Roku upgrades, phone hack fears & how to recover lost texts (118, April 26, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Roku's got new streaming sticks and new security cameras to
watch your home while you stream. Metas Ray Band smart
glasses just got an amazing upgrade including real time translation
right in your ears, plus the open source spelling and
grammar checker that can really help you become a better writer.
Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on in rich

(00:24):
dmiro And 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 the 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 one zero one.

(00:47):
Give me a call. If you have a question about technology.
Email is also an option. Just go to the website
rich on Tech dot TV. All right, we've got some
great guests this week. Three very interesting guests. Tim Macalino,
co founder and CEO of Bandana. He's going to talk
about his startup for helping workers land better hourly and

(01:09):
entry level jobs for free. Really interesting there. And then
Justin Hendrix a little bit later on, CEO and founder
of Tech Policy Press is going to talk about all
of the antitrust trials going on right now, Google, Meta Uber.
There's a lot happening. We'll tell you what it means
for you. And then later in the show, Tim O'Hearn,
software engineer and author of Framed a villain's perspective on

(01:33):
social media, he's going to have a new take on
how social platforms really work. Well, I hope you're having
a great day. I was in New York City this
week to attend a Roku event, and it was kind
of interesting because I wasn't really aware that Roku held events,
and so when they invited me out there, I said,
you know what, Yeah, I'm going to go because I

(01:54):
want to hear what Roku's all about. People that have
Roku's love these things, right. They're simple, one of the
the earliest streaming boxes ever and it is progressed ever since,
but still at its core. I think Roku keeps things
simple and really focuses on the end game, which is
just to get you to watch stuff on your TV

(02:14):
as much as you can, right, because that's what streaming
is all about. So a couple of things at this event.
Number one I said to them and said, Hey, did
you guys, do you do events? They said, no, this
is probably our biggest yet, and so they did have
the CEO and founder, Anthony Wood up on stage. He
came up and spoke and talked about how he started Roku.
I think it was back in two thousand and two,
was the original synthesis of the company, and then two

(02:38):
thousand and eight was their first streaming box. Now as
I remember it, I am pretty sure their first streaming
box was a Netflix co brand box. Like that was it.
It was just a way to watch Netflix. And then
later on they sort of branched out and created their
own operating system and their own software and their own brand.
That's the way I remember it. I have to fact
check that. But now they came out with two new

(03:00):
streaming sticks. They've got the uh, the Regular and the Plus.
And these things are pretty inexpensive, thirty dollars and forty dollars.
The forty dollars level gives you four k hdr. I'd
go with that one, obviously, because in this day and age,
go with the four khdr. But these are the smallest
sticks they've ever come out with. They are thirty five
percent smaller than before and They're also designed not to

(03:23):
block the other HDMI port. So in the past, you
know these things that you stick in the back of
your TV, they might block the other ports, take up
two spaces. That's not very good. So this makes it
a lot easier. It kind of looks like just one
little stick you put in there, and then it's got
a little power cable that you can actually now plug
into your TV's USB port. So that's the other thing.
You don't need an extra power brick. So they told

(03:46):
me they worked really hard to make these things super
power efficient, which means they are fully self contained on
the TV that you're plugging it into. So i'd say
ninety nine point nine percent of TVs have a USB
port in the back that can be used for your power. Now,
in the past, if you tried to plug it into there,
you may not have gotten enough power to power these sticks.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
The other thing they did was they added some features
to the remote control. People love the Roku remote. It's
very simple again, but it does everything you need. But
now these remotes have voice control, even on the entry
level sticks, and they can control your TV's power and volume,
So that is a good thing. These are available may sixth.
I may or may not be able to tell you that, yes,

(04:27):
I have played with these. I can't give you my
review just yet, but I will say that I think
that Roku did a really nice job in kind of
just continuing the progress they've made over the years with
these things. The other thing, they announced two new smart
home cameras, so Roku. They used to have a partnership
with Whys where they would make all their cameras and

(04:48):
it was kind of Roku branded, But now they're making
their own two battery powered outdoor cameras, the Regular and
the Plus. You see the trend they have here. The
Regular is just fifty bucks. The Battle Camera Plus is
sixty dollars. The standard camera's gonna last up to six
months on the battery. The Plus model is gonna last
up to two years on a charge. So that means

(05:11):
you can just put this thing up, set it, and
forget it. Obviously, it's going to depend on how many
times this thing is triggered and recording and how much
you live stream from it. But up to two years
not bad. They say they have a twenty thousand million
hour battery on this thing. Now. Both cameras have HD
video they've got spotlights on them, they're weather resistant, they've
got two way audio, and you can plug in a

(05:31):
solar panel, so if you want to keep this thing
powered up forever, you can do that. I've got a
ring camera that I plugged a solar panel into and
I've never had to think about it ever. Again, it
gets the sun during the day, charges up the battery inside,
and that thing pretty much runs twenty four to seven. Now,
the thing to know about these cameras, you get free
live view, so you can live stream these without a subscription.

(05:51):
If you want them to record clips to the cloud,
you will have to get a subscription, which is optional
starts at four bucks a month. But again that's pretty
much what we're seeing with all of these smart cameras
out there, So just one more option. And of course,
if you have the Roku camera with a Roku device
in your house, you get some integrations like picture and Picture.
You can monitor your camera while you're watching your show.

(06:14):
So if you have a baby at home, you know
you want to watch their crib or whatever, you can
do that. You have a dog, whatever, you want to
monitor the front door, wait for your pizza to arrive
while you're watching your show. You can do all that.
Some other notes from the Roku event. They're in ninety
million homes globally and they're the number one selling TV
operating system in the US, Canada, and Mexico. So they

(06:37):
had that big partnership with TCL. I guess they still do.
And they also have their own TVs and Roku is
a very popular TV maker. In fact, a lot of
people just call it the Roku TV. Even if they
have a TCL TV, they just say, it's my Roku TV.
Let's see what else. Oh yeah, they're gonna do smart projectors.
So you know, you've this big trend of all these
backyard projectors. So the thing out those projectors is that

(07:01):
a lot of them run either third party operating system
softwares or a Google software. But now Roku is working
with projector manufacturers to put their operating system into these projectors.
So they're expecting their first product this summer. They haven't
announced who that partner is going to be. But basically,

(07:21):
the nice thing about this is that it will have
that built in Roku experience. So the operating system you
know you love at home on your TV will be
the same thing that powers your outdoor projector, and they're
saying they're going to have projectors that support up to
one hundred inch screens. So I got a little preview
of that, saw the reference design that they had, and
I mean, it's what you know and love. Except outside

(07:42):
the other thing with the software, they've got the daily
trivia now, so on Roku they've got weekly trivia. I
guess people really like to play that. It's all about
pop culture and stuff. Now they're doing that daily, so
you can access that on the home screen and if
you want, you can access the vault as well, so
if you like to do a little daily trivia, you
can do that. I mentioned last week that I've gotten

(08:03):
into crossword puzzles and now I'm doing those like on
a daily basis. So I understand the idea of when
you get into something you kind of just go all in.
You want to like do that every day, and so
if you're doing that weekly trivia, now you can do
it daily on there. And then the other thing, the
Roku City screensaver, which apparently people love. I was looking
at this thing on my setup at home, and you know,

(08:24):
it's got little things going on there. There's like all
these little Easter eggs, So I guess people like to
kind of just sit back and watch that. But it's
getting its own tile on the home screen, so you
can toggle it on whenever you want to check out
what's going on there. But I will say, just without
giving my thoughts on the new product, just kind of
refreshing myself with the Roku software. It really does what

(08:46):
you need, which is it kind of lets you customize
your home screen the way you want it. It's got
all the apps that you need pretty much. I wasn't able.
I didn't see any missing apps that I wanted to
get on the Roku system. And it's just very simple
and it kind of works, and I like the remote,
so again I understand why people like this, right. So
there you have it. The Roku announcements from the event

(09:08):
in New York City, they also had the Iron Chef Morimoto.
He was there carving up one hundred and sixty one
hundred and seventy pound tuna and he was making some sushi.
I guess he has a show on Roku. They're doing
originals now, so he has a show, So he was
there and they did have samples of the sushi he made.
I did not partake, mostly because I was so busy.

(09:30):
They also had some puppies on hand, so they had
puppies there. I don't know why. I guess they had
a puppy cam with their cameras. That was the catch there,
or the connection I should say. But yeah, it was
a fun event overall, very nice event. And again, lots
going on with Roku. Those those products, at least the
streaming sticks are in stores on May sixth, so available

(09:52):
then if you need an upgrade, there you have it,
all right. Eighty to eight rich one oh one eight
The website for the sho show rich on Tech dot TV.
If you have not checked out this week's newsletter, go
to the website. It's linked up there. Talk more about
the Roku stuff in my trip to New York City.
Always love a good trip there, so much fun there.

(10:12):
All right, coming up, we'll take some more of your
calls right here on rich On Tech Steve and Tarzana Steve.
You're on with rich Oh good.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Hey, I just got to preface my question by saying,
oh my gosh, the two best products I've gotten in
the last twenty years were Uma and Roku when.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
You use it. Also with Pluto TV, it's just an
amazing change in the way I pull things down now.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Oh you mean because Pluto TV it's just like it's
like free and you don't have to think about it.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Absolutely. Roku though, it's just absolute godsend. I love that,
And Uma it's just two of the best recommendations I've
heard you give us for a while. I'll thank My
question basically here is I have literally over a million
files on my laptop and my external hard drives, and
I'm just I'm getting to the point now where I'm

(11:08):
having a hard time finding things that i want to
pull back out. Do you have any suggestions for software
that might help me organize my folders and files and
eventually just drop them into something that looks a little
bit more organized. And I've been able to do so far.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Well, I mean, here's the thing, I have sort of
given up, and I've kind of talked about this on
the show. I feel like I've given up on organization
because of you know, the AI search tools that we
have now built into the various operating systems and also
the cloud drives. So for me personally, you know, I'm
not even I don't really think there's a big emphasis

(11:48):
on needing to do this now. I know you have
a million folders or files and different things, and it
sounds like you want to get those organized, which is fine.
But by the time you get those organized, I mean,
the time and f or you're going to spend on
organizing those is just too much. And so I think
a better way to go about it is just to
find a tool that lets you search through those things

(12:10):
and maybe search even inside of those. So I think
that you know, if there's not something that's available right now,
it's gonna be here very soon, especially with the advent
of AI search. And even if you look in the
general search on your computer, you're gonna find that it's
gotten a lot better over the years. With that said,
you know, there's a couple of There's one tool that

(12:31):
Dropbox has called Dropbox Dash, and this is a AI
powered system that lets you find pretty much anything across
your computer, across Dropbox, across any you know, all of
your content. You can even connect like Outlook and Gmail
and Google Drive. So I would look into that first.

