After twenty five years, Netflix says goodbye to the DVD. Twitter goes back to the basics the new EV with no rear window. We're not talking hitchcock here. Plus your tech questions answered? What is going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, 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'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Welcome to the show. We've got Kim on phones, We've got Bobo on the board. Plus you phone lines are open at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Give me a call.
You have a question about technology, trying to find an app to do something, trying to side on an EV. Well, I don't know if I should make that decision for you, but I can help. Maybe you're just trying to figure something out. Maybe you're trying to decide between two things. Just give me a call. Triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one is the phone number. Email is also open. Send it to hello at richontech dot TV every week.
I mentioned the email, the feedback section continues to grow, so we will do feedback at the end of the show.
Ah, what a great day.
Good song to open up the show, because it is a glorious day here in Los Angeles. The weather has finally turned, that's for sure. I got a little father son night last night. My wife was out with my other son, so it was just me and my older child. So we had all these plans like what you know, I said, Hey, what do you want to do? And of course we went through the list of you know, going to like an amusement park, going bowling, this and that.
None of those were but we did go to habachi, which I think is always a good, easy, kind of like enjoyable evening. And I've never been with just my son by ourselves, and we had a great time. And it got me to thinking two things. Number One, habachi is all about the chef that you get right, like they have to be into it. If they're not into it, and they're just kind of doing like the beating har and the you know, the throwing the shrimp at your head and all that stuff just kind of like okay,
going through the motions it's not very fun. But this person we had last night was fantastic. Must have been brand new because he really enjoyed it, and so he was doing like the I feel like in California they banned that flaming volcano for a while, like they weren't allowed to use real fire, they were just using steam.
And last night, oh it was the fire was back. So that was great.
And then it got me to thinking, how come we don't tip this chef, like if I've been doing habachi wrong my whole life and not tipping the chef, because when it came to the end, of course you tipped the waiter, but I was like, should we be tipping this person anyway? So let me know if I was doing that wrong. I hope I'm not. But afterwards we went to pinball. I figured, you know what, let me
introduce my kid to pinball. And so they've got a couple of places in Los Angeles that are restaurants that also have like a pinball room, and so we went to this one restaurant that I actually heard about at CES this year, and the person told me, oh, yeah, you live in La go to this It's a Korean barbecue place. That also has a pin ball room, and I was like, what, They've got two locations in Los Angeles,
So we go to one of them. We make the trek there and I get there and the place is packed, but there are two pinball machines in the waiting area, and I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. This is the this is the pinball room that this person told me about. And thankfully I asked because we were going to walk right out, and I asked the host and they said, oh no, there's a whole room of pinball machines that way.
So we walked past.
This restaurant was just filled with people grilling meats at their tables. I have not done that yet, but one of these days. And we get to this room and sure enough, I don't know, there must have been twenty pinball machines in there. And of course I'm expecting these pinball machines to be overpriced and expensive and this and that, and they weren't. They were very reasonable fifty cents a game. So we got change and we played pinball and it was so much fun because pinball is like, it's not
really that high tech, but it kind of is. Because this company that makes these pinball machines, Stern Pinball. They're the ones that actually told me about this place. At CS they actually have on pinball machines where you can scan a QR coach. So you join this club they call it the let's see, it's called the Insider Connected. And so you join this club. And what's cool about it is that they actually keep your score not only across that machine, but across a leaderboard that is local
but also national. So in the corner of the room there's a screen that has everyone's scores from like across the nation or maybe worldwide, who knows.
So I thought that was kind of cool.
I did not get on the leader board, but kind of neat that now they keep score in various ways, your personal score and also how you compare to people that are playing these games across the nation. If you want to check out what it looked like in there, I put it on my Instagram. At rich On Tech we had a blast, and then of course my son convinced me to go to Walmart, and I said, please do not make me go into Walmart, because I'm just
gonna spend money that I don't need to spend. And sure enough, we go into Walmart, and right off the bat, it's like, I don't want to get one of those carts because I'm just gonna put stuff in there, and we ended up buying a whole bunch of stuff. Walmart, by the way, the last holdout I think in America that does not do tap to pay. I'm going to talk about tap to pay in a little bit later in the show about some of the quirks of tap
to pay. But Kroger, which is the big grocery company that owns like grocery stores in every city in America, including Ralph's here locally in Los Angeles and probably a grocery store near you, they finally broke down and accepted Apple pay. Now, I've not been in the Ralphs to confirm this, but I tweeted it and many people confirm that, yes, Ralphs finally takes tap to pay, So thank you. Ralph's one of the last holdouts. You can go almost anywhere now, I think, and do tap to pay, even at the
Habachi place. I was talking about this on last week's show or the week before. How in Hawaii a lot of the restaurants are using that handheld kind of tablet to take your order but also let you pay from your table. And sure enough Habachi place we went to was doing that as well, and so I love it.
It's just so much better.
Although I still think it's funny because the waiter took my card and tapped it for me, I was like, I'm pretty sure.
I think I can do that myself.
Ah.
This week, Twitter finally made good. And I said, I wasn't gonna talk about Twitter a lot on this show because there's a lot of gossip and a lot of just like the dust hasn't settled around Twitter, So I wasn't going to follow all the tiny nuances of Twitter as Elon took over and all the stuff, the ups and the downs. But I do think this is a big deal. So Twitter this week and Elon Musk made good on his promise to get rid of the blue check mark, and the blue check mark for legacy folks.
They still have it, but I'll explain the blue check mark for legacy folks like myself, and that blue check mark meant that you were verified. This meant that you went through some sort of process to get that blue check mark. People knew when you saw Rich on Tech. On Twitter, I was who I say I am. Now they have stripped that from pretty much everyone unless you pay eight dollars a month for the privilege of having
a blue check mark in the Twitter Blue program. Now they call this verified, but it is anything, but it means absolutely nothing at this point. So when you're scrolling Twitter and you see a blue check mark, that means nothing. All it means is that that person is paying to get that check mark. Yes, they have verified the fact that they have a credit card and a phone number and an email address, but that's it. That person is not necessarily who they say they are. Now, why is
this a problem. It's a problem because anyone can now make a username like rich on tech with two h's, get the verification, get the blue check mark, and when you're scrolling through now it looks like that's me. And this presents a lot of problems because you can no longer trust what you're seeing at a glance. And this is a problem we're seeing with the tech world at large right now, with AI and AI created images and videos and audio.
At this point, we just.
Don't know what's real anymore, and it's going to be a big, big problem and so Twitter with people like myself you could see that blue check mark and you knew it was me.
That's no longer the case.
So my thesis there is just please, when you're scrolling through Twitter, if you're continuing to use it, which at this point I'm on the fence, just beware or be weary, I guess, because you just don't know. And already this has presented problems. People are, you know, quoting things, and journalists use Twitter a lot to find sources and to get official statements and things like that. But you know, I don't know what the National park Service official Twitter is,
do you no? But if I searched National Park Service and I saw that blue check mark and go, oh okay, that's the National Park Service, now I may not know because there is no blue check mark.
So just be be aware. Ah.
But yeah, that was a big change. Snapchat big week this week for Snapchat. Went to their event Snapchat. I think this was the first time I've ever been invited to a Snapchat event, and they held it in Los Angeles, where Snapchat is headquartered, and it was a preview night, so it was like a press night where I went to and then it was the big event at the a place called the Barker Hanger. It's this big, giant
like hangar next to an airfield. And it's interesting because I've been to so many tech events over the years. I've been to Apple, I've been to Google, I've been to Samsung, so many companies that have thrown these things, and they each do it in a different way, but the common theme is that they are showing off what they're doing in the best possible light. And the reason why I like to be there is because I get to go hands on with this stuff before anyone else
and see how it really works. So, for instance, they showed off a vending machine that is in partnership with Coca Cola that is augmented reality powered, and so I got to test that out.
It's cool, but is it groundbreaking. I'm not sure. We'll see.
I also got to try out these magic mirrors they have where you can try and close in stores with augmented reality, and it's cool. And again, you're gonna see a lot of news about this stuff, and we'll talk about it more later in the show. But it's one of these things where I got to try out because unless you can go to a men's warehouse where they're testing it here in Los Angeles, one location. You're probably not going to see this thing for a bit, and
so it's kind of cool. And it all leads into this kind of knowledge that I have about technology that helps me figure out what's important to you. And it goes back to this show. The show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. And so by getting a handle on this stuff, that's how I know to talk about and give you that perspective of what's important and what's changing. And there's a lot of it. So I'll talk more about Snapchat and
a little bit. I think one of the coolest things they did is they put this AI in everyone's pocket. So if you've heard about chat GPT, they made a chatbot that is now open to anyone in the Snapchat app. So if you have Snapchat installed on your phone, open it up and you have this thing called my AI and it's a chatbot. It's kind of like a friend that's always there, always on. You can chat with it. I've been chatting with it for the past couple of
weeks and it's wild. You can ask it anything. Should I go to the gym after work? Should I go to a movie? What movie should I see? Where should I eat? But they do lie, They really lie right through their teeth, so be careful. They don't mean to do it, but they call it hallucination. They just make stuff up. And this morning I asked her a question and just made up an answer. So pretty wild there, all right, We got lots coming up on today's show.
Netflix after twenty five years is saying goodbye to the DVD. Got great guests this week. Jasmine Enberg is gonna join me. She's gonna break down Snapchat's announcements. We've got the father of the smartphone, Marty Cooper is going to join me live, and later we're going to talk to David Koff of Tech Talk about how to remove your personal information from the Internet. I see it already. The phone lines are opening up. Your call's coming up next at Triple eight.
Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. And if you listen to this show a lot more, it's not just tech. Well it is mostly tech, but you know it's also whatever I feel like. It is the rich On Tech Show, So you know, there is that Liberty. There Phone lines are open at triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
If you have a question about technology, trying to decide something, trying to figure something out, trying to find an app for something, a solution, just give me a call Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. That phone number is also on the website Rich on tech dot TV. Jeff is in California. Jeff, you're on with Rich.
