The smart ring that's like a virtual notebook for your finger, the latest pet tracker from a familiar name, and Google's Pixel smartphone reaches a milestone. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting, useful and fun.
All right, let's do it. Let's open up those phone lines at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. Eight eight eight rich one oh one. Email is also open. Just go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit
contact guests. This week, we've got c NEETs AI reporter to break down the rise of AI video generators like Sora, and later in the show, Bran Putnam, founder of Mirror and the New Thing Bored, is going to share how she's reinventing family game night with her new console. Well, I hope you are having a fantastic week. Today's one of those days where I woke up and I just felt good. Don't you love those days when you get up and you're just like, all right, this is the
way I wish I felt every day. And I do feel good most days, but you know some days are just you're just like, I don't know what's going on. What did I do differently this week? I know I did one thing. I tried a new workout workout class, and I think it really I don't know it did well for me because I still have energy from it. So, and I usually do my routine where I go for a run before the show. I did that. So it's just all adding up to feeling good. I hope you're
feeling good. I hope you're ready for some tech. I hope you're ready for questions and answers most importantly, so get those questions in now. This happened this week. Whenever I get flooded with messages. I've told you this before. Whenever I get flooded with messages about something, I know I have to address it right. And so this week, when I read my ten thousandth DM from you saying, Rich, what's the deal with this? Is this true? I know I have to kind of talk about this. So these
were all about Meta privacy. There is a viral post or there is a viral post going around that says Meta will start reading your DMS on December sixteenth. Every conversation, every photo, every voice message fed into AI used for profit. Here's how to stop it now. Number one, we know if you're using anything on the Internet that you're not paying for. Yeah, they're using your data for profit. That's the agreement we have with them. We've always had this
agreement with Meta. But I get it people are worried. Now. Here's the thing about most things I see on line that go viral, there is a tiny thread of truth to them, but that's it. Then the rest is all nonsense. Now, if you follow the instructions that this person gives you. Number one, I couldn't find any of the settings that they say to change. Change all these settings, Like, I couldn't find any of them. Now I know, because I post stuff all the time online about how to change settings.
I go through them with a fine tooth comb to make sure the setting is where I say it is. All these settings none of them are like there. So I don't even understand, like how this person can tell you to do this when there's nothing there to change anyway. Meta did announce a December sixteenth update, so this is coming soon. But it's all about Meta AI, not your private messages. And we've talked about this on the show.
Meta is going to start using your chats with Meta AI, and that's built into Facebook, it's built into Instagram, it's built into WhatsApp, it's in Messenger. They're gonna use whatever you say to Meta AI to personalize your ads incommendations. Yes, AI is the new search, so it makes sense that whatever you talk about with AI, they're going to capitalize on that. So if you talk about hiking, yes, you're going to start seeing ads for hiking boots in your feed.
It makes sense right now, there's no way for US users to opt out. In Europe. Apparently you can, but they have much stronger privacy laws over there in the US. You know, we just don't have that. It's not new. Meta has been using what you post, what you like, and what you share for years to shape your feed. We know this. If you've ever posted a photo on Instagram, do you notice how it instantly tells you what song you should accompany that photo with Because it reads the picture.
It looks at that picture using AI. I posted a picture of the moon the other night. It said, hey, you should use the song Harvest Moon. I said, Oh, how'd you know that? Yeah, you're looking at the picture. Now, keep in mind this update only affects the meta AI conversations you're having, not your private chats with friends or family. Now I had to look this up. I knew WhatsApp was end to endingcrypted, which means nobody can look at those messages, not even meta if they wanted to, They
couldn't even look at them. Turns out Messenger is the same way Instagram. They're working on making the messages on Instagram and encryptid. They're not there just yet, but that is apparently coming and you can toggle that on if you want. If you notice at the end of the viral post they push a privacy scan tool. Hey, here's thirty seconds. So what it's really trying to do is
grab your attention and then sell you something. So you can check to see if your data has been leaked out on the open web using a free website like have I Been Poned Pwned? That will tell you if your email address and some of your other information has been out there because of one of these data breaches. That's an easy freeway to do it, but it's all part of a bigger trend what they're trying to say,
of using your chat data to personalize your experiences. I've noticed when I search on Google now all my AI results are personalized to me. Now Chat GBT, same thing. They're all mentioning things that I've searched in the past, or who I am and what I search regularly in my answers, which is a little weird. And I get it.
People are still nervous about meta and data because of that whole Cambridge Analytica thing, So I get there's good reason, but you have to kind of look beyond the viral nature and the eye catching attention of this and see what's really happening here. And we've known this forever. If you are not paying for the product, you are the product. That's the way it goes. Now. I don't know about you, but my posts on Facebook and Instagram are pretty casual, right, friends,
family photos. Meta's job is to take the information that I give it and sell me stuff against it, and yes, it works. Half the time. I see these ads on meta and I'm like, oh, that's that looks cool now. I don't know if you saw this story about Meta. This was a report from Reuters saying that Meta shows an estimated fifteen billion scam ads every single day. And I believe it because people send me these ads and
they say, rich, is this true? Can I really get an iPhone seventeen for five fifty dollars it's advertised here on Instagram stories? No, you can't. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. Meta they found promotes fake investments, counterfeit products, phony brand offers, and if you click on one scam ad, their system shows you more. And apparently Meta knew this is happening, or knows this
is happening. Their internal docs that Reuter showed say ten percent of their Meta's revenue comes from a scam or band ads seven billion dollars a year. Meta says it's improving. They've removed one hundred and thirty four million scam ads, but critics say it's still not enough. So if you're looking at these ads on Instagram, on Facebook, anywhere online, if they're too good to be true, they probably are, and you're emailing me about them on a daily basis, and I see them now. I would say this is
the biggest reason to just block ads completely online. You are protecting yourself. There is an argument that you are protecting yourself by having an ad blocker, so I'm all for it. So I believe that privacy matters online. Of course it does. I think you know, as Apple says, privacy is a fundamental human right. You have a right to privacy. You don't your stuff, The things that you do, the things that you say, don't need to be on the front page of the New York Times right now.
You have to understand when things could be there. So think before you post anything online can live forever. We know that if you're logging into your bank or your you know, your financial accounts, don't use public Wi Fi, use cellular, use your hotspot, or use your home network and make sure that's locked down. Firefox Focus this is
a great app. I know they've got it for the mobile phones, but for me, if I'm ever looking up something that is, you know, medical related, something health related, I'm using Firefox Focus because I don't want any of that information into my Google account, right I don't want it going into my pipeline. Of all the stuff that Google and all these other apps know about me, they don't need to know that. So use Firefox focus on
your mobile phone. If you're looking up something sensitive or something that's medical related, or in chat GBT, you can use a temporary chat right if you don't want that to live on forever. You can also use incognito mode. But remember that doesn't necessarily protect Google from seeing everything you're doing. It just doesn't save that information to your computer. So just remember that. Also, you have to watch out for these malicious ads. I think that these are the
bigger threat. Malicious ads, fake browser extensions or deceitful browser extensions that are trying to steal your data, phishing links, this is all the stuff that we are up against on a daily basis. When you're signing up for services, use the secondary email address. Duck Duck go has a nice free email address you can use and that'll block out all the trackers. Proton Mail. You can sign up for a free email through there, and that's nice. In private Google Voice, sign up for a Google Voice or
another phone number that's a secondary number. Give that out to all the stuff you sign up for. That's just nonsense. All the grocery store, phone numbers and things they want. Use that to sign up for them. Consider a VPN if you want some extra protection, and in chat, GBT and all the AI tools, make sure you go into the settings and turn off the setting that says we can train on your data. Why do you want them to train on your data. There's enough people using it
out there that aren't going to turn that off. Let them let it train on their data. Doesn't need to be trained on my data. I think the real foundation of privacy is not just some viral posts that you see and you switch a whole bunch of settings. It's you being aware of what's happening and using smart habits in your everyday life to protect your privacy when you can. It's not always possible. If you're using a free product, you know they are collecting data on you. That's just
the way it works. But if you understand that exchange, you can better protect yourself. Also, it might be worth it after the show to take a couple of minutes to visit Metas Privacy Center or Google's Privacy Checkup to kind of look around and see what those settings are and tweak the things to work. In your benefit eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. My name is Rich dmiro. You are doing something smart today. You are
listening to Rich on Tech back after this. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. The website for the show is rich on tech dot tv. There you can go and get all the show notes. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for my free new Let's go to Shelton in Covina. You're on with Rich.
Good morning, wage. It's nice to talk to you, and thanks a lot for your help with all the text stuff every week.
Thank you.
I have a question, you know, I make a lot of payments online, especially like the taxes, like the property taxes of La County, and also some donations to various outfits, so I do it online. The way it is done on any website is you go and then you make the payment. But there's no way to log in or log out. So with all these camps going on, I'm just wondering how safe is it to continue to do this so if I should do something.
Else, Okay, good question. I think you know. The main thing is if you're logging into your own website, like your own bank's website, obviously you want to log out when you're done because that'll clear the session. Make sure that you know the server says, okay, we're done here. If someone went to this website again right after you were done, it would not that session would not continue. And then, of course if you're using a public or
shared computer, it's even more important to do that. And what I would recommend is if you're ever doing anything financially related on a public computer, is to use an incognito window so that nothing is saved after that session. That's number one. If you can, don't do that because you don't really want to do any sort of banking or financial stuff on a public computer. But I understand
sometimes you have to. So when it comes to these websites, and I know what you're talking about because I've I've definitely paid the taxes, I've made some donations online and you're looking, you know, the DMV and sometimes you're looking for a way to exit the website. So always look for on that page if it says exit or close. Definitely do that number one. If it doesn't have that,
then it's probably just a one time session. You're not logging in any way, so once you send your information, it's going and it's done, so it's not going to be saved there in any particular way on that website. What I would say is if you are doing anything that requires your banking or financials, then for sure logout. Like don't just get lazy and say, okay, I'm done paying my bills online on my website, on my credit card or my bank account. Let me just close out
that website and I'm done. Always log out of that website, because I think that that just sends that signal that, hey, this session is over.
