iMessage Almost Comes to Android & Google Maps Navigation Hack

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A new app brings I message to Android, but now
it's a game of cat and mouse with Apple. The
way a push notification can be used to spy on you.
How to bring Ai Santa to your backyard, plus your
tech questions answered. What's going on. I'm Rich Demiro and

(00:20):
this is Rich on Tech broadcasting live from Los Angeles,
coast to coast. 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.
Phone lines are open at triple eight Rich one oh one.

(00:43):
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Give me a call.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
If you have a question about technology. Email also open.
Just go to richon tech dot TV hit contact. We've
got a great show this week. We've got guests in voting.
Eric Mitchagovski, the co founder of Beeper. He's going to
talk about Beeper Mini. This is the app that brought
my message to Android for a hot minute this week,

(01:11):
and it is currently shut down by Apple apparently, and
maybe back up and running by the time you listen
to this.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Who knows.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
If you're not listening live Mitch Lee, one of the
founders of ARC. This is a startup building all electric
performance speed boats. I had the chance to go out
on one of their basically Tesla's of the Sea and
it is wild. So we'll talk to Mitch about electrifying
the boating industry. And we've got Steven Akino, a freelance

(01:39):
tech journalist covering accessibility and assistive technologies. He's going to
talk about Microsoft's Seeing Ai app, which is now on Android,
Apple's personal voice feature, and PlayStation's new accessible controller.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, I hope you're having a great week.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Last week after the show, I went to dinner and
a little wild story. So we're at dinner and basically
I'm taking a picture outside as I typically do my wife,
my kid, me taking a selfie outside this restaurant and
someone comes up and they say, hey, do you want
me to take your picture for you? As I always

(02:16):
say sure, go ahead, and so they take my phone.
They stand out in the street and they say, Hey,
wouldn't it be wild if I just are you worried
that I might just take your phone right now? And
I was like, oh what? And I kind of like
thought about this and I was like, oh my gosh,
Like I just handed over my unlocked phone to some
stranger and.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
I kept it cool.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I played it cool and was like, no, it's fine,
you could take it, and you know, just clearly the
guy didn't look like he was going to take my phone,
but I think he was just playing with me. But
it really resonated with me, and it kind of struck
a nerve because I realized that we give our phones
to people all the time to take pictures, and most
of the time it's kind of like unprompted, Like people

(02:58):
will come up to us and say, hey, you know,
can I take your picture, and we just take our
unlocked phone and kind of hand it to them. This
happens at you know, theme parks in the street in
foreign countries, and it just made me realize that, like,
that's kind of scary, Like what could someone do when
they have your phone. Well, they can look at your
personal information, your contacts, your emails, your messages, your photos.

(03:21):
They might try to access your banking apps. Now, a
lot of these apps do require another level of authorization,
like a pin code or your face ID, so that
does make a little bit more sense, but some of
them do not so if you can inside your financial
apps PayPal, Venmo, make sure that you have the secondary
authentication on inside those apps.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Social media.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Imagine someone just takes my phone and they post start
posting stuff on social media on my behalf.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
That would not be good.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
I've got a lot of followers on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
I would not want them to do that.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
They could immediately try to change your passwords and lock
you out of your phone. Wall Street Journal did a
story about how if a thief basically has your passcode,
they are able to reset your entire iCloud account and
lock you out. That's pretty scary, but that does require
your pass code. But think about it. We put our
pass code in all the time. Maybe you just typed

(04:17):
it in. They say, can I see your phone? And
now you've got your passcode and your phone, they might
try to install malware spyware.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
The first thing they might do is go into your
settings and turn off the auto lock. Set it to
never so that your phone doesn't lock. Because think about it,
the good news is most of our phones are gonna
lock after a couple of minutes, right, so at the
worst comes to worse If they don't keep that screen
on your phone is gonna lock. But I tell you
all this because I'm not saying don't trust anyone, but

(04:48):
it's one of those things that our phone is our
life and just to hand it over to some stranger
is kind of weird that we do that. So I
guess my bigger point is if you can member to
do this, If you're going to hand your phone to
a stranger to take your picture, make sure your phone
is locked, right so there is a way to access

(05:08):
the camera on most iPhones and Androids with the screen locked,
and on iPhone it's a little tricky because as soon
as you look at your phone, it's gonna unlock. So
what you have to do is you have to make
sure your phone is locked, angle it away from you,
light up the screen, and then swipe over to access
the camera or tap the camera short cut, all while

