A massive data breach. What you need to know and do?
A popular app finally makes its way to the iPad fifteen years later, and the iPhone sixteen takes the crown. It's now the world's best selling smartphone. Plus your tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich DeMuro 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 eight eight eight rich one oh one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. Email is also an option. Just go to my website rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact.
Oh.
We've got some great guests this week, one from our Apple, one for Microsoft. While they're going to be discussing Apple and Microsoft, Patrick McGee is going to explain the high stakes relationship between Apple and China, as revealed in his new book Apple in China, which I have just been devouring. It is such an amazing read. Can't wait to have him on and later in the show, we've got ed Bot,
longtime tech journalists covering all things Microsoft. We're going to talk about everything you need to know about the end of Windows ten, upgrading to Windows eleven, and all the changes that are happening with that process. Well, I hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are, and thanks
for tuning in. Maybe you're listing on KFI AM six forty in Los Angeles or seven to ten WR in New York City, or maybe one of our many affiliates across the country catching the podcast or streaming the first ten minutes of the show for free on the KTLA plus app. However you are joining me, thank you for being here. I really mean that. Well, it wouldn't be another week in technology if we didn't have another massive
data breach. This time one hundred and eighty four million logins and passwords are just floating around on the Internet, discoverable by anyone. This was found by cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler. So this database was found online without any password or encryption, and it contains nearly fifty gigabytes of emails, usernames and passwords, and there are credentials for big name sites out there.
We're talking Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Roadblocks, and much more. The data includes logins to everything from bank accounts to government portals. This is a big one. It's a lot of stuff, and the breach is linked to malware called info stealer, and this malware steals your login info from your computer, cookies, even screenshots potentially, and cyber criminals love this stuff. Why is it dangerous? You might say, Oh, come on, they got one one password that I don't use anymore. Nope,
they probably have a lot of stuff. Because here's what they do with this information. They take it and they use it for something called credential stuffing, which means the chances are you have used that same password at a variety of counts of accounts online. So even though they found a password to some random photo sharing site or photoprinting site that you signed up four years ago, they have a hunch that I wonder if that person used
that same password at other sites. And what they do is they go in and they try that username and password on a whole bunch of other sites to see if any of them stick and if they can get in.
This means they can take over your account. They can use it for phishing.
They can send you an email that says, hey, we've got this password, we know you're using it, and you know they could try to trick you into logging in to fix something. They can also get into your email account if they have something like a Microsoft or a Google log in.
Imagine how much stuff is in your email account.
People store all kinds of sensitive information in there, tax forms, medical documents, contracts, very very sensitive info. So you can check to see if your information was exposed. Not necessarily for this database just yet. I haven't seen this one put up online on one of these checkers, but the common websites. Have I been pned? Have I been poned? Pwned? Dot com? This site just got a major makeover, and we've had the Troy Hunt, the guy who runs it
on this show. You pop in your email address and basically it will tell you if it's been involved in any of these breaches, and the redesign is much faster. It's really nice, Like I just popped mine in, says thirty one data breaches. And what's interesting is it now does it as a timeline so you can see all the different databases that your information showed up in over the years, going all the way back for me to
June twenty twelve. And then it talks about the paste records where your information is in just one of these public data dumps like we just talked about, and so it even tells you where it found January eighth, twenty nineteen. This next list combo list share than this other. I mean, there's two other ones, and it's just wild. So there's a lot of information on here that you can see where your data and how it was leaked. So for instance, there was a national public data which we talked about
a lot, trello at and t minted chat books. These are all the things that I used over the years. Signed up for MGM, and now it is of course on the Greater Web. So here's what you need to do. You really need to number one, be aware of this information. Number two, you need to lock down your most important accounts with unique passwords and unique logins and two factor authentication. So if you're looking for a password manager, there are
many many choices out there. They've got them built into Google with Chrome, they've got it built into the iPhone with the Passwords app. Here's why I don't necessarily like using the built in stuff because if they get your Chrome, if they get your Google, if they get your iPhone, your Apple ID, they may get access to all of your passwords. Because now they've figured out how to get onto your phone, why wouldn't they just open up that
passwords app. So for that reason, I like using a third party app that is sort of disconnected from the other stuff, and.
There are so many out there.
Bitwarden is excellent if you are just looking for a free password manager. I don't even know how this thing is free because it's so good that it puts all these other password managers, Like, why would you pay sixty to eighty bucks a year when you could just get this for free. I know I'm the only person that says that in the world. But Bitwarden is really really good. Of course, there are others. Nord pass is good one password. I mean, there's so many. You can choose any of
them if you want to pay. There are benefits to paying as well. But Bitwarden will do the basics for free, and it is basic, but it does everything you need run antivirus, so Windows security. It's built into your computer. If you've got a Windows computer, just type in on the search bar Windows Security, and then you'll see where it's got security at a glance where it says virus
in threat protection. Do a quick scan. Make sure your computer is not at risk because they talked about this malware that they installed, Infostdealer that could be running on your computer.
So run that.
Make sure that everything's okay, and then be careful about the stuff that you click. And actually, our guest later is going to talk about how he doesn't believe you need to have a secondary antivirus on your computer. He thinks what's built into Windows is just fine. There's another website. Malware bytes has a digital footprint portal and it's at malwarebytes dot com slash digital dash footprint. And this one
was new to me. I tried this this morning. I haven't really seen this one before, but it is excellent. Same kind of thing. You pop in your email address. They're going to text you a code to your email and then it will give you all the places that you've been breached, and it is quite thorough. And what this does differently than the haviben poned site is that actually shows you the information that's floating around out there
about you. Now they redact it just to make sure, you know, so you can see the beginning in the end. But yeah, I look on there, I'm like, oh, that's one of my passwords that I used to use. That's, you know, one of my logins that I used to use. So you get an idea of how easy it is for these hackers to use this stuff to their advantage. Again, that's malware bytes Digital footprint, and it's free. You just pop in your information and see what's in there. The other thing you need to do is get a two
factor authentication app. I don't know if you've noticed, but when you sign up for half the websites these days, they don't even ask you for a password. They just they say, we're gonna send you a magic link to your email address. Why are they doing that because so many people are reusing passwords. They don't even want to deal with passwords anymore. They'd rather just every time you log in, text you a code to your email address. You put that code in on the website and that
logs you in. Because it's secure. It's safer than having some random password that's going to be hacked. And so you do need a two factor authentication app. If you're going to lock down your accounts now again, I would say don't use the one that's built into your password manager. Why because if they open up your password manager now they have access to all of your two factor authentication codes. And so I would recommend a separate two factor authentication app.
It's better than texting.
Texting could be hacked, So get something like auth theau thy. Google has one, Microsoft has one. Those are good, but a lot of the places online, a lot of the security experts recommend two fas and duo duo. They like those a lot. The thing is you need to make sure if you're using moremultiple devices that this works across multiple devices, and if you're not, then you'll just be
fine with any of these. I'd probably recommend the two fas or the duo because a lot of them don't work cross platform AUF THEE, Google and Microsoft do, but that brings a whole other level of security sort of concerns as well. So just get this stuff in order. It's it's really important, especially with a hack like this. All right, coming up.
On the show.
Fifteen years fifteen years, we've had the iPad. This popular app just made its way there. I cannot believe it. I use it every weekend with Kim. I'll tell you what app that is. Plus we'll have your calls and questions eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Get those calls in. Go to the website rich on tech dot tv.
Hit contact. We'll see you right back here in a moment. I'm not kidding.
This whole live like AI thing where you can just aim your camera at something is absolutely transformative. So Gemini, which is Google's AI, they have it, which it just rolled out like it just became available on my iPhone yesterday. It's free, and then it's available and Android of course. And then you've got Chatchy BT which also has live video. So these are a little bit different than your standard just chatting with chat GYBT or Gemini.
So what you do is you open up the app and then.
The lower right hand corner of both apps, instead of tapping the microphone, it almost looks like an audio wave and you tap that and that will get you into chatting live like voice to voice, like your voice to an AI voice. But then you'll see there's a new option when you do that, a little video camera. So if you tap that video camera, now you can share your whatever your camera is seeing on your phone with AI. Why is that helpful? Oh my gosh. I mean, we
haven't even figured out how this is helpful yet. But for instance, yesterday I had some work done on my sprinklers, right and after the folks left, they weren't turning on. I was like, what's going on here? And I had a hunch that they forgot to turn the you know, like the handle off, like on the valve or whatever that like turns off all the water for everything. I had a feeling because they were working on it, they
had to let things dry whatever. So I aimed my Gemini at the sprinkler valve system and I said, hey, is this like my sprinklers aren't the water's not coming through? Like what am I doing wrong here? Like what needs to be changed? And it literally said grab that handle, the yellow handle and turn it to the left or right whatever. Said sure enough, that opened up the flow
of water. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that back in the day you would either have to call a friend that knew what they were doing, call a professional that knew what they were doing. Look it up online, try to describe what you're looking at. But now it's just like boom, it's all there. So I can't wait to go to like a museum where I'm looking at art and I just want to say, like, hey, tell me about this artist. What was the artist thinking at the time? What was the world like? Or what
does this painting mean? Or what does this sculpture mean? I mean, I'm talking. It just opens up entirely new ways of interacting with information. Quite incredible. Let's go to Greg in Minnesota. Greg, you're on with Rich.
Hello. Rich, Hello, got a question for you. Wonder if you're familiar with an app that would help me out. I want to be able to listen to a radio program such as yours or any other radio program using a digital tuner on my Android phone. And if I'm interrupted and I have to leave, but I'm seriously interested in the program content, I'd like to be able to open an app and record the remainder of the session. Have you seen an app could do that? Rich?
There are many ways to do this, specifically on the Android phone.
Do you have a Samsung Moto Moto G okay, So.
