Latest / Stampede of Truth / Rich On Tech - Handy $40 car gadget, stop phone number hijacking & my iPhone Duo verdict (197, Oct 24, 2026)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich DeMuro, and this is Rich
- 0:03Speaker 1: on Tech. This is the show where I talk about
- 0:05Speaker 1: the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's
- 0:07Speaker 1: also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
- 0:11Speaker 1: I believe that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Let's open up those phone lines at 888-RICH-101. That's 888-742-4101.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Give me a call if you have a tech question,
- 0:25Speaker 1: you need some advice, or you just want to share
- 0:27Speaker 1: something interesting you've discovered. You can also send me an email.
- 0:31Speaker 1: Just go to richontech.tv and hit contact. Well, I hope
- 0:36Speaker 1: you're having a fantastic week. We're going to get right
- 0:39Speaker 1: into it here because I have a lot to say
- 0:41Speaker 1: about Apple's newest iPhone, the iPhone Duo. And yes, if
- 0:46Speaker 1: you're watching on the stream, I am wearing my Yahoo
- 0:49Speaker 1: shirt from over 20 years ago when I got a
- 0:52Speaker 1: job offer from one of the hottest companies on the internet.
- 0:55Speaker 1: And I said no, but I did keep the shirt.
- 0:58Speaker 1: And when they send you the job offer, by the way,
- 1:01Speaker 1: it was overnighted to my place. And you open up
- 1:03Speaker 1: the box and it went, Yahoo! And I opened that
- 1:07Speaker 1: thing probably 150 times. So the battery went dead.
- 1:09Speaker 2: All right.
- 1:09Speaker 1: So here it is in my hands, the iPhone Duo.
- 1:13Speaker 1: I should probably open it like this. There's the front screen.
- 1:16Speaker 1: There's the inside screen. And this thing is just burning
- 1:21Speaker 1: up the internet. This is Apple's first foldable phone. And yes,
- 1:23Speaker 1: I understand this is not the first foldable phone. I've
- 1:27Speaker 1: been reviewing foldable phones since 2019. When I remember, I
- 1:31Speaker 1: was invited to the Samsung store in Glendale to check
- 1:34Speaker 1: out their first foldable, the original Galaxy Fold. And back then,
- 1:38Speaker 1: the outer screen was teeny tiny. The inner screen was
- 1:40Speaker 1: super fragile. It was super cool though. And we've come
- 1:43Speaker 1: a long way since then. Google has the Pixel Fold.
- 1:46Speaker 1: Samsung has the Z Fold 8, which I have right here,
- 1:49Speaker 1: which is equally, oh, there it is, which is equally
- 1:52Speaker 1: as awesome. And also the Z Fold 8 Ultra. Two
- 1:57Speaker 1: excellent phones, and Motorola, of course, has the Razer Fold.
- 1:59Speaker 1: None of them are perfect, but they've all gotten really good.
- 2:02Speaker 1: I think the one thing holding them back is the software.
- 2:05Speaker 1: You've got a device that works as a phone and
- 2:07Speaker 1: a tablet, and Android app developers have not exactly adapted
- 2:11Speaker 1: their apps to fit all these screen sizes. So enter Apple.
- 2:15Speaker 1: They come in fast and furious. They waited seven years
- 2:19Speaker 1: to do this. But the iPhone Duo is an excellent
- 2:22Speaker 1: first product. It's not perfect, but it's really good. Now,
- 2:24Speaker 1: I've been using it for over a week, I was
- 2:27Speaker 1: also at the launch event. So just to give you
- 2:28Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts, if you're not familiar on the outside,
- 2:31Speaker 1: you've got this smaller, wider screen, 5.4 inches. When you
- 2:34Speaker 1: open it, you've got a larger, wider screen, 7.6 inches,
- 2:38Speaker 1: and it's a matte screen. So it looks and feels great.
- 2:41Speaker 1: You don't even notice the crease as much. That's the
- 2:42Speaker 1: first thing everyone that wants to look at it says, oh,
- 2:45Speaker 1: let me check out the crease. Can't see it really.
- 2:48Speaker 1: Of course, in certain light, you can. Now, the outer screen,
- 2:50Speaker 1: I think, is really kind of tough to live with.
- 2:52Speaker 1: It's so small. Apps have to move everything around to
- 2:55Speaker 1: fit it. The inside screen, though, is incredible. One of
- 2:58Speaker 1: the best, actually, I will just say it's the best
- 3:00Speaker 1: mini tablet I've ever used, period. You won't even need
- 3:04Speaker 1: a separate tablet if you have this device, and that's
- 3:06Speaker 1: what's really nice about it. It's always charged. It's always
- 3:09Speaker 1: ready to go. I don't know about you, but whenever
- 3:11Speaker 1: I want to use my tablet, it's like this whole thing.
- 3:14Speaker 1: I got to update the apps. I got to charge
- 3:16Speaker 1: it up. I got to download stuff. I got to
- 3:17Speaker 1: re-sign into all my Netflix and things like that. Here,
- 3:20Speaker 1: everything's up to date because it's the phone you're using
- 3:23Speaker 1: every day, which I think is really nice. And that's
- 3:25Speaker 1: one of the advantages of having a foldable. Battery life
- 3:28Speaker 1: has been good. Wireless charging can be a little tricky.
- 3:31Speaker 1: So for instance, in certain cars, the phone doesn't reach
- 3:35Speaker 1: the charging pad properly. So it may not charge while
- 3:38Speaker 1: you're driving. That's a little thing. You can get a
- 3:41Speaker 1: little helper for that. But I've had really zero issues
- 3:44Speaker 1: with battery life, even without charging it in my car.
- 3:46Speaker 1: So it's gone down like yesterday. I think it was
- 3:49Speaker 1: like 20% before I went to sleep, but that's fine.
- 3:51Speaker 1: Still was fine. The camera is also a bit of
- 3:53Speaker 1: a sore spot. You've got a two camera setup, an
- 3:55Speaker 1: ultra wide and a standard lens. The iPhone 18 Pro
- 3:58Speaker 1: has a much better camera setup. including a dedicated telephoto lens. Now,
- 4:03Speaker 1: you can still zoom in on the Duo, of course.
- 4:05Speaker 1: It's just not going to be as good as the
- 4:07Speaker 1: Pro models, especially at those longer zoom ranges, something you'll
- 4:10Speaker 1: notice at like a concert or a sporting event or
- 4:13Speaker 1: your kid's play. Photos and videos I took on the phone,
- 4:16Speaker 1: perfectly fine for everyday use. Are they the best you
- 4:18Speaker 1: can get on an iPhone?
- 4:19Speaker 3: No.
- 4:20Speaker 1: Are they good?
- 4:20Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 4:21Speaker 1: Now, when it comes to selfies, and I know this
- 4:23Speaker 1: doesn't apply to everyone because not everyone cares about these,
- 4:26Speaker 1: But they are kind of annoying because one of the
- 4:28Speaker 1: advantages of a foldable is that you can unfold it
- 4:31Speaker 1: and use the rear cameras, the best cameras, as your
- 4:34Speaker 1: selfie cameras. But here's the deal. On this phone, there's
- 4:38Speaker 1: no easy way to hit the shutter button when you're
- 4:40Speaker 1: holding it this way. So Apple knew this. They came
- 4:43Speaker 1: up with a feature called Smart Take, which uses a
- 4:45Speaker 1: bit of AI to snap a photo when you smile
- 4:48Speaker 1: or it thinks everyone's ready. but it does not work
- 4:51Speaker 1: well at all, like literally at all. So it's snapping
- 4:54Speaker 1: pictures when you don't want them. It's not snapping them
- 4:57Speaker 1: when you want them. They should just suck it up,
- 4:59Speaker 1: do what Samsung does and let you yell out a
- 5:01Speaker 1: keyword like cheese or hold up your palm. Back in
- 5:05Speaker 1: the day, LG lets you yell out whiskey. I don't
- 5:08Speaker 1: know why, but that's one of the keywords you can
- 5:10Speaker 1: yell out, take a selfie. Two things Apple got right
- 5:13Speaker 1: that Samsung has not gotten right. There's MagSafe on this device,
- 5:16Speaker 1: which I love. That means you can connect your magnetic accessories.
- 5:20Speaker 1: It's IP68 water and dust resistant, which is amazing for
- 5:23Speaker 1: a foldable. That's the same as the iPhone. Now for
- 5:26Speaker 1: the bad part. There's no face ID. And I think
- 5:29Speaker 1: this is the deal breaker for a lot of people
- 5:31Speaker 1: on this device. Foldables are awkward to start since there's
- 5:35Speaker 1: a million and one ways to hold them. The last
- 5:37Speaker 1: thing you want to think about is how to unlock
- 5:38Speaker 1: it manually. But that's what you have to do here.
- 5:40Speaker 1: And I think it's a big barrier on this device. Um,
- 5:44Speaker 1: the fingerprint sensor is in the power button and it
- 5:46Speaker 1: takes longer than I, than you think it would to
- 5:49Speaker 1: unlock this device. And it's awkward. Unlike face ID, which
- 5:51Speaker 1: is just seamless. And you don't realize how many times
- 5:54Speaker 1: you have to unlock your phone on a daily basis
- 5:56Speaker 1: and reauthorize apps while you're using them like your bank
- 6:00Speaker 1: and things like that. It's always tap the thing, touch ID,
- 6:02Speaker 1: tap the touch ID, tap to touch ID. Um, now
- 6:05Speaker 1: one of the more controversial aspects of this phone has
- 6:08Speaker 1: been app support. Okay. developers need to update their apps
- 6:11Speaker 1: so they look good on this big screen. Otherwise they
- 6:13Speaker 1: look silly and centered or they're stretched out. Like when
- 6:16Speaker 1: iPhone apps were used on the early iPads, they had
- 6:18Speaker 1: like this two X button you would press to like
- 6:21Speaker 1: stretch them out until they updated. Now here's the deal.
- 6:24Speaker 1: A lot of the apps I use on a daily
- 6:26Speaker 1: basis have already been updated to work perfectly on the duo.
- 6:30Speaker 1: And if they're not updated or optimized, Apple will give
- 6:33Speaker 1: you some controls to make them work better. You can
- 6:34Speaker 1: expand the app to take up more of the screen.
- 6:37Speaker 1: You can rotate it to better fit the wide display.
- 6:40Speaker 1: And compatibility is still such a sore spot on Android phoneables,
- 6:44Speaker 1: and they've been out for seven years now.
- 6:46Speaker 4: Why?
- 6:46Speaker 1: I don't know. Why are developers not updating their apps
- 6:49Speaker 1: on Android? So I think the thing is, like, there's
- 6:53Speaker 1: such a debate online about this. All the Android people
- 6:55Speaker 1: are angry that, oh, Android did this first. But Apple
- 6:59Speaker 1: somehow is getting all these apps to look great on
- 7:02Speaker 1: this new phone. So what's the advantage of the form factor? Well,
- 7:05Speaker 1: for starters, it's easy to hold in one hand when
- 7:07Speaker 1: it's closed. Of course, things can be cramped. Typing on
- 7:10Speaker 1: both the outside and the inside screens is super easy,
- 7:13Speaker 1: easier than on Android foldables in my experience. And I'm
- 7:16Speaker 1: not like saying Android foldables are bad. I'm just saying
- 7:19Speaker 1: this is going to lift them up. That's my thesis here.
- 7:23Speaker 1: The tablet form factor on the Duo is excellent. It
- 7:26Speaker 1: makes reading, watching videos, browsing, and soon writing on the
- 7:30Speaker 1: inside screen just a great experience because that's another advantage.
- 7:33Speaker 1: It's going to support a stylus. With that said, this
- 7:38Speaker 1: is a unique device. I'm in love with the tablet
- 7:40Speaker 1: form factor. I sat on the couch last Sunday and
- 7:43Speaker 1: I literally watched football with my kid all day and
- 7:44Speaker 1: I just had this thing open and I was scrolling
- 7:46Speaker 1: and doing things on it. And it was amazing. I
- 7:50Speaker 1: don't love the outside screen that much. It's kind of small.
- 7:52Speaker 1: It's kind of compact. It's kind of annoying, but it works.
- 7:56Speaker 1: The lack of face ID, I think, is the bigger
- 7:58Speaker 1: deal breaker. It used to just work on other devices.
- 8:02Speaker 1: On this one, it feels like work to open it,
- 8:04Speaker 1: which is a bummer. Other little nuances, the volume buttons
- 8:07Speaker 1: are in an odd place on top of the phone,
- 8:09Speaker 1: which can be awkward. Apple suggested that you should use
- 8:12Speaker 1: an Apple Watch to unlock this. Of course they do.
- 8:14Speaker 1: Buy more Apple products to unlock your phone. And I
- 8:17Speaker 1: tried this and it seems to unlock the phone too
- 8:19Speaker 1: much now. Then there's the heat issue. The Duo definitely
- 8:22Speaker 1: gets hotter than other iPhones in my experience. Social media,
- 8:27Speaker 1: not so great on this device, especially watching and posting
- 8:30Speaker 1: Instagram anything closed or open. Now, overall, I do think
- 8:34Speaker 1: the iPhone Duo is still one of the best foldables
- 8:36Speaker 1: out there. I think that this Apple polish that they've
- 8:39Speaker 1: put on it is going to push Samsung and other
- 8:42Speaker 1: Android phone makers to step up their game, which I
- 8:44Speaker 1: think is fantastic. It lifts everyone up. Now, if your
- 8:48Speaker 1: priority is a simple iPhone experience with the best camera
- 8:51Speaker 1: setup available, then I would go with a standard iPhone Pro.
- 8:56Speaker 1: But if your priority is having a tablet in your
- 8:58Speaker 1: pocket at all times... which is incredible. It's a really
- 9:01Speaker 1: cool thing. I'm using this as a tablet more than
- 9:04Speaker 1: I'm using it as a regular phone, I think. But
- 9:07Speaker 1: if your priority is having that tablet in your pocket
- 9:09Speaker 1: at all times or having something new and different and quirky,
- 9:12Speaker 1: go with the Duo. It's a first-gen product. It's going
- 9:14Speaker 1: to have a little bit of quirks, but it's great. Now,
- 9:17Speaker 1: the best part about this Apple device is that it
- 9:19Speaker 1: finally solidifies foldables as a viable form factor. All the
- 9:23Speaker 1: Android foldables are going to get better. So will the software.
- 9:26Speaker 1: and all the advantages of this unique form factor as
- 9:29Speaker 1: this software gets better. So my bottom line advice, if
- 9:32Speaker 1: you get this device and you don't like it at first,
- 9:35Speaker 1: like I did, I was ready to throw this thing
- 9:36Speaker 1: against a wall. Give it some time to grow on you.
- 9:38Speaker 1: You've got 14 days if you buy it. My opinion
- 9:43Speaker 1: is that I couldn't stand it when I first started
- 9:45Speaker 1: it and then I ended up enjoying it. And now
- 9:47Speaker 1: I'm kind of on the fence, I'll be honest, because
- 9:49Speaker 1: there are things I really like about this form factor.
- 9:51Speaker 1: There are some things that I think are very tough
- 9:53Speaker 1: about it, most notably that lack of face ID. So
- 9:56Speaker 1: bottom line, iPhone Duo is a fantastic tablet that also
- 9:59Speaker 1: happens to be a phone. It's not necessarily a better iPhone,
- 10:03Speaker 1: but Apple has done something pretty cool here. All right. 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101.
- 10:08Speaker 1: Give me a call with those questions. We got a
- 10:13Speaker 1: lot to talk about on the show. It's not just
- 10:15Speaker 1: all about the duo. Although if you have questions about that,
- 10:18Speaker 1: you can call me and, uh, We'll see if we
- 10:20Speaker 1: can answer those too. My name is Rich DeMuro. You
- 10:23Speaker 1: are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich
- 10:29Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology, 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101.
- 10:35Speaker 1: So Kim messaged me and she said, Hey Rich, what
- 10:41Speaker 1: do you mean if you're watching on the stream? And
- 10:43Speaker 1: so I've said this a couple of times on the show,
- 10:45Speaker 1: but I'll say it again because not everyone knows that
- 10:48Speaker 1: we actually record. It's not live streamed, the show, like
- 10:52Speaker 1: the video, but the, obviously the audio is, but the
- 10:56Speaker 1: video is recorded and then it makes its way to
- 10:59Speaker 1: the KTLA Plus app. So if you know my day
- 11:03Speaker 1: job is on TV, that's where we put this show.
- 11:06Speaker 1: It's called Rich on Tech Weekly, and you get to
- 11:08Speaker 1: see the first 10 minutes of this radio show on TV.
- 11:12Speaker 1: So you can see what the studio looks like. You
- 11:14Speaker 1: can see what I'm wearing. which I know it sounds silly,
- 11:17Speaker 1: but you know, I try. Bobo comes in always with
- 11:19Speaker 1: a fun shirt and a fun outfit. I always come in,
- 11:22Speaker 1: I try to, you know, step it up a notch
- 11:24Speaker 1: and wear like silly tech stuff. So that's what I
- 11:26Speaker 1: meant when I said that. The website for the show
- 11:29Speaker 1: is richontech.tv. If you want the show notes, if I
- 11:33Speaker 1: mentioned something interesting, richontech.tv slash 197. I also came up
- 11:39Speaker 1: with a new system where I'm doing the show notes
- 11:41Speaker 1: in near real time. So it's like way better than
- 11:44Speaker 1: it used to be. So if you go there, richontech.tv
- 11:47Speaker 1: slash 197, it's pretty cool. Let's go to, let's see here.
- 11:53Speaker 1: Let's go to Jill in Orange County, line three. Jill,
- 11:57Speaker 1: you're on with Rich. Welcome. Starting off the show here.
- 12:00Speaker 5: Well, hi.
- 12:01Speaker 1: Good morning. Good morning. What's up?
- 12:05Speaker 2: So my daughter has an older car with CarPlay, but
- 12:10Speaker 2: you have to use a wire to connect the phone
- 12:14Speaker 2: to the CarPlay. And I'm wondering if there's a device
- 12:17Speaker 2: so that she could, you know, do like the new
- 12:19Speaker 2: cars where you just get in and it.
- 12:21Speaker 6: Goes, Oh, hi, Jill.
