AI Hacks, Cybertruck Review & Sonos Issues

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Another day, another data breach. This time it's a flight
tracking app, how to turn your old devices into a
costco shopping spree. And the iPhone bug that crashes your
phone instantly. Don't try this one at home. Plus your
tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and

(00:20):
this is rich on Tech. This is the show where
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
know about. It's also the place where I answer your
questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting,
useful and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at
triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
seven four to two, four to one zero one. Again

(00:42):
eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
zero one. Give me a call if you have a
question about technology. Email is also an option. Just go
to richon tech dot TV, hit contact and you can
send your message right to my screen. On this week's show,
we've got a sheish Agarwall. He is going to talk

(01:02):
about the Jubilee TV. This is a streaming device designed
with seniors in mind. The twist is that a caregiver
can pretty much control the entire TV remotely, so everything
from the streaming services to the channel to the volume
to the close captions. It's a whole new concept. We'll
have him talk about that. Later in the show. We've
got author Julio Vincent Gambudo. He's going to discuss his

(01:26):
new book, Please unsubscribe. Thanks, this will help you reclaim
your time and purpose in the digital age. And later,
US News Vehicle editor Zach Dole is going to talk
about Tesla's cyber truck. He's going to give an objective assessment.
I know you've seen it on the road. You have thoughts,
We have thoughts, he has thoughts. We'll talk about all

(01:49):
of that. Welcome to the show. Just watching the news
and these NASA astronauts that are stranded in outer space
pretty wild. I mean they're not calling them stranded, but
they're pretty much stranded. Their trip was supposed to be
eight days, they've already spent eighty and now they're gonna
spend an extra six months. So you're talking an eight

(02:10):
day trip turned into an eight month trip and they're
not back yet. By the way, can you imagine now,
if you're on vacation in Hawaii, sure, bring it on.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I mean you'd be broke by the end of that time.
But at least to be fun.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
But you're in space, and I'm sure there's a little
bit of like hesitation and wondering, like is this all
gonna work out?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Let's hope it does.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, they've already been up there
for eighty days, and I guess there's some I don't know,
some sort of failures on this starliner. It's gonna return
unmanned because of these thruster failures and helium weeks. So
they're gonna end up using this SpaceX dragon for return.
SpaceX interesting. Anyway, they'll be coming back in February twenty

(02:56):
twenty five now, so I hope they packed a lot
of food for them. I mean, I know the what
do they drink up their tang remember that? Oh my gosh. Anyway,
we're thinking of you. Hope you got hope you can
download Netflix up there. That's all I have to say. Like,
I don't know what their situation is, like what are
the creature comforts when you're in space just floating around?
And I know it takes a toll on the human

(03:17):
body as well, So we are thinking of you. And
it's just I was talking about this with my kids
the other day, because you know, we were just talking
about this whole, this situation before we knew what the
end result was going to be, and it's just like,
can you imagine being in space for all that time?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
No?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
All right, this week hopped around the nation, thankfully, I
took transportation that is much more proven, just an airplane.
I was in Newport Beach and then I went to
New York City. So in Newport Beach stayed at this
Oh my gosh. I mean, you don't realize what these
car companies do. They They have these trips that these
journalists go on, and there's pretty much one going on

(03:56):
anywhere in the world at any given time. They invite
all these journals lists and they bring them in, they
put them up at these places. What was a place
called It's called Pelican Hill Resort, the nicest place I've
ever been in my entire life. Stayed there for two
nights part of this Volvo drive Valvo EX ninety. This
is their new flagship seven seater all electric suv. It's

(04:19):
got a lot of tech features, got these thor hammer headlights.
Now I had to look that up because I thought
it was like a movie marketing thing, but no, it's
actually just I guess thor is a thing before the movies,
like from back in the day. And so you know,
I've got these cool headlights that kind of opening close. Anyway,
first Volvo car with lidar, So they made a big
deal out of this. I guess that's why they invited

(04:41):
me there. But this car is going to collect data
and it's eventually going to be able to drive itself.
So right now, when they put this car in the road,
it's just going to be in a collection phase. So
anyone who buys this thing is going to be helping
Volvo train their self driving autonomous driving software. They didn't
give me a timeline on when this car is going
to be able to drive itself fully, but they said, yes,

(05:02):
that is the point. This car will eventually be able
to drive itself. That's a big deal. So I know
we heard this week that Ford was pulling back on
its big electric suv. Talk more about that later in
the show, but they're moving on with this one. This
is eighty thousand bucks, gets about three hundred miles on
a range on a charge, I should say, which was fine,

(05:25):
but I really think the sweet spot for cars these
evs is really four hundred miles to not feel that
range anxiety, because realistically, let's put it this way, when
you get three hundred miles on an electric car, you're
really only supposed to charge that to eighty percent. So
do the math. You're not getting three hundred on a
full charge. You're really getting less than that. And then
as soon as you drive that car a little bit,

(05:46):
even though it says to eighty, it's going to drop
down to like two seventy two sixty when you start driving.
So you have to keep all of this in mind,
and that's why the electric cars are very controversial in
certain circles. Went to New York City for a company
called x GMI. This is a smart projector company, and
I got to say, really really cool stuff they came

(06:09):
out with. They showed us all these new products, a
bunch of tech people in attendance. Their whole thing is
they make these projectors that are really small, portable and bright,
and the best feature about them is auto keystone. So
if you've ever set up a projector in your life,
you know that it's a problem because you have to
move it, adjust it up and down, get the picture

(06:30):
just right, you're kind of adjusting the edges. Well, these
do everything automatically, so not only does it find the
size of the screen that you're aiming it at and
adjust to that, but it also straightens the image. And
so it's just super simple to set up and very portable,
and the models start around three hundred bucks. But just
ex Jimmy is the company again, by the way, really
really nice stuff they're coming out. They super portable projector that.

(06:52):
Of course, once you see it, you're like, oh, I
want that in my life. I'm gonna have that my
suitcase every time I travel so I can just watch
movies on my hotel room, you know wall.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
But that's a cool thing too. These tech events.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
I know it sounds like you just go and it's
all fun and games, right, but it really is amazing
to hang out with all the tech people you know,
in the same place, from all the different cities in
the world and just swap stories, talk chat, compare notes.
I mean everyone at this event, not only the Volvo
event in Newport Beach, but also in the New York
City event. Now, the car people I'm not as familiar with.

(07:26):
I know a bunch of them, but the tech people.
I know a lot of them, and it's like you
sit there and you're talking about the latest phones, the
latest gadgets, what you like, what you don't like, and
it's stuff like of course you can do it on
you know, Twitter and stuff, but being in person obviously
adds a much better layer to things. So and not
just that, but you also get face to face time
with the representatives from the companies, and so you learn

(07:46):
more about this stuff on a level that you're not
gonna get from a press release. You know, it's it's
much more intimate, it's much more just per you know,
just driven by face to face communication, which I know
is such a weird concept in our world.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
AI.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Let me talk about AI, because of course I'm always
using AI in new and different ways. And I'll tell
you about three ways I used AI this week to
help me find wine that I like on a menu,
to help me build a salad, and to help me
find what to order on a menu. I know it
all sounds very weird, but stick with me. So AI
in everyday life, wine win. When you are presented with

(08:25):
a wine menu, if you're drinking wine at a restaurant,
it is the most complex, like you know, thing you
could ever imagine, because how do you buy it? Do
you buy it by price? Do you buy it by
what you know? Ninety nine percent of the wines on
that list you're probably never going to recognize, and they're
all overpriced.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
You don't know you know what you're getting. So here's
what I did.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
I told the AI that the couple of wines that
I know I like right like the brand names. And
I said, Okay, now I'm going to show you a menu,
tell me which one I should get based on what
I like. And so I took a picture of the menu.
You upload it to AI.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
It already knows what you like, and it spits out
the wines that it things you should order. Brilliant.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
I think this is going to change the way I
order stuff at restaurants forever, because I'm going to keep
programming it to get it better and better. And then
by the way, I can say, give me a bottle,
you know, under fifty dollars, or give me a glass
under you know, ten dollars, or give me the cheapest
wine you think that I'm gonna like on this menu.
I mean, this is like AI really in use salad,
I went to a salad place, one of those places

(09:23):
where you like choose your own salad, and I was like,
you know what, let me try having my AI build
a healthy salad. So I uploaded all the ingredients that
you can choose from and I said, what I like,
you know, I want high protein, you know whatever, And
I said, build me a salad. And by the way,
don't use any of the premium products. You know, like
you know, you get upsold by like certain things that
they add your salad that's expensive.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
And sure enough, it picked out the stuff and it
built the salad.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
It it used kale as the base, which was like, okay,
I had to like power through a kale salad, but
it was still I thought it was pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
But here's the funniest part. When I went to pick
up the salad.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Instead of salmon, which by the way, I did splurge for,
they put salami. Because I guess nobody's ordering salmon in
their salad, so they gave me salami, and I said, thankfully.
I checked the order before I left and they replaced it.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
And then when it comes to the.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Menu of the restaurant, So if you're looking for certain things,
let's say you have, you know, sodium issues or cholesterol
issues or saturated fat. You want heart healthy, same thing.
You tell AI what you want and then you upload
the picture of the menu and you say, hey, give
me my best choices here. You know, maybe you don't
like fish, maybe you like steak, whatever it is, and

(10:31):
it will tell you. And the thing about AI, I
get that a lot of times. It's kind of like
just making stuff up, so you have to be aware
of that. But it also is giving you, like really
good information about the stuff on this menu. It says, hey,
you know, watch out for that. Like this yesterday it
was like breakfast and it was like avocado toast, which
I thought was healthy, and it's like, oh, just got
to be careful. Sometimes it's got a lot of saturated fat,

(10:53):
so you got to be careful with how much you
eat or look at the cream on the side or
this or that. So I'm not saying you have to
use this every time. I'm not saying you got to,
you know, change your whole life. But I just thought
it was kind of cool. Some new uses of AI
in everyday life eight to eight rich one O one
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
One give me a call if you have a question
about technology.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you
talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one. That's
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Well,
California became the fifth state that lets you add your

(11:34):
driver's license to uh your phone. This is actually it's
interesting because last week I talked about how Apple said
they were going to do this, but then Android leapfrog them,
and so if you have an Android phone in California,
you can now add your state ID or driver's license
to Google Wallet, but you can't use it for a
lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
It's mostly TSA checkpoints right now.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
But California joins Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and Maryland and offering
this capability. Five hundred thousand folks have already done this
in California through the DMV's old program, which is m
what do they call it, my driver's I don't know.
It's like my driver my digital driver's license or something.
But now you can add it to your Google Wallet.
So it's only limited to one point five million people

(12:18):
at this point because it's a pilot program, so if
you haven't done it, you can do it. I did
not do this just yet because I'm kind of you know,
I've got two phones that I use primarily, an iPhone
and Android, and so I'm curious if I add it
to the Android.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Am I not able to add it to the iPhone?

Speaker 1 (12:34):
But anyway, if you want to do it, just go
to your Android device, open up Google Wallet and then
you'll see where it says add to wallet in the
lower right hand corner, and then you tap ID card
and then it says fly through TSA and then you'll
see it says select which state issued your ID Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia,
and Maryland. So you can if you're in one of

(12:56):
those five states, add your your card to your phone. Again,
you can't really use it in many places, but hey,
this is a start, and I think it's amazing if
we can actually get to the point where our license
can be on our phone. It's actually way more private
than carrying a regular license. So we'll see what happens there.
Let's go to Richard in my home state of New Jersey.

Speaker 5 (13:18):
Richard drawn with rich Hey, rich Pleasure in an honor
to speak to you.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, thanks for Colin. What can I help with?