I mean it really depends on there are two There's a couple of ways to do this. There's like an app that you can look into. I've not used it, but this app called audios au D I A l S and it looks like it records radio stations. It says it's got forty thousand stations. I have not personally used this, but that looks like it's probably your best bet. And so I'm assuming there's some sort of limit on the free version of that, But that's the thing I would try first. Au D I A L S. I'm
wondering because it's probably doing it live. I'm wondering if your phone has to be open and sort of unlocked for this to happen, or if it does it somehow in the cloud. But that's the first place i'd look. When it comes to the desktop machine, there's a there's a lot of options. I mean, desktop is so much easier. You can record with so many apps.
Ors.
One I like from a Rogue Amiga called Piezo Pi e z O that's on the Mac side of things. Super simple recording of anything that's on your Mac. That's a great one. And then although I have not tried this. Audacity. I've tried it, but not for this purpose. But it looks like it can record things that are from your computer as well, like audio that's streaming on your computer, so Audacity and that's completely free and open source.
So that's another way of doing it.
The other way you can try to do it is just using the built in recording functionality on your phone. And if you look at the screen recorder, that typically records audio that's passing through your phone as well. So if you go depending on your phone, you know, if you look at your your screen recording functionality, it will say record sound in the options, and you can say
non media or me and Mike. So if you had that selected as media, that would just record your screen and the audio that's playing on that station.
So a couple ways of doing.
It, Greg, You know, it's so many of these uh systems. You know, like back in the day when I was a kid, I used to when I heard a song on the radio I wanted to keep, I would run to the radio or run to my you know, cassette player and press record. I think you have to press like play and record at the same time to get that to go but that's the way I did it.
You always had a little bit of the DJ at the beginning of all your songs, and then you stop it, and then the next time your song plays, you'd run up there again and get it. But that's what we did back in the day. I mean, of course, then if then we have all these iTunes and MP three's and but yeah, if you want to record something that's live, you're gonna have to use a little bit of creativity
there because now everything is on demand. And of course that is the way everyone likes it because you can control it that way. Good question, Greg eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. Google Photos is celebrating ten years. We'll talk about that coming up next. WhatsApp is finally getting a dedicated iPad app.
Can you believe it took fifteen years.
I don't know what Meta has against the iPad, but they still don't have an Instagram app for the iPad either, not an official one. Don't send me the angry email saying rich, I can download Instagram. Yes, it's the one for the iPhone. It works on the iPad, but they have no native iPad app for Instagram, but now they have it for WhatsApp, so you can take advantage of the big screen, works with the Apple pencil, keeps your chats linked up across all your devices, the iPhone, the Mac,
the iPad, I guess thee Android two. So it's available in the app store. Just search WhatsApp make sure you get the official one. And you still need a phone number to activate your account. But this is a big upgrade from using the website on the iPad for WhatsApp. So fifteen years in we finally got it. Yay. Not that I use it very much. I only use WhatsApp for one person, Kim, our call screener.
That's it.
I guess in a chat from my kids' school too. But that's basically if it was my choice, I'd have everyone use WhatsApp because it works the same across everything, so and it's very secure end to end, encrypted by default.
David is in Michigan. David, you're on with Rich. What's up?
Hi? Hi? Rich.
I've got a Android phone. It's a LGG eight. Had it for a while and I really like it. But I also have a Samsung, but I don't like it nearly as much. It's too big, but that anyway, that g eight. I. I was on the internet and for some reason it locked up. I'm guessing some kind of a phishing scam or I don't know what, some kind of a bug. Anyway, I had to it down by googling how to power it down, and I did that, and then when I repowered it back on, it seemed
to be doing some glitchy stuff. So I went ahead and did a factory resett.
Oh no, what did you lose?
Yeah? I lost photos?
Oh no, because you did it fast and any kind of thought as soon as you started like, oh wait a second, yeah I did.
I wasn't thinking about the photos, but I probably should have had them backed up on the memory card because it has a memory cards.
Well yeah, oh one of the Yeah, I didn't do.
That, but but I looked on I googled it and it said that as long as I didn't re right over top of that, that I probably I could potentially get those back. Is but I'm I'm calling phone with beer people and they're saying, no, you can't, you can't get it back.
You probably can't get it back, but it's definitely worth trying because someone that knows what they're doing. Can plug that phone into a computer and kind of look at the files on there and see if there's anything that's resembles your photos. Now I think they're probably gone. But here's the thing. This is a Google phone. Did you have Google Photos set up at all in that device?
No?
I no, no. In fact, I I uh no. Every time you take on something like a different app or something like that, then you got to figure out how to use it. So it seems like, uh, it would be the prudent thing to do, but I haven't taken the time to do. In fact, I don't know. I only have a couple of apps on my phone.
Okay, well, well here's what I would do. Number one, you had a Google log in on this phone, so I would, at the very least if you haven't done this before. Have you gone to a web browser and typed in photos dot Google dot com.
Have you done that?
They have not?
Okay, so go there. There There could be a chance that when you first set up this phone, is said or you you know, you opened up Google Photos. Now, this is an older device, so I'm not sure that even Google Photos was sort of an option back in the day. By default, on this device, but you never know, So go to photos dot Google dot com and check to see if any of your pictures were backed up there. That's number one. Number two I would go, you're in Michigan.
I would look up on Yelp like a data doctor and see if and just maybe get a quote from them, say hey, look here's what I've got I formatted. Basically, you formatted your phone, and can you check to see if you can recover the pictures off this device? Now, if you have a memory card in there, have you popped the memory card out and see if you can access these from a computer.
I've looked at the memory card and actually I downloaded a bunch of YEA on my laptop and then I put that music onto the memory card, and that's what the memory card could change.
Okay, so only the music is on the memory card, none of the photos. Yeah, So I mean it's unfortunate that this happened, and I really, you know, I feel for you because I it's one of these things where I've done it before too, you'd you know, I test a lot of phones and sometimes I'll like format it when I'm done with it, and I'll be like, oh, I needed to get that file off of there or whatever. But most of the time, you know, I'd recommend having this stuff backed up.
But uh yeah.
So the bottom line is a couple places to look, you know, the photos dot Google dot com, see if they're there. I don't think LG had any sort of like built in backups to their devices back in the day, so I don't think it's anywhere on an LG site. But the photos, you know, the Google photos might be an option. If it was Samsung, I would say one drive. Sometimes they back up to one drive on there. But
let's see, so you got that. And then the only other thing I can say is is really, you know, you might download like a file manager like and check to see if you can look on the files there, or just look up Google file manager and you can download that Google files and kind of browse through. But I think everything has probably been a race when you did that format. But if you look on YELP data doctor kind of person, they might be able to look
into it. The other places you break ifix dot com, they may be able to help with data recovery, so you can contact them see if they're in your area and get sort of a free estimate on how much it would cost for them to do that, but I think it depends on how much these photos are worth you, like, are they valuable? Because this may cost you some time and effort to get something like that back. But thanks for the call, David, really appreciate it. Please please please
back up. I sound like Sabrina Carpenter.
Please please please back up your photos.
Please please please back up your photos. Just do it it, Just please do that because you don't want to lose these things.
And I get it. You got the cloud. It's scary. You don't know where they are.
But just if you have an Android phone, Google Photos very simple, get them in there. Or if you have Amazon on Prime, you get free photo backup unlimited, so download Amazon Photos. If you have Amazon Prime, it's not gonna work for your videos because it only gives you five gigs for your videos, so go into settings and turn off the videos thing unless you have it just a tiny amount of videos. But I have so many videos. But back these things up please. And then if you're
on Apple iCloud, I guess is okay. I don't know why. I'm not a huge fan of iCloud, but I guess it's fine. It's better to have them in there. I think icloud's a little bit more confusing, but you know, one drive anywhere. Just get these things backed up because you do not want a situation like David. By the way, I mentioned that we're going to talk about Google Photos celebrating ten years.
Ten years.
I've been using them since day one, absolutely love it. In fact, I was using them before they became Google Photos. Remember Picasa, that's what it was called. Google acquired Picasa in two thousand and four, and this was a desk app that would scan your whole computer and it was so cool. It would go through every single file on your computer and find every single picture and then put them in this giant scrollable timeline. It was super cool, but it kept them all where they were. And then
twenty sixteen, Google officially shut down Picasa. And back in the day, I don't know if you remember this, but Google Photos launched with unlimited free storage.
For high quality photos.
So if you took you know, most phones back then were only like twelve megapixels, so you'd get like free storage of all your photos.
And then of course that ended.
Then they gave you fifteen gigs and you can really find anything in Google Photos. I love the search functionality. It is incredible how I can find any picture I want in seconds. Now Google Photos has over one point five billion monthly users. And get this, nine trillion, nine trillion photos and videos. So get yours in there, or get them anywhere, or just back them up. I don't care if you connect your phone to your computer download them there, as long as you them in a second place.
But that's not as good. I think cloud and then somewhere else. Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Coming up, what do I want to talk about?
Let's see, I'll give you my review of the S twenty five Edge. I'll tell you what that's all about. Coming up right here on rich On Tech. If you want to keep up with the latest scams and all things on Instagram, that's what I post there mostly these days.
Rich on Tech at rich On Tech on Instagram.
Uh.
The thing is at this point, because I've posted so many scams on my feed, people now love to forward me the scams that they're getting, which is great. I don't mind it because I can see the trends that are happening. So, uh, Friday, I get a bunch of emails from people saying, hey, what's up with this DMV scam?
And sure enough, there it is.
Everyone is sending them, and I guess it's getting you know, hitting all kinds of phones. California and New Jersey, all these different states. It's just customized for like various states, and you don't even have to live in that state to get it anyway. So if you get a new DMV text that says, hey, you have an outstanding traffic ticket, my favorite part is it says it's going to report to the DMV. Okay, suspend your vehicle registration, suspend your
driving privileges, and then whatever, what does this mean? Transfer to a toll booth and charge a thirty five percent service fee?
