I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show, Show number twenty four. Phone lines are now open at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. Give me a call. If you have a question about technology, email is also open. Send it to Hello at richontech dot TV. Welcome to the show. Lots to talk about. Back from the weekend at the ranch,
back at the studio. The sun is actually shining in Los Angeles for a change, which I know sounds odd, but Los Angeles has had the oddest six months of whether I can remember ever in the time I've been here, except for El Nino, that was also odd. That was just a lot of rain, but this was like, for the past six months, we've just had over cast skies, which I know not that big of a deal, but
it kind of is. In Los Angeles, a city that promises endless sunshine, so we are finally breaking out of that and getting some sun, so I imagine more people will be outside. But anyway, why do I tell you that, I don't really know. It's just because it puts everyone in a good mood. I think it's just nice to have that sun shining. It feels like there's a there's a promise in this world, the promise of a better future, a sunny day ahead. Well I got snagged. Can you
believe it? It happened to me. I was talking about it on this very show, and the very thing I talked about happened to me. I will tell you, I got snagged by this whole Netflix password sharing crackdown. It happened to me, rich on Tech. Here's what happened. After I came back from the Apple event. I was all hyped up about the whole vision Pro, their virtual reality headset,
augmented reality headset, whatever you want to call it. And so I said, you know what, let me charge up the old oculus again and see how that thing does. And so I charged it up, and I was like, let me let me just see kind of some of the apps that I might use on this thing. And so Netflix was the first app that I opened on it. And so I had to sign in on Netflix, which was impossible with the headset because they want you to Number one, it said scan a QR code to log in.
I was like, how can you scan a QR code? That's inside a headset like that makes no sense. So clearly they've sort of optimized the app for the oculus, but not really enough. And then it was like, okay, we'll enter this code into your phone. Okay, I'll enter the code.
Now.
The difference between the Oculus and the Apple Vision Pro is that you can't really see your surroundings. You kind of can with the Oculus, but not really Apple Vision Pro. I would have been able to just look at my phone and also look at the screen in front of me. That's not the case. So I had to take off the headset, remember the number, pop it in on my phone and I did that, which was fine. That linked my account and then I got a message, I have it right here. I printed it out just for you.
It says, this TV isn't part of your Netflix household. Create an account to enjoy your own Netflix today. And I said, hmm, well that's odd because I've been paying twenty dollars a month for Netflix for as long as I can remember, and yes I have a Netflix account, and yes this is part of my household. So what happened? It says, did we get it wrong? You have options? You can update your Netflix household or it says i'm traveling, you can press those buttons. Well, neither of those things.
I guess. The update the Netflix household was my first guess. So I said, all right, let me update my Netflix household, and then it all made sense. I got a text a couple of weeks ago that said your Netflix household has been set, and I was like, that's odd because I didn't set my Netflix household. Turns out, someone who had my password in my family set the household where they live, which is not where I live. And so I know, should you be sharing your password? Probably not?
Do one hundred million people do it? Yes, that's what Netflix said, forty three percent of its global user base shares their password. Well not anymore. So what I had to do was embark on a journey to try to reset my household to claim my Netflix account as mine, which I know sounds silly because I'm the one paying for it, But here I am proving to Netflix that it is my house that I want to watch this
thing on my own headset, in my own home. So it said you can only do this from a TV, and so I said, all right, well that's easy enough. I've got two TVs. Here with Netflix, so let me go. So I fired up the Netflix app on the Apple TV and it says to go into your account and click update Netflix Household, which I just couldn't do. That button was nowhere to be found on an Apple TV, and so it took me a while to realize that the Apple TV software is clearly different from the other
Netflix software anywhere else. I wasn't going to be able to use my Apple TV to update my household. Then I figured, okay, well, let's go to the fire TV because Android software is usually a bit more flexible, usually different than what Apple has out there. So let me see if the button appears on that device. So I go to the TV that has the fire stick, I fire up Netflix. I go into the settings where it says update your household, and sure enough, there's the button.
It says update Netflix household, and so I click the button and lo and behold, it says your household has been updated. I can now watch Netflix. I was able to log in on the headset, I was able to watch it on my Apple TV. I was able to watch it on this TV. But what happened all my password leechers around the US, my family members lost access immediately, and I told them. I texted them, I said, he heads up. I sent to our group chat. I said, heads up, the free ride is over. You have enjoyed
Netflix for many, many years for free. I didn't mind. It seemed like Netflix didn't really care. But now the free ride is over. Netflix is no longer free for you, And so I sent this. Nobody in my family said anything back, but I know a couple of them were affected. And sure enough, I am talking to a family member later, about two or three days later, and I said, family member that will remain unnamed. I said, ah, have you noticed that you don't have any access to Netflix anymore?
And they said, yeah, I did notice. Now I've got nothing to watch. I said, well, you know, I have been paying your bill for like, you know, five years now, And they said, you know what. I was talking to a friend about this because the same thing happened to them. Their son was paying for their Netflix bill and their free ride is over. So clearly this crackdown is working. In fact, I have some numbers here from Antenna. This
is a company I guess that monitors this stuff. Netflix had the four single biggest days of US sign ups in the four and a half years since this Antenna company has tracked data on May twenty sixth and May twenty seven this was right in the wake of Netflix's big crackdown. There are almost one hundred thousand sign ups
every day. During each of the four days, the company saw an average of seventy three thousand new memberships, according to Antenna, So clearly my little password crackdown story was resonating around the US as everyone sort of realized, oh, this, this little game is over. We can no longer share our Netflix accounts. Now. I'm not saying this was right or this was a good thing to do, but the reality was Netflix looked a different way for many, many years.
And there's a lot of questions about this. While people are emailing me, I have an RV, how's it going to work with that? I have a you know, a kid in college, How's it going to work with that. Netflix has a whole bunch of ways of figuring out where these sort of households are. It says we use information such as IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity to deter whether a device is signed into your account
as part of your Netflix household. We do not use GPS data to try to determine the precise physical location of your devices. So basically, if you're traveling, if you've got a kid at college, these are all probably use cases where it's going to be fine, because the idea is that kid from college will bring their laptop back to home every once in a while, and maybe you have to make a case for the TV there. I'm not sure, but the reality is to bring this all home.
The family member I was talking to said, I said, you know what, it's time for you to get your own account, and they said, actually, it's a little bit cheaper if you continue to pay, but it's eight bucks a month, and you can pay for an extra person and I will pay you back. I said, all right, I guess we can try to do that. So, I mean a Netflix account is about sixteen bucks a month for the standard one, and so eight is half of that.
So I guess their reasoning's pretty good. Anyway, if you're having those issues with a family member, you do know that you can give them their own account. They can transfer their profile, or you can just sign up for an extra account on your account and pay the extra eight bucks. I don't know how I'm gonna ask my family member pay me eight bucks a month. I mean, come on, that's kind of kind of gonna be tough. All right. We got a great show coming up today,
lots going on, a couple of great guests. Dan Seaffer of The Verge is going to join me with his review of the Amazon Fire Max eleven tablet. We've got food writer Jason Horn. We went to an event were we a lab grown muzzarella cheese. Yeah, kind of interesting, So we'll talk about that and why they're doing that. Then later in the show, we're gonna talk diabetes technology. So we've got Justin Easter, founder and host of Diabetes I gotta say this right, diabet tech, diabet tech. He
did a nice play on the words with that. But first your questions coming up. Give me a call at Triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four one zero one. I see the lines are already lit up, so we'll take some of your calls right after this. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven
four to two four to one zero one. You got a question, you got a comment, Hop on the phone, give me a call. I'm all yours. I didn't think i'd say that on this show, but you know what, sometimes you just do. It just happens. I'm trying to get a special guest on the show today too, so we'll work on that for a moment. They're getting a little shy, but we'll see if we can get them on. Let's go to Peter in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Peter, you're on with Rich.
I can't be the special guest.
Well you're special, but there's there's other special guests.
Okay. As I told you on the screener, I'm having an issue with my phone. Basically it's a smartphone that's been with a brick.
Now, like literally basically I can't well not literally, but I think it's I've gone through some issues with you know, the settings were maybe wrong, and then the text thing wouldn't work at all in certain days, and I discovered if you shut it off, let it sit for a couple of hours, it would be fine.
And uh so, bottom line is right now I can send a text and get a text, but it doesn't keep a record of my what I said, I can make a phone call and get a phone call. Nothing else works. It's basically becoming a pretty brick.
So I'm thinking about a new phone, and I'm trying to avoid you know, different people. Uh, the person who took olf R on Sunday, Leo. I talked to him and basically at one point we got to a point where it's like, well, there's something to be said for a new a phone. Meaning what I here from people around me in this area is no samuel an update to help your phone. But because your phone is a little bit older, guess what, it screws up your phone. So you're supposed to run out.
No, no, no, we don't need you don't need a new phone necessarily. What kind of phone are we talking about here.
We're talking about a Samsung S.
Ten Okay, so that is definitely an older phone, the Samsung S ten E. Let's see when that came out, Samsung S ten E, the S ten that was in twenty nineteen. Okay, so we're talking four years old? Is this? So here's what I'd recommend. So nothing's working with the Is this this is not a five G phone? Is it? Is it a four G. Still it's a four okay, So that could be part of the issue is that a lot of these networks have moved to five G, but four G still works.
