question.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much Kathy for the question there in Lynwood, California.
Speaker 1: Eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one. More rich on
Speaker 1: Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology. The phone line is open at eight eight
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one phone lines, I should say
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Website for the show richon Tech dot tv. There you
Speaker 1: can sign up for my newsletter, you can email me,
Speaker 1: and of course get links to anything that I mentioned
Speaker 1: here on the show. This is episode one hundred. Just
Speaker 1: hit the light bulb up at the top that will
Speaker 1: bring you direct to the show notes. This week, Walmart
Speaker 1: completed their two point three billion dollar acquisition of Visio,
Speaker 1: so Walmart now owns Visio. They're going to continue to
Speaker 1: let this company operate separately, but you're gonna see a
Speaker 1: lot of synergy. Number One, when you walk into a
Speaker 1: Walmart story, you'll see a lot of Visio TVs these
Speaker 1: in the upcoming days. So why does Walmart want Visio?
Speaker 1: Walt all about advertising? Visio has a very robust AD
Speaker 1: system that they build into their televisions. They also have
Speaker 1: this smart cast, which is their free AD supported streaming platform.
Speaker 1: Many other companies have these as well. Amazon, I think
Speaker 1: is probably the biggest competition here in Roku, and so
Speaker 1: this will position Walmart to compete with them a little
Speaker 1: bit more closely because guess what, When Walmart knows what
Speaker 1: you're watching, they can target more promotions to you, and
Speaker 1: they know what you're shopping for in the store.
Speaker 2: So you see, there's a lot of synergy there now.
Speaker 1: I think for consumers, the good news is that Visio,
Speaker 1: which has already been very very affordable over the years,
Speaker 1: will probably continue to get even more affordable because now
Speaker 1: they've got Walmart, one of the biggest logistics in supply
Speaker 1: chain folks in the world. They will find some ways
Speaker 1: to save money on manufacturing these TVs and getting them
Speaker 1: into all the stores, and so I think as a consumer,
Speaker 1: the Visio product will be even less expensive. But again,
Speaker 1: this is all kind of to go up against Amazon.
Speaker 1: I was watching Thursday Night football and every single ad
Speaker 1: is a QR code or some kind of thing that
Speaker 1: you can scan or shop. It's all about shoppable. So
Speaker 1: tracking and shopping is the name of the game. Bobo
Speaker 1: question from the class.
Speaker 2: Yes, from the class, mister Demiro. I was wondering, like,
Speaker 2: so would that mean Target stop selling video or Amazon
Speaker 2: stop selling video?
Speaker 1: See, that's a good question because you know it's in videos.
Speaker 1: Like they just paid two point three billion dollars for
Speaker 1: this company. Yeah, and so of course they don't want
Speaker 1: to be in less places. So I think that they
Speaker 1: will continue to sell these TVs because if you think
Speaker 1: about it, Amazon products are in all those stores as well.
Speaker 1: You go into a I don't know about Walmart. I
Speaker 1: don't if they have fire TV in Walmart, but they
Speaker 1: Actually that doesn't make sense now that I think about it. Walmart,
Speaker 1: why would they want to stock a fire TV exactly
Speaker 1: if you have your own TV brand now. But I
Speaker 1: think in Target specifically, they do sell Amazon stuff, and
Speaker 1: that's a big competitor to Target and Best Buy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it's an interesting question. Really good uh really
Speaker 1: gold star for you Bobo today.
Speaker 2: Great question.
Speaker 1: But that's you know, it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: if they stop selling these TVs and other places, that's
Speaker 1: not a good thing because they paid so much for
Speaker 1: this acquisition. Uh eighty eight Rich one on one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Let's go to uh Dustin in Hermosa beach. Dustin, you're
Speaker 1: on with Rich?
Speaker 6: What stop? Rich, Bobo?
Speaker 10: How's it going Fellas?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're doing great. What what can we help you with?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 9: So I've been like metal detecting on the beach and
Speaker 9: I've been trying to stream.
Speaker 2: It, right, okay, Well that's interesting.
Speaker 9: Get like no service out there, so I start lagging.
Speaker 9: So I'm wondering, So I bought this like Nighthawk M
Speaker 9: six tether hotspot, right okay. But then I'm like wondering
Speaker 9: if should I just get starlink because they got a
Speaker 9: sale right now, Like what would you wreck?
Speaker 10: Men?
Speaker 2: Well, how would you get starlink?
Speaker 1: I mean, are you are you doing this like in
Speaker 1: front of a place you have on the beach, or
Speaker 1: is this like mobile.
Speaker 9: I'm just mobilely just walking around, you know, just walking
Speaker 9: around the beach and want to stream.
Speaker 2: And you're streaming.
Speaker 1: So is this like a YouTube channel you have or
Speaker 1: a TikTok or something that you're doing.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm doing it on TikTok and I added him
Speaker 9: put on YouTube and Instagram and stuff.
Speaker 2: And do you find some cool stuff?
Speaker 9: No, not yet, but now I've had a couple of rings.
Speaker 9: But you know, it's usually like bottle caps and stuff
Speaker 9: like that. But it's fun, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, here's my question. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: can walk around with a starlink. That is the main thing.
Speaker 1: Because and by the way, cell phone signal on beaches
Speaker 1: around Los Angeles is notoriously horrific because guess what if
Speaker 1: you got a ten million dollar house on the beach,
Speaker 1: you probably don't want that. You know, cell phone tower
Speaker 1: right near your house. They call that nimby, not in
Speaker 1: my backyard. And here's the thing I would Knownumber one.
Speaker 1: I would try the different providers. You've got three different
Speaker 1: providers here in the US. I'm not sure which one
Speaker 1: you're using Dustin, but you know, if you're using t mobile,
Speaker 1: check out at and t checkout Verizon and also see
Speaker 1: which one works. Ask the neighbors in that area which
Speaker 1: one works the best. But as far as I know,
Speaker 1: even the smallest starlink I don't think is meant to
Speaker 1: be walked around with. However, since you have a YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: sounds like a project for you. Maybe try it out.
Speaker 1: See if you can get a little set up. Or
Speaker 1: maybe you just set up the starlink on a little
Speaker 1: trailer thing and leave it on the beach while you
Speaker 1: walk around. Lots of ideas. Sounds like a fun business.
Speaker 1: This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Oxford's twenty twenty four word of the Year is brain raw.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about. I call this nonsense
Speaker 1: with my kids. You know the stuff they watch on
Speaker 1: YouTube shorts where they're just flipping through over and over
Speaker 1: and it's like all this like nonsense stuff that they watch.
Speaker 1: But brain raw is the decline in mental or intellectual
Speaker 1: capacity resulting from excessive consumption of trivial or unchallenging online content.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know when you see it. The terms usage
Speaker 1: increased by two hundred and thirty percent in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: driven by low quality digital media It was first recorded
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty four by Henry David Thoreaux in Walden. Wow,
Speaker 1: you talked about brain rop back then, they brain rot
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty four. Wow, that's wild. But now, of
Speaker 1: course it's all this stuff. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: You know, you just flip through and it's like stuff
Speaker 1: you really don't need to know, or stuff you really
Speaker 1: don't need to see, but you watch it anyway and
Speaker 1: it just rots your brain. It offers no advantage to
Speaker 1: knowing this information or to seeing it. Newport Institute Healthcare
Speaker 1: provider says brain rot is mental fogginess and reduced attention
Speaker 1: span due to excessive screen time. Now that I will say,
Speaker 1: I've definitely noticed the reduced attention span, even in myself,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone. It's like we want everything summarized now,
Speaker 1: we want everything to be quick, short and easy. But
Speaker 1: there you have it. Brain rot twenty twenty four Word
Speaker 1: of the Year. All right, let's see here. We've got
Speaker 1: a great guest on Yahoo Male. This is a very
Speaker 1: popular email program. It's gone through a lot of changes recently.
