How to lock down your phone number so no one else can steal it. Nothing's New smartphone wants to replace screen time with light shows. Chuck E Cheese is back, but this time it's for adults. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on on Rich dmiro 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 the tech should be interesting, useful and fun.
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. Email is also an option. Just go to Rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact. This week, I'll take you to the NINA nine to one to one conference. There you'll hear about cutting edge technology designed to get you help faster and say more lives.
Then later Selim ben nayat Nothing's AI and Services product lead, we'll talk about how the company is reimagining the smartphone. And later later later on, Trey Boj smart shopping expert at truetrade dot com is going to share some tips to help you get through the Prime Day, which is happening this week. Well, I hope you're having a fantastic Fourth of July weekend. We got to see some fireworks, got to celebrate with friends, and I hope you are
doing the same. It wasn't lost on me that I was in London this week for an event by a startup called Nothing. I thought it was very ironic that I visited the place that I guess gave birth to our place here in America.
And you know, it was interesting.
I hadn't been to London in a long time, and so being there the week of our Independence Day just brought a lot of feelings in and a lot of stuff. Think about how just think about, just for a second, how America broke free of England.
I mean, really think about that.
Like here, you are a place, just a collection of these little colonies across the pond, as they say, and this big old country that's been around forever just sort of loses control. I mean, that must have been really wild back in the day. Anyway, I digress. I'll share some thoughts about London later on, but let me tell you about Nothing. This is a company that's the name yes, Nothing and the name gives you a sense of kind of what they're all about.
They're playful.
It's a design oriented company that's been making phones for about five years now. A lot of the team is from another company is to cover a lot called OnePlus, but the founder there branched out and went on his own to create something new and different, and this is it. It's called the Nothing Phone. This is specifically the Nothing Phone three. Now, the company's made a few phones over the years, but not many of them were for the
US market. A lot of them were sold what's under what's called a beta program, which means if you bought this thing, you had to be like a tech enthusiast because you only had fourteen days to return it and then you were on your own, no warranty, no support.
But this new phone then Nothing Phone three will be sold in the US market, although I don't believe they have any direct carrier support, so you're not gonna be able to buy it from like a AT and T or T Mobile as far as I know, You'll have to buy it direct from them or from Amazon, which is gonna make it an uphill battle for this phone, which is a shame. Because I've been using it for the past week and I really like it. If you're watching streaming the show on KTLA plus, this is what
the phone looks like. It's got this really cool clear back, it's got a whole bunch of cameras, and even this little display on the back they call a glyph matrix. It's like a little dot matrix display. Remember how I said this is a design forward company. You're either gonna love or hate the design when you see this phone. It also has a blinking red light on the back when you're recording. I mean, how cool is that? Like a nod to the old days of cam quarters, right.
It's also a nice way in our record centric society to let people know that you are recording video or audio. Like I said, there's that little dot matrix screen. They call it the glyph matrix. This is a display that can show things like the time countdowns, but also there's fun stuff like a spin the Bottle game. I showed this to some folks yesterday at our Fourth of July celebrations and they're like, what do you mean Spin the
bottle is on that phone? When was the last time you played Spin the Bottle I'm like, I don't know, sixth grade, it's been a while, but let's play it tonight. I mean, it was all adults in a lot of us were marriage so that was kind of weird. But there's also a magic eight ball. If the spin the bottle. Things not your style. But this goes to show this company is not trying to be the next Pixel, the
next Samsung, the next Apple. They know that this thing will either, you know, make you love or hate it when you see it. Now, in five years, nothing has what they say three million fans, I'm guessing they've sold about three milli devices right from that number. Compare that to Apple, which sells about fifty million phones every three months, so yeah, they sell considerably more. But back to the phone, it's really nice. It's got a good processor, not the best,
but it's a very capable phone. I've had no problems with it. They're actually using the latest battery technology, which is called silicon carbon, which is really cool because not many major phone makers are doing that just yet here in the US. That means the battery charges faster, you can pack more energy into a slimmer form factory form
factory form factor. This one also charges up to uses fast charging up to sixty five watts, while the iPhone and Samsung are somewhere around forty five at the max. I'm not even sure if the iPhone is that fast, then you've got the software features. I'm gonna have an interview, like I said a bit later in the show, to talk about some of the reasoning behind Nothing's choices. But this phone is built with features designed to help you look at it less. Yes, how's that for a concept.
It also runs a really nice version of Android. Say it's really close to the pixel, which is one of the reasons I love it. It's clean, It has a lot of nice but little useful touches in it, so they don't do a ton with the software. They just make it very useful and very appealing to the eye.
A couple of features in this Essential Search. This is kind of like all your search on the iPhone, but it's much more useful because it searches both stuff on your phone, but when you ask something a little bit more complicated, it will reach out to AI for an answer. Then there's this thing called Essential Space. This is like an AI enhanced digital notebook. It can store your screenshots, your voice memos, and more. It uses AI to organize
it all. So far, I can't figure out if there's any search functionality there, which would be very helpful, but maybe that's coming soon. Then there's this feature called flip to Record. This is a way to record meetings. You just press the button on the side of the phone. They've got this dedicated key and you flip your phone over. It will record and transcribe your meetings and give you
a summary. Now, you're limited to about three hundred minutes for free each month, but if you're in meetings more than that per month, I think you need to reassess what you're doing with your life.
Just kidding.
People love meetings. People love to be in meetings. I don't know what it is about meetings, like the before the meeting, the meeting, the after the meeting, Like just give me the information I need and I want to get out of my life.
Then nothing.
Phone three comes in white or black. Twelve gigabyte RAM plus two hundred and fifty six gigabytes of storage.
That model will sell for eight hundred dollars.
Then there's a sixteen gigabyte RAM five to twelve that'll sell for a little bit more. But here lies the problem. This is an excellent phone. It's got three fifty megapixel cameras. I think they look great. I took this thing around London for an hour, snapping tons of pictures. I don't think there's one bad one in the shop in the bunch. I love the software. The hardware is capable. But the problem is no one here in the US is gonna
buy it. You know why because think about it. If you can't get it AT and T you can't get it. Verizon you can't get it T Mobile. That's where people here in the US get their phones. They also like to add their phone to their plan and divide up the payments. This is how people buy things in the US. If you need help with it, you can't go to the Genius Bar. And that is all a shame because this funky little startup out of London is actually making
a really good phone, but it's hamstrung. Only the nerdiest of nerds like myself and phone enthusiasts willing to pep up their iPhone or the Pixel or maybe their Samsung, is gonna seek this thing out. Nothing really needs something. See what I did there to help us break out of the smartphone rut, the treadmill that keeps us coming back to new iPhones every couple of years, new Samsung's, and maybe a new pixel. But I think if someone
gets this device, they're gonna like it a lot. It looks a little weird, I'll admit that, But isn't that kind of fun these days? Like every phone I've tested over the past ten years, I've taken out at parties over the weekends, like literally day day in, day out, Nobody cares. I show them this phone, like, oh, it's the new Samsung is Okay, what's it do differently? It's got an extra it's got better cameras. Okay, Oh it's a new iPhone. Look the screen stays out all the time. Okay,
why do I need that? No one cares. I literally, I'm not kidding. When I had the brand new iPhone with the always on display, this a couple of years ago. You're not supposed to show these things to people. I made it a point when I went to my kids baseball practice to put the phone face up on the bleachers like at the game, to see if anyone would notice why my screen was on on the iPhone. The whole game with the time and the stuff that nobody
said it word, nobody cared. So anyway, if you put this thing face down and people see it, they are going to ask you questions about it, and I think that's a good start. The Nothing Phone three is available for pre order now, open sales start on July fifteenth. If you want a link to see what it looks like, go to my Instagram at rich on Tech. I also picked up the Nothing headphones, which are equally as weird
as well. I'll talk about them coming up, all right, eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
My name is rich Demiro.
We got lots ahead talking about tech, taking your questions, tech news, all kinds of great stuff right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology on this. Is it July fourth weekend or fourth of July? I feel like that's a let's see July fourth versus fourth of July. I know that ap style. Okay, yeah, fourth of July, so it's not Yeah, it's not July fourth. I mean, I guess you could say whatever you want.
By the way, I told you I went to London this week. It was only there for two days, which was kind of wild, very quick turnaround. But when I tell you that travel is so automated now, I don't think I had to interact with one person on the entire way from LA to London. And it's all automated
where you basically scan your passport or your face. I mean, it's really wild that you just go through these systems now that are just all automated, Like both here and when I got to London, it was all completely automated. The only downside I've noticed is that you don't get a stamp in your passport because it's all automated, so you can there was a sign on the wall that said, if you want a passport stamp, I think you could like go to some special window and they'll stamp it for you.
But I you know, it's.
Just like the changing way of I finally got global entry, and so I'm not kidding. When you come back into the US, there's like an iPad that you look at and before you even look this thing scans your face and somehow figures out that you know and opens up the door.
I mean, it's really, really wild.
It's come a long way since the days when I was going to Japan and it would take you know, just getting in and out would take an hour or two.
Let's go to Cheryl in Oregon. Cheryl, you're on with Rich. Welcome to the show. Hello Rich, Hello Cheryl.
I'm looking for the best hardware to take videos of edible and medicinal plants and the best software to edit the videos. Back in the nineteen eighty I did this and at that time I was using I believe it was eight millimeter And things have really changed. And as I'm looking at the various choices, I'm getting quite confused as to what I really need because my needs are really simplistic.
They do so Okay, So that was my question. Where are these videos.
Living right now? They're on YouTube?
They're very old?
Okay, No, I mean like, where are the new videos that are where's the videos you're making?
Where are they going to live social media?
They're going to be both on YouTube and on my website.
Okay? And are you shooting in four K?
I don't know what.
I'm going to shoot in. Like I said, last time I did this, I used eight millimeter and I've never used digital for making videos, OK. And I was looking at possibly even just using an iPhone and then using the editing called iMovie on my iMac. Yes, but maybe I need something that's a lie little more complicated.
No, you do not. Don't.
Don't complicate things when they don't need to be. I edit video for a living, and I can tell you my setup, and over the years it's actually gotten simpler, which is just wild. So it is so easy to create video for online number one. And I hang out with a lot of YouTubers. Ninety nine point nine percent of them shoot on their iPhone, So that's number one. All you need is an iPhone and you can use a new iPhone an old iPhone, it does not matter.
