Samsung on veils it's newest foldable phones, and early reviews are pretty strong. A new wearable lets you track blood pressure without a cuff and it's FDA approved. Why one woman spent a year receiving hundreds of Amazon returns to her house? Plus your tech questions answered? What's going on on Rich Demiro And this is Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that
tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. 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, triple eight, rich one oh one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. You can also send me an email. Just go to Rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact Guests. This week we've got Patrick Chome of Samsung. He's going to talk about the company's new line of foldables and why he
believes now is the time to jump on board. And later we've got Ari Paparo, a former Google executive and author of Yield How Google bought, built, and bullied its way to advertising dominance. They'll talk about how Google quietly took over digital advertising. Well, this week I was on the road once again. It has been a very, very busy summer. This week I was in Brooklyn for Samsung's
Unpacked event. Now, they usually do two of these a year, one for their standard S series of phones, like the Galaxy S twenty five, and then one for their Z series, which are their foldables. Now, if you look at a Z, I guess that kind of looks like a fold ball. I guess you might remember last year they launched their foldable phones in Paris along with their smart ring. The year before it was in Seoul, South Korea, where I
also got to take a tour of their headquarters. By the way, if the tech person that you like is not going to all of these various events, you got to think to yourself, how can they have perspective on all of this stuff. It is a lot of work to travel to all of these different places to be there in person, you know. So I make a point to do that because I want to see how Samsung does things. I want to see how Nothing does their stuff.
I want to see how Apple does their stuff. If the person you're following is only going to one place or no places? How can they have that perspective talking to people on the ground, meeting with people going hands on with these new devices. Just remember that now this event was focused on the Z Fold seven and the Z Flip seven. Keep in mind, Samsung has been making foldable since twenty nineteen and they've come such a long way.
The first one was so basic. If you've got to speck a dust in the hinge, the entire screen would just go caput. It would just be broken. Now, not so much anymore. These latest foldables are very refined, and this year's models might finally be good enough to replace your regular smartphone. Oh my gosh, did I really just say that. Let's start with the Fold seven. The first thing you notice when you pick this device up I've got it here in my hand is how thin and
light it is. It is a huge departure from the bulky design of the previous models. But the biggest improvement is really the cover screen. This is the screen you use the most when this device is folded. It is actually usable for day to day tasks. The outside screen is now six point five inches, way wider than before previous models. I just couldn't use because the outside screen was just too narrow. This one you can actually use
now when you open it up. It's eight inches, basically a mini tablet in your pocket, and for the first time, it has Samsung's best two hundred megapixel camera.
I've been using it for the past few days.
It takes great pictures, just what you'd expect from a Samsung and I think that's a good thing that they added to this device because now it's a proper camera as well. Now there are a few downgrades for starters. Samsung dropped Stylus support. That means you cannot use an spen with this device, which is kind of a bummer because they say it's a productivity powerhouse. And of course the price went up by one hundred dollars, making an expensive phone even more expensive. So how much is this
thing gonna cost? The z Fold seven is two thousand dollars for a two hundred and fifty six gigabyte version with twelve gigabytes of RAM. If you really want to go all out and your money's just burning a major hole in your pocket, you can get a one terabyte version with sixteen gigabytes of RAM. Now I've been using this phone for the past few days, and I can tell you that it is finally gotten to a place that is really good.
Like I can actually recommend this.
The outside screen is big enough for doing all the day to day tasks you want to do. The inside screen is really cool for doing things like your email, watching videos, working on spreadsheets. It really is a two in one device, so no need to carry a separate tablet or even buy one, which, if you think about it, that could be you know, three to five hundred dollars all by itself, and not one less thing to charge.
You know, if you're doing your Netflix downloads and things when you travel, it's one less thing to worry about. But this phone is also super slippery. It does not lay flat on a table. It's actually comical how it lays When it's on a table. Of course, you'll probably put a case on it. And the power button is so recessed it is a bit tricky to activate the AI or the camera easily, but I did find a workaround. There's a little setting in there that will leave the
power button always on for the fingerprint sensor. You don't actually have to push it down to activate it. So that makes life a little bit easier. I just figured that out. Battery life does not seem great to me. They did not improve the battery life on the fold.
Now.
I've been using it NonStop for the past couple of days, so maybe that's why the battery is just always kind of, you know, not that impressive to me. But I will have to try this for a little bit longer and see if the battery life levels out. Now, onto the Flip seven. This is the smaller phone that closes like a clamshell or if you had one of those old school motorol erasers. It's like that. It's like an old
school flip phone, except much more modern. Now on this one, the first thing you notice is that the outside screen, which Samsung calls the cover screen, is now pushed all the way to the edges. So basically the entire front of the phone is now a screen, and it has two camera hole cutouts. They did a cute little thing where they showed a picture of the phone on the stage like a big screen picture, and it was a picture of a dog and the eyes were the camera
hole cutouts. Now, when you open up the phone, you get a proper six point nine inch display in the ratio that you're used to, so again it's not as narrow as before. The big deal with these phones that was kind of a problem was that they were too narrow to use. Now Samsung figured out how to make them almost as wide as our standard phones that they feel a little bit better when you're using them day to day.
Now.
One of the big complaints of the Flip has always been the battery life. Samsung did address that they increased the battery by three hundred million hours, which is just under ten percent more battery life while more battery capacity, I should say, but that should really help on this tiny device. Now, the camera hardware, they didn't add anything new, but they did, of course say they improved the software processing, but they always say that, but this thing is always
taking good pictures. Here's the neat part about the foldable form factor if you're not familiar with it. Basically, when you take your selfies and videos, you can use the best cameras, the outer cameras, the main camera lenses. That's because you can leave the phone closed and use the front screen to see what you're taking a photo off.
So it's a really nice benefit that no matter what kind of photo or video you're capturing, whether it's a regular video, regular photo, or a selfie, you're always using the best cameras, and so Samsung sort of positions this as like a creator's friend. Of course, most of the creators I know are using iPhone. Pricing on the z Flip stays the same eleven hundred dollars. There's also Gemini AI built into both.
Of these devices.
Of course we know that, but it's really useful on these phones, especially compared to the half baked AI that's built into the iPhone. Let's be honest, you're not even using AI in the iPhone for anything. I mean, if you are, I don't know what you're doing, because for me, it's all about chat, GBT and Gemini.
I'm not.
I don't even know if Siri has the smarts that I need. Let's see what else. Oh, these phones are also much more usable because of Gemini AI. So you can now leave this little flip z flip closed and you can just activate the AI to do all kinds of stuff, including functions on the phone that you.
Just couldn't do before.
And I'll have more of my interview later on with the Samsung rep but he mentions this that like things you couldn't do before, you can now do on these phones because of AI, like all the commands you want to do are functionable because of that.
It's pretty neat. Now.
I know these prices are high, but remember nobody pays full price for Samsung products. There's always some sort of promotion, trade in deal, or discount out there, so be sure to look out for that if you are purchasing one of these. Someone my Instagram yesterday sent me a little screenshot of them buying the new z Fold and they traded in their old phone. They got a bunch of money for that, and they also got some sort of discount. I think it was like an education discount. So again,
always be on the lookout for those discounts. Now, if two thousand dollars or even eleven hunters too much for you, they're also making a flip f e edition which has a smaller outside screen, a lesser battery, and no dedicated zoom lens. That's going to sell for nine hundred dollars, probably cheaper because they'll discount that one even more heavily. But if I were you, if you're gonna get these, I would go with the standard one. The Z Flip is gonna give you much better specs than that the
fe model. All of these phones go on sale July twenty fifth, and so far, pretty much everyone I have talked to, all the other folks at the event with me, they all agree that these phones have finally hit the point where you can comfortably switch and not miss a thing now, unless, of course, you have to have an iPhone in iOS and a lot of people feel that way. They don't want to switch to a Samsung, no matter how compelling these new form factors are, because they want Apple.
And Apple, of course, is rumored to launch their first foldable next year in twenty twenty six.
And you know that I'm gonna be.
Talking about it right here on this radio show, and people are gonna be going wild over it, and they're even going to pretend that Samsung has not been doing this for the past six years.
Now, all right, we got a lot on today's show. I am feeling good.
I'm gonna talk about my trip to New York City, tell you the rest restaurants I went to and how they couldn't be more different. We'll talk about Prime Day, and of course we will take your calls at Triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. Follow along on the website rich on Tech dot tv. We'll be back
after this. 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. The website is rich on Tech dot TV. You can find me on Instagram at rich on tech. You see the trend going on here. Yeah, it's pretty easy to find me. Let's go to Harland in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
You're on with rich.
Hey, Rich, thanks for taking my call.
Absolutely.
My wife and I purchased a camper that does not have a TV or audio equipment in it, and I don't need help picking any of that equipment for c But what I would like to do is somehow be able to screen cast or play Hulu on a TV or some device in the camp or from my Android phone, and I have not found out a way.
To be able to do that.
See what you got for some ideas or suggestions.
So you want to play Hulu from your phone, but you don't, let's see here, So you're.
Sorry, and without turning on the hot spot on the phone.
Right, So you're not You're there's no network on the TV basically, because my my initial thought is get a Chrome cast and just plug that into the back of the TV, and you can do it that way, but you would need a network for that to run on.
Correct And and the hotspot turned on on the phone.
Hmmm, that's a tricky one. Um, let me think about this. So what about a cable from the phone to the TV?
Can you do that? What kind of phone did?
Yeah, I've tried it. It's a Samsung A fifty three five, okay, And I did get a USB C to HDMI cable and I couldn't end up getting it connected to the TV. But I was able to connect the TV through the Roku, but then it wouldn't play Hulu. And I guess from my understanding, Hulu has the restrictions so that you can't do screen mirroring on an Android phone for some reason.
What do you mean by that? What do you mean you got what where's the Roku come into play here?
Okay?
Well I tried it at home because we have Roku's in the house.
Oh okay, Well, at home and at home it's going to be a lot easier because you have a Wi Fi network and that you know, you can you can pretty much either cast or whatever you want to the TV.
Correct.
