Faster Wi-Fi on Planes & What to Do When Your Personal Info Is Leaked

tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at triple A rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call. If you have a question about technology, email also open. Just go to Rich on tech dot tv and hit contact. We've got some great guests this week. Ryan Ozawa, a native Hawaiian tech journal and publisher of the Hawaii Bulletin, is going to join me to talk about the startup scene in Hawaii.

Then later in the show, we've got JR. Rayfiel. He is tech writer and author of the Android Intelligence newsletter, so we'll get updated on Android and some tips and tricks as well. And great interview with Troy Hunt. He is the creator of haveibenponed dot com. This is a website that lets you see if your data has been involved in a breach, and he will discuss how to check the website and what to do if you see

your information on there. He also talks about those services that purport to take your information off of the dark Web and other places. So a great conversation there. Well, this week I found myself in Hawaii once again. No, I did not plan that, but I was actually planning

this since October. So you know, if you listened to the show, that I was in Hawaii for a personal vacation a couple of weeks ago, and then the opportunity came up to go back, and as crazy as it sounds, of course I said yes because I wanted to be among the first to test out high speed internet on Starlink on Hawaiian airlines, and this is something they announced last October. So I emailed the company. I said, Hey, I really want to get on one of these planes

and test this out. And they said, okay, well we just announced it. We haven't even installed this yet. I said, okay, well keep me in mind. So I just kept bugging them and bugging them and bugging them, and finally it worked out, and so I flew out of Long Beach, California, which, by the way, the number one comment I got on my Instagram when I was posting about the trip is rich Please don't tell people about Long Beach Airport too late, I just did. It is an incredible little airport if

you can find a flight out of there. Obviously it's limited, but what a great airport. I love. We've gotten so used to like Lax and this huge, giant airport which is crowded and trafficky and all this stuff, and when you get to one of these smaller airports, either in a small town or one of the smaller airports in the LA area like Burbank or Long Beach. I've never flown out of Ontario, so I can't speak for that one,

but it was a great experience, very very nice. So I get on the flight and let me tell you about Starlink on this flight. So if you're not familiar with starlink, this is from SpaceX and it's a network of low orbit satellites. They've been shooting up into outer space and they just kind of blanket the globe. So this gives you Internet from space pretty much anywhere. And yes, there's been satellite internet before, but this one is very,

very fast, faster than we've ever seen before. So I got on the flight from Long Beach to Honolulu, about a five hour flight, and the internet starts immediately the second that you get to your seat. You can start using starlink. And what Hawaiian has done is they've made it really easy. There is basically no login. You just go to your internet, you connect to the it says starlink on Hawaiian air and you connect and that's it. It says, oh, by the way, a couple of rules here.

No audio or video calls, no live streaming from your seat, and no looking at obscene content. So those are the ground rules. But after that you can pretty much do whatever you want. It's all free and you can connect as many devices as you want. And I did interview the CEO of Hawaiian Airlines and I said, hey, a couple things. Number one, is this going to remain free? And he said yes. The reason why it's free is because we were late to the Wi Fi game. A

lot of other airlines have Wi Fi before us. It's been slow, it's been not very good, but we wanted to come out of the gate really strong with this awesome high speed internet, and we're going to give it to customers for free. And if you think that people don't care about this, they do. Because I was looking, as I always do at other people's phone screens, I kind of snoop whenever I can. I was watching people text their friends saying, oh my gosh, I have starlink

on this flight. I have starlink on this flight, and I did a whole bunch of tests and it was incredible. There's no other way to describe it other than OMG, I can't believe we have this up in the air at this point. So I was getting speeds bursts. I would say two hundred and two fifty steady, about one hundred megabits per second. So that's pretty much home internet speed if you're lucky, if you have a good internet at home now. I was on a flight a couple

weeks ago coming back from Honolulu. I won't name the airline, but my internet was eight bucks, which I paid for. I wanted to catch up on my four or five hundred emails that I got throughout the week, and guess what I could not even check email with that internet connection because it was so bad. And that reminds me that I do need to request a refund. If you ever have a bad internet experience. By the way, always

always request a refund. If you cannot do what you were trying to do, just go to the website and of that airline and say request a refund. And most of the time it's very automated. It's like you'll get a response within twenty four hours and they'll say, yeah, we've refunded you your money. They don't want people to have a bad experience. This stuff is not well it

is rocket science. But if it's not working properly, which sometimes it's not, especially with the old style satellite internet, it just ask for a refund and they will give it to you. So the in flight experience was amazing. What did I do? I tested downloading an entire movie before I even took off. I've never been able to do that, and all the years I've been flying, downloaded in an entire two hour movie or so while I

was still at the gate. Then once I was in the air, I deleted that movie and redownloaded it and it was just fine. Took a couple of minutes, and I actually felt guilty at a certain point that I was using so much data. I also uploaded and downloaded like a one gigabyte file that worked just fine. I was able to check my email. I streamed Netflix, so

there is no need to download anymore. This is a paradigm shift, and I think it's going to impact the inflight systems because the inflight entertainment systems, because why install all of these seatback monitors and these big hard drives that you have to fill with all these movies when people can just you know, binge on their networks and their streaming services that they already own and the shows

are already watching. And I did ask the CEO about that, and he said, well, they're still going to have some planes that do have the built in entertainment systems. But again, I think this is something that we're going to see phased out over time because people have their smartphones and once they know they can stream, they're going to do that. I also tried Peloton just for fun. I didn't bring the bike in the air, but I just, you know, why not, so I was able to stream Peloton. What

else did I try? Oh, roadblocks, my kids wanted me to try roeblocks. They said, Dad, you got to check the latency. I'm like, how do you know what latency is? But of course they do. They're kids. They know more than we do sometimes. So I checked the latency on Roadblocks and it was just fine. And it was funny because my kid was playing Roadblocks this morning and he showed me the latency we had at home. He's like, Dad, that number is not very good. And I'm like, I

don't know. Maybe a lot of people are on right now. I'm not sure. But again, this all worked really really well, and I think we are seeing a big shift with internet on the planes because you are now fully connected wherever you are. We were over the Pacific, a tricky place for traditional internet, and it worked really really good.

Other airlines that are planning to install starlink include Cutter is that how you say it, Qatar guitarsx JSX, which is a smaller airline, Air Baltic zip AAR, which I actually took to Japan. I think it was last year. They did not have the starlink. Last year when I took it, they did have Wi Fi. It was fine, and then Air New Zealand. So and by the way, Link is kind of early out of the gate with this,

and they have a really good solution. But Boeing and Amazon are also working on a similar satellite internet solutions. So it seems like hopefully one of the major carriers in the US will launch this soon. But I don't know if it'll be free we'll say, but for Hawaiian Airlines it is and I did, by the way, not necessarily tech related, but Alaska is going to acquire Hawaiian air Lines, which, by the way, I think is very ironic.