Just get an iPhone. You'll be fine.
And then for the hardware, like the computer, you need some sort of MacBook so or okay, my delineation with the laptop. If you're going to be moving around with your computer, get a laptop. If you're not going to be moving around, like if this thing's going to sit on a desk, just get a desktop. You're going to get better specs for the money, So don't buy a laptop if you're not going to be moving it from the place where you're editing or doing your work. For me,
I'm traveling a lot. I'm always bringing my computer. That's why I have a laptop. If I was sitting at home editing all day, never leaving my desk, I would absolutely have a desktop, because you get more bang for your book when you go on the Apple website. There's really two options when it comes to the laptop, So I'm gonna stick to that because I imagine that's what most people want. You've got the MacBook Pro or the
MacBook Air. I can tell you I edit video for TV and I use my MacBook Air and it works just fine. I've never had a problem. If you're doing anything for social media, that's going to be just fine. My advice is to get the most memory, like the most ram that you can day one, and also the most storage that you can. And also do not get the base processor. Get one just a little bit higher than what they typically like, whatever the base model is
that they offer, don't get that one. Get the next level up, okay, And then when it comes to actually editing this video, I would recommend final cut. If you want to pay for it, that's what I use on a daily basis. Final Cut Pro is really good, but it's really simple. It's similar to iMovie. You can start with iMovie. I think that's going to be a little simplistic for what you want. If you want to download cap cut to your computer, you can do that if you like.
That program, they offer a free program for your computer.
Adobe also has some video editing software that a lot of people like, Premiere Or They also have a thing called Rush, which is a little bit more basic. So those are two good options. And then the other thing I would recommend is really on your phone if you just want to edit on your iPhone. I was just using the brand new Instagram edits app and it is
incredible for free, Like I couldn't believe it. Like I'm done with cap cut now because I don't need it anymore, and it's completely free and that works on your iPhone. So if you just want to shoot on your iPhone and edit on your iPhone, that's an option as well. And then the other thing I would recommend is if you need microphones.
The Dji mics.
Are pretty much the most amazing thing that I've added to my system over the years.
So Dji Mike two.
This is going to give you great audio from your you know, from your mobile setup and it plugs right into your iPhone or they record into themselves, no wires. When I tell you, Cheryl that this has gotten so much easier over the years, it really has. The only other thing I'd probably recommend is a tripod, and uh, I've got one linked up on my website that I like,
a brand new one I'm using. I think it's called Ulawanzi and it's it's a really good little tripod that's super simple, lightweight, you can carry it anywhere.
That's what I use.
I travel the world and this is how I record my stories for TV and it works perfectly. It's simple, it's easy. Don't try to get complicated unless you're making a movie or something like that. If you're just doing social media video videos for YouTube and your website, that will be perfect. Thanks for calling eighty to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you how you can lock down yourself number so no one can steal it.
That's coming up right here. I'm rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Well, you probably don't think about one until you need it. But the technology behind it is evolving and it could save more lives if it gets more modernized. That includes texting nine one one, also sharing your location automatically from your smartphone, which is happening in a lot of places. The goal, of course, is to make emergency response faster, smarter, and more effective.
So recently I attended the National Conference where first responders, tech companies, and policy makers gather to discuss the future of nine one one and what it means for you to start. I spoke with Dale Curtis of the NINA nine one one association they put on the conference. He represents the twenty five thousand people across the country who pick up that call when you need help.
So NINA represents twenty five thousand people who work in nine one one all across the country. There are six thousand emergency calls in this country. Almost every community or county has one right so it's the people who answer the calls, manage the calls, do the supervising, the training, and provide the technology.
And what are some of the challenges facing nine to one one in our country?
The perennial challenges in nine to one one are people, technology, and then funding and leadership, so there's lots of issues with recruitment, retention and taking care of those hardworking people. The technology, most number one centers are still using what we call legacy nine one one, which means you call them, you have a voice conversation. But there's a new technology called Next Generation nine one one, which is based on Internet and data protocol, so everything your smartphone can do.
The NNAL one center ought to be able to do photos, videos, precise location. You could have your pre configured emergency medical information that could go on ammatically to NOMAL one. All those kinds of things that your your phone can do and we take for granted. But legacy no one one is just a voice conversation. Most places, you can send a text to nine one one. We always say call
if you can, but text if you can't. Kidnapping situation or a domestic abuse situation, or you're afraid of making any noise, you can send a text to nine one in most places.
Today.
America needs Next generation nine one one.
They need it everywhere.
You should get the same service, whether you're calling from Long Beach, California, or Long Island, New York. Everyone should have the same standard.
And expect to get at a fast, efficient, effective emergency response.
And the goal of all this is what save lives.
Ultimately, lives are at stake. Seconds can make a huge difference between life and depth in every emergency.
Don Berningham, I'm the executive director for the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies.
What about AI? Are we going to have AI answering non onal one?
Yeah, well, you'll see a lot of AI applications. A lot of companies have already begun to implement AI as part of their call handling system and their response systems. We're not currently seeing that for emergency calls. We are seeing AI used to answer non emergency calls, but certainly over time we're going to see more of it in use with emergency calls as well, and to pull other data into the center that can be used for first responders.
When they arrive on the sea.
But I think what you're going to see over time more multimedia applications with nine one one, So if you witness a crime, you can send a picture or a video to the center that they can pass on to a law enforcement officer. You know, really the problem is implementation and getting funding for it, and you'll find that around the country there's quite a large disparity between those states that have the funding to implement the technology and those that don't.
Jim wolf A Murder Moral Solutions. We're right in the midst of significant evolution of technology that really accelerates the way in which we're able to respond to a call in a more informed manner. So when you dial nine one one from the telephone, it goes into what we call a peace app or public safety answering point. It's
a nine one one center. You'll have a call taker that will answer to call nine one one, what's your emergency typically what you'll hear, and they'll start gathering information around where you located, what's happening, and they'll enter that into the computer system and then it will pass along to a dispatcher who will send it in a sign and resource whether it's fire, police, or ems to go
to that call for service. So what we've seen nine to one one originally started in the nineteen sixties, primarily on a copper line that ran into a center. We still see this a lot around the country today, where it's a copper line running in and they use addresses primarily to get location. Well, today we know that about eighty percent or four out of five nine one one
calls are being made on a cellular telephone. Google and Apple, we're able to send precise information so that when the caller calls in, they're able to precisely locate that spot on a map. It's incredibly helpful for nine to one one centers to be able to get people to the
right spot more quickly. You know, there are ways in which people can go into programs like smart nine to one one dot com that allows people to be able to connect valuable information to their mobile telephone number around say allergies or maybe they have a child that has autism and they shouldn't be touched. So information for first responders that can be passed through regardless of where you're at in the country. It's a tremendous resource.
What about the keywords detected I'm seeing?
What's the AI from a nine to one to one standpoint really helps do some things that are revolutionary inside of a nine one one center, For example, being able to transcribe nine to one one calls in real time. That's huge, And then we can index it and characterize it in the way that we could search again to look for words like knife, gun, shooting, bomb fire. You get the example keywords where you can make automatic notifications, so commsupervisors and other people can begin to pick up
on high risk events that are occurring now. Conversely, things and this is common every day around the country, around the world, is foreign language being called into a center
that's not native maybe to the call taker. So using AI and emerging technologies to detect the foreign languages being spoke, to transcribe it in real time, and to provide the call taker with information back in their native language that allows them to make better, more in foreign choices about who to send, how to resource that call, and how
to get people there more quickly. So, the FCCCENE recently commissioned a study that estimated that in the US alone, ten thousand lives could be saved annually with the reduction of one minute from the time in nine to one to one call is made until properly equipped first responders
arrive at seat. That's so, when we think ten thousand lives annually, how can we accelerate it and how can we produce information that delivers a more informed response, or ways that technology can really help to be able to accelerate that in ways it was never seen before.
Nora Lagrani with Aliyrium and I am the director of product for our new cloud call handling solution called Mira. Mira is what we believe is the evolution of call
handling solutions. So you know, today we're getting new ways in which people can request assistance, whether it is sensors, whether it is your watches, whether it is you know, just general calling or even texting to nine one one, and all of that comes with important information that has to get to the first responder and the person that
is responding to the call. And what Mira does is it helps make those connections deliver the right information at the right time to the person that's there in all of the different forms that it can come in.
There's a lot of calls that come in for say the same things.
So think about there is a car accident on the highway right and there's ten twenty thirty calls. People are driving by and let oh there's a car accident, let me dial nine one one. That's great, but the call takers taking that are now getting inundated with the same calls for the same incidents, but there's also other things going on, and so they have to quickly be able to go through those calls and be able to just
tackle those. So what MIRAH can do is automatically set up an area where we say, okay, if you're calling from this area around this crash, we can play a message that says, hey, if you're calling about the crash on I ninety, then you know, police fire ems so on their way, thank you so much. If you're calling about something else, then stay on the line and then
they're added to the queue. This helps kind of filter out those additional calls that are all around the same thing and really focus the call takers on kind of that main emergency is that are all different?
All right?
That was from the NINA nine one one conference, and I know they mentioned that website in there to fill out a profile that if you call nine one one, it will put that information on the dispatch you person's screen. It's smart nine one one dot com smart nine one one dot com. You can go in there fill out information like allergies, household information, and if the dispatch center supports that technology, they can actually see that information when you call in, So I'll link that up on the
website rich on tech dot tv. Also on the website, if you go there, you can get show notes. This is episode one hundred twenty eight, So if you go to the website you can see the show notes for everything I mentioned, including thes how you can listen to the show, how you can subscribe to the podcast, and of course how to get in touch with the show. The phone number is triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. You can also go to the website and leave your
question there. Just go to rich on tech dot tv. Once you're there, hit contact and that will send a message right to my screen. All right, as we got a minute before we got to go to break, I'll do this quick quick quick question here. Let's see here Dave from California Rights and I got a question about selling home phone. So if I wanted to get rid of our landline, can the number we've had for forty years be added or forwarded to a cell phone? Check out porting it the idea of porting it to a
virtual service. There's a website called number barn dot com. Number barn dot com. You can port it there and basically do a bunch of things with it from there, like forward it to another number or just keep it there. And so it depends how much you want to pay. It's two dollars a month for starting prices. That'll just keep the number active in your name, because once you get rid of this number.