Now.
If you want to be you know, a little bit more secure, you could go ahead and clear all the cookies once you're done with that website. But I think that's a little bit unnecessary. I think it's more just using like kind of what I talked about earlier, just using your judgment. For if you are on a public or shared computer, make sure that you're not doing anything that leaves a trace there. But if you're on your
personal computer, I think it should be okay. But also make sure the the type of connection you're on is secured. So if you're on a public Wi Fi connection, you probably don't want to do these things. Or use a VPN, or better yet, use the hot spot on your phone. I think that's always the best thing to do because
that's the most secure. But I think in general, if a website doesn't offer that logout, you know, once you complete the transaction, you should be okay because, like I said, that information, as long as it's securely transmitted from your computer to their computer, that's it. It's done. There's nothing
lingering on your computer with that website. Someone would have to go in and like even if you press the back button on that you probably would not find that it would fill in your credit card information again or anything like that. So Shelton, you should be okay. But again, anytime you have that option to log out, you should definitely be logging out for sure. That that is my advice. So thanks for the question today. Do you appreciate it? Eight eight eight rich one on one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. Uh, let's go to Oh wait, we can't go to someone else. We'll hold you for the next one. So WhatsApp this week launched a full Apple Watch app. Wow. It's weird because when apple Watch first came out, we had all these apps on Instagram, Twitter back in the day. Obviously they were all for Apple Watch Uber, and then all these companies kind of said, you know what, nevermind, We're
not going to do Apple Watch apps anymore. We don't need to do that because people were using their Apple Watch more for fitness and tracking and just notifications from the apps that were on their phone. But now we're seeing kind of a resurgence, and I think it's because people are starting to go out without their phones again and just using their Apple Watch to do things as like a way to stay focused. And so now WhatsApp
has a dedicated Apple Watch app. You can read and reply to full messages, even long ones, record and send voice messages right from your wrist, get call notifications, at emoji, reactions, image and stickers are clear so and everything remains end to end ENCRYPTI. So if you want to just go out with your cellular Apple Watch with WhatsApp, you can.
It's there. Eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one coming up, more of your calls, plus we'll have the Gadget of the week right here on rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Uh, we've got a lot to get to in this segment, so let's go straight to Henry in Glendora. Henry your question, Yes, thank you.
For taking my call. I'll call them because I have a lot of CDs I've been trying to convert into a ripping them from on the computer maybe onto a flash drive. And some of my CDs when I record them, they have a low volume, so I have to turn the volume very high on my radio to listen to them. Others are are too high and I need to have like volume control when I rip them, as well as possibly sorry, i'm moving water around.
I thought you were getting winded just asking me the question.
No, I'm filling up our water bottle, so I'm a little out of shape here.
Oh my gosh. We used to have when I was a kid, we had one of those water tank things where you're like, you know, you put the big gallon jug like whatever it was, and it was like, what I'm doing? Those things are heavy anyway, Yes, the r.
But sorry about that. Yeah, I'm trying to find some software I'm using currently Windows seven and I'm looking to upgrade to possibly ten or eleven Windows.
What what year are we in, Henry? Come on Windows seven? When when was the end of life on that?
I don't know. It still works for me.
Oh my, that's wild. Okay, So you're looking for some software that will that will make the all these MP three's the same level.
Basically, Yes, I wanted to rip it in and possibly away. I want to put them on external hard drives because in the future I do want to have a server that I want to build eventually. Sure, sure, I want to be able to rip them in a permant that I want, Okay, but I don't want to pay a subscription service. I wanted just basically a standard over the counter software packet that I could download or burn from a bring in from the CD and be able to use it but at the same time control the volume control.
All right, I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you a trio of programs that I recommend for this functionality, and it should do exactly what you need. Because I've gotten this question before from folks, and I've recommended it and I've gotten some feedback that it all works. So the first one is Exact Audio Copy. Exact Audio Copy, that's a good ripping program. It's maybe the one you're already using, but that'll you know. It'll read the CDs and rip them for you into MP three's and it
gives you a lot of options, so that's great. Then there's another program called MP three tag dot de so MP three tag and I'll link this all up on the website rich on tech dot tv. But this will let you batch, tag and organize and get cover art whatever you want for these things that you rip. If Exact Audio Copy doesn't give you all that stuff, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, but this will give you the full control over everything that you've gotten on your files.
And then the final program, and I think this is the one that you're probably going to need first, is MP three Gain. So MP three gain you can. It'll analyze all your MP three files and adjust them so that they have the same volume. And the neat thing is that the changes are pretty simple, so I don't think it has to make all new files for you. But that's going to be the program that you want to use to get those to all be normalized or levelized,
whatever you would call it. But I think those three programs Exact Audio Copy, MP three tag, and MP three Gain are the three programs that you want and I probably recommend. For what you're talking about with the cloud stuff is either something like PLEX, which I do think they they might have. You might have to charge, They
might charge you for doing what you're talking about. If you want a free solution, you can literally go to YouTube Music and drag and drop your library of songs onto the website and it will put those in the cloud and you can access them from any device. So if you go to music dot YouTube dot com, literally
try it. Just drag and drop an MP three file onto your browser window and it will put it into the file into the app, and you can download that app to any supported device, which is pretty much every device, and they're available everywhere, and that's completely free. All right, Good look, Henry, you got quite the project ahead of you. Tim listener Tim emailed and said he's been trying out all the headphones out there, all the noise canceling headphones,
and he wanted to call in with his results. Tim. Are you there, Yeah? Sure, Hey, welcome to the show. I know this took a while for us to get coordinated, but you've been compared herring headphones. What started you on this journey of trying to find the perfect noise canceling headphones.
Well, unfortunately, Calwater decided to replace all the main waters, the water pipes on my street and the two adjacent streets, and it caused a great deal of noise and it was turgering. My tonightis it was difficult to work and concentrate with all the pounding.
Okay, well, so you've you've tested out. You've got a list of bows, Apple, Sony, more Apple, more bows, more Apple, more Apple. So which one do you want to start with? What's your What's what's the one that you I guess got the lowest rating here?
Well, the Apple beats got pretty terrible rating. The earpads were round, so they're probably great for a small child or a small woman or a small man, certainly not for me. My ear didn't even fit inside. Oh wow, that's it, and I know it's cancelation was minimal at best. Okay, so we go from there to what was next on your list after that? In terms of what I tested for, I was looking for mostly noise cancelation, not active or passive,
but basically the combined. In other words, that did not differentiate. And I was looking for call quality and Bluetooth capability.
Okay, so maybe just go through some of your findings. I mean, you're not a you know, a professional reviewer per se, but you've done some pretty good research. Did you buy all of these and then return them when you were done with them or what?
And yes, I actually did all except for two of them.
Okay, Oh so that's I'm assuming the ones that you didn't return are the best ones.
Yeah, with a caveat that. The Apple AirPods Max, which your headphones were, Yes, the problem with them is that they're very heavy.
Okay, I'm and yes, I would say they're heavier than other headphones. I wouldn't say they're very heavy because I've used them. They're just heavier than other headphones out there. But they're still I mean, they're still pretty comfortable over time, I would say, yeah.
I mean, it gets it's all relative. Maybe I have a soft head. I don't know, but yeah, wearing a mad hours a day was not tenable, Okay, wasn't It wasn't an option Okay.
So but they but they you found that they had great noise cancelation, but just not the cafer wasn't all there for you.
Yeah, they were amazing and Apple is rumored to actually come out with a lighter version of those in twenty twenty seven.
Oh well, then let's just wait until then to finish this. Just kidding. Okay, okay, what about the Sony's because those are are quite popular. You know, you've you tested the XM fours now they're up to six. What did you find there?
Yeah, the Sony's were good, but they weren't great. And one of the biggest problems with the Sony's is the controls were awful. They basically I couldn't get.
Them to work because it's all touch, right, isn't it a lot of like touch controls all.
Touch and it gets it just didn't like my touch.
Yeah. Well, also, this is the thing, like I find that these these controls that are not necessarily like easy to find or do quickly is not the best because you have to you almost have to like get a PhD in the control touch situation to figure out like, oh I want to raise the volume my swiping, am I going up am I tapping? So I like the physical buttons if possible, but I know everything's changing to digital and touch stuff. So okay, So the Sony's, I'm
looking at the ratings you gave me. The Sony's got a nine out of ten for noise cancelation, a seven for comfort. AirPods Max you gave a ten for noise canceling, a nine for comfort, but you said they were very heavy. What else do we have here? The Bows Quiet Comfort, I mean those are very popular. What did you find? They have a regular and an Ultra. What'd you find with those?
Yeah, the Regular, both quiet comforts. I gave them a noise cancelation of eight and a comfort rating of seven. The Ultra was not much.
Better than those in the set of the price or.
What two hundred and twenty dollars more just wasn't worth it.
But the people, I mean the Bows, I had those for a very long time. Very popular. Obviously they have the marketing behind them, so people see them a lot. What did you choose as your tops?
Well, unfortunately the Apple AirPods Pro three wasn't available when I did my test, so I did end up choosing the Bow's Quiet Comfort and then I bought the error Pridz Pro three and I love them both, but for different reasons. The both quite comfort when I'm on a telephone call with someone, they can literally hear the drop of a of a pencil or a pen in the background. And they were awful. But I'm on my AirPods Pro three right now, and I'm sure you you couldn't hear that little noise I just made.
No, it's that they have. I mean, it's actually quite interesting because people on their iPhone in general, because iPhone has this feature that's like, uh, if you swipe down from the upper right hand corner and you're in your headphones, it'll say like clear call or something like that, and it's really good, like it's uncannily good and so really good noise isolation. Yes, uh so those so that's the one. So but these are two different. One of these are
like headphones. One is earbuds. So do you use them for different So the earbuds, you don't mind.
