Latest / TechtalkRadio / Episode 401 - Printing Your Garden

Transcript

Episode 401 - Printing Your Garden · TechtalkRadio

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The following program is produced by the tech Talk Radio Network. All Right,
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people, break out your notebooks and pencils and tribe rules. You're listening to
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to tech Talk Radio with true geeks. And by the way, I'm Desider
0:12
and I'm a geek too. This is tech Talk Radio. I'm Andy Taylor.
0:16
We are the show that talks about computers, technology and the Internet.
0:22
It is just me today, justin, Slick, Matt and Sean are all
0:27
out today, and so instead, what we decided to do would be to
0:32
share with you some of the interviews we've done over the past six months that
0:36
are still relevant and could actually provide some really good information. So if you've
0:40
missed them you haven't been able to catch up with them on our website at
0:44
tech talk radio dot com, you'll be able to check them out here.
0:48
We'll have discussions on how to irrigate your lawn with a system that can be
0:53
custom made for you using technology Ira Green. Also Netgear. We're going to
0:58
talk with Netgear about some of the cool products they have if you've been thinking
1:02
about reaching maybe a further part in the home. The Netgear Mesh systems for
1:08
wireless are pretty amazing stuff. And then we're gonna be talking a little bit
1:14
about keeping your kids safe with Canopy. If the you know, the kid's
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going to be home for the summer and they maybe want to use devices,
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you want to make sure that those devices are safe for them to use.
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And speaking of that, before we get into that, I wanted to share
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an advisement that came out this week by the National Security Administration in the NSA.
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They've asked a very important question to users, how often do you turn
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off your iPhone or Android device? And that's a good question. You know,
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I'm guilty of Sometimes I'll use my smartphone and I get in the car
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and I've got, you know, the the belkan Chi charger in the car.
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I'll just plug it in so it's charged, it's work, you know,
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start using it, get home, and then you know, I put
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it on the charger on the way home. I get home, my phone's
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got like eighty five ninety percent battery life. At night, I've put it
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on the sheet charger and let it go. I don't reboot it. Well,
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that is something the NSA is saying you should be doing, whether it
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be an iPhone or Android device, make sure that you don't just let it
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go into standby mode. You don't just let it, you know, charge
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once a week. You should plan on rebooting that device. And you know
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that is a question that has come up quite a bit when it comes to
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your PCs as well. Do you shut them down every night? Do you
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reboot them? That's also a good practice for your PCs to go ahead and
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make sure that you do a reboot and don't just wait for a system update.
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Now, speaking of that, some of you are getting the notifications that
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Windows ten support is going to be ending in October of next year, that
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Windows eleven is a way to go. I have tested a device or I'm
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testing a device this week that we'll be able to answer the question is there
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a way to get Windows eleven onto a system that is telling you it's not
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ready for it? And I'll give you the results on that one next week.
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In the meantime, let's get into our show as we discussed a little
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bit about keeping the kids safe with Canopy. You know, with so many
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changes what it comes to technology, and you know, they're saying that children
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are getting smart devices, tablets and even getting on the computer at younger ages.
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You know, the big concern is protecting them and there are a lot
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of dangers out there. Some of the dangers involve their personal data, their
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personal information, but also them seeing things that really they shouldn't be seeing at
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a young age. And we've talked about a company called Canopy many times in
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the past year, and Yer own Lidwin is a digital safety expert and chief
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marketing officer at Canopy, and we're really happy to have him on the line
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with us to tell us about about Canopy. You don't thank you for coming
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on the show. Andy, Thank you so much for having me. I'm
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really excited to be here. Tell us a little bit about Canopy. We
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kind of understand it for our listeners who have kids or grandkids that maybe don't
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know what it's all about. Can you kind of put it in a nutshell
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for us? Sure? So in a nutshell, I would say, Canopy
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is a is an AI powered digital safety app. And what that means is
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that it's a it's a very easy to use app that both the parent can
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There's a parent app where the parent can manage the digital safety levels that they
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would want to have for their child, and then there's a child app,
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which is called the Shield app that sits on the child's phone and it's constantly
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in the background filtering in real time content that the child is viewing, and
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when it comes across explicit content, it knows how to wide it out and
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by doing so not interfere with the app online experience. And so and so
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that's what kind of BEE does. It really enables parents and families to give
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their kids the freedom to be online while knowing that there is a safety net
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so that they don't come across dangerous explicit material. You know, I remember
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yet in the old days of Yahoo Chat and some of the chat rooms that
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would come up. I mean, it was you kind of saw that this
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could be an issue when it came to the digital security for our children and
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what they could see, what they could could read there online. When did
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the idea the origin of Canopy kind of get started. Was it many many
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many years ago when we saw this. So the technology that powers Canopy has
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been has been in development for now over over ten years, and so we've
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been doing kind of AI or artificial artificial intelligence before it became a buzzword.
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But really the ideas we've developed, the patents and the technology that enables us
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to identify images and video and split seconds and filter them out. And so
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that technology has been developed over ten years. Canopy has been around now for
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about five years and really focused on enabling parents. We also have many adults
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that use use the application to just provide that protection and that filter between the
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online experience they want to have and kind of the online experience that they could
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stumble into. Oh you know what, I love this idea because we you
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know, we're talking about it how it can affect children. But honestly,
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there's a lot of us adults that don't want to see some of this stuff
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that is floating around on social media and online. This can help protect our
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eyes from that and again protect our devices definitely. Definitely. There's there's this
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kind of idea of digital wellness, which I think is becoming perhaps kind of
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post COVID more and more wou'd say, popular, where adults themselves, either
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for for kind of religious reasons or just for their own mental health, are
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looking to block out porn, take time off of social media, and and
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with Canopy, it's very easy to kind of uh, put those rules,
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put those habits in place now for go ahead, good no, go ahead,
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your own no and and for parents as well, of course, there's
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the ability to So the way we think about this that there's really three things
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that from a parent's perspective, you want to be you want to be thinking
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about. One is how much time kids are spending online, the content that
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they're seeing, and who's on the other end of that. And we and
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through Canopy, we kind of provide protection across all those three different, three
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different layers, if you will, and so and and and it's proven now
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that too much time online social media is really having a negative impact on our
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children's mental health. And so I think, like you're saying, in the
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past, we knew this was a problem. Now there's there's data to back
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it up that we really do need to protect our children and ourselves online.