- 12:23Speaker 1: Yes, there is. And in fact, I've been testing this
- 12:26Speaker 1: and it's called the, it just came out. Now there's
- 12:28Speaker 1: a bunch of these, there's a bunch of these on
- 12:30Speaker 1: the market, but they typically come from like random names
- 12:34Speaker 1: that you've never heard of. And so they can be
- 12:36Speaker 1: very hit or miss. You can go on Amazon. There's
- 12:39Speaker 1: a thousand and one of them, but I trust this
- 12:42Speaker 1: company because, Because they've been making iPhone accessories forever. And
- 12:46Speaker 1: they finally made what's called the 12 South AirFly Drive.
- 12:51Speaker 1: And it is fantastic. It works as advertised, exactly what
- 12:56Speaker 1: you're talking about. If your car has CarPlay that is wired,
- 13:00Speaker 1: you plug this little thing into a USB port on
- 13:03Speaker 1: your car. And now you pair your phone once to
- 13:06Speaker 1: this little device. And every time you step into your car,
- 13:10Speaker 1: wireless CarPlay works. just magically appears on your in-dash screen. Now,
- 13:15Speaker 1: keep in mind, and you already mentioned this, Jill, you
- 13:17Speaker 1: said that your daughter has CarPlay wired in her car.
- 13:21Speaker 1: That's the prerequisite for this. You have to have that
- 13:24Speaker 1: or else it's not gonna add CarPlay to a car
- 13:26Speaker 1: that does not have it. So your car has to
- 13:28Speaker 1: have it. This thing is $ 40. It is the size
- 13:32Speaker 1: of a quarter. I'll put the link on my website,
- 13:34Speaker 1: richontech.tv in the show notes so you can check it out.
- 13:37Speaker 1: It's the size of a quarter. It's so easy and
- 13:40Speaker 1: it's the best designed one I've seen It's the best
- 13:42Speaker 1: software and it's from a company that I like. Now,
- 13:45Speaker 1: here's the thing. The only trade-off here is that for
- 13:49Speaker 1: me personally, I like to have my phone charging when
- 13:52Speaker 1: I'm in my car. So you'll basically, you're not going
- 13:55Speaker 1: to be plugging your phone in to charge when you
- 13:57Speaker 1: do this. But the nice thing is on short trips,
- 13:59Speaker 1: the AirPlay just works. So this is $ 40. It just
- 14:03Speaker 1: came out a couple of weeks ago. It is available.
- 14:05Speaker 1: Let me see if it's available. I know they sold
- 14:07Speaker 1: out the first time I mentioned it. Let's see. Yeah,
- 14:09Speaker 1: it is available on Amazon. It comes in black or silver,
- 14:13Speaker 1: so you can match your car there. And here's the
- 14:15Speaker 1: other thing. It also works with Android Auto. So yes,
- 14:20Speaker 1: if you have Android Auto installed in your car and
- 14:22Speaker 1: you want to make it wireless, this works as well.
- 14:24Speaker 1: So I love that 12South did this because they are
- 14:28Speaker 1: trusted and they've been doing this forever. The other one
- 14:31Speaker 1: that people like, and it's funny, it's coming up as
- 14:33Speaker 1: a sponsored ad. I've not personally tested it, but the
- 14:36Speaker 1: other brand that people like is called Let's see. It's Carlinkit. C-A-R-L-I-N-K-I. Carlinkit.
- 14:45Speaker 1: So that's the other one that has been doing this
- 14:47Speaker 1: for a long time. But I think that the 12
- 14:51Speaker 1: South one is simpler. It's easier. And it just works
- 14:54Speaker 1: really well. And it's so tiny. So I'll put the
- 14:56Speaker 1: link on the website. Again, it's called 12 South Airfly Drive. Now,
- 15:00Speaker 1: my wife has been testing this in her car. My
- 15:02Speaker 1: car does not support CarPlay, sadly. But I will tell
- 15:06Speaker 1: you this. I know Bobo just looked up like, wait, what?
- 15:09Speaker 1: You have the only car in America that doesn't support it. No,
- 15:11Speaker 1: Tesla does not support CarPlay or Android Auto. They do
- 15:14Speaker 1: their own thing, which I get it. It's fine. It's
- 15:17Speaker 1: like this whole thing. But I personally wish that my
- 15:19Speaker 1: car had CarPlay.
- 15:20Speaker 4: It's stupid.
- 15:21Speaker 1: It's literally the best feature when I rent a car. Like,
- 15:23Speaker 1: I love when a car has CarPlay. It's just like, oh,
- 15:26Speaker 1: everything just works great. Or Android Auto. They're both great.
- 15:29Speaker 1: But my wife's been testing it. The only thing she
- 15:31Speaker 1: doesn't like about it is that if you are on
- 15:33Speaker 1: a call... because of the way the Bluetooth is routed,
- 15:36Speaker 1: it's a little bit like where your car kind of lingers.
- 15:39Speaker 1: Your call will linger on the, like it'll stay connected
- 15:43Speaker 1: to the car. Typically when you have a car and
- 15:45Speaker 1: you're on a Bluetooth call, when you get out of
- 15:47Speaker 1: the car, your call will just transfer to your phone.
- 15:49Speaker 1: Like you just pick up your phone, it'll transfer there.
- 15:51Speaker 1: But because you're using like a third party accessory, your
- 15:54Speaker 1: call may linger on the in-car speakers for a little
- 15:59Speaker 1: bit longer than you'd like because your car is still
- 16:01Speaker 1: supplying power to this little USB device and your phone
- 16:06Speaker 1: is still connected to that until you walk further enough
- 16:09Speaker 1: away where it says, okay, now we can disconnect it.
- 16:11Speaker 1: So that's the only downside. But you know what? Try
- 16:14Speaker 1: it out. Amazon has a very liberal return policy. So
- 16:19Speaker 1: if you don't like it, just bring it back to Amazon.
- 16:22Speaker 1: I mean, I just went... Thanks for the call, Jill,
- 16:24Speaker 1: by the way.
- 16:24Speaker 2: 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101.
- 16:25Speaker 1: I just brought a whole bunch of stuff back to
- 16:26Speaker 1: the Whole Foods store the other day to like return stuff.
- 16:34Speaker 1: And it's such a great thing. And this is like,
- 16:37Speaker 1: we just had a little remodel project in our house.
- 16:39Speaker 1: So we were buying a whole bunch of stuff. And like,
- 16:40Speaker 1: my friend was like, got to go Wayfair, got to
- 16:42Speaker 1: go Wayfair. I wanted everything from Home Depot because guess what?
- 16:45Speaker 1: I can drive to Home Depot and return this stuff
- 16:48Speaker 1: that gets delivered to my house. No problem versus Wayfair.
- 16:52Speaker 1: I was looking at their, you know, return policy and
- 16:54Speaker 1: it's like, well, you got to, you know, you may
- 16:57Speaker 1: have to pay for return shipping. You may have to
- 16:59Speaker 1: do this. You may have to do that. You got it.
- 17:00Speaker 1: It's like, It's just so much easier. That's why I
- 17:03Speaker 1: kind of love these stores, these brick and mortar stores
- 17:06Speaker 1: that also ship you stuff. They have kind of a
- 17:08Speaker 1: little bit of a built-in advantage, right? Amazon was very
- 17:11Speaker 1: smart in buying Whole Foods because what did I do?
- 17:14Speaker 1: I went into Whole Foods. I returned a whole bunch
- 17:17Speaker 1: of stuff, hundreds of dollars of stuff. And then what
- 17:19Speaker 1: I do, I proceeded to spend a couple hundred bucks
- 17:22Speaker 1: at Whole Foods.
- 17:23Speaker 5: On what? I don't know.
- 17:24Speaker 1: I mean, I literally can't tell you what I got.
- 17:26Speaker 1: I got pumpkin spice flavored coffee creamer. That's the only
- 17:29Speaker 1: thing I can remember. And pumpkin spice flavored chocolates. Other
- 17:33Speaker 1: than that, I can't tell you what I got for
- 17:34Speaker 1: a couple hundred bucks. So their plan worked. And I
- 17:37Speaker 1: told the lady at checkout, I said, this is their
- 17:39Speaker 1: evil plan. I come in to return this stuff. And
- 17:41Speaker 1: what do I do? I just made the deposit once again. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101.
- 17:49Speaker 1: Coming up, let's talk about, oh, AI agents. I got
- 17:53Speaker 1: to talk about what I've had mine do and why
- 17:56Speaker 1: banks think they're scary. That's coming up right here on
- 17:58Speaker 1: Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich
- 18:02Speaker 1: DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology at 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101.
- 18:12Speaker 1: The playlist is on the website for today's show, richontech.tv
- 18:16Speaker 1: slash 197. This is Taylor Swift request from my wife
- 18:22Speaker 1: because today officially marks 20 years since Taylor Swift released
- 18:27Speaker 1: her self-titled debut country album. So they've done 20 years
- 18:33Speaker 1: of Taylor Swift. And my wife didn't really get into
- 18:37Speaker 1: her until I'd say the last five or 10 years, perhaps.
- 18:40Speaker 1: But I will never forget the first time I ever
- 18:44Speaker 1: saw or heard of Taylor Swift. I was working at
- 18:46Speaker 1: KCAL 9 News in Los Angeles. It was 2008 or 2009.
- 18:50Speaker 1: And I remember watching the music video for Love Story.
- 18:59Speaker 1: And she was just a young, young singer at that point.
- 19:04Speaker 1: And I just like everyone knew this person was going
- 19:06Speaker 1: to be a superstar. I also remember during that job
- 19:10Speaker 1: that I'll never forget the first Android phone coming out.
- 19:13Speaker 1: Because the iPhone came out in 2007. And then Android
- 19:17Speaker 1: came out shortly after. And probably maybe it was 2008.
- 19:21Speaker 1: I guess it was. And I remember it was like
- 19:25Speaker 1: a T-Mobile sent me it. It was like a T-Mobile.
- 19:27Speaker 1: It was like a G phone or something like that.
- 19:30Speaker 1: And I just thought it was like, literally, I fell
- 19:32Speaker 1: in love with, I love the iPhone. I mean, I
- 19:33Speaker 1: was there at the launch event, but I fell in
- 19:35Speaker 1: love with Android because it was so nerdy and I'm
- 19:38Speaker 1: a nerd and the iPhone was cool, but it was
- 19:40Speaker 1: very limited in what you can do. Remember back in
- 19:41Speaker 1: the day, people like jailbreak the iPhone and all that stuff.
- 19:44Speaker 1: There was a reason it's because it didn't work like
- 19:46Speaker 1: a regular computer where you could do whatever you wanted
- 19:48Speaker 1: on it. So people would jailbreak. it and make it
- 19:50Speaker 1: do all these fun things. Obviously, it was very dangerous
- 19:53Speaker 1: for security reasons and bricking your phone, of course. But
- 19:57Speaker 1: then when Android came out, it lets you do everything.
- 20:00Speaker 1: You can install third-party apps. You can install mods. You
- 20:02Speaker 1: can install whatever operating system you wanted. I guess, what
- 20:06Speaker 1: was it called back then? It was like cyanogen mod
- 20:08Speaker 1: i think was my favorite you had these roms so
- 20:10Speaker 1: i would rom my phones all the time they never
- 20:12Speaker 1: worked properly because half the features wouldn't work but it
- 20:15Speaker 1: was fun it was different uh 888 rich 101 888-742-4101
- 20:21Speaker 1: let's go to line four barney is in uh san
- 20:26Speaker 1: pedro barney you're on with.
- 20:28Speaker 7: Rich hello there rich uh i'm i'm trying to i'm
- 20:33Speaker 7: trying to work uh facetime uh here's the deal I
- 20:36Speaker 7: met a gal who lives on the other side of
- 20:38Speaker 7: the country. And she said, hey, why don't we do FaceTime?
- 20:43Speaker 7: And she has an Apple phone. I have an Android phone. However,
- 20:47Speaker 7: I do have.
- 20:47Speaker 1: I'm surprised she'll even entertain you.
- 20:51Speaker 5: Pardon?
- 20:51Speaker 1: You know, all the kids nowadays, like this whole thing
- 20:53Speaker 1: with like iPhone, Android, like they won't even like date
- 20:56Speaker 1: someone that has a different type of phone than them.
- 20:59Speaker 1: Have you heard this? I....
- 21:01Speaker 7: I'm not surprised to hear it. I know that the
- 21:04Speaker 7: Apple people feel a bit elite.
- 21:07Speaker 1: Yes.
- 21:08Speaker 7: But, you know, what the hell, I haven't made the
- 21:11Speaker 7: leap over there. But I do have the iPad.
- 21:15Speaker 1: Okay.
- 21:15Speaker 7: Is that a helpful device in the search to do this?
- 21:20Speaker 1: Absolutely. So if you have an iPad, FaceTime is installed
- 21:23Speaker 1: on that iPad by default. So you can open up
- 21:27Speaker 1: FaceTime on that iPad as long as you're signed in
- 21:30Speaker 1: to iCloud with your Apple ID. Do you have that
- 21:32Speaker 1: all set up or no?
- 21:34Speaker 7: I don't know.
- 21:37Speaker 1: You can figure it out. If you don't, you just
- 21:39Speaker 1: have to go in and just set up an account.
- 21:42Speaker 1: And then once you set up an account, you would
- 21:43Speaker 1: open up FaceTime and you would ask her, Typically, it's
- 21:47Speaker 1: their phone number will just be their FaceTime number. So
- 21:49Speaker 1: you would just go in, you'd start a call, press
- 21:51Speaker 1: the green plus sign, type in her phone number, and
- 21:54Speaker 1: it will give you the option to FaceTime. Now, that's easy.
- 21:59Speaker 1: But that means you're always going to have to have
- 22:01Speaker 1: your iPad when you want to talk to her face
- 22:02Speaker 1: to face. The other thing you can do is she
- 22:05Speaker 1: can send a link to you. Um, and you can
- 22:10Speaker 1: open that link on your Android phone and FaceTime her
- 22:12Speaker 1: that way. So she could start the call and all
- 22:15Speaker 1: you can do, and you can, you can verify this
- 22:16Speaker 1: on your iPad. If you open up FaceTime, you'll notice
- 22:19Speaker 1: there is a big green link button. Now I'm looking
- 22:23Speaker 1: at the, the, the iPhone duo. So I don't know
- 22:25Speaker 1: where this button is on the actual normal iPhones, but
- 22:28Speaker 1: there's a button that looks like it's a green, it's
- 22:31Speaker 1: a green button with a link on it. If you
- 22:33Speaker 1: tap that.
- 22:34Speaker 7: Yeah, like two links of a chain.
- 22:36Speaker 1: Exactly, like a chain link fence. If you tap that,
- 22:39Speaker 1: it will give you a link, and you can send
- 22:41Speaker 1: that to someone, and anyone can tap on that link
- 22:44Speaker 1: and then join in on that FaceTime call. So that's
- 22:47Speaker 1: another way to do it. The other thing you could do,
- 22:49Speaker 1: of course, Barney, is you could just use another app
- 22:53Speaker 1: to do a FaceTime call. I mean, there's so many
- 22:55Speaker 1: different apps that will let you call, like a WhatsApp
- 22:58Speaker 1: or something like that is completely free, and you can
- 23:00Speaker 1: video call there. Now... Um, yeah, I mean, the only
- 23:04Speaker 1: thing to be careful about, and I don't think this
- 23:07Speaker 1: is a scam. I don't think this person's trying to like,
- 23:09Speaker 1: you know, pull one over on you, but you know,
- 23:12Speaker 1: because she wants to FaceTime, I actually don't think she's
- 23:15Speaker 1: a scam, but I just, you know, I have to
- 23:16Speaker 1: tell you that because sometimes when people meet people online
- 23:19Speaker 1: and they want to chat and they want to do this,
- 23:21Speaker 1: the next thing you know, she's got some sort of accident.
- 23:23Speaker 1: She's got a, you know, she's got a broken leg.
- 23:25Speaker 1: She can't see you. You got to send her money,
- 23:27Speaker 1: get her out of the hospital. Just be aware. of
- 23:30Speaker 1: those types of situations when you're chatting with someone that
- 23:33Speaker 1: you haven't met in real life. But great question. You
- 23:36Speaker 1: could definitely do that. It'd be nice if Apple would just,
- 23:40Speaker 1: you know, and look, I'm not, I talked very nicely
- 23:43Speaker 1: about the iPhone duo earlier in the show. So, you know,
- 23:46Speaker 1: I'm not an Apple fan boy, you know, and I'm
- 23:48Speaker 1: Android hater, but I will tell you, you know, with Apple,
- 23:51Speaker 1: you know, Apple is very one-sided with their things, right?
- 23:55Speaker 1: Like Apple wants you to only think that there are
- 23:58Speaker 1: Apple products in this world. If you go to any
- 24:01Speaker 1: Apple event, if you go to any Apple store, it's
- 24:04Speaker 1: like Apple, Apple, Apple. Now, I get it. They just
- 24:07Speaker 1: did something with LG where they came up with some
- 24:09Speaker 1: of their smart home stuff that they're working together with
- 24:11Speaker 1: them on. But if you look at something like Android
- 24:14Speaker 1: or you look at something like the PC market, there
- 24:16Speaker 1: are millions of brands that all have to work together, right?
- 24:19Speaker 1: They're interoperable because they've written these standards that make them
- 24:22Speaker 1: work together, right? You go to a smart home, there's
- 24:24Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff that works with matter and
- 24:27Speaker 1: this and that, and Apple has finally gotten on board
- 24:28Speaker 1: with that. But my point is, when you look at
- 24:31Speaker 1: Apple stuff, especially the iPhone, and the apps that Apple
- 24:35Speaker 1: makes are typically only going to work on Apple products,
- 24:39Speaker 1: which I don't like. Why? Every other company in the
- 24:43Speaker 1: world is trying to unify people with technology, and Apple
- 24:46Speaker 1: should be doing the same. So iMessage, great example. Yes,
- 24:48Speaker 1: you can text someone that's not an iPhone, but guess what?
- 24:51Speaker 1: It comes up green. It's annoying. I was talking to
- 24:53Speaker 1: someone the other day. She said, oh, I can't... Literally,
- 24:57Speaker 1: one of the things that she was upset about is
- 25:00Speaker 1: that when her Android friends will text her, she can't
- 25:03Speaker 1: reply in line. She can't press and hold on a
- 25:05Speaker 1: message and reply to that exact specific message because they're Android.
- 25:09Speaker 1: And it used to be you couldn't even react to messages.
- 25:11Speaker 1: It's gotten better. But my point is, Apple, just give
- 25:15Speaker 1: us your programs for other platforms. Put iMessage on Android.
- 25:18Speaker 1: What's it going to do? At this point, people are
- 25:20Speaker 1: pretty loyal to their platform, right? They love their iPhone.