It's not easy to get back.
So if you've had it for a long time, that's something you probably want to do again. Number barn dot com. All right, coming up, I will tell you how AT and T has a new feature to help you lock down your line if you don't want someone else to steal it from under you. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. AT and T has this new wireless account lock feature that lets you prevent any changes that are not authorized to your AT and T account, which is uh simswaps, any device swaps. So this is really for simswap attacks. So this is when someone basically takes over your cellular account, either changes your number to their device or physically removes a SIM card and puts it into another device. So this was a big problem. Both
Verizon and T Mobile have ways of preventing this. AT and T was a notable holdout, but now they have it. So it's called wireless account lock. You can toggle it on in the my AT and T app look for the toggle switch. You can lock or unlock the account at any time. The main thing is if you turn on this lock, you're not gonna be able to switch phones, right like, you wouldn't be able to pourt out your phone number to a different carrier, and you would not
be able to upgrade your smartphone. So with that in mind, you would have to turn this off before you want it to make any of those changes. That's the main thing you need to know. It doesn't really change anything else.
But AT and T says that most of this fraud happens when someone pretends to be you, so they might call like AT and T and say, hey, you know this is me and I'm here's my They gather all this information about your account from somewhere online, mostly from data breaches or if they trick you into handing it over to them, and then they use that and they
call and then by the way. Once they have your phone number, they go in and start hacking all of your other accounts, like your bank account, your crypto account, your email. Because now they have control of your phone number, that means they have control of your two factor authentication codes. They can get those. So this was a big problem. In some cases. Even employees at the wireless stores were in on it. And so if you enable this wireless account lock on AT and T, not even their employees
can override it. So it's really smart and you should probably do it if you're not going to be changing your phone or anything, just to give you a secondary layer of protection. I think the carriers have gotten some more layers of protection built in, but this is a new one that just really locks down everything and says no changes to this account unless I go in and turn this off. So I made a whole tutorial on
my website, rich on tech dot TV. If you go there, look for the story that says AT and T ads simswap protection. And I've put the instructions for not only AT and T, but also Verizon T Mobile, and then I've linked up instructions for Cricket, Google five, Mint Mobile, Spectrum Mobile, US Mobile, Visible and Exfinity. Almost all the carriers have some sort of provision of protecting your account, whether it is a pin code on your account or
this physical lock on your account. Well physical, I guess it's a virtual lock, but I would check it out for sure.
Uh, let's go to Dan in San Francisco. Dan, you're on with Rich.
Hey, let's thanks for taking my call.
Sure, what's up?
Well, I've got an iPhone twelve Pro and just recently the flashlight and the front facing I guess I don't know. The main cameras stopped working. I checked my software is all up to date, there's no obstructions. That's hoping you can help me.
With that, and both of those things just stopped working. Yeah, the front.
Colt my selfie cam does still work, and I've tried it on I've tried the camera option on other apps like Facebook and Instagram, and and the camera works there, but it's just not on the It won't work on.
The camera on the regular camera.
Okay, So it's not a physical hardware thing. It sounds like it's a software thing. What about the flashlight you said that doesn't work?
Yeah, and how is that? Okay? So when you how are you toggling on the flashlight on.
The on the home screen. There's a little button down on the bottom left when I when I touch it, I feel that the vibration right, but the light doesn't come on.
Okay, Well, so it sounds like your flashlight could be at a low setting. That could be Number one. Have you tried swiping from the upper right hand corner to bring up control center on your phone?
I have not.
Okay, So when your phone is when you're looking at your phone, there's a way to swipe from the upper right hand corner and it brings a whole bunch of settings up.
Do you see all those.
I can find it? Okay, I'm talking on.
Okay, got it? Okay, So what I would do is just check to see if the flashlight. If you swipe from the upper right hand corner when your phone is unlocked, you'll get what's called the control center. There should be a flashlight icon in there. Tap that flashlight icon and see if it triggers your flashlight. And then also you can press and hold that icon once it's well, depends on the version of your phone. It used to be press and hold. Now mine brings up a secondary thing.
But you can either press and hold or you can see the little there's like a little section that shows up with the with the animation of a flashlight, and if you press that up and down, you'll notice that it adjusts the intense intensity of the flashlight the brightness. So you may have yours all the way turned down. I think that's what's happening here. It sounds like to me, but but that's what I would do, is check to see if you can. If you can toggle it on
from control center. You may have to add that control in settings if it's not there, but it should be there by default. So that's the two things there for the camera. Since it's working in the other apps. It does sound like it's some sort of software issue. So if you have gone through everything like restarting your phone, which you've tried it sounds like, I hope you've tried, that you've updated your software, which it sounds like you've tried.
I would make sure there's no screen time restrictions on anything, make sure you have no accessibility features turned on. The thing that you probably want to do first is there is an option in settings called reset all settings, and so you can go to Settings General and then it says transfer or reset phone. I know it sounds scary, but if you tap that, there is an option called reset. You tap that, and then there's an option called reset
all Settings. I really wish that Apple would not hide this so deep into the settings, because if you see reset, you're not going to use it right because it sounds really scary. It sounds like it's going to erase everything on your phone. But if you tap reset all Settings, that's going to reset almost every personalized feature on your phone without resetting or without erasing any data. Try that first, restart your phone, see if the flashlight and the camera
work properly there. If none of that works, then I would do what's called a erase all content in Settings. That's going to actually factory format your phone back to clearing everything out.
And if things still don't work, make.
Sure your phone's backed up before you do that, because you will have to bring the data back over. If it still doesn't work after that, you got to bring it to an Apple store. Eighty to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one more rich on Tech 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. Hope you're getting or got some time with your friends and family this weekend, this fourth of July weekend.
You know, we saw some fireworks. That's always fun.
It's been a while since we saw him up close and personal like that, so kind of neat this hour, We've got Selim benaiatt Nothing's AI and Services product lead to talk about this new phone we were talking about earlier in the show, the Nothing Phone three.
It's pretty unique.
It's got some unique features, got unique software AI built in, and a lot of it is engineered to help you use your phone less, like all this doom scrolling we do all day, which I know we're all guilty of it. But this phone is it's got a little display on the back that will show your notifications and things so that you can leave it face down and focus on the people around you.
Let's go to let's go to. Well, we got Frank. It looks like someone dropped off. We got Frank. Frank. You're on with Rich. Oh, hi, Rich, this is thank job.
I'm kling to find out if there's a good replacement for landline. I've been told of magic Jack as an option. I was wondering what you think of it, or you know, have a better option than using you know to replace the land line home?
Uh, well, what are you trying to do with this landline phone? Like, are you just trying to have like a just your old line just with a with Wi Fi or whatever?
Well, no, that the landline. Let me, I've had here for many years, I've lived here. But the main reason I want to keep it is because it's hooked up to my home alarm system and becomes a much bigger tack for me to get rid of it and go with a different alarm system. So I want I want to have a landline that works when somebody calls in from you know, any number.
Okay, but but.
Uh well magic Jack has been around for a long time and it's it. You know, it works as advertised. Let me see how much of it is these days thirty five dollars Now. The question with magic jacket used to require plugging into a computer for it to work.
So uh, use your.
High speed internet to connect to your magic Jack device? Do they make a standalone device? Uh?
To be honest with you, I haven't looked at all the options.
Yeah, because I'm looking at this and it looks like you do have to connect this to some sort of computer, which, yeah, so that would be a little bit more tricky because you're gonna have to plug this into your computer's USB and then plug the Ethernet into it, and then plug your phone line into it. So it's kind of like you need it sounds as far as I remember, this used to work. You had to have a computer running
to basically work with the service the whole time. So I think a better solution for what you're talking about would probably be Umaoma.
Have you heard of that?
No?
Okay, So Uma they make a standalone device that you can plug in and it's just works as I mean, it does exactly what you're talking about. It just replaces your phone line with this device. So you plug in the device into your wall. You can either connect it via Wi Fi or you can connect it with an Ethernet and then you plug your phone into there and that's it. It just works like a regular phone line after that, so you can get you know, depends on
the product you get. Let's see here, I'm looking for the basic home phone service is so the device is one hundred dollars one time costs and the monthly phone service is free. You have to pay taxes and fees which usually run about ten to twelve dollars a month. So that's probably what i'd recommend if I were you, just for the ease of use. And then you can also use this as a regular phone line as well,
so you get unlimited calling and things like that. Oh right now they've got the fifty dollars off, so you can even do that as well. So the website, the website Frank is umaooma dot com. I think that's probably going to be a better bet than the magic jack for what you're talking about.
Thank you very much for the advice. And as far as keep being able to keep the same number, you think.
Yes, you have to do what it's called a poor in so you need to. You know, you'll pour out the phone number from your old device and you'll pour it into the new device. I would go on whatever carrier you have right now for that phone number. I would Google poured out and see what the instructions are because sometimes they're very specific, and then I would go to the UMA website and just google port in phone
number UMA and get the instructions there. Read all those instructions thoroughly, and then you can pourt out your number from one place and bring it over to the other place.
It's a pretty simple situation.
All right, Great, thank you very much for good advice.
All right, Frank Enjoy great question. Always when people want to keep their phone number or switch it. You know, it's funny. I've taken for granted that I've known about UMA for so long. I mean, Magic Jack's been around for a very long time as well, but it's still
like not everyone knows about it. Let's see here we have, Greg writes in from Huntington Beach, Hey Rich with prime days coming soon, What are the best sounding Bluetooth always canceling headphones you'd recommend for top sound quality and value? Great question, Greg, I test them all, although I haven't tested the top choice, which is what everyone loves.
I've tested the.
Older model, but I haven't gotten around to the newer model yet. But I would say overall, the top noise canceling headphones, according to pretty much everyone I know, are the Sony wh one thousand x six. They just came out best overall, incredible sound, great noise cancelation, very comfortable. Those are what pretty much everyone I know uses on the long international flights we're taking, so i'd say that's
number one. They're expensive though they're not cheap, but you were saying, you know, over Prime Day they'll probably maybe they'll go on sale. The problem with Prime Day a lot of times the main item does not go on sale like the current year. It's usually the year's past. But you'd be just fine with the XM fives or fours or whatever. But that's number one. Number two obviously the Bows quiet comfort headphones. Those are perennial favorites. Everyone
loves those. They're gonna be just as expensive, but they might go on sale during the Prime Day as well. Now, if you have an iPhone and you want the best for the iPhone, the AirPods max USBC is really nice.