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You know. Also the other thing is there's a lot of parents out there
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that are consider themselves tech savvy, but yet to manage all of this can
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be real difficult. And let's face it, we're in a world now where
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our technology that's available to our children, even if for those of us that
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are afraid of AI, can actually help in many cases rather than detur the
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educational experience. But it's a matter of how it's applied. Now we've seen
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the numbers that you know, many parents out there are introducing children younger than
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the age of thirteen, and there's been a lot of arguments over this to
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social media. But I don't know, do parents understand the type of dangers
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that is posed out there when they really keep hands off a kind of method
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to that. Unfortunately, I don't think there's enough awareness. And I appreciate
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you taking the time to speak with me and and educate your your audience.
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I think all parents have have kind of a an understanding that it's not good.
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I don't think they fully understand kind of to what degree the dangers might
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be. For example, just just this week, there was an article in
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the Wall Street Journal about what we call kind of an extortion scam where young
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boys on Snapchat were being targeted and tricked into sending sending naked photos, right
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and then being blackmailed for that. And so I think that these are things
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that's you know, there are are are now starting to get written about and
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and and I think there's more awareness, But I don't think that I would
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necessarily be aware of that or think about that as a parent if I wasn't
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kind of in this space, and so a lot of what we're doing is
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helping parents become educated that there not only are there the risks, but there
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are also the solutions out there to really help you manage your children's online experience
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and the technology. So I totally agree and kind of resonate with what you
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kind of with what you opened. Oftentimes, it's just it's so frustrating to
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try and understand the settings of let's say, a different operating system than that
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you're used to. So if the parents is on an iPhone and the child's
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on an Android, trying to figure out how to set up those settings can
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be very difficult. And Canopy it's an all in one dashboard and kind of
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management system, so no matter if they're on a on what operating systems they're
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on, or if it's a laptop or a phone, you can control everything
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from kind of that one very user friendly interface. So a good point there,
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then, So it's not only smartphones, the computer, the household computer,
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or maybe they have a laptop that they use for school that could also
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be protected. Yes, we protect chromebooks, PCs, iPads, and the
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phone. So so really every every device that is being connected to the Internet
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and has the potential of exposing a child to those online risks. All right,
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so say you know, I've got a child, they've got a laptop,
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and we've got Canopy installed, and they decide that they want to,
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well, you know, take a ride down one of the websites called hub
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or tube or whatnot. How how does this stop that experience? So,
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out of the box, Canopy will block all known horn sites and and just
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any known dangerous sites. So that is out of the box. There's no
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need for any settings, and it will just block access to those sites.
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But for example, there's a lot of those type of materials that you mentioned
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that you refer to on YouTube, on Twitter. Yeah, and that's where
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can it Be really shines. It's the ability when you're actually on what is
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considered a non explicit website or app and that type of content appears. That's
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why can it Be kind of jumps to the forefront. We call it our
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shield or Canopy shield, and we'll filter out that content so it won't it
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won't block the website, which is different, and that's kind of our claim
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to fame. That's really what's unique about kendec as opposed to just blocking a
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child or an adult out of an online experience. It's just filtering out those
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images or those videos that is deemed to be inappropriate. And so that way,
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if you're on Twitter, for example, or YouTube, you can still
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experience YouTube, it will just wide out images that are seen as inappropriate.
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How about TikTok? Would it work with that? Because a lot of the
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kids they're getting on TikTok and snap and I don't even know if be real
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is a thing anymore, but they get on there and there could be there
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could be stuff in there that they probably shouldn't see. Definitely, yes,
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we we we've filtered, so we block, and we also filter and we
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and the filtering is what I was just talking about. We filter across all
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those apps and websites. And what's also unique is that you can actually customize
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that experience. So, for example, if you don't want your child on
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let's say sports gambling sites, you can block off that whole category of sites
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just for let's say, for one child. And and so we give the
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parents a lot of flexibility and customization opportunities to really make the experience that they
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want to to give their children to be as much as possible to match with
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their values. Well, you know, you're you're on I'm thinking about this
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and I love everything this can do. But I also think we're talking about
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social media, we're talking about the web, but you know another problem area,
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and you know, as an adult, I know if you've got them,
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I've received text before or that seem like it's from somebody you might know,
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and it's it's really not. Even texting could be an issue. Can
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canopy work when you know, say my child's got a smartphone and they're texting,
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but we don't know who they're texting. Could they help protect our child
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that way? So currently we would protect from any explicit or inappropriate images and
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video, and we will be coming out in early next year with the ability
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to also filter out text. Okay, And I think that maybe that's what
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you're referring to, which is the ability to identify if there certain words are
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being used that perhaps might be dangerous in text, not just in images and
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video, and that is something that we in the new year. I know
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too, you know, and this is something parents need to think about.
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There are dangers when it comes to our children getting online and being asked information
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and you know they may think it's all good and well, and they may
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say, oh, I played baseball against you in little league, and you
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think, oh it's cool. They give up information that could actually put not
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only the child in danger, but could actually it could put the adults in
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danger when it comes to information that's shared online that also can be monitored with
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Canopy and protected. Correct love that. Now, some kids are sharp,
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you know, and how can the protections with Canopy not be removed or disabled?
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Because you know, I mean I've seen you know, kids can know
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how to reboot stuff and take stuff out. Is there protections in place?
