What's going on? I'm rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the stuff that I think you should know about happening in the tech world. It is also where I answer the questions that you send me, whether it's by mail, email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, telegraph, carrier pigeon, Carrier pigeon. There's producer Megan. Welcome to the show.
Hey, what's going on?
What happened to the hey? Hey hey?
I've never had a you had a.
Little catchphrase hello Yeah, Nope, you had one a little bit. You were like, hey, hey.
Hey, hey, I think that was one time.
I remember it. I think the community remembers it well. But anyway, how's it going? Good? Good?
Some crazy stories this week?
This was a secretly weirdly busy week. And I mean everything from like how are you the head of Amazon? And have your iPhone hacked? Yeah? I mean, what is going on there? I did a really cool story this week with a contact lens that is like this. There are some stories you go on and I this happens often, but not you know me, Like I most of the time, when I get a story or I see something in real life, I kind of give you like the real deal. I'm like, here's what's going on with that? Yeah, So
I'm not that impressed most of the time. Other times I'm like, this is really cool. Here's why. Contact Lens was one of those moments where I'm like, this is amazing and this is the future, even though I didn't believe it would be. It really what they showed me in that room was like whoa. It just it had me thinking for the rest of the day like, wow, this is really cool. Then another thing that did is this app I'm gonna talk about later. That is just amazing.
For when it comes to, you know, finding all the stuff that's streaming on your like Netflix and Disney Plus, it's so crazy out there, like I don't know what do you have? What's streaming services? You have got Apple.
Tvababy Plus, Apple TV, Netflix and Hulu.
And like, just so I'm imagining every night when you want to find someone to watch, it's like you know, ping pong between these things and you're like, oh, let me check this and let me go back, and then your brain has to make a decision and then you go back into that thing and then you're like, Okay, let me find that again, it's such a mess right now, it's too much. This makes cable TV look like a
cakewalk streaming services right now for reals. Anyway, all right, well let's just get right into it, because there's a lot of stories this week, and the first one that I just think is insane is this Jeff Bezos, you know,
head of Amazon, trillionaire getting his iPhone hacked. Now, when I first heard this story and I heard that his his phone was hacked, I was like, oh, well, clearly it's an Android, because there's no way what they're talking about could be done on an iPhone, like everything sandboxed. Everything kind of runs in its own little world and nothing kind of talks to each other. But no, this was an iPhone.
Ten Do you picture him with an Android?
I did when I heard this story. I was like, oh, it's probably some.
Probably as an android.
No, I just I don't know.
I mean, like I I have no I I was like, oh, iPhone interesting, it's very ihe I.
Don't know if most people care. Maybe you do, but I really am interested in what people carry around as their phone on a daily basis. It's like it's very intriguing.
Like did he update right, Like did he upgrade right when the new iPhone came out?
Like I wouldn't know because he has an iPhone ten. So he's clearly rocking, not even like the TENN S or the TENNS max or multiple eleven too, I don't think. So that's kind of tough to to juggle multiple phones. I mean I do that, and it's it's hard, not easy, all right, So what happened He was having a WhatsApp conversation with a Saudi prince, right, is that what it is?
A Saudi prince? Yeah, And next thing you know, the Saudi prince sent some sort of video to his phone, and his phone was hacked, and now all of a sudden, the data on his phone went from an average of four hundred and thirty kilobits per day to one hundred and twenty six megabytes a day. So it just started
siphoning off information from his phone. Now, I don't even understand how that would work on an iPhone because for anything to get access to your phone, if it's a regular app, you have to give permission, Hey can we access your contacts? Can we access your photos?
Just suck out.
But so I think the theory is that this was operating on kind of the inside of his phone, like a at a very base level of his phone that had access that most apps don't have. So it's really weird. It's like some super like deep stuff going on here. But long story short, I was just trying to figure out, like what's the takeaway for me and you, because if this can happen to Jeff Bezos, this can happen anyone.
And the reality is apparently he had a setting toggled on that was in WhatsApp, and this isn't a lot of apps steal Yeah, please let others take all my info. That is basically auto down load media. So when you get a file sent to you, like a video, it will download it to your phone automatically. And that's convenient because then you don't have to wait. Like let's say you send me a video file, I don't have to wait for it to download, Like when I get to
my phone and open it up, it's already there. It's been delivered, it's been signed to delivered that yeah, and I think most people do. But you should probably turn that off. And it's on WhatsApp, this is on on sapp. But this has to do with a lot of different apps out there. Most of the time, the first time you use a messaging app, it'll say like, do you want a preview of a link? When someone sends you a link? And I always turn that on because I'm like, yeah,
it's easy to see, you know. It shows you like a little web page or like a little if someone sends you an Instagram link, it'll send you like a little you know, a little preview of what that link can take.
Inspiring so many hackers right now.
I mean you have to be pretty heavy duty to figure out a hack like this, Like this is really this is like government based, this is this is like super duper intelligent. You can't you and I could not do this right, Like I could be like, hey, what was your secret code word again? And you might be like, oh, yeah, it was pigeon, and I'm like, oh, thank you. Wait.