What does that even mean?
These scammers are just like throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. Like they're just like, ah, that sounds good, We'll transfer it to a toll booth and charge the thirty five percent extra.
What does that even mean?
Scammers come on like it's called chatch ebt get better okay, Like you know, you know you can use that to like fix yourself and don't send me the angry email, say, Rich, why would you give them that hint?
I am not.
Teaching the scammers what to do. They know what they're doing. I mean, clearly not. Rita writes in from Huntington Beach. I'm using passwords as my password manager. If I go to a third party service, is there an easy way to transfer the information or do I need to transfer each one individually? Also, what happens the information from passwords?
I just did this recently, very very simple. You just export your passwords to a file and then the new program will import it and pretty much everything comes over perfectly.
Now here's the caveat.
You have to be very careful because that file that you have with all your passwords, if that's not encrypted, which is probably not, it's probably comm a separated value file plain text. Anyone who gets that file could could have access to all of your passwords. You need to be really careful when you're switching password managers, like get the file, move it to the new device, move it to the new app, and then delete that file like burn it. Now I'm looking at Apple passwords and I
don't see a way to export on the iPhone. Let's see if I can do it on the Mac computer. Let's see if that works. Let's see is there an export file export passwords? Yes, so you can export rita. You'd have to do it from your computer.
I don't. Let's see.
Can you do it from your phone? Maybe in like the settings. Let's see, you got to go to apps, so you gotta go all the way to apps. And let's see if I can find the passwords app. They changed everything on iPhone to put all the apps in like the same place.
Okay, let's see Apple.
Yeah, I don't see a way to export from the iPhone as far as I can tell. I mean, doesn't really look like there's a way to export. See, And yeah, I don't want to knock Apple for not putting that functionality there. But anyway, what would you do with the passwords that are still on your phone? You would just
go through and deletos. Now, what I would do is overlap the two for just a little bit, Like if you're switching to something like a bitwarden, use it for a couple of weeks before you go and destroy the passwords on your old password.
Man, that's my advice.
Wesa writes in what did companies do with all of our data, I see no change in my life.
Am I missing something?
Basically, the more data they have on you, the more they can build a profile of you, and the clearer that profile is, the better they can market products and adds to you more effectively. So you're not going to see, like you know, the change in your life directly, but all these ads that are targeted towards you become more personalized. The more data that companies collect on you. Now you may argue that's a good or a bad thing. Like if I'm watching Hulu, which by the way, I didn't
pay for it. Last night, I wanted to watch this new show on there. I think it's called Adults and it's like a comedy. I have not watched it, so I can't vouch for it, but I wanted to check it out. But I refuse to pay the ten dollars a month for Hulu because I pay for so many services, and so last night I'm literally like, my wife is kind of getting a little annoyed at me because she's like,
can we please just watch something. I'm like, I want to watch this new show, but I refuse to pay for it, and she's like, well, how much is it? I'm like ten dollars. She's like, and you can cancel any time. Like yeah, She's like, what's the problem. I'm like, I just refuse because I pay for so many other things that I want this to be included.
So anyway, we didn't watch that.
We did end up watching Hacks, which I do enjoy, and that's on my HBO Max. Now well now it's it's still called Max, but it will change anyway. I don't know what my point was. Oh yeah, if I'm watching Hulu and the ads that come up are targeted towards me, like I probably would like those better. Like if they're serving up diaper ads, I don't need those, well,
I mean, I guess I did for the kids. I may need them in the future for myself, so I guess, you know, everything is cycles in life, right, but I don't need them right now. But if they serve those, I'd be like, Okay, well I don't need those now. If they served up an ad for I don't know, a new car, sure. Anyway, my point is that's that's what they use those for. So yes, you may not feel the influence immediately, but that's what's happening. Maria writes in Hey there, I'm been a loyal fan for years.
I do enjoy all the different subjects you talk about. Let's see, I'm wondering if you're familiar with any work from home websites or how to recognize what's legitimate versus a scam.
I noticed you showed us the Amazon scam email. Thanks for that.
On Facebook, there's a few groups inviting people to click a link to see a seminar about digital marketing and working remotely from anywhere? Are those safe? What do you think, Maria? They are not safe?
No number one.
No just I'm sorry, but companies are not putting groups about digital marketing to remote jobs like marketing to you on there, Na run, just just close your computer screen and run far away. If you want a legitimate remote job, you got to check a trusted site LinkedIn. And then there's this website called flex Jobs. I have not used it to acquire a job, but it it's the number one job site to find remote jobs. No ads, no scams, no junk find legitimate work from home jobs with options
for flexible hours and hybrid work. I mean, who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want to just work from home. I mean I did during the pandemic.
I hated it. I could not deal with it.
I enjoy okay, I enjoyed it for a little bit, like making my coffee. But let's be completely honest. When you are working from home, you are not doing the same job.
Oh I can't wait for the emails.
You are not doing the same job that you would be doing at the office. Now, I'm not judging you. I'm not saying that that's good or bad. It is just different. So, for instance, if I ever worked from home, what do you do? People schedule things. Oh, I've got the plumber coming at eleven, I've got the person checking this at twelve. You got to pick up the kids at two. You got to do this. Oh and by the way, can you go grab some groceries.
I need those.
People think when you're working from home, you're not actually working. Yes, you do need to get work done, but it is more flexible, and so I think it's actually more stressful being at home for some people like myself, because of all these other external factors like oh, I gotta get milk, and I gotta you know, pick up the kids, and I gotta do this It's like you're still trying to get your job done, but now you've got a hundred other things. We're at the office. You get your job
done because you're at the office. It's meant to be boring. Eighty to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Looks like we've got a special guest.
My brother just went to Europe and I recommended a few things tech wise for him, so he's gonna have his observations coming up. U Plus Claude has added a new feature, so is Google Calendar. I'll tell you about those coming up right here, and I'll link everything up on the website rich on tech dot TV. 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 to one zero
one the website rich on Tech dot tv. Got an email? You got a message? You want to email me? Just go there hit contact. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter while you are there. We've got a great guest coming up later this hour. Patrick McGee. I cannot get enough of his book. It's called Apple and China, and I have a lot of authors on here, and I'm not kidding. This is like one of the best books that I just surprised me how good it is. So we'll talk to him all about that, and very
relevant with what's going on. I've got a special guest right now. My brother just got back from Europe and I recommended a couple of techy things and I'm curious how those worked or any tech observations he had over there.
Justin Welcome to the show.
Hey, Rich, how you doing.
I'm doing well? You jet lagged or what? I am?
Yes, very much already. Didn't you just get home? Didn't you just land?
Yeah?
Well no, no, I got home yesterday, but I woke up today at like five am. I could not sleep.
Oh that's called late for me. So so you went to Europe? What what countries did you hit up?
Yeah?
So we went to Spain, Germany and Czech Republic.
Okay, and you went there for a Dual Lipa concert. Can I say that? Or is that embarrassing?
Great? Now everybody knows.
You literally like went you flew overseas to see Dual Lipa. But I understand why. I saw her at the iHeart Fest in Vegas and yeah, I get.
It, big fan. Yeah.
Yeah, So what how did the tech work overseas, because you know it's always intimidating. I assume you got a an E sim I did.
Yeah, I went with one of those allow super easy to set up. I gotta say they had instructions that were really detailed for Android, which is a big challenge, especially how fast the interface changes and how many different interfaces and menus there are. So that was actually pretty nice and it worked perfectly the entire trip.
So what you set it up?
You bought it from here, you bought it like on the app, and then when you landed, what did you do?
Just toggle it on?
So it's had to enable it before you go. Oh, it did, and it just said that once it detects the network in the foreign country, it'll just start your time period then.
Right, So it doesn't.
It doesn't start the timer until you land and it finds the network that you're.
Supposed to be on.
Correct.
Yeah, and so it worked flawlessly.
What about like the Wi Fi calling, did you get any like calls to your phone number?
Did that work? Or what about texting?
No, texting didn't work. My phone number didn't work. Yeah, so I don't know. You know that all goes through my main SIM with my main carrier, So I disabled that so I don't get charged for international roaming. It's like ten dollars a day. So yeah, no, no SMS worked at all. WhatsApp worked, Telegram worked, I would imagine signal works. I don't think I tested it though, but I didn't have a need for any SMS, so I was out there.
Okay.
And any other tech observations, any anything they do differently over there that you noticed versus here.
Yeah, I will say, tap to pay is like the main way to pay for everything, and it is everywhere you used tap to pay for all your meals. You used to have to pay for transit, you know in Europe in a lot of places they have public bathrooms that you have to pay for. It's usually like sixty cents of euro even they had taped to pay pretty much on all of them.
Yeah, that was one of.
The main things that I noticed, said that tap to pay was like the primary way.
To pay for anything, even tapped to toilet.
Huh yep, that's a toilet.
Interesting okay, And what about iPhone versus Android? You notice any I love like kind of seeing. You know, are people using iPhone Android?
A lot of people were using Android out there. I think I wasn't paying too close the attention to what people's phones were. Actually a lot of people weren't really sitting on their phones too much. I did notice that. But when I did notice phones, it was a lot of a lot of Android. And I did spot a one plus in the wild.
Oh wow on my flight home and I get a ding adam my, you know my boardops. Love when I just like asked for things like that. Okay, any other observations, any other thoughts? Would you recommend it?
Ye? I mean going to Europe, Yeah, definitely a lot of fun. The public transit was also pretty high tech.
Google Maps had.
Every single stop, every train line, tram line, everything down to the most minute detail. It was extremely helpful. I remember the last time. I haven't been to Europe in like ten years at this point. This is the next time I was here. But the first time I went, I didn't have any Internet on my phone. I just went with a non Internet connected phone, so I don't know how I even made it around, to be honest, Yeah.
We were on it.