(12:52):
I'm not sure. I know I have access to it,
I'm not sure if that's because I signed up for
the beta or if I'm a subscriber of Dropbox, but
that is the first thing i'd look at, and if
they don't have access for that, that is the type
of tool that I would look for. Dropbox Dash is
what I mentioned there. So otherwise, you know, my main

(13:12):
system that I use is basically I used to do
everything like I used to literally go through my drive
and make folders for everything. But then I realized why
I'm looking ninety nine percent of the time looking for
a keyword anyway. And so what I've done is I've
kind of defaulted to my cloud drive searches instead of
my computer search. So when I need something in my
Google Drive, I'll actually go to the Google Drive search

(13:35):
and type in a keyword. And now the Gemini is
built in that's gotten really good at finding things that
are in the files. And then with my Google Photos
that I use, you know, the AI there has just
gotten so good that I mean literally, I was looking
for a picture for my newsletter yesterday and I wanted
the original Apple Watch. I wanted a picture of me

(13:55):
with the original Apple Watch, and so I just typed in,
I said Apple Watch April twenty I think it was
the twenty fourth, twenty fifteen, and it just showed all
the pictures of me with the Apple Watch on that day.
So again, I think the better way of thinking about
this is moving forward, maybe organize your stuff into maybe
just years. Like That's what I've done now is I'll
just have in my Google Drive twenty twenty five and

(14:17):
everything for twenty twenty five. I'll just toss in there,
and eventually if I want to make kind of subfolders
in there, I'll do that. So I think moving forward,
that might help. But in the past, all those files
and things that you have, you're just going to spend
so much time going through those. Now with that said,
there are a couple of tools that you know might
be worth looking into. There's one called directory opis on Windows.

(14:41):
So directory Opus. If you think about opis, you know
it's kind of a commander tool. So this is going
to let you do all kinds of things with your folders, sort, group,
filter them, find your files, locate, locate duplicates, synchronize backups
at tags and descriptions, convert images. So again, and that's
going to let you do a lot of the things

(15:01):
that you want to do all at once, but it's
going to cost you eighty nine to eighty nine bucks.
It looks like for a light free personal laptop license
install on one computer one year of free updates than
twenty five dollars after that, so that's one. Looks like
there's some freeware out there called Total Commander. This was

(15:22):
last updated February nineteenth, twenty twenty five, So that's out there.
Enhanced search, compare files, multi renamed tool compare Editor. So
there's there's a lot of tools inside Total Commander that
might help as well. And then of course I would
be on the lookout for some of these AI tools
that let you search your entire computer. I just downloaded

(15:44):
one for Mac called Raycast, and that's kind of like
the idea similar similar idea where it does a lot
of shortcuts and things, so if you want to find
images or whatever, it's all sort of in there. So
that's kind of what I would stick to, is looking
for these new AI tools. I'm gonna keep an eye
out on them for you, Steve, and I'll mention them
in my newsletter if I find one. But that's that's

(16:07):
what I've resorted to. I think AI is just making
this stuff so much easier. There's just not a big
reason to organize files anymore as far as I know.
All Right, thanks for the call. Eight eight eight rich
one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. As we expected, Nintendo switch To
pre orders sold out almost instantly. Pre orders opened on
April twenty fourth. They sold out fast, and now many

(16:30):
retailers like Walmart, Target, Game Stop, and Best Buy are
all out of stock. The switch To starts at four
hundred and fifty dollars. Go with the five hundred dollars
Mario Kart bundle if you are going to buy that game,
because it's eighty bucks by itself. So you can still
register interest on these websites or Nintendo's website. This switch
To release date is June fifth, but I can tell

(16:50):
you right now this is probably gonna be one of
those things that's still really tough to get right up
and through the holidays, because this is gonna be the
hot seller this year. Switch to Amazon has not started
selling the console just yet. All right, Coming up, we're
going to talk about a job website that can help
you find local gigs near you. Hourly gigs they're doing
it a different way that's coming up right here on

(17:12):
rich on Tech. So if you're not following me on Instagram,
I am at rich on Tech. You can find more
information there, posting the latest scams and some personal stuff
as well. Speaking of personal joining me now. Tim Mcalino
is a co founder and CEO of Bandana. He is
from my home state of New Jersey. Welcome to the show, Tim, Hey,

(17:37):
Rich great to be on. So tell me about Bandana.
You're trying to fix a broken job search system. You've
got this startup that helps workers land hourly and entry
level jobs. What did you identify in the job search
that made you want to start this company?

Speaker 5 (17:54):
Yeah, Rich, So, Bandana dot Com is what we call
the most worker friendly job.

Speaker 6 (18:00):
Platform that has ever existed.

Speaker 5 (18:03):
I think a lot of the job platforms today they
talk a lot about experience, job descriptions and things kind
of like the businesses want, and we created Bandana so
that we can build something that is for the worker.

Speaker 6 (18:15):
So right away, the first thing.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
That you'll see is when you go on Bandana dot com,
it's a map. And the reason why it's a map
is because locations matter. Where you work matters, Commute matters.
Whether you're driving down the four h five in California
or you're taking a subway commute in New York. You
want to see exactly where locations are on a job platform,
and that's what Bandana provides. Every single one of our

(18:39):
jobs has a location, and then we go the extra
mile and go, Okay, when you look at a job,
you want to see how much it pays. You want
to see the salary ranges broken down, whether it's hourly, weekly, monthly, yearly,
and then we go above and beyond that, and we
even show things like what your income tax is, so
you can actually know what your take home pay is

(18:59):
every time you look at it job.

Speaker 6 (19:00):
And we try to think about.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
Things from a worker's perspective, where we already know on
the job description, you'll see what the company wants, you'll
see which company it is, what the requirements are, but
we also want to see, as a worker, what you want.

Speaker 6 (19:13):
And that's how we.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
Build this platform, Bandana dot Com and how we've been
growing distribution here and all across where we're currently available.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Give me an idea of the types of jobs people
can look for on this website.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Yeah, so we really prioritize hourly and entry level jobs.
So in terms of the hourly jobs, everything from blue
collar healthcare, nursing, skilled trades are all available on bandana
dot com, and then of course the retail service jobs
that you'll see everywhere else as well. We also really
prioritize that first job out of college or first job

(19:49):
out of high school kind of career path that we
love to have on our platform. So you'll see a
lot of those entry level office jobs from Fortune five
hundred companies that are hiring all across California and New York,
New Jersey, and those are really our bread and butter
right now, is these hourly jobs and then these entry
level jobs in general, for both salaried and hourly roles.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Now, there's nothing more frustrating when you're looking for a job.
You find either a great listing or you know you're
on the path to something and you realize it's either fake,
or it's been posted for years or months, or or
it's just not real. So how do you ensure that
these jobs are actually real jobs that are available.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
So that's the thing when we built Bendana dot com,
we went the extra mile to connect all of the
jobs that we have on our platform directly from company sites.
So we've built connectors to over sixty thousand company job boards,
not indeed not LinkedIn, but the actual company job boards
where these jobs come from, and we look through that

(20:53):
every day. So every time you click apply on any
link on bandana dot Com, it brings you directly to
the company site, so you have that sense of Okay,
it's this company that's hiring for this job. This is
the listing that they put up exactly from that company
that posted it.

Speaker 6 (21:09):
And this is when they did it.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
And that gives you this sense of idea of like, okay,
if this company just put this up less than twenty
four hours ago and it's directly on their company site,
you have this feeling that, Okay, this looks like a
real job.

Speaker 6 (21:23):
And for us, trust really matters. We know a lot.
We know the job search is really frustrating.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
There's a lot of times where people feel like I'm
spending hours applying to things and I don't even know
if my application is actually going to that company. And
we try to solve that for you by making sure
that all of these pieces come together in a seamless way.

Speaker 6 (21:45):
On Bandana.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
We also try to go the extra mile, by the way,
where our entire service is free for the worker, it
will always be free, and that's something that we really
pride ourselves on. We have tools like resume resume tools
that can make resume the latest and greatest, help you
clean up grammar, use AI and make it so that
that resume looks great for every job that you apply to.

Speaker 6 (22:07):
We have job trackers.

Speaker 5 (22:09):
That help you figure out exactly what you've applied to,
what you've searched on. And even this last tax cycle,
we offered free taxes federally and state to all Bandana
users for free when they filed through US.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
So what's been the response. What's you know, are people
getting jobs off of this website or what?

Speaker 5 (22:30):
Yeah, So we've helped probably close to fifty thousand people
find the job now on Bandana. We just launched in
New York fourteen months ago and in California earlier this year, and.

Speaker 6 (22:43):
Throughout that time period, we now have.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
Close to half a million workers coming onto Bandana every
month and it's been an incredible response. We really pride
ourselves in being a grassroots movement, so we host a
lot of local job fares, and in those job fairs,
will have free headshots, free resume reviews, free job clinics.
And what we see is this response is every time

(23:08):
we host something, even if the even if we're hosting
up to a thousand people, that will get filled up
in less than twenty four hours because of how many
people come up to us and they're like, Hey, not
only did you help me find a job, but you
help me prepare for that job.

Speaker 6 (23:24):
You help me think through how to find jobs in
the future.

Speaker 5 (23:27):
And our whole goal is to make sure that American
workers have all of the resources they need in order
to find that better job for them and their families.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
All right, we've got about a minute left. Where did
you get the name? And where is this available? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (23:44):
So Bandana comes from a few things. I think one,
we tried to think of something that ties to a
little bit of urban culture. But also thinking back to
Rosie the Riveter in the nineteen forties where people were
tying bandanas and farm and rural culture and just like
understanding what is the betrock of America and Bendana really

(24:04):
resonated with us and the having Bendana dot Com has
been really critical for us. And then I think and
where we're available is we're available in New York, New Jersey, California, Chicago, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC,
and by the end of the year will be out nationwide.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
And it just takes a little bit longer to build
this because you're not scraping these job searches. You're actually
kind of connecting with the job posts themselves from these companies,
right exactly.

Speaker 5 (24:33):
And then we're also going the extra mile to tie
an address to it. And that's how we get that
map based approach that looks exactly like Zillo or Airbnb.

Speaker 6 (24:41):
No one usually.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
Has the address of the exact location, but like for example,
in New York, right, we don't want someone to stay
in New York, New York on a job and then
it actually ends up being in like Staten Island when
they expected it to be in the Bronx. And that's
why that exact address and going that extra mile to
enrich that data takes a little bit longer for us
to build up and build that foundation.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, and especially with long commutes, I mean, if you
can find something in your neighborhood that's like, that's I mean,
people don't realize the peace of mind and the less
stress that comes with working close to home. Right, you
don't have to sit in a car, commute, subway whatever
for an hour. Tim Mcalino, we are going to leave
it there, co founder and CEO of Bandana dot com.

(25:21):
If you're looking for an entry level job, retail job,
food service, I mean, all these industries they've got listed here,
check it out. Is a really well done website, Bandana
dot com. Tim, thanks for joining me.

Speaker 6 (25:34):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Rich.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
All right, I'll put on the website a link Rich
on tech dot tv. And if you want to get
on the phone, give me a call. You have a
tech question, you can dial it up eight eight eight Rich,
one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one coming up. We'll take more
of your calls and I'll tell you the feature the
ray band smart glass has just got to make them
smarter than ever. Rose is in Temecula, California. Rose you

(26:04):
around with.