They're brand new.
They're very expensive, but if you have an iPhone, it keeps you connected to that Apple ecosystem, and that means if you have an iPhone and a Mac computer, they're gonna switch seamlessly between those two devices, which is really nice. They sound good, the noise canceling is good. Some people are turned off by the fact that they're very iconic looking those AirPods Max like you know, people weren't to the gym and things people think is a status symbol.
I mean, they are expensive, so they probably are, but they do sound They do sound good, and they work very nicely with the Apple products. Now, if you want something you said best value anchor Soundcore Life Q thirty's are pretty good for noise cancelation and they're under one hundred dollars. They'll probably be even cheaper during prime day. That's if you just want something that's pretty basic and
not very expensive. Now there's two other pairs of headphones that I think are worth checking out, depending on what you want. The Nothing Headphones one which would I've been talking about today on the show Cool Design.
I think they have great audio.
I wore them pretty much the entire flight there and back to London, about ten hours each way.
They sound excellent.
They have physical buttons on them, which I love, and they're very easy to understand, so they've got pretty unique. The buttons on these things are something that you don't really see everywhere. It's got a physical on and off switch, it's got a physical button to pair them for Bluetooth, although I couldn't find it when it was on the plane, which was really annoying.
It's kind of hidden.
It's got a rotating button that also clicks, which is great for volume. And then it's got almost like a flipper switch button which can fast forward or rewind your track. Is like skip ahead, skip back, but if you do you press and hold, it is scrubs through your music. If it's on a supported audio program like I don't know which one supports. I try it on Spotify. I wasn't really sure if that worked or not. I didn't hear the scrubbing, but they say that some of the
audio apps will support that, so that's really cool. Like if you want to rewinder fast forward like you did back in the old day on the tape, so it'll do that. And then it's got another physical button that will activate your you can program it to do a whole bunch of things like activate your AI assistant. So those are cool. And they come in at just three hundred dollars, which I know is still expensive, but a lot cheaper than some of the other four hundred and
fifty dollars headphones out there. So that's another one. And then finally Sos Ace. These are headphones. If you already have Sonos speakers or a soundbar, you want them to work with that. They're very comfortable. The noise canceling is great. I really like them a lot, even though I'm at odds with Sonos right now. But those sound good as well. So gave you a lot of options there, Greg, I think put them all in your cart, see which ones drop in price.
And I think you'll be happy with any of those.
You guys send me so many emails every week, so I'm just going to go through them this week. Down from spring Hill, Florida, says I just bought an inexpensive Samsung phone to use for calls and texts. I can send text fine, but I'm not receiving texts from iPhones. The store told me iPhone users may need to change a setting to send text to Android, but that's not realistic for my husband or friends. I can't afford to
switch to an iPhone. Any suggestions, don I've never heard of a special setting that to receive text from an iPhone user, so I'm baffled. I think that whoever told you that at the store just wanted you to buy an iPhone, and that's not the case. SMS is universal. It works across every phone and every carrier all across
the world. So the only thing I've noticed, and this is more of an Apple problem than your problem, is that if someone is trying to text you that has tried to text you in the past on an iPhone, it sometimes does not go through because I message gets confused. So what I would do, since you recently switch phones, is have that person say, hey, if you're if this text is not going through, delete the whole text chain and start over, and that typically fixes the problem.
Now, my wife will fight me on this one.
She'll say, well, group text don't work with iPhone and Android. I'm like, yes, they do. I'm on a lot of group texts with iPhone Android. They may not work exactly the same, and everyone in that message may not be blue Bubble, but it's still gonna send the messages and even reactions work at this point I've noticed. So it's with our cs and all that. Now, what kind of phone did you say you got inexpensive Samsung? I mean, unless it's a flip phone. Look, there's no issue with
texting between iPhone and Android. The only issues are with the people that are on iPhone making fun of the people and Android.
That's the only issue I identify at this point.
Eight to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Coming up more of your emails. Plus I'll tell you why.
Amazon is warning you to be careful. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Uh, just looking at an email here from Let's see from Allen. He says magic Jack does allow to plug into Ethernet. Yes, but let's see. Uh hmm, okay, magic Jack requirements. We were talking about getting magic Jack versus Uma. But it's interesting, Okay, Okay,
here we go. Magic Jack devices can be powered by a USB wall charger or a standard there you go. So it's uh, it looks like it needs a computer like it used to, but you don't need that anymore. So so yeah, in that case, I would say you might want to just look at the price of each and see how much magic Jack is for a year versus service with Uma. Uma might be too much depending so yeah, it looks like it plugs in. You need like a little USB adapter. That's what that you USBs for. Okay,
got it. That's why I like having the email so we can get real time feedback on some of the things we talk about. Here two apps to tell you about this week. Number one, Rotten Tomatoes has launched an official app on iOS. And this is the This is the website that a lot of people like for their movie ratings. It confused me for so long, right, this whole idea of Rotten Tomatoes. I always thought that Rotten
Tomatoes was a bad rating. I'm like, wait, that means it's good if it has a good Rotten Tomatoes Like, I never understood that with some proprietary algorithm that gives it a percentage twenty percent, thirty, fifty, sixty, seventy eighty up to one hundred percent, and the higher the percentage the better. Those critics like that, and I think at
some point it's like certified fresh, right. And then they also do the popcorn Meter, which is the audience reviews, and so audience members can go on there and review the movie and rate it, and then you get that number. Now, most of the time those number can line up, but a lot of times they do not like a movie could be critically panned. You know, they don't like it, but the audience loves it, or the audience hates a movie but the critics liked it. So sometimes those numbers
can be very different. But anyway, Rotten Tomatoes does have an official app for iPhones, So if you love Rotten Tomatoes you live and die by those scores. You can download this app and create a watch list of the movies you want to see, discover the movies that you want to watch, and I of course leave your own ratings and reviews. They also have built in AI called rt I don't know what that means, but you can
search for movies and things. I asked like, what's the movie like back to the Future, and it said back to the Future. Said okay, what's something else like back to the Future. So it's still a work in progress and I don't think this is as full featured as my favorite app right now, which is called Just Watch.
Just Watch is a lot simpler.
This one will tell you Rotten Tomatoes will tell you where things are streaming as well, so if it's on like Netflix or Max or whatever, you can see that, but just watch will let you sort in so many different ways and also show you the stuff that's just playing on your streaming services. So if you're only paying for Netflix, you can filter all your movies and your watch lists just by Netflix, which is really handy. So again,
Rotten Tomatoes did the thing that I don't like. But they came out on iOS first and then Android coming soon. I don't I mean, I get why these companies do it, but Rotten Tomatoes is a huge company, just come out with the iOS and Android at the same time. Why do you have to make us android or it's just Android folks in general wait, like, why give that one experience and then everyone else has to wait? So again, Rotten Tomatoes available on iOS now, Android version coming soon.
Then the other app that I want to tell you about this week, which I really like too, is called Hello Weather. So if you're looking for like a simple weather app, I really like this one, and it's both on iOS and Android at the same time. Now, this app has been out for a while, but it just got a total redo, major overhaul. Everything from the design
to performance they say is brand new. The app was completely rewritten, so especially on the iPhone, it's going to look a lot better, but it works great on the Android as well. And what I like about this app is it's just simple. You can see everything on one page, like really easily. So if I tap into Hello Weather, I'm looking at the forecast, it's got your main forecast front and center right at the top, and then it's got this afternoon, tells you what's happening for the rest
of the day. Then it's got this week and it shows you nice, easy to see stuff and that's it.
It's very, very simple.
And then if you tap Radar, oh, that's where they get you. You got to upgrade for pro feature. So if you want the radar feature, you do have to upgrade, and it depends on the price you know you want to pay either monthly, annually, or one time. I love how they say annually is the best deal for six dollars versus thirty dollars one time. Well, in five I've six times five five years, you'd be paying more than the within the one time, so it's not really the
best deal anyway. If you're looking for another app that I really like, if you like, if you like your radar. There's an app called Tomorrow Let's see, it's called weather by Tomorrow. And the website, I believe is it's really tough to find because if you're searching weather online, it never comes up. It's Tomorrow dot io Tomorrow dot io.
And if you go to their app. What I love about that is they've got this great storm tracker on there and you can see a map with the storms, you know, the whole storm, any storm that's in your area, like a thunder not a thunderstorm per se, but like a tropical storm or a hurricane. It will show you the trajectory of that storm. And it's really really good. So anyway, that's at Tomorrow dot Io. I'll link both these apps. Are all three of these apps up to
the website. Rich on Tech dot TV. All right, coming up, we're going to talk to Nothing about how they're reimagining the smartphone.
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. John writes in you're Rich, you touched on Uma this morning. I've had it for thirteen years and I swear by it. I've literally saved thousands of dollars by using VoIP.
By the way, great show. Thanks John. Uh.
We've got a guest, Selim benaiet Uh. He is Nothing's AI and services product lead. I talked to him about how the company is reimagining smartphone interaction through software and AI.
First off, how would you describe Nothing as a company?
It's a company that tries to do something different in the consumer electronics space in a way. We want to bring fun back to technology and bire creativity.
Why have a such a unique design on your phones?
Because we believe the light needs to come back to the tech sector and having a more differentiated design that has a certain opinion has true value in the market, the value of people feeling more positive emotions towards the HeartWare device.
Tell me about the phone three specifically, how does it make AI? I know you have a lot of experience in that. How does it make AI more useful for the average person?
The sping we took with AI on phone three is really to create a more calm, reduced experience for people. Do not constantly need to check on my phone constantly feel like they need to react to notifications. For instance, we have Essential Search that just helps you find information much quicker by swiping up on the screen and just asking something a question. Then we have Essential Space that truly helps you remember what matters to you at the right time, right moment.
You talked about that Essential search.
Search is one of the biggest things we do on our phone that's rapidly evolving because of AI. Can you explain a little bit more about how that works on this phone and is it your first stop to do anything, whether it's looking for contact or looking up information.