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Okay, here's my scenario. I splurged. I got the lg
OLED seventy seven inch TV top of the line, went
for the top of the line with the Sonos the
Art sound bar, big sub warfare for your speakers. I'm
almost blind, so when I turn on channel I have
Exfinity through Comcast, I needed to tell me what's on

(13:48):
the channel. And it's always done that good. After their
last update, it comes out so freaking out the whole
house shape.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
I should contact them to adjust it. No idea when
you're in and if you have any no.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
And here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
I was just telling my wife last night that I'm
ready to throw my Sonos system out the window because
they have ruined it.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
It is actually ruined.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
I've had Sonos for about over I don't know, ten
years now, and I absolutely love it.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
I'm one of the biggest fans.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
And they ruined the devices with the latest software update.
This happened maybe a couple months ago, and they came
out with the new app that changed everything. I don't
know if you've seen the new app, but it's horrible.

Speaker 6 (14:31):
Yes, I have it.

Speaker 5 (14:32):
I don't like it.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, it's it's just terrible.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
And then they said, you know, they came out with
a blog post with the CEO saying, look, we're going
to fix this in the next six months. Six months.
Who can wait six months? So what you're experiencing is
what I'm experiencing. Nothing is working the way it's supposed
to be working. I don't know what they did, what
they changed, but nothing in my house. Last night, I

(14:54):
turn on music while we were you know, before eating dinner,
and I went to close out the app, and co course,
the volume doesn't respond anymore on the app for some
reason or it's delayed, and then all of a sudden,
I touched something on my phone. The volume went to
a thousand degrees. So it'splasting through my house. The kids
start yelling like, Hey.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
What's happening.

Speaker 7 (15:12):
What's happening.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
I'm like, I know, I know, can't turn the volume down.
So Richard, I think this is a matter of you're
gonna have to just wait until this app gets better.
My question is is it the volume just from the TV?
Is it something that the TV is doing like a
voice volume? It's doing or something.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Well, it's just the TV's volume that comes through the
arc when I'm not watching a regular channel. It's fine
when I changed the channel, and again when Xfinity tells
me what it's coming on, that's when it's loud. I
even contacted, so no, so of course I just got
to run around.

Speaker 6 (15:46):
Through there in another country.

Speaker 5 (15:49):
But yeah, that you know, it sits and it's frustrating.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
The only thing I can think of, and this is
what I typically do in a situation like this, is
go through the like every single setting in the settings
and see if there's anything specific for because what's happening
is there's like two you know, in your car when
you're when you're like listening to music, and then like
Google Maps pops in and does like the voice Sometimes
that voice volume is different, like a different level than

(16:15):
the music volume, and the only time you can adjust
it is while that music are they sorry, this assistant
voice is like currently on. So I'm wondering if that's
the case here, like while this while this Infinity box
is speaking, maybe there's a way that you can go
into the app and turn down the volume while that
box is speaking, and that's separate from the TV volume.

(16:36):
But that's the only thing I can think of. I
think that this is just a matter of this entire
system is just not working right now. And I'm I
can't tell you how much I went from loving Sonos
to actually hating them, Like I physically can't stand having
it in my house anymore.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
I'm so invested in it.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
I've got speakers in every one in my house, in
every one of my rooms, and I just can't even
use them like I now have resorted to using like
my phone, my laptop, my uh you know, I'll just
use like the Google Home speaker. Not as good as
the soos. But Richard, I feel your pain. I hope
that we get a fix here very very soon. Anyway,

(17:15):
thanks for calling from New Jersey today. Appreciate it. It was
just there, well in New York. I landed in New
York though, that counts all right. Coming up, we're gonna
tell you about the Jubilee TV. This is a new
set top box design with senior citizens in mind. This
is rich On Tech.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Welcome back to rich On Tech.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
seven four two four one zero one. We'll get back
to the phone lines in just a moment, but first
I'm in Hollywood. Joining me now is CEO and co
founder of Jubilee TV, A sheish Auger Wall.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Thanks so much for joining me, Rich, glad to be here.
So let's talk about what is Jubilee TV.

Speaker 8 (17:58):
Uh Doubi TV is a product that allows families to
remotely take care and connect with their seniors aging in
their own home through the device that seniors are most
familiar with, which is the TV. For seniors, it simplifies
the TV experience and for families, it allows them to
use an app that they can see what's on the TV,

(18:20):
be their tech support, fix anything on the TV, put
content live stream from their phone, do video calls, and
even keep a watchful eye on their TV watching habits
and movement for an extra piece of mind.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
So from what I've seen here, it's basically a box
kind of like a streaming set top box, but this
does not actually have streaming capabilities built in.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
You connect your inputs to this box.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
So think about a set top box that has a
camera on it. It's got some inputs on the back,
it's got an output and all this stuff kind of
comes into the box.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
It displays on the TV.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
But the genius part here is that you, as a
caregiver or a loved one, can.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Actually not only see what's on their.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
TV screen remotely from your phone, you can also control
pretty much everything from turning the TV on to the volume,
changing the channel, and it's all highly personalized. What was
sort of the reason you came.

Speaker 8 (19:17):
Up with this, Yeah, Rich, Jubilee TV is a very
personal endeavor for me. I was always a TV guy.
You know that Apple Harmon made a lot of TV products.
But during COVID, I felt really disconnected with my parents
and my in laws, and my thought kept on coming
back to TV. Why isn't there a device that connects
my safe place which is the phone, to their safe place,

(19:40):
which is the TV.

Speaker 9 (19:41):
That was the birth of Jubilee TV.

Speaker 8 (19:43):
And then we went really deep, like we have over
seventy patterns, We really really you know this product guys
who want to make product really amazing, and we bridge
that gap.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
And so you've got this this app for the I
call the caregiver a loved one's phone where lets you
not only see what's on their TV screen, but also
control it has that ever been done before?

Speaker 8 (20:06):
And no, it hasn't been done before, and I think
it will be a while before somebody else manages to
capture this because there's so many devices, so many different setups,
so many different types of TVs. We can go back
to any TV you want, any device and connect it
and control it, and there are various control protocols.

Speaker 9 (20:26):
How do you master all of that?

Speaker 8 (20:27):
It took us years after which now we've come to
a point where it's a very simple app. And somebody
mentioned simplicity is the key. A very simple big button
interface for seniors and a simple app that lets you
do powerful things.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
So the idea being that, let's say you live in
Los Angeles, your mother, father lives in New York, and
they have a problem with their TV. You know, the
input has changed, or the Roku box is not showing Netflix,
it's showing Hulu, and or maybe Hulu got logged out.
You were able to control and really assist them from

(21:01):
afar not only physically change the input or anything like that,
but you.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Can even type in on screen if you need to.

Speaker 9 (21:08):
Right, yeah, you could do like somebody said, magic on this.

Speaker 10 (21:11):
Right.

Speaker 8 (21:12):
We had one person call and said, my mom called
and said, my language is Spanish on my set to
the box?

Speaker 9 (21:18):
How do I change it?

Speaker 11 (21:19):
Now?

Speaker 8 (21:19):
That person would have to fly four hundred miles to
fix that issue. I'm pretty sure. So is that with
your box we were just able to change the language
back to English. So anything you can think, but not
just fixing TVs. You could put shows you know that
your mom would want to watch or your parents would
want to watch. You can make TV really more interesting.
You could also program it such that at a certain

(21:39):
time TV turns on and plays.

Speaker 9 (21:42):
The content you want to watch.

Speaker 8 (21:43):
So there's a user whose father just wants to watch
baseball a local team at the first of the month.
He programs the box for the rest of the month
to turn on the TV and watch your favorite show.

Speaker 9 (21:54):
So those moments are really really interesting, you know.

Speaker 8 (21:57):
And TV, now the loudest speaker, the largest becomes a
very powerful connection surface and.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
It goes much deeper than just TV.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
It's also a way to connect because you have built
in video calling, you have built in messaging, you have
built in photo sharing and also video sharing, and like
you said, the live streaming, So explain some of those
features as well.

Speaker 8 (22:19):
Yeah, So, once we had built this, you know, as
you said, very powerful interface where you could see the
TV and control it. We started to extend that to connection.
So the first use case was content, which is what
TV is about. The next one is trying to take
care of social isolation. Seniors want to age in their
own home. They often feel isolated. You want to go
visit them, but you can't as much as you're juggling

(22:40):
with other responsibilities. So we build this connection layer very
powerful messaging, reminders, photo sharing, video sharing, video calling that
allows you to really drop in and seniors to experience
those moments. So that was the second layer were built in.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
And then there's another layer of kind of safety and security,
so you can have an activity feed of hey, we
noticed that something was unusual. You get I guess the
camera snapshot of things that happen in front of the
camera on the device, like if someone else is in
the room. I even saw on the app where it said, hey,
there are currently two people standing in front of the box.

(23:17):
So if there's only one person in that house at
all times and you're like, why is there a second?
This box can help you uncover those mysteries as well.

Speaker 8 (23:24):
Yeah, Rich, So the third layer of This is what
we call activity feed.

Speaker 9 (23:29):
You can see patterns evolve.

Speaker 8 (23:31):
If you look at Apple Watch six months later, it
will say hey, if you observe this pattern with you. Similarly,
our box takes care of TV watching and camera and
microphone patterns and analyzes them locally on the box. That
allows to indicate to families if something is unusual and
allows you to keep a watchful eye. And Mom didn't

(23:52):
turn on the TV by ten am, something must be
wrong because mom always turns on the TV. Mom didn't
turn off the TV that night, I better watch. So
all those notifications are super powerful in you trying to
remotely take care of your loved one, including movement, voice
in the room, the camera, all then locally, it's an

(24:12):
extremely powerful Edji box that does this.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
And you also mentioned reminders. So can you have a
reminder pop up on screen that says, hey, it's ten am.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Time take this medicine?

Speaker 9 (24:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (24:23):
So reminders is yet another powerful feature. Because as I mentioned,
TV is the loudest speaker and the largest screen, and
we have full control over it. You can choose to
set reminders and you could even force on those reminders
that the senior has to acknowledge and takes a picture
during that right, so you can choose what degree do
you want to go into. So if mom has to

(24:44):
take this medicine at ten am, if she misses it
by twenty minutes, then she's in trouble. You better force
the reminder and force that that reminder has to be
dismissed and you get a notification. If that reminder wasn't dismissed,
then alarm bells can go on. So it really becomes
a mission critical device at that point.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
It feels like it mixes some other technologies that I've
played with in the past, like sling box for instance,
for viewing kind of like the TV screen anywhere in
the world from your phone, that universal remote aspect. So
tell me all those things kind of come together in
this box. How tough was all of that to bring together?
Because you're talking about controlling a Roku or controlling a

(25:25):
fire TV stick, controlling different models of television.

Speaker 8 (25:28):
Yeah, Riich, it's it's amazing that you actually got all
of this because the founding team, and I want to
give a shout out to Blake Krekorian was a Slingbox
co founder and two days ago was when he passed
a few years ago. So and he's one of the
co founders of this company.

Speaker 9 (25:46):
Or was right.

Speaker 8 (25:47):
So that's how and I made one of the first
universal remote controls. So that's exactly you see all these
elements coming in together that made this happen.

Speaker 9 (25:57):
Yes, it was really difficult. It requires a lot of expertise.

Speaker 8 (26:00):
We have over I think now seventy patents on this
seven years in working.

Speaker 9 (26:04):
Nobody else could do this.

Speaker 8 (26:06):
Everybody thought this is at least four other startups I
know started tried to do this, failed, gave up and
never released a product. And so it is really an
act of love. We are all engineers at heart. You
want to create great products, great experiences and make an
impact in this world.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Okay, so the box is two hundred dollars. Where you
going to be able to get it? And there is
a monthly fee, So explain what that is and what
the value is for that what people get for that fee.

Speaker 9 (26:32):
Yeah, so you buy the box, it's two hundred dollars.