(05:28):
aiming the screen away from you so that face ID
does not identify you. On Android, it's a little bit
easier because you can double click the power button on
the right side on most Android phones and that will
bring you to the camera without unlocking the phone.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So it's a little food for thought.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I posted it to my ex at Rich on Tech
and a lot of people were kind of chiming in
talked about it on TV, and again, it's one of
those things. I don't think people are bad. I think
most people are actually good, but you can never be
too safe, especially when someone offers to do this for you.
What else this week, Oh, we got to talk about
this whole I Message on Android thing. I'm going to

(06:08):
talk about that in a little bit because I've got
an interview with the guy who created the app Beeper Mini,
which brings I Message to Android. We tape the interview
and I said, can we please do this interview live?
And he just wasn't available to do it live, so
we taped it and I said, I hope things don't
change before the show airs, And of course things have

(06:30):
changed because the app was available and next thing, you know,
Apple somehow shut it down, so it's not available as
I speak right now, but they are working on it
and it may be back available. But I thought the
interview was still interesting because you can hear what his
standpoint is on this entire situation, like why he thinks

(06:51):
that Android users should get access to blue bubbles on
the iPhone. Right before I came in to do the show.
I got a phone call from a family member that
was attempting to watch a sports game. And when you
don't have cable, it is really tough to watch sports.
And that is part of a strategy by the cable

(07:13):
companies and the sports and all this good stuff to
get you to spend money.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
And I get it. Sports are very expensive.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It's not cheap to have that broadcast live from various
places across the US every weekend, day in, day out,
But there's a lot of money riding on sports and
that has been kind of the one major holdout when
people cut the cord. Right So for me, I cut
the cord a long time ago. I can get almost
anything I want to watch over the air on antenna

(07:42):
or by streaming, or by some of these free apps
just cobbling things together. But when it comes to sports,
it's really tough because typically games are on one place,
one channel, and you have to subscribe to get that.
Now Amazon has been doing something really cool and it's
kind of neat where they do with Thursday night Football game,
and it is available to all Prime members across any

(08:04):
device that you can watch Prime on, whether it's a
cell phone or a Roku or an Apple TV. Apple
kind of did the same thing with their MLS. They
bought the Major League Soccer and they made it available
across any device using the Apple TV app. And so
that was interesting because it was kind of the first
time that there were no blackouts. You could watch the

(08:25):
game no matter where you were on the device you wanted.
But so I'm explaining to this family member about YouTube
TV and they say, I can't believe YouTube TV is
seventy three dollars a month. I said, yeah, let's basically
cable except through the internet. And they said, wait, what
what does that mean. I said, well, you get this
through the internet. And they said, well, how do I
sign up? I said, okay, you go to YouTube TV.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
On the internet. Oh, on the internet, not on my phone.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
I said, well, you can go on your phone, but
it's probably easier from a desktop. Oh, okay, you sign
it with your Google account and now you sign up
and you pay the money and they will charge you
and now you have access to these channels.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well how do I get it on the TV?

Speaker 1 (09:01):
I said, well, you download the YouTube TV app and
then you sign in on the app on your screen. Wait,
what how do I do that it's very complicated. And
as I'm explaining all of this to my family member,
I realized just how wildly complicated this stuff sounds to
someone that doesn't really understand. And this was the best
two questions I got from the family member. They said, well,

(09:23):
hold on, how am I going to get TV delivered
to my TV without a cable? And I said, well,
it comes through the internet. It doesn't come through a
cable anymore. But you also, he said, but I also
have to have internet though, right, I said, yes, you
have to continue paying for the Internet to get this
TV delivered over the Internet.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
And then this was the kicker on the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
He goes, well, hold on, I already subscribed to YouTube
TV once and I went to my YouTube and I
still had ads, so I don't get it. And I said, well,
YouTube TV does not get rid of ads on YouTube,
which does not make any sense whatsoever. I remember a
couple of years ago, I was sitting in the audience
at YouTube headquarters here in Los Angeles where they do
all the YouTube TV stuff, and they were announcing YouTube

(10:05):
TV and back then, by the way, it was thirty
five dollars, and they took us in a room and
they had a Q and A. And after I listened
to all of this information about YouTube TV, I said,
hold on, stupid question. I said, is YouTube ad free
included in YouTube TV? And they said, oh no, that's
still a separate charge. So if you want YouTube TV
and YouTube without ads, YouTube without ads is something like,

(10:27):
you know, ten fifteen bucks a month, and then YouTube
TV is another seventy three dollars a month. You're talking
almost one hundred dollars a month for just one service.
Now that may be cheaper than what you're paying for
cable and some aspects. But my point is this stuff
is complicated, and it made me realize to say, the
emails I get, the questions I get. I take for