We were using it all the time to navigate. One difference I noticed with Android versus iPhone because my fiance Darcy has an iPhone and navigating the streets of let's say Prague, especially you're kind of nestled in these buildings, lots of concrete buildings, stone buildings, and they have the navigation. The GPS was unable to figure out which way we were facing a lot of times on the iPhone, but Android it worked out pretty much falllessly.
Oh interesting, Okay, So I have a thought on this.
So number one, I have found that it's so interesting you say that because I've always recommended it if you use if you're walking directions, like if you need walking directions in a city, I find that the iPhone excels at that, especially with Apple Maps, not with Google Maps, but with Apple Maps.
So we were Google Maps on both phones.
Oh darn it.
I should have told you about the Apple Maps trick, because I'm not kidding. Apple Maps walking directions in any city are incredible, but especially in big cities, and I don't know why they seem to be better than Google. But I'm surprised that your phone got the lock, because even in New York City, I have trouble walking around with my phone because it you know, if I'm not using Apple Maps, it's like the Android maps for some reason. Anyway, Okay,
good to know. All right, Well, thanks for calling in. Appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
All right.
My brother justin you heard that. Yeah, he's getting married next year. So yeah, there you go. Very exciting. I'm gonna be the uh. I should have asked him if I'm still doing that, I'm supposed to be the officiant. I gotta get my like efficient license or whatever. Let's see, that'll be something new I do. Okay, told you about a couple of things. Google Calendar has a new privacy setting on Android. You might have gotten a pop up to ask, you know if you want to toggle it on,
but it's basically inside the app. It lets you block other apps from accessing your calendar data. So if you turn this on inside your Google Calendar app on your phone, no other app will be able to tap into the calendar data from your phone or from your Google Calendar. So before this third party apps could access your calendar, you know your calendar information. So you can find the toggle in Google Calendar menu settings General, and it says
share Google Calendar with data with other apps. If you don't want it to share with other apps, turn that off, but just be warned. This could break other calendar related apps, like if you're using another app that taps into it, widgets or video meeting tools, so pretty much anything. And this setting only applies to the official Google Calendar, not Samsung or other versions. And then Claude has added voice mode.
Claude is sort of the competitor to chat Ebt. They added voice mode, so if you want to talk to Claude and hear its responses, you can talk to AI on Claude and yes it does work on the iOS and Android apps. In beta, you get free users get about twenty to thirty voice messages. If you're on a paid plan you can get more. You can also connect your Google Docs, your Google Calendar, and your Gmail to
Claude so you can ask about that. But overall, Claude is still sort of a little bit playing catch up to chat, g Ebt and Google Gemini when it comes to voice features and then also the video features. All right, coming up the best free PC cleaners? Is your PC kind of run a little gunky, you want to clean it out? I will tell you what you need to know, and you can do most of this for free. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four.
One zero one.
I'm gonna tell you about the best free PC cleaners clean up your machine, plus the Galaxy S twenty five Edge.
I'll tell you what the reviews are on that, including mine.
Uh And we've got a great guest this hour as well, Patrick McGee, to talk about Apple in China, his book that is doing really well. I did something this weekend that I've not done ever in my life. Actually, I bought two records visited a record store. I know, my music journey started with tapes and then went to CDs and then went to MP three's and then went to streaming and h but this was great.
So I'm testing this record player.
It's a US it's a radio shack record player. It's kind of an all one. It actually does a lot of stuff. But I needed an album to play on it, and it's kind of fun.
You know.
I've got kids who all this stuff is really new to them, so they had never seen this before. So we went to the record store, and you know, there happened to be one that I found very close by, and so I was like, all right, let me try
this place. And so we went in there, and you know, it's just it's a blast from the past immediately, and there's all these albums and it's just like physical media is so kind of like feels so outdated at this point, right, Like we used to go into these stores and shared experiences of picking things out and sorting through stuff, and now it's like everything's just a tap on your phone screen. But it's kind of fun to go back to a physical experience like this. So anyway, so we walked through.
We're looking and at everything there. But we walked through, looked to the records, and we were trying to buy a couple. First off, didn't realize how expensive they are. I mean, these things are like twenty thirty dollars up maybe forty dollars, and I thought like, wow, I thought these were going to be a lot cheaper. Anyway, this
was the funniest part. So I I was looking for a record I settled upon like a Miles Davis something classic, right, And I asked this guy who's looking through the album and say said, hey, can you help me find this?
He goes, dude, I don't work here.
It's like, whoops, like you look like you worked there. I said, well, you look like you know what you're doing, and he said all right, and he didn't. He wasn't really he didn't have that much of a sense of humor. But the best part was then we were looking for a secondary album and my kid, unbeknownst to me, walks up to some other person in the store and says, hey, can you help me find this album?
The guy goes, I don't work here.
So my point is, I mean, look, everyone that was in the store maybe a little bit on the older, like maybe an old timer kind of person. And so we just both I just thought that was so funny that we both mistake these people for working at the store.
Both of them didn't. Anyway.
The guy who ended up helping me, who works at the store, very nice, actually a fan of a fan of me what I do on TV. So he instantly said, hey, rich what's up. Can I get a selfie? Said all right, can I get a discount? Didn't happen anyway. I paid sixty bucks for two albums, and you know, I realized why people went streaming. You can get sixty sixty dollars like six months of unlimited music of all the music
made in the world. But I will say when I put the album on, it was really cool, like the warmth, the crackling of the you know, just the way it's Your connection to media is much more when it's physical. Let's put it that way. And my kid, of course, the first thing he wanted to do was speed up the album so that the other album we got was Taylor Swift, so it was like, you know, like mouse. The best free PC cleaners Chris Hoffman writes a great
newsletter called Windows Intelligence. He spotlighted a few of the free PC cleaners you can get. He said, you can you don't have to pay for them. Windows has them built in. So number one disc Cleanup. Disc cleanup is the classic choice, still reliable for clearing temp files. So just let's see here. I'm gonna type it in dis cleanup. There it is just so. On the search bar at the bottom of your Windows computer. Just type in disk
cleanup and there it is. Downloaded program files temporary Internet files, Windows error reports.
Clean it up.
That's number one. Number two, Storage Sense. This can automate cleanups, including a recycle bind. So if you get low on storage in your computer, storage Sense can help. And then if you want something that's a little bit more powerful, there's an open source tool that's free. It's called bleach bit, and this will clear all the data from like all of your apps, including your browser history, everything. Like I mean, the word bleach is in there, so think about what
that's going to do. It's going to clear all the history, everything, all the app data, all the temporary files. But be careful, he says. Number one, it's powerful, so don't erase stuff that you need. Number Two, when you go to the website, be sure to avoid fake download buttons. There's a lot of ads on there, I guess, and it might look like you're downloading it, but you're not. You're downloading like
some third party apps. Just make sure you got the official download and then Cecleaner, he says, is still popular, but it's owned by a vast and they push paid features. At this point, it says most users don't need it. The disc cleanup is good enough for basic maintenance. So to review, disc clean Up storage Sense bleach bit if you want to clean up your PC. The S twenty five Edge, Samsung's new phone is in stores. This is their thinnest phone yet. It is impressive. I put my
review of this on TV under six millimeters thick. It's lightweight.
I've been using it for the past three weeks almost exclusively.
It's great. I mean, there's nothing I find wrong about this phone. If you like a Samsung, It's got a nice frame, it's solid, the screen is great, it's fast, it's got all the pro features, latest Snapdragon chip. It's got good memory. The main camera is really good two hundred megapixels. If you want to see the pictures, go to my website. Rich on tech dot TV. Very impressed with all the main pictures in good light, seven years
of software updates and security. The problem is the it is smaller, so that's going to be shorter battery life throughout the day. It's probably gonna, you know, need to be charged. But I found that it charged pretty quick, so not that big of a deal. I did find the lack of a telephoto lens is not ideal because Samsung's are really known for good zoom, especially the Ultra that I'm used to, and this definitely does not have as good zoom. But for the main pictures and the
Ultra wides, it's great. Charging is pretty fast, not as fast as some other phones, but I found it to be very fast. And the other thing is this phone can run a bit warm because it's so thin. They don't have I think the vapor chamber inside is just not as big, so it can't kind of cool it down as quickly. But if you want a super slim design and you can live with some of those trade offs, I think this is an excellent phone. I think it's
a great Samsung phone. The Galaxy S twenty five Edge starts at eleven hundred dollars, I know, very expensive, but they do have deals that knock that price down, trade ins, all kinds of stuff. So if you want to see my video review, go to the website rich on tech dot tv popping the keyword S twenty five Edge or Samsung, or just look on the home screen.
It's all right there.
Eighted eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up, we're gonna talk Apple in their relationship with China, that's coming up right here.
I'm Rich on Tech.
I've been very excited to talk with my next guest because I have been absolutely devouring his book. It's called Apple in China, The Capture of the World's Greatest Company. It is on sale now, it's getting great reviews. And uh, Patrick McGee, welcome to the show.
Thanks Rich, my pleasure.
Unbelievable book, really really well done, and it's a it's a topic that you would think would not be the easiest to read, and it's this is a page turner. So how did you, I mean, where did you start by getting all these stories and the information that you put in this book?
I mean, how long does it take you?
It took about two and a half years.
I did do the manuscript, like I took one year off to write the manuscript, but at that point I had already been a seventy page pitch. I had already written some big articles about the topic for the financial time. So I think if you look at it, it's two and a half years. I would say the starting point was really discovering what.
A manufacturing design engineer is.
That it's a unit called MD within Apple, and it's the third level of the of what Apple calls the pyramid structure product development. So without getting too wonky, everyone knows the first tip of the pyramid. That's ID industrial design, that's Johnny I've deciding that the iPod is going to have a chrome back and an all white front, and
then goes over the fence to product design. These are the people who have to fit in all the electronics into the dimensions that Johnny Ive and team have specified. They have to go, you know, find the materials, et cetera that Johnny IV specified manufacturing design.