Speaker 8 (26:35):
You can get it on our own site, get Jubilee
tv dot com, or you can buy it on Amazon
or best Buy. And then a membership fee is twenty
nine dollars a month or two sixty nine dollars a year.
You get sixty days of free trial, so absolutely we
want you to love it. If you don't love it,
please return it back to us. It's a product of love.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Ashiesh Agarwall. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 9 (26:56):
Thank you, Rich The pressure is all mine.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
The product once again is Jubilee TV. I'll put a
link to it on my website, rich on tech dot TV.
More rich on Tech coming your way right after this.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you talking technology at Triple A Rich one O one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(27:21):
zero one. We've got Kim standing by to take your
call and hopefully get you on this show. Eight eight
eight rich one O one and email also an option.
Just go to rich on Tech dot TV hit contact.
That will send your message right to my screen. And uh,
if you want notes, if you want show notes or
a link to something I mentioned, just go to the

(27:43):
website rich on Tech dot tv and hit the light
bulb up at the top. So, for instance, if you
heard our last segment about the Jubilee TV you're like
that sounds interesting, just go to the website and hit
the light bulb and that will give you all the
show notes in real time.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Let's go to Mary in San Diego. Mary, you're on
with Rich. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 12 (28:04):
Thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 13 (28:05):
I love your show.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Thank you. I appreciate that.

Speaker 12 (28:09):
Quick question. I have an iPhone and as somebody mentioned
that I should have a VPN on my iPhone. Is
that possible or that's only for the computer? Uh?

Speaker 1 (28:22):
No, you can absolutely have a VPN on the iPhone.
So it works. Uh, you know, you download the app
and you basically install it, sign up for a plan,
and it will it will install and work just like.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
You know, anything else on the iPhone.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
It's a little bit different because it's it's kind of
built into the settings on the iPhone.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
But you can absolutely have a VPN on the iPhone.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
So things to look for in a VPN, uh, you know,
it depends what you're using it for. But most of
the experts I speak with say, you want one that
has a no log policy, doesn't store or sell your
browsing data independent audit results. So on their website it
will say, hey, here's how we handle our data. Here's
someone else that checked it. Out and we check out

(29:05):
WireGuard protocol. That is a little bit faster of a connection.
I know it sounds like a funny term, but that's
something to look for on the website. Make sure it
works across all your devices. So I know you're talking
about an iPhone, but you know, see if it works
on desktop computers as well. Bandwidth is obviously a consideration.
You want to have unlimited ideally because you want to

(29:25):
be able to use this as much as you want.
These things typically cost around five to ten dollars a month.
There are some free VPNs out there. The one that
I would recommend if you're looking for a free one
is Proton pro O t O N and they they
have a free level of their VPN and it's I
think it's a little bit limited. You can use it

(29:46):
on one device, but that is one that you know
people do trust for the free level of support.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Does that help?

Speaker 12 (29:54):
Is there another one that you recommend besides Proton one?

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Now, so the the ones that have been recommended in
the past by experts on this show over and over.
There's one called IVPN so IVPN, and then MOLEVAD m
U L l V A D. But you know, there's
there's many VPNs out there. There's a lot of good ones.
I think it's a matter of just looking for one
that fits the pricing that you want and the features

(30:20):
that you want. So, for instance, this molevad is basically
five dollars a month forever. Some of them try to
get you to pay more upfront and you know, maybe
get you to prepay for like three five years or sorry,
like three years at once or a year in advance.
So it just depends on you know, what you want,
what you're comfortable with, and you know, there you go.

Speaker 12 (30:42):
Okay, I have With that being said, how can I
find out if somebody had had my iPhone or they
have access to my iPhone?

Speaker 1 (30:52):
They don't, that's the short answer. Ninety nine per unless
the person is you know, FBI Special Operations, they do
not have access to your iPhone. People think that that
people get access to the iPhone. It's really tough, especially
remote access. It's just it's nearly impossible. I mean even
for law enforcement trying to get into people's phones if

(31:15):
they don't have the code, it is really really tricky.
The phones are encrypted unless they have you your password
or you know your login information.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Or your past code. It's really really tough.

Speaker 7 (31:30):
You know.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'd be more concerned about Instagram listening to your conversations
because I do see that happen on a daily basis,
where you mentioned something to a friend and next thing
you know it is there's an AD on your phone
for it. So, but Mary, if you're concerned about anything
like that and you want to be more private on
your phone, a VPN is fine.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
I think that it depends what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
But ninety nine point nine percent of the time, unless
you're really trying to cover your tracks, there's probably no
need for a VPN. If you're in a public place,
you're doing sensitive stuff like checking your email on a
public network or checking your you know, your banking account,
stuff like that, you might want to use a VPN.
But my typical recommendation is that if you're doing anything

(32:11):
super private on your computer, do it on a cellular
connection versus a public Wi Fi hotspot connection. Let's go
to Gary in San Antonio, Texas. Gary, you're on with rich.

Speaker 14 (32:22):
Ty Right, Hi, I got a I got rid of
my I've one six, got a fifteen plus bro and
this thing runs hot. I mean, it won't even charge
all the past eighty percent unless you put it in

(32:44):
a cool spot, and whether it's sit you know, I was,
so even getting a charge to one hundred percent, it
is hard to do. And I'm wondering why it's running
so hot.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Well, where where are you charging it? Like, are you
charging it on the dashboard in your car or is
this at home plugged in?

Speaker 11 (33:06):
At home plugged in?

Speaker 2 (33:08):
And what charger are you using?

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Using the one that came with it, or using a
like a third party like when you got like a
convenience store.

Speaker 14 (33:15):
What No, I didn't get a charger with it, but
we bought a set of chargers that they're quick chargers, okay.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
And are they high quality?

Speaker 6 (33:26):
Yeah, okay, far as I know.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Well, so when the iPhone fifteen Pro first came out, yes,
it did run hot and there were some issues, but
that was fixed within the first couple of months. And
so you should not be having this phone run hot.
Now I get it. It is the summer. I had
my phone in the car charging wirelessly, and yes, it
does heat up, you know, to a certain extent, depending

(33:50):
on the weather and the temperature and things like that.
And you also want to make sure that you're charging
your phone on a table, not on a bed, not
on anything that's fabric. You know, you want this phone
to be able to bathe a little bit, because when
you do charge a device, it's it's going to pick
up some heat. Now, a lot of that heat is
typically dissipated by the plug on the wall versus the phone.
You know, the phones managed kind of that system. So

(34:13):
if you're using a charger that's really cheap or something
that's you know, you know, something that's third party that's
not very good, it could run hotter and it could
just not be managing the heat properly.

Speaker 14 (34:23):
So yeah, the sense I bought was Nanima.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, well I haven't heard of that one, so I
mean that could be a problem. Is this happening with
every phone that you charge on this charger or just
this one?

Speaker 14 (34:38):
I like charge to one and uh, that's the only
thing I run an iHeart radio like going for seven?

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Okay, are you running something while you're charging it? Are
you are you running something on the phone? Are you
streaming it twenty four to seven while you're charging it?

Speaker 6 (35:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (35:00):
I might have I art running overdoing blue dude.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Okay, Well, I love that you're listening to iHeart all day.
That's that.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
I appreciate that, but I think that could be part
of it. So, you know, phones they do have you know,
the management in them for heat management, and they have
gotten better over the years and they do. But if
you're running something twenty four to seven on it, no
matter what it is, the phone's going to heat up,
and so it shouldn't be it shouldn't be hot to

(35:28):
the touch where it's like unusable. But a small level
of heat on the phone if you're if you're running
something on it, if the screen's on all day, if
you're charging it all day, that definitely is a possibility.
I personally, if this phone is new, would take it
to the Apple store just to have them do a
check up on it. They could run some diagnostics, make
sure that it's all on the up and up, especially

(35:50):
while you're in that warranty period.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Gary, thanks for listening.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Thanks for calling in from San Antonio eighty eight rich
one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Triple A rich one oh one That phone number eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
You have a question about technology, give me a call.

(36:16):
Coming up this hour, we've got author Julio Vincent Gambudo.
He's going to discuss his book. Please unsubscribe. Thanks, help
you reclaim some of your time and purpose in this
digital world.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Speaking of which, I'm reading a book right now.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Let's see. It's called The Anxious Generation.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
And I'm a little late on this, but man, I
want to throw all my tech out the window for
my kids. It's just all about how kids are inundated
with technology and they can't stop. You know, their little
brains are just not programmed to figure out how to
stop scrolling on Instagram, or how to stop playing video games,

(36:55):
or how to stop visiting you know, those websites on
the web. You know what I'm talking about. So really
eye opening. I'm only halfway through, but I can't. I'm
like hanging on every word of this book. And I
tell my kids when I get home, like go outside,
play with worms like I used to do. Just go
just get dirt, just go go do something dangerous.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
I don't even care.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Just go like we did dangerous stuff as kids, Like
you know, I used to climb fences like you, bobo,
do you know how to hop a fence?

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Like when I was a kid, it was so dangerous.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
You'd hop a fence and your fear was like getting
caught on the top or getting your foot caught and falling.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Do you know how to hop a fence? I got
your beat.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
I jumped a roof so, oh okay, I have notts
one that's I don't like heights, so I would not
be up I went out a roof like once. My dad,
you know, he runs a roofing company, so he's always
on roofs. He brought me up once, so I'm just like, nope,
never mind, don't need to be up here. We had
back in the day.

Speaker 15 (37:49):
We didn't have video games like online games, so we
took bikes and went around the neighborhood. It was a
school by my grandmother's house, and we found it way
on a roof.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
It was like, y'all, let's jump.

Speaker 15 (37:58):
Okay, what's your jump to from the top of a
one floor building to the grass?

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Oh wow?

Speaker 15 (38:05):
Yeah, just to see who was all chicken? Yeah it
was just a chicken chat. Now I look at it
like I was stupid, but yeah, so fun in a moment,
but it makes you who you are.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
It makes it makes you who you are nowadays. This
the thesis of this book, as I'm understanding, is that
kids don't take any chances because it's all virtual and
there's no chance. In the virtual world you can do
whatever you want. You just get another life, you know
what I mean. But in real world, if you hop
that fence or jump that roof and you got hurt,
you're never gonna do it again.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
You probably never did it again anyway. I never jumped
off the other roofs. You don't need to.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
He did it once anyway. I'm not saying to jump
off roofs. Please do not do that anyway. So, uh yeah,
one of the things, and I'll get to the calls
in just a moment here.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
One of the things that I was trying to find.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
You know, I travel a lot, and I'm always trying
to find, like the best restaurant that's close to where
I'm staying. And so I was going to New York
City and I wanted a restaurant to meet my family
at who's from New Jersey, and so there's got to
be a way, you know.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
I used to use YELP. I don't really use yelp
much anymore.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
But so I was like, Okay, let me figure out
a way to find like a good restaurant that's close
to my hotel. So here's what I figured out. Number one,
you got to go to Google Maps on the desktop.
This doesn't work as well on the phone, but if
you go to Google Maps on the desktop, you search
for where you're staying, so whether that's a hotel, someone's house, whatever,
and then once you search for that and that pops up,
you get these things up at the top says nearby hotels.

(39:25):
I don't know why you need another hotel if you're
staying at a nearby If you're staying at a hotel, restaurants,
things to do, bars, coffee, whatever, you tap restaurants and
that will bring up all the restaurants that are within
a fifteen minute walking distance of your hotel. And then
you can go through and further refine so you can
do the price. You could do one dollar, sign up
to four. You can do rating, which I would do

(39:47):
four point five, just to make sure you're getting a
good place. Cuisine you can choose, you know, for me,
I wanted something that was Italian, so I just chose
Italian hours. You want to make sure that it's open,
you know, during lunch or dinner, whatever you're doing.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
And then you.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Can sort by you know, you can see all the
places that are within walking distance to your hotel.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
And it was great.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
So I ended up choosing a restaurant that was like
literally six hundred feet from my hotel. We went there,
we had a great time. I'll say the food wasn't
like the best in the whole world.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
It was fine.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
I mean, I'm very picky about Italian food, but it
was great. And so now I have my new way.
Now I do I said, I don't use Yelp, but
I will cross reference the restaurant on Yelp just to
be sure that's not getting like two stars or something
like that. So anyway, try it out. That's my new
method for finding a restaurant. Let's go to Richard in Menafee, California.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Richard, you're on with rich.