Speaker 7 (26:04):
Rich Hirich And I have a question. How do you
know if your phone has been compromised? And lately I've
been giving those the capture uh warning things even if

(26:25):
you know. I was on a phone call yesterday and
so when I finished, I went to Google. I was
gonna search for something, and even even before I searched
for that, it's the first thing I saw was the
cap chare things. And it says that the reason, uh,

(26:50):
let me see, it's this, Uh. Our systems have to
take the unusual traffic from your computer network. Uh. This
fake checks to see if it's really you sending the
request and not a robot. And you know, I wasn't

(27:14):
even searching for anything and brought this message. And I've
been giving it off and on. And also when I
call them friends or family in Mexico, they always tell
me that my phone sounds weird, that they hear man
voices on the background every time. What does that mean?

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Well, that's interesting. Okay, So there's a couple of things
going on. Number one, do you have an iPhone or
Android iPhone? Okay, so the chances of your iPhone being
hacked in any way, shape or form is about zero
to none. So unless you are a are you a
head of state?

Speaker 7 (27:57):
Am I wife like?

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Ahead of state?

Speaker 8 (27:59):
Like?

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Are you like a government official? Like a no journalist, no,
no ambassador for a different country.

Speaker 7 (28:08):
No, I'm all right.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Well, those are the people that are typically targeted in
attacks on you know, if they want spyware on your iPhone,
those are the people that they're typically targeting because it's very,
very tough to install that on an iPhone. So I
think you can rest easy knowing that your phone is
not hacked. Now, to answer your first question, are you
talking about a capsha Is that what you're seeing when

(28:30):
you try to go to a website?

Speaker 4 (28:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Okay, So if you have, are you paying for iCloud
by any chance?

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Okay, So iPhone has this thing called iCloud Private Relay,
and that is something that protects your Internet traffic coming
from your iPhone. Now, sometimes when that because they're doing
that on so many phones for some reason, websites think
that they're getting spammed and so they they say, hey,
we just want to make sure you're a human just

(29:00):
checking and so that would explain that first thing that
you got, that first message. Okay, And you can turn
that off in your settings if you'd like. You don't
need to have that on, but it kind of just
encrypts your traffic, makes it a little bit more private,
so you're actually getting some privacy benefits there. So if
you don't want that, just search for iCloud private relay,
and you can turn that off if you don't like it.

(29:22):
So that's number one. Number two, the voice in the background,
I'm not sure that you know. It used to be
when when cell phone signals were analog, there was a
lot of static, a lot of distortion, a lot of
overlap with the signals. But now that they're digital, we
rarely get that.

Speaker 6 (29:43):
Now.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's it's much rarer.
So the only thing I can say with that is
it could be you just have a bad connection sometimes,
and that could be you said you were calling Mexico.
It could be on their end like whatever, you know,
the final line that they're calling on could have issues.
But I do I do hear issues every once in

(30:03):
a while. I'll call someone and I'll hear like an
echo or something, and it's as simple as hanging up
the phone, redialing and you get a clearer connection. So
that probably explains the second part of it. Rose. So
I think you're fine. I think your your your phone
is not hacked. If you wanted to search to see
if there was some spyware on your phone, which again

(30:24):
I don't think you need to do this. Uh, there
are a couple of a couple of big spyware programs
out there that these you know, foreign entities will typically
use to target folks, but not regular people most of
the time. But there is a a spyware analyzer built
into an app called I Amazing, and it's gonna it's

(30:45):
gonna cost money to download that and to do that.
I don't think you really need it, but that's number one.
The other one is a startup that they came out
with an app called am i Secure. This launched last
year and it's basically a way to scan your iPhone
to see if there are any indicators of these apps,

(31:07):
these spyware apps on your phone. That's again that's called
am I Secure. You know, again, not too many downloads
on that one, because you know, people don't typically need
this stuff on the iPhone.

Speaker 6 (31:19):
Now.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
On Android, yes, it's a little bit probably a little
bit easier to install some malicious software on there, just
just because of the open nature of Android. But the
manufacturers themselves have locked down the phone so much that
for this to happen, you would really need to be
a power user to unlock some of those default settings

(31:41):
on your phone, and the main one is to allow
either Chrome or unknown software packages to be installed on
your device. Now I do that regularly, like an APK
they're called. That's like basically software that you can install
on your phone outside of the Google Play Store. On
iPhone you can't. Basically, it's not easy to install software

(32:02):
outside of the App store here in the US at least,
so I think you're probably safe, I think on Android.
If you're on Android, i'd run something like a malware
byte just to check and see if you have But
in general, my guidance for this is go through your
phone regularly and you know, do some maintenance on it, right,
clear your browser cash, clear your history out, and also

(32:24):
go through your list of apps and uninstall any apps
that you don't need anymore, you don't recognize, and then
go through and do software updates on both your apps
and on your phone itself. So make sure that your
phone is updated, and then restart your phone every once
in a while. And the other thing on Android is
you can do an update on Google Play Services, which

(32:45):
will kind of update your phone to the latest security
and features that Android offers outside of the operating system updates,
and you can find that typically if you go on
the Samsung phone, it's usually listed in your settings under
secure security. You can check for that. All right, good question, Rose.
I'm glad you're looking out for your phone making sure

(33:06):
that you are not hacked. It is a valid question.
Is a valid concern, especially on computers these days, we're
seeing a lot of issues there. Phones definitely a little
bit trickier for that stuff to be installed. So thanks
for the call today. Eight eight rich one oh one
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
If you want to stay ahead of this stuff, if
you follow me on Instagram at rich on Tech. That's

(33:28):
where I post a lot of these things that are
are messing with people. I post. You know, people they
have now gotten into the habit of sending me all
of the latest scams that they're running into on the email,
and so people will just send them to me. I'll
kind of analyze them, take a look, and if I
think it's something that I haven't seen before a lot
of people haven't seen, I will share that. But this

(33:50):
stuff happens. Like my mom yesterday, she texts me, she says, hey,
rich she calls me Richard. She said, I can't get
my Netflix to work. And I got an email from
Netflix that says my pain method needs to be updated,
and she forwarded me the email. I said, well, number one,
I pay for your Netflix, so no, your payment method
does not need to be updated. Number two. That is
a scam that's been going around. So again they target

(34:11):
people and they hope to catch them in their weakness,
which is, oh, I pay for Netflix, my payment method
is up. Oh I gotta put that number in right now,
and that's when they steal your information, all right. Eighty
to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. The website rich
on tech dot tv coming up. These ray band Meta
smart glasses got a new update. They added some really

(34:33):
cool features, including live translation. I'll tell you about that,
plus Gmail new feature lets you unsubscribe from some of
these newsletters you have in bulk. You're listening to rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight

(34:53):
rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. Give me a call
if you have a question about technology website rich on
tech dot tv. Hit contact if you want to send
me an email. Coming up this hour, we've got Justin
Hendrix of Tech Policy Press to share insights on the
Google and Meta antitrust trials and what it means for you.

(35:16):
Let me tell you about these ray Band Meta smart glasses.
They just got smarter. I got to say, this is
the product of the year. I think that if you
have not tried these things, you will be amazed at
just how good they are. And we've talked about them
at length on this show. They're basically smart sunglasses cooperation
between Meta and ray Band. They have cameras, they have

(35:37):
microphones built in speakers, you can listen to music, you
can ask AI, hey, what am I looking at. But
the new feature is well, a couple of new features.
They just rolled out a couple of new software updates.
Number one, live translation is available everywhere now. So I
tried this out yesterday. I downloaded a Spanish language pack.
I fired up a YouTube video of someone speaking in Spanish,

(36:00):
and while they're speaking in Spanish, in my ears, I
can hear them speaking in English. It is incredible. It
is the future. It works. Supported languages include English, French, Spanish,
and Italian. And so that's number one. I would like
to see how this would work on the streets, right, like,
if you're in Italy someone speaking to you in Italian, Like,

(36:21):
I'd be curious how good the mics are at picking
up what they're trying to say to you. But I
guess it's kind of like your ears. You listen to them,
you tuoe not everything else. So I got to try that.
But it's there and it's pretty pretty incredible. That's one
of the big questions I get on this show is like,
how do I live translate stuff in real time? And
that's it. Beyond that, they gave support now for you

(36:43):
can send messages and make calls through Instagram, which is
part of you know, they already have WhatsApp and Messenger.
Those are all Facebook products, so there you go. And
then they also have support for Spotify Music, Apple Music,
and Amazon Music, so that's really cool. And then the
other thing that they're doing that's coming soon is a
hands free AI that sees what you see and can

(37:06):
respond in real time. That's kind of like the new
thing that everyone's doing, whether it's Gemini or chat GYBT.
It's this idea of having the AI look through your
camera and give commentary on what it is looking at.
It is quite impressive. Gemini just added that feature on
the Samsung phones and the Pixel phones. It's pretty incredible.

(37:26):
Chat Gybt has it. I think it's just for Plus
subscribers like me, but it's really interesting to just have
AI looking at what you're looking at and just commenting.
Really going to be the wave of the future there,
especially with these smart glasses. Google is working on a
pair that does that, so that is going to be
a big part of the future. Agnes writes in from

(37:46):
Huntington Beach, listening on KFI. I have a Pixel eight phone.
I'm devastated. I was texting with my son and I
tried to delete a message that wasn't turning out right.
I use the delete feature, thinking it would erase just
that one text, but its deleted urn entire conversation. I've
researched online and everything says there's no way to get
deleted text back. Is there anything you can suggest to

(38:07):
help this? Sad Mama, Agnes, I am sorry that happened
to you. For some reason, Google Messages does not have
a recycle bin, so I don't know why they don't
have an area that puts all your deleted messages and
keeps them for thirty days. Because sometimes you delete stuff
and you say, oh no, I need that back. iPhone,

(38:27):
for what it's worth, does have that. So if you
delete a message you want to get it back, you
can tap edit and it says show recently deleted Google messages.
You need to get that feature in the meantime, Agnes,
most of your research is correct. There's really not an
easy way to get this back. There is one place
I'd like you to look, and that is your Google

(38:48):
device backups. So you said this a pixel, I'm thinking
that it's getting backed up to Google. So go on
to one dot Google dot com and then tap storage
on the left hand side and scroll down and it
should say your device backups and I can see mine.
I have got my Galaxy S twenty five Ultra Pixel
ninefold Pixel nine pro. Yeah, I've got a lot of

(39:11):
devices that I test. And just tap that device your
pixel eight and then see details. And if it says
SMS and MMS messages and there's a number next to it,
your backup is somewhere in the cloud. Now here's the thing.
If it backed up right after you deleted, then those
messages might still be gone, but at least you can

(39:32):
go in and check. So if it's there, what I
want you to do is go into Google Takeout and
you can download them takeout dot Google dot com. Scroll
down to where it says messages, messages and conversation history
from your backup, and you select just that and you
hit download and it will give you all of those messages.
Now they're not going to be in a very easy format,

(39:55):
but at least you will have them. And this is
a lesson for the future. Number one, do things slow.
I know people we always like to do things fast,
and you know, sometimes you don't know what the outcome
is going to be. The other thing you do. There
is an app called SMS Backup and Restore, So if
you want an ongoing backup of your text messages on Android,

(40:18):
you can install that app and do a backup every
so often. You can do it every hour, every day,
every month, every week, whatever you want, but it will
it will back up all of your messages, put them
in Google Drive, drop box, wherever you want to store them,
even on your phone if you want. But at least
if something like this happens again, you would be able
to go back to that last backup and get those messages.