What what I'm confused about is like there's so many layers to the story, Like did they meet once?
Yeah? I think they were friends. I think they were I think they had.
A meeting and they friend hacked him.
No, I think no, that's that's it's all concluded. And I don't know. I'm not going to get into the whole Saudi prince relationship thing, but it is fascinating. It's also fascinating to me. I've always been fascinated by the idea of like Jeff Bezos' everyday life, Like what it's like to wake up, like have breakfast in his house, like go to work, like get to to get to work, like be out, be throughout the day. Like what does
he do for lunch? She's like, uh, you know, to his assistant, like, can you order me WI typical egg whites and spinach? He does, Yeah, he does whatever anyway, All right, time for the first question. Enough about Jeff.
Okay, so if you want Rich to answer your tech question, go to his website site Rich on tech dot tv and hit the contact button to send your question. So this first question comes from Diane. I need help in switching from Google to one of the more secure search engines that you mentioned this morning. So this was back, yeah, a couple a couple of days ago. She said, she's seventy eight and she does not understand She yeah, she
does not understand most of the jargon associated with computers. Anyways, So can we go through some of the websites that we mentioned.
Okay, and she wants to know how to switch to those okay, because I mentioned on TV that you know, like okay. So this all came about because I talked about that one search that Verizon one, and then I gave you know that like protects your privacy. We talked about this extensively in the last show. The other ones were Duck dot Go, Startpage, dot com, and then something
called quant out of France. So Diane is asking. I said on TV, you can switch your default search engine on iPhone, on Android, on the on Chrome, on your desktop. Pretty much any web browser lets you switch your default search engine. So on iPhone, you go into your settings and then you look for Safari, and under Safari you'll see more settings, and you go and you look for search engine, and inside there you can select which search
engine you want to use. Now, on iPhone, as far as I can see, with Safari, it doesn't seem like you can put in your own. I only see Google, Yahoo, Bing, and duck duck Go. So if you wanted one that's more private, duck dot go. Now you can also download a whole web browser that like like I think duck duck go has like its own app I'm sure these other ones do as well, Like one Search. I'm sure they have like their own apps that you can download.
If you're on Android, you probably love Google, so you're probably not gonna change your stuff. And on android's tracking in a lot of different ways, so it may not make that most sense. But you can open up Chrome. You can go into menu, which is the three little dots in the upper right hand corner, Settings and search engine, and on Chrome you can set it to whatever you want. And I had a lot of luck setting it to
all kinds of things very easily. The main thing is that you just have to use that search engine once on your phone or on Chrome rather and it then registers in the list. It'll be like, oh, do you want to we noticed you use this? Do you want
to set that as your search engine? And on Chrome desktop you go into Settings, then search Engine, then manage search Engines, and again you just look at the list of all the places that you've used for search, and it comes up with a lot of websites like you can even set like Macy's dot com as you like to fall search. It's like every time you search, it's like it comes up yeah, like whatever close match your search.
I don't know if you can actually do Macy's, but it does come up with like almost every website you go to that has a search bar. Let me just see you real quick. So if I go to manage search engines, yeah, like you can set it as anything like you can even Yeah, you can basically set it as anything Amazon, whatever you want. So you just click the three little dots next to the search engine and
you set it as your default. Now, the only thing I will say with that is I tried doing this to start Page for like literally one search, and I couldn't deal with it because you don't realize just how much Google presents you information without you having to do a lot of work. So, with the example of start Page, which I thought was good because it gives you Google results,
I just search for CVS pharmacy. And now normally if you do that on Google, you're gonna get a little thing at the top that shows you your closest CVS in a map, along with a website link, along with a button to call that or a map so you can get directions to it. Versus, if you don't have Google set and you just have start Page, you're gonna literally get like CVS Pharmacy a link to just like general the web page.
Yeah, and it's like that, I don't know where you they don't know where you are.
