Apple's New iPads & A Free Cell Phone Plan

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is rich On Tech. Before we start the show,
I'd like to remember a colleague of mine, Sam Rubin.
Those in Los Angeles know him best as a longtime
entertainment anchor at KTLA, the TV station that I've worked
for for thirteen years. Sam was also on this very
show talking about his experience at the Sphere Las Vegas.

(00:21):
Sam's segment would often run right before mine, and we
also shared a studio where we tape things, so we
chatted throughout the day. Our most popular topic was EV's,
in particular Rivian, but we also chatted about all kinds
of random topics, and he always asked me how things
were going with my career and lately this show. Sam

(00:43):
always had a smile on his face. He had a
sharp sense of humor and a wide range of knowledge
about people and places. I've never told anyone this story publicly,
but Sam would often go longer than his allotted segment time.
The guy like to talk something that would cut into
the time of my segment, and early on in my
career at KTLA, when I ask the producers about this,

(01:03):
they politely told me that Sam is the show, and
I guess that's right. I always have KTLA on in
the background all morning while I'm at work, and when
Sam comes on, the volume goes up. Sam died unexpectedly
at sixty four. They say life is short, but in
his case, it was way too short. Please let your friends,

(01:25):
your family, your colleagues know how much you love, appreciate
and respect them while they're still here.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Embrace the people around you every day.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Ah, When something like this happens, it tells me that
we as humans are not truly equipped to understand the
mystery of our existence here. But we can love, we
can find joy and connection. We can help others and
make the most out of every moment we have. And now,
as they say, on with the show, Apple unveils new iPads,

(01:57):
Google has a five hundred dollars phone, and Sam's song
rolls out a major update for older devices. There's a
new cellular plan that gives you calling and texting for free,
plus access to essential apps. We'll explain five G home Internet,
and of course your tech questions answered.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
What's going on?

Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech. This
is the show where I talk about the tech stuff
I think you should know about. It's also the place
where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that
tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up
those phone lines at triple A Rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(02:38):
zero one.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Give me a call.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
If you have a question about technology. Email is also open.
Just go to Rich on tech dot tv and hit contact.
Guests this week include Chris Sheldric, creator of the app
called What Three Words. He's gonna explain how to use
it to tell someone your exact location using three simple words. Later,

(03:01):
Eli Blumenthal of cnet will explain how your cell phone
carrier tracks you and how to change that, and later
in the show, Michael Motamedi we'll talk about how he
traveled the world for a year using AI. This week,
Apple held an event virtually called let Loose, and it

(03:23):
was all about new iPads. Apple has a big event
coming up next month called WWDC. This was sort of
the appetizer to that event where they get these new
iPads out into the world, and I'm gonna give you
a rundown of exactly what they're all about. Let's start
with the iPad Air. This is sort of almost like

(03:44):
a mid mid level model. You've got the iPad, then
the iPad Air, then the iPad Pro. So the iPad
Air gets the new M two chip. It typically came
in that eleven inch design, so they still have that,
but now they have an all new thirteen inch size
as well, so now you get the choice of two sizes.
Do you want something that's small and compact or a
little bit bigger so you can get more work done

(04:05):
on the screen. It also comes in a new blue
and purple color along with the standard starlight and space gray.
Let's see what else. Front facing camera they moved, so
now it's at the top of the iPad when you
have it horizontal, which means when you are video chatting,
your face is not off to the side. It's a
straight on view, which makes a lot of sense for

(04:28):
video calling and video chatting and zooming and all that
good stuff. Some people are a little disappointed this did
not get Wi Fi seven. It does have support for
Wi Fi six E. It starts at five hundred and
ninety nine dollars for the eleven inch iPad Air. Then
you've got seven hundred and ninety nine dollars starting price
for the thirteen inch iPad Air. Keep in mind that

(04:49):
is for a one hundred and twenty eight gigabyte model.
I do not think that's going to be enough for
most people. You can download a few movies to these
iPads and that will fill up that entire one hundred
and twenty eight gigabytes practically with your pictures and your videos.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
So you may want to consider the step up from that.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
I thought Apple should have gone with two fifty six starting,
but it's still one twenty eight to get that nicer
price point. Availability beginning Wednesday, May fifteenth. All right, now,
onto the iPad Pro. This is where they put a
lot of their new features. This is available also in
a eleven inch model and a thirteen inch model, so

(05:28):
you get to choose if you want the high end.
You also get those two sizes for the first time
in an iPad. They've got O lead technology. Apple calls
it tandem O lead, so apparently they sandwiched two old
screens on top of each other to make it brighter
than a standard O LEAD and so you know the
wizards that Apple did that. They also introduce a brand

(05:49):
new chip, the M four chip. So this is a
chip that they say is even more powerful than before.
But it's more power efficient as well. So Apple has
really done a great job with their M chips and
this is no different and it's probably gonna have a
very long life because we're looking at the M two
in the iPad Air, which came out a couple of

(06:10):
years ago, and they're still getting some great use out
of that. Apple did not make a huge deal out
of AI as expected at WWDC, but they did say this.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Is going to be great for running AI.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
They've got a new neural engine on it, which is
the stuff that kind of computes that area of things,
so they did talk that up just a little bit.
Eleven inch iPad pro starts at nine hundred ninety nine dollars.
The thirteen inch iPad pro starts at thirteen hundred dollars.
We're getting into laptop territory here and these are available Wednesday,
May fifteenth. And of course they did make these with

(06:46):
the two hundred and fifty six gigabyte storage standards, so
they did know that the real serious pro users need
a lot of storage. They did start at two fifty
six for that base storage. When you add the keyboard
and all the different things to this, it adds up
very quickly. They also introduced a new Apple Pencil Pro.

(07:06):
The features they added to this squeeze so you can
now squeeze it to do some things. It also has
haptic feedback, so it will vibrate to let you know
that it's doing some things. And for the first time,
they have put fined my on the Apple pencil, which
means if you lose this thing, you can find it
more easily.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
The Apple Pencil Pro is one hundred and twenty nine dollars.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
If you want to figure out which Apple pencil works
with which iPad, you're going to have to consult the
Apple website. At least two different Apple pencils work with
every different iPad, so there is a matrix there. You
get your choice of a cheaper Apple pencil and a
slightly more premium Apple pencil for every one of these iPads.
So it's gonna be a little bit of a decision
there to make that stuff. They came out with the

(07:48):
new Magic Keyboard. This starts at three hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
It's got a.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Bigger, bigger trackpad area, which is nice if you're doing
a lot of computing work. They've got new smartfolios. This
is sort of the it's almost like a case or
a cover that magnetically attaches to the iPad.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
I have one of these things. It's great.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
The thing that's new here is that it now supports
multiple viewing angles instead of just one viewing angle. Those
start at seventy nine dollars. And finally a couple of
new apps to talk about. Final Cut Pro got a
major upgrade. Last time, it was all about the Apple pencil.
This time it is all about touch. The cool thing
is Apple came out with this new app called Final

(08:30):
Cut Camera. This lets you connect up to four iPhones
to an iPad to do a multicapture. So if you
want multi camera capture, let's say you want it to
record a podcast or your band, you can now just
link up all of your iPhones to an iPad and
it will record all of those feeds simultaneously.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
I mean, this is the kind of.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Stuff that would take a huge setup and an engineer
to figure out. Now you can do it with just
you and your friends iPhones and an iPad. That is incredible.
It's called Final Cut Camera that is available. This will
all be available later this spring as.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Well. Final Cut Camera is free.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Final Cut Pro two is either five dollars a month,
or fifty dollars for the year.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Final Cut for Final Cut.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Pro for iPad also allows you to edit projects directly
from external storage, which is really nice.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
And then finally Logic Pro.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Now I'm not a big audio editor, even though I
should be with this podcast, I guess, but if you
listen to the podcast, you know the levels could be
a little all over the place sometimes, so that's why.
But Final Cut Final Sorry. Logic Pro for iPad two
and Logic Pro for Mac eleven also got a big update.
They've got this new feature called Session Players, which is

(09:51):
basically like having your own little background orchestra. They've got drummers,
they've got bass players, they've got keyboard players. Pretty amazing
stuff that is going to be available May thirteenth as
a free update for existing users, one two hundred dollars
for new users, and if you're on the iPad, it's
available May thirteenth, five bucks a month, fifty dollars for

(10:12):
the year.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
So there you have it.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Updates to the Apple products and services.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Apple does a really nice job.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
They did get a little bit of backlash for this
sequence they showed called Crush. I will talk about that
a little bit later in the show. Basically, they showed
a whole bunch of creative tools like a piano and uh,
you know, drums and just things people use to write
and create. They showed that all being crushed down and

(10:41):
then out came an iPad at the end. And some
people are very offended by that because they said, Apple,
how dare you? Our world is already black mirror enough
and to actively exploit that.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Come on, you're better than that, all right?

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Phone line for the show Triple eight Rich one oh
one eight eight two four one zero one. The website
is Rich on tech dot TV. Give me a call
if you have a question about technology. My name is
Rich Dmiro and you are listening to Rich on tech.
Let's go to Jeff in Fort Worth, Texas. Jeff, you're

(11:19):
on with Rich. Hi.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Rich, thanks so much for taking my call. And my
question is has to do with connectivity with devices to
my WiFi. So my neighborhood they dropped high speed internet,
and so I purchased the Google Wi Fi Mesh system
to bring me up to five G which is great,
love it. But a few years ago I put in.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
Led lights around my swimming pool and they run on
the two point four and so now I can't enact,
and I try to go through all the settings of
the Google Mesh and am I going to have to
replace my lighting system to five g year? Is there
a way to make my LG the lights talk to
my match system at two point four while keeping five

(12:05):
point oh everywhere else? If that makes sense?

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
And I get this question a lot, and it seems like,
you know, the new devices are a lot better than
the older devices, and it sounds like you've had these
up for a while and that's why this is happening.
So the Google Wi Fi does support all three bands,
so it's got a two point four gigahertz, a five gigaherts,
and a six gigahertz band. Most of the devices will well,

(12:33):
it depends on the Wi Fi, you know, the Google
Wi Fi that you have, But most of the time
all of those bands are active simultaneously, and the problem
is the device may not recognize the fallback to that
two point four gigaherts. So everyone, every device sort of
functions differently in this aspect, and I think that's why

(12:54):
you're running into issues. It's just you have a modern
network with a device that's older and it's just they're
not talking to each other. So the thing to do,
according to Google, is that you have to go into
the Google Home app and turn on WPA three. This
is kind of an older protocol that is not used
as much anymore, and so that should toggle the two

(13:18):
point four gigaherts. So you go into the Google Home app.
According I'm looking at the support document here, tap Wi
Fi and then go into settings and then it says
advanced Networking and it says use Wi Fi Protected Access three.
And then when you toggle that on, your network's going
to reset. Your devices will lose connectivity for a little bit,
but it should it should find that. So now it says, okay,

(13:45):
some smart home devices that only use the two point
four gigahertz band will not be available for setup if
your phone is on the five gigahertz or six gigahertz band.
So if you're trying to use that phone as like
a middle man between the connection, you may have to
also try to manually connect your phone to that two
point four gigahertz band, and that may involve going into

(14:07):
your Wi Fi's settings as well. I have had in
the devices that I've set up over the years I
have only found one device that I could not get
to set up with any success at all, and it
was an outdoor plug that was on the two point
four gigahertz network. And I did everything in my power.

