All Episodes

May 4, 2024 107 mins
Rich opens the mailbag to answer listener questions.Victor asked if Apple will introduce a new iPad Pro this year. Rich says Apple’s Let Loose event on May 7 is expected to unveil new models.Tish asks if she should use AT&T Internet Air or Spectrum Fiber at 1 gigabit speed.Michael, who is in Kentucky, asks how to hide his real phone number when signing up for services. Rich mentioned Cloaked, Burner App, T-Mobile DIGITS, Verizon’s Second Number and Google Voice.Sue asked why she and her significant other’s iPhone accounts seemed intertwined. Rich says to set up separate Apple IDs but link them up using Apple Family Sharing.Bonnie in Santa Barbara wonders if she should switch from faster to slower internet to save money.Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb, and Jay Carney, who leads public policy, will talk about their new icons offering and more.Sara in Ventura has mistakenly locked up her phone and can’t access her two-factor authentication codes.T-Mobile now owns Mint Mobile.Roku devices will soon have home screen ads.Kathy in Laguna Niguel wants to know if she should pay to replace the modem on her solar system or connect it using a wired connection.Sam’s Club is replacing receipt checkers at the exit doors with AI and computer vision to do the job automatically.Jack Winston, founder of BePresent, discusses how the app can help users use their smartphones less.John says he’s running out of space on his hard drive and wants to know how to free up storage. Rich mentioned BleachBit and WinDirStat. You could also change the default storage location for documents.LinkedIn now has three new games: Crossclimb, Pinpoint and Queens.Brad in Key West says he lost photos on his iPhone during a recent software update. Rich mentioned checking the Recently Deleted album in the Photos App and backing up photos to a third-party service like Amazon Photos, Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Photos.UnitedHealthcare says 1/3 of Americans might be involved in their data breach.Anthropic releases Claude AI as a free app for iOS.John in Bakersfield had online banking fraud and needs help.John Faulkner of Clean Fleet Report will join to give a review of the all-electric Acura ZDX.Mindtrip.AI is a new way to use AI to plan travel.The popular Arc web browser is now available on Windows.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's going on rich dmiro And this is Rich on Tech.
This is the show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
up those phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(00:24):
zero one. Give me a call if you have a
question about technology. Email is also an option. Just go
to rich on tech dot TV hit contact. While you're there,
you might see a light bulb on the website. That
is where you can find the show notes for today's
show in real time. So if I mentioned something you
want to link to it, just go to rich on

(00:45):
tech dot TV, hit that light bulb and you'll see
the show number and all the show notes. All right.
Coming up guests this week, I'll talk to the founder
of Airbnb plus. They're head of public policy. They're going
to talk about their new icons off. This is where
Airbnb is kind of putting out these whimsical places you
can stay at and it's a new thing that they're

(01:07):
doing and many of them are free. I will explain
that we've got Jack Winston joining us. He is founder
of the app called Be Present, and he will talk
about how the app can help you use your smartphone less.
And friend of the show, John Faulkner of Clean Fleet
Report will join us to give a review of Accura's

(01:28):
first I think it's their first all electric car, the
zd X. Well this week, I figured i'd start the
show a little bit differently. I get a ton of
emails from you each and every week, and I don't
get to all of them on the show each week.
So I figured i'd start the show by going through
some of your emails and answering the questions that you

(01:50):
have sent me in the past week or so. So,
without further ado, let's start with Victor. Victor says, I'm
wondering if you know if Apple is going to introduce
a new iPad this year, iPad pro. As always, thanks
for your time, you are always a great help. Best regards, Victor. Victor,
you are just in time, because yes, Apple is expected
to launch new iPads this week. In fact, May seventh

(02:15):
is the date of the event. They're calling it Let Loose,
and this is a virtual event. It's gonna be taped.
I don't believe there's any sort of live audience or
anyone going up to Coopertino. It's just one of these
things where they will broadcast the event online and they
will launch the new products. What are we expecting, Well,
new iPad pro models. Like you said, they will have

(02:37):
better displays, of course, faster chips. The rumor is that
they're going to skip that M three chip and go
straight to the M four, which may give them some
AI potential. There may be price increases because these are
going to be better displays. But yes, the iPad Pro
is sort of the main thing here. It's due for
an update, so if you're looking for a new iPad Pro,

(03:00):
it will be the time to get it. But I
would wait right now. You've got a couple of days
before these new models come out. If you're in the
market for an iPad, it's best to wait. No matter what.
If you're looking for an old iPad, those prices typically
go down when the new ones are launched. If you're
looking for a new one, you'll get brand new specs.
They're also looking at maybe a new generation of the
Apple pencil and that M four chip. That M four

(03:24):
chip is a big deal. Because it's the next generation
of chip from Apple, and it's supposed to have some
AI smarts built in. That is the big thing with
Apple right now. If you looked at their earnings report,
you noticed and I don't think you did, but I did.
You notice that the iPhone for the first time, if
you can believe it, sales, I guess our revenue was

(03:44):
down ten percent. That is huge for Apple because it
marks a shift, or a potential shift for this company
where they have been very iPhone driven for many years.
But the thing that was up was the software and services.
What is that that's basically iCloud. So that was up

(04:05):
fourteen percent. And what does that tell me? I talked
about this in my newsletter. It tells me that you've
got a lot of people using iPhones out there, like
over a billion people, and they're storing all of their
stuff in the cloud. And the more you store in
the cloud, the more money Apple makes. So they're not
making as much on the iPhones anymore, but they're starting
to make more and more every quarter on that cloud

(04:25):
storage and Apple TV Plus and all these other little
things that are much more service based. So it's a
smart move by Apple because they know the iPhone is
not going to be the Golden Goose forever. Let's see
Tish in Georgetown, Kentucky says, I currently have AT and
T DSL. I've been informed that AT and T is
switching over to Internet air. My concern, based on their

(04:45):
mailing is that they limit you to twenty devices. My
household has around twenty five. Spectrum Fiber has come into
my area. They're offering one terabyte speeds. I believe that's
one megaba. Yeah, this is a very fast fiber speed
for fifty five dollars for two years, unlimited devices, no contract,

(05:07):
no caps. I currently pay sixty four dollars a month,
seventy four or five over just interesting. What are your
thoughts about the two I only need internet services, no TV,
mobile or anything else. Thanks. Personally, I would go with
the Spectrum Fiber. You're gonna get much much faster speeds
up and down. Also, the price fifty five dollars for
two years is an incredible price for that I'm paying

(05:29):
more like ninety dollars a month, so I think fifty
five is an incredible price. Ride it out for the
two years, and then you can decide if you want
to switch. Over to the AT and T Internet air
that is Internet that is delivered over their five G network,
so it's not available. It's only available in places where
they don't have fiber, so that's why they're offering that

(05:50):
to you. And the limit for twenty devices that is
probably twenty devices simultaneously, so I don't think you'd have
all twenty five devices in your household on the Internet
at the same time. But in general, if you can
go with fiber versus you know, cellular, I'd go fiber
every day. Great question there, Michael. Is this another person

(06:11):
in Kentucky? Wow, Glasgow, Kentucky. Michael says, I enter some
online newsletters and contests, but I don't really want to
give my phone number to someone because I'm sure they're
going to sell it to third parties and then that
of course results in junk mail and scam calls. Is
there a free service where I can get a disposable
phone number to use and change anytime I want. I

(06:32):
have an iPad iPhone Pro fifteen. Thanks. I listened to
the podcast of the radio show every week before I
go to sleep. All right, well, thank you. A couple
of ways you can do this. Number one, there are
full scale services. There's a service called Cloaked, and I
think we're going to see more of these types of services.

(06:53):
This is like an all in one service that lets
you generate one time email addresses, one time phone numbers,
as many as you need. That's going to run you
anywhere from ten dollars a month to maybe one hundred
bucks for the year. That is like a real strong
solution to this. But you said you wanted something for free,
so that is probably not going to fit the bill.

(07:14):
But that's really if you started from scratch. It's almost
like a password manager, but for your identity. Again, that's
called Cloaked. Cloak Ed. You can also do if you
have T Mobile, they have an add on called digits
and I believe that's a free add on. It's like
a free virtual phone number. And their pitch when they

(07:35):
came out with this a couple of years ago was
give this to all the different companies that you do
business with, you know, the grocery store, the you know,
I was gonna say video rental store, but we don't
do that anymore. But you know what I mean, Like,
anytime you have to sign up with a phone number,
just give them that number, and that's T Mobile digits.
You can just add a line there. Verizon also has

(07:56):
a feature what do they call it. They call it
second Number. It's very very similar to a virtual phone number,
and that will also ring your phone. But that's ten
dollars a month. So again, these are options that I'm
giving you, but they all cost money. And there is
another option called Burner. This is an app that's independent
and it lets you generate phone numbers on demand. So

(08:18):
if you were selling something on Craigslist, for instance, and
you didn't want to give out your real phone number,
you only wanted a phone number that you can text
or maybe have a couple of voice calls for for
a month, you would set up a phone number a
couple bucks and then it would expire at the end
of that time, or you can choose to extend it.
You can have a Burner number that lasts indefinitely, or

(08:39):
you can have them expire, you know, after thirty sec
thirty days or something like that. But the freeway to
do this is definitely Google Voice looks like you can
still sign up for a free Google Voice phone number.
So that is personally what I would do, and that
is what I do I've got a Google Voice number.
I've had them since day one. When they first launched,
they were called I think it was called Grand Central,

(09:01):
and it was such a cool concept because back in
the day, you had a landline, you had your work number,
you also had your cell phone number, and you didn't
want to give out your cell phone number to everyone
because it was more like a guarded phone number. Nowadays,
of course that's the standard, but I think people are
realizing we need to protect these more. So with all
that said, you can look into those options, Michael and

(09:21):
see which one fits you best. But you wanted something
for free, so I think that maybe you just go
for the free Google Voice. And Sue from Missoula, Montana, says, Hey, Rich,
I've watched you from the beginning. My so and my
so so. What's that my anyway, we have old phones

(09:42):
iPhone success. We're looking to get new phones. We have Verizon.
My question is I accidentally synced our phones together. Is
there a way I can unsync them before we buy
our new phones? Yes, Sue, I get this question all
the time, and the main thing you need to do
is set up a different Apple I id oh, Kim
says so means significant other. There we go. See you

(10:05):
learn something new every day. Bobo and I were looking
at each other like we don't know what that means.
But yeah, So you need to set up a second
Apple ID so you can each have your own Apple IDs.
That will unlink these accounts, so you can have your
own text messages, your own payment methods, your own phone.
It's not all inter SYNCD and you know, synced up

(10:26):
like that. But what you want to do is after that,
you want to set up Apple Family Sharing and that
will link up the two accounts. So let's say you
buy an app on your account, you're still able to
have your family download that same app on the other account.
So set up the secondary Apple ID, link it up
with the family Sharing, and that will make everything work
out perfectly and things will not be all intertwined. A

(10:49):
lot of parents have that issue with their kids. When
they get give them their phone, they have like you know,
or an iPad, They log in with their ID and
all their text messages are going to the kid's iPad.
Eight to eight rich one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one Coming up. I'll tell
you about Peacock's price increase and how Roku is adding
ads to the home screen. This is rich on Tech.

