Tesla's Robotaxi, Electronics Nostalgia & Ring's AI Search

phone lines at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call. If you have a question about technology. Email is also an option, and you like it, just go to rich on tech dot tv and hit contact. It is so wild. When this show airs throughout the weekend, obviously it's live and then it replays in different places. The emails just come pouring in, and I love reading them. I can't get to every single one of them. I

do mention a lot on the show. I do answer some of my newsletter. But if you get that response from me, you know it, and I do appreciate you emailing me. All right, Guests, this week, we've got tech journalists Christian Delooper. He's gonna explore the pros and cons of those art style TVs like Samsung's the frame and high senses canvas TV. You know they show artwork when you're not using it. And we've got former PR pro Scott Baldwin. He's got a new app. He has a

startup and the app is called front Pack. It's a social network for athletes. So we'll talk to him. Plus I've got a special guest. Stay tuned for that.

which I cannot believe. I still remember the day I was actually at the doctor with him when he got the initial diagnosis and it just, you know, puts your world into a tailspin, just everything, and so my you know, I live far away, so I said, you know what, I will help. Couldn't bring him to the hospital all that stuff, but I will help get his tech life in order. So immediately I said, let's go through your stuff.

Let's get everything kind of figured out so I can help you pay the bills and all these different things. And the first thing I learned is that his digital life was such a mess, as are so many of ours. I like to think mine is not, but you know, there are portions of it that are. But I had to go through his passwords and access to everything, you know, get online, access to banking and things like that. And it just took a lot because it's like, Dad, do

you know your password to this? No? Dad, do you know how you access this?

two accounts. Those are the two big ones. But do that and also maybe share your passwords of some of the important stuff with folks. Obviously, my dad's livelihood was impacted during this time when he was recovering. He is a roofer by trade, so he couldn't go up on roofs, although he probably did during some of this time, and so I set up a GoFundMe for him. That was incredible just to see how many friends, family, and even complete strangers wanted to help. If you did that many

many years ago, thank you for that. Always set up a GoFundMe if someone is going through something in your life, because there are many people that are just waiting to help. And with social media and all these avenues, it's a great way to do that and to raise some funds for folks who can't work or need some help. And it's been a long journey, lots of doctors, lots of hospitals, lots of sickness, lots of blood. Blood actually helped save

both my mom's life and my dad's life. They would not be here today if it was not for blood donation. So please donate blood. Personally, I am too scared to do that. I know I'm trying to work through it, but that is something that I do appreciate when other people do it. I think it's incredible. My dad really strong. He's a health nut, always has been, and so he did end up getting through his cancer. He got a stem cell transplant, which, again incredible technology. He had to

start life over. It was not easy and it was a very long journey. Again, it's been ten years. But modern technology, including includes medical advances. We often forget. We think about technology as computers and gadgets and things, but medicine is also quite incredible these days, and there are very smart people figuring this stuff out and continuing to make strides. But one thing has not changed. My dad is healthy now.

I got to stop in that place. I mean I got to stop in because it's just you know, we don't have these, And so I did go there and I just thought it was so neat because over the years we've seen this sort of evolution of you know, the the idea of the electronics store. Nowadays it's all Amazon overnight, right, But through my years growing up, I mean I remember going going to Egghead Software, if you

remember a place called Egghead Software. But that was like as a nerd growing up, it was just so cool. You'd walk in and all the software was in boxes, and you had discs and floppy drives and you would come home and put in like one disc after another to install programs. Now we just download them on our phone instantly. There's a place called Crazy Eddies, which I know got a lot of notoriety over the years because I think the guy ended up getting in trouble with

the government for like embezzling money. But that was a great place where our prices are insane. I mean, these larger than life, you know characters on TV that would be promoting electronics. How wild is that? And then of course I lived close to New York City, so there were always these electronics stores, like independent electronics stores in New York City. And what you do is you'd buy

the newspaper. They would all list their prices in the back and tiny print, and you'd go into one store and you say, hey, this other store has this thing, this VCR for you know, nine ninety eight. You've got it for nine to ninety nine. Can we get that? You know, this this price that they have. Maybe it wasn't that little of a difference, but you know what I mean. And so you know, then you had the regional retailer, so PC, Richards, the Whiz sixth have electronics.

These were all on the East Coast. I'm sure where you are it could be different, but this is where I grew up, and there was just so many of them, and I love just going into these stores and walking around.

And over the years, of course, growing up, my dad would buy stereos in our first camquarder, our first big screen TV, our first fax machine, computers and printers, and I will tell you my dad would attest to this that almost every single thing that he purchased, whether it was for a small business or for the house, somehow ended up in my room at the house. Like the fax machine. He bought it for his business, but somehow it ended up in my room. Like what did they

sixth grader need with a fax machine. I don't know, i'd know in a fax, but it was just so cool. And then of course later peripherals, sound cards, speakers, graphic cards. It just went on and on. My love for electronics ran very deep, even as a kid, and the stores go on and on. Radio Shack that was next to like one of the grocery stores my mom would always go to, and of course I had to duck into Radio Shack and convince my mom to let me go in there and just check it out. And I didn't

necessarily have enough money to buy anything. But part of the fun of going into these stores were the smart people that were inside these stores. So because you were a nerd, you would find like minded people and just chat about nerdy things, and a lot of times you were comparing knowledge, right, oh what about this new you know, microprocess or this new computer. Oh I tried that. So that was just part of it. Nowadays, of course, that's all online, it's all in forms, it's all in chats.

But back in the day, it was like real human to human interaction at these places, and you knew where to find these people. And then of course it was the bigger, bigger stores comp USA Circuit City and Best Buy. They just continued to get bigger fries electronics when I made my way to California, but again, local retailers ruled electronics for a long time until these mega chains stepped in. Back in the day, even office Depot had an excellent department that I had never worked in. It was called

business Machines. I actually worked it off as depots selling cell phones back in the day when they were ninety nine cents you would, or were they a penny? Whatever they were, they were like ninety nine cents or a penny, and every time, without fail, people would buy the phone and they'd come in like thirty days later when their first bill came in the mail and their bill was so expensive because it included the first month, the last month, the pro rated amount, and I was like, well, the

phone was only ninety nine cents. I mean, you have to pay for this somehow, right, And we had to work through that. Half the times, the flip phones that we sold for a dollar would be returned because people were so angry at the giant bill they got for. And back then it was like, you know, a couple hundred bucks for their first bill, and by the way

in that department business machines. These salespeople again were nerds, and they were fun and like that's why I just sit there and chat with about all the latest electronics. And they were commissioned, so if you were a good salesperson,

you can make a lot of money back in the day. Now, of course, a lot of these retailers like Best Buy have moved away from that sort of commission I pressure sales, but it was quite interesting for a long time, and now it's all about online reviews, Amazon getting your stuff overnight. Cost Go still a big place where people buy electronics. But I'm curious, are there any local electronics stores left

in your area? I mean, I travel a lot, and of course I will always go into a place if I see one, But I was so happy to see micro Center. It's just such a such a great place to see, like thriving, and I just made my mom walk around all we walk down every single aisle and

just had such a great time. So if you want to hop on the phone lines or email me, I will mention later in the show or throughout the show some of these places that you visited growing up and just enjoying electronics because If you're listening to the show, you probably have somewhat of a small love of gadgets like I did and still do. All right, coming up, we're gonna talk Tesla Cybercab, new announcement from Tesla with their self driving car. But first we're gonna take some

of your calls. Your calls up next A triple eight rich one, you know one that's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. My name is Rich Dmuro. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at triple A rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one, Coming to you from New Jersey today. The website for the show is rich on Tech dot TV.