It doesn't help, right exactly. So anyway, there are some quirks associated with switching your search engine, and I'm not ready to do that. I personally love Google. I love the personalization, I love how it knows about me, and I love all that stuff. So I'm good with it for now. Speaking of privacy, so if you thought your iCloud backups were encrypted and safe and secure, well not
so much. There's a report from Reuter's that says Apple considered making iCloud backups the most secure they can be, which is called end to end encryption, but they decided not to because the FBI complained to them. Now, this is a report from sources. This is not fact, but this is what they are reporting, and it is no matter what the story is, whether Apple succumb to pressure or not, it still tells us a lot about our
iCloud backups. And to me, this was news to me because if you go on Apple's website and you look at the iCloud backup, it says encrypted. It does not say end to end encrypted. Now what does that mean? It means that Apple, even though your iCloud backup, which has your texts in it, it has your contacts, it has all your I Cloud information, your photos, who you call, all kinds of data. I mean, there's just a ton of data in there. Well, it means that Apple can
unlock that data. They hold the key to the encryption on their end. So when the FBI comes to them, it says, hey, we know you won't help us unlock Megan's phone because we get it you don't do that, but do you mind helping us out by giving us just a copy of Megan's last iCloud backup? And they say, do you have a warrant? You? What's this for? Blah blah, And according to this article, like ninety percent of the time they say yes. Wow. So even though you thought
you were being safe and encrypted, not really. The government can kind of have almost direct access to your data, which is kind of scary. Everything, I mean pretty much everything is in iCloud. Wow. So yeah, So the way around this is basically, if you want a fully encrypted backup of your phone, you have to ditch iCloud and you have to go back to plugging your phone into your computer and using iTunes and making sure that you select the option that says, well, now there's no iTunes
but music. No, it's actually through Finder now. So you would just plug it in, your phone would show up and Finder, you would click your phone name and then look up in backups and make sure you click the option for encrypt backup. And so once you do that, it will be encrypted and nobody can have access to that. Like that's it. And if you forget your code or your pass code to your phone, your SOL, you'll have to start over. So wow, yeah, kind of crazy, but
I'm glad. No matter what if the report's right or wrong, like whether Apple's to come to pressure because they were going to encrypt them two years ago. Whether that's true or not, it doesn't really matter. It has now brought light to the fact that Apple does not fully encrypt these things, so that's kind of important for consumers.
Now people know.
Yep.
This next question comes from Tiffany high Rich today, without any new update. I started getting ads when I opened a text message, mostly for games, and I have to close out the AD tech to continue to read the text. Is this new and how can it be stopped? PSI have a Samsung Galaxy and have been with Sprint for at least twenty years.
This is an interesting one because this is I think a Android only issue because on iPhone, again, like I've said, when something's in the background, it's not running. So even if there was an app, the worst it can do on your phone is really send you a notification like
you've seen notifications spam. My kids download these games that I call them tycoon games that they want you to play all the time, so they're always sending you notifications like hey, your villagers are going hungry, make sure you play hop back in the game, or you know, one thousand more gold coins till you reach the top of the mountain or whatever it is. Or your amusement park is looking low these days, can you build a new ride? Whatever it is? It's garbage and so I but that's
how they spam you on iOS. That's like kind of the extent of it. On Android. Apps in the background can do a lot of stuff. They can serve up ads. They and take over a full screen ad with a little tiny X in the corner or no x. It makes you pause before you can do anything. Yeah, and this can happen while you're not using the app. So my theory is that some app that she downloaded onto her phone is serving up these ads in the background, right.
Like maybe her child downloaded something, if.
She has a kid, and like, yeah, and so what I would do is I would go through your entire app list and I would go through and uninstall anything that you don't use. And it could be, if I had to guess, it's probably a free game that's doing it, or it could be something more evil. I don't know. I'm not sure, but it's crazy. It's just weird that it's probably not like something that's coming from the phone, I don't think. But I would again just go and disable.
If you can't uninstall an app, disable it and then restart your phone and see if they still persist. But that's that's kind of annoying.
I mean, that's got to be really cool, getting an AD every time you open a text.
Like, yeah, I mean, it's odd that it's happening when she's opening the text. And yeah, it could be that she's using a third party text messaging app that maybe does have ads, but it usually wouldn't be that intrusive even if it was, but it could be.
Yeah.
Speaking of apps, quake Alert USA now available. If you live in the Los Angeles area or the California area, it is essential that you have one of these earthquake early warning apps. And this is one that I've been talking to the developer for about two years now, and it took him a while to get this to market, but it is here. It's called quake Alert USA and it basically the first day of availability, they had tens of thousands of downloads and they actually even had their
first alert, So this was crazy. This guy sent me the message that his app was now available, and I've had it on my phone since two years ago. He gave me access to the beta, so I've had it for a while now. But so the first night that this is available, there's an earthquake in the LA area, which I felt this one yep, quacker Alert USA, and I actually did not get an alert. And I asked him, I said, Josh, the guy who created it. I'm like, what's the deal? How come I didn't get an alert?
And he said, well, you were actually not in the area of alerts, so you have to be in a certain magnitude and a certain shaking feeling. Now, the difference between this app and a lot of the other early warning apps is that you can actually set a threshold for how hard the shaking is to alert you. Okay, So if you want every single alert for like even
the lowest threshold of shaking, you can get it. Or if you only want somebody that's really gonna, you know, rock your house back and forth, then you can set it that way as well. And you also get a countdown to shaking, which I think is really interesting. So it will count down on your phone screen earthquake in thirty, twenty nine, twenty eight, twenty seven, and it gives you instructions on what to do. Now. I did not grow up in California, so I did not know about this
whole like get under a table thing. I would have run outside. And when I met Josh and interviewed him the first time, he's like, what are you doing an earthquake? Oh, I'm getting out dodge, I'm gonning, I'm running outside. He goes, that's how you get killed, because guess what's gonna fall on top of you? Something from the top of the building that you just ran outside. From I said, oh interesting, I never thought about that safest place go under a table?