(11:13):
Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro 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. Operators are standing by ready to take
your call. Let's go to Bonnie in Santa Barbara. Bonnie,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Rich.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
I have a question about download and upload speeds. Sure
right now, I'm paying for probably the premium of five hundred,
you know, up to five hundred download and I think
it's ten upload, and they keep raising our rates, and
so they've given us an alternative that's download of up

(11:59):
to one hundred upload up to five. And I'm just
trying to figure out if that'll work. I have two televisions,
two computers. We watch a lot of we stream sometimes,
we watch a lot of YouTube videos. We're on both
televisions and computers all at the same time.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Are you are you uploading stuff ever?

Speaker 5 (12:24):
Like?

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Are you uploading large files? Are you uploading videos?

Speaker 4 (12:28):
Very rarely?

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Okay, Well, in that case, the one hundred down and
the five up would work, But that is that's pretty paltry.
What what type of service. Is it is from a
cable company? Is it from Okay, so this is interesting.
So the cable companies typically have a fast download speed
and a very slow upload speed, and then if you've

(12:52):
got fiber, it's typically the upload and download are the same.
So if you have five hundred on fiber down, it's
typically five hundred up. Now for someone like myself who's
uploading large video files and this weekend, I'm not kidding,
I downloaded. I downloaded my entire Google Drive to a
computer and it took maybe two hours. I mean we're

(13:13):
talking a terabyte of data. It was. It was really incredible.
But then I'm uploading large files too. So if you
want that ability, you want the fast upload. But for
what you're talking about, for just downloading our streaming, one
hundred is going to be just fine. Even if you
were even if you were streaming on two TVs at once,
you'd still be just fine. Netflix posts a there's a

(13:36):
page where they post what they're streaming kind of suggested
speeds are, and they their speeds are really really slow.
I mean it's it's like you don't even here. I'll
go through them real quick. I'm trying to bring up
the website, so they're right. So you know, these streaming companies,
part of what their their magic sauces. They figured out
a way to stream stuff really fast, like over a

(13:58):
slow connection. So for high definition, their recommendation is three
megabits or higher. Okay, you're at one hundred. You're talking.
Full HD is five megabits of speed, and then ultra
HD is fifteen megabits or higher. So you're at one hundred.

(14:19):
So you're you're doing okay, and you're going to be fine.
Do you know about the websites that help you test
your speed? Have you tried that on your computer?

Speaker 4 (14:25):
I have? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (14:26):
And what are you getting on that when you do that?

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Pretty close to five hundred maybe like four fifty or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Okay, and what's the price differential here?

Speaker 4 (14:38):
It is about thirty five dollars different.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Oh wow, thirty five a month? Yeah? Would I would
try it? And you can always go back, right, So
now you have to.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Lock in for twenty four months. So my concerned, Oh,
I don't you know, I don't want to get it
and then find out that the YouTube videos are buffering,
you know.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
I really don't don't think they're going to be But
is there any sort of like thirty day window where
you can I'm sure there's a thirty day window where
you don't have to where you can exchange it back.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
I would ask them that I could find out about Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
I would ask them that also, Yeah, I would. I
would ask about that. Do you have any other providers
in your area?

Speaker 4 (15:18):
I don't. I don't really, I don't want to shop around. Yes,
I do?

Speaker 1 (15:22):
You do? Okay, Well, you might get a better price
and a better speed. You know, it's a little annoying
to shop around to take that time. I totally understand that,
but you know you could get a significantly better speed
by by shopping around, so you might. You might check that.
And speed test has a good isp kind of you know,
where you can check to see in high speed Internet

(15:44):
dot com you can check to see what's in your area.
So there's a couple of different ways to that. But
I would I think you're gonna be fine. I would
ask them about the the thirty days if you can
switch to say, look, if this doesn't work for me,
you know, can I go back? But I don't like
the idea of locking in for two years. I hate
tracks and I just it's you know, we're we're in
a tech focused world where things are getting better every day.

(16:06):
Like what if a new provider came to your neighborhood
and said, hey, we're gonna give you a thousand down,
one thousand up for ten bucks a month and you're
stuck in this contract for two years. I don't like that,
but but Bonnie, thanks for the question. Appreciate it. Eighty
eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. Peacock is getting more expensive.
They are raising prices by two dollars on both the premium,

(16:29):
which is their ad supported plan, and their ad free plan.
They're both going up by two dollars a month. This
is the second time Peacock has raised prices in two years.
The free AD supported plan, which they launched with is
no longer available to new subscribers, So if you have that,
do not cancel it like I did, very very stupid
of me, because I can never get it back. I

(16:51):
am paying for Peacock and I got it on Black
Friday last year for twenty bucks for the whole year,
and now it's up to sixty For my renewal, new
customer will pay more starting July eighteenth, just in time
for the Olympics. Existing subscribers August seventeenth, they give you
the Olympics, they save you two bucks there. Coming up,
we're going to talk about Airbnb. They have a new

(17:12):
offering called Icons. I'll explain. You're listening to rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at triple eight Rich one
oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Get those calls in. I'll get
to the lines in just a moment, but first, let's

(17:35):
talk Airbnb now. This week, Airbnb had an event called
twenty twenty four Summer Release. This is sort of where
they give an update about the platform and introduce new features,
and this year they had a whole bunch of new
features aimed at making group stays easier. They said that
eighty percent of stays are booked by groups, which is

(17:56):
news to me. But the second thing they introduced in
this this is really interesting, is called icons. This is
a new category of sort of whimsical places inspired by
famous people, places and things. So for example, they recreated
the uphouse from the Disney movie. They actually had it
on display, we could walk through it. That's going to

(18:18):
be located in New Mexico. People will be able to
stay the night in that house. They've got another experience
where you can stay in the Ferrari Museum in Italy.
They painted an entire house to look like a cartoon
from X Men. You can stay there in Westchester, and
the list goes on and on. There are eleven icons
in all this is just the beginning. First up, I

(18:39):
spoke with Airbnb co founder Brian Chesky about the new experiences.

Speaker 6 (18:44):
I think it was better than I imagined. Yeah, I'm
just really surprised. If you can dream it, you can
do it. While Disney said, and I think we did it, so.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
And what do you hope to impart on the people
that stay at places like this, these iconic places.

Speaker 6 (18:58):
I think it's just like that you can these worlds
that exist in your imagination, they're now real and the world,
the real world is magical. I know we spend a
lot of time on devices and AI is ushering in
all these like magical digital worlds, but there's still a
lot of magic left in the real world, and I
hope more people spend more time in it. And really
enjoy it, and we just want to. I think that's

(19:19):
what we're trying to do, is just bring magic into
the real world.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Do you ever think you would come this far with
Airbnb when you started it.

Speaker 6 (19:26):
When I inflated three air mattresses my roommate.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 6 (19:29):
I mean, we just started as a cheap, affordable alternative
to hotel and to be able to come here. But
I mean this is kind of you want to go
where your imagination takes you, you know, and this is
the beginning. I think this is the beginning of the
next chapter of the company.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Next up. I spoke with Jay Carney at length about
the new features on Airbnb. He's their global head of
policy and Communications.

Speaker 5 (19:48):
It started as an idea of our two co founders
when they needed a little extra money. They had a
department in San Francisco and a spare room and they
rented it out and that was Airbedandbreakfast dot com, which
became Airbnb dot com.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
And today you've got places everywhere.

Speaker 5 (20:05):
Right, You've got places in more than two hundred countries
around the world, tens of thousands of cities, and all
of every state in the nation. And it's an extraordinary thing,
the growth of the company, the success, the fact that
Airbnb is you know, sort of become a noun and
a verb, right, I mean, they get an Airbnb. I'm
going to Airbnb and this city or that city. So

(20:26):
it's amazing. What's happened.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
What do you think the advantages of an Airbnb versus
standard hotel?

Speaker 5 (20:32):
Sure, I mean, there are lots of accommodation options. One
thing we know for sure is that Airbnb is better
for group stays. It turns out more than eighty percent
of Airbnb bookings are for group stays. I think that's
because you get more space. Generally, you can get a
whole home if you have kids, if you're traveling with
your family, you know, the kids get a bedroom, you
get your own bedroom, you get living space.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
What is the most notable aspect of the group planning?

Speaker 5 (20:54):
At this point, group trips have become sort of the
you know, the foundation of Airbnb, and people love to
use Airbnb for group trips, but our app wasn't designed
for that. So the improvements are really designed to make
it more delightful and easier for folks who are planning
group trips, so that the key factors are shared whistless.
We've always had wishless, or not always, but we had

(21:14):
had them for a long time, but they were really
hard to share and so people would make you know,
you know, spreadsheets and send them around to their fellow travelers.
Now you can easily within the app build a wishless,
share it with your co travelers. They can give a
thumbs up or a thumbs down or you know, other feedback,
so you can decide whish home you want a book.

(21:35):
And the other key feature is co travelers get to
sort of join the reservation and interact with the hosts.
So if you're coming from different places your group, you know,
that way, you know, your co traveler sees the same
information from the hosts about the address, how to check in,
how to open the door, that kind of thing. So
we find those features are going to make it a

(21:56):
lot easier, a lot more fun for group travelers. Why
the icons, we've discovered over the years that these things
we've been doing in sort of more you know, one
off fashion we call them, most recently only on Airbnb,
have been you know, tremendously successful in terms of the
attention they've gotten and the excitement they've created. So we

(22:17):
decided like why not, why not scale this, let's turn
it into a category on the app, so it's easy
to find, uh and and you know, and make them
even bigger and more exciting and driven by this sort
of principle that they should be experiences that are unlike
any other and in many ways are often only existed
in your imagination, but we were able to make them real.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
So okay, this all sounds incredible, but how do you
actually book it? Like who's going to get to do
these things? And how are you offering it for zero dollars?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (22:47):
Well, I mean we're offering it for zero dollars in
most cases and under one hundred dollars in every case,
because we want these you know, otherworldly, beyond your imagination
experiences to be affordable and not not just for people
who have a lot of means. When it drops, and
there'll be a countdown clock for each of the eleven icons.
Some of them have dropped today, others will drop later

(23:07):
this week or early next week, and all will drop
between now and October. Yeah, there's a period where you
can request a book. You push that button, you fill
in your information, you write a little statement about why
you're excited why you want this to particular icon and
then all of those applications, all those requests will go
into a system where basically a chunk will be pulled

(23:27):
out randomly and then they will be examined by a
third party that we'll look at and I think from there,
you know, we'll make a selection if you if you
get it, you'll get a golden ticket electronic ticket, and
hopefully have the experience of a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
You know, Airbnb has had, you know, some stumbles and
things throughout the years. Tell me about how it has
approached things like cleaning fees and you know, unreasonable demands,
stuff like that, even cities cracking down on you know
someplace you just can't even get an Airbnb.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
Well some I mean, the general approach is to accept
feedback and criticism as something that's important and valuable to
help us improve the service.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Right.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
So, you know, especially in the wake of the pandemic
or during the pandemic, cleaning, you know, clean cleanliness, you know,
and making sure the listings were safe and clean was
a high priority. That drove a lot of cleaning fees,
and we got that feedback and as you know, in
the previous launches. We've taken steps to address that and
try to, you know, make create more clarity abound around

(24:28):
what the actual the full cost is for a booking.
We work with you know, I run policy as well
as communications. We work with cities around the world towards
the sensible regulation that helps address any concerns they might
have about short term rentals and the growth of short
term rentals in their city, as well as you know,
balance that with you know, the hope and the expectation

(24:51):
that hosts their constituents will be able to be host
and do so successfully. We think, you know, hosting can
bring a lot to a community economic impact for sure,
but also introduce people from outside of town to.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Parts of a city, or parts of a state or
parts of.