So it's in the camper where you don't have a network, where you're trying to get this connected to the TV wirelessly, that's going to be a problem. I mean, there there there might be a way that you could set up. The thing about chrome cast is that what it's doing is it's not actually casting it from your phone. It's just taking like an instruction to say, hey, on the back end, find this signal and play it, right, like, go to this, go to this connection and play that
that thing. Yeah, so without without a connection like a Wi Fi connection, I don't think you're gonna be able to do that very easily. That not that I can think of.
Yeah, and yeah, because I you know, I tried that, and yeah, it won't it won't work. It won't work on a chrome cast because yeah, like you said, chrome cast takes the you know, app instructions and whatnot permissions from the phone and then it streams directly from the Wi Fi source. But if I don't have the hot spot on, then I won't be able to do that. What about like using some sort of a tablet with it that has a SIM card in it.
Well, okay, you can do that, I mean very easily. But why would you want that versus just getting If you're going to pay for a SIM and the tablet, are you going to watch it on the tablet or watch it on the TV?
Well it would probably Well I haven't investigated too much into that to find out if I could do anything with getting the image from the.
Tablet out to a TV, but that was my next big I guess IDEA.
Well, I mean you could easily do that.
I mean, look, a standard iPad will definitely HDMI out to the TV. Now whether the app allows, Like you said, there are some restrictions on apps that they don't necessarily like to mirror to TVs because of copyright reasons. So
I don't think that's the best solution. I think if you're going to get a SIM card in a tablet, you might as well just set up the Wi Fi network or use the hotspot on your phone, or you can get one of these like t Mobile five G home Internet devices and just use that for your Internet inside the the RV or the camper, or you could just you know, or you can just get a better
plan on your phone and use the hot spot. So I mean, you know, because you're out and about and you're on the go, that you're really limited because you need that internet connection to get it onto the big screen.
Yeah, that's correct.
The other thing you can do, I mean, it doesn't help with the content that you are watching on streaming services, but you could download content to a flash drive and then put it on the TV that way. The problem is most of the content these days is all streaming and it's not really downloadable unless you're getting into a gray area. But I don't really recommend that kind of stuff,
so I can't mention that. But yeah, so I mean I think that the hot spot, making the hot spot allotment on your phone more generous, I guess would help with this situation because I think the chrome cast really is the easiest way, or a roku, I mean either way, like you can get any stick for the back of this TV, plug it in and then you can easily get.
All the streaming services.
But without that Wi Fi network or without that hotspot, it is really tricky. Harland and now that we talked about this. Maybe there are some other folks that are listening that have some solutions that they've come up within their camper that maybe I'm not thinking about. So we'll stay on the lookout for those good question. Thanks for the call today from Green Bay, Wisconsin eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. We'll talk about Prime Day, what shoppers actually bought and how much they saved or spent. I guess coming up right here on 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. Before the break, we had Harland in Wisconsin asking about how to watch Hulu on a tee and his camper but without any Wi Fi or hotspot,
and I think I figured out the way. I think he was onto something with the tablet situation. So I looked up and Hulu does indeed support an HDMI cable to stream from an iPhone or an iPad, so if he gets a little adapter he can connect his Let's say he bought an iPad, just an inexpensive iPad, gets the adapter and plugs that iPad into the TV. That way he'd be able to watch Hulu. But here's the thing.
He'd probably have to download the content to that iPad before he leaves his home, or he can use the hotspot on his phone to download the stuff to the tablet. But I think that may work, but it's not the best solution. It's not the prettiest solution. But the tricky part is that he has that Samsung smartphone that doesn't seem to support the video out. So if he had an iPhone, it'd probably be a little bit easier of a process. You just connect it right to the TV.
So lots of ways to kind of figure out how to do that. That's just one of them. Maybe there's some others. Prime Day, yes, four days. We made it through Prime Day, made it through another Prime Day, if you can believe it. We bought just a couple of things. I had a bunch of stuff in my car, a bunch of plans. Even over four days, I still put it off and by the end I was like, ah, I guess I won't buy anything. But we did do this thing. I don't know if this has ever happened
to you. But my wife and I will often put stuff in the Amazon cart and the other person might order it by accident and be like, oh, hey, I ordered those pants you wanted. I'm like, oh, I don't really want them, I just put them in the cart. Well this time, And this has happened several times. I sometimes put things in the cart multiple times. And so I had two pairs of these sweatpants that I wanted, and we get them delivered and I'm like, why do
I have two pairs of sweatpants. She's like, oh, well, they were just in the car. I said, Ah, it's a mistake. So look at the quantities, because if you're like me and you're always on Amazon, you're always adding stuff. Sometimes you add more than one so that happens. But how much did people spend total online spending? This includes all retailers online. According to Adobe Analytics, twenty four billion dollars over those four days, up thirty percent from last year.
Mobile shopping dominated over fifty three percent of purchases were made on phones, and people were using the AI tools. I don't they say they were using Alexa plus. I don't know if I believe that. I don't know how many people have access to that, but Rufus was the one I told you about how to use that to find the price history, which is very convenient. Top selling items ring battery, doorbell, fire, TV stick, AirPods, Pro two,
Alexa devices, Bio Dance, Collagen, masks, Dawn powerwash. I mean, how unexciting is it to buy dish soap on Prime Day? Oh it's Prime Day, Let me buy my dish soap. I mean, the fact that Amazon's calling that out is one of the biggest purchases.
I have no doubt it really works.
I love don I think down is one of the best best dish assurgents, but I mean it's just funny. Kids apparel also surged. Home security, refrigerators, headphones, power tools, and computers and school supplies also very popular. Biggest discounts clothes, electronics, toys, TVs, and appliances.
Let's see what else.
Apparently, generative AI and influencer content played a big role. AI driven shopping traffic rows three percent. I agree with that because a lot of people are starting to use chat,
GBT and Gemini for product recommendations. There's also a website called vetted dot ai which does product recommendations based on all the different reviews out there, so worth the stop if you want to look at things like if you're looking for the best whatever noise canceling headphones, I know you can call me, but you can also look at this vetted dot AI. You know the stuff that I recommend. I typically like to test and try personally before I just go ahead and recommend it. Let's go to Adarsha
in Michigan. You're on with Rich.
Hi, good morning, thanks for taking my call. I'm a hurt patient just got back from Cleveland clinic waiting on a heart transplant. Oh wow, and produced significant health issues. But I'm fortunate there were people over the house when I passed out and they called my one. But most of the time, I'm single, and I want to know should should I get the life alert or would a smart watch be just as comparable for emergency services?
Now?
I know the smart watch is Bluetooth enabled, and you know is that you know? Do you have to have your phone nearby? I think that's the deal. And is it considered reliable enough that you know if something happens, Because some of them are say that if you fall, they'll automatically call.
Yeah, and I think that's the Well. First off, I'm glad you're doing better. I know this is probably a scary situation when that happened, and no one ever wants to go through that, But the fact that you're on your way to recovery is good.
I do like that.
This is you know, this is a tricky situation because this is this is a serious condition, and you know this is just consumer advice I'm giving. But I would say the fall detection is probably the thing you want the most because the fact that you may be in a position to press this alert on another device to call for help, that may not be the case from what you're telling me right, Like, you may be in a position where you can't press a button or you
can't dial nine one one. So the fact that the smart watch offers the fall detection, I would think would push it over the edge to what I would choose. But you have to keep in mind this is not perfect. Like I've been playing football my kids outside, the thing goes off. Other times I'll take a hard fall and it doesn't go off. So I think it's gotten better over time, but it is an algorithm. But I think it's probably your best bet and both. I know the
pixel watch has fall detection. I know the Apple Watch has fall detection. Are you on iOS or Android?
Android?
Okay, so which watcher you looking at? I'm trying to looks like the Samsung smart watches do have the fall detection as well.
So yeah, I think the song eight, Yeah, something like that.
That's the one I'm wearing right now. I just just got the new one to test. I've not set up the safety features, but that I would probably go towards the smart watch. The only other thing the consideration that you were kind of mentioning is the bluetooth connectivity versus cellular connectivity in your case, because you have an established medical condition that you're now kind of watching out for. I would say I would want the cellular because the problem is with the bl tooth. If your phone is
not in nearby er, that connection is not perfect. Your your watch may not be able to get through to nine one one, so that could be a problem.
I was a little worried about that portion because you know, I have these little bluetooth speakers. Every once in a while it doesn't pick up. You got to turn the thing off, turn it back, you know, and try again. So I don't know why it does that, it just does. And so that's what my concern was. I'm not going to have the wherewithal to turn off, turn on, try again.
No, And most of the time the connection is pretty good any and the Samsung Watch will actually alert you with a vibration if your watch, if your watch is not connected to your phone, or if it loses a connection.
Yeah. So that's a nice thing there, and it doesn't happen very often.
Are you in a large place where you might leave your phone in a separate area of the house very often?
I generally don't. I usually keep my phone with me, you know, so that's not really an issue. I don't know. I was thinking, should I just get both, you know, to be doubly sure.
The life alert, the LFE alert and the watch. Yeah, that might be. That might be a bit much, especially for the budget. I mean, if budget was no concern, you want to do that. But to me, I think that what I would do personally is maybe talk to a doctor or two that you trust and get their take on it and see what they think. But I personally think that the the watch detection is probably a really good bet, and it's something that you know, a
lot of people are already relying on. I think it's it's been proven that it's saved lives over the past couple of years that these features have been invented. And I would go through and just make sure that everything is set up properly on both your phone and your watch. And you might also look into getting a smart speaker that can handle an emergency alert like the Alexa. I know they've got this feature where you can I think you pay like five bucks a month, but you can
call for help. Like let's say you fell and you were still able to speak, you could call for help through that speaker as well. So that's another avenue just to make sure you're covered in every aspect of this.
But what does it look like you have to pay a monthly fee?
No, no, you just you just buy the watch and you're and you're good to go.
Okay, all right, Darsha, and we wish you the best.
Thank you, thanks for the call today. I appreciate that.
Uh well, speaking of heart, you ever feel tightness in your chest, to flutter, maybe shortness of breath? You wonder is this serious or is it just stress. Well, the truth is you can't run to your doctor every time, but what if it is something I've got a lot of notes about this. One listener wrote me how he thought he had a mild case of pneumonia. Turns out
it was atrial fibrillation or a FIB. He ended up in the hospital for a week, Which is why I like the Cardia Mobile six L. It's the most advanced personal EKG you can buy. It is FDA cleared to detect a FIB, a leading cause of stroke, and it gives you six views of your heart in just thirty seconds using your phone.