- 25:23Speaker 1: They love their Android. Why not just let everyone have iMessage, right?
- 25:26Speaker 1: Like it's not going to kill you. FaceTime, release a
- 25:28Speaker 1: FaceTime app for a Windows computer or Android phone. Why not?
- 25:33Speaker 1: What's it going to do to you at this point?
- 25:35Speaker 1: You've got the market share, $ 5 trillion company, whatever you are.
- 25:38Speaker 1: Or maybe that's Elon, that's worth $ 5 trillion. Someone has
- 25:41Speaker 1: trillions out there. I know it. Like I know someone's
- 25:44Speaker 1: got trillions. Anyway, before we go to break, let me
- 25:48Speaker 1: just tell you this. I saw 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. Lifehacker had
- 25:50Speaker 1: a great, article on how you can stop or protect
- 25:57Speaker 1: your phone number from hackers. If you've ever heard of
- 26:00Speaker 1: this thing called SIM swapping or eSIM hijacking, criminals basically
- 26:05Speaker 1: trick your carrier or break into your account to transfer
- 26:08Speaker 1: your number to their device. Why is that dangerous? Well,
- 26:11Speaker 1: number one, you lose your phone number, but think about it.
- 26:14Speaker 1: Now they can receive your calls, they can intercept your texts,
- 26:18Speaker 1: and more importantly, your security codes. And that means they
- 26:21Speaker 1: might be able to break into your bank and email accounts.
- 26:24Speaker 1: The good news is that Verizon, AT & T, and
- 26:26Speaker 1: T-Mobile all offer free protection so you can lock down
- 26:30Speaker 1: your number. So on AT & T, open up the
- 26:33Speaker 1: app and turn on something called Wireless Account Lock. On Verizon,
- 26:38Speaker 1: open My Verizon and enable both the SIM Protection and
- 26:42Speaker 1: Number Lock. And then on T-Mobile, open up their T-Life
- 26:46Speaker 1: app and enable SIM Protection and Port Out Protection. Do
- 26:50Speaker 1: this on every line. This is not universal. You have
- 26:52Speaker 1: to do this on every line that you own. And
- 26:54Speaker 1: this is not something that you're going to be like, Rich,
- 26:56Speaker 1: what if I ever want to switch carriers? All you
- 26:57Speaker 1: have to do is go in and disable it. But
- 26:59Speaker 1: turn this on. It only takes a second. I think
- 27:02Speaker 1: you should do this right now. I'll put the instructions
- 27:04Speaker 1: on the website, richontech.tv slash 197. Or if you go
- 27:09Speaker 1: to the website, richontech.tv, just look for 197 show notes.
- 27:14Speaker 1: It'll be there. But do this now because it'll protect
- 27:17Speaker 1: you from getting your number hijacked. richontech.tv slash 197. Also,
- 27:23Speaker 1: from today on, stop using the option to get a
- 27:27Speaker 1: text message with your two-factor code. Download an app like
- 27:31Speaker 1: Proton Authenticator or any authenticator app and use that instead.
- 27:36Speaker 1: It is much more secure. Wean yourself away from getting
- 27:39Speaker 1: those text message confirmations because if someone were to ever
- 27:42Speaker 1: hijack your account, they have access to everything. Don't give
- 27:45Speaker 1: them the keys to the kingdom. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. So much
- 27:52Speaker 1: more to talk about here. You got to hear the
- 27:55Speaker 1: wild way that Spotify is cracking down on family plan sharing. Plus,
- 28:00Speaker 1: we'll talk about AI agents, what mine did for me
- 28:02Speaker 1: the other day, and why banks are scared of them. Plus,
- 28:05Speaker 1: more of your calls at 888-RICH-101, the website richontech.tv. Back
- 28:12Speaker 1: after this. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here,
- 28:19Speaker 1: hanging out with you, talking technology, 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. The website richontech.tv.
- 28:31Speaker 1: Just gave you the instructions on how to lock down
- 28:34Speaker 1: your wireless number from hackers. It's on the website richontech.tv
- 28:39Speaker 1: slash 197. Bobo sprang into action and said, hold on, wait, what?
- 28:43Speaker 1: How do I do that? So yeah, the instructions specifically
- 28:46Speaker 1: are on the website. AT & T, Verizon, T-Mobile all
- 28:50Speaker 1: offer it. And some of the MVNOs might. I have
- 28:53Speaker 1: not checked, but smart thing to do is to protect
- 28:56Speaker 1: your account. Let's go to Eric waiting patiently in Chino Hills. Eric,
- 29:02Speaker 1: sounds like you're on the road.
- 29:04Speaker 2: Yes, I am.
- 29:07Speaker 6: Well, I have a question for you. I have a
- 29:09Speaker 6: friend who is.
- 29:12Speaker 6: Recently become blind from some complications with, you know.
- 29:21Speaker 6: She also has a problem with her fingers, and so
- 29:24Speaker 6: she can't really control the phone anymore. It's very difficult. So,
- 29:28Speaker 6: I got her these Meta Gen 3 glasses, and I
- 29:34Speaker 6: just was wondering if you can recommend somewhere to go for,
- 29:38Speaker 6: some in-person type training, if you will.
- 29:43Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. We just recently did a story about these,
- 29:46Speaker 1: and I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and I
- 29:49Speaker 1: think that these are... I think they're going to help
- 29:52Speaker 1: a lot. I'm glad that you're taking that step to
- 29:54Speaker 1: help them with these glasses, because we've talked about these...
- 29:59Speaker 1: Meta has done so much with accessibility on these glasses.
- 30:04Speaker 1: And it pains me that they get such a bad
- 30:06Speaker 1: rap in the media because they are helping so many
- 30:10Speaker 1: people do so many interesting things. And one of them
- 30:14Speaker 1: is that they can identify what you're looking at. They
- 30:17Speaker 1: can read things to you. They can explain things to you.
- 30:21Speaker 1: There's a feature called detailed responses where it can actually
- 30:24Speaker 1: describe things in extreme detail of what you're looking at.
- 30:27Speaker 1: which of course helps low vision and blind folks. So
- 30:31Speaker 1: we did a segment about this. We went to the
- 30:33Speaker 1: Braille Institute and that's the first place I would check.
- 30:38Speaker 1: They actually have classes. Where are you, Chino Hills? So
- 30:41Speaker 1: this is a bit outside of where you are, but
- 30:46Speaker 1: I was just in Chino Hills actually last week and
- 30:48Speaker 1: a beautiful place. They were building, oh my gosh, they
- 30:50Speaker 1: were building so much there. I couldn't believe it, like
- 30:53Speaker 1: entire neighborhoods being built there. But that's a side. So
- 30:58Speaker 1: Braille Institute is a great place to start. And they
- 31:00Speaker 1: actually have classes which can help you understand these glasses
- 31:06Speaker 1: and all the things you can do with them. So
- 31:08Speaker 1: I would do that. And then in your local area,
- 31:12Speaker 1: you can just Google, you know, meta, maybe like meta glasses, classes, blind,
- 31:19Speaker 1: low vision, and see what comes up there. Because I
- 31:22Speaker 1: actually asked the Braille Institute, people that live outside LA,
- 31:26Speaker 1: how do they find classes that are similar like this?
- 31:28Speaker 1: And it would just be a matter of going to
- 31:31Speaker 1: your local area and finding something like this. So I
- 31:35Speaker 1: would recommend doing that. I would also recommend looking on YouTube.
- 31:40Speaker 1: You can look on YouTube and kind of get some
- 31:43Speaker 1: of these ideas and bring them to your friend as well.
- 31:47Speaker 1: But those are really... they're so helpful. They really are.
- 31:51Speaker 1: And they just do so many great things. The other
- 31:54Speaker 1: app I would recommend, I mean, there's just so much
- 31:56Speaker 1: you can do on here. Let me just see if Meta,
- 31:58Speaker 1: let me see, Meta, Ray-Ban, I'm going to see if
- 32:02Speaker 1: they have assistive tech features. I'm going to see if
- 32:05Speaker 1: they have like a whole website that lists all the
- 32:07Speaker 1: different features. So yeah, if you look there, they actually
- 32:11Speaker 1: have a lot of, yeah, they have a whole section
- 32:16Speaker 1: with accessibility on their website. So yeah, I mean, there's
- 32:18Speaker 1: so many things. I'll link that up on our website
- 32:21Speaker 1: as well. It says AI glasses for meta, empowering accessibility,
- 32:25Speaker 1: and they've got all the different features and they just
- 32:26Speaker 1: keep adding them. Like if you go into the settings
- 32:28Speaker 1: on these glasses, they just keep adding features for accessibility,
- 32:32Speaker 1: which is truly incredible. I wear these pretty much every
- 32:36Speaker 1: day of my life. I will tell you, I use 1%
- 32:39Speaker 1: of the features on them, but I love the fact
- 32:41Speaker 1: that I can take a picture or a video whenever
- 32:44Speaker 1: I want I can listen to my music on them.
- 32:47Speaker 1: You can take calls. And the Meta AI is pretty good.
- 32:51Speaker 1: But when they get Muse, their little AI assistant built
- 32:54Speaker 1: into these, which is coming soon, that's amazing. They also
- 32:57Speaker 1: have this feature called Be My Eyes. So anyone who
- 33:01Speaker 1: is blind or low vision is familiar with this. Basically,
- 33:04Speaker 1: Be My Eyes, once you summon it, it will go
- 33:09Speaker 1: out to all the people that have this app installed
- 33:11Speaker 1: on their phone, ping them and say, hey, can you
- 33:13Speaker 1: help someone right now? And they will show a live
- 33:17Speaker 1: stream of what you're looking at, the blind or low
- 33:19Speaker 1: vision person. They will stream that to the other person's phone,
- 33:22Speaker 1: the person who is sighted. And that sighted person can
- 33:26Speaker 1: describe or help in any way that they need to.
- 33:29Speaker 1: So for instance, if a low vision or blind person
- 33:32Speaker 1: is saying, which socks are blue? Now that's something the
- 33:35Speaker 1: metaglasses could probably figure out on their own, but you
- 33:38Speaker 1: see what I'm saying here. The person that's sighted could
- 33:41Speaker 1: say the ones on the right. And the low vision
- 33:43Speaker 1: person would hear that in their ears and just pick
- 33:45Speaker 1: up the ones on the right. So, I mean, this
- 33:47Speaker 1: stuff is really incredible. It really, really is. And I
- 33:50Speaker 1: love the fact that I don't think Meta set out to,
- 33:53Speaker 1: from the person I interviewed at Meta, they said they
- 33:55Speaker 1: didn't set out to make these glasses accessible, but it
- 33:59Speaker 1: just sort of happened. And when the accessibility community said,
- 34:02Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is really good. This is really good.
- 34:05Speaker 1: They just kept doubling down and doing more and more. So-
- 34:09Speaker 1: Thanks for the call, Eric. Appreciate it. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101, richontech.tv.
- 34:19Speaker 1: This is episode 196. I will put the link to
- 34:22Speaker 1: my story on the metaglasses and some of the resources
- 34:26Speaker 1: that I found there as well. The other thing you
- 34:29Speaker 1: should do, if you haven't gone to the The CSUN
- 34:34Speaker 1: Assistive Tech Conference, which happens in Anaheim every year, that
- 34:37Speaker 1: is an excellent place to see everything, all the new
- 34:39Speaker 1: technology that's available when it comes to the blind and
- 34:43Speaker 1: low vision community or just accessibility in general. I mean,
- 34:46Speaker 1: there's everything. I mean, everyone goes to that thing. It's
- 34:49Speaker 1: pretty impressive. Spotify is cracking down on family plan sharing.
- 34:54Speaker 1: So you cannot share your Spotify family plan with someone
- 34:58Speaker 1: who does not live with you in your home. And
- 35:00Speaker 1: so Spotify knows this. And of course, they know when
- 35:02Speaker 1: people are streaming outside the household and whatever, sharing this stuff.
- 35:06Speaker 1: But everything, as I say, the free ride is over.
- 35:09Speaker 1: These companies want to make their money. And so anyone
- 35:12Speaker 1: who is doing this, they want to find out. And
- 35:14Speaker 1: so what are they doing? They are now sending notices
- 35:17Speaker 1: to people on family plans that are sharing their plans
- 35:21Speaker 1: and saying, hey, we just sent a QR code to
- 35:23Speaker 1: your family plan manager. You have to scan it with
- 35:26Speaker 1: your phone. And you're sitting there halfway across the country going, wait, what?
- 35:30Speaker 1: How do I scan my family member's phone or my
- 35:33Speaker 1: friend's phone that's not even near me? So you have
- 35:36Speaker 1: to be physically together to scan this code. And you
- 35:38Speaker 1: have seven days to do it. Otherwise, you will be
- 35:41Speaker 1: blocked from joining another family or duo plan for 12 months.
- 35:45Speaker 1: And that's not good. So why is Spotify doing this? Well,
- 35:49Speaker 1: they want to crack down on people who are living
- 35:50Speaker 1: at different addresses sharing this subscription. So for $ 22 a month,
- 35:55Speaker 1: you get up to six shared subscriptions. But the family
- 35:59Speaker 1: plan specifically says you have to live under the same roof.
- 36:03Speaker 1: It's not like it used to be where the family
- 36:04Speaker 1: plan was like, oh, anyone that's in your quote unquote family,
- 36:07Speaker 1: if you had a kid off in college, sure, they're
- 36:08Speaker 1: in your family. No, they have to live under your roof.
- 36:12Speaker 1: So this is happening now. If you get one of
- 36:15Speaker 1: these things, you're going to have to figure out how
- 36:17Speaker 1: to verify if you want to keep sharing that plan. Now,
- 36:20Speaker 1: I said if Spotify was nice, they would do it
- 36:23Speaker 1: during Thanksgiving week. Because everyone's going home for the holidays
- 36:26Speaker 1: or Christmas. And then you'll be under the same roof
- 36:28Speaker 1: as your family members anyway. Probably be fighting like cats
- 36:31Speaker 1: and dogs. But that's a whole other story. 888-RICH-101. Rich
- 36:35Speaker 1: on Tech. Back after this. Welcome back to Rich on Tech.
- 36:39Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here. Hanging out with you. Talking technology.
- 36:42Speaker 5: 888-RICH-101.
- 36:42Speaker 8: 888-742-4101.
- 36:42Speaker 1: Coming up this hour, we are going to talk about.
- 36:53Speaker 1: Calendar spam. Have you seen this where you get one
- 36:56Speaker 1: of these calendar invites and it's spam? We're going to
- 36:59Speaker 1: talk to a security expert to tell you how to
- 37:01Speaker 1: get rid of those. And the website rich on tech.tv,
- 37:05Speaker 1: of course, and thanks for waiting on hold patiently, we
- 37:08Speaker 1: will get to some of your calls in just a
- 37:10Speaker 1: second here. I told I told this story on my
- 37:13Speaker 1: LinkedIn and my Instagram, but it was, it was pretty amazing.
- 37:17Speaker 1: So I'll tell it here too. But yesterday, so my
- 37:21Speaker 1: kid had off from school, and He was going to
- 37:24Speaker 1: stay at home by himself for like an hour or two.
- 37:26Speaker 1: And I said, you know what, why don't you just
- 37:27Speaker 1: come to work with me? This is at my TV work.
- 37:30Speaker 1: And I said, you know, you got to get up
- 37:32Speaker 1: at 4am. But you know, it can be kind of fun.
- 37:34Speaker 1: You can see what I do for a living. And
- 37:36Speaker 1: you know, it's been a while since he's been there.
- 37:38Speaker 1: So he actually said, Yeah, I'll do that. That'll be fun.
- 37:41Speaker 1: So brought him to work at the TV station. Now
- 37:45Speaker 1: I've been there for 16 years. And I was like,
- 37:46Speaker 1: I don't know if this kid's gonna be like bored
- 37:48Speaker 1: to tears. But it turns out he was like, it
- 37:50Speaker 1: was like, I don't know why I'm spending money going
- 37:52Speaker 1: to Hawaii and Disneyland. All I had to do was
- 37:55Speaker 1: take my kid to work. I mean, it was unbelievable.
- 37:58Speaker 1: So number one, he gets in there. You know, he's
- 38:00Speaker 1: going into like all the different places I have to
- 38:02Speaker 1: go and see all the different things I do. But
- 38:04Speaker 1: here's what he got to do. So the weather person
- 38:07Speaker 1: asked him, hey, do you want to do the weather forecast?
- 38:09Speaker 1: So at 530 a.m., he's sitting there doing the weather forecast.
- 38:12Speaker 1: He did it. No problem. Then he's watching the programming
- 38:16Speaker 1: from my desk and he sees an actor.
- 38:19Speaker 2: That he knows.
- 38:19Speaker 1: He goes, hey, that guy's on my TV show that
- 38:21Speaker 1: I love. I said, what, that guy? And sure enough,
- 38:24Speaker 1: I was like, that guy is here. Like he's on
- 38:26Speaker 1: our set right now. You want to go say hi
- 38:27Speaker 1: to him? He goes, oh my gosh, yes. Goes and
- 38:30Speaker 1: has a whole conversation with this actor. And he's talking
- 38:32Speaker 1: with him. He's great. Then Bluey, you know, like the
- 38:36Speaker 1: Disney character was there promoting like a play. So this
- 38:39Speaker 1: big costumed Bluey character is there and takes a picture
- 38:42Speaker 1: with that. That was funny. Then we have like, you know,
- 38:44Speaker 1: we have all these food guests on the show. So
- 38:47Speaker 1: he's like, they're like, do you want a smash burger?
- 38:49Speaker 1: By the way, at 9.50 in the morning. He's like, yeah, sure.
- 38:52Speaker 1: So he comes in, he's just shoving this smash burger
- 38:55Speaker 1: into his face. And I'm like, dude, you're having like
- 38:58Speaker 1: the best day ever. But what was so fascinating to
- 39:01Speaker 1: me is all the stuff that I take for granted, right?
- 39:02Speaker 1: Like going into the makeup room, all the studios, all
- 39:05Speaker 1: the people behind the scenes I say hi to every day.
- 39:07Speaker 1: It was all new to him. And he was like
- 39:10Speaker 1: so excited about all of it. all the gadgets around
- 39:13Speaker 1: my desk that he went through and like was sorting
- 39:15Speaker 1: them out and all this stuff. So this is my thing.
- 39:18Speaker 1: I mean, remember this old thing, like take your kid
- 39:20Speaker 1: to work day.
- 39:20Speaker 4: I don't know.
- 39:21Speaker 1: I don't think anyone does that anymore. I feel like
- 39:22Speaker 1: that's just like falling off the face of the map.
