Bitchat explained, sports card tech & a must-have security app (132, Aug 2, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The new messaging app that works offline, the list of
jobs that AI will impact the most and the least,
a visit to the Tesla Diner in Hollywood, plus your
tech questions answered. What's going on. 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

(00:22):
know about. It's also the place where I answer your
questions about technology. I believe the tech should be interesting, useful,
and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at triple
eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven
four two four one zero one. Give me a call
if you have a question about technology. Eight eight eight

(00:43):
rich one oh one. Email is also open. Just go
to Rich on tech dot tv and hit contact rich
on tech dot tv hit Contact. Guests this week include
Scott Budman Palamne up in San Francisco. He is the
Emmy Award winning tech and business reporter for NBC Bay Area.

(01:06):
He's going to talk about all the latest stuff that
he's tracking up there Gui La Fair from Presto Presto AI.
They are putting AI in those little drive through order
call boxes at fast food restaurants.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
He'll talk about how AI is changing that world.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
And later in the show, entrepreneur Lily Vita vita Ya
rus School, founder and CEO of water Lily is going
to join to discuss how families can plan for long
term care and you guessed it, how AI is helping
predict future health needs. Well, this is a very special

(01:44):
weekend for me and my family. My mom is in
town number one, which is very exciting. Arrived yesterday, last
minute thing, and you know, she gets off the plane.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I was like, how was it.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
She's like, well, it was great, except no, the whole
time I couldn't watch anything on my phone.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I said, well, what happened? Well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Every time I take out my Bluetooth headphones and you know,
put them near my phone, they connect. This time they didn't.
I said, well, was your phone in airplane mode?

Speaker 2 (02:12):
And she said yeah. I said, well, the Bluetooth is
probably off. So she sat there.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I said, what about the seatback, you know, did you
watch anything on there?

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, I didn't want to break anything. Mom.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
You're not going to like, you know, mess up the plane.
You're not commanding the plane from your seatback entertainment. So
she didn't want to touch the seatback entertainment. So she
just sat there and read the whole time, which I
guess is fine, but I was cracking up also.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
So this is kind of a long story, but long
story short.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
I booked her in a premium class because it was
the same miles as economy class, and so I told her,
I said, look, you get a meal, you get booze
if you want it, you know, so here's what you do.
You get on the plane, you have a glass of wine,
you have your meal, and then you go to sleep.
Because she loves to sleep on the plane, and so
I said, don't sleep right when you get on and
so she goes, okay, okay. So I said, did you

(03:01):
gut your glass of wine? She goes, no, they didn't.
They didn't offer it. I said, what do you mean
that they're not going to offer it to you. They're
not going to tell you because it would cost the
airline billions of dollars if they said, oh yeah, here
you can have a free drink, but you get it
if you ask for it. Anyway, so she didn't get
the alcohol, but she did have her meal. And it
just cracks me up. My mom is she's a hibernator.

(03:22):
Flyer like some people just hibernate when they fly, Like
they get on the plane, they get in their seat,
they hunker down, and they don't do a thing. They
don't get up to go to the bathroom. They don't
do a thing. They just sit there. And that's how
she is me. I take advantage of everything. I like
to walk around. I'll walk to the front of the plane,
the back of the plane, I'll stand there, I'll do
some stretching exercises. I'll take advantage of all the food

(03:42):
and drink I can anyway, and it always has to
be an aisle seat for me. It's also my son's
birthday weekend. Oh my gosh, my son is turning fourteen
this weekend, which I cannot believe. Yes, I know, Parker,
Happy birthday. It's just unbelievable because I still remember driving

(04:03):
home from the hospital with my son. I couldn't believe
they allowed me and my wife to just exit the
hospital with a kid. I was like, this is a
human being. We're going to take care of him.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
Now.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
We had a whole team of people at the hospital.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Now it's just us and I drove down Santa Monica
Boulevard so slow, you would not believe. You could probably
push a car faster than the way I drove because
I was so nervous.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
And now he's fourteen.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
He's telling me he has a year and a half
before he gets to start driving, which I can't believe.
But the best part is this morning we went through
all the pictures on Google Photos.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
You put him up on the TV, and it's just amazing,
Like it truly is.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
The idea that you have this memory bank on your
phone that you can just access at any time and
bring you right back to that moment was just incredible.
So that was really cool. And I also use Google
AI to ask a couple of questions. I'm not kidding.
If you are not using Google AI to tap into
the data that you have in Google, you are not
experiencing life life, because it is quite impressive. So I

(05:03):
just asked, you know a couple of things about my son,
like when was he born? It knew the date exactly, obviously,
I knew that I was trying to figure out the time.
It couldn't get that right, but it did get the date,
and it got all the other surrounding information just perfectly.
And then I also asked my someone was asking me.
A family member were saying, Hey, what hotel did you
stay at in New York City when you stayed last time?
And I couldn't remember the name. It was like the

(05:24):
trip before the last and so I asked Google. I said, hey,
what was the name of that hotel I stayed at
in your Washington Park in New York City?

Speaker 2 (05:31):
And it got it. I could not believe it. So
here is my new thesis.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
The AI that will win in the future is the
AI that has access to your data.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
So everyone is all.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
You know, Google has an early lead because they've got
access to our data. Chat g Ebt has an early
lead because it's just really good, but it doesn't have
access to all of your data. Apple has been really
kind of knocked around right now because they are not
good with anything with AI.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
But here's my new theory.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
They will have no problem because guess what, so many
millions upon millions of people have all of their data
stored in Apple mail, in messages and in photos and
in notes. So Apple has secretly been building one of
the best AI databases. They just need the right AI
to be able to tap into that. So I know
Apple has been kind of you know just washed around,

(06:21):
knocked around for not having the best AI. But once
they do and they figure this out, they will take
a very commanding lead in this AI world because they've
got access to the data. When you could just ask
your iPhone, hey, what was that hotel I stayed at
in New York City last time? Or Hey, show me
my best picture from Hawaii. And it's able to do that,
which it can do little pieces of that, it will.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Be very very powerful.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Let's talk about this new app that has just been
kind of commanding the tech world, at least in my world.
It's called Bitchat. Yeah, the name is kind of interesting,
but once you get past that, the tech behind it
is really quite incredible. So this is a new messaging
app from Jack Dorsey. You might remember that name. He's
the co founder of Twitter. He also founded Square cash

(07:07):
app and also blue Sky as well. He was an
early founder of that as well. He says he coded
this app over a single weekend, using AI to help.
Now it's officially live in the iOS App Store, so
you can download this in iOS for the iPhone. And
here's what makes this app so unique. It does not
need Wi Fi or cellular data to work. It lets

(07:30):
you message over Bluetooth Mesh networking. So you open up
the app and if someone nearby also has the app,
you can chat with them instantly, no sign in, no account,
no phone numbers. It's pretty amazing.

Speaker 5 (07:44):
Now.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
The interface is very bare bones. You just open it
up and whatever you know, whoever's around, is instantly in
that group chat. So you can change your username if
you want, just by tapping it. Messages go away by default.
They're sort of ephemeral. They are encrypted. But think about
it this way. You're turning wherever you are into a
pop up chat room. Think about the power of that.

(08:08):
You are at a club boom, you're chatting with everyone else.
You're at a music festival concert boom, you're chatting with
everyone else. Stadium, you're chatting with the people in there. Hike,
you can chat with the people around you even without
a signal. On a plane, you can chat with everyone
that's on that plane. I mean, this is really transformative.
It's kind of it's one of those ideas that you're like, Okay,

(08:29):
that's interesting, but how how can I use that?

Speaker 6 (08:32):
Right?

Speaker 1 (08:32):
This is going to take time for people to figure
out why it's so powerful. Now Bluetooth powered messaging has
been used in the past. Right, there's an app called
bridge afy which is still available. I downloaded it yesterday.
It does work. What's interesting about this is that this
one is a little bit more anonymous and a little
bit more instant.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Like the Bridge of File.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
You have to log in, sign up all that good
stuff Bitchat, you download it, you're off and running. And
they just released a new feature. They just updated the
app where now if you're not in Bluetooth range on bitchat,
you can still chat with your favorites, so you can
mark someone as your favorite and your messages will go
over the internet as well. So now it's kind of
getting into it, even bigger app where it can do

(09:14):
stuff locally but also globally. Okay, so limitations of course,
you know, Bluetooth only travels so far. My estimations are
maybe one hundred to one thousand feet depending on the
mesh network ability of this app. So we'll see what
happens there. And if nobody else is using the app,
it's kind of worthless because nobody's there to chat with.

(09:37):
Now I've opened up this app in a bunch of
different places so far, I've yet to find one bitchatter
in the wild, but I think that'll change now. I
posted this to my Facebook page, and of course the
comments came in fast and furious. One person said, this
is just picto chat from the Nintendo DS. I guess
that worked over land. Someone said why message people nearby
when I can just talk to them again? You got

(09:58):
to think of the powerful nature of this. This person said,
it's completely useless off the grid. Will they just change
that with their latest update. Another person said, rich, you're drunk,
go home. And that may be true at times, but
not right now. I'm talking about something that I think
is really really interesting. Of course, if you're on Android,
do not download Bitchat from the play Store. There are

(10:20):
no official versions just yet, there are fake versions. If
you want to get the official version, you have to
download an APK. If you're not sure what that is,
don't do it because it requires a little technical know how.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
You can easily be tricked. So if you know what you're.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Doing, you can go to the Bitchat website and download
the APK from GitHub. If that all sounds foreign to you,
don't do it. Just wait for an official release there.
I think this is fascinating, a new way to message
people anywhere you are, pop up chat rooms. I say,
download it, try it out. Obviously, security, privacy and abuse
implications gore.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
But this is really really interesting.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Heyda Da rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
four two four one zero one your calls after this.
Welcome back to rich on tech rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at Triple eight rich one
on one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. Mom's in town. Yes, she did the

(11:17):
playlist back by popular demand. Last time my mom programmed
the playlist for this show. I got a lot of
emails saying rich you should be fired, which really hurt me.
But I'm fine.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
You like her music, but uh yeah she picked the
music this week. She put a lot of effort into it.
So enjoy.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
By the way, rich on tech dot tv is the website.
If you want links to anything I mentioned. I know
I talked about the bitchat app. If you want the
link to download that, you can go to the website
and get that. Make sure you do like the official
links because anytime there is a new hot app, there
are always what I call Klingons. You know they advertise
in the app store they have similar names. You got

(11:59):
to be very, very very careful that you don't just
download something random when you share an app name, because
you know it could potentially try to steal your data
or payment method or whatever. We saw this happen with
chat Gibt in a big way when that came out,
So just make sure you're getting the official app the website.
Rich on tech dot TV, I put the official link.
This is episode one thirty two, so you can find

(12:20):
it there. All right, let's go to Stanley. Stanley's in
Northwest Ohio.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 7 (12:30):
Hello, Rich, always enjoy your show, my friend.

Speaker 6 (12:33):
Thank you.

Speaker 7 (12:34):
You were beginning to speak about chat, GPT and those
kinds of things, and I wanted to ask if you've
ever heard of the platform po poe like Edgar allam Poe.
To me, it looks like it's a combination or a
plethora of other chat sites and it pulls the best
from other platforms. Do you know anything about poe as

(12:58):
a search engine?

Speaker 5 (12:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Ai, yeah, this is this is actually started by the
people who started Quora, that question and answer website.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
So it's uh, it's you.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Know it's from a notable company and yeah it's it's
basically all AI in one. So I actually had this
downloaded to my computer at some point when AI first started,
and it basically lets you choose from various like pretty
much any AI that you want.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
You can you know, ping it and ask it a question.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
You can ask the same questions to different AIS see
how they respond, so it kind of is an all
in one product. The advantage, I guess is if you're
really into comparing what these things can do the powerful nature,
or you like one one AI for one thing, another
AI for another. I believe there's also some paid upgrades,

(13:45):
so you can't necessarily use all the features without paying
for some of this, which is fine. Most of these
ais you can use them on a free level, and
then you might have to pay for you know, extended
use or you know, extra questions or things like that.
The advance, I guess is if you like to compare
and contrast, or if you like certain aspects of different

(14:05):
AIS that you want to sort of keep, like, you
can pin the ones that you like that are your favorites.
So if you use one for video generation, another for questions,
another for data, another for answers. You know, that's kind
of like probably the best use case scenario of this,
of this all in one AI platform. Uh F, yeah,
have you been playing with it?