The two like most remote states in America, you know, the two airlines are like linking up, which I find very cute. But I did ask the CEO. I said, so is this all moot? Like, is Alaska going to take over Hawaiian and get rid of the airline? And he said, no, we are going to operate a same platform, which tells me you'll be able to book the flights seamlessly with the two airlines, but they will be two

distinct levels of service. Now, by the way, I've heard that before with mergers and then when people forget in a couple of years, they kind of merge all the brands together. But I you know, Hawaiian was a very u unique experience. It feels almost like your vacation starts when you get on that plane. First time I took them, and so I think they would it would be kind of silly to get rid of that experience because it

is so unique and so interesting. All right, eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's open up the floodgates. The lines are open the website rich on Tech dot TV. Give me a call or an email if you have a question about technology. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The phone line for the

show eight eight eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. You can also go to the website rich on Tech dot TV. While you're there, be sure to sign up for my newsletter. Just sent out a new issue this morning. It is packed with all kinds of great stuff, tips, tricks, just all kinds of just I feel like it's just useful stuff that I think you should know kind of

like this show. By the way, in case you can't hear, I've got a big smile on my face. Kim, our call screener extraordinary, just texted me and said, oh my gosh, this is my jam computer love. And I said, how did you know? And she said, come on, I've been in radio for over Should I say how many years? I don't know? I should I date you? Kim twenty five years? Wow? We need a bell? So anyway, when

you give Kim a call. That's so the theme today with the songs, in case you haven't noticed, is going to be a little bit of a kind of a tech theme. Kim says, please date me. No one else will. Ah ouch, I should have read that before I said that on air. Let's go to Perry in Glendale, California. Perry, you're on with Rich.

month and a half ago, my settings went wengo. I'm able to get incoming, but I can't do outgoing, and I've gone over the internet and it sounds like the nine nine to five incoming pop three number is good, but unfortunately I can't find that sweet spot to get the U the outgoing SMTP numbers. And I've gone through a myriad of numbers suggested by the internet.

Have you tried deleting the account off of the Outlook altogether and then starting over.

off their Spectrum server. But most of the time these are set up as an IMAP, which means what you're doing at home is just being reflected on their server and vice versa. So if you delete the account, it will just delete the settings for that account and then you can start over and add it. So what I

would do as a test. If you have like a you know, an Android phone or an iPhone, I would try adding the email address there, checking to see if it works, make sure all your messages are there, and then I would just delete the account from the old Microsoft or from the old from the outlook and just read it and it should find it just fine. I'm looking at I'm looking at all of these settings. Nothing looks like it's very special, like it's it's all very

very straightforward. And if if you look at this, I'm sure you've been on the website. But Spectrum dot net, Slash support, Slash Internet, Slash Outlook set up very very straightforward. So if you want email me, I will email you a link to that. I'll also put it in the show notes. But my advice just go ahead, delete the account, set it back up, put in your email address and it should find those settings automatically. If not, here's the

manual address. Eight to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming on next, We're talking tech in Hawaii. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The website richon Tech dot tv can follow me on social media at rich On Tech. So this week I was in Hawaii and our next guest kind

of an interesting way of meeting them. I was reading the newspaper when I was in Hawaii the last time a couple of weeks ago on vacation, and I came across Ryan Ozawa and he writes a column for the paper there, and I said, oh, this is cool. This guy seems to know what he's talking about. He's doing all these tech things. And so I emailed him and I said, Hey, when I come out there next time, can I interview you about the tech scene in Hawaii? And he said sure. So let's hear from Ryan Ozawa,

native Hawaiian tech journalist, publisher of the Hawaii Bulletin. He's going to talk about the startup scene in Hawaii. First off, just tell me about the kind of state of tech in Hawaii.

but it has been slow and steady growth. I think the pandemic was a reset button for everybody, but it really helped here because people began to see the importance of being independent without relying on a single industry like tourism.

of a full tech ecosystem to exist. So a Tier one research university we have that, we have more and more venture capital firms with operations here doing local investments. We have local startup accelerators, So more and more of these pieces of the puzzle are coming. We're just having to build them all over time.

cost of living. So we are benefiting in some respects from a lot of Silicon Valley or even from Asia tech innovative and investors making a home here and still having that itch to do something and finding local partners.

just rent a desk. And what you want in a co working space is kind of that overlapping kismet of energy where you just look over at the next table and there's someone doing something that you might need. They're into marketing, you're into UX and UI design, So let's work together.

and being a YouTube or TikTok personality. But more and more you're seeing, especially given Hawaii's unique historic culture, there is a demand for that. So there are more and more startups that kind of exemplify native Hawaiian culture or some of the things that only exist here. The same reason why people might travel here are same reasons why they might purchase products or services from here. I think

we're doing better and better every year. The pandemic was a blessing in disguise, and I think that we're even now seeing at all levels, including in the government, the importance of fostering an innovation ecosystem. Across different sectors, education as well as business, as well as investment, and I think it's only up from here.

without any explanation. My name is rich and you are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech, the show where we talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. Phone line eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. So yesterday a bunch of people reported on social media that they were logged out of their Apple IDs without any explanation, just suddenly they

were logged out of all their devices. I don't know how widespread this is, but it definitely seemed to happen to a couple people that I follow on social media. So people had to reset their passwords before they were able to log back in. First thing I did was check Apple's system status page. I didn't see anything that said there was any issue. But again, this did seem to happen to people over the weekend. So if this does happen to you, if this is some sort of

ongo issue, it seems like a password reset does help. Now, if you have that stolen device protection turned on, which a lot of people do, if you try to reset your password when you're away from a trusted location, this is where you use your phone, you're the most Let me give an example, say this happens to you while you're out at a bar and you try to reset your password there, your phone is going to give you trouble because that's not a trusted location unless I guess

you're at that bar a lot and then it says, okay, we know you're here a lot, so we'll let you reset. But most of the time that's either work or home. So just be aware if it happens to you. It does seem very odd. I thought people were getting hacked. There's always a concern of getting hacked, so you know, lockdown those accounts. Please. Let's go to Rosemary in Fontana, California. Rosemary, you're on with Rich Hi.

We're able to get onto what we have. We have a whole bunch of apps that we subscribe to because we don't have a smart TV, so we have a whole bunch of apps on fire stick.

and I'm not kidding. I must have troubleshooted the heck out of this thing, you know, over the phone, over you know, twenty five hundred miles and I finally gave up and I said, I don't know what's happening here, like I've never heard of this issue. And yes, we did all the reset and all this stuff. And my brother, you know, who's also kind of techie, I sent him over there and he's like, you know what, I actually think the fire stick just burned out. And it did it,

just the fire stick went bad. So these things are not expensive. They do happen. I think with yours the troubleshooting that I would take number one. When you press a button on your firestick on the remote, is there any sort of indication that something is happening on Do you have a stick or a box? Okay, so it's on the back of the TV. Have you tried using your phone as a remote control to see if the fire TV stick is still functional?

