How to avoid malware & best password managers

your questions about technology. After all, I believe that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. We got the whole crew here, Bobo on the board, we got Kim on phones, we got Rich on the radio. Phone lines are open triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Phone lines eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. Give me a call. If you have a question about technology. Email also an option just go to

my website rich on Tech dot tv. Hit the link that says contact. We've got some great guests this week. Mark Stockley, senior threat intelligence researcher at Malware Bites. We're gonna talk all about malware, what it is, how to protect yourself, how to identify it on your computer. Really good conversation there. Then we've got Luke Caney, co founder and co director of the Fair Opportunity Project. They have built an AI tool to help students maximize their financial aid.

So if you have a student that's going to college and they're filling out all this financial aid stuff, AI might be able to help.

you plan birthdays, weddings. But for some reason, when you decide at three o'clock in the afternoon to do something, that always turns out to be like the most fun event. I don't know why that is. But we were not able to find babysitters for this concert. Our friends asked us to go to for a very long time, and we just couldn't. Until the last day. My wife decides to ask her mom, and she's like, hey, mom, you

know there's an Old Dominion concert tonight. I don't know if you could do it, but you know, the mom was like, wait, I love Old Dominion. I'll watch your kids so you can have that great time. And sure enough they did. Now they've been to a concert too, so she was actually gonna say she couldn't watch our kids and then take the two tickets, but she didn't do that. But it's so wild. The concert was great.

I it's just so interesting how I'm always looking for the tech in everything that I'm doing, no matter what, whether it's going to a concert, whether it's going you know, I just like to see how tech is affecting people's lives. And something as simple as concert going has been just revolutionized by technology. So, for instance, tickets, So we were meeting our friends. They had two tickets, We had two tickets. You know, they email us the tickets like nowadays, when

you send someone tickets it is through email. Remember back in the day, you'd be outside of a concert venue and someone would whisper tickets, tickets, tickets. That just doesn't even happen anymore because of technology. They've almost gotten rid of that entire last minute outside the gate ticket situation. Now it's all digital and people sell tickets right up into the last couple of minutes of a concert. Because it's all transferred digitally and instantly through the app. You're

not bringing a paper ticket anymore. Ninety nine percent of the time, we went out to dinner before and we're waiting in line at the restaurant, and you can't even go up to the front deck and request a reservation at this restaurant. There's a big giant QR code that says scan this QR code to make a reservation at this restaurant. So to make a reservation you have to go through open table. You just used to walk into a restaurant and say, hey, can I get a table

for two? No, no, no, not anymore. People are planning their reservations at restaurants like weeks and months in advance. There's some restaurants, if it's a really hot one, you literally have to get online a certain amount of days in advance, you know, three months at the exact time

they released those reservations to get a restaurant reservation there. Now, I personally don't necessarily like going to those types of restaurants because they're overhyped in my opinion, and I'd rather wait to see if it stands the test of time. But that's just me. What about once we were inside the arena, they had the just walk out technology from Amazon, so it wasn't labeled that way, but it was so Amazon just walk out. If you haven't tried this, it's

a whole bunch of cameras in the ceiling. You use your credit card or your debit card to get into the store. It opens up a little I don't know what you call it, kind of like a turnpike kind of thing. You walk in and the cameras identify you and they link you to your card, and then you pick out whatever you want in this case, you know, beer and snacks and things like that, and then you walk out. Now, the best part was you don't realize how expensive all this stuff is because you are at

an arena. What is it with the arenas? This suspension of disbelief? There are only a few places that we go to where for some reason we just suspend all beliefs about what things should cost, right, and a stadium is one of those places. You go into a stadium, they could tell you any price in the world and you're like, Okay, that's what it costs to buy a pretzel here nine bucks a beer eighteen nineteen twenty two dollars. I mean, what is going on in these places? But

yet we all do it. Same thing with a movie theater. You go in there, suspension of disbelief. Should popcorn really be nineteen seventeen eighteen dollars? Whatever?

So my wife and I have this thing. Now this may not apply in your city, but in Los Angeles sometimes you are in an uber for an hour, literally a solid hour to get to an event because it is just traffic in this city is unbelievable. And so last night our drive to the arena was a solid hour inside an uber. And so my wife and I we don't like to talk in the back of an

uber because it's kind of awkward. You're sitting there in the back, like discussing things, and there's this person in the front that's literally just like listening or not listening, or pretending they're not listening, but of course they're listening. We're all human. We want to hear what everyone's saying.

So my wife and I have devised this new situation where we bring our AirPods into the back of the uber and we both just listen to something on our AirPods, whether it's a podcast, whether it's the radio, whether it's music, whether I was listening to an audiobook last night, And that's what we do. So we literally sit in silence for the entire hour, and then we use the opportunity to just relax. Sometimes I've fallen asleep, and then we get to the place and that's when we decide to talk,

because you know, you feel like you can talk. So that's our little thing. I don't know. We told our friends that last night, and they're like, that's genius. We love that idea because it's so awkward to talk in the back of an uber, you know, cause they're just it's funny because they act like they're not listening and then all of a sudden they chime in with something about what you're talking about, and you're like, wait, I thought you weren't listening. I thought this was the you know,

So that was really funny. But we do that all the time now. And there's actually a little pro tip is that you can audio share. So if you want to listen to the same thing, like at one point we're listening to the same I forget what it was, podcast, audiobook, whatever it was, radio music, you can share on the iPhone. And so if you both have AirPods. Now, this is

what I love about Apple. Of course, you have to use Apple products to do this right, So you both have to have air pods or beats for you to be able to share your audio on an iPhone. But if you swipe down into your control center, press a hold on the volume, you can share your audio among two different air pods or Beats headphones, so you can both listen to the same thing from one device. Now, if you're on a Samsung, of course it's Android, they

make it a little bit easier. So if you're on Android a Samsung specifically, you can do the same exact thing, but with any headphones. So if you swipe down and you have to pair both headphones to your phone, but if you swipe down from the top, it says media output and from there you will see both pairs of headphones pop up and just select both of them and now you can listen to the same thing amongst two people.

And so if you want to share the experience of whatever you're listening to, that's the way you can do it. So you can do it on iPhone or Samsung. It's just a little bit easier on Samsung because you can use any brand headphones you want. And yes, Airpod's pair with the samsungs Now. On the way home from the concert, we did something that was just wild and crazy. Thank you you like that. Bobo is a big Samsung fan, so he's anytime we talked Samsung, he breaks out the applause.

But on the way home, we did something totally wild. Instead of trying to wrangle an uber or a lyft. At the end of the concert, when there's ten thousand people all trying to get a car, there was a line of taxi cabs and I went up to the taxi guy and he's like, do you need a ride? I said, yeah, is this the way people used to do it? You just literally hop into the back of a taxi cab, and we did and it was so

great and the driver was amazing. Now he actually recognized me from TV, which was funny because he's like, I knew who you were, and I was like, all right, well, thank you, now you know where I live. Nice guy though, he was, and it was such a great experience. It

might have been a little bit expressed. I'm trying to remember how much the uber quoted versus a taxi, and I think that that was the experience in the taxi that hadn't had in a while, watching the meter run up, because that is the biggest difference between a taxi, traditional taxi and an uber. Uber. You kind of know how much you're gonna spend at the beginning. With a taxi, it's a surprise. But also it was kind of fun.