- 39:25Speaker 1: We should bring that back because I am not kidding.
- 39:27Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, we're spending all this stuff, entertaining
- 39:30Speaker 1: our kids, doing all these things, bringing amusement parks. Just
- 39:33Speaker 1: take them to your work. And you who's going to
- 39:36Speaker 1: work every day, I'm not saying this is true for
- 39:38Speaker 1: me because I love what I do. And I've been
- 39:40Speaker 1: there 16 years. But to me, I get it. Things
- 39:44Speaker 1: become routine. They become second nature. And to a kid
- 39:49Speaker 1: or someone else that you're bringing there, everything is new.
- 39:52Speaker 1: Every person you talk to was interesting. Every, I mean,
- 39:54Speaker 1: everyone we talked to, like their, their eyes just lit
- 39:58Speaker 1: up and they wanted to explain to my kid what
- 39:59Speaker 1: they do and how they do it. So I thought
- 40:01Speaker 1: this was pretty cool. And, you know, just seeing your
- 40:04Speaker 1: workplace through a fresh set of eyes really reminds you
- 40:06Speaker 1: of all of the interesting things that you've sort of
- 40:09Speaker 1: stopped noticing. And my kid, I kid you not, before
- 40:12Speaker 1: we went to bed last night said, dad, that was
- 40:14Speaker 1: one of the best days you and I've ever had together.
- 40:17Speaker 1: All I did was bring him to work. amazing uh
- 40:20Speaker 1: let's go tell him i'm offended what why are you
- 40:24Speaker 1: offended because he comes here okay well he likes this
- 40:27Speaker 1: too actually okay it's funny you say that because i
- 40:30Speaker 1: said tanner i said you want to come to work
- 40:31Speaker 1: again with me today at the radio and he said
- 40:33Speaker 1: yeah that'd be fun i said oh he did the
- 40:35Speaker 1: whole thing yesterday like let's you know cold-blooded man yeah
- 40:38Speaker 1: said he wants to be here when adam's filling in
- 40:41Speaker 1: wow let's go to susan in san clemente susan you're
- 40:47Speaker 1: on with rich.
- 40:49Speaker 9: Hi, Rich.
- 40:50Speaker 2: I have probably at least a 13-year-old desktop computer that's slowly,
- 40:59Speaker 2: slowly dying. It lost half of its RAM. And then
- 41:04Speaker 2: every time it starts up, and then it cuts off,
- 41:09Speaker 2: and then it starts up, and then Windows has an update.
- 41:12Speaker 2: And it just really made me mad. So I decided
- 41:14Speaker 2: I was going to go to the Apple store. and
- 41:17Speaker 2: I looked around for one of their all-in-ones, and I
- 41:20Speaker 2: was pretty much impressed with it until after it got
- 41:24Speaker 2: delivered to me, and it's still in the box. I'm
- 41:27Speaker 2: not so sure it's the best computer for me.
- 41:30Speaker 1: Well, why not?
- 41:33Speaker 2: Well.
- 41:34Speaker 1: What changed from when you went to the store and
- 41:36Speaker 1: bought it to when it got delivered, and now you're like, wait,
- 41:39Speaker 1: this thing's still in the box. I don't like it.
- 41:40Speaker 1: What's changed?
- 41:42Speaker 2: I think it's because of the programs that I use
- 41:45Speaker 2: on my computer. and the fact that it does not
- 41:49Speaker 2: have an Ethernet port in it, and it only has
- 41:52Speaker 2: two USB-C ports, I feel that I will get a
- 41:58Speaker 2: better Internet connection if I'm connected to an Ethernet. And
- 42:03Speaker 2: the two C ports, I would have to use one
- 42:06Speaker 2: of those to use it for my hard drive backup.
- 42:11Speaker 2: And I like my keyboard, which is... a Logitech keyboard
- 42:16Speaker 2: and mouse, and it needs to be plugged in. So
- 42:20Speaker 2: I've lost those two. So I went online last night
- 42:24Speaker 2: about midnight, and I found one at Dell. And Dell
- 42:28Speaker 2: has pretty much the same amount of.
- 42:34Speaker 5: Memory.
- 42:35Speaker 2: It has more solid-state storage, but it has an Ethernet port.
- 42:44Speaker 2: It has about six different ports on the back of it,
- 42:49Speaker 2: and it comes with a full-size keyboard, which I like.
- 42:53Speaker 1: Susan, you don't need a new computer. All you need
- 42:58Speaker 1: is a $ 16 hub. That's it. That'll solve all your problems.
- 43:03Speaker 2: What I'm having problems is I have Quicken for Windows,
- 43:08Speaker 2: and in order to put Quicken on the Mac, iMac,
- 43:13Speaker 2: I have to download their version, and I'm not so
- 43:17Speaker 2: sure exactly if all the information I have on my
- 43:20Speaker 2: Quicken report with all my investments and my banking information,
- 43:24Speaker 2: which I manually put in, is going to transfer. I
- 43:28Speaker 2: use Word and Excel, which means no matter which one
- 43:32Speaker 2: I use, which one computer I end up with, I
- 43:36Speaker 2: would need to buy another Office product because I don't
- 43:38Speaker 2: want to use Microsoft 365 products. On a monthly basis.
- 43:42Speaker 1: And you already have the other one. Okay, well, then,
- 43:44Speaker 1: I mean, look, it sounds to me, how long have
- 43:47Speaker 1: you had this computer?
- 43:49Speaker 2: I've had it at least since 2013.
- 43:52Speaker 1: No, no, the iMac that you got delivered.
- 43:54Speaker 2: It was delivered on Saturday, Friday.
- 44:00Speaker 1: Okay, so you only have, I think Apple gives you, what,
- 44:02Speaker 1: 14 days? Is that what they said?
- 44:04Speaker 5: What?
- 44:04Speaker 2: 14 days. Okay.
- 44:05Speaker 1: So I would just return it. It sounds to me
- 44:08Speaker 1: like you want the Windows side of things. You want
- 44:11Speaker 1: the more ports. It's fine. I mean, you're also comfortable
- 44:15Speaker 1: with Windows. It sounds like that's what you've had for
- 44:17Speaker 1: 13 years, right?
- 44:19Speaker 2: I've had Windows probably before XP.
- 44:24Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 44:24Speaker 1: I mean, you don't have to feel bad. You don't
- 44:26Speaker 1: have to feel bad. Return this computer. Get the Dell
- 44:28Speaker 1: that you like. Have you checked Costco? Are you a
- 44:32Speaker 1: member there?
- 44:34Speaker 2: I'm a Costco member. No, I have not checked. But
- 44:38Speaker 2: all the computers I've had except my first one, which
- 44:40Speaker 2: was a Micron, have been Dell.
- 44:42Speaker 1: Okay. Well, it sounds to me like you wanted to
- 44:44Speaker 1: take a, you know, you went into the store, you
- 44:46Speaker 1: kind of, you know, you liked it. It was exciting.
- 44:49Speaker 5: I don't know.
- 44:49Speaker 1: What color did you get on this iMac?
- 44:52Speaker 8: The blue. Okay.
- 44:52Speaker 1: So you got the blue computer. It's fun. It's nice.
- 44:55Speaker 1: But the reality of it when you started to really
- 44:58Speaker 1: process this is you said, you know what? I'm kind
- 45:01Speaker 1: of a Dell gal. I like this. I like what
- 45:03Speaker 1: I know. I've got all the things that I want.
- 45:05Speaker 1: I've got my setup. It's going to smoothly transfer over.
- 45:08Speaker 1: That's fine. There's no harm, no foul here. So you
- 45:11Speaker 1: return the computer. I don't even think they charge a
- 45:13Speaker 1: restocking fee anymore on these things. It's in the box.
- 45:17Speaker 1: It'll be easy. You order the new Dell. I would
- 45:20Speaker 1: just add that you should probably go to Costco, see
- 45:23Speaker 1: what they offer. They sometimes offer one or two really
- 45:26Speaker 1: good all-in-ones just to see. And then if not, just
- 45:30Speaker 1: order the Dell. You've got it and I mean, do
- 45:33Speaker 1: you feel better already?
- 45:35Speaker 2: Well, I kind of feel like I should get it.
- 45:38Speaker 2: But my next question is, no matter which computer I
- 45:42Speaker 2: end up with, I need to clean off all of
- 45:46Speaker 2: my personal information off of this hard drive. And I
- 45:50Speaker 2: don't know how to do that.
- 45:52Speaker 1: Yeah, that's another story. Because this computer, what are you
- 45:55Speaker 1: running on? Windows 10 or Windows 11? 10.
- 45:58Speaker 2: It was a 7 with a 10 upgrade.
- 46:00Speaker 1: Okay. Then Windows 10 has a thing called Reset This PC.
- 46:03Speaker 1: You can easily do that in the settings. I'll put
- 46:05Speaker 1: the link on the website, richontech.tv. But that's once you've
- 46:09Speaker 1: gotten everything transferred over. And what I would do is
- 46:12Speaker 1: I typically recommend getting an external hard drive, drag all
- 46:16Speaker 1: the stuff that you want from the old computer onto
- 46:18Speaker 1: that drive, all the files and things like that, and
- 46:21Speaker 1: then set up the new computer fresh. And then you
- 46:24Speaker 1: can bring those files over to the new computer that way.
- 46:28Speaker 1: install your applications once again. Anything that's running on 10
- 46:31Speaker 1: should be able to run on 11. Quicken might give
- 46:34Speaker 1: you some issues. I would look into that before you
- 46:36Speaker 1: completely switch, but it should be fine. And for the
- 46:41Speaker 1: personal information on the old computer, you'll use the option
- 46:44Speaker 1: to reset this PC and basically not keep the files
- 46:47Speaker 1: like you want to fully clean it. So that's built
- 46:50Speaker 1: into Windows 10 and 11. And I'll put the link
- 46:53Speaker 1: again on the website, richontech.tv slash 197. Susan, thanks so
- 46:58Speaker 1: much for calling. Interesting question. Sounds like you have a
- 47:01Speaker 1: little change of heart, which is fine. I mean, this happens.
- 47:04Speaker 1: I mean, people, I have a feeling a lot of
- 47:05Speaker 1: people that buy the iPhone Duo, there's going to be
- 47:08Speaker 1: some returns in the next week or two because people
- 47:10Speaker 1: are going to say, you know what? I wanted to
- 47:12Speaker 1: try something new. I want you to try something different.
- 47:14Speaker 1: Just doesn't work out for me. And it's fine. That happens.
- 47:18Speaker 1: I think the iMac is a great computer, but if
- 47:20Speaker 1: you know what you know and you like what you like,
- 47:22Speaker 1: go with the all-in-one Dell. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. Coming up, banks
- 47:32Speaker 1: are getting nervous about AI assistants accessing your money. I'll
- 47:36Speaker 1: explain coming up right here when Rich on Tech returns.
- 47:43Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging
- 47:45Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology, AAA, Rich 101. You probably
- 47:50Speaker 1: saw the big headline that AI agents are getting into
- 47:55Speaker 1: your bank accounts and banks are scared. Major banks, including
- 47:59Speaker 1: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, and Morgan Stanley are
- 48:02Speaker 1: restricting third-party AI agents. And this was all because of
- 48:07Speaker 1: an Axios article that They said that some AI agents
- 48:11Speaker 1: are accessing accounts using usernames and passwords customers willingly shared.
- 48:15Speaker 1: Willingly shared. That's the thing that was left out of
- 48:19Speaker 1: a lot of the scary headlines. These are people like
- 48:23Speaker 1: myself who know what they're doing, and they're saying, hey,
- 48:27Speaker 1: AI agent, you can go and take action. Do things.
- 48:30Speaker 1: Do things on my behalf. This is not rogue AI
- 48:33Speaker 1: getting into accounts. That could happen, but that's not what's
- 48:36Speaker 1: happening here in this big, scary headlines. So banks, they
- 48:39Speaker 1: said that they're having trouble telling whether an AI agent
- 48:42Speaker 1: is acting with permission or going rogue. Now that I
- 48:44Speaker 1: can understand, because right now it's like a Wild West, right?
- 48:48Speaker 1: But Morgan Stanley said they have not detected any rogue
- 48:51Speaker 1: agents on their platforms. Banks, they want read-only access. And
- 48:55Speaker 1: I talked about this last week, where AI can analyze
- 48:58Speaker 1: your finances, but it can't move your money around. But
- 49:02Speaker 1: if you have a good AI agent set up, yes,
- 49:03Speaker 1: it could move your money too. It could do anything
- 49:05Speaker 1: you want because it has access to a web browser.
- 49:08Speaker 1: And so the thing is, you have to understand that
- 49:12Speaker 1: banks have a financial incentive to be cautious because let's
- 49:17Speaker 1: just say you tell your AI to always move your
- 49:19Speaker 1: money to the bank that's paying the most interest. Guess what?
- 49:22Speaker 1: These banks don't like that. Oh, that's why they don't
- 49:25Speaker 1: like this. Oh, okay. That's why they want to limit everything.
- 49:28Speaker 8: Yes.
- 49:29Speaker 1: Now I get it. There is some danger in having
- 49:32Speaker 1: an AI agent just do whatever they want with your
- 49:34Speaker 1: bank account. Like mine sent an email yesterday without telling
- 49:37Speaker 1: me that it was going to send it. And I
- 49:39Speaker 1: got a little angry. Because it sent this like manic
- 49:42Speaker 1: email to someone with like all these steps and directions
- 49:45Speaker 1: and things. And it sounded like it was coming from me.
- 49:47Speaker 1: Now I've told my AI agent to always sign sent
- 49:50Speaker 1: from glitchy, which is AI agent. And so far it's
- 49:53Speaker 1: done that. But one command I did, I guess I
- 49:56Speaker 1: was doing it outside of my typical. And so it
- 49:59Speaker 1: just thought I could email someone and it did. And
- 50:01Speaker 1: the person wrote back like this whole big email and
- 50:03Speaker 1: I felt so bad. I didn't want to tell them
- 50:05Speaker 1: that my AI agent wrote that. but I was like,
- 50:08Speaker 1: it actually wasn't even an AI agent. It was just AI.
- 50:11Speaker 1: But anyway, when it comes to like connecting your bank
- 50:13Speaker 1: accounts to something like a Muse, something like even like
- 50:16Speaker 1: a Monarch Money or a ChatGPT Finances, they all go
- 50:20Speaker 1: through what's called Plaid or some other third-party platform where
- 50:23Speaker 1: they're getting read-only access typically. Now, if you're setting up
- 50:26Speaker 1: your AI agent with your password and username to your
- 50:29Speaker 1: bank account, that's completely different. If you're using a third-party,
- 50:33Speaker 1: I mean, this gets a little complicated, but if you
- 50:36Speaker 1: People that understand how AI agents work, they understand the difference. One,
- 50:41Speaker 1: it's just getting your transaction data. It can't make any changes. Two,
- 50:45Speaker 1: the other way, it actually can do things on your behalf.
- 50:47Speaker 1: And that's where you need to be very careful. But
- 50:49Speaker 1: this whole idea of AI agents just going through everyone's
- 50:52Speaker 1: bank accounts and making changes and doing stuff like that,
- 50:55Speaker 1: they're not just doing that by default. So understand that
- 50:58Speaker 1: when you see the big scary headline and everyone talking
- 51:00Speaker 1: about it. That's for sure. This portion of the show
- 51:05Speaker 1: is sponsored by Incogni. The phone rings. It's your bank,
- 51:10Speaker 1: or at least you think it is. This person knows
- 51:12Speaker 1: your name, your address, the last four digits of your social.
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- 51:20Speaker 1: It's a scammer who bought your info from a data broker. Now,
- 51:24Speaker 1: think about this. All these scam calls we hear about,
- 51:27Speaker 1: they can sound real. There are some red flags that
- 51:29Speaker 1: can tell you they're not, but these things happen on
- 51:32Speaker 1: a daily basis. Where are they getting this information? Data brokers.
- 51:35Speaker 1: Thousands of them. They all collect your personal info. They
- 51:37Speaker 1: sell it to anyone who pays, including crooks. That's exactly
- 51:41Speaker 1: how scammers make a fake call sound real. They have
- 51:45Speaker 1: your information on the back end, so they sound like
- 51:46Speaker 1: they know who you are and what you're doing. Last year,
- 51:49Speaker 1: Americans sold the FTC. They lost almost $ 16 billion to fraud.
- 51:53Speaker 1: That is a lot of money when you think, oh,
- 51:54Speaker 1: that will never happen to me. Well, that's why I'm
- 51:57Speaker 1: using Incogni. Incogni sends removal requests to over 400 data
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- 52:05Speaker 1: They keep watch and they don't add you back in.
- 52:08Speaker 1: So they make sure that they don't add you back in.
- 52:11Speaker 1: If you're doing this yourself, it might take you hundreds
- 52:13Speaker 1: of hours. Incogni handles it. Taking a look at my dashboard,
- 52:17Speaker 1: let's see. My most recent numbers shows that they've completed
- 52:21Speaker 1: 825 removal requests, another 21 in progress, 169 scheduled. That
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- 52:23Speaker 1: that's a lot of time. So go to incogni.com slash
- 52:33Speaker 1: rich for 60% off. That's I-N-C-O-G-N-I dot com slash rich.
- 52:38Speaker 1: Incogni.com slash rich. Let's see. What else? Oh, 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101.
- 52:46Speaker 1: Let's see. I don't know if I can take this
- 52:53Speaker 1: call quickly. Let's see. Michael in Denver, can you make
- 52:57Speaker 1: it real quick on the iPhone Duo? I've got about
- 52:59Speaker 1: a minute here.
- 53:01Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 53:01Speaker 2: Hi, Rich.
- 53:03Speaker 8: By the way, really quick, I got a chance to
- 53:05Speaker 8: watch your son's appearance during the break, and he has
- 53:08Speaker 8: a future in television. I am telling you, man.
- 53:11Speaker 1: Thank you. That means a lot. Thank you.
- 53:15Speaker 2: Absolutely.
- 53:15Speaker 8: But hey, real quick on the iPhone Duo. Yeah, you
- 53:18Speaker 8: were talking about this. So something I was just going
- 53:20Speaker 8: to mention real quick, it has this new A20 Pro chip.