Speaker 7 (14:26):
My last part of the part of the interest on
my part is my last name is Poe, and so
I might pass this off is my creation to close friends.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
I don't know, Stanley Poe, tell them you made it
and say, hey, check out my my app and see
what's what's the deal? But yeah, they have they've got
platforms for all of them. They've got the mobile apps,
they've got a desktop app, they've got a web app.
I have not used it in a while because I
kind of when I first started using AI, I was
all about Claude and then I was all about Now

(14:57):
now I'm all about CHATCHYBT. But I also so really
like Gemini, So I'm looking at all these different bots.
I mean, yeah, if you're into AI, I just kind
of went to the website. There are Yeah, this is
a way that you could just explore all of the
benefits of AI. By the way, the website is po
dot com. Poe dot com. You will need to log in,

(15:19):
But I mean you're talking. I mean, I'm just Stanley,
I'm looking through these bots. This is unbelievable. I haven't
looked at this in a while. You've got the official bots,
so you've got theirs. You've got an app creator, GPT four, Gemini, Grock,
I mean, of all these, this is amazing, Claude. Then
you've got apps, so they do all kinds of different apps,
like you can play chess against AI. Then you've got

(15:41):
search bots, so that just searching the web, image generation bots.
Then you've got video generation bots, audio generation botsh learning bots,
so if you want to learn something like math, or
let's see what else. Behavior university role play bots, which
I guess you know they play different role in your life,
advice bots, mind bots, translation bots, professional bots, funny bots,

(16:06):
game bots, utility bots, popular bots. So you know what
this is almost like this reminds me of almost the
early days of like Yahoo, when this is sort of
the best way I can describe it is kind of
a directory of AI that you can use all in
one place. So I'd say if you are into discovering
different ais and the different things that they can do,

(16:29):
this is probably a really interesting place to bookmark and
to just check out. So yeah, and they've got an
iOS app, Android, they've got a MacApp, and there are
some paid I know there's some paid upgrades that. Oh yeah,
so free plan, you've got three thousand points a day,
I guess it looks like. And then you could subscribe

(16:51):
to more to get more and exclusive bots. So PO
dot Com, great question, Stanley. There in Ohio, there is
so much AI out there. There's just so much you
can do with it. And let's see, I'm just gonna
ask a simple question like what are the best states
for beaches? And this is their own both that they've

(17:13):
built and so they have their own answers as well,
and it comes up with Florida, California, Hawaii, South Carolina,
North Carolina, and so that's like theirs. But then you
can now compare their answer to various other AI search engines.
So it's a it's kind of a fun thing. Thanks
for the reminder, Stanley of PO dot Com. We'll all
check it out now. All right, coming up, we're going

(17:35):
to talk to Scott Budman. He is the tech reporter
up in the Bay Area about all things happening there.
This is rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Samsung says that

(17:57):
there are their foldables are a complex fleet hit. Yes,
highest US pre orders ever for a FULLD device, the
z Fold seven Z Flip seven sales are up over
twenty five percent compared to last year's model. Carrier partner
pre orders for both devices surgeon nearly sixty percent, and
the z Fold seven that's the one that folds like

(18:18):
a book, is outpacing last year's model by almost fifty
percent since its launch just about a week ago. People
love it because it's slim, it's lighter, it's got better cameras,
and so I think the foldables have finally gotten to
a point where I am able to recommend them. It's
not for me personally. I have tried. I've tried the fold.

(18:38):
I know everyone I know loves it. It's not for
me that that form factor. But you know, I really
do think it is incredible if you want that, if
you think it's interesting. This is the year that the
Samsung devices are finally good enough where I can recommend him.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
All right, let's bring on Scott Budman.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
He is the tech reporter up for NBC Bay Area
in the Bay Area.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Scott, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 6 (19:03):
Thanks you Rich, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
How long have you been reporting on technology up there?

Speaker 6 (19:08):
I have been up here now for more than twenty
five years. I'm a Big Area native.

Speaker 8 (19:12):
Spent some time down there in LA and when I
got back up here, the tech boom was taking off
and it has just not stopped since.

Speaker 6 (19:19):
It's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
So I'm going to geek out for a second fanboy here.
So I remember I was in Shreveport, Louisiana, and you
had like a show, right, it was like a weekend
show or something that was I'm trying to remember the name,
not tech Check.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Was it tech Check?

Speaker 6 (19:35):
It was tech Now actually tech Clars.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yet and there somehow I was able to watch it
when I was in Louisiana. Did they syndicate it to
different channels or something at some point they did?

Speaker 6 (19:44):
You know?

Speaker 8 (19:45):
It was right around ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand,
the tech boom and bust both really really popular times
for focusing on Silicon Valley, and so yeah, a lot
of stations were really interested at the time in what
Silicon Valley was doing. They loved us, and then they
lost money, so they hated us, and now they're kind
of back to loving us again. So yeah, once again,
I'm hearing from places all over the place saying, wow,

(20:07):
there's a lot of money to be made, or should
I buy bitcoin?

Speaker 6 (20:10):
And it's coming literally from all over the country.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
That's what's so wild because I always joke because I
work at a major TV station and you know, I'm
on every day, but when they really care about me
is when the iPhone comes out, you know, all these
like major tech events. But the rest of the year,
I'm like, I'm still here doing my thing, you know,
And I think tech is interesting and important every day
of the year, but it's you know, the mainstream kind

(20:33):
of folks. You know, they tune in at certain times,
right for these big tent pole events, which like the
launch of an open AI, a chat GBT kind of thing,
the launch of a new iPhone. But there's so much
tech going on, and AI is just I mean, it's
really just taken over everything, right.

Speaker 8 (20:49):
It is the currency in Silicon Valley. It's the gossip
in Silicon Valley. You hear about Mark Zuckerberg and Meta
offering hundreds of millions of dollars to steal individual people away.
I mean, I watering NBA contract like money to get
people to work in these companies to do AI. And
so you're right, it's always nice, for instance, to see

(21:10):
you at an Apple event rich, but when we're not
coming out with smartphones, the AI and the stock market
of it all still determines our housing prices, It determines
who buys what cars, who.

Speaker 6 (21:22):
Goes to what schools.

Speaker 8 (21:23):
Tech is just kind of the dominant thing up here
in Silicon Valley five days a week, seven days a week.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
It's kind of like in Los Angeles. It's all Hollywood obviously,
and you.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Know there's people, but there's people that you know have
made a nice living on not just Hollywood but also
technology here because in the early days a lot of
the creator economy was sort of headquartered in Los Angeles.
But now we know, I mean, this is the beauty
of technology. You can be anywhere. And that is I
think what you know, especially through COVID, you know, with
all the hybrid stuff, it kind of spread out where

(21:54):
stuff happens nowadays.

Speaker 6 (21:56):
Yeah, COVID's the perfect example. All of the sudden, you
had all this content that was streaming becoming the default
way that we watch movies and TV shows. It wasn't
the movie theater or anything like that. So Netflix, which
is headquartered here, had a huge, huge presence in southern
California because of the Hollywood of it all. Apple, which
is headquartered here, as a huge presence down there. Same

(22:18):
with a whole lot of tech companies. Snapchat is headquartered there.
It's become what do they call it, Silicon Beach or something.
It's become very very important.

Speaker 8 (22:27):
And I love the idea that LA is getting a
lot of the tech love as well.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
So what are some of the things you've been covering.
I mean, obviously AI is hot any any I mean,
is it still open AI? Chatchybt. I mean there's a
sort of all that stuff is happening. Anything else that's
really interesting that's going on.

Speaker 6 (22:43):
Yeah, I really.

Speaker 8 (22:45):
Am interested in the environmental impact of what happens.

Speaker 6 (22:48):
So, you know, crypto AI bad for the environment. They
use a lot of energy.

Speaker 8 (22:53):
But we're also at the forefront of things like electric cars,
even electric planes. We've got these giant drones that are
working on carrying people. We've got a couple of companies
here that do that, and so you're seeing the electricity
start to take over from gas, and so you can
now order an uber or a lyft that is electric.

Speaker 6 (23:14):
You can obviously order a weimo.

Speaker 8 (23:15):
It's a big thing to do up here that not
only is electric, but there's no driver.

Speaker 6 (23:20):
And so you've got a.

Speaker 8 (23:21):
Lot of this technology that's going in a sci fi
direction but also a cleaner direction at the same time.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
And I really appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah, that is I mean, to me, the wey mo
is just it's like we are living in the future,
but it's like it's like the future. It's not necessarily
the future we imagined, but it's here right now. Like
the fact that you can hail a car that has
no driver is just wild, and when you're in it,
that's also equally wild. What's your thoughts on that? I mean,
those things are everywhere in la They're probably everywhere where

(23:50):
you are as well.

Speaker 6 (23:52):
Yes, really are. They've been here for a while.

Speaker 8 (23:54):
And the thing that's interesting to me is that maybe
people our age are still a little wow, this is
kind of interesting. But if you're a teenager or someone
in their early twenties, this is very normal to you
to hop into, in Wamo's case, a Jaguar that has
nobody in the front seat. So it's maybe you by
yourself or a couple of friends, and you're being driven

(24:15):
somewhere in a taxi, just like your parents and grandparents did,
but there's nobody driving. And this has become very normal
in a lot of parts of California, in places like Texas,
et cetera. And that, to me is really interesting. So
the idea of no gas, no driver is becoming normal,
and you wonder how automakers are going to deal with

(24:36):
this if a whole generation is growing up thinking I
don't really need to get behind the wheel if I
want to go to that party or that class or
that job. And you see them all over the Bay
Area in Silicon Valley with people and it's just totally
normal now. And I think that's something that in the
next couple of decades, it's going to be interesting to

(24:56):
watch how the rest of society adapts to the fact
that young people well find it normal not to.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Have a driver, yeah, or a driver's license. My wife
works at a school and she would tell me this
is years ago when uber was like the main thing
and She's like, oh, no, kids don't even care on
their birthday about getting their driver's license. I mean you
and I remember your birthday is like the day you
go you get your license, like that is the thing.
And she said, now kids don't even care anymore. They
just dy Uber everywhere. And it's just such a paradigm shift.

(25:23):
And now you're saying, you know, and Uber was like, okay,
there's still that idea of like the you know, creepy driver,
Like it's still a human, right, so anything can happen.
But now that you've got Weimo, which seems much more
controlled and secure because there's no driver. You know, obviously
that's debatable what people think about that, but you know,
it's much more controllable because it's software, it's not a human.

(25:44):
And now it's like, okay, hold on, I'm probably fine
with my kid taking a Weimo versus an Uber, let's say,
very much so.

Speaker 6 (25:51):
And yet it's an economic lesson too.

Speaker 8 (25:53):
I mean people our age and we have teenagers and
they go to parties and they're thinking, O, I'll do
the responsible thing and take a lift or a Weimo
or whatever, and then you get that call at midnight
when serge pricing kicks in and they're like, I had
no idea it would cost one hundred and twenty dollars
to take this ride from here to there. And it's like,
oh yeah, Surge pricing is another part of this economy
and it really has caught on, and it's a lesson

(26:15):
to think not only should I take this, like you said,
but when should I take this to get the best price?

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Oh my gosh, we've thought about that so many times.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
It's easy to get to the place with the uber
and it's like, oh, wait, hold on, after this concert,
how much is it going to cost me to get home?
Because yeah, they're going to and that you know, that's
a whole other debate and conversation around, you know, equity
and all this stuff because you know, taxis were the
same price for everyone all the time, and now it's like,
you know, every single person that's served up on the app.
You know, my wife and I will open up our

(26:44):
apps and we're both getting different prices.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
What do you think has changed in the twenty plus
years you've been covering this stuff?