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Totally? I think as a parent, my kids were always able to kind
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of overcome the settings and somehow figure out how to get out of the kind
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of the out of the box settings that come with your iPhone. And so
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what's one of the really unique features in Canopy is the ability to set and
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uh kind of what we call it the removal prevention. And so there's a
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way that there's a certain settings that if you enable it, it is it
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is very very challenging to remove Canopy. And so that is often what we
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hear from parents is that the idea that they know that it cannot be removed,
16:18
that it's really there for to protect their children, and that children can
16:22
easily change a time zone or kind of do something clever to to kind of
16:26
fool the plot, the system. And so that's really one of the unique
16:30
aspects of Canopy. Now, one of the issues I remember when my kids
16:34
were growing up was getting them off their devices and late at night, you
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know, we go to sleep, and then suddenly they would be online.
16:44
And I know that some you know, some of the different router manufacturers will
16:48
put certain things in place, but Canopy it kind of gives you an overall
16:52
blanket to help protect that from them getting online after hours exactly exactly, you
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know, the Canopy name is exactly this idea of like really giving them full
17:04
protection. And so when it comes to what we call screen time, we
17:10
give the parents a very robust system of being able to manage screen time across
17:15
devices. And so for example, let's say as a parent, you want
17:22
no use of the mobile phone after eight pm, you can set that up
17:27
in Canopy. But perhaps for the for the PC, the rules are different
17:32
because it's there's homework and so forth, and so you know, maybe that
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only goes off at nine and so you can really schedule on and off times
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by device for each child, for each individual in the household, and that
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gives also a lot of flexibility to kind of maintain those habits, in those
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behaviors that as a parent you'd like to enforce. Love it now. I
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would just like to add that, you know, our approach is not controlling.
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I mean, it's really this idea that parents are using kind of being
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this is what this is a lot of the feedback that we get as a
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great communication device as a behavior kind of habit establishing platform. And so although
18:19
there are although the parent can kind of set certain parameters, the idea is
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really that it's done with the child, and that it's done in a way
18:27
that opens up opportunities for communication and for really good parenting, as opposed to
18:33
kind of this idea of controlling their online experience. And so it's really kind
18:37
of a shift in how we're thinking. And I think that a lot of
18:40
parents and children actually we're seeing now that is very appealing to them. I
18:45
like it becomes kind of a joint approach. I like it because the parents
18:49
could also learn from the kids and of course still apply some of these to
18:53
help make them a little safer and the parents as well. Definitely, I
19:00
love your blog. It's got some great tips available. Tell us a little
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more about that and how often do you do you add some of these tips
19:07
to the website. Sure, so we're always look trying to understand what is
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it, what are kind of parents focused on? How can we help them
19:18
both with with what Canoby can do. But also we believe in so if
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Canopy has the artificial intelligence, we believe that at the end of the day,
19:26
it's really the parenting intelligence that is really going to enable kids to be
19:29
healthy and create the right behaviors, and Canopy here is kind of an an
19:33
enabler of that, And so we we try and find opportunities to write about
19:38
both the technology that can help, but also the parenting kind of behaviors and
19:45
ideas that would help parents. At the end of the day, we all
19:48
just want to be good parents and keep our kids safe. And technology is
19:53
changing very rapidly, and so we try and educate on some of those changes
19:56
and what to be aware of and and some of this that are out there
20:00
as well. Yer on so many different solutions that can be is offering,
20:06
could businesses or maybe even why not schools be using Canopy within their districts.
20:14
Definitely, we do have kind of a school offering. It's slightly different.
20:18
We have also seen it's different in terms of just how how the product is
20:22
set up, but we definitely work with schools. We've also seen many schools
20:26
that are now asking for Kenopy to be implemented or installed on any kind of
20:33
laptops or phones that are coming into the school. And so we're seeing more
20:37
and more of that where the school is also trying to create kind of a
20:38
safe a safe space, and and of course they need to note that there's
20:44
some technology in place, some tools in place that they can rely on,
20:48
and so Canopy is definitely can can help in that solution. That's one of
20:52
the reasons we came out with a solution for chromebooks because chromebooks tend to be
20:57
very popular kind of in the school district. And now can Apple users Mac
21:02
users also benefit with this. Yes, this works on on all operating systems
21:07
Windows, Mac. And now what about the different plans that are available,
21:12
do you have a different tier, like you know, maybe it will protect
21:17
this many devices? How does that work? Sure? So we have currently
21:22
three three plans we have. Our smaller plan is for three devices. It's
21:27
really thought of like for one user or two users with three devices, and
21:33
then we all we go all the way up to kind of a full family
21:36
plan where you can have up to ten devices, and and there's a there's
21:41
a plant that's kind of like in the middle of you know, in between,
21:45
but there's definitely the ideas that we offer protection across all devices and multiple
21:51
users. So that's kind of how we've thought about our plans and our pricing.
21:55
Can our parents that are out there, can they get kind of an
21:59
idea of how works? Is there a trial account available? Yes, there's
22:03
We offer a seven day free trial, and along alongside that we offer both
22:08
phone and email support, so if you have any questions while you're while you're
22:12
on trial, there's someone there that can answer your questions the email, your
22:17
phone, and of course that that continues once you become a customer. And
22:22
I would definitely encourage your listeners to go to Canopy dot us and a click
22:29
free trial. It's a very very simple checkout process and you can be up
22:33
and running in minutes. Great implement Yeah, great stuff. You Ron,
22:38
Thank you so much for coming on tech talk Radio and telling us a little
22:41
bit about Canopy and again, Canopy dot us is the website address, and
22:47
we look forward to talking to you again in the future. Yeah, thank
22:48
you so much, Andrea, it was a pleasure. I really appreciate it.
22:52
That was our discussion with your old lipwin of Canopy. You can find
22:55
out more on their website. We're going to take a quick break, we'll
22:57
come back. We're going to be talking out your devices, Wi Fi,
23:02
mural, all kinds of great stuff from Netgear that's on the way with tech
23:06
talk Radio and that fact to tech talk Radio. You know, I get
23:11
really excited when we see new products and we see products that help us when
23:15
it comes to getting online and our online security. And one of the companies
23:19
that has been at the forefront for that is Netgear, and with us on
23:23
the line is our senior product line manager with Netgear, Shalini Sangupta. Welcome
23:29
to tech talk Radio. Great to be here, Thanks for having me.