Yeah, it's a good observation. So first search truly is a strong entry point into trying to understand you as a user and trying to help you get stuff done on the phone quicker. And so it works that way. So you swipe up, you ask a question, and in the first instance, we look for the answer on the phone, perhaps it's a contact that you're looking for or an app on your phone, and if we don't find it on the phone, it gets sent to an LLLM that then gives you the answer immediately on the phone.
Do you are you saying which one that is? Is it your own proprietary or it's.
One of the lllms out there, and I'm not naming any names that just because we're trying to use the LM that will give the best experience for the user, and so it could be any of the ones out there.
The presentation specifically mentioned doom scrolling, like our phones have just become a venue for doom scrolling? So how does nothing combat that? And they put a big emphasis on sort of being present with the glyph interface.
Explain how you guys are tackling that problem.
Yeah, totally.
So we truly believe that today's devices are not here to sort of empower creativity anymore, and so we try to reduce the noise. When you look at the design philosophy and the AI software philosophy, it's truly trying to understand what features can we or what experiences can we implement that will give power back to the humans. So we want to put the user back into the center
of the experience. And I'd say the glyph matrix, for instance, is a strong expression of that philosophy because you need to take the phone and put it face down onto the table, literally hiding the screen, and so this brings more into the experience and and sort of it feels like it's more care when you when you're then in track with your phone. I mean you specifically said you've got the feature of the flip to record, So if you're in a meeting, you flip your phone face down.
What was the idea behind that, Yeah, it was for that. It's if you're in a meeting or in a conversation as we are right now. I think there's a big difference in trying to record the conversation in your brain or taking notes and truly being present us looking into the eyes and trying to understand what the conversation is about.
And so for for us, the flip to record act as almost your second brain, or act as a companion, a helper for you to then be more present in the moment with the person you're talking to.
The gliph in our face. We've talked about it a lot, but it's sort of evolved. It was used to be lights on the back of the phone. Now it's a digital display. Do you think that will bring added functionality to it?
Yeah, truly, it's not just style, even though style is a big factor at nothing right but it's also functionality and functionality towards again helping someone be more present, more calm in an experience with a smartphone, your.
Vision for the smartphone of the future. You've talked a lot about devices anticipating our needs. Does that happen with this device and will happen more in the future.
Definitely.
I think a good angle to look at what we do in the Air and Services function at Nothing is that we want to help humans tap into their innate creativity more by being more present, by being more calm, by having experiences that help them sort of understand their own potential. And so definitely that's something we actively work up.
So it's telling about being based in London. Smartphone companies, you know, you've got a lot of them in the US, a lot of them in China. You're in London. What do you think that means for Nothing as a company?
Yeah, I think it's.
On the one side, obviously, London is a tremendous place for talent, young talent. We have Imperial that just really helps me build the AI function because we want to double the head counting the AI function, And so obviously London is a global melting pot. High diversity meaning high diversity or thought meaning better product outcomes.
At the end.
And then I think also it helps us to remember that we are still an underdog and that we still need to fight to truly make that impact that we want to do.
I feel like I got a lot of that sense on stage today that you're not trying to be every other phone company.
Do you think that can help you win? Totally?
I think if you ask us said nothing, and if you listen to our community, people crave a new, differentiated, opinionated experience and a product. And so we believe, you know, being away from sort of the brain trust that you have in SF or a Silicon Valley, or that you have maybe in other areas, that helps us have differentiated opinions and thoughts.
For sure, it is so hard to get people, especially in the US, to think about different smartphones. Yes, we are dominated by a couple of big brands, Apple, Google, Samsung.
How do you get someone to try the nothing phone? Yeah?
I mean if you look at our customers, especially net new customers, the majority from then come from, for instance, an Apple background, and I think a lot has to do with the customer agreeing with the design and software opinion that we have and nothing, And so I think that trajectory will just continue, right, we will have an opinion about a specific experience, which is a calm experience, a reduced experience, and experience has put you more in control,
and we believe more and more people will start to agree with that.
You've delivered a flagship level phone at an eight hundred dollars price point.
Do you think you've done pretty well with that? I would say so.
Yeah.
I think we're happy with the outcome because the flagship the phone free re represents everything that we've learned, everything that we believe in and made real, made to be holding your hand.
Yeah, so we're pretty happy with it. Are you excited to get this thing into the hands of people? One hundred percent?
I mean, trust me, when I saw the phones coming down from the ceiling and people literally jumping and running towards it to play with it, that was an awesome feeling.
Yes, it's rewarding.
It is rewarding, and it's a cool phone.
Again.
It comes out on July fifteenth here in the United States. The website Nothing dot tech. If you want a link to it, you can go to my website rich on tech dot TV. All right, coming up, we'll take some more calls to triple eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one. I see you waiting on hold. We'll get back to you right after this. Welcome back to rich On Tech. So the stuff you don't see that happens during the breaks.
Kim and I are sitting here figuring out RCS because we had that email about you know, the RCS not going through, and Kim says, no, there's definitely issues with it. I said, no, there should not be, and so I got the Nothing phone and I've been texting Kim our call screener with you know, the messages app, and it's really funny because some of the messages are going through
as RCS and some are going through as SMS. And so I said, all right, let me try to send you a big file, like a video file and see if that comes through. And she said, yes, it came out good. Not the size of a pinhead and fuzzy. It's a huge improvement over what I used to get from Android.
So I don't know why.
It's like I think it maybe RCS depends on the speed of your of your signal, but it's just it's like we're in a studio here, and things are there's not a very good signal with anything.
But anyway, so we did.
We're able to send between iPhone and Android a full video, full resolution, so it is. It does work. I knew it worked. I just you know, I need to like sometimes verify these things. Verra in Hopland, California.
What's up? What can we help you with?
Hi?
Thank you taking my call. Yeah, I have a printer. I'm looking for a recommendation on a direct USB printer where I can print directly from my USB drive. I have three printers that always don't work most of times don't work with my computer, and I'm looking for something under three hundred dollars a direct USB printer.
So you want to print from a USB flash drive, right, and not go.
Through my computer because something's wrong with my program.
Okay, what about your phone? Do you need to print from that? No?
No, so just you just want to plug in the little drive and print correct. Okay, Well, I would recommend a printer that has Obviously you need one with USB and then you need one that has I would probably want something that has a screen because you know, that makes it easier to see what's on that little drive to print it and select it, right, Do you have a preference for laser color anything like that?
Just cheaper, the cheapest possible, because I've seen him for like five hundred dollars.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, look, I mean do you well, do you want laser or inkjet? That's the big question. I guess, okay, inkjet? Okay, So I think the the ink jets.
I mean, look, it's.
You know, the Brother printers fare really well, and I think that that's you know, that's what I've had for a long time. Right now, I have an HP, which I think is fine, and it does have the USB direct like you're talking about, but I don't think it's I'm I'm it's tough for me to recommend an HP because it's just like it's there. It does the job, but it's not very exciting, you know what I mean. And I feel like I'm always buying something for it.
So the Brother I was just looking. I just literally booked marks some of these. They just come out some new ratings of the printers on in consumer reports and I'm looking at this, let's see all in one cartridge. So you don't want the ink tank, the EPs and Eco tanks rate really well as well, so I would I would look into those, that's the EPs and Eco tank and they've got you know, different model numbers depending on how much you want to spend. You said under
five hundred. Five hundred is a pretty big budget, I'd.
Say, but nearly ended the front of the three hundred.
Oh okay, well, I mean look if you okay, So if I were you, I would just go to the Brother website and I would just pick one of the multifunctions that are under the inkjet multifunctions that are under three hundred, and they all rate really high. I had a Brother for about ten years and it worked great. It was a laser printer. But I would look for one of those that does that. I have to do a little more research to see if it has the USB plug in, just to make sure I've been doing.
I can't seem to sign yeah, I can't seem to fine when they say, oh, USB connectivity, but.
I don't want that.
I want to do but the print that's the problem I'm having.
Oh well, if it says USB connectivity, that typically means it'll take a flash drive. If it has a USB port on it, it will take that flash drive. I mean, I know mine does, and I've done that before. In a pinch, I usually print off my phone and you know, just when I need to do that kind of stuff.
What model do you have?
Then, Oh my gosh, I've I'm not at my house, so I don't know. It's a brother. I don't know, it's just a I just got it at Costco when I was there. It was like an impulse purchase. But it works fine. I mean, it's you know, I think printers, as long as they have the feature you want, that little flash drive, you're going to be fine. The main thing that I think you got to look out for
is really the price of the ink. So my advice when you're buying a printer is, don't just look at the price of the printer that three hundred dollars because printers are cheap. It's where they get you is the ink. And so online, I just spent one hundred and fifty bucks on ink, which I'm pretty sure the printer itself was like one fifty.
So that's what i'd recommend.
So without because we're on the air live and I you know, I need to actually look at this and research what I'm gonna recommend for you. I've got to do that in you know, off the air, but I can email you what I think would be best for this out of these brothers. But I would say the Brother Printer's rate very highly. As long as they have that USB, I think that's going to be a solid choice. If you want the Epsen Eco Tank, that's also going to be a solid choice. Those are like the top
two right now. I'd say, hps, you know they're they're there, and they're everywhere, right like, everywhere you go. You've got HP printers stacked up everywhere. Are they the best? I'm not sure. I don't really Personally. I think I'm just fine with the one I have, and I'm not sure if i'd recommend the one I have right but I'm looking at these ratings and the the Epsen's are sweeping the top, and so are the Brother printers, So those
are the probably the ones that I go with. The Canons are also pretty decent, but they don't they don't rank as high. But if you're let me do this, let me send me an email hello at rich on tech dot TV, and I will come up with the printer that I think is the best, or I'll try it in the break see if I have some time to research and find an actual model number that I think will be the best for you for what you're looking for. Uh, do we have time? Let's go to
Kevin in Colorado. Kevin, you're on with Rich?
Yes, Rich, I'm looking for a GPS tracker to put in a like an enclosed trailer, a car trailer, and I have from some pretty expensive equipment in that trailer. And I keep hearing that some of these GPS trackers are pretty easy to defeat by seeds, And I just was looking for your opinion on which one, maybe, or which way to go on that.
So you don't want to do something like an air tag like that seems too simple, right for this? You want something that actually connects.