Speaker 8 (26:52):
I mean, really, the money of it all, and that's
what drives this and the idea that venture capital is
to have taken over not only funding companies, but now
having a big role in the political world. For decades,
Silicon Valley wanted to be alone and away from government
and just sort of like a hands off thing. And

(27:12):
the new generation of vcs want to be in government,
and the new generation of CEOs want to have a
role in the White House. And you've seen that. And
now we have these crypto councils and BC councils and
just everything that comes from Silicon Valley. And I know
a lot of these guys, and here they are making
policy in Washington, and that is brand new. And that's

(27:36):
a huge difference because instead of saying, leave us alone
here on the West Coast, we want to do our thing,
it's now we want to do our thing and have
the rest of the country and maybe even the world
do it too. And that's a big, big change that
goes beyond what's the new phone or the new technology.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
But we know the reason for that, because tech, i
mean big tech is largely gone on regulated and they
want to be in place so that they sort of
write if there are regulations coming down the line, which
it seems like there needs to be as we go
into a more tech center centric world. They want to
be on the front line of that because they want
it done to benefit them the most.

Speaker 6 (28:14):
Well, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 8 (28:15):
You just talked about income inequality, and that's a huge
thing here in Silicon Valley as far as who can
afford a two and a half three million dollar houses
and how many homeless people we have at the exact
same time, And that goes to deregulation. Tech companies being
able to do what they want and make a ton
of money and do their credit, create a whole lot
of jobs and a whole lot of wealth, but at

(28:37):
the same time, there are a lot of people left behind.
And government wants to step in on some level and
say we want to change that, and the tech companies
are a little hesitant to do that, and so they say,
if we have a role in government, we can still
create our jobs and our wealth. But there is a
huge gap and that's something we deal with here in
the valley every day.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
All right, Scott, what's the best place for folks to
follow you online?

Speaker 8 (29:03):
I mean, really, it's I'm still on x still posting
a lot at my name at Scott Budman, also Instagram
and to an extent TikTok.

Speaker 6 (29:13):
We are trying as a business. You know this better
than anyone. I've followed you for a long time.

Speaker 8 (29:17):
We know we have to go where the action is,
and so to go on social media is just as.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
Important right now, if not as important as TV.

Speaker 8 (29:25):
I mean, like you, I'm on TV every day, but
when people come up to say, hey, what's up, or
let me comment on a story, it's much more likely
they've seen it online on social media, and I.

Speaker 6 (29:35):
Respect that, and that's something we as a business really
have to get into.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, and I've seen you do more of those reels
on Instagram, So keep it up, all right. Scott Budman,
NBC Bay Area Tech reporter, Thanks for joining me eight
eight eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. More of you
coming up next. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich

(29:58):
Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple
eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four
two four one zero one. Yes, Mom has created the
playlist for today's show, so if you're enjoying it, I
don't know, give her a virtual thumbs up.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
I was telling my mom before I left for the show.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
I said, you know what, this is one of my
favorite times of the week, just coming in here talking
with you mostly you know, it's not just a one
way conversation.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's what I love.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
It feels like a community, and that is what I
think is so brilliant about this because it's kind of
like with my social media. It feels like we are
all together, right, and I love that back and forth
and just the idea that I can say something here,
you can call in, you can comment on my socials
or email me. It's just so fun because it's like

(30:49):
a It just feels like the community that you want
in your life, especially around like technology, because I just
love discussing it and thinking about it and all the implications.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Let's go to and Diamond Bar. Kathy, you are on
with Rich.

Speaker 9 (31:02):
What's up, Navish?

Speaker 10 (31:04):
Thank you for taking the call. I'm not the most
techy person in the world, and I'm looking for a
luggage tracker.

Speaker 9 (31:12):
I'm going to be going to Africa.

Speaker 11 (31:14):
This year and I don't want to lose my luggage.

Speaker 9 (31:16):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Okay, I have ah.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
What kind of Android phone?

Speaker 10 (31:21):
It's a Moduology for.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Okay, So it's not a Samsung. Okay.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
So when it comes to trackers, there are a couple
options out there. Number One, if you're on iPhone, obviously
the air tag is where it's at. But if you're
on Samsung, they have their own version called the smart Tag,
and that's a Samsung version of sort of the air tag. Now,
the nuance about how these things work is the network

(31:47):
that they ride on. And so anything with iPhone is
going to be what's called the find My network. And
that's probably one of the bigger finding networks in the
world because Apple just said they sold three billion iPhones,
so there's a lot of people that contribute that finding network.
Now that doesn't apply here because you're talking Android. So
Google came out with something called the find My Network

(32:08):
and so this uses all of the Android devices in
the world to help find trackers like the one that
you're talking about. So there are two types of tracker,
well that's actually three types of trackers for Android, and
this work gets a little complicated. You've got Samsung trackers,
which use Samsung phones. Then you've got find my trackers,
which uses the the uh oh sorry, okay, this is

(32:32):
the Google find Let's see, they just renamed it. I
got to figure out what it's called Find my Device Network,
that's what they call it, Find my Device Network, so
it's find my on iPhone, find my Device and so
they have the Android version of that, which uses all
the Android phones in the world to help you find
a tracker. And then there's another way, which is Tile.

(32:56):
So Tile you've probably heard of, they were one of
the original trackers. Ever, they have their own finding network
and that uses everyone that has the Life three sixty
app installed. So the first answer, really, Kathy, is what
network do you want to use on the Android side,
And for you having a Motorola, it's either the Tile
network or Googles Find My Network, And so I would

(33:20):
probably recommend one of those two. I would take a
look at the Tile Pro that's number one, and in
my experience, Tile has a lot of users everywhere. The
big thing is if you're in Africa, you have to
have people that are using that Tile app on their phone,
so it's probably going to be a little bit less
than it would be here in the US. So for

(33:41):
that reason, I'd probably recommend the Android network, which is
to Find my Device network. So in that case, I'm
going to recommend the Chipolo Pop c Hipolo Pop Chipolo
Pop and this is from Chipolo. They've been making trackers forever.
It's twenty nine dollars. You can get a four pack

(34:02):
for eighty seven no monthly fees on this thing. And
the best part is the battery is replaceable, so yes,
you can replace the battery on this thing when you
need to. Battery lasts about a year. The range on
it is about three hundred feet because they work with
Bluetooth for immediate finding and then when your phone is
not nearby, let's say your luggage was somewhere else, then

(34:24):
it would use that Android find my network to find
this thing wherever it is. So that's the one I'm
gonna recommend for now. But hopefully you got a little
lesson In all the different tracking devices out there, I've
tested all these. They all have their pros and cons. Obviously,
Apples is the most well known with the air tag.
And the thing about the air tag is it's integrated

(34:46):
with the airlines and that's the thing that is, you know,
gives them a little bit of an edge over some
of the other ones. And then this week also they
had a story about they've got shoes that have an
air tags in the soul from Sketchers, so you can
put a little air tag in the bottom of your
kid's shoes and you can find them that way. But

(35:06):
I've got these trackers on everything no matter where I go.
I've got them in my travel bags, I've got them,
you know, my keys, I've got them in my luggage.
I mean just everywhere. So pick a network, pick a
device again. I think that Chippolo Pop is going to
be good because that's going to be, you know, compatible
with your Android device, and it's gonna work, and it's

(35:26):
not that expensive.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
So twenty nine dollars not a bad deal. All right,
let's see, we got one minute.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Let me just read tell you about this story. Thanks
for the question, Kathy. By the way, Dropbox Passwords is
shutting down, so if you're using this Dropbox passwords feature,
you have to export your data by October twenty eighth. So, yes,
Dropbox had a password manager. I don't think many people
used it, That's why they're shutting it down. Most people
know Dropbox as a place to store files and to

(35:54):
share links. Starting August twenty eighth, the Apple will go
view only, which means you will not be able to
add any new passwords or use autofill at all. On
September eleventh, the mobile app will stop working completely, and
then on October twenty eighth, this is the important date,
all of your stored passwords will be permanently deleted.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
So you've got to.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Export your passwords out to a new password manager. Dropbox
recommends one password. I really like bitwarding, So again, if
using Dropbox passwords, come up with a plan to get
rid of your passwords into another app.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
This is rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Welcome back to rich 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. The website for the show is rich
on Tech dot tv. There you can find links to
everything I talk about on today's show.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
It's also the place.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
You can subscribe to my newsletter, which goes out every weekend.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
It is free.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
You can sign up a lot of people like it
because it's basically this show, but in kind of a
newsletter version, so you get all the links, all the
things that I come across in any given week that
I think are interesting. I put in the newsletter and
send it out to all of you. Let's go to
Andrea in San Diego. Andrea, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 9 (37:17):
Good morning Rich. For us non techie people, how does
one access the Google AI that you talked about that
you've got so much wonderful information.

Speaker 6 (37:30):
About your son from.

Speaker 9 (37:33):
And also you talked about the fact that there's a
password app that's been discontinued. I'm not familiar with that
one or any of the others, and I'm wondering if
you could recommend one that's user friendly, easy to use.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yes question, okay, and are you on an Android or
an iPhone?

Speaker 3 (37:54):
iPhone?

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (37:56):
So first question for Gemini, a couple of ways to
access it. Gemini dot Google dot com is how you
access that on the web. So Gemini dot Google dot
com is how you access that on the web. And
then for the apps, you can search on the iPhone

(38:16):
for Gemini and let me just see what comes up.
Because you know, like I said earlier, there's always like Klingons,
so when you search Gemini, they know people are searching
for that, so they have other apps that look similar.
But the good news is the top result is Google Gemini.
It says your AI assistant from Google. So you can

(38:37):
install that on your iPhone. Sign in with your Google account,
and then obviously you can just ask Gemini any question
you want.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
You can say, give me a list of the top
ten states for retirement, right, and it will go through
and find all the information on the web and synthesize
that and come.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Up with what I call like a little book report.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Or you can ask any kind of like theoretical question,
open ended, whatever you want. That's one level. But if
you have your data in Google, it gets really interesting
because now you can ask Google for information about the
data that you have stored in Google. So, for instance,
if you have Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs,

(39:21):
Google Keep, Google tasks, you can ask specific questions like,
for instance, on Gmail, you can say, you know, hey,
search my Gmail for any information about my upcoming trip
to London, and it will look through your email and

(39:42):
synthesize the data and find that information. Or you can say,
search through my Google Photos and find the best picture
I took in Tokyo last year, and it will do that.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
I mean, it's that good.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
The other day I asked it, you know, find my
oldest picture of me and my wife or whatever. You know,
you could just the possibilities are endless, but if you
go on the Gemini app online on the website, there's
a little settings icon like a gear icon the lower
left hand corner. Tap that and then tap apps and

(40:18):
that will give you the ability to see all the
apps that Gemini works with. And if you look under Google,
it has Gmail, Google Calendar and it says learn more,
and if you tap that, it will give you ideas
of things to try. So, for instance, for Gmail, says
find emails by topic, summarize my onread emails, what was

(40:38):
said in the recent email. For Google Calendar, you can
say things like ad event from this image, show upcoming events,
create a recurring event. Again, it's all the stuff that
you used to use typing for and just you know,
you had to sit there and like write it all out.
Now you can just ask and it's really good. So

(40:59):
I was at the dent office the other day. My
kid had an appointment coming up, and I just said
to Gemini, add to my calendar appointment for seven you
know am next Thursday, labeled kid orthodontists appointment, you know,
And it.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Just does it.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
And the beauty of this is compared to the old
way of doing things with your voice, is that AI
understands what you're trying to say, right, even when you
don't say it perfectly. So for so many years on
our devices with things like Alexa and Google Assistant and Siri,
you had to say things a perfect way for them

(41:36):
to respond and understand. The beauty of AI is that
you can use natural language, so even if you don't
say it perfectly, it will still understand what you're trying
to say. So, Andrea, those are the ways that you
can access the Gemini. It's also available as an app
on Android, but yeah, get familiar with that because it
is very handy. Now with respect to your second question,

(41:59):
the past password manager, The reason why I asked you
which phone you use is because here's my recommendations for
password managers. If you're only using an Android phone and
Chrome on your computer, I would just recommend Google Passwords.
It's simple, it's easy, it's built into the Google that
you already use. That's number one. If you're only using
Apple devices, I would recommend using Apple Passwords because it's simple,

(42:22):
it's easy, it's already built into the devices that you use.
But again, only if you're using Apple or Android or Chrome.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
For those two.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
The reason why I like Bitwarden is because it's what's
called cross platform and third party, which means it is
not linked to anything else out there. It is its
own separate thing and it works across all devices, and
so for that reason, I really like it.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
It is slick.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
You will not believe that it's free. Some people are paying,
you know, fifty sixty seventy eighty dollars a year for
a password manager. You really don't have to. Now, there
might be some advanced features and things like that, but
it's it's very bitward It is incredible for free, and
I really recommend that, and I would recommend if you're
I know you said you weren't tech savvy, but if
you're in the least tech savvy, it's probably better to

(43:09):
go with a third party password manager. Just because it's
insulated from your Google account or your Apple account, it
sort of lives separately. Great question, Andrea, thanks so much
for the call today.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Oh my gosh, we got through a lot with that one.
Andrea and san Diego.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Speaking of password managers, this is a two factor authentication app,
which I also believe you should absolutely have in your arsenal.
Two factor authentication app is an app that generates codes
every thirty seconds or so that help you log into
your accounts. You may get two factor authentication codes by

(43:48):
text or email. I think an app is the safest
because it is separate and it's by itself, and I
don't recommend that you use your password manager to generate
two factor authentication codes. There is a new two factor
authentication code app that I just absolutely have fallen in
love with. It is called Proton Authenticator. You might know Proton.