23:32
Can you tell us a little history about the company. I think everybody's heard
23:36
about it, but where did Netgear get it start? SCHELINI. So it's
23:38
actually a twenty five plus year company. It's almost getting onto its third decade
23:45
now, it's based in Santa Clara. It's an American company, and it's
23:49
always been in networking solutions, and it's always been in both the home and
23:55
the business networking solutions. So what it's most known for, I think are
24:00
it's a ORB line of mesh products. It's night Hawk routers, cable modems,
24:04
so the entire networking solution. And when it started out, it was,
24:10
as you said, you know, it was known for some of its
24:11
innovation that it brought to its space. And now we're also getting into all
24:15
the security services and other services around some of these products. Essentially, this
24:22
month is Internet Safety Month. What does that mean for a company like Netgear.
24:26
I think it's about bringing awareness around safety to the community, to the
24:33
educators, to essentially everybody and anybody who's using the Internet. We just released
24:40
a report, you know, we were working with our partner bit Defender,
24:44
and we're seeing that you know, on average household today has around forty six
24:49
connected devices. Wow, forty six connected devices, yeah, and most of
24:55
these are like IOD devices, et cetera. So it's really about, you
24:57
know, bringing awareness about threats and dangers as you use all these products online
25:03
and as some of this threat landscape also changes. Essentially, Yeah, we
25:07
hear all the time about ransomware attacks. We hear about attacks even just on
25:12
regular you know, mom to pop, small business or even homeowners that just
25:17
you know, just get online. They think they're just checking email, and
25:19
there's so many different things that can happen. But we have to be concerned
25:23
too, not only with the companies and our parents, but our children.
25:29
Our children get online and do you have any tips? I know that you
25:33
know, people are always asking me, hey, how do I you know,
25:36
how do I keep my kids safe when they're getting online at home?
25:38
I think some of it is basic education, right, I mean, just
25:41
having that conversation with your child about what where to go and where not to
25:48
what links to click is an important one. I mean, so you could
25:52
have you can have malicious URLs that you click on, which you know,
25:57
put essentially agents that can deposit malware on your devices. So it's really about
26:04
a little bit of it is around education. You know, you also want
26:10
to take basic precautions, like you know, ensure that you have some kind
26:15
of security software and you have some kind of pental control. So penal controls,
26:19
for example, would allow you to filter out you rls that are not
26:25
you know, child appropriate, et cetera. So some of those kind of
26:29
basic tools, you know, having those also allows you that second layer kind
26:36
of of precaution. There is a misconception, isn't there when it comes to
26:40
people who say, you know, I just use my computer for email,
26:44
that's all I do. Or maybe you know, I'll go on to Etsy
26:48
or I'll go on to one of the many sites out there, maybe buy
26:51
stuff, and they think that they're they're safe, that they think they don't
26:53
need this extra layer of protection. But really that is a misconception because even
26:59
with just getting an email, that can open up our systems to malware and
27:03
other types of problems we may run into. Absolutely. I mean, it's
27:07
one of the I think most common forms of threat you know of basically,
27:14
you know, people kind of hacking into your device because some of the most
27:19
common things are obviously stam as well. You know, just the amount of
27:22
spam you get and slows out in your device, etc. So you want
27:26
to be careful of that. You want to be careful of all the fishing
27:30
links. I'm just talking about some examples, you know, I was just
27:33
reading an article that you know, Google used to have this verified or just
27:37
had introduced this verified checkmark, right right, and you know very recently.
27:41
Basically what happened is somebody managed to spoof it essentially or hack it. So
27:47
it was meant to validate or verify your identity. And so now you have
27:52
a situation where that's been spoofed, so you don't know that those people are
27:56
actually who they say they are, right, so you have I think emails
28:00
are targeted most often, you know, and it's one of the like,
28:06
as I said, one of the most common forms of threat, sources of
28:10
threat. Actually, just the other day, and I've been in this,
28:12
I've been doing this for over thirty years. The other day I got an
28:17
email in from on my Exfinity account from Exfinity saying, you know your bill's
28:22
passed you and I'm thinking, huh no, it shouldn't be passed two it's
28:25
not, you know, not due to the eighth And I remember I clicked
28:29
to see the email and I didn't click any links. But then I thought,
28:32
wait, Andy, what are you doing. You know you don't do
28:36
that. Don't click on anything in an email because that opens you up.
28:40
Now we have some listeners that may be listening that say, well, you
28:42
know, I love neck gear. I've got neckgear equipment, but they may
28:45
have bought it about twelve years ago, fifteen years ago. There have been
28:48
new vulnerabilities, there have been, of course strides and getting our doc systs
28:53
three, getting that a lot faster. Is it going to benefit the average
28:57
user to actually look at some of the products are available now to maybe upgrade
29:02
or enhance their Internet connected devices. Yeah, I mean all your whether it's
29:07
the device or the router, I think, you know, having regular updates.
29:11
So the problem with some of these old devices is they don't get all
29:15
the security updates right, Yeah, and they might not even be fully updated
29:19
in terms of their operating systems, so you know, they're prone to vulnerabilities
29:26
and prone to essentially being hacked. Routers, you know, we constantly deliver
29:32
firmware updates right on our uters, for example, making sure you're updated to
29:37
the latest is really important. But if it's really that old, like twelve
29:41
plus years old, sometimes it doesn't even get these updates. They're not even
29:45
compatible with a lot of the you know, newer kind of releases. So
29:48
I think it's really important to kind of either maintain and totally overhaul your system
29:55
or keep upgrading essentially. You know. The other issue is a lot of
30:00
these as you know, if you progress, the newer releases have a lot
30:04
of these enhanced security future features for example built INVPN, you know, so
30:11
you don't have access to all of that as or better fireballs. You don't
30:15
have access to all of that if you don't have essentially the latest security product.
