Encryption Explained, Bitcoin Hits $100k & AI Photo Magic

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Y US intelligence officials are urging Americans to use encrypted
communications and what does that really mean? The AI powered
glasses that bring the world to life with real time
closed captions, the app that transforms your old photos into
dynamic video clips. Plus your tech questions answered? What's going

(00:22):
on richdmiro 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 zero

(00:45):
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
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 and hit contact. Guests
this week include Coinbases Philip Martin. He's going to share

(01:06):
tips on avoiding online scams and protecting your crypto assets.
Then we've got Rob Gelick from Yahoo Male. He's gonna
stop by to talk about some of the new features
they're adding to the service. And I'm going to have
him address the whole transitioning from Cox Email and all
these other providers that Yahoo mal now handles.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
You can understand that.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
And then we've got the Vergess smart home expert Jennifer Twey.
She is going to talk about matter, the new universal
standard for connected devices. Well, I hope you are having
a fantastic weekend back in the saddle here. It is
the holiday slide, as I call it. We have been busy.

(01:47):
I am sure you have been busy as well. It's funny.
The holidays are supposed to be a relaxing time, but
I feel like for a lot of people, they're very stressful.
You know, you're talking to a lot of people, you're
seeing family, there's a lot of events that are out
late at night, and then you're dragging into work in
the morning. So it's all this stuff that kind of
comes together. And by the way, it's six season. My

(02:08):
wife was like, why does the holiday season have to
be during the sick time. We've got a couple of
sick people in our house right now. I'm like the
last band standing, always like everyone's coughing around me and
this and that, and I'm just like, please don't get this, please,
So I take my vitamins and that's the best I
can do, I guess, right. But anyway, happy holidays to you.
Hope you're having a great season. And I'm sure you

(02:31):
heard the news about this whole idea of this China
spying on us with the text messages and the networks
that we have here. Apparently they've gotten some of the
sensitive information that we exchange on a daily basis. Of course,
this is still under investigation, but you've probably seen the

(02:51):
headlines where US intelligence officials are urging Americans to use
encrypted communications. Now, before you say I've got nothing a hide,
I don't need to worry about this stuff. I'll address
that towards the end. But let me explain what this
all means. So first off, you know, anytime you're communicating,
communicating via email or via text message or browsing the web,

(03:14):
you've probably heard of the term encryption, right or encrypted.
There's several flavors of encryption. The most prevalent is well
number one, no encryption. That's just plain text. That means
if I wrote wrote something on a piece of paper
and just handed it to you, you could easily read that,
no problem, right. And I think we're going to imagine
all this stuff as kind of sending a letter to

(03:35):
someone so that you can understand it very easily as
I can so imagine. No encryption is writing your message
on a postcard, right you put it in the mailbox.
Anyone that comes across that postcard can read that message
because it is out in the open. Then you've got
your basic encryption. And this means that your letter is
now in an envelope, but it has a pretty unique

(03:57):
lock on it, right, and only someone with that lock
can unlock it and read that message. But here's the thing.
If we're talking about email or your provider, they probably
have the key to that. So if the post office
wanted to open up your letter and see what's inside,
they could do it right because you just seal it
with a lick and an envelope and it's very easily sealed.

(04:18):
So that's basic encryption. Anyone that's seeing the letter or
the envelope, they're not seeing what's inside that envelope. But
people have the ability to open up that envelope and
see what's in there. But of course, when you're talking
about encryption, you'd have to have a key. Then you
have what you really want is what's called end to

(04:38):
end encryption. So imagine you take that same letter, you
put it in an envelope, and then you sort of
put this secret, super duper lock on that envelope that
not even the post office who's handling this thing can
unlock and read. And so that's really the type of
encryption that you want for your messaging and your email.
But as I'm gonna explain, that's not necessarily.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
What we get. And so that is what we want.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
So what are you getting when you are doing I Message,
and this is messages between Apple devices. They do offer
end to end encryption, and Apple has been a big
proponent of privacy, and this turns out to be a
very good thing because the millions upon millions of messages
that are sent on a daily basis through I Message
are all encrypted. That's when you see a blue bubble. However,

(05:28):
if you're sending to a non Apple device, say an
Android device, those are not encrypted. And I'll talk about
that more in a second here. Now, when you're sending
Android to Android, Android just recently got this upgrade to
what's called RCS Rich Communication Services, and Google does encrypt
that end to end, which means, if you ever notice,

(05:48):
if you're texting an Android friend and you're on an Android,
you'll notice there's a little lock next to your message,
and that means that your message is end to end encrypted.
That means that no one, not even Google, can read
the message that you are sending to that other person.
Not the person, not the wireless provider, not your phone company,
no one. No one can read that message, just the
person on the other end. Now here's where it gets

(06:10):
a little challenging when you're talking about cross platform messaging
and group texts. Typically, group texts are not encrypted, especially
if they involve a mix of iPhone and Android. And
then when you're sending between those platforms, so iPhone to Android,
Android to iPhone, those are not encrypted either. Now iPhone
recently got that upgrade to RCS, so yes, you can

(06:33):
send big photos and files and see the typing indicators
when you text someone that's on Android. But Apple did
not implement the end to end encryption protocol that they
could do. So this is something that Apple could do
if they wanted to, but it's something they have not
done yet. So just remember, if your same platform, same platform,

(06:53):
it's going to be encrypted. Cross platform group message is
probably not encrypted. Now what can you do if you
want your messages to be the most secure, Well, you
can switch to an app that is encrypted and to
end by default, and there are two prominent apps that
do this. The first is Signal. This is something that's
predominantly used by sort of people in the no journalists,

(07:15):
high ranking officials. They all know about Signal, And maybe
you have a techie in your family that's tried to
convince you to switch to Signal, but good luck getting
anyone in your family to switch to any third party
messaging app.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
So, Signal is end to end encrypted, it is all
secure by default. Another app that is also secure by
default is WhatsApp, and WhatsApp has always been end to
end encrypted, which is super private, and that's on by
default for all messages. However, this is owned by Facebook,
which some people may not like. They bought WhatsApp. They
didn't create WhatsApp, they did purchase it. And also Facebook

(07:50):
does collect some metadata, so just because they can't read
your messages doesn't mean that they don't know who you're
sending them to and some other information surrounding them. Now,
there are some other messaging apps out there, like Telegram
that's a popular messaging app, and yes, they offer end
to end encryption, but you have to toggle it on
for every single chat that you want end to end

(08:12):
encryption on. That means that if you're not doing that,
Telegram can pretty much access the information inside your messages
if they wanted to. I'm not saying they're reading them all,
but you know they could. And that also potentially means
that someone else could access the information of those messages.
Facebook Messenger is also another popular messaging app. They also

(08:34):
provide end to end encryption, but again you have to
do it on a case by case basis, so you
have to manually enable it. They call it secret Conversations.
Telegram calls it secret chats. So your standard messages on
both of these services are not end to end encrypted.
So you might be seeing that these are encrypted, but
it's not end to end encrypted. So what does this

(08:57):
all mean for you? You know, you have to understand
the limitations of these services. So if you're using something
like I Message shirt, it's encrypted, US an RCS shirt,
it's encrypted. If you're using a third party app, it
may not be encrypted. And it's really tough to get
friends and family to switch to one app where everything
is secure. Now here's the big argument I get from people.

(09:19):
They say, Rich, I've got nothing to hide. Why do
I need my information encrypted? I don't need encryption. I'm
not hiding anything. I'm not doing anything wrong, and I
don't care who sees my messages. And that is one
hundred percent wrong. Now, I'm not going to say that
what your thought process is wrong, but I think it's flawed.
And here's the reason. Why have you ever taken someone

(09:41):
aside at work and said, hey, can we chat for
a second? And you know that that conversation is private?

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Right? We do this all the time with people.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
We chat with them, we talk to them, and we
have an understanding that what we are saying to that
person is private and it's not being recorded, and it's
not being shared and it's not public. Could you imagine
not having that ever online?

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Ever?

Speaker 1 (10:04):
So Number One, privacy as a fundamental right. Privacy should
be a fundamental right of humans, especially as tech takes
over more aspects of our lives.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Misuse.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Think about how much information you share in your messages
and in your email on a daily basis. I mean
it's medical information, it's a password that you share with
a friend or a family member. There are one time
codes that help you access your accounts. I mean, there's
so much information that we share on a daily basis
that would you want that out there on the front
page of the newspaper.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Probably not.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Even if it's something that's innocent, you probably don't want
it out there. And just in general, when you talk
about democracy, you know, we don't want to be in
a surveillance society, do we? I mean don't you want
to have the ability to protect what you say to
someone else, no matter how you're communicating with them, and
that includes your online communications. So imagine a US where

(11:02):
they said, no, you know what, encryption is illegal, you
can't encrypt your messages. How would you feel about that?
Absolutely not good. So please don't use the argument that
says I have nothing to hide, I don't need encryption,
because that really really, uh, it just affects me in
a way that like, hold on, you're not understanding the
entire side of this. By the way, when you email,

(11:22):
if you're using Gmail or any other email program, it's
encrypted in transit, but it's not typically end to end encrypted.
If you want your email to be fully encrypted, you
have to use a service that offers that something like
a proton mail. All right eight eight eight rich one
O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. The website rich on Tech dot TV.
Your call is coming up next. Welcome back to rich

(11:46):
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.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Four one zero one.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Feels good to be back in here this week. I
don't even can I say that last week was a repeat?

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Why not? You know what it's done?

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Uh, you know, I get a couple of times a
year where I can do a show that's sort of
a best of show, and last week after a holiday
was one of those shows. So everyone had off. Bobo
had off, Kim had off, I had off. Who didn't
have off? I think everyone had off? So that was
really nice. Did you enjoy your time off?

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Bobo?

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Adam didn't have off. Adam didn't have Adam. Adam had
to do the show. So but he did a good job.
We were in good hands. So you know, it's one
of those things where it feels good to have that
time off.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
I did have a good time off. Yeah, it was amazing.
I had a chance to help my wife with her
side venture. And yeah, she does the candles. Yeah, she
makes candles.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
What's her it's it's on Instagram in the aura, in
the Aura. Yeah she does. You gave me a couple
last year and they smell great. And we have the
room spray too, which is really nice.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I am my kid.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Actually, Parker has like taken a liking to like straightening
up the house. And when he's done straightening everything up,
and he does a really great job. He does little
sprits of the stuff. It's it's great. Uh let's go
to uh Eleana in Berkeley, California.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
You're on with Rich har Rich.

Speaker 5 (13:10):
It's going to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, what can I help you with that?

Speaker 5 (13:14):
I love your show.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
I am really frustrated because I have at Mobile and
I pay for the forty gig and I know they
says it slows down after the.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Forty gig youth.

Speaker 5 (13:27):
I'm currently don't have a wireless because I'm you know,
just paying off debt, you know, trying to get rid
of before I add another bill in my life blows down.
This this unlimited and I also pay them up front too.
I paid them like the whole year in advance, and
this thing starts slowing down at the two week mark

(13:49):
and a buffers terribly. And I just feel like it's
like if your test that decided the buff wrap for
five hundred bucks and you couldn't accept rate. I just
don't think it's fair. It's almost a deal breaker.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
So do you notice it?

Speaker 1 (14:03):
So? Number one, have you looked at your have you
done a speed test on your phone?