Speaker 5 (25:07):
A country that don't always get or ever get tourists.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
If you're booking in Airbnb, it can be overwhelming. So
there's so many choices. Give me the secret tip on
how to narrow down the right Airbnb for you.

Speaker 5 (25:18):
I love the new future. We announced not that long
ago guest Favorites. So this is a new system that
basically feature highlights you know, through information and data that
we collect around ratings and you know, incident rates, and
you know, time hosting where we we we elevate to

(25:39):
the level of guest favorites the very best listings on Airbnb.
So if you're new to Airbnb and you want to
be sure you're getting like a highly reliable, great experience
filter for guest favorites, that's what I do.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Will there ever be a rewards program to compete with
the likes of Mariott and Hilton.

Speaker 5 (25:56):
You know there, we don't have one, Like we're you know,
we're still a new business and anyways, it feels that way,
kind of like a startup, even though the company's public now,
so we're you know, we're open to a lot of ideas,
but certainly nothing to announce along those lines today.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Now.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
I think it's incredible what Airbnb has done with their platform,
especially when you hear about their humble beginnings. Personally, I
fancy myself a hotel guy. I kind of like the
routine and the standardness of a hotel room. But I
get why Airbnb is so incredible. It's for those times
when you want something much more unique and in my experience,
and yes, I've used the platform several times, it is

(26:32):
excellent for group travel and when you want that very
unique experience in a city or a place. We'll see
how the new icons category does. Obviously it's very limited
and who actually gets to stay in these icons, But
it seems like the whole point is to get folks
to open up that Airbnb app and experience and explore
all the different options there. All right, more of your

(26:53):
questions coming up at triple eight rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
My name is Rich d'muro and you are listening to
rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple
A rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four

(27:18):
to two four one zero one. Give me a call
if you have a question about technology. You can also
go to the website rich on Tech dot tv. Right
on the homepage. I've got a brand new newsletter. This
is something I send out weekly. You can get on
the list. Just pop your email address in there and
you will get that to your inbox mostly every week.

(27:40):
As long as I can keep up with that. Let's
go to us. Sarah in Ventura, Sarah, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Hi.

Speaker 7 (27:50):
I started to get a message on my phone. It
says miss uh required, SMS permission needed. So I have
two factor authentication on my email, so I need to
keep my phone number. I changed my password.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Tell me what this message says. Again, I didn't quite
understand it.

Speaker 7 (28:13):
Miss m I s S required. Then it says s
M S permission needed. I didn't know what that meant,
and someone told me it means the SIM card. So

(28:35):
I had changed my password on my phone and then
I saw the option to put a password on the
sim card. So I thought, oh, I wonder what's that's like.
So I clicked on it and then it said what
is your password that you have set? And I hadn't

(28:56):
set one, and then I I guessed, But then it's
it wouldn't let me leave leave setting it up. So
then I tried going back, and then I tried turning
off the phone and removing the SIM card. Then I

(29:18):
switched it from one side to the other.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Oh my gosh, she did a lot. I like, what,
uh what? This is an Android? Correct?

Speaker 4 (29:30):
It is?

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Okay, So what app are you using for your text messages?

Speaker 7 (29:36):
It's just called messages?

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Okay? So what I would do? It sounds like, well,
the so at this point, can you use your phone
or not?

Speaker 7 (29:47):
No, it just has the thing scrolling saying you know
that the SIM card is the activated. So I used
my another person's phone and they said when I called
my provider, they said, well, you'll have to leave our

(30:09):
service and then when you signed up with someone else,
then we can pourt it back to ours. Otherwise you
have to get a new SIM.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah. Yeah, so's your phone number. Here's what you need
to do. You got to go to your carrier store.
Do you is your carrier a virtual carrier or an
AT and T T mobile kind of thing.

Speaker 7 (30:31):
It's unfortunately it's one of those virtual side branch ones.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, yeah, so that could be an issue. So you know,
they they've run things a little bit differently. But what
I would do is just call them and say that
you need a new SIM card and see if they
can just send you a new SIM in the mail.
Or better yet, what type of phone do you have?

Speaker 7 (30:55):
It's an Android? But my carrier said that they would
send me another SIM card, but it would have to
be a different number. But I'm locked out of all
my emails because I put up a two factor authentication.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Why does it have to be a different phone number.
That that part I'm not really understanding. So I would
I would call the provider and ask for a supervisor
and say, you know here, you know, basically I set
a lock on my SIM card. Uh, and I need
a new SIM that does not have a lock or
help me unlock this. But it's interesting. I mean, it
may be tied to your phone number, but that's that

(31:32):
seems to be odd, Like I would think on the
back end they could just clear that.

Speaker 7 (31:36):
Yes, I talked to the text and they said from
the back end that they couldn't get it to unblock.
It looked like it was semi okay.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
So what they're saying is you need to switch providers
and then port that number out to a new provider
and then they can pot it in again.

Speaker 8 (31:54):
Yes, that's what they said. I just think that's the
same range. And then they're going to cause ast me
hundreds of dollars just to switch over. And then they said, oh,
we don't.

Speaker 7 (32:06):
Actually accept that virtual provider, so we're going to charge
you hundreds of dollars to.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
What do you mean we don't accept that virtual provider
who said that T Mobile And.

Speaker 7 (32:18):
My provider said, you know, we're with T Mobile, So
go there. But then T Mobile said no, we don't
actually accept it. And she said the other people main
AT and T and Horizon will also charge me hundreds
of dollars, and so.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
I said, well hundreds of dollars for what to just
switch it over? Now, there's no there's no switching fees.
I switched my wife last weekend. There was zero fees
involved unless you unless you owe money on your phone.

Speaker 9 (32:48):
No I don't.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
And then they said, well, actually we don't interface with that.
We're going to have.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
To have you the company. What's the MV and L.
I'm sorry, what's the MV and OL? What's a cellular company?

Speaker 7 (33:01):
In touch?

Speaker 1 (33:03):
In touch, I've never heard of that one.

Speaker 7 (33:06):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
In touch wireless.

Speaker 7 (33:09):
Huh okay, it starts with an E E N T
O U C H.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
I never heard of that. Oh it's a okay, so
it's a it's a lifeline service. Yeah, oh okay, Well
that's okay. All right, Well look I think, uh and
that might be why okay, that's interesting.

Speaker 7 (33:32):
Well, you're inexpensive place to buy a new phone, they said,
I'd have to get another type of phone.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, how much do you spend on this a month.

Speaker 7 (33:42):
Not very much, it's very well how much virtually nothing?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Okay, all right, well, look, I think the problem is
this is this is a this wireless company is they
work on the government subsidy, so they are they're doing
the Lifeline service. They get money from the government and
then they provide you with the service at a very
very low cost, and they're they're basically making money on
how much they provide you the service and how much

(34:10):
they get paid. So it sounds like a little bit
of a mess. And obviously because this is such a
virtual system and because it's related to the government, it
just sounds like you're in a really interesting situation here,
especially with the fact that you've set up your phone
number with a you know, with all of your two
factor authentication. So in general, this is why I'm getting

(34:31):
away from using my phone number for two factor authentication.
So when possible, I would use an app like Authye
or Duo or any one of these Microsoft authenticators. That way,
your two factor authentication codes are not linked to your
phone number. Because when you come into a situation like this,
it's a it's a real problem. Now, I think what

(34:53):
I would do is just go online to another provider
if you can, and try to pourt out that phone number.
But the problem is you need a code, typically from
your previous provider, and you also need the account number.
So uh, this is really tricky. I think that if
you've talked to a supervisor, I would call again and
call again and just explain to them the problem. Say, look,

(35:17):
my phone line is locked up. I need this unlocked
so I can access my accounts. If you can't do that,
say look, I'd like to poort out my number. Can
you please give me the pin number to port out
my line? And I would go to something like a
very inexpensive provider like a mint Mobile or Tello to
get a cheap line that you can get for very
few dollars per month. Eighty eight rich one oh one

(35:39):
eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you talking technology the website rich on tech
dot TV. There you can see all of the stories
I do for TV my tech updates. I also have

(36:01):
been taking some of the notable interviews from this show
and breaking them out so you can see the key takeaways.
Could we do interview a fair amount of people here.
They've got some great stuff to say. You can listen
to the podcast, sign up for the newsletter. There's a lot.
Rich on tech dot tv. The phone line for the
show eight eight eight Rich one one eight eight eight

(36:21):
seven four to two four one zero one. If you
go to the website, you can submit your question there
as well via email. Just hit contact. That's exactly what
Tim did. He said, Hey, Rich, I'm stuck. I'm replacing
my Google six Pro. It's got a crack screen with
a new phone. But which one Google eight Pro, Samsung
S twenty four plus or an Apple fifteen Max. I

(36:43):
never had an Apple, but my wife and daughter love them.
I am a T Mobile customer. If that matters, I
would appreciate your input on this. Help Tim. So the
three phones you mentioned, one is not like the other.
You mentioned the Google eight Pro, which is their high end,
the Apple fifteen Mac Promax, which is their high ends,
and then you said the Samsung S twenty four plus

(37:04):
that's their middle of the line phone. So if you're
truly comparing which phone to get, you got to go
ultra with the Samsung. Personally, my pick out of these
three would be the Ultra. The eight Google eight Pro
is great, but only if you are sort of ah
if you already have the Google six, so I think
you're used to that situation. But the Samsung really is

(37:28):
the best phone of the year, the s twenty four
Ultra specifically, It's got this incredible screen that is like
non reflective, It's fast, it's got great software. I know
Bobo likes it. That's why he's partial to the Samsung.
That's why he's clapping. The Apple is great, but you know,
if your wife and sister daughter have them, it's nice

(37:50):
to be on the same page with them. I will
admit that is really nice. But on the flip side,
you're an Android guy. You've had Android for a while,
and the biggest issue with switching to the Samsung would
be the software. The Google software, in my opinion, is
way better than the Samsung software. With that said, Samsung's
gotten a lot better. So did I help you decide?