I have tried this. I have tested it. It is so easy.
The six L does everything you need. You can see your heart, the information coming from your heart, and you've got two types of readings. You've got a simple reading and you've got a little bit of a more in depth reading where you put this little device on your ankle and you hold it in your hand, and.
It is so easy.
It gives you, like I said, six views of your heart in just thirty seconds, and all you need is your smartphone. This is more accurate than a smart watch, it's at a fraction of the cost and It's perfect to use at home or in between doctor visits. Once again, it's a Cardia Mobile six L right now you can get ten percent off. Just go to Cardia dot com. That's ka r DA dot com or find it up ten six L. Rich that's Cardia Mobile six L Cardio Mobile six L.
Your heart could thank you later.
Coming up, we'll take more of your calls at eighty to eight rich one one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. More rich On Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology. Phone lines are open at triple eight rich one one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. Give our call screener Kim some company. Give
me a call. You'll get her. You'll talk to her, she'll put you on to me and we'll get you on the air.
Here.
I told you I was in New York City this week and always always love being there. And my wife actually accompanied me on this business trip, which she never does, by the way, like never ever in the history I've been traveling for fifteen years. I don't think she's ever
joined me on a trip. This time she had the time, she had some time off, so she did, and of of course, you know, I'm working the whole time, and I realized I never realized how much I work until you have someone else that you're trying to like do things with, and so I'm like, I still got one more thing to do, one more thing to do. Oh, I gotta wake up early for this. Oh I gotta go to sleep late for that. Oh, I got to
go to this party. So it was great, and I at one point I made the mistake because I felt really bad. I said, oh, this isn't going to happen again, and she was like, what do you mean. I was like, oh, I mean, it's just not really working out.
She's like, what do you mean?
I thought I'd been very accommodating, So I probably shouldn't have said that. You ever say something to your wife and you see the look on their face and you realize like immediately that you should not have said that. And that was that experience. I was like just thinking I was saying something factual, and she was just like, wait what, and it was just yeah, we did go to a couple good restaurants. We couldn't have gone to two more different restaurants we went. We stayed near Little
Italy and so, which was amazing. You know, I'm Italian and so I just had the greatest time walking those streets and you know, like half the signs like sopranos and stuff. But we went to this one little place that I found, I want to tell you the name, Asteria Baroca in Little Italy.
Loved it.
Oh my gosh, so good, so on assuming and they make their own pasta. The way you can tell a good Italian restaurant if they make the pasta in house. And if you ever go to an Italian restaurant, say are any of these pastas made here? And ninety nine percent of the time they're not, But if they have any that are, get that.
And then I went out.
We had a big dinner at my family members, which my family's wild and crazy. When they get together, it's a bunch of loud folks and there's a bunch of us, but it's always fun.
We always have a great time.
We went to this place in Times Square called Tony Dinapolis, and that could not have been more of like a tourist y trap kind of place. But I'm saying that in a very nice way. It was excellent, like the waiter was amazing. And he said the best thing to me, This was the best thing that he said. He said, I just moved here from I think he said, Lithuania a year ago. And we said, oh, how do you like it? Be goes, I love it. It's America. And I just that puts such a smile on my face
to hear that from him. I really did like that, because you know, we I know, there's all kinds of stuff going on in the world, but you know, people are still happy. There are still happy people out there. Archie writes in from Jackson, Mississippi, listening on one oh three nine w YAB and six twenty w jd X. I used to remove backgrounds from images using PowerPoint, but
I don't have access to it anymore. Is there a free desktop or online tool that lets me remove backgrounds manually like PowerPoint used to do?
Uh?
Yeah.
A couple things to look out for.
Number one, there is a website called remove dot BG Remove dot BG, Super simple, super easy. That's probably the first one that I would go check out. Dragon Drop. The second one BG eraser BG eraser get it BG background bgeraser dot com. That's another good option, BG eraser. Let me tell you which one's my favorite. I gotta look at these to see. Okay, that one's my favorite BG eraser dot com. And then you've got pixi in p i x i a n dot Ai p i x i a n dot Ai. Oh wait, that one
I think is my favorite. Sorry, I tested these. Yeah, that one's my favorite, pixi in dot Ai. The only thing about these is that if you want to download a full resolution of the removed background, sometimes they charge you more. They might charge you or there might be a limit, so you just have to be you know, everything has a price, right. And then there's another one called cleanup dot pictures cleanup dot pictures, and that's good for removing stray objects. So cleanup dot pictures. You got
a whole bunch of options there. Yeah, and then let's see here. We've got Kimberly from New Jersey. I love taking pictures of the moon using my iPhone thirteen, but at night they just come out looking like a blob. I was wondering if the newest iPhone would have better
results taking pictures of the moon at night. No, you don't know, iPhone takes pictures of the moon, unless you get They do sell on Amazon, these little magnifiers that you can plug into like a telescope and that will take a clear picture and they're only like a couple bucks. But if you really want to capture the moon, Samsung is the only phone that I know of that does that in a very good way. Now there's a lot of debate around whether that's real or not, but it
does it. Zoom In's got a hundred times zoom on the Ultras. You can take a picture of the moon. Gary in Los Angeles, what's up?
Yeah, so I'm able to good and again they're rich.
Hi.
Anyways, I have a question about four G to five GC. I have a Samsung Galaxy SPNN. I love this phone. The last time I was out in now do you ever go off to the ans of Barrigo Desert yourself? You ever watch it?
Never been? But I'm sure you can take great pictures of the moon out there?
Oh yeah, absolutely yeah. Well to take good photos of the moon you need a real lens, like a five hundred Momter lens. Absolutely now. But I'm out there photographing birds, which is what I do. If you talk to Leo, I was known as doctor Bird and uh, I'm out there and uh I got a flat tire, and so I wanted to call and talk to my friend at Costco and make sure you can get me a tire while I'm out there. And this was two weeks ago.
In the past, my phone worked out there perfect. But I'm thinking maybe they converted all their cell sites to five G. And is that why my four G phone will not work? Uh?
What you said you have Samsung?
What S ten e?
S ten e?
Oh?
And Rachel is a grate puhone, I love it. Yeah.
No, if it's not broke, don't fix it. I don't think they're getting software updates on that phone anymore, right, I don't think you gotta be you gotta be, you know, be careful with you know, if you're clicking things and that kind of stuff, because that could be a problem. You know, these these phones that go out of service, they find the exploits in them. That's why they're dangerous to continue using. So did they convert to five G?
I mean, yes, five G upgrades are happening everywhere, but they're not erasing the four G signal when they upgrade to five G, So it could have been a fluke. It could have been just happened to be the signal at that day. Sometimes they do impact the signals when they're taking down or they're upgrading a network or a cell tower working on it. Sometimes that signal is impacted. But there's a million and one reasons why a signal could be different or varied in the area that you're in.
So I don't think that they're getting rid of the four G signal to upgrade to the five G because I know that they're continuing to keep the four G signal and network alive. Good question, Gary, Thanks for the call today. Eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology triple A rich one oh one a seven four to two four to one zero one.
Hop on the line.
If you've got a question about technology, otherwise you can email me. Just go to the website rich on Tech dot tv hit contact while you're there. Be sure to sign up for my free newsletter. Contains all the tips and tricks I can think of throughout the week, and a lot of them I mentioned on the show, but you know there's still some stuff in there that's just not mentioned anywhere else.
So definitely get on the list there.
Robin wrote in I heard you talking about fall detection and getting help, and we were deciding between Life Alert and a smartphone. Robin says, while Life Alert does not offer automatic fall detection, one big benefit is that they have access to your home. My mom fell when she was home alone because Life Alert had access to her lock box, Paramedics were able to get in take her to the hospital, and Life Alert called me right away. So yeah, there's pros and cons to all of this stuff.
But Robin, good take on that. And I'm glad that your mom was able to get help quick and that they called you.
That's pretty neat as well.
Let's see, We've got lots going on in this hour, including an interview with Patrick Chome of Samsung. He's going to talk about the company's new line of foldable phones. I've been using the z Fold seven and I gotta say it is they They did a great job. Like there's no reason why I wouldn't recommend this phone to someone that's interested in it, Like there's no big downside if you like a nice big screen on the inside. The outside screen is finally usable. It's got a good camera,
it's fast, the software is good. They really did a nice job. The only thing is the camera bump on this thing is just like out of control. So I have not put a case on it just yet. I'm waiting for my speaking case to put on it with mag Safe and all that good stuff. And I'll see if it feels like on new usable when you have a case on it, because that's going to make it much bulkier. But yeah, the Samsung Folda boles are pretty
good this year. We'll hear from Patrick in just a bit eighty eight Rich one on one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one. Nancy, what's going on there in Vista, California.
You're on with Rich.
A problem?
I got a Google Voice.
Nancy, Uh, you gotta you gotta talk into your phone. You sound like you are underwater with SpongeBob.
Why there you go? Oh my gosh, she comes up. We have Nancy there. She is much better. Nancy, what's going on?
Okay? I had a Google Voice installed about three or four years ago and everything worked fine with all my device, my desktop, my iPhone and my tablets was six eight week which goal. For whatever reason, everything when totally got put nothing was working. So I ended up to get it to work. On my cell phone, I get it. I can get incoming call. I can do are going call. No problem. On my tablet is the same. But when it comes to my desktop, I can get incoming God, but I cannot call out.
I get it.
When I try to call out to the number I get rule of things comes up and tell and tells me Google, Google call your phone and connect to you to connect you to the number I try to call. And then this is things in the middusic phone call a phone to call, which so when I passed down the arrow my back end, my regular phone number comes
up right, and so then it let's have connect. But when I go to con nect, most often called used to me back, it doesn't call the other person, or it calls bothaba I cannot connect right.
Well, it's because it's it's getting it's getting confused.
So I just.
No, Okay, I.