Did you know this? Did you grow up and learn this? Yeah? I did never learn this.
And you cover your neck?
Oh interesting. I would cover my phone screen.
I know you would. That's the first thing you like, where's my phone? I can't drop yet?
Okay, Uh anyway, so download it Quake alert USA.
Okay, So this next question is from Tony.
Oh Tony, hold on, this is for Tony. Remember that? Do you remember that?
What's that from Tony the Tiger? Yes, which I love. That's like one of my favorite cereals.
So you know they make chocolate now everything is chocolate now, Like every that I had as a kid is now there's a chocolate version. So okay, my kids are obsessed with cereal.
But I miss it well because.
We don't have a fridge in the text studio. I know, Jason, we need a.
Fridge almond milk. Okay. So Tony asks, is there any way to make a Mac do a two factor authentication when someone logs into my computer? I'm okay if I use touch ID since that would be hard to break, But I'm worried if my computer is stolen someone could potentially guess my password and there is no second factor. I think this is a bit of a security issue.
That is a great question. And I'm assuming he's talking about Mac because or actually Windows has a thumbprint as well. But he said touch ID specifically.
Yeah, it's for Max.
Well, I don't think so. I don't think there is two factor right now. Apple has two factor authentication, not for every time you log in.
It's for like iCloud.
Well, it's for like the first time you log into something.
Yeah, for like yeah, well it just well so normally, like with my laptop, it's like after an hour if I tried to if I try to get in, I have to do the fingerprens right right, But he's saying like why.
Can't Yeah, he wants it every single time he logs in someone you have to put in a code. Now, I think that would be really annoying. Yeah, that would be very annoying because how many times you unlock your computer day. And by the way, Megan, I would recommend this is what I do, okay is and I would recommend.
This for anyone fingerprint just fingerprint.
No, No, I'm just saying what I would recommend for locking. You said your computer locks after an hour if you work in a public shared place at work, two things I would do. Number one, if you have a Windows computer, when you walk up away from your desk, I would just tap the Windows in L at the same time, hold those two buttons down for a second, and it locks your computer gets you back to the locks you because you never know. I mean, we live in a
world with corporate espionage and Jeff Bezos getting his phone hacked. Yes, so you don't want to leave your computer where anyone could just walk up to it and start using it. So when I use my Windows can at work, I always Windows in L boom lock it up. Second thing, on a Mac, I have a hot corner set up, So if you go to my Mac computer, if you if I right before I walk away from it, I just move my mouse to the lower right hand corner
and it locks my desktop. So that when like the other day, this is so this came into Plague of the day, Megan comes running in. She's like, oh, I'm.
Just heading to right sat at the studio.
Right I'm heading to the studio And she's like, oh my gosh, She's like, you forgot to save your script it's still open on your desktop. And she's like, no worries, I'll just I'll just go on your desktop and save it. I was like, you can't do that, Like, my computer is locked as soon as I walk away. So I had to go back and use my touch ID and it was fine. We got on the air. But still, so if you want to set that up, let's see how do you do that? You got to I forget
how I do this. Okay. You go into a settings on your Mac computer mission control hot corners, and you can set whatever one you want as your hot corners. Personally, I have the upper left as mission control, which shows if I put my mouse in the upper left hand corner shows me all my windows, which I just love. If I put it in the lower left hand corner, it shows me my desktop, so I can drag and drop things and this and that. And if I do the right lower right, I lock the screen. Upper right
I've not found a good use for. Also, that's where the little spotlight searches, so you go there more often than like other corners.
Yeah.
So so for your computer, is it always touch.
Or well, it's it depends. I have my Apple Watch so if my Apple Watch decides to work with it, it will unlock when I get near my computer, when I go to the login screen. Yeah, I think it's using Bluetooth to do that. Got it. And then if that doesn't work, my new computer as touch ID, which
I'll use. If that doesn't work, it's password. But again, to answer the question, I don't believe that Apple has a way that that forces you to two factor authentication every time you log in, and I think that would be kind of annoying for most people. Also, Tony, I think if you set your computer as lost, like in lost mode, once you do lose it, I think that there might be some more higher security precautions when you do that. That would be my guess.
Interesting.
All right, now, let's talk about this contact lens that is just totally wild. It's from a company called Mojo Vision. I get it. So here's what happened. I think it was this week on Monday, this company came out of stealth and I saw all the articles posted online of all these people at CS that got a little I guess you could call it heads up or a sneak peek, not to use puns for the eye. At this company that's making an ar contact lens, an augmented reality contact lens,
think terminator. Think you're looking through a contact lens that puts stuff into the world around you, like time, temperature, people's names, like when I look at your face, it would auto recognize it and say Megan mcmonagall and like have like more information about you.
I think this is the first episode of Black Mirror.
It's stuff like that.
It's like something like that.