(40:40):
So those are the solutions, but agnes I will tell
you sadly, it's not easy to get those things back,
and it's really unfortunate, unfortunate that Google Messages does not
have a recently deleted area because they have sort of
forced everyone on Android to use Google Messages. Yes, you're
still open to using any messaging app on Android, but

(41:03):
Samsung Messages is going away and they're directing people. Verizon
Messages went away and they're all directing people towards Google Messages.
So that's sort of the main messaging app on Android,
and the fact that it does not have a recently
deleted is really bad. So we need to get that Google.
Thanks for the email. Let's go to Brian in north Ridge. Brian,

(41:23):
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
Yes, sometimes when I deal with tech support online and whatnot,
they they asked me to clear my cookies like I
did recently on SoCal Gas and my cash files to
fix a problem. But the problem here is that once
that happens, I lose all of the Every time I

(41:46):
go to another website, I have to I have to
put everything back in again. It's a major disruption. Is
there a way of just ferreting out the ones that
they're asking me because they just say, oh, just clear
all your cookies, clear your cash fials. Well, you know
that just totally disrupts everything. Is there a solution there?

Speaker 9 (42:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (42:05):
It obliterates your entire system. It clears every log in
that you've saved and anything that's remembered on a website.
So I totally get that. And it's easy for them
to say because it's a it's a one size fits all.
It kind of erases everything starts fresh. And you know,
I'm assuming you had some sort of login problem on
their website. Yes, sir, Yeah, okay, so there is a

(42:25):
way to do this. Are using Google Chrome or something else.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
I'm kind of a browser freak. I mostly used my
very customizable Firefox. I don't like Chrome. I don't like
being pushed into it by financial groups and major companies,
you know, airlines and the like. I do love Opera,
and then I also have Brave that I use for
some use.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Okay, Well, the good news is I can give you
the There is an option to do this, and I
think it's on pretty much every browser. The way of
accessing it might be a little bit different. Okay, but
Chrome obviously is the most popular. I'm gonna give that first.
But there's two ways. Number One, on the left hand
side of a URL, there's like a little option button

(43:10):
and it says viewsite information. Now. You can tap that
and it will give you all the information for that
one website. Right It says, right now, I'm on Google
dot com. It says connection is secure. I've got location
turned on, microphone turned on, third party signed in turned off,
and then I've got cookies and site data. So the
main thing when you're clearing out the information for a

(43:32):
website is that cookies and site data. So for those
that may not know, when you log into a website,
that website leaves what's called a cookie on your browser,
and that cookie says, we've already authenticated Brian. We know
that he's logged in here before. We're gonna save either
his username or his username and his password, so next
time he comes here, we're just gonna log in for him.

(43:54):
And so that's what enables you to stay logged in
on a website. And some websites keep these pretty much
indefinitely like your email. Some clear them out pretty much
within a certain amount of time, like your bank account
is going to log you out no matter what. So
if you want to find that information, it'll say inside
that little site data it says cookies and site data.

(44:16):
Click there and it says manage on device site data
and you can go in there and just delete the
individual cookies for that website. And so all of these
cookies for Google, if I deleted them right now, I
would be logged out of my Google account. So I
don't want to do that now. The other way is
to go into settings. And if you go into you know,
you press the little settings it's the three dots up

(44:37):
a right hand corner, or you can go into your
menu on your browser, whatever one you have, go into
settings and you'll see under Privacy and Security it should
say third party cookies, and then if you scroll down,
you should see a list of all of the sites
that are allowed to have these third party cookies. So
I've got a whole bunch of them online, and you

(44:58):
can go in there and where it says see all
site data and permissions. Now I've got a list of
every single website I've ever visited and the cookie that
they saved, And so you can go by most visited,
or you can search. So let's see if I've got
SOCl gas online. Sure enough, I do, so I can
go in there my account soacal gas, and I can
delete just those cookies. But again, if you want that

(45:21):
information for something like a Firefox you said you use,
or an opera very similar, it's the same thing. Just
click the padlock to the left of the website address
in the address bar, clear cookies and site data. That
will get it cleared for just that website. But again,
you're looking for the cookies and site data for just
the individual sites, not all of your websites that you're on.

(45:45):
So they all let you do this, And Brian, it's
a good question because it's very frustrating when these tech
support folks tell you, oh yeah, just clear your browser history,
and you realize you got to sit there and log
into every website afterwards. Half the people don't even know
they're a lot lugins for their websites. Use a password manager,
by the way, make that process a lot easier. I'll
put links to some of this information on the website.

(46:06):
Rich on tech dot TV, all right, coming up, I
promised the Gmail feature that lets you unsubscribe from newsletters
in bulk. I'll tell you how to access that coming
up right here on rich on Tech. Let's go to
Kelly in Los Angeles. Kelly, you're on with rich Hello.

Speaker 9 (46:25):
Yes, having a problem with my light cell phone. I've
been trying to charge it. I noticed that it kind
of goes very hot to the touch, but for some
reason it is not charging and I get it to
come on. I can't tell if the batteries bet or
if it's just totally drain of sales energy and just
taking extra long time to charge up. Want to see

(46:48):
if you can help me to guide me.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Well, it's an Android phone. How long have you had it?
And what brand?

Speaker 9 (46:53):
It's an off brand? Are you a brand? I've had
it for about maybe five months?

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Oh five months. I've not heard of that brand. What's it?
What's it called?

Speaker 9 (47:02):
Artie is very off brand, one of the cheap beasts.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Where did you get to it?

Speaker 2 (47:08):
I don't remember?

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Okay, Well, my first inkling is that this so it's
not turning on at all.

Speaker 9 (47:16):
It's not turning on at all. At first I had
two percent, and then I tried to charge it for
a period of time, probably more than three or four hours.
I never came back on. It did get hot with
the touch. I changed different chargers, chargers with not the
charging unit itself. I don't know the problem with the
charging port and what, but for some reason it's not charging.

(47:37):
It's completely black.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
It won't turn on, okay.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
And I was going to say, I'm assuming since this
is a cheapie it does not support wireless charging. Is
that true.

Speaker 9 (47:47):
I'm not sure about that, okay.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Because I was going to say, because you know a
lot of times when when these phones, if they won't charge,
you know, sometimes the port gets wet or something like that,
you can use the wireless charging on the back, and
that way you can get around that. It sounds to
me for your situation now, typically when a phone goes dead,
when it gets down to two percent and then zero,
it does take a little bit longer for it to

(48:10):
come back to life because your phone is gonna you know,
it's gonna take a little bit for that battery to
get to a place where the phone is going to
want to turn on. But you're telling me the phone's
getting hot. When that's happening and it's not coming back on,
and you've left it on the charger for three to
four hours. So it sounds to me, do you have
a different cable to try.

Speaker 9 (48:29):
I do, try a different title, But I do have
one of those plug in little deals where you can
take the battery out and stick it in the plug
in device. I forgot about that, so I don't have
to charge this from the phone. I could put it
in nets that would device and try to keep that charge.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Okay, that's what I would do. Is so if you
can pop this battery off the back of the phone,
put it on that device, let it charge up for
a little bit. But if the battery is getting hot,
or if it's swelling or anything like that, you do
want to be careful because it could be a bad battery,
could have a bad selling there. So I would either
try to take this back to where you got it
and see what's going on, or you can take it

(49:05):
to a place like you break I fixed, they can
do a quick assessment for free to see what's going on.
But if this thing is, you know, a very inexpensive phone,
it just may be that it's just not very good.
So good question, Kelly. It sounds like you went through
all the proper steps of trying a different power adapter,
trying a different cable, letting it cool down. The only
other thing I can say is maybe a little blast

(49:27):
of canned air inside the power port, just to see
if there's anything that's blocking it or anything that's caught
up in there. Sometimes you got your phone in your
purse or your phone in your pocket. It has a
tendency to collect some items in that power port, maybe
lint or dust, kind of like a belly button. You know,
you might have a little little lint in there thanks
to the call Kelly eighty eight rich one O one

(49:48):
I have not heard of that brand of phone. Are
you cell phone? Let's see? Yeah, that's a okay, wow,
here we go. Yeah, this this is I do see
the brand. Okay, the Arida you can get on Amazon
for thirty bucks or sorry, eBay for thirty dollars. So

(50:08):
it is a brand. I just never heard of it.
Gmail is rolling out a new feature now, I say
rolling out. Go to your phone, check to see if
you have it. If you don't, don't send me the
angry emails. It is rolling out, and Google has a
tendency of taking their time when they roll out these
features on my phone. I've got it on both my
iPhone and Android, so it is out there. But it's
called Manage Subscriptions, and so this is a way that

(50:31):
you can clean up your inbox. It'll show you all
of your subscriptions and promotional newsletters and senders in one place.
So to find this see if you have it, open
up your Gmail app, tap the menu icon on the
left hand side, scroll down right under your trash. You
will see a new option that says manage subscriptions. You

(50:53):
tap that, it will give you a list of all
of your subscriptions, listed in order of how many times
are emailing you per month or week or whatever. The
top one is at the top. And then you can
just tap the little icon of the envelope to the
right and it says unsubscribed. You want to stop getting
messages from this mailing list. You tap it and it
will help you unsubscribe to that. So a nice easy

(51:15):
way to do it rolling out on Android, iOS and
the web. So again, Gmail, Manage Subscriptions. Look for it
in the left hand menu where you would find your inbox,
your stard your important emails. It'll say right under trash,
manage subscriptions. If you don't have it, check again later.
This is rolling out on Gmail, but a nice helpful

(51:35):
way to help you get rid of some of that
clutter inside your email inbox. All right, eighty to eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Coming up, we are going
to talk about Google, Meta Uber, all these anti trust
trials and what they mean for you. Coming up right
here on rich on tech. If you're following the news,

(51:58):
a lot of big company, a lot of big tech
companies on trial with the government, anti trust, all kinds
of allegations and things happening, So here to talk about that.
Justin Hendricks, CEO and founder of Tech Policy Press, Welcome
to the show. Justin, Thank you for having me. So
you follow this stuff quite closely. Based on the name

(52:19):
of your website, Tech Policy Press. A lot of people
thought that this new administration would be a little easier
on some of these big tech companies, but that's definitely
not something we're seeing right now. Huh.