Hey, Rich, Yeah, I wanted to ask you. I think you've seen a lot of things on Twitter and I'm beginning a lot of Google ads about this new biometric handgun that supposedly reads your fingerprints or poem. Remember like in what was this Stillon movie where the gun could he could only shoot the gun. Yeah, it's basically that somebody came up with that.
And I was.
Wondering, is it too soon to bring out a technology like this or you know, like is it kind of an AI thing or what's your opinion?
Well, I mean this has been talked about for a long time. I mean I haven't you know, I haven't seen the Instagram ads, but they're definitely. This technology has been talked about for a really long time. But I think there's some challenges. I mean, you know, obviously it's not a perfect technology. Some people might think it's slower than you know, standard technology for a gun. You know, it's more expensive. Of course, do you have to charge
this thing? I mean, obviously there's probably charging involved. So I think there's a lot of pros and cons. But I think, you know, the pros obviously are the safety aspects that only the owner would be able to use this device, and I think that's the biggest appeal to a lot of people. But you know, Jeff, by asking this question that the are going to be people on both sides of this in a very very profound way.
What are your thoughts on it?
Oh?
Yeah, well, I like the idea from a safety aspect. I'm in the firms industry, and uh I look at it as I don't know if it's something that it's they're trying to fix a problem that isn't really a problem yet. I say that uh in that uh they're trying to uh market a gun to your Uh. Non the people that say I'll never have a gun in
my house because it's too dangerous. They're trying to get to that market because anybody who really wants to have a gun should always get training, uh and other education before even purchasing the gun.
Right, So I guess that I guess that that begs the question. Then it's like, then who is this for? Because if you, okay, let me put myself in these shoes. So if I if I am a gun advocate and I have a gun, and I you know, I train and I get this thing, I I probably believe that I'm gonna take care of this thing in a certain way that nobody else is going to get access to that gun, and nobody else will be able to have that and I don't need this feature on that right exactly.
It's just like the people who are saying, well, I don't need to go learn how to drive because the.
Tesla will drive for me, which by the way, is not true.
We know that we know that the Tesla does not drive, and so and so again.
Yeah, and so I see your point. Yeah, it's a mentality.
Well, I mean do you think Look, I think that there there are so many issues when it comes to firearms that people are either very for them or very against them. I think that technology has ways of helping various industries. I would say, you know, maybe this technology or a version of it, if it was inexpensive enough, could work for certain types of firearms.
But I don't know.
I mean, it's just one of these things where it just seems like it's probably cost prohibitive.
One of the things. Okay, because like one of the things I'm seeing is that people are coming in to buy firearms now, especially handguns. And these are the people who are the the White Mobile upward so forth that said before that I'll never have a gun in my house. They're not wanting to buy a gun because they're the only ones that haven't bought a gun yet in California, and they don't want to be you know, they they're
considering it like it's the musical chairs. They don't want to be caught without one without a chair when the music stops and the Zombia poclyps, the marauders show up.
The Uh all right, I got I got it, Jeff, I got to leave it there. They're they're playing me off. But great question. Uh, so many implications of that. Coming up next, we are going to talk more about snapchat and the implications of all of their announcements this week. You're listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Let's go to Paul in Burbank. Paul, you're on with Rich.
Hey, Rich, thank you for taking the call.
Yeah, Hey, I work at one of the studios that've been with Mac tech for fifteen years.
You shoed to work at Apple and have you.
Seen the new system Preferences or Macawestern tour have I?
Yes?
Now, imagine having to work with that every day for you know, tons of issues and you got to keep trying to prowd through that. I know they're trying to do the mobile equivocal of the OS, but man oh Manette, Apple has really seemed to lost their way about the intuitiveness of their OS and their products.
What do you think I.
Would agree with that? I think, uh, I think it's all over the place at this point. And when specifically, the system preferences are where you go for all the settings and things on Mac. And it used to be one format which I thought was pretty easy to understand, and now it's just all over the place. It's in this list, it does not make any sense. I I you know, I just don't like it. And I'm sure that there's a lot of people, and you know, some
of us. You know, people might say, oh, Paul and Rich, you just don't like change, But the reality.
Is I don't.
I don't mind change. I just don't like when it's when there's no reason for it.
Why, you know, yeah, right, how.
Does that improve functionality or efficacy? It doesn't, it does. Progressiveness means progress, and even if you're a conservative republic or whatever, you still want things to be better, better change, not just change.
Yeah right, yeah, And I think we see a lot of that stuff now. You know, I've I have my greater thoughts on Apple in general, with how they control the situation in many ways, but I you know, this show is not long.
Enough for those thoughts.
But so, uh yeah, you're just you're just struggling with this change as much as I am. And it's it took me a while to go to this uh this new os because you know, I used to do it the day of and now I'm like, eh, I don't need it the day of, and it's it's fine, but it's just you know it again, it's a little confusing, So I hear you.
I would say the same thing as attacheple. When I worked at Apple, I I would not go to the latest os because you know, there's a revisions that are going to come out, but everybody uses it. Oh yeah, so chill out, you know, let it work its way through the you know, the ranks for a month or so.
But I really am thinking about putting a petition together to send to Apple and seeing if we can get some other people on board with the concept of you remember five o'clup pro right, You remember how destroyed that?
Oh yeah, I mean I've gotten used to that at this point, but yes, there was a lot. But you know what, here's the deal Apple, And I will say this. They did with the keyboard on the MacBook. I did hate that and they did end up finally changing it. I don't know if it's still the best, but it was like one of those things where they're like, no, no, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine until they changed it.
So that's kind of how Apple operates. It's like every they kind of question you, you question yourself, and then they change it and you're like, oh, I was right the whole time.
Well, it's like the Titanic, you know, they they have I'm sure there's so there's so much bureaucrat and infrastructure in place now that if you have a change order in is an act of God.
You know.
To keyboards on the MacBook pros, you know, they wore out from your foil, from your finger, the letters would come on. Yeah, and the keys was great. The new Mac and one they have a nicer keyboard for sure.
For sure.
The throw isn't is good and the strokes, but you know it is nicer than the old, no doubt.
Yeah.
All right, Paul, thanks for the call, appreciate it. Uh, we can talk Apple stuff all day. It's just yeah, the keyboard, my my, my, I always give my old computers to my family members. And my dad is still mad that the command key is as like there's no there's no command on it anymore.
It's like, why is this like empty? Anyway?
All right, let's go to uh, let's go to Snapchat again. This is an interview I did with Jasmine. She is with Insider Intelligence and this is all about the changes at Snapchat. Welcome back to rich on Tech on location in Santa Monica at the Snap Partners Summit. Joining me now is Jasmine en Berg, principal analyst with Insider Intelligence.
Jasmin, thanks for joining.
Me, Thanks for having me.
Okay, so we just had a big keynote from Snapchat talking about all their new features, including AI AR and all of the creators they have here.
What was your big takeaway from this event?
So it's really exciting to see so many people excited about social media again. I think a lot of the time in the news, we hear about all the negative aspects of social media, and.
Here we're really celebrating all.
Of the good things that social media can do, talking about creators, augmented reality, as you mentioned, generative AI in the future. But I do think, you know, there is still a big question considering we barely heard anything about advertisers, and advertising, of course is Snapchat's primary business. It's how they make almost all of their money, and they have Earnix coming up next week.
Well, they certainly threw some big numbers at US seven hundred and fifty million monthly active users, texting, snapping, video and voice calls one hundred million minutes per day of calling on average on Snapchat, so people are certainly using this app.
Yeah, Snapchat users love Snapchat. I think they proved that time and time again, and especially most of the Snapchat users are gen Z of course, you know, it's it's been really appealing to a young audience who have really grown up with the app. We've seen even though other contenders have come in to compete for a gen Z's attention, TikTok of course being one of the big ones, gen Z are still using Snapchat. Of course, they use it for a little bit of a different purpose and they
would use TikTok or other social media services. And we heard the executives talk about that today too. Snapchat is more for messaging, it's not so much for public facing content, although they did make some big announcements about how they're improving those public facing surfaces, especially as they're trying to be more attractive to creators.
So they did talk about that the idea of a public story, So being not a huge user of Snapchat, that is something that's new where you can basically now present your stories to.
The public, which is a pretty sizable shift.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And you know, one of the big challenges in attracting creators in particular for Snapchat has been the fact that they don't have many places where they can post public content, stories being one of them. Now you have any user ages eighteen and over being able to post a public story if they so choose, that will help.
I do think that there are some potential challenges to that though, in terms of privacy on the app, and I think there'll be some questions that will be raised about how they're going to mitigate some of those concerns potentially in the future.
A couple of features I thought were quite neat and useful. This idea that you can see the popular destinations on a map. Because they have a lot of data about where people go, you can see places and save them for later, which I really liked. And then they also have this idea of the always on location without the app open. So you've been able to sort of see your friends on a map, but now you can set a duration and say I want to share my location
for four hours or eight hours. There's some privacy implications with that as well.
Yes, I imagine there will be some privacy concerns raised about that as well. They were very careful distress of course, that this is a feature that you would have to turn on that by default, your low isn't shared.
But you know, given.
The problems that we've seen with social media and with privacy, especially among young people, as well as you know, other negative impacts of social media among young people, I imagine this is something that they're going to have to really take into consideration as this feature rolls out.
One of the things they kept reiterating on stage, Several of the executives mentioned it is how the app opens up into the camera versus TikTok versus Instagram, where you're looking at other people's feeds.
So what do you make of that?
So back in the day, Snapchat used to pitch itself as a camera app, and it's you know, it is very true. It does open up into the camera, and I do think that's one of the things that sets it apart from these other apps. And it's also you know, one of the ways that they're trying to pitch themselves.
Now as a creator platform.