I felt like I was living a little bit. I was watching this meter go up and I was like, all right, let's see how much this can be. And yeah, it was a decent amount of money, but it was also kind of nice, and the driver was great. It was very professionally. He said he'd been doing it ten years and I will say I was very impressed. I I would highly recommend trying a taxi once in your life when you see that line of people outside a theater or an event like go with the taxi and

just see what it's like. I'm not knocking Uber. Believe me. I love Uber. It's gotten me around in many cities around the world. But it was just a fun experience. All right, let's talk some more technology. We got your calls up next to triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. We'll talk all kinds of stuff today. My name is rich Duimiro and thank you are listening

to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology with you at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Free call from anywhere inside the US. Jamie just wrote me on my Instagram at rich on Tech and said totally AirPods in the Uber. And we also text each other, and that's the other thing I meant to mention that yes, my wife and I will text each other to keep our valve of

silence in the backseat of the Uber. Oh fun times. All right, let's go to Marvin in Denver, Colorado. Marvin, you're on with Rich.

of the equation. But here's what happened. So the notes are on there, and the app, by the way, is called collect c l l X. This was invented by a new Jersey Dad and his son. You're right. His name is Ted Man. We did a segment with him both on TV and on the radio.

I think it was up to like a couple thousand bucks worth of cards on the app, and of course you can use the app to connect with other collectors, buy, sell, and trade cards, and there's a whole bunch of stuff. This thing has just taken on a life of its own. I think they added some new AI features as well. But again, the app is called Collex co l lx dot app and Tedman is on there. He's the founder, like you said, and you can email him through the

website as well. But the reason why you couldn't find it on my website is because baseball was not in the description. I wrote it down as it says Tedman, creator of the Collex app, which lets you scan your sports card collection. So I should have said. I should have said, I mean including baseball cards because I figured. And by the way, that show was on eleventh, twenty twenty three. That was the sixth episode of the radio show. So good memory, thanks for calling, appreciate that, and good

luck scanning your cards. All right, let's talk about some of the things I mentioned earlier. We've got an Apple event happening this week October thirtieth. It is called Scary Fast, and the event is expected to focus on new max, likely an M three version of the iMac and potentially an M three thirteen inch MacBook Pro. So whenever there's an Apple event, I caution you not to buy any

Apple products until after the event. So from now until Monday, October thirtieth, at five pm Pacific, I think is what it is, Yeah, five pm Pacific. The event is live stream. This is not in person. I got an invite, just literally a link to watch this online like everyone else. So a new twenty four inch iMac with an M three chip is rumored, and that replaces the current M one iMac from twenty twenty one. Now, again these are rumors.

We don't know if it's all gonna happen, but then you've got the thirteen inch MacBook Pro without a touchbar and an update to the M three chip. Now there's also some other rumors out there, maybe some new iPads fourteen inch and sixteen inch MacBook pros not expected to get an update because they just launched a while ago. And when it comes to any Apple products, by the way, I like to look up the website Buyer's Guide dot

MacRumors dot com, Buyer's Guide dot MacRumors dot com. So if you're thinking about buying an Apple product, what they do is they time out exactly how long it's been since the last product was launched, and then they tell you typically like okay, let's say for the iPhone. Typically the average life cycle of the iPhone is three hundred and sixty five days, and it's been forty three days since its last release, So that means you could safely

buy a new iPhone because it's only been forty three days. Now. If you look at something like the iPhone, the average release time is seven hundred and twenty five days between releases, and right now it's been five hundred and ninety nine days, so they say caution approaching the end of its life cycle, which means Apple may come out with a new iPhone. Se Now let's take a look at the iMac which we were just talking about. iMac don't buy because it's

typically three hundred and ninety eight days between releases. Right now we are at nine hundred and eleven days between releases. So that's just to give you an idea. I always say with Apple products, especially the popular ones, you kind of want to get them right when they come out, because Apple is really good at refreshing their product lines, like on a very timely manner, and so the second that device comes out, it is almost like a ticking clock of when the next one is going to come out,

So that is something to keep in mind. Also wanted to mention that Apple raised prices on almost all of its subscription services, so Apple TV Plus going up from six ninety nine a month to nine ninety nine, News Plus nine nine nine to twelve ninety nine, Arcade four ninety nine to six ninety nine a month, and then these Apple one Bundle plans going up from sixteen ninety

five to nineteen ninety five a month. The Premiere plan, the one that I pay for, which started out as twenty nine ninety nine, then it went up to thirty two ninety nine. Now it's up to thirty seven ninety nine a month. So this is it's just the way of the world right now with all of these streaming services, every single company is raising prices. All right. Coming up next, we're going to talk to our first guests. Who's gonna tell us about their AI chatbot or actually we're gonna

talk malware. Let's talk malware, how to avoid it, what it is, and how you can avoid it on your system. You're listening to rich on tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one, eighty eight seven four to two. So for one zero one we're gonna do an interview right now. But if you have a question about technology, give me a call, get in

with Kim. She will get you queued up so you can be on air and ask your question about whatever you want, whatever's vexin you, whatever you need help with, looking for an app for something, need a recommendation. I am all ears at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four one zero one. Joining me now, is Mark Stockley, senior threat intelligence researcher at malware Bites. Mark is joining us from the UK today. Mark, Thanks and welcome to the show.

those things. So generally, the less the less well written that malware is the more of those things that you're likely to see. There are particular types of malware like cryptomnors which tried to mind cryptocurrency, which use lots of resources, so they might make your computer run hot or run slowly. But the really bad stuff I said earlier about the malware that steals things from you, that's really really good at staying hidden and it doesn't leave obvious signs like

using lots of resources or crashing your computer. These computer programs, these malicious programs, are quite mature and they're very good at staying hidden. So my advice is, actually, even though those things might be a sign that you've got malware infection, don't try reading the signs.

disguised as normally as a kind of legitimate program. But the distinctions between them I don't think are actually all that helpful for India users, because what we see a lot of these days is that a lot of sorts of malware will actually download other malware, so it will try very hard. Whatever you end up with on your system, it'll probably have some provision for bringing another bit of malware in, depending on what kind of system you have.