(14:29):
I've got the Ero at home, and in the Eero
there is a ten minute mode where your euros will
restart into just two point four gigaherts to give those
devices an opportunity to just see that network and connect.
But even with that, it would not connect. And I'm
not kidding. I probably spent a half an hour just
sitting there trying to get this thing to connect before

(14:50):
I said, you know what, not only can I not
do this, but I'm also never recommending this outdoor plug.
And I ended up buying a different one on Amazon
and it connected immediately.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
So that's my advice.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Try that advanced networking setting, make sure that your phone
is also on that setting, and that hopefully will.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Get that bridge to your network and keep those on there.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
If that doesn't work, you may have to consider replacing
the lights unfortunately, or maybe just buy a cheap router
that just uses that for the you know, an older
router that only uses that network to.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Connect those lights. Good question.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thanks Jeff for finding us out there in Fort Worth, Texas.
Open Ai on Monday, the day before Google's event, is
holding an event to announce updates to Chat, GPT and
GPT four. Now a lot of people are saying that
this might be a new Chat GPT search engine to
rival Google. Sam Altman, the founder of Chat of open ai, says,

(15:52):
that is not true. We're not releasing a search engine
that day, but we do have new updates we think
people are gonna love. He just gribe the updates is
feeling like magic to him.

Speaker 5 (16:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
The interesting thing here is that this event is scheduled
just twenty four hours before Google Io. This is where
Google shows off its latest AI products and advancements.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
So Google is.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Certainly feeling the heat right now from open AI and Chat,
GBT and Perplexity and Claude and all of these search
engines that are really gunning for what Google has done.
And we've taken for granted for so many years. But
now Google, you know, they've got to show us that
they are going to continue to really be the search

(16:38):
provider that we know and love for for years to come.
So we'll see what happens with open AI and then
we'll have Google as well, all next week eighty eight
rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. You are listening to rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro

(16:58):
here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight
rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four two
four one zero one. We'll get to the phone lines
in just a bit, but first I want to tell
you about an app called What three Words. This is
an app that if you've listened to me for a while,
you've probably heard me talk about it before. I think
it's pretty cool. It basically divides the world up into

(17:22):
ten by ten squares ten feet by ten feet squares,
which means you can give someone a really precise idea
of where you are. So let's say you're in a field,
GPS might lead that person to the middle of the field.
This will lead them to exactly where you are in
that field no matter what. It also works offline, which
is really cool. Recently I spoke with Chris Scheldrick. He

(17:45):
is the creator of the app called What three Words.
He's explaining how you can use it to tell someone
your exact location using three simple words.

Speaker 6 (17:55):
So I grew up on a farm where nobody finds
where I live because my address points in the middle
of a field. So I wanted to make a really
simple system for anyone in the world to talk about
any location. So I divided the world into ten foot
by ten for squares, and named each one with three
words from the dictionary.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Now, did you give us yourself the three words or
did you come up with some program? Like how did
you decide what words to use?

Speaker 6 (18:24):
So I came up with this idea with a couple
of friends of mine, a mathematician and a linguist. We
put together this word list of forty thousand words, so
like table chesso anything like that.

Speaker 7 (18:34):
So there's a unique one for each tenth for square
on Earth.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Some people might wonder, well, don't we already have GPS.
Isn't that just fine for helping people find where they
need to go? What's the difference here?

Speaker 6 (18:45):
Well, a lot of people obviously navigate with ZIP codes
or if you want to be precise, GPS coordinates. But
I think for the everyday person, if there is no address,
the points to the right place, GPS coordinates are kind
of confusing and complicated. I mean, nobody really in everyday
life does that. So the idea of what three words
is just to make a big load of numbers super simple,

(19:07):
like as easy as just saying something like table, chess,
spoon and you refer to one point in the world.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Somewhere and how are people using this and how are
you getting this into the hands of people?

Speaker 6 (19:18):
So we're really doing a huge awareness drive about what
three words. We're already a household name here in the
UK and at the moment we're trying to do exactly
the same in the US. So a big part of
how we get the word out is through emergency services,
police forces, fire ambulance. But we're also doing many other
vertical notes now and a lot of those are around
big stadiums, big parks, California's day Parks, and our most

(19:42):
recent partnership, which is really exciting, is with LAFC.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
And so tell me about that partnership. What do you
think this is.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
How do you think it's going to enhance the guest
experience at this stadium?

Speaker 6 (19:52):
So I think now that LAFC have added three with
addresses to each of their entrances and key points around
the site, this is going to make it super simple
for anybody to show up at exactly the right place,
because when you go to a stadium, there are so
many different gates where you might want to park your
car or where your ticket actually brings you to. An
entrance doesn't really have an address that you can type

(20:13):
into an app. So if you just go to an
NFC website, you'll now see that there are threewhere addresses
for every single place that you might want to go
around that entire stadium site, which will make it so
so easy.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
So the idea is that GPS takes you to a
generic or a general location, and this takes you to
a specific ten by ten area within that location exactly.

Speaker 6 (20:35):
I think you know, the GPS probably takes you to
the exact center point of the field, but really, unless
you're playing, nobody needs to go there. So really this
is for everybody who wants to go to a specific
part of a specific site, which is basically everyone except
for the players.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
You also mentioned for fans with accessibility challenges that this
can help. Is there a way that this can help
with people with varying level of ability as well?

Speaker 6 (21:01):
Yeah, I think for fans with accessibility challenges, it's really
important that you get to the right place or where
you want to go as easily as possible. And if
you've got ten foot precision in means you can exactly
get to that right gate. Maybe you need to leave
the car somewhere very precise as well, And it just
simplifies that whole experience so that you haven't got to
be around crowds of people if all you want to

(21:22):
do is just get to that pint where you're going
to watch the game. So I would really encourage any
fans with accessibility challenges check out what three was.

Speaker 7 (21:30):
It could really really help.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Any locations you can rattle off the top of your
head that might be notable.

Speaker 6 (21:36):
Yeah, So I mean the LAFC HQ is at Spice
June's Cowboy. I know that the door dash Gate, which
is their north east entrance is at feast Lane's Affair.
So you know you'll find plenty more of these on
the LAFC website.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
And how do people get these names? How do they
figure out where they are? And how do you send
it to a friend that may not be using the app?

Speaker 6 (21:58):
So you can use the word three words, You could
use the what three words websites and literally you'll see
a map of the world that you're used to, and
as you click around, you'll just see the three random
words they'll appear. It could be custard, crayon, door knob,
anything like this, And as you click the different squares,
you'll see what we've named your front door, your back door,
or anywhere else in the world. Because literally every ten

(22:20):
for square is covered.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
For like search and rescue situations.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
I feel like this is pretty handy because it gets you,
like exactly where you are versus you know, the park
that you're at or something like that.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Is that what you're finding to be true?

Speaker 6 (22:32):
What three words has been really instrumental in a lot
of search and rescue situations because there are so many
times if you don't know where you are, you think
your cell phone might be able to communicate its exact location,
but there are problems, and so if you're calling nine
on one in a lot of cases now you can
then give them the three words for exactly where you
are or where help is needed, and they will get
it straight to that point.

Speaker 7 (22:53):
So I think in nearly all fifty.

Speaker 6 (22:55):
States now we have search and rescue, police and many
other first responders using what three was on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
And what about the partnerships with different automakers and like,
tell me where you're trying to go with us.

Speaker 7 (23:09):
Well, we want what three was to be a global standard.

Speaker 6 (23:12):
So whatever you put an address into, we want you
to be able to put a threeword address into it.
So for example, with auto makers like Mercedes, Benz with subru,
with Mitsubishi, Lotus, Lamborghini, you can now start putting three
addresses into your car. And we're also working with e
commerce and logistics players. So really it's trying to transform
the whole way that we think about addresses.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
How has this journey been for you creating this product
and getting people to believe in it?

Speaker 7 (23:38):
I mean creating what three words?

Speaker 6 (23:39):
Has been this kind of mind blowing journey where we
came up with this concept of three words for any
ten for square in the world. To have household name
status in our home country in the UK is just
astonishing and to feel like this is really now coming
alive in the US, it's just truly awesome. So the
fact that it's car makers, the fact that it's national parks,
we've now stas, we're in pretty much every fifty states now,

(24:05):
it really feels like, well three words is coming to
the US in a huge way, and that's brilliant.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Once again.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
That is Chris Sheldrick, creator of the app called What
three Words. I love this app. It's handy to have
on your phone. Get used to it, download it, and
you never know when you might need it, especially if
you like to hike or it's just we find useful
in this app. When my photographer and I are meeting
at a location, and let's say we're in like a

(24:31):
huge area where there's multiple entrances, I will share my
what three words location with him that's exactly where I am,
so that he can find me very easily instead of
trying to like walk all around looking for me.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
So I'll put a link up on the website. Just
go to Rich on tech.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Dot tv, hit the light bulb that will take you
to the show notes for this show and you'll see
in real time the link to what three Words. All right,
before we go to break here, let me just tell
you about this. If you have an older Samsung phone,
they are just on a roll here with this AI
stuff Galaxy AI. So rolling out now is the new

(25:07):
update for one UI six point one and this is
going out to the Galaxy S twenty two series, the
Galaxy Z Flip four, the Galaxy Z Fold four and
tab S eight users. These are phones that came out,
you know, two years ago, and they are now getting
the update for Galaxy AI.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
This means you're gonna get.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
My favorite favorite favorite feature called Circle. To search with Google,
you literally just press a hold on the home button
and then just scribble on anything on your screen and
that will search it on Google, whether it's a picture, text,
whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
It's really a cool way to search.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Chat Assist, which can translate your text messages, Live Translate,
no Assist, Transcript Assist, browsing Assist, Generative Edit, which means
you can edit your pictures using AI and AI generated wallpapers. Again,
this is all rolling out to the Galaxy S twenty
two series, so if you have an older Samsung phone,

(26:07):
this isn't your app update. This is actually a software
update that is in the settings, So check it out.
Go there and definitely download that because it's almost like
getting a new phone with all these new AI features.
First thing you should try doing is recording something with
the voice recorder and then using AI to summarize it.
It is quite quite incredible. Eighty eight rich one O

(26:28):
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. The website for the show Richontech dot TV.
You can find me on social media. I am at
rich on Tech.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Coming up, we're gonna get to those phone lines.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Let's go to John in Lake Forest, California. John, you're
on with Rich Hi Rich.