Now, Snapchat isn't a place for creators and influencers the way that TikTok is, the way that Instagram is, and the way.
That YouTube is.
It has a long road ahead to be to catch up to it. But the more that it can position itself as a place for content creation, for being able to make fun and engage in content, as well as having an audience to consume that content and a way to make money, which is another big part of the presentation, the better chance it has of becoming a bigger player within the creator market.
My guest right now is Jasmine Enberg. She is the principal analyst with Insider Intelligence. Let's talk about how they're building Snapchat experiences outside of the app. So in retail locations, we see a vending.
Machine that they're building.
A prototype vending machine with Coca Cola that uses augmented reality. You can kind of select what you want on screen, and then they have this mirror that lets you try on clothing and accessories in a store and also shoes.
What do you make of those new experiences, So they're.
A little bit different for me thinking about the Coca Cola vending machine, it's still kind of more a gimmick in a sense. I think it's a fun way to attract people to come to the Coca Cola machine, but I can't imagine that that is a reason to necessarily come back. I mean, you try it once and then
that's probably it with the the AR mirror. Shopping with AR is not really a mainstream activity yet, but it is growing, and I think that retailers might be you know, more receptive to that, especially in stores, if snap can actually prove real value in increasing in store sales as well as reducing return rates. My one question about that is is there a reason for somebody to go into a store and try something on via AR for an
in stock item. Probably not unless they want to play around with the AR mirror, but for out of stock items. So imagine you go into whatever store, they don't have your size, but you want to know if it fits before you order it online in store, I can imagine that would be a really good use case for an AR mirror.
Where do you see Snapchat fitting into the large your social media landscape.
Well, it depends how you look at it.
Right from you know, the user perspective, it is very much a gen Z focused app. It's actually probably you know, the first real gen Z app that has risen onto the social media scene.
Now, of course we're seeing.
A lot more apps that are directed specifically towards that younger generation, but Snapchat really kind of pioneered that and it made that a core part of its value proposition.
Finally, AI obviously the hottest topic in the tech world.
Do you think that they mentioned enough about AI?
They have this MYAI avatar or chatbot.
That you can talk to.
They did open that up to everyone, not just paying Snapchat subscribers. And also if you are a subscriber, you can send a snap which is like a picture, to the bot and it will send you back a picture, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Do you think they're doing enough with AI?
It's a great question.
You know, there is a lot of hype around right now, and it's where the competition within social media is shifting to.
But it's really early days and AI can.
Still be pretty problematic. I do think it's exciting to hear what snap is planning with generative AI. I think, you know, its user base is one of the most receptive to these kinds of technologies, and we've clearly seen that Snapchat Plus subscribers have really you know, or Snapchat users have really.
Already taken to the MII chat bot.
I did a couple of calculations in my head, and it sounds like my AI was one of the big reason for Snapchat Plus plus is subscriber growth over the past two months or so.
And they said they have about three million plus subscribers that pay what four dollars a month?
It's about four dollars a month, I believe, And yeah, and that's up by one million since January thirty first, and my Ai launched too Snapchat Plus subscribers on February twenty seven, so that's a pretty big number that have signed up in just two months. And I suspect that my Ai had quite a bit to do with it.
And one thing I took from the keynote though, they did mention that they look at all of the chats with the myai bot, so it's not really private.
The other thing that I took away from that too is when Evan Spiegel said that don't ask for my don't ask for advice from my AI. So clearly they know that AI can be problematic. I'm sure there are working hard to fix it and mitigate a lot of the issues, but clearly there there is still potential for problems with my AI.
So we have a company known for fun lenses trying to move past just that.
Yes, absolutely, but not stray too far away from you know, what it has, what it originally was. And I think that's the challenge for Snapchat going forward is to remain true to its roots while still expanding, iterating, and creating something new for the future.
All Right, Jasmine Enberg, principal analysts with Insider Intelligence, thanks so much for joining me today.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
All Right, we'll have more of your calls coming up next. Give me a call.
Triple eight rich one O one. You are listening to Rich on tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Triple A rich one O one. Phone lines are open eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Scott is in Siam Valley, Scott, you're on with Rich.
Thanks Rich.
I'm calling because I have a family member that's going to be at sea on the East Coast working on a cruise ship for about seven months, and I'm looking for cell phone, talk, text internet service providers that you could recommend we look into while she's at c and import.
Oh, while she's at c That's an interesting one because I don't think that there is one provider that work across you know, wherever they go. Now on the ship, do they they provide Wi Fi to the employees.
Yes, but at this point she doesn't know what they're going to charge her. They told her it's it's available, but it's not free. So if she's going to be at c for six or seven months and it's three dollars a day, it's probably going to run up quite a tab.
Yeah, and that's not something that she should probably do, okay, So while she's at sea, I would say, unless there's a provision on the ship where they give them, you know, an hour a day or you know, three dollars a day for the Wi Fi, I would say, on the ship, maybe activate Wi Fi calling and see if that will work.
Has she talked about that on her phone?
Yes?
I actually did have a conversation with her, and they did tell her that it's unrestricted use, but there is a fee for it, but they didn't know what it was. They couldn't tell her what it would be.
Okay, So if that's the case, does she so? I would say, while she's on the ship, it's probably going to be a matter of she's not really connecting to this on a daily basis. She sort of has to embrace the fact that she's out there, it costs money, and it's just not something that she can do while she's there the whole time. Now I'm not aware. I'd have to look more into this, but I'm curious what
other people do. So maybe there's a form or something online where people can, you know, where other cruise ship employees talk about what they do to stay connected on the ship. So that's number one. Number two, when you are in port, there are various ways to tackle this.
Number one.
Her cell phone plan may include provisions for certain places she goes, so I would check to see what's included, specifically, Team Mobile.
Okay, what companies she using?
Do you know?
Yeah?
Right now, she is with Mobile.
Okay, she's with US Mobile, so they're more of like an all a cart thing. So US Mobile may give you the option to add some international roaming. I'd definitely look into that, or you might even look into switching to something like T Mobile that offers the international roaming. The other thing you can do, and this is an app that's really really good that I've used around the world. It's called Aralo ai r Alo and they sell SIM
cards for different places. So what she can do is activate a couple of these SIM cards on her phone. They're e sims.
It's all electronic, it's all digital.
And then when she goes if she's going to the same ports over and over, she can just activate that card once again. It may cost you know, ten bucks, five bucks here and there, but you know, for maybe some of the main places that she she's always stopping at, that might be a good idea. The other thing I'd recommend is just figure out the Wi Fi calling situation and when she gets to these different places, learn the different cafes and hotels that will offer Wi Fi for free.
And just lean on them for the connectivity. So that's what I would do.
I've been, you know, sort of around the world with cell phone connectivity. It has changed a lot in the past ten fifteen years. Used to be when I went to certain countries, I just knew I was out of touch. And at this point, I don't think there's really a place except out at sea where you need to be out of touch. So great question, Scott, and uh, hopefully she embraces and enjoys the fact that she's sort of disconnected from the world.
When do we get a chance to do that? But knowing she can be reachable in an emergency.
Phone lines are open triple eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
Give me a call.
You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Bring me right back to my middle school dances. All nervous trying to ask her to dance with you. Never I don't think I ever did so so nerve racking. And now my kid's going through that and I'm like, yeah, go go go ask, Just get in there, and you know, see what happens.
Easier said than done. I know.
Uh.
Kind of funny.
You ever just feel kind of like sometimes you did the wrong thing.
So kind of a funny story.
So I Samsung reached out to me and they said, hey, would you like to see your pictures on a billboard? And I said, of course, And they said, just take a couple of two hundred megapixel pictures with the S twenty three Ultra and send them to us, and We're going to do this billboard event in the UK. We're going to show your pictures on there, and obviously, since you can't be there, we'll snap a picture of your pictures on the billboard and we'll send it to you.
And said, oh, that's really cool. So I'm in Hawaii. I take a couple of cool, like landscape photos. You could see these on my Instagram at rich On Tech. I send them in. I don't hear anything. I guess this weekend happens whatever.
Whenever.
It was last weekend, and finally get this email with the picture of the billboard and I was like, oh my gosh, that's so cool. And so I posted on Instagram and I knew other people were gonna get their pictures on this billboard too, it was going to rotate through them. Well, first off, I thought it was funny that they didn't put my or anyone's handle on the picture, so you just see my pictures, which is cool, But it doesn't say like rich On Tech anywhere whatever. I'm
fine with that. It's still cool to see your pictures on a billboard. But the funny thing is I was flipping through other people's pictures that they put up there. Every other person took a picture of themselves because it makes sense. You see yourself on this giant billboard in the UK. Duh, Like anyone can see a picture of Hawaii anywhere, just open up like the Internet. But you know, to see yourself on this billboard is a lot cooler.
So I felt like I went from feeling like really cool as I was scrolling through everyone else's pictures feeling kind of like, oh, whoops, I really miss you know, mess that one up, Sony. If you want to see the pictures, I still think they're nice, you can check them out on my Instagram at rich On Tech. Anyway, thank you Samsung for the cool opportunity. Uh this is the Piccadilly billboard in London. I don't think I saw that when I went to London. I was only in
London for like forty eight hours once. I don't know if I remember that thing. Let's go to uh Eon in Norwalk.
Eon? Am I saying that right?
You're on with rich Yes, yes you are, thank you. Listen. I am a VISUALI in per and I want to know whether I can use the Sampson fond to get stop to it for research and dial Oh uh yeah I would.
I would think you'll be able to do that.
I I don't have as much experience on the Samsung side of things with the accessibility tools, but I would think that Samsung has just as many accessibility features as Andrew as a you know, iPhone, and also Pixel. So you're looking at You're looking at things like talk back, which we'll read what's on the screen.
Is that what you need?
No? Yeah, no, Y just research. Let's say that I want to listen to a YouTube video and you said YouTube and whatever video wanna?