Speaker 5 (14:08):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (14:10):
No, okay, So what I would do is I would
download an app called Meteor met eo R okay, like
the like the Comet or like a you know, Heavenly body,
the Meteor app, and then I turn off your Wi Fi.
You don't have Wi Fi at home? You said, right?

Speaker 4 (14:26):
Not?

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, And so you're running everything through this mint Mobile plan.

Speaker 5 (14:30):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Now I have mint Mobile on a test line and
I use it, and I okay, so I will tell
you I definitely notice a little bit of buffering and
a little bit of a slower connection than my standard
like ninety dollars a month Horizon connection.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
But you know you have to give and you take.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
You know, mint Mobile is significantly less, and you know
the thing is you're paying for that forty But what
they don't guarantee necessarily is the speed on that now
you should get it. For the most part, let's see
if we can find their broadband. They have this thing
called Broadband Facts for Mint Mobile, which tells you what
your speed is supposed to be. So if we look

(15:09):
at this unlimited that's thirty dollars a month, you're supposed
to get typical download speeds of seventy nine to three
point fifty seven and then typical upload of six to
thirty And that's actually across all their plans no matter what.
But they also have a network management policy, and so
that is what they reserve the right to slow down

(15:29):
your services. And so if you're using a ton of
data in a place that's very congested, they could slow
down your data to help other people make sure that
they get their access. And by the way, also one
of the big things about these prepaid plans that people
don't realize is that they are they are limiting your

(15:50):
video quality as well. So you're getting SD video quality
no matter what. You can never get HD video quality.
So you know, that is a big thing that you
have to take into consideration. If you're streaming a lot
of stuff on Netflix. According to mint Mobile. They're limiting
your streaming to one point five megabits per second, and
so that's for ADP, which is basically SD quality. So

(16:14):
you have to know, you know, if you're looking at Instagram,
you're watching reels and all that kind of stuff, like,
it could be slower. But what I would recommend is
to kind of monitor this. So Number one, on your
smartphone itself, there is a way to reset your cellular data.
So go into your settings, look under cellular and you
can reset. It says cellular usage statistics on the iPhone.

(16:37):
You can press reset statistics and that will start keeping
track of how much cellular you are using. So I
do that, and then I would do the speed test
at the beginning of the month, when your bill cycle starts,
do a speed test and see what speed you're getting,
and that will tell you if you're actually being slowed
down or not. And make sure your WiFi is turned
off on your phone. You don't want to be on

(16:57):
your Wi Fi. So for instance, right now, I'm just
getting twenty two megabits per second on this phone. And
this is on a big Verizon plan, so it depends
where you are as well. So I would do that
do the test a couple times a month, once at
the beginning, once in the middle, once at the end,
and see if you're getting a completely different speed. And

(17:18):
the program will log those speeds as well, so you
can look at your history and see what your speeds were.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
But that's what I would do to kind of see
what's happening.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
But Elena, I use the mid Mobile, and you know,
for the price, I really don't think it can be be.
I think they have a pretty good service for the
price you're paying. And I love that you're paying off
the debt and you're trying to, you know, save the money,
so you know, you got to give some, you got
to take some, and I think you're you're taking a
little bit right now. Eighty eight rich one O one
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.

(17:50):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology. The phone line is eighty
to eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. We'll get back
to the calls in just a moment here after our guest.
The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.

(18:12):
I've made it a little bit easier to keep up
with the show notes. You can scroll down on the
page this is show number one hundred. Oh wow, look
at that Crisp one hundred dollars bill. We've got show
number one hundred. And you can also hit the light
bulb at the top. There we go, and you can
get the show notes in live time. I don't know

(18:32):
if you follow the news this week, but I was
in Disneyland and I don't know why, but I've just
been checking the bitcoin price because it's been kind of
like wild lately, and all of a sudden it hit.
It crossed one hundred thousand dollars, and you know, my
kids all into it and everything, so we were all
just like, oh my gosh. And then I run into
a friend at Disneyland. It was like an event night,

(18:53):
and he's a big bitcoin guy, and I was like, Rob,
did you see He's like, see what I'm like, Bitcoin
it reached one hundred thousand. He's like what he gave me,
like the biggest hug I've ever gotten from this guy.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
And I was like, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
So bitcoin surpassed one hundred thousand dollars for the first
time this week, really cementing in a lot of people's minds,
its status as a mainstream financial asset. A lot of
people might have dismissed this as a fad in the past,
myself included. I will admit I had friends back in
the day that we're all into this, and I kind
of said, come on, talk to me when it's real.

(19:26):
And now, of course people are into it because of
you know, our future president and he has embraced cryptocurrency,
and of course all the Wall Street investments in this
crypto as well.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
So just keep in.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Mind it is still highly volatile and you know, nothing
is guaranteed, but people are excited about this. That all
kind of goes into my next guest, Coinbase cso Philip
Martin is joining me to talk about some of the
things you need to be aware of when it comes
to online scams and protecting digital assets.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Phillip Martin, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 6 (20:02):
Thanks thanks for having me on episode one hundred. Yeah,
well it's the Moustone.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
It's fitting one hundred thousand dollars and episode of one
or so. Are people just like, are they just cheering
at coinbase when it crosses one hundred thousand or what?

Speaker 6 (20:14):
I mean, there's there's always enthusiasm for these moments. But
I think one of the things you learned being in
an industry like cryptocurrency is there are ups and their
downs and they're both going to happen.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
That is very true. I mean, what does that mean
to you that it's crossed this number? Does that mean
that it's it's good forever or does that mean that
it's good right now? I mean, what what does that
mean to you?

Speaker 6 (20:37):
Yeah, you know, I personally don't anchor kane to it
to you know, round numbers like this. I think it's great,
it's it's a moment to celebrate. It really is very special.
But I joined coinbase it was red round six hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Oh wow.

Speaker 6 (20:50):
So yep, so huge, huge difference. But I think, you know,
we're focused on the work ahead.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, now let's talk about this because crypto has sort
of been thrust to the forefront lately in mainstream media
and just everywhere online because of these milestones. Obviously, the
scammers follow, right, they always are trying to. I always
say the scammers are trying to, you know, separate us
from our hard earned cash, and crypto is no different.

(21:18):
So Number one are you seeing a lot of scams
when it comes to cryptocurrency?

Speaker 2 (21:23):
And why sure?

Speaker 6 (21:25):
You know, bad guys like money just like everybody else, right,
and we we absolutely when when when price action shows up.
The other interesting thing thing to realize is bad guys
read the news, right, and so when they see crypto,
you know, across the milestone, just like any other asset, Uh,
they turn their attention you know more to that asset
because they think there's funny there. So so we see
scams go go up and down, you know, loosely lined

(21:47):
to the price of big cooin. But you know, it's
important to note that that we see this across the
across all financial instruments, right, that that that are vulnerable
to theft.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, I mean people are buying gift cards at Target
and sending the code to people. I mean, what's the
difference if you're sending money from a you know to
a bitcoin wallet number. So what do you think is
the I mean, is there like a top scam that
you've identified that you can alert people about.

Speaker 6 (22:14):
So scams, it's important to note scams of all the
come and go. They change over time, like very frequently,
as as scammers of all their tactics I think right now,
probably the biggest name the folks bandilot is a scam
called pig butchering, which is a type of a romance
scam right where scammers build trust, you know, maybe through

(22:35):
dating apps places like that, and use that trust to
trick a victim into a financial transaction of some sort
of the benefits of scammer.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
That's so wild.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
So basically you kind of get you know, you talk
to someone, you get to know them, and all of
a sudden they're like, hey, can you send me money?

Speaker 2 (22:51):
And people actually do that.

Speaker 6 (22:53):
Yeah, although it's actually much more nuanced than that, right
with these these games can take weeks months unpulled, and
normally the gamers are actually exploiting some piece of information
they've learned about the victim, their desire to buy a house,
something like that, and say, hey, you know, I've made
a lot of money doing this. I can show you how.

Speaker 7 (23:11):
M M.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
That's interesting.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
So what what steps can we take to kind of,
you know, protect ourselves, Like obviously if something sounds too
good to be true, but I mean realistically, you know,
these people still get victims, So what what do we
look out for?

Speaker 6 (23:25):
Yeah, these people are very very good at at their job. Right,
So one thing two or three components here that to
me always stream scam right when when somebody is creating
a sense of urgency in you. And by the way,
this is also important to think about in sales interactions
in general, when someone is writing that sense of burned
if you have to do it right now, now, now, now, now,

(23:48):
That to me is is a moment that I want
to slow down right and ask myself, why is it
so important that this happened right now? What they what
do they want me to not see? The second thing
I would say is it's it's very impos when you're
interacting with somebody who's who perhaps encouraging you to make
a financial decision or pang voice. If that person is
encouraging you not to talk to friends and family about it,

(24:09):
is in fact trying to isolate that decision to just
you and them. That's also a very important warning sign.
You shouldn't be able to talk to friends and family
about important financial decisions that you're going to make.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
MM. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
So if they're trying to trying to urge you into
doing something fast and also trying to make you not
consult someone else. I mean it sounds like you're talking
about buying a car. That's like, yeah, this literally sounds
like the tactics at the car dealership.

Speaker 6 (24:34):
There is a very small difference between the tactics a
scammer might use and the tactics an aggressive salesperson might use.
They're all trying to drive you to an outcome that's
good for them and not good for you necessarily.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Now, I've also heard about a lot of you know,
stories where people either lose access to their crypto wallet
or you know that once they send money to someone,
they can't get it back. In this this situation, can
you address those two things like can you recover money
if you send it to someone? And also, you know,
what do we need to do to make sure that
when we set up an account and buy crypto we

(25:09):
don't lose access to that account?

Speaker 6 (25:12):
Yeah? Those are those are great questions. So so first
of all, is on the can you can you recover
money that you send somewhere else? You the the the
consumer of the individual, the person that that sent the
funds uh no is the is the base of answer.
Much like a wire transfer or if you put a
gift card in the mail, or whatever right that those
funds have already left. Now, this goes into how important

(25:34):
it is the contact law enforcement. You believe you were
the victim of a scam, fraud, of theft, whatever it is,
and report to your local police department, report it to
IC three, which is a thing run by the FBI.
They do look at these Uh. It is important that
that we do reach out because they have tools that

(25:54):
you know, the average the average individual doesn't, and they
go after these criminal groups that are largely based outside
the US. Southeast Asia in particular is a focus area.
There has been success in law enforcement as they're bringing
these groups to justice, being able to access those funds
and in some cases getting those funds back to two victims. Now,

(26:17):
I don't want to create the the the the impression
that this happens one hundred percent of the time. It
absolutely does not. But it is a possibility, got it.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
And what about the second half of getting your money back?

Speaker 4 (26:28):
All right?

Speaker 2 (26:28):
You know, if you lose your if.

Speaker 6 (26:30):
You lose it, yeah, so this this you know, one
of the promises of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general is
you can be your own bank, right, you do not
have to use a third party to customer your assets.
Part of being your own bank is making sure that
you have backups in place that you can access these
funds when you need them, even if something bad happens,

(26:52):
even if God forbid your house burns down, or if
something else catastrophic happens. And so, if you're going to
custody your own bitcoin, protect your own keys, control your
own keys in that way, and by no means do
I dissuade anyone from doing that. You have to start
thinking about, uh, you know, more than just oh, I'm
going to open the app and it's all it's all

(27:13):
going to be there. You have to start thinking about
worst case scenarios were people that use. This is why
people use platforms like coinbase. Right, we offer a self
custodial app called coin based Wallet, but we also offer
a website coinbas dot com, in which you know you're
you're not custody in keys, you're not putting backups, in
which case there are processes if you forget your password,
things like that that we can help you as a

(27:35):
third party, get those funds back. So really is a
trade off that that everyone should be thinking about where
they fall on that spectrum.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Okay, got it?