The second thing I would do, and the reason I tell you this is because, look, you're having an issue, but there are many other people listening that may have similar issues in the future, and I want to give the proper troubleshooting kind of steps that we can all take. So this helps everyone with whatever issue you're having with the firestick, because these things do have issues from time to time. So first off, download the remote, make sure

everything works. Then once you see that that's working properly, I would go into the settings on the fire TV stick and I would do any sort of software update. Most of the time, the fire TV stick is going to do its own software updates, but sometimes it takes longer than if you did it manually. So go into the settings and make sure your fire TV stick is up to date fully with the software that it should have on it. So that's number two, Okay, Okay, now

you're on step number two. So everything your fire TV stick seems to be working. Your phone is working as the remote. Now we figure out if this is a remote control problem. So did you change the batteries in this remote control several times?

But there is an official help page on the Amazon website that you know, like you said, hold the left button, the menu button, and the back button at the same time, and they want you to do that when you've unplugged the fire TV stick. So basically, you unplug the stick, then you hold those buttons on the remote for twelve seconds. That will unpair the remote. Then you take the batteries out, then you plug the fire TV stick back in. It will say make sure you see that screen that says

remote can be detected. Then you put the batteries back of the remote, then you press the home button, and if the leid indicator on your remote blinks blue, it is paired successfully. So those are all the steps. I know. It sounds like a lot Rosemary, but it's one of these things where you have to kind of start at the beginning and make sure that things are working properly before we can say, okay, there's a problem with the

remote or there's a problem with the fire stick. But either way, sometimes these things just go bad and it could be that you have a bad remote you need to get a new one, or it could be that the fire stick went bad. Was what was the message on the TV screen? You told me you had.

so you can go there right now and find that link. Rosemary, thanks so much for the call. Appreciate it. Oop Sorry, Okay, So man, those things that is so so tricky when that stuff happens eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. So I don't know what the latest was on the on the TikTok stuff last week when I talked to you, but the president has signed a law that bans TikTok. This is the video you know, you know, TikTok. It's

owned by the Chinese company Byte Dance. So at this point they now have nine months to sell TikTok to a US company. If a sale is in progress and there's progress being made, they can get an extra three months to complete the sale. If they don't do this, the app will be banned in the United States. We're talking almost a year from now, Okay, so we still have a whole year for the legal ramifications of this and the debate and all that good stuff. So that's

where we stand right now. We don't know if this is going to be banned officially, but right now, as it stands in the US, TikTok has to be sold or banned. But we still have a year for this to all sort of figure itself out. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The phone number eight eight eight rich one oh one eight

eight eight seven four two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. Website also an option. Just go to rich on tech dot tv, hit contact and you can find my email there or send me an email there. I should say, also, while you're on the website, you can follow me on social media. Rich on Tech is where you can find me on Twitter now called X. How long are we

going to keep saying? Twitter or formerly known as Twitter or Twitter or X or X or Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn so many places, and then I've got some other links there as well. Sign up for the newsletter for sure while you're there. It's a great, great easy read. I usually send it out on Saturday mornings. You could drink your coffee with it and you'll be like, Oh, I need to bookmark that. Oh I need to book Oh I need Oh that's I need to download that.

Oh that's a good website. So you'll have a lot there. Got an email from one of the earlier callers, Parry in uh, I guess it was Parry, not Perry Parry and Glendale Hope all as well. Thanks for taking my call and your insight success. I deleted my email account and reloaded it and everything is fine. Now where's the clapping now here? It is? There, it is. We've got a live studio audience in here. They got to hold up that applause signed for them. Okay, let's see. Oh,

Kim hold on. Kim is telling me it must be pronounced the same because he said Perry like Perry Mason. Okay, well, maybe Perry is Perry Parry Perry Tomato tomato. Let's go to Jose in Santa Clara, California. You're on with Wretch.

Comcasts install it. When I installed it on the unit, it's called an airis two on one motive and router, and it was a basic sticker on the side with a generic password and user ID. Comcast hooked it up. In the last five years, I've never changed the user ID or password. And I have no idea how to update the software if I need to. I have no idea how to log into the RAS box itself. Do I have a FireWire? I have no idea. Am I expecting problems? Am I idiot? Tell me what should I do?

own modem. I think sometimes the companies take a little hands off approach where they kind of scare you and say, oh, well, if you buy your own modem, we're not going to help you, and you know that's on you. And then of course that scares people away from doing what she did. But once you get it set up. These things are pretty much set it and forget it. The technology on modems does not drastically change over you know, the course of time like you know, so a modem lasts a

really long time most of the time. So anyway, so to answer your question number one, I think that if you have a modem that is rented from the company, typically they are sending through software updates and things like that, so you since you purchased this modem now. Also, most of the modems these days, the wife are the username of the password are typically not generic. Now, the user ID might be admin, but typically from what I've seen,

the passwords are are pretty complex. So if you do have a complex password but it's still admin, then you know, I think you're fine there. Now. If it's admin and then the word password for the login, then I would definitely change it. But I think most of the tech companies with these products have gotten a little bit better about not using admin password as the password. And again

that's so the way to access this. If you want to go through and update that information and also update the firmware on this modem, what I would do is look on the bottom of the modem. It might even be on that same exact sticker that you're talking about that's on the modem, and typically it will have an IP address, so it might be something like one nine to two dot one six ' eight dot zero dot one. That's kind of the default. And so you go to

your web browser on your computer. Make sure your computer is directly connected to this modem. Don't do it over Wi Fi because you may disconnect the Wi Fi and then you're going to have a problem. So make sure the computer is directly connected with a cable to the modem if you're trying to make any changes to this modem. Very very important there. So go to that address on your computer and it should bring up a login screen.

That login screen will log you into that modem directly, and then you can go through and you can check for a software update or a firmware update, I should say, and you can also change the password. Now I'm telling you this as what you can do. I'm not necessarily saying you should do this. This is a little bit of a higher level of tinkering, and if you are not fully tech savvy, I don't typically recommend the average person should do this, because if you make any changes

on that modem. You see a setting in there, you're like, oh, that looks cool. Let me flip that switch and see if the Internet is faster in my house. You may have some problems and then you may have to call your cable company to have them come out and fix it, and they're not going to be happy and they're going to charge you so and you're going to be without internet for a while. So I would not change these

things unless you know what you're doing. Now with that said, if you want to see what your options are for this stuff, you can Google search the RIS ar R I S which is the brand of the modem that you just talked about, and the modem model number, and you should see some of the support pages for that. So if you go to the RIS website, they've got like at the bottom it says support and you can look up. They actually have a picture of every modem that they make and you can tap it and see

your modem and see the information for it. But again, if you have a modem that you're renting from a company like Charter or Spectrum or Exfinity or whatever these companies are, typically they are sending through the required software updates, and when your modem resets, it will install those software updates or keep saying software, but it's really firmware updates, and they're pretty rare most most of the time. You know,

there's not too many. Now, if you have something like one of the more modern router modem setups like an Ero or you know these what's the other brand that everyone has, any of these mesh networks, they are typically doing their own software updates all the time, so they're getting software updates a lot. And so again, if you have the app on your phone, it should tell you, hey,

we're gonna update or we updated your software overnight. I typically get those email or those notifications from mine all the time. So that's my recommendation. But if you if you feel like you need to change that password because it's a really generic, simple one, then go ahead and change it. But you know, don't don't tinker too much unless you really know what you're doing, because some of this stuff, once you change it, it could be messed up.