Speaker 8 (26:53):
The situation I have is my mom's eighty nine years
old on the East Coast and she's got a problem
with QBC, Home Shopping Network, KTV all the rest of them,
and how do I dabypoof for TV too? So she
can't get on those channels?

Speaker 1 (27:13):
What type of service is she using to watch these channels?

Speaker 8 (27:19):
Like you said, on the East Coast or whatever, the
local cable is, like Verizon, that's the local cable there.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Okay, so she's just using a cable box, yes, okay,
so like traditional cable comes into the house connected to
the box sort of.

Speaker 8 (27:34):
Thing, simplic TV.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Okay, got it?

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Uh, Well, look, without understanding exactly what Verizon offers, this
is gonna be something that you'd probably have to go
and do yourself, or do you have a family member
that might be able to go because This is gonna
be like a physical You're gonna have to go and
change some settings on there.

Speaker 8 (27:53):
I can have somebody. I can have somebody to do that.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Okay, So I think this is gonna be It's gonna
sound silly, but you're probably gonna have to elve into
prontal controls on this cable box, and inside those prontal
controls will probably be a way to block these channels,
almost like restricting the access to certain rating. But most

(28:15):
of them have a channel have most cable boxes, I
would say, and even streaming devices have a way to
lock out certain channels with a PIN. So I think
that's gonna be the best way to do it is
to go into settings and look for the prontal controls.
You said it was a Verizon box. Prontal controls, I'm
assuming they have them built into that box. You have

(28:36):
you tried looking for that, Yeah, it looks like they
do have it on Verizon TV. Go into Menus, Setting System,
p Rental Purchase Controls and follow the TV prompts to
create your pin and then you can decide from there
what you want to restrict on there. Have you talked
to mom about this and what's her response.

Speaker 8 (28:56):
Yeah, it's only five payments, five easy payments.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I mean, I get it.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
I've seen these channels and I'm you know, every time
I flip through, I'm I'm taken in. I want to
buy this stuff and I don't even need it, so
I get it.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
It's kind of like a world people get involved in, right,
I keep.

Speaker 8 (29:15):
Telling me, they do the super salespeople, you know, it's
it's just stuff that goes wow that I know somebody
who could use that And no, yeah, all right, it
was the menu settings and parental control.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, that's what I would look for and uh and
report back because I'm always curious, uh you know, if
that's the case. But I think you send someone over
there and just uh, you know, have them go through
the prontal controls and block out these channels. And I
don't think Mom's going to be that happy.

Speaker 8 (29:44):
Oh no, oh no, But that's okay, We're ready for that.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
It's it's wild how things come full circle here. You know,
parents have to have to take care of the kids,
and then the kids have to take care of the
parents at some point.

Speaker 8 (29:55):
Yep, yep, that's that's what we're trying to do here.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
All right, John, I appreciate the call. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Oh my gosh, that's uh, that's wild, that just happens.
Let's go to Seraphine in uh studio city. I know
you've called before or you've emailed before. Did I say
your name right?

Speaker 9 (30:14):
Correct? Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (30:16):
All right? What's going on today?

Speaker 9 (30:18):
Okay, I have an eye injury that's going to be
permanent forever. Well, that's exactly the same thing. And I'm
light sensitive on my computer. On my laptop, I have
a button that I while I'm watching something, if it
gets too bright, I can dim it or I can
go to the opposite direction. Okay, what I'm wondering is

(30:41):
there is there a television, a small television like for
a kitchen, with that kind of control on say the remote,
because sometimes I have to look away when the brightness
comes on it hurts my eyes. Oh often to see
if I could find something that I could live with.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, So I have not ever seen a TV with
dedicated brightness controls on the actual device, like physical controls.
Obviously all of them have them built into the settings.
But that's not what you want. You want something that
is a media and fast and you can just adjust
on the fly.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Correct, right, So.

Speaker 9 (31:25):
You know, within a couple of seconds, I can just
press the button and it dims it, and then when
the show comes back on or something or the scenes
get too dark, I can brighten it up again.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
So I don't think that that's going to be something
you're going to find a TV that has that dedicated.
You know, TVs are getting less buttons in general. A
lot of the new TVs you know, just have one
or two if any on the actual physical device. So
I don't think you're going to find a TV that
has that. I mean, you can go take a quick
look at best Buy and see, but I just I've

(31:57):
never seen a TV that has that, you know, functionality.
But with that said, there might be some ways that
you can program the remote to do it quickly. If
you have, like maybe a streaming device connected to the TV,
you might be able to use your voice to say
dim or brighten the screen.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
So you might be able to do that.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Or you might look into sort of a universal remote
that has a shortcut button on it and that way
you can assign that shortcut to do what you want
to do. I'm looking at Wirecutter for their universal remote
picks right now. Their top pick is called the Sofa
Baton and that is a sixty dollars remote, and so

(32:39):
that may be a nice way of doing it because
you can program tasks onto that remote. So that might
be a good way to do it if you want
just something that's simple. And then their other pick is
the Insignia eight device Universal Remote that's only thirty dollars.
They say the setup is a little bit tricky on
that one, and I'm not sure. I've got to look

(33:00):
at it a little bit more closely to see if
it has like a programmable shortcut button. But that's another
way to do it. I mean, the universal remote might
be the easiest way you can program that functionality of
dim or brightness into the TV. Have you looked around
for a TV that has anything like this?

Speaker 10 (33:16):
Excuse me say that again.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Have you looked at any of that?

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Have you gone to like best Buy and just taken
a look at the TVs to see if anything else?

Speaker 9 (33:22):
Yeah, I know this is just a fantasy in my head,
so because I've been getting very irritated with my TV.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, I understand.

Speaker 9 (33:31):
It makes the sofa, but that's all.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
It's just a company called Sofa Baton. So it's six company, Yeah,
sixty bucks on Amazon. You know, Logitech used to have
a really nice universal remote, but this other one, this
insignia is thirty bucks. It does look like they have
some action buttons. I think the problem is it may
be trickier to program. The sofa baton looks like it

(33:58):
has a companion app, which would make it a little
bit simpler to uh to program in like a quick shortcut.
So if you're willing to spend you know, a couple
of minutes to program this thing, you may be able
to program that. Universal remotes, in my experience, are just
tricky in general. They just kind of you really have
to spend some time with them to get them programmed properly.

(34:21):
And I don't know if you have that time to
deal with, but you know, that could be the best
way of doing this. The other thing is what about
just leaving the dimness? Is it is it too much?
Just leave it dim the whole time that like, maybe
go to like a white screen, see what what level
looks good to your eyes, and then lower that to
that level and leave it there. That might be the

(34:41):
other way to do it. Surfing, Thanks for the question today.
Eight eight eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight
seven four two four one zero one. Rich on Tech
dot tv is the website. My name is Richdmiro. We'll
have more of your questions and tech news coming up
right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich

(35:03):
on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking
technology at Triple eight. Rich one oh one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one is
the phone number to call if you'd like to talk
to me about technology. Website is rich on Tech dot TV.
Coming up this hour, we are going to talk to

(35:26):
Eli Blumenthal of Cnet. He's gonna explain how your cell
phone carrier tracks you and how to change that. Plus
I'll tell you why T Mobile and Verizon might be
buying a US cellular And Google's got a new smartphone
for just five hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
And it's actually pretty good. Let's go to Marcel in Brooklyn. Marcel,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 11 (35:50):
Good afternoon, Rich. I'm so sorry about your city on
the passing of Sam Rubin yesterday. Yeah, the prayers are
with him and his family work at KTLA over the years.
I've never seen Sam Ruben all in my life. When
I was here in New York as well too. Thoughts

(36:10):
and prayers, right, thanks for that, mister Sam Ruben. Now,
mister demo, I have a question about my social media
and their way to keep away from my hackers to
protect me everything I can, even my Instagram and threads
seriously activity the one thing is going to be controlled.

(36:34):
No one's hacking and even and I have to say,
I can tell you about my photos, my threads and everything,
et ceterud to keep away from all of it from
protecting themselves. So what can I do to keep away
from hackers and even the return of my Instagram and

(36:55):
threads from serious activity in not just one but it's
gonna be a so much, so much of it, so
use to FA and even the email as well before
not going to be the activatest. So what could I
do to keep away from hackers on my Instagram and threat?

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Okay, great question?

Speaker 1 (37:20):
And this is so number one, uh, the main way,
even if you have well number one, you got to
have two factor authentication. It sounds like you're aware of that,
it sounds like you have perhaps enabled.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
That on these accounts.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
But the actual thing that a lot of the hackers
get in number one, it's people reusing their passwords. So
you may be using the same password for Instagram that
you're using for some random website you signed up for
a long time ago. That information was leaked out on
the web due to a data breach, and now they're
trying that information on Instagram. That's one way that hackers

(37:56):
get in. Another way is they trick you, and so
they may trick you into a notification comes up on
your Instagram or your Facebook and it says, hey, you
are out of line. You posted something that is not
within the regulations of Facebook or Instagram. Please log in
here and dispute that. And people go, what what did

(38:17):
I post? And then they log in real quick, They
capture your they capture your password when you log in,
and then they log in on your behalf somewhere else.
Now Instagram does have some built in safeguards. They will
say are you sure you're logging in from some foreign
country somewhere halfway across the world, and you say, what, no,

(38:40):
And then that's one way that they may capture that,
but it doesn't always work. So the best way to
protect yourself is, like you mentioned, two factor authentication, but
also being aware of this because if you're not aware
that people are trying to get in twenty four to seven,
you could have some issues. You got to turn on
the two factor authentication. There are two ways of doing it.

(39:02):
You can use an app or you can use a
phone number. Now I personally think that the phone number
is old school.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
You should be using an app.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
That is the recommended authentication method at this point. What
you need to do is download an app. Some of
the popular apps are called Duo Mobile. There's also Google Authenticator.
Microsoft has an authentication app. A caller recommended an app
called two fas dot com two fas dot com, so

(39:35):
that's another way you could do it. But no matter what,
you download one of these apps, you link it up
with a one time kind of linkage.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
It's usually scanning a QR code.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
And then every time you want to log into Instagram,
not every time you open the app, just every time
you need to log in fresh, it will say, okay,
we saw that you logged in.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Now give us a code from that app. And the
idea is that the.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Bad people may have your password, but they don't have
the app on your phone that's generating this what's called
two factor authentication.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
So that is the best way to.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Protect it, along with being aware that hackers are always
trying to get into your account, and I'll tell you
they prey upon our good nature.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
So, for instance, the.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Other day, I got an actual notification from Instagram that
said they took down one of my posts because it
violated their terms of service. Now I've seen that a
whole bunch of times, and usually it's a hacker trying
to get my information, but this time it actually was real.
It said, we removed your post that I posted September sixteenth,

(40:43):
twenty twenty, and it was a little tiny image of
a post.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
I couldn't tell what the post was. And I said,
it said why, And I said why did you do this?