Speaker 1 (27:43):
So there are two different ways of doing it, like
where you kind of control the entire situation, or using
a third party like a coinbase or another app like
to be almost your bank or your wallet for this information. Uh, Philip,
what uh what gets you excited about all this?

Speaker 2 (27:57):
What? What's you know? What's keeping you going on this
crypto stuff?

Speaker 4 (28:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (28:02):
You know, I've been coining I'm going a coinbase, uh
about eight and a half years, uh low grade and
half years now at this point. And there's a couple
of things that really really excite me. One is just
the amount of innovation in how financial transaction to work
and run globally. How quickly this has evolved, how many

(28:25):
new things are showing up, I think is just a
true order of magnitude larger than any other time that
at least certainly the you know that I've been alive,
and I think we can look back in history and
call it at least one hundred probably more years too,
And that I think adds ads efficiency, It adds effectiveness.
It speaks to constituencies that have been historically under unbanked,

(28:48):
not just in the US, but also globally. Right, the
idea that a a someone who is who's built a
thing in Nigeria or in you know, or in South
America now has the ability through crypto to transact with
a global audience without having to figure out cross border

(29:12):
transfers and all that stuff. I don't know if you've
tried to send money internationally, Rich in the recent past,
but it is it is not an easy proposition. That
level of economic freedom and opportunity really is unprecedented I
think in modern history.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
All Right, we're going to leave it there. Very exciting stuff.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Coinbase Chief security Officer Philip Martin, thanks so.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Much for joining me today.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Thanks Rich all right eighty eight rich one O one
Coming up, I will tell you about the app that
transforms your photos into a video clip. I'll explain right
here on rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The

(29:56):
phone line is eight eight eight rich one oh one
So there is a new feature of the my Heritage app.
This is the DNA service. Have you ever had your
DNA done? I did a long time ago. It's probably
in some server somewhere percolating with all my information. Someone

(30:19):
someone making another rich on tech out of my DNA somewhere, copy,
copy paste, There we go. Why would you want that though,
I mean, let's be real.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
They have a new feature called live Memory. This uses
AI to turn your photos into a short video clip
about a five second video clip, complete with like animation
and not just like the person moving, it's like the
whole situation. So if you know it's an old picture
of like two people getting married, it might show them
like walking down the aisle a little bit, or like whatever,

(30:53):
you know, whatever the image is trying to capture, it
will kind of move, make that move.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
It's really interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
I tried this with a couple of photos of my
old you know, in my collection.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
It's eerie.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, it's weird, but you know, it's kind of cool.
You might as well try it out. I mean it's
free for about I think three videos you can try
for free, and if you want to do more than
that you have to pay. But again, it's called live memory,
it's from my Heritage. It's inside the iOS or Android app.
Takes a little bit for it to generate because it's
literally making a video clip, but if you want to
link to that, you can go to the website.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Richon tech dot TV.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
There is a watermark on the videos to make sure
people know that they are AI generated and they're calling
them reenactments. So if you have a picture of like
a kid taking the nineteen fifties on a bike, it
will show that kid like sort of riding the bike.
You got to try it out. I mean, it's really
it's weird, you know, but this is the beginning of AI.
It's not always perfect.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Let's go to Let's go to Michelle in Glendale. Michelle,
you're on with rich Hi.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Hi, Hi, I have a question regard I had a
Yahoo email and then when my accounts were hacked, I
had to change the password. So when I changed the
password back in July, and then when I and then
after that, when I tried to go into that email,

(32:18):
they said that that password was not was an incorrect password,
and so they had to ask me to reset the password.
And I tried to reset the password, and then they
wanted me they wanted me to put the code, so
they sent me the code in my text into my phone,

(32:39):
and then I did, and then they wanted another form
of authentication by having to send it to another Google email,
and that Google email I couldn't also get in because
that was also hacked. So I tried all the passwords
that I could think of and it was exhausted. So

(33:02):
I want and then they they I called the number
of Yahoo and they said that I would have to
pay how much? So I actually didn't ask. I should
have asked, but I was when my accounts were severely

(33:22):
hacked by Router was hacked back in April, including my
computer phone emails. I was told by the police that
whenever you're trying to call someone for customer support on
a phone number usually begins with eight hundred and they
ask you to pay. Don't do it because that's how

(33:44):
my accounts were scammed back in April.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Right now, this this happens a lot. People google phone
numbers and they call whatever the first you know search
result that pops up. And a lot of times these
scam artists will either buy an AD that has a
phone number in the ad. It I'll say, hey, tech
support for you know, Spectrum, and I'll have a phone
number in there that's a total bogus number, or they'll

(34:08):
you know, set up a website and that has a
phone number. So that is a good idea. So my
question for you is do you need this email account?
How badly do you need?

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Well, the thing is, I really badly need to retrieve
into my email because I cannot, okay, because when when
my accounts were had, I made a report to the
senior leed officer in the North Hollywood Police station and
I forgot to print it because and so I need

(34:40):
that report that I did to him in order to
add that to my report to FBI, because I was
told by the when I reported it to Federal Trade Commission,
they also told me to also report this what happened,
you know, not to FBI. But and I started doing
the report to FBI, and one of the things that

(35:03):
they ask is if I have any documents?

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, okay, Well it sounds like, okay, sounds like you
need to get into this email to get a copy
of your police report. I would also just maybe call
you know. I'm looking online at LAPD. It looks like
they've got a you know, a Record Records and Identification Division.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
I doubt.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
I mean, I understand that you probably have the number
of the police report, which is probably like key to
getting it quickly. But I would call them and see
if you can get that from them and just tell
them your name and information. I'm sure you can get that.
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to. So
that's number one. When it comes to the email account,
and you know you're wondering about this, Yahoo should you

(35:45):
pay to talk to them for the support that they offer?
So Yahoo, does you know if you need to reset
your password? I'm looking at the Yahoo Plus support right
and we're actually going to have the Yahoo general manager
for email on later in the show and I'll talk
to him about this. But they offer, you know, free
support for the free accounts, but they also have a
paid service where you can get a little bit more help,

(36:09):
and that runs anywhere from about five to ten dollars
a month. So in this case, it might be worth
it if you need to get through to that email address.
But always be careful when calling a randome Hunter number.
Make sure you're on the Yahoo dot com official support
site before you call any number and before you pay
any money. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to

(36:29):
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 two four one zero one.
The website for the show rich on tech dot TV.
If you want links to anything I mentioned, just hit
the light bulb at the top. You can also sign

(36:49):
up for my free newsletter there, and you can also
email me through the website. It's all at richon tech
dot TV. Amazon is bringing back it's driver program where
you can thank your driver and give them five bucks
at no cost to you. So all you have to
do is gosh, if I say this on the radio,
it's probably gonna Alex say thank my driver. Or you

(37:14):
can just search thank my driver on the Amazon app
and whoever completed your last delivery will get five bucks. Now,
keep in mind this is limited to the first two
million thank yous, So when I did it last night,
they still said your driver got five dollars. So if
it doesn't say that, you know, it only works once,
by the way, per customer. I don't think you can

(37:36):
do this over and over, but kind of cool. I
don't know about you, but I actually love the holiday
season like I love tipping people.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
I really do.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
It's like this weird thing that I actually I tipped
my gardener the other day, and he actually was like,
you made a mistake.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
You paid me too much. I said, dude, it's the holidays.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
I go enjoy the money, Like come on, like, how
do you like don't you know, just enjoy it? Like
people well, you know, they're taking a back sometimes with
you know, a generosity during this holiday season. So I
don't I find it really fun. I really do. I
find it like I save money throughout the year so
that I can tip people at the end of the year,
and I just love that, Like it's like a direct

(38:13):
smile that you get from them because of what you're doing.
And honestly, people aren't necessarily used to it anymore. You know,
people are always trying to you know, we're so used to
that tipping at like a you know, someone grabs a
muffin from behind the counter and then they flip around
the screen and they expect to tip. That part I
can be angry about, right, but I could still enjoy
tipping people that I feel help me. And so there's

(38:36):
there's a difference there, right, Like that kind of that
forced tip versus the enjoyable tip. So anyway, there you go, Alex, say,
thank my driver. You can send them a tip, and
that's cool. We went to the new Into It Dome
here in Los Angeles. The newest arena is called the
Into It Dome. It's the home of the Clippers, and

(38:57):
it's like super high tech. I mean, obviously Into It
is a Techi come company. Steve Balmer is the owner
of the Clippers, and so he's a very techy guy,
you know, one of the founders of Microsoft. And so
this was a very tech forward arena. And finally had
the it just opened, I don't know, a couple months ago,
maybe just had the opportunity to go. But here's a thing.
It's almost too techy even for my taste. Let me

(39:21):
explain why when you get a ticket to this arena,
you cannot just number one.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
There's no paper.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Tickets anymore for any arena, right, It's like everything's digital.
Everything is tracked through ticket Master and all these different
ticketing things. It's all like that. And by the way,
you can't even use a screen capture. It has to
be like the actual like live barcode. Like if you
look at some of these ticket barcodes, there's like a
kit like night rider like thing moving across the barcode
every second saying like, don't you dare try to screenshot.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
This is not gonna work.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
And so with this particular into it dome, you have
to sign up, download their app, sign up for an account,
and then link your ticket Master account and then everything
happens through the app. So you got to give a
all of your information like your date of birth, your nickname,
and just your face if you want. I think the

(40:07):
face is optional for facial recognition throughout the place. But
if you don't do that, you have to add their
card to your digital wallet. So like if you have
Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, you have to add like
a card so that you can tap for that. So
it's like this whole big thing and you have to
save your payment method. I mean, it's a really it's
a little invasive if you ask me. But and so

(40:30):
I kind of grumbled. But then here's once you get
your tickets. So, for instance, we had four tickets to
the event. Once you open up your tickets in the app,
it says, by the way, every single person must have
their own phone with their own ticket on that phone.
I was like, wait, what even my kids? So there
is an option very small print that says you can
designate someone as a like a what was it called

(40:53):
dependent I think, and you can assist them by using
your phone to scan their ticket, which of course I
did for my whole family. I was like, they're not
gonna ask any questions, like come on. But anyway, once
you get into the actual arena, it's amazing, and I
understand all the technology because everything is sort of that
like just walk out technology where you go and you
grab something off a shelf and it recognizes either your

(41:15):
face or your phone and it charges the payment method
on record. Now, not everyone's gonna like that, but it
is cool. And I noticed too there's a lot of
cameras everywhere, so the facial recognition is like off the
charts at this place, which, again, it's cool, it's different,
it's unique. But as a person who is a lover

(41:37):
of technology but also kind of critical of technology at
the same time, I can understand why every single person
that walks into this place would not want all of
their information in some sort of database somewhere, which at
the end of the day, what do you think that's
going to be used for. It's gonna be to market
stuff to you, right in a million different ways. So anyway,
but once you're in there, really really cool, and it

(41:58):
did use my nickname when I scan my phone, it
was like, hey, welcome rich On Tech, and I thought
that was pretty cool. So have some fun with your
with your nickname there. Let's go to Kathy in uh Linnwood. Kathy,
You're on with.

