Speaker 1: Google and Apple name the best apps of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: The cyber truck is here. WhatsApp has a secret new
Speaker 1: feature you need to know about. Plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech broadcasting live from Los Angeles, coast to coast.
Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
Speaker 1: that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Phone lines
Speaker 1: are now open. Let's hit the button triple A Rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Give me a call if
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology. Maybe you need an
Speaker 1: app recommendation, maybe you're looking for a gift, maybe you
Speaker 1: just want to say hi. Just kim let those calls through.
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll find out. Email is also open.
Speaker 1: Just go to Rich on tech dot TV, hit the
Speaker 1: contact button and you will be directed to my inbox.
Speaker 2: We've got some great guests this week.
Speaker 1: Steve Churchin of Zypro Technology is going to talk about
Speaker 1: the whole name drop fiasco. You probably saw the warnings
Speaker 1: on social media. We'll talk about that face ID security,
Speaker 1: physical phone security, and all about open Wi Fi networks
Speaker 1: and whether you should use a VPN. Then we've got
Speaker 1: Scott Nap, Amazon's director of worldwide Buyer Risk Prevention. He's
Speaker 1: going to explain the top three holiday shopping scams that
Speaker 1: involve Amazon, and you want to hear about this so
Speaker 1: you can avoid them. And finally, a fun interview with
Speaker 1: Aj Forsyth of Coop. He's got a smart chicken coop
Speaker 1: that he has invented and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: You'll hear all about how you can raise chickens in
Speaker 1: your backyard. And yes, I am tempted to do that.
Speaker 1: So I went to jingle Ball last night. If you
Speaker 1: heard the opening music, Yes, we are thick into the
Speaker 1: holiday season. Can you believe it? Kim is going to
Speaker 1: give me a hard time for saying, can you believe
Speaker 1: it's already December? Yes, it happens every year, and yes
Speaker 1: it happens quicker than I think every single year. Jingle
Speaker 1: Ball was a fun concert. It's the kids could not
Speaker 1: We brought the kids. They could not stay up as
Speaker 1: late as my wife and I. They were literally begging
Speaker 1: us to go home because they were so tired.
Speaker 2: My wife and I were.
Speaker 1: Like, no, we're gonna miss the final two acts, which
Speaker 1: we had to leave. Now, on the plus side, getting
Speaker 1: out of the stadium was easy because we were the
Speaker 1: first to leave. But that concert when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: was the hottest ticket in town. And I grew up
Speaker 1: outside New York City Z one hundred powerhouse radio station,
Speaker 1: and that's all you heard about. And I remember going
Speaker 1: as a youngster and it was so much fun. At
Speaker 1: the means, if you know that we were talking, I
Speaker 1: was talking about this with my wife back in the day.
Speaker 1: You know, these venues were named after places and people
Speaker 1: and things in the area you grew up in, and
Speaker 1: now everything is a brand. So we have, for instance,
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles Sofi Stadium that has never been known
Speaker 1: by a different name. But back when I grew up,
Speaker 1: it was you know, Metalands Arena, then it became Continental
Speaker 1: Airlines Arena. Every arena now has a name. You know,
Speaker 1: Staple Center was a big one when they built that.
Speaker 1: It was Staple Center. Now it's Crypto dot Com. But
Speaker 1: it's just really interesting how the naming rights of stadiums
Speaker 1: have now kind of taken away from the place they're
Speaker 1: in and now it's just a brand. It's just a
Speaker 1: little shift. So this arena we went to last night
Speaker 1: was called the Kia form, when back in the day
Speaker 1: it was just the form. That's what it was, right,
Speaker 1: great way, Oh Bobo corrected me. It was a great
Speaker 1: Western form always forever.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. See so anyway, so look, it's.
Speaker 1: Been intertwined, I guess, ever since the beginning of time.
Speaker 1: But let's see, I've got my ugly Windows holiday sweater on,
Speaker 1: so if you want to see that, you can find
Speaker 1: me on x at rich on Tech if you want
Speaker 1: to see what that looks like. Windows has been sending
Speaker 1: me their ugly Christmas sweater now for probably five or
Speaker 1: six years, and it is a hit. Every time I
Speaker 1: go to a holiday party. It is always a hit,
Speaker 1: so much fun to wear. This year, I got a medium,
Speaker 1: so it's a just a little bit tighter than in
Speaker 1: yours past.
Speaker 2: But I think I'll go with the large again next year.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: If you want to follow along with the show today,
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot tv slash wiki is where you
Speaker 1: can find everything I talk about.
Speaker 2: I figured I'm gonna see how much time I have here.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about some of the holiday gifts
Speaker 1: that I like, some of the things that I think
Speaker 1: are tried and true, some of the gifts I like.
Speaker 1: I've got them all linked up on my website, rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot, TV slash Shop, and these are the
Speaker 1: things that I've tested that I like, I think are cool,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna go through them. I know it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot, but I'll try to get through
Speaker 1: as many as possible. This I thought was really interesting
Speaker 1: from a company called twelve South. They make a lot
Speaker 1: of accessories for iOS and Apple products.
Speaker 2: They have what's called the time Porter.
Speaker 1: So if you're like Bobo who changes his sneakers every
Speaker 1: day to match his outfit, maybe you change your Apple
Speaker 1: watch band to match what you're wearing. And this is
Speaker 1: a wall mount where you can display your Apple watch
Speaker 1: bands and hold them in there. It's called the time Porter.
Speaker 1: That's thirty bucks. I thought that was pretty cool. If
Speaker 1: you have one of these Amazon firetvs, I highly recommend
Speaker 1: you upgrade your remote control, or if you know someone
Speaker 1: that has a fireTV. The Alexa Voice Remote Pro is
Speaker 1: really really good. You know why because it has a
Speaker 1: few upgrades over the standard remote that comes in the box.
Speaker 2: This is thirty bucks.
Speaker 1: And not only does it have which I think is
Speaker 1: the best feature, a remote finder, so you can ask
Speaker 1: your fireTV, hey, where's my remote?
Speaker 2: And your remote will beep?
Speaker 1: How many times has your remote got caught in the
Speaker 1: seat cushions of your couch?
Speaker 2: Mine? Many times this has saved me.
Speaker 1: It also has backlit buttons, so that means you can
Speaker 1: actually see them in the dark. And it's got two
Speaker 1: customizable buttons, so yes, they have a couple of buttons.
Speaker 1: You can't change like a Netflix shortcut, but you can
Speaker 1: program one and.
Speaker 2: Two, so whatever you like.
Speaker 1: Let's say your favorite streaming service, you can just program
Speaker 1: that into the button there, and that means you can
Speaker 1: go to that quickly. And yes, I say button weird.
Speaker 1: I'm from Jersey. What can I say? It's just who
Speaker 1: I am. Another product from twelve South I really really
Speaker 1: like and I wish I had this during the Zoom days,
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. It's called the high Rise and this
Speaker 1: is a little you know how you stacked up boxes
Speaker 1: to put your computer higher so that the webcam would
Speaker 1: look you in the eyes better. Well, this is It's
Speaker 1: called the high Rise and it's an adjustable stand for
Speaker 1: your computer, and again with all of these products, I
Speaker 1: would wait for them to go on sale. So if
Speaker 1: you go to that website I mentioned rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv last Shop, it's going to bring you my
Speaker 1: Amazon page. Make sure that you look for stuff that
Speaker 1: says on sale or lower price or thirty percent off.
Speaker 1: Because I don't recommend buying anything at full price. Just
Speaker 1: wait for it to go on sale, put it in
Speaker 1: your cart, wait for the price to drop. I've been
Speaker 1: playing with the Metaquest three. This is Facebook's newest virtual
Speaker 1: reality headset. It's five hundred dollars, so yes, it is expensive,
Speaker 1: but it is pretty good. And it's not maybe as
Speaker 1: good as the Apple one that's going to come out.
Speaker 1: But this is five hundred compared to thirty five hundred,
Speaker 1: so what do you expect. It's like a quarter a
Speaker 1: fraction of the price. The big improvement with this headset
Speaker 1: is the pass through, so now it's much more mixed
Speaker 1: reality compared to the old one. The old one you
Speaker 1: couldn't the cameras weren't that good if you were looking
Speaker 1: at your area around you. This you can actually see
Speaker 1: the room you're in and everything is augmented on top
Speaker 1: of that. Okay, if you want something really inexpensive that
Speaker 1: every single person on your list can use. It is
Speaker 1: called the cord brick cord bric. This is a weighted
Speaker 1: chord holder. You know how you put a chord on
Speaker 1: your desk and as soon as you unplug it from
Speaker 1: your computer or laptop or phone, it falls off the
Speaker 1: back of the desk and it slides down. Well, this
Speaker 1: is a little holder. It's kind of a weighted brick.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a rubbery brick that you just put
Speaker 1: the cord in and you can put multiple cords in
Speaker 1: there so that when you're not using them they actually
Speaker 1: stay on your desk. That's twelve bucks. I think you
Speaker 1: go buy that without a going on sale. A lot
Speaker 1: of people ask me about an antenna for TV. And
Speaker 1: this is a company that I have loved for so long.
Speaker 1: It's called Mohuhu. They make a compact antenna that is
Speaker 1: just about thirty dollars. You plug it into your back
Speaker 1: of your TV and it gets all the local stations
Speaker 1: you know, depending on how far you are and what
Speaker 1: your signal looks like. But I plug this into my
Speaker 1: TV to test it out. I've got maybe you know,
Speaker 1: thirty forty stations that it picked up and some.
Speaker 2: Of them will come in clearer than others.
Speaker 1: But with digital TV, it's either you get it or
Speaker 1: you don't, and they make one that's a thirty mile
Speaker 1: range or a fifty mile range. This is a great
Speaker 1: microphone that I have discovered if you're trying to get
Speaker 1: into podcasting or doing something like that. It's called Austrian
Speaker 1: Audio Me Creator MI Creator Studio USB MIC. This is incredible.
Speaker 1: It's two hundred dollars, so it's a little on the
Speaker 1: price your side, but this is probably one of the
Speaker 1: best microphones that I have tested. If you're trying to
Speaker 1: do a podcast or anything else. Some of the segments
Speaker 1: you hear on this show that are pre recorded, I
Speaker 1: record them at home on that and it is incredible.
Speaker 1: So it's again the Austrian Audio Me Creator Studio USBC MIC.
Speaker 1: So if you have someone in your life that's trying
Speaker 1: to start a podcast, it is a great microphone for that. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a lot of fun Minioki. I have broken
Speaker 1: this out at some of the dinner parties I have
Speaker 1: at my house. At the end of the night, when
Speaker 1: everyone you knows feeling no pain, having a good time,
Speaker 1: I break out the Sway Minioki led Go Mini Karaoke.
Speaker 1: This is a portable karaoke system forty five bucks and
Speaker 1: it has a nice light on. It's got a microphone
Speaker 1: and you just link it up to your Bluetooth phone
Speaker 1: and next thing you know, you are doing karaoke. Crowd
Speaker 1: pleaser for forty five dollars. So the Sway Minioki is
Speaker 1: really fun. Nintendo Switch old ed can't go wrong with that.
Speaker 1: It's the highest Nintendo switch. I think next year they're
Speaker 1: coming out with the new switch, but this one is
Speaker 1: still really fun and people just love this thing. Speaking
Speaker 1: of the Fire TV if you need a new one,
Speaker 1: the fireTV stick four K Max is the newest, latest, greatest.
Speaker 1: It's sixty dollars. Wait for it to go on sale. Okay,
Speaker 1: oh wow. They actually have a cheaper savings code, so
Speaker 1: if you press redeem, looks like it's thirty dollars. So
Speaker 1: the thing about this Fire TV stick four K Max,
Speaker 1: which is better than the previous ones, is that it
Speaker 1: has what Amazon calls an ambient experience, which means it
Speaker 1: shows stuff on your screen when you're not using it.
Speaker 1: I've got this tripod selfie stick standing up right in
Speaker 1: front of me, right now. I use it to take
Speaker 1: my picture on Twitter right now. It's called the Tone
Speaker 1: of sixty inch cell phone selfie stick. And this is
Speaker 1: a compact tripod. It's really really good. It's twenty three
Speaker 1: ninety nine. I keep this in my bag at all times.
Speaker 1: If you ever need a sixty inch tripod, it is
Speaker 1: incredible and I just keep it in my bag and
Speaker 1: you always got a way to do stuff. Now if
Speaker 1: you want a smaller tripod, this one is really great.
Speaker 1: It's called the Tentacle Pro and I love this tripod.
Speaker 1: It is thirty dollars and it's a flexible suction mount tripod.
Speaker 1: It sticks anywhere and holds your phone, it holds your GoPro.
Speaker 1: It is one of the most creative tripods I've ever used.
Speaker 1: I keep this in my bag as well. And they
Speaker 1: have a brand new model, the Tentacle Pro. This was
Speaker 1: on Shark Tank. I've been in touch with the guy
Speaker 1: who started it. He has a great story. He had
Speaker 1: like I think ten dollars to his name in his
Speaker 1: bank account when he went on Shark Tank and guess what,
Speaker 1: he got a deal and the rest is history. He's
Speaker 1: doing he's doing pretty well ever since. Let's see oh
Speaker 1: anchor nanopower bank. You gotta get one of these. You
Speaker 1: plug it into the bottom of your phone. It keeps
Speaker 1: it charged, all right. It's all linked up on the
Speaker 1: website rich on tech dot tv h slash shop eighty
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. You are listening to
Speaker 1: rich on tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. If you don't get through
Speaker 1: the first time, be sure to give us another call
Speaker 1: because Kim is busy answering those lines. And uh sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, it goes to voicemail or it goes to
Speaker 1: the I don't even know what it does when it
Speaker 1: doesn't when you get too many people. But anyway, if
Speaker 1: you don't get through the first time, just give it
Speaker 1: another call. Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. You
Speaker 1: can also go to the website rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Hit contact and I know I gave you a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff earlier, so if you want to link to that,
Speaker 1: you can go to rich on Tech dot tv slash shop.
Speaker 1: Basically the website will give you all. Let's see here,
Speaker 1: Larry said, if I'm selling my iPhone fourteen promax, is
Speaker 1: it okay to give out the IMEI and serial number?
Speaker 1: Can the person asking for it program the phone in
Speaker 1: their name before paying me?
Speaker 2: Is this a scam? Larry?