Speaker 1 (40:51):
And I said, we don't allow people to share nudity
or sexual activity. I said, what, I wouldn't post that
on my account, and examples of things we don't allow,
and I'm not going to say what they are, but
it's pretty specific what they sent me. And then it said,
you have freedom of expression. We want you to share
freely with others. We only remove things or restrict people

(41:14):
to keep the community respectful and safe. And I said, well, respectfully,
I would like a human to look this over because
there's no way I posted something nude or sexual on
my account, and it said, how did we make this decision?
Our technology found out your content does not follow our guidelines.
As a result, our technology took action. What does that

(41:35):
tell me? AI was going through old posts. Somehow something
in that post triggered their system to remove it. Now,
I said, I dispute this, and I would like a
human to look at it. And sure enough, a couple
hours later, it said, Hi, mister Demiro, we found our
technology made a mistake taking your post down. Thank you

(41:57):
for taking the time to request or review and helping
us improve our systems. Our priority is keeping the community
safe and respectful. Sometimes we have to take precautions, and
sure enough, my post is back up. I looked at
the post once it was back up. It was me
talking about the blood oxygen feature on the Apple Watch.
Nothing in there was sexual or nudity. Let's go to

(42:22):
Craig in Iowa. Craig, you're on with rich need going.
I'm doing fantastic. What can I help you with today?

Speaker 12 (42:30):
Okay, I have a Champion dollars twenty four, the little one,
you know, the nine hundred dollars one can I get
AI on my own. I had to have been Mobo
doing and what.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Okay, I lost you there at the end. But you
have the S twenty four. You said it was a
little one, but you said it was nine hundred bucks,
so's that's a good one. That's the there's three models
of the S twenty four. You've got the S twenty four,
the S twenty four Plus and the S twenty four Ultra.
They all have Galaxy Ai built in. And this is

(43:12):
a great question because it got me thinking, like, yeah,
how do you find the Galaxy Ai features that Samsung
is rolling out? I just mentioned earlier they rolled it
out to the S twenty three a couple weeks ago.
I mentioned that, and then today I mentioned that the
S twenty two series is getting it. So all of
these Samsung phones have it. How do you find it? Ready, Craig,

(43:35):
I am going to tell you. Go into your settings
on your Samsung device, and this is for all Samsung
phones if you have Galaxy Ai. So go into Settings
and then you tap Advanced Features. Okay, it might take
you a second to find that, and then you tap
Advanced Intelligence. And when you get there, you are going

(43:57):
to see you've got a whole list of AI features
and they explain each feature and you can tap to
learn more about it and see where to find it.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
So what are these features? I mentioned them earlier.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
On the phone app, you get real time translation during
voice calls. You can call someone in Tokyo. They can
speak Japanese and it will translate on your screen. Samsung Keyboard,
you can get spelling and grammar suggestions and translate messages,
interpreter live translation of spoken conversations available as voice or text.

(44:31):
In Samsung Notes, you can automatically summarize, correct, translate, and
generate covers for your notes. The voice recorder you can
transform recordings into text, transcripts and summaries, and Samsung Internet
will give you simple summaries of web page text along
with full translations. And don't forget about the photo editor.

(44:51):
You can reimagine photos by moving, removing or resizing people
and objects, and even generating new backgrounds. So again that
is all built into your phone. Go into Settings Advanced Features,
Advanced Intelligence, and that will give you all of those
features and tell you how to find them. Great question,

(45:11):
Craig in Iowa. Thanks for the call today. Eight eight
eight rich one Oh one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
I'll tell you why T Mobile and Verizon want to
split up US Cellular and how Google has a brand
new phone for five hundred dollars and it's a good one.
The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
My name is rich Dumiro. You are listening to Rich
on Tech. Let's go to Brad in West Los Angeles. Brad,

(45:45):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 13 (45:47):
Hi, Rich.

Speaker 14 (45:48):
So, my wife's traveling to Spain in France in the
next month with an iPhone fifteen plus pro sorry pro?
Is there anything she needs to do technology wise or
just keep everything running smoothly with text and email whatever
she needs to do out there?

Speaker 2 (46:07):
What service does she have? What cell phone service?

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Okay, So the way the way Verizon works is there's
really nothing you need to do. I mean, you may
you may need to turn on roaming in the settings,
But the way Verizon works is that they charge you
ten dollars a day for the service when you're overseas. Now,
is she on like an unlimited plan or what type
of plan is she on?

Speaker 15 (46:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Okay, So the good news about that is that you
can if you're linked into the the Verizon app, you
can go online and see how many days you get free.
So typically it all depends on the plan. But the
way the Verizon plans work is sometimes you will get
one day of roaming free for every month that you're

(46:55):
a subscriber. Some plans have more, some plans have less.
But the last time I checked, I had like fourteen
days for my last trip of free roaming for ten
dollars a day.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
So I mean, that's how much the value was.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
That's not how much it costs me, so the first
So this is my recommendation. What I would do is
either call Verizon or if you're logged linked into the app,
just go on the app and kind of look around
a little bit for the international section, and it should
tell you how many days of their Verizon what do
they call it international, like day pass or something. So

(47:31):
when you go there, it'll tell you, like, hey, a
travel pass, that's what they call it. So it'll say
you have ten travel pass days, and depending on how
many days she's going, that may cover it, or you
can just pay the ten dollars a day when she
gets over there. There's nothing really that you have to
do if you're going for the first time. I would
call Verizon and just say, hey, I'm going to be traveling.
I just want to be sure that this is going

(47:53):
to activate on my account. There's no block or anything
on that travel pass. Otherwise, you can get an eSIM.
It's a little bit more complicated, but that's another thing
you can do, is you can download an eSIM from
a company like Aralow, install that on her phone, and
then you can turn off the Verizon service or go
to Wi Fi only. The other thing I would do

(48:16):
is make sure that you have Wi Fi calling and
texting turned on before you leave. So make sure that
that's turned on, and that way most of her calling
and texting will route through Wi Fi when she's over there.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
And I mentioned that you should turn on roaming. I
think that.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
It's probably actually better to It sort of depends, like
I'm trying to remember the last time I went international
if I had roaming on or off. Because you don't
want to roam onto a different network and then get
charged from Verizon for roaming on that network.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
So let me see here. I'm going into my settings as.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
We speak, and let's see phone and let's see here,
where am I looking cellular there we go, so cellular
data you can go in there, and yeah, I would,
I would just check the roaming situation. I would go
on just Google like Verizon roaming on or off, but
for the travel past. But I think you want that

(49:12):
turned off as far as I remember, because that way
you're not roaming on different networks when you get there.
But I will tell you the roaming and the international
has gotten a lot easier in recent years. It's almost
seamless when you get to when she lands wherever she lands,
when she turns on her phone, it'll say welcome to
you know, whatever country you're in, this is Verizon, and

(49:36):
you know you're all good to go, so good question.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
It's it's a little.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Daunting because we all remember the nineties and the two
thousands where you would go to a different country and
you'd come back with a giant surprise bill two months later.
It happened to me in China once I was I'm
not kidding. I did everything right except I forgot to
turn off my dropbox up loloft codes and it only

(50:02):
uploaded like thirty six megabytes.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
But I'm not kidding. The bill was so expensive.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
I think I called at and T At the time,
it was my carrier, and I just was like, there's
no way I'm paying this, Like, you have to figure
out a way, and they actually backdated my international plan
and it worked pretty well. So things have gotten a
lot better, all right. Speaking of cellular carriers, T Mobile

(50:27):
and Verizon are in talks to split up US Cellular.
According to the Wall Street Journal, T Mobiles close to
a two billion dollar deal to acquire some of US
Cellular's operations and wireless spectrum. Verizon also in discussions for
a separate transaction that may or may.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Not happen, they says. They say US Cellular.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Has over four million customers, mostly rural customers in twenty
one states from Oregon to North Carolina. The company has
four thousand cellular towers, and we have seen a lot
of consolidation in the United States. I think that's why
one company is probably not going to take this over.
I think they're going to split it up between the two.

(51:07):
Kind of sad to see that final company go, but
it's not a done deal just yet. But it makes
a lot of sense. We will have three major carriers
in the US that will pretty much control everything, even
the smaller mv and os, the smaller carriers like the
Mint mobiles and all these companies, they're getting gobbled up
by the big companies as well. We just saw that happen.

(51:29):
T Mobile bought Mint Mobile. All right, coming up, speaking
of wireless carriers, Eli Blumenthal of cnet is going to join.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
He's going to talk.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
About how your wireless carrier is spying on you and
what you can do about it.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
You are listening to Rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
We'll get back to the phone lines in just a moment.
But joining me now is Eli Blumenthal, senior editor at cnet.
He covers all things wireless. Eli, welcome to the show.

Speaker 5 (52:00):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
So your latest article got my attention. It's called data privacy,
All the ways your cell phone carrier tracks you and
how to stop it. You say that data tracking in
twenty twenty four seems inevitable, So as a consumer, do
we have any sort of hope of maintaining privacy in
this digital age?

Speaker 5 (52:20):
We do, And that's some little bit of good news
there is that as much as it seems inevitable, these
companies do give you at least to varying degrees and
ability to control what data they're collecting from you, and
what you can turn on and turn off.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
The main thing is that a lot of people probably
don't go in and change those settings. Many of them
are on by default. And I'm guessing that the reason
you wrote this article is because of this new thing
T Mobile rolled out called profiling and automated decisions. Explain
what that means.

Speaker 5 (52:54):
Yeah, so T Mobile basically over the last month or
so has started to put this new pool in there
and that they're not necessarily using today, but that they
could use in the future to basically create profiles about
you and make some actions based off of that profile.
I was picked up by Reddit users and a website

(53:16):
called the Mobile Report, and it got me wondering what
other things are being tracked by these carriers and what
can you do to turn them off? And looking at
the major carriers at and T, Verizon and T Mobile,
you could pretty easily see that you have a host
of different things that they're collecting, and thankfully a host
of different things that you can turn off pretty easily

(53:38):
just by going into your account settings.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
So, first off, explain kind of like what these internet
service providers, for a lack of a better term, are
collecting and what they're able to see. I mean, even
if you're using something like in incognito window or a VPN,
will that protect you from what they see?