Speaker 8 (42:11):
Rich Hi rich On Tech. How are you?

Speaker 2 (42:14):
I am doing fantastic? How are you?

Speaker 8 (42:17):
I'm I'm hanging in.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
There, hanging in there. Oh no, okay, let's let's talk.
What do you need to help with?

Speaker 8 (42:24):
Okay, I have a challenge. I am trying to figure
out what is the best thing for me to do
right now. Both my daughter and I heard you speaking
of the I don't know how new it is. I'm

(42:46):
going to say new a I Meta ray band.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Okay, yeah, okay.

Speaker 8 (42:53):
So, but you also had mentioned something that that there
is a couple other companies but the specialty I wear,
but that the ray bands were the cheapest. So I
started looking into those, which I have an inherited eye

(43:15):
disease that at this particular point in my life I
still can see, but it's very difficult. I'm considered legally blind.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Oh wow, this is something that recently happened like that developed.

Speaker 8 (43:32):
Yeah, inherited. Okay, it's got this weird name. It's called
Retinitis pigmentosa.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Okay, well say that ten times fast.

Speaker 8 (43:43):
I know RP for short.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Okay, there you go. It's much easier to say.

Speaker 9 (43:48):
Right.

Speaker 8 (43:48):
So my challenge is, you know, I was trying to
learn about these ray bands and I have Can I
say the insurance comempany sure Kaiser permanente Okay, I've heard
of them, Okay. So I have been seeing their I

(44:12):
specialists for like five years. It's been a progressive thing
and they're low vision specialist. And I called a couple
of days ago and nobody knew anything about these AI
meta ray bands. So I have been educating them. Even

(44:34):
the low vision specialists that I see didn't know anything
about it.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Really wow, Yeah, she.

Speaker 8 (44:42):
Had to ask her manager about it. They all turned
me down, even though I told them that it should
be a durable medical equipment.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Oh, I see you're talking for for sort of like
a uh uh where they cover the cost of these glasses.

Speaker 8 (45:03):
Right, okay, because I you know, this would help my life.
And I'm actually in a group on Facebook called Retinitis
Pigmentosa okay, and it's people who have this inherited eye
disease and they're from all over the world.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Gotta love technology, right, Yeah, yeah, that's an incredible uh connection.

Speaker 8 (45:28):
People are so excited about it, and they're getting them
and actually some of the people their insurance companies are
paying for it. Oh wow, yeah etna.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Okay, well here here's the deal. So we're run out
of time, so I think you're you're okay. So Number one, yes,
I think that the smart glasses from ray Ban Meta
they are not marketed as a medical device, but I
think people are finding a lot of use in them
as something that can really the visually impaired, right, So
I think that's number one, is that these haven't been

(46:04):
made as an FDA approved medical device.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
That's number one.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
There are other companies that are working on these types
of glasses that are specifically for assistance for the visually impaired,
but they're thousands of dollars versus the ray Band Metas,
which are a couple hundred dollars. What I would do is,
I would I think that there's a gray area here, Kathy,
where you can probably make your case for these glasses

(46:29):
and get the reimbursement but I think the problem is,
and I don't know this, but I feel like the
insurance companies are working under a framework from the government
perhaps of what they're allowed to reimburse on what they're not.
But maybe I would say, if you just push and
push and push, you can get it through. But I'm
not a medical expert, so I don't know. The other
thing is that you know, again, the price is not

(46:51):
that expensive, so maybe do something like a GoFundMe or
you know, collection, or it is the holidays coming up,
friends and family, maybe all chip in to get to
a pair of these glasses. Uh, you know, about three
hundred and fifty dollars for those glasses, so compared to
the thousands of dollars that these other glasses cost. You know,
that's a great, you know, a great savings there. So

(47:14):
but also check out you know, chat GPT and and
write some letters. Come up with you know, talk to
chat GIBT and say, hey, look, I'm trying to convince
my insurance company to pay for these glasses or to
reimburse me, and see what it comes up with. It
may come up with some pretty compelling letters that you
may able may be able to send to your insurance
company and you know, stay on them and see what

(47:34):
you can do about it. But yes, the ray Band
Meta smart glasses very very incredible, and I think they're
only going to get better. And I did see the
be my Eyes integration in them in addition to the
other stuff they do that's in the app now as
like a you know, a beta thing.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
So great question.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Thanks so much Kathy for the question there in Lynwood, California.
Eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight eight
seven four two four one zero one. More rich on
Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
talking technology. The phone line is open at eight eight

(48:13):
eight rich one oh one phone lines, I should say
Website for the show richon Tech dot tv. There you
can sign up for my newsletter, you can email me,
and of course get links to anything that I mentioned
here on the show. This is episode one hundred. Just
hit the light bulb up at the top that will

(48:34):
bring you direct to the show notes. This week, Walmart
completed their two point three billion dollar acquisition of Visio,
so Walmart now owns Visio. They're going to continue to
let this company operate separately, but you're gonna see a
lot of synergy. Number One, when you walk into a
Walmart story, you'll see a lot of Visio TVs these

(48:56):
in the upcoming days. So why does Walmart want Visio?
Walt all about advertising? Visio has a very robust AD
system that they build into their televisions. They also have
this smart cast, which is their free AD supported streaming platform.
Many other companies have these as well. Amazon, I think
is probably the biggest competition here in Roku, and so

(49:17):
this will position Walmart to compete with them a little
bit more closely because guess what, When Walmart knows what
you're watching, they can target more promotions to you, and
they know what you're shopping for in the store.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
So you see, there's a lot of synergy there now.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
I think for consumers, the good news is that Visio,
which has already been very very affordable over the years,
will probably continue to get even more affordable because now
they've got Walmart, one of the biggest logistics in supply
chain folks in the world. They will find some ways
to save money on manufacturing these TVs and getting them

(49:54):
into all the stores, and so I think as a consumer,
the Visio product will be even less expensive. But again,
this is all kind of to go up against Amazon.
I was watching Thursday Night football and every single ad
is a QR code or some kind of thing that
you can scan or shop. It's all about shoppable. So
tracking and shopping is the name of the game. Bobo

(50:17):
question from the class.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yes, from the class, mister Demiro. I was wondering, like,
so would that mean Target stop selling video or Amazon
stop selling video?

Speaker 1 (50:27):
See, that's a good question because you know it's in videos.
Like they just paid two point three billion dollars for
this company. Yeah, and so of course they don't want
to be in less places. So I think that they
will continue to sell these TVs because if you think
about it, Amazon products are in all those stores as well.
You go into a I don't know about Walmart. I
don't if they have fire TV in Walmart, but they

(50:49):
Actually that doesn't make sense now that I think about it. Walmart,
why would they want to stock a fire TV exactly
if you have your own TV brand now. But I
think in Target specifically, they do sell Amazon stuff, and
that's a big competitor to Target and Best Buy. Yeah,
so it's it's an interesting question. Really good uh really
gold star for you Bobo today.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Great question.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
But that's you know, it's one of those things where
if they stop selling these TVs and other places, that's
not a good thing because they paid so much for
this acquisition. Uh eighty eight Rich one on one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Let's go to uh Dustin in Hermosa beach. Dustin, you're
on with Rich?

Speaker 6 (51:30):
What stop? Rich, Bobo?

Speaker 10 (51:31):
How's it going Fellas?

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Yeah, we're doing great. What what can we help you with?

Speaker 6 (51:37):
Okay?

Speaker 9 (51:37):
So I've been like metal detecting on the beach and
I've been trying to stream.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
It, right, okay, Well that's interesting.

Speaker 9 (51:43):
Get like no service out there, so I start lagging.
So I'm wondering, So I bought this like Nighthawk M
six tether hotspot, right okay. But then I'm like wondering
if should I just get starlink because they got a
sale right now, Like what would you wreck?

Speaker 10 (52:00):
Men?

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Well, how would you get starlink?

Speaker 1 (52:02):
I mean, are you are you doing this like in
front of a place you have on the beach, or
is this like mobile.

Speaker 9 (52:07):
I'm just mobilely just walking around, you know, just walking
around the beach and want to stream.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
And you're streaming.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
So is this like a YouTube channel you have or
a TikTok or something that you're doing.

Speaker 9 (52:16):
Yeah, I'm doing it on TikTok and I added him
put on YouTube and Instagram and stuff.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
And do you find some cool stuff?

Speaker 9 (52:24):
No, not yet, but now I've had a couple of rings.
But you know, it's usually like bottle caps and stuff
like that. But it's fun, you know.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Okay, Well, here's my question. I don't know if you
can walk around with a starlink. That is the main thing.
Because and by the way, cell phone signal on beaches
around Los Angeles is notoriously horrific because guess what if
you got a ten million dollar house on the beach,
you probably don't want that. You know, cell phone tower

(52:55):
right near your house. They call that nimby, not in
my backyard. And here's the thing I would Knownumber one.
I would try the different providers. You've got three different
providers here in the US. I'm not sure which one
you're using Dustin, but you know, if you're using t mobile,
check out at and t checkout Verizon and also see
which one works. Ask the neighbors in that area which
one works the best. But as far as I know,

(53:17):
even the smallest starlink I don't think is meant to
be walked around with. However, since you have a YouTube channel,
sounds like a project for you. Maybe try it out.
See if you can get a little set up. Or
maybe you just set up the starlink on a little
trailer thing and leave it on the beach while you
walk around. Lots of ideas. Sounds like a fun business.
This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

(53:40):
Oxford's twenty twenty four word of the Year is brain raw.
You know what I'm talking about. I call this nonsense
with my kids. You know the stuff they watch on
YouTube shorts where they're just flipping through over and over
and it's like all this like nonsense stuff that they watch.
But brain raw is the decline in mental or intellectual

(54:02):
capacity resulting from excessive consumption of trivial or unchallenging online content.
Yeah you know when you see it. The terms usage
increased by two hundred and thirty percent in twenty twenty four,
driven by low quality digital media It was first recorded
in eighteen fifty four by Henry David Thoreaux in Walden. Wow,

(54:23):
you talked about brain rop back then, they brain rot
in eighteen fifty four. Wow, that's wild. But now, of
course it's all this stuff. You know what I'm talking about.
You know, you just flip through and it's like stuff
you really don't need to know, or stuff you really
don't need to see, but you watch it anyway and
it just rots your brain. It offers no advantage to

(54:44):
knowing this information or to seeing it. Newport Institute Healthcare
provider says brain rot is mental fogginess and reduced attention
span due to excessive screen time. Now that I will say,
I've definitely noticed the reduced attention span, even in myself,
I mean everyone. It's like we want everything summarized now,
we want everything to be quick, short and easy. But

(55:06):
there you have it. Brain rot twenty twenty four Word
of the Year. All right, let's see here. We've got
a great guest on Yahoo Male. This is a very
popular email program. It's gone through a lot of changes recently.
It's got a new look, a new feel, new AI features,
and here to talk about all of it. Is Yahoo

(55:27):
Male's general manager, Rob Gelic.

Speaker 10 (55:29):
Rob.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 11 (55:31):
Hey Rich, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
I am doing fantastic and thanks for being on. So
let's talk First off, Yahoo Male. I mean, obviously this
has been around for a very long time. What is
sort of new and different about it from the big
picture side of things?