Oh yeah, I think you'll be able to use Bixby for those things easily. I think Bixby is actually pretty good for that. That's their voice assistant, So I think that that's a good way to do it. The other phone to look at is called the Pixel from Google. I would say look at that one as well and see kind of compare the features. But I think that the accessibility tools on Samsung are going to be are going to be pretty good for what you need.
Have you ever pixel?
Which one is better Pixel or.
Which one?
I mean, it depends. I M that's a good question specifically when it comes to the accessibility tools. I don't have a ton of experience with either of those tools. I mean, I've seen you know, Pixel has a lot of tools that will read things back to you, and also their Google Assistant is really good, and also text to speech is really good. But again, Samsung, you know, I think they've put a lot of work into this
as well, and I think Bixby's pretty good. So have you ever used a cell phone or a smartphone before?
No?
No, I I when I when I when I used to see, uh, in college, right tech, the teacher would like talk to the phone, I said, Now that I'm usually impressed in maybe I can use something like that.
Yeah, I mean, I think most of the modern smartphones are going to have the text to speech and also the talkback features, which which pretty much reads what's on the screen back to you. And I think that getting used to those that functionality is probably going to be the toughest part is learning what it can do and also what it's capable of and how to use it. But for voice styling, that's pretty simple, that's going to be very straightforward.
Really.
When it comes to actually using the phone, the back and forth of what's on the screen, it's it telling me, you know, to do, and also being able to perform those functions all in a voice manner. It's probably going to be a little tricky at first, but I think, like anything else, you'll probably get used to it and understand the capabilities of what this thing can do. But from what I've seen, yeah, I think you'll you'll be pretty good with the Samsung if you have a Samsung in mind, So keep me.
Posted on that. Okay, okay, thank you so much, Alrighteon, thank you appreciate that.
Uh triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Most of the major smartphone companies have put a lot of thought into accessibility in making these phones easier to use than ever before. I mean, Pixel does it, Samsung, But you know, it's one of these things that if you're not actively using it and you don't necessarily need it, you don't
really dive into those features. A lot of times when we look at these accessibility features, when you see them kind of spring up on places like Instagram and TikTok, it's mostly for sort of a hack using the phone.
So there's like a lot of these accessibility features that are meant for people of varying abilities, and people find ways to use them, you know, for convenience, whether it's guided access, whether it's voiceover, whether it's the tapping the back of the phone to perform some sort of functionality. So that's most of the experience that I have with those things. But if you need to use it, I think it's a matter of learning and going to some of those resources that can help you with that stuff.
All right, Netflix, can you believe it after twenty five years no more DVDs? Did you even know that Netflix still sent out DVDs? Yes, they do, And a couple of years ago they spun off this business to DVD dot com. They tried to change the name, I think it was Quickstir or something a couple of years ago, and that just went totally bad. And so they just said, okay, dvd dot com. But twenty five years and I was one of the first customers of Netflix when it came out.
And I would love to show you my first email or tell you about my first email from Netflix, but my email does not go back that far. Gmail came out in April two thousand and four, so my earliest email I have from Netflix is Tuesday, July fifth, two thousand and five. I ordered the DVD Hitch with Will Smith. It was going to arrive on or around Wednesday, July sixth, two thousand and five. Remember that Netflix got really good
and really fast about these DVDs. Basically, as soon as you put the DVD in the mail, the USPS would scan it and that would send the signal to Netflix to send you your next DVD.
Remember, you had your.
Queue, so you really didn't know what you were going to be watching on a Friday night. It basically was determined by what arrived, and if your movie didn't arrive in time, well you weren't watching it, and that happened often. But then of course you would upgrade to more a higher plan that offered more DVDs out at once, you'd get two or three of these things, but then when you were feeling like it was too expensive, you'd drop down to one. These were all the things we had
to do. So Netflix is going to ship out their final discs on September twenty ninth, twenty twenty three. Netflix says that this changed the way people watch shows and movies at home.
Absolutely.
We went from Blockbuster to the DVDs by mail, and then of course to streaming. When that came along when that was better. Let's see, the first DVD shipped was Beetlejuice March tenth, nineteen ninety eight. So I'm trying to remember the DVDs. I remember because I was such an early customer of Netflix. I thought it was such a cool kind of idea that the DVDs. Every time I got one, it would come in different packaging because they were experimenting with the early packaging to see what worked
and what did it. So at one point when I first got the DVD, it was in all this padding and it was a really thick envelope with like foam inside. And then towards the end, they were literally just sending like DVDs through the mail like without anything because they're like, ah, we don't care if these things get damage, scratched, lost, whatever.
They're so cheap.
It was just literally the envelopes were so flimsy towards the end that it was just kind of a joke. Number of DVDs shipped five point two billion. Most popular title, The blind Side. Number of DVDs supported twenty main genres, five hundred and thirty subgenres. Unique subscribers over the year forty million so again, if you have some outstanding DVDs. September twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, end of an era. I don't even have a DVD player at this point, so I couldn't even play a DVD.
All right.
Coming up on the show, we got lots more to talk about. I'm excited for this interview. We've got Martin Cooper. He is known as the father of the smartphone. Yes, he made one of the first cellular calls ever. He's gonna join me live to talk about that. Later, we're gonna talk about how to remove your personal information from the Internet. But first your calls Triple eight rich one oh one. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about, and it's where I answer your questions about technology. You can find me online at rich on Tech, on Instagram, Twitter, yeah I'm still there, and Facebook, or go to rich
on Tech dot tv. It's still me on Twitter. Even though my blue check mark that I've had for ten plus years is gone and I'm probably not gonna pay to get it back because I just don't think it's worth it, but whatever, those are my problems, not yours.
Matthew is in your We had a Matthew You're on with Rich Hi.
Rich have a question planning and upcoming family reunion this summer, and we're doing a bunch of back and forth emails that aren't working. Just wondering if you had any sort of messaging or any collaboration tool suggestion or planning a family reunion here in southern California.
Oh, good question. We did this last year.
We went up to Bend, Oregon with a whole bunch of people, and yeah, it was a mess. There was not one clear way. When we first started planning, someone suggested we all get on Signal, And I don't know if you know what Signal is, but it's like the most secure chat app in the world, and so I was just like, that's not going to work. Like that is just not going to work. So my recommendation is to get on a cross platform app that allows you to do everything the same, no matter if you're on
iPhone or Android. Now, this group chat could get kind of filled up with a lot of different people and a lot of different thoughts, so that's definitely going to be an issue. But to have one place where you can go back and search what people said and suggestions and things like that. My favorite is Telegram. Have you heard of Telegram?
Yes? I have?
Are you on Telegram?
I have it on my phone, but I haven't signed up for it yet.
Okay, So that's probably the best thing I ever got my family to get on. About three years ago, right before the pandemic. We all signed up and we have a couple of different group chats, and you may want to create several group chats based on, you know, the people that are organizing versus people attending, and maybe you
know different things like that. But what I love about this is not only can you chat back and forth and the features are the same on iPhone or Android, because you don't the last thing you want to do is use texting for this, because that's just not going to work. But if you tap into your your group chat, you can see all all the different things that people have exchanged. You can go and look at the media, which are the photos and videos that people have exchanged.
We'll give you kind of a whole catalog of those, like an album. You've got files, So if you had a file that you want to put like a PDF or something like that.
You can look in the files.
There's voice messages, there are links, so if someone sends a link, you can easily look through and see the links. And of course gifts as well, so you can look through and see what people have done there. But there's also a search functionality, so you can search and see what people have said in the chats. And my favorite thing, not only do you have reactions and things like that,
but you can pin stuff. So if there's something important that like, you know, where you're going to meet up or something that's you know, pertinent, you can pin, or a vote or a you know, whatever you want to do, you can pin that to the top of the chat. So I really like all that functionality. Now, the other thing that I'd probably recommend is a shared document, and
so that would be something like Google Docs. Create a either a spreadsheet or some sort of shared folder file, whatever, and that way you can get everyone on the same page there with the itinerary. And then finally, the other thing that we did that I loved is we created a Google Photos album, and so when people took pictures, you just could drag and drop them into this album
and then everyone could just download the pictures from that album. Now, now if that doesn't work, you can also just open up a Dropbox account and easily have everyone drag and drop their pictures into that shared folder and that way everyone could download the pictures as well. The problem is, I know you got a lot of folks on iPhones in the group because that's typically what happens, and they want to use all Apple stuff. The problem is Apple
stuff does not play nicely with any other stuff. So my advice is to stay away from the Apple centric tools and to use stuff that is what I call cross platform. Matt Does that help you, Matthew, Yes it does.
And what's something like like setting up a free web page through the Google web page? The system for an itinerary be a good system as well.
Yeah, I mean that's a you know, like if you just use Google sites and just you know, make it so that only your family can access it.
Absolutely.
Now, I'm sure there are some websites that are specifically tailored towards family reunion planning. The problem is there's those are probably operating on a freemium model, which means some of the stuff is going to be free and then some of the stuff you really want to use is going to cost you money, which you know you may or may not want to pay for. I think with all the free tools out there, you can easily do this stuff and make an itinerary if you want to
do an itinerary that's shared with people. With folks, we talked about an app called Tripsy, and that might be a good way where you can share and put everyone's arrival information, hotel information, car rental whatever into one shared itinerary as well. So that's a good app. It's called Tripsy trips y last I checked, though, hold on, I might be actually, I might be contradicting myself because Tripsy might be just iOS and I think it is.
Actually, if we had something like that, that would be perfect because we've got people coming from all corners of the country. Most people live in Orange County, but they're coming from Arizona, people from Baltimore, Portland, all over. And we're doing multiple events from Catalina Island to not Sperry Farm Cocktail Lounge and dinner night out in La because some of the family lives in LA. All kinds of things that get together just for the ants and uncles.