Speaker 5 (53:59):
It touched on some aspects of it. But because these
are providers, they have access to the actual pipe. It's
not just looking at one particular app or one particular browser.
It's the actual connection itself. So sometimes this will be
information like demographic data that they know about you because
you have an account with them. You gave them your age,

(54:20):
you gave them your location. It knows your zip code
and knows a whole host of information just from regular
day to day business aspects, and it puts that into
a profile. Other times they could look at, you know,
certain activities you're using their networks for if you're going
to say, websites for news, or you're watching a lot

(54:42):
of particular type of content. They're not necessarily capturing exactly
what you're doing, but they can make general assumptions because
you're going to YouTube dot com or you're going to
Netflix dot com. And having the ability in some of
these settings, you can actually provide a little bit of
a anonymity or take back some of that control.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
So you've got three major carriers, AT and T, T Mobile, Verizon.
Are there any settings that you think people should change
immediately or is it more of a preference thing.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
Almost all of these I think you should go and
and turn off. You're not really gaining much data there.
The biggest thing that will change is that the ads
that these companies show you won't be as personalized. And
I don't really know of anybody maybe maybe rich you
know of folks who like seeing more personalized ads. I
personally don't care for them. Most people I speak to

(55:36):
don't particularly care for them and would rather not have
their data being used the market of other services. That said,
some of these features should be left on, particularly something
called identity verification. AT ANDT and Verizon both have distinct
tabs that explain what this is, and it basically helps
prevent fraud, whether it's from a bank or for your account.

(55:57):
Leave that one on. That's actually pretty useful and pretty valuable.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
And of course I'll link up the article, the CET
article that explains you go through in the article exactly
what to change and how to change it once you
do this. Is there a way to fully opt out
of this or is there still some information that the
carriers collect.

Speaker 5 (56:20):
You can ever fully opt out. As I mentioned before,
they're still going to create profiles, but this is taking
a little bit of that control back and hopefully that
will allow you to own a little more of your
digital life in a way that these companies won't necessarily market.
You're still going to see ads that doesn't go away.
They're still going to be able to get information from

(56:42):
any number of other sources that they collect from, whether
it's other websites or services or partners. So these companies
still know a lot about you. They are still going
to know a lot about you, but maybe this gets
you a little bit more peace of mind.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Do you think the wireless carriers are enough to educate
and inform consumers about what they're doing and what they're collecting.
I'm assuming most of the time it's in an email
buried at the bottom, or a text message, or the
terms of service, or do they tell us.

Speaker 5 (57:16):
It would be great if they were more proactive about this.
As you mentioned, it's in the terms of service or
a privacy policy or buried somewhere. Maybe you'll get an email,
but you probably delete that email pretty quickly, or you
get a notification on your phone, swipe it away just
as fast as it comes in, if you even see
it at all. It would be great if companies were
more proactive, and that goes not just rewireless carriers, but

(57:37):
just our general providers that we use for everything from
social media to browsing to content consumption. It's always better
to have people be more active telling you what they're
doing with your data. But carriers aren't alone, and it
is nice to have, at least for the main carriers
and their main plans. I should note that people reach

(57:59):
out to me spensus article one life. I focus primarily
on the main plans offered by AT and T Rise
and that T Mobile. Obviously, there are a lot of
other smaller providers or prepaid providers, and some of those
carriers don't give you that much flexibility or control on
your privacy settings, so your mileage will vary. And it's
certainly nice though that the main providers on their main

(58:21):
plans allow you to have this level of control.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
So, if you're not very tech savvy, is there a
particular setting you think that you know, the simplest thing
you can do, the simplest change you can make for
the average person is or one thing that you'd recommend
to do.

Speaker 5 (58:35):
I would recommend honestly, since they're all generally bunched together
just logging in. If you log in and look at it,
it's not blanketed under one particular setting. It's not just
one on off switch. It's usually a few, as I
explained in the article, So there's not like a catch
all that could say turn this one off and you're good.
But once you log in you can very quickly see

(58:57):
exactly what's going on and make those decisions.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Now, Eli, I know you cover the big wireless carriers
pretty closely. The plans are always changing, the services are
always evolving, the pricing. Is there any difference between the
big three at this point? Do you feel like there's
a clear front runner when it comes to what they
offer at a particular price or is it all just
kind of what works for you and what system you're

(59:23):
already on.

Speaker 5 (59:25):
It's a lot of what works for you. The differences
between the big three providers AT and T, Verizon and
T Mobile is honestly, for most people in most places,
probably not that large. But what works for you and
Los Angeles and me and New York may not work
for one of your viewers in a more rural area,
for example. The benefit there is, especially with the rise

(59:46):
of virtual sin cards, is you can now with an
unlocked phone pretty easily pessed out Verizon or AT and
T or T Mobile for anywhere between two weeks to
a month, I think T mobiles case three months, and
see how that data performs for you where you live.
So I've had friends who were debating switching from Verizon

(01:00:09):
to T Mobile. They travel in an area where they
don't always get It's on an interstate, they don't always
get good service, and they're worried if they go to
T Mobile, would they lose service, would their experience be
that much worse? They tried this thing. After a couple
of months, they still kept their Verizon number, so text
called everything was still coming through, but they were able
to without giving a credit card, without adding anything or

(01:00:31):
changing too much on their phone, download this T Mobile
trial which T Mobile offers through their AT and tried
it out. They were happy with it, said some money
made the switch.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Eli Blumenthal, senior editor at CNAT what's the best way
for folks.

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
To follow you? I'm available on x or Twitter at
Eli Blumenthal and of course dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
I'll link up the article data privacy, all the ways
your cell phone carrier tracks you and how to stop
it on my website. Just go to rich on Tech
TV for the link. Eli, thanks for joining me, thanks
for having me or rich on Tech coming your way
right after this. Give me a call triple eight Rich
one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four two
four one zero one. Let's go to another rich Rich

(01:01:19):
in Colorado Springs.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 10 (01:01:23):
Thank you. Two questions for you. I am set up
for two factor authentication on my I fourteen, but most
of the time when I started and then it says, okay,
we're gonna send you a message back, you know, for
the second factor, I never get anything.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
It depends on the service. So sometimes that number that
is sending from could be blocked. Are using a standard
phone number or a like a Google Voice.

Speaker 5 (01:01:55):
Or something regular?

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
And is it with a particular service or is it
with all services?

Speaker 10 (01:02:02):
No, I've noticed that it's pretty much everybody. Once in
a while it'll work right, but usually it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
I would talk to your carrier and see if there's
any sort of block on texts, because those should be
coming through I know onmine I have issues with just one,
but it's only through Google Voice, not through my standard line,
so that shouldn't be happening on a standard phone line.
I would also the only other thing I would look
into is sometimes on your iPhone there's two different message banks,

(01:02:39):
and you could go into your settings and look for
a section called unknown senders, and the verification codes could
be in there, because that's where all mine live, and
there's a lot of them.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Scrolling down. I've got tons. What's the second question.

Speaker 10 (01:02:54):
How do I know if I should get a vp Internet?

Speaker 15 (01:02:58):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Good question.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
So VPNs are very heavily advertised and they're great for
protecting privacy, but in average you don't necessarily need one
all the time. Now, there are some reasons why you'd
want a VPN. Number one my rule of thumb is
to use a VPN if you want the most sort
of protection for what you're browsing, Like if you just

(01:03:23):
want to not deal with any company knowing where you're going,
what you're looking at, what you're doing, a VPN could
be a good way to do that. Now, you have
to also understand the quality of the VPN. There are
many many different VPNs out there. You typically want one
that's a no log VPN. And I did a segment
on VPNs and we had an expert that talked a

(01:03:45):
lot about this stuff. And by the way, VPN stands
for virtual Private network. So what it's doing is it's
creating a little tunnel that your data is. Imagine a
tunnel between your computer and the website that you're visiting.
So it's a little tunnel that is private, and nobody
can peer into that tunnel and see what you're doing.

(01:04:07):
So the reason I would recommend a VPN is if
you want to access things that you can't typically access
in the place you are. So for instance, when I
was in China, I couldn't access various social media networks,
so I used a VPN to get around that. The
other time you want to use a VPN is when
you are on public Wi Fi and you want to
protect what you're doing. Now, for most websites, I would

(01:04:30):
say a majority of websites, that is not necessary.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
But if you are checking your.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Your bank account, something like that, something that's very sensitive,
then you might want to use a VPN in that aspect.
But my recommendation is if you are on your smartphone.
Let's say you're at a hotel, you're on your smartphone
and you need to check your bank account. Instead of
being on the Wi Fi at that hotel, turn off
the Wi Fi and use your cellular connection and that

(01:04:58):
will be much more private than the Wi Fi connection
at the hotel. But in general, the web has gotten
a lot better about privacy, and the Web's gotten a
lot better about secure websites. So in general, it just
really depends. It's more people just want VPNs to feel

(01:05:19):
like they're being protected, and it's not a bad idea.
Like I've used one in the past, and I have one.
I just use it, you know, at the times when
I think I need to use it. And also the
other thing about VPNs is you can connect using different profiles,
so if you want to. For instance, I was testing,
someone said that on travel websites in Ireland they have

(01:05:40):
to display the total including tax and everything, all the
fees up front versus at the end when you get
to that final screen. So I was like, oh, that's interesting,
let me try that out, and so I fired up
a VPN. I said I was in Ireland using the
VPN because you can change your location and you know,
I checked out the website, the travel website, and sure

(01:06:00):
enough everything was added up at the beginning. So Rich,
those are my suggestions for the UH the use of
a VPN. But I would also check. I will link
up an article that I did about the top VPNs.
Let me just tell you what the the main VPNs.
Oh yeah, there's a lot of good information here. Because

(01:06:20):
the downside of a VPN is it could slow down
your connection. So you want one that supports the WireGuard protocol.
Look for one that works on all your devices. I
would not use a free VPN. They're typically not very good.
And the article also goes through a couple of recommendations
that this expert I talked to recommended for good VPNs, and.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
I will put that on the website.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Rich on tech dot tv and just click the light
bulb and that will bring you right to the show notes.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Let's go to UH. Let's go Let's go to Linda
in Burbank. Linda, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 16 (01:06:57):
Hey, I heard you mention how ag int Verizon. I
forget the name of the other one. You know, I'll
just say like a dictory, Yeah, are going to you
are going to eat up all the other cell phone
companies and they'll be the only ones. Well, what about
Pure Talk, what about Patriot Mobile? And what about Lively?

(01:07:19):
Lively that's mainly for senior citizens, That's what I have.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Yeah, great question.