Speaker 10 (52:30):
We certainly haven't seen it with regard to competition and
antitrust quite yet. And you know, whether some of the
kind of support that some of the big tech CEOs
have shown for the Trump administration will ultimately, you know,
pay off as some people had expected it might. We'll see,

(52:52):
you know, there's still time for intervention. But yeah, you're right,
there seem to be cases moving ahead and new cases brewing.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, I mean cases moving ahead because a lot of
these are already like this Google case. So I think
it was last year where the anti trust trial they
basically recommended that Google had like a search monopoly and
they want, you know, and they still want they're still
pushing them to get rid of Chrome or there. That
may be one of the things kind of catch us
up on what's happening with Google, like are they are

(53:21):
they worried you think at this.

Speaker 10 (53:22):
Point, Yeah, well, you you know, you started by asking
about the Trump administration. It's important to point out that
this particular case against Google did start in twenty twenty
under the Trump administration. Of Justice Department in State sued
Google over its dominance and online search, and you know

(53:44):
that ruling came back last August. As you point out,
Judge Meta famously wrote Google is a monopolist and it
has acted as one to maintain its monopoly, essentially in
violation of the Sherman Act, you know, the law that
is kind of the grandaddy law of all an aditrest
law in the United States. And now we're in the

(54:06):
remedies phase. It's a new trial that's all about sort
of thinking through what exactly has to be done to
remedy the fact that Google's monopolists.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Do you think that something will happen? I mean, you know,
it's interesting with all these tech cases. It's like tech
changes so much in the time, Like you just said
that this started in like twenty twenty, way before chat,
GBT came on the scene and things like that. But
Google still holds a lot of power over the things
that we do online. Do you think there will be

(54:37):
some sort of remedy like having to split off Google
Chrome or something like that.

Speaker 10 (54:42):
Well, it's too hard to say exactly what's going to happen.
And Google still can you know, essentially appeal the ruling
and then you know, ultimately that would take things back
to the square one. We'd have to kind of think
through the remedies process again. But is on the line
potentially that you know, Google would be kind of broken

(55:04):
up in.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Some interesting ways.

Speaker 10 (55:06):
As you say, you know, Google has an enormous amount
of power over the consumer experience of the Internet, over
the ways that publishers, you know, access the market, the
way that people even build their own websites in order
to structure information primarily so that Google will turn that
information up in search results. So when you start to

(55:30):
tinkle with Google, the tinker with Google, you really potentially
are doing some fairly fundamental things that people will see
have an effect in the way that they interact with technology.
That could be through search, it could be through their
mobile operating system, it could be through just simply the
choice to use an alternative product.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
I was reading this morning on the Verge about this
whole Motorola came out with some new phones and I
guess they wanted to use Perplex as the uh, you know,
the AI of choice, and basically they were scared to
do so because Google is like kind of what they
were painting the picture a little bit of a bully,
you know. They say, look, you can change the assistant

(56:14):
on the phone, but we'd like you to keep it
as Gemini or else. And so it's all this kind
of behind the scenes stuff that happens that you know,
when you log you know, you just you fire up
a fresh Android phone and Gemini's on there. You're like,
oh cool, But then we we heard in this trial
that they pay Samsung a lot of money to be
the default on the Samsung phone. So do you think

(56:35):
consumers understand all this stuff that's happening in the background
that these tech companies do to stay dominant.

Speaker 10 (56:41):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably the most serious
situation or contention here in this particular case is the
amount of money that's being spent. You know, the DJ
says Google spent twenty six billion dollars in twenty twenty
one across all of its default contracts. Mentioned Samsung, you know,

(57:02):
receive somewhere between one one and a half billion for
preloading Chrome Google Play on its handsets. And and yeah,
it's been very interesting, you know, so far in this
trial to see some of the folks that have come
forth to testify who would like to, you know, get
a crack at that search market. And you mentioned Perplexity.

(57:22):
You know, another one that was represented this week was
was open Ai.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
That's interesting.

Speaker 10 (57:28):
You know, both both those companies would very much like
to become default search engines for consumers. You had Chatchipt's
head of products essentially there to say, hey, you know,
if Chrome's for sale, we buy it. Perplexity said the
same thing so very much, you know, trying to challenge

(57:49):
the status quw And if something does happen and Chrome
is kind of forced to be divested, there would certainly
be buyers lined.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Up and a big shift. I mean that's you know,
I mean I use Chrome, I really like it, but
it's you know, they had the head of Chrome testify about,
you know, how integrated Chrome is with Google Services, and
of course, I mean, look, it's all of these companies
want you to use everything. It's like these silos are
becoming harder and harder to break free from as a consumer.

(58:21):
Let's move on to Meta. What happened with them? Because
they had this big trial where the government was saying
that they bought Instagram basically just to keep it I guess,
not to make it grow as much or something. What
happened with them?

Speaker 10 (58:34):
Yeah, So again another suit that started in the final
days of the Trump administration, the FTC suit Facebook and
December of twenty twenty, basically alleging that the company had
maintained a monopoly over the personal social networking market and
that definition that market definition is actually something that's sort

(58:55):
of you know, important in this trial and is under discussion.
But this idea essentially that meta Mark Zuckerberg, they bought
Instagram in order to prevent it from competing with their
monopoly over that market. And that's the contention here. Whether
that's the case will be what's determined in this trial.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Interesting. What do you find interesting about all this stuff
covering it at Tech Policy Press?

Speaker 10 (59:24):
Well, you know, I'll just say one more word on
this one. You know, it's also interesting to see, you know,
who's taking the stand, you know, Mark Zuckerberg himself, you
know who prefers not to take the stand.

Speaker 11 (59:36):
In Washington, d C.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
He's a regular there. He is a regular, you know,
and on the stand in at parties now.

Speaker 10 (59:45):
Apparently, and I understand also is possibly building a home
there or buying a home there maybe given.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
How much time he is spending in Washington.

Speaker 10 (59:55):
But I think one of the most interesting things that
happened this week was when Kevin Sistrom, who's one of
the co founders of Instagram, testified on Tuesday. Yeah, he
let loose, He let loose, and I suspect people were
not happy. And then low Park, you know, He said
that essentially, Mark I was not investing in Instagram because
he believed it was a threat to Meta's growth at

(01:00:19):
at that time Facebook. Of course, he testified for over
six hours, and I suspect that, you know, any eventual
decision there will be some reference to the points he raised.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
And that was the first time he really kind of
spoke out. We knew there was some behind the scenes
stuff going on when those two founders of Instagram left
Facebook after they were acquired, but they never really gave
their reasoning. And that was a great interview or if
you're following that trial, some really interesting information about coming
out from there. All right, justin we're going to leave

(01:00:51):
it there. Founder of Tech Policy Press. The website is
tech policy dot Press. Thanks for joining me today, Rich
you all right, coming up. We'll take some more of
your questions at triple eight Rich one on one. That's
And I've got some interesting downloads for you this week. Uh,
new products and services. It'll make your life a little

(01:01:14):
bit easier. You're listening to Rich on tech Walter. You're
on with Rich.

Speaker 12 (01:01:23):
Hey Rich, great show. Subscribe to your news letter.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Thank you appreciate that.

Speaker 12 (01:01:28):
Okay, I have a question. I have what do you
recommend as an alternative? I have an Apple iPad, but
obviously the pens are more expensive the Apple pants. You
do you recommend an alternative, that's a that's a good
stylust PM for it. I've tried the ones on Amazon
that you charge them up, but you know sometimes they
lag and not very good.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Yeah, and that's that is basically the reality you're looking at. Now,
are you you're looking for an alternative? So we got
to start with the pricing of the Apple pencil or
the pro Are you going for the regular or the
pro model?

Speaker 12 (01:02:02):
Well, actually I didn't know there was a pro model.
What's the difference?

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Well, okay, so the pro so the standard is is
eighty dollars, the pro model is one thirty. And the
difference is the iPads that they work on, you know,
one there's a whole list of the different iPads that
they work on, and then the feature. So the main
advantages of the pro is that you get more pressure sensitivity,
so you know, it responds more to pressure, and then

(01:02:26):
you get a whole bunch of other things like double
tap to change tools. The squeeze. You can squeeze the pencil,
so it gives you, you know, options when you do
that haptic feedback, so it actually vibrates to let you
know when you've done something Find My which is you know,
you can find the Apple pencil and the find My
app when something goes wrong. Now, like you said, this

(01:02:46):
is expensive. Both of these Apple pencils, you know, the
standard one's eighty dollars, the upper one, the pro is
one thirty. So my question is when researching these alternatives,
you know they have to be significantly deeper than those
prices because you are going to lose out on all
of that Apple functionality. Like you said, you've tried some

(01:03:07):
of these cheapis on Amazon, and yeah, they might work
as a stylust, but there's gonna be a lot of lag.
You're not gonna have that deep integration with the Apple ecosystem,
which is what you know Apple is so famous for. Now,
with that said, there is only one stylus that Apple
themselves sort of promotes and has had featured over the years,
and that is the Logitech Crayon. Now, as the name implies,

(01:03:31):
this might be more like you know, a kid sort
of device. It doesn't have to be used for kids,
but it's just kind of a bigger, thicker stylus for
the iPad. But the thing is that is seventy dollars
now unless and it's also lightning so they have not
updated that in a long time. So that's number one.
Then if you look at something like zag, Zag has

(01:03:53):
what's called the pro Stylust two and this is compatible
with all iPads from twenty eighteen to present.

Speaker 12 (01:03:59):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
I like zag products a lot. They're usually very high quality,
same company as Mophi, and they make you know, the
screen protectors and cases and things like that. But this
stylus is eighty dollars. So again, if you're trying to
save money, if you're going with that standard Apple pencil
at eighty dollars, it's gonna be the same price. So
you'd have to be going with that Apple Pencil Pro

(01:04:20):
which is one thirty to save you fifty dollars. But again,
you're not going to get all those features. So this
is going to do a bunch of the things that
you need, but it's not going to be as sort
of integrated with the iPad os as these other uh,
you know, Apple made pencils. Will be then you have Finally,
the third option is the ad donnit A D O

(01:04:41):
N I T S E two. So the AD donnit. Sorry,
there's one more option after this, but the add donnit.
I've not tested it, but just checking some of the
reviews on Amazon, they don't get the best reviews and
it's got that flag of frequently returned product. Amazon has
been adding this banner to certain pages on on products
that are returned a lot, and so that's kind of

(01:05:03):
like an you know, hey, you might not want to
get this because a lot of these things get returned,
and so that's just a little way of letting you know,
like if you don't want to deal with a headache
this thing. Most people have found that it doesn't work
the way they think it does. With all that said,
there is one that actually gets good reviews, and I'd
probably recommend trying it out, even though I have not tested.