Correct.
What I think you should do and have you tried this? Have you tried a factory reset to sort of start fresh on this phone?
I have not.
But right now, like even like say apps that you have on the phone, you if you say, okay, you know updates. Even when I go to say my brother's house, which will automatically hop onto the internet, you know, the Wi Fi, it won't do anything.
Okay. So I think I think there's a couple of things you should do here. So first off, before you do anything, have you tried a network settings reset?
Are you talking the APM?
Nope? Network settings? There's a there's a reset of the phone. So if you go into the reset menu on your phone, So if you go into settings and search reset, there's a an option in there that says reset all settings, reset network settings, reset accessibility settings. What I would first try to do is reset the network settings. What that's going to do is that is going to clear out all of your settings for your cellular, for your WiFi, for your Bluetooth, and then when your phone and then
restart your phone. Obviously, when you restart your phone, all of those things are going to try to reconnect, and so you're gonna have to reconnect to Wi Fi. It's going to find the cellular network. It's going to download those APMs that you talked about that you know, most people never really have to deal with on their phone because those are set automatically, and it's going to reset
the Bluetooth settings. Now, if your phone still isn't working, if you still can't send and receive data all that stuff through Wi Fi, then there's another option that says reset all settings, and so now you can go through and that will reset your security settings, your language, your accounts, all your personal data, all of your settings for your downloaded apps. It's kind of like the last thing you
can do before you actually do a factory reset. Now, if that doesn't work, if you get your phone to work after that, that's great. So what I'd immediately do is do a system update. And I'm looking at the latest Verizon update for this phone was in March, So depending on the carrier that you have, it seems like this phone is still getting a couple of security updates, which is pretty good for a four year old phone. That's kind of like the breakoff point. The cutoff point
for phones nowadays is about four years. So if all that doesn't work, and you can update your apps and you can update your software, because I definitely do a software update after that, and by doing that, you go into your settings again and you go into let's see whereas that settings it says software update, You download and install that, make sure you got that working. And then if you can't get any of that to work, you gotta do the final nuclear option, which is the factory reset.
And so if you do a factory reset and that will reset everything. This will bring your phone back to the exact conditions that it was when you got it, from the first day you had it, and it will start fresh. You're gonna have to reinstall everything. You're gonna have to sign into Google and all these different accounts that you have in there, so make sure things are backed up before you do that. But if your phone doesn't work after that, then it is time for a
new phone. So those are all the steps I would take personally, But you can use this phone, I think for another year. So if you get all those things to work, unless there is a physical problem with the hardware on this phone, then you should still be able to use it, so it should still be supported at this point. All right, great question, Pete. Thanks so much. And uh, I know everyone likes to just say get
a new phone, get a new phone. We live in the culture here in America just throw it out, toss it away, get a new one when things go wrong. You don't necessarily need to do that. These things are built much much better these days, and they last much longer, and sometimes it's really just a software issue. Thanks for the call, all right, Hop on the line, triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up next, we've got
Dan Seffert, deputy editor at The Verge. He is going to join us to have of his review of the Amazon Fire Max eleven tablet. You are listening to Rich on Tech. Joining me now is Dan Seffert, deputy editor at The Verge. He recently reviewed the Amazon Fire Max eleven tablet. This is Amazon's latest tablet. I've got one right here so we can compare notes. Dan, Let's get straight to the review. Thanks for joining me today. I
do appreciate it fire Max eleven. This on paper had a lot of promise for me, but your headline kind of says it all not the productivity tablet you're looking for, So kind of give me the kind of your synopsis of your review of this thing.
Yeah, So, I mean I would agree with you in that it held a lot of promise on paper. This is like Amazon's brand new tablet. It's got their fastest processor they'd ever put in a tablet. It's the nicest hardware they've used on a tablet in a long time. So it's like markedly better looking than the lower tier Amazon tablets that we're familiar with. But once you get like past those first looks and you start using it, you realize that it is effectively the exact same experience.
And the problem that I've had with Amazon tablets for a long time, especially ones that are kind of trying to market as beyond just basic media consumption but for productivity and stuff like that Amazon's selling this as a bundle with the keyboard and the stylists and things like that, is that Amazon doesn't build any of the software that's necessary to make all use of all of that, so it's very hard to like kind of actually get work done on this when you don't have the apps or
services that you might be looking for or accustomed to.
Yeah, so you might save half the price of buying an iPad is similarly equipped. But then all of a sudden, you get this thing and you're like, wait a second, I okay, So Office is installed on this thing as a ninety day free trial Microsoft three sixty five. But it's one of those things where it's just it doesn't feel like a tablet where you're meant to do work
on it. It feels like a tablet where you're meant to watch movies, read books, and basically try not to do much else because it's just it's a very frustrating operating system. Let's put it that way.
Yeah.
Yeah, And you can see that right from the home screen, right like when you. Amazon's had the same basic homescreen on its tablet for I don't know how many years now, but it's effectively just kind of like showing you things to watch, things to read, and things to buy from Amazon.
It's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. I'll just say it. Here's the thing with this tablet if they had a nice clean version of Android installed on this tablet, it would be incredible. And if you can install the apps that you want. The first thing I did was try to install Chrome. Guess what you can't. I mean, you could probably sideload it somehow, But the average person that's buying this tablet is not trying to sideload this thing.
I don't think, right exactly, Yeah, I agree with either.
So, I mean the apps, and so Amazon has their own app store, They've got their own software, and it's all geared towards selling you or helping you watch Prime Video, any Amazon product. So why are they so protective of this? Like why couldn't they just make this better and still sell a lot of them?
So I think it's a multi pronged problem for Amazon. One, I think their business model just kind of leads them to this type of product, because their business model is really not making money on the hardware that they're selling you. It's making money on the books that you're buying. And like you mentioned, the Prime subscription that you pay for to get Prime Video or the other thing that is all over the home screen is literal products that it thinks you want to buy from Amazon, so like their
business model kind of drives them towards that experience. The other thing is they don't have what we call Google services on this tablet. So, like you mentioned, you can't download Chrome, there's no Gmail, there's Google Maps. If you've got an Android phone, you're used to all of those apps and services on the phone, and then you go
to this tablet and it's like none of them are available. Basically, the only thing that's available is as you mentioned, Microsoft Office Fee and very scattered, few random apps that you've probably never heard of in Amazon's pretty small, anemic app store. So to fix that, they would have to partner with Google, which they haven't seem to want to do in the ten or twelve years that they've been making fire tablets, and or they would have to really court developers to
get their apps into Amazon's app store. And either developers just don't want to do it because they don't see the return on their investment, or Amazon just hasn't put the effort in to making it worthwhile for those developers.
I mean, it's so frustrating that even YouTube is not available as a native app on this device, which is available on pretty much any device around the world that you get that.
Has, you know, the list of apps that you can't get on an Amazon Fire tablet, it's much longer than the list of that you can get.
Okay, Now for the positive side of this thing, So I had my kids try rollblocks on it. They said it was fine. I had them try Minecraft, as seemed to be fast Zoom. We did a zoom call and the camera actually was better than my kid's camera on his MacBook. Has got a sixteen inch MacBook. So those things were fine and Zoom ran just fine. But who is this best for? Because I feel like people buy these tablets and they return them a lot.
Yeah, it's hard for me to pin down who this is exactly best for.
Like, it is.
Better than Amazon's prior tablets in that you know, it's got a faster process or better performance. Amazon's tablets kind of have a deserved reuse reputation for being slow and
pokey and stuff like that because they're so cheap. But my kind of perspective on that is, if all you're doing is getting into a video streaming app, which is like say you're just watching something from Max or Pair unt Plus or Amazon Prime or whatever, you don't really need the fastest tablet in the world, and the experience between this and the I believe it's like eighty dollars cheaper Fire ten is not that much different for that perhaps if it's you know, a kid that has games.
Amazon does have a really the one piece of software that they do actually pretty well is their Kids Mode. So it's very easy for parents to kind of say, setting this up for a child age to say, seven to ten, and I want them to access this, this and this, but not this, this and this, and then just hand it off to them and they get like a very curated experience, which is still a lot harder to do with an iPad. It's not as easy to do on other Android tablets. Amazon really does that experience
really well. But are you going to buy the top end version of Amazon's tablet and hand it to a kid and stuff like that? I find that hard to believe. So I'm not really sure who this is for. I assume at some point Amazon's going to put it on sale, like it does with all of its products, and then it will be maybe more of a compelling purchase at like kind of just a nicer version of its existing
tennis tablets. But I don't think it's for anybody who thinks that, oh, I'm going to buy a tablet to knock out some email and compose documents and get collaborate with my colleagues and work and stuff instead of using my laptop. That's just really not what this device provides.
Yeah, and I'm looking at the product listing page. It's two hundred and thirty dollars. Looks like it's available now. It does say on there we want you to know the fire tablet does not does come with lock screen ads. So that's another kind of punch in the gun there, because if you want if you want this without the ads, you got to pay even more. And then it says Google Play is not supported on Amazon fire Tablets, which I think would probably be confusing to a lot of people.
They'd be like, what does that mean?
You know?
And then the other thing is that I do like is the expandable memory is kind of nice, so you can put in a one up to a one terabyte card, which you know, maybe you need that, maybe a don't. How did you find the battery life to be?