Yeah, a lot of the new GPS equipment will actually call you over the phone or give you an alert over the phone to tell you if if your trailer is moved or moving then where it's at.
Yes, you want you want?
You want like a heavy duty solution that's actually connected via cellular twenty four to seven and has the movement sensors and all that good stuff on it.
Correct, Okay, right, so an air tag's.
Not I mean for most people, you know, most people are just looking for a very simple solution, air tag tile, those kind of things are going to be just fine. But for you, I think you're going to want to look at something a little bit are powered. There's two companies to look at, and the first is called landairse dot Com and these are typically you know, the both of these companies do stuff for both businesses like corporate solutions,
but also they make a consumer product. And the way that these things work is it's a small GPS tracker. It's got a battery, and it's got a cellular antenna. And so this is not gonna be free. You're gonna have to pay for both the tracker and also the cellular connection each month. And that's anywhere from you know, it could be ten dollars or more depending on the device. So and then the devices themselves, they're not that expensive.
I mean, it looks like you've got thirty dollars all the way up to one hundred and sixty nine dollars.
Now.
The difference and the thing you probably want to look out for is the power on this tracker. Is this tracker plugged in all the time so that you can get twenty four to seven, you know, anytime, or is this battery off braided and the battery on these things because they're running twenty four to seven, the battery use could be substantial. And then there's a third way to track which is a tracker that actually plugs in to
what's called the OBD port on your car. Like it's that it's a little port like on the left hand side, kind of below the steering wheel to the left. It's like for diagnostics and things. So some of these trackers will actually plug into there. Since you said you have
a trailer, I don't think that's the case here. And as for thieves, uh yeah, thieves are probably hipped to this kind of stuff there in many ways, is not really a there's not really a way to keep them from getting access to this thing unless you hide it on there or you have it in some sort of lock box that's you know, bolted to the device or to the trailer.
So that's another option if you're worried about that.
But land airc dot com is one and then the other one is tracky t r a c KI dot com. I've not tested the Trackie but from everything I'm looking at, it looks like you want to go with the track Pro because it's gonna cost you.
A little bit more.
It looks like it's forty bucks, but the battery life is going to be substantially better than the other, like the main model. So it says it's got worldwide coverage, advanced tracking, speed monitoring, geo fencing, it's got a strong magnet. So those are probably the two that I'd start looking at.
Track you dot Com and landairseed dot com. Again, look at the battery life, look at the cost of both the device and more importantly, the long term cellular that you're gonna have to pay for for these tracking devices, because this is a bit of a bigger job than something you would use an air tag for. You know, if you got luggage thrown air tag in there, you know, anything you want to track thrown air tag or a tile in But these are much more going to ping
the cellular connection when something happens here. Good question eighty eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology the phone line is open eighty to eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one coming up this hour. We've got more of your emails, more of your questions, we've got the feedback, and we've got a guest, Trey
Boje uh smart shopping expert at truetray dot com. She's gonna share some tips to help you get the best deals for Prime Day. I don't know if you notice this, and I'm not sure this is on your Amazon app, but it's certainly on mine. Maybe I'm in some sort of test group. But if you go to your Amazon app,
they added a new price history feature. So if you go to any product on there, right by the price, at least on my app, it says, and I'm trying to load something up as we speak here, it says price history, and you can tap it and get a thirty day or ninety day price history, which is really
handy for Prime Day. So right on to the price mindsets price history, I tap that and for this, uh, this aura frame I'm looking at, they're using their their rufus Ai and it says the current price of one hundred and forty nine is higher than the average featured offer price on Amazon in the past thirty days. Look at that, Amazon saying to itself like here thirty days, okay, it went down to fifty one dollars. Wow, that's really cheap. So it looks like this is just from their AI.
So I wonder if you can just ask their AI on any page. Let me try that. So I'm gonna go to a different product here. Let's see, let's go to this uh fire HD ten fifty percent off for this uh this tablet okay. Now instead of tapping price history, I'm gonna go there's a little rufous question thing there. It is show price history. Okay, So I guess you
could just ask their A to show price history. That's a really key feature for Prime Day because you can get really sucked into Prime Day with like all the pricing and stuff.
But if it's not a real deal, don't don't buy it. Anyway. We'll talk to Trey about that.
Uh let's see, let's go to andrew website for the show. By the way, Rich on tech dot TV, I put links everything I mentioned there. Rich on tech dot TV, Andrew in Orange County.
What's up? Hello, Hello, I'm doing well. What can I help you with?
Well, I've got about one hundred mini dvs that I'd like to digitize.
And maybe eventually put them on YouTube something like that.
But what is the best hardware and software to accomplish that and to obviously get the best resolution?
Do you have a do you have a player? You've got a DV player.
I have the old camera and it does play.
Okay, Well that all the chords that.
It works.
Okay.
Well, I did this project myself, d I Y, and so I can tell you what I did. And things have changed a little bit. I think the video editing is a lot easier these days because of technology. But I used the el Gato. It depends if you're on Windows or Mac, but I'll give you both. But and there's so many there's so many ways to do this, Like just the way I'm telling you is the way that I did it. But if you want to save
yourself a headache, just bring it to someone. They could do it for you and put on a hard drive. But if you want to do it yourself, which is obviously cheaper and more hands on, and you know, if you have the time, do this yourself. But I use the el Gato Video Capture device and basically it's a little device that just sits between your computer and your
your player, so it connects. Now, this is old school, so it's going to connect with those three analog cables which are let's see red, white, and yellow, got video audio those cables and then basically you're just gonna capture none of this. All this happens in real time, so you're gonna have to capture to your computer in real time. So you play the tape, you press recorder on your computer, it records it into like an H two six four file. So oh and this says it works with Mac or PC,
so that's interesting. El Gato and they're they're a big brand in sort of basically do'll sell that on Amazon, So you can get that at Amazon and also Best Buy. And that's the easy VHS to DVD three and again old technology. It's just you connect your camcorder to the little device, you record and.
You can edit.
So those are the two basic devices that I've tested and I can tell you they work. The software is just okay on both of them, but it does the trick. And then once you get that, you want to probably clip your videos and edit them so you can use any software you want for that, you can use you know what's built into Windows, Windows movie Maker kind of thing. Let's see, I think they changed the name on that. Let's see, did they do that? Windows movie Maker, let's
see discontinued. Okay, well then I thought that they had changed the name. But you know, you can download cap cut and just use that.
That's free. Again.
Adobe Rush is also good, and you know you can do that very easily to clip those things. If you're on a Mac, you can obviously use iMovie or Final Cut if you happen to have access to that software. But then if you look on Amazon for if you search video capture VHS to digital converter, there's going to be a million of these things on there, and a lot of them are cheap and cheaper than the two
that I just mentioned. The thing I will tell you is that you get what you pay for, and what you're paying for really with Elgado or Roxio is the software. So you get one of these random capture cards. A lot of times they are just not very good software that you need to use this thing, So just be
careful with some of the random brands. But with that said, they do make these little devices and I have not tested them, but like the first one that comes up is called I Record, and it's a little it looks like a little black box with a screen on it, and so you can plug your camcorder into that box directly and then just hit record it or record to like a memory card, and then you can plug that into your computer and edit from there. So that's another
way of doing it. It's another option. But what I like about getting the convert I mean, either way, if this one works for you. I have not tested this one called clear Click. It's a little bit more expensive. Again, these are different ways of doing the same task. But at the end of the day, once you have these things recorded and kind of clipped and edited, you could
throw them into Google Photos YouTube whatever you want. What I love about Google Photos when you throw these old videos in there, is it actually searches for people in the videos and puts them in your people list, so you can you know, like for me, let's say I had like a grandfather or grandmother in these videos, they would show up in these old videos when I search,
which is really cool. So and you can also look for places and things like that, so digitizing your old stuff just truly unlocks it in so many ways that just flipping through something that's analog or digital just does not work. So it's it's really really cool, all right. Vera did email me, and I did find I looked at the printer that I thought was pretty good, that is top rated, and it is the Brother MFC Jay. Oh sorry, Andrew, thanks for the call. I just went like, directly,
this is how distract this is. This is I'm gonna call this the TikTok effect. I'm literally sitting here talking about Andrew's issue and then I'm just like looking at my email and via the caller from earlier about the printer did email me to follow up. But the Brother MFCJ sixty ninety DW wireless color Inkjet all in one three point fifty, I know she said three hundred underd well at first set under five hundred, then she said under three hundred. So if you want this one looks
like it has a dual tray. I don't think you need the dual trays because you're just doing something simple. So the one below this I'd probably recommend for you. And if you look at it right on the front, there's that USB port. She can plug your flash drive into there. It's got a nice screen. You can print stuff right from there. So that's the one that is top rated. But I think you need the one right underneath this, just because I don't think you need the
the both trays there. So I'm looking at this one. Brother, Okay, here we go, brother, MFC J five eight five five. That one has it as well, and it's two hundred and ninety nine dollars. I think that's going to be exactly what you need. Randy writes in I'm looking for a good phone that takes great quality photos. Can you give me three choices at reasonable prices?
Absolutely?
So you want affordable, I think there's two two to choose from Google. Pixel nine A one of the best cameras for the price, great software, great image quality, seven years of support from Google. Four hundred ninety nine dollars, and it probably goes on sale for cheaper than that, so I would say four fifty you might be able to get this four. Let's see if it's gone on sale. Pixel nine A yeah, right now, it's still hanging at about four ninety nine, so you may find it cheaper
over Prime Day, who knows. And then the other option is the iPhone sixteen E solid camera. Not as many lenses as I'd like. I think it's only just one lens on there. But it's easy to use. And of course you get Apple, and you get all the things that come with Apple, which is, you know, the Genius bar, the stores, the accessories, all that good stuff. That's five hundred and ninety nine dollars. So again, good phone takes
great quality pictures. Three choices. I gave you two. I think above and beyond those two, I think those are gonna be perfect for you if you want a reasonable price. Tag eighty eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one website, rich on Tech dot TV. While you're there, be sure to sign up for my newsletter. Got all kinds of good information in there. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
talking technology. Coming up this hour, we're gonna talk Prime Day. Checking the emails, Kurt writes in from Utica, New York. You talked about the epsom Eco tank printer. I found one on the side of the road, thrown out, but almost a full tank of ink and it works great.