So it could be that you know you have or you have a chain of malicious software, chain of malicious events, so you know, one type of malware might lead to another type of malware might lead to another type of malware, So you could end up with all of these things.

more of a threat for high value targets. So if you're a politician and somebody's prepared to spend you know, a million dollars on infecting your phone, then that's possible. And because iOS is so locked down, you can't run antivirus scanners on it, so if you do get something bad on your iPhone, there's almost nothing you can do about it. It would be practically impossible for you to detect. So most people won't have to worry about that.

malware authors. So some malware authors will actually tell you you go to a website and they'll trigger a pop up that says your browser needs an update, download the update here, and then actually what you're downloading is a trojan.

you with that. Because as ever, you know, the threats don't stand still, they evolve over time.

looks suspicious? So it's obviously it's like in your home, you know, it's much better to fit the locks to your door and to your windows, and to fit the CCTV and stop that burglar getting in in the first place, than to try and detect if they're already in your house.

on Tech. Let's go to Melody in Carlsbad. Melody You're on with rich.

nothing with it. Then, about a month ago, I got an email from the geek Squad saying I needed alerting me that my account was going to expire and I needed to renew it. Well, I ignored that because I knew the Geek Squad that it was a scam. I don't have an account with geek Squad. I've never done any business with Geek Squad, so then I ignored the email. A few days ago, I get an email from an unknown person advising me that my account has been restored or renewed and for a charge of I think it

was like two hundred bucks one ninety nine. Well, I I didn't do anything, you know, I haven't taken any action on that. But I'm wondering what do I do? Yeah, the only thing I can think of is to keep monitoring my credit card accounts. But I can't, you know, unless they have I don't know if they have any of my credit card information.

two hundred ninety eight dollars, whatever it is. And it says this will be charged, you know, in the next week unless you call this number. And so you call this number. I'm actually looking at one right now. Okay, says geek Squad protect your tech. It's time for renewal order ID product geek Squad five year personal home membership customer information that has all your data on there, including your name and your email address, and it says we're ready to help whenever you need us, call us at

this phone number. And so what's happening is they want you to see this email and say, wait a second, I didn't subscribe to geek Squad. And you call that number and that's when the actual scam takes place, because you think that you're confirming your credit card number or getting this charge reversed, and they're actually collecting that information from you. This has nothing to do with the Geek Squad. They're just using the Geek Squad's good name to get

your information and to try to charge you. So, Melody, I know this is happening to you, and you're getting these letters in the mail and these emails, and you know, could even be a phone call. But the best thing you can do is, like you said, monitor your credit card for any real charges that may come about, which there's probably not going to be any, and just keep deleting these emails, don't don't unsubscribe to them, don't call the phone number that's inside these emails. This is something

that I'm seeing on a daily basis. I'm getting these emails and so it's coming. Like I said, the Geek Squad and Norton are two of the biggest because those are two of the biggest brand names out there. So that's what's happening, Melody, you could safely ignore them. I'm glad you brought it up so that people can't avoid this. Thanks so much for the call today, triple A Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two

four one zero one. Mark is in one Netca, California. Mark, you're on with Rich?

of the position that they're in. I might be able to move around a little bit, but it will not delete. It will not allow me to watch it and then get rid of it. And it's bad enough with YouTube not let me on talking about malware bytes. They won't even allow mailware bytes. So I'm kind of at.

because you're saying that this is not working. So the second way to try to get rid of these URLs on your desktop is to select one and then press shift and the delete key at the same time. So shift and delete to get rid of this. And it says I'm trying this right now. It says, are you sure you want to permanently delete this item? I press yes, and my computer is saying access denied. And so this

may be what you're coming up against. You may need to log in as an administrator to do this, because sometimes it does try to protect you from certain operations on your computer that could have negative effects. And so if you are not the owner of that computer, or if you're on like a guest account, you're not the administrator,

you may have to do that. If that's not working for you, you may want to try restarting your computer and then doing it, because sometimes these things are a little bit stickier than they should be and a good restart will help that. But try the shift delete. I think that'll really help. Mark and let me know. Email me on the website. Richon Tech dot tv coming up more of your calls. Plus we'll talk Mario, the latest game that everyone loves, including myself. This is rich on Tech.

What's going on? Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Hope you're having a fantastic day. Phone lines are open at triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one is the phone number. We're going to talk about Cruise pausing its driverless car operations. We're going to talk about phishing and malware. A new report says that this stuff is up. So if you think that it can't happened to you, think again, it

can and it will. We're gonna talk about Mario. It's a fun new game, Super Mario. Brothers wonder this is a great game. My brother actually texted we've got a little group chat with a family, and my brother posted a picture of his Nintendo switch and I said, let me guess, you must be playing Super Mario Brothers. Wonder He said, yeah, how'd you know, I said, because everyone's playing it. This is such a fun game. My name

is rich Demiro. You're listening to rich on Tech website, rich on Tech dot TV, and of course online at rich on Tech. That's a lot of rich on Tech. So let me tell you about this Nintendo game. This is the first two D side scrolling Mario Brothers game in over ten years. This launched for the Nintendo Switch. Mentioned it on the show last weekend, but I hadn't had a chance to play it just yet, and boy, when I got a chance to play, it was fun.

My nine year old and I were fighting over who got to play next because it was just It's one of those games that you pick up and there's almost no learning curve, right, you just know how to play

it instinctively. So if you played the original Mario Brothers, or if you're looking for a gift this holiday season, or I don't know, I just have a feeling that over the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and all throughout, you know, through the end of the year, no matter what you're celebrating, people are going to be getting this as a gift. The kids are gonna start playing it, and the parents or the adults are going to, wait a second, I want to play that because it just looks fun and

it looks easy. I don't know if you've tried to play one of these video games these days, but you know, there's like fifteen different controller settings, fifteen different buttons on that thing. And it's not for the faint of heart. Like you need to know how to play video games for most of today's games, this one you do not. It's got fun power ups like elephant fruit, which turns Mario into an elephant with like a horn or what do they call it, not a horn, elephant nose, like

a long elephant nose, a trunk, Thank you, Bobo. Then they've got these wonder flowers that trigger effects.

There you go, thirty years. So again, Super Mario Brothers. Wonder if you're looking for a gift this holiday season, I'm telling you this is the one to get. Kids will love it, adults will love it, and I think you're gonna have fun play in this game, So I am that's for sure. Cruz this is the driverless taxi service. This is the company owned by GM General Motors. They

have operations in I know it's in San Francisco. I believe it's in Phoenix and also Austin, and so Cruz has paused its driverless car operations after this issue they had in California, and the issue was a pedestrian was hit by a human driver and thrown into the path

of one of these autonomous cruise cars. So the car did not actually well, it ended up hitting the person, but the car or the person was originally hit by a human driver and that human driver fled the scene, by the way, so they're still looking for that driver. But what happened was the human hit the person in

the crosswalk. The person was thrown into the path of this Cruise driverless car, the driverless car, and this is kind of the sad part is it kind of dragged the person a couple of feet while trying to pull over, and I know, it's just like thinking about this is like, oh gosh. Now where the trouble started is apparently Cruise did not exactly tell the DMV everything they knew about this accident. And I guess there was some videotape that they didn't show until they were asked, like, hey, where's

this tape, And so that's where the issue lies. I mean, look, these self driving cars are learning, and Cruise is arguing that, look, you know, there are things that could have done better. But at the same time, the issue with the DMV stem from the fact that Cruz was not one hundred

percent forthcoming about everything it knew about this accident. And so the DMV immediately suspended their license for doing these self driving cars in California, and Cruise to took it a step further after that and said, you know what, We're going to pause a little bit here. We're going to stop our self driving cars everywhere in all of our markets, just to kind of rethink, refocus, and figure out what went wrong here and how we can make

sure this never can happen again. Now, I think at the end of the day, the human is still the most at fault here because the human hit the other human and drove off, and they did it on purpose because they're probably scared. Who knows, they could have been drinking. Who knows what happened there. But you know, it's just one of these situations where no matter how you slice it, it is not good. And you could say, Okay, well, we should never have driverless cars, we should never have

self driving cars. I don't think that's going to be the reality in the future. No matter what, we are going to have self driving cars. It's going to be a part of our lives. And I think in many cases, these self driving cars are probably safer than human drivers. Humans are human. They get behind the wheel after drinking, after taking drugs, after you know, they don't feel right mentally, physically. There are so many things that can happen with a car.