That the group that we don't really know about.
These are the people who have to go on the airplane to get to Asia, scour plants and figure out where are we going to actually build this stuff, And in that process they are co inventing a whole bunch of parts and components and the.
Processes behind those parts.
So that's where you get the technology transfer in because inherently these are geniuses who are going off to Asia to work with suppliers that are of course now in an adversarial country to sort of train them up, if you will, up arm them in the world of advanced electronics.
And that's where it just became really interesting because the development.
Of that unit was really driven during a time when China was like our next great ally, we were going to inculcate a democracy and so forth. But because instead, under Sesion Pinging, the country turned to belligerent and authoritarian.
Just as iPhone.
Volumes just explode to near their quarter billion per year, that's where you get this really problematic state of affairs. So a standard corporate history becomes feal political really quickly.
Yeah, I mean, everyone, you know, we've heard so many stories. I mean, fox con has become a household name, and of course you talk about the rise of that company and how they assemble the phones in just all the ways that you know. My main takeaway, and I'm not done with the book just yet, but my main takeaway is that Apple just keeps getting deeper into China without actually trying. But it just keeps happening and happening and happening. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I mean, so things are a little bit in a sense worse than they were in two thousand and nine.
So by two thousand and nine, virtually everything was already.
In China, but very little of the value add was Chinese company it was mostly multinationals operating in China. But over time what's happened is the iPhone like within itself, has become more Chinese. And that's because the Taiwanese company is like Fox KHN, like Pegatron, wistraan Quanta, They've basically been pushed out because under Seshin Ping, there's this directive to prioritize what.
He calls indigenous innovation.
The grand policy behind this is called Made in China's twenty five and so basically like companies that are closer to this state, so companies that are Chinese, they are able to get you know, better access to land, better access to tooling and machinery, better access to people that man the factories, and by doing so they're able to operate at lower margins. Right, they also get state subsidies, and so by offering lower margins to Apple, they increasingly
win the deals. And so they're often you know, hiring directly from the Fox con parking lot, let's say, like grabbing people and saying I'll double your pay on the spot. And so you're really seeing this like red supply chain development really being accelerated over the last six seven years in particular, and that of course is concerning as well, because it used to be the case that multinationals had the experiential know how of how to do this, but
at this point they're actually several years behind. It's the Chinese companies that are getting all the latest and greatest cutting edge development.
Now unless you live under our rock.
You've seen the news, and you wrote this book and it came out even before a lot of this tariff stuff. But Trump said, you know, they want a twenty five five percent or what's the latest of that? I mean, I guess he said he wants to make the iPhone here in the US. And if it's not, it's got they've got to pay like a twenty five percent tariff. What do you make of all of that stuff? Like
could the iPhone be made in the US? And you know, Apple and Trump or Tim Cook and Trump seem to be like frenemies at this point.
Yeah, I mean, I would stridently say the iPhone is never going to be built in America, except that Tim Cook is under such political pressure to do it that it would not be surprising.
It'd be interesting, but it wouldn't be surprising.
If you had some press release announcing that some combination of parts or iPhones or something to deal with Apple was being made in America.
I say that in part because that's actually what happened.
After the Obama Romney debates in twenty twelve, Apple really came under political pressure and so they created this plan to build the Mac Pro out of Texas. It was an unmitigated fiasco. To quote one engineer on the product. I spoke to seven people on the project who all say it was really, really bad. And in a sense, what happened is they had to fly in Chinese engineers that they had trained at Fox Con to basically come complete the product and then stamp it made in America.
So it didn't do well in terms of volumes, didn't do well in terms of margins, and didn't do well in terms of being actually made by American workers.
And that was for a.
Product being made in about five hundred and six hundred volume per day. An iPhone is being made at peak season at a million a day, So it's unfortunately, I mean, I just am not optimistic about it being made in America. We can talk more about why, but there's a whole host of reasons. There's probably fifteen or twenty things to overcome. What do you think the biggest is? What's the biggest is it? I mean, what do you think that is?
It's the density of talent. I mean that's actually how Tim Cook has put it.
So in other words, like a Jung Joe factory that's called iPhone City has four hundred thousand people working on the iPhone at peak season. But then those people aren't just sort of siddling id by waiting for the iPhone to come out. They're doing something else, right, So it's not like Tim Cook needs to open an Apple factory.
He would need to convince someone like fox Con to do it.
But fox Con knows that it only makes sense if there's a whole host of other industries operating because to have that number of people, which is already impossible in America, you can't just be working on the iPhone because the iPhone only gets made in peak volumes for two to four months of the year, So what do you do
with the people for the other eight months? Like fox one is a master of allocation, you know, efficiently sort of tailor tailor, making all the all the right policies so that you know they've got their labor, going from one plant to another to manufacture different products and working with different competitors. Right, that's why third party outsourcing is
more efficient than vertical integration. But that only makes sense if you're working within an industrial cluster the size of China, and we just.
Don't have anything like that.
So, you know, even in a dream scenario of Tim Cook, you know, saying I'm going to do it, I'm going to commit to America, he would frankly need dozens, if not hundreds of other companies evolved just to make it feasible.
We're chatting with Patrick McGee.
He has written the book Apple in China, and it's
a It's an incredible read. I think what's most interesting to me is I've been covering Apple for a long time, and I would say about eighty percent of the stories that I'm hearing this book are brand new to me, Like I like, you've taken a layer, Like we've heard so many reports about Apple and Steve Jobs and all the products and this and that, but this is like a new layer built on top of everything that we've heard in the past, like stuff that's brand new.
So I really think that's what's most interesting.
To me is I'm thrilled to hear that. Sorry it cut out there. Yeah, I didn't mean to speak over you. I'm thrilled to hear that. Because I wrote the book for the layperson.
You don't really need to know anything about Apple to understand the book. It takes you through the supply chain and through its history and multiple countries, you know, in a handholding way.
I think it's pretty easy to read. And it's fast paced.
You know.
People have compared to like a thriller, which which is which is great for me.
But I also had someone like you in mind, right, and and basically like if any Apple story was.
Already well known, if it had already been in a book.
Unless it was just like absolutely necessity, you had to mention that like Steve Dobbs standing on stage to announce, you know, the one device.
I didn't want it in the book. I wanted someone in a Barnes.
And Noble to pick up the book and basically think I know Apple and go to the table of contents and be like, what on earth it's the sewing machine repair shop? What does five alarm fire refer to? Who are the yellow cows? And what is the gray market, Like, I just wanted the reader to be like, I don't know any of this, and so I know that you know tech really well, and so if that was your feeling, then that makes me feel wild pride.
That's so amazing because that's exactly what I felt. I was like, I'm like, this is these are stories that have not been told before, and anything that was you sort of get a little bit of it, but not the full thing because you know that people kind of have an idea of what you're talking about with the main stories that we've all heard before.
So a great job on this book. Again, I don't know how you.
Make a thriller page turner out of this story, but it is incredible. The book is Apple in China. Patrick, thanks so much for joining me today.
Cheers.
I hope you like the conclusion.
All right, I can't wait to finish it. There it is.
Find it now Apple in China, search it up. I'm telling you it's a great gift any for anyone that likes Apple in your life, just get it for him. It's stories that have not been told before. Put it on the website. Rich on tech dot TV, all right, coming up, let's see here we've got a question about scams and what Google's doing to help. Plus more of your calls eighty eight rich one O one eight eight 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 at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. We were just talking about the Apple iPhone sixteen is the world's best selling phone. iPhone sixteen best selling smartphone in the world for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. This is the first time a base model has led the first quarter sales since twenty twenty two.
And if you look at the numbers, let me bring them up here. If you look at the numbers.
Apple held five of the top ten spots and the iPhone six teen doing well in Japan and the Middle East. The sixteen E also had a pretty strong debut. It was number six in March, not the whole quarter, but that was just for March. Now here's the thing. I said that the iPhone sixteen would do really well when I did my review, I said this is going to sell a lot. Why because it was the first sort of like iPhone with the AI stuff that seemed like it would be a good one to upgrade two and
it had everything going for it. I mean, everything on this phone is really good. So you've got the number one, iPhone sixteen, number two, iPhone sixteen Pro Max, number three, iPhone sixteen Pro, number four, iPhone fifteen, number five is a Samsung six, Samsung seven, Samsung Galaxy S twenty five Ultra number eight. The only non Samsung or Apple phone the Red Me fourteen C four G that's from Shaomi out of China. The only non Apple or Samsung phone
in the top ten. The fastest growing segment globally phones priced under one hundred dollars. And then finally we've got another Galaxy and then number ten is the iPhone sixteen plus, So I mean, what a sweep. iPhone sixteen is like almost every phone on here, every model is top selling.
That's just incredible, is it not? Wow?
If you have T Mobile might have heard this story about the screen recording being added to its te Life app. The latest update to the te Life app included a screen recording tool. It was turned on by default, and users were not notified nor were they happy about it. T Mobile says it only records activity within the app. I guess to help them figure out how people use the app. Nothing outside, no sensitive info, nothing on your phone. You can turn off this feature if you go into
the te Life app in settings under preferences. Now I've got the te Life app on here. I don't seem to have it on mine, but I guess it depends on you know, your version of the app which you've got going on your phone. But yeah, if you go into your Tea Life app, go under let's see your manage, and then settings, and then under preferences, it'll say the screen recording thing, So if you want that off, toggle it off.
Yeah.