Went and I follow all the Google advice I went on. I went on YouTube, and nothing seemed to work. The thing that tells me to go ahead enable incoming and outgoing outgoing calls. But when I pull, you know, bring up, I don't get it. I don't get you going, I always say incoming, Yes.
Okay, Well that's just that's just the way it looks on the desktop. But if you go into your settings, there's a setting that I need you to check. This is I think, what's happening.
Uh.
There is a setting under calls that says, for outgoing calls, always use my phone to place calls. You want to turn that off, and then that way you can call through your desktop and it's going.
To actually.
Go through your what's that under calls on the outgoing calls? Incoming calls, it sounds like it's working. But outgoing there's a toggle in your settings that says always use my phone to place calls, and so it sounds like you have that turned on. If that's turned on, what Google Voice is doing the desktop is just a conduit to dial the number, and then it's actually just completing everything on your phone, which sounds like you don't want to do that.
So if you want to, if you want to make.
Calls, I don't kid that. When I want to learn more, they and they give me all kinds of different things. But I cannot turn nothing on or off.
It's under settings.
So you're going to settings.
Scroll down under call. This says outgoing calls, right, okay? Under that, what does it say?
Learn more?
Okay? And then what was it.
That incoming calls?
So learn more?
It brings with lure no.
No, don't talk, don't tap learn more? What does it say after that?
Nothing?
There's nothing underneath that.
Always use.
Yes, turn that off. Oh god, that's it, Nancy. We've solved your problems. You're welcome.
I love it. You're the call of the day.
Thank you, Nancy.
Thanks Nancy. Oh my gosh, this we got a smile in here. Oh my gosh. This is what I love about this show. I mean, it's just you've looked at the settings a thousand times.
You think you have it right.
You've searched Google to your eyes fall out of your head, you've checked a eye and all you gotta do is call a human being like myself who's looking at it on my screen, and here it is.
And they're much easier. Ah, Nancy, that was a great one.
If you used Fubo Fubo TV, they've just agreed to a three point four million dollar privacy privacy settlement over data sharing. You with all these class action lawsuits, the company never admits any wrongdoing, but they just settle it out, mostly so the lawyers can get rich. But you get a little bit of money too, three point four million dollars to settle claims that shared user data with Facebook
and Google without user consent. The lawsuit says Foubu violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, which protects your viewing habits. So if you used your own or someone else's Fubo TV account, So this is the best part about this lawsuit. If you are sharing someone else's password, you still get money.
That's what I love. Even if you weren't paying for Fubo.
If you just use someone else's account before May twenty five year eligible, there's no purchase proof required. Anyone in the US who streamed Fubo TV qualifies. Deadline to submit a claim is September twelfth. If you live in California, you get one point one time's the base payout if
you certify that you live in the state of California. Payments, of course depend on how many people file, and we always know that the lawyers get forty percent or fifty or fifty sixty percent of this, and you get the rest, and then you divide it up by all the minions that apply for this. The website VPPA Data Privacy fubosettlement dot com say that ten times fast. VPPA Data Privacy fubosettlement dot com. I'll put a link on the website.
Rich on tech dot tv. You have until Thursday October or Thursday August twenty eighth to opt out, or Friday September twelfth to submit a claim. We don't know how much the claim is going to be worth because they have to see how many people do this, and then they can decide. I guess they divide up. Let's say one hundred people did it. They divide it up by one hundred people.
I don't know. Oh, that's how it works.
Gmail added a cool new feature, one click unsubscribe, so you can clean up your inbox. So if you go to Gmail, now, look on the left hand side, tap more in your list of things like inbox, star sent drafts.
Scroll down.
You should see something called manage subscriptions. You tap that and it will give you a list of all of the emails that blast you on a regular basis, and you can unsubscribe in one click. You just tap the little unsubscribed next to it, and you can unsubscribe. And you might be saying, rich, don't you send out a newsletter? Should I unsubscribe to you?
Go ahead?
If you don't like it, I don't want you on the list if you don't like If you're not enjoying when I'm sending you, unsubscribe. If you've listened to me, I am merciless when it comes to unsubscribing to things in my inbox. If my mom sends me too much, too many messages, I'm unsubscribing to her. So yeah, if you don't like the newsletter, unsubscribe. No hard feelings. I don't get a notification when you want subscribe, doesn't send you like oh Bobo, just unsubscribed.
I don't get that.
So if you like it, and there's over fifty two thousand of you that get it, so clearly someone likes it out there, So yeah, unsubscribe. If it's not in your Gmail just yet, just wait. Because Google rolls out features, they do not send out features to everyone all at once, So if it's not there today, it will be there in the next couple of days eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you how Gemini can turn a photo into a video.
Plus more of your calls.
Welcome back to rich on Tech eighty eight rich one O one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one, the website rich on Tech dot TV. I'm sitting here eating my uh garbonzo beans for lunch. Bobo looks at me and he said, don't tell me you're eating beans? Is that like some beans and a thing? I said, yes, now, Bobo, I also brought the Selena Gomez oreos today.
Are you gonna comment about those? Or do you like those? Oh?
He's he's got to think about this one. Wait, you brought what the Selena gor Gomez oreos?
Oh my god?
What this is?
My wife was out. I mentioned that I wanted to try these oreos. So special about them. They're chocolate and cinnamon cream. Actually sounds kind of good. They are good, yea.
So she was on a hunt every every grocery store she went to. I just mentioned this in passing once.
To my wife. You know what, I'm taking much for them?
No?
It doesn't, and she just kept.
Looking for them like it was like she was just on automation, Like every grocery store she went to, She's like, I couldn't find the Selena Gomez orios. Like I only mentioned them once, but now that you say it, now you keep reiterating, I gotta try them.
They are pretty good. So anyway, so I brought those two things today. I'm about to have to look for him right now because now I gotta try them. Oh no, I can't have sweets. I'll share one with you. Appreciate it.
All right, Let's let's go to Jerry and Redondo Beach. Jerry, what's going on?
They rich, Hi, Well, I don't know se romp account was suspended because of inappropriate conduct, you know, inappropriate posting.
What were you posting?
I wasn't posting anything, that's the deal. I'm was not sending anything to YouTube. And when I got to know this, I said, okay, that picture was on my phone, but I didn't do a post.
So I kept telling them.
They said, your channel will not be you know, reactivated, and I thought, I don't even know I had a channel. So anyway, I figured something out when I go on the website and I they say, log in with Google. Yes, by log in with Google, And the unbeknownst to me and yours is they want to know this too when I do that, Google has access to all my photos.
I didn't realize that.
Okay, somebody must have posted them when I logged on using my Google passwords.
Okay, well, I'm not going to ask what kind of photos these are. But here's the thing. When you sign in with Google, you have to be very careful about the permissions that a site requests when it does that, and every site is different. So just by the virtue of signing in with Google, does not hand over access to your entire Google account. This is called third party signing with Google. So it's a feature that basically lets you lets you log in to other apps and websites
using your Google account. So it's convenient, it's simple, it's it's one less password to remember. I always recommend creating a unique username and password for every site that you visit and sign up for. I think that that is the best way to keep things in their own lanes. Now I understand, it is very simple to sign in with Apple, it's simple to sign in with Google. It's simple to sign in with all these third party sites because it's one less thing to remember, and you're typically
always signed in with Apple or Google. So with that said, you might have signed into a website that did get access to your photos. I don't know why that would be connected to YouTube, So it could be that there was something that YouTube detected on your account. These could be completely unrelated the fact that you had these photos on your phone and the fact that YouTube said no, we got to take your account away because of these photos.
So I guess the bottom line is you can appeal to YouTube.
If you're truly not uploading anything that's prohibited to YouTube, you can appeal to them and continue to appeal to them. And the other thing what I would do is I would go to your Google sign in and this is called third party.
You Okay, So here's what you'd want to do.
So if you go to Okay, I gotta, I gotta find this, it's going to take me a second Google third party connected apps Google. So there's a section of the Google website that you can look at that'll tell you all the things that you have connected to your Google account. Okay, it is at my account dot Google dot com slash connections, my account dot Google dot com
slash connections. This will bring up a list of third party apps and services, and there's a lot of ways, Like right now, I've got one hundred and twenty two apps and services connected to my Google account, things like Adobe, Photoshop or a frames backdrop. Sometimes I do sign in with some of these when it's not very important. I'll sign in with Google when I want to be quick.
So there's three sections says sign in with Google linked account or access to and if you go to access to, that's the really important one because you can see what services have access to your Google information, Calendar, Contacts, Drive, Gmail. The ones I would look at very closely are Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive. Those are the three important ones because you store a lot of stuff in there. So if I go to Google Drive, I've got a
couple of things that have access to my Google Drive. Space, Cadet, Pinball, probably don't need access to my Google Drive. I will turn that off Meta, Google Nest. If I go to my Google.
Photos, let's see what it has access or a.
Frames, Google takeout, Microsoft three sixty five, import, Roku backdrops, and photostream.
So I can go through and delete that if I'm not using my Roku.
And then you can go through and you click one of these connections and it says delete all connections you have with that service. You delete it, and it will confirm it will it won't get rid of whatever that data that company has already taken on their own, but it will get rid of them accessing it in the future. So again, go to this, do a little cleanup. If you don't need access to these accounts anymore, you can get rid of their Google account access and you can
always reconnect it later if you need it. But it's at my account dot Google dot com slash connections. Typically we call this third party connections or third party connected apps.
Go through there, see what has access, clean it up, all right.
Coming up, we're going to talk to Patrick Chomey of Samsung about the new foldables the company just released. Mark cow Bell, Mark cow Bell, That's the only thing I can think of when I hear this song. It was a Saturday Night Live sketch. Had to look it up from April two thousand. I am now referencing something that happened twenty five years ago. Oh my gosh, I'm old.
What the heck?
I feel like I just watched that. Well, all right, I guess it happens, Okay. I talked about the Fold seven and the Flip seven, Samsung's new smartphones that are foldable. Now, let's hear from Samsung. So I talked to Patrick Chome of Samsung about these new foldables and why he believes now is the time to jump on board.
What was sort of the primary focus of the fold devices this year.