A car is a piece of machinery and we're just human. We're just operating this machinery, and so many things can go wrong. And I'm not saying the driverless cars are perfect. They're just software and machinery and they're still learning and they're still figuring out. But I think the reaction times are quicker, the way that they react to things are probably better in many ways than humans can do it. But again, this is all evolving. Humans have been driving

for a long time, driverless cars not so much. So. At the end of the day, Cruise pausing operations in all of its markets. Waimo still operates here in Los Angeles and in other cities, and I think it's not the last time we're gonna hear about stuff like this. These driverless cars are becoming a bigger and bigger force because why, money is at stake. There's money to be made, there's efficiencies, and there's a lot of money backing these

driverless car operations. So again, very sad what happened in this specific instance, but I think Cruise is doing the right thing by saying, you know, let's pause for a little bit, let's figure out what's going to happen in the future with these kind of events, and let's make sure that never happens again. The car should have just come to a complete stop, right if you have a human that's stuck underneath your car, you don't keep moving. And the car didn't do that. It moved because it

was programmed to do that. It was programmed to do a procedure where it would pull over until it was safe. In fact, in California, I guess there are laws that say you have to pull over after an accident, you know, to ensure the safe of other people, but not when that puts a human at risk. So we'll continue to watch that story see what happens with that. Let's talk more about phishing and malware, because we had a guest earlier on the show talking about malware, how to identify it,

how to avoid it. But this is a report from vade secure. I guess, of course they probably try to keep people safe from malware and phishing. Q three twenty twenty three, phishing volumes increased one hundred and seventy three percent compared to previous quarter. Four hundred and ninety three million emails were phishing. Malware volume increased one hundred and ten percent quarter over quarter, hitting one hundred and twenty

five million emails. August the most active month for phishing, two hundred and seven million fishing emails were sent September highest for malware forty five million malware threats. Top impersonated brands. If you get an email from Facebook or Microsoft, be on guard. Those are the two most impersonated brands. We talked about geek Squad earlier. Why do they impersonate these

brands because they're popular. A lot of people get legitimate emails from Microsoft and Facebook on a daily basis, So these scammers try to mix in a few that are fake and they catch you off guard. And so when Facebook says, hey, did you just log in on this on this device from Croatia and you go no, and okay, here click here to fix that, and you click there, you log in without thinking, and now you've just been hacked. Let's see, financial services saw the most phishing URLs, while

government fishing increased almost three hundred percent. Number one impersonator for phishing URLs Bank of America. That's what they're impersonating the most. Why because Bank of America is a huge bank, one of the top banks here in the US, if not the top bank. Phishing URLs impersonating Bank of America jumped eight hundred and seventy three percent quarter over quarter. Let's see what else Microsoft three sixty five key phishing target and the new way they're fishing is with QR codes.

They send you a QR code through your email and say, hey, log in securely by scanning this code with your phone. And you may be saying, rich, why would I ever do that? Come on, this is like a no brainer. Help people do it. And again it's all about catching you off guard, because what do you have to do in real life? You have to scan sometimes a QR code to do something. Instagram copyright infringement scams continue to

target users. I get these probably on a daily basis. Hey, your piece of content on Instagram it's illegal, it's copyright infringement. Click this link to verify your account, make sure everything's okay. And again people get those. I've gotten those for real where it says the music you used in your Instagram reel is copyrighted. We are going to take down that piece of content or we're going to mute the music.

And so again, all of these phishing and malware things they play, they put a twist on something we know to be real, and that's how they get you. Email continues to be the top initial infection vector for phishing and malware. So beyond guard when you're on email, use a program that helps kind of scan your email for viruses and malware and all this stuff. But at the end of the day, you are your best line of defense. You get an email that seems too good to be true,

don't click it. You get a warning that they're gonna stop, you know, I mean, you see it for everything. We're gonna turn off your electricity, We're gonna the car warranty on your on your car is gonna stop. Your Instagram account is gonna be deactivated. Your Facebook account is gonna be deactivated. Your bank account is going to be closed. No one is closing these accounts by emailing you. I can tell you that right now. Nobody is closing your

accounts by emailing you. When there is actually an issue, and there's actually a problem, you will know for real. They will send a message to your phone, they will send you a notification. And ninety nine percent of the time Facebook is not sitting there closing accounts, and when they do, you'll know it. So just be aware. Again, Phishing email activity is up, and it's because we're human.

We click these things and so you just have to really be on guard about what you're clicking, what you're doing. I can look at my inbox right now and see a whole bunch of stuff that I'm just like, what is this? Just be on guard, all right. Coming up next, more of your calls at triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. We got emails too from richontech dot TV. There's a email contact button you could send them there.

I'll read one of those coming up next. My name is rich dmiro and you are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich on tech dot tv is the website. If you want to contact the show, send your email there or call in eighty eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Mike rode In on the website. I have a set of bows Q forty five quiet comfort noise canceling headphones. I'm having connectivity issues with my

Samsung S ten smartphone. I'm trying to connect with Bluetooth. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. On my phone. All my echo dots show up in the list, even my TV, but not my headphones. Last night it played somehow even though it never came up in the list. Out of curiosity, I closed all the apps and it was still playing help me Please in bold letters, Mike, I think you need to do what's called a network

settings reset on this Samsung Galaxy S ten smartphone. It's it's an older phone, so you've probably connected things over the years to it, and something just doesn't seem to be playing right. So what I'd recommend is doing what's called a network settings reset. So you want to go into your Samsung phone. You want to go into your settings and let me get my phone here, so I can do this with you. Y swipe down from the top. There's a little gear icon in the upper right hand corner.