You know, I love the earbuds, especially on phone calls. You aren't going to believe this. When I'm running my blender, I'll put the earbuds in and then I'll put the quiet comfort EarPods on top of them.
Oh my gosh, I want two bunch now. Is this because of the tonightis or what?
Yeah, it's mostly because the tonight is because that blender has a real high pitched sound and it'll trigger it. And if it triggers it them s with me for a day.
Oh wow. Okay, interesting, Well, I will say, and I've and I've talked to Apple about this too. The actual the earbuds that seal up your ears actually function as hearing protection as well.
So that is airing protection and hearing aids.
Yes, yes, so that's.
The other thing. And I did get them, by the way, at Costco and saved about sixty dollars because Costco also gives you a two year Apple Care.
Wow.
So, and I would recommend that for the earbuds because they're they're easily lost and easily damaged. You know, it's it's so worth it.
If you lose one. If you lose one, you will they replace it for with that Apple Care for free or not.
That's what they say.
Yeah.
Wow, that's that's good damage. Okay, that's pretty incredible. Actually, all right, well, Tim, thanks so much for calling in and sharing your your thoughts on all these headphones. Really appreciate it. I know it took a while to get to but it sounds like the AirPods Pro three are a winner. The Bows quiet comfort. Did you say the Ultra are the regular ones? Where your top the regular ones? It's very little different save the money. Okay, there you
have it now we know, Thank you, Tim, appreciate it. Wow, there you go. You know I try all these things as well, and I will say the AirPods are tough to beat. They really really are. I know a lot of people like those. Sony's the XM six is. I have not tested them yet, but it's on my list. Eight and eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one Gadget of the Week A pet tracker. Coming up next. Gadget of the Week this week is the Life three sixty pet
GPS tracker. Got it right here in my hands. It is tiny. Now you probably know Life three sixty. They recently purchased Tile, So this is a company that is known for tracking people with their app. You know, families
love it. And then of course you have your items with the tile and now you've got pets with this GPS tracker, and what the difference is is that it uses cellular GPS, Wi Fi and Bluetooth, so that means you get real time tracking of your pet and on the same map that has things like your items and also your family members, so it's like a one stop shop.
And I love this because if you have something like an air tag on your pet, that's not going to give you necessarily real time updates of where your pet is, especially if they go lost or missing, right, so you want that cellular connection. And in the past it's been kind of expensive or the battery life hasn't been very good. But I think from what I've seen, this little tracker is not only a great size, a great weight, but it has the functionality you need, So I think that's
really cool. Battery life up to fourteen days, then once that runs out, it's got this low power Bluetooth Reserve mode that can give you tracking up to six months, So if your pet did go missing, you'd have fourteen days to find them in real time, and then six months in that Bluetooth reserve modes. That Bluetooth Reserve is kind of like a traditional air tag or tile tracker,
and it's got all the features that you need. It is a great price too, by the way, fifty dollars plus either fifteen dollars a month or one hundred and fifty dollars a year because you do have to pay for that cellular tracking. So again brand new from Life three sixty. It's called the Pet GPS Tracker. I think
this is a winner. Just be careful obviously, if you're putting this on your pet's neck, you know they still might chew at it or something, so be careful because it is a size that you know a larger pet might be able to chew or eat or something, so just you know, be aware of that. But if you pop it off this little clip it has, you can charge it up. There's a USB C. Why can I get this open? There we go. There's a USB C
plug on the back, so easy to charge. And again I think Life three sixty is doing a pretty good job with their tile trackers, now their app and also the pet Tracker the gadget of the week. This segment is sponsored by shop back. So if you're like me, you're always spending money online, isn't it nice to get money back? What if you open up an email and you had cash back inside. That's what happened to me
this week. Just checking my emails the typically do and I said, hey, you've got ten dollars cash back on your recent Amazon purchases and it's all thanks to shop back. If you're not familiar, shop back is a tool that pays you back for shopping at your favorite places. They support a laundry list of popular shopping places like Nike, Lego, spy eBay, many many more online websites. All you have
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in Redondo Beach. Gary, you're on with Rich.
Hey.
Rich.
A couple of months ago, I had Bobby iPad Probe thirteen inch and I had two terabytes of storms. So I'm looking at my subscriptions and I have Apple one.
Premier Okay, Oh nice, that's what I've got.
Thirty seven ninety five a month. Yeah, which does not include the iCloud.
Oh that does iCloud Yeah, Okay, I.
Have another subscription for iCloud Plus. Okay, that is is that twenty nine ninety nine a month? And do I really need that? Since his all that's being saved on the I Cloud Plus, it's just what's on my iPad.
Okay, And like, well number one, you're doubled up right now, beca because if you're paying thirty dollars for iCloud Plus, that's that's I think that's more than two terabytes of storage, isn't it.
I count iCloud plus.
I let's see United States. Hold on, I'm finding the price here. If you're paying thirty dollars for iCloud plus, that is six terabytes of online storage, okay. And if you're paying for Apple one, that is two terabytes of iCloud. So my feeling, if you want to have your stuff stored in the cloud, cancel one of these. I personally would cancel the iCloud plus for thirty dollars because Apple one includes everything that Apple has to offer, plus two
terabytes of iCloud storage. So you're getting the music, you're getting Apple TV, you're getting Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness, Apple News plus plus that two terabytes of storage that you need. And yes, you probably want to have that. If your iPad is holding two terabytes, you probably want to have that mirrored in the cloud so that all of your data, photos, whatever you do on that iPad is going to be mirrored in the cloud and backed up safely. But I'd
say cancel the iCloud Plus, stick with Apple one. Gary, You're saving yourself thirty dollars a month. Good question. Eight eight eight rich one on one back after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. We are firing on all cylinders today. We got Bobo on the board, We've got Kim on phones, You've got me on the mic. We've got you listening.
Thank you for that. Uh. The website rich on tech dot tv, UH lots to explore there. Number one, sign up for the newsletter for sure. UH just had a new issue this weekend. And also you can get notes for everything I talk about. So you heard earlier someone was asking about their MP three collection. I talked about the gadget of the week. It's all linked up on the website. Listener Tim shared his headphone recommendations. It is
all right there rich on Tech dot TV. And if you're not following me on Instagram, do it rich on tech very easy. You can actually see the stuff that I talk about posted there. Let's go to let's see here. Let's go to Mark. Mark's been on hold for a while, Mark and Woodlandhills. You're on with Rich Hi. Rich.
You know, before I started a family, like twenty five years ago, I had a unique profession that took me to, and I went to a website to click them all off, fifty three of the nations. Oh wow, So I'm pretty acquainted with travel, even though a lot of the developing world off the tourist track and grid, as it were. But you know, now it's a whole new world. You know, we have Google features that can help you translate foreign signs and foreign language to text, that sort of thing.
And I was wondering if you have any suggestions. I'm not a complete luddite, but I guess I'm kind of more in the Thomas Guide.
Hey, oh my gosh, the Thomas Guide. You gotta explain what that is for people that aren't from La.
Well, I'm well, it's it was a fold out a pig by page, very good map system for finding places. They have them all over California, but predominantly it was in Southland, you know, La. Orange County, that's a riverside county.
That's sort of like a thick book you would put in your car, and it would like if you move to La like I did, they would give you this book like well, you had to buy it, but like people would be like, hey, you got to get this book, and you would flip through the pages, and the way you got around was when you got to the edge of one road on the page, it would say like okay, now to continue, flip to like page you know, two forty seven f and you go there and it was like a grid system.
It was.
Thankfully we have Google Maps now. That's all I have.
Here's my challen sir.
Sure.
I know it's a whole different world now, and I know that I've been looking up the TSA rules that they change constantly. I'm worried about having my power bank confiscated because most of them don't stamp on there what what the wattage is, and I know you can only have up to one hundred that sort of thing. I'm also thinking about getting some smart luggage that has a detachable battery so that they don't I wouldn't take it
away as well. I'm looking for password generating secure thumb drives, and you know, I'm just you know, do you have any suggestions any place I can go and kind of get myself up up the snuff, because when you go around and you stay in small family run hotels and fiones and that sort of thing, I'd really love to be able to pull that up and some off the main drag sort of local restaurants, you know, because that's
the way to really eat you Italy. Yeahh never had any bad never had any bad food in Italy, I got to tell you.
No, I have never either. Yeah, and well, okay, so let's let's break down. I mean we don't you know some of the things you're talking about. I mean, like, look, international travel has gotten so much easier because of technology. So at the very least I would recommend not just the translators. I mean, you could download Google Translate, Apple
Translate is built into every iPhone. Just make sure before you go somewhere you download the language offline so that it works great no matter what, whether you have a connection or not. But AI, to me is probably the better thing that's happening now when you travel. So when I was in Japan a couple of weeks ago, I was using Gemini AI and of course Chat GBT as well, but the Gemini Live stuff where it can look through your phone's camera and tell you what you're looking at
and translate it instantly. It is like having the world's smartest person in your pocket at all times. So what I was doing at the end of the day. You don't even have to prompt these ais. Just take a picture of something and just upload it and it will say what you're looking at, and you know, it'll give you the information. If it's a menu, it'll give your recommendations. You can do it that way. But the live stuff
is really wild. So if you have an iPhone or Android, just download the Google Gemini app and you'll see they have this feature called Gemini Live and it's next to the microphone. If you tap that, it looks like almost like a waveform and with a little star next to it. You tap that, it brings you into live mode. And there's two ways of working with live mode. You can either just talk to it like it's almost like a human,
but it's obviously AI voice. But better yet, you can tap the video camera and now whatever you are looking at through this video camera, the AI is also looking at it with you. So imagine you have this person with you that's super smart and they're looking at the stuff that you're looking at, and you're like, hey, what do you think of this? What do you think I'd like on this menu? What is this sign saying? What's that landmark in front of me. You can do all that,
and it's just it doesn't miss a beat. It's incredible whether whatever whatever lang which the sign you're looking at is in, it just knows and it figures it out. I mean, it's really mind blowing what this AI stuff can do. So it's a great, great helper when you're
on your trip. The only thing I noticed is that it may not be available in all areas, and so again, if you have a VPN, it's great because when I was in Japan, what I ended up doing was I just had my VPN on the entire time and I set it to the US so that I didn't have to deal with the whole Google changing the results of my search. I didn't have to deal with AI mode not being available in certain places. I don't even know if Gemini is available or not in Japan. I think
it is. But you don't have to worry about it because if it sees as you're it looks as if you're a US person, it's not going to skip a beat. It's going to give you everything that you're used to in the US, but just over in whatever country you're in. So that's number one now, the power bank stuff. I think if you're getting a power bank, that's I wouldn't travel with something that's more than like twenty thousand million hours. That's a lot, So I would just be careful with those.