(10:48):
granted that I am in the thick of this stuff
every day and it makes so much sense to me.
But I understand your woes. So give me a call
if you have a question about technology. It's triple eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. There is no such thing
as a stupid tech question. My name is rich Demiro.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Give me a call.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking Technology at triple eight rich one
oh one. That's eight eight eight seven.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Four to two four to one zero one.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Getting a lot of messages recently about Amazon getting hacked.
I guess a lot of people are posting on social
media that if you look inside your Amazon account, there
are a bunch of Amazon lockers that have been added
to your address book, and so people are saying, you
got hacked, your account was accessed by a hacker. They

(11:46):
added these lockers to your account so that they can
deliver stuff from your account to these lockers and pick
it up without you ever knowing. And it turns out
that's not really true. So I did look in my
account and sure enough, there were a couple of Amazon
lockers that were added, and I kind of thought that Amazon.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Put these in there.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
It's because they've been really pushing me to pick up
my stuff instead of delivering it to me. And I said, no, no, no,
that's not how the situation works. Like you were started
as a company to deliver stuff to my house. I
don't want to go out and pick up stuff. That's
why you're delivering.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Every time I place an order right now, Amazon sends
me a notification that says Hey, we're delivering this order
to you, but would you like to pick it up
at a locker? And I say no, I don't want
to pick it up, and I just ignore the text.
But there are accounts that do have these lockers in them,
and it's making the rounds on social media. And as
soon as I get a whole bunch of messages about this,

(12:40):
I have to do some research. And my research brought
me to Snopes and so apparently this is not Amazon
did not get hacked, but it did happen, and according
to Amazon, there is let's see a small number of
customer accounts that got lockers added in error. We are
working to fix the issue. That's what they told Snopes.

(13:03):
Now I don't really believe that. I think that Amazon
did add lockers to a lot of people's accounts. And
you can go into your Amazon account and check. There
is no harm that these lockers are in there. It's
not the default shipping, it's not your stuff is not
being sent to these lockers automatically. Hackers are not ordering
stuff to these lockers. So your account remains secure as

(13:23):
long as you have a strong password, two factor authentication.
Turn it on for your Amazon account. Don't click the
links in your email that say.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Hey, we have an Amazon order for you.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
We need you to confirm everything from your Social Security
number to your data birth.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Don't do it. It is not ah.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Let's see, let's go to uh, let's go. Let's take
a call. Let's go to Ian in Durango, Colorado. Ian
you're on with Rich?

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Hey, Rich, I just wanted to put my two cents
on the whole internet cable thing.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, if if you want to, you know, make things happen.
If you're just a casual you know, consumer of media
or whatever, if you want to do it on a budget,
my recommend dation is, you know, just pay for your internet,
you know, don't buy any fancy subscriptions unless you know
you got a friend or something that's let you.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Borrow theirs or which to do.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
But yeah, well yeah, exactly if you do.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
But I recommend Internet archive dot org. I believe it's
dot org. I gotta I have to Google again. But
Internet archives is a fantastic.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
Website to use.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
If there's just some movie you want to watch, some
show you want to watch, some music you want to
listen to. There's just a lot of stuff on there.
That they just archive and they have it off on free,
you know, commercial free. You know, for like during the
Halloween season, I could watch every Friday the thirteenth free
of charge. Really, it's all it's just a historical like

(14:53):
project and so they just archive film, movies, websites.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
It's just a fantastic wow.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
I'm looking at it, it's said.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
I mean, I'm familiar with Internet Archive because they do
the wayback machine. So if you want to see like
an old version of a website, you can pop in
the URL and it will show you like what Yahoo looked.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Like in nineteen ninety seven or something.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
But this is saying they've got thirty nine million books,
eleven million films, fifteen million pieces of music, two point
six something of TV software, photos, audio. I mean, yeah,
I didn't realize they have all this stuff on here.
So that's a great way to, uh to find stuff,
especially if.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
It's like something older and you're looking you're looking for
an older black and white film or something and you
don't want to pay the five bucks to get it
on a streaming service. You know, google it.