(44:09):
They're a Swiss company. They are very they are very
privacy centric. They have Proton Email. I think that was
their first product. Anyway, they came out with the new
two factor authentication app that does every single thing that
I want it to do.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
It's number one. It's free.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
It's available on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. If
you've got a Linux out there. It's open source, it's
ad free. It does not lock you in, which I love.
You can import or export your two factor authentication codes.
Unlike SMS codes. The app is much more secure because
you know your phone ewer could be lost, stolen, changed, simswapped,

(44:47):
and this is an app, so everything is inside an app.
And it also supports biometrics so you can have it.
You know, even if someone gets your phone, they would
still need to use a pin or your fingerp or
your face to unlock it. So that's another added security
thing which I love. And the other thing, I mean,
they just thought of everything with this app, which is

(45:07):
why I absolutely am just gushing over it. You can
sink your codes across devices, or you can keep them local.
So if you're one of these people that's super you know,
security centric, and you're saying I don't want my codes
going anywhere else, you can just keep them on your phone,
or you can sync them across devices. And you have
two options of sinking. You can back them up to
your your own cloud like a Google like the Proton

(45:31):
Cloud or iCloud, or you can use their own cloud
to sink them across. So I mean there's lots of
options here, which I really really love. So anyway, I've
already installed this. I'm going to make the switch slowly
but surely. But I really think that Proton Authenticator has
done a great job. So if you want to link
to that, I'll put it on the website. Rich on

(45:51):
tech dot TV. All right, I don't think I have
time for another call, right, I've got what like about
a minute left?

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Okay, let's see what I want to do. Let's see here.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
I'll tell you about one more thing before we go
to break here. I'm trying to see you. Do I
have any calls that I can do quickly here?

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Probably not.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
So Uber has launched a new women Preferences mode. So
if you're a woman and you want a woman to
be driving you, which you knows various reasons why you
may want that, safety, security, whatever, this feature lets you
choose to have matched with a woman. And so this
is rolling out in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit's

(46:29):
not everywhere just yet, but if you're a woman on
the app, you can request a female driver on demand
or when you make an advanced reservation. So there's a
default preference in the app settings, which they say increases
the likelihood of being matched with a woman driver. So
it's not like guaranteed every time, I guess, but you know,
it's kind of a nice option to have. Uber says

(46:50):
this makes the platform safer, more flexible, and more comfortable
for women, and they will roll it out to expand
across the US based on feedback and usage data. For
what it's worth Lift already has this feature available to everyone,
and we've actually done this, my wife and I.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
She requested a ride. I happen to be in it.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
We got a female driver and we asked her all
about this and she said, oh my god, it's great.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
It's like, I love this. It's so great.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
It's you know, I can drive other women around and
it's just people. The women that I'm driving, they all
talk about how much they love it. So again, it's
just another option. Uber is if you want to check
it out in your settings. You can check that out
if you live in one of those cities. Otherwise, if
you want to try that feature, Lyft does have it
all right. Eighty eight rich one On one eighty eight
seven four to two four one zero one. I know

(47:36):
the phone lines are loaded right now. I see you waiting.
I will get to your calls. I don't know why
you all decide to call this weekend. It's so nice outside,
but hey, I'll take it.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
And coming up.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
We got more interviews, more of your questions, and more
tech news right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back
to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here eighty eight rich
one On one eighty eight seven four to two four
one zero one one. The website for the show rich
on tech dot tv links to everything I mentioned is

(48:08):
right there. Let's go to Sarah in Santa Ana. Sarah,
you are on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Hi.

Speaker 12 (48:19):
My daughters starting college and her laptop is dying, and
I don't have any money really to buy anything new,
but she wants a MacBook. What do you think my
best option is? Do you know anything about financing? Are
there student programs where she could get something for a

(48:39):
loan or for free? Or if I had to buy something,
what should I get?

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Well, I don't necessarily promote financing or loans, so I
don't really necessarily like that avenue. We're talking about nine
hundred dollars one thousand dollars here. So my advice is
to save up and do whatever you can to save
up that money and buy it. Because a computer that's

(49:05):
paid for is probably going to feel a lot better
for your daughter than something that you're making payments on.
So that's my number one kind of the way that
I do things in my life. I don't like a
lot of debt. I don't like a lot of payments
and things like that, So I don't don't really like that,
So I understand where you're coming from.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
There have been times in my life where there's just
the money is not there and you can't buy it,
and so I get that. In the meantime, you know,
there are libraries at college she can use. There are
inexpensive laptops. I mean there if she just wants something,
that is the absolute most inexpensive laptop that you can
probably cobble together some cash for it is the M

(49:46):
one MacBook Air. And you can get this thing for
you know, brand new. It's selling for like five ninety
nine on Walmart dot com and I've seen it even cheaper.
So this is a that's a couple of years old.
But I'll be honest, my wife uses it and it's
fine for her. So if it's good enough for her,
I think it's good enough for your daughter. But it

(50:07):
is aging, and so it's been a bit so, you know,
but the avenue I would look at is number one.
If you want that computer, the MacBook Air M one.
That's a really to me, that's that's a fantastic deal
that's still out there. I mean, look at this. This
it's five years old, so it's on sale for under
six hundred dollars. I guess Walmart's price is probably the

(50:29):
best right now, So that's number one. The other avenue
to explore is if you go to Apple Education store.
They've got their back to school discounts. I haven't heard
that they've started their back to school offers just yet,
so I would probably wait because typically they do a
back to school offer any day now and they'll give

(50:50):
you like an extra one hundred dollars gift card or
something with your purchase. But if you're going to get
something new, then the computer I would recommend for your
daughter is the MacBook Air, and I understand why she
wants one because it is the computer that I've relied
on for years. It is an incredible machine, and it
is just it does everything you need and this thing

(51:10):
will last you ten years, no joke. MacBook Air thirteen
inch is eight ninety nine for the education pricing, So
you can get a computer with the latest specs for
eight ninety nine.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Now, I get it. Sarah.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I understand that you know you're going through a tough
time right now with the financials, but I feel like
it's one of these things where just, you know, try
to just cobble together that cash, sell some stuff around
the house, whatever you can do to get that money.
You can even trade in old things, like if you
have some old gadgets and things that are even Apple gadgets,

(51:45):
you can trade those in at the Apple Store to
get a gift card. But my advice is if you
want something that's super super inexpensive, I think the M
one MacBook is the way to go. It's still going
to last and still be a good deal even five
years later. The problem is with that, you're going to
spend six hundred dollars and your daughter is in school
for a couple of years. You said she's starting college,

(52:06):
So is that going to last four more years? I'm
not sure. Whereas if you spend a little bit more
on the newer MacBook, it's definitely gonna last four years
plus plus plus.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
So I hope that answers your question. I know it's tough.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
It's these things are not cheap, they're really not, and
it's a big purchase for people. But I like the
idea that you're thinking about the Mac because it does
last a very long time. Thanks for the call Mark
and Woodland Hills.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
What's up?

Speaker 5 (52:34):
You know?

Speaker 4 (52:35):
I just want to practice by saying, there's another tracker
that our company has found to be extremely efficacious. It's
called Track E, a track with an E on the
end of it there, and it's independent and you can
use it with any kind of phone, and we found
that our drivers who know about it, we rely on
it because we've got to know where our drivers are going. Anyway,

(52:57):
I'm calling basically about family tree sites. My wife and
I are interested in passing on our family tree to
our sons. I'm of European ancestry. She's a sub Saharan ancestry.
You know, she's African American and for her in particular,
we have just it's just so challenging to try and
delve into it. And I know there are some companies

(53:19):
out there that specialize in African Americans, and we're not
interested in the DNA yet until they work out the
controversies about you know, some of the you know, some
of the issues that they have with that. But we're
hoping that you could refer to some sort of family
tree site that could help us out with her ancestry
back to Africa.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Well, I don't have a good answer off the top
of my head, but just doing a quick search while
you're talking here, I've summed upon a website called Blackpast
dot org and they've got an entire page with links
to just about I mean, this is the most thorough.
This is so thorough, and it's got links to every
single thing for African American family history resources. And it's

(54:03):
not just their stuff. It's like they've gone out and
found links to every single website that deals with this.
And so Blackpast dot org Genealogy Resources is the actual
site page. But I would check that out because I'm
looking at this and it's got pretty much everything you
can imagine when it comes to this topic. So I'll
put this up on the website. Mark rich on tech

(54:24):
dot tv. Thanks for the note on tracky. I believe
that's spelled with an I. By the way, I'll take
a look at that as well. Eighty eight rich one
on one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one more.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Rich on Tech after this.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you talking technology. A couple of weeks ago,
I posted a picture of me eating a hot dog
on social media.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
There was a reason.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
It's because I went to a place called Wiener Snitzel
where they are now using AI at the drive through.
Here to talk about that is Gela Fairv is the
CEO of Presto. They are the folks that are putting
AI in the drive through order boxes. Let's already has
to say about how this is changing the way we
place fast food orders.

Speaker 13 (55:12):
So Presto is an AI business which is creating an
AI solution for the drive through for the QSR industry.
So when your car pulls up currently to the speaker
box in a drive through restaurant and you speak to
a human through the speaker box currently working in the restaurant,
we are changing that system such that you would be

(55:34):
communicating with an AI system, which would reduce the amount
of labor the restaurant leeds and can also begin to
automate things such as upsell and other forms of marketing
in the drive through.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
So how good is the AI like? Can it replace
the human that's currently taking orders?

Speaker 13 (55:53):
And what's the vain Yeah, and in a vat majority
of instances the system can do that. So we have
something called a non intervention rate, and that's the industry standard.
So that's the number of times that the system works
or without a human having to step in, and those
are already in the nineties, so in a vast majority

(56:13):
of instances that works. Their drive through is a very
complicated environment, and so on some occasions you do need
the store to step in.

Speaker 6 (56:21):
Anyway.

Speaker 13 (56:22):
In terms of the advantages, I think for the our customer,
so the restaurant, there are two clear advantages. One of
those is the labor redistribution or replacement. So very often
they're not actually removing that at that staff member, they're
putting in somewhere else in the restaurant, so they could
man the front counter or do other things. But that
increases the labor efficiency. Then on the other side, it's

(56:45):
the up cell, so you also get revenue increase, and
that's the result of humans are actually pretty inconsistent and
quite bad at upselling or saying you would you like
to make that a combo? Have you tried our ice cream?
For example, AI does it for awnestly every time because
it's a as a system, and it can also do
it in a very predictive manner, so it can collect
data over the days and over the weeks to say, well,

(57:06):
you know, last time we try to upsell this item,
it worked.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
This one didn't, so I'm going to try this.