Because my dad's one of nine kids. We're one. I'm one of twenty eight grandkids and twenty two great grandkids. So we've got a lot of cousins and second cousins getting together. We're doing multiple events, things for the adults, things for the adults with kids. So it would be nice to be able to know where people are saying, are you staying in a family members? How are you staying in a hotel? So we can all carpool because once you get to LA or Orange County, it's twenty
five dollars to park, and that's very farm. It's thirty dollars to valet park in La at the carpool and save the money on the parking.
It sounds like you've done your homework. Check out Trippet.
I think that's going to be a better place for the shared itinerary because that's going to help you cross platform as well. It sounds like a lot of fun. I want to join you enjoy the family reunion.
Matthew.
All right, coming up, we are talking to Marty Cooper, the father of the smartphone. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here with you talking technology at triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven.
Four to two four one zero one.
You know if you listen to this show, one of my favorite topics in the world is the smartphone. But before there were smartphones, there were cell phones. And joining me now very excited for Martin Cooper. He is known as as the father of the cell phone, author of cutting the cord. The cell phone has transformed humanity. Martin, thanks so much for joining me, Hi pleasure, Rich do you go by Martin or Marty?
What can I call?
You?
Call me? Marty is the old friend?
Okay? Perfect?
So Marty, you made one of the first calls ever on a handheld device. Can you bring me back to that day?
I sure can. It was very Actually not the first call, Rich, it was the first public call. And you can bet that seemed to pluck that clothes together. But are tested at a hand of times. And before we took after this is April third, Tetivity three, and the locale was the New York City instead of the New York And the purpose of our call let's demonstrate to the world that it was possible to have the freedom that comes from being able to talk anywhere. And he placed on
a personal phone. At the time, if you wanted to have a wired phone, there was only one way to get in the US, and that one's mini filmed the monopoly AT and T have. Their vision of the feature was, won't believe it's car phone? Oh yeah, we did trapped in our houses in office by that wire for over one hundred years. And now to day a belt and created the first phone. And now they were going to trap it to Paris. Now that was ata we did.
We go and we were trying to persuade the sec that the first of all, there should be a monopoly. The second of all the time was really for personal all portable boats. Wow, pumpassing our demastation.
And so you were forty four years old, you stepped outside onto sixth Avenue outside the New York Hilton, and you made a call.
To who uh you won't from majors And it was very deg We were so worried about whether the forward work in the first place. I never thought about who I was going to call, and I was competently reported as too rich, and I uh decided to call my counterparts in the Bell system, someone that worked for at T is say it to a ango, and Joe's role in at G was still shut up the Mary so
Car telephone system. Certainly we disagree with each other, and not that he thought about it very often because he was representing the biggest company in the world and there was just a little billion dollar company that she taught of. So I reached in my back pockets to my telephone books that must give you a message, what's up? Don't go the phone. I won't call them, and remarkably be after the phone out of Secretary Joel Barnie Cooper. If
I'm right, true, I'm calling you, Joe. If I'm a have he telephone, but a real help something on personal have hell portable cell phone, it's.
I.
It's ignored. But to this day Joe doesn't remember that call. He doesn't dispute it. I had it, but I really don't claim him.
That's wild.
So you called your competition to say, look, I'm calling you from a phone that's going to work eventually anywhere, versus your phones that you were pushing that would be installed in cars. And of course I remember the first phones were installed in cars, and of course it was a bag phone. But you called this first phone a shoe phone.
Why.
Oh, actually we didn't call it the sea. It was xual sponsor to there remember that ut sponsors. I'm not going to tell you about You're obviously too young. But he was a comedian, uh uh later a secret at and he had a telephone and the heel of a shoe and uh he actually called a phone of the brick because of all the brick way to found and it was shake pretty much like a brick. Uh, supe Max Spondent.
So, Marty, how old are you now? I'm not Afore what do you make of what you've seen in the.
History of the cell phone in your lifetime since you made this first call? I mean it has come so far.
Well, first of all, you know, we were certain that the cell phone was going to be a big deal. We knew that everybody have one, So we told a story that some day when you're board, would designed the phone number if you didn't answer the phone for them. We're pretty close to that. To return to the people, I don't have so phones, but uh we could never have to addicted that then would be the Internet, digital cameras, a non scaling a greater circuit because none of those
existed AD activities quite know. The marble at the tax you had a super computer you quote. I also marble at the fact we don't recognize that in the US important things to the country. In Africa. It has helped take a billion people on the poverty in the last five years. That's greatly important. So it's the only thing I have to believe. If they were always storied, it's revolution. We are about to rember, don't care. We're going to
release their education, the whole concept of collaboration. It's going to make a smaller efficient. It's so that we will ultimately eliminate poverty. So we're just at the beginning gift. I hope.
So I hope that's Uh, that's something that happens.
It's funny because you you kind of expected when these phones were first coming out that they're going to be well, you knew they were going to be expensive, and obviously the first people to get them would be wealthier folks. But you said the biggest users. According to this Wall Street Journal article which was in last week's journal, from the shoot phone to the smartphone, Uh, the first folks to buy these were real estate people because you know
they could make money off of these phones. But now obviously everyone pretty much has one here in the US. And addiction, cell phone addiction. I mean you go to a Starbucks, people are waiting in line. They're no longer talking to each other, they are looking at their phone. What do you make of things like TikTok and all of the addiction issues around cell phones.
Well, this is not a new phenomen of this. Every time you have a new technology, there's some baggage. Let's have the personal way that addicted you're also to the I think community will be too young because by age, everybody is too young. But uh, you think about it. Maybe something months ago people were complaining about people of the teg addicted to television. Seriously, Yeah, people have a lot of people. Somehow society of the danage get over that.
I think they're gonna get over the cell phone addiction as well. It's a problem, but uh, people are smart. You have to have comedy. People will work it out, and that's a benefits of cell phone.
Somebody definitely, Well they've certainly they've certainly made our lives more efficient, They've made a more interesting.
Uh.
People make a living off of their smartphones in so many different ways. Uh, Marty Cooper, author of Cutting the Cord The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity. Thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate Do you still do you still carry a phone?
At this point.
You're kidding, of course, committing this ton of the people of cell Phones Center, But I actually have the two cell phones that I and when I travel over to eight in one in the US, most things I'd like to play every different telephone in it. If you're a manufacturer and you come up with a new teacher that you always know, you could show one to Marty Cooper. I love it.
Marty Cooper, thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Again.
The book is Cutting the Cord the Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity, available on Amazon.
I mean, just so much history there.
I mean, I think of my short history of owning cell phones and smartphones and to be there making one of the first public calls. Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call on a cell phone or a landline. You're listening to rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech.
My name is rich DeMuro, hanging out with you talking technology and thanks to the magic of technology keeping an eye on my son's Little League game. How amazing is this the fact that we live in a world and a time where Little League games are streamed online. And when they told me this, I sat there and I said, who needs that? I mean, okay, grandparents, people watching from out of state, whatever. But now I see why it's right here in front of me and it's live. That's
pretty incredible. So got to love this stuff, you really do. Phone lines are open at triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four.
One zero one. Glenn is in Las Vegas. Glenn, You're on with Rich Hi.
Rich.
When my wife is on the phone call in their home office.
If I start up or car, it grabs the cell signal and it won't let go until I'm like, you know, out of range. Yeah, it's a way to decrease the range from thirty feet to ten feet, or to be able to signal blocker or something not that I know of.
This is a problem in my house as well. It's really a problem because when my wife starts, well, when she starts my car and she's in it, somehow it's grabbing my phone inside and so all the settings are for me and not her, and so this is a pain and I really don't have an answer. I think now there are some provisions inside the car to have
what's called a priority device. In certain cars, you may be able to look for that in the Bluetooth settings, but that doesn't really help because it doesn't go by proximity. It just goes by If it sees both devices at the same time, it'll choose the one that it says is priority.
But I don't really have an answer for you.
And this is kind of a going to be a bigger and bigger issue, I think for a lot of people because of these phones.
So how do you get around it?
Now?
What do you do?
We haven't figured it out, and that's why I'm calling you. I was hoping that somebody would have a Bluetooth signal blocker that wouldn't screw up Wi Fi signals, but apparently they're similar enough that you screw up when you screwed up everything.
Yeah, I don't think that that and that kind of thing would. It'd be kind of tricky to implement too, because it's just so like where do you put it and how does that work? And you know, what's the provisions on it? But Glenn, I don't really have a good answer. Now, maybe by putting this on the show, someone will email in and say, here's what I do.
So I'll give my email address. It's hello at Rich on tech dot TV.
If you've figured out a way to keep your phone from connecting to your spouse's car, your partner's car, or you know whatever, let us know, because it is a Every time I get into my car, I don't know why it chooses the wrong phone, Like it's just the it plays like the opposite game, Like if I'm getting in it's it's like, oh, let me pick Rich's wife's car or a wife's phone in the house. And also the phone is in the house, it's so far away, like why is it choosing that over the phone that's
right next to it. So maybe the next level, Glenn, will be a proximity sensor in these cars to say, hey, we're measuring this bluetooth phone to be a foot away. Well, that one's thirty feet let's let's connect to the one that's a foot away. That would make more sense to me, right.
Well, yeah, although if if I'm not on my phone, it'll still grab then the only the only signal that's coming through.
I guess, yeah, I mean the only. Yeah.
I think you got to warn your wife when you go to start the car and say, hey, turn off the Bluetooth on your phone.
I'm going to start the car. But that doesn't sound like a very good solution to me.
Yeah, I mean turning it off and back on again is not a two second affair. No, especially when she's in the middle of a phone call.
No, that's definitely a pain. Well, if I find anything, I will mention it on the show. But that's a great question and hopefully we get some answers. The other problem I have is, for some reason, the cellular signal right in front of my house. It's got the Wi Fi and the cellular compete, and so I can't get anything to happen on my car until I drive down the street and it finally unlocks from my Wi Fi signal and gets on the cellular signal. I mean, it's
a whole big thing with these cars. I'm telling you, we love this stuff, but yeah, it's tricky sometimes. All right, let's go to Nancy and Santa Monica. Nancy, you're on with Rich.