You know, I really didn't have a problem with the battery life, and I think that part of that is because I just ended up in a lot of scenarios where I couldn't get what I needed to get done on it, so I had to move to a different device. But even for like basic video streaming and stuff like that, like I could. I think with most tablets these days, whether they're an iPad or a fire tablet or a sam flung tablet, I really don't worry too much about
the battery life. They last, yeah, in twelve hours, and like you know you're going to use it all day and then or you know it'll last across country flight, which is the longest that most people use these at a stretch. So the battery life I don't think is a problem at all. And even the performance wasn't that bad. It's not as fast or snappy as Apple's iPads, but I didn't have any problems where like I was sitting there waiting for things to load, or it wouldn't respond to my inputs or.
Anything like that.
And the screen the first thing I noticed when I took it out of the box. I was expecting a nice screen, and the screen looks like it's from five six years ago. It's just it's not that clear, it's not that bright. And I hate to knock this thing because I really want to like this and be able to recommend this to people because it's a nice, simple tablet. But I just feel like the software just really hampers this.
And unless you are literally just watching you know, videos, or maybe just playing roadblocks or maybe just you know, kind of doing that, there's really not much more you can do on the thing. Like even surfing the web is not fun because you're kind of tied to bing and like all these different things that they try to trick you on, and it's just it's not a very good experience, let's put it that way.
Yeah, I would love for Amazon to kind of go back to the drawing board and revisit its software experience and really, like, you know, the hardware is the hardware, and for two hundred and thirty bucks, I don't really have a lot to complain about the hardware, but the software just kind of ruins the whole experience for me.
Someone needs to come up with a one click install of like clean Android software for this device, and it would be amazing. All right, Dancy if we're going to leave it there. Deputy editor at the Verge. Where can folks find you these days? Online?
You can find me at the Verge.
It's probably the best place to look. You can also find me on Master Darn if you happen to use that. I don't find myself using Twittered very much anymore these days, but you can definitely find all of my work and a lot of my thoughts and usings on the Verge.
Awesome, Dan Seffert from the Verge, thank you so much for joining me today. Coming up, I'm going to tell you about this email that you probably got an update to album archive, Google killing another product. I'll explain what that's all about, plus more of your calls at Triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You are listening to Rich on tech. Let's go to Brian and Westport, Washington. Brian, you're on with Rich. Thanks for calling out today.
Sure, hopefully it will be a fun question for you. Can tech executives themselves be replaced by artificial intelligence? You got your ears all the tech stuff. Is it possible? That's the reason why they're so concerned about AI is that they themselves can get replaced in their own jobs.
What do you think, ooh.
Good question. You know, I think that at this point, anyone is up for grabs, any job is up for grabs when it comes to AI. So we are just at the beginning of AI. We are just figuring out what it can do. The power of this technology. And there's been many, many studies. I'm looking at one here. You know, according to experts, tools like chat GBT have the potential to disrupt certain jobs, especially those in white
collar professions intermediate level skills and experience. Some jobs that are at risk include coders, computer programmers, software engineers, data analysts. AI can number, crunch and code faster than humans. Then you've got media jobs, advertising, content creation, technical writing, and also journalism could be affected because these things are so efficient at writing. Then you've got the legal industry. Jobs like paralegals and legal assistants could be impacted because AI
can handle these language and structured tasks. And then of course you have market research analysts, teachers, finance industry jobs, traders, graphic designers, accountants, and customer service agents all up for grabs when it comes to disruption by AI. Now here's the thing. Many experts believe that AI is going to be a productivity enhancing tool rather than just a complete replacement for human workers. But at the same time, you have to keep in mind that there will be some
fallout from this. Now I can tell you personally when I'm using AI for already on a daily basis, and it is kind of like the way I think about it. And we debate this stuff in my family all the time, as my kids say, oh, well, nobody's gonna have to write a paper for school and this and that. Well, here's what's happening. We as humans are getting more of our brain freed up to do even higher tasks than we used to have to be able to do. Let
me give you an example. So when I post a Instagram reel right to my Instagram at richon Tech, it used to take me a couple of minutes to come up with a couple of hashtags for that reel that video. If it was a video that I just posted the other day about a hologram, I would think, okay, hologram, holographic, three D video chat video chatting, And I'd have to sit there and really think about some of these terms that might work for that reel and get people to
click on it. Well, now what do I do. I just copy my script that I wrote for the video into Bard, which is Google's version of chatch ebt, and I say, give me ten Instagram hashtags for this, And within seconds I've got my ten hashtags. I copy, I paste them, I put them into Instagram. Now did that ruin my job? No? Now did it ruin some apps that I might have turned to pay for to get
those hashtags? Absolutely, there's a whole cottage industry of services and apps and things that will be disrupted by this technology because you just don't need them anymore. Let me give you another example. Summarizing things. You want to summarize an article, you can use an extension on Chrome to
summarize that article something that may have taken someone. Let's say you have a producer for your show, Like for me, for a radio show, you may have had a producer that would summarize things for you and give you notes on your guests. Well, now you can do that all in five seconds on CHATGBT or Google Bard. Hey give me a brief background on this person comparing things, I mean shopping. It is so powerful. I've been using the new Google Search. It is so powerful. I can't tell
you how incredible it is. It's it's so good that I actually am considering a switch to an Android phone to have better access to this stuff. I've actually set up my iPhone in a different way just to get better and easier access to the Google Bar system when I do my searches. So will the executives be replaced? Yes, some of them will be? Will I be replaced? Will the person next to be replaced? Who knows? This is all too new to know exactly what it's going to
replace and the impact it's going to have. But the bottom line is it is going to have a major impact on our world and there is no going back, that is for sure. All Right, coming up on the show, we still got lots to talk about. I'm gonna explain this album archive from Google. I'm gonna do that right when we come back, because I know I've been talking about it for a bit. Then later in the show, we've got some great guests. We're gonna talk about lab
grown cheese, and then later diabetes tech plus. If you want to hop on the phone, give me a call. Triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. You are listening to rich on tech. Looks like we've got a line open, So give me a call. Get in with your question, comment suggestion. Well, I don't know about suggestions. I don't know I phone. I'll open myself up to that. I get enough of that through the internet, believe me.
The good news is I know that you're listening to this show because I get a lot of emails from you, So I am very happy about that. Oh email also is hello at richon tech dot TV. It's interesting being on TV versus radio.
TV.
I get emails, but radio much more details, much more detailed emails about what I'm talking about and what I'm doing. So it's just different mediums. I guess.
Uh.
Speaking of TV, you can watch my TV segments on the website. Just go to rich on tech dot TV. You know, I cover a variety of tech topics. The latest thing I did is a hologram kind of box that it's expensive, but it's one of those I don't know how you explain it. It's just it looks like you're a hologram. You step in this box, or you step in front of the studio and they beam you into this box and you literally look three D. It's pretty cool. I've always wanted to become a hologram and
now I have. All Right, let's go to Tim in more Park, California. Tim, you're on with Rich. Welcome to the show.
Program. Should I use to put on an old Dell computer as Windows ten on it?
Now?
It's too old to put Windows eleven on it? And there's a program to put on there. Also, if I have an old if I use an old phone that I plug in the wall, I can call a radio station. But if I use a portable handheld house phone, there's a time delay and I can't call the radio station.
Well, I don't know about the question number two, but I can't help you with question number one. So your computer's too old for Windows eleven. It's you're referring to something I've mentioned in the past called Chrome os Flex, and this pretty much turns an old Windows or Mac computer into a chromebook and it's very easy to install. You can put it on a USB drive, You pop the USB drive into your device, and then you can
install Chrome os flex. So the main things you need to know about this, You got to have eight gigs of storage on the drive, got to have a Windows PC or a Mac. The Mac I believe runs it from the drive, and then you also have to have some internal storage on there as well, so you can see all of the requirements if you just google Chrome os flex. That's what the deal is. And the neat thing about it is that it turns an old computer. It kind of gives it a couple more years and
you'll be able to do the basics on here. This is not gonna be able to run Android apps or any sort of specialized apps, but you will have full access to the web, and let's be honest, for like ninety nine point nine percent of what you need to do, the web is going to be just fine. And this is going to take an old computer and just kind of make it new again. And again it works on max PCs. They won't really slow down because this doesn't
need much to run. And so it's one of these things where you can breathe an extra couple of years of life into your device. And it is free, so you don't really need to do much more except install it. And I'll put the link on the website. Rich on tech dot tv. There are some certified models and you can check that on the installation guide as well. But it's very very simple once once you make that little USB drive, it's pretty simple to get this thing on there.