This year, actually, we wanted to make a big step until we call it a big jump, and there are two elements of that jump is our seventh generation of follible devices. So we wanted to make it really a big step in seeing the key remaining issues we listen from our customers definitely about the thickness, the weight, durability and performance. All of that is massively improved. And then the second leg, if you want, of that big jump,
is on the x eryance side. Obviously, we have massive transformation going on with AI and we announce our AI strategy two years ago twenty four and now bringing it to life with the wonderful benefits of the fullible from factories. The second big wreckfow we are with this new generation.
What do you think the biggest improvement is to these devices that the average person would notice?
Well, average person, we obviously see the fundamentals from the outside. You can compare actually this device to the last fulliable device, and there's as much change physically than there have been six crevious generations. Is actually as thin as a regular smartphone and actually lighter than a regular smartphone, but when
you open it you have a huge eight inch display. Likewise, it's throo the on the flip device, where we have a full full screen now, but when you open it, you have a twenty by twenty one by nine aspectation, which is much more compelling and a regulars math fun to watch video. So this is like a novel of technology. But I think when people get it in their hands they will level be wow.
I'm sure these phonees happened around for a while.
What will it take for the average person to want to switch to a foldable or a flip like this?
Not much.
They need to see it, and I think everybody saw it actually really get amazed. And I believe we had
learned some things over the years. We learned that fundamentals matter, So it's fair to say that when we learn the third innovation, for example, the flip we did it for Initially we are even by the form factor innovation, but people told us, yes, it's great from factor, but we wish it at a highly forming camera similar towards the flagships, so we bought the camera level here similar to seventy five.
And then the battery.
Yes, we understand you have to fold it, but it's difficult, but I need kind of battery lifetime regular fold, so then it should be doable. I don't want to have to change it to alsal. And I think all of these things which are very basic, I think to really deliver them is hard. But that's what we've done actually with the previous generation, even more so with that generation. So I would say for the normal user, the basics are covered, and then on top you have the wall
and the war. With these amazing use cases that you can see, you can work really like, I don't need a PC anymore. You can work on the goal and manipulating complex documents such as spreadsheets or power points, multitasking. You can actually scroll full documents on this side on the heightened side, having your Gemini open and asking about the documents move drag and drop, cut and paste from different inte is is quite amazing. Addition of AI into
our user interface make it so much more valuable. A lot of things that we wanted to do intuitively in the first generation we could answer because the UI was not that advanced. But now with a natural user interface that we have with AI, it really comes to life. I noticed on the fold we got a little bit of a price increase one hundred dollars. Is there any reason for that?
But there is no magic into it.
We we obviously strive to make the device affordable to our consumers at the most effective price points. Of course, this device is packed with technology. We have increased the display. You have a two hundred, they get Excel camera which
the same as obvious. Still you have very very most powerful computing engine in that thing, able to compute all the AI that we have so obviously we have a very advanced screen as well, which is now protected with a titanium layer to make it that much more durable. So there is a lot of investment in the out the way there which is reflecting the price. But we will continue to make these devices as much as possible thought able at the right rice the same song.
Notice what the consumer feedback is when you see people playing with these new features, enjoying them, giving feedback, you listen to that and kind of mix it into the next ride.
Absolutely, so we've been as I said, we started the journey S twenty four and it's fair to say if you ask consumers do you want AI and what's about AI? They get its confused, some might get scared. But actually what we noticed is if you ask people about the benefits, like you have this picture, you want to get this unwanted stuff out, and they go, wow, yes, how can you do that?
Of course because we are AI.
So what we see is a massive usage of those things like Circle to Search is used by over fifty five percent of the users, which is big because we deployed Circle to Search now on well over twentydred billion devices, so this is real. It's not like demos. Deep not million was my account last December, so we are way beyond. Things like the eraso or the transtation are massively used. On S twenty five generation, we notice over seventy percent of people use the AI function. They may not even
know it's AI. They use it because these are basic things like dealing with your pictures, taking the unwanted sound off, copying documents, summarizing documents, translating, so these becomes like day to day activities. And I think it's fine if we don't know if it's AI, so long it's useful and what we do we carefully monitor what's used and improve it based on the feedback. And we carefully motive what's not used and figure out why, and if it's not useful,
then don't add it and we improve. It's the best step.
People are always concerned about privacy when they're using AI. Can you tell me how Samsung approaches privacy on these devices?
Well, first of all, we actually highly so I think people these device contains life or life and a lot of very private stuff, so it's very serious matter. From the start, we have declared our direction to be an ibreed architecture, an I breed apportion. I will explain what that is. IBRID means some stuff needs to run in the cloud. Like if you want to generate a new video, auguste it. It requires a lot of computing and you
create a new video. It runs on the cloud. But a lot of stuff, actually, the majority of things are much closer to the customer, and it should be personalized, and it should be privates. So in all the future I mentioned on communication, for example, you're having a communication with a personal partner in a different language, differun country. All the transtation happens in real time, stays on device, private,
your pictures stays on device and private. We have very very clever things going on with ELF and the watch stays on device and privates. And let's but not the least, we have a very clear dashboard where the customer can choose. Actually, if customer doesn't want anything to go in the cloud, you just have a message Suitech, you say off.
If someone's considering one of these phones, they see it on TV, they see it on social media, they're thinking they look pretty good this year.
What do you think is the reason they should jump in? Give this one a try versus other models.
Have fun and do more. You can do so much more. If you don't need two phones, you don't need a fun at a tablet. You don't need to have something heavy, no more weight, no more complexity. You can do so much more. And this one is actually you can have a lot more fun. This is really cool device it's small, it's compact, it's beautiful, and you have everything in ease. So have fun and do much more.
Have fun and do much more. So I've been using the Fold seven, which I will tell you it's a great phone. But in my newsletter today I talked about how the fact is I'm not really sure what the use case scenario is. Like, it's fun to have, and if you have a lot of money to spend, sure, it's cool to be on the cutting edge, right. I
think that's what it really comes down to. Also, the fact that you can consult your tablet and your phone into one, and like he said, if you're working on spreadsheets all the time, you want to be real productivity, you know, real productive. That's another good use But it's tough because it's such a departure from what you're used to that it's tricky to sit there and say, Okay.
This is what I need right now.
When our phones pretty much do all the stuff we already want them to do, this is just a very very different form factor. So again, you can read all my thoughts on the Samsung foldables on my website rich on tech dot tv. Just look for the headline that says, Samsung finally nails the foldable. That is my newsletter from today and you can read there and see what I thought about all these different devices. All right, coming up, I'm gonna tell you how Google Gemini can turn a
photo into a video. And we're gonna taste test the Oreo. Bobo has the Selena Gomez Oreo. We're gonna taste it. Tell what we think, right or rich on Tech, Welcome back to rich On Tech. Let's go to Devin in Long Beach.
You're on with rich.
He Hey, what's going on? Rich You are my tech bet. I'm it's good to talk to you, brother. Quick question here for work, they've had us download the WhatsApp and so it's been a couple of weeks now and I'm going in my photos here and I'm starting to see all kind of photos and videos popping up that aren't mine.
And that I didn't download or what have you. So I'm assuming that they're coming through via the WhatsApp. My question here is, well, number one, is that accurate? And number two do my co workers are my videos popping up in their and their folders or their photo gallery in video galleries as well?
Good question?
So couple of settings to check on your WhatsApp. Okay, because we definitely, especially since this is for work, you don't really want this to be, you know, propagating from your phone to WhatsApp or vice versa. So couple settings that you can check out. First off, for the photos that are saving from the chats, it sounds like you have photos from the chats automatically being saved into your camera roll.
So there's a way to do that.
Go into your Settings and then chats, and then there's an option under chats that says saved to photos.
You want to turn that off.
Ends you a picture in a group chat, it's just saving it to your camera roll or your photos on Android either way, and so you want to turn that off. So again, tap Settings and then tap chats and then look under it says save to photos. Make sure that's turned off. The other thing you want to do is go into your permissions. If you don't want your photos to go into WhatsApp. If you're just using this to text, you can change it so that WhatsApp does not have
access to any of your photos. So on the iPhone, you can go to Settings, you can go to apps, scroll all the way down until you find WhatsApp. Let's see where that is, okay, and then where it says photos right now, mine says full access. So I would either tap limited access or none if you don't want any of your photos from your camera and your camera roll to ever go to WhatsApp. Now you have to remember the caveat here is that if you wanted to send a picture to the WhatsApp group, you wouldn't be
able to do it if you had none selected. Now, limited access works in a little different way. You basically pre select just the picture that you want, and then the iPhone sends that to the app, so it puts like a little barrier between your iPhone and the app. There's also a way to do it on Android. I don't let's see, I don't have WhatsApp installed in this phone that I have right now. But basically the main thing on an is you can press and hold any app and you can tap the I and then it
says the permissions. And so if you tap the permissions, you'll see what permissions the app has. And right now this app I'm looking at has photos and videos. You can take that tap it and it says allow all allow, limited, don't allow, So you can do pretty much the same thing on iPhone and Android when it comes to limiting the app's access, we call these permissions, and it's a good idea to go through and kind of clean up
permissions from time to time. I think on Android, the Android operating system automatically deletes permissions from apps after a certain amount of inactivity. So if you don't use an app for let's say three or six months, it will automatically stop that app from having a lot of permissions on your phone. Whether it's related to location, photos, microphone camera, it will just reset all those and it will tell you. It'll say, hey, we reset permissions for this app because
you haven't used in a while. That makes a lot of sense. It just puts a little bit of privacy between you and that app. Great question, Devin, thanks for the call today, appreciate it. Speaking of photos, if you have Gemini and you're a paying Gemini customer, you can now transform your photo into an eight second video.
This is pretty wild.
So if you go into Gemini Gemini dot Google dot com, you select videos from the tool menu, upload a photo, still photo, and then you describe the scene plus any audio you want in that scene. So, for instance, I took a picture of a bee buzzing around a flower. I uploaded it and I said, make this bee buzzing around this flower with sound. And it took a couple second, took maybe a minute to process, two minutes whatever, and then you get an eight second video with motion and sound and it is wild.
Like I'm talking, I can't believe this is day one. It pretty much nailed it.