While you're there, sign up for my newsletter. Got a great issue out this week and uh it's completely freeze. Just pop in your email address. You'll get that every weekend. And if you want to send me an email here just go to the website as well. Rich on Tech dot TV. Hit contact. You know, when I took on a Saturday live radio show, I did not I kind of forgot about how much I travel on the weekends to different places, both for personal and for job, most

of the time in the studio. But you know, I didn't want to let this show stop me from being places that I needed to be, Like this weekend, let's go to let's see here, Let's go to line too, Tony in the England Empire. Tony, let's get you on with Rich.

repair them to your phone and see if the problem persists. Now, if the problem persists, I would also do a little clean out. I would get a little alcohol, a little rubbing alcohol or an alcohol wipe, make sure it's not super wet. Just you know, maybe put some alcohol on a Q tip and I would clean the I would clean the all basically everything inside the case and the contacts on the air pods themselves, and then I would charge them up, pair them back to your phone, and

see if the problem is still happening. If the problems still happening, then I would probably get a new pair of AirPods. I would see if these are under warranty. You said they're the second generation. I don't think they're under warranty at this point, and so I would probably get a new pair at that point. The new ones are let's see here. The new ones are one hundred and twenty nine dollars for the air pods four. I will tell you I've been testing them with active noise cancelation.

I don't think it's worth the active noise cancelation. I don't think it's very good. So did you need the noise cancelation or no?

it in the other ear and use that one. But I think maybe a new pair, if you know, go through the steps that I mentioned. I'll put the links on the website. Rich on tech dot tv. This is the show notes. This is show number ninety three, So I'll put that in the show notes, and hopefully if you go through all those systems and see if it's still giving you a problem, then maybe it's time for a new pair. But I will tell you you're not alone

these Tony. These For some reason, the AirPods just have this weird thing where like sometimes they just show like one percent one of them charges, one of them doesn't. And so I've seen this happen before with mine. Most of the time it's sort of a contact thing or like just a quirk. And there have been some software updates for the AirPods as well, so I'll put the

link on the website. You can't really force a software update with the AirPods, but perhaps you need a software update, and I'll put the instructions on how to see if it needs a software update. You can check like what the software that's running is and compare it against what's available. So hopefully that helps Tony.

Lots of you emailing me to tell me that Microcenter is also in the La area in Tustin. Yes, I knew that I should have mentioned that. I know they have more than one location. I just have not been to the Tustin location, and this one's a lot closer. So yes, I am well aware of that. They're actually building a new one in northern California and Santa Clara, California as well, So they are still expanding and we'll talk more about them later. Dave writes in from Temecula

many years ago. Daytel in San Diego was the place to go. They sold the brand new IBM PC and also their own brand as a kit. I got the kit assembled. I got the kit and assembled it myself, A whopping one hundred and twenty eight k of memory, twenty megabyte hard drive, and a amber monochrome monitor. And it cost over three thousand dollars, quite a lot in those days. And go Dosco three thousand dollars is still a lot. I remember so two computers. I begged three computers.

I begged my dad to buy me my first. We were just in PC Richard and we just did it on a whim and we bought this computers like a computer in a box, and it was a three eighty six SX sixteen. And then my second computer was a Gateway two thousand and I don't know if you remember this,

but I mean I sure did. I could not wait for PC World to get delivered to my house because in the center of that magazine was the Gateway two thousand AD and it was headweight in all his like I don't know, cowboy gear with the cows everywhere the spots, and I would just flip through this ad and just I mean that sold me on that brand so heavily compared to like a Dell, I guess, or maybe that came later, I don't know, but but Gateway was the

brand for me. And then of course I ordered the computer and I got it in, you know, in the box. And then later on I got this was a brand I'm not even sure it's around anymore. It's called win Book. And that was my first computer for college and it was a laptop and it was so expensive. I think it was like thirty five dollars and it was I mean, nothing was a beast. It was so slow by today's standards, didn't even have Wi Fi built in. But anyway, I digress.

Keep those emails coming. Rich on tech dot TV hit contact if you want to send in your electronics store that you visited throughout the years. Let's go to line one. We've got Susan in Santa Monica, California. Susan, right, welcome to the show.

have plain old fashioned landline bundle phone and internet. I have a router. I guess it's a combo router modem, and it's been working just fine. Every now and then I need to reboot it. No problem, it's pretty old. Can I give you the name and model and you tell me if I should be replacing this?

seems to be very safe. We've had it for many, many years in many people's homes throughout the world. So I would say, personally, if you're concerned with that, I would maybe move the router to a different place that you feel better with. But I don't think that's an issue, and I don't think it's a reason to turn it off at night. So if that's the main reason I would, I would not do that.

So I would call your cable company or look on there and see if it says anything about that, if it's like two or something previous. But otherwise, I mean, you could have these these modems for a very long time. Now. I have had mine for ten years, and I will tell you I did get a notice from my cable company and they said it's time to upgrade and we have to swap it out. And so it does happen. It's you know, but it's not over a year or two. This is a standard technology that's been around for a

long time. But I would get in touch with with Frontier. Do you rent it or have you purchased it from them?