(01:05:23):
It comes from ESR, which is a pretty good budget
maker of accessories and gadgets, and they have the Digital
Pencil which works from twenty eighteen models to twenty five
models of the twenty twenty five models of the Apple iPad,
and it is just thirty dollars, it's got a decent
number of reviews, it's got four and a half stars,

(01:05:45):
does not have that flag of you know, frequently returned product,
and so that's probably the one that I would check
out first. You can order it from Amazon, easily return
it if it doesn't work. But that's probably the top
all alternative that I would go with versus the standard
Apple pencil or Apple Pencil Pro. So you're talking thirty

(01:06:06):
dollars versus eighty or one hundred and thirty, So it's
significant savings if it works for you. If you just
need something that's going to circle documents, highlight things, stuff
like that, it's probably going to be your best bet.
No wireless charging on that one. It does have a
plug in, so just be aware of that. The other
thing is if you're doing art on the iPad, I'd
probably recommend the Apple pencil the models made by Apple,

(01:06:29):
because those are going to give you the best options
and the most compatibility with the iPad. Walter, great question
over there in Temecula. I know this happens a lot.
People like to buy things that are cheaper on Amazon,
and you realize that, you know, especially with Apple stuff,
you know, a lot of their stuff unless it's sold
in the Apple Store. It might work, it's just not

(01:06:50):
going to be as good, and so you're not going
to get that great experience and then you're going to
be complaining about doesn't work. So but try the ESR one.
I think that one looks the best out of all
of those cheap alternatives or budget alternatives to the standard
Apple pencil. Great question, Walter, Thanks for listening, and thanks
for subscribing to the newsletter. If you want to get
in on that, just go to the website rich on

(01:07:10):
tech dot TV, pop in your email address, and I
send it out once a week typically, and it's pretty
much my brain to your inbox. It's kind of all
the stuff that I find throughout the week or things
I want to comment on in the tech world, just
like this show, except I guess the print version of that.
All right, couple items of note. Meta has launched a

(01:07:31):
new video editing app. It's called edits, So if you
want an alternative to TikTok's cap cut, you can download
edits for iOS and Android and it's basically free. You
do have to sign in with Instagram, but you can
do all the things that you need to do to
make your Instagram videos and stories look good. That includes caption.
So again, it's called edits. You can search it up.

(01:07:53):
It's available for free for iPhone and Android. Let you
edit your video for free. TV TV dot Garden this
is a website that lets you stream live TV from
around the world. You can tap random channel to discover
something new, or you can just search a country. They've
got a bunch of channels on there, including a lot

(01:08:14):
of like news channels, sports channels, no sign up required
channels have there's news, there's sports, there's cooking, there's movies,
all kinds of stuff from over one hundred countries. And
if you're saying, like rich, why are recommending this sketchy website, No,
it is legit. Like they're they're just collecting all of
these free streams that they find around the world and

(01:08:34):
putting it into one directory. So again, TV dot Garden.
It's a nice clean interface. It's not cluttered. You're not
gonna find like, you know, the latest sports game, like
the big NFL games that people find online, you know,
on these bootleg sites, but you're gonna find like the
legitimate stuff that is streaming. And finally found this this week.
If you're looking for an alternative to Grammarly, there's a chrome.

(01:08:58):
There's a plug in for all the brows called language Tool,
and uh, Grammarly for me, it was just getting a
little bit overbearing. It was like giving me too many suggestions,
trying to change too many things. All I want is
basic spell check when I'm writing, and so, uh, letter
tool is free, it's open source, and it's available for Windows,
Mac everything pretty much. And yes there is a paid version,

(01:09:22):
but the free version is working for me just fine.
So I'll keep you up to date on whether I
like that or not. But so far, so good. Language
Tool is uh. Language tool. Dot org is where you
want to go eighty eight rich one O one eight
All that linked up on the website rich on Tech
dot tv. Back after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech.

(01:09:47):
Rich Demiro 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. Phone lines are open.
Website rich on Tech dot tv on social media. You
guessed it at rich on Tech. Like I said, I
was in New York this week, went to dinner and
the restaurant we went to. I've got this little system

(01:10:10):
for picking restaurants, by the way, so I look for
my hotel is any anytime going out, I just go
to you gotta go. You gotta do this on a desktop.
It doesn't work on your phone for some reason. But
if you go to Google Maps and then you search
for where you're staying, right so no matter where you are,
let's just say you're at a hotel, I'll just pick

(01:10:31):
one down downtown and then you'll see once you search
for that place, you'll see at the top of Google
Maps it says nearby hotels, restaurants, things to do, bars, coffee.
Now they've got some of these options on the phone,
but they just don't work the same. So what I
do is tap restaurants, and I typically want a place
I can walk to, and so I will look. As

(01:10:51):
soon as you tap restaurants, then you've got this thirty
minutes down at the bottom, you've got walking or driving.
So I will choose fifteen minutes as my maximum walking time.
And then you go to your filters. And so if
you really want something that's like highly rated four point five,
that's not like those are the ratings like a generalized
rating that people give it, not like there's no traditional

(01:11:15):
like zagit or whatever. This is just like an aggregated score.
So four point five is pretty good, Like not many
restaurants get that. So if you want to find the
places that people go to, you can tap that and
then you can go to all filters and you can say,
you know how many dollars signs you want the cuisine
you want. But typically once you have that list of restaurants,

(01:11:36):
now you've got restaurants that are within fifteen minutes walking distance,
and then you can look at the number of ratings
they have, So anything that's got like in the thousands,
people are going to that place a lot, and then
you can just kind of narrow down from there. It's
it's just a very easy way to sort of narrow
down some of the popular places near you instead of

(01:11:57):
trying to search through all these different things find the
place or look through reviews and that. But this is
just my easy go to way and it usually works
every single time. It works. The other way to do
it is on Yelp. If you just want somewhere that's
really popular, you could just open up the Yelp app
and then just sort. You can tap restaurants and then
sort by most reviewed, and that basically gives you, like

(01:12:20):
the They may not be the best restaurants. You'll still
have to use your your judgment to figure out which
one you want to go to. But those are like
the places that are most visited, most reviewed, most talked about.
And that's just you know, again, if you're in town,
if you've got friends and all that stuff, like, sure,
ask them for a recommendation. But if you're just in
town for one night, you want to find a decent place.
Those two systems that I use pretty much work every time. Anyway,

(01:12:43):
that led us to our restaurant that we went to.
It was called a Piccora Bianca and nice place. It
was packed the whole time. But they had this thing
on the table that I loved. And yes there's a
tech angle to this. They had a QR code on
the table that you could scan at the end of
dinner and pay your bill from your phone. And I've

(01:13:03):
seen this before at restaurants, but this was the best
implementation I've seen. Because you scan it, it was clear,
it was easy. It says do you want to pay
the full bill or do you want to pay for
just your items or do you want to split the bill.
And so if you're in one of those groups where
everyone's like, you know, saying, oh I got the I
had one less French fry, so I paid five dollars less.
Like you can say, okay, fine, everyone go to your app,

(01:13:26):
choose the things you ordered, pay for it. Now. For
our group, we had split a bunch of appetizers, and
so it was tricky to do the whole like, oh,
I'll pay for just what I had. So then we
just said okay, well I'll just split the bill. And
you know, there's five of us, and it said how
many people do you want to pay for? I said too,
I was paying for me and my mom, and so
divided the whole thing up. I paid for us and

(01:13:47):
I used Apple Pay and you could use Google Pay
whatever you want, and the bill was done. So I
looked up, of course, this company, it's called Sunday s
u n Day Sunday app dot com. So if you
have a restaurant, I guess my thesis here is, please
adopt this technology. It is so easy. It's so much
better than asking the waiter, hey, can you split the

(01:14:08):
bill or this or that, because it gives people options
on how they want to pay. Now, the only thing
that's a little bit weird about this, I took a
picture of the QR code on the table to like
put in my newsletter, And you can scan that QR
code at any time and kind of spy on what
people are ordering at that table because that QR code
is specific for that table and it's linked to their

(01:14:30):
POS system, their point of sale system, their hospitality system.
And so last night I scanned it as just a test,
and I could see all the things that people were
ordering at that table. So I guess they're not too concerned,
because who's going to sit there after they left a
restaurant scan this QR code again and then pay for
someone else's dinner. It's probably not going to happen. There's
nothing like nefarious you can do with that QR code.

(01:14:54):
But anyway, I thought that was really cool. I love
when restaurants make life easy, and I'm all about that.
Like these restaurants they go in there and they're like, oh,
you can't split the bill, or you can't do this,
or you can't do that. It's or I'm adding all this.
You know, the new thing is all these fees they
add to the bill. This was just a nice breath
of fresh air. It was just like the way you
want to check out simple easy. I liked it all right,

(01:15:17):
let's go to let's see here Michael in Capistrano Beach.
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
Can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Yes? I can hear you. Can you hear me, Rich,
I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Speaker 13 (01:15:33):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Thank you very much, and thank you for covering the
cases over there that you were talking about online. My
question was for you when you hear about the w
EF members, how he gets up and he talks about
how the humans are going to be hackable animals? What

(01:15:54):
do you think about that?

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Who said this?

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Yeah, ury yea the World's Economic Forum. They say that
humans are hackable animals.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Oh, is this the guy that wrote the Sapiens book?
I think it might be because he's, uh, it looks
like that might be the hymn. I've read a lot
of that book, and so I did not hear this.
I did not hear about what he said. But you
know there already are you know, body hackers out there,

(01:16:30):
people that are trying to hack their own body in
different ways from a biological standpoint. But then there's the
idea of all these things like Neurolink and these companies
that are working on sort of add ons to our brain.
So what do I think I think it's going to happen.
I think that we are just at the beginning of
this now. I think there's gonna be a lot of

(01:16:52):
pros for people like quadriplegics, people that have some sort
of brain damage, and people that you know, of different
abilities that you know might be confined to a wheelchair,
like there may be breakthroughs that will allow these people
to get around like regular, you know, like average human beings.
And so I think that there is good in this stuff.

(01:17:14):
And I was reading a whole article, I think it
was on the plane about the original guy who got
the brain implant from Neurlink, and you know, he was
just talking about how it changed his life. Like he
the guy was just this, you know, he had a
regular body and all of a sudden he got into
I think it was a was it a car accident?
And next thing you know, you know, he's confined to

(01:17:36):
a wheelchair and barely can move at all. And he said,
when they put this thing in his brain. They approached him.
He said it was amazing. He can move a cursor
on a computer. Like he said, everything that he had
to do with the assistance of a person, he can
now do a lot of this stuff by himself. Maybe
not moving around per se, but like just being online.