Speaker 16 (01:07:24):
I know Pure Talk and Patriot Mobile are very popular
by conservative talk show hosts. They're they're national.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Yeah. Well, here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
These these little carriers with their you know, we say
little mv and o's Mobile Virtual network Operator. So the
way that these carriers work, they all run on one
of the big three networks. So even if you have
something like a Lively, if you go to their website
or you go to Wikipedia, it will tell you what
network that Lively works on. And the same thing with

(01:07:57):
Mint Mobile, the same thing with Cricket, the same thing
with Visible.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
They all run on one of.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
The main you know, three networks, whether that's AT and T,
whether that's Verizon or T Mobile. A lot of them
run on T Mobile and AT and T some of
them run on Verizon. So these mv and o's are
not going away anytime soon. So if that was the
way it sounded, part in my interpretation of that, what

(01:08:25):
I'm saying is that there are only three main pipes
in the United States. All of these other networks run
on top of those pipes, whether they advertise that or not.
You might see an advertisement where it says we run
on the big network or the big or the best
voice network in America, or the best data network or
the fastest. They all have different ways of kind of

(01:08:47):
signaling that. In the past, a lot of these mv
and os never talked about the network that they're actually
running on. But I've noticed more and more, Like we
had a Mobile X on the other day and he said, yeah,
we run on Verizon, which I was sup to hear
him say that because typically they don't say that, but
now they do.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
I guess, So that's what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
And the way that these mvn O is like, why
would you go with an mv and O, Why would
you go with a Lively over a Verizon. Well, it's
because Lively has certain specific features and pricing plans that
are very appealing to.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
A certain group of people.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
So, for instance, mint Mobile over the years was very
popular for their fifteen dollars plan, which people like a
fifteen dollars monthly fee that sounds amazing. Tello is another
mv and O, which I've been testing and I love
it because you can just have talk and text no
data for just a couple bucks a month. You can
literally build your own plan. So again, these mv and

(01:09:44):
os are.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
They compete on services and pricing and the different plans
and the different features, whereas the networks just run the network.
You are listening to Rich on Tech. It is a
Mother's Day weekend. I would like to give a shout
out to my mom. She listens to the show, and

(01:10:06):
so does my mother in law, Believe, and my wife.
Lot of women in my life and they are all
very special to me. Edison Research did a report about
moms and media in twenty twenty four. Moms smartphone ownership
has reached ninety eight percent, nearly full saturation. Forty seven

(01:10:28):
percent of moms own a smart watch, up from thirty
seven percent last year. Seventy five percent of moms have
wireless earphones or headphones, up from seventy one percent last year.
Forty three percent of moms are weekly podcast listeners and
eighty two percent have listened in the past week. Moms

(01:10:49):
spend an average of four hours and four minutes daily online,
mostly on their smartphone, and ninety seven percent of moms
use social media, with ninety six percent having used it
in the last week. Now, I have a funny story
about my mom. This week. She calls me out of
the blue and she's like, uh, well, actually it was

(01:11:10):
from a different phone number. It was from a New
Jersey phone number that I didn't recognize, but I figured, well,
it's New Jersey, I might as well pick it up.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
And so I pick up the phone. It's my mom.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
She said, Hell, did you recognize the number? I said, no,
who is this? She said, oh, it's my colleague's phone number.
And I was like, oh, okay, well what's going on. Well,
my phone doesn't work. It says simcard not recognized. I said,
what what are you talking about? My mom always calls
me with the oddest tech questions you have ever experienced,
Like nothing happens to her that is like ordinary. It's

(01:11:41):
always the most random things. Like the last time, and
I think I told this story on the radio. The
last time. It was like her Roku or her firestick
just stopped working and I had to go through all
these troubleshooting tips. And my brother went over there and
he said, yeah, the thing just burned up like it's
just done.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
I said, what who does that happen to?

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
So long story short, I'm like, I don't know how
to explain this to you, mom, but you've got to
pop that SIM card out and pop it back in.
Maybe it got unseated, which I've never heard of my
entire life. Like I've I've tested so many phones, I've
never had a phone that says simcard not inserted. The
only other thing I could think of is that she
pays for her wireless bill a year at a time

(01:12:23):
on one of those mv and o's, and so it
saves her money to do it that way. And I
was like, well, maybe your cellular service went out, you
know before, and said no, I just paid the bill
and I renewed. And I said, okay, well it can't
be that, So why don't you try popping this SIM
card out? So she says, well, I don't know how
to do that. I said, well, there's a little hole
in the bottom of the phone and you got to
pop in like a paper clip that you ondo. She goes, oh,

(01:12:46):
we tried that my teacher, you know, the teacher she
works with. We tried it. I said, what do you mean,
you tried it. Every paper clip I've ever used has
popped this thing out. She goes, well, it's a coded
paper clip. I said, well, you got to find a
paper clip that's not coded so it fits in the
little hole. She goes, well, there's two holes down there.
I said, well, one it's a microphone. One is the
simcard slot. Do not put it in the microphone hole.

(01:13:08):
So she goes, okay, we got it. We got the
they popped it out. I said, oh that was good.
I go, when you pop it out, just make sure
you look at how it's seated so that you don't
put it in.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
The wrong way.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
And so her friend, I guess, pops out the card,
pushes it back in, and all of a sudden, my
mom goes, oh my gosh, all my messages are starting
to come in. I said, really, this thing was physically unseated.
I've never heard of this in my life. And then
all of a sudden, I start hearing like something happened
in the background. I said, what are you doing now?
She goes, oh, my my colleague is blowing air into
the float to clean it out. I mean, it was

(01:13:42):
just the funniest thing sitting there listening to that, but
she got it to work. She was very proud of herself.
And I don't understand why these things happen to my mom,
But love your mom, Happy Mother's Day, and to all
the moms out there, you do an amazing job. And
I noticed that a lot of moms do have the technology.

(01:14:03):
They've got the smart watch, they've got the phone. And
I love having my mom personally send me. She is
my supplier of all of the scams that are happening
out there. Every day, she's got like an email that's like,
you know, someone's trying to get her personal information whatever,
and she forwards it to me.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
I'm like, oh, thank you. I've never seen this one before.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Speaking of mobile service, text Now is a company that
offers free mobile service like free calling and texting. But
now they're upping the ante. They are introducing a new
plan called Free Essential Data and this provides you with
free data for email, map apps, and ride share apps

(01:14:46):
along with unlimited calling and texting. They want to make
sure that customers never lose connectivity due to unpaid bills.
They say that people spend about two thousand dollars a
year on cell phone bills.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
Many lack emergency money.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Text now uses advertisers to pay for cell phone service.
So I have not tested out this service, but I'd
be curious how it works. I actually asked them to
send me a SIM card so I can test this out.
So the way it works, as I understand, is you
buy the SIM card, which is five dollars one time fee,
you pop it into your phone, and then you've got

(01:15:22):
unlimited talk and tech, unlimited talk and text, and I'm
assuming there's some sort of ads that are served up
in some way, but now you get this essential data.
So if you open up your email, you open up
a map app, or you open up a ride share app,
it will understand that and it will give you the
data to use those three apps or those three types

(01:15:43):
of apps. They gave some examples, you know, Gmail, Google Maps, Ways,
Uber Lift, but this is kind of neat. So you
can theoretically have voice calling, texting, and then these essential
apps that can get you around your emails, get your maps.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
All for free every month.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
And of course they're bigger play is to get you
to buy more data, so they have an hourly data
pass for ninety nine cents, daily data pass for five bucks,
and then a monthly data pass for forty bucks. But
they say that over eighty percent of Text Now users
are connected to Wi Fi most of the time, which
means you don't need an expensive data plan. And I

(01:16:24):
asked them if you can get these simcards in the store.
They said, no, you have to order it from the app.
So I've got the simcard on the way. I'm very
curious to try this out because this could be a
good kind of like if you just want like the
cheapest possible way to connect to the phone services. I mean,
this is like five dollars and then you have access
to talk, text and these essential apps. Anyway, I'll give

(01:16:47):
you an update when I get that and try it out.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
Google this week.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Launched a new smartphone called the Google Pixel eight A.
This is their most durable A series smartphone, so the
A series of the Pixel usually lags behind the standard
Pixel about six months. And this has a metal frame.
It's their budget device. It's got IP sixty seven water

(01:17:12):
and dust resistance. It's not the highest, but that's still
pretty good. It's got a scratch resistant display that's kind
of cool. And the price tag is incredible four hundred
and ninety nine dollars. Now you've heard me talk about
the Pixel before. I really love this phone because it
is simple, it has great software, and it's actually a

(01:17:33):
very smart smartphone. It's got the Google Ai features like
image search, voice typing. The voice typing is next to
it's the best available on a smartphone live translation at
a glance, which I just love.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
On the home screen or on the lock.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
Screen, I should say, it'll give you like information about
upcoming events and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
It's so handy.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
It's got the tensor G three chip, which is not perfect,
but it's the same chip in their latest Pixel eight
and Pixel eight Pro.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
It's got the.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Pixel camera, which of course is one of the best
point and shoot cameras available on a smartphone for basic
you know, every day just amazing pictures without a lot
of fuss.

Speaker 8 (01:18:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
I might argue that the Samsung is overall a more
powerful camera, but the Pixel camera is pretty darn good
if you just want to take a phone out of
your pocket and take a picture. Now, the coolest part
about this phone it's going to get operating system and
security updates for ready seven years.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
What is seven years from now? Are we talking.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Twenty twenty thirty one, twenty thirty one. You could buy
this phone and not have to think about getting a
new phone until twenty thirty one because you're you'll be
covered with security and software updates.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Also has a built in VPN.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
And it's just I can't speak highly enough of the
Pixel series. If you're someone that doesn't want an iPhone
right and you don't need a Samsung with all the
high end features, you just want something that's basic but
really good. The Pixel is incredible at that. And uh,
this is their brand new one Pixel EIGHTA. Do I

(01:19:09):
have the availability date? I think it's available next week.
I don't have the availability date here. Let me say
I know it's on pre order now, I think it's
available next week. So I have not gotten this into test,
but I requested a review unit from Google, and I
have no doubt that this is going to be a

(01:19:30):
great device.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Eight and eight Rich.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
One O one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. You can find me on social media.
I am at rich on tech, the website for the
show rich on Tech dot TV. I know I just
talked about that text now plan if you want to
check it out and get more information about anything I
mentioned here. Just go to the website rich on tech
dot TV. Hit the light bulb icon and that will

(01:19:56):
take you to the show notes immediately for anything that
I mentioned here. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The website
for the show rich on Tech dot Tv. There you
can hit contact to send me an email. That's what

(01:20:16):
Olga did in Burbank. Olga says, can you refer me
to someone who can unhack my Galaxy? A fifty one phone?
Someone hacked it at and T keeps giving me the
run around. Olga, I don't think your phone is hacked.
Although it can happen, I don't think it's very typical

(01:20:38):
for that to happen. More likely there's some malware on there,
downloaded something that you know is not working right on
your phone. But what I'd recommend if you do believe
that your phone is hacked, I would do a factory reset,
and so I would just I would do a recovery mode.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
That's that's what I would do. This is like full strength.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
So what you want to do make sure that your
important information is backed up. Let me say that again.
Make sure your important information is backed up. This will
erase everything on your phone. And so what you want
to do is turn your phone off. This is what
you do on Samsung. It's called recovery mode. You want
to make sure your phone is turned off, and then
you want to press the power button and the volume

(01:21:23):
up at the same time simultaneously until the Samsung logo appears.
And when this thing boots up, it's not going to
look the same as it typically does. It's not going
to open up into your phone screen. It's going to
open up into something called Android Recovery, and it's going
to look like an old school computer screen, and it's
going to have a couple of options on it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
It's going to say, reboot.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
System, apply update from ADB, apply update from sd card,
wipe data, factory reset, wipe cash, partition, view recovery logs,
run graphics test, run locale test, power off. What I
would do is wipe the cash and then I would
wipe the data slash factory reset. That will pretty much

(01:22:04):
get your phone back to a place where it is
completely pristine. Now, there may be someone out there that's listening, this,
says Rich What about the bios? Could it be you know,
could there be a malware in the in the firmware
of this phone. Yeah, there's a potential for that, but
I don't think that's what's happening here. That would be

(01:22:24):
really really tricky to get. So that's what I recommend doing.
And then once you do that, your phone will be
factory fresh, reinstall everything, whatever you need to do, and
I think that your hacking issue should go away. Thanks
for the email.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
OGA, Let's go to Gary and Laguna Niguel. Gary, you're
on with Rich.