Speaker 1: It's got a new look, a new feel, new AI features,
Speaker 1: and here to talk about all of it. Is Yahoo
Speaker 1: Male's general manager, Rob Gelic.
Speaker 10: Rob.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 11: Hey Rich, how are you? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I am doing fantastic and thanks for being on. So
Speaker 1: let's talk First off, Yahoo Male. I mean, obviously this
Speaker 1: has been around for a very long time. What is
Speaker 1: sort of new and different about it from the big
Speaker 1: picture side of things?
Speaker 12: Yeah, you're right, I mean we Yahoo Male definitely, you know,
Speaker 12: one of the more established emails out there. One in
Speaker 12: three American adults still visit Yahoo Male each month, right,
Speaker 12: were the number two email service out there. And recently
Speaker 12: we've been on a i'd just say an innovation role,
Speaker 12: a lot of new features, leveraging things like AI but
Speaker 12: AI to solve real problems for users.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, But now before we get into that, I know,
Speaker 1: because you guys are you know, like you said, the
Speaker 1: one of the largest email providers out there. Some other sources,
Speaker 1: like users have been migrated to you, right from like
Speaker 1: SBC or AT and T or Cox. Can you touch
Speaker 1: upon that, like, explain because I get a lot of
Speaker 1: emails from people like, hey, Rich, my email provider moved
Speaker 1: to Yahoo. I don't know how to log in anymore.
Speaker 1: Can you explain, like how to like, how do you
Speaker 1: move your stuff over?
Speaker 12: Yeah, So for for users that we're originally getting their
Speaker 12: email from one of our partners like a Cox or
Speaker 12: an AT and T, we're in partnership with them to
Speaker 12: move their email over to Yahoo. So the great thing
Speaker 12: there is those relationships are being built so that people
Speaker 12: get the high quality service that Yahoo offers, and our
Speaker 12: partners recognize that in their original services. But change is hard.
Speaker 12: So what when people are who are used to a
Speaker 12: specific email service need to make that change. Sometimes that
Speaker 12: transition needs a lot of care. And when we move
Speaker 12: people over, a lot of what we do is kind
Speaker 12: of white glove them through the process of getting signed
Speaker 12: in with their original credentials, creating their own version of
Speaker 12: a Yahoo account, and us pourting over what their mail is.
Speaker 12: So for the most part, that's a seamless experience for users.
Speaker 1: And so the bottom line is that you just basically
Speaker 1: go to Yahoo Mail and kind of log in with
Speaker 1: your old account credentials and it will kind of recognize
Speaker 1: that and saying, oh, you're coming from SBC or you're
Speaker 1: coming from Cox, and it will kind of walk you
Speaker 1: through the process.
Speaker 11: That's absolutely right.
Speaker 12: Yeah, the partners will redirect the user over to Yahoo
Speaker 12: will prompt them to log in with their current credentials.
Speaker 12: They have an option to update those credentials like put
Speaker 12: in a new password, and when they open it, they'll
Speaker 12: see the Yahoo Experience and their mail will be waiting
Speaker 12: for them.
Speaker 1: Okay, that is very important to know because I think
Speaker 1: people probably get tripped up on the they're looking at the
Speaker 1: Yahoo website, but they're logging in with their old information,
Speaker 1: and so that makes much more sense. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of these new features, like what you know,
Speaker 1: what specific AI features are you talking about with the
Speaker 1: new Yahoo Male Experience.
Speaker 12: Yeah, we have like the biggest desktop redesign in a
Speaker 12: decade for Yahoo just recently, and many of those features
Speaker 12: have just been released on our iOS app.
Speaker 11: We're really focused rich.
Speaker 12: On an app experience to help people stay organized and
Speaker 12: on top of things. We know that it can be
Speaker 12: overwhelming going into your inbox. We've all had those moments
Speaker 12: where you come in and there's just so much there.
Speaker 12: So a lot of our AI powered features are really
Speaker 12: focused on solving those problems where we're matching these kind
Speaker 12: of tangible problems people are having with real solutions.
Speaker 11: And so I'll give you an example, so we've added a.
Speaker 12: New Priority inbox tab that automatically highlights the most important
Speaker 12: messages for you. And this compliments what is the all
Speaker 12: email view that users are used to looking at. We
Speaker 12: keep both in there, so if you prefer the traditional
Speaker 12: way of browsing, or you prefer this new Priority inbox
Speaker 12: that sorts out let's say some of the noise for you,
Speaker 12: those are now available for you. And with the Priority Inbox,
Speaker 12: we've added a number of really cool features.
Speaker 11: We have quick action buttons that allows users, without needing.
Speaker 12: To actually open the email, do things like copying onlock
Speaker 12: code that they got for an account, or check in
Speaker 12: for a flight, or one click track where a package
Speaker 12: that you're expecting to be delivered is all with a
Speaker 12: single tap and all without needing to open that email.
Speaker 12: You can do it directly from your Priority Inbox list view,
Speaker 12: which is amazing.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 1: And then you're you're also summarizing emails as well.
Speaker 12: We are, so in that specific view we are previewing
Speaker 12: message contents, so the ideal, the core idea of that
Speaker 12: message is getting captured in this really brief summary that
Speaker 12: we provide inline.
Speaker 11: As you're looking through your emails, it's.
Speaker 12: Been a way to give an alternative for people that
Speaker 12: to use the original title of the email, to switch
Speaker 12: that out with something that more concretely summarizes everything that's
Speaker 12: in that note.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's interesting. That's so you can have it
Speaker 1: take over kind of the whole subject line.
Speaker 12: Correct, So we have both options if someone prefers those
Speaker 12: original and we know we have senders where that's really
Speaker 12: important to them.
Speaker 11: Users have that whole view where they.
Speaker 12: Can see the original subject, where they can get these
Speaker 12: one line summaries.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this idea of the gamified experience for cleaning
Speaker 1: up old emails.
Speaker 2: That sounds fun.
Speaker 6: So yeah.
Speaker 12: One of the things that is interesting about it is
Speaker 12: we noticed this behavior when people are looking at their email,
Speaker 12: where they really are trying to quickly sort through the
Speaker 12: stuff that's valuable, even if I'm not going to open
Speaker 12: it in the moment. They want to park it and
Speaker 12: clean out the stuff that they really think is a
Speaker 12: little bit noise or less important to them. So we've
Speaker 12: created a mode within the mobile app today that allows
Speaker 12: us to feature items within your email. It's like twenty
Speaker 12: five emails at a time, and the prompts to lead
Speaker 12: something on red delete it archive it are much more
Speaker 12: prominent as part of the user experience, so people can
Speaker 12: quickly go through emails within seconds.
Speaker 11: And at the end of this mode.
Speaker 12: When you're done cleaning out your inbox, we give you
Speaker 12: a little prompt like at the end. That's a nice
Speaker 12: little game experience. It says, oh, hey, you went through
Speaker 12: twenty five emails in eight seconds.
Speaker 11: It's a nice little entertainment piece.
Speaker 12: It helps reinforce there's some sense of accomplishment that you're
Speaker 12: staying on top of your emails and really being organized.
Speaker 11: Our users have loved it so far.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things with organizing my email, and
Speaker 1: I have a lot of it, is when I get
Speaker 1: an email that I know I have like a bunch
Speaker 1: of other ones that are similar, I will kind of
Speaker 1: like filter for all those and then select them and
Speaker 1: then delete them all at the same time. And it
Speaker 1: gives me a lot of satisfaction. Now, what about Yahoo
Speaker 1: male kind of managing other email accounts? I know you
Speaker 1: told me you can use it for like Gmail and Outlook, Like,
Speaker 1: can I just use the Yahoo email interface for my
Speaker 1: other email accounts?
Speaker 11: Absolutely?
Speaker 12: Richmond, that's like the perfect way to phrase that We've
Speaker 12: made it really easy for users to bring their existing
Speaker 12: email to Yahoo. And actually, in recent months we've seen
Speaker 12: about a one hundred and twenty five percent increase in
Speaker 12: desktop users connecting their Gmail to their Yahoo mail accounts
Speaker 12: just because how we've set it up as part of
Speaker 12: the onboarding process.