(38:11):
Probably not. So If you want to be on the
same page with your wife and daughter and you want
to be I messaging them, then go with the Apple.
But if you want to go your own way and
continue with the Android that you know and love, then
I would go with the Samsung. The Google's great, the
pixel is fine. It's just the problem is it's underpowered

(38:32):
compared to the Samsung. Samsung is like a beast does everything,
and it does it really well, and the camera's better,
in my opinion. T Mobile this week completed its acquisition
of Mint Mobile and Ultramobile, so now these are one company.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
I think that any major acquisition of a startup is
never a good thing for consumers. The you know, prices
are eventually going to be higher, you know, the features
are going to be less. But right now they're talking
a good game and they're saying that it's gonna be
great for Mint Mobile customers. And Mint Mobile and Ultra
already used T Mobiles networks, so that's pretty much gonna
be the same. But T Mobile has a commitment that

(39:11):
they are going to keep a fifteen dollars a month plan.
That was the reason why a lot of people went
to Mint. They love that really inexpensive plan that Mint
Mobile offered. So T Mobile says we're gonna keep that
plan in place. They didn't say what the data limits
would be on that plan, so right now I think, oh,
is it fifteen gigs a month, So they said the

(39:31):
fifteen dollars a month. They didn't say what the gigabytes
are gonna be. They're also gonna roll out scams call
scam call screening for Mint customers, and they're gonna give
Mint customers free roaming in Canada and enhance data roaming
in Mexico for Ultra customers. Ryan Reynolds is gonna stay
on as creative for Mint Mobile. He was kind of

(39:54):
the brains behind that whole thing. So look, you know,
it's we're just seeing so much more consolidation in the
mobile industry. These mv and os they pop up to
kind of challenge the big networks, and then they get
absorbed by the big networks. When the big networks say, oh,
people seem to like them, let let's take them over.
And Roku, you're gonna start seeing ads on your home screen.

(40:18):
Roku says they reach one hundred and twenty million people
a day. What does that mean. It means those are
a lot of eyeballs for ads, and so now home
screen video ads are going to be a thing. We
just saw this happen on Amazon fireTV. When you fire
up the Fire TV, it starts to AutoPlay an AD.
You know what I did. I switched to the Apple
TV because I couldn't stand it. At first. I was like, wait,

(40:41):
what's going on here? Why am I seeing an AD
every time I turn on my fireTV? And I love
the fireTV, but it just got annoying. When you stop
moving the remote for a second, an AD would come up.
Now we are gonna I think Apple's gonna be the
last one, because this is really tough to avoid, even
on the individual apps. At this point, when you're appausing

(41:01):
them or you're just kind of not doing anything with
those apps, they're showing ads. So what does this all mean?
It means the free ride is over. I've said this
so many times. When all this streaming stuff started, it
was a big alternative to kind of like watching linear
TV and renting stuff and paying for all this stuff,
and you've got ad free experiences. Nowadays, it's all about

(41:24):
the ads once again, because these big companies they want
somewhere to advertise, and these other companies, the streaming companies,
they've got the eyeballs and they make extra money, and
a lot of people don't want to pay twenty three
dollars a month for Netflix. They're perfectly happy paying six
ninety nine a month and sitting through ads, which is
perfectly fine. But be prepared for Roku to now start

(41:45):
showing new ads at every corner. That's the way it is.
All right, Let's go to Kathy in Laguna Niguel. Kathy,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 7 (41:56):
Hi.

Speaker 10 (41:57):
Rich, I love your show, and I'll try to make
my question as easy as possible to understand. Sure, Okay.
So in twenty eighteen, we had a solar system installed
on our home through a large solar company which has
now gone out of business, and that system included a

(42:18):
cellular motor modem that was connected to a two G
network system that allowed us to monitor our usage using
the solar Edge monitoring platform. We just got a letter
from solar Edge saying that as of April to second,
they were discontinuing the two G network system, so we

(42:41):
were going to have to get a new modem and
they would provide us that new five G modem free
of charge by contacting them or having our installer contact them.
We don't have an installer because they're out of business now,
so we've tried to contact them.

Speaker 7 (43:00):
We looked at a.

Speaker 10 (43:00):
Couple of YouTube videos. Didn't look like it was too
hard to replace that modem, but they've never contacted us again.
There's also another option besides getting a new replacement modem,
which you have to buy online. It's about two hundred

(43:21):
and fifty three dollars.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Wow. Yeah, okay, and so what's the question.

Speaker 10 (43:27):
Okay, Well, there's another option that you can buy just
a wire connector to connect it to our existing five
G system routered here that we have.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
In our house.

Speaker 11 (43:38):
Yeah, as another option.

Speaker 10 (43:41):
And that's cost you know, next to nothing. Yeah, because
you just have to buy that little wire piece. Well,
the kicker is here. It's after April the second, and
we're still able to monitor that solar Edge platform never
did go down. So I don't know if it was just.

Speaker 9 (43:56):
To come on.

Speaker 4 (43:57):
No, no, no, they would want to upgrade.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
No, No, it's not a come on. It's the I mean,
a two G network is very old. It's probably either
I mean, I'm surprised they even have that because a
lot of these companies have sunseted their two G networks.
So maybe it's on AT and T. Maybe they still
have a little bit of two G running for like
emergency situations. But I would I personally, go with the

(44:19):
option for the wire connector. If you can easily just
run a wire to your modem, that's going to be
probably what under twenty five dollars for that connector or something, right, Yeah,
I would do that and the modem. I mean, do
you this is just to monitor your system, right, Like
you don't really need this to run the system? Correct,
That's correct? So I mean in California, I mean, it's

(44:41):
do you check on this thing all the time or
what we do?

Speaker 10 (44:45):
Because if we did not have this monitoring here on
our computer, we would have to wait each month when
we got our San Diego Gas and Electric bill to
see what our usage.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Okay, yeah, I would just go with the wire connector.
In the meantime, if you want, if you think you
can pop out the old cellular I had the same
exact thing happened to me with an alarm system I had,
and it was an older network. They're upgrading and they
said I will send you a new modem and you
got to pop it in yourself. I'm like really like,
like I get it, Like I can do it, because
of course I can pop this thing open and pop

(45:16):
in the new modem. But I was like they make
regular people do this. That's kind of weird, but sure enough,
it was very simple. It was very straightforward. I don't
even think I had to pay for the new modem.
But in this case, if you want to do the
new modem and pay the money, I don't know. If
you can run the wire that's a lot cheaper. It's
going to be you know, a good, a good kind
of system to do that with.

Speaker 10 (45:37):
I think, okay, okay, good. It doesn't look like I
have an empty port on the back of my modem here,
but we'll have to we'll address that. We'll figure out
if there's something we can eliminate or yeah, you can.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Just get you can get a switch, a small switch
that you can get on Amazon that will extend extend
the ports on the back of there. So just look up,
just look up a switch on it Amazon and I
have one connected to mind. That'll that'll increase the amount
of ports you have on the back of your device.
But that's probably the way to do it. Just you know,
if you want to pay the money for the modem

(46:10):
and you just want it to be wireless, that's fine.
I have no problem with that. But the cheaper solution
if you're if this is close to your router, why
not just do it that way and just plug it in.

Speaker 10 (46:21):
Yeah, okay, great, Well that's the advice I needed. So
thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
We'll do that, all right, Kathy, appreciate it. Good luck. Okay,
thank you, thanks for the call today. Eight eight eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Uh man, it's so interesting.
I have not personally gone solar, and I always say
I wish I would have done it when I first
bought my house, because now we're many years in and uh,

(46:47):
it's one of those things you have to have for
a long time for it to sort of pay for itself.
So and then of course you have the issue of,
you know, the company that does it, how long are
they going to maintain it for Coming up this hour,
we're going to talk to Jack Winston, founder of an
app called be Present, such a cool app. We'll have
more on that and more of your calls coming up
right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich

(47:11):
On Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking
technology at Triple eight rich one one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. Let's see.
We got an email from Tony. Tony says, hey, Rich,
I'm looking for a digital frame. You've recommended the Aura
digital frame in the past. Is this still the best
choice or are there other options? I really enjoy listening

(47:32):
to your show. Keep up the good work, Thanks, Tony.
Great question. So I still think the Aura frames are
probably over all the best. But I was in Target
yesterday and I saw a new brand that I had
never seen before. It's called Skylight, and I said, that's interesting.
If they're in Target, they must be pretty decent. Because

(47:55):
there's been a lot of digital frames over the years
that I've tested. None have come close to the quality
of the Aura frames. And the reason I like them
the most is really it's it comes down to the app.
So I mean the quality of the frame. The frame
looks really good, but it's the app that makes life
so much easier because it's just such a well designed app.

(48:15):
And these digital frames, if you don't have one, makes
a great gift because you can get them for your
loved ones, someone that lives far away. The toughest part
is really setting it up for them. But with the
even with the Aura frame, you can like preload the
Wi Fi and preload the pictures so that when they
open it up, it just kind of connects to their
WiFi and the pictures are already on there, or I

(48:36):
guess it downloads them the first time they open it
and connect. But it's a pretty great experience, So highly
highly recommend if you're looking for a gift for someone,
these are always a crowd pleaser. And then the beauty
of these app of frames is that you can just
email the pictures from your phone to the frame they
show up instantly, or you can use the app. In
the case of Aura, you can use the app and

(48:56):
just get those pictures there. Now I'm looking at the
Skylight and I kind of like it. It looks like
it's very competitive with the Aura. The big difference is
is that it looks like you may have to pay
a little bit for extras. So the Aura has or sorry,
the Skylight has a basic free plan which you can
send photos by email or mobile app anytime from anywhere.

(49:19):
That is included for free. But on the plus it's
forty dollars a year and you can send photos, you
can send videos, you can make captions, greeting cards, doodles,
cloud backup, online access and albums. So it seems to
me like the play with Skylight is a little bit
more towards that yearly fee, which some people may be

(49:41):
turned off by. So again I think Tony, the option
that I still like is the Aura. They have some great,
beautiful frames. I would check them out, but if you
want that alternative, the Skylight looks like it's a nice alternative.
Is also has a touch screen, which is nice too.
So there you have it. Sam's Club. This this week
kind of interesting news from Sam's Club. You know how

(50:02):
when you go to one of these big box retailers
like a Walmart or Sam's Club or a Costco, they
check your receiat on the way out. Well, Sam's Club
is putting in some new technology that it kind of
looks like a metal detector that you walk out, but
it's using AI and computer vision and they are going
to ditch the physical people that check your receipts in

(50:26):
lieu of AI. And let's see, they unveiled this technology
at CS this year. I did not see this at CES,
so I guess I missed it. But right now it's
in one hundred and twenty clubs Sam's Clubs and it
basically compares what's in your shopping cart to your receipt.

(50:46):
And I'm not sure how it's doing that, but it
says the technology seamlessly confirms that members have paid for
all items in their shopping carts without requiring associate verification.
Now they're still going to be an associate at the exit,
but they're more just to kind of supervise the system.
Kind of interesting, and this is they took a direct

(51:08):
job at Amazon in their press release saying as some
people are ditching their computer vision technology, we are embracing it.
And that was a direct job at Amazon giving up
on their just walk out technology. Now, the biggest comment
I got about this when I put this on my
social media, everyone was saying, Oh, Rich, are you sure

(51:28):
that this is not powered by people in India? Because
if you saw the big thing about the Amazon just
walk out someone one person said that Amazon's just walk
out technology was powered by people in India watching the
cameras a thousand people. Give me a break. They did
not have people in India watching cameras from all the

(51:51):
Amazon stores in real time. No, what those people were
doing is when there was an issue that would be
flipped to the people in India, and they would say, hey,
can you look at this and see what happens here?
Did this person pick up a box of fruity pebbles
when our system said they looked at cocoa pebbles?