You don't want something that's bigger and that's gonna be too heavy anyway, and you're gonna be charging if you're going through more than twenty thousand million hours, that's a lot in a day. But I would say that this smart luggage I would skip. I'm not really I'm not really understanding why smart luggage is a thing.
Now.
Yes, put an air tag in your luggage, but why is smart luggage? Why do you need a power bank in your luggage? Like, it doesn't take much more work to just have that power bank in your carry on and just plug stuff into it. That would be my recommendation. I think I got it all Mark. I'm not sure what else. But oh, when it comes to the restaurants, I will tell you have a few ways of finding restaurants, but AI is really good at this now. And you know I was using the AI on the phone to
find restaurants nearby. We found an amazing ram in place thanks to the AI mode but also the way you can do it is if you're at a desktop computer. This is my new way of finding restaurants like nearby. Just type in the name of your hotel. So let's say you're in Tokyo. Let's say you're at the New Rich Carlton in Tokyo, right, I know, very fancy, but let's say you're there, and so I'm going on there.
I search that on my desktop and then what you do is you see on the desktop computer on Google Maps that says restaurants up at the top, and so you can tap that and it now gives you all the notable restaurants in the area. But you see there's like a little toggle switch, so it shows walking. I want to be able to walk within fifteen minutes. I don't want to walk very far to go to a restaurant. So now you can zoom in. You can see all these restaurants that are within fifteen minutes of this hotel.
And by the way, that's not in a very good location for restaurants. But then at the top you can narrow down. So if you want something that's just going to be great, you probably want to go with the four point five rating cuisine. You can put whatever you want there, all filters you can and you know, search if you want something like let's say you just want ramen, right, so I'm gonna tap ramen done, and now look at this. I find a restaurant that is eleven minutes walking and
it's got great ratings for ramen done. Here's another one twenty minutes walking, which is a little bit more, but it's got a four point five one hundred and eighty nine reviews. Okay, and here we go. If you want to find the places that are the real you know, where tourists go or people go over and over, you look for those restaurants that have a couple thousand ratings like here we Go, a fury Rapongi Hills Ramen restaurant's got a four point five rating with nineteen hundred reviews.
That place clearly people know about, now, Mark, you were saying, off the beaten path. Sometimes you know you want to take a chance, other times you don't. But this place is gonna be guaranteed. People clearly know about it. It's on a bunch of lists, it looks excellent, and it's it's like boom, I just found that in about ten ten seconds, and it's within walking distance from my hotel. How far is it? Twelve minute walk? So that is a fool proof way. I have used this method so
many times to find great restaurants. It's all about those. If you see on Google it's got a couple thousand reviews. I'm not talking tourist traps because you want to make sure you get that rating four point five or higher. If you want to do tourist traps, yeah, they might have a lot of reviews, but they're not very good. The rating is not very high. So again, that's my foolproof method for finding great restaurants near my hotel. I
always want to walk because it's so much easier. Save money, right save on the ubers, great question mark, Thanks for the call today, appreciate it. Eighty eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up, I'm gonna tell you about T Mobile. They're opening up their satellite texting to nine one one for free to anyone. Plus, we've got talk about Sora. We've got c nets AI reporter joining us, plus much more right here on rich on Tech, Stay
with us. Welcome back to rich On Tech. I'm laughing here. By the way, Boba, I don't know if you know this. This is my all time favorite song, mister Jones counting crows? What what is your all time favorite?
That's a trick one?
What's that that's a tricky one?
Answer?
Come on off the top of your head. If you had to pick one song, what's the song? Eric Sermon? Just like music? Or Stevie wonder ass? Oh okay, chew one of those up for all right? What's that?
Yeah?
Let me tell you about Starlink and T Mobile. So you know, Starlink and T Mobile have this like satellite texting feature which if you have a high end T Mobile plan you get it included and if you are anyone else you can pay ten dollars for it. And it gives you text to nine one one, It gives you texting via satellite. It gives you data, limited data, but still and it's a godsend. This thing is incredible.
I've tested it. It's so fast, it's so easy. And now because T Mobile knows it's so good, they are now offering text to nine one one by satellite for free to any person that wants it. That as long as you have a compatible phone. So this works in the five hundred thousand square miles of US with no traditional cell coverage, and you can send nine one one text through T Satellite, So your phone basically connects to Starlink satellites. There's like six hundred of them, two hundred
miles above the Earth. Yes, it's possible, and it's amazing and it's fast. No special setup, it's very simple. You would just text nine one one if you ever needed help when you're in the middle of nowhere and there's
not traditional cellular connection. So again, anyone, even if you're a non T mobile customer, you can enroll in this for free at T Mobile's website, and I give you the website, but it's such a long website that it's kind of tricky to find, but I will link it up on richontech dot T. Now you might be saying, rich, I already have satellite texting. I've got an iPhone fourteen and up, or I've got a Google Pixel or I've got an Apple Watch Ultra three or I've got a
Pixel Watch four. Yes, all of those devices have satellite texting, and to some extent it's just for emergencies or it's for actual you can text anyone with the case of Apple, but the difference is t mobiles is a lot faster and a lot easier, So it's it's much easier to connect to the satellites and stay connected and send your messages.
So in general, bottom line, if you've got an older iPhone, you want to you know, you're always hiking something like that, you want to have this text by nine to one one. You know, the comfort of knowing that you can always get in touch with someone. I would get this for free for sure. All right, bobo, what is this? This is Stevie Wonder.
Yah.
Just the lyrics of the song are amazing. Okay, this is Stevie Wonder ask yeah as oh as yeah as Okay, Yeah, you say it too much. It sortes sound like yeah, okay, so we got that one.
And then this is Eric Sherman just like music. The reason why I love this song is because he describes what music is like, but he compares it to love and it's just so dope.
I don't know.
I didn't realize you were such such a sappy guy. Actually I knew it. I knew that the.
Hardcore that I put on the outside it's just a facadon.
Oh well, I like this song. Okay, I know both these songs. This is great, all right. Now I'm gonna listen to the words of this song. So thank you. See, I knew you had a couple of favorites. By the way that Romen place that I happen to find walking distance, it's clearly a thing because they have locations in the
US as well. So this a furry I don't know if I'm saying it right, af u R I coming to coast to Mesa, Manhattan, so New York City, they already have one in Brooklyn, Houston, Culver City, let's go, oh, downtown LA and then Portland. Let's go. Let's go try it. Now, we gotta try it. I mean, clearly it must be good. But here's my point. So clearly I found that restaurant in a couple of minutes, and it is a thing.
So it's like, if they have all these locations in the US, it must be so good that it's you know, transcended Japan.
So the best food that I had in Tokyo was actually Chinese food.
Well, where they dropped the atomic bomb was dropped in what city? Really Hiroshima, Hiroshima.
Yeah, we took a cruise and it took us to Hiroshima and it was a Chinese food restaurant and me and my wife went in. It was it was our honeymoon trip actually, and we went there. Best Chinese food I ever had. Best McDonald's I ever had was in Tokyo.
Yeah, and people laugh because you know, oh, don't go to McDonald's when you go to a fig country. Always go to McDonald's country. By the way, it's just better.
Way better.
Taco bill blew me away everything. Ye, No, taco bill was careful? What you dude? You just used two terms to describe taco bell that I don't know. Taco bills fire and blew you away. I don't know about that. All right, Let's see, it's how long do we have. We've got two minutes. Let's see. Let's go to ann in Orange County and you're on.
With Rich Hi.
Rich Hi. I would like to know is it safe for me to go to pay bill on my bank and have all of my utilities and some donations with drawn automatically each month?
Uh?
Donations? Fine? I think if you're doing a recurring donation, that's fine. I think the utility bills I don't like to put on automatic payments. I don't like anything on automatic payments. I know some some places force you to, but at the online services, but utility bills in particular. Here's the reason why I don't like them automatic because they will take that money out and if there's a problem, now you've got to fight to get your money back. Sokay,
that's the only reason. And you know it's a small reason, but I think that, like for me, I would rather just command my money and where it's going, versus being on the receiving end of Oh, this this thing is already getting charged to me. I don't really you know, now I going to call this company if there seems like there's an issue. Now, I will tell you I've
been paying utility bills for many years. I can't really tell you the last time I called up the electric company and said, hey, you owe me one hundred dollars. This was wrong. So you'll probably be fine. But you know, it's just more of like a control factor. So that's really it. But I think it's safe. I just think it's it's all over the place sometimes, especially with the water and power bills that you know, at the end of the day, it's safe. Yes, but is it something i'd recommend. Probably not.
Well, thank you so much. I really enjoy your show.
Oh well, thank you, and I really enjoy the fact that you said that. I. You know, people when I get an email and you might think that I just take it for granted. I do not. When someone tells me they love what I'm doing or they appreciate it it is. It means the world to me. Coming up, Caitlin shed Raw shed ro ROWI AI reporter CET is going to break down Sora, what it is and why it's going viral. That's coming up next. Welcome back to
Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology eight eight eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. You are not shy on the phone today. We will get to more of your calls in just a moment. But first joining me Caitlin shed Rowie, c net's AI reporter, to talk about all things AI right now, especially Sora. Caitlin, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
So this week, uh, Sora was became available on Android, So explain what Sora is First off, so.