Speaker 13 (57:10):
Item a bit more So from a restaurant perspective, you
get greater revenue or greater check size, and you also
have more efficient or less labor costs, so you get
a really significant impact for the customer as in sorry,
the end of consumer. The advantage for them, I think
is also the consistency of the system. So you know,
very often if you pull up and you speak to
a different person every day, you might get a very

(57:30):
different experience. You might not be able to understand them,
they might be a minute before they come to you.
You don't get any of those issues. So we find
that our customers and the end consumers are both very
pro the system.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
And who's using this system and how tough is it
to get started.

Speaker 13 (57:48):
In terms of the industry altogether, we are now kind
of at the major roll out phase. So this is
where over the last two years, a lot of large
chains and medium chains have begin trialing this. They've been
picking their supplies, they've been honing this systems, and they're
now enrolled out. So whilst it may only be in
sort of around one percent of all drive throughs at
this stage, that that number is increasing very very quickly,

(58:10):
and so you will expect to see that change quite
significantly over the coming months and months and years. In
terms of barriers to entry, there are very few. So
the system that we install is is a very small
box that we put into the speaker box and then
a vast majority of it is hosted on the cloud
on our end, and so there is no real barrier
to who can have this and who cannot. You don't

(58:32):
have to be McDonald's or Burger you can have this.
We have a number of customers who are in the
kind of what we describe as the mid market, so
they can be a smaller number of stores, but they
can still get the same efficiencies in a large one.

Speaker 5 (58:43):
To do so.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
You know, we saw with the automation of you know,
eight hundred numbers, people just say can I have an operator?
Like do you have the option of getting a human
if you want one? And are people asking for that
or they like this system?

Speaker 13 (58:57):
Yeah, So people can say can I'd like to speak
to a human and they be put through to the store.
It's actually very rare that they do that because the
order is being taken quickly and efficiently, and people tend
to want to get through the drive through quickly themselves.
To go and ask for a human just makes your
experience longer. And as a result, they only really do

(59:17):
it if somebody is you know, maybe technically struggling with it.
Orbit in a vast majority of instance, they don't even notice,
or sometimes if they have a very specific allergy or question.
In that instance, it is always important to go through
to the store and ask system alos you to do that.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
And so how is the AI at taking orders?

Speaker 13 (59:38):
Yeah, it's getting it's getting better. I would say that
if you'd ask me that two years ago. The technology
was still pretty nascent and so it was effective, but
it had, you know, lots of things that couldn't quite
do it wouldn't be able to handle certain questions, or
wouldn't be able to handle specials or coupons or things.
But in particular over the last six months, the rate
of pace of advancement has been you know, quite extraordin.

(01:00:00):
You know, our system can now do things such as
coupons or special offers or very complicated combos. You know,
we have a menu for a client that we've just
signed where I think the total number of different combinations
is in the billions because their menu is so complicated
and it can handle it can handle all of those things.
We can also do phone ordering now, so people ring

(01:00:21):
up the restaurant and say I want to place a
catering order, we have the ability to handle that order
as well. So there's there's very little, if anything, which
can now not be done with AI that used to
be done with humans.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
And what have you learned in this process about how
people order or you know, something that you didn't really
think about before and how you had to implement it.

Speaker 13 (01:00:42):
I think the complexity of the drive through is the
big one, and I'm going to split that into two things.
One is that there is the kind of technical complexity
of the drive through. So there's so many systems that
actually sit behind the scenes that people don't see. So
you've got a different POS system and base station system
in all of these different chains. And the menu complexity

(01:01:03):
at the back end is incredibly difficult to navigate, and
that's something that we have to spend a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Of time doing.

Speaker 13 (01:01:08):
But then on the second box, it's just the things
that happen in the drive through you would just not imagine.
So every drive through environment is different, and that's why
it has taken us a couple of years in order
to hone our system to the quality it is today.
You think about some drive throughs the next to freeways,
and other ones are not. Some drive throughs are in
you very heavy rain areas, and other ones are not.

(01:01:28):
You have people pulling up with three kids in the car,
shouting every menu item you can possibly imagine. You have
people ordering for the wrong restaurant they think they're at,
you know, they think they're at one restaurant actually another.
You have to be able to handle all of those
edge cases, and so that non intervention rate that I
told you has improved significantly over the last year. But
a lot of those interventions used to be for stuff
that you would never have dreamed of until you started doing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Getting one of these jobs an order taker, while it's imperfect,
you know, it's kind of an entry level job.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
And you know, is that going away or are we
going to have this job in the future.

Speaker 13 (01:02:02):
I think the actual taking of the order probably not.
I think these systems are going to get so robust,
but I don't think that that means that fewer people
are going to be working usr are working for these brands.
As I say, a lot of what we talk about
is labor redistribution, not labor replacement. So the ability for
in a very competitive environment for your brand to be
more customer friendly and more effective because you've got more

(01:02:24):
people doing front of counter, doing the stock, doing the cleaning,
and making your overall brand more successful for the same cost.
So rather than it being hey, I want to take
ten percent of my wage bill, it's I want my
brand to be more successful, more customer friendly, have more
people on the floor for the same price that I
currently am doing it, and that's what our system allows.
So I don't think that this is some huge threat

(01:02:45):
to jobs. I think it's just going to change the
way that people interact with the driver.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
And finally, any hacks for the customer or anything to know,
like how do you know you're talking to AI? And
is there anything fun you can do with it in
the drive throw?

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
So how do you know?

Speaker 13 (01:02:59):
So it's interesting some of our customers want it to
sound like a robot because they want the customer to
know it's AI, because it could be quite helpful for
the interaction. But we also have an option, which is
human voice, which is near impossible to tell that you're
speaking to to to AI in that instance, and that
depends on the brand as to what they're what they're
doing in terms of like cool things you can do,

(01:03:20):
So asking it, you know, interesting questions is a good
is a good way to is a good way to
test it out and see and see what responses you get.
We are working on a system at the moment, oh sorry,
a program at the moment which will be to put
some Easter eggs in to to this. So you know,
for certain brands, we think it could be really interesting
if you put on social media being like hey, next
time you're ordering from the AI, say this phrase and

(01:03:42):
get like a free, a free, increasing your drink size
or something that we think could be hugely interesting because
I think it will begin to get real social interaction
going with the AI, and that's something we'll be working
on in the coming weeks as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
There you have it, Geel a fare from Prestol. They
are putting AI in the drive through fast food restaurant
ordering windows. Fascinating how that's happening, and I guarantee you
will encounter it at some point. Not every restaurant's doing it,
but you know, if they can save money be more
efficient and of course upsell like you heard them say, yeah,

(01:04:16):
they're probably going to do it. And this kind of
goes with this new report from researchers at open AI,
Open Research and UPEN, which talks about the jobs that
are most at risk from AI. A new report says
about eighty percent of US workers could see at least
ten percent of their job tasks affected by generative AI.
Nearly one in five workers may see fifty percent of

(01:04:39):
their tasks impacted. Researchers looked at GPT models and other
generative AI capabilities, things like text coding, image generation, video generation.
Impact does not necessarily mean job loss. It could mean
automation of tasks, like not your entire role, so things
that you might do might be automated through AI. The

(01:05:00):
jobs with the highest exposure tend to be white collar,
high skilled, non technical roles. But the main takeaways AI
is not going to take every job, but it will
change how a lot of people work. Like you'd like that,
Like the CEO just said, we're not trying to get
rid of jobs at the drive through, but the way
people work, if they work at a fast food place,
they may not be multitasking with the drive through order

(01:05:22):
while they complete other tasks. They might just focus on
those other tasks. But tasks, I mean this is really true.
Tasks like writing emails, analyzing data, or drafting reports could
be done faster or automatically. So now it's probably a
good time to think about which parts of your job
could be done by AI, and what you think that
AI cannot do so without further ado. The jobs most

(01:05:45):
impacted by AI interpreters and translators, public relations specialists, court reporters,
blockchain engineers, journalists, uh oh, accountants and auditors, legal secretaries, paralegals, writers, authors,
web designers, developers, market research analysis again, market research analysts again.

(01:06:06):
They may not go away, but they might be the
most impacted. Jobs least impacted by AI. Here we go,
short order cooks, mechanics, line installers, drivers, athletes, stonemasons.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
I mean that's kind of a random list.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
I think they just looked at like, like what can
we find as like the randomeest list of things that
like we'll just make this report sound better that like, Okay,
if you're a stone Mason, you're you're fine. I mean, athlete,
I guess it's time for me to uh start hitting
the gym and learn, uh learn football eight to eight
rich one on one eighty eight seven four to two,

(01:06:44):
four one zero one. Coming up, we're gonna talk about
baseball card collecting and how tech is changing that. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
with you, talking technology eight eight eight rich one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.

(01:07:07):
The playlist this week is from my mom? Is this
what song?

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):
Is this? Bobo?

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Is this?

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Is this Sinatra? Okay? Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra my way?

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Yeah, okay, So my wife and I on Sunday nights
will do a thing called Sunday Supper and we just
turn on the Frank Sinatra playlist.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
Yeah, it's great. Really takes you right back. Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Let's let's talk to Ted Man. He created an app
called Collects really kind of revolutionized baseball card collecting, trading,
valuing of cards. And he's calling in from Chicago today.

Speaker 5 (01:07:42):
Hey, Rich, Yeah, I'm at the National Card Show. Oh wow,
in Chicago, in Rosemont, Illinois. It's it's it's quite a show.
It's every year it seems to get bigger and bigger.
I think this year they might hit about one hundred
and fifty thousand attendees, so it is way large. It
took me a minute to run out trying to find
a quiet place to talk. So I'm not doing it
on the show floor. But it's been it's been a

(01:08:04):
really good one here. It's pretty exciting time to be
a car collector.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Yeah, this is huge. My kid, by the way, it's
his birthday this weekend. He is a he loves cards.
He pulled a like a I don't know, a couple
hundred dollars card the other day. And I've gotten, of
course into it because of all the raw and graded
and like I know all the lingo now, but it
all started with your app. Explain quickly before we get
into the show, like what you came up with a
couple of years ago.

Speaker 5 (01:08:29):
I don't know whether to say, you know, you're welcome
or I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, how many parents have told
me that, Like now they're getting back into it, The
kids are getting into it, and you know, it's a
it's a kind of a double edged sword, but it's fun.
It's that one's just for sure. So just to catch
you up on like what's happened since we last talked,
I mean I have you to thank for this, by
the way, I mean I probably have had, you know,

(01:08:51):
three dozen people come up to me at the show
saying that I always ask how did you hear about
the Apple, like from a friend or from social media
or whatever, and they and so many people tell me
they heard about it from you. Wow. Really, your your
reach is expansive, and whether it's on the radio or
on the TV. I can't thank you enough for kind
of help and spread the word. Early on Amazing, we
learned about three and a half million users who scan

(01:09:13):
get this rich two million cards every day.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Oh wow, into the app. That is incredible.

Speaker 5 (01:09:20):
Yeah, I thought I would. I would call in just
to share because I I love listening to your show,
like you were on my mind, not just because people
were telling me they heard about the app from you,
but also because I have it on my calendar. I
try to listen every week. I knew this today I
was going to be at the show, but I h
I pinged you just because I thought it would be
kind of fun to share some of the technology that
I'm seeing. We've seeing a lot of cool tech stories

(01:09:41):
here and I thought maybe it'd be fun to share
with your audience some of the not the collect story,
which you've already shared, but like some of the other
tech that we're seeing here at the show.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Yeah, well, let me just I know, because people are
going to want to download the app if they haven't
used it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
It's called COO l l X. That's what you search right, collects.

Speaker 5 (01:09:58):
Yep I phone Android, totally free app. Take a picture
of any trading card, It'll identify it, you get the
value and under a second and then you can build
your collection. And we have a marketplace. Now. Marketplace is booming.
It has been growing steadily and I think it's really
kind of become a place that people look to buy
cards every bit as much, if not more than eBay.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Wow, that's wild. So what's happening at the show? What
are some of the neat things you're seeing there?