Users were mostly upset because they didn't hear anything about this. They're like, wait a second, shouldn't you tell me when you're doing something like this? And yes, you should. I mean, any tool that's this privacy invasive should have should be opt in, not opt out by default. Dennis writes in for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I'm surprised that companies like Google can't flag scams before people get taken. With all their tech and AI, why can't they automatically detect if
something is phony? Or real Yes, they can actually and they do. Google is doing a lot with AI to detect scams. In fact, I have mentioned on this show why I like Chrome better than the other browsers out there, because Chrome is actually scanning the websites that you're going to, that you're clicking the links on, and it's giving you warnings in near real time if those sites are sketchy. This is a let's see where is it? If you go into your settings Privacy and security, Let's see where
is it there? It is security safe browsing. You've got enhanced protection, which is real time AI powered protection against dangerous sites, downloads and extensions that's based on your browsing data getting sent to Google. Then you've got standard protection. When you visit a site, Chrome sends a portion of the URL to Google. If a site seems suspicious, it will flag it, and you can also do no protection. So there is a lot going on here, Dennis. Let's
see there's also another thing that they're doing. They've got a whole thing. Let's see, here's let's see, here's how we're using AI. So Google came out the whole blog post about how they're using AI to combat the latest scams. And the other thing they're doing is on the Pixel phone. They've got a filtering spam unwanted notifications they're now using AI to do, and then also phone calls. So this is a feature on the Pixel phone. It's called scam detection.
So it's not only in Google Messages. So if you get a message that's suspect, it will tell you. But if you're on a live phone call and the person on the phone call starts to say like, hey, can I get your credit card information, literally your phone will cut in on the conversation and say this could be a scam, do not do this. They announced it last year at Google Io. I have yet to see this on my phone, so I'm not using the Pixel on
a daily basis. But yeah, it will literally warn you, and I guess it listens to the call somehow.
I don't know.
I gotta don't quote me on that because I gotta figure out how is it knowing that says likely scams, suspicious activity detected for this call. And then it'll do the same thing inside the messages app as well. So there must be a setting in the phone in the phone app. Let's see, I'm gonna go into settings Scam Detection Beta Okay, alert you during a call if likely scam is detected. Scam detection will automatically run in the background of calls that have the potential to be scams.
Your contacts are never screened by using scam detection. You agree to our terms of service. Scam detection will beep at the start of the call and every few minutes after to let participants know the call is being monitored. Scam detention is as detection is working fully on device and call content is not saved or recorded. Scam detection is not one percent accurate, and scammers constantly change their tactics.
Always use caution when answering calls from unknown numbers. Okay, so it's turned on on my phone, but I guess it's only from numbers that are unknown or likely a scam to begin with.
That's really interesting.
So yeah, Dennis, I think that that Google is doing some amazing things with their with their AI and scam detection.
It's just you may not realize.
And what I'll do sometimes is I'll take like the same exact URL that I get, and I will put it in both Chrome and then Safari and Chrome will give me this big red screen that says watch out likely scam. Safari just lets you go right to the website, not knock an apple. But they're just not doing the same thing. I don't think when it comes to this scam detection stuff. Good question eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one the website rich on tech dot tv. If you have a message you want to send me, you can submit it there. That's what Diane did. She said, how do I find this Genesis app that fix problems? I see a few in the app store. No, it's Gemini g E, M I N I and uh, yes there's apps.
This is very important.
When you hear me mention an app, go to the website and get the direct link. I usually put the direct link rich on tech dot tv in the show notes, this is show episode one twenty three.
The reason I tell you that is.
Because so many of you go to the the app store, you search for what you think I said, and these apps they they play on that they make their name just like a main app, and you get the wrong one. So always go to the website. But it's Gemini Gemini by Google. Rich On tech.
What's going on?
Rich Demiro here, rich on Tech talking technology with you at Triple A rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one, the website, rich on Tech dot TV. Hit contact if you want to your question that way. I've got a lot of you doing that today, so I'm gonna get through some of those. Well, you knew this was happening. Went to a new parking
lot for a new store and no tickets. It's all based on your driver's your your license plate, which I guess makes a lot of sense, Like why do you need to do this extra level? I've noticed a lot of the parking lots are now reading your license plate.
In addition, if you look at your little ticket, sometimes your license plate is even printed on the ticket you get, you know, like the parking ticket you get, and then at the end, after you pay it like sometow you know, sometimes you just can go out, like the the arm raises because it scans your driver's like your driver's license keep saying that your license plate, uh, and then it just realizes that you paid and it lets you go.
But anyway, this one had none of that. It just had ticketless, so you you go in it reads your license plate, and then when you go out, it reads it again. I guess it charges you if he needs to. If not, you know, you can just it just opened up.
Anyway.
It was confusing some folks at the entrance because they're like, where's my ticket that I pull?
Uh?
No, there is no ticket. It's a big sign, says ticketless parking lot.
Now I don't know.
I don't mean there's no you have to still have a ticket to get in, Like you still have to like there's like an arm there that lifts. Wow, how did I make a story that was so easy? So confusing? You know what I mean?
Basically instead of the ticket, they're just scanning your license plate.
Sandy writes in I guess after my visit to the record store, my twelve year old is asking for a Walkman. We don't have any tapes. Are Walkman's coming back? I don't think so, Sandy. I don't think there's anyone extolling the virtues of tape of cassettes, right, Adam, you're a big music person.
You're not no one. No one thinks cassettes are good.
Okay?
Oh oh cool kids, oh, he says, cool kids like them. Uh, well, if you want to get a Walkman for your kid. Uh, there's a website called tro spect r E t R O sp E kt Retrospect, but they leave out one of the letters and they've got all this stuff that is I guess refurbished. I mean everything you're talking cassette players, CD players, vinyl iPods.
I guess.
I think this is what they made their name with, is refurbishing. Like you can buy a refurbished iPod on this website, and so they do it all. I think they're out of like Minnesota. Maybe let's see VHS you can get a VCR. How much is a VCR? One hundred and seventy nine dollars for a VCR refurbished? Oh wow, that's actually pretty cool. If you want to digitize your old tapes, right, let's see what else do they have? Polaroid?
Uh?
Yeah, that's and then oh they do repairs too. I guess you can send stuff in all repairs ship free both ways.
Within the US they'll repair looks. It's like, yeah, a couple things there.
Anyway, if you want to get your kid a Walkman, retrospect dot com r E t R O s P s P E k T dot com.
Let's see.
Forrest writes in from twenty nine Palms. I'm moving to Puerto Virta this July and wondering what to do about mobile phone coverage. I currently use Visible, but I've heard T Mobile works best in Mexico. Should I switch to a US based T Mobile plan or get T Mobile Mexico when I arrive Forrest, I think if you're moving there, you have to get a plan that's based in Mexico. You can't use a plan that's based here in the US. I mean you could maybe for a while, but that's
not really the terms of the service. If you're using T Mobile, yeah, you can maybe roam there for a while, but if as soon as they realize that you're like not going back to the US, they're gonna either cancel your plan or call you or something. So if you're moving permanently, you got to get a local plan. So whatever's good in Mexico. I don't even know what the carriers are there, but that's what I go is, just
do some comparison. Once you get down there, I think your plan will probably work to roam for a little bit, but if you're staying there, you have to get a plan from there. That's you know they reserve that right. Let's see here, Diane writes in Everyone's writing in today iPhone cleanup? Do you recommend any iPhone cleanup apps? No?
I don't. Actually there's so many of them out there. But the way the.
iPhone is engineered, the operating system is not like Windows. You do not need cleanup apps. You don't need to clean up anything on the iPhone. iOS is not meant to be cleaned up. The only thing you can do because here's the reason. Everything in iOS is sandboxed, which means no app can interapp interact or look at another app's data. It's just I mean, yes, there are provisions
for them to build that, but they can't. You can't go in and run a cleaning app and have it kind of like delete all the extra files and things like that.
Like it just doesn't work that way.
So the only thing you could do is like get rid of duplicate photos with an app, and for that, I like clean my phone. They will do that, but realistically, just go through your camera, just go through your list and just like get rid of duplicates yourself. I don't recommend any iPhone cleanup apps. I don't think you need them. Let's see here, we've got Paula from Los Angeles says
I the Galaxy nine Plus that I love. I want to upgrade, but want a phone most similar to the one I have functionality, functionally, what would you suggest, I'd suggest the phone I was just talking about the Galaxy S twenty five Edge. It's available. It's gonna be a little bit more expensive than the S nine plus. I don't know if they're even going to give you. Let's see how much you'd get for that, so it starts at eleven hundred dollars. But I think what's great about
this is that you're a Samsung user. It's going to be a very easy transition. Clearly you've used this phone for a long time, and you could probably trade it in. Let's see how much you can trade it in. So Samsung, the S nine or the nine plus even go back that far. Let's see here, Oh, oh it doesn't. It goes back to the ten. So for the for the S ten plus, you'll get fifty five dollars. For any other Samsung, you'll get fifty bucks. So hey, I mean,
I think that's better than nothing. If you don't need this phone, But they also have a lot of other upgrade deals and things like that. Oh, a lot of those might have changed now that the phone is available. But I'd say the S twenty five Edge. If you don't want something, if you don't want to spend something that's that expensive, I would just go with the Pixel nine A.
That's what is it?
Four hundred bucks, five hundred dollars and yeah, four ninety nine and that gives you really good camera, seven years of updates. But it's not gonna have that Samsung software that you're used to, so you may want to stick with a Samsung. If you're using Microsoft Authenticator, it is getting rid of its password autofill.
It's going away.
They're removing the password autofill feature from Microsoft Authenticator, So starting in June next month, you cannot save new passwords in the Authenticator app. In July, the feature is going away completely, and by August you won't even be able to access any saved passwords in the app. Now, this is different than your codes. Your one time codes will still remain no problem, but if you had any passwords saved in there, you will not be able to access them.
Past August, but you can switch to.
Microsoft Edge for autofill, and it's not there by default. You do have to tap a button to turn it on and transfer those over, but it is easy if you have if you're going to use Edge, if you're going to use something else like a password manager, you can export all of your passwords to a CSV file and move them over.
But yes, you do have to do that.