Well, Hi, Rich.
My question is about Wi Fi for your home. We have a three node links system and it's performing pretty well. But when we went through some technical issues a short time back, it was suggested to me that we get an another node which would become the main node and with links as they call it, the parent you know, versus the other nodes or the child nodes, Except that as I look at the parent node that they're suggesting, it indicates that it has a range of twenty seven
one hundred square feet. Yeah, they say that, but the one I have says it will do six thousand square feet and it is doing the coverage that we need. I guess I'm wondering if I change out to this new node, which supposedly has better security and performance, but it's only twenty seven hundred in terms of its range, is it going to override the sixty six hundred that or the six thousand that I already have, or will will that stay?
Well?
Okay, so first off, what system do you have? You have a link SYS.
What's it's I'm not sure how you say that? Velop the LP and so AC sixty six.
Hundred and so why do you need the new one? What's what's not working?
Well?
It they think that I that I need more security, and I guess I'm not sure that that's really true. I mean, I'm not having anyone you know who.
Thinks that you need more security links this? I mean, are they do they call you to tell you this?
How do you know?
Well?
It was it was through the troubleshooting that we did with a problem that we had a couple months back working well, the system just like crashed.
It crashed, yeah, but but we.
Were able to bring it all back. But you have to go through this process of bringing up the parent node and then you have to bring all the child nodes next to the parent and okay, and you know, go through the of getting them all.
Okay, So the coverage, the coverage that they're talking about is six thousand square feet combined for this entire system.
I don't think it's one node that's giving you six thousand. So that's number one, okay, Okay.
Number two? Is this system old? Is it not supported anymore? It looks like it was first available in twenty nineteen, So are they is this kind of like out of like they're not really supporting it much anymore?
Is that what I'm well, we were able to get support for it in terms of, you know, help in restarting it, and they're not telling us that we have to throw away the nose that are part.
Of what this is.
It's just that they seem to think that, you know, we'd have better security and better performance, okay with adding this extra Okay.
So here's my thoughts on this.
Number One, if things are working the way you need them to and your software is up to date, then I think you're fine. I don't think you need to change any thing. I think what they're talking about is the nodes themselves are six thousand across, the three of them, and so if you're getting this new node and you're going to connect these two access points to it that you already have or three, you can you know, maybe use all three of them, right, You would just expand
your coverage that way. So if they work with the new system and you feel like you want to get that and you want to improve security and improve coverage and all that good stuff, and it's a newer system, than go with it. Otherwise, if what you have is working and your software is up to date, I think you're just fine.
So that would be my advice. Nancy, thanks so much for give me a call.
Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. Coming up, we'll talk about tap to pay and why some customers are saying their credit cards are being charged even through their bags.
You're listening to rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich On Tech. Phone lines are open at eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two for one zero one. Don is in my home state of New Jersey.
Don, you're on with rich Bitch.
Hollr you Bud.
I'm doing great.
I'm back in my backyard in Mammouth County, New Jersey, taking out grass in my pavers nice to fix the water the water problem with one of my sprinkler heads. And I'm listening and I have the answer for the gentleman that just called. I play tennis in the morning,
early birds they call it. And I'll use next DNS to take out some ads while I'm looking at threads and different things, so it's less ads to worry about, Okay, if I forget to turn off next dnx DNS, or you could use Google one if those that have a VPN any VPN that's left on will kill the connection. So if you put your phone on in your house with a VPN on it, it won't connect to your wife car or to your car while your wife using it. It blocks a signal.
Now that would be for Wi Fi, but not necessarily Bluetooth.
Right, definitely Wi Fi. But one of the problems that I get is the initial connection with Android auto starts with Bluetooth, I believe, and then then then connects to the VP or to the Wi Fi if.
You're if you're doing wireless, you mean maybe yeah, and I do a wireless connection with gongle, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I could see that's a good solution for the Wi Fi portion of it.
But the Bluetooth, I still think there's there's still an unknown uh an unknown there, so we still got to figure that out.
But well, you could do a routine in one of I have routines on my Samsung phone because I have a Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra. So if you did it when you connected to your car, because your car is one of your WiFi favorites, right, and then you could do a routine if it if it connects and but then again your inconvenience in yourself when you connect it like that.
Yeah, those routines are handy though. Those Uh I used to I used to use an app called Tasker.
Have you ever heard of that?
Oh yeah, yeah, a little advanced. So yeah, I tried it for a few things.
Way advanced.
So but I think I think Samsung did a really good job of making it very simple with the routines in Bixby, and then iPhone has something similar, like they call them shortcuts, but they're not really the same because I guess it's similar.
It'll kind of run like a thing that you want it to do.
It never really took off because I feel like the iPhone user is not as you know, they're not as into that they're the mainstream iPhone user, whereas Android users in the past. You know, they chose Android first and reason the fact that you can kind of tinker a little bit more.
You know, well, you can also mess with if this then that and make it make a recipe an experiment with that. So there's a couple of ways that he could try to mess with that.
Yeah, now you're getting real. That's that's yeah, I mean.
There's well, they're fun it's more or less like, if this happens, if this Bluetooth connected car connects at a certain time, maybe the wife leaves between six am and eight am, then deny connection from that time, and then from eight oh one on allow the connection to happen. So you can make it a time based trigger.
Yeah, that might work. I'm trying to think it.
He always goes to work at a certain time, that might work.
Sounds like she was working from home and he was leaving and then that was our Yeah. I don't Yeah, well, it sounds like there's definitely uh, there might be some options out there, but I think with the Bluetooth it does become a little tricky. I wish I wish there was a way for the car to sort of identify or the card to have more options about which one it connected to when, because that would that would really solve a lot of these problems.
What's the what's the weather like in Jersey right.
Now from me and Mammoth County. It's a little overcast, supposed to rain later And are you listening.
On a radio station out there or is it through the iHeart app?
This is this is Eyewitness weather. This is Don I'm looking up in this sky outside the awning over the patio back here with half without grass, half with grass.
Now I meant, how are you listening to the show? Is it streaming or through through?
iHeartRadio headset?
Awesome?
I have a.
Bluetooth headset. One quick question I was when you were talking about the the travel app? Was it a few a few shows ago where it was only on iPhone available?
Yes? For the Traveling Flighty?
Flighty would would an emulator? Would an would a would an iOS emulator work on an Android phone where you could fool the Android phone into being in an iPhone and use the app because it's only it's only iOS right now.
I have not tried that, but I would imagine if you had that event.
Might be a workaround if those that want to try it that don't have an iPhone, you aren't as cool as the people that use Android.
Yeah.
And I asked the developer, I said, you know, why aren't you coming out with Android? And he's just like, it's not a priority right now. But it is a great app. But honestly, I would I think there's a lot of I mean, look, Flighty is really nice. It's a great app. If you have iOS, but if you have Android, just use flight Aware. Also Google is pretty good about looking in your calendar and seeing when your
next flight is. So I get a lot of notifications on my Android just from having Google, and that's another good way. And then a ward wall is my absolute favorite. That gives me a lot of notifications as well. I mean, there's trip it, there's so many. Don all right, Don, thanks so much for calling today.
I appreciate it. Say hello to my family in Jersey.
Okay, all right, thank you, take care.
Let's see we've got an email question from Kathy. Kathy wrote in Hey, Rich, I love your show. I listen every Saturday. We're going to the island of Curasow in June. Reportedly, Spotify is available for streaming music while we are there.
Do I need a VPN to do it? If so, which one do you recommend? Kathy? Kathy, I don't think you need a VPN to stream Spotify. And also it depends number one.
When I travel, I don't, I don't stream, I download, So I if I were you, now you have to be a Spotify premium subscriber. You didn't say that in your email. If you're a Spotify premium or not. So if your premium, I would go ahead and just download the playlists that you want to listen to while you're on vacation, and I'm assuming that's going to be some Island style music.
That's what I would do.
If that's not you know, if that's not an option to you and you're streaming, I believe it would work without a VPN, but maybe for a limited amount of time because you're not, you know, a paying subscriber. But pretty much the way that these systems work. I remember back in the day, I had a problem when I went to Japan one time and I literally none of my music would work the entire week when I was there.
I mean, this was like it was devastating.
But things have gotten so kind of worldwide now that most things work pretty much everywhere you want to go. But the way I would do it is just download the music that you want before you go, and then that way you're able to listen to it while you're there. You can turn on your Wi Fi and see if you're able to stream once you're there, and that way you'll have your answer if you need a VPN. I would look into some of the things that you have. If you have Google one, they include a VPN. I've
got an article on the best VPNs. So the expert I talked to recommended a VPN. What was it called, like molvat, movad m U l l v A D also IPVN, surf Chark and tunnel Bear. We're also recommendations. So if you want to get one, you can do that, but I don't think you'll need it for this solution. The other thing to do, Kathy, is just ditch Spotify for the week and go with some of the local music. Turn on a radio station. This is what I do when I go to a place like Hawaii. Just listen
to the local stations. You get a little local, local flare in your life there. That's what I would do.
But do both.
You know you're gonna be on the plane. You're gonna watch your music there too, So download the Spotify playlists and there you go. Coming up, we're gonna talk about this idea of tap to pay. There's an there's an article that says some people are being charged for tap to pay even though they are not they're not using that card. Actually, I'll just tell you about this. Apparently I have enough time. This is an article out of
San Francisco KGO seven on your side. These people are saying that their tap to pay credit cards are being activated even though they're in their purse or pocket. Now, if you would have told me this two weeks ago, I would have not believed it. I would have said that doesn't happen. But I will tell you this has happened to me twice in the last two weeks where I took out my card.
I was at Trader Joe's the other day.