Let's see, I'm looking at the requirements. Minimum device requirements Intel or AMD eighty six, four gigs of RAMS, sixteen gigs of internal storage a USB drive. You do need full BIOS access and oh oh, hold on. Components made before twenty ten might result in a poor experience. So if your computer is that old, then yes, it may be time for an update. But otherwise this is gonna work pretty well. And it's just one of these things where it's nice to know that you can do this
for free. All right, I'll put that link on there. Speaking of Google, and I didn't mean to avoid your second question, Tim, but I'm not really sure and I think that's highly specialized to calling a radio station, so I think that, I mean, yeah, I'm not sure of that one. Okay, So if you have a Google account, you probably got this scary email that said an update
to album archive. What does that mean? Hey, Rich, you're receiving this email because you've viewed album archive recently, or you may have some content that's visible in album arc starting on July nineteenth, twenty twenty three, album archive will no longer be available. Now I'm thinking, I don't even know what album archive is, but now I'm scared that I'm losing access to album archive. We recommend using Google Takeout to download a copy of your album archive data
before then. What is the album archive? No idea. Here's some content that's only available in album archive and it will be deleted July nineteenth. Rare cases like small thumbnail photos and album comments or likes. What is that some Google Hangouts data from album archive? Okay, that's those Google hangouts was back in the day when we were chatting with Google Hangouts. This is my favorite one. Background images uploaded in the Gmail theme picker prior to twenty eighteen.
If you're missing a background image that you uploaded to Gmail prior to twenty eighteen, I think by this time you can let go of that. Now, if you'd like to access this data, please make a copy using Google Takeout. You can also view the content directly. So some of the other things that we're in this was Blogger. Long story short, I'm not even gonna spend that much time on this because it's just kind of nonsense. Just go
to get dot google dot com slash album archive. That is, get dot Google dot com slash album archive, and that will show you all of the stuff that you have in this mysterious album archive. And so I found one picture of Swedish meatballs in sauce that I have no idea where that's from. I don't know if I had this at Ikea back in the day. This was from twenty seventeen. I must have posted that picture that was
to Blogger. And then in my hangout photos, I did have a couple of photos in there from various chats that I had over the years, and I went through and I I did kind of a cross reference. So I clicked the photo and I clicked a little info on it, and then I took the photo name, and I then popped that into Google Photos to see if
I had a copy of that picture. And out of almost every picture that I looked at, just kind of a spot check, I had them all my Google Photos, because if you think about it, these were all photos that I chatted, I sent to someone on a chat, and so I probably sent them from my phone at some point, and so I probably took them on my phone. But anyway, if you're curious about this whole thing, I
think you're probably gonna be okay. But just go to get dot Google dot com slash album archive to see if you have anything in this mysterious I know everyone's like Google is shutting down another product. They're so wishy washy with their products, they don't care about anything. But this is the stuff that nobody has used in a long time. Let me let's see another Let me just do one more Google story before we go here. You probably heard about this as well. It was all over
the news. If you clicked on a Google search link between twenty twenty six and twenty thirteen, you might be eligible to receive some money. Twenty three million dollars. Well, guess how much you're gonna get seven dollars and seventy cents. And guess what that requires you to do. You have to fill out your full name, your address, and your email by July thirty first. So if you want to do this, that's fine. I'm not judging you for it. But I saw all the headlines everywhere that made you
click right, Google owes you money. Yeah, I searched Google. How much am I going to get out of this twenty three million less than eight bucks. Is my name, address and email worth eight dollars? Probably not. I am not giving this information to some random legal firm so that I can potentially get a seven dollars and seventy cent check down the line. Now, I will say today I did get Let's see if I can find it. I got a PayPal notification that I did get. Oh gosh,
what was this Avis Budget Group? I got thirty seven dollars for an e tole settlement today, So these things do work. But I don't even remember putting my information in for this e toll settlement from Budget Avis. I didn't even know those were part of the same company. So anyway, if you want to do the Google search thing, I'm not gonna hold it against you. But for seven dollars and seventy cents, I mean, these these class action settlements,
they sound great. Google has to pay twenty three million dollars because of privacy concerns, But the average person really gets nothing out of this. The lawyers they're gonna make out really really well. I'm sure they're getting more than seven dollars and seventy cents. Again, I'll put it all on the website. Rich on tech dot TV. All right, as Kim would say, I'm getting fired up eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four to one zero one. I'm gonna try to get our special guests on coming up, but we are going to talk to Jason Horn, food writer about muzzarella cheese grown in a lab. I'll tell you what I thought of that, plus more of your calls and the top tech scams text t e X tape. You're listening to rich on tech. Uh do we have the special guest? It looks like we do. Okay, let's let's bring up. Let's see here we are well line six? Mom, Yes, Hi, Hello, welcome to the show.
Hi, thank you.
So this is my mom in New Jersey. You are you actually listen to the show, don't you? How do you listen?
I go to my Google home and ask it to play KFI.
I love it. Well, that's good. See if I had a little ding, i'd say ding. That's right. And so what do you think of the show? Do you think the host is good?
Or what.
You meaning that you're the host?
Yes?
I hope I maybe byas but yes, no, I think you're You're amazing.
What you do is the information easy to understand because the show, you know, I'm trying to make the show understandable by a lot of people, including I always say my mom, and that's you. So are you understanding the show?
Yeah? Most of it. I mean I think you tried to talk in terms that the average non high tech person can understand.
Okay, Well, the reason I call you is a very important one. You were telling me that they change something and that is AOL. Yes, you love AOL.
I guess you could say that, and yeah, go.
Ahead, what do you What do you like about AOL? Many people might not even realize that AOL is still around, but then there's a lot of people that actually still use it.
Yes, that is true. Yeah, a lot of people don't use AOL anymore. But that was the first email. I don't even know what you call it, thing I used, and I guess I just never really wanted to change it.
And so what happened this week? You called me up frantically and you said, Richard, you call me Richard when you're you know, and you said, and you said what you said, I don't like this?
Okay, So yeah, initially, I didn't like it because they changed the format and as far as I know, they didn't give a warning, like all of a sudden, it was just changed.
And I guess that.
Threw me where wow, And I didn't initially like it. I am getting used to it.
That's good. So you're getting used to the new a well, I would I wouldn't even think that. I mean, I'm sure there's probably one person working on the AOL program, because I don't even know what's happening with AO. All these days. You're still using like the downloaded program on your computer. It's not like you're going to AOL dot com.
I have no idea.
Just saw my desktop.
I really don't know. You probably put it there for me.
Okay, so all of the formatting changed. But now you're saying you're getting used to it, So it's.
Okay now, well, because I guess I've gotten used to it. The one thing that I decided I'm not that crazy about.
When you click on an email, you don't see the entire email. There's a little arrow on the right side of the email that you have to click on to expand the email to see the entire email. And that little arrow is.
So teeny tiny that it's kind of hard to see. Like it's not in a bright color, it's like a light gray, so you know, you kind of have to really look to.
Find it.
Okay, well, as long as you know it's there. And do you think they're there's a connotation when people get your email from AOL dot com. Do you think people judge you for that?
Probably?
Yeah, yeah, I think so. They probably wonder why do you still have AOL?
And why do you you what's your answer?
That's a good question. I guess I'm just very loyal, all right. I don't really I don't really have a better answer than that. I just I just always liked it.
I guess that's.
Really the reason. I mean, you know, I do have Gmail, but I don't use it very often.
Yeah, okay for work, but I do have it. As of let's see here, As of twenty twenty one, one hundred and seventy four million people still go to AOL. That doesn't mean it's like users. Two point one million people still use AOL's dial up service. That was in twenty fifteen.
I didn't know they still have that.
Yeah, I don't thing. Yeah you remember that? And then one point five million US or pay for AOL and twenty one. Good news is you don't pay for it. It's free anyway. Thanks for calling in, Mom, or I guess. Thanks for being on the show. Appreciate it.
Oh, thanks for having me. And I have one other thing to say.
Oh gosh, I'm nervous. What we don't let people do this on the radio. Surprise me?
Oh okay, well I'm gonna surprise you Happy Father's Day.
Oh, thank you.
All right, you're welcome.
There we go. We had the dings. I love it, all right, Mom, love you, see you letter.
I love you too, alright bye.
All right, there you have it. Mom on the show for the first time and the ding from nowhere. I love it. Oh, this show is really uh, we're really really making strides here after our Google meet fiasco earlier today. There we go. Okay, Google lens man, is everything about Google today? What is happening here? Everything's about Google. One quick thing to know about Google lens. You can now search for skin conditions, so Google Lens app. They have
added skin conditions. So Google says describing an odd mole or rash on your skin can be hard with words alone. So now you can snap a picture of that situation on your skin, upload it through Google Lens, and you'll find visual matches to inform your search. You can also use it for bumps on your lip, align on your nails, or hair loss on your head. The feature is currently available in the US. If you're wondering how to access
Google Lens. It looks like the little camera icon on the Google search bar, so you can use it for skin conditions, but Google says it is not a diagnosis. All right, coming up here, we are going to talk fake cheese, lab grown muzzarella with food writer Jason Horn. And if you have a question, give me a call Triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. My name is Rich Dmiro. I'm having way too much fun
hanging out out here with you talking technology. We got lots more to come. Stay tuned, all right, So I got a fun little conversation here. We're going to talk lab grown cheese and why would anyone want to eat that? Well, I don't know. We're going to discuss Jason Horn is joining me, food writer. His social is Messy Epicure. Jason, Welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
So you and I were at an event together where we met Pizzeria Moza, and this was an event for a cheese called New Culture, And you want to take it from there? What is New Culture?
Sure?
Yeah, So basically they're kind of going a step further than the fake cheese that's on the market now and they're making real quote unquote fake cheese. So yeah, the idea is they have found a way to produce cassion, which is the protein that is in cow milk, that is in cheese without cows, using some kind of bacterial fermentation, and they make that into mazzarella.