Speaker 1: Now here's my question with that. Let's say I bring
Speaker 1: Let's say I have an account somewhere else and I
Speaker 1: bring it to Yahoo. Is it sort of like interfacing
Speaker 1: with that other account, Like any changes I make, does
Speaker 1: that happen on the back end with the other email?
Speaker 1: Or are my emails imported into Yahoo as well? And
Speaker 1: like a new organization.
Speaker 12: Yeah, there's a standard handshake between the different services that
Speaker 12: the industry at large uses. It's called IMAP, and that's
Speaker 12: exactly what that does. It keeps your email, even though
Speaker 12: let's say it's offered through another provider, if you're viewing
Speaker 12: it and managing it through Yahoo, it keeps everything in sync.
Speaker 1: All Right, anything else we need to know, we we've
Speaker 1: got to run. But anything else you want to let
Speaker 1: folks know about the new Yahoo mal No, I.
Speaker 12: Mean, we've we've been making great progress. We had just
Speaker 12: on iOS since we've rolled this out. We just had
Speaker 12: our biggest day ever for single single day record for
Speaker 12: daily active users from the iOS app, so we know
Speaker 12: something's working.
Speaker 11: It's out there. These AI features are available if.
Speaker 12: You want and need them, and certainly changing the game
Speaker 12: and towards of people being able to stay on top
Speaker 12: of their their personal emails and definitely appreciate the time.
Speaker 11: Rich. We're so excited about the product and we think
Speaker 11: our users will be as well.
Speaker 2: I think we know where to find it.
Speaker 1: Yahoo Mail, very simple, Rob Gellick, I know about I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I'm well as GM of
Speaker 1: Yahoo Male. You probably spend a lot more time in
Speaker 1: email even than I do, and I spend almost my
Speaker 1: whole day in my inbox. So email is very near
Speaker 1: and dear to everyone's heart these days, I feel like.
Speaker 12: Absolutely and it definitely is this the central communication to well,
Speaker 12: we're trying to make sure that they're bridging the gap
Speaker 12: across messaging applications to make sure it's the best experience possible.
Speaker 1: All right, there you have it, Yahoo Males General Manager
Speaker 1: Rob Gallick, thanks so much for joining me today. Eight
Speaker 1: eight eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: coming up why Google Maps is getting one of the
Speaker 1: best features of Ways plus your calls coming up right
Speaker 1: here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The
Speaker 1: phone lines are open at triple eight rich one O one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. I do appreciate you hanging out here with me.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you're learning something. Hopefully you're enjoying the show. And
Speaker 1: uh yeah, what more can you ask for?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, let's go to uh let's see here. We've
Speaker 1: got Peter in San Diego.
Speaker 6: Peter, you're on with Hey, Ranch, how are you?
Speaker 4: Thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 1: I am doing fantastic. What can I help you with?
Speaker 4: Okay, So I've got a phone that I've had for
Speaker 4: about five or six years that I like a lot.
Speaker 4: It's the Samsung Galaxy Note nine. The best feature of
Speaker 4: this phone is that I can put a memory card in.
Speaker 7: Oh.
Speaker 4: I basically got an endless memory. So I have not
Speaker 4: wanted to get rid of this phone, but I'm now
Speaker 4: starting to have problems. I got a message I had
Speaker 4: this app. I got a message the other day telling
Speaker 4: me I needed to update the app. I went to
Speaker 4: the play Store and I found the app and it
Speaker 4: deleted it uninstalled the a version I had in there.
Speaker 4: But then I got a message telling me that my
Speaker 4: phone is not compatible with a new version and I
Speaker 4: can't download it. I've now had that happen twice. And
Speaker 4: I come to find that I've got Android version ten
Speaker 4: and apparently my phone is telling me I've got the
Speaker 4: latest version available, and I don't think Android is supporting
Speaker 4: this phone anymore due to the age. I was cold.
Speaker 4: There's a workaround for that, and I was hoping that
Speaker 4: you might have some info, h a workaround.
Speaker 1: I'm not aware of a workaround. I'm looking up the
Speaker 1: phone was this Yeah, this was launched in August twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: The support for it ended on September seventh, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: so you're definitely outside the support time. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this phone. I remember it has a fingerprint reader on
Speaker 1: the backside.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 4: That looked yeah, great, great phone, wonderful phone.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course it was the last Samsung to have
Speaker 1: the micro SD card slot, which is a thing that
Speaker 1: you really like about it. So here's the thing, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's really I'm trying to think unless you unless you
Speaker 1: put your own system on here somehow I don't, which
Speaker 1: I think is very complicated and I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: how you do that. You know, there might be like
Speaker 1: a rom that you can put on here.
Speaker 4: That there are some YouTube videos and how to do it,
Speaker 4: but it's a little bit it's my skill set, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I used to do that back in
Speaker 1: the day, and even for someone who's like really into it,
Speaker 1: it was a lot. And by the way, once you
Speaker 1: do that, a lot of things don't work on the
Speaker 1: phone anymore, you know, like you all the little you know,
Speaker 1: everything's optimized because Samsung comes up with this software and
Speaker 1: also this is a you know, you'd have to unlock
Speaker 1: the bootloader on this phone. I mean, there's so many
Speaker 1: steps that like I can't sit here and tell you
Speaker 1: on a mainstream show to like go ahead and try
Speaker 1: to do that, because it's just it's just not like
Speaker 1: a thing for the you know, the average person to do.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, is.
Speaker 4: There a let me ask you this, is there an
Speaker 4: Android phone out there that does have a training that
Speaker 4: I can put a memory card on that's his fully
Speaker 4: featured as this phone. I tell you I've been through
Speaker 4: a lot of phones over the year. I've not kept
Speaker 4: the phone as long as this one. This phone has
Speaker 4: just been magnificent. And the only problem I'm having, you know,
Speaker 4: I just can't update these apps, and consequently I can't
Speaker 4: use apps with certain companies retailers and restaurants and things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: And that's all for security reasons and also support reasons,
Speaker 1: Like you're saying that this the last support on this
Speaker 1: is Android ten, which you know we're up to Android
Speaker 1: fifteen now, So I mean, you know, these companies that
Speaker 1: make apps, they you know, they do support for a
Speaker 1: decent amount of time. And by the way, the newer
Speaker 1: phones are now, the Android phones specifically the Samsung's and
Speaker 1: the Google phones are now getting like seven years of updates.
Speaker 1: So it's a good thing that we're seeing more updates.
Speaker 1: But this phone specifically was sort of before that kind
Speaker 1: of happened. And it does get a little tricky now
Speaker 1: when it comes to an SD card on a phone,
Speaker 1: like I mean, I really have not reviewed a phone
Speaker 1: that has an SD card in a long time because
Speaker 1: they just don't make them like that anymore. And I'm
Speaker 1: trying to see the only phone that I've seen that's
Speaker 1: come out in the past year or so is from
Speaker 1: a company called Nothing.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of them?
Speaker 4: I have not.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they actually make a phone called the CMF Phone,
Speaker 1: and the CMF is actually their lesser expensive brand, and
Speaker 1: they make a phone it's not very expensive, but it
Speaker 1: does have a expandable storage up to two terabytes, and
Speaker 1: it does have the recent operating system. The thing about
Speaker 1: this phone is it's a very budget phone, so it's
Speaker 1: not really you know, you may are do you take
Speaker 1: a lot of pictures?
Speaker 4: You know, I take a fair amount of pictures, And
Speaker 4: you know, I can understand why they did away with
Speaker 4: the SD card tray because you know, obviously they want
Speaker 4: to sell you memory on the front end.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and more.
Speaker 6: Like this.