dot com. If you're getting the speed you're paying for on a wired connection, wireless might be a little bit slower, but if you're getting that with a Ethernet cable plugged into your laptop, then your modem's working just fine. So there's no real reason to change that. And yeah, yeah exactly, So thank you so much. All right, thanks so much for the call there. Susan and Santa Monica do appreciate it, and of course I always appreciate the kind words. It

really means a lot to me. This week in Los Angeles, Tesla unveiled the cyber Cab. So this was an event at Warner Brothers Studios in Los Angeles. No, I'm not bitter because I wasn't invited, but we'll just get through this anyway, twenty Cybercab prototypes at this we Robot event. The Cybercab is a two seater vehicle with doors that go up. I guess they're not Falcon doors. I guess they call them goal wing doors. But there's no wheel, there is no pedals. This is a vehicle that just

is self driving. Now you can buy one of these, and that's what's unique about this setup is that Elon Musk is promoting this as something that you would buy for less than thirty thousand, by the way, that's their target price, and it would drive you around. But here's the kicker. When you are not using it, it can be sent out into the world to act as an automated uber on your behalf. So your car would be picking up other people, driving them around, dropping them off,

and then you'd be earning cash on this. How wild is that? So they're almost creating like a secondary market they want to start production twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven. These cars have wireless charging, not plug in chargers. They also had a Robovan that was capable of carrying up to twenty people that was more like a bus. They also had these Optimist humanoid robots on display, they were

making drinks, they were talking to people. Elon Musk believes these will be huge, like a Rosie the robot for your house price tag of about twenty thousand dollars to thirty thousand dollars. These were a little bit iffy because it was clear that they had humans not only doing the voice and the interactions with people, but also controlling them. But they were standing, it seemed, on their own and walking around, which was pretty cool. So they've come a

long way. Obviously, this is all a very big dream right now. We don't know if any of this will happen for real. They've got lots of hurdles ahead, including people accepting cars driving around by themselves without people in them or without a human driver. I know Weaimo does this, but there's a lot of talk about the fact that Weimo does this very differently. Weimo cars are already driving around by themselves in Los Angeles, but they use a

completely different tech stack, including radar, ldar cameras. They have so many sensors on those cars that these cars that Elon Musk is promoting do not have. Elon Musk typically the Tesla has used cameras to self drive, and we're still waiting for that dream of full self driving on the current Tesla's the Model three, the Model Why. He believes that in California and Texas there will be unsupervised full self driving in the next two years or so.

So again, this is someone who promises a lot, and I love the fact that Elon Musk. There's no doubt about it. He has delivered many, many things. But again we have to hold a little bit of we have to be a little bit critical of this stuff and a little bit skeptical as well, because this is going

to take longer than probably many of us think. Again, don't forget this was done on a closed set on the Warner Brothers lot rather than in a real world situation, so everything was highly controlled, although people were getting rides in these cyber cabs around the back lot. So it's cool, There's no doubt about it. It's very cool. But again, I can't wait to see this stuff happen. I think it's there's a many many people out there who do not want this stuff to happen, or who do not

want to get into a car like this. But I know many people who have taken the way mos that including myself. That felt very comfortable. Now eighty eight rich one one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at triple eight rich one O one that's eight eight eight seven four to two

four one zero one. Got an email from uh let's see Diane in Menefee asking are we able to FaceTime with one Apple and one Android phone? And the answer is yes, but it's complicated and I don't recommend it. So there are many many ways to do a video call that does not involve FaceTime. You know, if you've listened to the show for any length of time that I always always prefer third party, platform independent products, so platform products that work on every platform, not just one. Now,

if you are an Apple person, it's amazing. Everything works great, but you are beholden to pretty much everything Apple. In fact, one of the best note taking apps out there is Apple Notes, which I would love to use, but I can't because I test a lot of phones. Maybe I want to switch to an Android phone at some point, and I would have to switch my entire notes to some other program because of that, and it just goes on and on. If you use Apple Photos to store

your photos, Apple Music doesn't work on both. I will give them that, but it's pretty much reminders, I mean, anything that you do in the Apple ecosystem. It's pretty much just glue to keep you on the Apple side of things. You get an air tag, you're not going to switch to Android. They don't work with Android. Again, always prefer things that work on every platform, not just one. So when it comes to FaceTime, yes, it's simple, Yes it's easy, but if you're trying to use it with

an Android, it's not that easy. You can do it, and here's how you do it. So first off, you have to go to a you have to start the call from an iPhone, and so you get the call on an iPhone, you get it going, and there's a link on the iPhone that you can generate when you're in the call, and so you can generate that link and send it to someone that is on another device like a Windows computer or an Android phone, and then once they get that link, they can open up that

link and get on the call. So basically, if you are on FaceTime. You can open up the app and there's a create link near the top of the screen, and then you just send that link to someone and look, I mean, yes, it works, but like, why not use a program that just works with everything? Right? I mean, what's app does great video calls? Telegram does video calls, Facebook Messenger does video calls. I think even Instagram does

video calls. At this point, I mean, can't you just use something that you know that just works with everything. So that's my recommendation. But yes, if you have an iPhone, you got an Android friend and you want to FaceTime them, that's what you do. You start the FaceTime, create a link, and then send that link to the other person. Let's take a call here. Let's go to let's see here, let's go to Mark in Woodland Hills. Mark. You're on with Rich?

am all for Lectri cars one hundred percent. I'm not one of those people who's gonna sit here and say let's not progress and let's just default to you know, let's just default to oil for the rest of our lives. That's not gonna that's not possible. And I understand there's a drawback to everything. There is not a thing in this world that there is not a side effect or a drawback to, no matter what you're talking about. I mean, I don't care if you tell me you eat bananas

and they're perfect for you. There's a downside to eating too many bananas, you know. So we have to understand that this stuff is. There's a pro and a con to everything, and we are progressing. And I get it. If you don't want an electric car, don't get it. That's the best thing. And nobody's forcing you to do that. I understand. Yes, we've got you know, some states in some places, and there's been some plans for the future of transitioning to these cars, but nobody's forcing anyone to

do it just yet. Personally, I think the electric car is the best thing that I've ever yet mute. Okay, I mean personally, I think the yes, mark.

this transition, and we have to make this transition. There is no way that we have an amount of oil or gas that can last infinite amounts of time, and so we have to find these renewable sources of energy that we can use and use safely and create alternative methods of getting around. And again, my electric car is the best thing I've ever purchased. It is the most incredible piece of technology I have ever used. Are their drawbacks to it? Of course? Does it take a little

bit longer to get to places? Do I have to think about it on road trips? Is there a charger every single place I ever want. No, I didn't rent a car this trip, an electric car, by the way. They were half the price of the gas cars because nobody's renting them. But I didn't rent one myself because I knew I'm not I'm not trying to find a charger on my you know, a couple of days out here, and so I get it. Mark, I totally understand, and I get it. But thanks for the call. Appreciate it.

Eighty to eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology. The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV. The phone number for the show eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. Was talking about old school electronics stores and pat rode in from Monrovia.