Microsoft says everything is synced, it's all in your account, but you have to give them permission to start using Edge for autofill versus what you're using. So if you're using Authenticator for passwords, Microsoft Authenticator specifically, you do need a plan to get your stuff out of there and to transfer it to something else. And Disney Plus just rolled out a new perks program. I'm not impressed, but you know, you might as well check it out and see.
But it's it's a I don't even understan why they're doing this. It's got discounts on Adidas, fun Co and Walt Disney World hotels. I should just go to the website and see what they have, because it's I was not impressed. It's like I didn't really need any of the stuff that they put on there, but it was it's just random stuff.
Dash Pass.
You can get like six months of that Clear Super dual LINGO two months of that. My kids actually probably would like that. Uh, but yeah, these are this is what you get.
Oh. You can also enter sweepstakes.
So they've got tickets to freak your Friday premiere Disney Cruise, but you do need an active Disney Plus subscription to enroll. You can check out your perks at Disney plus dot com slash perks. I mean, I don't know, I'm not I'm not sold on this. I don't understand it why they're doing this. I mean, I get it, they're just selling more stuff to you. I guess some are freebies, but to me, like, come on, twenty percent off at Adidas,
I don't know, is that a big deal. Maybe you can't get twenty percent off Adidas six months of dash Pass, I mean so many credit cards include that anyway, Three months of Clear, I mean.
That's something you could easily get.
I feel like anyway, if you want to see what you got Disney Plus dot Com slash perks eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one everything I mentioned is linked up on the website rich on tech dot T. Coming up this hour, we're gonna talk to ed Bot, longtime journalist on all things Microsoft, plus more right here on rich on Tech. Still coming up, We've got ed Bot, a
longtime tech journalist, expert on all things Microsoft. He's gonna guide us through some of the things that's happening with Windows right now. You know, you've got this big transition to Windows eleven. We've got end of life support for lots of these apps on there, and oh my gosh, there's just so much to ask. I hope we'll get through a lot of it, and then later we've got the feedback. These are all the email comments and things that you send in, so if you want to get
those in now, well you've already been doing it. Everyone's emailing today for some reason. Julie writes in Hey, rich your show is amazing. I'm on my own with any tech and it's difficult. Recently, I got rid of TV and purchased the YouTube TV app through Frontier. I then bought the Roku Ultra, which was recommended. We had a power outage from our electric company and somehow I lost the YouTube TV app I've tried everything I can think of, but can't seem to get it back. Any suggestions would
be appreciated. Thank you, Julie. Julie, how did a power outage get rid of this app? Is so strange, But basically, as I understand it, the YouTube app is just an app on your Roku So if it somehow got deleted in that power outage, which I've got to figure out how that happened, you can just reinstall it. And so if you go, you can do this a couple ways. If you go to the Roku store on your streaming device just search YouTube TV, or you can do it
even from the mobile app or the website. You can go to channelstore dot Roku dot com, you log in, go to YouTube and press install and that will send it to your TV. Or if you have the Roku mobile app, you can do that as well. So a couple of ways to do that. But yeah, I mean from your device, just go to the store like press home,
select store and then search for the app. That's the way I would do it, but if you want to do it for mobile app, but I would just do it right from the ultra But hopefully you get it back I know it was it like I've never heard of a something zapp in it. Okay, let's see here. Amazon this week launched a new, budget friendly, blank video doorbell.
It's very confusing with Amazon because they've got Blink, which they purchased for I don't know, ungodly sums of money, and then they also purchase Ring and they both do very similar things. But I guess the difference is Blink is much more interested in sort of The technology that they brought to the table was this really long battery life. And you know the cameras they have, some of them work on like two years or a year of just double A batteries. And so this new Blink video doorbell
is sixty bucks. Three double A batteries give you up to two years of power. So if you want a video doorbell without charging it every couple of months like I have to do, you could just get this don't have to worry about replacing the batteries for two years. The improvements include a one hundred and fifty degree field of view, so you're gonna get a wider field of view, night vision, head to toe view, and person detection.
Now here's the thing.
This doorbell does require a separate sink module, so you do need to get that, which I guess you can use your other cameras. I don't have any Blink cameras, nor have I ever tested them, actually, so I really should to see how these things work. I've interviewed people from the company, but I never really tried them out.
The bundle is seventy dollars, so keep in mind unless you already have that sink module, you have to buy that with the doorbell, and then if you want local storage that base that coursing module does not give you local storage, so if you want local storage, like to put a little SD card, you have to get the Sink Module two or the Sink Module XR. Otherwise, if you get this little doorbell, you got to pay for Cloud, which is three dollars a month.
Also keep in mind is limited to the two point.
Four gigahertz Wi Fi thirty second clips and push to talk audio only, so no back and forth. It's like kind of more like a walkie talkie style. So again, you get what you pay for. These things are inexpensive, but you're not getting the most full featured video doorbell out there like you would get from ring. Assume it in Orange County, Orange, California.
You're on with Rich.
Hello Raach, Hi, Hey Rich, Sorry, let me get you off speakable fish.
Okay, well wait do we have the whole music?
Yeah?
Hey Rich, Rich, Yes, you know, love your show.
Thank you well.
I I have at least four questions, maybe one or two if you could answer a question. One is you know, whenever I go, you know, then they make me, you know, use a strong password on the website. Yes, And I was just wondering whether it pownts first, because sometimes I use my laptop, sometimes I use my phone, So how.
Does that work?
It does, so whatever password manager you're using will sync in the background between your different devices. So I would recommend a good cross platform password manager like Bitwarden, I think does a great job. You basically would install it on your browser and you would install it on your phone, and in the background, it would just sink those So once you create a password on your browser, it would make its way to your phone the next time you
go to log into that website on your phone. And they all pretty much work that way because that's just kind of the nature of how they work.
So the only thing I've noticed is.
The the quality of the sync. Sometimes, like you know, it may not be a media because, especially with the iPhone, apps are not doing a lot in the background, and so if you haven't sort of like called up your password manager app in a while, it may not be fully up to date with the entire sink of every password that you just created like a second ago on your computer. So that's the only thing I've sort of
run into when it comes to the passwords. But yeah, most of the time, if you're creating a strong password, the password manager will not only let's say you're signing up for a new website, the password manager will notice that and it will immediately spring into action and suggest a password and then save that password after you enter it.
So and then again it will be available across all your devices.
But again, when you're looking for a password manager, look for one that works on all the devices that you're using. Most of them do, with the exception of course, of the Apple on is not going to have for Android.
The Apple passwords. Good question.
Sorry, we can get to all of them, but you know we've got other shows to do, so coming up next, ed Bough Talk All Things Microsoft. Ed bo is a longtime tech journalist and expert on all things Microsoft. He's joining me now to talk about some of the pressing issues in the Microsoft community.
Ed.
Thanks so much for joining me today.
Hey, it's great to be here.
Rich.
So what is the latest?
I mean, we've got this big transition to Windows eleven, We've got support for Windows ten ending in October this year.
What do people need to know about this?
So, the biggest issue is compatibility check that Windows eleven does before it will allow you to upgrade a PC from Windows ten. And it goes in and it checks about a half a dozen things, but there's two that really matter. One is the CPU in the system, and the second one is a thing called a Trusted Platform Module or a TPM that's an encryption chip. And there's a list of compatible CPUs, and basically, any system that was built twenty nineteen or later qualifies for an upgrade
to Windows eleven. Anyone that was built earlier than that is probably going to fail the compatibility test. And then there are also a number of PCs that are newer than twenty nineteen that will still fail the test because they've been configured using the kind of settings that hobbyists typically do a legacy BIOS and turning off secure boot
and not enabling the TPM so things like that. So there's a pretty big population, hundreds of millions of PCs that are going to be told by Microsoft in October, sorry, you're not going to get any more security updates for Windows ten and you can't upgrade to Windows eleven.
Wow.
So what's the chance that this actually happens on time? Were my not going to say okay, you can find We'll give you another six months or a year. Now I've heard there's like a program that you can sign up for an extra year, two or three if you're a business. Is that coming to play?
Right?
So, uh, there's a one hundred percent chance this is going to go down exactly as it's been announced.
Uh for years.
But there are there are basically five things that people can do to get past this one. The thing that Microsoft wants them to do, of course, is to go out and buy a new PC and recycle their old one into parts.
Of course, a copilot PC, you know with that snap Dragon chip inside exactly exactly.
The second thing they can do is, as you mentioned, they can pay for updates. Now, businesses and educational institutions can pay for up to three years. For businesses, that'll cost a lot. For educational institutions, it'll cost next to nothing a dollar per pc per year for the first year, and then two dollars for the second year, and then four dollars for the third year. But consumers can pay thirty dollars a month if they want to wait a month or a year.
Thirty dollars a month. A month, Oh my gosh, that's going.
To Yeah, I should I should double check that because I haven't looked at it lately. But yeah, it's not it's not cheap, and frankly, I don't think it's an option for most people unless you have a business that you're running, a small business that you're running, and you really need to do that, and you're not eligible to go through the standard business you know, the standard business program of updates that they have. You know, you need to be an enterprise customer to do that kind of thing.
But I don't think most people are going to pay for updates. The third thing people can do is simply ignore this and you know, use antivirus.
Use Uh.
There's a program called zero Patch, a service that you can subscribe to that's about two.
Dollars a month.
And they'll take care of patching any vulnerabilities that are discovered in Windows ten and they're going to do.
That for years.
And what they're an update, they'll give you what they'll.
Give you what they give you what they call micro patches, where they actually literally go in and they patch the code on your PC to UH to prevent that particular vulnerability from executing. It's a you know, it's a pretty fascinating concept and and I think it's I think it's legitimate for someone who doesn't want to pay Microsoft a lot of money for updates, but also doesn't want to go completely without updates.
It's a it's a good middle ground.
I'm just I'm looking at the thirty dollars figure, and it looks like it seems to be for individual home users. It says a one year ESU program, which is what end of extended security updates.
Extended security updates.