Speaker 1: Typically the IMEI number is the main kind of number
Speaker 1: on a phone, on a smartphone, and there are some
Speaker 1: scams that can that could involve that, And in general,
Speaker 1: if you're selling a smartphone, you do have to be
Speaker 1: very careful about the information you give away. I don't
Speaker 1: think the person's going to be able to program the
Speaker 1: phone in their name because this is an iPhone and
Speaker 1: that's connected to you and your account.
Speaker 2: So there is if you go to like swapa.
Speaker 1: Dot com slash Imei, there is an Imei check which
Speaker 1: you can put the phone number in there and then
Speaker 1: show people that link. So maybe that's a good way
Speaker 1: of doing it. But a lot of people do ask
Speaker 1: for that serial number. I probably would not give them.
Speaker 1: I don't think they need that, But in general I
Speaker 1: did ask my friend who sells a lot of phones.
Speaker 1: He said that the serial number is a big no no.
Speaker 1: The Imei is probably okay, but typically you would give
Speaker 1: it out after your paid, and that way the person
Speaker 1: can make sure that the Imei is clean, which means
Speaker 1: the phone is not stolen. But yeah, you gotta be careful,
Speaker 1: especially person to person transactions with smartphones, because there are
Speaker 1: just so many scam artists out there, and believe me,
Speaker 1: they do try to do some stuff that you and
Speaker 1: I can't even think about. Angelina says, what do you
Speaker 1: think about the meta Quest three? My son wants it
Speaker 1: for Christmas, but he already has the two? Is it
Speaker 1: worth getting the three? So the Metaquest two versus the three?
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned earlier, the three is double the price
Speaker 1: right now, so it's five hundred dollars versus two fifty.
Speaker 1: If he already has the two and he likes it,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say probably sell that and get
Speaker 1: him the three because the three is going to have
Speaker 1: better resolution, it's going to have better pass through video,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be faster and so I it
Speaker 1: also has better controllers too, longer battery life. I mean,
Speaker 1: so there are some advantages, and I think that your
Speaker 1: son would probably if he enjoys the one that he
Speaker 1: has already, I think he's just gonna like this one
Speaker 1: even more. My main concern is if he has the
Speaker 1: two and he's not really using it and done don't
Speaker 1: get him the three. But if he has the two
Speaker 1: and he loves it, then I think the three is
Speaker 1: going to be a really nice upgrade, and he can
Speaker 1: always sell the two on, you know, something like Facebook,
Speaker 1: Marketplace or whatever. Darren Roade in how do I deactivate
Speaker 1: the function on my Samsung Galaxy S twenty three plus
Speaker 1: that alerts someone who sends me a text that I
Speaker 1: read it. I don't want them to see that I
Speaker 1: read it. I love your show, Thanks Darren. You can
Speaker 1: go into your settings. This is RCS chats. Everyone thinks
Speaker 1: only Apple has the lock on the chat messaging with
Speaker 1: I message, but no Android phones have this as well.
Speaker 1: They call it RCS messaging, and in fact Apple's going
Speaker 1: to adopt this as well. But if you go into
Speaker 1: your messages app on your Samsung phone, you go into
Speaker 1: your settings and then tap RCS chats. RCS stands for
Speaker 1: Rich Communications Services, and so if you tap inside that chats,
Speaker 1: it says read receipts, and that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: Some people say red receipts. I like to say read receipts.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess it's tomato tomato. But if you
Speaker 1: disable that functionality, they will not see when you read
Speaker 1: their message. You can also disable the typing indicator and
Speaker 1: some other options in there. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: real time options that they have built into the messages
Speaker 1: app now on both iPhone and Android, and coming next year,
Speaker 1: it's going to be much more universal with all of
Speaker 1: these features. So when you message someone from an iPhone
Speaker 1: to Android or vice versa, it'll work almost the same
Speaker 1: way next year. I cannot wait for that. That is
Speaker 1: going to be such a big deal. Coming up next,
Speaker 1: we've got Steve's Churchin of zipro technology. He is going
Speaker 1: to talk about that whole name drop security warning you
Speaker 1: probably saw on social media. Eighty eight rich one o
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking tech at eight eight eight rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one,
Speaker 1: the website rich on Tech dot TV. Joining me now
Speaker 1: Steve Churchin of Zypro Technology.
Speaker 2: Steve is a.
Speaker 1: Cyber security expert and a great resource. Talk to him
Speaker 1: a bunch of times on TV. Welcome to the show,
Speaker 1: Steve Rich.
Speaker 3: How are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing fantastic. How are you today?
Speaker 3: Doing wonderful?
Speaker 1: All right, So let's let's talk about this name Drop
Speaker 1: security warning. So this was a bunch of police I
Speaker 1: guess social media. Police departments posted a warning on like
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter and all these places about name Drop,
Speaker 1: this iOS seventeen feature that lets you bump two phones
Speaker 1: together to exchange contact information, and they said you should
Speaker 1: turn this off because it's dangerous. You could walk past
Speaker 1: someone and they can steal your identity or your at
Speaker 1: least your contact info.
Speaker 2: What did you make of this situation?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting how misconceptions can spread so quickly, especially
Speaker 3: in the social media world. This is a perfect example
Speaker 3: of how misinformation going viral causes unnecessary concern. I think
Speaker 3: the original post was from the Watertown, Massachusetts Police Department,
Speaker 3: where they warned parents in the public to turn this
Speaker 3: feature off. And the way it was described in the
Speaker 3: Facebook post was anybody can essentially get close to your
Speaker 3: phone and steal your contact information, your picture, and other
Speaker 3: aspects of it. And then this just went viral. Is
Speaker 3: every other police department, it seems like, reposted this without
Speaker 3: validating any of this information, and us looking at it
Speaker 3: from a cybersecurity and privacy point of view, started realizing, no,
Speaker 3: that's not really the case, and just one post just
Speaker 3: turned into something a lot of fear mongering out there.
Speaker 2: Okay, real quick.
Speaker 1: I just looked up the original post, okay, and I
Speaker 1: was wondering if they actually edited it since the original,
Speaker 1: and they did so. The original said, with this feature enabled,
Speaker 1: anyone can place their phone next to yours or your
Speaker 1: child's and automatically receive their contact information and it says
Speaker 1: their picture, phone, number, email, and more. And then if
Speaker 1: you look at the current iteration, it says oh, with
Speaker 1: a tap of your unlocked screen. So they did change
Speaker 1: it because they knew that this was kind of fake information.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: That's the post we woke up to Monday morning saying
Speaker 3: that anybody can walk by your child's phone and steal
Speaker 3: their information. Obviously not true, not the case, and Apple
Speaker 3: values privacy, consent in security immensely. That's why this feature
Speaker 3: was very well bought out. For this to work, both
Speaker 3: phones have to be unlocked, so you can't just walk
Speaker 3: up to a locked phone tap your phone on it
Speaker 3: and expect to take their information or their contact card
Speaker 3: download that onto your phone. So both phones have to
Speaker 3: be unlocked, and the tops of both phones need to
Speaker 3: be touching, so they can be face to face. The
Speaker 3: tops can be touching or they can be on top
Speaker 3: of each other. The important part is both users will
Speaker 3: receive a prompt asking them what to do. Do you
Speaker 3: want to share or do you want to receive? Without
Speaker 3: approving that prompt, nothing is happening, No exchange is taking place,
Speaker 3: and this only affects new contacts. So new contacts can
Speaker 3: be transferred from phone to phone, but doing name drop
Speaker 3: won't update a contact. And then each person, any person
Speaker 3: can pull their phone away and the transfer immediately stops.
Speaker 3: So you can hit the power button on the side
Speaker 3: to lock your phone and the transfer stops. So it's
Speaker 3: not as if the first what the first post made
Speaker 3: it out to be, where anybody can just walk by
Speaker 3: your phone and steal your child's information. It's not the case.
Speaker 3: So privacy and consent we're a big part of this feature.
Speaker 1: It's so wild how this stuff happens. Because I woke
Speaker 1: up to a bunch of people emailing me about this,
Speaker 1: and I thought I knew how this feature worked, and
Speaker 1: then I was like, well, wait a second, am I wrong?
Speaker 2: Like did I?
Speaker 1: There's no way Apple would do this, And so of
Speaker 1: course I grab my wife's phone and I started like
Speaker 1: tapping them together in like different ways, and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: the screens are they have to be unlocked and you
Speaker 1: have to press share for this to happen. And so
Speaker 1: of course I had to post on my Instagram to
Speaker 1: like clear the air. But by that time things had
Speaker 1: gone so viral. But I guess the tech world now
Speaker 1: agrees that this was pretty much a case of like misinformation.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and but it's not for not too because Apple
Speaker 3: does have a track record in the past of enabling
Speaker 3: features without really publicizing the how to use that feature
Speaker 3: or what it's about. So this one was a lot
Speaker 3: of hype for nothing. But there have been instances in
Speaker 3: the past where you take a look at a feature
Speaker 3: and go, I wish I knew about that before it
Speaker 3: was automatically turned on my phone.
Speaker 1: Okay, now you have a post on your LinkedIn about
Speaker 1: basically what someone could do with your phone even if
Speaker 1: it's locked, And so do you want to do you
Speaker 1: want to talk about that a little.
Speaker 3: Bit that's a great story too, and it's ironic that
Speaker 3: it happened to me, somebody who's been in the cyber
Speaker 3: security world for so long. So about a year ago,
Speaker 3: I was in London and I'm coming out of the
Speaker 3: underground station and just like anybody else does, I'm calling
Speaker 3: an uber so I can get to my next destination
Speaker 3: from the train station over to my hotel. So I
Speaker 3: called the uber, or I went into the app and
Speaker 3: ordered an Uber. And as the uber is getting close,
Speaker 3: I'm walking up to the curb to meet my right
Speaker 3: I can see it coming down the street. Now it's
Speaker 3: Christmas time or holiday time, so London's immensely busy during
Speaker 3: that time. So as I'm walking up to the curb
Speaker 3: and I'm holding out my phone so i can see
Speaker 3: the license plate number matches what's on my app, I
Speaker 3: feel pressure on my hand and my phone immediately disappeared
Speaker 3: from my hand. Oh wow, guy on a bicycle came
Speaker 3: by and snatched the phone right out of my hand
Speaker 3: as I was standing on the curb to get.
Speaker 4: Into my Uber.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: So panic sets in, going what do I do?
Speaker 5: What do I do?
Speaker 3: So I make my way to my hotel, I quickly
Speaker 3: get on my MacBook to try and track my phone. Well,
Speaker 3: this is where the fun starts. I don't remember my
Speaker 3: iCloud password. So let it be known that if you
Speaker 3: think I find my phone is going to help you
Speaker 3: in a situation like this. Unless you can log in
Speaker 3: from another device and know your password, you're not getting in.
Speaker 3: You're not tracking that phone. So I was able to
Speaker 3: finally get in, reset my password, and I get in
Speaker 3: and I can see that the last destination of my
Speaker 3: phone was probably ten feet from where my phone was stolen.
Speaker 3: And I'm going, how is this possible? Because my phone
Speaker 3: was locked. My phone immediately as the screen, within ten
Speaker 3: seconds goes dark. How did somebody put my phone in
Speaker 3: airplane mode? So I called the phone company, or I
Speaker 3: called T Mobile. I called all my banks and canceled everything,
Speaker 3: and then I made my way down to the Apple
Speaker 3: Store because I need a new phone. I'm stuck in London,
Speaker 3: I don't have a phone, and I've got work to
Speaker 3: do for the next week. I walked into the Apple
Speaker 3: store and I explained my situation to a very nice
Speaker 3: lady who's helping me, and she said, I'm the fifth
Speaker 3: person that evening to walk in with the exact same
Speaker 3: problem happening to them, their phone being snatched out of
Speaker 3: their hand.
Speaker 1: So they snatched out of your hand when it's when
Speaker 1: it's unlocked.
Speaker 3: Basically it was, Yes, it was unlocked, but it locks
Speaker 3: right away. As soon as the screen has flipped away
Speaker 3: or whatever the setting is, it locks right away.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So I asked, what what are they going to do
Speaker 3: with the phone. It's a brick, it's locked, it's under
Speaker 3: my name, it's under my account.
Speaker 5: What can they do?
Speaker 3: Sure, she says, well, they send it off to China
Speaker 3: and there's a couple of folks out there that can
Speaker 3: rewrite whatever needs to be rewritten, and then they'll take
Speaker 3: those phones and then they'll sell sell them in other
Speaker 3: countries like Nigeria, like Iraq, like other places.
Speaker 1: So the advice I give people in saying a phone
Speaker 1: an iPhone is worthless if it's stolen is not really true.
Speaker 3: It's not really true apparently, And I could follow my
Speaker 3: So the interesting part was I could follow my phone
Speaker 3: on the Find my iPhone app. So I followed it
Speaker 3: from London to Abo. From Abu Dhabi it went to Shenzen,
Speaker 3: and from Shenzen it went to Legos, Nigeria. Now, I
Speaker 3: don't know what happened in the whole process, but apparently
Speaker 3: it's not what we thought. The phone's not a brick.
Speaker 3: The lesson learned here and I learned this the hard
Speaker 3: way is I thought, when my phone is locked, nobody
Speaker 3: can do anything to it. But the default setting on
Speaker 3: iPhones is even if the phone is locked, you can
Speaker 3: get into control center and put the phone into airplane mode.
Speaker 3: So let it be known that if anybody takes your phone,
Speaker 3: they can immediately put it into airplane mode and that
Speaker 3: stops find my iPhone or anybody else from tracking that
Speaker 3: phone and knowing where it is. So, like I said,
Speaker 3: I learned in the hard way. But the setting is there.
Speaker 3: I've got that setting on now or I've turned it
Speaker 3: off now where nothing can be done to my phone
Speaker 3: without me personally unlocking it.
Speaker 1: And you can do that by going into settings, face
Speaker 1: ID and passcode, and there's a whole bunch of settings
Speaker 1: that says you know and they're all on by default,
Speaker 1: which is it's like, lets you look at the today view,
Speaker 1: notification center, control center, lockscreen, widgets, live activity, Siri, reply
Speaker 1: with messages, wallet, all these things that can be done
Speaker 1: when your phone is locked, so you want to turn
Speaker 1: that off, all those off basically if you don't want this.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. The iPhone is so good with
Speaker 1: face ID. If you're looking at your phone and you
Speaker 1: want to use some of these functions, you'll be fine
Speaker 1: because it's going to unlock instantly. It's if it's it's
Speaker 1: with someone else trying to look at it, they won't
Speaker 1: be able to do this stuff.