I bought my first PC at Creative Computers in Lawndale, an Amiga five hundred with five hundred and twelve K in nineteen eighty seven. Amigas could add graphics and animation to home video or pro video, so they required an interlaced display. By the time I tried to help a friend buy one of the nineties. The parent company no longer made those monitors. I asked the salesperson, how can you sell a computer with no display? It isn't easy,

was his reply. Good old commodore, cheers, Pat, great story, William wrote in on X Hey, I worked for Staples when they were the premier company for computer sales. Isn't that wild now? It's like it feels like when you go into those stores, you know, the office stores, the

office electronics is sort of an afterthought. You know, people just go in there for paper, And I, quite honestly, I'm surprise anytime there's a physical store for anything Like it just feels like they're all just you know, it's just a matter of time before they all go away. And so I don't want that to happen. But I

understand the economics of it. I mean, these these stores are getting undercut by online so easily, and people literally are doing price comparisons in the store and then saying, oh, I'll just save a couple bucks and I'll have it tomorrow morning. This week, Ring introduced a new AI powered smart video search. This is pretty cool and it's so wild. It's so wild how much AI has just it's it's funny. I do a joke every time I interview someone for KTLA and talk about you know, their product, I say,

and how is AI involved? And ninety nine percent of the time they have an answer because AI has to be a part of every product nowadays, no matter what. And so Ring has this thing called smart Video Search, and you can now type in just anything you want to find speciments in your Ring video history. So your doorbell and your cameras have been recording all these clips.

You know there might be some interesting moments in there, or maybe you're trying to look for something like you know, your backyard is all messed up and you're like, what what animal did that? So you can search for not only animal, but a specific animal like raccoon. You can search for locations. You could search for packages, people, time vehicles. You can say red car and see how many times that passes your house. Weather, that'd be cool. I'd love

to try to see if you can search lightning. That'd be kind of cool. And of course some activities as well. This works across all their Ring video doorbells and cameras. This is all being done on the back end, so it doesn't really need any modification on the camera side, something that's very easy to I don't know about easy, but they're implementing on the back end, server side, so that's why they can roll it out on all these cameras.

It's rolling out in public beta to select customers now, and so that means you will not have access to it right away, but eventually you will only though, if you are subscribed to their new top of the line plan, Ring Home Premium. That's twenty dollars a month. I know for my Ring, they doubled the price tag from ten to twenty dollars a month, So I know a lot of people are not happy about that, but you know, that's what's happening, and I don't know, we'll see if

Ring changes their mind about that. But Ring, I will say, has been very inexpensive over the years, and so you know, twenty bucks a month, it's a lot, but it's kind of on par with what people are paying for some of their other Alarm subscriptions, and I believe that includes some of the alarm features too. November fifth, they're going to have that new feature those new subscriptions, So there you go. Ring with AI and if you got an email about to be owing you some money for a settlement,

it is legitimate. I got a bunch of emails from people saying rich, is this real? Yes to be. The free to watch video service is paying nearly twenty million dollars in a settlement over video privacy. What do they do well? They shared information with third parties without your consent. Now I don't know if they agreed to this or you know, if this is just the settlement. I don't know. Of course, these companies don't admit any wrongdoing in these settlements.

They just say, fine, settle. So are you eligible? If you used TUB between June twenty third, twenty twenty one and August twenty six, twenty twenty four, you are eligible for cash. So how much are you gonna get? We don't know. It depends on how many people file claims. So you should definitely file a claim if you got that email or if you use TUB. The only way you have to prove it is if you have an email account that's registered with TUB or the device information

and dates of use. So the deadline is let's see here. Claim deadline. November twenty eighth, twenty twenty four. If you want to exclude yourself from this class action, you gotta do October thirty first. Anyway, to be how ironic, it's a free service, free service that people use for free, and now they got to pay twenty million dollars because they shared these people's these uh, these customers information with

third parties. And what's that all about. I'm guessing it's all about advertising, because that's what's supporting to be as well as a lot of these other services. It's not really free. Your data is what's supporting it. But apparently they shared that data with too many people. Eighty eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up on the show, we're going to talk about the pros and cons of those art style TVs. That's this hour. Next hour, we're

going to talk to us Scott Baldwin. He's got a startup called front Pack. This is a social network for athletes. Got a new app plus a special guest a little bit later on. Let's go to line one. Steve in a Hemmett, Steve and Hemmett. You are on with rich Steve, Are you there? Nope? Okay, let's go to Uh, let's see here. Let's go to line too. Kevin in San Clementy. Kevin, You're on with Rich.

I mean, if it's still sounding fine, like it's a speaker, Like, what more do you need if it's if it's sounding good. It's funny because we're so used to replacing things and getting rid of things. But I bet, I bet even if these things went out, you could probably still repair them if they if they if someone still the parts.

I can tell, is this just an online thing? I'm not sure, but yeah, it's wild to go down down memory lane with some of these things. Okay, do we have time to go to uh? Sounds like our other callers back online one? We have time for Steve and Hemmett. No, No, we don't. Okay, all right, oh Steven Hemmt's gone. Okay, Well, this is what happens in a live show here. You know, we get people, we drop people, they drop whatever. Okay,

So a couple of things. The newsletter on the website rich on tech dot tv, So if you go there you can sign up for my free newsletter. I got a lot of emails this week from folks who, surpriseingly, do not want to switch. You know, you have to if you're on Verizon Messages Plus, you have to switch to Google Messages. And I got a lot of emails from people saying I didn't want to switch because they

don't want Google having access to their messages. They they're missing certain features that they had in Verizon Message Plus that Google Messages does not have. And they're asking me if they could use a different app now on Android. Yeah, that's the beauty of Android you could use. There's one thousand texting apps in the Google Play. You can choose any one of them. Obviously, make sure it's a company you trust because these are your texts. There's a lot

of personal information in there. But they're not going to support RCS, and that's the big thing. If you want that RCS support, you can go with Samsung Messages. You could still download that from the Galaxy Galaxy Store, but you're only going to get RCS, which upgrades your messaging from Android to Android and Android to iPhone if you use that Google Messages. Eighty to eight rich one oh one more Rich on Tech come your way right after this.

Welcome back to on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. The website for the show Rich on Tech dot tv. You can also sign up for my newsletter there and email me. Just hit contact. Or if you want show notes, anything I mentioned on the show, I put on the show notes, just hit the light bulb and you'll see all of the shows and the notes

for that. Did you participate in Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days twenty twenty four. I bought exactly one thing. It was a fog machine for my kid, replacing the old one we had, and yet it was on sale. It was great, but I did not get anything else, and a lot of things were on sale. I do think that these sales are getting better. I think Amazon is learning their lesson by putting more things on sale and not just promising a lot. But they say it was

Amazon's biggest October shopping event ever. I mean that really narrows it down.

the ads everywhere for that, and it's great. They're their football is so clear, it's unbelievable. I don't know how they're broadcasting or whatever they're doing, whatever magic they've got, but it's it's such a play to watch football games on Prime, and it's just the way it should be.

a hassle. Yeah, you have any ideas?

by an Italian company, Bending Spoons. I know you called it, what did you call it, Problem Spoons or something?

The other thing is that ever note stores everything in a proprietary way, which is you can export it. But I found out because I was a big Evernote user for many years. When I wanted to export, it got really tricky and everything was kind of gobbledygook. And it's taken me years to kind of climb out of that.