Speaker 12 (55:49):
Yeah, you're right, I mean we Yahoo Male definitely, you know,
one of the more established emails out there. One in
three American adults still visit Yahoo Male each month, right,
were the number two email service out there. And recently
we've been on a i'd just say an innovation role,
a lot of new features, leveraging things like AI but

(56:11):
AI to solve real problems for users.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Ah okay, But now before we get into that, I know,
because you guys are you know, like you said, the
one of the largest email providers out there. Some other sources,
like users have been migrated to you, right from like
SBC or AT and T or Cox. Can you touch
upon that, like, explain because I get a lot of
emails from people like, hey, Rich, my email provider moved

(56:36):
to Yahoo. I don't know how to log in anymore.
Can you explain, like how to like, how do you
move your stuff over?

Speaker 12 (56:42):
Yeah, So for for users that we're originally getting their
email from one of our partners like a Cox or
an AT and T, we're in partnership with them to
move their email over to Yahoo. So the great thing
there is those relationships are being built so that people
get the high quality service that Yahoo offers, and our

(57:06):
partners recognize that in their original services. But change is hard.
So what when people are who are used to a
specific email service need to make that change. Sometimes that
transition needs a lot of care. And when we move
people over, a lot of what we do is kind
of white glove them through the process of getting signed

(57:28):
in with their original credentials, creating their own version of
a Yahoo account, and us pourting over what their mail is.
So for the most part, that's a seamless experience for users.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
And so the bottom line is that you just basically
go to Yahoo Mail and kind of log in with
your old account credentials and it will kind of recognize
that and saying, oh, you're coming from SBC or you're
coming from Cox, and it will kind of walk you
through the process.

Speaker 11 (57:54):
That's absolutely right.

Speaker 12 (57:56):
Yeah, the partners will redirect the user over to Yahoo
will prompt them to log in with their current credentials.
They have an option to update those credentials like put
in a new password, and when they open it, they'll
see the Yahoo Experience and their mail will be waiting
for them.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Okay, that is very important to know because I think
people probably get tripped up on the they're looking at the
Yahoo website, but they're logging in with their old information,
and so that makes much more sense. So let's talk
about some of these new features, like what you know,
what specific AI features are you talking about with the
new Yahoo Male Experience.

Speaker 12 (58:34):
Yeah, we have like the biggest desktop redesign in a
decade for Yahoo just recently, and many of those features
have just been released on our iOS app.

Speaker 11 (58:47):
We're really focused rich.

Speaker 12 (58:48):
On an app experience to help people stay organized and
on top of things. We know that it can be
overwhelming going into your inbox. We've all had those moments
where you come in and there's just so much there.
So a lot of our AI powered features are really
focused on solving those problems where we're matching these kind

(59:09):
of tangible problems people are having with real solutions.

Speaker 11 (59:14):
And so I'll give you an example, so we've added a.

Speaker 12 (59:17):
New Priority inbox tab that automatically highlights the most important
messages for you. And this compliments what is the all
email view that users are used to looking at. We
keep both in there, so if you prefer the traditional
way of browsing, or you prefer this new Priority inbox
that sorts out let's say some of the noise for you,

(59:40):
those are now available for you. And with the Priority Inbox,
we've added a number of really cool features.

Speaker 11 (59:47):
We have quick action buttons that allows users, without needing.

Speaker 12 (59:51):
To actually open the email, do things like copying onlock
code that they got for an account, or check in
for a flight, or one click track where a package
that you're expecting to be delivered is all with a
single tap and all without needing to open that email.
You can do it directly from your Priority Inbox list view,

(01:00:13):
which is amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
And then you're you're also summarizing emails as well.

Speaker 12 (01:00:18):
We are, so in that specific view we are previewing
message contents, so the ideal, the core idea of that
message is getting captured in this really brief summary that
we provide inline.

Speaker 11 (01:00:33):
As you're looking through your emails, it's.

Speaker 12 (01:00:36):
Been a way to give an alternative for people that
to use the original title of the email, to switch
that out with something that more concretely summarizes everything that's
in that note.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Oh wow, that's interesting. That's so you can have it
take over kind of the whole subject line.

Speaker 12 (01:00:54):
Correct, So we have both options if someone prefers those
original and we know we have senders where that's really
important to them.

Speaker 11 (01:01:01):
Users have that whole view where they.

Speaker 12 (01:01:03):
Can see the original subject, where they can get these
one line summaries.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Okay, so this idea of the gamified experience for cleaning
up old emails.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
That sounds fun.

Speaker 6 (01:01:16):
So yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:01:17):
One of the things that is interesting about it is
we noticed this behavior when people are looking at their email,
where they really are trying to quickly sort through the
stuff that's valuable, even if I'm not going to open
it in the moment. They want to park it and
clean out the stuff that they really think is a
little bit noise or less important to them. So we've

(01:01:38):
created a mode within the mobile app today that allows
us to feature items within your email. It's like twenty
five emails at a time, and the prompts to lead
something on red delete it archive it are much more
prominent as part of the user experience, so people can

(01:01:59):
quickly go through emails within seconds.

Speaker 11 (01:02:04):
And at the end of this mode.

Speaker 12 (01:02:05):
When you're done cleaning out your inbox, we give you
a little prompt like at the end. That's a nice
little game experience. It says, oh, hey, you went through
twenty five emails in eight seconds.

Speaker 11 (01:02:16):
It's a nice little entertainment piece.

Speaker 12 (01:02:18):
It helps reinforce there's some sense of accomplishment that you're
staying on top of your emails and really being organized.

Speaker 11 (01:02:26):
Our users have loved it so far.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
One of my favorite things with organizing my email, and
I have a lot of it, is when I get
an email that I know I have like a bunch
of other ones that are similar, I will kind of
like filter for all those and then select them and
then delete them all at the same time. And it
gives me a lot of satisfaction. Now, what about Yahoo
male kind of managing other email accounts? I know you
told me you can use it for like Gmail and Outlook, Like,

(01:02:50):
can I just use the Yahoo email interface for my
other email accounts?

Speaker 11 (01:02:56):
Absolutely?

Speaker 12 (01:02:57):
Richmond, that's like the perfect way to phrase that We've
made it really easy for users to bring their existing
email to Yahoo. And actually, in recent months we've seen
about a one hundred and twenty five percent increase in
desktop users connecting their Gmail to their Yahoo mail accounts
just because how we've set it up as part of

(01:03:17):
the onboarding process.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Now here's my question with that. Let's say I bring
Let's say I have an account somewhere else and I
bring it to Yahoo. Is it sort of like interfacing
with that other account, Like any changes I make, does
that happen on the back end with the other email?
Or are my emails imported into Yahoo as well? And
like a new organization.

Speaker 12 (01:03:37):
Yeah, there's a standard handshake between the different services that
the industry at large uses. It's called IMAP, and that's
exactly what that does. It keeps your email, even though
let's say it's offered through another provider, if you're viewing
it and managing it through Yahoo, it keeps everything in sync.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
All Right, anything else we need to know, we we've
got to run. But anything else you want to let
folks know about the new Yahoo mal No, I.

Speaker 12 (01:04:06):
Mean, we've we've been making great progress. We had just
on iOS since we've rolled this out. We just had
our biggest day ever for single single day record for
daily active users from the iOS app, so we know
something's working.

Speaker 11 (01:04:22):
It's out there. These AI features are available if.

Speaker 12 (01:04:25):
You want and need them, and certainly changing the game
and towards of people being able to stay on top
of their their personal emails and definitely appreciate the time.

Speaker 11 (01:04:34):
Rich. We're so excited about the product and we think
our users will be as well.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
I think we know where to find it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Yahoo Mail, very simple, Rob Gellick, I know about I
don't know about you, but I'm well as GM of
Yahoo Male. You probably spend a lot more time in
email even than I do, and I spend almost my
whole day in my inbox. So email is very near
and dear to everyone's heart these days, I feel like.

Speaker 12 (01:04:56):
Absolutely and it definitely is this the central communication to well,
we're trying to make sure that they're bridging the gap
across messaging applications to make sure it's the best experience possible.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
All right, there you have it, Yahoo Males General Manager
Rob Gallick, thanks so much for joining me today. Eight
eight eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. I'll tell you
coming up why Google Maps is getting one of the
best features of Ways plus your calls coming up right
here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.

(01:05:31):
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The
phone lines are open at triple eight rich one O one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. I do appreciate you hanging out here with me.
Hopefully you're learning something. Hopefully you're enjoying the show. And
uh yeah, what more can you ask for?

Speaker 6 (01:05:52):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
I mean, let's go to uh let's see here. We've
got Peter in San Diego.

Speaker 6 (01:05:59):
Peter, you're on with Hey, Ranch, how are you?

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
Thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
I am doing fantastic. What can I help you with?

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
Okay, So I've got a phone that I've had for
about five or six years that I like a lot.
It's the Samsung Galaxy Note nine. The best feature of
this phone is that I can put a memory card in.

Speaker 7 (01:06:22):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:06:23):
I basically got an endless memory. So I have not
wanted to get rid of this phone, but I'm now
starting to have problems. I got a message I had
this app. I got a message the other day telling
me I needed to update the app. I went to
the play Store and I found the app and it

(01:06:43):
deleted it uninstalled the a version I had in there.
But then I got a message telling me that my
phone is not compatible with a new version and I
can't download it. I've now had that happen twice. And
I come to find that I've got Android version ten
and apparently my phone is telling me I've got the
latest version available, and I don't think Android is supporting

(01:07:07):
this phone anymore due to the age. I was cold.
There's a workaround for that, and I was hoping that
you might have some info, h a workaround.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
I'm not aware of a workaround. I'm looking up the
phone was this Yeah, this was launched in August twenty eighteen.
The support for it ended on September seventh, twenty twenty two,
so you're definitely outside the support time. I'm looking at
this phone. I remember it has a fingerprint reader on

(01:07:38):
the backside.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
That looked yeah, great, great phone, wonderful phone.

Speaker 8 (01:07:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
And of course it was the last Samsung to have
the micro SD card slot, which is a thing that
you really like about it. So here's the thing, I mean,
there's really I'm trying to think unless you unless you
put your own system on here somehow I don't, which
I think is very complicated and I'm not even sure
how you do that. You know, there might be like

(01:08:04):
a rom that you can put on here.

Speaker 4 (01:08:06):
That there are some YouTube videos and how to do it,
but it's a little bit it's my skill set, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Yeah, I mean I used to do that back in
the day, and even for someone who's like really into it,
it was a lot. And by the way, once you
do that, a lot of things don't work on the
phone anymore, you know, like you all the little you know,
everything's optimized because Samsung comes up with this software and
also this is a you know, you'd have to unlock
the bootloader on this phone. I mean, there's so many
steps that like I can't sit here and tell you

(01:08:33):
on a mainstream show to like go ahead and try
to do that, because it's just it's just not like
a thing for the you know, the average person to do.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
So, I mean, is.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
There a let me ask you this, is there an
Android phone out there that does have a training that
I can put a memory card on that's his fully
featured as this phone. I tell you I've been through
a lot of phones over the year. I've not kept
the phone as long as this one. This phone has
just been magnificent. And the only problem I'm having, you know,

(01:09:08):
I just can't update these apps, and consequently I can't
use apps with certain companies retailers and restaurants and things.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
Yeah, that's a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
And that's all for security reasons and also support reasons,
Like you're saying that this the last support on this
is Android ten, which you know we're up to Android
fifteen now, So I mean, you know, these companies that
make apps, they you know, they do support for a
decent amount of time. And by the way, the newer
phones are now, the Android phones specifically the Samsung's and

(01:09:37):
the Google phones are now getting like seven years of updates.
So it's a good thing that we're seeing more updates.
But this phone specifically was sort of before that kind
of happened. And it does get a little tricky now
when it comes to an SD card on a phone,
like I mean, I really have not reviewed a phone
that has an SD card in a long time because

(01:09:58):
they just don't make them like that anymore. And I'm
trying to see the only phone that I've seen that's
come out in the past year or so is from
a company called Nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Have you heard of them?

Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
I have not.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Okay, So they actually make a phone called the CMF Phone,
and the CMF is actually their lesser expensive brand, and
they make a phone it's not very expensive, but it
does have a expandable storage up to two terabytes, and
it does have the recent operating system. The thing about
this phone is it's a very budget phone, so it's

(01:10:31):
not really you know, you may are do you take
a lot of pictures?

Speaker 4 (01:10:37):
You know, I take a fair amount of pictures, And
you know, I can understand why they did away with
the SD card tray because you know, obviously they want
to sell you memory on the front end.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Oh yeah, and more.

Speaker 6 (01:10:49):
Like this.

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
You know, you could you could just you don't need
to do that. You can just put in any kind
of card you want. It was it was just fabulous.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Yeah, no, I totally understand, and believe me, I it's
you know, I've covered phones for a long time and
the micro SD card slot was always a differentiator by
the way for Android versus iPhone. And of course when
Samsung did away with that and everyone else did away
with it. It just kind of like became Okay, this is
just the way it is now, and there's no interest
in the phones having that expandable storage because why would

(01:11:19):
you get that when you have you know, why would
you want that as a phone maker when you're not
going to sell anything above the smallest you know, memory
size on that device.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
So exactly, I would take a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Look at this CMF phone and see, I mean, I
love nothing. I love their software. I absolutely love their devices.
This is, like I said, their budget device. You do
have to jump through a little bit of hoops to
get it. You got to join their beta program, but
I don't think that's a big thing to do. But
the software is clean, the phone's nice. I think this
might serve you well. And it's not that expensive. We're
talking like under two hundred and fifty bucks CMF phone

(01:11:54):
by nothing. Thanks for the call, Peter and san Diego
more rich on Tech after this. Welcome back to Rich
John Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking
technology at triple eight Rich one on one. That's eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Don't be shy, give me a call. You'll have to
get through Kim. First, just full disclosure, but once you

(01:12:16):
do it is fun. After that, well, it's fun to
talk to Kim, but I'm saying you'll get once you
get through to her, then you can talk to me.
The website for the show Rich on tech dot tv.
There you can get the show notes. Hit the light
bulb for that, or you can send me an email
and it's all right there. Very very simple. Google Maps.

(01:12:36):
If you've been in your car lately, you might have
noticed something. Google Maps is acting a little different. It
is giving you these incident reports that you typically would
get from Ways. So we were driving last weekend and
all of a sudden it popped up and it said, hey,
there's a police ahead, and it said, you know, slow
down ahead. I said, wait a second to my wife,
we're using Ways. She goes, no, that's Google Maps. So

(01:12:58):
what so yeah, Google Maps this week started to integrate
Ways incident reports.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
So this means if.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
You are using Google Maps, you're getting more timely updates
about things happening on the road up ahead, whether that's
an accident, whether that's a speed camera, police, and it's
sourced from now Google Maps and Ways. So my kids
love this because basically it says there's police ahead in
half a mile, four tenths of a mile, three tents

(01:13:26):
of a mile, one hundred feet fifty feet are they
still there? And my kids love to answer the question.
And when you answer those questions, and by the way,
do this in a safe way in your car. Obviously
it's a big button yes or no. You're helping other
drivers in real time. And so this has been something
that Ways drivers have really enjoyed and really loved sort
of that community of sharing information in real time. Now

(01:13:49):
it's coming to Google Maps. But Google, if you're wondering
if they're going to merge these two mapping apps even
though they own both, they say they are going to
continue to operate them separately. And by the way, I
got a preview of a new feature coming to Ways
where instead of pressing a button at all, you can
just say to Ways, what is on the road ahead

(01:14:11):
in any you know, natural language you want. So typically
when you do a report, when you file a report
on Ways, it says, you know, is there an object
on the road, is there police presence? Is there a crash?
Is there slow down? Now you can just say, like
you know, Heyways or whatever, ladder on the road and
it will figure out what that is and kind of
make that into a report using AI. So that's coming soon.

(01:14:34):
But anyway, pretty cool if you notice that, now you're
up to speed on there. So to say no pun intended.
Tesla has officially launched its Apple Watch app. This is
something that many people who have a Tesla have been
waiting for, and this is the functionality where you can
use your Apple Watch as a key to lock and
unlock your Tesla. You can see your you know your

(01:14:57):
charge level, you can adjust your climate control. Now here's okay.
So I have this on my watch because I got
it last night, but I have not yet gotten the
software update for the car, so I can't really use it.
But it's weird because they mentioned in the press stuff
that you can open the frunk from your watch, but
it didn't say anything about the trunk. So I got

(01:15:17):
to figure out if you can actually use this, why
would they do just the frunk and not the trunk.
That makes no sense, So perhaps it will have trunk
access as well. But anyway, this is a good thing
because now you can use your Apple Watch to control
the Tesla. This is something they've had in the past.
But you had to pay for a third party app
to do this, So now it's included, it's free. And

(01:15:39):
of course this is part of Tesla's twenty twenty four
holiday update, which also has some other features. One of
the really, really handy features for folks is the fact
that you can now download the dash cam and the
Century Mode clips to your phone. So it used to be,
you know, the Tesla's have like a DVR that's recording
all the cameras all times, and if you ever get

(01:16:01):
into an accident or you ever witnessed something on the
road and you want to download that, you had to
pull that USB drive from your car, put it into
your computer, find the clip, and it was a whole thing.
But now you'll be able to just go on your
phone and download that clip directly to your to your
photo gallery, and that's going to be so much handier.
There's a whole bunch of other features too in the

(01:16:22):
Tesla twenty twenty four Holiday update, but I won't bore
you with all those eighty eight rich one on one
eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one,
Elizabeth and Newport. You've got some follow up questions on
the Yahoo.

Speaker 11 (01:16:34):
Guest yes, I do.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
Oh, and I reckon.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
Answer them because I'm not the Yahoo guy. But we'll
see what.

Speaker 13 (01:16:40):
Welp, I actually emailed you and you said make sure
you you listen on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
Oh okay, so I did.

Speaker 13 (01:16:47):
I missed the very first part. And what I emailed
you was, I have, you know, an old AT and
T SBC Global dot ne email. Okay, And but I
used Yahoo homepage and I have for some years, and
just a couple of days ago, I get this giant
banner here that says a change is coming.

Speaker 6 (01:17:07):
Uh.

Speaker 13 (01:17:07):
Oh, in this page, we'll direct you back to the
att currently homepage, where you can access mail and stay
up to date on news, sports, finance, and finance and more.
Go there now, which I haven't done.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
Okay.

Speaker 13 (01:17:21):
So it sounds like what your guest was talking was
kind of the opposite of that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
Well okay, so these are two completely separate things. So okay,
this is you're talking about a homepage, right, which is
which basically I'm looking at this currently. Uh It's basically
the my Yahoo, except it's AT and T's version of it.

Speaker 13 (01:17:41):
So okay, yeah it looks different.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
Yeah, it looks a little different. But everything I'm seeing
on there is pretty much powered by Yahoo. So I
think for you, if you want to continue to use
the ma Yahoo page. Are you saying, so, is that
is that going away? Or can you still go to Okay.

Speaker 13 (01:18:00):
Well that's what it seems.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
Okay, yep, that's what it is. Okay, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
So it's gonna maya who looks like it's switching over
to currently from at and T but it's still part
of that my Yahoo brand. So it's a little confusing.
But I think for you, if you have an account
and you've got do you have some personalizations on that page? Yeah,
I think they're all going to just carry over. That's
what it looks like to me when I look at this, Okay,
so that's yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:18:23):
Yeah, it looks completely different. Like for example, my page
is blue and it has a block over here and
different things down the side, and the currently page. You know,
there's always been issues between the two with the mail
and some time was a mess. Oh right, you're but
the currently page, I think is white and it looks
totally different. Is that what you see when you look

(01:18:45):
at it?

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
So it looks like I guess there It's funny gosh,
I remember my Yahoo from back in the day. I
mean that was like that was like my homepage for
so many years, because it's like, once you personalize that,
it was like, you know, golden, you had all your
stuff on there at all. So yeah, it looks like
that is changing to something a little bit different through

(01:19:08):
the currently from AT and T. It's it's confusing because Yahoo, Yeah,
I guess they handle things for a lot of different
companies now, and I guess AT and T is one
of them. But I would I would say, let's see,
when does this say it's gonna.

Speaker 13 (01:19:21):
Okay, it doesn't what I see it doesn't say, doesn't
say when.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
It says soon.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
This page will direct you back to the AT and
T currently homepage, where you can access mail and stay
up to date. So it looks like they're they're gonna
just have a different design, and it looks like some
of the things will remain the same, like the widgets that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
You have and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
But I will say, Elizabeth, I think you need to
be prepared for a different look for sure, because it
looks like, yeah, it looks like that's changing just a
little bit, But I don't think it's gonna be that
big of a change because it looks like it's your
same account, it's just going to be branded differently. So
I will monitor this and I will also follow up
with the Yahoo pho and see if I can get

(01:20:00):
some more information on this. But I understand, you know,
when we see a big banner that says that change
is coming, you know, half the people are like like bracing,
you know, like, ah, bracing for impact. I don't want
I don't want this change. Why are you changing things?
But I'm sure it's some sort of streamlining of their
business or something that they're doing that is, uh, that
is making that change happening. So thanks for the call,

(01:20:23):
appreciate it. Yeah, so my dot Yahoo dot com. I mean,
it's funny even today in the year twenty twenty four,
when I go when I test something out, like when
I when I need to test to see if like
an internet connection is working or whatever it is, my
first stop is always I just go to Yahoo dot com.
I mean, isn't that like after all these years, that's

(01:20:45):
still kind of like the place that I go.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Do I ever mention? But but maybe I've mentioned this.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
Uh that I got a job offer from Yahoo once
This was back in the day, and this was I'll
never forget. So it was you know, this was when
I didn't know if Yahoo was going to be a
thing or not. Right, so they offered me. I was
working somewhere else and like, hey, do you want to
come to Yahoo? And of course it was like a
great job, and I had to move to like Sunny
Vale where they had and of course I get this
tour of like the Yahoo campus, which was just like

(01:21:16):
incredible for someone who worked in local news to go
from that to like a place where all your food
was free. They had all these people like playing volleyball
and these sand volleyball courts and like just showed me
this brand new studio they had for this. It was
called Yahoo Finance, that's what they were doing. And of
course you had like you know, they were paying you
in like stocks of the company. I mean, it was
a good thing. Like the offer was great, but I

(01:21:38):
was so concerned that like Yahoo may not be around
in a couple of years that I was like, I
can't take this job, and I didn't, and you know,
I guess they're still there. So even though my Yahoo's changing,
so there take this. I was right about something there
was a change at Yahoo eighty eight. Oh, by the way,
and the best part of the job offer. They they
FedEx you this package with all this Yahoo stuff in it,

(01:22:02):
like all this like T shirt. I still have the
T shirt, but when you open the box, it went Yahoo.
And so I must have opened that thing like one
hundred times before that battery went dead. Eighty eight Rich
one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. I see the calls. We will
get to them right after this. Rich on tech dot
tv is the website to go to. And coming up,

(01:22:25):
I'll tell you about this Verizon secret deal you might
be able to take advantage of.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
I'll tell you about that coming up next.