Speaker 4: You know, you could you could just you don't need
Speaker 4: to do that. You can just put in any kind
Speaker 4: of card you want. It was it was just fabulous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I totally understand, and believe me, I it's
Speaker 1: you know, I've covered phones for a long time and
Speaker 1: the micro SD card slot was always a differentiator by
Speaker 1: the way for Android versus iPhone. And of course when
Speaker 1: Samsung did away with that and everyone else did away
Speaker 1: with it. It just kind of like became Okay, this is
Speaker 1: just the way it is now, and there's no interest
Speaker 1: in the phones having that expandable storage because why would
Speaker 1: you get that when you have you know, why would
Speaker 1: you want that as a phone maker when you're not
Speaker 1: going to sell anything above the smallest you know, memory
Speaker 1: size on that device.
Speaker 2: So exactly, I would take a.
Speaker 1: Look at this CMF phone and see, I mean, I
Speaker 1: love nothing. I love their software. I absolutely love their devices.
Speaker 1: This is, like I said, their budget device. You do
Speaker 1: have to jump through a little bit of hoops to
Speaker 1: get it. You got to join their beta program, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a big thing to do. But
Speaker 1: the software is clean, the phone's nice. I think this
Speaker 1: might serve you well. And it's not that expensive. We're
Speaker 1: talking like under two hundred and fifty bucks CMF phone
Speaker 1: by nothing. Thanks for the call, Peter and san Diego
Speaker 1: more rich on Tech after this. Welcome back to Rich
Speaker 1: John Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking
Speaker 1: technology at triple eight Rich one on one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Don't be shy, give me a call. You'll have to
Speaker 1: get through Kim. First, just full disclosure, but once you
Speaker 1: do it is fun. After that, well, it's fun to
Speaker 1: talk to Kim, but I'm saying you'll get once you
Speaker 1: get through to her, then you can talk to me.
Speaker 1: The website for the show Rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: There you can get the show notes. Hit the light
Speaker 1: bulb for that, or you can send me an email
Speaker 1: and it's all right there. Very very simple. Google Maps.
Speaker 1: If you've been in your car lately, you might have
Speaker 1: noticed something. Google Maps is acting a little different. It
Speaker 1: is giving you these incident reports that you typically would
Speaker 1: get from Ways. So we were driving last weekend and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it popped up and it said, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a police ahead, and it said, you know, slow
Speaker 1: down ahead. I said, wait a second to my wife,
Speaker 1: we're using Ways. She goes, no, that's Google Maps. So
Speaker 1: what so yeah, Google Maps this week started to integrate
Speaker 1: Ways incident reports.
Speaker 2: So this means if.
Speaker 1: You are using Google Maps, you're getting more timely updates
Speaker 1: about things happening on the road up ahead, whether that's
Speaker 1: an accident, whether that's a speed camera, police, and it's
Speaker 1: sourced from now Google Maps and Ways. So my kids
Speaker 1: love this because basically it says there's police ahead in
Speaker 1: half a mile, four tenths of a mile, three tents
Speaker 1: of a mile, one hundred feet fifty feet are they
Speaker 1: still there? And my kids love to answer the question.
Speaker 1: And when you answer those questions, and by the way,
Speaker 1: do this in a safe way in your car. Obviously
Speaker 1: it's a big button yes or no. You're helping other
Speaker 1: drivers in real time. And so this has been something
Speaker 1: that Ways drivers have really enjoyed and really loved sort
Speaker 1: of that community of sharing information in real time. Now
Speaker 1: it's coming to Google Maps. But Google, if you're wondering
Speaker 1: if they're going to merge these two mapping apps even
Speaker 1: though they own both, they say they are going to
Speaker 1: continue to operate them separately. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: got a preview of a new feature coming to Ways
Speaker 1: where instead of pressing a button at all, you can
Speaker 1: just say to Ways, what is on the road ahead
Speaker 1: in any you know, natural language you want. So typically
Speaker 1: when you do a report, when you file a report
Speaker 1: on Ways, it says, you know, is there an object
Speaker 1: on the road, is there police presence? Is there a crash?
Speaker 1: Is there slow down? Now you can just say, like
Speaker 1: you know, Heyways or whatever, ladder on the road and
Speaker 1: it will figure out what that is and kind of
Speaker 1: make that into a report using AI. So that's coming soon.
Speaker 1: But anyway, pretty cool if you notice that, now you're
Speaker 1: up to speed on there. So to say no pun intended.
Speaker 1: Tesla has officially launched its Apple Watch app. This is
Speaker 1: something that many people who have a Tesla have been
Speaker 1: waiting for, and this is the functionality where you can
Speaker 1: use your Apple Watch as a key to lock and
Speaker 1: unlock your Tesla. You can see your you know your
Speaker 1: charge level, you can adjust your climate control. Now here's okay.
Speaker 1: So I have this on my watch because I got
Speaker 1: it last night, but I have not yet gotten the
Speaker 1: software update for the car, so I can't really use it.
Speaker 1: But it's weird because they mentioned in the press stuff
Speaker 1: that you can open the frunk from your watch, but
Speaker 1: it didn't say anything about the trunk. So I got
Speaker 1: to figure out if you can actually use this, why
Speaker 1: would they do just the frunk and not the trunk.
Speaker 1: That makes no sense, So perhaps it will have trunk
Speaker 1: access as well. But anyway, this is a good thing
Speaker 1: because now you can use your Apple Watch to control
Speaker 1: the Tesla. This is something they've had in the past.
Speaker 1: But you had to pay for a third party app
Speaker 1: to do this, So now it's included, it's free. And
Speaker 1: of course this is part of Tesla's twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: holiday update, which also has some other features. One of
Speaker 1: the really, really handy features for folks is the fact
Speaker 1: that you can now download the dash cam and the
Speaker 1: Century Mode clips to your phone. So it used to be,
Speaker 1: you know, the Tesla's have like a DVR that's recording
Speaker 1: all the cameras all times, and if you ever get
Speaker 1: into an accident or you ever witnessed something on the
Speaker 1: road and you want to download that, you had to
Speaker 1: pull that USB drive from your car, put it into
Speaker 1: your computer, find the clip, and it was a whole thing.
Speaker 1: But now you'll be able to just go on your
Speaker 1: phone and download that clip directly to your to your
Speaker 1: photo gallery, and that's going to be so much handier.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of other features too in the
Speaker 1: Tesla twenty twenty four Holiday update, but I won't bore
Speaker 1: you with all those eighty eight rich one on one
Speaker 1: eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and Newport. You've got some follow up questions on
Speaker 1: the Yahoo.
Speaker 11: Guest yes, I do.
Speaker 2: Oh, and I reckon.
Speaker 1: Answer them because I'm not the Yahoo guy. But we'll
Speaker 1: see what.
Speaker 13: Welp, I actually emailed you and you said make sure
Speaker 13: you you listen on Saturday.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so I did.
Speaker 13: I missed the very first part. And what I emailed
Speaker 13: you was, I have, you know, an old AT and
Speaker 13: T SBC Global dot ne email. Okay, And but I
Speaker 13: used Yahoo homepage and I have for some years, and
Speaker 13: just a couple of days ago, I get this giant
Speaker 13: banner here that says a change is coming.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 13: Oh, in this page, we'll direct you back to the
Speaker 13: att currently homepage, where you can access mail and stay
Speaker 13: up to date on news, sports, finance, and finance and more.
Speaker 13: Go there now, which I haven't done.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 13: So it sounds like what your guest was talking was
Speaker 13: kind of the opposite of that.
Speaker 1: Well okay, so these are two completely separate things. So okay,
Speaker 1: this is you're talking about a homepage, right, which is
Speaker 1: which basically I'm looking at this currently. Uh It's basically
Speaker 1: the my Yahoo, except it's AT and T's version of it.
Speaker 13: So okay, yeah it looks different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks a little different. But everything I'm seeing
Speaker 1: on there is pretty much powered by Yahoo. So I
Speaker 1: think for you, if you want to continue to use
Speaker 1: the ma Yahoo page. Are you saying, so, is that
Speaker 1: is that going away? Or can you still go to Okay.