Speaker 4: That is exactly right.
Speaker 2: Rich stuff.
Speaker 3: You go into face ID settings, turn everything off because
Speaker 3: just like you said, you pick up the phone, it's
Speaker 3: going to recognize you, it's going to unlock the phone.
Speaker 3: Those features are going to be available to you but
Speaker 3: nobody else. So you're not losing any functionality by turning
Speaker 3: those settings off. You're gaining a lot of value in
Speaker 3: privacy and security turning those settings off.
Speaker 2: And two other things I just wanted to touch upon
Speaker 2: real quick.
Speaker 1: If you need to find your phone, it's iCloud dot
Speaker 1: com slash find from like a web browser, and on
Speaker 1: Android they have a similar functionality. If you go to
Speaker 1: Android dot com slash find, you can look at where
Speaker 1: all of your Android devices are. And then this is
Speaker 1: something that you actually inspired me, Steve, when I was
Speaker 1: reading about this turning off the stuff. You can actually
Speaker 1: ask an iPhone. You can ask Siri, whose phone is this?
Speaker 1: And it'll tell you whose phone it is. Now, if
Speaker 1: your phone is locked, it will say just the person's
Speaker 1: first name, and if it's unlocked, it'll say the person's
Speaker 1: full name. And again you if you did turn off
Speaker 1: what you're saying, which is Siri when it's locked, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to do this at all, so they
Speaker 1: won't even know whose phone it is either, right, exactly right,
Speaker 1: So we got we gotta go. But in general, you know,
Speaker 1: you deal with security stuff all the time, and you
Speaker 1: just told a story of how something happened to you
Speaker 1: that was very basic. You know, someone you know taking
Speaker 1: your phone out of your hand. Do people need to
Speaker 1: be worried about this stuff? Should you be concerned about
Speaker 1: all your privacy?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: I mean, especially with phones costing upwards of fifteen hundred
Speaker 3: dollars now almost two thousand dollars. Is absolutely is phones
Speaker 3: can be a huge area of huge privacy concern. We
Speaker 3: don't realize it, but our entire digital life is bound
Speaker 3: to our phone. We don't think about a day to
Speaker 3: day but if that phone went missing, even for a
Speaker 3: couple of hours, I guarantee you you'd be in panic mode.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So take shreat the time, take the time to
Speaker 1: go through your settings and set things up the way
Speaker 1: you want to. Steve Churchin of Zypro Technology, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today. I'll put a link to
Speaker 1: your socials on the website. Rich on Tech dot tv
Speaker 1: eighty eight rich one O one more rich on Tech
Speaker 1: right after this, welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four to one zero one. Lots of
Speaker 1: you like to email as well rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: Hit the contact link and you can submit your question
Speaker 1: right there. That is exactly what Robin did. She said,
Speaker 1: Please please, please talk about great apps for getting rid
Speaker 1: of duplicate photos on the iPhone. Love your show, Well,
Speaker 1: there is a built in method to do this on
Speaker 1: the iPhone. I don't think it's very good, but it's
Speaker 1: a good place to start. So if you go into
Speaker 1: your photos app and you go into your albums, you
Speaker 1: can actually scroll down to where it says utilities and
Speaker 1: there's a link for duplicates, and so it'll show you
Speaker 1: the duplicates that it finds on your phone, and on mine,
Speaker 1: I have exactly four, so it's not really that great
Speaker 1: because I'm sure I have more than four, but it
Speaker 1: will give you the option to merge those or delete those.
Speaker 1: The app that I think is probably the best one
Speaker 1: to do this is called Gemini Gemni Gemini Photos, and
Speaker 1: this app is really good because it uses a little
Speaker 1: bit of a to kind of figure out pictures that
Speaker 1: look similar, not just the exact pictures, so similar shots.
Speaker 1: You know how you take a whole bunch of pictures
Speaker 1: and then you keep them all in your camera roll. Well,
Speaker 1: this will show you those all together and you can
Speaker 1: pick just the one that you want to keep. It
Speaker 1: can also help you with other stuff like blurry photos
Speaker 1: and things like that.
Speaker 2: It's just a really great app.
Speaker 1: The other thing I really like about it is that
Speaker 1: you can sort photos, so you can sort to see
Speaker 1: your largest videos on your phone, delete a couple of those,
Speaker 1: and free up space. Now, the thing about this app
Speaker 1: is that it's not going to be free. You're going
Speaker 1: to have to pay if you want to truly use
Speaker 1: the best features of it, So you know, it's either
Speaker 1: five dollars a month, twenty dollars a year, or thirty
Speaker 1: five dollars for lifetime. But there is a free level
Speaker 1: of the app that you can use without paying, and
Speaker 1: so you can check it out and see if it
Speaker 1: works for you. Now, I've been testing another app that
Speaker 1: I don't like as much, but it is very high
Speaker 1: in the store. It's called Cleanup, and you know, you
Speaker 1: really basically have to pay to do this stuff.
Speaker 2: So I also, I'm just not sure.
Speaker 1: I don't have a good I don't have a good
Speaker 1: recommendation on that app just yet, but it is very
Speaker 1: popular on the App store list.
Speaker 2: So again, it's called Cleanup.
Speaker 1: I am still waiting for Google Photos to do this
Speaker 1: to give me a good way to sort through my
Speaker 1: similar photos.
Speaker 2: Apparently it's coming.
Speaker 1: They've got this feature called stacks, which is going to
Speaker 1: stack up the pictures together that look similar, which will
Speaker 1: kind of clean up your library, but it's not going
Speaker 1: to delete them, but then you could easily go through
Speaker 1: in that stack and kind of get rid of some
Speaker 1: of those. Now, there is an app that's really cool
Speaker 1: and easy and fun. It's called Swipe Wipe, Swipe Wipe,
Speaker 1: Swipe Wipe. And this is an app that's just kind
Speaker 1: of fun for iOS and Android. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a Tinder, but for your photos. So it will show
Speaker 1: you all of the photos that you took in a
Speaker 1: month and it will let you just swipe through those now. Again,
Speaker 1: this is an app that has a free level of
Speaker 1: service but also a paid level, but you can use
Speaker 1: it for free until you run into that.
Speaker 2: Roadblock where it says you have to pay.
Speaker 1: And pro tip, by the way, on a lot of
Speaker 1: these apps that try to get you to pay, look
Speaker 1: very closely in the corners. Many times it looks like
Speaker 1: you can't proceed using that app, when in reality there
Speaker 1: is a tiny, tiny X that you can't see in
Speaker 1: the corner. You tap that X and you can continue
Speaker 1: using the app. They're just trying to push you to pay,
Speaker 1: but most of the time you can still continue to
Speaker 1: use that app. But this one's called Swipe Wipe And
Speaker 1: what I try to do is just try to organize
Speaker 1: your camera role as you go along. If you wait
Speaker 1: until the end of the year to try to go
Speaker 1: through all your pictures, it's going to be a nightmare.
Speaker 1: So just try to go through them, you know, just
Speaker 1: take ten minutes at the end of each day and
Speaker 1: just go through your pictures. I do it usually before
Speaker 1: I go to sleep, because I take a bunch of
Speaker 1: pictures throughout the day, screenshots, all these different things. I
Speaker 1: just go ahead and delead them all. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go to uh Christine in Huntington Beach. Christine, you're on
Speaker 1: with rich Oh Hi, rich Oh.
Speaker 6: I love your show.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 6: I always learned so much from you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. That means a lot.
Speaker 7: Oh good.
Speaker 6: Hey, I have a question. So I just recently updated
Speaker 6: my iPhone to the what what's.
Speaker 2: Go to release? The seventeen Yes, seventeen yep. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I'm in sales. So when I call my customers
Speaker 6: for my cell phone and I go to leave a message,
Speaker 6: sometimes I'll do pound and I play it back because
Speaker 6: I want to see if my voicemail was you know,
Speaker 6: you know, you can hear it. There was no static,
Speaker 6: it didn't fade in or out. Or sometimes maybe I
Speaker 6: want to just change my voicemail, my voicemail that I
Speaker 6: leave for them, and it's not doing it anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so was there a change, Yes, there was a
Speaker 1: big change. Apple has hijacked everyone's voicemail and now voicemail
Speaker 1: is happening on your phone, and that's why you can't
Speaker 1: do this because this is called live voicemail. And just
Speaker 1: like we talked about earlier with name Drop, it is
Speaker 1: on by default. So what's happening is your voicemail is
Speaker 1: now being handled on the phone itself and not through
Speaker 1: your carrier. So if now you can't turn this off
Speaker 1: for the person you're calling, but you can go into
Speaker 1: settings on your phone and if you want to see
Speaker 1: if this is on or off, you can go to
Speaker 1: settings and then phone and then you see what's called
Speaker 1: live voicemail. Now I've turned it off because I did
Speaker 1: not want that. This is tripping up so many people, Christine, and.
Speaker 4: It is it is, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: So Apple sneakily turned this on for everyone. So now
Speaker 1: what's happening is when someone calls your phone, your phone
Speaker 1: is answering that call, not your carrier. So if you
Speaker 1: want to turn it off again, Settings Phone, Live voicemail.
Speaker 1: Great question, a lot of people discovering that. Thanks for
Speaker 1: calling to rich On Tech eighty eight, rich one On
Speaker 1: one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: All right, welcome back, Rich Rich Demurou here rich On Tech,
Speaker 1: talking technology with you at Triple eight rich one on
Speaker 1: one eighty eight seven.
Speaker 2: Four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: I'm giving producer Bobo the evil eye right now because
Speaker 1: this is only a song you break out when it
Speaker 1: is Christmas, like the day before. You would think it's
Speaker 1: the day before Christmas. Here we're only the We're only
Speaker 1: into December like the first weekend. But this is a classic.
Speaker 1: And yes, I love this song. It's just a matter
Speaker 1: of man, this song. It's so wild how long ago
Speaker 1: this song was recorded and it is still it's a classic.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think there's been a Christmas song
Speaker 1: that is really like a new Christmas song that's really
Speaker 1: taken a hold like this one. This is probably the newest,
Speaker 1: and that's probably like twenty years ago. Rich Demiro here
Speaker 1: rich on Tech the website for the show rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot tv. You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: I am at rich on Tech on all of the
Speaker 1: major platforms. That's Instagram, that's Facebook, that is x And
Speaker 1: you can listen to the show as a podcast. Just
Speaker 1: go to rich on tech dot tv, subscribe and you'll
Speaker 1: never miss a thing. And there are show notes, so
Speaker 1: I know I mentioned a lot of things on this show.
Speaker 1: Just go to rich on tech dot tv slash wiki
Speaker 1: and you can see the live show notes that I
Speaker 1: am mentioning in real time, and today I'm tweeting them
Speaker 1: as well, or exing them, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: I don't know what they call it these days.
Speaker 1: Coming up this hour, we've got Scott Nap, Amazon's director
Speaker 1: of worldwide Buyer Risk Prevention. He's going to talk about
Speaker 1: the three Amazon holiday shopping scams. And I know him
Speaker 1: onto something when I get an email from someone on
Speaker 1: a topic that I'm about to cover on TV or
Speaker 1: the radio. So yesterday my mom texted me and she said,
Speaker 1: rich Richard. She calls me Richard. She said, I just
Speaker 1: got a phone call from someone at Amazon that said
Speaker 1: my account and this and that. I said, up, scam.
Speaker 1: Just talk to the guy at Amazon, and that's a scam.
Speaker 1: So you will learn about these scams as well. I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you about this WhatsApp feature that you
Speaker 1: kind of need to know about because if your partner
Speaker 1: is keeping some secrets from you, yeah, this is where
Speaker 1: they're going to do it. It is it's kind of
Speaker 1: like built for cheating. I hate to say that, but
Speaker 1: it really is. Let's go to Debbie in the Rocky
Speaker 1: Mountains of Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Debbie, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 8: Yes, Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Yes, smokey mountains. Where do we get rocky mountain? Rocky
Speaker 1: mountains is Colorado?
Speaker 7: Isn't it right?
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 2: Smokey mountains? That sounds so nice?
Speaker 1: Is it just always snowing in the smoky mountains with
Speaker 1: like a little fireplace like you know.
Speaker 8: It's pretty. It's pretty nice right now, although it's very cloudy,
Speaker 8: hence the name smoky mountains. We had the smoky cloud
Speaker 8: out today, so yeah, we've gotten some much needed rain
Speaker 8: and is very pleasant here today.
Speaker 2: Very nice. What can I help you with?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 8: I had two things, but the most important one was
Speaker 8: my husband and I both have the same phone.
Speaker 2: We charged for the second question.
Speaker 8: Two. Yes, Android, everybody seeds to like the iPhones. Maybe
Speaker 8: we should switch over. I don't know.
Speaker 1: No, stay strong, Debbie, don't don't fall.
Speaker 8: The pure pressure was something that specifically Samsung related, But
Speaker 8: this happens to both of our phone. Okay, we have
Speaker 8: text messages come in. Oftentimes one or two will come in.
Speaker 8: You can hear the little click that have come in
Speaker 8: and then whoever I'm talking to on the phone can't
Speaker 8: hear me anymore, and it happens to him too, so
Speaker 8: I've got to hang up and redelling. In fact, I
Speaker 8: used the landline today just in case that happened when
Speaker 8: I was on the phone here. So does that? Is
Speaker 8: that a typical thing that happened? What happens with Samsung's
Speaker 8: or Android phones?
Speaker 1: So when okay, you're on the phone, a text message
Speaker 1: comes in, and now the person can't hear you ever.
Speaker 8: Again, they can't hear me again. Well, I'll take it.
Speaker 8: Sometimes if I wait long enough and there's only been
Speaker 8: one or two texts come in, wait a long term time,
Speaker 8: we keep saying can you hear me? Kind of you
Speaker 8: know questions, and eventually they can usually hear me again.
Speaker 8: But usually what happens if we just hang up and
Speaker 8: call back again? Oh yeah, but if a string we
Speaker 8: have a couple of text strings that have quite a
Speaker 8: few people in it, so there's a barrage of those
Speaker 8: coming in right right, Yeah, I forget it. You can't
Speaker 8: And I've tried turning off the what is it the note?