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (52:09):
It wasn't someone watching every single camera in real time.
That's insane. Nobody's doing that. Amazon would not base their
technology on people in a call center watching cameras in
real time to see what kind of peanut butter I
pick up? Come on, but people, that was literally the
comment I got over and over if you believe that
Amazon would do that. I mean, just one person reporting

(52:33):
something in our world, and I use reporting with air quotes.
Just because one person posts something and fifty thousand other
blogs I call them klingons all rewrite with that person
wrote and put it as fact and truth. That does
not make it fact and truth. Come on. And Amazon,
by the way, is not ditching the just walkout technology.

(52:55):
They're getting rid of it in their stores, but they
are all these other third third party retailers are using it. Anyway,
Let me calm down here, all right? Coming up? Oh
I need I need this app. It's called be Present.
We're going to talk to the founder of an app
that helps you be on your phone a little bit less.
You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to

(53:18):
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
talking technology. If you want to get on the phone lines,
we'll take a couple of calls after this interview. Eight
eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Well, I'm very
excited for my next guest because it's always interesting to
me when we have an app that tries to keep

(53:41):
you on your phone less, and that's exactly what be
Present does.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Welcome to the show, Jack Winston, founder of an app
called be Present. Jack. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Great, thanks for having me Rich.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
So this is a problem. People are on their phones
way too much, and myself included. You know, I am
a tech person, so obviously I have an excuse to
myself and to my family members, you know, like my
kids when they're like, Dad, look at this amazing picture
I just drew. I'm like, kid, come on, I'm doing
my emails for work. Just kidding. Yeah, yeah, No.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
It's a massive problem, both in terms of the time
that we spend, but I think even deeper than that.
It's it's more than just the time, but it's the
fact that most people aren't even alone with their own
thoughts today. So more than just spending you know, X
amount of time on their phone, every free moment that
we have, whether where, like you said, with our kids,
or even in an uber or in line for coffee,

(54:38):
we're always pulling on our phones trying to distract ourselves.
And I truly believe, you know, this is one of
the defining problems of our generation today, and we're kind
of just waking up to just how big of a
problem it is.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
It's almost it's so odd that like the standard has
become staring at your phone, and I will literally say
something to someone, like at a Starbucks or like in line,
people think you're weird because they just to like, what,
why are you talking to me? I don't know. You
shouldn't you be looking at your email?

Speaker 4 (55:06):
We don't.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
We don't talk to strangers anymore. We missed that serendipity.
And I truly believe, Like I live in New York
City and I go on the subway, everyone is on
their phone as you're in the subway, and I think
we're going to look back at this time and pictures
and movies, and it's going to be like how we
look back at people smoking cigarettes, you know, everyone on
their phone. We're going to realize just how detrimental it is,

(55:28):
both of the societal level but also personal health. And
we're going to think, you know, what were we doing
at that time? Right now, it's weird to do the opposite,
but I think in the future, you know that that
the tides are turning.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
So explain to me what the app does. What is
be Present all about?

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Yeah, So the general idea be Present is, you know,
social The reason why we can't get off our phones
is because social media companies and other apps use powerful
psychological techniques essentially to keep us addicted to engineer our
constant engagement. That's why it's so tough to really reduce
your screen time and why current solutions don't really work.

(56:06):
And the thesis and insight behind our app is we
actually use those same psychological techniques that keep us addicted,
but instead to enforce healthy behaviors. So our mobile app
it sinks with your screen time and then incorporates features
that are proven to impact behavior change. So, for instance,
you set screen time goals and then you earn streaks
over time as you stick to your goals. You also

(56:29):
earn points by reducing your screen time in blocking apps,
and then you use those points to compete on weekly
leader boards and challenge friends and even earn real life
rewards that improve your life. We also have the ability
to challenge your friends and keep accountability partners so that
you can keep accountability to your goals and really like
the idea here is, instead of just making the phone

(56:51):
as frustrating as possible to use so that you use
it less, which is what most of the current solutions
are around app blocking or deleting apps, we actually want
to make it fun, motivating, delightful, and empowering to use
your phone how you want to use it, kind of
replacing that dope mean hit you used to get from
scrolling with dope mean for staying off your phone.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
What I liked about it number one is that it
sort of works with the screen time functionality built into
the iPhone. So that really surprised me, Like it kind
of helped me set the screen time parameters, which I
was like, oh, that was really cool because I've done
this with my kids. You know, with the screen time,
it's a pain like Apple does not make it easy
to kind of set up those limits, and so this

(57:32):
made it a lot easier for me to do that
for myself. And then in one tap, I was able
to tap and say, you know, you set kind of like,
you know, when do you want to be off your phone? Okay?
Right now? How long do you want to be off?
An hour? And I was at my kids basketball game
and typically, you know, every time there's a timeout or something,
you know, you look at your phone, and it was
just like, nope, you're on the present time. And it
was just like, oh, I can't use my phone. That's

(57:54):
just fine. And of course I made it so I
can still use the camera if I needed it. But
I thought that those two features a loan, we're like
really really great exactly.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Yeah, so we integrate with Apple's native screen time API,
so we're able to you know, create a seamless user
experience around customization and just like the blocking that you mentioned,
and yeah, like adding these points of friction I think
is important because a lot of our usage is mindless,
right like whenever we have a free moment or like
you know, people are afraid to be along with their

(58:24):
own thoughts today, and so whenever they're still, you know,
they take out their phone to try and stimulate themselves,
but a lot of that is unconscious, and so adding
like the blocking features that you mentioned, adding a little
friction creates more awareness and intentionality around how.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
We use our phone.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
And so it's really just creating these features that can
help people achieve the goals that they already want to achieve,
Like you want to be present totally for your son's
basketball game. You didn't want to be on your phone,
and you were able to use these features to then
create that accountability in the future for yourself, and so
that's really our goal with what we're building now.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
The fear people may have is that if they do this,
I call it kind of zen mode almost you call
it blocking session. To me, it's almost like a zen mode.
But is there a way to get around it? Like
let's say you start a blocking session for an hour
and all of a sudden you need to do something
like you have to do it. Can you get out
of it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (59:21):
So the way it works is you can customize which
apps are blocked in the first place. So if you
want to use certain specific apps that you know are
utility focused or you can't be locked out of then
you can customize that as well. We do have you
have the ability to get out of the blocking session
if you need to. But the main point around that

(59:42):
is we actually later on gamification on top of the
blocking session. So if you end the blocking session early,
you lose the points that you were going to earn,
and so you can end it. If something is so
dire that you need to access it, then yeah, you'll
lose the points. But the point of the gamification is
just to create an awareness whenever you're ending that blocking session, like,

(01:00:03):
is ignoring this blocking session and accessing this app these
apps worth you know, losing points or losing my streak
or having my friends text me telling me that they
can tell, you know, with the social features that I've
been on my phone for too long, and it's really
just you know, the gamification kind of creates that constant
awareness of, you know, in the back of your head

(01:00:23):
whenever you're using your phone, like, is this worth losing
the game that I'm playing through? Be present so you
can always use the apps that you want to use
with our app, But it creates a mindfulness and awareness
around it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Now there is a b present pro version. Explain what
you get with the paid kind of pro version.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, you have a couple of great features in there.
So going back to blocking sessions, we have a mode
called beast mode within the pro version where you actually
can't give up. So before I mentioned you can give
up the blocking session right now. You'll just lose points.
But some people don't even want that. They want like
it totally blocked. So you enable beast mode, and uh,

(01:01:05):
you won't be able to give up no matter how
much you tried.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Really, if you reset your phone, what if you've restarted, No.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
If you restart you it Uh. You know we sync
with the Apple Screen Time ap I, so we're on
uh you know, system level. And yeah, you you can't
get around it through that. Now it will end when
the timer ends. You know, you set you set the
amount of time that you want and you won't like
lose your phone forever. So I don't want to scare
people out there, but it's just like, let's say you're

(01:01:34):
you really need to get something done. You know, whether
you're a student and you have you know, you waited
too long to study for finals, or you know you're
working and your boss really needs something and you're working remote,
you don't want to be on your phone like you
enable beast mostly that you really uh, you know, can't
access your phone and be tempted.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Okay, so we've got about a minute left here. I'm
just curious. So you've seen kind of like how people
are using the app. Are you seeing a lot of
take up from this? Like you're people enjoying this?

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Yeah, I mean as a founder and entrepreneur, one of
the best things about my job is hearing the success
stories of our users and our customers and really having
an impact on people's lives. You know, we talked with
users every every week and we hear some incredible stories.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
One person just told us that they were able to
finish the first draft of their novel because our app.
Because of our app. Another person was and this is
a little scary, and we're hearing this more and more.
They were afraid of losing their job. You know, they
work remotely, and they were just spending six, seven, eight
hours a day on TikTok and they had tried everything before,
nothing at worked and our app was the first thing

(01:02:38):
that it worked for them. And so it's great hearing,
you know, stories like this, but even more broadly, you know,
we hear consistently that one of the main things people
are rediscovering is just like the enjoyment of everyday life
that people are getting back, and I think that's beautiful
as well as people rediscover, you know, the the extraordinary

(01:02:59):
world that we been that sometimes seems ordinary, but you know,
we really can get a lot of enjoyment out of
it if we just pick our heads up from the
screens and learn to be present.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
I so agree. The website bpresentapp dot com. It is
available for iOS right now. There is an Android wait list,
so you are working on an Android app right, Yes,
we are. That's very exciting, all right. Jack Winston, founder
of the b Present App. I love it. I love
what you're doing. I love the idea of this. I

(01:03:30):
think we are seeing sort of a renaissance with people
realizing that, yes, it is fun to see all those
little numbers light up when you open up Instagram and
the likes and the hearts and stuff, but it's a
slot machine. That's exactly what it is. You're getting that
dopamine hit based on posting stuff and looking for that feedback.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Right exactly, and to your point, in the renaissance, like
I think we're at the beginning of an inflection point,
like a massive movement in the creation really of an
entire new category of health and wellness around digital wellness
that people will put right up there in the future
in five years with fitness, nutrition, sleep, mental health. Like
I think people will recognize this is an essential pillar

(01:04:12):
for health, and I think we're just at the beginning
of that, and that's why it's so exciting with what
we're building right now and being in this space.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
So I appreciate you having me on rich Thanks well.
When I download an app and use it and love it,
like I want the people on my show because I
just like it's there's a lot of apps out there
that I try, and this one really really hit a nerve. Jack,
thanks so much for joining me today the website rich
on Tech dot tv. Hit the light bulb and you
can download the app or just go to the website
bpresentapp dot com eight eight eight rich one O one

(01:04:41):
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero
one more of your calls and questions right after this.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you talking technology. The phone number eight eight
eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
two four one zero one. If you hear me mention

(01:05:05):
something on the air and you'd like a link, like
maybe the app we just talked about, just go to
the website Rich on tech dot tv. Hit the light
bulb up at the top. That will bring you to
the radio show wiki page. This has every show I've
almost every show I've ever done, with all of the
show notes in order. So for instance, this is show

(01:05:28):
number seventy. You tap that and you can see all
of the previous callers and all of the topics I've mentioned,
as well as links to the pertinent information that you're
looking for. Let's go to John in Los Angeles. John,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Oh hey, Rich, great show.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Thank you.