Speaker 13: Well that's what it seems.
Speaker 2: Okay, yep, that's what it is. Okay, yep.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna maya who looks like it's switching over
Speaker 1: to currently from at and T but it's still part
Speaker 1: of that my Yahoo brand. So it's a little confusing.
Speaker 1: But I think for you, if you have an account
Speaker 1: and you've got do you have some personalizations on that page? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're all going to just carry over. That's
Speaker 1: what it looks like to me when I look at this, Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's yeah.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it looks completely different. Like for example, my page
Speaker 13: is blue and it has a block over here and
Speaker 13: different things down the side, and the currently page. You know,
Speaker 13: there's always been issues between the two with the mail
Speaker 13: and some time was a mess. Oh right, you're but
Speaker 13: the currently page, I think is white and it looks
Speaker 13: totally different. Is that what you see when you look
Speaker 13: at it?
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it looks like I guess there It's funny gosh,
Speaker 1: I remember my Yahoo from back in the day. I
Speaker 1: mean that was like that was like my homepage for
Speaker 1: so many years, because it's like, once you personalize that,
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, golden, you had all your
Speaker 1: stuff on there at all. So yeah, it looks like
Speaker 1: that is changing to something a little bit different through
Speaker 1: the currently from AT and T. It's it's confusing because Yahoo, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess they handle things for a lot of different
Speaker 1: companies now, and I guess AT and T is one
Speaker 1: of them. But I would I would say, let's see,
Speaker 1: when does this say it's gonna.
Speaker 13: Okay, it doesn't what I see it doesn't say, doesn't
Speaker 13: say when.
Speaker 2: It says soon.
Speaker 1: This page will direct you back to the AT and
Speaker 1: T currently homepage, where you can access mail and stay
Speaker 1: up to date. So it looks like they're they're gonna
Speaker 1: just have a different design, and it looks like some
Speaker 1: of the things will remain the same, like the widgets that.
Speaker 2: You have and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I will say, Elizabeth, I think you need to
Speaker 1: be prepared for a different look for sure, because it
Speaker 1: looks like, yeah, it looks like that's changing just a
Speaker 1: little bit, But I don't think it's gonna be that
Speaker 1: big of a change because it looks like it's your
Speaker 1: same account, it's just going to be branded differently. So
Speaker 1: I will monitor this and I will also follow up
Speaker 1: with the Yahoo pho and see if I can get
Speaker 1: some more information on this. But I understand, you know,
Speaker 1: when we see a big banner that says that change
Speaker 1: is coming, you know, half the people are like like bracing,
Speaker 1: you know, like, ah, bracing for impact. I don't want
Speaker 1: I don't want this change. Why are you changing things?
Speaker 1: But I'm sure it's some sort of streamlining of their
Speaker 1: business or something that they're doing that is, uh, that
Speaker 1: is making that change happening. So thanks for the call,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Yeah, so my dot Yahoo dot com. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's funny even today in the year twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: when I go when I test something out, like when
Speaker 1: I when I need to test to see if like
Speaker 1: an internet connection is working or whatever it is, my
Speaker 1: first stop is always I just go to Yahoo dot com.
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that like after all these years, that's
Speaker 1: still kind of like the place that I go.
Speaker 2: Do I ever mention? But but maybe I've mentioned this.
Speaker 1: Uh that I got a job offer from Yahoo once
Speaker 1: This was back in the day, and this was I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. So it was you know, this was when
Speaker 1: I didn't know if Yahoo was going to be a
Speaker 1: thing or not. Right, so they offered me. I was
Speaker 1: working somewhere else and like, hey, do you want to
Speaker 1: come to Yahoo? And of course it was like a
Speaker 1: great job, and I had to move to like Sunny
Speaker 1: Vale where they had and of course I get this
Speaker 1: tour of like the Yahoo campus, which was just like
Speaker 1: incredible for someone who worked in local news to go
Speaker 1: from that to like a place where all your food
Speaker 1: was free. They had all these people like playing volleyball
Speaker 1: and these sand volleyball courts and like just showed me
Speaker 1: this brand new studio they had for this. It was
Speaker 1: called Yahoo Finance, that's what they were doing. And of
Speaker 1: course you had like you know, they were paying you
Speaker 1: in like stocks of the company. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a good thing. Like the offer was great, but I
Speaker 1: was so concerned that like Yahoo may not be around
Speaker 1: in a couple of years that I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't take this job, and I didn't, and you know,
Speaker 1: I guess they're still there. So even though my Yahoo's changing,
Speaker 1: so there take this. I was right about something there
Speaker 1: was a change at Yahoo eighty eight. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: and the best part of the job offer. They they
Speaker 1: FedEx you this package with all this Yahoo stuff in it,
Speaker 1: like all this like T shirt. I still have the
Speaker 1: T shirt, but when you open the box, it went Yahoo.
Speaker 1: And so I must have opened that thing like one
Speaker 1: hundred times before that battery went dead. Eighty eight Rich
Speaker 1: one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. I see the calls. We will
Speaker 1: get to them right after this. Rich on tech dot
Speaker 1: tv is the website to go to. And coming up,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about this Verizon secret deal you might
Speaker 1: be able to take advantage of.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you about that coming up next.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: Coming up this hour, we have another guest, Jennifer Twoey
Speaker 1: from The Verge, is going to discuss matter.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of this?
Speaker 1: This is that smart home standard that sort of been
Speaker 1: like a rough start for it, but supposedly it's gonna
Speaker 1: make things a lot better.
Speaker 2: She'll explain.
Speaker 1: Also Verizon, so this is a actually you know what,
Speaker 1: Let's just go to Rich.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Rich in Landa Lakes, Florida. Let's let
Speaker 2: Rich ask this question. He's been on hold for a while. Rich,
Speaker 2: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: We're Rich.
Speaker 10: Let's take Nicoll really appreciate you and your show. Thank
Speaker 10: you appreciating that a product it's by net Gear, the
Speaker 10: cable modem router combination, utilizing that instead of what Spectrum
Speaker 10: is going to rent here per month. I mean, it
Speaker 10: kind of makes sense because it's going to pay for
Speaker 10: itself and like you know, maybe a little more than
Speaker 10: a year. Want to get your thoughts on that product,
Speaker 10: and also if there are any any drawbacks to doing
Speaker 10: this versus renting, Well.
Speaker 1: The main drawback versus renting is that you're responsible for
Speaker 1: the equipment. So if something goes wrong with it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: or if you need tech support, Spectrums going to say,
Speaker 1: hands off, you've got your own equipment.
Speaker 2: We can't really help you there.
Speaker 1: So rit do you know that this equipment is compatible
Speaker 1: with your Internet?
Speaker 10: It is, I mean, at least online it says it is.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, And what's the what's the price of this.
Speaker 10: One hundred and thirty three bucks?
Speaker 1: So one hundred and thirty three dollars and what are
Speaker 1: they asking for their rental fee every month.
Speaker 10: Ten Well they're selling it as the modems free in
Speaker 10: the routers ten bucks a month, so you know, about
Speaker 10: one hundred twenty bucks a year.
Speaker 1: Okay, so about one hundred and twenty So your break
Speaker 1: even is about you know, fourteen months basically, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Are you moving in that time? Are you thinking of moving?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, you know, there's really the downside again,
Speaker 1: is what I said, is just basically the you know,
Speaker 1: upfront cost which is not that much, and the fact
Speaker 1: that if there's any sort of issue with compatibility or
Speaker 1: technical support, they're really not going to help you. But
Speaker 1: I think if you're if you're sticking with it, and
Speaker 1: you're going to stay in this place and you're going
Speaker 1: to continue to have this service, then I think that
Speaker 1: it's probably not a bad deal to do this. And
Speaker 1: you just got me. Well, so I don't always look
Speaker 1: at my bill for my internet like I once in
Speaker 1: a while look at the itemized bill only basically when
Speaker 1: it goes up, like it went up last month by
Speaker 1: like five bucks, I'm like, well, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: And I saw that my internet service provider actually charges
Speaker 1: I think it's fifteen bucks a month for my modem,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wait a second, why am I doing that.