Speaker 6 (40:39):
Oh rich How you doing good?

Speaker 1 (40:41):
We had lots of rich lots of Richards on this show. Today,
you're the third Richard on this show. What can I
help you with?

Speaker 11 (40:48):
Yeah, I need to replace my older LGV sixty phone
having charging issues with it, and I'm with Verizon and
they sent me a couple of offers in the last week.
One was for the Pixel pro XL for three dollars
and thirty three cents a month. It's like one thousand
dollars off.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (41:08):
And the other one is for the Samsung S twenty
four Ultra, which they'll do that one for me for
seventeen dollars a month. I'm gonna stay with Brydon, so
I don't care about the payments. So I wanted to
get your opinion on which would be the better phone.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
So you're talking the new Pixel nine XL, is that right?

Speaker 11 (41:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Oh wow?

Speaker 1 (41:27):
These are two These are two of the best phones
available right now, so and I have lots of thoughts
on them. So, but my question is what do you
want out of your phone? Because I have my thoughts
on which one is better for like the use case.
Are you like a extreme photographer? Are you just looking
for the best battery life? Do you want the best software?
What do you want out of your phone?

Speaker 11 (41:48):
I was into photography for a while, but that seems
to have dropped off a little bit because that's I
wanted the S twenty four. The last year for the Zoom,
but I'm finding out I really don't you a zoom
that much anymore.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
And the Pixel the nine pros has a five x
zoom and you can go up to thirty with the
with their super rezume, so it works really well. Here's
my thoughts. So I think that the Pixel nine pro
xcel is a great phone. I think for that three
dollars a month that you're talking to me, that seems
like a better value, even though it's not a lot.

(42:23):
You're only talking fourteen dollars, you know, over time. But
still I think that the Pixel is the better software
to me. But I think that the Samsung S twenty
four Ultra is probably overall the best Android phone out
there right now because it has it's a powerhouse, you know,
it's got the best processor, it's got the best screen,

(42:44):
it's got an excellent camera. I think that I prefer
the Pixel a little bit more in different ways, but
it's not as good overall. I think the S twenty
four Ultra is, like, you know, a better phone like specx. Wise, now,
I think that the Pixel is litle bit easier to
hold in your hand. It's a little bit smoother, a
little bit rounder edges. But you know, and I do

(43:06):
think I do prefer the Pixel software over the S
twenty four Ultra software. But I think that these are
two incredible devices.

Speaker 11 (43:14):
I tend to keep my phone for a pretty long time,
so I'm thinking about the software updates for the for
both of the phones, which one will have to because
wonder them lasts like seven years of updates. Yeah that's
the Pixel phone.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, the Pixel is getting seven years of updates, but
I believe the S twenty four is also getting uh,
if not seven, it's getting pretty close to that. It's
been a it's been a while since I did this.
This was in January, but yes, S twenty four is
going to have seven years of updates as well. So
you know, if I had to choose, I mean, I

(43:47):
think the battery life is excellent on the Pixel this year.
I think that the and I've used both of these
phones extensively, so I mean, I could.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
It's tough.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
It really comes down to like a preference of do
you like the Pixel software or do you like this
Amsung software.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
I think that you've.

Speaker 11 (44:01):
Never had the Pixel, so I don't know. My daughter
has one and she loves the play Well.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Maybe try the Pixel.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I mean, just see if you I think that the
software on the Pixel to me feels very very smart,
you're also now here's something that might push you over
the edge. The Pixel is also going to give you
two terabytes of online storage for a year for free,
plus their access to their Advanced AI Gemini their Best

(44:27):
Gemini AI for free for a year, which is a
twenty dollars a month value.

Speaker 11 (44:31):
That's one thing I'm thinking about exploring is some of
the stuff that AI has to offer. I haven't done
it yet, but I'm starting to get tempted to the
point where I'm going to jump in.

Speaker 9 (44:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
I mean, these are two of the best, and I
really it's it's just tough. If you want to try
the Pixel and you want to try that Google software,
it does have something a little bit special to it
because it does feel very like advanced. I always call
the Pixel the smartest smartphone out there, So you know,
maybe give that one since it is cheaper. I'm surprised

(45:01):
it's cheaper than the Samsung, but maybe just give that
a chance and see what you think about it. But
if your daughter has one, it's also kind of nice
because if you have any questions you can ask her, hey,
how do.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
You do this?

Speaker 11 (45:14):
Thanks brother?

Speaker 1 (45:15):
So, yeah, Richard, I think you're gonna be happy with
either of these devices. They are both really really good phones,
So thanks for the question. Speaking of smartphones, a new
bug in the iPhone causes it to crash immediately. This
is wild. Do not do this at home. I've done this.
You can look at the video on my Instagram if

(45:36):
you want to see what happens. But don't do this
because even though it's not a security issue, and even
though it doesn't seem to have any lasting repercussions on
your phone, I would still not do this. But if
you type, if you go into the app library and
you type quotation mark quotation mark colon colon, your device
crashes immediately. Now it's not a full crash, so it

(45:56):
doesn't like restart your entire phone, but it restarts what's
called the springboard, and that's basically their equivalent of the
launcher on the iPhone. So you can type into the
app library those four little characters, and yes, you will
crash your phone. Don't do it. It's probably not worth it.
I do it on my phone because I do it
in your name. I do it to figure these things

(46:18):
out and just to see how this stuff happens. Doesn't
seem like there's any long term effects by doing this.
But yes, there will be a software update from Apple
to make sure that this is fixed, and that will
probably come any day now, because we don't want crashing
phones just by typing stuff in. How they figure this out?
Someone just typed a whole bunch of random stuff into
the phone and figured it out. I guess eighty eight

(46:38):
rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. The website for the show
richon Tech dot TV. When you stop there, be sure
to sign.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Up for my newsletter.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
It is free. You are listening to Rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at trip rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Hope you're enjoying the show. I know I
really enjoy coming in here to do this and talking
to you and sharing this information. People are always surprised

(47:11):
when you just share like useful stuff, like they're like, oh, wow,
nobody does that.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, well I do and.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Every week been doing it for what is this episode
number eighty six. We've done this eighty six times minus
some of the days we've had some reruns. So but
you know, you still get good information unless you listened
since day one to every single show. Even if you
heard a rerun, which doesn't happen very often, you'd still
get good information like this. Another data security incident. Flight Aware,

(47:42):
an app that I have recommended on this show, says
they had a data security incident and you'll have to
reset your password. There was a configuration error on July
twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, might have exposed users personal information.
This includes your user ID, password, email address, and other
account details. All potentially impacted users are required to reset

(48:04):
their passwords, so the next time you try to log in,
you'll have to reset your password. But here's the takeaway
from this is again you cannot use the same password
for different websites. So something like this website flight Aware,
you're like, okay, cool, I'll log in with this easy
password because nobody cares about flight Aware. The problem is
you might use that password on another website that someone

(48:27):
does care about. So please use a strong password for
every website that you go to that you sign up for.
I know it takes a lot of work. I know
it takes a little bit more effort, but it will
pay off in the end because I can tell you
there are websites where you can go to and I
can see a list of all of your websites that
all of your passwords that have been hacked, just right
on the open web. And so you can see that.

(48:49):
And if someone, if a hacker gets a hold of that,
they'll take that password and they will try it in
a different website. They'll try it in all the popular
websites until they figure out one that you've reused it
on and they'll hack you.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Happens every single day, Believe me. I get the emails.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Let's go to Joel and riverside. Joel, welcome to the show.

Speaker 16 (49:08):
Hey, how are you doing, Rich?

Speaker 1 (49:09):
I'm doing fantastic. What can I help you?

Speaker 13 (49:12):
Cool?

Speaker 16 (49:12):
I was notified earlier in the year about Google domains
moving over or migrating to a square space, so the
web that I did have is no longer. I finally
got my square space information email about a month or
two ago. Can I really use AI to try and

(49:33):
build me a website?

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Absolutely across my feet? Yeah? Why not?

Speaker 1 (49:38):
I mean my kid was building a video game this
morning with AI. I mean this stuff it's wild. Now
here's the thing. What what kind of website are we
talking about? Like, is this like a small business.

Speaker 16 (49:49):
Real basic for yeah, small you know organic micro farm.
You know it's a little organic farm on two acres.
Oh wow, And yeah, so you know, I just want
to to show everyone in regener it is sustainable practices.
You know, let people know when they could come get
the fruit. But the main thing is teaching people how
to grow their own you know, fruit and vegetables without

(50:12):
any pesticides or herbicides.

Speaker 10 (50:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
I mean, I think that's a great That's so what
I think is is what AI is going to be
useful for in that aspect is is helping you like
what you kind of say what you want into the
AI and it will clean up your text. So if
you say, like let's say you're doing blog posts about
this on your website, you can kind of use voice
to text on your phone and just say like, okay,

(50:35):
first things first, you don't want to use pesticides, so
you want to use you know, you want to use
good organic soil.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Whatever.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
I don't know what it is like you just spout
out all the steps for like step one, step two,
step three, and then AI will take what you said,
and you could just say you can pop it into
AI and say clean this up, and now it will
say or you can say turn this into a more
elaborate blog post about this topic, and it will take
what you said, but it will kind of upon that.

(51:00):
And now you're the person that's the experts, so you're
going to read it over obviously before you copy and
paste it onto your website. But it's basically your knowledge
just kind of cleaned up and put in a way
that people can understand, and you didn't have to do
a ton of work to get that to the website.
So I think that's one way of using it now
to actually lay out your website. If you're using Squarespace,
you can use AI. I'm looking at their tools right now.

(51:24):
They've got a whole blog post on how to build
their website with AI tools, so they do have them
built in as well. But again, I think you're going
to find that you can do a lot with AI
to make this process a lot easier, a lot simpler,
and your website's just going to look better and it's
going to have more information on it, and you're the
person that's kind of starting that information, but AI is

(51:45):
just expanding upon all of that.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 16 (51:47):
Okay? So square Space is almost how Google Domains was,
and I could just go in through there and do everything.
I don't have to find like a hosting website or anything.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Oh no, no, they do it all. They'll they'll handle
it all. So once you're transferred over there, they will
they will handle the hosting and the you know, the
actual website. You'll have the domain obviously, and then they
have this thing called Squarespace Blueprint AI that will help
you create your custom website with your pages, the colors
you want, the copy you want, and then you can

(52:18):
even use you know, chat ebt to help write this
stuff that's coming up on your website or I like
Claude much better.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
But those are the kind of things that you can do.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
And I think that you're gonna find whenever you built
this website last, you know, the first time you did it,
it's going to be a whole lot easier this time
around because everything is just advanced to a place where
it's going to take a lot less work to make
this stuff look a lot prettier, So Joel.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Thanks for the question today.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Eighty to eight rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four two four one zero one. Coming up, we're
going to talk about some strategies for reclaiming your time
and purpose in the digital age. That's coming up next
right here on Rich on Tech on tech, Rich demro
Oh here hanging out with you, talking technology. The phone

(53:03):
number is eight eight eight rich one O one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Joining me now, Julio Vincent Gambudo, author of Please Unsubscribe.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
The paperback is Barnes and Noble Pick of the Month,
and I'm excited to talk about this because it seems
like we are overwhelmed in our digital lives, so I
want some good information on how to fix that.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Julia, welcome to the show. Thanks rage, thanks for having me.

Speaker 13 (53:32):
So what made you write this book? You know, it
kind of all happened. It started during the pandemic. I
just felt like completely overwhelmed and felt like my life
had been on autopilot for a long time.

Speaker 7 (53:44):
I was running and running and running all.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
The time, and uh, you know, tech was kind of
supposed to help, right.