So what if I tried I've tried one Note. I don't like one Note because it the way it's got that infinite canvas I just deal with when you paste something in there, the text is like in one little box and then it moves over. It's just two doesn't work for my brain. Notion is what I'll tell you. I've settled on that, but I'll tell you I'll go through the thing. Obsidian is what I was using for a while, and I think Obsidian is probably, if you're a little bit of a nerd, the best alternative to

ever Note because it is mostly self hosted. Your files live on your machine. The file structure and every thing is very similar to Evernote. It's not as polished, it's not, as you know, full featured, but I think Obsidian is really good. You just have to figure out a way to sink it across devices, and that includes either paying them or doing it yourself. Apple Notes no good because it's just one platform, and then you've got Joplin, which is an open source program. But I find that it's

good and I think it's very similar. It's basically an Evernote clone, but open source. I just didn't like the fact that it doesn't really sink in the background, and it's a little bit old school looking compared now. The one that I've settled on has been Notion, and again you do probably have to pay if you want to use Notion in a big way, but I think it's the cleanest of all the programs. The thing I don't

like about it is the file structure. Everything is sort of link based, which is good, but it does take a little bit of learning. And you can't organize your file folders if you want to call that in alphabetical order, which really really bugs me. But I would say those your options. You kind of have to just play with them. And see I did download ever note again today to

take a second look. But the problem is it's one hundred and thirty bucks a year, and once you start getting into these programs, if you're if you're in it for the long haul, you're gonna be paying that forever. So it really comes down to a matter more preference. Coming up, we're gonna talk frame style art TVs with Christian Deloper. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight

Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one, the website rich on Tech dot TV. Hit contact if you want to get in touch. Uh Joining me now is a tech journalist Christian Delooper, to talk about the pros and cons of art style TVs. Christian, Welcome to the show. Hey, Rich, how's it going. Thanks for having me, Yeah, thanks for coming on. Let's uh so, first off, what is an art style TV. What does that mean exactly?

So hopefully we'll see other models from them. And that one's pretty interesting because it's taking on Samsung at a much lower price point. You know, the fifty five inch frame TV is fifteen hundred dollars, but the heists model is a thousand bucks, so you know, five hundred bucks cheaper is a big deal. Yeah, and I have a high Sense, so I'm actually I can say the quality is great. I like it a lot, and so I think that this is probably a nice option. So what

who do you think these are for? Like how do they work day to day? Like when you turn off your TV? Does it it just shows the artwork? And can you choose what you want on there?

unless you're willing to tinker a lot. You have to use the built in software to really.

there's always like a pro and con to something. So these TVs are expensive, are they as high quality like typically like if you're watching the regular content as you know, a nice ole letter or something like that, or is there a downside to the screen tech that they're using to make these look like art.

sense before I reviewed this one. I reviewed the latest license you eight, which is a stunning looking TV.

with it, is that I wish you could. You can set up Hdmi to control the TV through the volume and the power button and all that kind of stuff, but you can't set up the TV to say, hey, I just got an off signal, I'm going to go in art mode instead of OFF because I prefer to have art mode.

seem like it would be that tricky, it's interesting. So yeah, and there are some hacks around it too, So like, for example, I could change the Apple TV screen savers to be paintings instead of to kind of bird's eye view screensavers that Apple TV has become famous for, and that would kind of get around it, but you still won't get the automatic brightness technology like the Canvas TV can change brightness depending on the.

If you're using an external box, you do have to be willing to use two remotes, or at least I think you can technically set up the TV remote that comes with the Hyacins to control your Apple TV as well, so that that might be a good way around it for those who are willing to not use the Apple TV remote and still want art Mode.

just you know, that's what we use. But uh, okay, So the TCL one looks like it's called the Next Frame nxt Frame TV, so they're doing this as well, and yeah, sorry what was that? Yeah, no, go ahead, talk about this one.

canvas TV and the frame's edge lit. So with an edge lit TV, they basically shine lights in through the edges will The next frame has a big backlight behind the display so that the lighting is much more uniform. They can't still can't get really good control over the black levels. It doesn't have local dimming or anything like that, but it is a much more uniform lighting if you care about that.

matt look, but it's the same thing. Like when I pressed her power button on the Roku. Once I set it up, it went into art mode and then you press again and it turns off the TV. So I thought that was pretty cool that they added that as well. And obviously a lot of people have real cool Yeah, yeah, it is pretty cool.

rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you Talking technology eighty eight Rich one O one eighty eight seven four to two, four to one zero one coming to you from New Jersey today. Hence the music all Jersey inspired. Bon Jovi clearly one of the breakout stars of New Jersey. A couple of feedbags before we get to uh Todd in Santa Monica to talk about this hackathon they've got going on there. Danny wrote in from Riverside, said, Hey, back in the eighties, the Federated Group was one of

the fourth largest consumer electronics stores in the US. If you mentioned you were in radio, they'd give you a discount on Sendheiser headphones. Besides headphones, I bought my first Dolby surround stereo system there. Great for movie watching. Then you had Circuit Oh let's see radio personality. Oh Shadow Stevens. Huh wow, I remember that name was their spokesperson. Wow. That just brought back blasts from the past. Circuit City, where I bought my first big screen TV, eventually became

their main competitor. Atari bought Federated in nineteen eighty seven. After a few lawsuits, they folded in nineteen ninety All the best, Rich hmm, It's interesting. That's another place people. Oh that was another like Montgomery Ward, remember that store. That was another place you could buy electronics. So many let's see I believe on X says Fyi, Alan Eds

are still going strong. There's one close to me. Oh, good to know always like that's who you wanted to install your stuff again, Alan Eds, Let's go to a line too, Todd in Santa Monica. Todd, what's going on in Santa Monica today?

But there's people, you know, thinking of a lot of different applications that some of them are centered around how do they use content, how do they digest content and edit it in bite sized pieces to like highlight reels, or helping YouTubers be able to again cut their content faster as a rough cut, so that then they can go in and talluld.

it's such a force in everything these days. So where's the event happening and can anyone get involved in this still or what?

over one thousand registrations. We've got over five hundred actually here actively participating and at that one two one seven second street here in Santa Monica just stepped away from the big DC group Basic tem Z and so we're kicking off LA Tech Week with this huge hakathon to really help a flag in Los Angeles to show people that you know, there's a you know, we're more than we're an innovation capital too, not just San Francisco or places.

for what, you know, the time that they have. And it's pretty cool because people, you know, they come together, they may not know each other sometimes and they solve these problems that they you know uh have been considering with technology. It's pretty neat eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two one zero one again the website rich on tech dot tv. I'll put that website that Todd mentioned in the show notes. Just hit the light bulb there to get those TikTok