Speaker 5 (01:10:24):
So there were like sort of three text stories I
was thinking about, like what are the most interesting kind
of trends? And the first is is live live selling.
So are you have you ever been on whatnot or
any of similar platforms.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
Yes, I did a segment with them, and it's wild.
I mean, I'm not I don't do it personally, but yeah,
I'm familiar with the idea. It's like QVC for like
a you know, anyone can do it from their phone
basically exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:10:51):
So, I mean it has become such a big part
of the hobby. There is probably maybe a fifth of
the show floor here and it's a big it's a
big show all dedicated to to what Not streamers. Breakers.
Braking is when you basically buy usually high end trading
card product like like boxes for like a thousand dollars

(01:11:13):
and rather than the most average shows that I'm going
to spend a thousand dollars on the box, but they'll
sell shares, you know, so you can buy your team
for instead of a thousand dollars for maybe for like
fifty bucks, and then you get all the cards from
that team. So that's become a huge part of the
of the of the space and the floor. It's really
fun and exciting. We're right next to all these breakers
and they are constantly ripping open all these packs and

(01:11:34):
finding really big heads. We did a couple of breaks, actually,
we did giveaways on Whatnot my team and pulled some
loola like a Webby number to five. Yeah, yesterday, it
was a big card, maybe a thousand dollars card and yeah,
it's super fun. So that's one. You know, it's not
just what not to. By the way, You've got Fanatics

(01:11:55):
has a live streaming platform called Fanatics Live. You've also
got Walmart believe it or not, and eBay all getting
into the live selling.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Oh wow, Walmart too.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
Huh.

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
Yeah. I kind of like it because it I used
to go to auctions with my parents, and to me,
you know, there was always you know, as a kid,
there's always like an auctioneer. There's always a person kind
of like pitching and selling this stuff, you know, like
you know, the rapid fire like you know, auctioneer like ease. Yeah,
And I kind of like it because it feels to
me more like like what an auction was always supposed

(01:12:26):
to be. So I think it's a really fun experience. Okay,
dangerously addictive.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Yes, yes. And people.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
I mean we we sat through there was like a
sneaker place that was selling on whatnot and they sold
I think, like I think it was like ten thousand
dollars worth of shoes in like a couple of minutes,
like eight minutes or something.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
It was pretty wild.

Speaker 5 (01:12:44):
It's nutty. So right, breakers are like one hundred million
dollar business.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
I've got about a minute left. So what what else
are you seeing there?

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
Tech wise? You said three stories? What not live?

Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
Yeah? Two other I'll be quick. The other one is
digital repacks. So one of the things that you were
talking about grading cards. One of the things that's become
really popular is people will buy like a graded card
kind of like in a like in a box and
then you basically rip it open like you would but
rip over a pack of cards. So that's become like huge.
There's companies like Derek Jeter start a one called Arena

(01:13:14):
Club that does that courtyard. So I think that's really interesting.
And you know, I think definitely a trend that I'm
seeing in the last one is AI, right, so now
you're seeing I mean not just like collectyle visual search
eye that you see. There are a few few tools
now for like pricing AI. So you can figure out
before you go buy a box of cards at your

(01:13:34):
local hobby shop, and you can hop onto a site
like wax sat and basically say is this the best
price in Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
I got got to run.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Hang on one second, we'll go to break Well, we'll
be back after this. Welcome back to rich On tech
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology. What
a fruitful show so far. We've done a lot here.
We've still got a little bit to go here, and
it could go on forever. I mean, we could just
do this.

Speaker 6 (01:14:00):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Bobo said he'll stay all day, so he said fine.
Rich Rich on tech dot tv is the website to
go to if you want links to anything that I
mentioned here in the break. I'm slowly but surely switching
over my two factor authentication codes to this new Proton
Authenticator app. So if you are looking for a new
authentication app, so far, I've found no flaws in this one.

(01:14:24):
It seems to be really good. Hit all the things
that I want in a good app. So check that out.
Let's see we've got people I've been waiting on hold
for extremely long time.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Let's go to line four. Paul and Columbus. You're on
with Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
Hey, Rich, thanks for taking the call in good playlist
from your mom there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Oh see, every time people seem to like it. Okay,
what can I help you with?

Speaker 5 (01:14:45):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
Probably more in my age range than yours, but anyway,
I'll try to make a simple question and I can
get more details. That's needed. Some apps when you're awaiting
your home Wi Fi use to cellular data. Other ones
require me to have a hotspot. Why and can you

(01:15:08):
any there a third party software that could direct it otherwise.

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):
I I'm trying to so what apps require like a
hot spot versus the cellular data because I haven't really
run into that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
I know that some apps want, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Sort of a better data connection, and so they'll have
like an option that says, you know, only use Wi
Fi by the fall.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):
But what do you mean by that? Which apps specifically?

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
Okay, Well, for example, I'm using the metaglasses. I'm visually
impaired using the metaglasses, and they do really nice job
and there's no you don't need a you know, a
special connection or hot spot. It will just work with
your cellular data. There's another brand that's coming out that
it looks very good, specifically made for people. It's this

(01:15:55):
vision problem and they use they use them a form
that you have to use a hot spot to get
that while you're away from your Wi Fi.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Interesting, Okay, so I think the the reason for that
is probably the data needs of that device. That's the
only thing I can imagine that they because it's doing something,
maybe it's doing something in real time, or it's it's
pulling some sort of database, and it needs just what
I would call like a you know, a fat connection
to the internet, you know, like a bigger connection that

(01:16:30):
that sort of can handle more data at once versus
traditional cellular. But the thing is that's interesting is that
traditional cellular has gotten so good that it's really not
an issue.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Like I go through all my apps.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
The first thing I do when I set up a
new phone, you know, I test all these phones, is
I just go through all the apps like Spotify, Netflix,
this and that they all default to wanting to just
download on Wi Fi. I'm like, no, my cellular's great, Like,
go ahead, use as much data as you want. So
that's the only thing I can think of, is that's
a specific need of that app. Are you on iPhone

(01:17:04):
or Android? Okay, I was gonna say so. For iPhone,
there's really not a way to control the data that
the apps use, Like there's not a way to like
that I know of too easily unless it's in the
app settings. There's not really a way to sort of
command what that app does with data.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
On Android, there's an app that I can't think of off
the top of my head. But it's an app. Oh gosh,
I gotta find it. But it's an app that lets
you kind of change how other apps can use data.
Like you can go in there and say, I only
want my kindle to use Wi Fi, I only want
my kindle to use Cellular, And you can do it
for a case by case basis for any app, even

(01:17:45):
if the app itself doesn't allow it. So I guess
the long answer to your question is that I have
not really seen that in a big way, but that's
the only kind of solution I can think of.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
If you want to send.

Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
Me an email with the name of the actual product,
I can look into it a little bit more and
see like what their reasoning is and I can maybe
even reach.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
Out to them.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
So if you want to do that, you know the
email address it's you can just send it to hello
at rich on tech dot TV and that will get
it to you or get it to me. Paul, Thanks
for the question today. I appreciate you calling in from Columbus.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Let's go to ka.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
Kay has also been waiting for a long time here
in Sherman Oaks, Okay, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 10 (01:18:28):
Oh Rich, thank you so much worse the wait definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Well, we don't have the answer, yes, so don't don't
say that prematurely.

Speaker 10 (01:18:35):
Okay, fair, No, what can.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
I help you with?

Speaker 10 (01:18:39):
Well, I did. I have an Android A fifteen, okay, Samsung,
and I'm really happy with it. I did my first
update about six or seven days ago. And after I
did the update, which I believe it's called you I
seven point zero.

Speaker 14 (01:18:57):
Yes, okay, it recons figured my phone, and I know
that that happens when people do updates, but to the
detriment of my ability to use the phone.

Speaker 10 (01:19:09):
So I have many windows. When I load Google Chrome,
the windows aren't completely websites aren't completely loading. There's a
lot of blank spots. I have been trying to troubleshoot myself,
just researching, but I can. I haven't found it, so
I defer to your expertise. I definitely need help. I

(01:19:30):
don't it seems to be an extension issue, but I
don't know for certain.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
So you updated to the one UI seven, which is
you know, almost their latest.

Speaker 6 (01:19:39):
One.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
UI eight is Samsung's newest, but only a couple a
handful of phones have that. So you got a pretty
major software update with one UI seven. Did this add
any AI features to your phone?

Speaker 6 (01:19:50):
Or no?

Speaker 5 (01:19:51):
It did?

Speaker 10 (01:19:51):
And I don't. I'm very I'm tech friendly, but I
really don't want AI chat. It did load Google Gemini
very I can't. I haven't. I would like to not
have it on the.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
Well, I don't know if you can go back on that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
I know that's kind of tricky, but there is a
setting in Galaxy AI in your settings. There's now what
I recommend. Typically when you get a big software update.
You said you're tech friendly, So what I like to do?
And I said, I like to do this on my
Friday or Saturday nights instead of going out hanging out
with friends. I like to go through the settings on
my smartphone and just kind of see all the different
options I have. Right, I'm kind of joking, but I

(01:20:30):
do like to do this. Maybe you're not joking.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
I'm not doing it on a.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
Friday or Saturday night, but you know what I mean, like, just,
you know, take some time to go through all the
new options you have, because there are a lot, but
specifically with Galaxy AI, there is an option under your
settings under Galaxy AI to process data only on device,
and that means it's only going to do the things
that it can do without pinging the internet, So that

(01:20:55):
will actually kind of limit some of the AI features
on that device. That's number one. When it comes to Chrome.
It sounds to me when you say, what do you
mean by extension? What do you have installed in there?
That's that could be interfering with Chrome?

Speaker 10 (01:21:08):
I don't know, And let me just I'm I'm user friendly.
I'm not tech savvy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Okay, God, that's.

Speaker 10 (01:21:16):
An important correction. Yeah, Okay, So when I the Windows
don't load since I did the update, they don't load completely.
Pictures prompts with the little where it has a lot
of like pre configured questions and you can tap the arrow,
everything's frozen.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Okay, So it's all kind of messed up on Chrome specifically. Okay,
So have you gone through and have you made sure
all your apps are updated after you did the software update? Like,
did you go into Google Play and make sure all
your apps are up to date?

Speaker 10 (01:21:46):
I don't even use google Play. I only use I
use the least amount of permissions I did. I have
gone through everything as much as I know how, and
I've repeatedly gone through settings within the apps settings, you
know internally apps on the phone, and then actually settings

(01:22:08):
through Chrome Live. Let's say, does that answer your question?

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
Okay, so yeah, So what I would do is I
would open up Google Play. I know you don't have
to install anything new, but I want to make sure
that all your apps are updated. So there's a couple
of things I'd like you to do. Number one and
I'll put this all in the show notes. You don't
have to like write it all down. But number one,
go into Google Play and you know, you got to
tap your profile in the upper right hand corner. It
says manage apps and Devices, and then it says overview

(01:22:36):
apps up to date, or you can say you can
tap that and say check for app updates. That's the
number one thing you have to do is check for
your app updates. Make sure that Chrome is on the
latest version, because you might be running an old version
of Chrome now with a new operating system. They might
be competing with each other and something's going wrong. That's
number one. Number two, then you have to go into

(01:22:57):
what's called the Galaxy Store, and this is Samsung's own
app updates. And so if you go into your apps
your list of apps, and you type store. You can
find the Galaxy Store and this is Samsung's own version
of Google Play. And you go to the menu there
and it says updates. You tap that, and then you

(01:23:19):
tap update all and that will update all your Samsung apps.
So again we're just getting your phone to a place
where everything is up to date and good to go.
Then I would restart your phone. That's fine. The other
thing I would do on this is go into your Settings.
I know this sounds like a lot, but it's stuff
I do all the time, and I'll put it in
the notes, so it's not a big deal. Then you
want to go into your Security and Privacy and then

(01:23:40):
it says updates and there's a Google Play system update.
I want you to check for an update there and
install that my phone.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
I just did it. It says your device needs to restart
to complete the update. Do that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Then I want you to go into Chrome. Tap the
menu bar the three dots in the up right hand corner,
and where it says delete browsing data. I would like
you to delete probably all of your data and that
has done okay. That you've done okay, and that still
didn't fix it, No, And did you do that for
all time or did you do it for just like

(01:24:12):
fifteen minutes.

Speaker 10 (01:24:14):
I've done it many times. All the help servers say
to do that, okay, And I want to confirm something
with you, yeah, when you I don't have any apps
that I go into to you right other than like okay,
Chrome and Google. But I'm not signed into anything.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
Oh you're not signed into even on an Android phone.
You didn't sign in? Interesting, okay, Well, so I don't use.