Speaker 13 (53:50):
That was the sexy Seal when we all bought in
and and I kind of found that it was just
overwhelming me. So I took the opportunity during the pandemic
and in the year that's followed to kind of come
off of as much as I could, so I could
really determine what was useful and valuable and what wasn't anymore.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Now, when you say unsubscribe, I mean it sounds like
you're referring to something like email, But is that just
a bigger term for like everything online, like you know, Instagram, feed,
all this stuff that just kind of takes up all
of our time. Yeah, you know that's the That's the email,
and the inbox is really the first place that it starts.
But when I use the word, I really mean it

(54:27):
at a bunch of different levels, you know.

Speaker 7 (54:28):
I mean it at the surface.

Speaker 13 (54:30):
Level, all the digital nonsense that were sort of consumed
by all the time. I mean it at a social level,
right like social media and kind of the people that
are that are always popping up and sort of demanding attention,
whether or not those are the people you really want
to be spending time with. And I mean it at
a deeper level, which is really kind of just the
the underlying ideas and notions that we have about who

(54:52):
we are in the world. Those are subscriptions too. Those
are things that we're committed to. They are ideas that
we're committed to. So my writing and my work is
kind of about those three levels of subscription. What's your background.
I'm a movie maker. I went to film school. I'm
an English major. I'm a humanist at heart, right, and

(55:13):
I spend most of my time making film and TV.
And so a lot of what the book is is
is social science. It's certainly opinion, it's some memoir, and
it's really a mix of all of that.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Okay, so where do people start? I mean, do you
start with the email? Because I okay, so I kind
of do this thing where I'm not spying on people,
but I kind of like to watch how people use
their phone in public, Like I'll kind of see like
what's on their screen, right, And I noticed when people
scroll through their inbox, it's filled with garbage. I mean
I'm talking like all like the emails from every place

(55:49):
you've ever shopped at in your entire life. Right, And
then they go to Facebook and they go to you know,
they hop around people just hop around on their phones
to all these different things and scroll and it just
by the time you do it, it's like you've just wasted,
you know, another five to seven minutes of your life.

Speaker 13 (56:04):
Yeah, and those five or seven minutes are not coming back,
and there are five or seven minutes you're gonna spend
in an hour from now, and then twice tomorrow and
three times the next day.

Speaker 7 (56:12):
I mean, you know, the inbox is really important, right.

Speaker 13 (56:15):
The inbox is sort of your mind, and to get
control over it, you've really got to.

Speaker 7 (56:20):
Be mindful about it and be intentional about it.

Speaker 13 (56:22):
You know, it's a joke at this point that there
are two types of people in the world, right, people
who have got zero emails from people who have got
thirty three thousand. But you know, getting control over that
and sort of separating yourself and your day to day
information intake from the barrage of emails and subscription reminders
and notifications.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Is really really key.

Speaker 13 (56:45):
So you know, yes, obvious, it's it's obvious here, but
starting in the inbox is really important. But more important
than that, I think, is asking two questions, right, asking
how can I slow this down? And where can I
put Li's back in. You know, we all write these
books to give strategies that are practical for readers, and

(57:07):
I certainly want readers to walk.

Speaker 7 (57:09):
Away with practical strategies.

Speaker 13 (57:11):
But I think if you take a step back, the
questions to be answered or asking, are you know, how
do I slow this down? And where do I put
limits back in? And those are questions that everyone can ask.
If you're a busy mom, if you're a busy professional,
if you're.

Speaker 7 (57:23):
Dealing with work nonsense.

Speaker 13 (57:26):
You know that's those have been the two major movements
in the last ten years. For sure, speed it up
and remove limits. So how do we put those back in?
Are important questions to ask.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
So when you know, when you talked about this book,
when you you kind of did your research for this book,
and I just talked about, you know, the idea that
people just scroll, did you find anything concerning any trends
that you're that you see in your life that you
kind of you know, made you want to write this
as well?

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Well?

Speaker 13 (57:53):
You know, for me, well, the most alarming trend in
the research actually is that eighty four percent of Americans
overestimate or excuse me, underestimate how much they're paying in
subscription fees every month, and they underestimate that by about
one hundred or two hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
So if you put that over a year.

Speaker 7 (58:14):
That's about, you know, fifteen hundred two thousand dollars.

Speaker 13 (58:17):
Put that over three hundred million people in the American economy,
and that's a lot of money that we are sending
kind of straight up the ladder without really thinking about
it or being conscious about it. And that was what
was key for me, was, you know, how can I
get conscious about the money I'm spending. The pandemics certainly
the ripped the rugout from under me personally and from

(58:39):
a lot of people, a lot of small business owners,
a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of folks who work
for themselves. And obviously that was four years ago, and
some people have rebounded and some people have it.

Speaker 7 (58:49):
But becoming conscious about my spending was really really important.

Speaker 13 (58:53):
Becoming conscious about where I'm putting not only my dollars,
but my time, my energy, my eyeballs, what am I watching,
where am I giving my attention and my cash was
was really important.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
And so that was that was pretty eye opening. I
have a joke about Netflix. They could basically put anything
on the homepage of Netflix, and it would be like
the top show the next weekend. Because people will literally watch,
like there's stuff on Netflix that nobody in their right
mind would ever watch. But because you're paying that money
every month and because you log on so much and

(59:25):
that's the first thing you see, you'll just watch it.
And it's like these horrible shows that are just not
even very good. And people are like, I'll put up
with it. And by the way, when you when you
were talking about the pandemic and we got all these subscriptions,
you know, remember that they started at super cheap prices
and now everything yes, and they continue to go up, so.

Speaker 13 (59:44):
And that's you know, that's part of That's part of
the conversation here, right, is that that you just get
an email that that you can reply to, that you
can negotiate with, that you really can't even respond to
that basically says, hey, we're changing the terms of service,
We're changing what you agreed to.

Speaker 7 (59:59):
Sorry, if you would agree or disagree anymore.

Speaker 13 (01:00:01):
And if you disagree, here's a labyrinth and a maze
for you to go through to unsubscribe. You know, so
much of this new initiative, even from the White house
called time is money is meant to battle that specific thing,
which is I only clicked once to subscribe, and now
I've got to find, you know, sort of go through
this maze to unsubscribe. But I love your Netflix joke

(01:00:23):
because I laugh too, and I see it with my
friends and colleagues in the film and industry, right like,
this show is number one, and I'm glad it's number one,
but it's only number one because it's the first thing
on the screen and it's the only damn thing up there.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
So exactly, I laugh with you on that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
That's the White House initiative you're talking about about the
one click, because yes, these companies make it super easy
to subscribe in a click, and then when you don't,
you know, when you want to get rid of it,
it's either hidden now. Not every company is like that,
Like there are some good sites that you know, make
things easy to disconnect in this and that. But I
always recommend when people are signing up for any sort
of subscription that check the like Google how to cancel

(01:01:03):
and see like if it's if it's tricky at all,
it's going to be tricky when you actually try to
do that.

Speaker 13 (01:01:07):
You know what I mean completely right, and I think
that that's that's what the initiative is. It's about balancing
the scales and just making it as easy to come
off of certain things as it is to go on them.
And you're right, it's not every company, for sure, but
there are plenty that make it very, very very difficult,
and they put that friction back in the process. They
put those pain points back in the process. They want

(01:01:29):
to make sure that you sort of have to think twice,
three times, four times, five times before you actually get
off of their service. And those are not questions that
they're asking, you know, when you get onto their service.
So it's really I think about rebalancing those scales. All right,
I've got about thirty seconds here. What what what's the
key takeaway from the book? Like, if someone gets this book,

(01:01:51):
what's their key takeaway? What are they going to do?
Key takeaway is, well, first of all, there's about one
hundred practical tactical strategies in there for being happy and
all this chaof But you know, the real takeaway here
is step back, reevaluate, be intentional, do some deep thinking
about where you want to put your time, money, cash, eyeballs, attention,
and then re engage in the world and be a

(01:02:12):
part of it in a really beautiful way.

Speaker 7 (01:02:14):
But definitely take the time out.

Speaker 13 (01:02:16):
We've been sort of sold this idea that we can't
step away and we have to be always on and I,
you know, I reject that, and I'm sort of calling
for people to take the time they need to reevaluate.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Julio Vincent Gambudo, filmmaker and author of Please Unsubscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
You can find it, of course wherever you buy books.
I guess, thanks so much for joining me today. I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (01:02:39):
Thanks for having me Rich.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Yeah, you got to remember this stuff. It's easy to
get on board. It's tough to get off of that
board sometimes because it's just we're on autopilot. I mean,
I know, it's this.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Is why companies, I always say, want access to your
checking account versus your credit debit card.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
That money comes out not coming back.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
In very easily. You are listening to Rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you, talking technology. The phone number is triple
eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. If you want
to send an email in Just go to the website
richontech dot TV, hit the contact link, and if you

(01:03:20):
want to see something that I mentioned, maybe some more
information on something I mentioned on the show. There is
a light bulb icon at the top of the website.
You tap that and it will bring you to the
show notes.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
This is show number eighty six, so you'll find everything
I mentioned right there. We were just talking.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
About subscriptions, so I meant to actually mention this in
the last segment, but you know, the subscription services, what
they're doing right now is they're starting to bundle, just
like the good old days of cable. And you may
be thinking, as a consumer, oh my gosh, what a
great deal. I get to bundle my Disney Plus, my ESPN,
my Hulu, my you know whatever. And it sounds great

(01:04:01):
because you're saving money. But here's what's really happening. You're
actually going to be spending more over the long term,
because guess what, when you don't need that Espn Plus,
you're still going to be paying for it because you're
not gonna want to cancel your bundle because, by the way,
the price of the bundle is going to have gone
up in the time between when you subscribe and the
time you want to cancel. So these companies are very
smart at what they're doing. But there is one thing

(01:04:24):
you can actually get for free, but it does come
as sort of a bundle if you're paying for cable.
So Charter Communications has now linked up with a Paramount
to offer Paramount Plus Essential at no extra cost if
you're a Spectrum TV select or a ME Plan Latino customer.
So if you have one of these two cable plans,

(01:04:45):
you can get Paramount Plus Essential for free. Now it's
not really freakuse you're paying for cable. It's just kind
of a bonus. Usually that's about eight dollars a month.
You can activate by going to Spectrum dot com slash
Paramount Plus on US. Spectrum dot com slash Paramount Plus
on US. Again, you have to have that Spectrum subscription,

(01:05:07):
but hey, you know, you can get this streaming service
for free and Paramount Plus. It's not one of my favorites,
like they don't have a ton, but there's always something
on there that's you know, they've got a bunch of stuff.
It's like Paramount Movies. They're also linked up with CBS,
so there are some CBS shows on there. Oh it
says CBS, b ET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and paramount stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
So hey, why not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
And there's gonna be ads on that, by the way,
because it's the Paramount plus essential, so that means there's
gonna be some ads there. Let's see, let's go to uh,
let's go to Dick in Kettering, Ohio.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
You're on with Rich. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 17 (01:05:45):
Well, thank you, Rich, thank you. I was just towing
your screener. My friends have gotten I don't know a
lot about tech. I took a class cell phones and
I purchased my friends purchased it over like at one
of the congratus, you know, Rollmart.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Okay, so he took a class itself a well, for a.

Speaker 17 (01:06:04):
While there, it wouldn't charge. Then I called up, you know,
the customer service, and they sent me a new one
and it's working pretty good. But the only thing they
say on there, I went, uh, is the internet is
not working their Wi Fi And my friend thinks I
need another card, a phone card to pay on it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Well, you're so, your WiFi is not working at all.

Speaker 17 (01:06:28):
No, But the thing of it is, it's one hundred
percent it's doing good. It has Facebook and I can
get everything else. But when I make a call, it
won't call.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Oh when you make a call, Okay, when.

Speaker 6 (01:06:40):
I make a call.

Speaker 17 (01:06:41):
Yeah, it's working good. Now, Okay, maybe I ought to
get this. I think it's twenty four eighty eight. I'm
gonna have probably go to Family Mobile to get it.
And it's just been pumfling because you know, I've had
it like four months and I've never had my friend
had one. But it's just puzzling that I've called service,
you know, the customer service is just you know, it's

(01:07:02):
funny that I've had so much trouble with these things.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Well, it happens. So what can you do on the phone?
Can you you can access the web, but you can't
make calls.