Speaker 1 (01:22:32):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you talking technology.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
Let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Coming up this hour, we have another guest, Jennifer Twoey
from The Verge, is going to discuss matter.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
Have you heard of this?

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
This is that smart home standard that sort of been
like a rough start for it, but supposedly it's gonna
make things a lot better.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
She'll explain.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
Also Verizon, so this is a actually you know what,
Let's just go to Rich.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
Let's go to Rich in Landa Lakes, Florida. Let's let
Rich ask this question. He's been on hold for a while. Rich,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
We're Rich.

Speaker 10 (01:23:10):
Let's take Nicoll really appreciate you and your show. Thank
you appreciating that a product it's by net Gear, the
cable modem router combination, utilizing that instead of what Spectrum
is going to rent here per month. I mean, it
kind of makes sense because it's going to pay for
itself and like you know, maybe a little more than
a year. Want to get your thoughts on that product,

(01:23:31):
and also if there are any any drawbacks to doing
this versus renting, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
The main drawback versus renting is that you're responsible for
the equipment. So if something goes wrong with it doesn't work,
or if you need tech support, Spectrums going to say,
hands off, you've got your own equipment.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
We can't really help you there.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
So rit do you know that this equipment is compatible
with your Internet?

Speaker 10 (01:23:55):
It is, I mean, at least online it says it is.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
Oh okay, And what's the what's the price of this.

Speaker 10 (01:24:02):
One hundred and thirty three bucks?

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
So one hundred and thirty three dollars and what are
they asking for their rental fee every month.

Speaker 10 (01:24:09):
Ten Well they're selling it as the modems free in
the routers ten bucks a month, so you know, about
one hundred twenty bucks a year.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Okay, so about one hundred and twenty So your break
even is about you know, fourteen months basically, yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
Are you moving in that time? Are you thinking of moving?

Speaker 7 (01:24:26):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Okay, I mean, you know, there's really the downside again,
is what I said, is just basically the you know,
upfront cost which is not that much, and the fact
that if there's any sort of issue with compatibility or
technical support, they're really not going to help you. But
I think if you're if you're sticking with it, and
you're going to stay in this place and you're going

(01:24:47):
to continue to have this service, then I think that
it's probably not a bad deal to do this. And
you just got me. Well, so I don't always look
at my bill for my internet like I once in
a while look at the itemized bill only basically when
it goes up, like it went up last month by
like five bucks, I'm like, well, what's going on here?

(01:25:07):
And I saw that my internet service provider actually charges
I think it's fifteen bucks a month for my modem,
and I'm like, wait a second, why am I doing that.
I've been I've had this same internet probably for ten
years now at this point, and so I can't even
imagine how much I've paid for this modem that is,
you know, so old at this point, which needs to
be upgraded in general.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
But I think for the look for.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
The average person, it's it's very simple because the cable
person nowadays everything is like self service and I don't
even think they come to install these boxes anymore. But
you know you could if you needed that help, you
could get it. But that's the only thing you're giving up.
I think with this is that you just really you know,
you just have to deal with that side of things.
But sounds like it's gonna be pretty simple. You buy

(01:25:52):
this thing, you connect it to your internet, and it
will fire up and that's it. You don't have to
pay that bill for the next you know, indefinite amount
of time.

Speaker 10 (01:26:01):
Yeah, no, okay, I'm gonna give it a shot. Also,
I want to say I appreciate your your tip on
the zen book because I bought one. Oh okay, I
got a really good deal on it, so oh nice.

Speaker 1 (01:26:12):
That's a that's a good tip. I was just uh,
I was just in the Microcenter. If you listen to
the show where I talked with the micro Center. I
went to New Jersey and then I went to the
one out here in California. They've got one in Tustin.
And I was talking to this guy. We were doing
a story about computers, and I was like, what brands
do you like? He's like, I really like the asus
Zen Book. And I was like, oh nice, that's what

(01:26:32):
I recommend it to people. So glad, I'm glad you're
liking that. Thanks for listening. Down there in Landa Lakes, Florida.
That reminds me of the butter every time? Does everyone
think that?

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (01:26:42):
But it really it doesn't have anything to do with it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
I figured, I figured, but I just when I see
Landa Lakes, it's like that. I just remember growing up
with that butter. I don't know, it's just there, it is,
all right. Eighty eight rich one on one. Thanks rich
for the call. There, eight eight eight rich one on one. Okay,
So this Verizon thing I was telling you about, I
don't know if this will still work, but it's worth
a try because it's been percolating for a little bit now,
probably about a week, so Verizon might have gotten hipped

(01:27:06):
to it. But the gist of this is that if
you go to the section of the website of the
Verizon website or the app that lets you unlock your
phone number to leave, they get scared and they give
you this ten dollars per month loyalty discount for a year.
And so I tried this, and I the weird thing

(01:27:28):
is that I don't know if it's automatic or not,
because I went to this section of the of the
app and I did find the banner that said, Hey,
save ten dollars for twelve months, But then for some reason,
when I went to redeem it, it sent me a
text and it said I had to call Verizon to
redeem it. So I'm not sure if that's what everyone
has to do or just what I had to do.

(01:27:48):
But the point is, you open the My Verizon app,
you navigate to my Access section, and then you look
for a banner that says save ten dollars a month
for twelve months off this line, and then you tap
check offers and you follow the prompts to redeem the discount.
No changes to your current planner are necessary and people

(01:28:10):
I did post this to my social media at rich
on Tech on Instagram, and people did report that it
did work for them, and like, rich you just saved me.
Like one person said they had like three lines or
four lines. I saved them like times each line. It
was like ten dollars per line. Times the whole year,
it was like over four hundred dollars. So I was like,
oh wow, I should take a cut of that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
Now, I'm just kidding. I don't mind.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
I don't mind giving this out for free anyway. I
will put the the source, which is droid Life, great
website if you like, you know Android side of things.
They were the ones who posted about this. I'll put
the link on the website rich on tech dot tv.
But it's worth a try ten bucks a month?

Speaker 2 (01:28:45):
Why not?

Speaker 3 (01:28:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Coming up, we
are going to talk about matter and why it matters
to your smart home. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich Demro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The
website for the show is rich on tech dot tv.

(01:29:08):
If you want links to anything I mentioned, just go
to the website and look for episode number one hundred.
Everything I mentioned, including that Verizon loyalty discount I talked about,
it's all linked up there. And by the way, the
website a lot of stuff you can do there. You
can sign up for my newsletter and you can also
get in touch with me. So if you want to
send me an email, I can't guarantee that I will

(01:29:30):
respond to every one of them, because I do get
a lot of them, but I will do my best
and rest assured I do read your email. And if
you want to get something in for this show, We've
got the feedback segment coming up right after this, and
I will read some of your feedback from the past
week or so. All right, Joining me now from the
Verge is Jennifer Touey. She is there smart home expert,

(01:29:55):
and we're going to talk about MATTER, this new universal
standard for connected devices.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
Jennifer, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 7 (01:30:02):
Hi Rich, pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
So we actually met at an event in New York City.
It was a Google event, and I was like, okay, MATTER,
like I've heard of it, I know about it, but
I'm not sure I've used it in a meaningful way yet.
So I figured you'd be a great person to kind
of talk about this. What I guess explain? First off?
What is Matter?

Speaker 14 (01:30:24):
Yeah? Yeah, Well, in a nutshell, MATTA is basically designed
to try and make the smart home simple, interoperable, reliable,
and more secure. So great goals, exciting goals. Yeah, they're
working towards them. The reason you haven't probably got much

(01:30:44):
experience with Matter yet is because it's still relatively new,
so it's still developing. But the goal is to create
or it is creating, an open source standard for the
smart home, and it's being created by over two hundred companies,
including Apple, Amazon, Samsung, Google, Lgirobot, Verizon, like all the companies,

(01:31:05):
so everyone's involved in trying to make this happen, which
is why it feels like, unlike perhaps other protocols and
standards that have come and gone, that this one sort
of has some legs and it's.

Speaker 7 (01:31:17):
Going to get somewhere.

Speaker 14 (01:31:18):
And it's a communication and intero interoperability protocol.

Speaker 7 (01:31:24):
Sorry it's Saturday afternoon.

Speaker 14 (01:31:26):
And it leverages existing technologies, which is one of another
reason why it should be relatively simple to implement. It
uses something called thread, Wi Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet and
it will allow all of your smart home devices to
talk with each other locally over your own home network
without relying on the Internet, and also to be able

(01:31:46):
to talk to any smart home platform that also works
with Matter. So you can use Apple Home if you like,
or you can then just say okay, no, now I
want to try Google Home. Or if you have an
iPhone and your spouse has a pixel phone, you can.

Speaker 7 (01:31:59):
Both control your smart light bulb or you're smart door lock.

Speaker 14 (01:32:03):
Without having to fight over which ecosystem you're in.

Speaker 2 (01:32:08):
Oh wow, there's a lot to break down.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
Okay, So first off, you mentioned that it's like two
hundred companies other any notable holdouts, like any companies that
are not participating that are like major companies.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
No, not really, Okay, so that's a good thing.

Speaker 7 (01:32:21):
So that's I mean, everyone's got a foot in the door.

Speaker 14 (01:32:25):
Okay, some have an entire body and others maybe just
have a teeny little little toe.

Speaker 2 (01:32:32):
Okay, but that's good.

Speaker 7 (01:32:33):
There's some more involved than others.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
So this, as I'm understanding, sounds like it would replace
all those like hundreds of stickers on a smart home
product that like oh works with home Kit works with
Alexa works with Google Home, like this would this would
be one standard that when you see Matter, you're like, okay, cool.
As long as I've got matter, matter here, matter there,
it all works together.

Speaker 7 (01:32:56):
That is the ultimate goal.

Speaker 14 (01:32:57):
Though we're probably gonna have those because for a while,
because you know, people we got used to them. So
but yes, if you see a Matter logo which kind
of looks like a bikini bottoms on a stick man,
but anyway, you'll never you'll never picture it any other

(01:33:18):
way after that.

Speaker 7 (01:33:19):
But yes, you see if you see a Matter.

Speaker 14 (01:33:23):
Logo on a product in theory, and the goal is
that that means it will work with any of the
big smart home platforms and many other smart home platforms
that have come on board with Matter. But we're still
seeing those works with badges as their cord, like works
with Apple Home, works with Google Home, because again, you know,
consumers have got used to them, and if they're not
there then they think, oh that means it doesn't.

Speaker 7 (01:33:45):
So once it's going to take a while, I think
for that to that sort of.

Speaker 14 (01:33:49):
To permeate the consumer landscape to sort of understand that
this is what matter means. But ultimately, yes, we should
just have one little sticker and not fifteen different ones.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
So where are we at with this standard, like our
products supporting it, our people, like, is the public aware
of this? Are we looking for this sticker yet? And
you know how far along are we?