Speaker 11 (01:05:47):
I have a a Dell all in one desktop and
it has one terabyte of HDD and two fifty six
of FSD memory, and everything is going into my seed drive.
My Sea drive is pretty much maxed out, and I
have a lot of space left in the d drive,
but I don't know how to access that. I mean,

(01:06:09):
I have everything set up in the file, all my
documents set up in the files, and you know, it's
pretty easy now because I pull it up and you know,
everything is set up, but I'm not sure how to
access the rest of that storage in the D drive.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Interesting, it sounds like, is this like a fusion drive
where it has like the two Like it might do
kind of temporary things on the SSD, which is a
solid state drive, which is a lot faster than the
hard drive. So I think that's what the setup is here.
And so it may be that it doesn't really wants
you to install stuff on the SSD because it's just

(01:06:47):
using it for temporary kind of usage of running programs
and things to make that happen faster. So are you
running out of space on things you want to store
on the drive or what? Well?

Speaker 11 (01:06:59):
Yeah, when I to say something, it says storage not long,
no more storage available. And I called Dell and they
said if I got a new all in one with
one terabyte all SSD, then you know everything it would be,
the entire terabyte would be accessible.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Oh so Dell told you to solve your problem, well
you have to do is buy a new computer. Yeah,
well that's really helpful.

Speaker 11 (01:07:25):
And I actually thought about it for a minute because
I was so you know, no I mean, so I'm
tired of this. I just don't know how to how
to access through US because when I bought it, I'm like,
oh wow, a terriblete I'll never use that in my life.
And and now it turns out that I only have
two two fifty six and I've used that already, so okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
So that so that the SSD is the terabyte.

Speaker 11 (01:07:49):
Oh no, and the new one if I if I
purchased it, it would be it would be all SSD.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
Will be all accessible.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
A couple of things. Number one, I think the easiest
way to expand your your hard drive space is to
is to you know, if you if you needed to
do that is to get you could either start using
the cloud. You know, one drive is obviously built into
Windows operating system. You can offload some stuff there and
use it. And you know, the neat thing about that
is because it's built into Explore, you can put the

(01:08:18):
files up into one drive and I think they give
you like fifteen gigs of free storage. You can put
the files up there. They'll still be visible on your system,
but they're not taking up any space. So that's one
way of kind of just freeing up maybe fifteen gigs
of storage. You can do that if you want. You
can add an external drive to your system and you
can easily expand infinite amounts of storage by you know,

(01:08:41):
a two terabyte drive that you plug in with USB
is going to you know, maybe cost sixty seventy bucks
at the most. But the other thing I would do
is try to see what is taking up the space
on your drive that you have currently. And so there's
a couple of programs that I would look into. The
first is Windows Directories Statistics. It goes by the term

(01:09:02):
when er stat W I N D I R S
T A T dot net. So this will kind of
scan your drives and give you a visual understanding of
what's taking up the space in those drives. So, for instance,
if it's being taken up by the Windows operating system,
or maybe you know a couple of large files that

(01:09:23):
you have that you may have forgotten about, you can
use that to kind of clear up some space quickly.
And then the other one is bleach bit b L
E A C H B I T. This will clean
up some of the clutter on your system, including some cookies,
internet history, broken shortcuts, just unnecessary files to free up

(01:09:45):
valuable disk space, as they say, So this is kind
of one of those like maintenance programs, and it will
give you an idea of what's what it might clear
out before it actually does anything, so you can see.
But I would run that and see that that could
clear up some stuff as well. But those are the
two things i'd recommend, and maybe the external hard drive,
maybe the cloud drive. I don't think you need a
new computer. It sounds like you just need a way

(01:10:08):
as long as your systems are running, your apps are running,
your programs are running. Just sounds like you need to
place the store stuff, and so the external drive would
probably be your easiest bet with that. This is a
desktop computer, you're not moving it around a whole bunch.
That combined with these programs to make sure that you're
making the most of the disc space that you have,
would be the best case scenario that I can think of.

(01:10:30):
But I do think it's funny that Dell said just
buy a new computer, because that's not the solution we're
looking for, folks. We're looking for a solution that does
not cost any extra money. Appreciate the call today. Thanks
eight and eight rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. LinkedIn has

(01:10:51):
games now. If you open up the LinkedIn app, if
you love wordle, you might love some of these games.
They've got three new games. Cross Climb This is a
crossword style game that challenged you to solve clues and
fill in the grid. Pinpoint This is a game that
tests your knowledge and requires you to locate the correct
answer among various options. And then Queens is a game

(01:11:13):
inspired by the chess game, challenging players to strategically place
queens on a chess board. So if you want to
try these new games out on LinkedIn, if you have
the app on your phone, open it up, look at
the my network tab that's at the bottom. Tap that
and you can get links to these three new games.
I have played some of them and it got me

(01:11:35):
to open up the LinkedIn app the last two days.
Two out of two days, I guess they've gotten their goal.
Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. More show coming
up after this. Welcome to another hour of Rich on Tech.
My name is Rich DeMuro, hanging out with you talking technology.
Phone lines are triple eight rich one O one eight

(01:11:57):
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one
website for the show. Rich on tech dot TV got
an email this is what I love about this show.
So apparently I might have misunderstood the question from the
caller with the storage, and Samir listening chimed in and said, hey,

(01:12:19):
this might be a better way to solve this. And
so basically, as I understood it, there was two drives
on that computer. One was one terabyte, one was an
SSD drive which was smaller. That seemed that that had
the operating system and solved. So what Samir recommends is
maybe just change the default storage so where your documents

(01:12:42):
or downloads are being stored. So on Windows you can
do that. I've got a link up the kind of
tutorial for doing that, But basically you would go into
file Explorer and change where your documents are stored by default,
and that is that might be a better solution. I

(01:13:03):
didn't really catch that part of the conversation, but that
could be what was going on. Basically, the operating system
is taking up that entire solid state drive and all
of the documents are also trying to be stored there,
and they've got this one terabyte drive that you can
put those documents on so go to the website rich
on tech dot TV, hit the light bulb, and I
put the instructions on how to change the default document

(01:13:24):
folder location in Windows. Thanks Samir. United Healthcare CEO estimates
that nearly a third of Americans may be impacted by
the Change Healthcare data breach, which occurred two months ago.
A total number of affected individuals remains unclear because the
investigation is still ongoing. But the stolen files include personal

(01:13:48):
health information on a substantial portion of people in America.
Let's see, what are they going to figure out about us? Cholesterol,
too high, blood pressure, too high weight, to not eating right?
You know what it's it's But the scary part of
this is the information about our personal details. And you

(01:14:12):
can imagine healthcare companies have a lot of information on us,
including socials. They haven't said what information is included in this,
but the fact that a third of Americans may be impacted,
this is scary. This is a big one. It does
say there's no evidence that doctor's charts or full medical
histories have been found. Now, the way that the hackers
got in this is pretty interesting. There was no two

(01:14:35):
factor authentication on a sort of a third party access
software that they were using. And what does that tell me?
You need to have your two factor authentication set up
on your accounts. Please set that up. It will protect
you in ways that you can't really imagine because they're

(01:14:56):
trying to get in, believe me. And if you're looking
for a new app to play around with, Anthropic has
launched their free iOS app for their AI assistant called Claude. Now,
I know chat Ebt gets all the headlines, but Claude
is actually my preferred AI app. I do pay the
twenty dollars a month for it. It literally feels like

(01:15:16):
I have a personal assistant. This thing is so smart.
It's funny. No, just kidding. I mean, I don't know
if it's funny, but I guess it would be if
you asked it for funny stuff. But I will tell you, bobo.
We've been playing all eighties songs today. How did I
come up with that eighties playlist? AI? All I said

(01:15:38):
was sure, I said, give me a list of twenty
five of the most defini I love saying this, the
twenty five most definitive eighty songs like who Could Cut?
You can't come up with definitive anything because you actually
missing one good song. Oh see, this is why I
love humans more than AI. What's the song miss in
Africa by Toto Ooh yeah yeah, play that on the
way back here It okay, I already replaced. See I

(01:16:00):
like that. See this is why we still have humans
doing things. But the Claude iOS app is available for free,
and the neat thing about it is that you can
sync whatever you're doing on the web. You can you
can sync it to the app. So if you started
typing something on the web and you wanted to pick
it up on your phone, you can do that. It
also has real time image analysis. It can understand things

(01:16:24):
you take pictures of and give you information about that.
And Claude is really good. It's not, maybe not as
full featured as chat GPT, but it's really good at
sort of understanding text and so if you have like
a big document you want to throw at it and
ask for some information about it, it's really good at that.
It's good for brainstorming, getting quick answers and analyzing scenes

(01:16:45):
and images. And I'm not gonna lie. I used it
this morning to rewrite my LinkedIn because I was on
LinkedIn playing those games and of course they've got me now.
So I was like, oh, I haven't looked at my
LinkedIn profile in like ten years. And I literally just
said to Claude, hey, can you clean this up? And
it went through each one of my previous jobs and
just cleaned up my descriptions. It didn't rewrite them in

(01:17:07):
a huge way, but it just cleaned it up. And
I was like, Wow, this is a lot easier to
read than what I wrote. So I'm telling you this
AI stuff is very useful. I understand there's a lot
of downsides. It's very scary, but just think about it
as a brainstorming buddy. Whatever you need to do. Like
let's say you write a sentence. You could say how
would you write this to AI? And just paste it

(01:17:27):
in and it's almost like that back and forth that
you would have with another human or or a team
member or a colleague. But it's superhuman strength and it's
it's really incredible. Let's go to Brad in a Key West. Brad,
you're on with Rich Hi, thanks him first involved.

Speaker 9 (01:17:47):
This is the first time I've.

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
Ever heard you, and I like what I near second
of well, it.

Speaker 9 (01:17:53):
Just made me a laugh.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Be good in the eighties, I was.

Speaker 9 (01:17:57):
A club teacher in Chicago, and I could probably do
better than the AI.

Speaker 10 (01:18:01):
And third of all, and I got a big problem
with my Apple iPhone eleven.