I put it in the newsletter today, so if you want to check it out, Rich on tech dot TV, it is I showed my kids, my littlest kidd he goes, Dad, I'm now scared, he goes, I will never be able to tell what's real and what's not. I said, yeah, that's true. So this is rolling out to subscribers, So if you pay for Google AI or if you're a Google one subscriber on their twenty dollars more plan, you can access this gemini dot Google dot com to check it out.
It's pretty wild, pretty pretty wild. Bobo. You've got a question today? Oh yes I do. Hey, Rich, how you doing? This is Bobo calling you from Sherman Oaks. Longtime listener, first time caller, long time, first time. My question is this, I have two Gmail accounts.
I have my you know, junk mail the one a half forever, and I have my more professional Gmail account.
Sure.
Now the issue is now my phone is saving both saving pictures to both accounts to where now I had to add the extra storage for both of my Gmail accounts. Is there a way I can stop it from doing both and like cancel one of these because I don't.
Want to just donate money to the Google enterprise. No, they don't need your money. They don't at all.
They want it three bucks, so it doesn't still three bucks is three bucks?
Two goes in a chicken sound saying from Jack in a box.
So here's what's happening. I think what's happening. Are you signed in on your phone with both of these accounts? Yes, because I have to have access to both money. It's just convenient because in Gmail you can switch between them whatever. So I think what you have to do is go into Google Photos and you tap your little icon in the upper right hand corner, and you should see manage your Google account.
There should be two accounts. Are there two accounts listed there?
Yes?
I'm looking at it, and I have just to let go back and forth with yes.
So what you want to do on the one account you don't want to upload pictures anymore. You want to turn off the backup for that account. So once you're into that account, you switch into that account, turn off backup, and that will stop those new photos from going in. But here's the thing. You still have the old photos, yeah, that are in there. So what you want to do is from a desktop. This is the easiest way to
do it. Go to photos dot Google dot com. Make sure you're on that other account, you know, the one that you want to get rid of all the pictures, and then you can just go through and you can select I think you can select like a thousand pictures at once. So you can select one and then you press shift and you just scroll down, press and select and you can delete all those pictures from the desktop and that way they will be gone from the cloud.
Okay, that's the best way of.
Doing it because I have one, like I have one email address that I really wanted to use as my backup for everything because there's one that no one knows about. And then my professional one is the one that I want to keep, you know, clean, and nothing attached to it. You've got mister Bobo for the professional Yeah, no, I got Aaron is my professional one, like my government name. And I was like, that's more professional and to have with somebody. Yeah, email me your scripted Bobo at gmail dot com.
That's not me.
All right, let's try Now that we've solved your problem, let's try this. Selena Gomez Oreo. So I brought these in for my dessert. This is a cookie from Oreo limited Edition Flavor or Chata inspired featuring a layer of chocolate and cinnamon cream a top, a layer of sweet and condensed milk.
Okay, let's just try it then go that's delicious. That is actually pretty brown. Book my wife I had to eat it and work.
Welcome back to another hour of Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Another old reference from old man to Muro. When I worked it office depot in high school.
Uh, this was the song. This was like their theme song.
This was it.
Yeah, they had commercials and all that and that.
By the way, I took all of my jobs seriously, like all the places I worked before my career. I was very serious about office Depot was I think the epitome of the It was probably one of my favorite jobs I did. We opened up a new store in New Jersey, North Jersey, and it was enormous. This was back when they sold this is like before best Buy was huge for electronics. You would literally buy your electronics at all these different stores everywhere before you went online
and stuff. And so we had a whole section called like business Machines, and that's where people came to buy computers and equipment and graphics cards and processors, and it was just a huge portion of business in addition to you know, buying notebooks and envelopes and things like that. Like electronics were a huge part of their business. And I loved it. I mean, oh man, I had such a good time there. I loved just playing with all
talking all the nerds that would sell the electronics. I sold cell phones for a Every time I sold a cell phone, we would sell them for like ninety nine cents, right, and then without every single time, without fail, the person would march back into the store a month later with their first bill and they'd be like, I thought this thing was ninety nine cents and their first bill was like three hundred dollars. You know, for all it was like first month, last month, pro rated this fee, activation,
all this other stuff. It's like, yeah, the phone was ninety nine cents, but it's everything else that's really expensive. How do you think these companies make money? So but good news is I think we took a lot of those back. Let's go to Carl in upland. Carl, you're on with Rich How Rich?
How are you doing today?
I'm doing fantastic, good good.
I'm looking for a new laptop. What I have is approximately twelve years old and it's held up that Now it's time. A two weeks ago, you mentioned some laptops that you liked that were available at Costco. You felt for the price, that was a good place to look for them. But I was trying to get out get from you. You know what I should look for when I go down there. They just have folks that want to sell whatever they want to sell. So I don't
know what software looks for. I'm assuming that Windows eleven should come with most of them these days. The memory and the CPU. I need a little bit of guidance on what to look for specifically in the Costco lines they offer.
Okay, well, Costco is a great place because Costco, because it's membership base, they always give you a little bit more for the money. So whatever you find there is going to be a better price and better specs than pretty much anywhere else that you go, So you're on the right path there. What I'd recommend if you're going the Windows route is, you know, Windows eleven should be on all the laptops that are there, all the all
the laptops should have that pre installed. The most basic processor you want is either a Core I five or the a m D five. So basely five is the number you're looking for. If you're just doing basic stuff, the Intel five or the am D five should be just fine. If you want to do something that's a little bit more in depth than I would go with either the Intel seven or the rise In seven.
So seven is going to be a little bit higher end. Nine is going to be much higher end.
So I would say, you know, if you've got a little extra money to spend, go with the seven because that will.
Future proof you for just a little bit longer.
When it comes to RAM, definitely want at least sixteen gigabytes of RAM. That's going to get you what you need for most applications, and then for the hard drive. Usually these days there are solid state that you want at least five hundred and twelve gigabytes of storage. If you are doing a lot of photo or video stuff, I would definitely get a terabyte. I've got two terabytes on my latest computer that I purchased.
I do not need that much.
Even me who works with a lot of video, I do not need that much. A terabyte seems to be the sweet spot.
Now.
The other main thinging you have to look for is do you want a dedicated graphics card or do you just want a graphics card that's built in. If it's built in, it'll just say like Intel graphics. But if it's a if it's an external graphics card, it will mention the specific graphics, whether it's in video or something else. So that is, if you are doing some high end processing like audio, video processing, mostly video and photo, I
would probably look for a dedicated GPU they call that. Otherwise, when it comes to screen size, definitely go for the largest screen size you can find. Do not go thirteen inch. It'll be way too small. Sixteen inch is probably the best. Fifteen sixteen inch is going to be much better. And then the other things you want to look for is just you know, basic kind of you know, the keyboard. Try the keyboard. Make sure the keyboard feels nice and spacious.
I don't need the dedicated numbers keyboard if you're looking for that. You know, if you're doing like accounting and stuff like that. Brands, you know, look all the brands you're gonna find at Costco, We're going to be pretty good. I would say, if you don't need the gaming laptop, stay away from those, you'll know, because they have all the flashing lights and stuff like that. But for your basic brands, anything ace Us is really nice. You know,
the Lenovo's are nice. I mean really anything you find there that has the specs I mentioned is going to be just fine. Sounds like your old computer lasted a very long time, which means you got your money's worth there this new one, you know, look to spend I would say maybe a thousand, maybe a little bit more, depending on how.
How high end those specs you get are.
And don't forget Costco also sells a lot of computers online. And the way if you want, if you want to look there, slick deals dot net has all of the latest sort of best computer deals linked up on their front page. So if you go in there and then you tap categories and we go to UH computers and you can sort by the different places they sell them and the different you know, deals that they have. And so I have a bookmark of all the slick deals for the laptops of the day that are really good.
Here it is laptop deals and usually if I look up, let's see if they have any at Costco right now. Yeah, Costco, it's got a sixteen inch HP for six ninety nine with everything you need. Everything I just mentioned it's got. So that's number one. Then you've got let's see they have any other costco ones here today that it's a MacBook okay, so I mean the one I just mentioned. This is everything you need.
Look at this.
It's got an AMD rise in seven. It's got a sixteen inch screen, thirty two gigs, a RAM one terabyte drive seven okay, yeah, seven hundred bucks thirty percent off usually one thousand bucks. You can get that right now at costco dot com. That is fantastic that's going to serve you well hp omnibook five. There you go, Carl, all right, have at it, have fun, Thanks for the call. Today FDA clears its first cuffless blood pressure monitor for over the counter use.
How cool is this?
You can now track your blood pressure without an arm cuff. Well, it's coming soon, so already for sale over in Europe. They've got one hundred and thirty thousand users over there. It's called the High Low Band HILO. It's going to launch in the US in twenty twenty six. It is the first cuffless blood pressure monitor cleared by the FDA for over the counter use. No prescription required. So what you do is you have to calibrate it once with
a traditional cuff all that's included. After that, it's cuff free. So once it gets that baseline measurement, it then uses an algorithm to figure out your blood pressure. So it's going to track blood pressure continuously and passively, just like how smart watches track your heart rate.
How cool is that.
I think this is a huge moment for anyone who has hypertension and needs care because, according to this one point three billion people worldwide are affected by high blood pressure. So if you can have your blood pressure monitor twenty four to seven in a way that's reliable, that is game changing because there are large there are a lot of people out there who have to continuously monitor their blood pressure several times throughout.
The week or day, and this is a huge win for them.
So the only the last remaining hurdle we have is blood glucose monitoring non evasive and I know a lot of companies are working on this. Once they figure that out, it is game over. We've got then, you've got blood pressure, you've got heart, You've got I mean, this is just amazing the stuff that's happening because of these wearables. Once again, the company there the Helo brand, Hilo Band. The company
is uh yeah, that's that's the name of it. Oh a company is Akida Acta Actia ak Tiia ak Tiia Actia. And if you're looking for a replacement for Pocket, I just downloaded a new app called Folio. Save Withfolio dot com. Save Withfolio dot Com. So we know that Pocket is a popular read it later app, it is officially shutting down, so Folio is a replacement app. It's available in iOS, Android, and the web. You can save articles videos, threads from
your favorite social media networks. Then you can access them anytime across devices. It's got a nice clean reading view, offline access browser extension, and you can even import your Pocket data, like if you kept a bunch of articles there, you can import it. There's also a premium version which you can get free for right now while they test it, which reads things to you, highlights, full texturet search, and customizable fonts. Folio is AD free, so the premium pricing
will support development of the feature. They won't track you with ads, so again, Save with Save with Folio dot com is the app. You can download it there for iOS, Android and it looks great. I mean it looks just like Pocket. The other alternative is called insta Paper. That's what I've been using as well, but this one looks pretty good.