(01:17:57):
Like imagine that you can't move, you can't can a
mouse computer things that you were accustomed to doing, and
all of a sudden you can't do that anymore. How
frustrating it is. And so he said, things that would
take him, you know, an hour to kind of move
or do something on the computer screen, he can now
do in seconds just by looking at it, just by
thinking about moving the cursor to the left or the right,

(01:18:18):
or selecting something, it happens on screen. So I think,
you know, but on the flip side, once we start
embedding people with this technology, of course that technology is hackable,
it is programmable. There will be, you know, people that
try to abuse this stuff. So I think that no

(01:18:39):
matter what, we are in for it. And I was
reading something too about cars, you know how you know,
we think about all these cars that can do things,
they can drive themselves, you know, security cameras on cars,
like all this technology that's built into cars. You know,
there are people working twenty four to seven to try
to figure out how to hack that stuff and use
it to their advantage in various ways. Now, stealing a

(01:19:02):
car is one thing, but you know, can you imagine
if all the self driving cars slam themselves into walls?
I mean, you know there's someone out there working on
trying to make that happen. Because they're evil. I hope
that doesn't happen. But again, people do have to look
into this stuff to try to patch the exploits that
other people may find. And so there's always someone that's

(01:19:22):
looking for the holes in this software, in the programming,
in the hardware, no matter what, whether they're going to
use it for good or for bad. But yeah, I mean,
we are just at the beginning of all this stuff.
And I talk about this a lot too, the idea
that AI right now, we've got it. It's been you
know what two years that we've had it, and we've
been playing with this stuff, and everyone loves, you know,

(01:19:44):
some of the things that CHATCHYBT and Gemini and Perplexity
can do. But right now it is so basic. Just
imagine when they start building this AI technology into robots,
like I'm talking humanoid robots that many many companies are
working on, like these these robots that can walk around
and sort of think for themselves, do for themselves, act

(01:20:07):
for themselves. So this stuff is happening. It's going to happen,
and we need to be ready for all aspects of
this no matter what a good movie to watch. It's
a little little silly, and I hope I'm not giving
too much away, but it's been out for a while,
but Companion, we sat down to watch kind of a
horror movie. I don't want to give away the premise,
but just it's interesting. So again, that's kind of along

(01:20:31):
the lines of what we're looking forward to in the future.
Good question. Thanks for the call, Michael, appreciate it. Eighty
to eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Coming up this hour,
we're going to talk to a software engineer who wrote
a book about how social platforms really work. You are
listening to Rich on tech. Let's go to George in

(01:20:57):
Los Angeles.

Speaker 14 (01:20:57):
You're on with Rich Hi Riche Okay, I got a
question here. I'm having a lot of trouble, a lot
of headed I'm trying to connect the wireless microphone to
my phone. It's a Galaxy A fifteen, and.

Speaker 13 (01:21:15):
Somehow it's not working. I cannot connect the external microphone
to my phone. When I try to record a video
with my camera, my phone camera, it doesn't give me
the audio. And I try with another old phone that
I have is a Galaxy S twenty, Samsung Galaxy X twenty,

(01:21:38):
and it works. But I don't know why with the
Samsung Galaxy A fifteen doesn't work. And I try with
out of different phones and a tablet and somehow the
microphone don't work. The audio doesn't you know, doesn't connect.
I mean the external microphone doesn't connect with the tablet.
I don't know if I need a nap or I
did a comparable wireless microphone. I tried with two different

(01:22:02):
microphones and it's not working.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
Okay, Well, a couple of things going on here. Number one,
have you confirmed that this what what brand is? The
wireless microphone.

Speaker 13 (01:22:11):
Is a lab label ler K thirty nine.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
Okay, so is it wired or wireless?

Speaker 4 (01:22:19):
It's why?

Speaker 13 (01:22:20):
Well, it's I got the wire from Risk for the receiver.
I connected to the phone with a wire uh and
then I had the microphone, there.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
Are wireless okay, well number one, not every smartphone supports
a external microphone. Now the Samsungs for sure do the
the Pro models, the S models they do. Now the
A models that's sort of their budget line, they may
not support. And I'm trying to confirm if they actually

(01:22:51):
have support for an external mic, and I can't confirm
right here, like over the air. Let's see, yeah, I
can't can firm like if that speck is available. So
that could be the first problem. Do you know that
this phone is compatible with an external mic?

Speaker 13 (01:23:09):
I have no idea, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
So typically on a Samsung phone, when you plug in
an external MIC, it will recognize it and say right
on the screen on your camera viewfinder, external mic connected.
So if it is not giving you that message as
soon as you connect that external mic, this phone may
not be compatible. So over the years, since I do

(01:23:31):
a lot of content creation for my TV job, I
you know, and I test a lot of smartphones over
the years, I've found it's very hit or miss whether
these phones support the external MIC. I know the Pixel does, obviously,
the iPhone does, the Samsung, the high end models do.
The One Plus can still be hit or miss, but
nowadays usually it typically does. But this is an A

(01:23:53):
fifteen model, which you know, if you're looking at a
phone that's a more of a budget minded device, they
may not build in all of those things. So what
I would do is go online, find the specs for this.
Make sure you can find maybe a YouTube video or
someone that actually says, hey, this does support an external microphone.
That's number one. That's going to save you a lot
of headaches. The second thing to do, George, is to

(01:24:15):
make sure that this is compatible with or this microphone
that you have. This setup is going to work. So
a lot of these microphones that you find on Amazon
sometimes are very hit or miss. I use the Dji,
which is the kind of the gold standard for wireless microphones.
It's expensive, but it works. It does exactly what you need,
and it's really good. There are other brands out there

(01:24:36):
that are cheaper that will also do it, but just
make sure they have a lot of reviews and people
saying that they actually work. If you want to get
one of those cheaper brands on Amazon, like if you
search Dji, Mike or road Wireless Mic for iPhone and
those come up, just make sure that a lot of
people have verified yes they do actually work. But the
other one is the road mics. People like those. But

(01:24:57):
there's a whole bunch of these microphones on Amazon that
you can get. Some of them are as small as
a button.

Speaker 6 (01:25:03):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
They're just they've changed the game when it comes to
creating content on the go, because it used to be
you had to have either something wired or not something
very good. And now the fact that you can use
these wireless mics is just so great. But it's all
dependent on whether your phone actually supports it. The other
thing you could do if your phone doesn't support it,
you don't want to invest in a new mic. You

(01:25:25):
don't want to invest in a new phone. A lot
of these microphones will record into themselves, so they will
actually have built in memory on the microphone. You can
press record. You can record the audio separate from the
video and then use an app like Final Cut to
sync those up. So that's what we'll do. If we
have a problem with the audio or it's not embedded

(01:25:46):
on the video, we'll just sync it up later. So
that's another option where you can just record the audio
separate from the video, bring it into an editing program.
Like final cut or premiere, and then synchronize the audio
to the video. I mean, that's what they used to
do in Hollywood with that clapboard. You know, they always
recorded audio separate, so they use that clapboard to sync
it up. All right, good question, George. Something to look

(01:26:08):
out for on your smartphones if you are going to
be creating content because those wireless mics, I call it
the best invention of the last decade for me. They're
just so handy. Coming up, we are going to talk
to Tim O'Hearn. He is a author of Framed. He's
got a new take on how social platforms really work.
That's up next. Welcome back to rich on tech rich

(01:26:34):
Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology the website
for the show richon tech dot TV. Joining me now
is Tim O'Hearn, a software engineer and author of Framed,
A villain's perspective on social Media. Thanks for joining me, Tim.

Speaker 11 (01:26:52):
Thanks Rich, Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
So what's your background and what made you write this book.

Speaker 8 (01:26:58):
I'm a software engineer and I spent most of my twenties,
so the last ten years I spent working in quantitative trading.
During my first year second year on the job, I
was approached by some people involved in the New York
City nightlife industry who told me that they had a
business that they were using to make money by getting
people more followers on Instagram. They needed someone to help

(01:27:18):
build up the business and help scale it up. And
that's when my involvement began in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
And so you got involved with basically selling what bots
and things like trying to get like people on Instagram
and social media. They want a lot of followers because
it looks like they have a lot of influence, so
a lot of times she will buy those.

Speaker 11 (01:27:37):
Yeah. So really our service was in the second wave.

Speaker 8 (01:27:40):
I call this the organic growth phase, So it was
one step removed from people just paying twenty dollars for
five thousand followers. The bots I created would actually log
into a customer's account and then act as if they
were the customer. So this allowed things to grow more
organically and for it to see less like a bot

(01:28:01):
and more like a human actually taking the actions.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
Ah, so they would sort of like maybe like things,
comment on things, reply to stuff exactly. And so what
did you learn in this in this experience and why
are you telling the story.

Speaker 8 (01:28:16):
Now, during this time, there was a lot of i
would say, unspoken facts and unspoken truths about the dark
side of social media. So some things that have come
to light is regarding how social networks actually enforce their
policies and what it means to commit terms of service
violation on a social media site. So in the early days,

(01:28:37):
which I would say twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, we found
that we were learning so much about the underside, about
all the rule breakers and this spectrum of enforcement, realizing
that of course these social media platforms don't want people
spamming and don't want people being disrupted, but we actually
found that we were less of a priority compared to

(01:28:59):
the people actually doing really bad, really illegal stuff.

Speaker 11 (01:29:03):
So for a while we.

Speaker 8 (01:29:04):
Had this reprieve where we just weren't the biggest priority,
and during that time we proliferated.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
Why because these social media platforms want.

Speaker 8 (01:29:11):
To grow, definitely, they want to grow, and they're just
worried about ultimately reactive you know, reactive moves here. They're
worried about having to speak in front of Congress, you know,
they're worried about these bombshell articles coming from the New
York Times, and until twenty late twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen,
nobody was talking about followers in that same way, you know,

(01:29:34):
they were talking about other types of illicit activities going
on on social media.

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
So what do you think the average consumer needs to
know about all this stuff at this point?

Speaker 8 (01:29:43):
At this point, I think what the book communicates is
that there's a very awkward relationship between users platforms and
then platform stakeholders. People don't realize that, you know, using
a platform for free, you are the product. So you
are the person who is you know, helping out this
advertising vehicle, or you are the person who investors are

(01:30:03):
looking to en mass to actually increase the value of
a platform. So there are all these awkward, like weird
symbiotic relationships between each one of these groups that aren't
obvious to someone who's being beckoned to sign up for
a social media service to begin with.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
So what a consumers do I mean? What I mean,
does it change the way that we use these services
or should we be on guard when we use them
or what?

Speaker 8 (01:30:30):
As more things have developed on social media, I think
that there are concerns not just in our own usage habits,
but the effects that the platforms are having on our
emotional state and how we receive and process information. When
I started using my Space in two thousand and six
or two thousand and seven, as as ridiculous as the
experience was, it was actually quite pure.

Speaker 11 (01:30:52):
And pure is probably the last.

Speaker 8 (01:30:55):
Word we would use to describe Reddit or Facebook or
x or any of these platforms today. So one of
the solutions might simply be to spend less time on
it and be more aware of the consequences of heavy usage.

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
Why do you think these algorithms are engineered to addict us?
I do.