Speaker 9 (01:18:07):
I updated the I did the update, and all of
a sudden, I lost a lot of pictures.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
Oh that's not good. Okay, it sounds like, uh, I
gotta well. Thank you first off for the kind words
about the show. I do appreciate you finding me. And
I love to hear that we made you laugh, because
that's always a nice thing. The pictures on the iPhone,
it sounds like you did an update and lost some pictures.
That is very concerning. It does happen, and this is

(01:18:40):
why I am always always reminding folks to back things up. Now,
in this case, if you didn't have a backup, if
you're if you're maybe on not on a I Cloud
or something like that. The first place I would look, Brad, is, uh,
go into your albums, Like, open up the photos app
on your iPhone and uh look look at the albums

(01:19:01):
down at the bottom. There's a tab called albums and
there's a recently deleted folder. And Apple just recently made
this where you have to use your biometrics to unlock it,
which is pretty smart because you know people delete photos
that are unwanted or maybe you know it could be
as simple as you don't look good in a picture
and you delete it, and maybe you don't want that

(01:19:22):
to get out. So once you use your face ID
or your thumbprint, whatever it is, you said you have
the eleven, so it's face ID, you can unlock that.
I would look in there and see if your pictures
are in the recently deleted It will keep any pictures
that it deletes for at least thirty days now if
it's not in there. The other place I would recommend

(01:19:42):
looking is an old backup of your phone. So go
into settings and go into iCloud and there is a
section of iCloud backup and it says if backup this
phone is on, that is a complete backup of your phone,
and you can tap in there and see when the

(01:20:03):
last backup was done and how big that backup is.
So on my phone, for instance, it's one hundred and
thirty gigabytes because my photos are not included in my
iCloud backup because I back them up to a third
party service, which is Google Photos. But what you could
do is you could. If that backup is from before
you did the update, you can go into that backup

(01:20:26):
and retrieve those photos. You might need to use a
third party program to do that. There's a way to
download that backup to a computer and then use a
third party program like i'm azing to kind of go
through that backup and see if the pictures are in
there and extract those. If that doesn't work, or if
you don't want to do that, you could also bring

(01:20:47):
back your entire phone from that backup. It's a little
bit more complicated. You'd have to factory reset your phone
and then bring it back using that. I don't recommend that,
but in the dire straits you could do that. But Brad,
the bigger take way I have is please backup photos.
Please backup photos to a third party backup, whether it
is Amazon Photos. Amazon Photos is great if you have

(01:21:10):
Amazon Prime. Amazon Photos is free and unlimited at least
until they decide to change that. But for right now,
if you have an Amazon Prime membership, you can download
the Amazon Photos app to your phone iPhone are Android
and it will back up all of your photos and
it will do that for free and onlimited at full resolution.

(01:21:31):
So at the very least, if you don't want to
pay for anything else and you have Amazon Prime, do
yourself a favor and download that app and let it
back up your pictures. And that way, if anything happens
to your pictures, it is a one way backup. So
basically they all go up into Amazon, they will be there,
and it doesn't sync with your deletes. So if you
delete something from your phone, it's not going to delete
out of Amazon. And that is unlimited for photos only,

(01:21:55):
not for videos. So I recommend that in the Amazon apps,
you don't use up all your space. Just go ahead
and toggle off the videos. And you're saying, well, rich,
what about my videos? You're going to have to figure
out a secondary solution for that. Amazon. What they're trying
to do is get you to use that app. The
videos use up all the video storage. I think they
give you five gigabytes for videos, and they say, hey,

(01:22:16):
you're out of storage, you want to buy more, and
of course a percentage of people will do that. The
other way is just to use an app to back
up your photos. Whether it is Google Photos, whether it
is Dropbox, whether it is i edrive, whatever, you do,
find some way to back up your pictures because these
things do happen. And if you're updating your phone to

(01:22:36):
new software, I would run a backup of your phone
before you do that, so you can go in and
toggle and manual backup of your phone. When you go
into that, I'll tell you how to find it. One
more time. Settings tap Apple ID up at the top
and where it says iCloud, it says iCloud backup. You

(01:22:57):
tap that and it says back up now. Because a
lot of times you may go into this and you
may find that your phone hasn't backed up in months,
depending on how you charge your phone and how it's
connected to Wi Fi. So it will tell you last
successful backup for me was interesting. See it should have
been last night, but it was not last night. It
was two nights ago. So that's that's news to me.

(01:23:19):
Should have backed up last night. Now it'll I gotta
figure out why it didn't it was two days ago.
Coming up this hour, we're gonna talk to John Faulkner
of Clean Fleet Report. He's gonna tell us about the
all electric Accura ZDX plus. I've got a couple a
couple more apps to tell you about. GPS Powered Audio

(01:23:40):
Tour Guide. This one's really cool. You are listening to
rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Eight
eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Let's go to
John and Bakersfield. John, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:23:59):
Hello, Rich, Rich, I've had a devil of a time.
I'm hold on second. Okay, I'm going to be back.
I got to take this call.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:24:12):
I've had my accounts hacked, starting with purchase at best
Buy back in late January of purchasing the new S
twenty four. And what's happened most recently and disturbing, is

(01:24:32):
that they've been able to get account information and then
we went and to the extent they actually went in
and did a wire transfer of funds to another account.
Unfortunately I was monitoring the account and was able to
see it before Wells Fargo did, but and that was
only because of a text message. Most recently, I've set

(01:24:56):
up new accounts, new user names. Nineteen is your passwords
and this has been done three times. Wow, and most
recently one second.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
Please, So we've got We've got John on the line,
and he's had some issues with fraud on his bank
account and uh, I guess we're getting to the question here.
So the question is, how.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
Can I help? My question is that right now, yesterday
I was in I spent an hour with fraud in
Wells Fargo and anyway, set up new passwords, everything, new
user names and the UH and I've had two step
authentication all along and so we did it again yesterday

(01:25:50):
and by at uh uh at uh here this morning.
I checked the account last night and we're okay it
this morning I get a note, a note, I get
a text from Wells that they want to uh give
me the UH code for two step authentication. Okay, I

(01:26:14):
look at it. I am on the account, so I'm
fine and anyway and here A few minutes later, I
get another text from Wells that we have and which
I did not respond. I did nothing, okay, And then
another a few minutes later that this person a person
has been added to the Zelli accounts as a payee.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
And that it sounds like someone's got access to your
to your computer or your phone. What uh, how can
I help?

Speaker 3 (01:26:48):
I've been through this thing. Three I've been through I've
had three people go and check the phone. They all
the updates have total avvy with everything on it. Everything
is up to date, and it can systemically comes up lean.

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
Are you an Android or iPhone.

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
Android the Galaxy S twenty four?

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Okay? And you are you running a VPN?

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Okay, that's good and okay. So the problem is, so
the question is why does this keep happening? Is that
the question?

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
Yeah? And what's more is that he's like today they
got in and they transferred a thousand off a Zelli
via Zellie and and there is no the two step authentication.
They didn't just like it's being mirrored.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):
Yeah, that's that's yeah. Okay, So a couple of things.
How are you getting the two step authentication code? Is
it through your phone number?

Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
Yeah? It comes from my It comes from Wells to
my phone.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
Okay, So even got to the point.

Speaker 3 (01:27:49):
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
So first thing I would do is, well, number one,
I think you need a new bank. Honestly, it sounds
like their fraud systems are just not detecting this stuff properly,
and so I would I would I would switch banks personally.
Number one. Number two, it sounds like instead of using
the phone number for the authentication codes, the two factor

(01:28:12):
authentication codes, I would switch to an app, So download
an app like AUF the au T h Y Duo duo,
or you can use Microsoft or Google Authenticator, and I
would switch to those instead of the text message because
it sounds like someone has access to your text message.
I can't exactly tell what's happening here, but this, there's

(01:28:34):
this has happened one time too many times for this
to be for me to be comfortable with this. So
I know it's a pain to switch banks, but I
probably would do that. And I would also when you
set up your new bank, I would maybe look into
setting up information that is slightly different than before. So
maybe even you know, I don't know, just you got

(01:28:55):
to think differently here because this is just this is
getting to be a headache. You shouldn't have to be
dealing with this only basis I'm telling you, folks, protecting
your personal information is going to be priority number one
moving forward. Rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology the
website rich on Tech dot TV. When you're there, be

(01:29:18):
sure to join the newsletter. You will get a personal
message from me, and yes it is very personal. I
spend a lot of time writing it, and it's just
packed with like good information that I think you should
know about. Kind of like this show, but it's you know,
it's directed to like all the stuff that happens during
the week. I just say, oh, let me put that
in the newsletter, and it's it's kind of taken on

(01:29:42):
a life of its own. So if you enjoy that,
just go to the website rich on Tech dot tv
and pop in your email address and you will get
that delivered to your inbox. You can follow me on
social media. I am at rich on Tech on Twitter
are now known as x although nobody calls it that
that I know, Facebook and Instagram at rich on Tech

(01:30:04):
on those places. All right, let's bring up our guest,
John Faulkner of Clean Fleet Report. John is constantly driving
the latest greatest electric cars, and today he is going
to tell us about his time in the twenty twenty
four Accura ZDX. John. Welcome to the show, hell Rich,
welcome to you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:23):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
So let's talk about Accura in general. Kim and I
were just having a side conversation about how much we
loved our Accuras. We both owned one. I had zero
problems with the Accura. We bought it new and we
ended up having to get rid of it because we got,
you know, two kids instead of one and we need
a little bigger car. But it was a it was
an excellent excellent cars. That still the case with Accuras.

Speaker 9 (01:30:46):
It is and you are exactly the customer that Accur
is hoping to reach with ZDX. Just so people know,
Accura is the premium division of Honda and they and
the ZDX is actuallys first ever all electric vehicle in
the history of the company. And this particular vehicle is

(01:31:11):
built in conjunction with General Motors on what is called
the Ultium platform, and that platform for General Motors is
actually handling the Blazer EV, the Lyric, the Equinox, the Artique,
and the Silverado, and so it shares the platform, the motor,

(01:31:33):
the batteries and everything. And so what Accura told us
was that was that their customers wanted to make the
change to our electric vehicle, they didn't have it. They
found that the majority of those people went over to Tesla.
So now Tesla is high on their chart for those

(01:31:56):
customers that they're going after. The people who used to
be accurate loyals like Kim and do. And then people
that have had Hondas and they want to get back
in the family again and they want to make the
move to all electric.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
So what type of what type of range are we
talking on this car?

Speaker 9 (01:32:15):
Well, the range depends on which which model that you're
as you're that you're getting into. There are there are
three models and they are.

Speaker 3 (01:32:27):
And so what you have is you have the A.

Speaker 9 (01:32:29):
Spec which comes in rubal drive and all will drive.
And then you then have a Type S, which is
the which is the performance model and it's and it
comes in overly all will drive. And so the range,
the range on these vehicles is going to be A

(01:32:51):
Spec Ruble drive three hundred and thirteen miles, a Spec
all will drive three or four, and for the F
type it will be two hundred and seventy eight all
electric miles.

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
Okay, so around around three hundred, but in reality, you know,
they want you to charge to eighty percent, so you know,
two fifty two seventy depending on the model you get.
I just saw Elon Musk promoting that the model why
base model now gets three twenty uh standards, So I
think this three hundred to you know, plus is kind
of like the new standard. What did you think of

(01:33:28):
this car? And by the way, the price on this
car is it really seventy five grand?

Speaker 4 (01:33:32):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (01:33:32):
Well, if you get it fully loaded, the one the
one that we drove on our media press program in Montecito, California. Yes,
that's the one that we drove. But the pricing on us,
let's want to just hit that real quick. So these
prices include the mandatory thirteen hundred and fifty dollars destination charge.
So the apec Roubill drive sixty five eight fifty aspec

(01:33:55):
all will drive sixty nine eight fifty type that's all
will be seventy four eight fifty. And then if you
get it with the performance wheel entire package on the
type will drive, it takes us a seventy five eight fifty.
So yes, this is a very very excellent entry level

(01:34:17):
BV for people the first one and they want to
get into. They will not be disapplentyed with this vehicle
at all. However, there are other competitors out there that
offer similar range, better range, maybe better performance for less
so people need to they just need to their shopping.