Speaker 7: What is that?
Speaker 8: Notices?
Speaker 2: It tell you a text like a notification.
Speaker 8: Yeah, silence it and its okay.
Speaker 1: I have not I mean, okay, so I've I've definitely
Speaker 1: experienced where if someone texts you, it might interrupt your
Speaker 1: call for like a fraction of a second while the
Speaker 1: text notification comes through, but I haven't seen where it
Speaker 1: continually disables the rest of your Like, that doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. That's not supposed to be a feature. It's
Speaker 1: weird that it's happening to your husband and you on.
Speaker 8: Here, yes on this, And we had Samsung's before this,
Speaker 8: before we get the twenty twos. I forget what the
Speaker 8: which one, what models it was, but it was we
Speaker 8: both had those Samsung's and the same thing happened with those,
Speaker 8: so I thought it was something unique to Samsung.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: The only thing I would think of, Number one, I
Speaker 1: think on your messages app, I would try to mute
Speaker 1: the notifications for group messages because most of the time,
Speaker 1: you know, people get on a tangent and next thing
Speaker 1: you know, you're being barraged with notifications. You know, there's
Speaker 1: like just so like this happens with me, and you
Speaker 1: know I'm on a couple of group chats and it's
Speaker 1: just like whoa all of a sudden, so I have
Speaker 1: all of those muted.
Speaker 2: That's the first thing I would do.
Speaker 1: The other thing you can do is make sure that
Speaker 1: your software is up to date on your phone. I
Speaker 1: know they just came out with some new software on
Speaker 1: the Samsung. I just updated my test device to this
Speaker 1: new one UI six which is totally redesigns everything, so
Speaker 1: that may take care of it. I would do the
Speaker 1: software update on both. So there's a couple of places
Speaker 1: to do software updates on a Samsung, so make sure
Speaker 1: you're up to date in all the different places. Number one,
Speaker 1: it's the main software update for the phone, which is
Speaker 1: the operating system that's under the setting software update. Then
Speaker 1: you have your app software update, so that is my
Speaker 1: apps under Google Play and you want to update all
Speaker 1: your apps there. And then the third place is actually
Speaker 1: the Galaxy Store. So if you open up the Galaxy Store,
Speaker 1: they will have app updates as well.
Speaker 2: So make sure you're up to date on all those
Speaker 2: three things.
Speaker 1: Then I would also go into the Messages app, which
Speaker 1: is what Samsung uses for your messages. Go into your
Speaker 1: settings there and just make sure that there's in the notifications.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of options in there, and so it
Speaker 1: says in app notification settings for messages, and so maybe
Speaker 1: you can turn off your outgoing and incoming message sounds.
Speaker 1: Maybe you that off inside your settings, and that might
Speaker 1: help with the problem you're having. So that could be
Speaker 1: another way to do it. Now, if none of those
Speaker 1: things work, you might just do kind of a full
Speaker 1: settings reset on your phone. And you can go into
Speaker 1: your settings under reset and there is a reset all
Speaker 1: settings and that will reset your security, language, accounts, personal data.
Speaker 2: But you actually you probably don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, actually it'll reset everything except your main settings, So
Speaker 1: all of your notification settings and stuff will be reset
Speaker 1: to kind of like the factory, but it's not going
Speaker 1: to erase anything on your phone.
Speaker 2: But those are the steps that I would take for
Speaker 2: that to happen.
Speaker 1: I think realistically, the best feature or the best setting
Speaker 1: to change is going to be inside your messages app
Speaker 1: and just look for anything that says, you know that
Speaker 1: one setting I mentioned about while you're on a call
Speaker 1: getting the notifications, because that's what's interrupting your call. So
Speaker 1: I think that's your main bet there. Thanks Debbie in
Speaker 1: the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Sounds like such a nice place.
Speaker 1: Speaking of apps, Oh, let's see sh I tell you
Speaker 1: about the WhatsApp thing. I should tell you about this
Speaker 1: because this I found very interesting. So WhatsApp is introducing
Speaker 1: a new feature called secret code for chatlock. This means
Speaker 1: that people can set a unique password for their chats
Speaker 1: which locks them. Not only this, but they can also
Speaker 1: hide their secret chats from the chat list.
Speaker 2: So anything that's locked will not even show up.
Speaker 1: So let's just say you were looking over the shoulder
Speaker 1: of someone's phone and they this won't even show up
Speaker 1: in their list of chats. So again, this is called
Speaker 1: secret code for chatlock, and WhatsApp says this will enhance
Speaker 1: chat privacy, so they can set Users can now set
Speaker 1: a unique password for their lock chats, which is different
Speaker 1: from their phone on lock code. And then users can
Speaker 1: take it a step further. They can choose to hide
Speaker 1: their locked chats from the chat list, which means you
Speaker 1: can only see these chats by entering a secret code
Speaker 1: into the search bar. Ooh, that's interesting. And you can
Speaker 1: lock a chat just by pressing and holding it with
Speaker 1: a long press. And so if you want to hide
Speaker 1: a certain chat on your WhatsApp chat list, just long
Speaker 1: press it and you can set up this lock chat. Now,
Speaker 1: this is not gonna be available immediately to everyone. It
Speaker 1: is what's called rolling out. And in the tech world,
Speaker 1: I dislike the term rolling out because that means you
Speaker 1: may get it today, you may get it in three months.
Speaker 1: It just sort of depends. But to me, I do
Speaker 1: not like rolling out features because it means that you
Speaker 1: do not have them instantly.
Speaker 2: You may, you may not.
Speaker 1: But anyway, WhatsApp, if you have some trust issues with
Speaker 1: your partner, you may want to You may want to
Speaker 1: school up on this secret code for chat lock because
Speaker 1: it definitely seems like it is going to aid and
Speaker 1: a bet some some things that people may not want
Speaker 1: to think about happening in their relationships. Anyway, maybe there's
Speaker 1: some good uses of it. Maybe you just don't want
Speaker 1: your kids seeing your secret chat with uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe you got a sexy chat going on. You don't
Speaker 1: want your kids to see that. I'm not saying I
Speaker 1: do that, Believe me, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't understand this whole new You know, these kids
Speaker 1: these days, they're sending these, you know, these texts that
Speaker 1: I just don't understand.
Speaker 2: Do not send I look, you could do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: I'm just not doing that.
Speaker 1: Rich On Tech. At rich On Tech, you can follow
Speaker 1: me on social media. Eighty eight rich one on one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: Is this show officially off the rails? I think it is.
Speaker 1: Ball Oh flow right up bringing down the house yesterday
Speaker 1: at Jingle Ball. I don't know what's happening today here
Speaker 1: on this show. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here hanging out with you. I think I just
Speaker 1: talked for like a minute, but I was only talking
Speaker 1: to Bobo in the booth because I was pressing the
Speaker 1: button that only goes to him and not you.
Speaker 2: On the flip side, it could have been worse.
Speaker 1: I could have been saying something really bad and it
Speaker 1: would have gone off to you. Bobo has left the building.
Speaker 1: He is he has given up on this show. My
Speaker 1: name is rich Demiro. Can you see I have a
Speaker 1: lot of fun here on Saturdays and Sundays hanging out
Speaker 1: with you. It's just the way it is. It's it's
Speaker 1: my it's my happy place, and I hope it's yours.
Speaker 1: Where were we? We got guests coming up this hour.
Speaker 1: Scott Nap is going to talk about holiday shopping scams
Speaker 1: at Amazon.
Speaker 2: For now, let's go to Fred and Camio. Fred. You're
Speaker 2: on with Rich.
Speaker 10: Hey, Rich, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I am doing great, Thanks for calling.
Speaker 10: Listen. I'm having a problem. I have an iPhone se
Speaker 10: second generation and a Samsung TV, and I used to
Speaker 10: be able to project anything, you know, throw it up
Speaker 10: onto the screen or it's like and all of a sudden,
Speaker 10: I'm only getting the audio. And that even says that
Speaker 10: there's a little thing that comes on the TV audio
Speaker 10: so I can use I can project Hulu fine from
Speaker 10: my phone. But when I want to be part of
Speaker 10: like a web meeting where they send you a link,
Speaker 10: I used to be able to click on it and
Speaker 10: the picture would come up and I'd be fine, and
Speaker 10: all of a sudden, it's not.
Speaker 1: A web meeting first, So it's okay, So you're using airplay,
Speaker 1: I take it, or well hold on. You have a
Speaker 1: Samsung TV though, so Samsung TVs don't typically support that,
Speaker 1: do they.
Speaker 10: I Well, I'm sorry. I also have Apple TV.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, so you're using Apple TV. Yeah, so is
Speaker 1: the Apple TV? Okay, so you're going iPhone to Apple TV?
Speaker 10: Correct?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, so it's dependent on the app, and so
Speaker 1: airplay is the is the protocol. So there's a couple
Speaker 1: of protocols for streaming something from your phone to a TV.
Speaker 1: So there is airplay, which is kind of you know,
Speaker 1: a protocol that Apple invented and that will you know,
Speaker 1: stream something from your phone to your TV.
Speaker 2: Usually you see a little icon.
Speaker 1: You have to be on the same Wi Fi network
Speaker 1: for that to work, and you'll see whatever programming you
Speaker 1: have on your phone on your TV.
Speaker 2: Then there's also mirroring.
Speaker 1: Mirroring is when your phone is literally just mirrored onto
Speaker 1: your TV, and that may or may not work inside
Speaker 1: of certain apps like a you know, a video app
Speaker 1: like HBO Max may not allow that. You have to
Speaker 1: go through their protocol to stream it to your TV.
Speaker 1: Then there's what's called casting, and that is what's from
Speaker 1: an an Android phone to It's called casting, so it
Speaker 1: goes to a usually a TV that has Chrome Cast
Speaker 1: built into that TV. So there's a couple of different protocols.
Speaker 1: But when you are casting or using airplay, what you
Speaker 1: get is largely dependent on the app itself, what they've
Speaker 1: programmed into that app. So if you were able to
Speaker 1: do this before with an app like Zoom. It sounds
Speaker 1: like you might need to update your apps to get
Speaker 1: them to work again. Sounds like there might be something
Speaker 1: in the settings that you toggled that may not be
Speaker 1: working at this point. But in general, if you're having
Speaker 1: issues with something like Airplay or Chrome Cast, you have
Speaker 1: to make sure that you are on the same Wi
Speaker 1: Fi network, because that's the number one thing. Number two,
Speaker 1: I mean, just try restarting everything. That typically helps, because
Speaker 1: if something is not working the way you expect and
Speaker 1: it used to work that way, it's usually either a
Speaker 1: software change or some sort of network change that's causing it. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to try, and this is for if
Speaker 1: you're just trying to cast something from your phone to
Speaker 1: your TV, there's an app called all Cast, Allcast, All Casts,
Speaker 1: and this is an app that is available for both
Speaker 1: Android and iOS, and this kind of helps you get
Speaker 1: around any issues you might have with casting. I do
Speaker 1: believe they charge after a certain amount of use. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: this app hasn't been updated in a long time. That's
Speaker 1: not good. That's never a good sign when I look
Speaker 1: at an app and it hasn't been updated. So the
Speaker 1: Android app hasn't been updated since twenty twenty the iOS app.
Speaker 2: It's still connecting, so I can't tell.
Speaker 1: But in general, you know, casting and airplay is really
Speaker 1: dependent on what the app allows you to do. So Fred,
Speaker 1: if I was in your shoes, I would restart. Just
Speaker 1: update all the apps. Update the you know, the Apple
Speaker 1: TV apps, make sure those are up to date, make
Speaker 1: sure the Apple TV software is up to date, make
Speaker 1: sure the phone software is up to date, and the
Speaker 1: app that you're using. So go through all that, and
Speaker 1: if it's still not working, it sounds like there's been
Speaker 1: some sort of change on the app that does not
Speaker 1: let you cast.
Speaker 2: The video anymore.
Speaker 1: Now, if it's a if it's a if it's an
Speaker 1: app that lets you, you know, video conference, there is
Speaker 1: no reason why they shouldn't let you do that on
Speaker 1: your big scre So sounds like there's something going on
Speaker 1: here that's a little bit more in depth than we
Speaker 1: can address here in Troubleshoot because I just can't see
Speaker 1: what's happening. Let's see Google Play and Apple have both
Speaker 1: named their Apps of the Year.
Speaker 2: Let's start with Apple.
Speaker 1: Apple's App of the Year is All Trails, and this
Speaker 1: is a fantastic app. I absolutely love All Trails. It's
Speaker 1: not new. I've been using it for a long time.
Speaker 1: I think they did this as the app of the
Speaker 1: year because it is getting us out of the house
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like an app that uses your
Speaker 1: screen but also gets you off the screen. So that's
Speaker 1: the number one iPhone app of the year.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: The Mac app of the Year is photo Mater. The
Speaker 1: Apple Watch App of the Year is smart Jim. The
Speaker 1: iPhone game of the Year is Han Kai Starrail. This
Speaker 1: is an app a game that is based on anime,
Speaker 1: and by the way, that got the same exact top
Speaker 1: game for Google Play. Google Play's top app of the
Speaker 1: Year is called Imprint Learn Visually. Imprint Learn Visually. My
Speaker 1: son actually downloaded this a couple months ago. He was
Speaker 1: ahead of the curve Chat GBT got user's Choice, but
Speaker 1: it did not get top app from either of these stores.
Speaker 1: More rich on Tech after this. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you at
Speaker 1: triple eight.
Speaker 2: Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. I promise if you're on hold, we will
Speaker 1: get to you after this. Scott Napp, Amazon's director of
Speaker 1: worldwide Buyer Risk Prevention. Recently, I chatted with Scott about
Speaker 1: some of the most popular holiday shopping scams that involve Amazon.
Speaker 1: First off, let's talk about the holiday shopping season. That's
Speaker 1: got to be one of the biggest seasons for Amazon
Speaker 1: when it comes to customers fulfilling order and also scams.
Speaker 11: No doubt, the holiday season there's a reason we call
Speaker 11: it peak.
Speaker 4: It's the busiest time of year. You know.
Speaker 11: I'm sure you're seeing the same thing. My friends and
Speaker 11: family are already hard after it to try to shop
Speaker 11: some more and get some things under the tree, as
Speaker 11: it were. And as a result with all that increased activity, yes,
Speaker 11: we do see increased amounts of scams out there.
Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit about your role at Amazon.
Speaker 4: For buyer risk.
Speaker 11: I essentially, me and my team are lead efforts to
Speaker 11: root out fraud and abuse as it affects buyers specifically.
Speaker 11: So when we're talking about impersonation scams, we're talking about
Speaker 11: folks having account issues or doing different kinds of fraud
Speaker 11: on the site. Those are all things that we try
Speaker 11: to mitigate prevent from happening.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the common scams or frauds
Speaker 1: that we should watch out for when we're hopping online
Speaker 1: this holiday season.
Speaker 11: Sure, there's the three big ones. There's a perennial one
Speaker 11: that's really popular around the Amazon order confirmation scam, where
Speaker 11: you'll get some notice that there's a problem with your
Speaker 11: Amazon order and it's normally something kind of expensive, you know,
Speaker 11: maybe a tablet or a smartphone, and it's something you
Speaker 11: didn't order, so you get a little bit concerned that
Speaker 11: you might get charged for something, and then suddenly you're
Speaker 11: engaging with a bad actor.
Speaker 4: So that one's kind of pretty steady state.
Speaker 11: But one we've seen two things start to pop up
Speaker 11: more as more popular of late.
Speaker 4: One is an email attachment scam.
Speaker 11: Where they'll send you a note that says there's a
Speaker 11: problem and your Amazon account's getting ready to be shut down,
Speaker 11: and you have to open this attachment to see more
Speaker 11: details and the only and inside the attachment they embed
Speaker 11: a link that you need to click on to get
Speaker 11: more information or contact them.
Speaker 4: The only problem is it directs that.
Speaker 11: Right to a bad actor's website where they now can
Speaker 11: collect all kinds of information, including payment information from you,
Speaker 11: which isn't great. And then the final one that pops
Speaker 11: up has been popping up more this time of year
Speaker 11: is Prime membership scams. With the success of Prime Big
Speaker 11: Day deals and all the deals that are coming through
Speaker 11: the holidays. They'll send these notes that say there's a
Speaker 11: problem with your Prime membership. You need to contact us
Speaker 11: to get it resolved, and part of that interaction involves
Speaker 11: you giving them credit card details or banking information. Some
Speaker 11: of them are bold enough to even say pretending to
Speaker 11: be Amazon and they'll say, Hey, you need to pay
Speaker 11: us a certain amount of money so we can fix
Speaker 11: your Prime membership. All these things result in bad actors
Speaker 11: getting hold of your payment information and then being able
Speaker 11: to use it for their own purposes.
Speaker 1: Now I've seen some of these types of things come
Speaker 1: through my email, and not just with Amazon, but with
Speaker 1: various big companies' names, and to me, I can readily
Speaker 1: identify that they are a scam, but not everyone can
Speaker 1: and sometimes they can even be very tricky. And so
Speaker 1: do people fall for these? Why do you think people
Speaker 1: fall for them? And do these scam artists just keep
Speaker 1: getting better and better at what they're doing?
Speaker 11: Rich they are getting better, Like I'm telling you that,
Speaker 11: I hear you some of them are super simple. I
Speaker 11: shouldn't say super simple they're easier to tell apart if
Speaker 11: you know what you're looking for. But they are getting
Speaker 11: better and better and better at looking extremely authentic. It's
Speaker 11: a real thing that they're getting better and we're seeing. Unfortunately,
Speaker 11: being a scam victim is an equal opportunity business. There's
Speaker 11: people believe that perhaps older custom consumers are more vulnerable.
Speaker 4: That turns out to not necessarily be the case.
Speaker 11: That it's it's pretty evenly spread across the population.
Speaker 1: What about that idea of customer service from Amazon, because
Speaker 1: sometimes finding a phone number, most people want to just
Speaker 1: call a phone number, and that could prove to be tricky.
Speaker 1: It's an online website, and then people go searching on
Speaker 1: Google for a phone number, they find one that may
Speaker 1: lead them astray, and that could lead them right into
Speaker 1: a scam artist. So explain how to contact Amazon this
Speaker 1: holiday season if you need ye.
Speaker 11: No, that's a great point. It's super great because you're
Speaker 11: exactly right. Search results can be super misleading people like
Speaker 11: so those bad actors are happy to send you phone
Speaker 11: numbers that aren't us. Going via the website dot com,
Speaker 11: going via the app, you can either go to the
Speaker 11: help pages or and there's down and contact us and
Speaker 11: then that will get you to our customer service, which
Speaker 11: you can trust. If you've gone that path, you know
Speaker 11: it's us, and then we can help you out.
Speaker 1: So, because these scam artists continue to get better, how
Speaker 1: do we protect ourselves?
Speaker 11: It's being vigilant, if you will, especially when you receive
Speaker 11: a communication you didn't expect or you're unsure about. Yes, Amazon,
Speaker 11: we do send order confirmation emails, but we don't send
Speaker 11: emails telling you there's a problem.
Speaker 4: With your order and you need to click here.
Speaker 11: So if you see a communication and you're not exactly
Speaker 11: sure or you didn't expect it when it comes to Amazon,
Speaker 11: go to You can always trust our website. Go to
Speaker 11: Amazon dot com or go to the app and look.
Speaker 11: If it's an order confirmation scam, you can verify your
Speaker 11: order right there. You don't need some crazy link or
Speaker 11: if there's some other kind of communication, it'll show up
Speaker 11: in the message center and that way you will know
Speaker 11: that it's us. My biggest piece of advice for people
Speaker 11: is to pause, take a beat, and before you click
Speaker 11: on a link, before you respond to a text or
Speaker 11: a phone call, and just hey, was I expecting this?
Speaker 4: And if not, check it out with the real thing again.
Speaker 1: That was Scott Napp, Amazon's director of worldwide Buyer Risk Prevention.
Speaker 1: Thanks Scott for explaining to us some of these scams
Speaker 1: that involve Amazon. The bottom line is that any large company,
Speaker 1: whether it is Amazon, whether it is Walmart, whether it's Microsoft,
Speaker 1: whether it's Google, whether it's Apple, scam artists love to
Speaker 1: latch on to the names of these companies. Why because
Speaker 1: they have a large base of customers, so they can
Speaker 1: just email a whole bunch of people at once, and
Speaker 1: some of those people get that email and say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do have an account with Amazon, and half the
Speaker 1: people are saying, no, I don't even have a Bank
Speaker 1: of America account. So that's one way. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing is that it's recognizable. So when it's Amazon
Speaker 1: and it says an email that your account is going
Speaker 1: to be suspended, you kind of look and you open
Speaker 1: up the email and you check it out. So these
Speaker 1: kind of scams have been going on forever. Amazon is
Speaker 1: just the newest way to do it. But really really
Speaker 1: tricky stuff because, as Scott said, these scammers just continue
Speaker 1: to get better. Speaking of Amazon, their Black Friday Cyber
Speaker 1: Monday event, which ran eleven days, was its largest ever
Speaker 1: compared to last year's event. Customers purchased over one billion
Speaker 1: items during this event, and they saved seventy percent more
Speaker 1: compared to last year. And I do believe that because
Speaker 1: I noticed this year on Amazon, the prices were really,
Speaker 1: really good. I had a lot of stuff in my cart,
Speaker 1: and I noticed a lot of price drops and stuff
Speaker 1: that dropped during those eleven days and then went right
Speaker 1: back up on Cyber After Cyber Monday was over, Amazon
Speaker 1: says they're going to continue to do deals up until
Speaker 1: December twenty fourth. I'm gonna give you my best tip
Speaker 1: because I'm the worst gift giver, Like I just my
Speaker 1: wife has this way of like I will mention something
Speaker 1: in passing, Like I'll just be like, oh, I need
Speaker 1: a new button for this shirt, and literally Christmas morning,
Speaker 1: I'll have that button and I'm like, well, you remembered
Speaker 1: that I said that. So there are two people in
Speaker 1: this world, two types of people. Some that remember the
Speaker 1: things that you say and like write it down secretly
Speaker 1: and then get you that gift later, and people like
Speaker 1: myself that just I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm like clueless.
Speaker 1: So there's this Amazon has this top one hundred ish
Speaker 1: gift picks, and I will link that up on the
Speaker 1: website rich on tech dot tv slash wiki and it
Speaker 1: has all of these great gift ideas and you could
Speaker 1: just scroll through here and I guarantee you'll find something
Speaker 1: for someone on your list. Again, it's the Amazon top
Speaker 1: one hundred ish gift list. Let's see Amazon. One other
Speaker 1: thing to know is that they extended the returns window.
Speaker 1: So basically, if you buy anything between now and December
Speaker 1: thirty first, you can return it through January thirty first.
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit longer than their typical return window,
Speaker 1: which is really important because you buy the gift and
Speaker 1: then you want to make sure that they can return
Speaker 1: it in that time. All right, let's see, we've got
Speaker 1: the phone number to the show Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. You can go to the website
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot TV. There you can see all
Speaker 1: the stories that I do on TV. You could also
Speaker 1: see how you can subscribe to this show as a podcast.
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on social media. I am
Speaker 1: at rich on tech, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook,
Speaker 1: i am on X and yes, I finally broke down
Speaker 1: and paid for the premium subscription on X. So if
Speaker 1: you notice I have a blue check next to my name.
Speaker 1: Soon you know, here's the thing. This is what put
Speaker 1: me over the edge because I was trying to move
Speaker 1: over to threads right. I posted about new pens that
Speaker 1: I bought, literally pens, and I got so many responses
Speaker 1: and so much engagement that I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: this platform still has people on, it still has people
Speaker 1: using it. Why am I going to give up on
Speaker 1: this platform just because everyone hates it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm not.
Speaker 1: So I'm still there at rich on Tech on X
Speaker 1: but you know, I figured it's it's just kind of
Speaker 1: you know, it's an option, let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we've got a couple of callers in the queue.
Speaker 1: We'll get to them. You are listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking
Speaker 1: technology with you.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Liz in San Jose. Liz, you're on
Speaker 2: with Rich.
Speaker 6: Oh, hi Rich.
Speaker 12: I bought an iPhone fifteen Pro recently, and I've been
Speaker 12: having some connectivity issues with my with my AirPods, my
Speaker 12: Apple airbuds, earbuds things. It just doesn't seem to hold
Speaker 12: the connection. Well, I've called Apple and done some troubleshooting
Speaker 12: with them, and I also called Verizon, my carrier, and
Speaker 12: made a few adjustments and changes with them on the phone,
Speaker 12: and I'm still having issues. I looked it up on
Speaker 12: the internet and there are a lot of other people
Speaker 12: must be having issues because the a.
Speaker 13: Lot of tutorials on how to connect them and keep
Speaker 13: them connected and that kind of thing. Are you aware
Speaker 13: of any issues with connectivity? And I've got the newest earbuds,
Speaker 13: by the way, they're not old.
Speaker 2: Well, first off, I'm curious. Well, number okay, a couple things.
Speaker 1: Number One, you can find people complaining about anything online
Speaker 1: and specifically when you're searching for something like this, like
Speaker 1: you'll find other people and there's a million opinions on things.
Speaker 1: I don't think that AirPods as a mass market device
Speaker 1: have an issue with keeping a connection because this is
Speaker 1: not something that I've ever experienced.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The only thing I have experienced with AirPods is the
Speaker 1: switching issues. And sometimes AirPods like to switch to different
Speaker 1: devices and that is a pain, and I will say
Speaker 1: that that is annoying. Apple has made the switching faster
Speaker 1: and a little bit smarter with the with the latest updates.
Speaker 1: But that's the only thing I've seen. AirPods should one
Speaker 1: hundred percent connect to your phone and stay connected and work.
Speaker 1: So I think that number one, you have to rule
Speaker 1: out whether there is a manufacturing defect on your AirPods.
Speaker 1: I'd also be curious what Verizon told you to do,
Speaker 1: because Verizon has nothing to do with this. Verizon handles
Speaker 1: the cellular connection on your phone and they don't really
Speaker 1: have anything to do with what's happening with these AirPods.
Speaker 1: So with all of that said, Liz, here are the
Speaker 1: steps that I would take to see if we can
Speaker 1: get these AirPods to connect better. First off, I would
Speaker 1: disconnect the AirPods from my phone, so I would go
Speaker 1: into my settings Bluetooth, find the AirPods, press the little eye,
Speaker 1: and then say forget this device, and that would be
Speaker 1: the first thing I would do. Then I would factory
Speaker 1: reset the air pods. And so if you look on
Speaker 1: the AirPods case itself, there is a little button on
Speaker 1: the back and most of the time you never really
Speaker 1: even need to press this button unless you're pairing with
Speaker 1: an end phone. But if you press and hold that
Speaker 1: button for about thirty seconds or sorry, if you let
Speaker 1: me get you the right directions here. Put the AirPods
Speaker 1: in the case, close the lid, wait thirty seconds for
Speaker 1: them to kind of settle down. Open the lid, don't
Speaker 1: take them out, and then press and hold that setup
Speaker 1: button on the back for about fifteen seconds until that
Speaker 1: status light flashes. It looks like it's gonna flash amber
Speaker 1: and then white. And this is off the Apple support
Speaker 1: page which tells you how to reset your AirPods completely.
Speaker 1: So once you reset them completely, which means they are
Speaker 1: back to factory, then I would restart my phone and
Speaker 1: then I would reconnect these to your phone. And the
Speaker 1: way that you reconnect is just by opening up unlock
Speaker 1: your phone, open up the airpod's case next to your phone,
Speaker 1: and it should say do you want to connect now?
Speaker 1: If it already has the name on them or anything
Speaker 1: like that, then you probably want to go back and
Speaker 1: do the reset again, because they shouldn't automatically connect to
Speaker 1: your phone at this point. They should almost be back
Speaker 1: to brand new where you're going to have to give
Speaker 1: them a name and everything. Those are the steps that
Speaker 1: I would take. And if you're still having problems you
Speaker 1: can do what's called a settings reset on your iPhone.
Speaker 1: So if you go into Settings General and then oops, sorry,
Speaker 1: I pressed the wrong thing on my phone. Here, if
Speaker 1: you go to Settings General, transfer or reset phone, you'll
Speaker 1: see an option if you tap reset, it says reset
Speaker 1: all settings or reset Network settings. If you tap the
Speaker 1: reset Network settings, that is the one that will reset
Speaker 1: all of your Bluetooth settings. Now you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: reconnect to your Wi Fi, You're gonna have to reconnect
Speaker 1: all your other Bluetooth devices. But that's sort of a
Speaker 1: nuclear option that can help you do that. But if
Speaker 1: you're still having problems, Liz, with these staying connected, I
Speaker 1: would suspect it's some other device that is nearby that
Speaker 1: is connecting to these and that's what's causing the disconnection.