Speaker 13 (01:22:44):
Yes, Rich, I got one of these watches here. It's
called a AM's. Yeah, it's kind of hard to pronounce
it because I always want to.

Speaker 5 (01:22:53):
Call it Amazon, oh Amaze fit and yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:22:56):
I thank you. It's what's called a b ip Repro
and a good friend of mine, Bob Allen, helped me
buy it last Sunday. And it is just confused that
for Jesus out of me.

Speaker 5 (01:23:08):
Okay, And the thing I.

Speaker 13 (01:23:09):
Want to know we're here, Rich, is this one if
you watches that you can get that does not need
a telephone hooked up to it. Because see, I'm a
full time nature photographer. I'm out photographing birds, butterflies, reptiles,
and so many times I'm out and I don't want
to carry my cell phone on me. I just want

(01:23:32):
to carry a minimum amount of equipment in my photo list.
But yet I do want to know how many steps
I've taken.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
So okay, well, question, are you using iPhone or Android
with S?

Speaker 13 (01:23:43):
I use an Android phone? Okay, I use an old one.
It's a Samsung Galaxy S tanny.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
Oh wow, S ten, we're going back away bit there
it works.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
Hey, look I always tell people, you know, I'm not
sitting here trying to sell you a new phone. If
your phone that you have works, keep using it as
long as the security is up to date.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
That's the important part. I'm not sure with. Yes, Okay, good,
But here's the deal.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
So this, this watch does not It will work without
a phone nearby, but it's not going to give you
your texts or cellular calls because this does not have
cellular built into it. So if you were ever in
a place where you're taking a picture out in the
woods and you know there's an emergency or you need
to reach someone, this watch would not do that. So

(01:24:27):
my recommendation is this is fine for you know, just
basics and a maze fit. Is you know, people like
these watches because they're inexpensive and they have the features
they need, like you said, and it basically looks like
an Apple Watch, but you're not going to get that
cellular connectivity. So if you want cellular, you got to
go with a watch that has a cellular connectivity built in,

(01:24:50):
and that is a watch from Samsung, a watch from Google,
the Pixel Pixel Watch, and also the Apple Watch, which.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Will not work with your Android phone.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
There may be some third party watches out there that
have it, but I know the recent watch I tested
from one Plus did not have cellular built in.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
So you have to.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
Decide when you when you have a smart watch with
your phone, that watch will function when it's not near
your phone. And it's confusing because when it's by your phone, yes,
you're going to get your texts, you may even get
your calls through that watch when you're near your phone,
but as soon as you leave the range, the Bluetooth
range of that phone, your watch is only going to
do things that it can do on its own without

(01:25:31):
a cellular connection, which is, you know, track your steps,
the different you know functionalities on there that all run
on the watch, and your watch may have WI Fi
on it as well, but out in the woods, Wi
Fi is not really going to help. So the bottom line,
if you want to get your calls and texts on
a smart watch and be able to use data away
from your phone anywhere, then you do need to get

(01:25:54):
a watch that has a cellular connection and that's in
you know, typically it's an LTE connection, so you have
to look it's a different version of the watch. Apple
sells a different version, Google sells a different version, and
Samsung they all sell LTE versions of their popular watches.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
That's what you want to look out for.

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):
Not everyone needs that, but I run a lot by
myself and I want that on my watch because I
want to go with just my watch. And also, if
you want to be less distracted, you don't want your
phone screen near you. You can use just your watch,
all right. Coming up, a guy who traveled the world
for a year just using AI. We're going to talk
to him about it. Coming up right here on rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro

(01:26:40):
here hanging out with you, talking technology. Five G home Internet.
This is a question that we get from time to
time on this show because they're being heavily advertised by
providers including T Mobile, Verizon, and AT and T. So
I figured all Connect which is a great resource for
all things like choosing plans and stuff. They had a

(01:27:03):
great article about five G home Internet, so if you
don't know what it is, it uses cellular networks to
deliver a fixed wireless internet connection to your house.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
So you buy this or you just basically get a box.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
It's almost like a hot spot but for your house,
so it takes that cellular connection and turns it into
Wi Fi for your house. Five G Internet speeds range
from twenty to one thousand, with upload speeds of ten
to fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:27:31):
So T Mobile five.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
G has speeds from thirty five to two hundred and
forty five megabits per second, Verizon five g's a little
bit faster, eighty five to one thousand megabits per second,
and then AT and T Internet Air five G has
up to one hundred and forty megabits per second. There's
also one called Starry Internet. It's available in much less places,

(01:27:55):
but they've got speeds ranging from two hundred to five hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
Now obvious fiber.

Speaker 1 (01:28:01):
Is going to be faster and more reliable, but five
G has you know, an affordable, no contract option, and
usually there's no data caps, although that may be changing.
So again, the providers here are T Mobile, Verizon, AT
and T and Starry. Prices are very good right now
because these carriers are trying to publicize this and try

(01:28:22):
to get people to sign up, So right now, price
or anywhere from thirty five to fifty dollars a month,
and if you're a subscriber of T Mobile, Verizon or
AT and T, you may get a cheaper plan. T
Mobile has sixty percent of the US covered, which is
pretty good. Verizon's offering it in a bunch of places,
and AT and T is only offering it where they
don't have their fiber network, and it's pretty limited compared

(01:28:47):
to T Mobile and Verizon.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
So bottom line, five.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
G may not match the speed you're going to get
from cable or fiber, but it's kind of a good
low cost option for someone who does not need extremely.

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):
High speed internet.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
So if you're considering, you know, trying to save money,
definitely look at these five G home internet plans. All right,
So Michael Motamedi traveled the world for a year using
AI as his guide.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
Michael, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
Hey, how are you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
I'm doing fantastic, So tell me we talked. It must
have been a year ago at this point you used
an AI tool called guide Geek. Right, so explain to
me kind of how this call came about, Like, what
what made you do this?

Speaker 15 (01:29:32):
Yeah, I mean it's actually been a year. Just got
back to the States about a month ago. It's been
a crazy twelve months. I'm in a crazy experiment really,
just to kind of see how it would be to
have AI control where we travel and what we did
when we got to those destinations. But guy Geek is

(01:29:53):
a pretty cool app. After using it for a year,
I feel like I'm somewhat of.

Speaker 10 (01:29:56):
An ex Kurt.

Speaker 3 (01:29:58):
But yeah, it's all through.

Speaker 15 (01:30:00):
Or Instagram messengers, so there's no app to download, which is,
you know, obviously a huge benefit. But it's been pretty
nuts man.

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
And you traveled with your family, right, didn't you take
your wife and kid?

Speaker 5 (01:30:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:30:12):
Wife and daughter all the way around everywhere everywhere I go,
they go.

Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
And how many places did you go?

Speaker 15 (01:30:18):
Oh my gosh, I can't even count, but I think
it was a rat I mean from a country perspective,
I think it was around nine to ten countries.

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
Oh, my gosh, but place wise you were. I mean
I watched I watched your journey, and I'm not kidding.
You are a very brave man with the stuff you
were eating on your Instagram. I I just what was it?
One of them like live worms or something. I don't know,
it's just like tongue or either.

Speaker 3 (01:30:43):
There was a duck embryo.

Speaker 15 (01:30:46):
Called Ballot which was in the Philippines, a very international
one of their national dishes, which was actually pretty fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
Okay, I shouldn't be saying, oh that's my personal but
I get it these things. You know, people eat all
kinds of stuff. Okay, So that was.

Speaker 15 (01:30:58):
One, and there was another one where it was like
just an eel restaurant, all different eels, served ten different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
That's the one.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
I saw it, catch it right in the water. They
were in this bucket just all it looked like a
bunch of giant tongues. It's like moving around and then
all of a sudden you're eating it. I'm just like, okay,
I I can't right now. So okay, so tell me,
like how this worked. So every morning, let's say you
were in like Morocco, would you just say, like, hey, guy, geek,

(01:31:30):
like what's the coolest places to go?

Speaker 2 (01:31:32):
Like, how did you prompt this? Ai? And how how
accurate was it?

Speaker 15 (01:31:36):
Yeah, so I think when we started this journey it
was just like that. It was like prompting it in
very you know, normal ways, somewhat like how you would
use Google.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
Right.

Speaker 15 (01:31:45):
As time went on, we wanted to get more and
more creative with the way that we prompted it. We
realized that there's a lot of different ways where you
can kind of have a conversation with guy geek. In
some places like Spain, for example, I would say, hey,
pretend you're Anthony and Bourdaine and plan me a day.
What would you do if you were Anthony Bourdain in
Spain and it planned this awesome day?

Speaker 16 (01:32:06):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Wow?

Speaker 15 (01:32:08):
Super super creative with the way that you prompt guide geek.
It's not just hey, tell me that the best pizza
place right right, Like, pretend you're whoever and now let
me experience the city like that, you know, Or Hey,
I have a hundred in Paris and I have one
hundred bucks to spend in Paris, which obviously we all

(01:32:28):
know is not a lot of money in Paris, I said,
I have one hundred dollars for the rest of for
one day, plan my day, and it planned this awesome,
cool day, you know, So it's super super interesting. I
think this is definitely where the future is going to
be going, especially because it's just the ease of being
able to go into your pocket, right and it's a tool,

(01:32:49):
it's not it's your friend.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's weird because it definitely
feels that way with the way these ais talk to us.
I mean, it's just it don't almost like to me.
I always think it's like almost like the smartest person
you can have a conversation with because they just know
everything about everything.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
Yeah, And I actually used that tip.

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
I was in New York City last year and I
was looking for a restaurant and I asked, Ai, I
forget what I was using, and I think I might
have used a little bit of guy Geek and a
little bit of like Google. I think it was called
Bard at the time, obviously, but I said, like, give
me a list of all the restaurants that Bobby Flay
likes in New York City, and I think it was
Italian and then also Giata and I said, now cross

(01:33:30):
reference them and give me the ones that they both like,
and it came up with like two places and I
picked one and we had a great night.