Yeah, And so I was, you know, like, oh, all these tech people got to see this except me. Then I get a call from someone who remains on knowing. They're like, I got Mojo Vision in Los Angeles on Wednesday? Do you want to meet? And I'm like, why are you talking so softly? I can hear you just fine. They're like, oh okay, so yeah, would you like to meet with them? I said sure, and so we go over and uh, I was hesitant because I didn't really know. I was like, is this a scam? It's just kind
of like bogus. No. Turns out it's pretty amazing. And so I put on this little contact lens which looks like a thick version of a contact lens, which actually will be the thickness, but it's like a medical grade contact lens, so apparently these are in use for other medical issues. It looks like a really thick do you wear context, it's like a it's like pretty thick, but it stays on your eyes. No, they said it works.
I mean, if you think about your eye, I mean it's not really it's not like you're I don't know. I don't wear contact, so I have no idea. But I put this little thing on, and or I didn't put it on, but I looked through it, and inside this lens is a tiny display, the world's tiniest display.
They also have wireless power and wireless data transfer, and so you look through this thing and I'm looking at a screen and all of a sudden, like okay, one scenario, it's a business meeting where the person speaking like another language, and in your eyeball you're seeing everything translate in real time.
So when they're saying nice to meet you, mister Demiro, I see that translated in English, even though they're talking a different language in English, and like I can respond to that, and then presumably they have to wear it to see the other side. Anyway. The other one was like bikers. You know, you look down at your watch when you're biking or you're running for all the data on how fast you're going and this and that. No, now you just look ahead on the horizon and all
the data's right there. The other scenario was like a basketball game, which is showing you, like the shot clock and the score right in your eyes as you're watching the game. Then they took me into a dark room that was completely black, and I could actually see in the dark. Yeah, pretty much. And that's a little tricky because it uses AR or infrared light. But the craziest thing I did was they showed me what the operating
system is going to look like. Because you're like, well, how do you use this thing?
Yea, yeah, you charge it.
Well, there's a little box that sits on your waist and that will give you like all the data on power that you need. So but the operating system, the way it works is it's kind of like imagine four corners in your eye. You look to the upper left to get your calendar, you look to the upper right to get the weather, you look to the lower right to get your to get your whatever. But the coolest thing was I asked the guy. I said, hey, this would be great for news anchors because we don't need
to tell a prompter anymore. We can just read the script in our eyeballs. And he goes, that's part of the demo. And so at the end of the demo, I am doing a speech with the prompter in my eyes, where I'm just like talking to you, but I'm reading a speech in my eyeball.
So do your eyes shift while you're reading it or you're just like staring.
Well, that's the other thing. It automatically advances the script when you pause, the script pauses, it just sees the tiny movement in your eye and it goes by that, so it knows that you're reading up a little bit, and it's like it's just following your movie.
It blows my mind, like, like does the dimensions of things? How does it?
How do they It's amazing, I don't know. And how how they make something that tiny? Yeah, it's just it's it's mind boggling. This is a couple of years off. Initially it's going to be for people with vision issues, so like macular to get to macular degeneration, yeah, degeneration, uh, those kind of things. But eventually this is the kind of thing that you just imagine we will have in the future and we're all going to be terminator with vision.
I love the idea of when you walk by someone, your little contact lenses automatically scanning their face and giving you all the information on them their latest social media updates, so you can see like, oh, they just in Hawaii. Your name, so like, I don't forget your name when I walk past you in the hallway and be.
Like hey, mangan Wow, that is so crazy. Hey dude, I just this blows my mind.
Do you have anyone here that you don't really know their name but you say hi to them a lot? I've got a whole laundry list.
Uh, there are some people, a couple of people I can't like tell you because I don't know their name, but I.
Know, but you know that you walk by that I know you. Yeah. For me, that's really tricky because yeah, I know, it's kind of that's see, that's an unfair advantage because that happens to me out and about like this will happen to me nine times out of ten. I will go up to like, let's say, a parking attendant or someone at the checkout and they'll just be like, all right, Rich, have a good day. I'm like what And every time I'm like wait what did that person?
Still it still gets you.
Every single time, every.
Single time to say like a number. After a lot of years, after like two years of being on TV, everyone.
Knows, but it is, it still gets you because it's it's an unnatural thing that most people don't have to deal with. And like, it still gets me because when I'm out at Costco and it's always weird because they just throw it in, they slide it in and then they'll do something. I'll like kind of like do something.
I'll be like, oh, like no, I actually know you. My kid plays with your kid?
Yeah yeah, oh yeah TV.
And they're like wait what you're on TV.
No. The best is when you go to a conference and they're like, all right, Rich, we'll get that right out for you. I'm like, oh, thank you, I'm on Channel five. Good to see you. Like now you have a badge on.
Yeah, It's like I'm looking at your card like wow, oh, I'm just still thinking about the contact lens.
Yeah. It's it's wild.
Okay, So this next question comes from John Rich. I was listening to YouTube streaming audio on my iPhone seven last night, and all of a sudden, at midnight, my LG smart O l E l ed TV in my family room turned itself on to the same song I was listening to. The audio stopped on my iPhone when this occurred. Do you have any idea what might have caused this?