30:19
I talked to somebody recently that was paying for you know, high speed
30:23
cable access and they were using an old modem and they didn't realize that they
30:30
were capped out with that old modem. You need to upgrade that motive,
30:33
which is what I did, and I got myself in that care modem and
30:36
I love it. Suddenly I saw my speeds going from the two hundred to
30:40
three hundred all the way up to almost a gigabit because that's what I was
30:44
paying for. Yeah, absolutely, I talked about the security aspect of it,
30:47
but exactly, I mean, performance is a huge issue as well,
30:49
right if you're not going to optimize what you pay for on those older equipments,
30:53
So it's really you know, worth looking at and upgrade periodically. Now
31:00
I know that some people have asked us to you know, they may have
31:03
a deal with their cable company or even in some cases DSL provider. When
31:07
it comes to that equipment, you pay rental on it. Uh. And
31:11
I had a director at the TV station just asked me he's got DSL UH
31:15
And I had to run a speed test and it was he it was horrid.
31:18
It was horrid. But he wanted to know. He wanted to get
31:22
out of paying for that rental for from the from the provider UH. And
31:26
wanted to know what's the best way to go. And I said, well,
31:30
you can get your own modem, you can get your own router.
31:33
In many cases, it's just a matter of checking with the company. Is
31:36
that something wise to do for people if they really want to control their own
31:41
situation. So it's not just like if you're talking about the security aspects of
31:45
this, you know, it's not just the security of the router, it's
31:48
the security of everything that's connected to that device. Right, it can be
31:52
a point of essentially a source of getting hat And so when you look at
31:57
all the IO devices, for example on your on in your home network,
32:01
those are most vulnerable to be attacked and if you're just support you know,
32:06
kind of protecting your router, you're not really protecting all those additional devices,
32:12
right, So having something that you know you're purchasing on retail oftentimes gives you
32:19
that added security where you are not just protecting your router, but everything that's
32:24
connecting to it. Right, You're kind of blocking out any kind of sources
32:30
for vulnerabilities, you know. So for example, the net Year routers come
32:35
with this subscription service called Armor which allows you kind of that level of security.
32:42
Also, you know, you basically you get maybe you get some of
32:45
the latest technology because a lot of these companies are you know, just focus
32:51
they're experts at you know what they do, which is the networking solution.
32:54
You know, it's it's that's that's essentially what they focus on. And you
33:00
just have a wider option. You know, one size sometimes doesn't fit all
33:05
homes, you know, like mesh systems for example, if you have larger
33:07
homes, you know, where you are looking for a wider coverage. You
33:14
know, in those cases, you know you want kind of something which is
33:19
which gives you a little more of that network that network coverage. You know,
33:22
there are other things I could talk about like who has your data,
33:25
like, you know, do you know exactly you know, are those you
33:30
know I sps? Do they have visibility in all your data? Are you
33:34
comfortable with that? You know? Netgear for example, does not collect user
33:37
data, you know, customer support. You know, there are other kind
33:42
of you know, kind of factors to think through as users kind of decide
33:49
what solution is the best for them. And Netgear has a wide range of
33:52
products, does it. I mean for somebody that maybe lives at a small
33:54
home that has maybe a PC connected or a Mac or maybe even two that
34:00
are connected, but wants to have this to be able to go throughout the
34:04
smaller home, they have products for that. But if then they have this
34:07
big expansive mansion like I don't have, then they could then they could also
34:14
use this this Mesh system, which is pretty amazing and we're seeing more and
34:17
more about this and getting faster through put. But some people don't understand how
34:22
Mesh really kind of kind of works. Yeah, exactly, so, I
34:25
mean, so the MESH systems essentially have satellites which you know, allow you
34:30
to kind of get coverage, better coverages, a coverage and those rooms that
34:36
are really far out from your main kind of router versus you know, something
34:42
like our Nighthawk set of products, which is all about speed and performance and
34:46
but doesn't have that kind of mesh coverage. So it really depends on what
34:50
you're looking for. But yeah, Netgear kind of goes across both types of
34:55
products and types of networking solutions. But the Nighthawk looks so amazed. I
35:00
mean it really does. I mean it's it sits there and it looks cool
35:04
when you think of some of our devices we've had over the years. Yeah,
35:07
you know it looks like a box. This one looks pretty pretty stand
35:10
out. Now there's also a product is called the Nighthawk M six pro.
35:15
Is this something that you would take with you if you were traveling, maybe
35:19
you could to stay in a hotel. You want to be connected, and
35:21
there's always kind of little security reminders when it comes to that. The Nighthawk
35:25
M six pro essentially, so you want to have secure WiFi wherever you go,
35:30
right, and then you know you want that reliable Wi Fi as well,
35:36
and so and then you want those higher speeds compared to a typical Wi
35:39
Fi. And those are all the reasons why you would take some you would
35:43
connect to something like an M six pro. It allows you to simultaneously connect
35:46
to you know, various devices, and is password protected, is encrypted.
35:53
It's more convenient from that perspective, So you definitely want to take some thing
36:00
like this mobile hotspot. It's better than you know, just having using your
36:05
phone as a hotspot, you know, because of all the convenience I talked
36:08
about, and you know, sometimes you also get those unwanted ads when you
36:14
start connecting to some of these public wifis. So all reasons to kind of
36:21
have your own kind of mobile hotspot, something like an M six growth.
36:24
When it comes to you know, Internet Security Month, here we talk about
36:29
protecting the home network and you touched upon armor. How does that work?
36:32
Yeah, so Armor is essentially built into your all your Obi and Nighthawk products.
36:39
So there's an agent that's on your router. So each time you're connecting
36:45
any device connected to that router, and that rout itself is essentially protected.