I know, broken record, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. I saw somewhere that TikTok has a countdown clock that you can see when when they're expected to be Let's see TikTok countdown to ban when they're expected. Oh here it is us TikTok ban countdown. Oh gosh, there's like some sort of clock I saw on social media that you can countdown time or oh here it is TikTok countdown. Now that's not the right one. Well this will work. But TikTok countdown dot com ninety nine days, nine hours, five minutes,

four seconds. With the ninety day extension, you've got one hundred and eighty nine days. So if you're making a living on TikTok, this is the this is the countdown to watch now. I I don't know I will get banned. I'm not sure and I've already given my opinion too many times in the show about electric cars. I'll save mine on TikTok. Let me just tell you what the what's happening against TikTok. Fourteen states have filed a lawsuit

against TikTok for violating consumer protection laws. They say this platform is addictive, particularly for young users. I don't think anyone could argue with that. They say that TikTok uses manipulative features to maximize user engagement, including beauty filters. They think that harm self esteem, especially for teens, auto play

and endless scrolling. There's no way to turn off the AutoPlay, notifications that make you want to come back, likes and comments all over the place, and time sensitive features that exploit a fear of missing out. What do they want them to do? Change their ways? Sixty three percent of Americans thirteen to seventeen use TikTok, seventeen percent reporting they use it almost constantly. This is rich on Tech. Welcome

back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at triple eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. The website Rich on tech dot TV. As always, Thanks for your emails, your comments, your questions. I do read them all.

my back. And I didn't even think about that when I was setting this up. But yeah, you worked at Microcenter. I did. Yeah, I was in the BYO PC section. And so did you know a lot about you've built your own PC?

that are building their own computer. Some of them may not have known everything, but a lot of them like kind of know their stuff. So were they trying to like quiz you like, what would be the interaction? Oh? Yeah, the smart customers were the worst because they would just ask me. They would just test my knowledge as much as they could. That's like this show sometime. Yeah, but yeah, they would ask all kinds of questions. You know, you'd

get everybody. You get somebody who just wants you to build the computer for them, and I'm like, all right, great, here's all the most expensive parts, and you commission I did? Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody works in our commission. So the customer brings up the part that they like, and then you slap your sticker with the barcode on it. And then when they check out, they bring up the part in the barcode and you get you know, the commissions calculated from that.

Oh wow, interesting? Yeah, And how long did you did you do that? I think I was there for just about a year. Oh that's it. Yeah, Oh wow, did I think of so much longer? Okay, So I was talking about the idea of when I was growing up, and for you a lesser extent, you're a little younger, but you know this idea of all these places you could go to the store, like these electronics stores like for me, you know comp USA and you know before Best Buy right right, like like this story yesterday when

I was walking through the aisles. I mean, they sell stuff that you just can't get in a Best Buy, like little tiny pliers and like metal fittings and stuff like that that's like really nerdy. Yeah, Microcenter is probably one of the last places you can get anything like that. I know, like radio shack back in the day used to have all kinds of little knickknacks and you know, little wiry parts that you'd used to connect a circuit board to something else. And nowadays it's just micro Center.

I mean they're the only game in town other than small little boutique shops that might sell electronics parts. But yeah, I mean it's great. You got to respect them for it because they they're a really good business. I mean, they have a lot of good parts they have. Let's not turn this into an ad for Microcenter. I mean it's great that we have them, but okay, let's I'm gonna I'm gonna get to some emails here. Gary. We

had a question about speakers and longevity. Gary wrote in to say one of the main things that wears out on older acoustic suspension speakers is the foam surround for the wolfer. Over time, they just fall apart and turn to dust. The good news is that the surrounds can be replaced, either by the owner or by a company that does this. There are lots of YouTube videos showing how to do this. I know that older KLH Acoustics and other brands use these foam surrounds. I'm not sure

if the callers KLH uses these or not. If wolfers are using rubber surrounds, they will last much longer. Let's see. Let's take Oh, you know Steve, Steve still on line one. We should get to Steve. It's been a while. You want to say a call with me? Sure? All right? Steve online one hammett Oh Kim is on with him. Okay, okay, Well maybe she was telling him that we were gonna come take him. But okay, well until that, tell me, Bobo, tell just bring him on when he's writing. I'll read

another email here. Uh, Sandra says, I have a smart TV that isn't set up to deliver Netflix. If I purchase a firestick, is that all I need? Thank you? Justin you want to take that one? Sure? Yeah, you know nowadays a lot of smart TVs, a lot of TV. You almost can't get a TV without the smart stuff built into it. But if you do get a TV without it, yeah, I would say a Kindle fire t sorry, an Amazon fire Stick, fire TV, one of those devices,

or even Roku personally. What's your favorite? You like the Roku? Huh? I do like Roku? Yeah? You know, it's really just they all do the same thing. Ultimately, you know, pick whatever suits your budget and has the features that you like. I just I used a fire TV for a while and then switched over to Roku because it was a bit more of a powerful device and it has its own proprietary interface. I just found that I liked it

a bit better. So I do I think Roku? I mean because Roku is first and foremost a streaming device company and a platform. I think that they put a lot of effort into their platform, whereas with Amazon, and they are a big platform and Amazon's one of like the top three. It's you know, I think they do a lot of other things, right, fire is just one of those things, and I do like the fire I think the fire Cube is probably the most powerful device

that they have, but it's also the most expensive. But I'm surprised, Sandra that you're able to get a smart TV without Netflix, because the idea of a smart TV is that it has Netflix built in. But Firestick, you know, I would say a lot of people go with the fire Stick just because it's very inexpensive, and that's what people like about it. All Right, do we have the caller? Nope, we don't have the caller. Okay, let's go to Jamie. Sorry, himI in a Los Angeles line. Too high, you're on with Rich.

give you notifications. They're a little bit finicky sometimes I will say, if you want to go, you know, that's that's more of the plug and play. Very easy, get up and go. And they have an SD card slot, which I like, right, yeah, so you can roll back the you know, roll back the tapes and see continuous footage. They support you know, I think up to like a five twelve gig card and you can go back, you know, several days. I have two six. I think it's a thirty two gig card on the on the model I have,

I believe it's max of thirty two. Oh okay, but I you know, you'd have to look at that, look at the specs that. Yeah, I do know with mine, I can go back up to about six days of footage. So yeah, and what I like about the Whys is that you have that option. Now the only thing the downside of not paying for a subscription if you're on the Wisecam or any of these cameras and they're using local storage is if someone steals the camera, they've stolen

your footage. So that's the downside of not having it go to the cloud immediately. Now with the Wisecam, I do believe you will get just the the frame, like a snapshot, will go up to the cloud for free. But I think that's it, Like, that's the only thing you would have. Like let's say you know someone did something and you wanted the footage of it and they took the camera on your app, you might just have the frame of them, like their face maybe, but that's it.