I believe this is some sort of casting of audio to your smart TV. So most of the smart TVs these days have some sort of receiver built in which talks to your phone, and when your phone is on the same Wi Fi network as your TV, or you know, these smart speakers and all this stuff, you can kind of what's called cast whatever you're doing on your phone, whether it's video or audio to your device, and it's
pretty seamless. Now, I think it's odd that has happened automatically, but these phones, I think what happened is that he might have pressed the button in the upper right hand corner, the cast button. It looks like a little screen with a couple of waves coming out of it, and I think he might have pressed that just out of curiosity, like, oh, why that's weird. Yeah, And then all of a sudden,
that triggered the casting. And when you do that, even if your TV is not actively on, it's smart enough to turn itself on when you start that process, which is pretty convenient. So in my house, when you turn on the Apple TV or the Fire TV, there's something called CEC control, which is I don't know what it stands for, but it basically all these manufacturers have worked together to say, hey, we know that when you turn on your Apple TV, you probably want your TV to
turn on as well. So we're gonna go ahead, when you press the power button on your Apple TV, turn on your TV for you so you don't have to use two remotes. And that's the same thing with casting. When you cast something to your Chrome cast or your TV, we're going to assume you want that TV to come on so that you can actually hear or see what you're casting, right, And I think that's what happened here. It's not a ghost. It might have been a quirk.
I mean, it could have been probably a ghost. That's Megan, that's what Megan thinks. I'm just kidding.
It could have been a quirk that this happened automatically. Maybe there's just some sort of misfire, But I think that that's what happened, is or or when he opened YouTube music, it was already casting earlier in the day and it just kind of resumed the casting. There's a million things that could have happened here, but that's what I believe is going on. So it wasn't some sort of crazy weird you know, something taking over or TV. No, I don't think so. I mean it could have been.
If you have what's apped the Saudi Prince lately? What's his name?
That's the name of it, Oh.
John, John, If you've been what'sapping with the Saudi Prince, I'd be concerned because you made him in taken Over.
Do you ever forget like when you connect your phone to your like speakers in your house and then you're going through like Instagram stories and like suddenly it's like super loud and it's like someone's concert.
Yeah. I haven't had that at my house, but in my car because I do that because I I disconnect
my bluetooth sometimes to listen. It's very complicated. But when I when I watch the packages that Okay, this is so in the weeds, but so basically our editor at the end of the day sends me my story on Dropbox, so I can watch it, yes, and I'll but when I do that, I don't want it to play through my car speakers because I'm usually in the car at the time, like I'm stopped on the side of the road right and I'm so I'm picking up my kids usually yeah, and uh so I don't want it through
my speakers. I want it through my phone so I can hear it properly. And so sometimes I forget to when I reconnect in my car later, all of a sudden, the pack it starts playing in the car.
Oh yeah, yeah, And you're like, who, I like, what is that?
I'm like, why am I hearing myself? It happens a lot. It happens often enough, So why I.
Like open like an Instagram store and that it's playing on my speaker upstairs?
That is disconcerting. But you know that, you know when it happens that you can fix it easily. All right, let's uh, let's see Okay, people are up in arms. What do you want me to talk about next? You want to talk about voting online or Google's new look?
Oh, voting online?
I know so this when I was a kid I never understood that why we couldn't vote online. I was like, okay, come on, Like, doesn't it just make sense. You can vote from your phone. You do everything from your phone, I know. But voting is the last thing where you have to go into a weird place that you never go, like church.
Go into your local school.
Or a library, like all these places you would never normally go.
It is random.
But anyway, so I'm joking, don't come after me if you go to church.
Or school or library your phone in.
That's that's bogus. They totally no, that's totally bogus because everyone brings their phone in. And I last time I looked at my phone to see what my choices were.
How yeah, how else am I supposed to figure out who's running for president? You have to google it?
Uh so? Yeah, and you just vote for the first person that shows.
Up there abe, whoever's first BBC.
I just usually go through whatever the first vote things.
I just do AAA.
That's the easiest way to do it. Yeah. And you know, those voting people, by the way, know which dots are highlighted, and so they're just looking at you like they know where you.
Voted for it when I turned in and they look at it and they're like.
They like know, and they go like this to me, like are you sure. I'm like, excuse me, I want to try again.
They like rip it up and throw it.
Away, like we joke, that does not happen, total jokes. We don't even vote, So in yeah, we would have to vote to know about this stuff. So in Seattle, one point two million voters in the county will actually be able to vote from their mobile web browser from until election day, which they're trying to make more people vote because it's super easy.
So voters go to this election website, enter their name and date of birth, they make their selections, and then they sign their name on their phone screen, and then election officials compare their signature, so I guess the signature that they have from their driver's license back in the day or somehow, and that's it. Their ballot is counted. Now I think this sounds amazing. It sounds like it's so easy to hack.
This screams hack.
But like, I don't know, but if you could have the whole US vote like on Facebook, and if you could have.
The CEO of Amazon get yeah, I.