I literally just took my card out and put it just kind of in my hand, and all of a sudden, it beeped and it was done. Even the cashier at Trader Joe's was like, Wow, that was really far away. What do you have like a supercharged card? I said, no, I've never seen that happen before. And it happened again another time. So I don't know if I believe that these things are being activated. One viewer said, Matthews checked his bank accounts. Turned out the tap to pay card
reader at Safeway ignored the debit card in his hand. Instead, it reached into Matthew's back pocket, through his wallet and charged his bank of America credit card tucked inside.
Now that seems a little elaborate.
You're telling me this ore, This NFC chip radio frequency went through his wallet in his back pocket. I don't know if I believe that, but the reality is, yes, tap to pay. I think it works most of the time pretty well. And I don't think that this is happening in a big way to people.
But let me know.
Hello at richon Tech dot TV. Tell me if you've gotten a surprise charge because of this. Now, by the way, if you're using a debit card, it's going to ask for your debit card number or your PIN number. Most of the time, Visa says you have to be two inches from the reader. And if you want something that protects look for an RFID protection wallet. Silent pocket makes them silent pocket eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one.
You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Tamuro here talking technology with you. I'm the chech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Also, if you're sitting there saying wait a second, I've seen you on a different station. Yes, the segments do go out to a variety of TV stations all over the place. So I get emails from people saying, I saw you when I was on vacation in Hawaii, or I saw
you when I was in Saint Louis. Yeah, so you may see me in different places, but I am headquartered in Los Angeles. If you want to see my TV segments where I cover a variety of tech topics, just go to Rich on tech dot TV. Apple has a new high yield savings account. Now this is not a financial advice show, but I feel like this is It's like everything with Apple. They just continue to get into more areas. Apple got into the financial services area with
their credit card a couple of years back. People seem to love it it. I do not have one, But now they are doing a high yield savings account and this is kind of put some people on on. Uh what's the term I'm looking for. I don't know, but people are now noticing that, you know this is this is offering four point one five interest, which is pretty good. Apple says that's more than ten times the national average.
Now that's a little misleading, because, yeah, the national averages includes banks like Chase and Bank of America who don't really pay anything. But there's a lot of online banks that do pay a lot more than than the you know, one percent or whatever. So no fees, no minimum deposits, no minimum balance requirements. You can set it up on your iPhone.
You have to.
Here's the deal. You have to have an iPhone to get this savings account. You also have to have a credit card, the Apple credit card. They don't call it a credit card, they call it the Apple card. They don't want to put that dirty credit word in there, but yes, it's a credit card. Apple Card is a credit card. Once you do that, you can get your
daily cash reward. So if you use your Apple credit card to pay for stuff, you get a tiny bit of cash back, and you can now have that cash back deposited into this savings account so it will grow interest. Now I'm not a financial advice person, but I will just give you my thoughts on this. I'm not getting a savings account that a requires an iPhone to have
and b requires a credit card to have. Those are just two things that are not I just I'm not linking my account to having a certain type of phone or a certain type of credit card.
That's just not happening.
So with that said, if you want to get a high yield savings account like this, there are many other accounts that you can look up online that will give you similar interests that don't have all of these catches. According to MarketWatch, they say, CIT Bank gives you four point seventy five percent. BREAD Savings pays four point five upgrade, Premier Savings gives you four point five six uf B Premier Savings gives you four point eight one percent. CFG
bank is giving five point oh two percent. Wow, that's pretty good.
Now.
The thing about a lot of these high yield savings accounts is that they require a whole bunch of things. Okay, so with this CFG, to get that five point zero two you have to have an initial deposit of ten one thousand dollars and maintain ten I don't keep saying ten thousand, one thousand dollars or you're gonna get a
ten dollars monthly service fee. So I guess my bottom line is that if you're looking to get one of these accounts, to try to find one that does not have any sort of minimum and does not have any sort of fee, because you may say, oh, I've got the thousand bucks right now, I'll put that in there, and you know, life happens and things change and you may not have that thousand in there, and next thing you know, you're getting a ten dollars service fee, and
over ten months that's one hundred bucks, and there goes all of your interests that you're getting. So I love savings accounts. I love saving money, but I look, if you have an iPhone and you've got the Apple credit card, you know, fine, but it's it sounds really good, but there are some catches, even though Apple says and also, I mean this money that you're getting from the daily cash, I mean, come on, it's one, two or three percent.
How much are you transferring into this savings account because of that? I mean, if you're saving money based on spending money, that's a little little.
Kind of odd to me. But who what do I know.
I'm a tech person, not a financial person. Polestar four this is uh probably one of my favorite evs. Pollstar is owned by Volvo. I did a story on the Polestar.
Two.
Was it or the Polestar one? I can't remember at this point. Really really nice looking ev beautiful design. Now they've got the Polestar four, which is sort of a compact suv suv coop they call it. It's got no rear window. That's right, no rear window. Now there's not an open air part of this car. It is enclosed. But basically it's got the roof window which comes down and that's it. No traditional back window. And so Polestar says that they did this because they wanted to be unique.
It also, I guess makes the car more aerodynamic. And they said, why do we need a rearview window? Why do we need it when people are looking at their cameras all the time. And so the rear view mirror is actually a video feed of a roof mounted rear camera and it gives a nice big view. And so I've seen this before in cars where the rear view
mirror is a video feed. The difference is that you would flip a switch and it would become a traditional mirror, like on the Chevy Bolt one is a is a you know, a camera feed and then you flip the little you know, how you have that like light dark switch on the rear view mirror will instead of a light dark kind of thing night day kind of thing. It switches to the camera or to an actual mirror. So the uh Pollstar designers told Wired that it creates
a cocoon for the backseat passengers. I also like this feature. The rooftop glass is electrochromic, so which means it's kind of like those windows if you've ever been on one of the new planes. They don't have the shades anymore. The windows are electronic, and so you press a button to actually close the shade, and it's not a shade, it's just like electronic, almost like an LCD liquid display that just.
Goes into the window. Very cool stuff. All right, Coming up, we're going to talk to David Kaff of tech Talk.
He's going to tell us how to remove our personal information from the Internet. Very important stuff. If you want to give me a call, I got time for a little bit more. Triple eight rich one On one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. Welcome back to rich On Tech rich Demiro here talking technology with you. Have you ever done a Google search on yourself? Have you ever seen how much information is out there
on the Internet about you? This week Google emailed me and said that I've got this new feature called Dark Web monitoring, So it looks for my personal information on the dark Web and maybe on the web at large. And it's just eye opening. How much is out there. I mean, everything is out there, and it's it's pretty incredible.
Joining me now is David Coff. He writes a newsletter at www dot technology Talk dot net, and he wrote an interesting newsletter this week about getting personal information off the Internet and why you should do this.
David, thanks so much for joining me.
Thank you for having me pleasure to be here.
Okay, so let's talk about this PII. What does that stand for?
Personally identifiable information? This is a shorthand acronyms. Some technology folks love their acronyms. Just think of it as any private or personal information you wouldn't want strangers to know. This can be your phone numbers, your email addresses, your physical mailing addresses and more.
And this stuff is out there. How does it get on the Internet? And I'm just going to ask you if you can talk right into your phone, bes I'm having some trouble hearing you.
I've got my earbuds in. We'll speak a little bit louder out.
Of that perfect So tell me, how does this stuff get out there.
Over time, data brokers collect your information based on harvesting publicly available information about you. And if you think about all the things that you do. You own a cell phone, you make phone calls, you have credit cards, you make purchases, you register to vote, you sign up for local, state, and federal elections. That information, in many cases.
Is publicly available.
What is int publicly available can be purchased from a variety of what I like to call feeder companies, so social media technology companies. You go online, you're leaving a digital trail. This information gets collected and harvested by companies known as data brokers, and then they sell that information
and boy is it accurate. So over time, both public and private databases get collected, and a doctu about each and every one of us gets formed with an awful lot of information, including our credit histories in many examples.
Now that's just the legitimate sources where these companies are going out and finding this stuff and putting it together. And if you know, you can just do a search like for a people finder, and there's all kinds of websites that pop up. But then there's also the stuff like I was just talking about like where it gets leaked online, like where there's a some sort of data breach and that information finds its way onto the internet
as well. So let's talk about some of these ways you went down sort of this kind of trail of figuring out how to get this stuff off the internet. What's your number one kind of DIY solution?
First off, So there are people who have taken an extremely detailed approach to this, and you can, and I have a list of instructions on my website.
You can go through contact twenty to thirty largest data brokers on your own. You can make a written request. You can point to the link on their website that has your information, let them know that they do not have your permission to do it, and you read need to give them anywhere from seven to twenty eight days to scrub your data. They may ask for additional information about you, an ID or something to prove that you are who you are. But you can totally do this
on your own. There are other ways of doing it though, for those that don't have the approximately fifteen to thirty hours of time that you're going to want to invest in doing this.
Now, I did this myself so I went through and I did it for maybe the top five companies or so, and it is. It does work. It does take time, but you do have to find someone with instructions online. I believe I use the website that you talked about. I think it's like delete me or is it just delete me?
Yeah, So there are for a small fee. There are certain companies to those who don't want to do it on your own, and I want to emphasize to your listeners you can totally do this for free on your own. You're just investing your time. For those that wish to invest somewhere between five and six dollars a month. There
are two companies that I personally use. The first, which I prefer as a company called delete me and you will with delete me, and the second top choice that I use, which is called Incogniti, which is short for incognito. You're going to let these folks know who you are. You're going to need to provide them with your name, your phone number, your addresses, your previous residences, any previous emails and phone numbers that may be a red flag
for some of your listeners. I want to make this clear because it's important that data is already publicly available. It's available on any one of your credit reports. So it's to your best interest if you're hiring a company to help you scrub your data, be upfront with them about any of your personal information currently and in the past. That will enable them to go and target you and scrub you from every major and minor data broker and public databases.