So that's, you know, that's something to think of and keep in mind. So I have a combination of Ring, Google cameras, the Nest cameras, and the Wise cameras. Again, the whys are just the most simple kind of like, and I've had all these cameras, by the way, for like years and years, so they do work for a substantial amount of time. I would say Ring probably has the most kind of like subscription based stuff. So if

you're trying to avoid subscriptions pretty much. Ring cameras are almost exclusively streaming unless you have any sort of subscription with Ring where it records to the cloud. But UFI, I know a lot of people. I have not personally used the UFI cameras, but I know a lot of people like those for the fact that there is not a major subscription pushed on people with those cameras. One of my friends uses UFI and they like them a lot. There you go, Yeah, they have them set up everywhere. Yeah,

no subscription. All right, himI, thanks so much for the call today. Appreciate it. Okay, how much long do we have before the break? We got We got a minute to do it. Okay, we got a minute. All right. Let me just tell you real quick. I've been testing the Apple Watch Series ten, and I will tell you if you have a Series six or below, it's probably a great update. Series ten is thinner, it's lighter, easier

to wear during sleep. It's got the sleep apnea, although you can also get that on the Series nine and the Ultra two, I believe, not just the regular. It's got this great polish black color which looks more expensive than it is. It's the first time they've had this polished black on the base model. It's got faster charging, it's got a larger screen. You can listen to music and audio through the speaker, which is the first time you could do that on an Apple Watch before. You

can only take calls and talk to Siri. The Vitals app is really cool. It's like going to the doctor every night overnight. When you wake up, it tells you if any of your indicators are out of range, like your heart or your breathing. It's really really cool, and it's got on risk translation, so if you are in a different country and you need to translate feature, you

can use that without a connection. Three hundred and ninety nine dollars Go Cellular if you are a runner and you want to run with this thing without your phone nearby. Apple Watch Series ten available now. You can read my full review on the website rich on tech dot tv. More of the show coming up and more of me and my brother justin right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology the website for the show rich on Tech

dot TV. Be sure to sign up for the very helpful tech newsletter that is free on the website. Put your email address in there. You can hit the light bulb at the top of the email at the top of the website for the show notes, and if you want to get in touch with me, just hit contact and that will send your email right to me. Alongside me today is my brother Justin. I'm in New Jersey, so he is hanging out Justin. Thanks for being here. How you doing great to be here? Do you have

a favorite Jersey artist? We've been playing Jersey artists all all day so far. Do you have one? I guess Bruce Springsteen? Oh wow, Bruce? All right, there you go as a classic? Have we Bobo? I don't think we played any Bruce, did we nice? Okay? Well we have time. Yeah. It's weird because I did a search of like Jersey artists.

I don't think he came up, which is like he's getting robbed and the Google results that's that's like bon Jovi came up, like no matter what, Whitney Houston, Dion Warwick and a whole bunch of other wrong people on AI. But I don't think the what are they called Bruce Springsteen the Boss? Sure he comes up first when I searched for Okay, well maybe I missed that. All right, let's go to line one. Jerry in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. Jerry, We've never been closer. What's up? What can I help you with?

So that is what it's called bulk media downloader. I don't know, you know, I've used this to sniff thinks out. I don't know what you would do to, you know, with that URL once you have it, but I imagine you might be able to pop it into some sort of app or something that you want to use on your phone, you know, since it's Android, I'm sure there's lots of them that would allow you to play that. But that's what it's called bulk media downloader. And I

don't let's see, do they have a website. I don't know if they have a website or just a Chrome extension. Let's see here, trying to find a fit. Yeah, it looks like it's just a Chrome extension. So I would just search for that and you should find it. It looks like the uh, I don't know what would you call it, like a navigation mark or something the you know, anyway, but that's what I look for. Jerry. See if that works for you.

then you can search through them using Google AI. But this other thing they can do is they can now generate an AI hosted basically podcast that has a discussion of your material. So let's play a couple thirty seconds of this. I uploaded my review of the I think it was the Samsung Watch Ultra. I just took the text my review, uploaded it, and then in like a minute or two, it came up with this audio. Let's hear it.

he's great. Sure, he was like a supportive character. I think obviously it depends on you know, every single one of these is going to be different. But it's kind of scary, like they sound pretty good. It's taking the information and it runs with it. Obviously, it has that same AI issue of like hallucinating and all that stuff. But this is like day one. Yeah, day one. I mean if you didn't tell me they were AI, I

might not have even thought that. Yeah, and I can only imagine where this tech is going to be in a year from now. Yeah. So there you have it. Notebook, LM Audio Overview. What I think is really cool about this is for learning. If you are trying to study for an exam, you want to learn like a complex topic, you put your information into this notebook and then you make a podcast and you listen to it on the go. Helps you understand it in a new and different way.

All right. Coming up, we're going to talk to Scott Baldwin about his new app called front Pack for Athletes. There it is, there's the boss. All right. 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. So much good information giving out on this show, not necessarily through me, but just in general, like the community that we have here of people that know stuff and add to the show and ask questions that I think we can all take away from My brother's joining me as well, Justin is here hanging out because I am in New Jersey. My hometown. Is that my hometown or my home state? I say home state, home state?

And then joining me now is Scott Baldwin. Scott and I have worked together for years on the PR side. Now he has branched off and he's actually starting up his own app called front Pack. This is a social network for endurance athletes. Scott, welcome to the show.

a lot of run club, cycling clubs. They were saying, hey, like, I think you're onto something and this is really cool. Do you have any desire to take it a step further? So, again, like I said, there was a market need, there's nothing out there. So I actually started the the app creation process about five months ago.

person ever again. So front pack, you know, it's the answer to just connecting with real people who are like minded and like you. It's a way to motivate and push yourself to be even better. And not only that, but you know, it's focused on the sports side of things. But I think quite often everybody uses LinkedIn, but LinkedIn

doesn't really show you your hobbies or interests. And with so many people being laid off in the last year, front Pack not only when you sign up you create your profile, but you can also connect with people based on your profession, so you're connecting based on interest. But also you know, you might be in in tech sales for example.

to go make money or have a family. So I think the great thing about it is we all still have that passion within us and it just because you're a working professional doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to connect with people who have similar similar interests.

folks that they've never met before. But like I said, they all have a common goal and that's you know, to get better and improve their lives.

it's really a big part of their lives. And it's it's learning so much about teamwork and failure and success and and you know, just getting along with people and accepting all these things in life that really does help you later on. And then the second thing was when I did my I did a half marathon, and I actually was very fortunate that I was. I had like a not a sponure, but I was working with a six and so they would they had a person like a coach. And also I had a producer I was

working with and we both were doing it together. And so it's what you're talking about in this app is almost exactly what we did in real life, where we had someone to bounce things off of and to get information from, and we also had each other going through the same thing. And so that's kind of what you've recreated here. And I totally get it because we had so many questions. I'm like, should I really be running every day? Should I be doing this? And so I

think that this kind of thing is really hard. I think it's one of those things too where you need somebody to lean on too, Like an endurance sport. It's very intense. You need someone to bounce off of and keep that motivation and keep you going because it is very intense. It is a lot of work, and it takes a lot to keep going back every day and keep training.

you you had a coach. We have coaches. We we have a weekly live stream where we bring on experts, we bring on coaches, We talk about the most basic things to the most advanced things. So yeah, anyone can really kind of grow with the sport and within themselves.

to the studio today because it's so filled. But we're gonna get through all that in just a moment. I got my brother justin here. New report from the Center for Digital Democracy says that your streaming services are tracking you. They are spying on you, and they are targeting you with extensive data on your viewing habits and using that to sell you stuff. And this makes a lot of sense.