Speaker 8 (01:31:12):
And one interesting thing for me was after I worked
at Shark Social, which was the Instagram growth company, I
later worked at a small social media startup where I
built these persuasive technology systems. So I built systems that
tried to get users to click on certain push notifications,
or tried to get users to spend more time looking

(01:31:32):
at the news feed of this app. My entire job
as the special projects lead was essentially to enforce and
encourage addictive behaviors. So you think at scale, there are
entire teams within big tech who are just trying to
ratchet up those metrics a little bit more and that
means getting people to spend more time online.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
I mean, look, we already know when you open up Instagram,
it's the equivalent of a slot machine, even down to
the way the little note of caations appear in the
upper right hand corner with the numbers, you know, where
it says the likes, the comments, the hearts. It appears
exactly like a Las Vegas slot machine. So what do
we need to know for parents and kids? Because you know,

(01:32:14):
I'm an adult, I sort of understand this stuff. I
get what I'm up against, right, Like Instagram's goal is
to get me to never close Instagram in my entire life.
Like that's their goal. And you can do that. The swipe,
the reels, the stuff, it's never ending. But kids, you know,
they're not as evolved because they're still they're still growing.

(01:32:34):
So what do you think parents need to know about
all this?

Speaker 8 (01:32:37):
I support the general guidelines which are coming out from
countries such as Australia, which is that a child under
thirteen years of age has no place on social media
or any type of scrolling type of content feed because
the belief is that it is harmful for the developing
mind and it may be harmful in ways that we

(01:32:57):
don't fully understand yet. Example I give in my book is, hey,
you wouldn't give a baby a cigarette, like that's a
comedy skit, But we do give babies iPads. And I
see it all over New York City here where tons
of kids are mindlessly looking at these things because it
keeps the kid entertained. But what you don't realize is
that when they're looking at apps that are designed like

(01:33:20):
slot machines and stuff, when it comes time to function
in society or learn in the classroom sometimes, you know,
schoolroom learning is not as exciting or enthralling as these experiences,
so it can have some absolutely terrible consequences.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
Yeah, it's much much more boring compared to TikTok, which
is like even the format. I mean, I come from
a classic news background where you know, we do news
segments and I get it the news is not perfect,
but you know my segments are, and so I you know,
I do things that are It's informational, you know, Yeah,
it could be fast paced, but I mean if you
look at something like TikTok, it's like there's a cut

(01:33:56):
every second because people's you know, they're going to look away,
And I've talked to TikTokers that say that they have
to follow that format or else people scroll away if
it's not changing fast enough. So some of this stuff
seems to be changing the fabric of sort of our
brains in the way that we perceive information as well.

Speaker 8 (01:34:15):
Sure, short form video is very addictive, and I think
it is harmful in the way that it kind of
melds and changes our expectations for what is entertaining and
how things like plot lines develop. Like how many people
can really sit through a movie now without thinking about, Okay,
I need to go check my phone right, Like the

(01:34:35):
attention span. The effect on the attention span is crazy.
And this is something we saw in the early twenty tens,
where like it started to come out on YouTube where
you had quick cuts, quick cuts quick cuts. The first
time I really saw it, I thought this is ridiculous.
But now, as you said, it's standard almost everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
It really is all right. The book is framed a
villain's perspective on social media. The author is Ohearn. It's
available now on Amazon. Did you have fun writing a book?
Because I wrote a book a couple of years ago.
It was one of the best things I've ever done.

Speaker 11 (01:35:08):
It was a very fulfilling experience for me, and seeing
the reaction to it, both from people in the press,
from users, from experienced engineers, and especially from academics and researchers,
it's been very meaningful for me.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
All Right, Well, thanks for joining me today on the
show Tim O'Hearn once again. The book Framed a Villain's
Perspective on Social Media, available on Amazon. I'll put a
link on the website. Rich On Tech dot TV. All right,
coming up, we got a couple of items of note.
I've got a new way to chat with AI using
text messaging. If you have a Pixel seven you got

(01:35:42):
a problem with your battery, I will explain what you
can do with that. And Netflix has a new option
for subtitles. Plus the feedback. We are going to open
up the feedbag coming up next on rich On Tech.
Welcome back to rich On Tech, Rich de miro here.
Apple Watch celebrates ten years this week. Ten years. I

(01:36:08):
know I've worn worn one on my wrist almost that
entire time, and I think it's game changing. I tell
people a lot of times that I like the Apple
Watch better than the iPhone, just because it's always there.
It's simple. It does what I need, tracks my workouts,
you know. Of course you've got the rings, all these things.

(01:36:28):
April twenty fourth, twenty fifteen, that's when the first Apple
watches came out. I was there at the launch day.
They sold them at high end stores. In addition, well
I don't trying to remember. Why was at like such
a high end store for it. It was like a
little boutique. Now, of course, the Apple Watch very popular now.
The original Apple Watch was more about like fashion. It

(01:36:50):
did not start out as this like really health and
fitness focused device. But now, of course it's health, it's fitness.
It tracks you know, all kinds of stuff except blood
ocken because they took that away. Yeah. One of the
features I thought was interesting back in the day. I
wrote about this in my newsletter today, digital touch. Did
you know? I thought they took it away, But you

(01:37:10):
can still do it. If you go to a text message,
press the plus sign next to the message field and
select digital touch, and then you tap two fingers on
your screen, it'll send your heartbeat to the other person. Yeah,
it's called digital touch. It's really weird. I thought that
they got rid of that. And last night when I

(01:37:30):
was doing some testing, I was like, wait, that's still there.
What news service called text ai lets you text ai.
Text dot Ai is the website. But basically you just
go to the phone number and you text it and
it works with your traditional SMS. So just text it
and ask a question. It will text you back. No
download required. It can help with plans, recommendations, answers, anything else.

(01:37:55):
Built by former Tesla and Walmart Labs employees. Again, the
website text dot Ai. It's free to use. They do
not sell your phone number as far as they say
text dot ai. If you have a Google Pixel seven A,
you got some problems to do battery maybe it's swelling
or popping. You can get a free battery replacement. So

(01:38:16):
you got that bulging back cover your phone looks thick man?
What am I talking about here? Rapid battery drain? You
got to check eligibility online. But yes, this is the
Pixel seven A. If you have some battery swelling, check out.
It's called the Pixel seven A Extended Repair Program. I'll
put the link on the website. AT and T is

(01:38:39):
adding cruise ship coverage to its International day Pass, so
the International day Pass now works on cruise ships twenty
dollars per day, so it's pricey, but you know, if
you're on a cruise, you know it's like one free drink.
I guess twenty bucks you saved paid for this five
hundred megabytes of data plus unlimited talk and text, and

(01:38:59):
it worked on land and sea, surf and turf, so
no extra charge when you step off. The ship covers
more than four hundred cruise ships. Obviously they have to
be in this AT and T coverage zone to work,
and there's no data overages. So if you hit that
five hundred megabytes, which by the way, is not very
tough to hit, your speeds will slow down, but you

(01:39:19):
will stay connected. But most of the time when you
hit those data speed bumps, you're just gonna be able
to like check your email. Let's see what else. Yeah,
so AT and T International Day Pass it's called Man,
we're just going through a lot of notes here. MAX.
The free ride is over seven dollars and ninety nine cents.
If you have someone clinging onto your account, the extra

(01:39:42):
member add on is now available, So if you have
someone that's using your MAX log in. Yeah, remember this
is to be called HBO Max and Max and they
change the color of the logo. They're all over the place,
But you know what I'm talking about. It's the service
that lets you watch HBO shows and other stuff. So
the primary account holder can now invite one friend or

(01:40:04):
family member outside their household for eight bucks a month.
If you want to pay for them, extra members get
their own login. They can stream on one device at
a time and access everything, or if you don't want
to pay for them, they can transfer their profile to
move all of their history, recommendations, and settings. This is
only available if you subscribe to Max directly, not if

(01:40:26):
you're a bundle user. But basically, the bottom line is
the free ride is over. If you've got people sharing
your password, they're going to get that screen that says, hey,
you should sign up for your own account. As far
as I can tell, you don't have to just yet,
but they're going to continue to ratchet this up until
they get all the memberships they want out of the freeloaders.

(01:40:47):
And Netflix, they have a new subtitle option. I don't
know about you, but in my house we watch a
lot of shows with the subtitles on, even though we
don't need to. But with all the commotion in the background,
the kids playing, Yeah, they got their iPads, all those
things going on, talking to their friends. This is just
an easy way, you know, instead of saying what they
just say, you just got the subtitles on. But Netflix

(01:41:10):
knows this, so now they've introduced a new type of
subtitle that just includes the words themselves and not the
audio cues. So your typical you know, subtitles have things
like music swells or phone buzzes. They don't have that anymore.
Now it's just the words that people are saying. So
you can see two choices, now English for dialogue only,

(01:41:32):
and then English CC if you want the full closed captions.
And this will be on every so will beyond more
shows moving forward, but right now, it's starting with the
season five of the show You, which I have not watched,
but I guess that's a popular show. Netflix says half
of viewing hours in the US already happen with subtitles on.

(01:41:54):
And don't forget you can customize the subtitles by size
and font. Some people forget that. Feedback now, Michelle writes
in after hearing us talk about the recent settlement payout
for Facebook and Zell, I thought the email I got
was spam. It said I had a forty dollars payment pending,
and it gave me a deadline to click a link.
I looked up the case and even called both the

(01:42:17):
settlement administrator and Zel. Turns out it was legit. I'd
signed up for it years ago and totally forgot. After
some hesitation, I followed through. I'm now forty dollars and
sixty seven cents richer. So if you see that Facebook
settlement through Zell, yeah, I guess you can claim it.
Just be careful because, like we know, the scam artists
will play prey upon something that's real and turn it

(01:42:39):
into something that's fake. Gail from Oakland says, is there
an easy way to turn a handwritten page of my
well formed cursive into text using my iPad pro? Yes?
Chat gbt. Take a picture of whatever you're writing and
upload it to chat GBT. It will read it and
convert it into text. It's fast and that's accurate, and

(01:43:01):
if you're saying you have good cursive, it'll be easy
to do that. Good question. Christopher from Justice Illinois writes
in is there a way to see what devices are
connected to my WiFi? Yes? There's an app called fing
fing iOS and android give you a list of all
the connected devices. Good if you think someone's freeloading on

(01:43:21):
your network. Fing dot com slash app. Liz writes in
we're all big fans of you here at work. You
make the tech talks interesting and we all learn so much.
Thank you, Liz. I appreciate the kind words. Really do.
That's going to do it for this episode of the show.
You can find links to everything I mentioned on my website.
Just go to rich on tech dot tv. If you

(01:43:42):
want to get in on the feedbag, click contact and
send me a message. You can find me on social media.
I am at rich on tech. A lot of the
things that I mentioned here on the show I will
post there try to make them shareable for you. Went
to Disney this week and found a actually Bobo gave
me a hidden trick photospot in Disney California Adventure. So

(01:44:04):
if you're headed the California Adventure, check that out. Pretty cool.
Next week, Harry Campbell, the rideshare guy, is going to
share the latest in the gig economy, robotaxis and more.
Thank you so much for listening. There are so many
ways you can spend your time. I really do appreciate
you spending it right here with me. Thanks to everyone
who makes this show possible. Adam in today for Bobo,
appreciate your hard work back there, Kim on phones, and

(01:44:28):
you of course for listening. Thank you. My name is
rich Demiro. I will talk to you real soon

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