Sora is the sister app to Chat GPT. It's made by the same parent company, open Ai. Soora is a social media app, and it's a lot like TikTok. You can scroll through an endless speed of videos and like and comments on different videos. But there's one big catch. Nothing you see on Sora is real. Every video is AI generated. It is truly what of a kind?
Which is so wild because when we first covered this, when it came out for the iPhone and it was invite only, I was like, why would anyone ever scroll through a bunch of AI videos? And sure enough I find myself doing it, Like every time I open up uh Sora, I'm like, I get caught. For a couple of minutes, I'm like, oh, these are really funny, Like some of them are funny, some are unique, some you can't believe. Do you need an invite? I've read that
you don't need an invite on Android anymore? Is that true?
No, you no longer you need an invite code for iPhone Android no matter what device you have, Sora is open for business, and I've certainly been caught in that same cycle of just scrolling through Sora, and I think part of the appeal is that you don't immediately notice that all of the videos are a They're very realistic.
Yeah, I mean, so this is their video generator. I know it's got. I mean, I think they had a million downloads on iOS very quickly. I think I've read somewhere they might have had five hundred thousand downloads on Android, like instantly. So do you think people should download this to try it out? I know there's that other aspect of it, the cameo aspect, to explain that, which is a little controversial, I would say, yeah.
So Sora's most popular feature is called cameo, and if you are a Sora user, when you sign up, the app will prompt you to record yourself, your face and your voice saying a random string of words. And from that recording, the Sora app can generate an AI version of your likeness, and if you want to, you can allow other Sora users to use your likeness and put
you in nearly any AI generated video. You do not have to let people use your cameo, as it's called, but a number of people have, including open Ai ceo Sam Altman. It's how I was able to create an AI video of him saying that Gemini is better than chat GPT. Yeah, clearly that's not something he would say in real life, but he lets people use his likeness and you can do wild things like that if you want to.
Now, we've heard so much about deep fakes and how dangerous they are and how they're, you know, changing the fabric of society. We don't know what to believe anymore. And here comes this big company that has a lot of money behind it and they say, you know what, anyone can make a deep fake of themselves and by the way, soa can your friends. So do we have a problem with this or is this just the reality of the future that we just have to give up all semblances of like trust.
I hope that's not the case, but I will say we had deep fakes before of AI. They were just very expensive and costly and very hard to make. What these AI video tools have done, in part is made it a lot easier for anybody to make these AI videos. And as these models have improved, they're getting more and
more realistic looking. So yes, there is a huge number of experts and advocates and users who are very worried about the ability for bad actors to take advantage of these tools and create potentially illegal or abusive content or spread misinformation.
Now, I know open ai when it first came out, or the Sora app, it was sort of like a free for all with the copyright stuff, and I saw, like, you know, Jesus on there and like all these prominent figures from the past saying things and doing things. Is that still the case or have they clamped down on some of that stuff.
Yeah.
Open ai has definitely reversed course with its initial sort of policy, which was that if people didn't want their likeness to be used, and not just likeness, but big studios or entertainment companies, if they didn't want their protected characters to be able to be featured in AI videos, they had to opt out. That is not the case anymore, which is good because that's not really how copyright law works.
So now we have some more guardrails in place to sort of prevent how likenesses are used, especially for celebrities and public figures.
You know.
One prominent example, in the first few weeks after the Sora app came out, we learned that the estate of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior had reached out to open Ai because they were really concerned about the number of inappropriate AI videos that were on the app. So his estate and and Open Ai had come up with a statement saying that they recognized this was a problem.
They temporarily paused the ability to make videos featuring Keg and they had strengthened the guardrails behind the scenes to sort of make it harder to make those kinds of videos. And then a couple of weeks later we saw it again with Brian Cranston, who you might know as an actor from Breaking Bad. He and his actors' union sag Afra reached out to open Ai again. They put out
another statement. So I think this is very much a concern not only for anybody online, but especially for celebrities and public figures.
Which is ironic because so many of the early adopters of this app are prominent influencers and people like that, and they're all doing it. And I think part of it was that they got early access from Sora to like, you know, kind of hype this thing up. What about you know, you mentioned some prominent figures like Sam Altman is on there. What about like Trump, Elon Musk's Jeff are they can you generate videos of them? I have not tried that, but those would be like you know, powder keg.
It depends on how you word the prompt. So for example, I tried to make a video of like me on stage with Taylor Swift and the moment I put Taylor Swift in that promp open AI kicked it back and said, absolutely not.
You can't do that.
But like you said, there are some celebrities on the app who let you use their likeness. So Mark Cuban from Shark Tank, he's on the app and he's decided to let people use his likeness. So if you scroll Sora, you might see a number of videos featuring Mark Cuban, which is.
Kind of wild.
Yeah, that's so, it's such a wild thing. Okay, so you cover this AI stuff for cnet. Give me some thoughts on where we're at. I mean, we I always tell people we're just at the beginning of this stuff.
Yeah, exactly, and this is the worst that these tools will ever be. And we actually come a very long
way and a very short amount of time. Like it literally wasn't until May of this year that we got AI videos with sound, which for us, as like you know, social media users, that seems really obvious, like we don't want to listen to a video that doesn't have sound, But for AI companies, adding that AI generated synchronized audio to video is a very complex task, and Google was the first to sort of come out with a model that was able to do that. It's called VO three.
It's very popular. Sora was sort of the second or third after Adobe, but also one of the bigger models that was able to include sound. So we've come a very long way in a short amount of time. So I expect in the future what we're gonna see is that these AI video models are gonna get better, meaning that we're gonna be able to generate longer videos. Right now, the sweet spot is sort of anywhere between five and
fifteen seconds. I think maybe in the next couple of months we can maybe push that to thirty I think we're also going to see some videos at a higher resolution. There are some companies that offer the ability to natively generate in four K, which is really appealing to professional creators who want to use AI videos in their work. And I think, yeah, I think we're going to see a lot of improvements in the actual quality of these videos in the future.
Okay, so you mentioned a couple of competitors. If you've heard of Sora and you want to try other things, You've got the vo three from Google, You've got Firefly from Adobe. How can people tell that a video is fake? Because this is the problem we're running into now. I know Soro, you know they put these little you know what do they call it, like a like a water mark that thank you Bobo, they put a watermark on it. But my kid is like, but you can just use a tool to remove that. So how do you tell?
How do you tell if something's fake?
I mean, the frustratingly honest answer is that you can't. And nobody is happy with this answer. I'm not happy with it, but it is the truth. It is very hard to spot an AI generated video, but there are some things you can look out for. Like you already mentioned, watermarks are one of the biggest things you can look for. There are water marks, but like you said, there are also tools that you can use to get rid of
those watermarks, so that's not always a reliable method. Another thing you can do is look at an image or videos metadata, and I promise that's quicker and easier that it sounds. There's a number of websites and apps and tools that you can use that can very quickly scan an image or a file and it can sort of give you some insight into where that piece of content
came from. And for sour videos in particular, they have signals in their video metadata that immediate disclose that this was made by open AI and this was.
AI generated, right, But there's gonna be tools that you know, can can remove all of those things in the few I mean, if they're not already here. And then of course you have you know, nefarious folks that are building tools that don't abide by any of these rules or laws or whatever. So we are in for it, that is for sure. We are starting a very brave new future path here. And I think it's exciting because it's
amazing what can be done. I mean, the Coca Cola ads, you know, they're they're making AI ads of their you know, Christmas ads. But yet at the same time you have people faking Mark Cuban and faking Sam Altman. I mean, it's just our brains are not really wired to figure all this stuff out, Caitlin, We're gonna leave it there. Caitlin shed Rowy from seen at Artificial Intelligence Reporter Fantastic Conversation, Go follow her find her work. Thanks for joining me today, Caitlin, Yeah,
thank you. All right, coming up, we're gonna take some more of your calls eighty eight rich one on one, eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one, and I'll tell you about the smart ring that records your thoughts. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology eight eight eight. I don't even know if I should give out the number. I don't think we can get any more calls at this point. Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one. But go ahead, don't let it dissuade you. Always you always try. I shared a quote in my newsletter this week. I'm reading that book nineteen twenty nine about the stock market crash, and the quote is from John Rascob. He said, go ahead and do things, the bigger, the better. This is the guy who uh backed the Empire State Building. Can you imagine like building something one thousand feet high back in the day, in like the twenties. I mean, it's
mind boggling. So go ahead and do things. The bigger the better. Let's go to Curtis and I've been waiting for a while. Curtis in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. You're on with Rich.
Yeah.
Rich, I've got a problem with my Samsung Android phone. I locked myself out and I don't know if there's anything. The only that I've heard so far is that I'll just need to clean everything off the phone and get rid of all my emails, my photos, my address, phone numbers, and start over. And I was hoping there was something that can be done. Besides that, I was missing around on my computer trying to get into my computer, and uh I was. I thought, well, maybe this would be easier.
It gave me some the possibility of using face. I thought, well, maybe maybe I'll try face. Well, I put I type face on the computer and next thing I know, I locked my phone.
Oh okay, so you have a Samsung phone and you cannot remember what the pin well.
I don't I remember ever giving a Uh. It says that you have to be at least a four letter quote to get in there, and it has to have at least one. Look here what it says there you have to have a four characters including at least one letter and four character.
Wait, hold on, four characters including one letter to unlock your phone. Yeah, and that's on the screen of your phone when you turn it on. Yeah, that's interesting because most people do not choose that method to lock their phone. It's usually a pin like it's usually four digits, maybe six digits. But to have a letter too, that's uh.
And I never sat one up, you remember ever the computer ever asking me to set up a pin for it.
Now, hold on, when you say computer, Well, I.