And believe me, I've done that. I've you know, I've done the thing where I connect and then it's like you know this and that, So just be careful anytime you're you're changing those settings. Let's see Samsung eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Samsung rumor mill says the next Galaxy Unpacked event date will be on July Uly tenth, twenty twenty four, in Paris, France. Why Paris, Well, they are Samsung is a sponsor of the Olympics, and

that makes a lot of sense. Now the date July tenth, twenty twenty four. I'm trying to think when Unpacked was in South Korea. That's the one I went to last year. It seems like it was around that time. Let's see when was it July twenty seventh? So is the end of July July twenty sixth? Yeah, in South Korea? I went to that one. I hope to go to this one wherever it is. And let's see here, what are we going to hear about at Samsung's next Galaxy Unpacked event.

This is not the event for the S twenty five that we are still on. The S twenty four those are typically on a cycle that goes from February to February. This is for the foldable devices. Those are on a cycle from July to July. So there's a cadence with Samsung where they put out their S twenty, their S series in the early part of the year, and then the foldables in the summer. So we're talking the Galaxy Z Flip, the Galaxy Z Fold, but there's also going

to be the Galaxy Ring. This is their first smart ring. So we've got the Galaxy z Fold six, the Galaxy z Flip six, the Galaxy Watch seven, new wireless earbuds. And again this is all rumor mill this is not this is not set in stone. Samsung has not announced this. But I'm just telling you for planning reasons. If you're thinking of maybe getting a new foldable, you know, either way, if you want the latest, greatest, obviously wait until after

the event in July. Or if you want to discount on the current ones you've had your eye on them, wait until the event in July. So we're in that kind of in between phase right now. Now. It's only you know, the end of April, so you've got May, June, July. You still have three months to make a decision here. But anyway, just keeping you up to date. Eight to eight Rich one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Find me online. Rich on Tech

dot TV Coming up. I'm gonna tell you why you should not solve a fifty dollars problem with one thousand dollars. I'll explain. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology with you at eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up this hour JR. Ray Fiel, tech writer and

author of the Android Intelligence newsletter. He is going to talk all things Android, give us the update on the new features coming out on Android, and also a preview of what's happening at Google Io a couple of weeks here. So I'm excited to talk to JR. Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. So I get a call. I'm on a run this morning, as I typically run before the show, and I get a call from my dad.

And you know, I've got a rule when my parents call or my family, I answer the phone, no matter what I'm doing. And so I answer the call, and hey, Rich, I'm at the store. My iPhone won't charge. What do you mean? I won't charge, you know, cee iPhone. I gave them, by the way, so I typically give my old devices to a family member instead of selling them. And so you know, somehow the issue is still mine because it's a phone that I gave them. So I said,

what do you mean it doesn't charge? Well, I plugged it in overnight and it just has a big red battery and it says still find a ble. I said, well, sounds like the battery is not charging. Well, I'm here at the Apple store and that's what they said. But they plugged it in and it charges just fine. It comes right on. I said, well, sounds like you're charger is not working. Okay, So you don't think I need a new phone. No, I don't think you need a

new phone. You just need a new charger. And so my thesis here don't solve a fifty dollars problem with one thousand dollars. So depending on who you get at the store that you're at, right, And it seemed like he had someone that had the heart of a teacher. So I like that he was with someone that said,

you know, here's your options. But you know, you could be in a situation where you have an issue with your tech and it's a very simple issue, and someone that's advising you is giving you a very expensive solution. So this could have been a very expensive solution where they said, Okay, your thing's not charging, let's get you a new phone. And in fact, this person did show them on the battery indicator, and so this might have been a little bit of a salesy kind of thing.

But you can go on most phones, Android and iPhone at this point into your battery health and see what your battery health is. And so my battery health right now, I'm at ninety nine percent maximum capacity, and I forget on the Samsung we talked about this, I think you have to download a separate app to get the battery health. It's like, I think like a Samsung Members app or something like that. But that'll tell you the maximum capacity

of your battery. So if you've been using your phone and charging it over and over, you know for a couple of years, your battery capacity is not going to be one hundred percent anymore because your battery degrades over time, and so your battery capacity maybe eighty five percent. So if your phone used to last six hours or let's say, you know on screen screen time, and now it's only lasting five It could be because your battery is just not charging the same way it used to charge. Doesn't

mean your phone needs to be replaced. It just means your battery doesn't last as long. So anyway, he did say his battery was at seventy nine percent, you know, the battery capacity, And I said, well, yeah, your phone's a couple of years old, so it's going to be. It's a it's a hand me down phone that I used for a couple of years and now I gave it to you, so it's going to be at seventy nine percent. Does that mean it's no good? Absolutely not. I mean it's still fine until it doesn't work for

you anymore. Now, if you were having to charge it every half an hour throughout the day, yeah, that'd be a problem. But anyway, so I said, here's my solution, Number one. Clean out the port on the phone, the charging port, because he said it wasn't charging in the car, wasn't charging at home. Because I said, try different chargers, No, none of them are working except the one here at the Apple store. Well, it sounds like it's the charger. The port so clean out the port. He said, oh,

that's what they're doing. I said, okay, we'll start with that. But at the end of the day, you can use wireless charging and try that. So go buy a wireless charger, spend the thirty forty bucks whatever it is for the cable and use that. And if you're if the bottom cable doesn't work ever again, which sounds like it was working anyway, so that was it, and he bought the cable. I haven't heard the update, but my point is, don't solve don't solve a cheap problem with an expensive solution.