Speaker 17 (01:07:11):
Yeah, that's all. It just says Wi Fi not connected
and they're not not working and the only thing what
you call it just doesn't But it's work another way.
Maybe I just they've got the what is it the card?
I could probably get maybe a mobile card and then
they'll have to call that in to activate it.

Speaker 6 (01:07:32):
Maybe yeah, I would.

Speaker 17 (01:07:33):
Also I'll get a little phone, you know, like you push.
My friend might get something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
You know, well if you if you bring it in,
they're they're probably gonna fix it. What carrier are you on?

Speaker 17 (01:07:43):
No, they don't want it. Well they told me that
they don't, and I have a gym City Digital, so
they told me. My friends told me, I'm going to
just try the card and then go from there. Maybe
just get that push button one like a regular landline.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Oh gosh, I don't know if I go with the
online Well, here's the deal.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
So I would recommend before you go into the store,
whatever you do, there's a there's a setting on the
Samsung where you can reset the mobile network settings. So
if you go into settings under reset, there's an option
that says reset Mobile Network Settings. You tap that and
it will reset all of the mobile network settings. So
that will include your Wi Fi, that includes your Bluetooth,

(01:08:23):
that includes your cellular and it's gonna take a minute
for your phone to kind of like figure everything out again,
but that should fix things. And then you're gonna have
to reconnect to your Wi Fi and reconnect any Bluetooth devices.
So those are the things to do for that. That's
what I'd recommend doing. But otherwise i'd bring it into
where you got it and see what they say. Especially

(01:08:45):
if you're paying for service every month. You don't want
to be paying for something that you're not actually getting.
Thanks for the call, Dick in Kettering, Ohio today, appreciate it.
If you go to Costco you got some oldile electronics
at home, you actually they actually have a trade in
program where you you can exchange your old electronics for
a Costco gift card. So the program's open to Costco

(01:09:06):
members and non members. The trade ins are actually all
facilitated by a third party company called Phobio. I was
not familiar with this company, but they're kind of a
recycling company, so I don't You don't even have to
be a Costco customer to do this, but I guess
Costco has a deal with them, And usually if Costco
has a deal with someone, they're sweetening the deal in

(01:09:29):
a way. So maybe they're giving you a little bit
extra for your your purchase it or your trade ins
or something like that. But you can trade in basically
all of the electronics you have at home, phones, laptops, tablets,
smart watches. You can get up to one thousand bucks
for laptops, everything you know, they'll give you a quote
before you do this. But the process does happen online.

(01:09:49):
You don't actually have to go into a Costco warehouse.
You basically go into the website. You go to this
special Costco branded you know, trade in website, and then
you say what you have. They'll give you that estimate,
you send it in. They'll give you a box you
send it in, and then once they get it, they'll
just make sure everything's on the up and up, and
if it's good, you'll get your gift card. And it

(01:10:10):
takes a couple of weeks. They can send you a
digital gift card to Costco. But again, if you like
Costco and you've got the old electronics at home, you
want to trade them in. I'm trying to figure out
how this is better than just trading them in. I
like a website called gizmo Go, And so gizmo Go
is the website that's I've done a story with them.
They're here in California and you go to their warehouse

(01:10:33):
and oh my gosh, you've never seen more recycled electronics
in your entire life. And they showed me the whole
process from start to finish. So if you're looking to
trade something in. You could just type it in on
this website. They'll give you a quote instantly, and you've
got to figure out how to send it in. They
will give you a box if you need it, but
you can send it in like iPhone twelve two hundred

(01:10:53):
and eighty bucks, iPhone eleven two hundred ninety nine dollars,
Galaxy Note nine one hundred bucks, Amsung, the Watch Series
seven one hundred and seventy dollars. Trade in those old electronics,
get them recycled, don't throw them in the trash. Eighty
eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. This is rich on Tech.

(01:11:14):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you for another hour talking technology at triple
eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Coming up this hour,
we're gonna talk cyber truck. Have you seen one of
these things on the road? I know, very polarizing. I'm
curious to see what our reviewer says about it. Zach

(01:11:36):
Dole from US News. We'll talk about his objective assessment
of this new cyber truck. That'll come up later this
hour Waimo reached a milestone this week. Waimo is the
fully autonomous taxi service from Google. That's who owns Weaimo.
It's really Alphabet. When I say Google, Google, you know,

(01:11:58):
they kind of spun off to the parent company, which
is Alphabet owns all the companies that Google, you know,
used to own. So it's like it's like Alphabet. You've
got Google, which is like search and all that stuff.
Weimo deep mind, They've got a whole bunch of stuff.
But Weimo is their autonomous taxi. They now provide over
one hundred thousand paid rides per week to the public.

(01:12:20):
It's the first fully autonomous ride hailing service to reach
this level. And they're in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
I was in one.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
It's very it feels very reassuring, honestly, like it's it's
better than some of the ubers I've been in. Nothing
against Uber drivers. I love Uber. I've been an Uber
person since day one, literally day one in Los Angeles,
Like I remember Uber calling me and saying, Hey, do
you want to come to this party and we're going
to send a car for you like a town car.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Back in the day. It was just like town cars,
and I said, wait, what what, how is this.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
Going to work because I've I've seen town cars in
New York City and they're very expensive. No, this is
for everyone now, and so yes, I've been a big
fan of Uber since day one, but this is like
the next level. This is fully autonomous. They're expanding rides
to the freeways up in San Francisco. And when this
goes big, like really big, it's going to change things
once again because think about the efficiencies you have with

(01:13:20):
a fully autonomous fleet of cars that's just doing rides
twenty four to seven. Yeah, let's see what else.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Let's go to Mark Mark and Woodland Hills.

Speaker 7 (01:13:31):
Mark.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
You're on with Rich?

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
Oh great.

Speaker 12 (01:13:34):
Hey.

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
I just want to preface by saying I picked up
an Uber a UMA and it works great.

Speaker 7 (01:13:40):
Oh you're very.

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
Happy with it. Just the taxes and that's something you
can't avoid anyway, but it works wonderfully.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
I ended up because we got a couple of calls
about the UMA here, and so I ended up calling
the company and saying, hey, you know, can you can
you give me some more info on this because I
felt like I knew about it, but it had been
a couple of years since I tested it, and so
they gat I mean the whole rundown of everything and
it you know, it's great. I mean you pay basically,
you buy the box and you pay for the taxes
each month. And they have different obviously add ons and things.

(01:14:08):
But glad you hear it's work. And what can I
help you with?

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
Mark?

Speaker 4 (01:14:11):
Sorry to digress like that, but my I have some
very pedestrian needs when it comes to PC. Not on
my phone. I don't use the phone for that, but
I need PC video and MP three editing because I
like to trim down my MP three for my playlist
sure when I go out cycling and whatnot. And I'm
looking for something free on PC that I can just

(01:14:34):
trim my videos or even download from YouTube if that's possible.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Super simple.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
So the the free MP three audio editor that you know,
it's been around forever, open source Audacity.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
Have you heard of that one?

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
No? Sure, sure Audacity A U, D A C I
T Y. And that's kind of like the golden the
gold standard for something that's free. You know, it's a
little looks a little old school for my taste, but
if you want something free, it's it's available. It's easy
if you're especially if you're just trimming the in and
the out of the song.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
Totally easy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
And that's something super simple to do. When it comes
to videos. A couple other options. Cap cut is is
one option on the desktop, so you can use that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
It is full featured.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
It's very simple to trim videos and you can you know,
you can get you may become an influencer.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
Mark I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
That's the problem with cap cut is that it's an
and yeah run Bite Dan. Yeah, I don't fancy using
their products, and I.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Agree with that, and so I I would say that,
and I you know, I would agree with the fact
that there is concerns about that. So you know, people
put it on their machine. It's fine whatever. So if
you don't want something like that. The other free program
the name is of oh, Adobe Rush. That's the one
I like, so Adobe Rush. Now Adobe the problem with

(01:15:58):
Adobe is that it's a little bulky. So but but
their premiere Rush, as far as I know, you should
be able to install and use it for free. You
just can't use all the fancy features they do want
you to pay. But it's very simple to use it
for free. For like the basic things that you're doing.
Unless yeah, unless they've changed something on there. So but

(01:16:21):
as far as I know, you can use it without
a without a you know, a membership. Now there's other
programs out there. Some of them are you know, you know,
there's more expensive than others. They're trying to push you,
and I think a lot of them are also Mac based.
That's what I'm using. I use Final Cut for everything.
You can also use quick Time if you're on a

(01:16:41):
Mac to just trim a video very easily. But I
think between those two things, you're gonna find it pretty
easy to to just clip whatever you need to clip there.
Now you mentioned downloading from YouTube as well. Nope, I
think we lost mark okay anyway, so there are two
tools to download from YouTube. Obviously, when it comes to

(01:17:03):
downloading from YouTube, it's really meant for your own personal videos.
That's kind of like the you know, I don't know
how I got to dance around that topic. I don't know.
I don't know what the deal is with downloading from YouTube.
But yes, there are many tools that can help you
download from YouTube. I don't know what the legality is
or the gray area. I don't know but they're out there.
Believe me, that might be something you get in the

(01:17:26):
rich On Tech newsletter. That's my I told people how
to block ads this week in the rich On Tech
newsletter on the website, very very simply on Android. You
literally have to add one piece of text to your
to your settings and you block all the ads on
your phone and all the trackers. And it's really good.
It's very like you don't even have to download an app.
It's just built into the operating system. It's very very good.

(01:17:49):
But that's in the latest newsletter. So if you want
to see how to do that, I'm not going to
go through it here because it's a little it's not complicated.
It's just like you got to go to the certain settings.
But I laid all out in the in the newsletter.
So rich Tech dot tv is the newsletter. The newsletter
that says, scrub your personal info from search results.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
I talk about that as well. This week.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
Ring has a new camera, a new video doorbell. This
week they launched. It's the latest. It's basically their basic
video door bell. It's like kind of their most popular one.
It's the battery door bell. It's one hundred dollars The
new features include head to toe video. So the original
rings did not have the head to toe video, which
means if someone put a package on your doorstep, the

(01:18:30):
most important thing porch pirates, you wouldn't necessarily see that
package getting stolen. Hopefully you don't see that, but you
know if it did, you'd have that video. So now
it's one hundred and fifty degrees by one hundred and
fifty degrees lens, so much more of a vertical view
that you can see everything head to toe. Battery life
is better up to twenty three percent better with the

(01:18:50):
common settings. Obviously, if you're recording longer, or if you
have more more motion settings that trigger the recordings, that's
going to take up your battery quicker. But that's another thing.
They also have this new kind of like push push
functionality to like replace the battery. So it's a lot
easier to pop on and off from your wall. So
if you haven't gone with like the solar attachment, that's

(01:19:12):
a lot easier to do. Remember with these with these
ring doorbells, unless you are paying, it's basically just streaming
so you can get all the alerts to your phone.
But unless you pay that five dollars a month. You're
not going to get the smart alerts they can now
tell you if it's a package that's being delivered or
a pet or whatever. They tell you like what's at
your front door, and the cloud storage. So unless you're

(01:19:34):
paying for that, you're only going to get the streaming.
So realistically, Ring was a brilliant, brilliant business model because
if you have one of these battery you know, these
video doorbells, you don't just want to see the video.
I mean, I get it, that's how it started. But
when you when you think about it, you want a
recording of that video. And how do you get that recording? Well,
you have to have that cloud service. I remember, I

(01:19:55):
mean this is a long time ago, but I remember
interviewing Jamie Simmon off, the guy who created this back
in the day. I'm talking so many years ago, went
to his little Ring offices. This is way before Amazon
bought this company for a billion dollars, but I remember
going to his offices. This guy was a young guy,
you know, he showing me these cameras and how he

(01:20:15):
came up with it, And he said he came up
with the idea for the Ring camera because he was
working from home and someone would come to the front
door and ring the doorbell and he couldn't see who
it was. And of course intercoms back in the day,
that was like a common thing. That house not a
common thing, but houses, some houses had intercom systems. Intercom
was not video, and so he looked everywhere and he said,

(01:20:38):
there's gotta be a video intercom system, right, and there
just wasn't a mainstream, simple video intercom system. And by
the way, if you had an intercom system in your house,
it was expensive, you know, it wasn't cheap. So by
making this it was called it was it called doorbot.
Doorbot was the first name for this thing, doorbot. Let
me let me check that. Yeah, it's called doorbot, And

(01:21:02):
they sent me one of the first ones to test
and I set it up at the house. Well, I
set up at a friend's house and he didn't like it.
And here was the problem with the original ring doorbot,
which it was called doorbot before it was ring. The
wi fi back in the day at houses was not
very good and so most people had their WiFi hub
in the middle of their house and this doorbell would

(01:21:24):
be on the outside of their house. So When the
first people started buying these and setting them up, what
do you think happened? It wasn't a very good experience
because your WiFi didn't reach the signal, didn't make it outside,
and so people would be like, Oh, this thing's not
very good. And of course WiFi got better over the years.
People figured out that had to be closer. And they
also changed the name because Doorbot sounded too robotic, and

(01:21:45):
so they changed the name to Ring. Because people hold
their front door in a very high regard. That's the
entrance to their house, so it needs to be warm,
it needs to be inviting, and by doorbot it seemed
too mechanical, it seemed too robotic, and so people didn't
really like that name, so they change it to Ring.
The rest is history. Jamie's doing just fine. Billion dollars Amazon.