Speaker 1: Or you've got a defective pair of AirPods, and I
Speaker 1: would just petition to Apple to swap those out. Tell
Speaker 1: them what a great customer you are and how you
Speaker 1: want to use these things, and they're just giving you grief,
Speaker 1: and hopefully they will take mercy on you and give
Speaker 1: you a new pair. Keep me posted Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV, Send me an email, let me know. Let's
Speaker 1: go to Rick in Clinton, Mississippi. Rick, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 9: Hey, ho's going?
Speaker 2: It is going great?
Speaker 9: All right? After problem, I've started a little side hustle
Speaker 9: to supplement my retirement and I buy storage auctions. Okay,
Speaker 9: I found an iPhone seven in one and it powers up.
Speaker 9: It looks like it works, and but I need to
Speaker 9: reset it to factory settings. I don't have a password,
Speaker 9: I don't have any iTunes ID or any Apple ID
Speaker 9: with it. Is there an easy way to do it?
Speaker 9: I found a couple of apps that say they will
Speaker 9: do it from my computer, but they want you to
Speaker 9: subscribe to their service and all that, and.
Speaker 2: Now no need to subscribe to service.
Speaker 1: So there are there is a way to do this
Speaker 1: without the passcode, but it is going to erase everything
Speaker 1: on that device, which of course sounds like what you want.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The only thing is if this phone is locked to
Speaker 1: an account, which pretty much every iPhone is what's called
Speaker 1: has activation lock on it, which means once you get
Speaker 1: this phone factory reset, when you go to set this
Speaker 1: thing up and you go through the process of activating it,
Speaker 1: it is going to say this phone is locked to
Speaker 1: this Apple ID, and it will show you either a
Speaker 1: phone number with some of the digits blurred out, or
Speaker 1: an email address with some of the portion of that
Speaker 1: email address basically redacted, and it will say you must
Speaker 1: confirm or get rid of this account activation before we
Speaker 1: can proceed, So that may happen. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's going to happen. Maybe the person deactivated this
Speaker 1: phone and just left it in this storage lock or whatever.
Speaker 2: But here's the way to do it.
Speaker 1: The first way to do it is probably the easiest way,
Speaker 1: and that's just to put your device into recovery mode.
Speaker 1: So most of the time, if you restart your device,
Speaker 1: it's not going to do this. But on the iPhone
Speaker 1: seven specifically, that's what you said. You press and hold
Speaker 1: the top button, which is the side button, and the
Speaker 1: volume button at the same time. You just keep keep
Speaker 1: pressing and holding that as long as you can until
Speaker 1: you see that recovery mode screen, and then you can
Speaker 1: go through the process of connecting this to a computer
Speaker 1: and it will completely restore you want to restore, not
Speaker 1: update you want to restore, and it will bring that
Speaker 1: back to sort of factory settings, erase everything.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The website iFixit dot com has a deeper method of
Speaker 1: doing this. It's called DFU restore Device Firmware Update, and
Speaker 1: this reloads the entire software and firmware of the device,
Speaker 1: and so just Google DFU restore and that's another way
Speaker 1: of doing this deeper recovery mode on this iPhone seven
Speaker 1: eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here at triple eight rich
Speaker 1: one oh one eighty eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. You can follow along with the show
Speaker 1: online at richon Tech dot tv slash wiki. I put
Speaker 1: all the uh anything I talk about basically in the
Speaker 1: show notes. You can also find me on social media
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech. Brenda is in Anaheim, California. Brenda,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 14: Hey, Rich, I had a question. I was thinking about
Speaker 14: getting the Galaxy the Fold, but then I heard you
Speaker 14: talking about the one Was it one plus open?
Speaker 2: Sure yet come?
Speaker 14: And so I was that's a little bit cheaper because
Speaker 14: the Galaxy didn't go on a Black Friday special. So
Speaker 14: I was thinking about getting that. But I'm a little
Speaker 14: concern first of all, because it's not wireless. I could
Speaker 14: live with that, yeah, but if something goes wrong, there's
Speaker 14: nowhere are really local to take and I think you
Speaker 14: have to send it in And I'm not really I
Speaker 14: don't have a tablet, so I wanted to phone. I
Speaker 14: like the screen, but I'm not really that savly with
Speaker 14: the phone uses either. So what do you think about
Speaker 14: lee switch? Right now, I have an a seventy one
Speaker 14: Galaxy or not Samsung something. It's the older phone and
Speaker 14: it's it needs to be replaced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this would be a huge upgrade, you know, from
Speaker 1: that phone. So and I agree with you. The one
Speaker 1: of the downsides of the one plus brand is you know,
Speaker 1: there's no stores and if you do need help with repairs,
Speaker 1: I do believe you have to send it in now.
Speaker 1: I remember when we did the event with one plus,
Speaker 1: they were talking about how they're trying to make repairs
Speaker 1: a little bit easier. So I think that they have,
Speaker 1: you know, done something along those lines. Hopefully you don't
Speaker 1: need that, you know. But I think when this, when
Speaker 1: you compare this phone to the the Samsung out there,
Speaker 1: you know, the z Fold five or the z Flip,
Speaker 1: they're not really the z Flip is not really in
Speaker 1: the same kind of category because that's more like a
Speaker 1: phone that shuts closed.
Speaker 2: This is more like a book phone.
Speaker 1: The only other phone to compare it to is the
Speaker 1: Google Pixel Fold, which I really like as well. So
Speaker 1: for me, it would be between the pixel Fold and
Speaker 1: the one plus Open. Now, I will tell you, I'm
Speaker 1: friends with a bunch of tech folks that are very
Speaker 1: serious about this stuff, and they love the one plus Open.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm in a group chat and it is non stop
Speaker 1: just gushing over this phone. So they really do like it,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've used it and I think it's
Speaker 1: a great phone as well. I think one Plus has
Speaker 1: excellent software. The price is I think it's fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: right now, plus you can do a trade.
Speaker 14: In, right it makes it cheaper than the Galaxy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're Android, the A seven to
Speaker 1: one is going to get you a huge trade in,
Speaker 1: But I know they're doing a minimum of two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars on the trade in, no matter, no matter what phone.
Speaker 1: So I think what it comes down to really is,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're concerned about the repair situation, I
Speaker 1: would just do a little bit of research and just
Speaker 1: look at what they say on their website about the
Speaker 1: repair process. I do believe you have to send it
Speaker 1: in though, so let's see one plus repair service.
Speaker 14: Well, I'm hopefully you should need repairs or that would
Speaker 14: even need an issue. I just didn't know how big
Speaker 14: of an issue it might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, the main thing is the screen,
Speaker 1: if there's any sort of like screen issue, you know,
Speaker 1: because this is a foldable phone. But yeah, and you
Speaker 1: may have to ship your device out and have it
Speaker 1: gone for you know, seven to nine days is what
Speaker 1: they're saying on there. So I mean that's really the
Speaker 1: biggest downside that I see. I think one Plus really
Speaker 1: makes a nice product. I think this phone in particular
Speaker 1: really captured the hearts of a lot of tech reviewers
Speaker 1: because they thought that they did something. The Google phone
Speaker 1: is a little squat you know, it looks like a
Speaker 1: passport olmos. So the screen is kind of an odd size,
Speaker 1: and then the fold is really narrow, and so that's
Speaker 1: really an odd size too.
Speaker 14: It is an outside because I was actually able to
Speaker 14: see it at the store.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah to me, it's unusable Brenda the outside screen on
Speaker 1: that on that Samsung.
Speaker 2: So oh really, Okay, I think if you're willing to
Speaker 2: take a chance.
Speaker 1: Is there a place to see this one plus in
Speaker 1: the store like we're able to sew?
Speaker 14: No, I don't think there is. I mean I had
Speaker 14: people before I went there, and because I was asking her,
Speaker 14: why are you guys A would transfer it or they
Speaker 14: could even deal with this phone? And directly, yeah, that's
Speaker 14: not a problem. We can transfer it. That's my issue.
Speaker 14: So I would love to be able to see it
Speaker 14: in person. But I don't know anywhere that actually has
Speaker 14: a partem. I thought you only can get it online.
Speaker 1: You might, I don't know if you can go to
Speaker 1: a best Buy and see it there. You might be
Speaker 1: able to do that, Okay. Also, you know one plus
Speaker 1: may do some sort of like pop up sometimes you
Speaker 1: know where you can see it there. But I mean, look,
Speaker 1: you can just you're an Anaheim. You just come to
Speaker 1: KTLA and I'll be happy to show you my model. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can take a look at it, take it out
Speaker 1: a little test drive, you know, so. But I will
Speaker 1: tell you this, I think, out of all the phones
Speaker 1: that I've tested, I think that this is a really
Speaker 1: great phone.
Speaker 2: I think that the camera is to me a.
Speaker 1: Little bit better on the pixel fold but I think
Speaker 1: overall this phone is really nice. I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: be very happy with it. And again, it is expensive.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no denying that these foldable phones are
Speaker 1: very expensive. But if you are replacing a computer or
Speaker 1: a tablet with it, it can really do everything in
Speaker 1: a nice form factor. And know there is no wireless charging,
Speaker 1: but it does have really really fast wired charging, so
Speaker 1: you should be okay if you need to do that.
Speaker 1: I think it is a bummer. And that was actually
Speaker 1: the biggest debate with all of the tech folks was
Speaker 1: the lack of wireless charging. We were pretty bummed out
Speaker 1: about that because every phone nowadays has wireless charging, I
Speaker 1: mean every single phone. So for me, it would be
Speaker 1: between the pixel fold and the one plus open. You know,
Speaker 1: it just comes down to a matter of personal preference.
Speaker 1: So good question, Brenda, and I'm glad you're not afraid
Speaker 1: to take that jump into the world of foldaboles. Eighty
Speaker 1: eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four to one zero one. We got an
Speaker 1: email from Gary. Gary says, hey, Rich I've enjoyed many
Speaker 1: of your product reviews, like the Ring car camera. Sometimes
Speaker 1: when traveling and going into a restaurant, my wife and
Speaker 1: I leave our three year old Boston Terrier in her
Speaker 1: crate in the car, weather and temperature permitting.
Speaker 2: In caps.
Speaker 1: I will interrupt our meal a couple of times just
Speaker 1: to make sure she's safe. I'd like to mount a
Speaker 1: camera that will monitor her inside the vehicle and let
Speaker 1: me watch on my iPhone. Can you recommend the best
Speaker 1: product on the market today, Gary, Gary, I can't recommend
Speaker 1: the best product, but I can recommend a couple of
Speaker 1: options that you could look into, because depending on how
Speaker 1: much you want to spend.
Speaker 2: And uh, you.
Speaker 1: Know, you're talking about a cellular dash cam. This is
Speaker 1: kind of an emerging market of emerging category because people,
Speaker 1: you know, these these are complicated because they always have
Speaker 1: to be connected to power and you have to pay
Speaker 1: a monthly fee for the connection of the cellular. So
Speaker 1: the one that I have used and I think is
Speaker 1: actually really good is the ring carcam. It is expensive,
Speaker 1: it's two hundred and fifty dollars, but it works as
Speaker 1: expected if you have a ring system at your house.
Speaker 1: This really integrates nicely into that. It is an extra
Speaker 1: six dollars a month for the cellular, but it works perfectly.
Speaker 1: I've tested this extensively and it is really great and
Speaker 1: it's that's a great start. So if you like the
Speaker 1: ring stuff, that's a good one. There's a company called Nextsar,
Speaker 1: which I also really like. They make one called the
Speaker 1: Nextsar one Connected dash Cam. This is a four K
Speaker 1: dash cam that is on sale right now. It's usually
Speaker 1: four hundred. It's two hundred and eighty dollars, and this
Speaker 1: one has a connection, so it hasn't. It's a nine
Speaker 1: to ninety nine connection fee that's called Nextsar Connect and
Speaker 1: that will enable you to see your camera remotely. And
Speaker 1: again that is a two hundred and eighty dollars camera,
Speaker 1: plus ten dollars a month for the cellular option on that.
Speaker 1: But Nexsar is really great, and I think what makes
Speaker 1: Nexsar so good is their software is really really excellent,
Speaker 1: So that's what I like about them. Now, the other
Speaker 1: brand that kind of started this whole thing, but I
Speaker 1: haven't really heard much about them. It's called Owlcam Owl
Speaker 1: like the animal owl cam, and they kind of came
Speaker 1: out with the first cellular connected dash cam, but it
Speaker 1: never really took off because it was very expensive. I
Speaker 1: think it was like close to like three four five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars when it first came out, and that's really
Speaker 1: expensive because, by the way, you can go on Amazon
Speaker 1: and get a dash cam for like fifty nine to
Speaker 1: ninety nine. So when this one came out, the tech
Speaker 1: people loved it because it had the cellular connectivity. But
Speaker 1: it's very expensive. So you can check out that one
Speaker 1: right now. It looks like it's one hundred dollars or sorry,
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars, and then the monthly plan is fifteen
Speaker 1: dollars a month or one hundred and eighty dollars for
Speaker 1: the year. There is a Garmin, a Garman Dashcam Garman
Speaker 1: dash Cam Live. This made its premiere earlier this year
Speaker 1: three hundred and seventy dollars. See the trend with the
Speaker 1: prices here. They are very very expensive, but this one
Speaker 1: is always connected. It does have an LTE connection inside
Speaker 1: and subscription plan required to use that LTE and I
Speaker 1: don't have the pricing on that just yet, but that
Speaker 1: is another option in Garman, obviously a big brand. I
Speaker 1: have not tested this one, but I would assume that
Speaker 1: their software is pretty good because it is Garment and
Speaker 1: that subscription is ten dollars a month. And finally there
Speaker 1: is a brand called black View black View Vue. They
Speaker 1: have the LTE dashcams as well, and so those have
Speaker 1: built in four G LTE and Wi Fi and they
Speaker 1: have a couple different models. They've got a North American model,
Speaker 1: They've got a taxi model and a truck model. You
Speaker 1: probably don't need the taxi your truck model, you probably
Speaker 1: just need the North American model. And then they have
Speaker 1: a couple of other standard those look like a japan only.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the one that you want for North America
Speaker 1: is a black View sim and that means that you
Speaker 1: have to go through their LTE, which is depending on
Speaker 1: how much you want to spend on that, you're going
Speaker 1: to be paying a monthly cost as well. There so
Speaker 1: a couple of brands there. I think the one that
Speaker 1: I've the most experienced with is the ring Cam. I've
Speaker 1: also tested the NEXTSAR and I really like the software
Speaker 1: on both of those. But there are options for this,
Speaker 1: and I think that this is going to be a
Speaker 1: growing option because more and more cars, I think, are
Speaker 1: going to have this sort of built into it. I
Speaker 1: know the Tesla does, I know some of the newer
Speaker 1: cars like the Mercedes have a level of dash cam
Speaker 1: built in, but they're getting more and more prevalent because
Speaker 1: if you get hit and run, you want that recording.