Folio. I'll put a link on the website rich on tech dot tv.
Coming up, I'll tell you about the Amazon the seller who got hundreds of unwanted Amazon packages at their house. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology the website for the show rich on Tech dot tv. This is episode one nine.
I've got everything listed that we talked about here. Everything from the websites I mentioned on how to remove backgrounds from your pictures, the restaurants I went to New York, the Selena Gomez Oreos, which Bobo has now ordered himself, and everything else I mentioned is all on the website. Rich on tech dot tv. I take very good notes during this show, and so if you ever need something
I mentioned, you could just go there and find it. Weimo, which is made by Belkan, they are dropping their support for several of their devices, a lot of their stuff actually they're smart plugs and light switches, so this is a Belcan Wemo support update. They sent out Belcan's going to shut down cloud support for older Weimo products on January thirty first, twenty twenty six. After that, any devices relying on the Wemo app, Alexa or Google Assistant will
stop working. Only Wemo products set up with the Apple home Kit will still continue to work using home Kit local Control, So basically they're just shutting off the cloud with this stuff. Thread based Wemo products like the Stage controller and smart plug with thread are not affected, and if you have one of these you might qualify for partial refund, but only if your device is still under warranty, which you probably I mean probably not going to collect
very much there. Refunds are available starting January thirty first, not before, so you'll have to save your receipts and check Belkin's website. Belcan says this move lets them refocus on other areas of their business. For now, your Wemo devices will continue to work normally, but the countdown is on until January thirty first, twenty twenty six.
And I got to tell you about this story.
ABC seven News in San Francisco did a profile of a woman in San who's Jose, who got hundreds of Amazon packages delivered to her house.
She didn't order any of them. What were they?
They were returns. They were fake leather car seat covers tied to a third party seller, and the seller listed her address as the return location for customers trying to send their perch says back. They started arriving a year ago, they never stopped. They blocked her driveway, her access to her mailbox, and even her eighty eight year old mother couldn't walk down the entryway. She called Amazon a bunch
of times, filed a bunch of complaints. They only offered her one hundred dollars gift card and told her to donate or return the packages herself. According to Amazon policy, international sellers must either give a US return address, issue a returnless refund, or send a prepaid shipping label. But instead customers paid over one hundred dollars to ship these items back to this woman's driveway. This is just a wild story. The brand has no contact info on their website, the reviews or one star.
So what did this woman do?
After she got so frustrated, she called the local news and they got involved, you know, like these these troubleshooter kind of things, you know, like where are the We'll get you help. So once they called Amazon, guess what happened. Oh the problem goes away. Amazon stepped in, removed the boxes and said they're cracking down on the third party sellers violating their policies. The woman called it quote another form of hell, and says she's grateful someone finally listened.
Seven on your side isn't what they do like in the local news. I mean, I work in the local news, but I don't do that. But it's a funny thing about this. It's like I've seen this over and over. It's like these big companies don't care until you get the local news, because the local news will email the PR person. The PR person doesn't want to do a bad story, so they say, yes, we'll figure this out
and we'll get it fixed for that one person. Sometimes it helps other people too, but it's like, you know, the company doesn't care about what you do. It's only when the local news steps in then they care because you know there's gonna be a lot of publicity there. By the way, I had an AI breakthrough today. This is incredible because I've been using the Samsung phone. Of course, I'm playing with Gemini more. I figured out how to
make an everything notebook using Google Keep. So if you start putting a whole bunch of notes into Google Keep, you can ask Gemini about those notes.
So watch what I did. I put in the restaurants we went to in New York City, and watch what I can do. Now watch check my notes for the restaurants I went to in New York City. What were they? And let's see what Gemini comes up with. Okay, it's looking at Google Keep.
We went to.
Osteria Baroka and Tony's DiNapoli in New York City.
Look at that so it looked through my notes and it summarized the two restaurants that I went to.
How cool is that.
So I've been using another thing for this called voice notes dot com, sort of like an everything notebook, and then you can ask it's AI. But the problem is that's not integrated with Gemini. So with Gemini and Google Keep, you can now just dump a whole bunch of information into Google Keep and then ask Gemini at any time to look at your notes and tell you.
So, what could this be good for? Oh my gosh.
So for me, when my kids say something silly, I will record it into my notes and I can say, like, tell me something silly that my kids said. Any notes I have, or any thoughts I have while I'm traveling, I'll put in there. Anything that I read that's interesting. I'll put in their quotes and stuff like that. You say, hey, give me an inspirational quote for my notes. When I learn about people, I'll put notes about them in my notes.
So if they tell me their kids' names, or you know, where they're going to college, so I don't forget that those details about our relationship, I'll put that in there. Anything I mean, the possibilities are endless. I am so excited. I think I've just ruined the rest of my weekend because now I'm gonna sit here and program my Google Keep, which I typically don't use, but now that it works
so nicely with Gemini, this is incredible. And then by the way, you can say to Gemini, take a note and then say whatever you want and it will put that into your Google Keep.
This is big.
And by the way, Gemini works on iPhone or androids, so this will work same on both. Coming up, we're gonna talk about Google and their domination of the ad business right here.
On rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology website rich on Tech dot TV.
Joining me now is.
Ari Paparo, former Google executive and author of an upcoming book called Yield How Google Bought, built, and bullied its way to advertising dominance.
Ari, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me Rich. I'm assuming this book is not so flattering to Google.
You know, it's not a damning book of Google, but they did some things wrong. I mean, they were just held to be a monopoly by a federal judge. So I'm telling the story of how they got there. I would say more arrogance than evil.
More.
That's why I use the word bullying, because I think that's a pretty good take on what they did, and hopefully they'll read it and maybe get some insights as to what happened.
So, what did you do at Google and what they do to you that was so bad?
I don't have any ill will to Google whatsoever, and I've partnered with them in other jobs, but it wasn't for me.
Let's just say that, okay, So let's talk about the ad world. I mean, it's very much dominated by Google, for sure.
Why do we care?
Yeah, well, you know when a web page loads, people make money or they try to make money, and it supports most of modern web based journalism. I mean, obviously you have subscriptions if people can afford them, and you have you have other ways of making money of emails, et cetera. But a lot of it is just based on those boxes of ads, the banner ads, the square ads on the web pages, and that's what pays for journalism and content.
And how did Google bully its way? I mean, I know it and purchased companies over the years but they do command. Like if you set up a website and I have in the past, you know they got this thing. I think it's called what ads, AdWords one of those. Yeah, they have both, okay, but you know that's like the way to make money on your site.
Right absolutely.
So that's why it's an interesting story because everyone knows Google for search, but you don't think so much about banner ads. And they went from absolutely nothing where they had ad Sense, but it was all text. We're talking about the early two thousands. They just showed text ads on your site. They went from nothing to total dominance, ninety percent market share in some segments. And they did it by running the software the actual not the ads,
but the software that serves the ads. And that's how I got involved. Also, Google acquired a company called double Click back in two thousand and eight, and it was the software that almost every website you could think of, like CNN and New York Times and yach not Yahoo, but many others would use to show the ads. So they controlled the software. And then they said, well, if we ConTroll the software and people are sort of bidding
to buy these ads, we know what prices they're bidding. Well, we could bid blood and sent higher and win more often, or we can change the amount of revenue that people make when they sell the ads into our advantage. So they ended up being like basically both the stock market and the biggest bank in this market.
Now, Google has a lot of data about consumers. And this is kind of how this all comes together because we search on the web, We look for things, and then Google builds a profile of us, and then they use that to kind of make these ads appeal to us, right Like, they kind of they match up the ads with what.
We are looking for. So should we be worried about that process at this point?
You're right.
The Google has the Chrome browser, they have Gmail, they have maps, They know a lot about you that they have your search history, and you know, it is a little concerning, especially if you're searching for sort of sensitive topics around health or whatever. I would say Google's a pretty good actor in this regard. I don't think there's ever been a allegation that they use data in a
really bad way or sold your data. But it is concerning overall that companies like Meta and Google and TikTok knows so much about its consumers and in some cases, maybe collecting data from you when you're not aware. You know, you're on a website about news. You don't know that Google is actually learning about what you're interested in. It's important that consumers kind of take control of that at some to some degree. But I wouldn't be overly panicked about it.
I mean, yeah, that's that's another side of it. When you visit a website, they are typically sending data back to Google that says, hey, this person went here. It may not be your name per se, but it's linked to you somehow, I guess, but it tells you know, it sends back data all to feed that beast of like, hey, we can target this person because they look at news about sneakers all the time.
It's true because there are these things called pixels. Many of your listeners should know that on almost every website out there. It's not just Google, though Google has Google Analytics, but the meta, the Facebook pixel, or the thumbs button, whatever, the like button, you know, those are data collection mechanisms.
There was just a little bit of a mini scandal where it was found out that on Android phones, Facebook could recognize its consumers up to their user profile on Instagram on every basically every single pixel fire in the browser, which is something they shouldn't be able to do, but they were able to manipulate around that. So, yeah, as you're surfing the web, a lot of folks are collecting information about you and there's no way to fully protect yourself.
But also it's not the most sensitive data. It's not something that hopefully you could be you know, lose your marriage or your house about you know that I'm interested in sneakers or whatnot.
Now we've heard a lot about Google, and you tossed out the word monopoly. There's been two prominent cases involving Google lately. One was their ad business and then the other was Chrome. So what do we know about this?
Like, is Google going to be forced to change its ways? Yeah, you summarize it.
Well, the two big cases in the federal there's also a state case asking for huge damages. So in the search case where they were declared to monopoly, they've already had hearings about what they should do about it, and the government is trying to force a spin out of
the Chrome browser. The Chrome browser has I think something like sixty percent market share in the US, so that being spun out and Google not being a sort of beneficial owner that invests a ton of resources into it is a big question mark for the future of the web. Will there be many browsers, will some be owned by commercial institutions like Amazon Browser, and you'll get money off who knows where it'll end up.