36:50
So all you know, all the traffic is filtered and we ensure that there
36:57
is and we flag any malware, any kind of threats. You'll get an
37:00
instant notification saying we've detected it and you've blocked it, so it's not just
37:05
at that router level, but it's all the devices you know that you that
37:10
are connecting to it, whether it's your smart TV. You know, the
37:14
same report I was referencing earlier was talking about how smart TVs and you know,
37:20
some of these IoT devices are the largest sources of vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities being
37:25
essentially back doors that hackers can end. It can essentially hack and you know,
37:30
infiltrate into your network. So it's really important not just to protect you
37:37
know, your PC or your laptop, but everything that's connected. And that's
37:40
what Armor does and and you know, it's it's also got so assuming you
37:46
know, if you're taking your device and you're outside your house, it's got
37:51
an antivirus software that you can download so you can continue to stay protected even
37:55
though you're outside your house. It also has VPN, had some added kind
38:00
of benefits and features that like anti theft protection, all of that that you
38:07
can utilize. And this is for unlimited devices, you know, So it's
38:12
pretty cool that way, very good. H Now, if our listeners want
38:15
to get more information about some of the different products that are available from Netgear
38:19
to protect them, not only during Internet Security Month this month, but also
38:22
you know, just to know that they have that peace of mind. Uh,
38:25
what's the best thing to do? Yeah, so you can just go
38:29
on to Netgear dot com and get all the information on the Netgear products.
38:36
And as I said, Armors our Security Subscription. It's a subscription service,
38:40
so it's built onto all these orb and nighthawks. So once you purchase that
38:45
router, you can you get activated, and you can you get automatically activated,
38:50
and then you know, you can decide after your trial whether you want
38:52
to purchase it or not. But yeah, Netgear dot com should give you
38:55
all the information on all our routers and then all subscription services. Now for
39:00
our listeners that have been thinking, you know, maybe or we would be
39:05
the good way to go because they've got different rooms throughout the home that some
39:07
don't get the best signal, and they may have they may be able to
39:12
want to watch you know, they're streaming streaming media on their big television.
39:15
What is that easy to set up? Is that something that you know,
39:20
somebody listening right now that maybe is not too tech savvy but likes this idea,
39:24
would like to do this? Can they implement that pretty easily. Yeah,
39:28
I mean so our well setup process is you have a guide which is
39:34
really simple. It's two three steps and it's pretty automatic like once you once
39:37
you uh, you know, kind of unbox it and set you know,
39:40
kind of plug it in. It's you know, there's hardly a couple of
39:45
steps just in terms of setting up your account and then you're pretty much you
39:49
know, good to go. Should take you five minutes to really set it
39:54
up. Essentially, it's a quick onboarding process. Very good, Shelani,
39:58
thank you so much for on tech talk Radio. Give it us a great
40:01
overview of the products available from Netgear and again that's netgear dot com for listeners.
40:07
Have any questions, they could do that it or drop us a line
40:09
and we'll definitely answer that for him. Thank you again for coming on the
40:13
show. Thanks for having me. This was fun. Thanks Sandy. Thank
40:15
you. And if you've been thinking about using technology to help not only in
40:20
the house, but how about outside the home around the yard, new technology
40:24
for a company called Era Green. We'll find out what that's all about and
40:28
how we can save you money coming up on tech talk Radio. Find us
40:31
on the web at tech talk radio dot com. Now back to tech Talk
40:36
Radio and welcome back to tech Talk Radio. You know, it's great when
40:42
we find smart home technology that helps us in our homes. There's so many
40:45
different products now, I mean, even our refrigerators can be smart refrigerators.
40:52
But when it comes to the outside of the home and when it comes to
40:55
you know, managing what's going on outside, there are ways to make that
41:00
even easier and to help be conservative when it comes to our environment. And
41:06
there is a company out there called Irragreen that actually takes that whole idea and
41:12
helps using smart technology in developed They've developed a digital smart sprinkler system and with
41:19
us on the line is the CEO and co founder of Iragreen, Shane dy
41:22
Er. Shane, thanks for coming on tech Talk Radio. Such a pleasure
41:25
Andy for those of us in Arizona, we know that, you know,
41:29
the rising water costs have affected many There's been a water shortage as well that
41:35
we know about. Now. While a lot of us may have maybe rocks
41:38
in our front yard, we use pebble and stone. A lot of us
41:42
still would like to have a nice garden, and a lot of us can
41:45
do that. We have a very luscious garden in our backyard. But of
41:47
course being smart when it comes to you know, watering them and reducing the
41:53
cost of water can be done digitally with Irragreen. Tell us a little bit
41:58
about the idea for the company. How did you guys start up? Sure,
42:00
Well, my partner, Gary is an inkjet printer inventor. Yeah,
42:05
he was just walking along one day and saw all the awful things that happened
42:08
with sprinklers. You know, everyone's familiar with, you know, water running
42:12
down your driveway into the sidewalk and the amount of waste there. But it
42:17
turns out that what he saw was a lot of the waste was just in
42:20
the areas. It's those sprinkler systems with the mechanical heads overlap. So,
42:24
being an inkjet printer inventor, he looked at this and said, what if
42:28
we could print the water. So when you get an ear green system,
42:32
instead of having those sort of mechanical sprinkler heads that are all the way around
42:36
the perimeter of your yard, you get one of these smart heads that sits
42:39
in the middle and it waters up to about thirty feet and it follows all
42:45
the contours of your yard, putting down a completely even layer of water,
42:49
which means you're saving about half the water for the same plant growth that you're
42:52
looking for. It's just incredible. You know, if you're you know,
42:55
in the middle of the summer here, you know, you really want some
42:58
of these dream things around your yard, even if you're in an arid area.