Speaker 1: I've been I've had this same internet probably for ten
Speaker 1: years now at this point, and so I can't even
Speaker 1: imagine how much I've paid for this modem that is,
Speaker 1: you know, so old at this point, which needs to
Speaker 1: be upgraded in general.
Speaker 2: But I think for the look for.
Speaker 1: The average person, it's it's very simple because the cable
Speaker 1: person nowadays everything is like self service and I don't
Speaker 1: even think they come to install these boxes anymore. But
Speaker 1: you know you could if you needed that help, you
Speaker 1: could get it. But that's the only thing you're giving up.
Speaker 1: I think with this is that you just really you know,
Speaker 1: you just have to deal with that side of things.
Speaker 1: But sounds like it's gonna be pretty simple. You buy
Speaker 1: this thing, you connect it to your internet, and it
Speaker 1: will fire up and that's it. You don't have to
Speaker 1: pay that bill for the next you know, indefinite amount
Speaker 1: of time.
Speaker 10: Yeah, no, okay, I'm gonna give it a shot. Also,
Speaker 10: I want to say I appreciate your your tip on
Speaker 10: the zen book because I bought one. Oh okay, I
Speaker 10: got a really good deal on it, so oh nice.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a good tip. I was just uh,
Speaker 1: I was just in the Microcenter. If you listen to
Speaker 1: the show where I talked with the micro Center. I
Speaker 1: went to New Jersey and then I went to the
Speaker 1: one out here in California. They've got one in Tustin.
Speaker 1: And I was talking to this guy. We were doing
Speaker 1: a story about computers, and I was like, what brands
Speaker 1: do you like? He's like, I really like the asus
Speaker 1: Zen Book. And I was like, oh nice, that's what
Speaker 1: I recommend it to people. So glad, I'm glad you're
Speaker 1: liking that. Thanks for listening. Down there in Landa Lakes, Florida.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of the butter every time? Does everyone
Speaker 1: think that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 10: But it really it doesn't have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: I figured, I figured, but I just when I see
Speaker 1: Landa Lakes, it's like that. I just remember growing up
Speaker 1: with that butter. I don't know, it's just there, it is,
Speaker 1: all right. Eighty eight rich one on one. Thanks rich
Speaker 1: for the call. There, eight eight eight rich one on one. Okay,
Speaker 1: So this Verizon thing I was telling you about, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this will still work, but it's worth
Speaker 1: a try because it's been percolating for a little bit now,
Speaker 1: probably about a week, so Verizon might have gotten hipped
Speaker 1: to it. But the gist of this is that if
Speaker 1: you go to the section of the website of the
Speaker 1: Verizon website or the app that lets you unlock your
Speaker 1: phone number to leave, they get scared and they give
Speaker 1: you this ten dollars per month loyalty discount for a year.
Speaker 1: And so I tried this, and I the weird thing
Speaker 1: is that I don't know if it's automatic or not,
Speaker 1: because I went to this section of the of the
Speaker 1: app and I did find the banner that said, Hey,
Speaker 1: save ten dollars for twelve months, But then for some reason,
Speaker 1: when I went to redeem it, it sent me a
Speaker 1: text and it said I had to call Verizon to
Speaker 1: redeem it. So I'm not sure if that's what everyone
Speaker 1: has to do or just what I had to do.
Speaker 1: But the point is, you open the My Verizon app,
Speaker 1: you navigate to my Access section, and then you look
Speaker 1: for a banner that says save ten dollars a month
Speaker 1: for twelve months off this line, and then you tap
Speaker 1: check offers and you follow the prompts to redeem the discount.
Speaker 1: No changes to your current planner are necessary and people
Speaker 1: I did post this to my social media at rich
Speaker 1: on Tech on Instagram, and people did report that it
Speaker 1: did work for them, and like, rich you just saved me.
Speaker 1: Like one person said they had like three lines or
Speaker 1: four lines. I saved them like times each line. It
Speaker 1: was like ten dollars per line. Times the whole year,
Speaker 1: it was like over four hundred dollars. So I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I should take a cut of that.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm just kidding. I don't mind.
Speaker 1: I don't mind giving this out for free anyway. I
Speaker 1: will put the the source, which is droid Life, great
Speaker 1: website if you like, you know Android side of things.
Speaker 1: They were the ones who posted about this. I'll put
Speaker 1: the link on the website rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: But it's worth a try ten bucks a month?
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Coming up, we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about matter and why it matters
Speaker 1: to your smart home. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The
Speaker 1: website for the show is rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: If you want links to anything I mentioned, just go
Speaker 1: to the website and look for episode number one hundred.
Speaker 1: Everything I mentioned, including that Verizon loyalty discount I talked about,
Speaker 1: it's all linked up there. And by the way, the
Speaker 1: website a lot of stuff you can do there. You
Speaker 1: can sign up for my newsletter and you can also
Speaker 1: get in touch with me. So if you want to
Speaker 1: send me an email, I can't guarantee that I will
Speaker 1: respond to every one of them, because I do get
Speaker 1: a lot of them, but I will do my best
Speaker 1: and rest assured I do read your email. And if
Speaker 1: you want to get something in for this show, We've
Speaker 1: got the feedback segment coming up right after this, and
Speaker 1: I will read some of your feedback from the past
Speaker 1: week or so. All right, Joining me now from the
Speaker 1: Verge is Jennifer Touey. She is there smart home expert,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about MATTER, this new universal
Speaker 1: standard for connected devices.
Speaker 2: Jennifer, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 7: Hi Rich, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: So we actually met at an event in New York City.
Speaker 1: It was a Google event, and I was like, okay, MATTER,
Speaker 1: like I've heard of it, I know about it, but
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I've used it in a meaningful way yet.
Speaker 1: So I figured you'd be a great person to kind
Speaker 1: of talk about this. What I guess explain? First off?
Speaker 1: What is Matter?
Speaker 14: Yeah? Yeah, Well, in a nutshell, MATTA is basically designed
Speaker 14: to try and make the smart home simple, interoperable, reliable,
Speaker 14: and more secure. So great goals, exciting goals. Yeah, they're
Speaker 14: working towards them. The reason you haven't probably got much
Speaker 14: experience with Matter yet is because it's still relatively new,
Speaker 14: so it's still developing. But the goal is to create
Speaker 14: or it is creating, an open source standard for the
Speaker 14: smart home, and it's being created by over two hundred companies,
Speaker 14: including Apple, Amazon, Samsung, Google, Lgirobot, Verizon, like all the companies,
Speaker 14: so everyone's involved in trying to make this happen, which
Speaker 14: is why it feels like, unlike perhaps other protocols and
Speaker 14: standards that have come and gone, that this one sort
Speaker 14: of has some legs and it's.
Speaker 7: Going to get somewhere.
Speaker 14: And it's a communication and intero interoperability protocol.
Speaker 7: Sorry it's Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 14: And it leverages existing technologies, which is one of another
Speaker 14: reason why it should be relatively simple to implement. It
Speaker 14: uses something called thread, Wi Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet and
Speaker 14: it will allow all of your smart home devices to
Speaker 14: talk with each other locally over your own home network
Speaker 14: without relying on the Internet, and also to be able
Speaker 14: to talk to any smart home platform that also works
Speaker 14: with Matter. So you can use Apple Home if you like,
Speaker 14: or you can then just say okay, no, now I
Speaker 14: want to try Google Home. Or if you have an
Speaker 14: iPhone and your spouse has a pixel phone, you can.
Speaker 7: Both control your smart light bulb or you're smart door lock.
Speaker 14: Without having to fight over which ecosystem you're in.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, there's a lot to break down.
Speaker 1: Okay, So first off, you mentioned that it's like two
Speaker 1: hundred companies other any notable holdouts, like any companies that
Speaker 1: are not participating that are like major companies.