Now they've never mentioned that this is lab grown cheese. They don't use that terminology, but I do, And this is this lab grown? Or am I just being overly dramatic?
I mean I suppose at some point the lab gets big enough, but.
It's a factory.
But yeah, they're sort of taking the individual components of cheese and mixing them up into a cheese that is not didn't come from cows, didn't come from milk.
And so we tried this cheese at Pizzeria Moza, which is a pretty famous pizza place in Hollywood, California. It's been around forever. The chef is very famous, Nancy Silverton. So it's not like this is just some fly by night place that's trying this. This is like a real peace place.
No, this is Yeah, this is a big deal. Like Nancy's Overton's a big name chef, she's big in the pizza world, and she's kind of, as I understand it, kind of their first like chef partner. She's on board with them. They're sort of jumping into this whole thing.
Together now before we get into like how this tasted and kind of the night. This stuff is expensive, So the one thing they didn't really talk about was how expensive this cheese is to make. And when I press them on this, they said they want to be competitive, but they don't really have anything to say about it until next year. So is this cheese really expensive? Because Nancy joked when she was shredding it that don't drop a piece of it because it's like gold.
Yeah.
I mean I did hear someone said that, you know, the small group of us in the room, we're eating like thousands of dollars worth of cheese. So I mean, this is not something that's going to be on the market. They said it'll be in the restaurant in twenty twenty four, So like this is very early stage. I mean, I think it's probably incredibly expensive to make right now, but the goal is to make more of it cheaper and to become competitive with standard cheese eventually.
And of course the question is why do this? And there's many reasons. The reason for new culture they say, it's all about sustainability. This cheese is different than plant based cheeses. It's not made with nuts, it melts, its stretches, it's vegan, it's lactose and cholesterol free. What do you make of this whole world of like these companies that are coming up with stuff because I report on this stuff a lot and people always give me a hard time,
like it, just eat the real stuff. But is there a reason why these companies are making this stuff?
Yeah?
I think so. I mean a lot of people, you know, don't want to eat dairy, don't want to eat meat. They're trying to for all sorts of different reasons. Sometimes it might be for dietary reasons. Sometimes it might be for sustainability reasons, you know, sometimes it might be for you know, cruelty to animal reasons, like you just don't want to eat animal products. There are a lot of
reasons someone might want pay plant based mozzarella substitute. But the problem is, you know, if you're not eating cheese, you're not eating cheese, so like, you know, you sort of like you've given up mozzarella, Like you don't need an exact substitute of mozzarella. It kind of defeats the purpose.
Yeah, I mean, that's that's always kind of the question I have. It's like if you're if you're not eating this stuff, it's like, are you really seeking out just a different version of it?
Exactly? Yeah, I don't know that. Like there are people who eat cheese right now who would switch to non dairy if only there was a perfect mozzarella substitute. In a lot of ways, this and some of the lab grown meat, which I think we're going to get into a little bit, they're sort of solving a problem that doesn't really exist.
Okay, so let's before we get as a lab grown meat, which I was actually on LinkedIn earlier and I saw that just that does the eggs they're doing meat apparently, Oh well, yeah, so it's it's so anyway, Okay, So let's talk about the taste of this cheese. So what were your thoughts. We tried it on pizza, we tried it on some rice balls and in an eggplant sort of palm dish. What was your thought of this cheese?
So, I mean, I feel like we only got to try kind of the cheese really on its own on the pizza. The first two it was sort of mixing with other stuff, so you couldn't really get a good impression what it tasted like. But on the pizza, I mean, the stretch was really good. I definitely have not seen a plant based cheese that like melts and stretches quite like that. So the texture was really good that the flavor was right. I mean we got to taste also like a few shreds of kind of the raw cheese,
and it tasted like mozzarella cheese. There was something I don't know if it was just like in my head because I knew it wasn't it was you know what it was. There was something slightly off about the texture. I can't really describe exactly what it was. It was like it was almost two stretchy.
It was almost well the actual texture. It was a little bit not as like bitey, I don't know if that's a word, but like it didn't like it was a little mushier, almost like a valveda, like if you if you sliced like a velveto.
It was like it was like three Yeah, it was. It was softer, yes.
Softer, yeah, and like almost like silkier. The other thing that I thought was that it wasn't as salty as regular cheese, which is easily fixable.
Yeah, exactly, that's yeah. I mean part of it I think might have been just because they were trying to show off this cheese. They really like went back on the seasonings on the rest of this stuff. But yeah, I mean that you're right about that. But that's that's such an easy problem to fix. It didn't even stick in my mind.
So you've been covering food for a long time. I mean, obviously there's a need for this stuff, and I like the fact that this is cholesterol free, lactose free, you know, vegan. I mean, there are people that are seeking this type of thing out, But why do we see such an emphasis. I mean the fake meats, the fake cheeses, I mean basically fake everything and is it fake or is it real?
Well, yeah, it's the thing that New Culture said was they're calling themselves the first real vegan cheese because it has the real protein that's in cheese. I mean, it's silly to use the terms fake and real with this. I like, you know, vegan cheese for example, or plant based cheese a little less because plant based is also kind of you know, iffy. But like, you know, vegan cheese makes sense because there's no animal products in it.
That's kind of the point of it. I mean I think that like there are reasons to look for this stuff. There are you know, environmental reasons. Cows are pretty bad for the environment. I just at this point, this cheese is probably just as bad for the environment. Like when we had that dinner, that was you know, months of work. It had been presumably flown in from northern California. They
held all the executives along with it. So like they've got a long way to go before they're making it, you know, at a high in a volume that it's going to make any difference.
Ooh and one thing that I kind of led my review with for KTLA is that I had to sign a waiver to eat this cheese.
Yes, indeed, that was the first time I've ever had to sign a waiver to taste of food for sure.
Right, that was a little concerning. And I said to the CEO, Matt Gibson, who was standing there, a CEO of New Culture, and I said, Matt, is this stuff safe? I mean, what am I eating here that I have to sign a waiver. I've never had to sign a waiver to eat something.
That is true. I feel like it was mostly to protect the restaurant, because you know, the restaurant wasn't exactly serving the cheese. Yeah, it's a weird situation because it is kind of this like it's an experimental food that you know, we in theory something in there could have made a sick but like all the parts of it are things that are in other foods, Like it's just it's mixing existing foods together in a new way.
I just left there in a cold sweat. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, oh my gosh, there's going to be something in that cheese that is like a spore or some sort of like thing that will never come out of my body and I'm going to die from eating this cheese. I didn't, thankfully, but that's what I woke up thinking in the middle of the night.
Right, Yeah, I don't think they're using, you know, some kind of alien microbe that fell from space and their cheese. But they were pretty cagey about the fermentation process and what exactly makes the case.
They were exactly all right, We're going to leave it there. Food writer Jason Horn, you are at messy epicure on social media. What kind of stuff do you cover your in your day to day.
Kind of everything food and drink and cooking, so you know, everything from I was writing about the best Indian cookbooks this week and the best cheap blood because last week. So really really everything food and drink related. I've covered it all.
Do you remember what that You remember what the top recommendation was for the cheap vodka just asking for a friend.
Oh my god, it was I think it was Taca Taca.
Okay, well you heard it here first. Sounds like something I might have had in college.
Uh.
Jason Horn, thanks so much for joining me today. I appreciate it. Thanks rich all right, take care one. All right. If you want more information about anything I mentioned here again, go to the website. Rich on tech dot TV coming up more of your calls. Looks like the lines are filled. So that's exciting, and I'm gonna talk about this. Where is it here? I've got the top text scams. These
are interesting. So you always get these text scams, you know, these little text messages that are trying to scam you. I always wondered what's the end game. I've got one, two, three, four, five of the top text message scams. I'm gonna explain what they're trying to get out of you when they text you that package is lost or whatever they say. You're listening to Rich Marshall is in Recita, California. Marshall, you're on with Writch Hi fell in New Jersey and Oh what's up New Jersey?
Yeah, yeah, it's been a lot of time. I haven't seen you in the Amazon press on Topanga recently. I ran you have the first that I met with the first tour, first opening.
Oh was that you?
Yeah?
I remember, yes, Oh that was so long ago.
Yeah. Anyways, that phone that I had, that no Tony Ultra that I had, I was that Daughter stadium and I think I put on top of my buddy's car and drove off without getting it, and I lost it.
And I'm not too right because I didn't back anything up, including my contact, my notes, and a lot of other stuff that I want to almost kill myself for doing, Okay, And I was hoping that somehow, you know, somehow miracle was able to be done, somehow, that if somebody in fact, somehow rechieved the phone and got it somehow, that you know that I am numbers or whatever. All those numbers that are inside the phone like that they're basic, like
a thumbprint or something like that. If they ever tried to reactivate it again, then something he would be able to be found and retrieved because it would be working on the same numbers somehow. Is there some hope that there's somebody trying to find it at all?
Yeah? So number one, have you checked out Google Find Mine?
I think somebody tried to do it in the store. I don't know if they did it and they couldn't find it at the time. I don't know, Okay, I think they did that and they couldn't find it if I recall correctly. Forgive me, but I'm not tech savvy, so I don't know how to do a lot of stuff at all.
No, that's fine. So I think the first thing to do is, do you have access to a computer outside of the phone. No, don't in the library, okay, so go to the library. Do you know your Google login information?