43:01
But you know, you don't necessarily want to get that two hundred and
43:05
three hundred dollars water bill in the middle of the summer. We've got to
43:07
do something to fix that. So Ira Green, you know, not only
43:09
gives you, you know, this smart home extension outside your home to water
43:15
your home with this sort of you know blagio fountain that will pop up in
43:17
your backyard and water you know, your green stuff, right, but it's
43:21
also really going to help cut into that water bill, and you know also
43:24
do this kind of the responsible for the environment, which means, you know,
43:28
we still want these green things around us, but we just need to
43:30
water them in a much more smart way. Now we have seen technology become
43:36
easier when it comes to what's inside our home and smart home technology. How
43:39
about this as far as implementing this, what is what are kind of the
43:43
steps that our listeners would would take in getting this all digital irrigation system from
43:47
Era Green put in. Well, it's pretty amazing because each one of these
43:51
heads, instead of putting in ten heads around the perimeter, you're replacing that
43:55
with just one head. So that means there's about eighty percent less you know,
44:00
digging in your yard or anything else like that to put one of these
44:01
systems in. In fact, we have a majority of our customers actually put
44:06
it in DIY in their yard. Now you can always have a landscape contractor
44:09
coming and put it in for you if that's not the kind of thing you
44:12
do. But one of the things that's interesting is it's just a much easier
44:15
system. In a traditional irrigation system, not only do you have you know,
44:20
like forty heads around the yard that Iragreen can do it about five heads,
44:23
but you also have all those valves and wires, all those irrigation valves,
44:28
and those are completely gone. When you put it in an Eerrogreen system
44:30
one of these digital systems. Oh wow, it's a much easier you know,
44:35
a lot less labor to put in and just a lot less you know,
44:37
kind of muck to manage all over your yard. What I really love
44:40
about this, too, Shane, is when you go to the iragreen website,
44:45
which is iragreen dot com. You can actually put in your address and
44:50
what's great about it, you can actually see how your system is laid out,
44:54
maybe get a quote if you want to configure your own system, or
44:59
maybe pro to come out and do it. But you'll actually get kind of
45:01
a Google image visual representation of your home and the surroundings and areas that may
45:08
need to be taken care of. Yeah, it even goes further than that,
45:12
Like if you go to eragreen dot com, if you put in your
45:14
home address, it pulls up that satellite picture and then you're basically putting little
45:19
boundary lines around what you want to have water. And then you can drag
45:22
in these digital heads to basically see how much you know the lawn you'll cover
45:27
and how many of them you'll need. But then the amazing thing is it
45:30
actually goes back to like three years of historical daily weather data to figure out
45:35
how much rainfall they are and how much you know, how much water it
45:38
takes to keep you know, plants or lawn alive, and will actually give
45:43
you an estimate of how many gallons of water you'd save by not using a
45:46
traditional mechanical irrigation system instead of using a way more official digital irrigation system.
45:52
Oh wow, you can just you know, take your water bill, figure
45:53
out how much you pay for water, and get a real good estimate of
45:57
how much money you'll save. So this is, you know, this is
45:59
the first system that will literally pay for itself. Yeah. I'm looking at
46:02
the demo Shane, and what I find so amazing is, you know,
46:07
how many times have I gone out in a situation and maybe you've watered a
46:10
certain area, but unfortunately, maybe you've got a driveway there, or maybe
46:15
you've got the patio which of course doesn't need watering. As this is turning
46:20
around and spinning around using the smart technology and how you've set it up,
46:23
it can actually as it gets to that area where you would see it getting
46:29
covered with water that doesn't need it, it'll actually reduce the consumption and not
46:34
spray out the water on that part. So it can be all customized to
46:37
fit the layout of your home, and it can be adjusted if you do
46:40
add things correct, Yeah, that's correct. This is the really, you
46:45
know, just an amazing part in terms of delight, because once you have
46:46
one of these digital heads, there's an app on your phone where you can
46:51
basically put out these little dots to make it spray any pattern, so it
46:55
completely follows that line on your patio or that line on your driveway without getting
47:00
any water spilling over. It's really accurate. And once it does that,
47:05
you know, you have a little play button where you can actually watch it
47:07
trace that entire shape that you created. So it's putting water exactly where you
47:13
want it and not where you want It's really beautiful to see. And that's
47:15
the other part you mentioned before, which is flexibility. Like we all like
47:19
to change our lawns, but if you put in a traditional mechanical sprinkler system,
47:22
as soon as you put in that shed, you've got to dig up
47:25
and basically do a plumbing project while you move all the heads around and you
47:30
put new lines in and you put new heads in. If you have an
47:34
ear Green system, all you do is pick up your app and redraw the
47:37
shape that you'd like it to water, and it takes you like two minutes
47:39
and you didn't have to dig anything up. So it gives you so much
47:43
more flexibility to be able to garden and do the things that we love to
47:46
do in our backyards without having to worry about triggering a big, expensive,
47:50
dirty plumbing project. Yeah. The other part about too, you know,
47:52
we're thinking about adding a gazebo, so obviously that would change the structure,
47:58
and with this we'd be able to kind of coordinate how it's going to go
48:00
and where it's going to go. Also, let's face it, Shane,
48:04
you know here during the summer months, it can get to be you know,
48:07
one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty degrees. If you miss getting out
48:10
at that prime time, or maybe you have to work and do the watering,
48:14
you're going to stand out there and the heat. You don't have to
48:15
do that when this system's installed. Yeah, that's what makes us really good
48:20
in terms of like a homewner, especially if you're a busy person. A
48:23
regular irrigation system, even if you have like a smart controller, right one
48:29
that's connected to you know, to like a weather or soil moisture. The
48:31
problem with those are that they're just connected to regular valves, so they just
48:36
sort of turn on those valves and turn them off, but they don't really
48:37
know how much water's going down or or how efficient that system is. With
48:44
Irregreen, we know exactly how much water is printed, so it keeps track
48:49
of, you know, given the kind of plants that you have, how
48:52
much water they'll need, how much rainfall there is, and also how hot
48:55
it's been, how windy it's been, so how much water needs to be
48:59
replaced in that soil. So it's kind of once you set it up,
49:01
it's sort of fire and forget it. Basically auto waters and figures out exactly
49:06
how much water needs to go down and not put it, not put down
49:08
a drop more. I know there are many listeners right now listening going,
49:12
this is what we've needed, this is what we want to get. And
49:15
again this beats that that traditional even with that automated system. This really beats
49:20
that because you can really customize it. Now, say you wanted to kind
49:23
of change the flow or change the pardon the pun, but if you wanted
49:28
to change maybe a time and whatnot, you can do that all via a
49:31
smartphone or an app that they'd be able to access. Yeah, you have
49:36
a smartphone app that's really easy to use, and not only that, you
49:38
can use it from anywhere in the world. So if you're on vacation,
49:42
then you want to check on your system. That will show you how much
49:44
water is being put down, and if you want to make changes to it,
49:46
like water on different days or sometimes like you know, your neighborhood will
49:51
say you can only water a few days, you can set that up to
49:52
make sure that you're always in compliance. Well, it's really really cool to
49:57
have a way to feel like you have full control, but also make it
50:00
easy enough just for a regular consumer. If you can use remote control for
50:02
your TV, you can control all this stuff. What is going to be
50:06
the best way for them to do it? And can you give us kind
50:07
of an idea? I mean it's going to vary on each system of what
50:10
kind of costs they're looking at. Is kind of implementing eragreen sure, absolutely,
50:15
So the best way to do it is basically just go to www.