Now that's a win in my book. I mean, who's.
Gonna throw out a printer with almost a full tank of ink? That's that's easily worth like fifty bucks that ink right there, Kurt.
I'm glad it worked out for you.
See here, Sherry writes in and oh, I have it, she said, I have the Amazon price history. Yay, much easier than Camel Camel Camel. When I'm on my phone. It'll be interesting to compare the two. I think Google Amazon was probably noticing that so many people were using Camel Camel Camel, and I'll be quite honest, the reason why they like you using theirs is because when Camel Camel Camel, when you pop a URL into them, they get a commission when you end up buying that product,
and so that's part of their business model. But with Amazon, if you're just looking at their their Amazon price history, they don't have to pay that commission because you've stuck on the Amazon website. So that may just be one thing. I mean, obviously they're just maybe helping you out as well. So I wonder if you could do this on the
Amazon website. Let's see here, I hate doing things live, like while I'm on the air, because it's like it's a little jarring when you're listening and you're trying to figure.
Out, like what's he doing? But I know they have that rufous thing? Is it? Okay?
So there's a little section of the Amazon when you're on Amazon and the desktop, it says ask rufus and then it says ask something else about a product, and I'm gonna say price history, and let's see if it works on the website, and sure enough it does. Okay, Wow, there you go. So if you want to see the price history on the website, on Amazon itself, just look for that little ask rufous underneath the picture of the product and where it says ask something else, Tap that
and say price history. Let's see if it can give you a longer price history, say price history over one hundred and eighty days. Let's see if I can do that. No, it can't. Ninety days is the max. But anyway, that's a really handy thing. Let's see here. Let's go to Lewis. Lewis, you're on with Rich. Bye, Rich, how I'm doing fantastic, Welcome to the show.
Thank you, listen. I'm an old man and I'd like to do interviews. And I was wondering if you could recommend a tape recorder, even though they don't call them taping. I found out they don't call them tape recorders anymore.
I mean, not since Radio Shock out of business.
Something that's easy to use.
I have side issues.
I'm still on a flip phone, So I was wondering, is there a recorder that I can use that is easy to use. I bought one and I wound up having to throw it away because I couldn't figure it figure it out. I wound up re racing by mistake. I mean, just anyway, I'm calling you to see if you had any recommendations for us old guys. We're still used to the old cassette recorders.
Well, I mean, look there there are so many of these, now, do you so you want some? How are you going to listen to this?
Well that's another thing.
I thought I'd just play it.
Back, Okay, Okay, Well that's fine.
So you're gonna play it back off the device that you that you're recording correct? Well, look, I mean the number of the so you mentioned a couple of very specific things. I'm gonna start with the thing that I think is the best right now for most people, maybe not for your specific situation. But there's a device called PLoud p L A U D and what plod. Yeah, plaud. This looks like a credit card and it's super thin, and it's got a ton of storage on it and
it's one tap and it records digitally. Now, the reason I don't think this one is good for you is because it sinks to your smartphone, and so you would need a smartphone for that to work. It also uses AI to slice and dice what you're saying, you know, whatever you said. You're doing recordings of interviews, so it would give you a summary.
Of the interview.
So I think that's best for most people that have a smartphone that wants something that does that really well. Now, by the way, all the smartphones have this functionality built into them. Whether it's the iPhone, whether it is the Pixel or the Samson, they all have a voice recorder that not only records, but also plays back and transcribes what is recorded. So that's that's you know, I'm just giving kind of big picture for a lot of people.
Now for your specific situation, I think all you need is a digital voice recorder that sounds like what you need to me. And if you go on Amazon, you've got a couple to choose from. The brand that a lot of the journalists use is called Zoom Zom and so I would look at the Zoom. They've got one that is let's see here, one hundred and nine dollars. How much do you want to spend on this thing?
Well, one hundred nine sounds reasonable.
Okay, Well, this one is one hundred and nine. They make a bunch of different models, but they have one for I'm looking at what their most basic is. It looks like the one oh nine is their cheapest model. But Zoom is this is the h one and that is probably the simplest, easiest, most widely recognized recorder out there. And it has two microphones. It's got great audio quality, it's got a little screen that you can see if
it's recording and things like that. Plus you can play it back and listen to it as well, all through that device. So I'd probably recommend that one number one correct. Yeah, and so oh look at that, and look at this, Look at this Lewis. It even has accessibility audio guidance function for the visually impaired.
So that might be oh my gosh, oh right, that's why I called you there you go.
That's a bonus right there, So i'd go with that one.
It's called the zoom h one. Check that out.
Otherwise, if you don't want that one, you know, they've got like a Sony model. I mean, these are just basically the audio cassette recorders that I had as a as a nerdy kid, but now they're just all digital and so it's like, you know, instead of a tape, they're just recording. But this this Sony one looks really nice. That's one hundred and twenty eight. Then they've got an off brand that is thirty dollars, So if you want
that one, that's a super cheap brand. Rich on Tech dot TV, Lewis, I'll link them all up for you. Rich on tech dot TV talking Prime Day right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. We're going to talk Prime Day in just a moment, But first I want to tell you about this.
Chuck E.
Cheese is coming out with something new, Chuck's Arcade. This is a modern arcade that blends retro and new games. So it's built with people like me and mind people who grew up going to Chuck E Cheese, and it's called all about nostalgia, but with a modern twist. You're gonna get the classic games like Donkey Kong, Mortal Kombat, Galaga, but also the new stuff that almost made me get sick at CS, the VR game, So, oh my gosh.
Locations are now opening a couple malls, let's see Saint Louis, Oklahoma City, I'll passo, and some of them have like a pizzeria, retro merchandise and if you're wondering, are the animatronics there, they are, but they're not performing. They're almost like a museum piece. Like I think they just took the animatronics from all the decommissioned shows they have around the country and just put them in these new places, like just sitting there, like it's like kind of weird,
like just staring at you. But each location is gonna be unique, so maybe there'll be some some folks that like want to visit all of them. But let's see, there are a list of locations and details that Chucks Arcade dot fun so I'm gonna go do a story with them. They're they're building one at the Braham Mall in California, so or in the LA area. So I'm gonna go check it out. You know, I love Chuck
E Cheese, you know, well I did. I mean, I don't go there anymore, but but I brought my kids there for a long time, you know, and they were liking that stuff. And to me, I just a kitty gambling, right, It's literally like training your kids for Vegas like that and the other one, David Busters. It's like this, It's all what's the difference. It's all just like kitty gambling. Like, let's be real here, and like for me as an adult, I'm like, let's just cut to the chase. Let me
go to Vegas one. Let me lose my money fast. All right, Let's let's get Trey Bosh here. Trey is the shopping expert at Truetrey dot com, True t r ae dot com.
Trey, welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having me back.
Rich.
So, did you ever go to Chuck E Cheese?
I don't think I grew up in Massachusetts.
I don't remember Chuck E Cheese until I think I heard about it when I was in college in New York City, so I must have missed it or something. But there were similar places like that, and I have to say, like the still animatronics in these new locations, I'd be curious to see.
It's like if it feels like a wax museum or not.
Yeah, it reminds me of that movie. I didn't watch it, but it's like called Five Nights at Freddy's.
Did Bobo do you watch that? Did you see that movie?
No?
He's he did? I not seen him, but I have to.
But you know the concept, right, Yeah, animatronics come alive and try to like hurt people.
Yeah, pretty much.
But that's the thing is like these animatronics are creepy enough, but the fact they're just standing guard there, like what the heck?
Anyway?
Okay, Prime Day twenty twenty five. It starts on July eighth, runs through July eleventh, And are we expecting it to be a big holiday shopping event this year?
It is going to be a big holiday shopping event. I mean, it's interesting that for many years retailers were trying to make something out of July because it's slow. We're all taking vacations, we're traveling. So what Amazon Prime did is kind of solidify July as a shopping holiday, and then everyone else piled on top with their own sales. So I do think it'll be big, and I'm seeing some interesting sales that I'm going to take advantage of.
But then it's really important for shoppers to look around as well, because there will be so many other retailers participating, you know, in and around that week.
So basically Amazon gets us all sort of like jazzed up and ready to spend money. But then Walmart comes in, Best Buy, all these other online retailers and say, hey, come on over here, we got great deals too.
Yeah, and that makes it kind of confusing for the consumer too.
You wonder where do I shop? Where am I getting the best deal.
That's the thing that troubles me a little bit about it, because I get so many questions about this, like where should I buy that laptop that I need for my kids college or you know, so I think it's hard to figure that out.
Well, yeah, so I guess that's one of the questions I have because I just default to Amazon for pretty much everything, even though you know there may be better prices out there? Is there a one size and there may not be a right answer to this? Is there like a search engine for prices? Like if I type in the model of the laptop, is there one place that's guaranteed to like give me like all the prices that different retailers are not?
Really, I think it's Google shopping. So you go to Google Shopping, you enter the name of an item, and it all wherever it's sold, whatever retailer, at what price, it all pops up in one place.
That's a really good guide in my opinion.
Okay, so Google shopping if you want to look for that stuff, And then what can we expect for this year? At number one's four days? I mean, this is like our wallets are just gonna be empty by.
The end of this.
Yeah, I mean I think that four days is potentially too long. I'm not quite sure why they're experimenting with this longer time, And the discounts that I'm seeing aren't as deep as I'm accustomed to around Amazon Prime, so it seems.
A little bit more modest.
But what Amazon has been sort of accused of or made fun of about in the past is that we're seeing sales in so many different things, so everything from toilet paper to tech.
You know, it's everywhere.
And so I do think that if you're an Amazon shopper, you're an Amazon Prime member, and you have some things on your list that you need to pick up anyway, Amazon Prime Day will be a good time to save a little bit of money. Just something to remember though we are seeing slightly higher prices right now because of the tariffs, and after July ninth, of course some of those bigger, scarrier tarffs might come into play, but we won't see those higher prices for a couple of months.
So that's a long windy way to say it's a good time to get some shopping done while we have these these sales and just only slightly elevated prices.
And I like the tip you you have for saving for later because I always tell people to do this as well, like you know, get the stuff in your cart now. So there's a difference you have your cart on Amazon that you've got your saved for later. Both of those places will eventually show you if an item's on sale, right they will, And.
So I think that's a great thing to do.