Speaker 14 (01:34:13):
So it launched two years ago and almost to the
month I think it was well November, and that was
the launch of the actual specification, which is what the
companies then used to go and develop products for it.

Speaker 7 (01:34:28):
So two years in and we actually quite far in
terms of.

Speaker 14 (01:34:33):
The different types of devices it supports, which is key
because if you want to be able to use everything
in your smart home on one protocol, then every different
type of device needs to be supported. So now we're
basically not critical mass, but close to smart lights, locks,
sensors and shades and blinds, smart switches, smart plugs, robot vacuums,

(01:34:55):
home appliances, TVs, your thermostat, and most recently they added
a lot of home energy management devices like solar panels,
ev charges, battery storage systems in your home.

Speaker 7 (01:35:07):
So there are a lot of device types supported.

Speaker 14 (01:35:10):
There are a few very notable missing, I mean the
biggest one being security cameras, things like video door bells
and cameras. You might put around your home for security
or inside your home.

Speaker 7 (01:35:22):
To watch your pet.

Speaker 14 (01:35:25):
Those are not part of the standard yet, although the
Connectivity Standards Alliance, who is the organization that's sort of
herding all the cats here and making this happen, they
are working on adding security cameras. Then the other one
is security systems. So like you're ADT or you're simply safe,
those are not part of matter. Doesn't look like it's

(01:35:47):
necessarily in the roadmap that we may sort of see
sort of integration at some point down the line. So
but yeah, it's made a lot of progress in terms
of the CSA saying, look, people that make these devices,
you can use matter.

Speaker 7 (01:36:01):
What we're kind of waiting on now is more.

Speaker 14 (01:36:04):
Manufacturers to actually start developing products with matter. We see
a lot of smart lights and locks and sensors and
plugs and switches, but we have not seen a lot
of home appliances where I got vacuums, TV's them, stats,
those devices that actually haven't traditionally been part of the
smart home.

Speaker 7 (01:36:24):
But Matt who is sort of looking to help bring
them in.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
So yeah, okay, well, if he's coming along, here's something
that I'm always confused about. So you've got matter and
then you also have thread, So like are they the same?
Like what Like I'm looking at the Apple TV four
K it says thread networking technology. Does that mean it
supports matter? And do I what do I need to
like have like a matter hub or like start with
this stuff? Like do I get you know, I assume

(01:36:50):
if you have a light bulb, but you have no
like hub for that light bulb, you need somehow to
like work it right.

Speaker 14 (01:36:58):
So the hub word is a bit of a misnomer.
If you've been involved in the smart home in the past,
you would have heard of different hubs that you could
have used, like smart Things hub or like a Phillips
Hugh bridge or a Zwave device Zwave hub that would
work with one protocol and help you use those devices
locally in your home. They gen and then some hubs

(01:37:19):
would use multiple protocols and those what this what Matter
is doing is you don't have a hub that controls
a specific protocol. Instead, you have what's called a matter
controller that controls matter devices in your home. The good
news about the matter controller is you probably already have
one in your house because all of the big tech

(01:37:41):
companies have using software updates and with newer models added
matter to their devices. So the Apple TV you mentioned
is a matter controller. All Apple TVs are matter controllers.
All home pods are matter controllers, all Echo devices, smart
smart speakers from Amazon, they're all matter controllers, even the
really old ones.

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):
What about the Google, Like all the.

Speaker 14 (01:38:05):
Googles are as well, including the Google Wi Fi routers.
So yeah, and Samsung has put matter controllers into everything,
like even into the fridge. So you have but the
key different. There is a key difference which you picked
up on. There's dread now. Thread is one of the

(01:38:26):
two wireless protocols matterworks over. The other is Wi Fi.
Everyone has Wi Fi mostly if you have a smart home,
you definitely have Wi Fi, so that's not an issue.
You do need a specific Thread border router in your
house to get the most out of Thread devices and
Thread devices are different because Thread is a protocol that

(01:38:47):
was specifically developed four IoT products, so it's centered around
things like low battery and sorry, long battery life, low latency,
all the types of things that probably already frustrated you
in the smart home, like if you've had a smart
sensor in or a smart doll lock and you had
to change the batteries after two or three months. Were
you have a smart light switch that takes like thirty

(01:39:09):
seconds to turn on. Those types of things are frustrating.
Thread is designed to fix those, but you do need
a thread border router. Good news again, all of those
devices I just talked about from Amazon, Apple, and Google,
about thirty percent of those are also thread border routers.
And within the next three to five years, I would

(01:39:31):
anticipate that the majority of your routers that you get
from your ISP or routers perhaps that you buy like
Eer routers or Google Nest routers, will be matter controllers
and thread border routers as well as WiFi routers. So
you'll have everything you need for Matter. But right now,
if you're looking to get started with matter though, that's

(01:39:51):
what you're going to want to make sure you have
is a matter controller that also works as a thread
border router.

Speaker 7 (01:39:57):
And if you want a list of.

Speaker 14 (01:39:58):
Those, I have a very handy article on the vergeon
dot com called all the devices that work with Matter
and you can go there and see and see which
ones will work.

Speaker 7 (01:40:07):
And like I said, the chances are you may already
have one in your house.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
Okay, I've got every smart home device that works with
Matter on the Verge dot Com. I'll link that up
on the website. Jennifer Twey, We're gonna have to leave
it there. I feel like we need I feel like
I have to take a college course in this. I
feel like I'm understanding why matter is. I feel like
they need some really good marketing people to kind of
clean some of this terminology up and make it simple.

(01:40:34):
But thank you so much. You really explained a lot
of it. I do appreciate it. We're gonna have you
back on to talk about it more. Jennifer Twey of
The Verge, definitely look at the article every smart Home
Device that Works with Matter. Coming up, It is time
for the feedbag right here on rich on Tech. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out

(01:40:56):
with you, talking technology the website for the show rich
on Tech dot TV. Two more items of note to
get to before we open up the feedbag. First off,
these AI powered glasses. They're called the Hearview AI subtitle glasses.
I tried them on. This is a company out of

(01:41:18):
the East Coast. They flew out to LA to give
me a demo of these glasses. But they look like
sunglasses that you know, you can have the sunglass frames
or the standard see through frames, but they offer real
time transcription of spoken words, so it displays the text
on this little transparent screen right within the lens, so

(01:41:40):
you can literally see conversations as they're happening. So it
uses an app to kind of transcribe and then display
on the glasses what people are saying. So these are
for the hard of hearing. Battery life up to seven
hours and I try them on and they're very cool.
I mean it's like subtie for the real world. So

(01:42:01):
you're talking to someone, if you couldn't hear what they're saying,
you would literally just see what they're saying right inside
your lenses. So I thought these were pretty cool. The
problem is the price. They're very expensive. They retail for
about two thousand dollars. Again, they're called the Hearview AI
subtitle glasses, and you can watch my story on them

(01:42:23):
on the website rich on tech dot TV. But very
cool and a lot of potential here to help people.
They were on sale for a lot cheaper than that
two thousand, maybe like thirteen hundred. Over the Cyber Monday
Black Friday Redfin. You can now tap a button on
redfin and add decorations to your house, holiday decorations. So

(01:42:46):
they're using AI to transform home listings into holiday listings.
You can add lights, garland, and even a Christmas tree.
So I don't know what this reasoning is. I guess
if you're looking at houses during the holiday season, it's
kind of fun to imagine, like what your house will
look like that you're moving into with holiday decorations. But

(01:43:07):
if you are a homeowner, you can claim your home.
You can just dress up your home, put it on Redfinn.
If it's on Redfinn, you can upload an image, select
holiday from the style menu. And if you're a buyer,
you can redesign any listing by pressing the redesign button.
It's available on redfin dot com and the iOS app.
What will they think of next? Okay, let's open up

(01:43:30):
the feedback. These are the comments, the questions, the emails
that you send me. David from Cincinnati writes in my
son Jacob is fourteen. He's on the autism spectrum when
it comes to technology. He's incredible, almost like a savant.
He spends hours watching YouTube tutorials and has outgrown even
Geek Squad when it comes to fixing devices. I believe
Jacob's potential goes beyond a typical job like bagging groceries,

(01:43:52):
but I'm unsure how to get him there. He won't
receive a high school diploma, only a certificate, and college
is not an option. Do you know if any programs
mentors are paths that could help someone like him. He's
already far beyond me in tech skills. I just want
to support him in reaching his potential. David, thanks so
much for this email. We did a story with an
organization called Exceptional Minds here in Los Angeles. That is

(01:44:14):
a school and the tuition was not cheap, but it's
just an example of a place where teenagers like your
son go and thrive. And it was really incredible to
see how these teenagers were doing things like video and
graphic design, and it's like a Hollywood kind of base thing,
and then the studios stand up doing work with the studios,

(01:44:37):
so it's really really incredible. So I am sure there
are programs like that near you. I think it's a
matter of linking up with the people that know where
to find these programs. And I think you got to
look for organizations in your area that deal with folks
on the autism spectrum. So I would do a Google search.
Let's see if I type in Exceptional Minds on Google.

(01:45:02):
You know this as a nonprofit academy in post production
studio for people on the autism spectrum. So I would
look for programs for people on the autism spectrum in
the Cincinnati area and beyond, and I think you'll find
something great. Thanks for the email. Don from San Berndino
writes in Happy Thanksgiving. I don't recall you covering instacart,
but it's been a game changer for my family. Even

(01:45:24):
here in San Bernardino, far away from the big city,
this off service offers access to so many stores in
one place. Three years ago, I faced a major medical challenge.
My wife, who is site impaired, couldn't drive or handle
computer orders during my hospital stay. Our daughter signed us
up for instacart. She placed orders for us and groceries
arrive within ninety minutes. The monthly fee is small, delivery

(01:45:45):
is free with a tip. Drivers are polite, and they
even bring things into the kitchen for seniors or the homebound.
It's truly a godsend. Family members can help remotely, even
from another state. I hope sharing this inspires others to
assist loved ones with Instacart or similar services. Seniors and
the homebound are often overlooked, and this can make a
big difference. Thanks Don. I don't typically talk about Instacart

(01:46:08):
because I feel like it's expensive and overpriced for what
you get. But when you put it that way, yeah,
it can definitely be a very big help depending on
your situation. Thanks for the email, Joanne writes in thank you, Rich,
Your tips have helped me so much. Your most recent
wise camera recommendation, I got it and I love it.
Thanks again, Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. And Ted

(01:46:29):
from Palm Springs rites in Happy Thanksgiving, Rich, thanks for
your wonderful radio program. We can hear you in the desert.
I love that. And then we got a question from
Cat and Sacramento. I enjoy and value your radio show.
Your excellent topics are easy to understand and provide us
less tech savvy users helpful information. I heard about your

(01:46:50):
cat Jubilee, and I want to know what happened. Is
it a foster fail? We still have Jubilee. It's been
about sixty nine or seventy days. I don't know if
it's a fail just yet, but it's certainly feeling that way.

Speaker 2 (01:47:03):
But she is up for adoption. She is a cute
cat that's gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:06):
You can find links on the website, rich on tech
dot tv. I'm on social media at rich on Tech.
Next week, how to protect yourself from deep fakes, and
the new app that helps you keep track of your
babies milestones.

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
Thanks for listening to rich on Tech.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Encryption Explained, Bitcoin Hits $100k & AI Photo Magic