50:21
Dot Eargreen dot com and there's a place in there where if you want to
50:23
play around yourself, you can put in your address, but there's also a
50:27
button there if you want to talk to one of the ear we have irrigation
50:30
pros. You can go ahead and set up a little fifteen minute caller appointment
50:32
where they'll basically walk through and for free kind of custom design a system putting
50:37
water where you need it, and I also to talk you through an answer
50:39
any of your questions. So that's probably the easiest way to go. Systems
50:44
range anywhere from a little less than two thousand bucks, you know for small
50:46
systems, do you know three thousand dollars or more for like larger systems than
50:52
that case as well. But remember that this is also really helping you save
50:55
on those water bills. So in many places that have expensive water, Southwest
51:00
or Arizona in particular, you know, you see payback periods for these in
51:06
like three years or four years where you've made your money back excellent, So
51:08
it saves money on that saves water consumption. Soy, really you are helping
51:14
the environment, especially as we continue to see kind of a water shortage throughout
51:17
our state. And of course you have control, and that's the best thing
51:22
about it. If you're like me, sometimes I'm a little lazy getting out
51:24
there and watering, and you know, the plants suffer. This is a
51:28
great way to really have that control, to know that they're gonna get that.
51:31
Eergreen dot com is the website. I are R I G R E
51:37
E N dot com and thank you so much. Shane for coming on tech
51:40
talk Radio. We appreciate it, pleasure. If there's any way we can
51:43
help out, please let me know. And you really love what you're doing.
51:45
Santabay will rejoin Slick and Sean and they say they think they have the
51:49
product of the week, maybe even of the month or beyond that. That's
51:54
coming up with tech talk Radio. Be sure to check out our blog blog
51:59
dot tech talk radio dot com and now fact to tech talk Radio. So
52:04
I decided something we haven't done it in a long time. Normally we'll do
52:06
it like a website of the week or product of the week. We're gonna
52:08
give away something very cool bone conduction headset from Mojawa, which is very cool.
52:14
You can wear it underwater, you can wear it while you're working out.
52:16
So what we're playing today, guys, is what's the anagram? What
52:22
was it called? It? You no acronym? What's the acronym? All
52:28
right? So I'll give you I'll say what it is. I'll say the
52:30
short and you got to call out your name when you know the answer,
52:34
and say what it is in long form, Like if I said hellol,
52:37
somebody would justin laugh out, justin would say laugh out. And the thing
52:42
is, you can just call it out. You gotta say your name is.
52:44
If you just call it out, it's not going to count. No.
52:45
Okay, well maybe you did, and I'll qullified you. All right.
52:49
Are you ready? Here we go. The first one, I J
52:51
B O L No google in it, Sean. I I don't know that
53:02
one. I B O L I J b O L never heard that.
53:07
I just I just wasn't too much tween radio you, Matt. I just
53:14
busted out laughing. I just busted out laughing. Is it? Oh my
53:16
good god, oh my god. All right, I didn't know that one,
53:21
so I looked it up. Here's the next one. A F A
53:24
I K Matt, Matt as far as I know, as far as I
53:28
know, Matt for two points. Here we go, come back on the
53:31
show. Next one, C B T M c B I thought terms.
53:39
Yeah, I was waiting for tech terms. That's why it was like terms
53:44
your anagrams things. Thank you, C B T M. Come on,
53:50
guys, I don't know did we pass on that one. I'll give you
53:55
the first letter, c IS could could c B? Could this be me?
54:04
No? COG could c BT? I have no idea all right,
54:08
Well, we'll pass on this one. The answer was, could be the
54:12
move. All right, here we go, gotta be fast on this one.
54:17
F W I W Matt mag Matt, what is it? For what
54:22
it's worth? For what it's worth? Matt for three? Here we go
54:27
and the next one. M yo b Matt, make your own beer,
54:32
no Matt native point uh m y o b uh, Justin, move your
54:46
own body. Justin, you are minus one Sean. I'm not even gonna
54:52
anser because I don't want to mind this point. Well, the answer was,
54:53
mind your own business. Let me tell you up the points here.
54:58
See we get to on with the zero Justin with a negative one, Matt
55:04
two. Matt is our winner today. You won yourself a bone conducting headset.
55:12
So kindly, I'd say, just Gordon ship it to Justin, but
55:15
I know I'd never see it, so I'll all right. That wraps up
55:21
this week's tech Talk Radio. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm s Weird, I'm
55:24
Matt Jones, and I'm Justin. Let me thank you so much for joining
55:28
us. Have yourselves a great week. Find us on the web at tech
55:30
talk radio dot com. Have yourselves a great week.