Speaker 2: No, not really, Okay, so that's a good thing.
Speaker 7: So that's I mean, everyone's got a foot in the door.
Speaker 14: Okay, some have an entire body and others maybe just
Speaker 14: have a teeny little little toe.
Speaker 2: Okay, but that's good.
Speaker 7: There's some more involved than others.
Speaker 1: So this, as I'm understanding, sounds like it would replace
Speaker 1: all those like hundreds of stickers on a smart home
Speaker 1: product that like oh works with home Kit works with
Speaker 1: Alexa works with Google Home, like this would this would
Speaker 1: be one standard that when you see Matter, you're like, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: As long as I've got matter, matter here, matter there,
Speaker 1: it all works together.
Speaker 7: That is the ultimate goal.
Speaker 14: Though we're probably gonna have those because for a while,
Speaker 14: because you know, people we got used to them. So
Speaker 14: but yes, if you see a Matter logo which kind
Speaker 14: of looks like a bikini bottoms on a stick man,
Speaker 14: but anyway, you'll never you'll never picture it any other
Speaker 14: way after that.
Speaker 7: But yes, you see if you see a Matter.
Speaker 14: Logo on a product in theory, and the goal is
Speaker 14: that that means it will work with any of the
Speaker 14: big smart home platforms and many other smart home platforms
Speaker 14: that have come on board with Matter. But we're still
Speaker 14: seeing those works with badges as their cord, like works
Speaker 14: with Apple Home, works with Google Home, because again, you know,
Speaker 14: consumers have got used to them, and if they're not
Speaker 14: there then they think, oh that means it doesn't.
Speaker 7: So once it's going to take a while, I think
Speaker 7: for that to that sort of.
Speaker 14: To permeate the consumer landscape to sort of understand that
Speaker 14: this is what matter means. But ultimately, yes, we should
Speaker 14: just have one little sticker and not fifteen different ones.
Speaker 1: So where are we at with this standard, like our
Speaker 1: products supporting it, our people, like, is the public aware
Speaker 1: of this? Are we looking for this sticker yet? And
Speaker 1: you know how far along are we?
Speaker 14: So it launched two years ago and almost to the
Speaker 14: month I think it was well November, and that was
Speaker 14: the launch of the actual specification, which is what the
Speaker 14: companies then used to go and develop products for it.
Speaker 7: So two years in and we actually quite far in
Speaker 7: terms of.
Speaker 14: The different types of devices it supports, which is key
Speaker 14: because if you want to be able to use everything
Speaker 14: in your smart home on one protocol, then every different
Speaker 14: type of device needs to be supported. So now we're
Speaker 14: basically not critical mass, but close to smart lights, locks,
Speaker 14: sensors and shades and blinds, smart switches, smart plugs, robot vacuums,
Speaker 14: home appliances, TVs, your thermostat, and most recently they added
Speaker 14: a lot of home energy management devices like solar panels,
Speaker 14: ev charges, battery storage systems in your home.
Speaker 7: So there are a lot of device types supported.
Speaker 14: There are a few very notable missing, I mean the
Speaker 14: biggest one being security cameras, things like video door bells
Speaker 14: and cameras. You might put around your home for security
Speaker 14: or inside your home.
Speaker 7: To watch your pet.
Speaker 14: Those are not part of the standard yet, although the
Speaker 14: Connectivity Standards Alliance, who is the organization that's sort of
Speaker 14: herding all the cats here and making this happen, they
Speaker 14: are working on adding security cameras. Then the other one
Speaker 14: is security systems. So like you're ADT or you're simply safe,
Speaker 14: those are not part of matter. Doesn't look like it's
Speaker 14: necessarily in the roadmap that we may sort of see
Speaker 14: sort of integration at some point down the line. So
Speaker 14: but yeah, it's made a lot of progress in terms
Speaker 14: of the CSA saying, look, people that make these devices,
Speaker 14: you can use matter.
Speaker 7: What we're kind of waiting on now is more.
Speaker 14: Manufacturers to actually start developing products with matter. We see
Speaker 14: a lot of smart lights and locks and sensors and
Speaker 14: plugs and switches, but we have not seen a lot
Speaker 14: of home appliances where I got vacuums, TV's them, stats,
Speaker 14: those devices that actually haven't traditionally been part of the
Speaker 14: smart home.
Speaker 7: But Matt who is sort of looking to help bring
Speaker 7: them in.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, well, if he's coming along, here's something
Speaker 1: that I'm always confused about. So you've got matter and
Speaker 1: then you also have thread, So like are they the same?
Speaker 1: Like what Like I'm looking at the Apple TV four
Speaker 1: K it says thread networking technology. Does that mean it
Speaker 1: supports matter? And do I what do I need to
Speaker 1: like have like a matter hub or like start with
Speaker 1: this stuff? Like do I get you know, I assume
Speaker 1: if you have a light bulb, but you have no
Speaker 1: like hub for that light bulb, you need somehow to
Speaker 1: like work it right.
Speaker 14: So the hub word is a bit of a misnomer.
Speaker 14: If you've been involved in the smart home in the past,
Speaker 14: you would have heard of different hubs that you could
Speaker 14: have used, like smart Things hub or like a Phillips
Speaker 14: Hugh bridge or a Zwave device Zwave hub that would
Speaker 14: work with one protocol and help you use those devices
Speaker 14: locally in your home. They gen and then some hubs
Speaker 14: would use multiple protocols and those what this what Matter
Speaker 14: is doing is you don't have a hub that controls
Speaker 14: a specific protocol. Instead, you have what's called a matter
Speaker 14: controller that controls matter devices in your home. The good
Speaker 14: news about the matter controller is you probably already have
Speaker 14: one in your house because all of the big tech
Speaker 14: companies have using software updates and with newer models added
Speaker 14: matter to their devices. So the Apple TV you mentioned
Speaker 14: is a matter controller. All Apple TVs are matter controllers.
Speaker 14: All home pods are matter controllers, all Echo devices, smart
Speaker 14: smart speakers from Amazon, they're all matter controllers, even the
Speaker 14: really old ones.
Speaker 2: What about the Google, Like all the.
Speaker 14: Googles are as well, including the Google Wi Fi routers.
Speaker 14: So yeah, and Samsung has put matter controllers into everything,
Speaker 14: like even into the fridge. So you have but the
Speaker 14: key different. There is a key difference which you picked
Speaker 14: up on. There's dread now. Thread is one of the
Speaker 14: two wireless protocols matterworks over. The other is Wi Fi.
Speaker 14: Everyone has Wi Fi mostly if you have a smart home,
Speaker 14: you definitely have Wi Fi, so that's not an issue.
Speaker 14: You do need a specific Thread border router in your
Speaker 14: house to get the most out of Thread devices and
Speaker 14: Thread devices are different because Thread is a protocol that
Speaker 14: was specifically developed four IoT products, so it's centered around
Speaker 14: things like low battery and sorry, long battery life, low latency,
Speaker 14: all the types of things that probably already frustrated you
Speaker 14: in the smart home, like if you've had a smart
Speaker 14: sensor in or a smart doll lock and you had
Speaker 14: to change the batteries after two or three months. Were
Speaker 14: you have a smart light switch that takes like thirty
Speaker 14: seconds to turn on. Those types of things are frustrating.
Speaker 14: Thread is designed to fix those, but you do need
Speaker 14: a thread border router. Good news again, all of those
Speaker 14: devices I just talked about from Amazon, Apple, and Google,
Speaker 14: about thirty percent of those are also thread border routers.
Speaker 14: And within the next three to five years, I would
Speaker 14: anticipate that the majority of your routers that you get
Speaker 14: from your ISP or routers perhaps that you buy like
Speaker 14: Eer routers or Google Nest routers, will be matter controllers
Speaker 14: and thread border routers as well as WiFi routers. So
Speaker 14: you'll have everything you need for Matter. But right now,
Speaker 14: if you're looking to get started with matter though, that's
Speaker 14: what you're going to want to make sure you have
Speaker 14: is a matter controller that also works as a thread
Speaker 14: border router.