- 53:23Speaker 8: And I've read about it's a lot faster. It has
- 53:27Speaker 8: this Siri AI camera. I was going to ask, with
- 53:31Speaker 8: the A20 chip, is there any new, like, features as
- 53:35Speaker 8: far as the AI goes and also mobile gaming features
- 53:39Speaker 8: for this phone? I've heard the chip does increase the
- 53:42Speaker 8: speed of mobile gaming, but, like, let's say I wanted
- 53:45Speaker 8: to play the new, you know, like, Modern Warfare 4
- 53:48Speaker 8: that just came out on the iPhone. Is it more of, like,
- 53:51Speaker 8: an immersive gaming experience? mobile gaming experience. Have you experimented
- 53:55Speaker 8: at all with that aspect of it?
- 53:58Speaker 1: I have not. I don't typically play games on my phone,
- 54:00Speaker 1: but I know that Apple makes a big deal of
- 54:03Speaker 1: gaming on these phones. This is the latest chip. And
- 54:07Speaker 1: I'm sure some people have downloaded that new game because
- 54:09Speaker 1: one of the podcasts I was listening to, they were
- 54:11Speaker 1: talking about that. But it does have the hardware accelerated
- 54:14Speaker 1: ray tracing. And it's got, I mean, this is obviously
- 54:18Speaker 1: Apple's biggest chip yet. So let me, when I come
- 54:21Speaker 1: back from break, we'll talk more about this right here
- 54:23Speaker 1: on Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech.
- 54:27Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology, 888-RICH101.com.
- 54:36Speaker 1: All right, so before the break, we had a caller.
- 54:40Speaker 1: Let's see. It was Michael in Denver asking about the
- 54:44Speaker 1: iPhone Duo specs. So it's got the A20 Pro Chip,
- 54:47Speaker 1: six-core CPU, two super cores, four efficiency cores, seven-core GPU
- 54:52Speaker 1: with neural accelerators, dual 16-core neural engine, hardware accelerated ray tracing.
- 54:58Speaker 1: What does all that mean? I don't know. It just
- 55:01Speaker 1: means that it's Apple's best chip on an iPhone. So
- 55:04Speaker 1: if you're going to play these games, and Apple always
- 55:07Speaker 1: makes a big deal out of playing games on their
- 55:10Speaker 1: phones for the last 15 years of going to their events,
- 55:14Speaker 1: I just don't game on my phone other than Candy Crush.
- 55:17Speaker 1: But yeah, some people do play games on these phones,
- 55:19Speaker 1: and it's probably pretty good. I guess my advice is
- 55:22Speaker 1: if you can play something like this game you were
- 55:25Speaker 1: talking about on an iPad, this will be a better
- 55:27Speaker 1: experience because... it's got a better chip than I think
- 55:31Speaker 1: most of the iPads have. Maybe the M4 chips are better,
- 55:34Speaker 1: but this is the best you can get. So maybe
- 55:37Speaker 1: try it out. I don't know if you could download
- 55:39Speaker 1: stuff at the Apple Store. You probably can't, but I'll
- 55:41Speaker 1: download the game and try it out for you unless
- 55:43Speaker 1: I have to pay for it. And then I'll have
- 55:45Speaker 1: to figure out how to do that.
- 55:47Speaker 4: All right.
- 55:47Speaker 1: Joining me now is, let's see here. We've got Luke Westcott.
- 55:52Speaker 1: He is with, sorry, I got to get my, I
- 55:53Speaker 1: was so concentrated on the other thing. Okay. Luke Westcott
- 55:57Speaker 1: is a security researcher at Sublime Security. So I don't
- 56:00Speaker 1: know if you've gotten one of these things, but they're
- 56:02Speaker 1: like calendar spam. You open up your calendar and it's like, hey,
- 56:05Speaker 1: buy Bitcoin or whatever. It's like a million and one
- 56:07Speaker 1: ways these things come in. Scammers have figured out a
- 56:10Speaker 1: way to make it onto your calendar, whether it's Google,
- 56:12Speaker 1: whether it's Apple. And people always email me and they're like,
- 56:15Speaker 1: how's this happening? And what can I do to stop it?
- 56:16Speaker 1: So Luke is here to explain. Thanks for joining me, Luke.
- 56:20Speaker 5: Thanks, Rich, so much for having me. Really good to
- 56:22Speaker 5: be here. In fact, to follow the iPhone duo, I
- 56:24Speaker 5: know that's got a lot of people excited right now,
- 56:28Speaker 5: myself included.
- 56:28Speaker 1: Do you think you're going to get one? Are you
- 56:31Speaker 1: going to play with it at least? Oh, you've got one. Oh,
- 56:35Speaker 1: my gosh.
- 56:35Speaker 5: Look at that.
- 56:36Speaker 1: You already have it. So what's your hot take on it?
- 56:40Speaker 5: I'm also not a gamer, but I'll report back. I'll
- 56:43Speaker 5: call next weekend with how Candy Crush runs on it.
- 56:47Speaker 1: On that nice big screen.
- 56:50Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- 56:51Speaker 1: Um, but do you love it so far or what?
- 56:54Speaker 5: It's been a good first day.
- 56:55Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 56:56Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 56:56Speaker 5: I'm really like, I'm, I like, I'm a big, uh, e-reader. Um,
- 57:01Speaker 5: and so I was excited from day one to be
- 57:04Speaker 5: able to have something that I could do some Kindle
- 57:06Speaker 5: reading on, uh, on the same thing that I, you know,
- 57:09Speaker 5: get my Slack notifications on.
- 57:10Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 57:11Speaker 1: I would argue, cause it's kind of nice. You have
- 57:13Speaker 1: a book reader with you at all times. And I
- 57:14Speaker 1: would argue, I typically never really liked reading on an
- 57:17Speaker 1: iPad because But because this has a matte screen, it
- 57:21Speaker 1: much more resembles the printed page.
- 57:23Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
- 57:24Speaker 5: It's not quite ink. It was such an easy to
- 57:27Speaker 5: always have it, right? Because when you fold it, you
- 57:29Speaker 5: can just tuck it away in your pocket too. Whereas
- 57:31Speaker 5: the Kindle's just too big to be able to have
- 57:34Speaker 5: everywhere with you. So I'm sort of condensing three devices
- 57:38Speaker 5: into one. So it's a big one for me.
- 57:40Speaker 1: Very cool. Well, let's talk about this whole thing. you know,
- 57:43Speaker 1: calendar spam situation. I get these emails all the time.
- 57:46Speaker 1: So first off, just explain the problem.
- 57:49Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 57:50Speaker 5: So a lot of people are probably, a lot of
- 57:52Speaker 5: your listeners are probably very familiar with, you know, malicious emails, right?
- 57:57Speaker 5: You get spam in your emails, people trying to get
- 57:59Speaker 5: you to click on links, people lying, people pretending to
- 58:02Speaker 5: be Apple. You know, hey, win a free iPhone Duo today,
- 58:05Speaker 5: just click this little link here, take you to a survey.
- 58:09Speaker 5: Google has gotten pretty good. Traditional, like, even Outlook has
- 58:13Speaker 5: gotten pretty good at filtering these into your spam folders.
- 58:17Speaker 5: But something that attackers have found out more recently, this
- 58:21Speaker 5: isn't a new trend, but it's definitely becoming very popular,
- 58:24Speaker 5: is is that they can actually just send these things
- 58:27Speaker 5: directly onto your calendars with a lot of the same content.
- 58:30Speaker 5: So similar things as, hey, you accidentally spent $ 1, 000. Call
- 58:36Speaker 5: this phone number and get that resolved. You know, reset
- 58:41Speaker 5: your passwords, a lot of things like that. Trying to
- 58:44Speaker 5: get you to either call a number or click on
- 58:46Speaker 5: a link is really like the two. They try and
- 58:48Speaker 5: drive up a sense of urgency. But it's really easy
- 58:51Speaker 5: to just drop these straight onto your calendars. And a
- 58:53Speaker 5: lot of these email providers haven't really caught up to
- 58:56Speaker 5: this calendar angle yet. So a lot of these things
- 58:59Speaker 5: are making it through the filters that you rely on.
- 59:03Speaker 5: And one of the scariest things about these is that
- 59:06Speaker 5: it lands in a really unfamiliar place to you, right?
- 59:09Speaker 5: The same place where your doctor's appointment and your meeting
- 59:11Speaker 5: with your boss is. Now you suddenly have this email
- 59:14Speaker 5: that says, you know, urgent, you owe us $ 600, you
- 59:17Speaker 5: have to pay in the next 24 hours. So it's
- 59:20Speaker 5: a new and emerging area for sure, and a scary one.
- 59:23Speaker 1: And so the way that they're getting these fake events
- 59:26Speaker 1: on your calendar, are they just formatting the email in
- 59:30Speaker 1: a way that the email program picks it up as
- 59:33Speaker 1: a calendar event?
- 59:34Speaker 5: No, it's literally just like a calendar invite. So the
- 59:38Speaker 5: same invite that I got to come on your show today, Rich,
- 59:41Speaker 5: is how these people are, instead of naming it, you know,
- 59:43Speaker 5: Luke and Rich one-on-one interview, they'll name it, hey, Luke,
- 59:48Speaker 5: you owe me $ 600, call this number. So they jam
- 59:52Speaker 5: it all right into the email or into the, excuse me,
- 59:55Speaker 5: the calendar invite name itself. And that's where they can
- 59:59Speaker 5: get a lot of those informations. But similarly, like, You
- 1:00:03Speaker 5: sent me some meeting prepared notes for our interview. They'll
- 1:00:06Speaker 5: send a phishing link that you click on and then
- 1:00:09Speaker 5: it takes you to something to reset your password or
- 1:00:11Speaker 5: something like that. But it is a real calendar invite
- 1:00:15Speaker 5: that contains malicious information. That's the kind of trick to
- 1:00:18Speaker 5: look out for.
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: Wow. That's wild. I mean, it's just these hackers, they, they,
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: the scam artists, hackers, whatever you want to call them there,
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: they will literally find every, I always say they put
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: like a twist on something that we trust, like a
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: calendar invite, right? Like we've used these things forever. People
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: like them, you know, it's easy when someone like, it's
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: funny today, my friends and I were talking about going
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: out for like, you know, drinks next week. And we
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: had a group text going and I asked my AI
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: assistant to put it on the calendar and I said, Oh,
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: it's already there. And my friend had already created a
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: calendar invite with all of us on it with the
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: information on where we're going. And I was like, oh, okay.
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: But my point is, it's like people use these even,
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: you know, for friends and family members. They all like
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: these calendar invites. So I've seen this on iPhone. I've
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: seen it on Google. Are there ways of preventing this?
- 1:01:07Speaker 5: So currently, like you and I, right, in our personal calendars,
- 1:01:11Speaker 5: it's really hard to get ahead of this as just
- 1:01:13Speaker 5: like a single user, right? Enterprise, there's a lot of software,
- 1:01:17Speaker 5: supply and security where I work. We are taking actions
- 1:01:20Speaker 5: to help enterprise customers remediate calendar in the enterprise and
- 1:01:26Speaker 5: the business world. It's tough for you and I to
- 1:01:28Speaker 5: take care of this right now. A lot of what
- 1:01:31Speaker 5: we have to do is rely on Google and Microsoft
- 1:01:34Speaker 5: and Apple allowing us to have preventative measures as users.
- 1:01:40Speaker 5: So it's kind of tricky right now. The best things
- 1:01:42Speaker 5: that we can do really is a lot of the
- 1:01:45Speaker 5: same security principles that you try and apply to your
- 1:01:48Speaker 5: own emails, right? Don't click on links that you don't trust.
- 1:01:51Speaker 5: If a meeting isn't really trying to get you into
- 1:01:54Speaker 5: a meeting, you should be a little bit aware of
- 1:01:57Speaker 5: that and try and not really click on any links.
- 1:02:01Speaker 5: Another danger that I like to remind people about with
- 1:02:04Speaker 5: these calendar invites is that if you decline or delete them,
- 1:02:08Speaker 5: it actually can tell the attacker useful information as well that, hey,
- 1:02:12Speaker 5: there's someone on the other end of this email because
- 1:02:14Speaker 5: they'll receive something that says, hey, Rich declined this calendar
- 1:02:18Speaker 5: invite or You know what I mean? And that could
- 1:02:20Speaker 5: be valuable information to them. So for Apple users, something
- 1:02:24Speaker 5: that I suggest that you do within the calendar app
- 1:02:27Speaker 5: is you can actually report calendar events as spam. And
- 1:02:32Speaker 5: a lot of the times that will like Apple block
- 1:02:34Speaker 5: that sender entirely. So that's like one of the methods
- 1:02:38Speaker 5: that we can use to kind of protect ourselves. But yeah,
- 1:02:41Speaker 5: really a lot of like the classic, the standard methods
- 1:02:44Speaker 5: that you use for your emails, just, Make sure you're
- 1:02:48Speaker 5: being careful and clicking on links that you know are
- 1:02:52Speaker 5: coming from people that you trust.
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: Interesting. And so now I've also heard that people sort
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: of subscribe to calendars, like entire calendars. I've heard that
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: you can unsubscribe to those. What about the idea of
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: doing that? Yeah.
- 1:03:07Speaker 5: Yep, unsubscribing from calendars, reporting as junk, things like that.
- 1:03:11Speaker 5: Those are all tips that will work for sure. Yeah.
- 1:03:14Speaker 5: Another thing that you can do as a user within
- 1:03:19Speaker 5: Google Calendar and on iPhones is you can actually only
- 1:03:24Speaker 5: accept invites from known senders, so people that are on
- 1:03:27Speaker 5: your contacts lists and things like that.
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: Ah, okay.
- 1:03:31Speaker 5: That's another really good method that you can use.
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: I'm looking for that in my, let's see here, filters
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: and blocked accounts. I mean, the settings in Gmail have become,
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: it's like a book now. I mean, there's so many
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: of them. It really is.
- 1:03:45Speaker 5: I think if you go to event settings and then
- 1:03:48Speaker 5: add invitations to my.
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: Calendar, you should be.
- 1:03:52Speaker 5: Only if the sender is known, yeah.
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: So I actually, I turn that one off because I
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: get so many random invites that I actually need.
- 1:03:58Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: That I couldn't like keep that on. Cause it was like,
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: it was like, it was like automatically decline everyone. They'd
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: be like, why are you declining my thing? I'm like, well,
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: I have this weird setting on, you know, but I
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: think if you're not doing stuff like I am, where you're, you're,
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: you know, setting up meetings with a whole bunch of
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: random people you haven't met before, it's probably a good
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: thing to have on. I'll put that link on the website. Um,
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: I think that's our time. Um, thank you so much, Luke.
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: I really appreciate you coming on the show today.
- 1:04:21Speaker 5: Thanks Rich for taking the time. Really appreciate you having
- 1:04:23Speaker 5: me on.
- 1:04:23Speaker 2: All right.
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: Luke Westcott, a security researcher at sublime security.com. I'll put
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: some links on the website richontech.tv to help you deal
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: with that calendar spam. 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. Coming up, we'll take some
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: more of your calls and I'll explain what Apple's next
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: event is all about. It's happening October 28th. What do
- 1:04:46Speaker 1: we expect? I'll tell you coming up right here on
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology. 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. Let's
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: go to... Patty has been waiting patiently. Patty's been waiting
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: patiently in Van Nuys. Patty, you're on with Rich.
- 1:05:14Speaker 3: Hi, Rich.
- 1:05:15Speaker 2: Thanks for all you do for those of us who
- 1:05:17Speaker 2: are not tech savvy.
- 1:05:19Speaker 3: Hi.
- 1:05:20Speaker 2: I was wondering if you could explain all the various
- 1:05:22Speaker 2: pins associated with owning a cell phone. So far, I've
- 1:05:27Speaker 2: been trying to keep track. There's a phone pin. There's
- 1:05:30Speaker 2: a transfer port pin. There's a SIM pin. There's an
- 1:05:33Speaker 2: eSIM pin. Are there any others? And what do all
- 1:05:38Speaker 2: these things do? I just need to get it straight
- 1:05:40Speaker 2: in my head.
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: Well, the only, I mean, look, the only pin you
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: really need to know about is the one to unlock
- 1:05:45Speaker 1: your phone. So, I mean, all the rest are just...
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: Tell me ones you mentioned again. You rattled off a
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: whole bunch.
- 1:05:54Speaker 2: Okay. The phone pin, that's the one that opens up
- 1:05:57Speaker 2: your screen.
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the only one you really need to know.
- 1:06:00Speaker 1: What are the other ones?
- 1:06:02Speaker 2: When I'm switching from one company to another, I needed
- 1:06:05Speaker 2: a transfer port. Oh, okay.
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: Yes. But that's a one-time code that they generate just
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: to make sure that you are, they're sort of authenticating
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: you to make sure that, You have access to that account.
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: They give you that one-time code. You give it to
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: your new provider. But after that, you don't need to
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: know that code ever again.
- 1:06:24Speaker 2: So they give it to you when you join them?
- 1:06:28Speaker 1: Only when you're trying to move your number from one
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: carrier to another. It's almost like you ever log into
- 1:06:35Speaker 1: your bank and they send you a code? It's like
- 1:06:37Speaker 1: a two-factor authentication code?
- 1:06:39Speaker 5: Yes.
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: That's basically what that number is. But sometimes they'll either
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: text it to you or you'll go on the website, Verizon, T-Mobile, whoever.
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: It'll say, here's your number transfer pin. You only need
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: that one time.
- 1:06:53Speaker 5: Oh, okay.
- 1:06:54Speaker 2: And then is there something called a SIM pin or
- 1:06:59Speaker 2: an eSIM pin?
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: There used to be a SIM pin. I mean, there
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: is a pin you could put on your SIM. And
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: I think this was, I think this basically, I never
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: used it and I don't think it's very popular, but
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: you can basically lock that pin or sorry, lock that
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: SIM to your phone. So if someone tried to take
- 1:07:22Speaker 1: that SIM out, it would not work in another phone
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: without entering in that code, which I guess makes sense
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: because think about it. If you, if I were to
- 1:07:31Speaker 1: get your cell phone now, by the way, the new
- 1:07:33Speaker 1: cell phones don't even have a physical SIM. They all
- 1:07:36Speaker 1: use an eSIM, a lot of them, but Let's just
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: say you had a phone with a physical SIM card.
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: If I popped out the SIM card from your phone
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: and put it into my phone, now I all of
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: a sudden have access to your line on my phone.
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: So the SIM pin would make it, would say, oh,
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: before you can actually use this line, type in your
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: pin code. Now, I don't know of a lot of
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: people that use that, but it's, I mean, it's probably
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: not a bad idea. I do think it's a little
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: confusing though, because it's not widely used online. I think
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: that people might forget that code. And next thing you know,
- 1:08:08Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to use your phone number
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: at all. If you ever, you know, if you ever
- 1:08:11Speaker 1: needed that. So if you want, yeah.