You tap that and then you'll be into your settings. Now you scroll all the way down until it says general Management, and then you scroll all the way down again until it says reset.

bring your phone back to factory fresh finish. But if you're having problems with your phone and you want to reset something, maybe you change the setting and you just can't remember which setting it was and it's just annoying you. You can tap reset all Settings and it'll bring all settings, security, language accounts, personal data, settings for download apps. That will bring it all back to factory. Or you can do reset Network settings and that will reset the Wi Fi,

the mobile data, and Bluetooth. That's the one I think you should tap. And so once you tap that, it will clear out all the Bluetooth devices, all the Wi Fi devices, all the connected devices on that phone. Then I would go in and I would repair the Bow's headphones, and I think your connectivity issues will hopefully be solved. Let's go to Mary Jane, Mary Jane, Mary Gene in Fallbrook, California. You're on with Rich.

inoperable and I don't know what security code it's not. Well, I'm confused. I just don't know what to do.

what I believe is happening here. That is the code. So whatever you type in and don't don't say it on air, but whatever you type in on your old phone, that's what you do. That's the code that you put in on the new phone. So typically throughout the little process of transferring all the data, it will say, please enter the security code or the pin code from your your previous device, and so that's the code. That you type in and that will help the new phone gather

the old data. So that's what I believe you could do. If you're already trying to do this yourself, what you want to do is just on the iPhone, the new iPhone, just start the process over. There's usually a way you can just keep pressing the back button on the iPhone. Just do it yourself. Hold both phones next to each other, make sure they're both charged up, have the old phone on and ready, and your new phone will recognize that your old phone is right next to it. It will say, hey,

do you want to copy over all your information? And you say yes, and then at some point in that process, it will ask you for that pin code or that security code from your old phone. So Mary Gene, thanks so much for calling today. I hope that that helps you figure it out. All right, triple eight rich one one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. We've got to couple of lines open if you want to get those calls in. We're also going

to talk about uh oh, this is really neat. Google has a new way to help you create AI images. It's pretty slick. I'll tell you all about it coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hang out with you talking technology. Email is open at richontech dot. TV Phone lines are open triple eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's go to Edwin in the Lucern Valley, California. Edwin, you're on with rich Oh Rich.

I could use as for a microphone. It's gonna be broadcasting, uh from my computer to whatever repeater I log into.

that you get online would work just fine. I mean, YETI is a big brand that a lot of people like. I'm actually testing a brand that I absolutely love and I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember what the name is, but oh my gosh, I gotta get this. It's like an Australian brand. It's like an Austrian There's also a mic I really like called Tula t U La Tula mic. But I think any of the yeties are probably gonna

be fine. I would also check what Wirecutter recommends for like just a basic you know, I would probably just think a podcast mike would be fine for you. Let's see what they say with the Okay, yep, YETI is their top pick, the blue Yetti Oh Amazon, how about this Edwin Amazon Basics Desktop Mini condenser microphone. How much is this? Oh it's unavailable, darn it. That would have been a great one. Amazon Basics is probably like, you know, twenty bucks for a mic. Okay, you've got blue Snowball

USB MIC that's a good one for fifty bucks. The blue Yetti is about one hundred dollars. They've got a Razor MIC that is forty dollars. I mean, these are these are some solid options, and I think any of these are going to be fine. And the good news is once you get this you could test it out. I don't think the quality of any of these, I think is going to be perfect for what you're doing. So now you said Dell was going to send you a MIC. I'm not sure why they're sending you one

if you're going to buy one. But that's what I would do, is just get a USB MIC. I think that you don't even need a MIC that plugs into the jack on the computer. I think USB would probably be better. So again, those are the brands I think, YETI is probably the biggest brand that people use out there for these kind of us by they kind of invented the genre there, So a good question ed when in hopefully can hear. I don't. I don't have any experience with Ham radio. I get so many emails from

like Ham radio operators. I think. I think the last time I did anything like that was when I was a kid. I think they had like this set that I got. It was like a cardboard box with like radio in it. But I don't. I don't know anything about that world. I should probably do a story on it so I can learn more. Thanks for the call today, triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. I really wish I could find this mic that I've been using. I

gotta I should write it down. I'll talk about it on a future show, because I really I've I get sent a lot of microphones to try out. This one was really really good, like the quality. It just sounded so rich.

it's it's pretty handy. So if you want to try this out, you go to lab dot Google Labs dot Google and you can opt into what's called their Search Generative Experience. This is all of the new stuff that Google's doing with Search in AI. So if you want to try this, once you're opted in, you can go to the search bar on Google or directly to the tool. So to try this in search again once you're opted in, don't just try this and say rich it's not working.

You have to be opted in. All you have to do is type the word draw or sketch and then whatever you want to see. So let's say draw a bear eating bear on Mars eating honey, and I type that in and it says generating right at the top, you know where you'd see the typical images on Google. Well, now it says generative AI is experimental, and it gives me four images that Google literally made on the fly of a bear eating honey on Mars, and it's pretty neat.

You can also say sketch, So if you want to say sketch a dream sports car with you know, I don't know, whatever you want. This is the beauty of this stuff is that your your creativity is the limit. There's literally no limit. Let's say sketch a dream car that is made of candy, and let's see what it looks like. So it's gonna sketch this car in real time. It's generating right now. There it is. I see interesting. It went with kind of a classic looking car, which

I wouldn't think a dream car would be. But one of these cars has like you know all I mean this. The second image it generated is super cool, a sketch of a lollipop shaped race car with a gumball body, a gummy bear interior, and a candy cane steering wheel. It actually tells you what the AI thought of when it made this image. Bobo's coming in. He wants to see what this image looks like. It looks like a car that you might have on candy Land. So it's

pretty good. And you can edit these images again, you can export them, you can download them, you can save them to your Google drive. This is really fun. Now. There are many many aiimage generators out there. Many of them require a sign up, many of them are limited. Some of them give you only a couple of free images. And then they charge you for more. This is all completely free Bobo proofs. So if you want to go to try this out, go to the website Rich on

tech dot tv. Scroll down it says try Google's free aiimage generator and you can see the I did a cute little furry monster listening to music and it is so cute. This is something that would take the people at Pixar sixteen weeks to generate, and they did it

on Google in about ten seconds. Now, if you want to go directly to the tool, you can go to Google dot com slash search slash images, but again you have to be signed up for this, and it shows all of the recent images from the past thirty days that I've generated with this tool, and wow, I'm looking at this. I've generated a lot. I generated a elephant playing piano. I generated a oh wow, these sports cars

dream sports cars. I did a unicorn eating popcorn. I did a cargo plane flying over I don't know what that is. I did a person let's see what this one was. This, Oh, I did cell phone addiction, generated a bunch of people on their cell phones. So this is really really fun stuff. Again, Rich on tech dot TV, if you want to try out Google's free AI image generator. The neat part about this AI image generator compared to a lot of other ones, is that there's really no

sign up. If you already have a Google account, you just have to opt in. You can do this on your mobile phone, and you can do it right from Google Search. So again, just type in draw or sketch along with the image that you want. Pretty pretty fun stuff. Google just continues to amaze me with some of the stuff that it does. Let me tell you real quick, I've been playing with the Samsung Galaxy twenty three FE. They sent the phone in purple, and it's pretty nice color.