Speaker 1: And for your situation where you're trying to monitor a
Speaker 1: dog inside, I'm not going to comment on leaving the
Speaker 1: dog in the car because I don't want to get
Speaker 1: the angry emails. So I will just say that I
Speaker 1: imagine you're doing the right thing and making sure that
Speaker 1: it's safe for this dog to be in there. I've
Speaker 1: seen that happen before, so I will leave that at that.
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech dot tv is the website eight eight
Speaker 1: eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Coming up this hour,
Speaker 1: we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Talk to a J. Forsyth of Coop.
Speaker 1: He's gonna tell us about a smart chicken coop that
Speaker 1: lets you raise chickens in your backyard.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology, listening
Speaker 1: to the artist we did not get to see last
Speaker 1: night because we had to leave early at jingle Ball,
Speaker 1: Olivia Rodrigo. She was kind of the headliner and my
Speaker 1: kids could not stay awake. We left to think it
Speaker 1: like maybe eleven or midnight.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I thought they could party, but I guess they can't
Speaker 1: keep up with old dad. Let's go to uh Mario
Speaker 1: on riverside.
Speaker 2: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 7: Rich likes to sticking my call.
Speaker 9: So I have a question.
Speaker 7: I was trying to delete a bunch of like music
Speaker 7: because I have like an external Seagate external drive, okay,
Speaker 7: and and doing so, I deleted a bunch of stuff
Speaker 7: that I didn't want, like old pictures and videos and
Speaker 7: stuff like that. Is there a program that I can
Speaker 7: purchase or a way to get recover that stuff?
Speaker 2: So you just you just deleted them. You trashed them?
Speaker 7: Yes, and did you go in the trash?
Speaker 2: But they're not in the trash?
Speaker 1: Okay, That's what I was going to ask, because you know,
Speaker 1: if it was in the trash, it would be as
Speaker 1: easy as restoring them from there.
Speaker 2: Did you do this on a Mac or a PC?
Speaker 4: PC?
Speaker 2: Okay? So where did they go after you deleted them?
Speaker 7: I have no idea. Okay, I've looked in the PC's trash,
Speaker 7: I've looked in the Seagate had like a separate kind
Speaker 7: of trash, But I have no idea where they win.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The mystery of the deleted files, and this is always
Speaker 1: very unfortunate when this happens, it happens often. And there
Speaker 1: are a couple programs that you can try. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're not comfortable doing this yourself, I would say to
Speaker 1: go on Yelp, and there are what's called data recovery specialists,
Speaker 1: you know, data doctors kind of people. You can search
Speaker 1: on Yelp for someone near you that can do that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's going to cost you money. It may cost I
Speaker 1: don't even know if they charge just to see this
Speaker 1: and just to look at it. But if this is
Speaker 1: truly like extremely important, like pictures of your newborn or
Speaker 1: something like that you know that you don't have a
Speaker 1: backup of, then maybe that's one of the routes you
Speaker 1: want to go. But if you're comfortable with just trying
Speaker 1: to see if you can do this yourself, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of programs you can download and see if they
Speaker 1: recover these files. And it doesn't sound like you've done
Speaker 1: a lot to this drive. Like if you said you
Speaker 1: rewrote the whole drive with ones and zeros over every
Speaker 1: piece of data, then I'd say probably not. But if
Speaker 1: you just literally delete these and then you don't even
Speaker 1: remember emptying the trash, so hopefully they're still on there.
Speaker 2: Because usually when.
Speaker 1: You erase a file on a drive, it's not like
Speaker 1: abolishing that file immediately. It's just kind of erasing the
Speaker 1: address of that file, like if it was a street
Speaker 1: it it would erase the address to that file. And
Speaker 1: so the file is still there. You just a computer
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to get there, like navigate there, so
Speaker 1: you just need a program that can help it navigate
Speaker 1: there again. So the first program is called Recouva r
Speaker 1: E c u v A, and this is made by
Speaker 1: a company called c Cleaner, which is a pretty reputable
Speaker 1: company for cleaning up computers and things like that. So
Speaker 1: this has a free All these programs have a free
Speaker 1: version and then a pro version, and obviously you'll be
Speaker 1: able to do some somewhat of the recovery with the
Speaker 1: free but if you really want to recover everything, you'll
Speaker 1: probably have to pay for the pro But that's Recouva
Speaker 1: r E c u v A, and you'll plug in
Speaker 1: your hard drive and it will scan the drive and
Speaker 1: see what it can find. If you want to try
Speaker 1: another program, there is one called ease us e's E
Speaker 1: A S E U S Data Recovery Wizard, and this
Speaker 1: is a tool that of course again has a free
Speaker 1: trial and then a buy now and if you purchase it.
Speaker 2: Let's see how much this costs. They have this for
Speaker 2: both Mac and PC by the way.
Speaker 1: And let's see, so monthly seventy dollars, annually one hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: so one hundred bucks. Basically, you're not gonna want to
Speaker 1: pay monthly for this. You're gonna want to pay once,
Speaker 1: so one hundred dollars for the annual, which is a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a lot for one program, but if
Speaker 1: it recovers these files, it's probably worth it. Finally, there
Speaker 1: is an app called Stellar Data Recovery s t e
Speaker 1: l l a R. Stellar Recovery Data Recovery, and again
Speaker 1: this is a free download to just kind of preview
Speaker 1: what it can do. So you're gonna have toy to
Speaker 1: actually use this, but you can download this program for
Speaker 1: free and see if it can find anything, and then
Speaker 1: once it finds it, you can pay to actually have
Speaker 1: that data recovered. And I'm trying to see how much
Speaker 1: this is to purchase, and it is again eighty nine
Speaker 1: ninety nine, So again you're talking about it looks like these.
Speaker 2: Programs cost about one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Let's see what the Recouva costs, because that one they
Speaker 1: have a free version as well that will do some
Speaker 1: sort of level. It says advanced fil recovery for free.
Speaker 1: Let's see four. Let's see how much it says this
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars. So that's not too bad. So maybe
Speaker 1: take a look at all three of these programs. See
Speaker 1: which one you think has the features and kind of
Speaker 1: looks like the one you want to use. Maybe you
Speaker 1: want to start with the twenty five dollars one, see
Speaker 1: if it works, and then if not, you can go
Speaker 1: and try the one hundred dollars programs. But it is
Speaker 1: an expensive kind of thing to do. It's probably cheaper
Speaker 1: than hiring someone though, so Mario, good luck and in general,
Speaker 1: two two pieces of advice here. Number one, make sure
Speaker 1: things are back up, backed up. Number two, this can
Speaker 1: happen to anyone. I'll be honest, I did this the
Speaker 1: other day to my dropbox. I selected a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of files all at once, and I deleted them, and
Speaker 1: I lost an entire year's worth of videos. And yes,
Speaker 1: drop box has a way to recover some of those,
Speaker 1: but it did not recover all of them. And it's
Speaker 1: when you're doing things very fast and you're just clicking
Speaker 1: through those menus or you're trying to be quick.
Speaker 2: That's when you make mistakes.
Speaker 1: Believe me, it can happen to anyone when your mass
Speaker 1: deleting stuff, be very slow and methodical and don't do
Speaker 1: it all at once.
Speaker 2: You are listening to rich on Tech, Welcome back to
Speaker 2: rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology on
Speaker 1: location right now in the Hollywood Hills, and I am
Speaker 1: looking at what is a smart chicken coop. Joining me
Speaker 1: now to talk about it is aj Forsyth of Coop.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: So tell me what Coop is.
Speaker 1: This is a startup that is basically turning anyone into
Speaker 1: a chicken farmer exactly.
Speaker 15: So we look at Coop as like the fusion of
Speaker 15: smart home technology meets backyard agriculture. So we have an
Speaker 15: automatic door that opens and closes in the morning, lets
Speaker 15: the chickens out. We have camera systems that are constantly
Speaker 15: monitoring your chickens, so we're checking like are their eggs
Speaker 15: ready to be collected, Are their predators around?
Speaker 2: Is the door open or closed?
Speaker 15: And so it's like the goal of the companies to
Speaker 15: enable anyone with a backyard to be able to raise chickens.
Speaker 2: And what gave you the idea to start this? Did
Speaker 2: you raise chickens as a kid?
Speaker 15: So I started raising chickens in college in my apartment complex,
Speaker 15: which the complex wasn't super happy about. And the whole
Speaker 15: idea is that anyone with a backyard should be able
Speaker 15: to control their own food supply, so they should be
Speaker 15: able to provide for their families, reduce food waste. So
Speaker 15: you can feed chickens just about anything. And most people
Speaker 15: might not know that the average chicken lays about two
Speaker 15: hundred and fifty to two hundred and seventy eggs a year,
Speaker 15: So if you have five chickens, you're looking at over
Speaker 15: twelve hundred eggs a year just from your backyard.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the smart coop. Give me the
Speaker 1: aspects of what makes this smart totally.
Speaker 15: So we have an artificial intelligence and computer vision that's
Speaker 15: constantly monitoring the chicken's health, predator detection, et cetera. So
Speaker 15: that's done with two cameras, one inside the coop and
Speaker 15: one outside. We have an automatic door that I mentioned
Speaker 15: opens in the morning and closes after the chickens roost
Speaker 15: themselves up at night. And then we have a super
Speaker 15: innovative litter tray. So like what normally takes thirty minutes
Speaker 15: to clean a coop now takes less than two minutes.
Speaker 15: You just remove the compostable pulp litter tray, fold it
Speaker 15: in half, and you can either compost or throw it out,
Speaker 15: and it makes makes taking care of chickens like less
Speaker 15: than a couple of minutes a day.
Speaker 2: Now, this is not your first startup.
Speaker 1: You started a company called eye Cracked, which specialized in
Speaker 1: on site iPhone repairs.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that company and what you learned there
Speaker 2: that you have now brought here totally.
Speaker 15: So I started a tech company in college doing nationwide
Speaker 15: on demand phone repairs. We ended up launching smart home
Speaker 15: installations as well. So I think like ness, thermostats, ring cameras,
Speaker 15: et cetera. Built that expanded to a couple of countries,
Speaker 15: sold the company to All State in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: And I've always wanted to. I've always dreamt of, like,
Speaker 5: how do you do this fusion of.
Speaker 15: Technology and backyard agriculture, and so I've been, honestly, I've
Speaker 15: been wanting to start this company for the last ten years,
Speaker 15: and I'm finally at a point in my life where
Speaker 15: i get to wake up and smile every day because
Speaker 15: I get to work with chickens and enable anyone that
Speaker 15: is chicken curious, is what we joke about, enable anyone
Speaker 15: that wants to to be able to raise backyard chickens
Speaker 15: effortlessly right now.
Speaker 2: So it may be that in.
Speaker 1: Rural areas, people are familiar with this idea, this concept
Speaker 1: of backyard chickens. What about in urban places, because this
Speaker 1: is really for anywhere in America totally.
Speaker 15: So right now in the US, ninety three percent of
Speaker 15: cities allow you to raise chickens. So you you do
Speaker 15: have issues some occasionally with the homeowners' associations.
Speaker 5: Or hoas we are.
Speaker 15: Our website actually generates letters that you can send to
Speaker 15: your homeowners association and basically they legally have to allow
Speaker 15: you to raise chickens if you have if your city does,
Speaker 15: which ninety three percent of cities do.
Speaker 5: And what's super interesting is.
Speaker 15: If you look at where our customers are is this
Speaker 15: is not like a rural area only product we're seeing
Speaker 15: people are actually wanting to raise chickens on their roofs
Speaker 15: of their apartment buildings. We don't really recommend that, but really,
Speaker 15: any if you have a backyard and you want to
Speaker 15: do this, this is meant for the suburban backyard. This
Speaker 15: is meant for the busy family that wants to take
Speaker 15: care of their health and nutrition. They want to teach
Speaker 15: their kids about entrepreneurship raising. You take care of the chickens,
Speaker 15: they take care of you. It's really meant for anyone
Speaker 15: that wants to and our coop app makes it pretty
Speaker 15: effortless and easy to be able.
Speaker 7: To do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me about the product you get eggs.
Speaker 1: What's the deal with the eggs that you get out
Speaker 1: of the coop?
Speaker 5: Totally?
Speaker 15: So, the average egg in your refrigerator right now is
Speaker 15: about thirty to sixty days old, which is which to
Speaker 15: me is just crazy, Like I don't need any other
Speaker 15: protein that's thirty to sixty days old. And every day
Speaker 15: that you have an egg in a refrigerator, you're losing nutrients, micronutrients, vitamins.
Speaker 15: You're seeing like protein reduction. And so this whole backyard
Speaker 15: to table model, which is we talk about backyard to table,
Speaker 15: but like every day you open up your coop and
Speaker 15: you have six fresh eggs that literally the food that
Speaker 15: you fed your chickens yesterday become eggs today. So we're
Speaker 15: super passionate about people being able to own their own
Speaker 15: food supply and take care of their families.
Speaker 2: And where do I get the chickens?
Speaker 5: That's funny, So you can get chickens at local feed stores.
Speaker 15: So Tractor Supply has twenty one hundred stores around the
Speaker 15: US right now. There's also hatcheries, so we work with
Speaker 15: a number of hatcheries where you can order chickens online
Speaker 15: and they'll ship day old chicks. So a lot of
Speaker 15: people don't know that baby chicks don't need food or
Speaker 15: water for the first twenty four to forty eight hours,
Speaker 15: and so USPS will actually ship you chicks that arrive
Speaker 15: at your local post office and you just go pick
Speaker 15: them up on you typically on Wednesday mornings when they arrive.