- 1:08:17Speaker 2: Is this different from what you were talking about, how
- 1:08:19Speaker 2: to lock down your wire wireless numbers earlier in the
- 1:08:23Speaker 2: show you were talking about?
- 1:08:24Speaker 1: Yes, because I mean, it is, it is slightly, it's
- 1:08:26Speaker 1: the same, but different. So when, when you talk about
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: a SIM pin, you're talking about a physical, a person
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: has physical access to your phone and, they pop out
- 1:08:34Speaker 1: that physical SIM card and they put it into their device.
- 1:08:37Speaker 1: That's when that SIM pin would come into handy. Now,
- 1:08:40Speaker 1: what I was talking about is the way that criminals
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: are doing this now more so than not is everything
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: is virtual. So they're going in somehow getting access to
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: your online account and transferring the number that way. And
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: so that's why I was saying when you go into
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: your T-Mobile, AT & T, or Verizon account, you lock
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: it down, where someone tries to go in there. That's
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: not you. They can't access your, your number because it's
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: locked down. So it's, I don't know. I'm going to,
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: I'm going to actually look, let's see. Let's see. Mint mobile. Um,
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: let's see. Number poured out number transfer pin. Let's see. No, sorry. Number.
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: I want number transfer protection. That's what we want. Let's
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: see if they do it.
- 1:09:26Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: Number lock.
- 1:09:27Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: So Mint Mobile does have it. It's called, they call
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: it number lock. So they do have it, which is smart.
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: And I would, so I would just look on, I mean,
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: every company calls it something a little bit different, but
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: you know, port out protection, number lock, activation lock. It's something,
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: if you just called up your company and said, Hey,
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: can you lock my phone number so that nobody could,
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: could transfer it to anywhere else, they will tell you
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: if they can do that or not.
- 1:09:53Speaker 2: I actually did with U.S. Mobile, and I'm not sure
- 1:09:56Speaker 2: the guy knew what I was talking about. He said, no,
- 1:10:00Speaker 2: we don't do that. I don't think he understood what
- 1:10:02Speaker 2: I was talking about.
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: Okay, let me see. Let me see. Poured out protection
- 1:10:05Speaker 1: on U.S. Mobile. Okay, so they have.
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: Never SIM swap. It looks like... It looks like they
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: do have it. It looks like it's a flag. Back end,
- 1:10:20Speaker 1: port out protection flag. Okay, it looks like they may
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: have to do that.
- 1:10:24Speaker 2: Oh, you have to call them and ask for it?
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: It looks like that. But, okay. Yeah, it looks, okay.
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: Account verification, security questions, password, advanced security updates. I mean,
- 1:10:39Speaker 1: I think they have pretty good security built in. Okay.
- 1:10:43Speaker 5: Okay.
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: So here it is, account authorization. That's what they call it.
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: So you can call us and ask for this. And
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: it says never SIM swap. When this feature is active
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: on your account, all SIM swaps are restricted. Okay, no
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: port out. Similarly, when this feature is active, all port
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: outs are restrictive. Account lockdown. You can request your account
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: be locked down. All changes will require extensive identity verification.
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: So I will link this up on the website. But yes,
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: US Mobile does have a bunch of precautions built in.
- 1:11:15Speaker 1: It's a good question. I mean, look, you can't be
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: too safe nowadays. And it's one of those things where
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: people wake up, they're literally on vacation. We had a
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: caller a couple of weeks, a guest last week that
- 1:11:26Speaker 1: was talking about this, where they said, you know, they
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: woke up there in Mexico and or wherever they were
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: traveling and their phone just said SOS because the phone
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: line went away. Someone had ported out the number, had
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: basically stolen it from him. And what a nightmare it
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: was to get it back. So when these things happen,
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: they're not fun.
- 1:11:43Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:11:45Speaker 1: Do you feel better? Do you feel like you know
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: how to protect your phone better now? Yeah.
- 1:11:50Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:11:50Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
- 1:11:51Speaker 1: But Patty, the bottom line is remember that code that
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: opens up your phone because you would not believe how
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: many people call me and say, hey, how do I
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: get into my phone? I forgot my pin. It's like, yeah,
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: that's the one you should probably remember, you know, because
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: that's like that's the important one. Thanks for the call, Patty.
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: Appreciate it. 888-RICH-101. Apple's next big event happening Wednesday, October 28th,
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: 10 a.m. Pacific in Los Angeles. The tagline is Pro Intel.
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: The big rumor is Apple is doing their first touchscreen
- 1:12:23Speaker 1: MacBook Pro. And I do believe that rumor because now
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: that they've done the duo eating away at their iPad sales,
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: they're probably going to eat away at their iPad sales
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: with the MacBook now. So people that want a touchscreen MacBook,
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: they can finally get it, hopefully. So we're expecting those
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: new MacBook Pros, thinner and lighter, better chips, obviously. Maybe
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: we'll see some new iPads. Maybe we'll see some new iMacs.
- 1:12:49Speaker 1: But this is going to be all computer-oriented. Maybe some iPads.
- 1:12:53Speaker 1: I will be there. And of course, we'll give you
- 1:12:55Speaker 1: the full update from Apple's big event called Pro & Tell.
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: richontech.tv for anything I mention here. Coming up, I'll tell
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: you how GM is adding digital car keys right here
- 1:13:06Speaker 1: on Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech.
- 1:13:11Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology. The
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: phone number for the show is 888-RICH, R-I-C-H, 101.
- 1:13:18Speaker 5: 888-742-4101.
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: We got Bobo on the board today. We've got Kim
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: on the phones. You have been keeping Kim really busy. Like,
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: she's not complaining, but it has been nonstop. Nonstop. Which
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: we love. I mean, we're honored that you trust us
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: with your tech questions and comments and whatever. But it's great.
- 1:13:51Speaker 1: So anyway, keep them coming. 888-RICH-101.
- 1:13:52Speaker 8: 888-742-4101.
- 1:13:57Speaker 1: We've got a returning guest this hour, Phil Swan, editor
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: and publisher of TV for Seniors. He's going to share
- 1:14:05Speaker 1: the simple ways adults 55 plus. Is that a senior now?
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: 55 plus? I mean, that's not that old. Like when
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: I was a kid, senior citizen, you know, you thought like,
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I guess you thought everyone was
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: old when you were a kid. Like I think of
- 1:14:19Speaker 1: my uncles and aunts and I love doing this where
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: I think about like how old they were when they
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: were like doing stuff with us at certain ages and
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: I'm like, they were literally half the age I am now.
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: And I thought they were ancient. But I guess that's
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: just called growing up, growing old. 888-RICH101, website richontech.tv. This
- 1:14:38Speaker 1: is episode 197. If you go to the website, there's
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff on there you can do.
- 1:14:45Speaker 1: Let's see, richontech.tv. TV segments, you can watch my TV segments.
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- 1:14:52Speaker 1: the show notes. My newsletter goes out once a week. Typically,
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- 1:15:12Speaker 1: You can search for things that I've mentioned before, but
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: most people just end up calling or emailing me anyway.
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: But all of it's there. And by the way, the
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: first thing you should do is check out the quick
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: tips section. That's a popular segment we do on TV.
- 1:15:24Speaker 1: That's just like the questions I get over and over.
- 1:15:27Speaker 1: I answer them there. Let's go to Steven in Los
- 1:15:32Speaker 1: Angeles to kick off this hour. You're on with Rich. Steven.
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: Going once. Going twice.
- 1:15:45Speaker 5: Nope.
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: Okay, let's go to.
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: Let's go to Martin. Martin in Roland Heights. You're on
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: with Rich.
- 1:15:54Speaker 5: Hey, Rich.
- 1:15:54Speaker 4: How are you today?
- 1:15:55Speaker 1: I'm doing well. What's going on?
- 1:15:58Speaker 4: First of all, I want to commend you on spending
- 1:16:00Speaker 4: time with your son there because that's the problem these days.
- 1:16:05Speaker 9: A lot of parents don't spend.
- 1:16:06Speaker 4: Time with their kids and they put them in a
- 1:16:09Speaker 4: phone or they get somebody to watch them. So I
- 1:16:13Speaker 4: commend you on that, that you spend time with your child.
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. Well, I mean, don't get me wrong.
- 1:16:18Speaker 1: My kid gives me a hard time. Believe me, like,
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: it's not like all roses, you know, this kid. And
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: I understand what you're talking about with the the iPad.
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: I call it the iPad parenting. You know, and this
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: is the thing about restaurants. There's more kids at restaurants
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: these days, which is great because families are together and
- 1:16:35Speaker 1: people are doing stuff together. But like, you know, you
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: go to any restaurant, even nice, nice restaurants, and there's
- 1:16:40Speaker 1: all kids there like a, you know, steakhouse, whatever. It's
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: because they have an iPad, and so they can sit
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: there with the parents for hours, and it's fine. Now,
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: I'm not knocking that. I think it's amazing. But what
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: we do with our kids is we try to have
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: a big portion of the dinner together first, and then
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: they can check out while mom and dad just sit
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: there and talk for the next hour. You know what
- 1:17:01Speaker 1: I mean? So it's like the best of both worlds.
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: There's more kits. Anyway, I digress. What were we talking about?
- 1:17:08Speaker 4: We haven't– I didn't give you the subject yet. Okay.
- 1:17:10Speaker 4: But that's great, though, that you spent time. Anyway.
- 1:17:12Speaker 1: Thank you.
- 1:17:14Speaker 4: The problem is it's kind of twofold. I have a laptop,
- 1:17:18Speaker 4: and I've had it for maybe four years. I guess
- 1:17:22Speaker 4: I'm not real computer-oriented, so I believe the name is
- 1:17:24Speaker 4: Asus or something like that.
- 1:17:26Speaker 1: Oh, Asus.
- 1:17:27Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:17:28Speaker 4: Yeah, it's GU501 is the model number, I believe. Anyway,
- 1:17:32Speaker 4: what happened in the last six months is suddenly it
- 1:17:36Speaker 4: won't turn on, and then one day it turns on,
- 1:17:40Speaker 4: and now it's not turning on again for a long time.
- 1:17:43Speaker 4: So I've done everything I could. I've looked on the YouTube.
- 1:17:50Speaker 4: You know, I've called different people for these places to
- 1:17:53Speaker 4: fix it, asked them what they thought. And, you know,
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: I've had everything from press the button and hold it
- 1:17:57Speaker 4: down for a minute, pull your plug. I've had that.
- 1:18:00Speaker 4: I've been told that it could be everything from the
- 1:18:03Speaker 4: motherboard to, I guess, storage, things inside. So I'm kind
- 1:18:09Speaker 4: of lost with the whole thing. You know, I mean,
- 1:18:11Speaker 4: it doesn't really turn on, I mean, anymore. And I
- 1:18:16Speaker 4: have a lot of stuff on there, first of all,
- 1:18:18Speaker 4: that I need for business. And I should have copied
- 1:18:23Speaker 4: everything before it was kaput on me. It may come
- 1:18:26Speaker 4: back on. I don't know because it does that every
- 1:18:27Speaker 4: now and then. So what do you think it is?
- 1:18:30Speaker 4: What is your theory on something like that?
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: Okay, so you've got to explain to me what's happening.
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: So you turn it on. Does it turn off after
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: being on for a couple of minutes, or does it
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: never boot up, or does it just boot up to
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: a black screen?
- 1:18:42Speaker 4: It doesn't turn on. The little light in the middle
- 1:18:44Speaker 4: doesn't turn on. It has usually two white lights, little
- 1:18:48Speaker 4: dots in the middle, and a red one. but i
- 1:18:50Speaker 4: will say this i i have uh i lost my
- 1:18:53Speaker 4: actual uh power cable uh yeah but it was it
- 1:18:58Speaker 4: was a it went in a normal way you know
- 1:19:00Speaker 4: the normal day it wasn't the new then what happened
- 1:19:03Speaker 4: is i was at a hotel and i asked the
- 1:19:05Speaker 4: hotel if they had another power thing And they gave
- 1:19:08Speaker 4: me one, you know, I guess there's a new way
- 1:19:09Speaker 4: to turn them on. It looks like, you know, a
- 1:19:12Speaker 4: USB cable. It's not really a USB. It's a smaller
- 1:19:15Speaker 4: thing you put on the side. And it's now, I guess,
- 1:19:17Speaker 4: the new way computers turn on. They don't turn on
- 1:19:19Speaker 4: the old.
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: Okay, so that could be a hint.
- 1:19:23Speaker 2: Oh, really?
- 1:19:24Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 1:19:24Speaker 1: So are you positive this computer is charged?
- 1:19:28Speaker 4: It won't charge. It doesn't turn on. I mean, there's
- 1:19:31Speaker 4: no lights at all anymore.
- 1:19:32Speaker 5: Okay.
- 1:19:32Speaker 1: I think your battery's dead. I think it could be
- 1:19:35Speaker 1: that the battery's dead and it's not. This charger that
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: you're using on it is not giving enough juice to
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: power it up. Okay. That's what I think is happening.
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: So you lost the original power brick?
- 1:19:48Speaker 2: Right.
- 1:19:48Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:19:49Speaker 4: But it did plug in the way these new ones do.
- 1:19:51Speaker 4: I guess the new ones, I didn't even know I
- 1:19:53Speaker 4: had that capability. They're a small, like, they look like USB,
- 1:19:56Speaker 4: but they're much smaller.
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: Yeah, USB-C. But I think on the Asus, they still
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: require a higher power. Like, you can put them in,
- 1:20:06Speaker 1: you can charge them slowly on USB-C, but I think
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: they still have... Does it still have, like, a standard power,
- 1:20:12Speaker 1: like a proprietary power port on this thing that you
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: used to plug it into? Is that what you're saying?
- 1:20:18Speaker 4: Yeah, right. You know, just like the old days... You
- 1:20:22Speaker 4: put a power plug, you know, it was round as
- 1:20:25Speaker 4: opposed to USB.
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: Yes, a barrel connector. And the thing about.
- 1:20:29Speaker 4: ASUS is I haven't been able to get a new
- 1:20:33Speaker 4: power cord because I even got the one with a
- 1:20:36Speaker 4: bunch of adapters. It seems like no adapter now goes
- 1:20:38Speaker 4: into it. So that's why it's been sticking to the
- 1:20:40Speaker 4: other one.
- 1:20:41Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
- 1:20:43Speaker 4: As it turns on, it turns on eventually. But I
- 1:20:45Speaker 4: do know that it's probably the battery has something to
- 1:20:49Speaker 4: do with it because... Before, when I had the other
- 1:20:51Speaker 4: plug in, I could never really use my computer for
- 1:20:55Speaker 4: a long period of time without a plug in it.
- 1:21:00Speaker 4: I couldn't really charge it to where I could have
- 1:21:02Speaker 4: it for hours, maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes.
- 1:21:05Speaker 1: It sounds to me, Martin, that this computer, it sounds
- 1:21:09Speaker 1: to me like there's something going on with the battery.
- 1:21:12Speaker 1: It sounds to me like before you had this issue,
- 1:21:14Speaker 1: the battery was either shot or it was on the fritz, whatever.
- 1:21:19Speaker 1: And then now that you're having this issue, it's not
- 1:21:21Speaker 1: fully charging. It's not getting enough power to power up
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: this computer. That's what I'm thinking. So here's what I
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: would do if I were you. Go on Amazon. Type
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: in your GU501 power adapter. I'm finding one right here, $ 32.
- 1:21:35Speaker 1: Order that. Plug it in. It comes with the exact
- 1:21:38Speaker 1: barrel connector that you need. Plug it into your computer.
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: See if it turns on. If it doesn't, and I
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: would let this thing charge your computer for maybe a
- 1:21:48Speaker 1: couple hours before you turn it on. If it doesn't
- 1:21:50Speaker 1: turn on, you've got a bigger problem. Return this adapter.
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: You've got to bring this into somewhere and have them
- 1:21:54Speaker 1: troubleshoot it. If it does turn on, then you're fine.
- 1:21:57Speaker 1: Now you need to back up all your information. that's
- 1:22:00Speaker 1: what I would do. It sounds to me like that's
- 1:22:02Speaker 1: the most obvious issue here because you are using a
- 1:22:06Speaker 1: USB-C connector to charge this thing, which is just not
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: giving enough juice. Now, maybe if you left it plugged
- 1:22:13Speaker 1: in overnight with that USB-C, it might get enough juice
- 1:22:16Speaker 1: on this battery, but it still sounds like there's a
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: battery issue and that seems like you're having that before.
- 1:22:21Speaker 1: So definitely some sort of power issue on this computer.
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: That's where I would kind of troubleshoot or spend most
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: of your time figuring out what's going on there But
- 1:22:30Speaker 1: the bottom line is no matter what, you need to
- 1:22:32Speaker 1: get this thing on, you need to get your data
- 1:22:34Speaker 1: backed up, and then you can figure out how you
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: want to proceed, whether you want to keep this computer
- 1:22:38Speaker 1: or whether you want to get it repaired or you
- 1:22:41Speaker 1: just want to start with something fresh. It's only four
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: years old, you said. So it's something that is not
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: that old in the scheme of things. So there's another
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: place I would recommend, uBreak iFix. They might be able
- 1:22:55Speaker 1: to take a look at it for free. They typically
- 1:22:58Speaker 1: they used to do this. I don't know if they
- 1:22:59Speaker 1: still do, but they used to like take a look
- 1:23:01Speaker 1: at things and actually tell you what's wrong with it
- 1:23:04Speaker 1: without charging. So I would I would take it there
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: for sure. And I'll confirm in the break to see
- 1:23:09Speaker 1: if that's still the case. But the last time I
- 1:23:11Speaker 1: talked to them, that's what they said. So you break,
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: I fix. I would bring it there and see what
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: they say about this device. They should do a free diagnostic.
- 1:23:18Speaker 1: Thanks for the call, Martin. Appreciate it. 888-RICH-101. 888-742-4101. Website richontech.tv.
- 1:23:29Speaker 1: Coming up, I got to tell you which cars are
- 1:23:31Speaker 1: getting digital car keys from GM. That's coming up right
- 1:23:35Speaker 1: here on Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech.
- 1:23:41Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology.
- 1:23:44Speaker 8: 888-RICH-101.
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: Uh, let's go to, uh, Kelly has been waiting patiently
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: in crest line. Kelly, you're on with Rich. What's up?
- 1:23:56Speaker 2: Hi, Rich.
- 1:23:56Speaker 3: How are you today?
- 1:23:57Speaker 1: I am doing fantastic. How are you?