It's a little blockier and chunkier than the standard Samsung phones. But the FE models are basically they call them Fan Edition, so they have all the features that you want, but at a better price point. So this starts at five hundred ninety nine dollars available now, and it has three lenses. You've got your Ultra wide, your standard, and your zoom. Zoom's up to three times. And the pictures I took today they look pretty good. I'm gonna have to do

some more, you know, taking pictures. Comparing meinst the other phones, but this is a solid device for five hundred ninety nine dollars. Comes in a bunch of fun colors mint cream, graphite, and purple. If you order it on Samsung dot com, they have exclusive colors indigo and tangerine. And it's got all the stuff that you need. It's got a great display, it's got long lasting battery life. It is a Samsung

phone through and through. Now they get the FI Edition last year, but people love these FI editions because it's basically a really inexpensive Samsung device, but with all of the flagship features. So I'd say check it out. If you're looking for a Samsung phone, you don't want to spend twelve hundred dollars on the Ultra and you want something that's just basic, but it still has all that Samsung goodness. These phones are going to do it. And

actually I like how it's kind of chunky. It's a little bit thicker, a little bit bigger than the typical Samsung flagship, the S twenty three, the S twenty three plus the S twenty three Ultra. This Fi is just like a little bit bigger, but it still fits in your hand really nice. So again, it's on sale now. It starts at five ninety nine if you want to bundle it. By the way, I was talking about, they have a tablet, an Fi tablet, and also the buds.

They're doing that for nine to ninety nine for all three of these, so you could walk out with a tablet, the buds, you know, the earbuds, and the phone all for nine ninety nine. That's only happening through the thirtieth though, so you only have a couple of days to take advantage of that. But Samsung, you know, they're forced to be reckoned with They've got this technology down, They've got this stuff figured out, so they're you know, they want

to sell phones. And by the way, I actually I hate to say, I don't recommend buying this phone right now, but I kind of don't because if history is our guide, the FI devices are discounted, so throughout the holidays, if you're looking for a new phone, the FI device will probably be one hundred dollars less minimum. So you're talking four ninety nine for a Samsung, really good Samsung phone. So personally i'd probably wait for that. But the deal, the bundle deal is pretty good for nine h nine

you're geting three things. Phone line open eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. We still got lots more of the show, lots more questions, lots more things to talk about. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. I found the microphone I was testing. It's called the me

Creator MI Creator Studio pocket recording System. It's from a company named Austrian Audio, and I gotta say this probably has one of the best audio qualities. In fact, I used it to record a segment of this very show last two weeks ago. And it's a studio microphone with USBC connection. It's two hundred bucks and it's really good. It's good for music recording, podcasting, interviews, and it's USBC, so you plug it into your computer and the quality

is just it's it's really really good. Again, the Me Creator Studio. And that's only if you're doing like a podcast at home, or if you want really high quality audio. Otherwise you don't need something that expensive or that high quality. Let's go to Doreen in Seami Valley Doreen, you're on with Rich.

and on. What happened is when the people leave and go somewhere or whatever, they're alone for two or three hours and they will bark continuous as long as the people are gone. When they come back and the barking stops, there's this sounds like a dog, sounds like yeah, go ahead, Well I got it's an ultrasound. It's called Dog Silencer Maps and it runs anywhere from seventy to one hundred and sixty dollars or something, and it's uh, you pointed to the direction, and it was supposed to work within

three hundred feet. Well, my dining room. I live in an apartment and the dining room, my dining room is connected to their dining room, you know, with the wall naturally between its and it's not a very thick wall whatever. So I just wondered if you knew anything about this dog silence or whether it works, or if there's any any other kind of apparatus devices or whatever that might stop the I mean it sounds you know, well it's a dog, you know, but I mean it's driving me nut.

barking up to three hundred feet away. They say it's humane automatic bark detection up to seventy five feet, so it's not kind of sending out the signal all day. It's only sending it out when the dog starts barking, so that activates it. And I'm guessing it's some sort of ultrasonic sound that the dog does not like, and that's why the dog, you know, pipes down. I don't like this. I don't like the sound of it. I

feel like Doreen. By using a device like this, you know there's an underlying issue here, and the issue is twofold. It's you and your neighbor sound like you've got. You know, you're either not happy with this neighbor, you may not know this neighbor, and you know you also don't know what's happening with this situation with a dog. So this device also. Looking it up on Amazon gets a two point six out of five. That's pretty bad. It's not

for sale anymore on Amazon. I don't know if it's just out of stock right now, but I think there's too many red flags with this. I think that you know, this is kind of the human touch. I think you got to go over there and just talk to your neighbor and explain what's happening, like you did to me, and just say, look, you know this is driving me nuts. Is there anything we can do? And I think that's probably the best way to start this thing. I don't

have enough information on it. I'm not sure if it's humane. I'm not sure if this is something that people do on a daily basis and use stuff like this against their neighbor's dogs. But it doesn't feel good to me, Like I wouldn't want someone doing this to my dog. It just doesn't feel right, you know, And so I would talk to your neighbor. That's what I think you need to do. See what the neighbor does. Maybe I

don't know, become friends with the dog. Maybe maybe when the neighbor leaves the house, you take the dog in and the dog kind of cuddles up to you and gets to know you and feels more comfortable being at the house alone, and you know, now you have a companion. So I don't know, these are just these are just ideas, but I would I would say this thing probably sounds

too good to be true. If it, you know, if it, if it worked, it probably have better ratings number one, and maybe you know, And that's the beauty of this show. What I love about this show is that people call in and they email me and they let me know what they're opinion is on stuff too. So this could be a very common way for people to keep their neighbors dogs quiet. I just don't. It's like, I wouldn't want someone to do this to my dog, and so I don't know. And maybe it's a training method, but

I think I don't know. That's that's a good one. Thanks for the call. Appreciate it, Doreen. Hopefully you get that figured out, because it's not something you want. It's so funny because dog owners are sometimes oblivious to this situation. They're like, oh, I just left for work, and you know, the dog is sitting there, you know, crying the whole afternoon. And no one wants that, not even the dog owner. They don't want that either. Rich on tech dot tv

is the website to go to. By the way, did you know you can listen to this show as a podcast, So if you miss an episode you want to tune in at a different time whatever it is. It's on the radio obviously, but if you want to listen as the podcast, you could also do that. So you can go to rich on tech dot tv. Oh, we got a dog in the studio. Oh my gosh, Okay, let me try the let me try the silencer. Let's see if this works already, can you hear it? Okay? The dog?

Oh Wow, dog went away. Oh no, he's back. Dog is back.

My name is rich Damiro. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. So I'll have another hour of the show to go. Lots to talk about. I'll tell you about new pause ads on your streaming services, what that means, a little tip for opening QR codes on iOS X, rolling out audio and video calls. And we've got a great guest coming up later in the show, Luke Haney, co founder and co director of the Fair

Opportunity Project. They have built an AI tool to help students get more money for college through financial aid. So you definitely want to hear about that if you have a student that might be going to school. We got a couple of calls on the phone eighty eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. I'll get to that in a second. I just wanted to read a couple of the emails we've gotten, Andrew says Andrew, and Semi Valley says.