Speaker 1 (01:34:35):
So I mean you mentioned the Mustang, Machi and the Tesla.
Why those are probably the two biggest competitors to this car.
I've driven both of those. I've not driven the ZDX,
but I imagine since it is an accurate it's you know,
the fit and finish is great, the quality is great,
but the pricing is is generally higher than those other

(01:34:55):
two models. So what is your takeaway on this car?

Speaker 9 (01:34:59):
My takeaway that it was that it was extremely comfortable,
very very comfortable to drive. It was it was roomy. Yeah,
two digital, two digital displays on the dash and eleven
entry your gages and eleven point three or for all
your entertainment touch screen. It has Google built in, Apple

(01:35:21):
car Play and Doren Auto. Those are all standards. So
very comfortable, power everything once you're inside the car. Nice weather.
But there's a question that I asked accurate. I said,
since General Motors built this vehicle, and I know you
they put their touches on, of course, do they consider
this to be up to accurate premium luxury standards? And

(01:35:46):
they said they do.

Speaker 1 (01:35:49):
So a GM. GM is actually building the entire car.
I thought they just did the ultium part of it,
like the battery part.

Speaker 9 (01:35:55):
No, they're building it in spring Hill, Tennessee. That's that's
good because it qualifies for all the federal state credit.

Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
Oh okay, well that's interesting. Yeah, so yeah, No, I'm
curious about the charging connector because obviously this I'm guessing
has the standard uh what is it CCS or something?
And then are are they moving to the Tesla charger?
Did they announce that or talk about that?

Speaker 9 (01:36:21):
Yes? They are.

Speaker 1 (01:36:22):
Okay, so that's interesting because you're gonna get this car.
They're going to have an adapter for this car, and
then I guess future models will have the uh the
Tesla built in? Is it? Is it smart to get
a first run of an electric car like this? This
is accurate as first go with this. People might be
hesitant to get it because of that reason or is
that no longer consideration in today's day and age.

Speaker 9 (01:36:44):
Well, this this vehicle has been again is impost general
motors vehicles that I discussed, and they've been they've been
driving them already on the road. So so it's it's
proven and it's a it's a good technology. There's not
nothing wrong with it at all. I enjoyed the vehicle.

(01:37:06):
It was fast. I went out there and you know,
it's it's it's got it's got about high four second
range for Zerovice sixty and when we try to pass
the big rigs and everything, it just as with all
of these in support. So it was right there. So
this is good. This is a vehicle that people will

(01:37:27):
get and they will enjoy driving it.

Speaker 10 (01:37:29):
Now.

Speaker 9 (01:37:29):
Actress says that they don't expect this to be a
replacement for another accurate. They expect this to be an
Actor family or a Honda family to add this to
their household for because because obviously the range and everything,
and it's so it's a they're they're they're they're very

(01:37:50):
realistic about this. And it's already been announced that General
Motors and Honda have have put a time limit on
that that this is the only vehicle they are producer.
And so the question came up with what's going to happen?
Is this vehicle going to go away? And the answer
was no, They're going to continue building this car under
the ZDX name. However, starting in twenty twenty six, act

(01:38:15):
will have their own in house built evs put on
their own architecture. So what you're going to see is
you're going to see this vehicle is going to stay around.
Then there's going to be new accurate evs.

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
Well, that sounds a little confusing for the buyer because
they wonder should they just wait for the accurate built evs.
But I have no doubt that because this is Accura,
you know, the quality is there, and of course they
want to. I saw this car in person at the
Chicago Auto Show. So it's a nice looking car, you know,
reminiscent of the m d X and the the rd X.

(01:38:49):
But we'll see, all right, John Faulkner, I'm going to
link up your full review from Clean Fleet Reports on
the website, rich on tech dot TV. Where you off
to next? You're always every time I see you on Instagram,
you are off to somewhere amazing. Where are you going next?

Speaker 9 (01:39:05):
Well, let's see. Next week in Los Angeles they're having
the sheet pull on the new Cadillac up Teak, which
is also being built on this platform. I'll be going.
I have a trip to Detroit for the Silverado Rev
and the Ecro CV. I'm going up to Seattle for
the Mustang mocks E and so there's there's always something

(01:39:30):
interesting to drive and to record on.

Speaker 1 (01:39:32):
All right, Well, thanks and safe travels and have a
great time.

Speaker 3 (01:39:36):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:39:36):
These Uh, these John Faulkner of Clean Fleet Report. Uh,
you can go to the website for the review of
the Accura z d X. Just go to rich on
Tech dot TV. If you haven't been to one of these,
uh you know these press events for cars. Oh my gosh,
I've been to a couple and uh yeah, they are
fun and those car people know how to party. Let's

(01:39:57):
put it that way. You are listening to rich on Tech.
Coming up, it's the feedbag. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you. Ending the show Man.
This time goes so fast. I don't know how three
hours goes by so fast. I can't sit through a

(01:40:19):
three hour movie, but somehow I can do this. Let
me get through a few apps before we get to
the feedbag. Mind Trip dot Ai this is a brand
new AI powered travel platform and it's it's kind of
funny because you know, I get told about a lot
of this stuff before it hits the market, and so

(01:40:41):
AI mind Trip emailed me. They said, hey, we're going
to launch this new travel platform and it's going to
be incredible and it's all based on AI. And I said, look,
I've heard that about a thousand times this year alone.
So let me see, let me check it out, and
you know, I will get back to you, and sure enough,
I check it out and it is good. It's really interesting.
So mind trip dot ai it's a it's a it

(01:41:04):
takes like a really full featured approach to not just
like a chatbot. But it gives you, like, you know,
you take a quiz and tell it what kind of
traveler you are, and the chat kind of like adapts
to that. You can heart things so that if it
recommends something, you can put it in a list, you
can create an entire itinerary, you can keep track of expenses.

(01:41:27):
I mean, it's really really full featured. They did a
lot of good homework on it. So check it out.
Mind trip dot ai just one more tool in the arsenal.
Keep in mind it is using AI, so not everything
it says, like I asked for a certain type of
hotel in Sedona that was a Marriott, and it came
back with a Hilton, you know, even though it said

(01:41:47):
it was a Maria, And so you know, you just
have to be aware of that stuff. The Arc browser
has launched on Windows, presenting a challenge to Chrome and Edge.
So Arc is this kind of new fangled brows that
a lot of people like on mac os and iOS.
I have not used it extensively, but I know there
are a lot of fans of it. So that's why

(01:42:08):
I'm telling you about it, because it's just one more
option if you want to check it out the way
I do things, I just download it, run it, see
if I like it. If I like it, I'll continue
using it. If not, you know, you move on. But
the thing people like about this it's got a collapsible sidebar,
a command bar for navigation, and various useful browsing tools.
And again it's available for Windows eleven right now, So

(01:42:31):
if you have the latest version of Windows eleven, you
can download ARC for Windows. If you want to try
out a different web browser, see how things are done
a little bit differently. There will be a Windows ten
version in the future. And if you use this on
mac os and you also somehow have a Windows computer
and you download it, you say, rich, this is not
the same. Well, there are some features that are not

(01:42:52):
available just yet, but they say they will have releases
every week to reach parody between the two platforms. So again,
the ARC browser, if you want to try something different
on Windows and Shaka Guide this is an app that
I met up with when I was in Hawaii. They
have been doing this for eight years now and in Hawaii,

(01:43:13):
so it's an app that turns your smartphone into a
GPS powered audio tour guide. I love these things. You've
heard me talk about it various cities that I go to.
I always try to do a walking tour with an
audio guide on my phone. It is such a great experience.
And of course, obviously the real tour guide is always
the best, like the human but that's not always possible.

(01:43:35):
It's expensive, it might be on a timeframe that you
can't do. So definitely download one of these apps to
your phone to try out a GPS powered audio tour guide.
This is mostly for the car, but they do have
them walking as well. It's called Shaka Guide. They started
out in Hawaii, so you can drive around Hawaii all

(01:43:56):
the different places there. But they also just added national
park and scenic drives here in the US mainland, so
they've got Yosemite, Yellowstone, scenic drives like the Blue Ridge Parkway,
Great Smoky Mountains. They spend a couple months researching each location,
so this is not just done like from some office
in Hawaii. No, they actually send people out to the locations.

(01:44:19):
They research, they talk to locals, they come up with
the guide, then they record it, and then they drive
the guide and see what it's like. So tour start
around ten dollars. Of course you can get a bundle
which is a much better value. But Shaka guide, Shaka guide,
and if you don't know what shaka is, I think
it's like hang loose kind of thing. That's what I

(01:44:39):
learned in Hawaii. All right, let's go to the feedbag.
This is the feedback and the mail bag from you,
and let's see this is from I think it was
Nil's rich. I agree with you if that was this
is about the Amazon when I went off about Amazon
and the employees in India. I agree with you if

(01:45:01):
that was the actual context of the comment, i e.
Amazon was watching in real time what you buy as
you bought it. The comment was completely ridiculous and your
peers in the media should have put it in proper
context and not turn that headline into clickbait. You should
have handled your response better, too. Emotional responses do not
help clarify the issue either. Wait, what are you talking about? Nils,

(01:45:22):
I can't get emotional on this show, Okay, fine, objectivity wise,
while Amazon, Facebook and among others cannot. It's inhumanly impossible
to watch all that video in real time and react. Yes,
that was my point to provide proper context as all
of you should do. What you should have stated is
that Amazon, Facebook Open AI can at a later point

(01:45:42):
review recorded material and provide feedback to their llm's large
language models as to whether or not it was right
or not right. Open AI did that. Facebook does that,
Amazon does it, Neils, you put this one properly. That's
exactly That's exactly what I was trying to say that, Yes,
they don't have a thousand people in an office watching

(01:46:03):
every single camera from every single Amazon store in real time,
but they go back in the review what decision that
their AI systems made, and then they help guide that
later on, and that is the training process. So yes,
one hundred percent, thank you for clarifying that. On my behalf,
Sean says, I just came across your video about the
starlink on flights to Hawaii. Seems like a monumental improvement,

(01:46:26):
which is great to see. Thanks for that video. On
a separate tangent. I travel a lot, and I noticed
your laptop seems to be a perfect size for taking
on a plane. What size kind is it? I might
end up getting one. Best wishes, Sean, Sean, It's funny
you should ask this question because it actually wasn't a laptop.
It was an iPad with the case on it. It
was the iPad Pro with the smart keyboard Apple smart keyboard.

(01:46:51):
The problem was my laptop. I made some major change
to it, so I actually couldn't bring it to Hawaii.
I tried to download my entire iCloud or delete everything
in ie Cloud on my hi Cloud drive, and it
literally stopped my computer from working for a week. So
my computer I never felt so naked in my entire life.
I could not bring my laptop to Hawaii. I was

(01:47:11):
beside myself, so I had to bring an iPad. I
don't recommend that if you actually have to get work done,
because I think and a laptop is still the way
to go. Thanks so much for listening. There are so
many ways you can spend your time. I do appreciate
you spending it right here with me the website rich
on tech dot tv. My name is rich Demiro. I
will talk to you real soon.
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Rich DeMuro

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Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

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