- 1:23:59Speaker 3: I know you are. I can listen. I hear everything
- 1:24:02Speaker 3: you're saying.
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad it comes through.
- 1:24:04Speaker 3: Okay. I have a computer that runs on Windows XP,
- 1:24:08Speaker 3: a laptop PC, because I do printing, you know, scrapbooking and, uh,
- 1:24:15Speaker 3: The products that I run on there will not upgrade
- 1:24:18Speaker 3: because they're old.
- 1:24:20Speaker 1: Yes.
- 1:24:21Speaker 3: I need to use these products. And so it won't
- 1:24:23Speaker 3: hook up to the Internet anymore. And since my printer
- 1:24:27Speaker 3: is on Wi-Fi, I can't get it to print anymore.
- 1:24:32Speaker 3: And is there any way to split that to a newer?
- 1:24:39Speaker 3: I don't know.
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: Okay, so let me get this straight. You have an
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: old computer. You have some programs that only run on
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: that computer.
- 1:24:46Speaker 3: On XP, yes.
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: On XP.
- 1:24:47Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: But your printer won't work because the computer isn't connected
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: to the Internet anymore?
- 1:24:52Speaker 3: Yeah, it won't upgrade anymore because Windows XP won't upgrade
- 1:24:57Speaker 3: to the Internet. So I don't know what to do.
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: Well, support for Windows XP ended on April 8, 2014. Correct.
- 1:25:09Speaker 1: So it's been a bit.
- 1:25:11Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'd been able to use my printer until
- 1:25:14Speaker 3: it went on Wi-Fi. And when it went on Wi-Fi,
- 1:25:19Speaker 3: it won't print. Then I hooked up an Ethernet cord
- 1:25:23Speaker 3: from the computer to the printer, and it still wouldn't print.
- 1:25:27Speaker 1: I was going to say, can you just connect the
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: printer to the computer manually?
- 1:25:30Speaker 3: Yeah, I did try that, and it still wouldn't print.
- 1:25:34Speaker 1: Okay, what are you printing? Is it something that's printing
- 1:25:36Speaker 1: off a specialized program, or is it like a PDF?
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: What is the print?
- 1:25:41Speaker 3: Oh, it's on the specialized CD program, you know, for scrapbooking.
- 1:25:47Speaker 1: Okay, and so it's like a specialized file that it
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: needs to.
- 1:25:49Speaker 3: Yeah, and it won't upgrade because they're out of business.
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: Okay, so you're kind of locked in time here. That's
- 1:25:55Speaker 1: the thing. So, why did the printer... I'm confused why
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: the printer... program just won't go on the internet and
- 1:26:04Speaker 1: won't connect to your, to your router anymore. Is that why?
- 1:26:07Speaker 4: I don't know.
- 1:26:10Speaker 1: Like when did the, when did the internet stop?
- 1:26:12Speaker 3: The printer to the computer.
- 1:26:14Speaker 1: When did the, when did the like internet connection stop working?
- 1:26:18Speaker 3: When the frontier guy came out and set up the box,
- 1:26:24Speaker 3: the arrow box.
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: Okay. That's okay. So that's what happens. You're in, was
- 1:26:29Speaker 1: your computer connected to the internet via cable or wifi? Like,
- 1:26:34Speaker 1: was it wireless?
- 1:26:35Speaker 3: That computer was not connected to the Internet because I
- 1:26:38Speaker 3: think it was.
- 1:26:38Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay.
- 1:26:40Speaker 3: So what I think– I can't tell you. It's so old.
- 1:26:42Speaker 3: But I don't know what to do about these printer
- 1:26:45Speaker 3: programs because I can't do anything with them right now.
- 1:26:50Speaker 1: So a couple things. So I'm trying to think. If
- 1:26:54Speaker 1: you can get this– the printer may have– you may
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: be able to do this with a different printer that
- 1:27:01Speaker 1: connects directly to the computer. Mm-hmm. Like if you went
- 1:27:04Speaker 1: to Best Buy and said, hey, I need a printer
- 1:27:06Speaker 1: that I can plug into a computer, you know, like
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: via USB. All right. That might be your best bet
- 1:27:13Speaker 1: just to be able to get that. And you can
- 1:27:15Speaker 1: maybe try a printer, plug it into the computer. Now,
- 1:27:18Speaker 1: the problem is the computer is so old, it may
- 1:27:20Speaker 1: not recognize the new printer. That could be a problem.
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: But printers are pretty similar. I don't think it would
- 1:27:26Speaker 1: be that big of an issue. But you may try that.
- 1:27:29Speaker 1: So if you've got a printer that you can connect
- 1:27:31Speaker 1: to this computer– via cable, you could plug it in
- 1:27:35Speaker 1: and see if you could print that way. That would
- 1:27:38Speaker 1: probably be the only thing. I mean, the only other
- 1:27:40Speaker 1: thing you could do is you could try to use
- 1:27:42Speaker 1: a program. You could buy a new computer. That's a
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: whole other thing. You could buy a new computer and
- 1:27:46Speaker 1: you can use a program or you can try to
- 1:27:49Speaker 1: run these programs on the new computer. Are you running
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: them off the CD?
- 1:27:52Speaker 8: Yes. Okay.
- 1:27:54Speaker 3: So you'd have to actually, they're downloaded onto the computer,
- 1:27:57Speaker 3: but they do have the CD.
- 1:27:58Speaker 1: You do have the CD. So you might, I mean,
- 1:28:00Speaker 1: it's just, here's the thing. You're trying to run really
- 1:28:03Speaker 1: old stuff on new computers that just don't even support
- 1:28:05Speaker 1: the formats. And that's the problem. Like you'd have to
- 1:28:07Speaker 1: get a computer that had a CD drive to try
- 1:28:10Speaker 1: to even install it. You'd have to run it in
- 1:28:11Speaker 1: compatibility mode. These are not like simple things. Like, especially
- 1:28:15Speaker 1: if you're telling me you're not like super consumer, you know,
- 1:28:18Speaker 1: computer savvy.
- 1:28:19Speaker 2: Right.
- 1:28:19Speaker 1: So it's, I think what happened was there's two things
- 1:28:22Speaker 1: going on here. I think maybe your computer used to
- 1:28:24Speaker 1: connect to the Internet via an older network standard, which
- 1:28:28Speaker 1: is 2.4 gigahertz. When this guy installed the new network,
- 1:28:32Speaker 1: he made it 5 gigahertz, and your old computer can't
- 1:28:35Speaker 1: see that new network. But there is actually a setting
- 1:28:39Speaker 1: in the Eero app. app that lets you connect old
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: devices to new networks like this. So you could potentially
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: do that, but you probably need someone that knows what
- 1:28:49Speaker 1: they're doing to help you do all that stuff. It's
- 1:28:51Speaker 1: not like the simplest thing, but if you can get
- 1:28:53Speaker 1: this computer connected to the internet and then the printer
- 1:28:56Speaker 1: connected to the internet, that would solve all your problems.
- 1:29:00Speaker 3: So is there any way to, I mean, I can
- 1:29:04Speaker 3: upgrade the computer. Yeah. Is there any way, somebody mentioned
- 1:29:09Speaker 3: like splitting, like you could split it and run XP
- 1:29:13Speaker 3: on one side and Windows 12 on the other?
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: Yeah, you could do that, like a virtual machine. Yeah,
- 1:29:19Speaker 1: but that's not really, it's Windows 11. They haven't gotten
- 1:29:22Speaker 1: to 12 just yet.
- 1:29:23Speaker 7: Okay, I can remember.
- 1:29:25Speaker 9: Jumping ahead.
- 1:29:26Speaker 1: But I think that that's a very complicated setup and
- 1:29:29Speaker 1: I don't think it's the best case scenario for this.
- 1:29:31Speaker 1: I think the best case scenario is to leave this
- 1:29:33Speaker 1: computer sort of frozen in time and figure out a
- 1:29:36Speaker 1: way to either get this printer to talk to this
- 1:29:38Speaker 1: computer or get this computer back on the internet to
- 1:29:42Speaker 1: just do the things that you need to do to
- 1:29:44Speaker 1: print out these things. So I will tell you, your
- 1:29:47Speaker 1: Eero has a, it's called compatibility mode. If you can
- 1:29:51Speaker 1: figure out how to toggle that in or toggle that
- 1:29:54Speaker 1: on in the settings, that might be your best bet
- 1:29:57Speaker 1: in reviving both of these devices and getting them back online.
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: But you have to be careful. A lot of security
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: considerations with having these old devices on the internet. As
- 1:30:06Speaker 1: long as you're only doing that one specific printing thing,
- 1:30:08Speaker 1: you should be okay. Thanks for the call, Kelly. 888-RICH-101.
- 1:30:13Speaker 1: Back with Phil Swan. TV for seniors after this. Welcome
- 1:30:20Speaker 1: back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: with you, talking technology, AAA. Oh, actually, I shouldn't give
- 1:30:26Speaker 1: out the number because we have a guest. RichOnTech.tv is
- 1:30:31Speaker 1: the place to go if you want more information on
- 1:30:33Speaker 1: anything I mentioned. Joining us once again, Phil Swan, editor
- 1:30:37Speaker 1: and publisher of TV for Seniors, the website, tvforseniors.com. I'm
- 1:30:44Speaker 1: going to go there right now. Let's see. There it is. Yep, tvforseniors.com.
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: Simple ways adults can make streaming smart TVs and today's
- 1:30:53Speaker 1: complicated TV landscape easier and more affordable. Phil, thanks for
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: joining me.
- 1:30:58Speaker 9: Thank you, Rick.
- 1:30:59Speaker 1: So what's the deal? Why did you start this website?
- 1:31:01Speaker 9: Okay. As you know, I used to do tvanswerman.com. Did
- 1:31:05Speaker 9: that for several years. Did tvpredictions.com before that. And last April...
- 1:31:12Speaker 9: I decided tbanswerman.com just wasn't making it anymore. People might
- 1:31:17Speaker 9: be familiar out there with the changes in Google search.
- 1:31:20Speaker 9: It was getting very difficult to get traffic. So I
- 1:31:23Speaker 9: decided to retire. However, during my retirement, I suddenly started
- 1:31:32Speaker 9: getting even more emails, particularly from older readers. And a
- 1:31:37Speaker 9: lot of people who I knew personally who are older
- 1:31:41Speaker 9: and they had nowhere else to turn for this kind
- 1:31:43Speaker 9: of information. And I went, you know, like the Chino
- 1:31:47Speaker 9: and Godfather 3, I think they're pulling me back in.
- 1:31:49Speaker 9: And so I started TVForSeniors.com.
- 1:31:52Speaker 1: I mean, the main thing is it's a big paradigm shift, right?
- 1:31:56Speaker 1: Like we grew up with channels and tuners and tuning
- 1:32:00Speaker 1: in a certain time. And you could throw all of
- 1:32:03Speaker 1: that out the window. If you want to watch a show,
- 1:32:05Speaker 1: you got to subscribe to the proper streaming service. When
- 1:32:08Speaker 1: is it on? When it comes to sports, that's a
- 1:32:11Speaker 1: whole nother thing because, you know, there's a million and
- 1:32:13Speaker 1: one ways. So what is, I guess, let's just start
- 1:32:16Speaker 1: with kind of like, what is the landscape right now
- 1:32:18Speaker 1: that you're seeing with people? Like, what is the pain point?
- 1:32:21Speaker 9: Yeah, the two biggest frustrations for seniors, according to what
- 1:32:25Speaker 9: I hear from my readers, is one, like the political elections, affordability.
- 1:32:30Speaker 9: They can't understand why prices continue to go up every year,
- 1:32:34Speaker 9: sometimes twice a year, regardless whether it's streaming cable or satellite.
- 1:32:38Speaker 9: That's number one. Number two is how streaming and even
- 1:32:43Speaker 9: cable and satellite have become more complicated than it used
- 1:32:46Speaker 9: to be. And I brought a visual. This is a
- 1:32:51Speaker 9: Sony remote for a smart TV. This thing has 38 buttons.
- 1:32:56Speaker 5: Yep.
- 1:32:58Speaker 9: Can you imagine handing this off to a senior citizen
- 1:33:01Speaker 9: who's not familiar with smart TV or streaming and said, okay,
- 1:33:04Speaker 9: go find what's on Netflix, go find your favorite show
- 1:33:07Speaker 9: or whatever it might be. But that is what it's
- 1:33:10Speaker 9: all become. Smart TVs and streaming and all the rest
- 1:33:13Speaker 9: of it was supposed to make our lives simpler. It's
- 1:33:16Speaker 9: actually made it more complicated. And for senior citizens who
- 1:33:19Speaker 9: are not as tech savvy, perhaps, it's a nightmare.
- 1:33:23Speaker 1: That's so true. I mean, it's, and here's the other thing.
- 1:33:26Speaker 1: It used to be like, you know, if there was a,
- 1:33:28Speaker 1: I mean, there wasn't many things you could do to
- 1:33:30Speaker 1: mess things up when you had a standard TV set up.
- 1:33:32Speaker 1: Now you press the wrong button. You'll never find it again.
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: You'll never figure out where you were. The app is closed,
- 1:33:38Speaker 1: whatever you're looking for. So there are things that you
- 1:33:40Speaker 1: can do that like, it's like, Oh, now I just
- 1:33:42Speaker 1: can't watch TV because of this. So I think the
- 1:33:45Speaker 1: other question I have is, like, you've got Roku, you've
- 1:33:48Speaker 1: got Fire TV, you've got Apple TV, Google TV, smart
- 1:33:51Speaker 1: TVs that have their own platforms. Which one do you
- 1:33:54Speaker 1: think is offering the easiest kind of experience for seniors?
- 1:33:59Speaker 9: Yeah, there's a reason. You know, even though the proliferation
- 1:34:02Speaker 9: of smart TVs is enormous in this country, millions and
- 1:34:05Speaker 9: millions of people have them, obviously, even more than they
- 1:34:08Speaker 9: have Roku. But there's a reason why scores of millions
- 1:34:11Speaker 9: of people got Roku. It's simpler.
- 1:34:13Speaker 5: Hmm.
- 1:34:14Speaker 9: And in my opinion, yeah. And it's like, once again,
- 1:34:17Speaker 9: doing a little prop, the Roku remote, the Sony remote.
- 1:34:21Speaker 1: Yes. You can't see this at home, but you've got
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: the two remotes. One has like, you know, 10 buttons
- 1:34:27Speaker 1: on it. One has like 40. Right.
- 1:34:29Speaker 9: And that's why Roku is doing well. And it's why
- 1:34:31Speaker 9: Roku is the easiest device out there. Fire TV, I think,
- 1:34:35Speaker 9: also does a good job. If they get a little Amazon-y,
- 1:34:38Speaker 9: a little too much promotion for Amazon, Roku right now
- 1:34:41Speaker 9: is still neutral. And so it's a little easier to
- 1:34:44Speaker 9: follow along, find the app that you want to find
- 1:34:47Speaker 9: and watch it. So I would recommend people get a
- 1:34:50Speaker 9: Roku stick.
- 1:34:51Speaker 1: I'm surprised nobody's tapped into a simple mode, right? I mean,
- 1:34:55Speaker 1: I get it. The whole name of the game is like,
- 1:34:57Speaker 1: even Roku did this where they kind of revamped their
- 1:34:59Speaker 1: screen to have more ad space. I mean, Amazon is
- 1:35:02Speaker 1: a mess. It looks like they threw up every ad
- 1:35:04Speaker 1: and product that Amazon's ever had on the home screen.
- 1:35:07Speaker 1: Apple is probably like the simplest, but it's like, obviously
- 1:35:10Speaker 1: the most expensive it's just like standard you know squares
- 1:35:13Speaker 1: on your screen but um you know my it's just
- 1:35:17Speaker 1: my point is it's like it's not easy like these
- 1:35:20Speaker 1: things it's like it's you know just just resuming the
- 1:35:24Speaker 1: show that you wanted to watch is like uh you
- 1:35:26Speaker 1: know needle in a haystack practically.
- 1:35:29Speaker 9: Yeah, and that's Rich saying it's not easy. And imagine
- 1:35:33Speaker 9: again that senior citizen who perhaps has been using cable
- 1:35:36Speaker 9: TV or satellite TV with a simple remote for all
- 1:35:39Speaker 9: these years. And then suddenly they're given a smart TV
- 1:35:43Speaker 9: and streaming apps and told to somehow navigate it all.
- 1:35:46Speaker 9: And they have nowhere to turn because we all know.
- 1:35:50Speaker 9: In our industry, most stories, most publications are not geared
- 1:35:54Speaker 9: for the 55 plus crowd. They're geared for the younger demographics.
- 1:35:57Speaker 9: So that's why TV for seniors, I think, is going
- 1:36:00Speaker 9: to be very successful. We're doing stuff to know what
- 1:36:03Speaker 9: else is doing.
- 1:36:04Speaker 1: So what do you think about streaming services? What streaming
- 1:36:08Speaker 1: service do you think a senior should have or a combination?
- 1:36:12Speaker 9: That's a Great question. And I think a lot of
- 1:36:16Speaker 9: seniors and a lot of just non-seniors get overwhelmed with choices.
- 1:36:21Speaker 9: Silicon Valley, Hollywood and entertainment industry, et cetera, love to
- 1:36:25Speaker 9: provide more choices to us, but it's an overwhelming number
- 1:36:28Speaker 9: of choices. And so for the average senior who's new
- 1:36:32Speaker 9: to streaming, there's two things to remember. One, lots of
- 1:36:36Speaker 9: free streaming services out there. It's like old time TV.
- 1:36:40Speaker 5: They have ads.
- 1:36:41Speaker 9: They're free. Things like Pluto TV have channel guides just
- 1:36:46Speaker 9: like you're used to when you were maybe six years
- 1:36:48Speaker 9: old with mom and dad in the living room. It's terrific.
- 1:36:51Speaker 9: So when you're first trying out streaming, try out these
- 1:36:54Speaker 9: free streaming services, Pluto, Tubi, Roku channel, et cetera. And
- 1:36:59Speaker 9: then if you want to complement that with a few
- 1:37:02Speaker 9: paid services, I think Netflix still has the best deal
- 1:37:06Speaker 9: with their ad plan. It's $ 8. 99 a month. That's not
- 1:37:09Speaker 9: a bad price for the amount of programming you get.
- 1:37:12Speaker 9: Maybe you can supplement that as well with some other services.