(01:22:07):
When Amazon comes and says we're gonna buy your company
for a billion dollars, you'll probably say, yes, I don't
even think you have a if you have stockholders, I
don't think you have a question of a voice in
the matter. Eighty eight rich one On one eight eight
eight seven four to two Poor one zero one.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
This is rich On Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Welcome back to rich on tech Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one
on one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. Later in the show we're gonna talk
cyber truck. And then of course we've got the feedbag.
So if you have a question or comment, I guess
mostly comments about anything you heard, get it in now

(01:22:48):
rich on tech dot TV. Hit contact and submit it
and hopefully I'll read it at the end of the show.
Let's go to Craig in Des Moines, Iowa.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Craig, you're on with Rich. I'm doing great. Hey, how
are you, Craig?

Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Pretty good?

Speaker 4 (01:23:03):
Uh?

Speaker 10 (01:23:03):
Yet?

Speaker 3 (01:23:04):
Today I bought them over the ear headphone.

Speaker 10 (01:23:07):
A wawmark uh thaw handy for one hundred and fifty
dollars and the pretty I would badly time and they
have the eagle light on the side. They go make
it bas here. I want to know how good they
headphones or do I take them back?

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Well, here's my thought about headphones. Do they sound good
to you.

Speaker 10 (01:23:37):
And they sound excellent to me?

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
Well, then that's all that matters.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
I mean to me when I I test a lot
of headphones, and I know believe me, and you know,
I've tested skull Candies, you know, this very popular brand.
They they're definitely you know, on the on the more
affordable side of things for a lot of them, which
is nice. But really what it comes down to for
me when you're reviewing headphones is do they sound good

(01:24:03):
to you? And also do they fit in my ears?
So you said these are over the ear headphones.

Speaker 10 (01:24:10):
Yeah, because I got a bit in the heel. I've
had them for a while, which you're very good. I
think one hundred and eighty dollars. But when I go
to bed that night and be them in my eel
so wild with both of them. Uh, they tend to
hook my eel drums in dry yeah, because it's been.

Speaker 3 (01:24:32):
Trying of my eel. So I don't don't worry about these.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
Yeah, they're kind of pushing on them. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
They also make some speakers that you can put under
your pillow.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Have you heard of those?

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
And they also make some headphones that are like specifically
for sleep and you can you know, they're like kind
of softer. I think the brand is Sleepphones, So you
might want to check into those because those are Let's
see how much they they sent me a pair to
tests a while. Oh, okay, those are kind of expensive.
Those are uh the one with the cord is forty dollars.

(01:25:02):
That's the cheapest they make. But then they also have
kind of bluetooth versions for anywhere from one hundred to
one hundred and fifty, but those are sleep from Want.

Speaker 3 (01:25:12):
But how long? How long is woods? On the call, Candy?
I had the long night?

Speaker 10 (01:25:21):
Yeah, Cook, I'd wake up in the middle of the
night and go back to say, you know, one of
them numbered and I just took them all not too
long ago and put them on and.

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
Tell you and how did they last the whole night.

Speaker 3 (01:25:36):
All night and half of them all day in the day?

Speaker 7 (01:25:38):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
Now, how do you sleep with? What are you listening
to while you're sleeping?

Speaker 3 (01:25:42):
You like that coat the Coast on KFI?

Speaker 5 (01:25:46):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:25:48):
I need to live. I used to live in Lockdown.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Well, when I was a kid, I used to fall
asleep to the radio every single night.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Love Lines.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
I don't know if you're familiar with that show, So
it was it was both stimulating and uh, you know,
they had some interesting conversations on that show.

Speaker 7 (01:26:06):
But I listened to Zoo remember I'm hitting the three shows.

Speaker 2 (01:26:10):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
Well, it was a it was a popular show where
I was back in uh in Ze what One Hunter
in New York.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
But yeah, I always.

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Listened to uh two stuff falling asleep, but I would
have the speaker near the bed or I had an
under the pillow kind of thing, but I didn't have
I didn't wear my ears. But but Craig, I say, look,
if you're if you're liking the skull candy and you
think that they are are feeling good and the battery,
I think forty hours is a pretty decent battery.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
I think stick with them and enjoy. Okay, well, I
didn't know.

Speaker 10 (01:26:39):
If they was any good, you know, I mean the
little high for my budget, I'm just a dishability. You
would it be called a.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
Well look, I mean there are there are certainly cheaper
headphones out there, but uh you know, and and these
are i'd say mid range in the review area. But again,
and I think it really comes down to what you think.
And I think that if you're liking them and they
feel comfortable, I think that's the most important thing because
you are wearing them at night. So Craig appreciate the

(01:27:10):
call today, I really do, and they're Oh, Kim sent
me a link she looked them up. The name of
these skull Candy might be the Skull the Crushers. Yeah,
one hundred and fifty dollars. So yeah, I mean, you know,
there's so many headphones out there.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
I like the ones.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
I'm actually doing a segment for KTLA on Monday about
Bluetooth headphones and I'm actually loving the nothing These nothing buds.
Well it's CMF buds Pro two and they're very inexpensive.
Oh yeah, fifty nine dollars and they're great. They're like
just simple and the coolest thing about these earbuds is

(01:27:50):
the case. They come in fun colors. They have noise cancelation,
all that good stuff, but the case has this little
like click wheel on it that you can use to
adjust the volume while they're in your ear, so it's
almost like a fidget spinner.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
The case like doubles as a fidget spinner.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
But CMF buds Pro two highly recommended, really really like them.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
Also love the Sonos.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
I mean talk about expensive, and I know I said
earlier I kind of poop pooed Sonos, but they do
make a really nice pair of headphones. Now the so
nos ace they are, I mean, just as good as
they're speakers. And I can actually just a volume because
they're on my phone and I use my phone volume,
not the app eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Rich one oh one.

Speaker 11 (01:28:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
Coming up, we're going to talk about the cyber truck.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
We're going to get a review, an objective assessment of
Tesla's cybertruck. Coming right up on rich on Tech. Welcome
back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
with you, talking technology the website for the show richon
Tech dot TV. If you want links to anything I
mentioned here, well, you've probably seen this thing barreling down

(01:28:56):
the street. I'm sure you've got thoughts. So does our
next guest, Zach Dole, is the US News and World
Report vehicle testing editor, and he is checking his preconceptions
at the door to give us an unbiased look at
the Tesla cyber truck.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
Zach, welcome to the show.

Speaker 6 (01:29:16):
Thanks so much for having great to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
So, uh, did you have any preconceived notions before you
testro of this thing or what?

Speaker 6 (01:29:24):
I didn't have the highest expectations that, I'll be honest,
you know, a lot of the earlier Testli models when
they first came out, maybe there were some some glitchy issues,
so I kind of expected maybe not the greatest product
right off the bat, But I've got to say it's
it's an impressive vehicle for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:29:44):
Really, so what what makes it impressive? I mean it's
it's certainly looks very unique. I mean it looks like
something out of like a you know, dystopian sci fi movie, which,
of course, I'm sure Elon Musk, you know that's what
he think about.

Speaker 6 (01:29:56):
Exactly, Yeah, Blade Runner or something. It's yeah, I mean
you get the highs and the lows. So this thing
is so fast, it's so quiet, it's very comfortable. It
rides on air suspension, so it's it is very easy
to drive. The steering is a little bit tough to
get used to. It's steer by wire, so there's no

(01:30:17):
mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels,
and it can go on a dime. I mean, it's
it's very responsive. So like from a usability standpoint, you
could easily use this in a city la for instance,
and you'll get a lot of looks. I mean, it

(01:30:38):
looks like nothing else on the road. But it's a
very usable vehicle. I would say. The downside is that
the blind spots are huge.

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
I was wondering about that.

Speaker 6 (01:30:50):
Yeah, so there's a tonnel cover, a hard cover for
the bed. It's a six foot bed, and when it's
and it's open state, you can see just fine. But
when it's closed, it completely covers up the back window,
so you have to use a camera on the center

(01:31:12):
screen to see out of the back window, which is
kind of unusual.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
Yeah, and if you're driving like you know, like I
see obviously delivery trucks they have those all the time,
but like if a regular consumer car, is that is
that pretty unusual?

Speaker 6 (01:31:26):
I have never experienced that ever.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
Okay, very unusual. It is unusual.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
Okay, well what about the you mentioned that drive by wire?
Is that like does the Tesla not do that the
standard like three model or whatever?

Speaker 2 (01:31:38):
Do they not do that?

Speaker 6 (01:31:40):
So they're shifting to that. This is the most extreme
version of it I've experienced, where just the smallest inputs
on the steering have really pronounced responses. I mean, this
thing corners so fast. It's a little jarn to get
used to, being honest, but once you are used to it,

(01:32:03):
it makes turning turning circles smaller than like a sedan,
you know, like an average compact car.

Speaker 4 (01:32:11):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:32:11):
So yeah, it's it's pretty remarkable.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
That's now.

Speaker 1 (01:32:15):
Now I heard someone said that this does not have
the self driving yet.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
Is that true?

Speaker 6 (01:32:20):
I believe they're rolling it out. It's a it comes equipped,
ready to go, and there's a software over the air
update where they will roll it out. It may have
actually just happened or is currently going on.

Speaker 1 (01:32:36):
So let's talk about charging. What's what's the range on
this and what's what's the price on this car?

Speaker 6 (01:32:43):
All right, so this is the interesting part. The price
I'll start with is kind of a moving target. This
one stickered at one hundred one thousand dollars that we tested. Yeah,
so originally this edition, the found Nation series was originally
around eighty thousand dollars, and then it jumped to one hundred,

(01:33:06):
and the Cyberbeast, which was one hundred, had jumped to
one twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
There's more of a beast than the cyber truck. It's
like even beast here it is.

Speaker 6 (01:33:16):
Yes, So the one I drove had six hundred horse power.
The cyber Beast as eight hundred and forty five.

Speaker 1 (01:33:21):
Oh, how does that compare to like, I'm not like
a car person, so how does that compare to like
a I don't know, like an F one fifty?

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
Is that like the same?