For the issue of the guy that had trouble with their Bluetooth earbuds, it could be caused by an app accessing the Bluetooth that doesn't need to. In my case, my brand new iPhone fourteen Promax kept having a problem with the Bluetooth AirPods pro cutting out, and it turned out the Alexa app, but my phone had access to Bluetooth and that was causing the problem. Simply disabling its access to Bluetooth might fix the issue. Most apps do not need constant access to Bluetooth and should be disabled

as needed. Yeah, that could be it. So that's something else you can check. I mean, look, in general, if an app is using permissions that it doesn't need, definitely get rid of those because a lot of times these apps will ask for all kinds of permissions they don't need, like camera location, all that stuff. Just don't give it

to them. You can also revoke the permissions and the settings too, Craig says rich regarding screening emails before they get into your outlook or other inbox in your computer. Our eight person architecture firm has been using the program below for decades and it is fantastic. They have a free version, but the yearly charge for the full program is a bargain that provides more features. It's called mail

Washer from a company in Australia. You can get the free download and the website is fire trust dot com mailsher pro, so it looks like mail Washer. Release date August twenty twenty three, so it's up to date. Works on Windows protection against spam, phishing emails, email virus, his unwanted newsletter's unwanted email. The trial is thirty days and offers full functionality. If you want to keep using it

after thirty days, you must purchase a license. The license is good for three computers for one year and it's twenty five bucks. That's pretty good. So if you have a small kind of firm, small company, and you just want to protect everyone at that company that's not bad, and I looked up reviews on mail Washer. It actually gets pretty good reviews. The con is that the free version is just for one email account, but the pros are pretty good. So thanks for that suggestion, Craig appreciate that.

Let's see. ROBERTA writes in says, I have an eighty six year old neighbor who locked himself out of his iPhone. He doesn't remember his Apple ID as password or any codes and can't find his receipt. Apple is unable to help him. Please advise, Well, yeah, yeah, think you can't remember anything here, You're you're kind of out of luck. There, doesn't remember his Apple ID password or any codes and can't find his receipt. I get emails like this on

a daily base. People forget everything. People are just setting up their phones and then immediately forgetting what the information is that they set up. And I'm guilty of it. I've done this. I'm not kidding. One time. I got a review unit from Samsung one time and I set it up and I literally as soon as I set up the phone, I forgot what the passcode was. And I'm not kidding. I didn't come back to the phone for another week, and I said, Samsung, he has sent

me a phone that I can't open. I can't unlock this thing because as a passcode, And they said, what are you talking about. We never send phones that have passcodes on them. They went nuts looking at all their files trying to figure it out, and finally I was like, oh, wait a second. I did set up this phone, and I totally forgot what I set is the passcode, and I had to reformat the entire phone to get it back to factory. So ROBERTA, I think that's what your

eighty six year old neighbor has to do. If he forgot his Apple ID, his password, his codes, he's got to reformat that phone and start fresh. Now. The only thing he could try to do, I mean, with the Apple ID, you can type in Apple ID recovery online and you can go there and figure out if he can reset his password. Go to iforgot dot Apple dot com. I forgot I F O R G O T dot Apple dot com, and you can try to reset your password there. I'm assuming the guy only has one or

two email accounts. I mean, how many emails can he possibly have? So it's probably one of those accounts, so reset the email password and then he can get back into his phone. Let's go to John in more Park, California. John, you're on with Rich Okay, I hope you can hear me. I hear you a loud and clear John.

If you're using an iPhone, you've probably seen this pop up on your phone where it says it literally puts like an email or a password in the box, like it's like this long character and you just have to tap to accept it. But iCloud keychain, if he's already using iPhone, I think is going to be the simplest way to do it. Now, when you're using more devices than just the iPhone, I think it gets a little bit more complicated, then I would recommend something like bitwarden,

b it wr d n Bitwarden. And what Bitwarden does is it will generate a password, but you have to set it all up. You need to create an account, you need to set it up and make sure that the iPhone knows that that's what you want to use to fill on the accounts. That's a good way to go. If you're a big Google user, a Google Chrome on the iPhone and Google Chrome on the desktop, I would check out Google password manager, so they have one built in.

You can go to passwords dot Google dot com. And Google just recently upgraded this password manager so that works even better on the iPhone. It used to be kind of not so easy, but now it actually will fill in passwords across all devices on the iPhone. And by the way, to check out how you're using the password manager on your iPhone, you go to settings and let's see you go to passwords and it's going to authorize you, and then you can see all the passwords that your

iPhone has selected and kept inside there. I've got a list of a couple of them. But then if you go into password options, now you can specify how you want to save and also fill passwords on the iPhone. So on my phone specifically, I've got a couple of different options. It says iCloud passwords and keychain, that's the default. You can use Chrome password Manager. You can use a third party app, and now it even looks like Google has it built into its app as well, but I

think that's the same as the Chrome one. But that's what you want to do is set up. I personally always appreciate third party products for everything, but John in your friend's case, since he's just or they're just using an iPhone, I think the iCloud key chain is probably

gonna be the easiest. But keep in mind it is linked to your iCloud account, So if you forget your iCloud password, or if you can't get into your iicloud account, you're gonna have a lot of problems with all your other passwords because you're not gonna be able to get into those either. So no matter what, no matter what you use for your password management, please create a secure password for that software and also write it down if you need to, you know, just so you don't forget it.

Put it somewhere safe. The other programs I like are dash Lane. So dash Lane's really good. I think it's it's one of the better password management programs. The problem is it is expensive. It's very very expensive, especially over time. So you have to be kind of you know, you got to be if you're gonna get into that one. It's gonna cost you some money over time. The other

one I like is proton Pass. Proton Pass is an open source password manager app, and again it does cost some money for I think anything over the basic, but it is it's not that expensive, and so proton Pass is another one. So to review iCloud Keychain, Google password Manager, Bitwarden if you want something that's completely free and then if you want to pay, I like dash Lane and I also like proton Pass. So check those out. John good friend for helping your pal out there. Carl is

in Alpine, California. Carlett, you're on with Rich.

would do is I would go into your settings. Do you know how to go into the cameras settings on your Samsung?

format you can imagine under the sun. But again, if you go into your camera settings, open up your camera, tap the gear icon upper left hand corner, it says advanced Picture Options, high Efficiency pictures. You want to turn that off if you want to take it in a format that every single app will understand, and then same thing under videos in the camera options it says advanced Video Options, it says high efficiency videos. Turn that off

and hopefully that should solve your problem. Same thing on the iPhone, there are high efficiency formats you can switch off if you're having trouble with your pictures. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Was I on with Carlett on the air?

or changing that video in some way. So when you're trying to and it's a problem for a lot of people, they're trying to get videos from their phone to their computer, and it's not always easy because how do you do it? Do you email yourself? That's like the easiest, most default way,

So I would recommend I recommend it to Carlett. She said that she uses WhatsApp and so on all of these WhatsApp and Telegram, they will allow you to send things to yourself and it's actually quite good, and so I would recommend using that as a way if you're ever thinking, like, if you're ever stumped and you're like, wait, how do I get this file, this big file to my computer? You can use WhatsApp, you can use Telegram. You can use those programs to send those files to yourself.