Was on my computer trying trying to get into Gmail because I was having trouble with uh uh Chrome Google Chrome, and uh because I can only see half a screen. So I thought, well, i'll try I'll try this other one, which turned out to be Gmail, and then Gmail kept asking me, uh uh for I was getting in there fine. Then all of a sudden, I asked me for I turned it out again and asked me for a password. I put in the password that I had for it
and did it work? So, uh, I think I changed it once and then and and that didn't work later, so so I got frustrated. I thought, well, I'll just try this. It says face, that's the ball, Okay, I can use my face, And so I went in there to set up for a face and next thing I know, it's it barely. Uh okay, so let's let's make it with my phone. And and then later on when I went into my phone to uh to use it, it was I was locked out and it says I need this password.
Okay, So so right now, do you have access to your computer or not?
Yeah, I got access to my computer.
Computer's fine. The phone is locked and you can't unlock it. You don't. So if it's a Samsung phone, you go to the phone and you you go to unlock it, and it just says no, it's and there's not.
I can get calls, people can call.
Me right, but it's not you're not unlocking the phone. I can't call out right because you can't get in there, and you don't have a fingerprint on here, and you don't now when you talk about your stuff, was any of it backed up? I not on my phone, so typically.
Thinks I got a card here to download my pictures, and it was confusing on how to use it. So I never got it. I never got it done.
Okay, a couple of things. So first off, typically when your phone when you forget that. I'm looking at the Samsung right now and it says set a pin. Remember this pin. If you forget it, you'll need to reset your phone and all data will be erased. So that is typically what happens if you forget the pin to your phone. Now, there could be a world where you set up a remote unlock like a smart lock or find my mobile, but I don't think you did that,
so that's not going to work. There really is not, because all the data on these phones is encrypted now, there's really not a way to tap into it. And the backup stuff. If your pictures weren't backed up to one drive, which you can check there because sometimes Samsung does that. Your your emails should be backed up if you're using Gmail, which just sounds like you are, so those are going to be safe, in your documents and things like that. But really the photos are the things
I'm concerned about. I would see if there's a you can try to go to, like a data doctor in your area and see if they can help you with this or a you break I fix if they have one near you see what they say. But typically, Curtis, I'm sad to report that typically when you forget the pin to your phone, it is really impossible to get back into that device. Hopefully that is not the case here. Good luck and keep me posted eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. The ring for AI voice notes. I'll tell you about it next. Welcome back to rich on tech rich DeMuro here eight eight eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up this hour, we've got Brand Putnam, founder of Mirror later sold to uh Lululemon, I believe, and now out with something new called Board. It's kind of like a high tech take on a family game night, you know, the board game. So we'll talk to Brand
about that. What else eight eight eight rich one on one website, richon tech dot TV. All the show notes are there. I want to tell you about this stream ring. This is a two hundred and fifty dollars smart ring that you put on your finger, put a ring on it, and uh it lets you record your thoughts. So it got a little button on it in a microphone, and you basically press the button and talk into it and it uses AI to transcribe. It all goes back to
your phone doubles as a music controller. Two hundred and fifty dollars gonna ship next year and this is from two former Meta enginess. Basically, you know, it's just a smart ring for notes, you know, using AI now personally, you know, I wish that it does not track anything health related. So I think it's kind of weird that there's no health aspect to this, because you're you're gonna
wear this on your ring all the time. And also, I don't know about you, but I already wear an Apple Watch and I use Whisper and Memos on there to take all my notes, and I love that it goes right to my email. So I don't know, we'll see. I think everyone's trying right now to find new ways of computing that don't involve the phone, right like, don't involve the smartphone. And I just don't know if this is it. We'll see, but I've not tested it, so I can't really tell you. But it's just it's kind
of an interesting take. iOS twenty six point one adds new liquid glass control. So if you downloaded iOS twenty six point one, I think you should because there's a lot of fixes in it. There is a new setting that can make liquid glass less liquidy. So if you're annoyed by how clear everything is, there's a transparency toggle, So go to settings once you download it, display brightness liquid glass, and you can switch from the traditional clear
to a new tinted option. And tinted is less see through. Of course Apple had to say tinted instead of sea instead of you know, well, I guess opaque is a little bit. That's a weird word, but you know what I mean, Like they tinted sounds like it's still see through. It's not really. They just don't want to admit that not everyone likes liquid glass being see through because it's tough to see. It's it's cool looking, it's maybe not the most functionally visually that even makes sense. I don't
know what else can you do camera setting. You could disable the lock screen swipe to open if you don't like that. And Airpod's live translation now supports more languages Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Oh and the alarm is no longer a tap You swipe to disable the alarm. You know you don't like wake up in the middle of your alarm and just like tap it and then you sleep through your alarm. Let's go to let's see let's go to Don Don in Utah. You're on with Rich.
I love you so much, Rich, you're the best.
Grateful for your research you did ever wait for everybody?
Thank you the first question.
Okay, sorry, I think we lost him there. Let's go to Uh, let's go to Gina. Let's see line for Gina in Mission Vaho. Gina, you're on with Rich.
Oh, hi, Rich, Okay, do you need me to say this question or do you already have it?
Yes?
I don't read minds, Gina. I wish I did I do, But the questions on the screen are like that number one. They never match it up to what people ask.
Oh, okay, okay, I don't.
Want to hear it, so let's hear what you got.
Okay. Now, this is just because I'm not very high TechEd. I was on a trip recently to Vermont, and I brought two Apple iPhones.
Uh oh, do we lose Gina too? Gina? What happened? What Bobo? What happened to Gina, Okay, what's happening here? Gina's gone okay, Uh, let's go to let's see who do we have here? Mark in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Mark, you're on with Rich? What is happening? This whole show just went down the tubes? Mark? Are you there?
Yeah, I'm here.
There you go, Please pop the slack here.
Okay, no pressure, huh Okay. What I wanted to ask was with the holidays and everything going on. I know I used Chrome browser and uh Safari browser, and I know us they used to have extensions that that you could use to compare, do comparative shopping, you know, all across the web. But then is AI also kind of replacing that in some way. I'm just looking for something to be able to, you know, look at a certain look for a certain thing, and then say, okay, these
ten places have it for this price. This is the best price at the store.
Yeah. So here's the thing. It's a good question, and it's such a tough one because there's so many things going on. Like, Okay, so you've got the basics like Google shopping or Amazon, Yahoo shopping, right, So I just did a quick comparison and I typed in this video projector into Yahoo Shopping, and then I typed that same thing into Google Shopping. And I will tell you that I think Google Shopping definitely came up with better results.
And if you've ever looked for a product on Google Shopping in general or on Google in general, I should say, you'll see when you look for a product, it'll sometimes come up on the side. Hold on, let me type this in again, It'll come up on the side with like pricing information. So I just looked up the x Jimmy mogo for projector, right, and I'm looking at the
Google search results. It's got the traditional results. Then on the right side it notices that this is a product, and it's telling me all kinds of information typically four to seven ninety nine, and it's saying four ninety nine at x Jimmy, which is their website, four ninety nine at Walmart, seven ninety nine at best Buy, and then I can tap compare prices, and this brings me into Google Shopping, and it doesn't go much further than that. You've got BNH Photo and a couple other places. But
here's the thing. So I think that these tools are good, and I think that what you really want is something to compare against the main websites, which is best Buy, Target, Walmart, Amazon, you know, the main websites, and of course the retailer's own website, and then sometimes you have something like a Cohles will sell electronics and stuff like that. I think the easiest way to do it is the Google Shopping Results, but I'm not completely certain that all of Google's shopping
is organic. I think that some of it is sponsored. It's not going to have everything that you want on there. There's also the Honey. I used to use this Honey shopping assistant, so they have If you install Honey on your computer, this is from PayPal. It will pop up when you're on like an Amazon result and say, hey, we found this product at a cheaper price somewhere else.
The thing that I'm concerned about is that you don't really want to be buying these products from a lot of random websites you haven't heard of that have really good prices. And I think that's what some of these trackers, these price trackers have done over the years, is that they just feed in a lot of nonsense that like, I don't really want to buy this from a random website. And I think that's the problem with why we don't see a lot more of these online anymore, is because
it's just I don't think people are using them. Like if I have an Amazon Prime membership, I'm pretty much sticking to Prime. If I have a Walmart Plus, I'm probably buying from Walmart. I like best Buy, and I like the rewards program they have, I'm buying it best Buy. If I like Target, I've got Target three to sixty. I'm probably gonna stick there. And I think that just finding the price across those kind of major retailers is
what most people are doing anyway. And I hate to say, but there's not a lot of change between those retailers, Like sometimes it's like the same exact price. So I think all of this is to say I don't have a place where I go to pop in a product and say this is going to give you the absolute best price. So that is kind of the end all this with this, you know, with shopping online, is that there's not necessarily a great place to pop in a product and get the best price. That's what I'm trying
to tell you, Mark. What I would say is what I do This is what I tell people to do is if you have your your eye on something, Let's say you want the Apple Watch eleven, right, you type that into Google and then what I like to do
is tap news. And what happens is all of these bloggers out there, because they get a commission on the prices that they're you know, posting, and the links to the affiliate links that they're posting, they're always blogging about the best price of things because it's in their best interest to have you find that when you search for
it on Google. So I actually think that's usually the best way to do it is you could you can tap news, or you could even type in deal Apple Watch eleven deal, and it will give you the best deals on those because people are finding them and blogging about them. Or you can just leave out eleven, maybe just want an Apple Watch deal in general, and you can find them that way. So there's just there's so many ways of doing this. I can't tell you that
there's one size fits all. I wish there was an extension that you can install on Chrome and it would pop up every single time there's a better price. I don't think there is, and I think that like you said AI is where a lot of people are starting their shopping searches nowadays, and you know, that's another way
of doing it. But I think that there's just not one shop for everything, Like there used to be a lot of price crawlers out there on the web that you could pop a product into it it would compare against everything. I just don't think that those they exist, yes, but I don't think there's one that's like perfect that I could recommend to you because I just don't think there is a perfect one out there, and I think it really comes down to preferences of where you like
to shop and how you like to buy things. A couple other products while we before we go to break here, there is one called save wise get savewise dot com so you can type in stores and help you get offers from your credit card and things like that. The other one is card pointers that can help you find some of the credit card offers that you have and that can help you save some money. And of course I like shop Back. We've talked about that on the show.