Guess it's kind of scary. But I mean, but what's scarier They put these things in a little ballot box and they count them. And I mean I used to cover you know, I was a regular reporter when I first started out, and I used to cover elections all the time. And I remember I would go into the assessor's office and they would have, you know, those like mail crates that like say, do not steal. It's a
mail crate. It's like a plastic crate. Seeing those around, it's just like those filled with ballots, and they would put them into machines and count them and then take those counts and tell them no, they woul put them in a machine that like kind of like a money
counter and it would like count the votes. And that's the whole thing with the hanging chads is that you were probably too young, but they had this thing in like I think two thousand with the hanging chads were they were saying that the when you punch Now we use ink ins in California, at least in Los Angeles, but back in the day, you would punch through the ballot to make a hole in it. Well, sometimes when you punched through the little piece of paper didn't fall off.
So when you went and you put them all atop of each other, guess what, when the machine went to read that hole, it wouldn't be there because it would still feel like it was filled in. So that was the whole controversy. And anyway, my point is, voting in the current methods are not perfect by any means, no matter what. But it seems like this online voting would be awesome, but at the same time kind.
Of crazy fact authentication.
They need retina scan when you can vote in your contact lens. That sounds like a win.
What's up? That's what's up?
All right, Megan?
Oh, it's me, It's okay. So this next question comes from Marisa, where we're definitely in Apple family with iPhones iPads. For the longest time, my two sons have shared just one iPad air. However, my for my oldest son's upcoming birthday, we are planning on giving him his personal iPad. My husband and I share the same iCloud and the same Apple story d we so we can we all share the same Sorry, this is kind of confusing. We all share this share the same iphotos library across all devices,
but thinking if we can separate app Store purchases. I think it's time to move us to an iCloud family sharing sharing setup. But I'm so confused. Help. So I guess she just wants to know how to do that with her family.
What sounds very confusing, I know, I don't.
It was like really wordy, you want to read it.
I'm so confused right now.
With the with the question everything you mean?
All right? So I think what she's asking is that they have been sharing iCloud logins and all this stuff.
Is that what she's asking? She never asks a question.
Well, I think she's She kind of says, she says, I'm confused.
Help.
Yes, So this is what I gather from her question. And the bottom line is that she should be setting up family sharing. So every person on her iCloud account, So start with the master account that's hers. Then add your husband. Now he should have his own login so he can create that logan on his own. Doesn't have to be a sub account whatever. Create that login. Then you claim that logan under yours. So it says add family members to your account. So you go into your
settings so everyone gets their own login. So I had to do this with my kids, and it was weird to My five year old have his own iCloud login, but you do it, yeah, And when you do it, it basically just sets him up as an account. And he has his own iCloud account. So does my little kid. They both do, both my kids, but they're under my
family account. So does my wife. So when you go into your iCloud under your settings, family sharing is where you set it up and you add a family member and you can invite via I message in person, or you can create a child account. So I would go into a family sharing first and create They didn't have create child account when I did it back in the day, but now you can just create child account. It'll walk you through the process. They become part of your account
and then you can share everything. So for instance, we have two hundred gigs of storage. Ooh sounds big, right, it's not when you share it against four people. So we have two hundred gigs of storage and it's all shared among everyone. So when we back up our phones and our devices, you don't have to be paying for multiple different accounts with music and all that stuff. You're gonna have to sign up for a family account. Basically every thing gets parsed out, and so you're not sharing everything.
I know so many stories of people who share the same iCloud account. Next thing you know, they're getting each other's I messages because they're sharing one account, and they're like, why am I getting my wife's texts?
Well, that's what my parents have.
Yeah, a lot of people do. Yeah, and it's like, no, no, you got to parse these things out. So create your own account, but manage it and family sharing and Apple has thought of everything, so you're not. It's not like this unique scenario like no, they know, like you want to prove your kids' purchases, you want to use your credit card for your kids purchases, you want to use their credit card. Whatever you want to do, you can do it inside that app. Just play with those settings.
So again, do not give your kids a credit card buy apps.
No, definitely approves that they approval by everything.
So again, it's settings on your iPhone or your iPad. Click your name, which is your Apple ID, and then go into family Sharing and you can set it all up there. Okay, finally, before we go, one quick mention of an app that has just changed my life overnight. It's called Real Good I got to give a shout out to my pal John who suggested this to me. I put a call out on Twitter for an app that can help me organize the movies that I want to watch, So bookmark things I want to watch, but
also see where they're streaming. And there's been apps in the past. I've tried an app called Ydeo, I tried an app called just Watch, but none of them were very good. I tried IMDb would be the greatest solution, but Amazon clearly does not want you to watch things in other places because it'll show you something streaming on Prime but like nowhere else. And the Prime streaming thing
is really confusing because theoretically everything's streaming on Prime. They don't really divide it up between like what's streaming for free and what's a paid stream, so that doesn't really work. I amdb, and it's also very cluttered. IMDb is like a mess, so but they do have everything anyway. So the app is called real Good and it is so far the best I found. The only downside is that
it is only for iOS at this point. I'm sorry to say, but what you do when you sign up, you sign up and you say the services that you have. So all the TV services and the movie services, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Prime Video, Showtime, Crunchy Role, Megan's favorite.