Speaker 7: And if you want a list of.
Speaker 14: Those, I have a very handy article on the vergeon
Speaker 14: dot com called all the devices that work with Matter
Speaker 14: and you can go there and see and see which
Speaker 14: ones will work.
Speaker 7: And like I said, the chances are you may already
Speaker 7: have one in your house.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've got every smart home device that works with
Speaker 1: Matter on the Verge dot Com. I'll link that up
Speaker 1: on the website. Jennifer Twey, We're gonna have to leave
Speaker 1: it there. I feel like we need I feel like
Speaker 1: I have to take a college course in this. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm understanding why matter is. I feel like
Speaker 1: they need some really good marketing people to kind of
Speaker 1: clean some of this terminology up and make it simple.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much. You really explained a lot
Speaker 1: of it. I do appreciate it. We're gonna have you
Speaker 1: back on to talk about it more. Jennifer Twey of
Speaker 1: The Verge, definitely look at the article every smart Home
Speaker 1: Device that Works with Matter. Coming up, It is time
Speaker 1: for the feedbag right here on rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology the website for the show rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot TV. Two more items of note to
Speaker 1: get to before we open up the feedbag. First off,
Speaker 1: these AI powered glasses. They're called the Hearview AI subtitle glasses.
Speaker 1: I tried them on. This is a company out of
Speaker 1: the East Coast. They flew out to LA to give
Speaker 1: me a demo of these glasses. But they look like
Speaker 1: sunglasses that you know, you can have the sunglass frames
Speaker 1: or the standard see through frames, but they offer real
Speaker 1: time transcription of spoken words, so it displays the text
Speaker 1: on this little transparent screen right within the lens, so
Speaker 1: you can literally see conversations as they're happening. So it
Speaker 1: uses an app to kind of transcribe and then display
Speaker 1: on the glasses what people are saying. So these are
Speaker 1: for the hard of hearing. Battery life up to seven
Speaker 1: hours and I try them on and they're very cool.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like subtie for the real world. So
Speaker 1: you're talking to someone, if you couldn't hear what they're saying,
Speaker 1: you would literally just see what they're saying right inside
Speaker 1: your lenses. So I thought these were pretty cool. The
Speaker 1: problem is the price. They're very expensive. They retail for
Speaker 1: about two thousand dollars. Again, they're called the Hearview AI
Speaker 1: subtitle glasses, and you can watch my story on them
Speaker 1: on the website rich on tech dot TV. But very
Speaker 1: cool and a lot of potential here to help people.
Speaker 1: They were on sale for a lot cheaper than that
Speaker 1: two thousand, maybe like thirteen hundred. Over the Cyber Monday
Speaker 1: Black Friday Redfin. You can now tap a button on
Speaker 1: redfin and add decorations to your house, holiday decorations. So
Speaker 1: they're using AI to transform home listings into holiday listings.
Speaker 1: You can add lights, garland, and even a Christmas tree.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what this reasoning is. I guess
Speaker 1: if you're looking at houses during the holiday season, it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun to imagine, like what your house will
Speaker 1: look like that you're moving into with holiday decorations. But
Speaker 1: if you are a homeowner, you can claim your home.
Speaker 1: You can just dress up your home, put it on Redfinn.
Speaker 1: If it's on Redfinn, you can upload an image, select
Speaker 1: holiday from the style menu. And if you're a buyer,
Speaker 1: you can redesign any listing by pressing the redesign button.
Speaker 1: It's available on redfin dot com and the iOS app.
Speaker 1: What will they think of next? Okay, let's open up
Speaker 1: the feedback. These are the comments, the questions, the emails
Speaker 1: that you send me. David from Cincinnati writes in my
Speaker 1: son Jacob is fourteen. He's on the autism spectrum when
Speaker 1: it comes to technology. He's incredible, almost like a savant.
Speaker 1: He spends hours watching YouTube tutorials and has outgrown even
Speaker 1: Geek Squad when it comes to fixing devices. I believe
Speaker 1: Jacob's potential goes beyond a typical job like bagging groceries,
Speaker 1: but I'm unsure how to get him there. He won't
Speaker 1: receive a high school diploma, only a certificate, and college
Speaker 1: is not an option. Do you know if any programs
Speaker 1: mentors are paths that could help someone like him. He's
Speaker 1: already far beyond me in tech skills. I just want
Speaker 1: to support him in reaching his potential. David, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for this email. We did a story with an
Speaker 1: organization called Exceptional Minds here in Los Angeles. That is
Speaker 1: a school and the tuition was not cheap, but it's
Speaker 1: just an example of a place where teenagers like your
Speaker 1: son go and thrive. And it was really incredible to
Speaker 1: see how these teenagers were doing things like video and
Speaker 1: graphic design, and it's like a Hollywood kind of base thing,
Speaker 1: and then the studios stand up doing work with the studios,
Speaker 1: so it's really really incredible. So I am sure there
Speaker 1: are programs like that near you. I think it's a
Speaker 1: matter of linking up with the people that know where
Speaker 1: to find these programs. And I think you got to
Speaker 1: look for organizations in your area that deal with folks
Speaker 1: on the autism spectrum. So I would do a Google search.
Speaker 1: Let's see if I type in Exceptional Minds on Google.
Speaker 1: You know this as a nonprofit academy in post production
Speaker 1: studio for people on the autism spectrum. So I would
Speaker 1: look for programs for people on the autism spectrum in
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati area and beyond, and I think you'll find
Speaker 1: something great. Thanks for the email. Don from San Berndino
Speaker 1: writes in Happy Thanksgiving. I don't recall you covering instacart,
Speaker 1: but it's been a game changer for my family. Even
Speaker 1: here in San Bernardino, far away from the big city,
Speaker 1: this off service offers access to so many stores in
Speaker 1: one place. Three years ago, I faced a major medical challenge.
Speaker 1: My wife, who is site impaired, couldn't drive or handle
Speaker 1: computer orders during my hospital stay. Our daughter signed us
Speaker 1: up for instacart. She placed orders for us and groceries
Speaker 1: arrive within ninety minutes. The monthly fee is small, delivery
Speaker 1: is free with a tip. Drivers are polite, and they
Speaker 1: even bring things into the kitchen for seniors or the homebound.
Speaker 1: It's truly a godsend. Family members can help remotely, even
Speaker 1: from another state. I hope sharing this inspires others to
Speaker 1: assist loved ones with Instacart or similar services. Seniors and
Speaker 1: the homebound are often overlooked, and this can make a
Speaker 1: big difference. Thanks Don. I don't typically talk about Instacart
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's expensive and overpriced for what
Speaker 1: you get. But when you put it that way, yeah,
Speaker 1: it can definitely be a very big help depending on
Speaker 1: your situation. Thanks for the email, Joanne writes in thank you, Rich,
Speaker 1: Your tips have helped me so much. Your most recent
Speaker 1: wise camera recommendation, I got it and I love it.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. And Ted
Speaker 1: from Palm Springs rites in Happy Thanksgiving, Rich, thanks for
Speaker 1: your wonderful radio program. We can hear you in the desert.
Speaker 1: I love that. And then we got a question from
Speaker 1: Cat and Sacramento. I enjoy and value your radio show.
Speaker 1: Your excellent topics are easy to understand and provide us
Speaker 1: less tech savvy users helpful information. I heard about your
Speaker 1: cat Jubilee, and I want to know what happened. Is
Speaker 1: it a foster fail? We still have Jubilee. It's been
Speaker 1: about sixty nine or seventy days. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's a fail just yet, but it's certainly feeling that way.
Speaker 2: But she is up for adoption. She is a cute
Speaker 2: cat that's gonna do it.
Speaker 1: You can find links on the website, rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. I'm on social media at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Next week, how to protect yourself from deep fakes, and
Speaker 1: the new app that helps you keep track of your
Speaker 1: babies milestones.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to rich on Tech.