It's a big change.
If they're forced to spin out Chrome on the AD side, which is what I wrote my book about, They're also being asked to spin out their core AD server that I mentioned earlier, but also their exchange and a bunch of other tools that publishers used to make money and where they have monopoly or near monopoly market share, and that could throw a wrench into the ways that the revenue streams of media companies and publishers and streaming broadcasters
and a lot of other folks. It's a very disruptive change given how Google is, but a lot of observers really think it's due to happen both of those remedies. Who's the book for ari I wrote the book as narrative journalism, meaning I talk to people and I told their stories. It's not a technical book, it's more of a business book. I hope people really enjoy it. People are interested in advertising, in business, in drama around this
sort of monopoly big tech. I hope it's pretty readable, but I'll only know when the reviews start coming in.
It's available on August fifth.
My question for you is is all of this a point because the web, the structure of the web is changing because of AI. I mean, Google, I feel like is in a very precarious position. They have Gemini, but we've got open AI, Chat, GBT, Perplexity, all these other services are now summarizing the web and not necessarily delivering ads in the way that Google has made its bread and butter on.
Yeah, it all starts with the consumers, and the consumers are are being referred from search results less. Basically, referral traffic is down, and referral traffic is the lifeblood of many and supported businesses. So it's an interesting problem. Will publishers be able to recapture their audience to go with channels they can control better, like podcasts, like like email, like some parts of social or will they just lose that traffic and they'll never come back and traffic turns
into advertising. So we don't know.
Also, the Chrome browser, you know, we probably have heard that. Just in the last week.
I think open Ai said they're making a browser, and Perplexity said they're making a browser. And there's also this browser called da that's getting a lot of traction because that's built in AI.
So maybe the Chrome browser.
Case is also you know yesterday's news, it's a really interesting time in tech.
Yeah.
I always wonder about that because these laws, you know, these these court challenges always take so long to get through, and by the time they do that, you know, tech is evolving so quickly. To me, it's like, you know, if open aies can out their own browser, this DA browser that you mentioned from the browser company, like you said, is that's getting a lot of publicity. It's like people have the options already whether they want to switch and
whether it means anything. If another company even wants Chrome, what does it mean If it's split up from Google, it may not mean anything.
Yeah, there's this concept in antitrust called a natural monopoly, and a natural monopoly is just where building the thing that you sell is so expensive that someone else can't do it. So like cable TV would be an example where you have to rip up the streets to put your tables in and it may be that the browser and search is a natural monopoly, where like it's so hard to be good at it that once you're good at it, you get more data and you dominate everything.
And so maybe open ai is going to be able to displace Chrome with a better browser because they'll have that, and then they'll become a monopoly and government will have to come after them. It's just something about this business and the and recurring data that makes it hard to compete.
Wild Times and Technology are Paparo, former Google executive and author of Yield How Google Bought, built, and bullied its way to advertising dominance. The book is out on August fifth. Check it out wherever you buy books. It's on Amazon of course. Ari, good luck with the launch.
Thanks for having me, and thanks for the great questions.
Really appreciate you coming on the show Rich on tech dot TV. If you want a link to Ari's book, I will put it up there. You ever feel your heart skip a beat? Literally, I've got so many emails about this Cardio mobile device. One listener told me how he went to donate blood and they flagged something off with his heartbeat. Then his sister or nurse said she'd heard him storing through a closed door.
Well.
That got his attention, so he picked up a cardio mobile to check his heart rhythm at home, and sure enough, it caught something. His doctor reviewed the results and said it looked like a PVC usually harmless. Harmless but worth modering. But it turns out he also had undiagnosed sleep apnea. That means he stops breathing over thirty times an hour. Now he's sleeping better using a CPAP and tracking his heart more closely than ever you can too. That's where
the Cardia Mobile six L comes in. It's the most advanced personal EKG you can buy. It's FDA cleared to detect a fib and it is more accurate than a smart watch. To use it, all you have to do is put your two fingers on it takes a reading, shows you that reading on your phone. You can even print out a nice little PDF if you want bring it to your doctor or if you want to do
the more extensive reading. All you have to do is put your two fingers on it and then put the other side of the cardia right on your ankle and it will take a much more thorough view of your heart. So this thing is really incredible. It's very high tech, and right now you can get ten percent off. Go to Cardia dot com ka r DA that's Cardia dot com. Or you can go to Amazon search Cardio Mobile six L and use my code for ten percent off ten six L. Rich that's Cardio Mobile six L. Peace of
mind in your pocket. We'll be right back and open up the feedbag. Welcome back to rich On Tech. I'm gonna get right into it because so many feedbag Oh my gosh, the feedbag is just overflowing today.
But first, just a couple things. Check my instagram.
At rich On Tech, I visited very very cool place, something that you dream of as a kid. Walt Disney Imagineering took a big tour yesterday and I'll have some more coverage on my radio show on TV soon. But on my Instagram, I've been posting some of the cool things I got to see and I'll just be kind of peppering it over the next couple of days, so definitely follow me there at rich On Tech. I've got me playing with a lightsaber a couple other things on there,
so really really really cool. And then what else, Oh, my dad did this thing where he switched his whole setup, his internet, his phones, everything without calling me. Said he didn't want to bug me, and I kind of gave him a hard time. I was like, Dad, you know your son does this for a living, Like call me the next time. He's like, I don't want to bother you.
I said, this is how people get scammed when you don't want to bother your family or friends with a problem you're having or an issue, and then you end up getting scammed because the scam artist takes advantage of that. Now, he did not get scammed. He actually did a pretty good deal signing up for all this stuff. He did
make a big switch carriers and all that stuff. But I thought this was pretty interesting from a vast They came out with their Safe Tech Report twenty twenty five saying fifty nine percent of older loved ones have fallen victim to cybercrime, often from scams and social engineering. Nearly half of adults still write passwords on paper, which they say is a major security risk. They encourage younger adults to lead a safe tech talk with their parents and grandparents.
So kind of like the talk that your parents might have had with you. This is the tech talk that you should have with your parents. So fifty three percent of only fifty three percent of older adults were warned about risky behavior actually change their habits. Best behaviors include using a password manager, learning common scam red flags, and installing protection software.
Of course, I asked going to say that.
The thing I liked about this they've got the full report, but they also made a printable flyer. You can literally print out this flyer that you can paste in your parents' home office or your loved one's home office, and it reminds them of all the scammy stuff that they might encounter. It's kind of like when you're at the break room at your work and it's like, be safe. That's what it is for your parents. So get that for your parents and grandparents, printed out, put it on their home
office wall, put the link on the website. Rich on tech dot tv, all right, time for the feedbag. I'm she going to try to get through as many of these as possible, Jeff writes in I heard the segment where Carino was looking for a way to offload her exercise videos. One easy solution upload them to YouTube. She can mark them private or unlisted and then just save them to her favorites and access them anywhere anytime.
That is a simple solution. Sometimes I'm doing the solutions on the show.
I don't think of everything all at once, but that's a good One day from Eastern Washington, Rights and I heard the question on the show about organizing digital files. I wanted to share my method. It's free and easy. I create a main folder on my computer called my file Cabinet. Inside that I add folders by category, bank statements, credit cards, insurance. I scan my paper documents monthly and name each file with a date like six eight, twenty
five Discover, so they sort themselves. Each main folder has subfolders by year. I keep everything on USB drives that I unplug when I'm done. It's simple, it works great, and it doesn't cost a thing. Dave, Thanks Dave. Ronald writes in hey, Rich, just wanted to thank you for the SIM protection information. I use track phone on by Verizon, and while the steps were a little different, I eventually found the account settings and it was actually simple to
add the protection. It showed to lock and unlock toggle. Thank you well, Thank you ron for following those directions. Howard writes in from Wisconsin, rich I initially asked about Microsoft Backup, but I was actually trying to figure out the easiest way to sign up for the Windows ten Extended Security Updates program for multiple PCs. Most guides don't
explain how to cover several computers under one account. I discovered that if you redeem one thousand Microsoft Rewards points, you can activate e SU and up to ten devices, which is probably the easiest route. I've already earned over four hundred points in two days. I should have my one thousand by Friday. Thanks again for the great newsletter and tech help. Yes, you can go to Rewards dot bing dot com to rack up points and get an extra year of security updates for Windows ten. Tim wrights in.
I have both Uma and magic Jack voipe phone lines at home. Magic Jack is barely adequate as a landline subsidy to the call quality is marginal, but as a fax line it's fine. Uma, on the other hand, is much better. I use it as my landline connected to my router and it works great. I pay about seven dollars a month for the basic plan. That's all I need. The device costs me eighty dollars in twenty twenty three. I mostly use it as a throwaway number for online
forms to avoid spam on my cell. One tip if you go this route, be sure to use a UPS backup to especially if you have Fiber.
I've got Frontier. They install the.
ONT in my garage, so I ran my ethernet to make sure I get the full five hundred speed. Okay, Tim writes in, I got an LG gram fifteen inch, very light, great screen. The keyboard is backlit. I love it, except for two things. The keyboard's pretty awful and the space bar isn't always functional. And Linda writes in, Rich no question here, just a quick email to tell you how much I appreciate you as a person. You clearly have high integrity in your work life, but also solid
devotion to your wife and sons. I really appreciate seeing that. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Linda. That is the email of the week. You get the gold star for that email. Thank you so much. That's going to do it for this episode of the show. You can find everything I mentioned on my website. Just go to Richontech dot TV. Find me on social media at rich
on Tech. Keep those emails coming. Next week, Adrian Ludwig from Tools for Humanity will join me to explain how World Network is building a way to prove your human online and why that matters. And Logan Seacrest from the R Street Institute will join me to talk about Hey, how AI is being used in police body cameras. Thank you so much for listening. There are many ways you can spend your time. I appreciate you spending it with me.
One reminder, please don't text and drive. Whatever it is, it can wait, not just for your safety, but for the safety of everyone. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible.
My name is rich Ramiro. I'll talk to you real soon.