This happens all the time in the tech world. We throw stuff away, we buy something new. You know. It's one of these things where go through the steps of figuring out what is happening. Maybe you just need a software update. Like a good example, your phone is just being wonky, right, and it's just giving you all kinds of error messages and it's slow whatever. Well, before you buy a new phone and spend all that money on a new phone, why not just do a factory reset

of your phone. Make sure it's backed up before you do that, but do that factory reset, and then you can get a clean start and once you reinstall your apps and whatever, and if you're still having problems, then you can get a new phone. But again, don't just like throw away stuff because it's not working properly. Talk to someone that knows what they're doing. Get them to help you out figure this stuff out. It's probably a

cheaper solution than getting something new now some tech. Clearly it's you know, cheaper to get new tech, like in the case of the fire TV stick. The woman we talked to earlier. If if all those troubleshooting solutions don't work, yeah, just spend the thirty five bucks on a new Fire TV stick. But again, use your judgment. Eighty to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Rich on Tech dot tv

is the website for the show. Coming up, we are going to talk to the author of the Android Intelligence newsletter. We'll talk all things android. You're listening to rich on Tech. All right, welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Let's welcome to the show Jr. Raphael tech writer and author of the Android Intelligence newsletter Jr. Thanks for joining me. Hey, Rich great to be here, Thanks for having me, Thanks for chatting.

So it's actually it's funny. We we scheduled you to come on the show a long time ago. And of course this is kind of like the quiet time in the world of Android because we've got Google Io coming up in just a couple of weeks. So typically they put out all their stuff that they want to get out before the big announcements of io. Explain what Google io is for maybe someone who doesn't know, Yeah, sure, So it's one of those things.

But when it comes to the loftier, really high tech, ambitious, cutting edge stuff, sometimes it's still a little more conceptual when they're showing it off in an event like this.

and it's it's pretty you know, blanketed. Versus Google, it's like, oh, depending on the phone you have, depending on the model, depending on this that. So anyway, I don't want to harp on all the negative. Let's talk about the positive. So what are you looking forward to at Google io this year?

they come out. I mean you're talking about eighty five bucks give or take a year for the full period of advisable ownership.

a higher end model of last year's main flagship. I spent a lot of time with the Pixel fold. I really liked it and was super tempted. It was at the point where I could see myself going there, maybe with another generation or two. I wasn't quite one over yet, but it was really the first folding phone that I could see myself using between the form the software. Unlike the other foldables we've seen in the States so far, when it's folded up, it's not just like an awkwardly

skinny candy bar, like a remote control. It was just kind of like a small phone and then when you want something bigger, you can unfold it. I really liked it, even though I didn't personally go for it yet, but I could have very happily used it for the last year and been you know, thrilled with it.

I'm gonna be on a tablet. And so I just didn't really see the point of having this thing that like I couldn't put a case on. You know, it's heavy, it's hot, and it's just you know, it wasn't the best camera on the pixel anyway. And by the way, I don't back to the Samsung stuff. I don't want to, you know, be the Samsung defender here, but I will say that Samsung has really stepped up their game in the past year or two when it comes to software updates.

I think they are doing a much much better job than they ever have, especially with how many phones they have to do updates with. So I do think that that has gotten a lot better in that aspect. So, Okay, so I want to I gets to me because I know you write the Android Intelligence newsletter. I want people to get some cool apps and things. So do you have any like killer Android apps you should download or any tips that we should know? Yeah? Sure. So.

it came from her. I can tell my phone, hey, remind me about this every few minutes, every two minutes or ey four minutes, whatever until I acknowledge it, because you know somebody's hear you get a buzz in your pocket, you don't notice if it's something important, maybe you do your boss's name whatever.

times you hit to the entry key. So with him, I haven't said to you when it has messages with his name, don't let it alert me more than once every five minutes.

things coming up as well. So coming up very soon is the company's Spring event. This is happening on May seventh, and this is a virtual event. As far as I know, I only got invited to a please watch on your computer screen. And so it's called the let loose event. And what are we expecting? So the image, you know, Apple always sends out these invitations to journalists and then there's like a logo. Usually it's the Apple logo, but it's done in a way that people read into it, like, oh,

what's this going to mean for the event. Sometimes it's just a particular color they use that might be the new color of the phone. Sometimes it's the animation that they show on their social media and it's like, Okay, maybe this is for VR. This one looked like an Apple pencil sketching something and so and typically this is the time when we see the new iPads. So that

is what we are expecting new iPad pros. And according to Bloomberg's Mark German, he has been saying that this is going to be the most significant redesign of the iPad pros in years. I don't know what that means exactly, because they're already pretty forward facing. They've got USBC. The rumor says that they're going to change the front facing camera to a better location for video chatting. Right now, it's on if you hold it to the side horizontally.

The cameras on the left side, which is not ideal for video chatting. So on a computer it's up at the top right, so that's theoretically where the camera is going to be moved. Let's see what else. New processors. Obviously that's always a thing they do. Better screen technology. That's something they typically upgrade new sizes. So the iPad air maybe an eleven inch and a twelve point nine inch,

so they will make bigger screens there. Let's see the magic keyboard, which is the keyboard attachment that's always more expensive than you think. If you go into the Apple store, you're like, oh, I'll take one of those keyboards. You're like, wait, how much what? They're very expensive. Apparently that's going to be updated for a more laptop like experience, and then the Apple pencil itself might get new tips. This is from the Verge. They say they might be getting interchangeable

magnetic tips and a squeeze gesture. They already have a gesture on there, like a tap gesture, so maybe the squeeze is like the next evolution of that. iPads are one of those things that I don't think anyone is like waiting necessarily for a new iPad. But it's like one of those things that like when you go in and I feel like this is happening with a lot

of the technology. Unless it's something that's like super cutting edge, most people are just when they go in for that next upgrade, they're just like, oh, that's cool, it has this, it has that, and now I need to decide between these different models. But it used to be remember when like a new phone would come out and they would have a feature where we're like, I need that, now

I need to upgrade. Now with these new tech cycles where things are just getting refined, people are more just like, Okay, that's cool. I'll wait until my upgrade and then I'll have that feature. So there you go. Verizon a five dollars monthly price hike for the Apple Watch smartphone smart watch plans. So if you have a smart watch with Verizon, you probably got an email from them that says, hey, we're raising the price of your smart watch plan by five dollars a month. So it used to be ten

dollars a month. Now it's fifteen dollars a month. To have cellular on a smart watch that is a lot especially can say K because I looked up how much data I used on my smart watch last month. Are you ready for this? Under two hundred megabytes? Then I looked up how much my kid, who only has an Apple Watch, used and it was like fifty megabytes. So not a very good update of this plan because I

feel like this is very expensive. Verizon says the price increase will allow them to continue improving their network and services. Oh thank you Verizon for allowing us to fund your improvements of the network. Now I get it. It's a company. They need to make money, they need to update their network. I understand all of that, but on the backs of us, all we want is an Apple Watch with cellular? Why do I have to pay the extra five bucks? So I will be honest, all these price increases, so Verizon

had a one to two punch. Last month they raised prices on their plans, their cellular plan, and then this month they raised the Apple Watch plan. And so I'll be honest, I switched my wife off of Verizon this morning. When I got this bill, I said, you know what, enough is enough? And so her her plan was about ninety dollars a month, and now she's paying about forty five a month, so it took me a little bit of time. It took me about twenty minutes to make

the switch. But I switched her to a third party, one of these mv and o's all unlimited, all included. And it's scary, and I get it. This is why people don't switch their cellular plans. This is why people overpay so much. Do the math. If you're talking forty five dollars a month times twelve months, that's almost six hundred dollars for the year. It took me about twenty minutes to save that amount of money. Now is the service going to be exactly the same? I don't know.