And usually they have like on Telegram, it's got a special little uh, a little menu called saved messages, so you can send it that way, And WhatsApp has something similar, so you can do the same exact thing on WhatsApp. And I'm trying to see what they call it on WhatsApp. It may be called the same thing. Let's see if I can open up WhatsApp here, So on WhatsApp, let's see here. Oh I gotta I gotta back up my WhatsApp here. Okay, I'll just do that daily. Oh wow,

this is uh, you know, this is okay. So WhatsApp clearly was not probably set up on my phone because I switch phone so often that it like it's always asking me to do something new and change something anyway. That's what I would recommend is just sending this stuff to yourself through a program like a WhatsApp or a telegram and have that on your desktop, a lot easier than emailing yourself. Okay, let me tell you about pause ads, so get ready for this. Pause ads are now coming

to various streaming services, including Hulu, Peacock, and HBO. Max Variety says that all three of these services have started showing pause ads that appear when you pause a video. So these are ads that when you pause the show you're watching or the movie you're watching, you'll get an AD that pops up, and that ad will say, hey, you know, while you're pausing, take a look at this now.

Some of the brands, including Sharman, Geico, and Hershey's have tested these ads, and some of them feature QR codes that you can scan on your screen so that you can get more information. But again, this is a new way to get revenue, and if you're on an AD supported streaming plan like these are growing very fast. They're looking for ways of making money off of you. And

it's fine. I mean, look, you're you're paying less for this streaming service, but I'm just telling you this so you're not thrown off guard the next time you see it. So pause. Ad Ads on Hulu, Peacock, and HBO Max have started to show up, according to Variety, so don't be surprised if you see one, and you know. The beauty of ads is that they're great if it's for a helpful product that you want. I have nothing, no problem with ads. I mean, this show is ad supported,

and ads are great. I've been on TV for a very long time. People get TV for free because of ads, and ads are great. If they're helpful and interesting, they're awesome. So don't be scared of them. Don't be afraid of them. You can pay to get rid of them in a lot of services, but you can also get a lot of stuff for free if you don't mind them. All right, this was really cool. Nine to five mac Zach Hall put out a PSA that said, did you know you can open QR codes on iOS without scanning the code

from another device? And I'll be quite honest, one hundred percent honest, I did not know this. I've always used Google Lens to scan a QR code on my screen if I did not have a secondary device to scan it. But I did not know that if you're on an iPhone you can just tap and hold on a QR code and that we'll scan the code. So if you want to try this out, I posted a QR code to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech.

You can screenshot that QR code or save it to your camera role and then once you're in there, just open up that photo on your camera role, tap a hold on the QR code and lo and behold it will open up that QR code. This is game changing. You no longer need to scan it from a different device. How much fun? All right? Coming up next, we're going to talk about AI that can help your student get financial aid. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome

back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology with you. Oh, paying for college every parent's dream, right, kids have no idea? Joining me now is uh Lou Caney, co founder and co director of the Fair Opportunity Project. They have built a GPT chat bot to help students file fast foot Am I saying that right? It's been so long since I said that word. And also basically, get more financial aid. Use AI to your advantage. So Luke, thanks so much for joining me today.

because there's other things that your money goes to. So it sounds easy, and people kind of get caught in that trap of just all just take out all these loans. So if you can get you know, the least amount, you know, whatever, you know, you want to take out the least amount, obviously, But let's talk about this. So what is the what is FASTS? I ever remember, I can't remember what that thing's all about. It's like federal financial aid or something. Application.

funding for a four year university. A lot of it's used in a lot of other ways, especially like in community community colleges or trade programs to also assess need and so just that's one thing that we like to say is that you know, the FATA isn't just something that you should file if you're if you're a student ting about a four year university. It's also something that is good to kind of knock out depending on for a variety of things you might want to do in

the future. And in terms of that, what you're saying earlier about the cost of college getting more expensive and paying that debt off, Yeah, there's one point five trillion dollars in student debt right down in the US and so and you got to remember a lot of that debts to getting taken out.

to counselor ratio in American public high schools. And you know, these counselors are great, they're working really hard, they're pull along hours, they're getting stuff prepared through their summer, through their bre But from a nonprofit angle, is if there's a way that we can kind of come in and help students navigate that and also to spell some of these myths.

the quick answer immediately. So why is it important that students kind of fully utilize all of these tools?

these schools run to open house fast sessions. You know, you bring your W two down to the cafeteria and then your counselor's looking at your W two.

But I want to talk to producer Bobo here. Bobo runs the board and he told me about a interesting scam that's happening when it comes to looking for places to rent. So explain what happened, can you hear me?

he through relator. He showed me how to go through opendoor dot com another realator company to get into the house, to look at the house, to examine.

submit and you know, look at the house. Basically you get a coat on your phone that sort of unlocks the front door right pretty much.

the house, make sure you like it. And then when you got it and they got you hook line and sinker, they want you to send you the cash.

So Bobo, thank you for that, appreciate it, and now you're warned. All right, let's get to some of the feedback segments here. Ruth says, glad to hear you back on the air this weekend. I've done a lot of research regarding smart watches and ended up with an Apple Watch for good reason. It has fall detection. I'm eighty eight years old. Fall detection is a biggie and most of the smart watches do not have it. If they do, there's a large monthly subscription charge. My son fell off

an electric scooter. The Apple Watch picked it up. Gash on his face, cracked rib, no concussion, but his sisters tracked him as he drove home. In your discussion of smart watches, you didn't mention fall discussions, so I thought you should be aware of that. For seniors, it is very important. Ruth, absolutely, Ruth, good recommendation. I often mentioned how the fall detection is a great great feature of the iPhone. Uh don or sorry, the Apple Watch, Don says, hey, Rich.

Several years ago, you were talking about a company that transfers old photos and filmed you still have the contact info. I enjoy the show. I believe it was scanmphotos dot com that was on one of our first shows. Here Michael talking about the high price of subscriptions. I switched to the ads supported plan on Netflix last month to save money, but certain programming is locked and casting or using the built in app on the TV is not allowed.

Having to watch only un portable devices and also watching ads angered me enough to cancel my Netflix subscription that I've had since two thousand and seven. Michael, I was not aware that you couldn't cast if you had an AD supported subscription. Pete says, Passo, what a surprise, Passo, that's near where I hail. Rich, what a surprise? Which wineries did you partake? Some notable history? A Polish pianist,

Oh gosh, I can't say this name. Experiencing Carpal Tunnel during a visit to San Francisco, paid a visit to Paso Robles on the advice of a doctor friend. Uh, I don't know he bought wine anyway, Passo was great. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Thanks so much to everyone who makes this show happen. Thanks Bobo for sharing your story. Kim on phones. My name is rich jimiy. You can find me online at rich on tech, richon tech dot tv. If you want show notes, we'll see you next week. Bye bye,