And their argument is that we've never really had such highly targeted and personalized profiling of people based on what they're watching on TV. And the smart TVs themselves are a big part of this data collection system because this stuff is built right into the foundational software on these TVs. It's a fascinating report. It makes a lot of sense. Two things going on here. Number One, your smart TV is probably scanning the screen no matter what and and

recognizing the content of everything you watch. It's called automatic content recognition. You probably agree to it when you set up your TV. You can opt out of it or turn it off. The other thing is there is a stream. All the streaming services have opt out guides as well, so it's a great website. The nai dot org has opt out guides for almost every streaming service where you

can opt out of some of this data collection. I don't think you're gonna be able to opt out of it all, but I'll put that on the show notes pretty wild because we are just hammered with targeted advertising. This should be a default opt in. But if you set up a if you've ever set up a smart TV lately, it's almost like it says like it's it's gonna benefit you. There are so many screens you have to go through look at them very very closely. Also,

I hit a nerve this week. I mentioned on my Facebook that those texts have you gotten these things where they're just like, hey how are you? Or I lost your number in my phone book and can we chat again? I get those messages about five times a day. Yeah, I don't know what it is. It's because all of these recent data breaches have put our phone numbers out there on the web, and so they've got a fresh amount of information. So I posted this to my Facebook.

Let me just give you some of the responses. Many people commented they're also getting these obviously. They come in all forms. They talk about weight loss, Amazon deliveries, fake job offers. One person even commented, they got a barbecue invite. I'll actually go to that. Yeah, that sounds like fun. I'd be like where they're confusing and annoying. Makes it difficult to distinguish between legitimate messages and scams. I do agree, you have to look at everything very closely because we

are getting and this what I've always talked about. We get legitimate messages like this like hey, your package is delayed and you're like, oh, okay, and that might be from Amazon rare, but you know what I mean, right, But they also play upon that and kind of twist it and make it into their scrutinize every message you get one hundred percent. Let's see. Some people say that these senders get aggressive or insulting if you don't respond.

Don't respond to these people, by the way, but some commenters block the numbers, report them as junk, or they engage in playful banter to waste their time. I would say, do not write back to these people, because once you write back, is solidifies your number as being a good phone number, right, and then they will target you even further. Yeah, exactly same with spam email. But hopefully everybody knows that

by now, all right. I thought this was pretty cool justin this developer Andrew Schmellian came up with a way to hack adopt Matrix printer. Not really a hack, but he wrote a little program where it pulls the headlines from like Reddit and some other news sites, weather, stocks news, and every morning at eight am, it prints out a one page newsletter for him. I love that. Isn't that cool? I love that? So he actually put his whole project online.

It looks like he needed a dot Matrix printer, a Raspberry pie Cereal to USB adapter because the old Dot Matrix didn't have USB, so it's just a serial port YEP, and then power supply and then he just used the free APIs and he made a little programming And isn't that cool? Yeah? I mean that that makes it actually takes away a lot of the distractions that you'd see when you're looking through those headlines, so I like it, That's what he said. He was like, you know, this

is like so much healthier than doom scrolling. All right, you want to read the first feedback? Sure? So we have Max from Los Angeles writing in saying thank you. I'm a senior level it and listen to you because of how easily you lay it out to the end users. You have talent. Please don't go anywhere. Oh wow, well I'm going to stay here as long as humanly possible. Thank you. What was his name, Max? Max? Thanks Max? All right, Michael writes in. Michael from Calabasas writes in,

I saw your recommend on whisper flow. You should know that it only an Apple Silicon chips, so my Intel based iMac couldn't run it. But to keep those tips and recommendations coming very informative. This is a life changer. So I can press and hold one key on my keyboard and I can dictate, and it uses AI to transcribe. Not only would I say, but to format it in like perfect formatting. It's incredible. But yes it is. It's

I guess it's Mac silicon only. It's Mac only, but we're going to see many, many more apps just like that. So thanks for the clarification. Very very useful. When you're eating a stack with one hand and you want it, you still want to work. Yes, tite things out and I get people always say to me, I can't believe you responded to my email. I am now responding to emails probably three times faster than ever before because I don't have to sit there and type them. I can dictate.

But it's it's so good that it gets the nuances of what I'm trying to say, like if I'm if I'm like excited, or if I'm writing something in a list or whatever, it gets it, all right, all right, next one, Just all right, we have Michael from Memphis writing in. I have an Android cell phone for personal

use and an iPhone for business. Are there any earbuds out there that will automatically stop what I'm listening to on my Android and answer a call I'm receiving on my iPhone without having to steer the call on my iPhone to switch to the earbuds. Any suggestions would be appreciated. All right, This is a feature called multipoint. A lot of headphones, a lot of earbuds now support this, so look for multipoint connection. A lot of them do this

where it can seamlessly go. Let's say you're listening to music on your computer your phone rings, it'll automatically swap to your phone. It's not the same thing as having two devices connected. They're basically almost simultaneously connected and kind of listening for anything that's happening on each of those to kind of spring into action and switch the audio source.

So multipoint. The ones that I love that I recently tested are the CMF buds and justin you tried them because I brought them home, right, Yeah, I actually tried them today. First of all, excellent sound, I mean, the space audio is great on them. I haven't had a chance to test the dual point the multipoint yet, but it does look like a compelling feature for sure. All Right, you got one more real quick one. She got less

than a minute. All right, we got Ryan from Lucasville, Ohio writing in, Hey, Rich, I really enjoyed the show. As a technology coordinator for a local school, I fix a lot of chromebooks. It's rewarding but crazy. Sometimes. I used to listen to Leo Laporte and was glad when you took over. You do a great job helping folks. Thank you again. All right, well, thank you, Ryan. Appreciate that. I always like when it people like the show because

it means that I'm doing something right. Sure apps, No, all right, wow, I cannot believe it that is going to do this episode of the show. You can find links to everything I mentioned on the website. Go to rich on tech dot tv. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter. Find me on social media. I'm at rich on tech. Do you want people to find you? Justin sure? Where are you at? Justin demiro on X? There you go. Next week we'll have more of your questions. I've got the feedback. It's so full I got to

bring it back now week. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time. I appreciate you spending it right here with me. My name is rich dedmro Thanks to Justin. Let's real