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
So it is interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:33:39):
Yeah, I mean it's it's funny how you can get
really you know, unique and I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:33:44):
Know specific with these things.

Speaker 1 (01:33:45):
So was it accurate, Like did it actually like I'm
sure there are some things where it told you were
like I can't really do that, or like how good
was it?

Speaker 10 (01:33:54):
You know?

Speaker 15 (01:33:54):
For the most part, it was pretty bang on. Obviously,
there are some you know, some improvements that they're making constantly, right.
I think they made a major improvement by now pulling
all the locations from the Google Maps API, which makes
sure that they're open. You know, there were some times
in the beginning where you know, the place wasn't open
anymore information, so I'm glad they fixed that.

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
And yeah, I mean from it it also.

Speaker 15 (01:34:20):
For me it was great because I'm a little bit
of like a I don't know, a knowledge freak where
I just like to know everything. So I'll be at
a restaurant, I'll ask the history of the restaurant. You know,
even in.

Speaker 8 (01:34:32):
Spain, I spent the day like.

Speaker 2 (01:34:34):
Picasso, So how did you do that? Explain that.

Speaker 8 (01:34:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:34:39):
I mean they basically said, hey, you're pretending. Oh I
actually did Salvern Dordali as well too. I said, pretend
you're Salven Doardalis and what would you do if.

Speaker 3 (01:34:47):
You were in Spain for a day?

Speaker 15 (01:34:49):
And it sent me to his favorite bars.

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
I love it. That is so wild.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
I love the idea of like kind of the role playing,
like you know this person who's in there, and you
kind of get where is guide geek pulling this information?

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
You said it gets the Google Maps api?

Speaker 1 (01:35:05):
Like is it just kind of like program like explain
for something that may not understand, Like why why is
this better than like just searching Google?

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
Like you know, why why would it be different?

Speaker 15 (01:35:15):
It is based off a chat GPT model, but with
guyde Geek, which is really cool about it. They do
have actual human intervention to ensure that you know your
stuff is up to date and making sure that it's
travel oriented right. And there's also the ability to even
book flights through WhatsApp.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
Now oh wow, So it's awesome.

Speaker 15 (01:35:37):
And I mean I even use it as a translator
at one point as well too.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
And so to start this you go to like guide
geek dot ai on Instagram and then you say chat basically.

Speaker 15 (01:35:49):
Yeah, So you can either message it or you can
just go to the website and then it'll message you
on WhatsApp as well too. You can message it on WhatsApp.
I use it on WhatsApp just because it feels so
much more natural for me. But I guess you know,
people nowadays actually use Instagram DM as a form of
communication as well.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
It does well.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
I mean, whatever, hey, whatever works, whatever you have installed,
why not exactly tell me about the podcast you're now
doing a podcast about all this.

Speaker 15 (01:36:16):
Yeah, actually the podcast is not about the AI. It's
it's actually called No Fixed Address, The World's Most Extraordinary People,
And it's like the one of the only podcasts that
I know of that's on the road. So we literally
meet and my wife, who's the producer and co host
on the show, lug around a suitcase into the middle
of the villages of the Philippines or into the hills

(01:36:37):
of the rice fields in Indonesia, and we go to
the place where these extraordinary people live and work and
have a real time conversation with them and actually be
able to tour their facility or see what they do
for a living and how we ended up getting here
in the first place.

Speaker 12 (01:36:52):
It's it's pretty it's.

Speaker 15 (01:36:53):
Pretty crazy, actually, I mean there's no studio, there's no nothing.

Speaker 5 (01:36:56):
We got mics, we.

Speaker 15 (01:36:57):
Got a mixer, we've got a computer, and we got
two I Fi and we filmed.

Speaker 2 (01:37:01):
That's amazing. I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:02):
And I'm sure you are following the news about what
Apple launched with their you know, their camera app with
Final Cut Pro on the iPad. You can now link
up those two phones and use it as two different
angles for your video and and you know, it's like
a whole production facility inside an iPad. Now, it's pretty incredible,
like multi Cara shoes. Yeah, it's it's something to look into.

(01:37:23):
Michael Motameti. How do people find you on social media?
What's the best way to follow you and your adventures?

Speaker 15 (01:37:28):
Michael Mosameti. So Michael M I C H A E L.
Last name Motamedi m O T A M E b I.
The latest podcast episode is out now. We actually just
did an interview with Macy Gray Grammy Award winner Macy Gray,
which is pretty fun.

Speaker 1 (01:37:42):
Oh wow, very cool and I've definitely enjoyed watching you
travel for the past year.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
Where are you off to next.

Speaker 15 (01:37:49):
We are actually we haven't made the announcement yet, but
we are on our way to curse ow.

Speaker 2 (01:37:54):
Oh wow. That be really really fun, amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
I love it, and I love the fact that you're
able to do this and continue to bring us the
weirdest stuff that you've eaten in all of these different countries.
So thank you for doing the stuff that I personally
won't do because I'm too scared. There you go, one
hundred percent, Michael MOTAMEDI thanks so much for joining me today.
Check it out guide geek dot Ai. I'll link it

(01:38:16):
up on the website and his podcast as well. Richon
Tech dot TV just hit the light bulb.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:38:23):
Coming up, we are going to do a couple more items.
Disney Hulu and Max are teaming up. There's a security
update for iTunes on Windows, in an iPhone scam you
don't want to fall for. Plus the feedbag segment you
are listening to rich on Tech. Let's get through a

(01:38:44):
couple items here. Before we get to the feedbag, Disney
Hulu and Max announce a streaming bundle partnership. Can you
believe this? Disney and Warner Brothers collaborating to offer a
streaming bundle that includes Disney Plus Hulu and Max. Now,
these are two separate companies, but they are teaming up

(01:39:04):
to offer a streaming bundle otherwise known as in the
past cable tv.

Speaker 2 (01:39:10):
So we've come full circle here.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
There will be ad supported and ad free options. Pricing
and details are not announced, but it will launch in
the US this summer. I'm expecting the pricing to be
attractive at first. And by the way, all these streaming
companies want you to pay for a year in advance now,
and they want you to pay for a yur in
advance so you save the most money. But let me

(01:39:32):
tell you why they want you to pay for a
year in advance, because guess what you are going to
forget when that renewal time comes up and now you
have exactly a day to cancel or whatever, because now
you're gonna get charged for a whole year in advance
on that next time and you're like, oh, I'll just
let it ride. Instead of every month, if you're doing
something by the month, you have every month to cancel this,

(01:39:55):
you only have a little window every year where you're
probably gonna forget and you're gonna get ding for another
year there, Apple has released a security update for iTunes
on Windows. As you might remember, Apple has launched standalone
apps for Apple Music and Apple TV.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
But if you still want to get podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
Or use iTunes for something on Windows, there's still iTunes
as a standalone app. It's version twelve point thirteen point two.
There is a security vulnerability in the app, so if
you have iTunes for Windows still installed on your system,
check for updates using the app.

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
If you installed it through.

Speaker 1 (01:40:32):
The Microsoft Store, it should automatically update. But again, if
you're using iTunes on Windows, check for a security update.
And speaking of the iPhone, don't fall for this new scam.
It's called the iPhone activation lock scam. Basically, if your
phone is lost and it's locked, you might get a

(01:40:53):
text from someone claiming they have access to your personal information.
They say, oh, we have your phone and we found
it and we just want to erase it. So just
you know, they try to urge you to remove your
iPhone from your Apple ID so that you know your
information is safe. But what they're really trying to get
you to do is get rid of activation lock. Because

(01:41:14):
let's say someone steals your iPhone and you report it
as lost or stolen. A person who finds that iPhone,
they can go through the whole motions of factory resetting
if they know what to do. But when they try
to activate that phone, it's gonna say sorry, there's an
activation lock. You got to contact this person to get
that lock removed. So that's what they're trying to do.
They're trying to trick you into removing that activation lock,

(01:41:37):
and once you do, they then have full access to
your device. They're not going to have your personal information
per se, but then they can now set that device
up as their own. So if anyone says, hey, you know,
we found your phone, can you please take off this
activation lock so we can you know, save it for
you and make sure everything's safe, do not listen to them.

(01:41:57):
That is the part that is the scam. If your
phone is tied to your Apple ID, your personal data
is safe and the stolen device is useless to thieves.
And by the way, you might also want to enable
the new stolen device protection that Apple has enabled. All right,
let's get to the feedbag. This is a combination of

(01:42:20):
your feedback and also the mail bag. I call it
the feedbag, And so let's get right into that. Let's see.
This one's actually funny. This is from my mother in law.
She said, Hi, Oh, whoops, never mind, I thought it
was feedback. It's actually a question, so I got it.
That's another segment.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
Let's see Richard in Hilton, New York. Interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
A couple weeks ago, you mentioned an earbud that was
selling for about one hundred and twenty dollars. I thought
to myself, I have an earbud, the best I ever had,
for ten dollars. It's called the new Bee, available on
Amazon and Walmart. I use it only for a connection
to my PC and iPad. I do not use it
with my cell phone. But it's very clear, excellent range,
holds a charge forever. It's the best I ever had.
Love your show, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
I haven't tried it, but Richard says, the new Bee
on Amazon and Walmart for ten bucks. Why not? Let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
Oh my gosh, there's so many emails here, Michael says,
your caller wondered if one hundred slash five is enough.
My experience, most people think they need way more than
they actually do. My elderly parents have had thirty down
five up for two to three TV streaming twenty four
to seven. I'm always amazed at how much data they use,
over one terabyte a month. With these slow speeds, you

(01:43:35):
could have asked if anyone in the home was a gamer,
as they're more sensitive to the latency of congestion.

Speaker 2 (01:43:40):
Yes, that is very true.

Speaker 1 (01:43:43):
And let's see here. Okay, there's just yeah, there's just
too many questions here.

Speaker 2 (01:43:51):
Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
Here's a comment, Franklin says in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thanks so
much for all the great info, Rich Franklin, and Bruce
in San Diego says, Hey, Rich, I followed your advice
and I checked Google for the dark web. Everything turned
up clean. Also, I was able to add a two
step verification to my account. Thanks again, Bruce and San Diego.

(01:44:12):
All right, that is going to do it for this
episode of the show. Next time, I'll be more organized
for my feedback. Caught me off guard. There you can
find links to everything I mentioned on the website. Go
to rich on tech dot tv. You can find me
on social media. I am at rich on Tech.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
Next week it is Google Io.

Speaker 1 (01:44:27):
I can't wait to hear about all the goodies they
are going to launch when it comes to AI. Thanks
so much for listening. There are so many ways you
can spend your time. I do appreciate you spending it
right here with me. My name is rich Demiro.

Speaker 2 (01:44:38):
I'll talk to you real soon

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Apple's New iPads & A Free Cell Phone Plan