Speaker 1: So a setup like this really appeals to someone like
Speaker 1: myself who may not consider growing and harvesting eggs in
Speaker 1: my backyard, but now that there's tech involved, you've got
Speaker 1: me interested. So do you feel like the tech aspect
Speaker 1: is really what brings people in and makes this easy.
Speaker 1: Do you think this could really make anyone a backyard farmer?
Speaker 15: Yes, totally, So I think that with the camera systems
Speaker 15: and AI from what we're doing, it's peace of mind.
Speaker 15: So this is saying it does predator detection. We have
Speaker 15: about a six million image database of all different types
Speaker 15: of predators, so we can say, hey, rich raccoon's detected,
Speaker 15: all six chickens are safe, the door is closed, and
Speaker 15: it's just peace of mind, like you can see in
Speaker 15: real time what's happening in your coup.
Speaker 5: Long term, we're gonna partner.
Speaker 15: With feed stores and so think like a chewy dot
Speaker 15: com or tractor supply where we'll actually ship you food
Speaker 15: so you won't have to go to the store anymore.
Speaker 15: And then like cleaning is just like the easiest thing
Speaker 15: in the world. As I mentioned, it took a twenty
Speaker 15: minute job down to two minutes with our patented litter trays,
Speaker 15: which which people seem to like that they can spend
Speaker 15: a few minutes day adding food or water, and if
Speaker 15: the coop needs to be cleaned about once every two weeks,
Speaker 15: it makes it like super breezy.
Speaker 1: Do you see this expanding into other animals, into other
Speaker 1: Are we gonna have a whole farm in the backyard.
Speaker 15: So that's a great question. So we've never talked about
Speaker 15: that publicly. We do plan on using our camera systems
Speaker 15: for backyard monitoring. So think, hey, Rich, coyotes in your backyard,
Speaker 15: or hey, a possum is living under your house and
Speaker 15: it's and we're recording it. So we're we're definitely looking
Speaker 15: at other verticals, but for sure we're focused on chickens
Speaker 15: right now.
Speaker 2: How much does a coop cost?
Speaker 5: So right now our.
Speaker 15: Coops are nineteen hundred and ninety five dollars, so just
Speaker 15: under two thousand dollars. What's what's interesting is we're getting
Speaker 15: a ton of feedback from our existing customers when they're
Speaker 15: like when they receive it, they're like, holy cow, the
Speaker 15: quality of this is like is incredible. You guys should
Speaker 15: charge more. I don't think we're going to. I'm actually
Speaker 15: trying to push the price down. But right now, two
Speaker 15: thousand dollars can get you a coup ship to your
Speaker 15: house as soon as tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And what about subscriptions for the cameras anything else that includes.
Speaker 15: We do a twenty dollars a month subscription, which is
Speaker 15: thirty days of video storage that covers the like the
Speaker 15: smart cameras, that covers the litter tray, so it makes
Speaker 15: cleaning super easy. And that is twenty dollars a month.
Speaker 15: And then we also for existing coop owners that don't
Speaker 15: have our product, we sell actually just the automatic door
Speaker 15: and camera system separately, so you can retrofit your existing
Speaker 15: coop with Coop's technology, and that's seven dollars a month.
Speaker 7: Is this fun?
Speaker 2: Is this more fun than your last startup?
Speaker 5: I would say anything's more fun than my last startup.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 15: I get to wake up every day smiling and laughing,
Speaker 15: Like who doesn't love chickens? Like it is the most
Speaker 15: fun company that I get to work on. And I
Speaker 15: have the best team in the world right now, Like
Speaker 15: I couldn't tell you how much I'm enjoying this.
Speaker 1: And I imagine a lot of chicken jokes. The chicken
Speaker 1: puns are just there every day. What's the website that
Speaker 1: we can go to to learn more?
Speaker 5: Totally?
Speaker 15: So it's the company is called Coop and it's www
Speaker 15: dot Coop dot farm, So there's no dot com, it's
Speaker 15: just Coop dot farm.
Speaker 5: And we'd love to have people check it out if
Speaker 5: you're interested.
Speaker 2: Aj Forsy, thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: All right, you can learn more about Coop. I'll link
Speaker 2: it up on my website. Just go to rich on
Speaker 2: Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: What do you think of the idea of chickens in
Speaker 1: your backyard with a smart coop?
Speaker 2: Let me know triple eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to
Speaker 1: one zero one more rich on Tech come your way
Speaker 1: right after this. Beyonce's got the new renaissance. You had
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift in the theaters, now you've got Beyonce in
Speaker 1: the theaters. I guess that's the new trend. I'll wait
Speaker 1: till they come out on the home video. So much easier, Uh,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking
Speaker 1: technology with you, and it is time. Well not yet.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get to the feedback segment in just a minute.
Speaker 1: You know, I go back and forth between the feedback
Speaker 1: and the feedbag, but you know you seem to like feedback.
Speaker 1: Maybe all we got chickens in the show, we've got
Speaker 1: feedbag all kinds of animal related stuff here. Let me
Speaker 1: just get through a few stories before we get to
Speaker 1: the feedbag. Tesla Cybertruck. Tesla deliveries have begun of the
Speaker 1: cyber truck. I think it took four years for this
Speaker 1: to come out. It's got a stainless steel frame, armored glass.
Speaker 1: They showed I don't know if you saw the video
Speaker 1: of this, but they showed someone like just shooting up
Speaker 1: this car and it was just wild. Towing capacity eleven
Speaker 1: thousand pounds, let's see zero to sixty and as little
Speaker 1: as two point six seconds. I don't think the glass
Speaker 1: is like rock resistant, but it was. It's pretty resilient.
Speaker 1: Rear wheel drive is gonna start at fifty thousand with
Speaker 1: a two hundred and fifty mile range. That's gonna be
Speaker 1: available in twenty twenty five. All wheel drives seven about
Speaker 1: seventy thousand deliveries next year, three hundred and forty mile range.
Speaker 1: The cyber Beast ninety seven thousand dollars three hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty mile range. Of course, all of those prices include
Speaker 1: the tax credit and the gas savings, which I don't like.
Speaker 1: How the Tesla website does that. Just give me like
Speaker 1: the real price. Let's see what else? Oh you gotay,
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty dollars for a reservation if you
Speaker 1: want one of these, and that's it. I think they
Speaker 1: delivered ten of them for the first event ever. Note
Speaker 1: you know, you heard my whole thing about Evernote with
Speaker 1: its you know, payment and all this stuff. Well now
Speaker 1: they are limiting free users to just fifty notes. So
Speaker 1: this is new restrictions. Free users get just fifty notes
Speaker 1: and one notebook per account that starts on December fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. This is a significant reduction from the
Speaker 1: previous free limit, which is already pretty limiting. Here's the problem.
Speaker 1: This is going to cause people to not use evernoe.
Speaker 1: Do they not want anyone to sign up for this?
Speaker 1: I don't know what their methodology is here. I'm paying
Speaker 1: like one hundred and thirty dollars a year for this
Speaker 1: program only because I love how it helps me organize
Speaker 1: this show. Otherwise I would use a different program if
Speaker 1: I was personally doing notes. You've got so many to
Speaker 1: choose from. I'd say Baar notes if you're on the iOS,
Speaker 1: some Apple notes. If you're on iOS, Google, keep Notion, Obsidian.
Speaker 1: There are so many note taping apps, Joplin, open sourced
Speaker 1: and Google's Nest cameras can now monitor your garage door
Speaker 1: with AI. I don't know about you, but I always
Speaker 1: run outside to see if my garage door is open,
Speaker 1: and most of the time it's not, sometimes it is.
Speaker 1: Now you can just have your nestcam send you a
Speaker 1: notification starting now, so update your software set it up
Speaker 1: in the app. It will tell you when your garage
Speaker 1: door is open or closed. Uses AI for that. All right,
Speaker 1: without further ado, Let's get to the feedbag feedback segment.
Speaker 1: Let's see we asked. I talked about my personal recommendations
Speaker 1: for apps last week, and people submitted theirs. Anna said
Speaker 1: she likes cam Scanner to scan email and file documents. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a very popular one. Chris said. Two of my
Speaker 1: favorite apps. Scannable my number one favorite app, uses my
Speaker 1: phone to scan and upload in PA for jpeg. Takes
Speaker 1: out the shadows and wrinkles nicely, automatically finds the scanned areas.
Speaker 2: Scannable is from ever Note, or at least it was.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they're still updating that app, but that
Speaker 1: was one of my favorite scanning apps for a very
Speaker 1: long time. Let's see if it's been updated recently. I
Speaker 1: don't know why my internet is really slow today. While
Speaker 1: that's loading, let's go his other favorite app.
Speaker 10: There.
Speaker 1: It is last updated on December twenty twenty two. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's still getting updated. Scannable is really really good.
Speaker 2: I love that app.
Speaker 1: Chris says his other favorite is Paprika three. This is
Speaker 1: an excellent recipe manager. I haven't tried the one you mentioned,
Speaker 1: but Paprika has so many incredible features and it grabs
Speaker 1: the just the necessary components of an online recipe. That's
Speaker 1: what I liked about the one I mentioned, which is
Speaker 1: a recipe keeper. You can see all the apps I
Speaker 1: like at rich on tech dot tv. Look for my
Speaker 1: favorite apps of twenty twenty three. Yvonne says RV Parky
Speaker 1: for RV road trip planning. It's easy to use, and
Speaker 1: it supports exporting to a file that navigators like Garmin
Speaker 1: use and ground News collects news articles and rates their
Speaker 1: bias left right center and also their factual accuracy. It
Speaker 1: shows you how media coverages tilts based on their audience.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Let's see.
Speaker 1: Randall says, I have a z flip since day one.
Speaker 1: I've also traded in a Samsung S twenty three. I
Speaker 1: do not agree with your statement phone screen is unusable.
Speaker 1: I find it better than the S twenty three ps
Speaker 1: Apple phone suck.
Speaker 2: Randall.
Speaker 1: I did not say that z flip was unusable. I
Speaker 1: said the fold five was unusable to me, not to everyone.
Speaker 1: But I think that the narrow screen does present its challenges.
Speaker 1: But I think the z flip is excellent. In fact,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to get a z flip if you
Speaker 1: have a standard Samsung phone. It's basically a Samsung phone
Speaker 1: that folds in half.
Speaker 2: So yeah, go for it.
Speaker 1: Jefferson Graham, friend of the show, says, I was just
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast the woman who wanted a smaller
Speaker 1: file size on our photos. Apple defaults to hi C,
Speaker 1: which is the smaller size half the size of JPEG.
Speaker 2: Did some testing.
Speaker 1: You have a couple of options in your settings when
Speaker 1: it comes to your photos. You can go into settings
Speaker 1: Camera formats, and there is a format called in the
Speaker 1: new phone HCHIF, which is the efficient format, and then
Speaker 1: there's most compatible, which is JPEG. Jefferson photographer extraordinaire. He
Speaker 1: likes JPEG. It is much more widely universal. But the
Speaker 1: math is this default is twenty four megapixels on the
Speaker 1: new phones. HIF is two point three megabytes. Twenty four
Speaker 1: megapixels of JPEG is four megabytes, so that's like almost double.
Speaker 1: Twelve megapixel ACHIF is one point seven megabytes, twelve megapixel
Speaker 1: JPEG is three point two. So if you want the
Speaker 1: most out of your phone, I would I would say
Speaker 1: go with the efficient one, which is the HIF or
Speaker 1: the hi C. It's just not always compatible with everything.
Speaker 1: Like I just try to post a picture to Twitter
Speaker 1: and I had to convert the HIF file to a JPEG.
Speaker 1: Steve on Instagram says I wanted to quickly share my
Speaker 1: RV experience.
Speaker 2: This past week.
Speaker 1: We purchased a twenty twenty one Mustang mock Ex Route
Speaker 1: one model two years ago and just took our first
Speaker 1: long road trip to Lake Tahoe from South Orange County.
Speaker 1: Usually it's an eight to ten hour trip. It turned
Speaker 1: into a fifteen hour trip. The charge stations we found
Speaker 1: either didn't work or they took an hour to get
Speaker 1: a full charge, four stops to get to Tahoe. Once
Speaker 1: we made it, we found a charge point station which
Speaker 1: was gonna take thirteen hours for a full charge. Don't
Speaker 1: want to bore you, but the point is they need
Speaker 1: to get the charge times down and safer charge points
Speaker 1: for filling, as well as maintenance on the stations. Before
Speaker 1: I purchased another one. Steve from Instagram Steve, I hear you, buddy,
Speaker 1: That's what I talked about de Rivian. They need to
Speaker 1: get this charging situation figured out. Tesla's got it and
Speaker 1: next year it's gonna get a lot better. But we'll see.
Speaker 1: Chuck says, I just bought the one plus fold and
Speaker 1: I love it. Highly recommended.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: We had a caller earlier Brenda asked about that. There
Speaker 1: you go, Let's see what else do we have. Jeff
Speaker 1: from Frisco, Texas that I found this charger a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago and everyone loves it. Thought you might want
Speaker 1: to share. Love the show. A sent an Amazon link
Speaker 1: that has a portable charger that has all the different
Speaker 1: outputs USB, C micro, USB, Lightning might be overkilled, but
Speaker 1: it's thirty bucks. Not a bad deal, all right. If
Speaker 1: you can believe it, that's going to do it for
Speaker 1: this episode of the show. You can find links to
Speaker 1: everything I mentioned on my website. Just go to rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv for the show notes. You can
Speaker 1: find me on social media. I am on rich On
Speaker 1: tech on all of the socials. Coming up next week,
Speaker 1: I will talk about more technology. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I've planned, so we'll just leave it there. More of
Speaker 1: your calls, more of your text, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. There are so many
Speaker 1: ways you can spend your time. I do appreciate you
Speaker 1: spending it right here with me. Thank you to everyone
Speaker 1: who makes this show possible. We've got Kim on the
Speaker 1: phone lines. We've got Bobo Bobo on the board. My
Speaker 1: name is rich Demiro, and I think.
Speaker 2: That does it.
Speaker 1: We've got Bill I don't know. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that make this show possible. And thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to our holiday music this week. Anyway, get those
Speaker 1: emails to me Rich on tech dot TV. Hit contact.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week.