Speaker 10 (01:24:39):
Any services, only Chrome, Google, incognito. I used only search,
very very basic.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
And are you when you're okay?

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
The only other thing since you've cleared that activity, It
could be that clearing the activity on Chrome could be
making these websites take longer to load. That could be
the other thing that's happening here, So maybe put the
brakes on that. Try to load these websites one more time.
You can always pull down on a website when you're
in Chrome to reload the page. So try that and
see if things pop up. Eighty eight rich one oh

(01:25:10):
one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Welcome back to rich On Tech. Let's get right to
uh Nate in Florida.

Speaker 5 (01:25:21):
Nate.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
You're on with rich.

Speaker 5 (01:25:24):
Ty.

Speaker 12 (01:25:25):
I want to ask, what do you think of the
new Nintendo Switch two?

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
Oh, good question.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
Uh well, I think it's great, but I mean there
are some caveats to that, so it really depends on
whether you need to upgrade or not. So so I'll
just give you kind of my quick review. But you know,
this thing is selling very very well.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
It's it's available pretty much. I think you can get
it at this point, like pretty widely. But it builds
on I think what made the original popular, which is portability, flexibility.
It's got a lot of games you can already play,
including some new ones. The screen is bigger, the unit
overall is much bigger, still pretty easy to hold. I

(01:26:10):
think the biggest improvement is really the way the controllers attach.
They're now attaching magnetically instead of kind of this slide mechanism,
and the old way you can actually slide things in
wrong and it was a pain to detach it. Now
you can't slide things in wrong. It's much easier, much simpler.
The DOC, I think is better. I had a lot
of problems with the old DOC. This one seems to

(01:26:30):
be better performing. It also lets you play on your
TV and up to four K. The device itself is
sort of HD on the go. You can even use
the controllers as a mouse if you want so certain
games take advantage of that. And then just overall everything
has kind of improved. Better graphics, better sound, better haptics,
the software is faster. Digital game sharing I think, is

(01:26:53):
much easier at this point, and plus you've got this
new game chat feature which lets you voice chat while
you're playing. Plus there's even support for cameras.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
So I think the.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
Biggest downside that we've identified is the battery life, So
depending on how much you play, you might not get
as much battery life as you did before.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
And the price.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
It's expensive four hundred and fifty dollars or five hundred
dollars bundled with the new Mario Kart game. And I
think that's the other thing that was a little bit
lacking was like a title that like a must have title.
Donkey Kong Bonanza has come out, which is it's really fun.
I mean I've played it. It's like you're just bashing
rocks the whole time. I mean it's like you could

(01:27:33):
play that thing forever. But people are really really enjoying
that game. So the bottom line is do you need
a new console? Like is your old console doing what
you need? If so, then you probably don't need to upgrade.
But if you've been thinking about, you know, the way
the controllers attach, maybe the screen is a little too
small for you, the doc isn't working properly. You want

(01:27:54):
things to be faster, better graphics than I think, or
you want that game chat feature. I think that the
switch to a really nice upgrade. This is obviously going
to be a very very hot product for the holidays.
I think it's gotten nothing but good reviews. But again
it's one of those things where do you need it
do you not need it? The people that need it

(01:28:14):
or want it, they already know that and they've already
gotten it. It's the rest of the folks that are
sort of like, Okay, wait, what advantage do I get
from this? And hopefully those that mini review I just
gave you helps you determine that. Thanks for the call,
Nate and Florida appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (01:28:28):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
I did something this week.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
I visited the Tesla Diner, which opened up while I
was in Hawaii, so I had to make my way
over there to check it out. It is in Hollywood.
This used to be a little bit of trivia for
you if you're in the LA area. This used to
be a Shaky's Pizza and I used to live in
this area, so I knew it pretty well. I mean
it's very congested in that area for sure. It's like
it's kind of like the right at where West Hollywood

(01:28:52):
starts and Hollywood ends. But this is a futuristic, sort
of retro looking diner Open twenty four. You can order
food right from your car. So you pull in. There's
eighty super charging stations. If you have a Tesla or
I believe another EV to charge in there, you can
pull into the parking lot. If you don't, you can't
park there, So that's one thing to know if you're visiting.

(01:29:15):
But it's got eighty supercharging stations, which is the largest
urban supercharging station I guess in the US right now.

Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
And when you pull in, you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
Can charge, and then you can order food right from
your dashboard, which I thought was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
It is neat.

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
It shows you like a little burger on your screen.
You tap that, the menu pops up. You've got burgers
all the typical diner, food, burgers, fries, tune the melt.
I got my souvenir cup which was seven extra dollars
and you can feel it's metal and it says Tesla Diner, Hollywood,
California on it. It all feels very disney esque, very

(01:29:50):
like amusement parky like. Even the way it looks on
this thing, it's like it's retro futuristic. I went during
the day, not at night when it's all lit up,
so I got to go back at and see what
this place looks like. But anyway, they bring the food
right out to your car, and it's a person, not
a robot that brings it out. But there's also two
giant outdoor screen so it's kind of like a little

(01:30:10):
drive in movie theater as well. You can watch the
shows on the screen outside or you can watch them
on your car screen and the audio is synced to
your car screen as well. I did not get to
test out that feature, but I did play the movie inside.
They were playing like, what was it Twilight Zone while
I was there. So the diner is open from six
am to midnight for walkins there are you know, there's

(01:30:33):
a way to order food inside. There was a line
even at ten thirty am. Inside it's all lively. There's
a whole bunch of lookie lose people just want to
see what all this is all about. And if you
go upstairs, kind of cool like space walk to get
upstairs feels very spacey. They call that the skyport and
this is like an outside area three hundred and sixty degrees.
You can walk around. There's merch up there. People were

(01:30:54):
excited to get merchandise. Apparently there's a robot up there
that serves popcorn and the optimist I did not see
that again. And then the other thing is if you
have a Tesla on you're charging here, you might be
wondering what about idling fees?

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
Becau I'm gonna be hanging out here.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
So they do have like a grace period, unlike other
charging stations which might charge you immediately for leaving your
car there. This you get like thirty minutes. So best
times to visit Weekdays, weekends are going to be super busy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
The burger, by the way, I loved it. It was delicious.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
So anyway, Tesla Diner in Hollywood definitely going to be
attraction people visit when they come to La coming up next,
we're going to talk about how AI is impacting long
term care. Right here, I'm rich on Tech. Welcome back
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
talking technology. The website rich on Tech dot tv. Find
me on Instagram at rich on Tech. Before we get

(01:31:46):
to our interview, just a couple of notes here. Number one,
smart glasses apparently doing really, really well. Sales of ray
Band Meta AI glasses tripled in the first half of
twenty twenty five. People are goblin these things up like wild,
so they came out the new version, the Oakley Meta
AI glasses, which have better video, better speakers, better battery life.

(01:32:09):
Obviously those are more for the extreme sports folks, but yeah,
apparently Meta has a hit on their hand there. And
then the cash app is getting a new feature called pools,
So if you need to collect money for something, you
can easily collect a pooled amount of money from friends
for group events, gifts, whatever you want, vacations, parties, splitting

(01:32:30):
a bill so you can create the pool on the
cash app. And then the best part is they don't
have to be signed up. You can just send a link,
text a link to friends and they can pay with
like Apple Pay or Google Pay, which is really great
because you know, collecting money from people is not easy.
And then finally, if you have Spectrum, you know how
they've been including all those apps like Hulu and HBO

(01:32:51):
Max and all these different things. Well maybe not Hulu,
but you know they have a Disney plus HBO Max, Peacock. Well,
they give you the version that includes the commercials. Well,
now you can upgrade on your own through their website
in your settings if you want to pay the difference,
you can now pay a couple extra bucks a month
to get the commercial free price. So again that's Spectrum's

(01:33:13):
new thing where you can just upgrade to get rid
of the ads on your streaming services. All right, we're
going to talk about this platform called water Lily.

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
We've got Lily.

Speaker 1 (01:33:24):
Via vida Ya Ruschul to join us to talk about
how families can plan for long term care and how
AI is helping Lily. Apologies for butchering your name. I
do appreciate, I do apologize for that. But this is
an important topic for folks because long term care is
something that seems to sneak up on people, but in

(01:33:45):
reality it's something that could be planned for right absolutely.

Speaker 11 (01:33:50):
It's a pleasure to be on this show.

Speaker 15 (01:33:52):
And you're right that on average in the US, every
single household is going to go through a serious form
of long term care events.

Speaker 11 (01:33:59):
So have it to dive in.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
Yeah, what I mean? So you have a personal story
with this, You why you created this? Right?

Speaker 11 (01:34:05):
I do?

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
So.

Speaker 15 (01:34:07):
I founded water Lily a couple of years after we
navigated a personal long term care.

Speaker 11 (01:34:12):
Event in my family.

Speaker 15 (01:34:13):
My aunt, she's a really integral part of our first
generation immigrant family. She had to raise me growing up,
and she was diagnosed with terminal stage colon cancer, and
what came with that post chemotherapy was the fact that
she was so frail we had to navigate her daily
long term care needs. A lot of us know that
as needs that our grandparents have or our aging parents have,

(01:34:33):
such as bathing, dressing, getting in and out of bed, twiddling, incontinence,
et cetera.

Speaker 11 (01:34:38):
So just daily activities that we do.

Speaker 15 (01:34:41):
All the time that we take for granted because we're
strong and independent.

Speaker 1 (01:34:46):
And so what is long term care exactly?

Speaker 6 (01:34:49):
Is this?

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
Is it always in a facility or can you have
it at home? Like, explain that aspect of it.

Speaker 12 (01:34:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 11 (01:34:54):
I love that question.

Speaker 15 (01:34:56):
Starting from the basics, which is a lot of folks assume, oh,
long term care is a type of facility or type
of home care, when in truth, long term care basically
is needs that you're going to have as a result
of not no longer being able to be independent. Independent
usually comes from getting older, becoming more frail. So it's
those activities I just mentioned when we think of our grandparents,

(01:35:18):
our parents when they start to struggle with cooking, getting
like being able to walk around the home, like really
easily getting in and out of on and off chairs
or beds, being able to take a shower by themselves,
realizing well, I might need some handles or assistants around
the home.

Speaker 11 (01:35:35):
That is, those are long term care needs. Essentially.

Speaker 15 (01:35:39):
The space usually calls them activities of daily living, and
when you have those needs, you could get help with them,
usually from family members or some professionals that could come
to the home to actually physically help you, or if
you need more consistent care. That's where folks start to
realize it might be more affordable to go into certain
types of retirement can unities or facilities.

Speaker 2 (01:36:01):
And this stuff. None of this is cheap.

Speaker 11 (01:36:04):
None of this is cheap. You're right where at the home?

Speaker 15 (01:36:09):
On average, I see the cost is like anywhere between
twenty five dollars to thirty dollars an hour for help.
And usually when you start to have those needs, like
when we go visit our parents when they need help,
it's several hours a day at the home, and that
could grow into easily between like forty to eighty hours
per week and usually that's facility based care and that

(01:36:29):
can go north of ten thousand dollars easily a month.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
Wow, So what what does your platform do? Like, what
does it help do? And how is AI involved in this.

Speaker 11 (01:36:41):
Fantastic question?

Speaker 15 (01:36:43):
So what we do that has never been done before
is we use AI to actually predict when you're going
to have long term care needs, your likelihood, how long
it's going to be for, and we focus on the
needs themselves. We actually focus on like how many hours
of help you're going to usually start off with, let's
just say if it's around age eighty five, and how

(01:37:03):
that might be for maybe four point three years. We
predict this and how on the tail end you might
end up with needing help with sixty hours of care
per week. From there, we help you build out a
sustainable care plan based on your care preferences and then
also tell you your preference has an associated cost, so
how do we solve for that cost as well in
the future.