I'm going through it right now, Crackle, Acorn TV.
It's got everything. And so you go through, you say which ones you have subscriptions to. You also can say the TV everywhere. So let's say you have a subscription to Freedom or was it free Form? Your favorite network on TV used to be ABC Family. So you say that, and it will even tell.
You when you look up Planet.
Yeah, when you look up shows, it will tell you where it's streaming. But so here's what I did. I just went through and I bookmarked all the movies I want to watch, which is just a couple of Right now, I'll tell you, Megan, funny you should ask let me
say so, I will tell you. Let's see watch list movies Free Solo, The Two Popes Watching Six, Underground, Marriage Story, Aladdin, Uncut, gems Ford Versus Ferrari, Knives Out, Bombshell, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood nineteen seventeen, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the Final Countdown, as recommended by our pal gym oh Cool.
Well, so where can you watch Once upon a Time in Hollywood.
Oh, exactly, tell me right now, it's just to rent or buy, so it will tell me. So there's two levels. One is the stuff that's already on my services, so I can just go through and those are the things I'll watch on a Friday night. Because here's how this all happened. I was I had free time the other day and I was gonna watch a movie. Yeah, and so I have all these screeners at my house and they're all DVDs, and so it's once Upon, It's all the new movies, Once upon a Time in Hollywood, bombshell,
all these things. Well, I have no way of hooking it up because I have no DVD player. So I went into my garage. Oh for you, just give them to you.
Sure.
So I tried a million ways of using my computer as a DVD player, an old PS four, and I was like, okay, none of it was working like my PS four, Clearly I haven't turned it on.
So you have to straight up by a DVD player.
Yeah, and I'm not gonna do that. So but I also refuse to pay for a movie where I had the DVD sitting in my hand. There's got to be an app that can help me figure out all the good movies that are already on my services.
There is an app for this what well, I just.
Told you about it Real Good.
No, but there's an appems. What's it called? Never mind, I'm thinking of something else.
Ever, I don't think you know what you're talking about.
Thanks, So anyway, today, check out real I thought it was very nice.
Today. Check out Real Good. I think it is amazing. It's the best one that I've seen for these movies. And again, it helps you make the most of your streaming services. You're already paying for these things, or in Megan's instance, you're already on a family plan with these things, or sharing someone's password. Sol I am the family plan. I'm the one that's the host for all these people.
If you look at my Netflix, where your account's being used, it's being used in places I haven't visited in years. I'm like, illin, who's streaming in Illinois? Because I don't know who's in Illinois using my account. Someone is, Oh, that's not good. It might actually be our corporate network here. Oh, but you know people. It's like if you look at my if Netflix decided to look into my account. They'd be like, they'd be like, we're canceling this guy because
clearly he can't be in New Jersey wherever. All these places people are streaming in different devices all the same time.
I thought that everything has to be in a certain rateto.
No, they don't like crack Down and Netflix. If you're listening you want to cancel my account, go ahead, because nobody that's on my account will let me cancel it. Everyone's like, no, don't care. No, I don't care. I don't use Netflix. I could care less if Netflix went away tomorrow as a company, I would not even notice. I don't use Netflix. I don't care. I am paying sixteen nine a month for everyone else in the world to use Netflix. You can take sure. I only have five profiles.
Out everyone on the podcast.
So everyone has a profile. I've I've reached my max of five profiles.
It'll be funny if you could have like hundreds of profiles.
It's just like, clearly that would be like Bill Tell would be the ultimate Netflix power move to just be like, look, we really don't care. Yeah, so we are just going to get you know, We'll just give you.
You get an account, and you get an account.
And you get an account, and you get an account. Oh, Megan, I've said too much. How can people get in touch with you?
I'm on Twitter at producer Megan.
Did you pick up a lot of followers from the uh on TikTok?
Yeah, I haven't checked.
Okay, rate this podcast dot com slash rich on tech is the place to go to rate this podcast. And don't keep it a secret. We know you love your secrets in life, but don't keep this podcast one of them. Tell your friends. Send a link to this podcast to your friend and say you got to listen to this because it makes my day. When I listen, it gives me a smile on my face. And I learned about
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That's true.
I'm rich Demiro rich on Tech dot tv. You can find me on Instagram at rich on tech. And if you noticed I'm doing this new thing, and I'm telling you because you're an insider, because you're listening to this podcast. But I'm now editing special versions of my stories that you see on KTLA, so tell me what you think of those. I think it's pretty cool.
Oh yeah, this is now.
I just started with a contact lens story. So if you go to rich on Tech on Instagram, check out the contact lens story and tell me what you think. Thanks for listening. Thanks to everyone that makes this show possible and behalf a producer Megan myself and anyone that gets rich on Tech on your ears. Thanks for listening. Bye bye