- 1:37:16Speaker 9: And one other thing I want to stress, never, ever
- 1:37:21Speaker 9: don't pay full price for streaming. Everybody talks about streaming
- 1:37:26Speaker 9: being too expensive. And, yes, it is if you pay
- 1:37:29Speaker 9: full price. There are so many ways to get discounts
- 1:37:32Speaker 9: and get deals on streaming services. And, by example, I
- 1:37:37Speaker 9: have eight streaming services. You guess how much I pay
- 1:37:41Speaker 9: a month.
- 1:37:41Speaker 6: Oof.
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: Let's see, eight times two, it's 160. I would say
- 1:37:46Speaker 1: about $ 150.
- 1:37:46Speaker 5: $ 31.
- 1:37:46Speaker 1: What? Okay.
- 1:37:49Speaker 9: I'm serious.
- 1:37:51Speaker 1: You've got them all bundled and different things going on.
- 1:37:54Speaker 9: Part of it's bundles. Part of it is freebies with
- 1:37:57Speaker 9: other things I have, like T-Mobile, for example, gives me
- 1:38:00Speaker 9: Netflix for free, gives me Apple TV for $ 3. I
- 1:38:04Speaker 9: got HBO Max for $ 2. 99 a month and a year's subscription.
- 1:38:09Speaker 9: I got Disney and Hulu for $ 4. 99 a month in
- 1:38:13Speaker 9: a year's subscription. There are a lot of ways to
- 1:38:16Speaker 9: get these things at low prices. So never, ever don't
- 1:38:19Speaker 9: pay full price for streaming. That's one thing. It's very
- 1:38:22Speaker 9: important to know.
- 1:38:23Speaker 1: Million dollar idea for the streaming platforms out there is
- 1:38:27Speaker 1: a simple mode, simple mode for seniors that just gives
- 1:38:30Speaker 1: you your basic apps on the screen yes you can
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: reserve one of those squares for a big ad that
- 1:38:35Speaker 1: they might click on and you know buy something but
- 1:38:37Speaker 1: a simple mode would be really nice for seniors.
- 1:38:40Speaker 9: I agree but you're never going to see it no
- 1:38:43Speaker 9: no why because the people designing these things are not
- 1:38:47Speaker 9: seniors right They're in the most cases, they're kids in
- 1:38:51Speaker 9: their 20s and 30s. They're very, very smart, but they're
- 1:38:53Speaker 9: designing things for themselves and their friends and their colleagues.
- 1:38:57Speaker 9: And that's their test audience. It's not the 65, 70
- 1:39:00Speaker 9: year old.
- 1:39:01Speaker 1: I've noticed, this is my pet peeve, that the, you know,
- 1:39:04Speaker 1: the buttons and lettering on so many apps and things
- 1:39:08Speaker 1: are tiny. And people just assume like everyone has excellent vision,
- 1:39:12Speaker 1: especially when you get older. Correct.
- 1:39:14Speaker 9: Absolutely. It is ridiculous. That's another thing that brings up
- 1:39:18Speaker 9: Closed captions. No, don't feel vain about it or feel
- 1:39:23Speaker 9: bad about it. If you're a senior and having maybe
- 1:39:25Speaker 9: trouble hearing the dialogue, not to mention you have things
- 1:39:28Speaker 9: like the Chris Nolan effect where the dialogue is not
- 1:39:31Speaker 9: always easy to hear in movies. Use closed captions and
- 1:39:35Speaker 9: bump that text size up. It's very easy to do
- 1:39:38Speaker 9: in settings in Roku. And you can follow along with
- 1:39:41Speaker 9: the dialogue much better. So there are a lot of
- 1:39:43Speaker 9: little tricks we have at tvforseniors.com to help seniors get
- 1:39:48Speaker 9: this thing and navigate it and enjoy it better.
- 1:39:51Speaker 1: All right, Phil Swan, we're going to leave it there, tvforseniors.com.
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: Any show you've been watching that you recommend that you like?
- 1:39:58Speaker 9: Oh, my Lord, there are so many of them. I
- 1:39:59Speaker 9: just watch, it's not really, quote, unquote, a senior show,
- 1:40:02Speaker 9: but Carrie. On Amazon. Extremely well done. Very surprised at
- 1:40:07Speaker 9: how well it was done. Mike Flanagan, who wrote and
- 1:40:09Speaker 9: directed it, did a great job.
- 1:40:10Speaker 1: Terry with a T? Terry.
- 1:40:12Speaker 9: Terry, like the movie. The Palma movie as a TV series.
- 1:40:16Speaker 1: Okay.
- 1:40:16Speaker 9: But it's on Amazon Prime.
- 1:40:18Speaker 1: All right. I'll look it up and link it up
- 1:40:20Speaker 1: on the website, richontech.tv. Again, tvforseniors.com. Phil Swan, thanks for
- 1:40:24Speaker 1: joining me.
- 1:40:25Speaker 4: Thank you, Rich.
- 1:40:26Speaker 1: All right. Coming up, we're going to open up the
- 1:40:27Speaker 1: feed bag. We've got a lot of it here. So
- 1:40:31Speaker 1: I will get through as much as I can. Plus,
- 1:40:34Speaker 1: I do owe you that story on the GM car keys,
- 1:40:38Speaker 1: digital car keys. That's coming up right here on Rich
- 1:40:40Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. We're going
- 1:40:45Speaker 1: to get right into it. We'll open up the feedback
- 1:40:47Speaker 1: in just a second. But I mentioned that GM is
- 1:40:50Speaker 1: adding digital car keys. So they're rolling out digital car
- 1:40:54Speaker 1: keys for Cadillac, Chevys, GMC vehicles. And if you haven't
- 1:40:59Speaker 1: tried this before, it's pretty amazing. Basically, your iPhone or
- 1:41:03Speaker 1: your Apple Watch becomes your car key. You don't have
- 1:41:05Speaker 1: to pull out your phone at all. Your car automatically
- 1:41:10Speaker 1: unlocks when you walk away or when you walk up
- 1:41:12Speaker 1: to it. When you walk away, it locks. And it's
- 1:41:15Speaker 1: available right now on some 25 to 27 Cadillac Lyrics, Optic,
- 1:41:20Speaker 1: and Vistic models. In December, Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Tahoe, Suburban,
- 1:41:25Speaker 1: GMC Yukon. This is a great, great feature. And it's
- 1:41:29Speaker 1: also going to work with Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet.
- 1:41:32Speaker 1: And if you want to get this, check the What's
- 1:41:34Speaker 1: New section of your GM vehicle app. It's such a
- 1:41:37Speaker 1: convenient feature. And yeah, you will not need a physical
- 1:41:40Speaker 1: key once they enable this for your car. Now, it's
- 1:41:42Speaker 1: rolling out slowly and not to every model, mostly recent models,
- 1:41:46Speaker 1: but still pretty good. Let's open up the feed bag.
- 1:41:50Speaker 1: Let's start with Laura. She says, a couple of weeks
- 1:41:53Speaker 1: ago on your radio show, you mentioned a vocabulary spelling game.
- 1:41:56Speaker 1: What's that game and how do I start playing? Thanks
- 1:41:58Speaker 1: for keeping us up to date on tech. The game
- 1:42:00Speaker 1: is called Beeswax. The website is spellbeeswax.com. It's a daily
- 1:42:04Speaker 1: word game where you basically listen to a word and
- 1:42:08Speaker 1: try to spell it. It's kind of fun. It's like
- 1:42:11Speaker 1: a spelling bee, basically. Hence the name. What I say
- 1:42:14Speaker 1: the website was spellbeeswax.com. It's not an app. It's a website. Jim,
- 1:42:19Speaker 1: here's another way to share large videos with someone. Upload
- 1:42:21Speaker 1: it to YouTube for free. Set it to private. Share
- 1:42:23Speaker 1: the link with the people you want to watch it. Yeah,
- 1:42:25Speaker 1: that's a good call. We were talking about that last week,
- 1:42:28Speaker 1: sharing large files. I said cloud services, but yeah, that's
- 1:42:30Speaker 1: another option. Mark says, I recently asked you for advice
- 1:42:34Speaker 1: on a new phone and ended up buying the Pixel
- 1:42:36Speaker 1: 11 Pro XL. I have a screen reader for everything.
- 1:42:38Speaker 1: Setting it up has been an adventure. I was asking
- 1:42:41Speaker 1: Grok questions about the setup. Grok kept hearing my screen
- 1:42:44Speaker 1: reader and responding to it. I tell Grok, ignore the
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: screen reader. Only listen to me. It would agree. Then
- 1:42:49Speaker 1: immediately start responding again to the screen reader. Then my
- 1:42:52Speaker 1: wife came over to help. She started talking. Grok started
- 1:42:54Speaker 1: responding to her. The screen reader jumped in and suddenly
- 1:42:57Speaker 1: it was a battle of the bots. Pro tip, if
- 1:43:00Speaker 1: you use a screen reader with an AI assistant that's
- 1:43:02Speaker 1: also listening, put on headphones so the AI can't hear
- 1:43:04Speaker 1: the screen reader. I'm still plugging along. That is funny.
- 1:43:07Speaker 1: That's like in my car when we ask Grok things
- 1:43:10Speaker 1: and you say something while it's responding. it just goes
- 1:43:14Speaker 1: and it immediately starts responding to what you're saying. It's
- 1:43:17Speaker 1: a whole thing. So now I just, I ask my question,
- 1:43:19Speaker 1: I press mute so we can discuss the answer while
- 1:43:21Speaker 1: they're saying it. Chuck, there are two things I hate,
- 1:43:26Speaker 1: paying for subscriptions and linking my bank account to an app,
- 1:43:29Speaker 1: but I finally gave Rocket Money a try and I'm
- 1:43:31Speaker 1: really happy with it. I look at it like having
- 1:43:33Speaker 1: a personal trainer for my finances. It motivates me to
- 1:43:36Speaker 1: cancel subscriptions I don't need. It doesn't cancel everything, but
- 1:43:40Speaker 1: gives me a link to take, takes me right where
- 1:43:42Speaker 1: I need to go. I've canceled a bunch of things
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: and saved a lot of money. For a guy who
- 1:43:45Speaker 1: hates paying for yet another service, this one has been
- 1:43:48Speaker 1: worth it. Yeah, Rocket Money is good for that. You
- 1:43:51Speaker 1: got to pay to have it canceled, but otherwise it's free.
- 1:43:54Speaker 1: Steve in Beaumont. Rich, AI may kill us all, but
- 1:43:57Speaker 1: until it does, I love it, especially when it's done
- 1:44:00Speaker 1: for customer support. At 6 a.m. on a Sunday, I
- 1:44:02Speaker 1: got helpful advice for both ring and sleep number. By
- 1:44:06Speaker 1: the way, have you called Apple support lately? They have
- 1:44:08Speaker 1: the most natural sounding bot I've ever experienced. No, I haven't.
- 1:44:12Speaker 1: I've heard that actually a couple times. Elroy in Chula Vista. Rich,
- 1:44:17Speaker 1: the iPhone Duo pre-order process is a joke. Apple won't
- 1:44:21Speaker 1: let me select my in-store pickup. The earliest free home
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: delivery is January 25th, 2027. I tried calling Apple. All
- 1:44:28Speaker 1: I got was hold music and a recording about high
- 1:44:30Speaker 1: call volume. The online chat was even worse. I waited
- 1:44:33Speaker 1: 20 to 35 minutes just trying to connect. I finally
- 1:44:36Speaker 1: gave up and canceled my pre-order. All that hype, Apple
- 1:44:38Speaker 1: can't deliver before Christmas, not worth it in my opinion.
- 1:44:41Speaker 1: Mele Kalikimaka. Is the right way to say Merry Christmas
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: to you. I love that movie. The only movie that
- 1:44:51Speaker 1: they probably use that song in. Christmas Vacation. Watch it
- 1:44:54Speaker 1: every year. Rachel. Rich, I tried just about every phone
- 1:44:58Speaker 1: available to help my father who has dementia stay in touch.
- 1:45:01Speaker 1: Of all the phones I tried, Jitterbug was by far
- 1:45:03Speaker 1: the most confusing and frustrating. It didn't live up to
- 1:45:06Speaker 1: the advertising claims. It also requires its own monthly service,
- 1:45:09Speaker 1: so I couldn't just add it to a family member's plan.
- 1:45:11Speaker 1: And there's an emergency assistance service that can apparently be
- 1:45:15Speaker 1: purchased accidentally. I would not recommend it for seniors. Just
- 1:45:18Speaker 1: a waste of money. Not just a waste of money,
- 1:45:20Speaker 1: but hope.
- 1:45:21Speaker 8: Oh, wow.
- 1:45:22Speaker 5: Wow.
- 1:45:22Speaker 4: Joanna.
- 1:45:23Speaker 1: Joanna. In Tarzana, Joanna in Tarzana is a fine way
- 1:45:29Speaker 1: to say merry feedback to you. Rich, your recent show
- 1:45:33Speaker 1: about scam invitations saved me from falling for one. I
- 1:45:36Speaker 1: received what looked like a punch bowl invitation from a friend,
- 1:45:39Speaker 1: but when I clicked on it, I was asked to
- 1:45:40Speaker 1: enter my email. I remembered your warning and immediately texted
- 1:45:44Speaker 1: my friend who confirmed it was spam. And come to
- 1:45:47Speaker 1: think of it, who sends a party invitation just seven
- 1:45:49Speaker 1: weeks before his wife's due date? Thanks for keeping us safe. Well,
- 1:45:52Speaker 1: thank you, Joanna. Paul, I heard you mention Visible's beginnings
- 1:45:59Speaker 1: back to 2018 on your podcast. I signed up that
- 1:46:01Speaker 1: year for $ 40 a month, which was an amazing deal.
- 1:46:04Speaker 1: Eight years later, I am still a happy customer. I
- 1:46:07Speaker 1: am now paying just $ 35 a month for Visible +.
- 1:46:09Speaker 1: I'm getting even more features, including international, 5G ultra-wideband, and
- 1:46:14Speaker 1: better unlimited hotspot. While practically everything has been getting more expensive,
- 1:46:18Speaker 1: tell me about it, my phone bill has actually gone
- 1:46:20Speaker 1: down $ 5 a month. Sure, customer service can be an adventure,
- 1:46:24Speaker 1: but the service has been so reliable, I've rarely needed help.
- 1:46:27Speaker 1: Good for you, Paul. Good value there. Don, that listener
- 1:46:33Speaker 1: tip about pairing Wyze Nightlights was great. I've owned several
- 1:46:35Speaker 1: for many years. I never knew I could pair them.
- 1:46:38Speaker 1: It's made a small but positive difference in my life.
- 1:46:40Speaker 1: As for AI, I'm sold on Muse. I even named
- 1:46:43Speaker 1: my AI agent after my late son. One example, I
- 1:46:46Speaker 1: asked Muse to review my Medicare prescription drug plan after
- 1:46:49Speaker 1: my broker said he couldn't evaluate it because of new rules.
- 1:46:53Speaker 1: Muse analyzed it, recommended a plan, and helped us find
- 1:46:56Speaker 1: $ 290 in premium savings for my wife next year. It's
- 1:46:59Speaker 1: like having a personal assistant without the cost. That's an
- 1:47:01Speaker 1: AI win in my book. Thank you, Don. Yeah, you know,
- 1:47:06Speaker 1: I had my AI assistant this week. I got a
- 1:47:10Speaker 1: charge from a hotel I stayed at. I wasn't sure
- 1:47:12Speaker 1: what the charge was for. I asked Glitchy to email
- 1:47:14Speaker 1: the hotel. Sure enough, it emailed the hotel, said, hey,
- 1:47:17Speaker 1: I need to know what this charge is for. Can
- 1:47:19Speaker 1: you send me the folio? Person sent the folio. It
- 1:47:21Speaker 1: was for parking. And it was so impressive. It's just
- 1:47:25Speaker 1: such a good example of how these things can be
- 1:47:27Speaker 1: so helpful in your life. Rich, earlier on your show,
- 1:47:31Speaker 1: Mike writes, a woman was asking about alternatives to her
- 1:47:33Speaker 1: mother's flip phone. One option worth considering is called community phone.
- 1:47:37Speaker 1: It doesn't require Wi-Fi or an internet connection. It uses
- 1:47:40Speaker 1: a cellular connection to provide a traditional dial tone through
- 1:47:43Speaker 1: a regular home telephone. You just need to make sure
- 1:47:45Speaker 1: the service is available in your area. Communityphone.org is the
- 1:47:50Speaker 1: website there. All right. I've got to wrap it up here. Tim,
- 1:47:55Speaker 1: my Canon printer scanner fax machine still works great. I
- 1:47:58Speaker 1: couldn't find free software to get the scanner working with
- 1:48:01Speaker 1: Windows 11. You suggested NAPS2, and it works well. Thank
- 1:48:04Speaker 1: you for your help. Okay. NAPS2. Carrie in South Jersey. Rich,
- 1:48:09Speaker 1: just wanted to thank you for your recommendation on the
- 1:48:10Speaker 1: movie Mayday. We watched it last night. We all loved it.
- 1:48:14Speaker 1: A lot of fun. Thanks again. I might have read
- 1:48:16Speaker 1: that one before. And Silvana in Menifee. read this too
- 1:48:21Speaker 1: i listen to your podcast every morning i never miss
- 1:48:22Speaker 1: an episode sometimes i even listen to the same episode
- 1:48:25Speaker 1: more than once uh the other day i thought i
- 1:48:27Speaker 1: should branch out and try another tech podcast oh how
- 1:48:30Speaker 1: dare you about five minutes later i decided the host
- 1:48:32Speaker 1: was boring and switched right back to you your voice
- 1:48:35Speaker 1: and expertise makes all the difference you're easy to listen
- 1:48:37Speaker 1: to thanks for your show Well, thank you, Silvana. That's
- 1:48:41Speaker 1: going to do it for this episode. Links on the website, richontech.tv.
- 1:48:44Speaker 1: Find me on social media. Follow me at Rich on Tech.
- 1:48:47Speaker 1: Next week, it's a special spooky Halloween show. No, it's
- 1:48:51Speaker 1: just on Halloween weekend. So we'll just have some fun there.
- 1:48:55Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. So many ways you can
- 1:48:57Speaker 1: spend your time. I do appreciate you spending it right
- 1:49:00Speaker 1: here with me. One reminder before I go, please do
- 1:49:02Speaker 1: not drive distracted. Those techs can wait. Thanks to everyone
- 1:49:07Speaker 1: who makes this show possible, my guests, and of course
- 1:49:09Speaker 1: you for listening. My name is Rich DeMuro. I will
- 1:49:12Speaker 1: talk to you real soon.