Speaker 6 (01:33:30):
It will blow the doors off pretty much anything on
the road other than maybe another high powered electric car Tesla.
It is so fast and it just gets there effortlessly.
It's I mean, if you've driven a Tesla before, you're like, yeah,
of course I know this, but these the electric motors

(01:33:52):
can put down the power so efficiently. It's it's like
driving a muscle car when you when you floor it,
it goes wow.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Well, so I saw this on display, like I've seen
him on the roads obviously in the LA area, there's many.
But I did see this at the Chicago Auto Show
in person, and I didn't drive it, but I did
get to go in it, and I was actually quite
impressed with the fit and sort of finish of it,
Like it felt like very beefy, you know, like it
felt like sturdy.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (01:34:21):
And so absolutely I had the same takeaway the interior.
It's minimalist, you know, that's kind of Tesla's m O.
At this point, You've got this big screen in the
middle and kind of not much else. But but everything
did feel very well put together. I didn't notice any
weird build quality issues. It seemed very well sorted.

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
Yeah, and I watched a guy kick it on the side,
like he literally just went up to it, like like
just started kicking the door. Because I guess it's you know,
the the quality is pretty much there for like the
you know, the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
Okay, the other thing that I've noticed with this car,
I've noticed a lot of people put the wraps on
them to make it different colors and things like that.
But I've noticed the standard it's kind of like, I
don't know if it's stainless steel, whatever the exterior is,
it gets kind of dirty.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
Huh.

Speaker 6 (01:35:11):
Yeah, So it's it's kind of interesting they went with
the stainless steel. You know, it's it might be stainless,
but it's it's not a no upkeep finish. You have
to wax it. You have to keep it clean because man,
it's a smudge magnet.

Speaker 11 (01:35:27):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:35:27):
The one eye Drove was a nearly new model, and
it already had quite a bit of discoloration on it
from bug splatter, from fingerprints, near the doors. I don't
know if there's a solution other than wrapping it or
you know, keeping the garden hose close by when you
park it and sprain it off. It's you know, it's

(01:35:49):
certainly a unique look. I mean this that's stainless on
a bright day, it's it sends quite a few reflections around.
But yeah, it's a it's a smudge magnet for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
Okay, So now that you've driven this thing, you've evaluated it.
Who do you think this is for?

Speaker 6 (01:36:06):
I think if you're a pickup truck shopper, you might
find something here to like. I mean, it's certainly fast,
it can tow eleven thousand pounds, lots of storage space,
whether up front and back or in this cargo bay
underneath the trunk. But I see more people if their

(01:36:28):
truck shopper is just going for like an F one
fifty or you know, another traditional full size pickup. I
wouldn't want to toe something very far with this. You know,
you're going to make a lot of charging stops. Three
hundred ish miles of range starts to go down quite
a bit when you're pulling a heavy trailer. So I

(01:36:48):
hope there's this charging station with a big pull around
area for you. It's kind of a vehicle to be
seen in. Nothing looks like this. You're going to turn
so many heads. People will love coming up and talking
to you. It's certainly very cool and I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:05):
We love coming up and talking to you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
I feel like this is a very polarizing car, like
people are either like ready to throw an egg at
it or they're ready to come up to you and
ask you about it. What did you find when you
were driving this?

Speaker 6 (01:37:17):
I yeah, when I was driving it, I pulled into
a supercharger station, went to fill up, if you will,
and it was just like a celebrity came in. I've
never had this experience before. People like, what is the
can it?

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
You know?

Speaker 6 (01:37:30):
Everyone wants to talk to you, And I was like,
it's not mine, it's not mine, but yeah, I mean,
everybody wants to see what this thing looks like up
up close and ask asked about it. It's it's like
celebrity status, something that I haven't experienced.

Speaker 1 (01:37:47):
I did, I will say when I looked at it
at the Chicago Auto Show for as like kind of
weird as it looks on the outside, I was so
surprised when you get on the inside, it was so beautiful,
like it like it actually was like really refined, And
I thought that was like surprising because you just assume
it's gonna be like this kind of odd interior. But
it's like a very like nice comfortable interior for this

(01:38:08):
truck that looks so unique on the outside.

Speaker 6 (01:38:10):
Yeah, it's perfectly normal inside. I mean, it's kind of
like any other tussle out there. You know what you're
gonna get. It's very minimalist. It's it's really nice, and
once you get used to the large center touch screen,
it kind of has everything you need. You know, there's
certainly a large learning curve initially, just like when you

(01:38:32):
get a new iPad and you're playing around with that,
but you get used to it and you find some
muscle memory. But yeah, overall, I'd say, if you have
one hundred grand to spend on an electric pickup truck
that's shaped like a wedge, this is the car for you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:47):
There you go, Zach, We're gonna leave it there. Zach
dol from US News and World Report, Thanks so much for.

Speaker 2 (01:38:52):
Joining me today.

Speaker 6 (01:38:54):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
All Right, I'll put the full review on the website
rich on Tech dot tv. Coming up up, we are
going to reach into that feedback and pull out your
comments right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology. Oh my gosh,

(01:39:16):
this song is making me realize. It's the last segment.
How does three hours go by so fast? I guess
time does fly when you're having fun. Before we get
to the feedback, one last story, I wanted to mention Assurant.
This is the company that does all the trade in stuff.
They said, the average age of mobile devices turned in

(01:39:36):
from trade in or upgrade programs reaches an all time
high three point seven years. That means people are keeping
their devices longer, because you know, they're lasting longer. Consumers
received an estimated eight hundred and twenty nine million dollars
in value from device trade ins in just Q two
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
That's just one quarter. Wow, that's us a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
iPhone eleven the most frequently traded in device, I, accounting
for thirty one percent of the top models. Samsung Galaxy
S twenty one was the top Android device traded in
for the fifth consecutive quarter. Average age of iPhones that
turn in increased to three point eight years, while Android
devices decreased to three point five So interesting, the Android
users churn them faster and the iPhone users keep them longer.

(01:40:22):
Experts say that the AI is making people, motivating people
to upgrade their devices, and they're predicting a super cycle
of upgrades when Apple launches their new AI devices in September.
Something to watch out for. All right, let's open up
the feedback. Chris writes in I was recently locked out
of my eBay account after signing him from a different device.

(01:40:44):
To regain access, eBay required me to provide very personal
information to be run against the public database, including my
full legal name data, birth home address, date where my
Social Security number was issued, and the age of a
known relative. This process felt intrusive and safe. No other
organization I've dealt with requires such detailed information for account recovery.

(01:41:06):
I'm concerned about how this data is being used and stored,
whether it puts me at risk for identity theft. Uh yeah,
you know, I mean eBay, that's a lot of info,
but it's really full name of data, birth home address.
I mean, I thought you were going to say social
but they it's just that where it was issued. I mean, look,
they want to keep that safe. There's a lot of
scams on eBay, so I appreciate that they're protecting, but

(01:41:29):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:30):
It feels very intrusive.

Speaker 1 (01:41:31):
Richard writes in I signed up for LifeLock for one
hundred bucks, but I encountered issues when trying to add
norton three sixty. When I called for help, the representative
insisted on accessing my computer remotely and became angry when
I requested a refund instead.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
Uh oh, this raised red flags.

Speaker 1 (01:41:48):
I began to suspect it was a scam to access
my bank account. I hung up and contacted Apple Card,
which immediately refunded the charge. I'm not sure what else
LifeLock my duo computer, but this experience leads me to
believe they may be running a scams day Safe Richard.
I think what happened is you. I don't know what
you did. You dial a phone number, but all I
know yeah you said when you called for help. I
think you dialed a fake phone number, and they prey

(01:42:11):
upon people that are looking for LifeLock. LifeLock is legitimate,
so be careful. Never dial a random phone number that
you find on Google for the business you're trying to call,
you have to go directly to that business website. Look
at the bottom of the page. Make sure you call
the right number. People get scammed all the time just
searching for a number on Google. Thomas writes in I

(01:42:31):
heard you mentioned TVO in the past tense, as though
it was outdated. I still use in love my decades
old TVO premiere, but I know the end is near.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
Do you avoid new tvOS?

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
I also know that coxwill ston stop supporting cable cards.

Speaker 2 (01:42:44):
What are my options?

Speaker 1 (01:42:45):
Yeah, I have not used a TVO in many, many years, Thomas,
I was the biggest fan of TVO. You can't even
imagine how much I love TVO. I TVO is now
more of a service than a hardware. Your option or
none of them are as good as TVO was. But
Tableau and zapper box are the alternatives to that at

(01:43:06):
this point. But keep using your TVO until it stops.
That's my advice. I love the TVO software. Neil from
Ohio says for people needing enterprise AI, many seem to
have forgotten about Watson IBM as a whole line of
Watson based products that can help create AI chatbots or
integrate AI into workflows working with products like Salesforce. It's
more than just winning Jeopardy. People are making money every

(01:43:27):
day deploying Watson X for smarter business processes. Sounds like
an ad that was not a live read, that was
just someone writing in. Ron and Barbara from Moreno Valley say,
we watched your EV charging video and notice a potential downside.
Full charges seem to take at least one point five hours.
This is significantly longer than the twenty minutes we spend

(01:43:47):
filling up our hybrid. We're wondering do people just sit
in their cars during this time or are charging stations
typically near restaurants. Yes, the charging most people do not
do a full charge when they're on a road trip.
They typically charge for fifteen to twenty minutes and then
move on and then they'll charge for another fifteen to
twenty minutes after that's up, so, you know, like in

(01:44:09):
another two hundred miles or so. So and yes, they
are typically in near restaurants. There's usually a bathroom. That's
generally how it is. It's not the same as filling up.
People always compare, you know, filling up an EV to
filling up gas. It's just not the same process. It's very,
very different. You can also start with a full tank
every single day. If you have a charger at home,
people forget about that. Tom from Saint Petersburg, Florida writes in,

(01:44:32):
I'm a longtime fan of your show and wanted to
suggest Chromebooks as a potential solution for some of your callers.
I find them to be a great alternative to Max
and PC's, especially primarily for email, web browsing, and cloud
based apps. The affordability, cloud first approach, and simplicity are
standout features. Not everyone needs a high powered machine like

(01:44:52):
a Mac with an M four chip. Thanks for considering absolutely.
We don't mention chromebooks all the time because it can
be very hit or miss, but go definitely with a
Chromebook Plus at this point get the highest specs you can.
Michelle says, thanks for recommending Uma for our business. It's
working great. And can you recommend something to replace word

(01:45:14):
my old Microsoft word thirteen? I can't remember how to
log in. They want monthly charges. Oh, Google Docs. Gotta
go Google Docs free easy simple. Janet writes in, thank
you Rich for being a man who uses his intelligence
and true and honest kindness to help those who don't
speak computer, iPhone or all the many electronics you keep
us up to date with. I really hope it comes
back to you and your family tenfold. I want to

(01:45:35):
thank you for using your quote star power through ktla
Instagram to always set great examples of the loving ways.
Oh wow, you treat your lovely wife, beautiful kids, your
parents and siblings. You and your wife set wonderful examples
of how a loving family relationship should look like in
our world today. Wow, Janet, are you related to me?

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:45:55):
I was just postings family picks on Instagram. Who knew
they were resonating? Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Melissa writes in hey Rich, Love Love, love your radio show,
TV segments and social stuff. And finally, Bruce writes in
hey Rich's bosses valuable national tech call in program. Remember

(01:46:15):
I do pick the emails that I read, so you
know there is a little bias there, I'm sure, but
I do thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:46:21):
I do appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:46:22):
I actually will say the appreciation I get is truly
what keeps me going here. This is a show for you.
I love doing this show. I love sharing this information.
I go through everything every week and find the stuff
that you need to know. There's a lot of flash
and trash out there, lots of it, lot of stuff
that takes away your attention span. It's nonsense. I do

(01:46:45):
the stuff here that I think is actually important. And
yes there's a hot take once in a while that's
going to do it for this episode of the show.
Links to on the website everything I mentioned rich on
tech dot TV. Find me and my family pictures on
social media at rich on tech. Thanks so much for listen.
There are so many ways you can spend your time.
I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Talk to you soon.

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