It looks like it is thirty dollars for one year, which kind of makes okay.
Thirty dollars per year, right, I think it's I think it's like thirty dollars a month for the business plan, and that one doubles in the second year, and then doubles in the third year. So the third year, it's like by the third year year up to thirty or forty dollars.
And I think it's I think it.
Works out to something like four hundred and twenty dollars per PC for a business over the course of three years, which is you know, you could you could practically buy a new PC.
Well, and that's the thing.
But I mean, I understand the look, I mean, number one, in these companies, if you're running like some sort of software and you don't want it to break or something, you just don't want to mess with what you've got right, everything's working, So I understand why you made want to extend that. But my other thing is if Microsoft's going to be making these updates anyway, I mean, why do they want people to switch to Windows eleven? Is it just because it's like the time has come?
There's well, not to get two technical about it, but in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, there were some very significant security flaws that were discovered in Intel's chip lines. Those are the things that power all those hundreds of millions of older PCs, and so those those vulnerabilities, specter and meltdown they were called, and they were a very
very big deal. And so basically they represent kind of a dividing line between an old, insecure generation of Intel based Windows PCs and the newer ones that have taken care of those issues. And so Microsoft, you know, basically decided, although they've never come out and said this publicly, but they basically decided to draw that line right there and say we're this is where we're going to begin support for this. God now, now there is a thing. However,
I've written about this. It's one of the most popular articles that I've ever written, and I.
Continue I continue to get email from people.
You if if you have a PC that runs that successfully runs Windows ten, you can force it to upgrade to Windows eleven.
You can bypassibility checks.
Okay, how do we do this? Should we find the article?
Yeah, you could find that article.
Will it be as secure? Though?
That's the thing, like will your computer be because once you're in Windows eleven, will it be just as secure as another computer running Windows eleven?
If you force yeah, you know, the difference will be ninety nine point eight versus ninety nine point nine percent secure. You know, you're you're not you're not in any danger. Uh you know, you're you're running the exact same Windows eleven that's running on on a newer PC. All you're doing is you're bypassing the technical compatibility checks. But Windows ten and Windows eleven are for for all intents and purposes.
Windows eleve even is a feature update two uh uh to Windows ten with some security to faults turned on and uh, you know, and with a slightly tweaked interface and something.
But it's very very similar. They're you know, they're they're.
Nearly uh that it's more of like additional features versus exactly a big gange exactly exactly. You know, they could easily have called Windows eleven, you know, Windows ten point five.
Oh and the article has how to upgrade your incompatible Windows ten PC to Windows eleven two free options on zd net dot com.
And real quick before we go, I've got like a minute left.
You wrote an article last year, your your your your columns are the gift that keeps on giving, and you wrote about how you said, basically, people modern PCs don't need antivirus. Can you just explain real quick what your thought is behind that?
Well, they don't need third part you don't need to pay for anti virus, and you don't need to download a third party antivirus program. There is a capability built into Windows ten and Windows eleven called Windows Defender Windows Defender Anti Virus, and it used to be kind of an also ran, but these days it ass every single test that the independent labs do and it's not just good enough, it's it's it's perfectly acceptable. And the only thing you're going to get by by paying.
For a third party program is more up sells.
Okay, so look it up under I guess Windows Security. Windows Defender is the program that actually does it. If you've got that on your computer, make sure it's up to date, and Ed says it's gonna be okay, ed Bot, thanks so much for joining me today. Really appreciate it. The website Ed bought. Let's see what which website you want me to give out. You've got a couple of them.
Yeah, let's go ahead and do. If you go to ZDNet.
Dot com, slash blog, slash bot, that should get you there. But you know you can put it in the show notes. But ZDNet dot com is where I do most of my publishing these days.
All right, Wealth of Information, great interview, Thank you so much for the information, and get those PCs upgraded or figure out it's coming soon October. All right, coming up next, we are going to open up the feedbag that's coming up right here on rich on Tech, and if you need the link to Ed's columns, I'll put it right on the website rich on Tech dot TV.
Back after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The feedbag is just overflowing this week, so we're going to get right into it so I can get through as many of your emails as possible. Alan from San Diego says, I listened to your segment with Dave Citron and his explanation of what personal information Google collects on us. It was very misleading. He made us sound like they collect very little and that we are in full control. I
asked Gemini, Well Google collects it's a lot. I also asked how to control that data for the average user. Finding and adjusting those settings is very difficult and some things just can't be controlled. As you said, when the app is free, we are the product that couldn't be more true than with Gemini. I felt like there wasn't enough discussion about the loss of privacy during your excitement over the product. Okay, it sounds like you might be
talking about Google or Gemini. Sounds like you're talking about about Gemini.
Yeah.
Look, all of these chatbots are collecting data. If you're using them, they are collecting data. Google says, conversations, uploaded files, feedback, things are kept for anywhere from auto delete after eighteen months even with the if you turn that feature off. Conversations are saved for up to seventy two hours to provide the service and processed feedback, and some conversations are reviewed by human reviewers and retained up to three years.
So look, yes, if you're using one of these chatbots, what you say to it is going to be seen, or it could have the potential to be seen. Oh more criticism of the AI stuff rich I caught the tail end of your interview with the Google AI rep. It reminded me of two kids gushing over a new toy. AI isn't a harmless voice assistant. It's serious and potentially dangerous. Quantum computing is changing everything. Garbage in, garbage out used to apply but not anymore. Google, in my opinion, is
inordinately evil. Most people don't realize it. They've strayed far from don't be evil. Please, no more Google reps. They don't deserve airtime. Wow, here's the thing. All that is fine and dandy until you use Google Gemini for what I did last night with the sprinklers, and it's incredible. So yes, there's always a good side to things and a bad side. Brian writes it on Instagram, Rich I
love notebook LM. Thanks for putting me into it. I use it for my law work, but my guilty pleasure is feeding it the detailed notes I take on TV shows and movies. The results are mind blowing. I uploaded a couple pages of notes on the plot of Twin Peaks, very Lynchian, very weird, and it turned my dry recap into a podcast that was more compelling than most of the real person twin Peaks podcasts than iTunes ouch. It understands nuanced plot holes, mysteries, and explained what's explained and
what's not. This feels empowering, not scary.
There you go. Lots of thoughts about AI this week.
Nick writes in another Fear AI could become too powerful, even while still dumber than us. We already struggle to stop humans from making bad decisions. What happens when flawed AI is driving decisions at scale with large language models, hallucinations might not be caught until it's too late.
Best Nick, Wow, let's see here.
Jojo writes in A friend of mine was scammed on WhatsApp by someone posing as a longtime friend. The message asked him to zell my to someone else because she had hit her monthly limit. Since he trusted her, he sent the money, only to learn her account had been compromised.
Ooh, that's a new one.
The scammers had access to her entire contact list, and at least four others were tricked the same way. Be careful if someone's asking you to sell someone else money or venmo, double check, call them or FaceTime them directly.
That is that's a big one.
Jess from California rites in, My mom in New Hampshire has never been into tech.
No phone, no email, no internet.
But I got her a grand Pad from Consumer Cellular and now we've been video calling and sharing photos for over seven years.
Oh wow.
The best part I manage it remotely as the account admin. I can update settings for my phone, send her photos, and even pipe in my Facebook post so she doesn't have to deal with the actual site. It's secure, easy for her to use, and gives us a way to stay closed despite the distance. When one device stopped working, they sent a replacement right away, no hassle. Every person we've dealt with has been kind, patient and helpful. I'm just a fan who hopes more people find out about
this great option for older family members. Yeah, the grandpad is I actually interviewed the CEO or the founder at cs. I didn't get a chance to ever air that, but it is interesting and we probably should do a little bit more on that.
Uh.
Okay.
Finally, Germo from Los Angeles writes, and I've been trying out the text ai tool. It seems okay, but it didn't answer all my questions. I asked for tequila recommendations and it responded I can't help with that. I asked chat GBT the same thing, and it gave me a full list. Not that I drink, but the subject came up.
Okay, what thank you, Germo.
Julie writes in I listened to your podcasts each morning as I get ready for work and sometimes in the car if I'm driving.
I have learned a lot and take notes on things you talk about. Thank you.
Julie Mindy writes in I started listening about a month ago. Very useful, understandable, and you really go into depth with everyone who calls in. I got tired of politics, but tech always fascinates me.
Thanks, thank you, Mindy.
And Loretta writes in I'm back after almost three weeks in Egypt. I really missed your show, your texts, your newsletters. I've been busy catching up. You're the only one I can truly rely on for tech info, and you explain it in a way even I can understand.
Well, thank you, Loretta. I love that.
Three weeks in Egypt. Wow, that's a nice vacation. All right, that's gonna do it for this show. Rich on Tech dot tv is the website. Find me on social media at rich on tech don't forget. Subscribe to my free newsletter is at rich on tech dot tv. I've got I think we're just at almost fifty thousand, so that's very exciting to hit that number. And of course you can watch my TV segments if you want to submit something to the feedback, go to rich on tech dot
tv and hit contact. Don't forget there is a podcast version of this show. Search rich on tech. Next week, we've got the CEO of Clicks, they make that little keyboard attachment you can put on an iPhone or some other we'll talk to them, and then we've got representative from the Fido Alliance. They're going to talk about past keys. This is a way to ditch passwords completely using past keys. Thank you so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time. I really do appreciate
you spending it right here with me. We've got Adam today on the board. Thank you, Adam. We've got Kim working the phone lines today. Thank you Kim. My name is rich Dmiro. So much great stuff in this show to share with you. I really do appreciate you sitting here and enjoying it. I hope you enjoy it just as much as I do. Uh yeah, that's amazing. We've got so much. Just go to the website rich on tech dot TV if you want to learn more. All right, Adam,
is there anything else you want to add to the show. Nope, okay, I guess that I guess that sound means it's time to go.
My name is rich dmiro. I will talk to you real soon.