This is why I test things out. But it took about twenty minutes to switch over, including poorting the phone number over and that was the main thing my wife is concerned about. She said, is everything going to work the same? I said, yes, it should. Now there's always that asterisk because there could be a problem. Now, I will tell you, do these companies make it simple to

pourt out your number? Not really? And I was sweating a little bit because there were some issues where it was like you need to set up a pin number and then you need to unlock the phone number, and those one two things, like I had to keep going back and like checking it, keep giving me errors, and you only get five tries before they lock you out of your account. So I was a little bit nervous, and my wife was like, if I don't have a phone line when you leave for your radio show, I'm

not going to be happy. And I am happy to report it did work out. But my point is, if you want to switch, if you want to take that dive, read all the instructions and make sure you have all the numbers in a row before you do anything, because if you run into an issue, you could be without your phone line for a bit. But if you get it right, you could save some big bucks. Rich on Tech dot tv is the website. More rich on tech

after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. We got Bobo doing the robo bobo robo robo bobo.

I try to use websites instead of apps. However, there are times I have to use apps, and there are some apps I would like to get. When it comes to permissions, many state they can modify or delete the contents of your shared storage and also state that they can read the contents of your shared storage. What does that mean exactly? Does that mean anything on my phone, including emails, can be read and or deleted by the app? If so, that seems it would be crazy for anyone

to use the app. I realize most apps are legitimate, but who knows. Plus the info they can get, I worry they can be hacked. I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, Rick, good question. Rick, and I did sort of address this in a show a while back, and in my newsletter I said how your phone spies on you? And I went through all the different categories of what apps can access or request access to So let's be honest, most

apps need certain access to things to actually function. So when it comes to modifying or deleting the contents of your shared storage, that means that they get a little section of the storage space on your phone so that they can read and write their own information. Most apps would not be able to work if they did not have that. Now the place where I would say, so a couple things. Number one, I'm both it sounds like you've an Android, because I don't think I've ever seen

that on an iPhone. But if you have an iPhone or Android, you can go into on iPhone Privacy and Security and then you can take a look at all the different categories they have. So, for instance, let's just look at contacts. Okay, So I'm looking at contacts and I can see there are a whole bunch of apps listed here that have access to my contacts. Amazon, Alexa, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Photos, Instagram, Meta Signal substacks, Sunshine, Teams, Telegram,

and a couple of others. If I want to revoke access, like why does my metaview need access to my contacts? I don't think it does. So I can turn that off in the settings. Same thing on Android, you can go through and look at your permissions. So go into your settings and let's see where it is on here. Let's see Permission Manager, Security and Privacy Permission Manager. So if we go into permissions, let's see permissions used in

last twenty four hours. Okay, then I underneath therasays permission manager. So it's got body sensors, calendar, call logs, camera, contacts, files and media health, connect location, microphone. So now let's just say I'm curious about the microphone. So I can see all of the apps that have access to my microphone on my phone, and if you don't want one of those apps to have access to your microphone, you can turn it off. So, for instance, why does PayPal

need access to my microphone? Thankfully I have that microphone access turned off because there's no reason why PayPal would need my microphone. Looking through the ones that do have access, and let's say Snapchat, you're like, well, why does that need access to my microphone? That would be if you're recording a video, it would want access to your microphone

to record your voice. So again, these are called permissions, and I think you're onto something which is you need to be very careful about the permissions that you allow access to on these various apps. So if an app is asked, you know, an app's job or goal is to get access to as many things on your phone as possible. And I mean, I get it. They're you know, they're trying to make money, they're trying to gather as

much data about you as possible. And there's even things like, let's say you allow access to all of your photos. There have been reports where apps can scan the photos in your library and get an understanding of the metadata inside those photos, so locations, places, people, and I'm not saying that happens with some of the popular apps, but

it probably does. And so again we just need to be aware of these things and aware of the fact that the way I see it, is that your phone is sort of your own garden, right, and all of these things are trying to get into your garden to eat the stuff that you're growing, which is your data. And so you want to keep those things out as

much as possible. Like you have like a broom and you're just like, you know, there's like a skunk come in your way, and it's like get out of here, Get out of here, skunk or you know what eats you know, I don't know, rabbit is coming to eat the carrots. I don't know. It's a weird I don't think anyone's ever described the smartphone that way, but anyway, hey, why not. But the point is always be careful about the permissions that you allow on your smartphone. That's my

bottom line. And now there is one thing that I think you need to be very careful about, and a lot of these apps they ask to use Google as a log in. Now, in general, I think that you should not do that. I know it's convenient, but I don't think you should do that. And the reason why is because these apps will sometimes ask for permissions that are kind of out of whack. And what I mean by that is that they may ask for permission to

see your Gmail. They may ask for a permission to see your calendar, They may ask for permission to see your contents of your Google Drive. And so you need to be very careful about the apps that you allow access to your Google account because that usually has a lot of information in it and what you're looking for on that screen. If it does ask for like let's say access to your storage on your Google account. Make sure that it says its own data inside Google Drive,

not just Google Drive blanketly. And if it's looking for your Gmail access, be very careful about that. Like if it says we want to be able to see delete and you know, rewrite the access of your Gmail, just be careful because why why shouldn'tn app need that? But good question, Rick, I think most of the time, if you're careful about that stuff, you should be okay, Diana writes in on the website rich on tech Dot tv uh in Covena, what password manager app do you use?

Thank you you are the best? Well, thank you, Diana, You're the best. So my recommendation for password managers, let me go through is various fold Number one, yes, you should be using one. Number two. Here's my recommendations. If you are only using Apple products, if you use nothing else in the world except Apple products, go ahead and just use iCloud keychain. It's built in. It's simple, it's

across all your Apple stuff. That includes Safari by the way, So if you're using Safari and you know, let's say you have a Mac computer, an iPad, and an iPhone, and you're using all Apple stuff, go ahead use iCloud keychain. Great,

it's free, it's included, and it's simple. If you are using Chrome as your web browser and you want something that's simple and built into Google, then you can go ahead and use Chrome's password manager and you can actually see if you have passwords stored in here by going to passwords dot Google dot com and that will bring up your Google passwords if you have them. Some of you may already have them in there, but again that will work on Chrome. It will fill in your passwords

when you're browsing the web. It also works on your iPhone or Android as well. On iPhone, you have to go into settings and look for autofill and if you have the Google app or the Chrome web browser, you can fill those passwords across your entire phone using Google Now. I do think personally that a third party password manager is always the best way to go, and so for

a free solution, I like Bitwarden. And what I like about bitwarden is that it is very full featured and it's free, so you can pretty much use bitwarden across all of your devices for free, and it works on a variety of platforms. The main thing to know about these password managers is that they lock you in once you get a whole bunch of passwords into them, and you're paying every month or every year. It's tough to leave. I mean you can, but most people don't want to

do that. So Bitwarden is free and you get unlimited devices. That is pretty nice, and it works across a whole bunch of devices. And the thing to look for in a good password manager is the amount of devices you can install it on, and also you know how much it costs. Now if you want to step up from there, if you want some extra features, then I like a

password manager called dash Lane. And there's also one called one password, uh one the number one and then password and again these work across all of your different devices, and that's the thing you want to look for. Maybe use an Android phone with a Mac computer, Maybe use

a Windows computer with an iPhone. You want something that works across all of these devices, that you can fill your passwords easily no matter what device you're on, and if you have to pay for it, I mean, look, I think at this point, you know Bitwarden is a great free password manager, but if you have to pay.