Yes?
Okay, So go to Google dot com slash slash Android slash find. Okay, that's the first thing you need to do. And so when you go there, you'll get You're gonna have to log into your Google account and you will see a list of your devices. If it's only this one device, you should see it on there. You click that device, it will tell you.
I had a bunch more.
Yeah, you've lost more than one device, Marshall.
So over the past ten fifteen years, I've lost four devices.
Oh my okay. We got to come up with a new solution for you not to lose these things. Have you ever heard of a leash that you know, those chains that people use for their wallets. You can get one of those phone.
I've resorted to put it on lanard on my phone, okay, to have a big lantern hanging off with so I try to wrap it around my wrist. I still left it behind a couple of times, but I'm getting much better at it now.
Okay, So notwithstanding, you're going to find when you log into here, you're going to find a lot of devices that you've left in places over the years. But once you go to this website, Google Find my device, you can tap the device and there's a couple of things you can do. You can play a sound that's not really going to help unless the device is nearby. You can secure the device and that will actually lock the
device and sign out of your Google account. That's given this device has Internet still it may not, and then you could erase the device. So it'll also show you where that device is on a map, so you can see if you know the last known location of that device. Now, if this flew off of someone's car in a parking lot,
chances are you're probably not going to retrieve it. But I will tell you my father left his phone on top of his car and it did fly off, and I showed him how to do this, and he did see where it was located on the side of the freeway, and he was adventure and adventurous enough to go back and he did retrieve his phone and he found it and it was great. The phone was ruined. But the
best part was the case was just fine. And when he got his new phone, he put the old case that had been run over one hundred times on the freeway on his new phone. So it goes to show you the dedication he had to that case, which, by the way, I recommended to him, and that's what saved the whole situation. Anyway, that's what you need to do. Look for this device on your Google Find my see if it's on there. Now when it comes to your information on this device, there's a couple places to look.
Google is really good about backing up devices, even if you don't think they're backed up. And so the first place I want you to look for your contacts is contacts dot Google dot com, and you may find that all of your contacts are miraculously in there. I'm gonna bet they are. And then the other place I want you to look is one dot Google dot com. This is spelled out the word one O N E dot
Google dot com. And inside there you can tap storage and then you can go into it says your device backups, and I can see I've got my Google Pixel, my Galaxy S twenty three Ultra, and it will tell me backed up nineteen hours ago, and then you can see details and lo and behold, I can see photos and videos, SMS messages, call history, device settings, and then eighty one apps. Now the notes is going to depend on the apps,
the app you use for notes. If you use Google Keep, you can go to keep dot Google dot com and check for your notes in there. They may be in there. If this was a Samsung, you may be using Samsung's proprietary notes program, which is sometimes linked to one note on Microsoft if you decided to do that. Other times it's not, but not all hope is lost here, Marshall.
I think that that's Those are the places to look for your phone and see if you know, if you can locate it and then locate the information, then you got to think about getting a new phone. I would recommend the Pixel seven A as a new phone. If you want to stay with the Android. I know you had the note. I think that the Android seven A will be nice because it's a good price. And maybe this time think about insurance on your phone, because oh my gosh, I can't believe you lost so many phones.
Speak a phone, so I'm gonna give you one more website and remember I put all this stuff on the show notes. This is show number twenty four, So if you go to rich on Tech dot tv you can see that. But this is a listener. Jim sent me this website. It's Broadbandmap dot FCC dot gov. And this is a cool website that will show you the high
speed internet providers at your home. So this is the government makes this map so that they can figure out where to put federal funding for better internet in different places. They've got like forty two billion dollars to spend. But for you as a regular person, it's just a cool way to see what internet service providers are servicing your home. So if you want to switch, or you want to see if you can get a better deal, or you're just curious, broadbandmap dot FCC dot gov. You can pop
that in to the website. Then you put in your address and it will show you all the different providers that service your home. Can you believe it? That's going to do our number two for the show, triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one more rich On Tech right after this eighty eight rich one On one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. I want to get to the top tech scams text, I keep saying tech text of twenty twenty two. But
first let's go to uh Alice in Yucca Valley. Alice, welcome to the show.
Thank you, excuse me.
So I am really annoyed with Windows ten. I have a Windows ten machine, which I hate to use. I'm still using my old Windows Pro seven pro because I can organize my files the way I want to organize them in a folder, and I can organize my folders where I want to organize them. And I'm a super organized person, and so I like to be able to put stuff the way I want to, so I can. I don't want to do it alphabetically, and it really doesn't allow me. Windows ten does not allow me to
sort it anyway I want. If there used to be work around, even with Windows seven, didn't want you to do it, but you could, you could do work There was a workaround, And so what can I do Windows ten? So I can sort the files the way I can put manually put something on top if I wanted it to be on top.
M oh, I see what you're saying. You want to just move a file to the top and not put it in any specific like alphabetical or anything like that. Right, Oh, I don't know if there's a way to manually do that.
Don't tell me that.
There may be a helper app But I mean you've gone through, and you've gone through and right clicked and saw the different ways you can organize things, and none of those kind of those ways you want to use.
No, I mean, there's probably forty of them, but none of there's some really obscure ones.
I mean those they are, yeah, but you want to do like you want this file up at the top, you want this file up at the bottom. So I'll tell you what I do, And this is kind of a little hack, but you know, I do the same thing, but because sometimes I want some things to stay at the top, I want some things to stay at the bottom. So what I do, and I know this is I'm sure someone listening is going to have a much better
solution than this. But what I do is I just put like a one dash at the top file that I want, and then for the bottom files I put zzs and so those will always stick to the bottom. And then I do alphabetical. But that is a total, Like, I can't really recommend that that's the best way to do it, but that's what I do. And it's funny you say this because I was just in my drop box the other day and I was sorting by different ways, you know, date modified, and you know, size and kind
and all these different things you can sort buy. But at the end of the day, I literally just put a ZZ against the files, you know, the file name or the file folder that I want to stick to the bottom, and a one dash at the top or an a whatever whatever works. But that's the only thing. There may be a third party app, like a helper app for Windows. I don't know of that right now. Maybe someone that's listening can email and explain that and then we can include it in the feedback segment later
in the show. Hello at richontech dot TV. But I know that's not the answer. But you want to keep these in a specific way, that's what it sounds like.
Huh, Yeah, that's true. I mean if I do a one, then what if I come along with something else that I want to be one? Then I have to renumber the other.
One that's two.
Yeah, it's not a perfect system, but you know it does work for me. I mean, believe me, that is what I use and that's the only way that I know of doing it. There may be, like I said, you know, you do get these built in options to sort by, but you're not. The custom sorting is something that I just don't see on that I've seen on either machine, Mac or Windows. But I have a feeling there could be a helper app that may do it, but I have not come across that app. But what
are you trying to organize? Just do you like things to be in a certain way?
Yeah, you know I have.
I have I'm a scientist. I have lots of different folders for different projects and and I want, you know, I'd like to have like the current thing that we're working on, like at the top, or and maybe something else comes in that okay, that really kind.
Of needs you up at the top.
Two And and you know I don't care about I mean, other stuff can just be at the bottom because I haven't really I mean, it's not stuff. I can just say it can be alphabetical or date modified or whatever. But and I don't really care because I never look at it. But it's it's yeah, it's it's all the projects I work on. It's like, I want to be able to organize it the way I want. It's just like you would organize your files in your in your office, you know, the way you want them organized, so you.
Can get yeah, I mean it's yeah, if you want something in the front, something in the back. The only other thing I would say that you could do to to maybe is you know the hack that I mentioned. The only other thing I would say is you can pin a file for quick access. So that's on the left hand side. We'll have like their different files, like if you and I do that as well. So I have a couple of file folders that I just keep on my I mean, I'm using a Mac, but it's
on the left hand side. It's my favorites. I just keep those in there. It's not a perfect system, believe me. I think that there are definitely some divisions between what we do in real life and what we can do on the computer with the organization of files. And believe me, you're way ahead of ninety nine percent of people who have just given up on any sort of organization whatsoever. So the fact that you want to organize these things, Alice, is great, but I don't have the answer for you
on how to do that. The best way. The only other thing I can think of is maybe if you don't have your if you have your view instead of a list, maybe you can just have your stuff where it's just kind of in a folder. But it's still going to kind of default some sort of grid, I believe. But we'll look for a helper app and we'll see if someone can email that and get that to us, because that would be really helpful. All right, let me tell you about some of these scams I've been promising you.