Wishless, same kind of thing and what Amazon is also really good at is that when you go to your cart below, they often say like, hey, do you need this?
Do you need this?
This is on sale and that's on sale, And so Amazon will tell you what you if what you typically buy is on sale. So they're going to hold your hand a little bit and guide you through.
That's smart for them.
What about this new, this new thing, today's big deals.
Yeah, so this is brettan new So I've not experienced this yet, you know, I think, you know, Amazon is playing around a little bit.
They're trying to figure out what's going to stick.
It sounds like lightning deals, which they've done for many years, are still going to be there, but some of those other kind of buzzy terms that they were used, they were using in the past couple of years, have kind of drifted away. So I think this is the newest one, So we'll see how it goes. It looks to me like it's a lightning deal but bigger, you know, like lightning deal, but longer. I guess it's like the sale doesn't come and go in a couple hours. It lasts a little bit longer.
And I was talking earlier in the show about this new feature that they've added to the because we always say, like, go to Camel Camel Camel to like price check things, right, Well, now it looks like Amazon is one upping them at their own game with this price history.
Have you seen this on the app?
You can you can ask for the price history from their AI or there's a link to it on the mobile app.
I have not seen that.
I mean, I usually use Camel Camel Camel or PayPal Honey because they have historical pricing. But that's very interesting that Amazon is doing that, especially because their prices go up and down constantly, So maybe they are kind of taking the bowl by the horns and trying to control the conversation.
I my theory is that because let's say, when you go to Camel Camel Camel or or Honey and you click their link, you're gonna have to pay, like Amazon has to pay them a commission, right bright, Or if you're doing your own price checks on Amazon's website, you've stayed there, no commission, So that's just I don't know. That's a theory. But maybe they're just trying to be helpful. I don't know, I don't know.
Maybe it's a little bit of both, you know, but just remember because there are so many other deals out there, don't don't stick just to Amazon. It's a buyer's market. You have opportunities to save everywhere. So what I like to do is to install at least one browser extension from a deal site.
A coupon cabin happens to be my.
Favorite for this because they'll you'll see pop ups that'll say, you know, you can get two point five percent cash back, or you can get five dollars off of this, and that occurs no matter where you're shopping, and then they'll run coupons for you at the end at checkout. So for me, if a tool does a lot of things like that and helps me save money, I'm all in. So just make sure you have at least one browser extension installed when you're doing the shopping, and just pay
attention to those other sales that are coming. You know, we've got Walmart's having a big sale, target Best Buy Coals.
One that I'm kind of excited about is Dollar General.
They're having seven days of savings and you think, why does Dollar General need to have a big sale, But they have seventy plus items for back to school for example, that are under a dollar, and then you'll have things on sale on top of that, and that's a great way to save a lot on those things for your kids getting back to school time.
And I love all the names of these other sales, so Dollar General, like you said, seven Days of Savings, Walmart, Walmart Deals, Target Circle Week, Best by Black Friday, and July Coal's Summer Cyber Deals. And then also, let's not forget my lows Rewards. What are they doing?
Yeah, so my.
Low's Rewards is a loyalty specific program, and you'll see this kind of coming and going within all of these retailers. You know, they're coming out against Amazon because Amazon you have to be a Prime member and that is a fee based feature. And so what some of the other retailers will say, well, you know it's for everyone, but if you're a Walmart Plus member, if you're a Low's
Loyalty member, you get advanced notice or special deals. And so I think that's what they're trying to do is retain that customer but not be as strict as Amazon, which I think is a smart play.
And then right now I'm putting you on the spot here, but right now aren't they doing like a dollar off gas or something. Isn't there some sort of gas promotion Amazon's doing?
Yeah, And that felt a little bit too much for me. I think sometimes what Amazon does is they play around with too many things at once and it becomes confusing. So I'm just not sure if that gas discount is that production dip or helpful. But what they're doing I assume is that they're kind of duking it out with Walmart because with Walmart Plus membership, but you also have to pay for you get gas discounts, and so Amazon's may be like dinging against Walmart a little bit.
That's that's my guess.
Anyway, all right, we're going to leave it there, but we still think the Amazon Prime membership is worth the fifteen dollars a month or one thirty nine a year.
For me, it is.
I shot there frequently, especially, you know, I get pet food and just beauty supplies and things like that. I think that for every consumer, you should ask yourself every year as you come up for renewal. Am I using this as frequently as I need to? You know, remember that if you hit the threshold I believe it's twenty five or thirty five dollars when you order.
You'll get free shipping anyway.
So are you using those other things like photo storage, Amazon Video, Amazon Music? If you're using all those other features the free kindle book, then it's worth it. But if not, just you know, minimize the number of times you're ordering from Amazon. Hit that threshold and get free shipping anyway.
All right, Trey Bodge being expert at true tray dot com t r U E t r a E dot com.
Thanks for joining me.
Today, Thanks for having me.
All right, Coming up, we're gonna open up the feedbag right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. We're gonna open up the feedbag in just a moment. The first couple more things about Amazon. They are warning about fake Prime renewal scam emails. Amazon customers reporting fake emails claiming that their Prime membership is about to renew at a higher price. It may include a phony cancel subscription link that actually leads to a fake
Amazon login page, so be careful. If you're in doubt, go directly to Amazon dot com or use the official Amazon app. You can also report fake messages to Amazon dot com slash reporter scam and set up two factor authentication. Please fore your Amazon account. That's a big one. Amazon dot com slash two s v T step to us set that up. They call it two step verification. And also I wanted to mention one more way to save
on Prime Day. There's an extension that's brand new. We talked about it in the show a couple of weeks ago when it launched, called shopback dot com. I can tell you that I have successfully gotten eight dollars back for my Amazon orders.
So every Amazon order, if you remember to do it.
You activate the shop back and it gives you a dollar back on your Amazon order. Takes a little bit for it to all work out, but so far I've gotten eight successful orders. Half of my orders I forgot to activate the or I did it for my phone. But if you do it, you can get it. So I'll put a link on my website. Rich on tech dot tv and they've got all kinds of cash back offers on all kinds of websites, but the Amazon one's
kind of cool. And during Prime Day they're giving you five dollars back when you spend one hundred dollars at Amazon.
All right. Time for the feedback.
These are the emails, the comments, and the questions I get from you. Go to rich on tech dot tv to submit them. Laura from Portland rights in you went to Mexico City.
How exciting.
I've been teaching myself Spanish for two years, thinking about running away to Central or South America. Didn't realize Mexico City was on a mountain. And you ate a grasshopper. Gross. I heard Bobo says he doesn't want to eat bugs. Happy birthday, Bobo. But I hate to break it to him. We already do more than you'd think. I'm vegan and I read a lot of ingredient lists. Let's just say I've learned some things, so have I What does it does it say grasshoper on ingredient list?
Does it?
No?
They hide it. They put another name to it, like a food coloring. Oh, like a grand food coloring. Is a bug shell has like a beatle name of it.
Well.
Also, there's a sometimes at the airport they have like cricket protein bars. Yeah, and you wouldn't know it unless you read it and you're like, oh wait, I'm just about to eat cricket.
Yeah, I'm good. No, we'll stand firm on that one. Bobo.
Ronald writes in, I've had simply codes on my computer for months. You mentioned using it, but not once has a code worked for me. Some websites don't even have a promo box. Just today I tried ordering glasses from Glasses USA. There wasn't even a spot to enter one. But thanks for all your other great info. I'm really enjoying the free Perplexity upgrade you shared.
Ronald.
I love you, but I don't know what you're talking about. I went to the Glasses USA website. I tried it with a code from simply Codes and it worked perfectly. So I just go to the website simplycodes dot com. I don't even let me just is that the right simply yes, simply coodes dot com. Just search for the code. You don't have to install anything if you don't want to. But yes, there are there are It does work on that website. Georgia writes in, thanks for having Molly Frank
on your show. Tech addiction is having a huge effect in our society. Oprah once had families give up tech for a week and share what they thought, what they went through. I hope you'll consider interviewing Jonathan.
Hyatt, is it?
Hey?
I don't know how he says last name, but he wrote this book that I've read that was really good, The Anxious Generation, about the teen brain and phones. Both would be great voices on this topic. Yes, I Jonathan, I did read to a long time ago, and he said no, but he gave us someone else. He said, look, and he was very nice about it. He said, look, I'm very busy, but you can interview this person. So he was very nice about it. You know that book
was very very well received. John writes in just listen to your report on the NINA conference in Long Beach, for being a retired nine one one dispatcher and former NINA executive board member, I want to hey, Rich, I just wanted to share a tip about emergency contacts on your phone. I learned this the hard way when my son fractured his leg to reach me. He had mom ice saved in his phone ICE, meaning in case of emergency. I've now done this for my whole family. Love your show.
That's a great start, Diane, But here's the thing. If someone can't unlock your phone, they may not be able to access those ICE calls, those contacts.
So when you set up your.
Phone, be sure to go into those emergency settings I mentioned to actually set up your emergency contact those people the first responders can access even if your phone is locked. Ray from Honolulu writes in I enjoy your show and I listen to the podcast every Sunday here in Honolulu. I also catch you on WOR in New York now and then thank you Ray Brandon from Texas, just once to say I've been listening for years and really enjoy your content, even as someone who's worked in it most
of my life. Let's see who else here? So many emails, let's see. Oh, we've got tons of emails about Yahoo email not working properly, can't read them all here. Let's see here we've got Karen writing in on X listening to the June twenty eighth episode. I heard I heard a caller ask about digital storage for receipts and paperwork. I use Microsoft's one note built in camera tool. It's available on iPad or Android. Easy to annotate and automatically
search images for text, easy and free solution. And I think we had one nice made my day email here that I can't find right now. So oh well, all right, Yep, can't find that one, Bobo. Do we run a little? Oh, here we go, Kenneth writes in thank you. You have a great show, one that provides a valuable service to your listeners. All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of the show. You can find everything I mentioned on the website. Go to richon tech dot tv. Find
me on social media. I am at rich on Tech. Next week we're going to talk to former Google executive and author of Yield How Google bought, built, and bullied its way to digital dominance.
That's Ari Paparo.
And then we're gonna hear from Samsung about their latest smartphones. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here with me. Don't text and drive please for the safety of everyone. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. My name is rich Demiro.
I will talk to you real soon.