They are a sponsor, so I do really like that because you can get shop money back there if you're trying to do just comparison shopping on Amazon Camel Camel Camel is a great place to go. And then there's websites like slick Deals and deal News, which gives you a whole bunch of the best deals out there on things, but not necessarily a thing you're looking for, although you can't type that in to the search bar. But Mark, I just threw a lot at the wall. There are
so many ways of doing this. There's not one size fits all when it comes to online shopping. That is what I've decided. Thanks for the call today, appreciate it. Apologies about the other callers. I'm not sure what happened there. If you want to call back, a hop on the phone eighty to eight Rich one on one back after this, come back to Rich on tech rich DeMuro here we got an email from Jim. He said you mentioned the new slider to turn off the alarm on iOS twenty
six point one. He says he actually liked the button better. Maybe you can mention for other people who might want to get the button back. This is how you do it. Go into Settings Accessibility touch and if you scroll all the way down to the bottom, it says prefer single touch actions and that'll get back the single touch alarm
turnoff button. Okay, it's good to have options, Jim. I think here's what I think Apple is admitting with this whole update is that it's like everything that they've changed, they've given people the option to change back, which I think is great. I feel like that's kind of what Android has done forever, is give people options rather than just like an edict of here's how you do things, which is what iOS has been, you know, for a very long time. But I think they're getting to the
point where they're giving people more options. I feel like with the last two updates, Apple has really kind of taken the lead and like, hey, we'll let you do a lot of things that you want to do the way you want to do them within reason. You know, they still control a lot of the sandboxing and stuff, which I think is good for security and privacy, but they let you choose a lot of the things that you want to do and custom customize the phone in
the way that you want to do it. So again, if you want that single touch alarm turnoff button back instead of the slider settings diessibility touch for fer single touch actions, it looks like we got Gina back in mission via ho Gina, what's up? What happened? We got disconnected?
Okay, I'll try to talk back here. Yeah, so I was in Lamont and trying to use my phones. I have two cell phones I brought. One is an iPhone eight, the others an iPhone XR Apple XR, and I noticed that the XR was able to work with it get keep the internet connection from I guess from the hotel because I logged into the hotel internet connection. But anyway, when I was using it to find using maps to make plot courses when I got outside of the hotel,
only the XR version would work for that. The other phone that they eight had the message of no Internet.
Connection when you were outside the hotel.
Yeah, Like, I don't exactly win I noticed it. I mean I noticed it, but I mean because I was trying to use both phones because you know, the power I didn't have in case I ran out of power.
Matter were you on Wi Fi or cellular?
Okay, those are the kind of question Okay, when you're out, Okay, when you this is ride the terminology may get me when I'm outside of a hotel if I plugged into their internet and I want to leave the premises. Does it automatically And this sounds dumb, it does that mean it's already on Wi Fi?
I don't.
Yeah, it depends, I mean so like So basically the way the cellular works versus Wi Fi cellular connection is constant. Like your phone is always basically on a cellular connection.
If it's an iPhone, right, if it's if it's a smartphone, right, it always has a cellular connection as long as it has one physically, right or I guess wirelessly, however you want to say it Wi Fi, if you think about it, it almost rides on top of the cellular connection, and so you can use Wi Fi by itself and turn off the cellular of course, but it's almost like your phone is always going to favor Wi Fi when it has it, because it uses less battery and it uses
less of the cellular data. It's just much more power efficient. So once you connect, let's say you let's say you check into a Let's say you get off a plane, and from the time you get off the plane to the time you ride to the hotel, your phone is probably on a cellular connection. Right soon as you get to that hotel, you check into your room, you log into the Wi Fi that's that's provided by the hotel. Now your phone goes, oh cool, we've got this nice
Wi Fi connection. We're going to use that because typically faster, more power efficient, uses less data from our cellular and it's just easier on the whole system. And so now we're going to default to that whenever we see that connection. Now, your phone manages it by itself, So if the Wi Fi is not strong, it's going to just default back to the cellular. When the Wi Fi works, it's going
to take the cellular. When you're outside that hotel, let's say you're laying out by the pool, it may have a Wi Fi connection if it's strong enough from the from the hotel, or it may not. But your phone's going to kind of decide. And so the reason these two phones had a different connection or different ability is probably comes down to the fact that they just have different hardware. And I'm guessing which phone had the better one, the XR the ten R well X working, Yeah, okay,
because it's a new and it's a newer model. So I think just the iPhone eight just didn't have the same strong connection because the specs of the hardware probably were not as good or the tuning. I mean it could be. I'm looking at the specs right now. Theoretically the specs are the same, but the hardware, the way it's designed, the way the antenna openings are all that stuff could just be more optimized on the ten are so.
But I will tell you both of these phones, you know, are out of service when it comes to support and software. So I would look into just you know, for security and things like that. I would look into upgrading at some point with a newer device.
Okay, what newer device if I because I'm trying to save money, what would be a newer device that isn't so extent, like you know, I don't want to go to the top?
Is like a iPhone sixteen E will be great? So, yes, sixteen E and that's that's typically five ninety nine. You might find it cheaper during the holidays, maybe four ninety nine. So I would watch for any sort of deals on that. You might even get it for free on your from your carrier. How long have you had your carrier?
Oh well I can't, I can't remember exactly, so few years.
Okay, Well you might go to them, they might give you a free phone. The thing is, if you're not changing carriers, like if you don't like let's say, of AT and T, you don't want to switch, they may give you a new phone and just say, hey, you have to stick with us for another two years. If you're completely happy with your service and everything you got, might as well take the free phone and you're paying the same amount. This is rich on Tech. Coming up, we are going to talk about board, a new way
to have family game night. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology. The website rich on tech dot TV. Everything I mentioned is linked up on there. So if I mentioned something like that Ramen place or you know, anything that I mentioned, the reporters we talk to, the people, we talk to, the products I mentioned. It's all on the website rich on tech dot TV. This is episode one forty seven, so you can easily find it there. Another thing, a
thing I'll link up to. Lift and United Airlines are teaming up. So now if you ride Lift you can get miles on United Airlines. So mileage plus you can link your account in the Lift app. You get four miles per dollar on prescheduled airport rides three miles on lift black and black suv. Let's see, Okay, I was looking for the what you get for a standard trip.
It's a dollar from Okay, so there you go. But if you are a new user, you can get a thousand bonus miles for linking and completing two rides within thirty days. Anyway, lyft dot com slash United. I don't know about you, but I fly United most of the time. I don't necessarily take Lyft all the time. But you know, maybe this is the whole point of these partnerships is to get you to use their products. Right, so we'll say all right. Joining me now is Brent Putnam, founder
of Mirror. This is a product that was a fitness Well she can explain it better, but I believe it was a fitness board, a fitness mirror that Lululemon purchased, and now she's working on something completely new to reinvent family game night called bored. The website is boord dot fun, which I like the pun. There, Brin Putnam, thanks for joining me today.
Thanks for having me rich.
Okay, so tell me quickly Mirror this was I've seen it. I saw it at the Lula Lemon store. It's like a mirror that what you like work out in right, like work out with Yeah.
It's an interactive fitness mirror where you could see yourself reflected and then a live instructor and it gave you feedback on your form, your intensity via connected heart rate monitor and weights. And we sold this a little Lemon in twenty twenty.
Amazing. So I mean that was life changing. I'm sure, yeah it was.
It was an incredible outcome for the for the product and the team.
That's amazing. Okay, so you did that. I mean my family and I watched Shark Tank, so I mean we love like all the different products and things. Were you on that for that or No?
No, I would love to be on Shark Tank though maybe with the next one.
Well, at this point, now you're not gonna be on Sharks Tank for like your product. You're gonna be on as one of the sharks because you know, one of the guests people. Because now you've done so well. Okay, so now you're doing a new thing called Board. The website is Board dot Fun and so it's kind of like it looks to me like a digital reinvention of the board game. So explain Yeah.
So Board is the first ever face to face game console that blends the best of board games and video games into one new platform. So how it works is it's a twenty four inch touch screen and a beautiful wood frame that sits on your table. And we spent two years training the screen to do something no other screen can do, which is recognize physical pieces game pieces. So when you put down a piece, it knows what the piece is, where it is on the board, and
what orientation it's in in real time. So it's an entirely new way of playing games that mixes physical pieces with a digital screen.
Now how are you able to do that? What is there something in the piece or does the board just feel the pressure of the piece.
So it's a couple components.
One, the piece has a unique capacitive signature on the bottom and the base that the screen then recognizes. And then we've trained our own AI models to run on the device to recognize what the piece is and what it's doing in real time. So we have a whole team of sort of computer vision machine learning engineer that are training these pieces to be recognizable by the screen.
And so what types of games are available to play on the board.
So the board at launch has twelve games included. They range from things like quick hit retro arcade games to deep strategy games to everything in between. And they scale from one player to many players.
Young children up to adults.
And the goals to get everyone sitting around the table, laughing, talking, collaborating, working together around this shared experience.
Now it almost looks like when I'm looking at the website, it almost reminds me of you know, those like arcade games that are a console like where you sit like a mispac man or something where two people sit on either side. It's almost reminiscent of that has that occurred.
To you at all, the old sort of pizza pizza parlor, tabletop arcade games which were so fun.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I think there's a lot of sort of similarities in terms of just bringing back kind of the fun of sitting around this shared experience. So instead of you know, being in a corner on your phone or your iPad or sitting with hyphones on network to someone on your PC or your TV, you're sitting together face to face.
Across the table.
Now you kind of touched upon something because we're seeing this trend of people trying to be on screens less and be more present. And so I think, you know, when you think about a classic board game that like kind of hits all those things, and here you are coming out with a high tech version of that. So do you think you get the same sort of disconnection from the screen even though you're on a screen playing these games?
Yeah, So board for me was really born out of personal need.