You know, this is they're not that expensive, So I would you know, if you want to support these companies that are you know, saving your passwords for you, go ahead, but is free, So that one's always nice, But that's what I recommend. So I don't think there's one size fits all for password managers because of the reasons I just explained. Thanks for the question, appreciate it. Rich on Tech dot tv is the website phone number eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four

two four one zero one. We've got a great guest coming up this hour, Troy Hunt. He's gonna talk about what to do when your personal information is exposed in a data breach, plus more of your questions coming up right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Email for the show rich on Tech dot tv. There's

the website. You can email me there or you can let me let me tell you about what's on the website real quick while I'm here. So a couple things. It's it's a little bit different than it has been in the past, so if you haven't been in a while, check it out. Redesigned it and hopefully it's easy and self explanatory. But up at the top, I've got links for my podcast, my TV segments tell you about the

radio show. Then there's a light bulb. The light bulb will give you real time links to whatever I mentioned on the show. So if you're listening live and you say, oh, what was that, and you just said, just click the light bulb. Then you've got contact, which is my email, and front and center on the website is my newsletter. So if you read the newsletter, it's a lot of good information in there. I send one out every week typically, And then you can scroll down and see my TV segments.

Let's see what else the podcast and some interesting interviews. And then on the right you can see the social media links that I've got on there, and I added a new one referral links, so if there's different products or things that I like, I can throw them in there and then you get a couple bucks off if you try them out. And let's talk about YouTube. I

thought this was interesting. So if you have an Apple TV, they have that default screen saver that is basically those beautiful videos that Apple has shot, you know, all kinds of cool landscapes and things which a lot of people have grown to love. But YouTube has gotten slick and now they show their own screen saver on Apple TV and this comes from nine to five MAC. People are, I guess, complaining, saying, wait a second, why is YouTube hijacking my Apple TV screensaver that I know and love.

So when a video is paused, the YouTube screen saver shows a zooming slide show of YouTube thumbnail art. Now that's probably not very exciting when you're used to these beautiful like Grand Canyon kind of landscapes. If you don't have a video pause, the YouTube screen saver shows a screen show, a screen show of a slideshow of generic still images from videos. Either way, these both don't sound good. I have not seen this on my Apple TV. But yeah,

that's interesting. I have seen a very big trend by all these streaming apps where when you pause the streaming app, they show an AD and I thought that was pretty interesting because it's actually quite genius because it gets your attention. You pause your movie, and all of a sudden it shows an AD. Now I have not seen this on Netflix, but I have seen it on Peacock and I think

Direct TV had it and maybe HBO Max. But the workaround if you see if you're seeing the YouTube slide show, when you want to see your Apple TV slideshow, basically you go into the settings on your Apple TV, look for screensaver, and you want to start the screensaver now after two minutes, and that way it kind of it goes before the YouTube screensaver. So, yeah, I thought this was pretty funny. There is a keyboard me bobo. Did

you see this on Twitter? I don't know if you saw this, but there's this meme where it's like, look between the two letters and it basically urges users mostly on what's that? Did you see it?

this was pretty funny. It's one of those things where, like, you know, it's just the I don't know where these things come from. I mean, if I read more of this story that I'm telling you about, i'd probably find out where it was. Uh oh. It first emerged in twenty twenty one, I guess. Wow. Okay, so this has been around for a while, but it just popped up on Twitter. So if you see these things, you know now you know what they mean. I just, you know, I find this. I'm not a fan of all the

internet culture, like the meme stuff that pops up. It's creative, Yeah, it's crazy, very creative. And I was really trying to find one. I did one that fell flat. I said, oh my gosh, these keyboard memes have gotten out of control. I just heard Dave Matthews renamed his famous song. You know he's got a song called the Space Between. Yeah, I said, he renamed his song to look between the C and the B. And what does it point to?

saw it all right. How many times have you gotten an alert? Oh, your information has shown up on the dark web, or your information has been exposed in a data breach? Coming up, Troy Hunt, creator of Have I Been Poned dot Com, is gonna explain what to do when your personal information is exposed. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four

to two four one zero one. Well you've probably heard me talk about the website Have I Been Poned? This is a data breach website that lets you see if your personal information has been compromised. Joining me now is the guy who created it, Troy Hunt, a web security consultant. Troy, thanks so much for on the show today.

in these various locations. So for example, maybe you're in the drop box data breach or the LinkedIn data breach, and this is one central repository that can give you a pretty good overview of that.

I mentioned, Dropbox, Adobe, all these other things. As of today, there's seven hundred and sixty seven data breaches in there, mostly from community contributions, people popping up saying hey, this data probably should be searchable and impacted parties should know about it.

The only thing goes in there is email addresses and then it comes back and says, hey, look, you're in Dropbox, so your email address and your password are at risk. You're in National Madison, so your email address, your password, and your data, birth and your sexuality, and you find on ready all of these other things are in there as well. And then you need to decide what action you have to take to protect yourself.

already in there, Roku has not turned up. It sounds like Roku is actually an example of the credential stuff when we just spoke about where it's not that they have a vulnerability in code per se, but hey, people use the same password on LinkedIn is what they do in their streaming media box and you know people are in there, so anyway, if that turns up, that are going to have a Van Paine and people get an automatic email if you leave it on the website.

and identity theft. And that's what happens in the much shadier corner of the web, well beyond the reach of these services that remove your data. So when we see things like AT and C, you cannot be removed from the AT and T data reach because tens of thousands of people had it now because it's published on the Internet and it's easily downloaded by anyone. So my concern

is that they're well intentioned. They do a good job of taking you out of the least dangerous places, but they can't take you out of the worst places.