The top text scams. So Number one, this is from the FTC, by the way, to three hundred and thirty million dollars lost to text scams in twenty twenty two. These are text messages coming to phones median loss one thousand dollars, and these things are doubling and tripling year over year, so more people are getting scammed by text messages, so that's why more scam artists are using them. Number
one copycat bank fraud prevention alerts. These are really tricky, so you might get a fake number to call about suspicious activity on your account, or they might say hey, reply yes or no. To verify this transaction that, of course you either did or didn't make, or you don't really understand if you made it. Once you reply, you'll get a call from the fake fraud department. And people thought it was their bank helping them out. Instead money
was transferred out of their account. This scams median loss was three thousand dollars last year. That's a lot. Number Two bogus little gifts that can cost you. You might get a text about a free gift, a reward, or a prize that looks like it comes from a company you work with, Walmart or who knows next thing you know. You click the link and you pay a small shipping fee, and you just gave your credit card number to a scam artist. Now you have fraudulent charges. Number three fake
package delivery problems. This is when this is when you get all the time. I posted about this one on my Twitter the other day. It was a text pretending to be from the USPS. They said, hey, confirm this. It could be from FedEx, could be from UPS says there's a problem with delivery. They link to a website that looks real. I don't think it looks real, but it's not real you know that, and then you have to pay a small redelivery fee, which, come on, there's
no such thing. Many people report that that is a trick to get your credit card number. These scam artists also try to get your personal information, including sold security number. Why would USPS, FedEx or ups need my social Security number? They do not. Where's our buzzer? Phony job offers promises of easy money for mystery shopping at stores like Whole
Foods in Walmart. This is a favorite scam job. Scammers also target people who post their resumes to employment websites like Indeed, in most of these reports, scammers use checks that seem to clear but turn out to be fake, or trick people into sending them money. All of these things are basically to trick you and to get you to somehow give over your personal information or get money into their hands. And finally, the not really from Amazon security alerts. These look like a fake bank text, but
this is from Amazon. It's an automated fraud prevention method. A message. It's saying you need to verify this big ticket order that you made, but of course you didn't make it. So you call the number in the text, you get an Amazon rep who's phony. They're going to fix your account. You trust them, and next thing you know, you give theF You give the rep remote access to your phone so they can fix things or get your
refund for you. The rep says a couple of zeros were accidentally added to the refund, so they need you to return that money to them, often by buying gift cards or giving them the gift cards pin numbers. Do not send gift cards over the phone. You go to any store nowadays, Target, Walmart, Big signed by the gift cards do not give these gift cards to people for cash.
Like I had someone that emailed me and said, Hey, I've got a friend that's really sick and I can't make it to buy them an Apple gift card, can't get to the store. Can you buy me one and send me a picture of the back And said, really, you could just go online and buy this thing, buddy. And we went back and forth before they realized that I was not going to play their game. So what can you do? Report these scam text? You can forward it to seven seven two six, which spells out spam.
I don't know if that really does anything, but they say it helps re wireless provider spot and block similar messages. You can also report using Apple on I messages or Google messages, or you can report it to the fc FTC at Reportfraud dot FTC dot gov. And again again again. Do not click on links in unexpected texts. They will try to get your money or your personal information. And you can also filter unwanted texts. The problem with that is that it does catch some texts that you may want,
so I don't turn that feature on. I think it's better to just be aware of this stuff and that way you don't get caught, all right. Coming up on the show, we've got Justin Eastzer. He is the founder and host of diabet Tech. He's going to join us to talk diabetes Tech plus more of your calls at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. You're hanging out with me, Rich DeMuro, you are listening to
Rich on tech. Let's go to Eric in Wanna wak Co, Mexico. Eric, you're on with Rich.
Hey, Rich, thanks for taking my call. My issue is with my Yahoo mail. This started years ago and the issue is I cannot take my file like I cannot take emails that are junk from my inbox and dump them into my junk file. For some reason, that option is no longer available. I did talk to Yahoo about this, and they didn't really give me a solution or anything that I could kind of figure out. I can take those junk emails and dump them manually into say iCloud
or g email. But it's, you know, it's it's it's it's just a pain of me. We're in and and the option that I get rich is, you know, and I'm on my phone obviously, and it's the same thing with my iPad is when I slide the email over to dump it into my junk file, that option is like dimmed out there. There's even like a little X on it, like it just doesn't it's, you know, it's like it's not there. I hope I'm making sense.
So these are all you're you're basically trying to get the spam email gone from your inbox.
Correct. That is correct, And and I'm trying to train. I'm trying to train the system, which should be trainable.
Two to a market as spam and to say don't don't let these through again.
That's right.
When you try it. When you try to do that, you're not getting that option.
No, and and and and to the extent that I'm putting it into Gmail or iCloud, well yeah, those those systems recognize it, but not my my Yahoo, and my Yahoo is my go to pretty much for everything.
Are you Are you running any sort of AD blocker on your phone or on your desktop?
You know, I I don't think I am not an AD blocker.
No, that could be interfering with it. So an AD blocker could be interfering. Have you tried deleting the Yahoo app and reinstalling it? This is only happening on your phone. Does the same thing happen on the desktop?
You know, I looked at the desktop this morning before I called you in, and I think I'm able to easily dump the files into junk. However, yeah, I mean, but they're still coming through junk.
Yeah, well that's I mean. Look, it's tough to stop all the spams, especially on a Yahoo or an Ay.
You know that too, Rich? Is that my iPad, my cell phone, and my desktop are all sync right now, and I'm using my iPad my cell phone almost ninety nine percent of the time.
Okay, And are you using one more question or using the native app or using an app that's built into the iPad or the iPhone, like did you did you download the Yahoo app? Or are you using like the mail.
App it's Yahoo Mail, Like I'm pretty sure, Rich.
Okay, all right? So what I would do is I would I would just try uninstalling the app. If it's working on the desktop, it sounds like the feature is there, it's just not properly working on your phone. So if this is something that was not working across all of your different devices, I would say it's a Yahoo issue. But it sounds like it's something on your device. It's a device specific thing. So I would uninstall the Yahoo app, reinstall it, and also make sure that you're using the
Yahoo app. If you're using a third party mail app, it may not have the same functionality that the Yahoo app does on the desktop. So look in the app store for the Yahoo Email app. Install that. See if it still doesn't let you spend sent a spam. I think that should cover it.
Though.
Triple A Rich one on one you're listening to Rich on Tech joining me now is justin east Zer, a YouTuber that specializes in Diabetes, Technology and Gadgets formerly of CNA Justin. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Of course, thanks for having me on.
So first, let's start with your journey here to doing your own thing. You were at CENE, I know they had a lot of turnover there and things changed, so you made the decision to go off on your own. How did you feel on that sort of thought process, like what made you want to do that?
Yeah, well it felt kind of natural because prior to see I was actually a tech YouTuber reviewing all types of tech products from the smart home products, VRAR and just emerging tech and then Seena. It was kind of
like this dream job. I had something on my list that I always wanted to check off, and I'm so grateful that I got to like work there, and I worked with some incredible people, But it kind of felt like just the industry, the media industry and teenut were kind of going in a direction that I didn't want to go in, and I all so happened to be diagnosed with diabetes a couple of years ago and I was just putting up videos online with that and it was they were helping people and I kind of, you know,
found that my specialty in tech and this new life experience could be something I could do full time. So it kind of just felt like this natural step to kind of take my career and it's been incredible.
And you you do the YouTube videos. Can you tell me how to say this again? Because I heard you say it's diabet tech, right.
Yes, I'm so glad you said it, like I'm so glad you said it correctly.
It's tricky because it looks you know, it looks like there's a lot of different ways you can say it, but it's really look I mean, the internet is all about sort of these niche categories and diabetes. When you were diagnosed, I mean that was only a couple of years ago, you said, yeah.
And the crazy part about it, rich was that I was diagnosed on TikTok. I was posting videos on TikTok of what my doctor at the time had me doing and symptoms I was experiencing. I was misdiagnosed with type two diabetes at the time, which happened a lot for people that are older in age. I was thirty years.
Old at the time and very unheard of or very rare.
For people to be diagnosed with Type one. That late anyway, my doctor said I had Type two. I was going with the flow.
I lost twenty pounds.
I was so sick. I was posting these videos on TikTok, and the diabetes community found my videos and they were like, you need to get an endochronologist, you have type one, You need to get an influent pump, you need to get a continuous gluecost monitor. And I owe my life and my health to this community. You know, they basically prevented me from going into diabetic ketoacidosis and like going to the hospital, Like it was incredible.
Wow, that is that kind of inspired me.
Yeah, to kind of help other people. So tell me about some of the tech that you use for your diabetes. I imagine that when you were diagnosed, you and as a tech person, you probably wanted to turn to the best, and you probably did a lot of research in the products that you would personally use.
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I wouldn't be where I am today also with like the incredible help that I received for my support system, my anthrochronologist and my diabetes educator. But yeah, like naturally, like I wanted to have the best tech available, and I feel like a spoiled person with diabetes, like I came in at a time when there's so much incredible technology available. So on a daily basis, I'm wearing both an influent pump and a continuous glucost monitor.
My infulent pump, the one I wear is a tube less one, so it's it's kind of like a path that I put on that. You know, other people may have seen ones that look like beefers and have a tube connected to people, So this one's kind of its own thing that I put on tube bliss, and that gives me insulin throughout the day. And then it also so I have to program using my phone when I'm eating, So anytime I'm going to eat throughout the day, I let it know because I also need to get inflint
for those meals. The other device I wear is a continuous glue coost monitor. So what that does is it measures my blood sugar levels every five minutes so that I don't have to use one of those finger pricking devices. You know, sometimes I'll have to use that, but very rare.
Now I just have this device pump.
Now. The best part about these two devices, and this is something relatively new over the last few years introduced. I'm using what's called a closed loop infulin delivery system. Both of these devices talk to each other, and so the continuous glue coost monitor tells my inflant pump, Hey, this is his blood sugar now, and then this is where it was five minutes ago, and then this is
where we think it's going to go. And so based off of my trajectory and my current blood sugar number, the insulin pump is able to make these decisions every five minutes so that I can so it can prevent me from getting highs and lows and kind of curb those.