I have five kids, so I range from two and eight and then up to three older step kids seventeen nineteen twenty one. And we would try to play board games, but we'd have to play something easy enough for the littlest one to join, or we try to play video games, and the teenagers would smoke us because none of us were as good on sort of complicated modern controllers as the young inins.
And so the question for me was, like, you know, is technology? Can technology be good? Here?
Can we make the screen something that's helpful in facilitating interaction and connection rather than something that isolates us or makes us distracted? And so I think it's really about how the screen is used, and for us, the screen is there to make people talk and laugh, and work together rather than something that sort of takes you and puts you in you and your own physical bubble. So it's not anti tech. It's really about using tech to bring people together.
And each one of these games, it looks like, has their own components, like physical components. Does that come with the board or do you purchase those separately?
Yeah, so everything is included, so you get twelve games and each game has its own piece set. So Chop Chop is our cooperative cooking game, and you get knives and spoons and a little chef and a spice mill.
Or the arcade games have robots and space ships.
Or Spycraft is an adventure game with this spy kit that converts into a laser cutter and a safecracker, and that's all included for limited time at launch as part of the.
Four ninety nine price.
And when it comes to this the durability of the board, because you are playing on this surface, is there like a screen protector, Like is it replaceable? Explain that because it's got to be very durable to be able to play the games on here, and it's a display as well.
Yeah, So the device went through a ton of testing of being dropped from very high heights, being submerged in water, being scratched up thousands of times, and so we feel very good that it's incredibly durable, but it also comes with, you know, when you're warranty and a lot of support if you should see it.
Is there a subscription? Do I pay monthly to access these games? And right now I'm assuming you're developing all the games yourself. Is there going to be a third party sort of app store where developers can make things for this board?
Yeah, so the twelve games are included with purchase. Then in early twenty twenty six, we roll out our game store, where you can purchase additional games as well as expansion content for the games you already own.
And we're really building a platform.
So we have an SDK available today and developers are already building on our SDK new experiences that take advantage of this shared screen and the physical interaction. So we're really excited to see kind of what the next generation of games brings.
It could be reimagined.
Classics like Chess or Monopoly brought to life on the board, or new native experience.
As an IP that we haven't even imagined yet.
You've got a lot of competition in the game kind of space. You've got everything from Amazon, Luna, they just came out with free games on your TV for prime subscribers with no hardware, no additional hardware other than the firestick or whatever. You know, You've got the iPad, you've got Nintendo, you've got Xbox, you've got Roadblocks, you've got Minecraft, you've got PlayStation. How do you see this fitting into all that world of gaming?
I think it's really about the face to face interaction that is unique to board and the physical digital combination. So it's just an incredibly fun and intuitive way to play. So just like swiping on mobile brought in a whole new world of gamers, or the swing of the remote and we unlocked new ways of playing, I think sort of pieces in screen interaction really enables everyone to be
a gamer. So for us, I think it's about bringing everyone together for regardless of age or skill, and for an experience that's face to face, which I think is just really unique amongst our competitors.
Again, it's board dot fun. The price is four ninety nine, you get twelve games, got physical component and obviously a hardware component to it. And a digital component brand. I'm just curious for you as a entrepreneur. I mean, obviously you found great success with your last product. I always feel like it's it's tough. There's a lot of pressure for the next product, you know, like this, like it's
like you want to have another home run. Do you feel that pressure and do you feel like you accomplish something great with your next venture?
Here?
Sure?
I mean I think for me, you know, you want to build something that people love, that has a lasting impact on a lot of lives. And so I generally am kind of someone who thinks the score takes care of itself, So I don't think too much.
About the end condition.
It's more about just kind of waking up each day and setting a really high bar for execution for me and my team. And generally, I think if you deliver great experiences, people will enjoy them and thinks will go well.
Any advice you got like less than a minute, any advice for entrepreneurs out there? Someone has an idea. I mean, you pretty much hit the pinnacle with your first product, and you know, any advice for people that have something that they want to do.
I had no technical experience mirror was my first job with the team, and I think what you don't know is actually your greatest gift and your greatest asset, because you're brave and you see things that other people don't see. So let what you don't know create a sense of urgency and take the jump and give it a go.
All right, I love that advice. Brinn Putnam, founder of Mirror and now boardboard dot Fun, Thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks rach all right, really appreciate it. All right, coming up, a couple more items of note in the news world, and then we'll get to the feedback. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech, rich Demro. Here a couple items of
no before we open the feedback. First off, new research shows that smart watches could help doctors spot heart problems early. The doctors developed an AI algorithm that can detect structural heart disease like weak heart muscles or damaged valves only using a smart watches built in single lead ECG sensor. We know that censors and hospitals have like twelve leads,
you know, they put those little things on you. This is just using a smartwatch, and so they took a whole bunch of data, they fed it into an algorithm, and then they tested it on a whole bunch of patients and sure enough it worked. So researchers say this could make heart screening more accessible basically your watch. It's not a done deal, but it just goes to show that with AI and this data that smart watches are collecting,
even basic data, it can really go far. And then I want to just mention Google Google Pixel record sales in the US. Pixel sales in the US, according to Counterpoint Research, jumped twenty eight percent year over year in September twenty twenty five. That's a new single month record
for Google. Google Sharing the six hundred dollars plus premium smartphone market hit six point one percent, So it's still pretty small compared to Apple and Samsung, but it was just point oh one percent point no point one percent three years ago. Why are people buying the Pixel? All those Gemini AI ads you see, I mean, have you seen them? They're all during the sports games. It's like they compare the iPhone to vanilla ice cream. So people
are apparently it's resonating with folks. I know it does every time I see when I go. Yeah, that's why I love the pixel so much. Okay, let's open up the feedbag. Kevin writes in I almost got caught by a really convincing scam pretending to be from one password. The email claim there was a security issue and asked me to download an important update. It even looked real, except it was sent to my old address. I realized something was off, so instead of clicking the link, I
updated the app directly through one password itself. Turns out the fake update would have installed malware. Ooh, good catch, Kevin. Never click those links and emails. Always go directly to the source. Joseph says, as a tip fear listeners, I use the open vibe app to follow both blue Sky and mastad On in one feed. I use mastadon for tech people and blue sky for everyone else. Between the two sources, I've completely replaced my old Twitter feed, no ads,
no tracking, and a clean chronological view. Great tip, Joseph, open Vibe. I checked it out. I personally have not been using any of the socials except Instagram and Facebook lately, so but maybe one day I'll go back on I know. Dan from Palmdale says, thanks for your info on iTunes match in your latest newsletter. I've got a ton of MP three's and CDs I'd love to listen to across my devices. Twenty five dollars a year is an ideal, but if it works, well, I'll try it. I wanted
to say, I enjoy everything you do. I see you, I hear you, I read you. Keep up the good work. Also random question, Bobo, you got to hear this. Do you remember the wave radio station from the nineties. There was a song with the lyrics it goes up, it goes down, never touching the ground elevator with all the ladies going uptown. I've been searching for it for years. I do not know that song. Okay, well, maybe someone listening at that rings a bell. But Google, you would think,
but I already searched it, couldn't find it. Uh if you know how to sing it? Google picks up on the melody. No I know, come on, sing it goes up, it goes down, never touching the ground elevator with all the ladies going up town. Daniel writes in about the floating bubbles fix we mentioned a couple weeks ago. I had the same messaging issue on my Samsung Galaxy z flip seven. Great phone, by the way, Thanks for the tip to turn off floating bubbles. I was wondering why
my messaging was so screwy and discombobulated. Thanks for the tip, Daniel. That's what we are here for, and that's what I love about this show. But Don from the Redlands another Saturday and another newsletter from the tech Master. Keep it up. It's a huge world to cover, but you always managed to tackle what challenges us most. Okay, they butter me up. Now here comes the bad part. Now, I was just kidding. My wife's five year old Android phone stopped making sounds
for calls and texts. She didn't get any notifications and later discovered eighteen unheard voicemails and a long list of unread messages. We thought the phone was failing. We use Consumer Cellular, which gets top marks in consumer reports. After visiting a few locations, we finally found a target store in Fontana with a real service counter. The young woman
there couldn't have been more helpful. She discovered do not Disturb was turned on, which blocked all alerts, and she even installed a new simcard to help update the phone system. She ran diagnostics fixed everything and didn't charge a dime. It's rare these days to get such genuine, no cost help from someone who cares big for Consumer Cellular and
for us older folks. Don that story warms my heart. Yes, there are still people out there that are doing amazing things that are there to help people, and just they're still out there and I love hearing that. So big win for Consumer Cellular. Thank you Don for sharing that story. Michael from Baltimore says, I came across your radio show on my drive home from Baltimore. It was very helpful and informative, much appreciated. Well, thank you, Michael. You know
I get a bunch of calls a week. We don't necessarily talk about this, but this show does air in various places across the country. Right, if you listen to LA, you listen to New York City, you know it's there, but there's all these other places that it airs, and you know, we don't necessarily mention it. But I love that because there's so many people out there and they drive I call them drive bys, right, they just find us and they say, oh my gosh, and we hope
that you stick with us, and we're available for live broadcasts. Yes, that's gonna do it for this episode of the show. Oh if you want to submit to the feedback, just go to the website rich on tech dot tv. There you can also find links to everything I'll mentioned on my show again rich on tech dot tv. This is episode one forty seven. Everything is linked up there. You can find me on social media. I mentioned that. Yes, I am mostly on Instagram these days at rich on tech,
so definitely follow me there. Coming up next week, we've got some great guests. Alison Johnson from the Verge is going to talk about the one plus fifteen. Then we've got Jamie Simonov, founder of Ring. He's got a brand new book called Ding Dong. We are going to talk to him about that. I can't wait. And we've got Nyu Stern professor Vissant Dar talking about his new book Thinking with Machines. Thank you so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time. I
do appreciate you spending it right here with me. Please don't drive distracted, put the phone down. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. My name is rich Dmiro. I will talk to you real soon