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
So I'm looking at the website and it's just this
this falls under the idea of people like they know
this is going to happen, they know they might need this,
but they don't want to know the answer in advance
because they're like, oh, I'll just have to deal with
it when I have to. But that actually makes it
more stressful, and it probably is better to know this
information up front to help you plan for it. And
especially with the use of AI, I mean, it looks

(01:37:43):
really slick where it's telling you exactly how much you
might need for whether it's home living or home you know,
long term versus a in a facility. That's really interesting
as well.

Speaker 15 (01:37:54):
Yeah, I you know, I noticed a lot of the
tools that are built in a long term care space.
Folks that are in this space, like they're either coming
from the medical profession or they're coming from insurance, and.

Speaker 11 (01:38:05):
Then you build from that lens.

Speaker 15 (01:38:06):
And that was like the fundamental issues just families just
didn't understand what long term care was. And one of
my favorite influences for building out this system so that
was consumer friendly, was like beautiful systems like Instagram or
Airbnb or whatever else where. I just wanted it feel
so intuitive and very and very simple to navigate. So

(01:38:28):
that was of course one of our design inspirations. But
more importantly for me, I spoke to hundreds of families
and I realized like they just didn't understand what long
term care was, and so to make it concrete to
them and to have them lean in, I wanted to
tell them their own stories. So that's why we use
over half a billion data points on families that we've
been falling for several decades, and we have a three

(01:38:50):
minute intic survey where we asked social demographic information, medical information,
and financial information so we could look at the look
like families that already navigated long term care, and we
tell someone like you rich, like hey, based on someone
that looks like you and your household, this is what
your likelihood is, your age, how.

Speaker 11 (01:39:09):
Long, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:39:11):
Is this for someone to do themselves?

Speaker 6 (01:39:14):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:39:14):
Do you like I look on the website and it's
got like stuff for advisors? Is this something you can
go on and do yourself? Or do you have to
go through a third party, like explain that aspect of it.

Speaker 11 (01:39:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:39:22):
Absolutely So, there's already hundreds of financial professionals and care
professionals that use our platform as a way to guide
their clients through what is long term care looks like?
What's the cost? How do we solve that cost? However,
if you join onto our waitlist right now, I personally
love to kind of eat my own cooking, and I
am able to talk to consumers myself. So I, on average,

(01:39:45):
one out of every time consumers that say I'm open
to getting connected to a professional, I just reach out
to them without any incentive or anything else other than
just helping them build out that care plan, and the
other nine out of ten I actually direct them appropriately
to our network of advisors that already use our system
and our expert on it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:04):
And what's the So the endgame is that you get
you know, the person that's using this gets the information
about what they might be up against in the future,
and then they can get the right Can you refer
them to people that actually are the long term care
facilities and things that they need or what is that
part of this?

Speaker 11 (01:40:21):
Yeah, that's a really great question.

Speaker 15 (01:40:23):
So we first and foremost focused on education, which is like,
what are your needs going to look like? We tell
you the associate costs, so we even hyper personalized to
your zip code of where you currently live or where
you're going to retire, and we map those your needs
to that care resource and from there, when we figure
out what the cost is, we allow you to input.

Speaker 11 (01:40:42):
Things that you don't have to buy.

Speaker 15 (01:40:43):
You know, if you want a self fund, if you
want to consider insurance, if an insurance agent's trying to
sell you insurance, you can actually upload that policy into
the system and we actually analyze that policy dynamic to
your predicted scenario, so we could actually see is it
going to be a better ROI than self funding and
just help you make the decision yourself because the logic
is so clear.

Speaker 2 (01:41:04):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:41:04):
Okay, So the website is Waterlily dot com and Lily.
What's your background? Have you done a startup before like
this or is this your first?

Speaker 15 (01:41:14):
This is the first one that I founded, But prior
to this, I was actually on an aerospace trajectory before
I went into the healthcare industry. So from twelve to
sixteen was working at NASA. But when I was sixteen,
we navigated that long term care event. I went to
college early at fourteen for it. So then I pivoted
my career into healthcare, developed a background in genetics and AI,
and went to Berkeley, and then I led product and

(01:41:36):
engineering at multiple early stage startups in the healthcare industry
before founding water Lily, because I thought, you know, being
so young, someone's going to solve for this problem. But
no one was building anything that was really empathetic, that
was almost like a beautiful air ANDBB like experience for
such a necessary topic.

Speaker 1 (01:41:54):
So yeah, it's really organizing kind of this disinformation into
a way that's easily understand animal and of course AI
is really helping with a lot of that. Do you
just love the fact that you've got AI on your
side with this?

Speaker 15 (01:42:08):
I don't always build AI into our products, but I
love that the AI makes long term care real to
people decades in advance, so that they could get ahead
of that healthcare inflation, so they can get ahead of
that really high cost by planning today. So that's what
I love about it is that it gets people to
lean in and it's almost like a personality quiz. People

(01:42:29):
want to know it's a much more serious form of
just like what kind of.

Speaker 11 (01:42:33):
Animal are you? Are you a panda?

Speaker 15 (01:42:35):
Are you align or whatever else, And it just makes
it much more concrete than using national averages or you know,
average of code calculators.

Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
All right, once again, the website is Waterlily dot com,
Lily Vidora School. Thank you so much for joining me today,
appreciate it. Coming up, we are going to open up
the feedback and get into what you were emailing me
throughout the week is rich on Tech. Welcome back to
rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here, what a show, had

(01:43:09):
so much fun, answered so many questions, and now it's
time for the feedbag, which is where read all the
emails that you sent me. First off, last week I
mentioned that my washer and dryer leaked when I was
on vacation, and so what a nightmare. By the way,
because you know, ruined our floors. We had to get

(01:43:31):
new washer and dryer turned out. I don't know if
I told you this, but the actual connection to the
washer and dryer was also messed up, so I had
to get that replaced. I mean, it was just like
one thing after another. But I did get a whole
bunch of emails about what to do for next time.
Steve from Scranton writes, and Rich, I heard you talking
about the water leak you came home too after vacation.

(01:43:52):
I travel a lot, and I can tell you always, always,
always turn off your main water valve before you leave.
It's the best way to avoid exactly what happened you
too little, too late, I guess at this point. John
from Charlotte, North Carolina, listening on WBT says, as a
general contractor, I have a simple solution to avoid water
wheat leaks while you're out of town. Just turn off

(01:44:13):
your water main valve before you leave. It's not high tech,
but it works and it's free.

Speaker 2 (01:44:17):
Again. Hm, I wish I would have done that.

Speaker 1 (01:44:19):
Carlos from Pomona, listening on KFI says about the caller
with a low tech water leak detector, tell her to
get a Mini smart speaker. Most of them can pick
up audible alarms and send a notification to your phone
no matter where you are. The HomePod Mini does this
really well, and even lets me know when my wife
burns a tortillas while I'm at work. Yeah, I forgot

(01:44:40):
about that feature. The HomePod can listen for any sort
of alarm and relay that to your phone. That's pretty smart.
Tim writes in, you recently talking about water issues. I've
done a lot of research after two of my friends
had water leaks while they were on vacation. My conclusion
the best solution is low tech. Just turn the water
off at the meter before you leave. Oh my gosh.
Every single person says the same thing. You pretty much

(01:45:02):
what an easy fix. I was just thinking, like I
just keep doing that that motion in my head of
my hand, just turning the knob, you know, the knob
like off. George writes in, I listened to your recent
podcast about the home water leak detectors.

Speaker 2 (01:45:15):
I wanted to share.

Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
I have eleven leak detectors throughout my home anywhere a
leak might happen. If one detects water, the main line
shuts off automatically. I use a system from Yo Link.
It's been great. Bruce writes in, I love my Flume
brand leak detector attaches to my water meter with a
rubber band, no plumbing required. It can detect leaks as
small as two tablespoons per minute. It connects via Wi

(01:45:38):
Fi and sends alerts to my phone. Yes, I did
go home and buy a flood and free sensor from Ring.
So I'm gonna put this at the bottom of my
washer dryer area and next time. Hopefully there is no
next time, but I'll be prepared. Sarah writes in this
is from the show before vacation. I really enjoyed Sarah

(01:46:00):
from Las Vegas. I really enjoyed hearing Parker on your
show a while back, and today Tanner joined too. What polite,
articulate and knowledgeable boys you have. It's pleasure to listen
to them. Also, your best line was that's violin stuff.
Maybe the boys can find a way to squeeze some
of the classics into their tech lives. Rita writes in
your boys sound it so polish and confident on the show.
You must be proud and enjoy every moment. And I

(01:46:21):
think mom deserves from kudos too. I think mom deserves
more kudos than me, for sure. Steve from Durham, North
Carolina writes in just saying thanks for taking your kids
to work. I have great memories of doing that with
my dad. We'd usually do it twice every summer while
school was out. He was a repair tech for Xerox
back when copy machines filled an entire room. I remember thinking, Wow,

(01:46:42):
my dad can fix this. He's also taught at Xerox
Training School, and I even met one of his students later.
My job was to run out to the work van,
find the right number, find the right part number, and
bring it in. I learned a lot about paying attention
and how to behave in an office setting. I'm still
learning that. We even went on base at one point,
just a windowless brick building. Someone escorted us the whole time.

(01:47:03):
Still have no idea what went on. Still have no
idea what went on inside We knew better than to ask.
Thanks Steve, and Bob writes in OMG. I'm in the
kitchen making dinner, listening to yesterday's show, and your kid
is totally cool.

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
Sounds like you're a good dad and you raised them well.
Thank you, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:47:21):
I'm still raising them, so I can't give you the
full you know, I can't tell you how good they
turned out until it's done.

Speaker 2 (01:47:26):
I guess. Let's see here.

Speaker 1 (01:47:29):
Bob from Northern California rites in a week a few
weeks ago, you read a letter from someone who backs
up scan documents to flash drives. Well that's a good start.
I'd argue it's not a real backup unless the copies
are stored in different locations. If the drives are kept
in the same place as the originals, one disaster could
wipe out everything. Absolutely, always have things redundancy for sure.

(01:47:50):
Karen from Cazadero, California, rights in. Just as I was
trying to unplug a Tibetan retreat center with limited Wi Fi,
sounds like you, Bobo got hit with a major fraud issue.
I got a legit looking at and t text asking
me to verify my backup number.

Speaker 2 (01:48:06):
A change to my backup number, so I enter the code.

Speaker 1 (01:48:09):
Soon after, I got an email from Hilton saying my
password had been updated. Turns out they linked my Hilton
to my Amazon and drained over a million points one million,
ninety three, six hundred ninety six to be exact, across
four transactions. Another two hundred thousand points were transferred elsewhere.
Hilton opened two fraud cases, but it's just a big mess.
Heads up to your listeners, if you have a high

(01:48:30):
points balance on your travel or rewards accounts, stay vigilant.
Hackers are targeting more than just your bank accounts, and yes, Karen,
you even did the right thing and had two factor.
You just got tricked into sharing that code. And let's
see one more here, Oh, Mike. Mike writes in I'm
not a fan of selfies, but I do enjoy photography.

(01:48:52):
I'd suggest putting your phone camera on wide angle and
turning on the flash.

Speaker 2 (01:48:56):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:48:56):
This is the sunset selfie tip from Kawhi. The subject
will be lit, the sunset should still show up in
the background. I've used this technique successfully with my DSLR.
I'm heading to Kawhi in August and we'll try a
sunset selfie on my phone and report back. I love
the show. I'm a faithful listener, all right. I think
that's what we're going to do for today. Let's see

(01:49:17):
one more. John from Carlsbat says Rich, thanks for your
great tips. I enjoy the podcast while riding my mountain
bike or walking the dog. Needless to say, I forget
some of your recommendations. How can I get a printable transcript?

Speaker 2 (01:49:26):
I get your.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
Newsletter, but it would would be willing to subscribe if
it included a transcript option. Thanks for tweaking my eighty
year old brain. Rich on tech dot TV you can
get the links to the show note there. Find me
on social media at rich on Tech. Next week you've
got Adam Daud. He's going to talk about consumer tech
and US Mobile CEO Ahmed Kattak he's going to talk
about US Mobile. There are so many ways to spend

(01:49:48):
your time. I appreciate you spending it.

Speaker 3 (01:49:49):
Right here with me.

Speaker 2 (01:49:50):
My name is rich Dmiro. I will talk to you
real soon

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