Wow, it sounds like it's much more automated than past systems. I'm curious where do we stand. I often get the question about watches and things. Where do we stand on sort of the watch that can tell what your levels are through the skin without any sort of invasive nature.
Yeah, So there have been a lot of rumors about that technology over the years. Specifically, I think more recently, Mark German, like a huge person that reports, you know him,
reports on Apple technology. I'm sure you talked about him on the show, but he reported that Apple's working on a device that's non invasive, that can re bloodigger levels using like lasers that go through your skin from what I hear, especially because I reported it on that day that that news came out, maybe a couple months ago, and I actually had some people from the diabetes community respond saying, like, we've been hearing about this for years.
It's so far off. We haven't seen any prototypes, Like people are very skeptical about the technology. I honestly like with the device I'm wearing, this continuous glucose monitor is so small that like, I don't even really feel the need for this technology, especially since it's since it's tied to like a watch I have to always wear, and I don't know, sometimes I don't want to wear watch it I don't, but I don't mind having this patch on.
But yeah, we don't know when this is coming Apple technically they're saying Apple's working on one, but who knows when will see that, and even if they do, who knows if if that will be like a legitimate like medical device or if they'll you know, a lot of Apple's features with their like ECG and other features, like they're like, don't quote like we're not doctors. This is not a medical device, so it's unclear if it would even be able to be used with like a system like what I use.
What's your advice for someone who was recently diagnosed.
There's community out there and you're not alone.
I think that that's one of the biggest impacts I've seen and my content has on other people is that And even like when I was diagnosed, I felt really alone, scared. There was all this information I needed to soak in, like it takes a year to get diabetes down, and that's it's like totally normal to feel overwhelmed. But there are people on hand and ready, myself included, who are out there with like incredible knowledge to share and also like a great community that like are commenting on these
posts and will answer your questions. My dms are open. I know a lot of other diabetes influencers. They're d ms are open, Like, like, don't hesitate to reach out to these people, because we get it. This is the club no one wanted to join. And I think, like, we're happy to offer this information because we know how it felt kind of to not have it at first.
So tell me how to find you online. Tell folks how to find you online and what you cover and what's you know, the sort of the best ways to follow you.
Yeah, so for like short clips and short information stuff, I'm on Instagram and TikTok at dia be underscore tech, diabet Tech. I'm also on YouTube for much longer form content also diabet tech no underscore for that. And then I also have a podcast where I interview CEOs from different pump companies, different executives, and I also talk to diabetes educators about management and kIPS for people. That's called
the diabet Tech Podcast. You can find it on all major podcast platforms as well as in video form on YouTube.
Awesome, justin Itatzer, thanks so much for joining me today and thanks for you got in touch with me a long time ago, way before CNET, and then when you saw me at CES you said, Rich, I didn't know that you worked at c NEET, and sure enough, yes, I worked at CNET as well. So we grow a we're part of a growing list of alumni at CNET. So it's kind of fun.
I love it.
This is this is such just a full circle moment. I'm so happy to come on here.
This is amazing.
Thank you, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your journey and also follow Justin on social media. I'll put all of his links on my website at richontech dot tv. I can't believe it. The show is coming to a close. Coming up, we are gonna do your favorite segment, the feedback segment, and apparently my conversation with Mom about AOL hit a nerve. Some of you are angry at me. You're listening to rich on tech. I thought this was kind of cool. BetaNews dot com found
a hidden Windows restart feature. It's called the Emergency Restart. It's on Windows ten and eleven. And I had to try this for myself because I never knew about this, and I thought it was really cool. So you know that you can press control all delete right to get to the task manager and all the different shutdown options. Well, if you look in the lower right hand corner of your screen, there is a power button and that if you press it will give you sleep, shutdown or restart.
But if you do that same thing, you know, control all delete to bring up that screen. But then you press and hold down control and click the power button. Now you will access a hidden emergency restart screen which will immediately restart your system, and it says this should only be used as a last resort when you know your computer freeze is up. You will lose any unsaved data when you use the emergency restart, but this is just a nice thing to keep in your back pocket.
Let's say you know a lot of people have these things on their computer where some sort of malware or some sort of website will take over their screen. They can't do anything, so control it, delete and then control click that power button and now you can get that emergency restart. It'll restart your computer immediately. I'm gonna put a video about this on my Instagram at rich On Tech.
I thought that was a cool little feature. Mercedes Benz is introducing chat GPT into its cars, So if you have a Mercedes and if you do congrats, you can enable chat GPT. So the way that they're posting this is it's a beta program. They're trying it out for the next three months. You can pretty much ask chat GPT questions like you would on the computer, so you can ask complex questions, make requests related to your destination.
And this will work in over nine hundred thousand Mercedes with the m Bucks sounds like Starbucks, the m Bucks infotainment system. So you can try this out, give them feedback. If you want to try this, all you have to do is say, hey, Mercedes, I want to join the beta program, and I guess that will take you to the system to get this feature in your car. Now, if I just said that in your Mercedes, that you
now have it. So there you go. The rollout is going to happen over time, but that's kind of cool. I mean, I chat GBT. You know, it's not up to date per se. It's only up till September twenty twenty one, I think, or sometime in twenty twenty one, so it's not like totally new, but it's got a lot of good data in there. So kind of fun to have that in your Mercedes. All right? What else?
We got a story from Kenneth He wrote in He wrote to Hello at rich on tech dot tv, maybe sometimes it's not so bad to be a Luddite and other stuff. Kenneth says, I was in Target the other day. The person in front of me was trying to pay with a Target or some other app on her phone. It took her about five minutes to finally figure out how to pay it. She just paid with her credit card. It would have taken about ten seconds. Well, Kenneth, this good thing, you said her phone, because this could have
been me at Target. I'm always inside the Target app, and I'll tell you why. Because two things. You need to scan your Target loyalty card through the app, and then they also have these things called Target offers, and you can add these Target offers to your card and like save a whole bunch of money. We were actually in CVS the other day and my total was like sixty bucks and I said, ooh, let me see if
there's any like CVS offers. Same thing. If you download the app, you can load these offers to your card, and so I did that while we were in line, and my wife, of course kind of rolled her eyes at me. Sure enough, there was a coupon hidden in there for thirty percent off my entire order. So my order we watched as it went from about sixty five dollars to forty two dollars, and my wife was like, wow,
good thing. You took a couple of minutes to do that, much to the uh chagrin of everyone behind me in line. That was waiting for me to fiddle with my phone. So Kenneth, it happens. Let's see. Donna writes in Hey, Rich, I recently ow funny tech story from a baby boomer. Hope how many more minutes we have in the show because this one's a long one. Hey Rich, I recently started listening to your podcast and I really like it. I would like to share tech story with you, since
tech is your thing. Yep, Rich on tech that makes sense. I'm seventy one years old. I own a Tesla Model three. I use the iPhone and have an Apple Watch, which I mostly use for keeping track of my steps. One day, while shopping at Walmart, I placed my handbag with my cell phone in the trunk with the groceries and mistakenly closed the trunk with the cell phone inside. As I realized my error, I saw the side view mirrors of the Tesla closing, which we all know if you have
a Tesla, that means the car is locking. I kept trying to unlock it would not no cell phone, so I couldn't call Triple A. I went inside the store, I explained my predicament, asked if I could use their phone. I called my son, I didn't know anyone's phone number by heart except his. It went straight to voicemail. I stressed out, then realized I had my Apple Watch. I saw I can go through my recent text and attempted
to send my kids a text. It didn't work. Finally I found my phone number to my grandson, who lives about twenty miles away. I called him. He answered, which rarely happens. He has the Tesla app for my car on his phone. He used his app to unlock my Tesla. He did so, and I happily saw the side view mirrors open up and caps text saved the day for me. I'm looking forward to starting to listen to your podcast
because it's a baby boomer. I want to keep up with the podcasts and there you make it fun, interesting and easy. Oh thank you, Donna. And uh yes. So my old car used to have a feature when I locked my keys in the trunk, which I did all the time, it would beep three times to go bit bit boop, and then it would pop open the trunk and it saved me so many times from locking my keys in the trunk. Now, with the Tesla, I agree,
I usually don't put my phone in the trunk. But there have been so many times and I'm like, oh my gosh. If I locked my keys in the car right now or my phone, I would never be able to open it. But I do carry one of these spare Tesla keys in my pocket because of that reason. AOL Steve says AOL was bought. Whoever owned Verizon bought it. My email address kept the Verizon extension. Just last this week, AOL updated the page layouts. For one thing, they switched
the log into the right side to the page. I think that's what my mom was talking about. And Chris says, Rich, shame on you for AOL shaming your mom. I didn't AOL shame her. Stop shaming your mom. And it's a big long email about how I shamed my mom for using AOL. I did not shame her. I just said, why do you still use AOL? I didn't judge her for using AOL. I get plenty of emails from folks that use AOL on a daily basis. Do I think
there's better things out there? Absolutely? Can she continue to use AOL?
Yes?
And I help her with that every day. That's going to do it for this episode of the show. Thanks for listening number twenty four. You can find me on social media at rich on Tech. My name is rich Dmiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. I will talk to you real soon