R one. This is a AI device. It's got a touchscreen, a scrolling wheel, a push to talk button, and the review units went out this week, so a couple people you actually had to buy one of these to get one. I did not get one. I feel like a lot of these AI products are very early stage and I just don't see the point compared to having your smartphone. Maybe I'll change my mind when a good one comes out,

but this one is two hundred dollars. Early reviews say it is sort of unfinit limited buggy at launch, but it is an interesting gadget for AI tech enthusiasts and early adopters to experiment with. But it's not a smartphone replacement just yet. You could do things like ask it questions using AI, can take pictures of things and identify it. It's got integration with like Uber, door, Dash and Spotify. But again, all these things are much easier just to do on your phone, So keep an eye out for

the rabbit are one and other AI devices. They're not there just yet. Better Business Bureau warning about a new scam text messaging scam where they send you a text that says you got to pay your toll for some sort of road that you went on, and it is not legitimate. I could see why they try this one because I've been on those toll roads where it's like, oh, just you know, you go on these roads and ride

now pay later. You get a bill in the mail for like three hundred dollars, You're like what, So be careful if you get a text that says you have to pay a toll, be very very critical of that text. Ring is going to refund customers or sorry, the FTC is sending five point six million dollars in refunds to Ring customers as part of a settlement addressing privacy violations and security failures. I don't know if you remember this.

This was a long time ago, but Ring had like employees that could see private videos without consent, and so they paid a fine to the FTC. Now the FTC is sending one hundred and seventeen forty four PayPal payments to eligible Ring customers who had certain devices during the timeframes when unauthorized access occurred. Now here's my concern here. You're going to get this, You're going to see scam

artists trying to parlay this into a scam. So I gonna say, hey, we're the ftc We've got your Ring money. Just you know, fill out this information or log in with your PayPal, So be very critical of that as well. Even though this is legitimate, anything that's legitimate, the scam artists find a way to trick you. And then I thought this was pretty cool. This was in the Window Intelligence newsletter this week. An easy way to share files

between any devices on your network. So you know, we've got quick Share, we've got nearby sharing, we've got air drop. This isn't a free open source tool, so if you're always sharing files between your devices and you want something that's quick and easy, it is called local send. The website is let me see local send dot org. There are apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. So you install this program and setup takes about fifteen seconds.

Install the app, open it on your other device. Anything that's on the same network. You'll it'll show up on your phone or your you know, whatever the device is. They'll say, do you want to send this to this device? Sure, let's see now. Keep in mind, the cool thing about airdrop and quick share is that they are ad hoc, which means you don't need an Internet connection or a network for them to work. So this one, you will need to be on the same network for these things

to work. I think that's the big difference. I've not tried this, but I love the sound of it. The other one is a web based alternative. It's called snap drop and snap drop I've used before. It works pretty well. It is snap drop dot net. So again, all these sort of like services for sending files between devices. Hopefully this will all be a lot simpler when Apple allows the rcs on their iPhone, you'll be able to send big files like a big video file or a big

file or a big picture between iPhone and Android. That'll be happening later this year. That'll be a huge win for consumers. All right. Now, time for the feedbag segment. Feedback plus the mail bag equals feedbag. These are the emails, the comments, and the questions I've gotten from you. If you'd like to submit yours, go to Rich on tech

dot TV hit contact. Jim in Portland says, hey, Rich, I've been really thinking a lot about what you said regarding how we're automating so many jobs, and on one hand, I think it's cool. On the other, it's not inclusive and may not be welcome. I'll tell you why I'm blind. I've found that many restaurants now have touch screens when it comes to ordering food. Of course, they're not accessible,

the ones that are few and far between. If I go with someone, I can have them help me use the tablet, But most of the time I'm by myself, and because of these inaccessible tablets, I'm no longer independent. And if I ask an employee for help, what's the difference between that and just ordering from a human. There was a McDonald's I went to that didn't have anyone working there except for the people making food. That was not cool. What about the folks like me who like

ordering things a certain way. I know that certain tablets generally have things already on the menu. I wouldn't settle for that where a human can write down my order and hopefully get it right. I do agree you do agree with you about things like taxis and ubers. However, I'm a bit leery about leaving everything to automation because I like to ask questions and I want to know information. I know the world is going to all this cool technology, and I love toys as much as the next tech nerd.

But people really don't think about including people who can't always access it. Excellent point, Jim, and I think the accessibility part of the equation is a huge one. I think in many ways it adds to the accessibility and in some ways it does take away. Laurel also commented on the automated cars. Don't like them. Among other things, they have blocked emergency vehicles going to calls and also

crashed into emergency vehicles going to calls. Fire departments and police and ambulance companies want to get rid of self driving vehicles. Laurel Nol in scndido says, Hey, Rich love the podcast. Listen to one last week where you had the guy talking about radar apps you can use to

track flights. You mentioned flight Radar twenty four. A cool feature is the ar feature in the corner you point it at an aircraft in flight overhead and it will tell you details on that airport, on that airline destination. Very cool. I also use radar box, flight Aware and globe Dot a DSB exchange dot. That's a tough one. And of course the app you mentioned Flighty and I looked up this ADBs exchange. It is so cool. It shows you an image of every plane in the sky.

It is really cool. And he continues now on AI taking over jobs. I would rather eliminate the pilot who blabs on while we're trying to watch TV. I don't know. I don't want to know where we're flying over. That's so nineteen seventies. The pilot who keeps his interruptions to a minimum. They are safe in my book. And yes I am a pilot. All my best. Keep up the good work. Let's see San Gabriel Don says, hey, Rich, I love that you covered the what three words app.

I wanted you to know that the app is much more than handy. I just retired from a forty year career at the LAFD. The app has literally been a life saving piece of technology. I love all that you do. I just wanted you to know how important this technology has become thank you, and Don says, I've listened to talk radio since I was young falling asleep. That has gotten too repetitive, so I turned to a few podcasts. Yours is number one on my list. Glad I help

you fall asleep. It might be to take me a week to go through the entire show, but everything you discuss is interesting to this retired guy who likes to investigate how things work. Don. Thank you, Don Rich. I love your Saturday show and your KTLA segments. I also applaud your patience with callers. Peter, Thank you Peter. And finally, Bob and Sharon says, thank you Rich. We love your show both on TV and radio. Wow. I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you for the feedback. If

you want to submit, go to Rich on tech dot TV. Well, if you can believe it, that's going to do it for this episode of the show. You can find everything I mentioned on my website. Just go to Rich on tech dot TV. You can find me on social media. I am at rich on tech next week. Let me see what I got coming up next week. Oh, Airbnb's having a big event. We'll talk about that. Let's see we'll talk more about dumb phones, you know, the smartphones,

the opposite of those. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time. I really do appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. Bobo on the board, thank yourself. Thanks Bobo, there you go, Kim on the phones. We've got Bill, We've got Julie. Who else makes this show possible? So I don't know. My wife, she lets me come here and do it, so I

mean that's probably pretty important. And my kids who give me great ideas, and you, of course, thanks to you. My name is Richdmiro. I will talk to you real soon.