Now, what's this app from Consumer Reports? I was not aware of this app that you mentioned in your newsletter at Technology Talk dot net episode eighty seven.
By the way, what is this app? It's called let's see where is it called Permission Slips? Okay, so what does that do?
So for the record, I.
Hadn't been aware of it either. One of my readers on my newsletter wrote to me and said, hey, are you familiar with this? It's from the great Consumer Reports? And most people know Consumer Reports is they've been around for decades testing on behalf of consumers so that you know which products are better than others. Well, they've created this free application for iOS and Android. It's called Permission Slip, and they do something that I would recommend that everyone
do in addition to scrubbing their own data. They specifically scrub data from commercial websites. So, for example, I had a subscription to the Los Angeles Times, I had a purchase history and account with Guitar Center. When looking for jobs, I had an account on a website called.
Zip Recruiter, on and on and on.
And what permission slip does is instead of targeting public and private databases, it works with different companies that may have your information and basically does the same thing. Invites those people to know you don't want them to have their information, and they will help be the middleman to scrub your data from all of these commercial websites. And there are somewhere between thirty and seventy websites that permission slip I will help you scrub your data from.
Very cool. So what did you learn in all this? Do you feel like you got to a good place with your personal data online or what?
Yeah?
I learned two things that's I think a good question. The first is anyone can do this and should. The second thing, which I think is worth sharing and maybe a little bit scary, is that this is something that needs to be done fairly regularly. And you were just saying there any number of data breaches websites get hacked, companies get hacked, credit unions get hacked. So when Equifax got hacked, hundreds of millions of Americans, so the personal
data leaked under the dark web. This is something that you should be doing regularly, whether you do it yourself or whether you pay someone else to do it. Really is something that should become a monthly or at the very least a yearly part of what I like to call your digital.
Hygieneugh monthly or yearly. I was lucky to do it once speak.
It is a lot of work, but it does feel good when you start doing those Google searches and you are able to remove some of that personal data. Google also has a service in itself that lets you remove some of your personal data as well. I've talked about that in the past. I'll put a link to that on my website. David, thanks so much for joining me today. I'm gonna put a link to technology Talk dot net on my website at richon Tech dot tv coming up.
I can't believe it's the end of the show.
The feedback segment quickly becoming your favorite segment.
You're listening to Rich on tech.
That'll wake you up. Rich Demiro here rich On Tech, welcome back to the show. I was gonna give out the phone number, but this is the feedback time it is I'm getting. Feedback is quickly becoming a big part of the show because clearly you're listening.
So I like that.
Let me do one more story real quick. Two things I wanted to mention before I get to the feedback. First off, if you have a HomePod or a HomePod, Mini sound recognition is now available. So this is a feature that Apple promised a couple months back. But now the HomePod can listen for smoke or carbon monoxide alarms in your home. So if it here's those sounds, it will send a notification to your iPhone, your iPad, or your Apple Watch. And basically it's kind of just listening
for these things. And then on iPhone and iPad you'll have the option to check in and hear what's happening. And this is really important. My wife and I one time we flew to New Jersey and there was a fire alarm that happened in our home and it was a mess because it called the alarm system, called the
fire department. They arrived on scene, and I felt so helpless because I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't have cameras in my home at the time, so I had no way of knowing what was happening. I had my friend, how how old school is this? I had a friend drive over to my house and look and see what's happening. And he said, the fire department was just about to break the back door to get in, and he said, hold on, you know, it's like I've got Rich on the line. And anyway, it
turned out to be a false alarm. But and I installved cameras to see so I can check in anyway. I tell you all that because you know, to be able to listen in to see what's going or to hear what's happening, that's good. But also if you have a homek camera in your home, the video feed will be included in the notification, so you can see what's happening. Something you don't want to think about, but you know, definitely see what's happening inside your house. So that is available.
The audio analysis happens on device and if you check in, it's and encrypted. Apple says, so if you've got a homepot or a HomePod Mini set, up sound recognition inside the home app.
So, so something that is just kind of an extra perk.
All right, if you got an Android phone Samsung, specifically, check out this app called pixel Search.
I found this this week.
I can't remember how I found it, but someone mentioned it and I installed it on the Samsung and I love it. Not a huge fan of Samsung's Finder, but pixel Search will basically kind of transform the search on your Samsung phone into something that's more pixely, so you can search through your apps, your contacts, web suggestions, and files. It's really clean, it looks really great, and I love it. So the only thing I wish I could do is get it to work when you swipe up on the
Samsung Home screen. That would be awesome. That would really make it more into a pixel. So again, the app is called pixel Search. It's on Google Play. I believe it's free to freemium. But check it out pixel Search if you want something that's closer to the pixel on your Samsung.
All right.
Dominic writes in about Netflix ending DVD mail service. Hey, I'm hearing all the news about Netflix ending DVD service in the US. In the mail, the US Postal Service will lose business from Netflix as I work in the processing facility in San Diego and I see these DVDs coming through. Talk about how much business the postal service will lose, and if Netflix will put those DVDs that come in the mail on their clouds so people can stream them. That is why people get them in the mail,
because they cannot be streamed. Thanks man for your work. Yeah, Dominic, you know, I work in the news and the video we showed for so many years was always, always, always, whenever we did a DVD Netflix story was always all of the DVDs that were being sorted in the post office and there was just thousands of them inside those you know, those bucket whatever those things are, those mail sorder kind of bins. But yeah, it's gonna have an impact. It's gonna be a lot less less DVD's going through
the mail. Of course, a lot of business lost, as well, a lot of money that Netflix paid to the post service Postal service for this end of an error.
For that's for sure.
And yes, that's what people liked is that you can get anything on DVD that wasn't available necessarily on streaming a lot of stuff's on streaming of course it may cost you. That's the other big difference is that, yeah, you might be able to get on streaming, but for some of these obscure titles you have to pay. Steven palm Spring says, love, love, love you taking over for Leo on the talks on the Tech Show. I listen every week and you're doing a great job. Thank you Steve.
By the way, Leo still does his shows on his own network. So I just took over the radio portion. I emailed you several weeks ago and expressed how pleased I was with the new format of the show. You're covering tech, computer and mobile, which is relevant for all of us. You throw in stories about evs again great. You tell personal stories like saving the guy in Hawaii, which are interesting and to the point. Keep doing what you're doing and most of us will be happy. Keep up the great work.
Now my question.
You indicated the show notes would be posted online. Oh, I knew you're gonna okay, So the nice comes with you know a you know, not so nice. I go to Rich on tech dot TV and it appears to me you're not They're not current, nor do they contain everything you spoke of on the show. Am I looking in the wrong place? Thanks rich for doing an awesome job. I'll admit it's me doing the notes, and sometimes they're thorough,
sometimes they're not. I'm doing a better job. The best place this is put out as a podcast after it's on the show, and it's it's on podpage, dot com, slash rich on tech so I usually put that link on the rich on tech dot tv. It's a lot of different links, but hopefully rich on tech dot tv should be the clearinghouse for that. There is a little icon if you go to rich on tech dot tv, there's a bunch of icons. Look for the one that
looks like a podcast. That's the one to click, and that will bring you to the show, which will bring you to the show notes. Vince writes, how do you stop ways from running after the car is turned off? I've got a twenty twenty one Nissan Rogue with wireless Apple car Play. I use Ways on an iPhone running the latest iOS update. My problem is Ways keeps running on my phone even after I turn off and exit the car after arriving at my destination. Is there a
way to stop it from running in the background. I'm concerned about the impact on my battery drain. I would force clothes, but often I forget and it just keeps running in the background. Yeah, this is definitely an issue with Ways, but this is how Ways works.
Ways.
The whole thing is crowdsourced, and so they're collecting data off of your phone to help other Ways users, and so there is a way to stop Ways. And yes, this has happened to me, Dominic or Vince so many times where I get to my destination, my phone is in my pocket and all of a sudden, Ways starts spouting out some directions or something or some sort of
like turn left at the next street. I'm like, wait, what So Ways is pretty much always running on your phone in the background unless you tell it not to. And the only way I know of to tell it not to is by going into the Ways app and then you tap my Ways and then there's a little power button. You press that power button, it goes into sleep mode. It says Ways is currently inactive, you are not using battery, contributing data, or earning points, and then
you have to tap wake up. But otherwise, as far as I know, it's pretty much always running. I don't know how much on the iPhone. It's allowed to do in the background all the time, so it may end up stopping by itself at some point. But that's the best way I know of manually doing it, unless you just kind of force clothes. Like you said, not a perfect system, but that's how they kind of work. Let's see. Michael in Kentucky says, Hey, Rich, I love the show.
Each week I listen to the podcast. I just want a chime in about your segment on juice jacking plugging into USB in the mall or airports. There was a show spin off from CSI called Cyber. There was an episode that featured someone stealing information and cloning phones when someone plugged into a place for a quick charge. The hackers used a router and portable hard drive to upload
malware and download data from the phones. At the time this show was out, phones were not as secure as they are now, but I'm sure it could happen today. Thanks and keep up the great job. I'm still tech support for my friends and family. Yes, I think phones are more secure now than they were. And finally, Sally says, thanks Rich for the heads up on the drop cam slash Google update. FYI, they only provide you with two
replacement cams. I had four drop cams, but now I'm listening to your show, I have two replacement cameras.
I love the show. Rich.
Thank you, sal Well, that's going to do it. I'm Rich Damiro. Thanks so much for listening to the show. So many ways you can spend your time. I really do appreciate you spending it here with me every week. I love the emails. I am just flooded with them every week. You have no idea. Like I thought doing a radio show would mean less emails because people would say, oh, Rich is you know he's doing the show, so I can just call him. But no, you're emailing me, which
is great. Hello at richontech dot TV is Reagan. Find me on email at rich on tech is Reagan find me everywhere else. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks Kim for the phones, Thanks Bobo for the board. I'll see you next week.
Take care,