Speaker 6 (15:42):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
They most likely have it, all right, and thank you, good, good,
good free resource and since it's news to me, I'm
guessing it's news to others. I know the website. I
didn't realize they have all this stuff. The website is
archive dot org, Archive dot org. A lot of stuff there.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Wow. Good good, Uh good call.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
If you use Gmail, their AI spam detection is getting
a major upgrade.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
So I don't know if you remember these emails.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
We were getting them for a while, but they would
be emails that would just be like an image or
some kind of like, you know, you want a gift
card or something, and so it was really tough for
Gmail filters to find these things and figure them out.
They're called adversarial text manipulations. These are emails that are
full of special characters and emojis. Well, now Gmail has

(16:30):
a new AI system called retvec and they say it's
a thirty eight percent improvement in spam detection, and so
Google says this is their largest defense upgrade in recent years,
and apparently it's open source, so they're going to use
it in other applications. Other email systems can use this.
But the upgrade makes it much harder for spammers to

(16:52):
trick Gmail, and the system is apparently very efficient, so
it can kind of look for things instead of just
scanning the email for like words like, uh, you know, promotion,
gift card, free, whatever. Now it's actually looking at the
email like a human would look at it and say, oh,
this is total garbage, and it will send it to spam.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
So less of those things are gonna get through. That's
a good thing, all right.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Coming up, I'm gonna tell you about this whole Beeper
Mini controversy, the app that tried to get I message
to Android. We're going to talk to the co founder
of Beeper coming up next. You are listening to rich
on Tech eighty to eight rich one oh one. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
with you talking technology at triple eight rich one O one.

(17:39):
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Give me a call if you have a
question about technology. The website rich on Tech dot TV.
So we got an app this week called Beeper Mini.
This app brings blue bubbles to Android and it was
working really well for just about twenty four hours and

(18:02):
then everyone said, oh, Apple's going to shut this down,
and sure enough, without saying a word. By the way,
Apple somehow tweaked their system and took this down. So
a lot of people that were testing it, like myself,
some people actually installed it and started using it and
were very excited it all came down. So Beeper says
they are working to get this up and running again,

(18:23):
but we don't know if they will be able to
do that. But I do have an interview that I
conducted with Eric Midchiakowski.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
This is the co founder of Beeper.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
I still think it's relevant because he explains why he's
doing this and why they want to bring I Message
to Android. So let's hear from Eric.

Speaker 7 (18:41):
So I've been working in startups for a while. I
started a company called Pebble back in the day, we
made smart watches, and ever since then, I've kind of
looked down at my phone and seen that I have
this folder full of chat apps. You know, I have Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp.
I all kind of do the same thing, but I

(19:02):
have a different section of my contact list on each one,
so I have to keep them all installed. And a
couple of years ago, I said, I just want to
have one app that I can use to chat with
anyone on any chat never. I don't want to have
to remember you know who's on WhatsApp and who's on
I Message, and it's just a hassle. So I started
building an app called Beeper. Beeper lets you chat with

(19:24):
anyone on any chat, all from one single app on
your phone or your computer.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
And I noticed that when I DMed you via Twitter,
I got an immediate response, which is quite rare. And
I'm assuming that's because it routed through your Beeper.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
That's it.

Speaker 7 (19:40):
Yeah, I spend a lot of time chatting, and all
of my chat apps go to the same inbox, so
I just have one place to check.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
And I noticed this personally.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
I was testing Beeper and I linked up a bunch
of my accounts Instagram, LinkedIn and several others, and for
the first time ever, I had someone text me and
I did even realize that it was coming through LinkedIn,
and I responded back and forth immediately, and then I
realized later on, I said, oh, wow, that came in
through LinkedIn. I never respond to LinkedIn messages typically because

(20:12):
I just don't think to check them, and here it is.
It just kind of opened up that entire way of responding.

Speaker 7 (20:19):
But that's what we started working on a couple of
years ago. But one of the problems that we ran
into is well, I mean, to be completely honest, I'll
just put it out there. I'm an Android user. I'm
a proud Android user, and I've been one for twelve
years now. I have never been able to chat with
people on iPhones in the same way that iPhone users

(20:40):
can chat. I know that when people add me to
group chats, my ANDROIDNSS causes the whole group chat to
turn into a green bubble, and that, you know, I
hate to say it is a bit of a turn off.

Speaker 8 (20:53):
Right.

Speaker 7 (20:54):
iPhone users are used to blue bubbles, and they expect them,
and so when there's a green bubble in the midst
it's a little bit weird. We wanted to solve that.
Chat is about bringing people together, it's about you know,
connecting people, it's about you know, just just hanging out
and chatting, and we didn't want this thing to come

(21:14):
in the way of that. So we set out to
build the first app for Android that lets you send
and receive blue bubble messages to iPhones. It's literally as
easy as going to the play Store, searching for Deeper
Mini and downloading the app on your Android phone. As
soon as you download it, you press a couple buttons

(21:36):
and you can start chatting with all of your iPhone
friends with a blue bubble. That means that you can
send full resolution images, videos, no more staticky you know,
small videos anymore. You can send emoji reactions, you can
participate in threads. All of your chats are now encrypted

(21:57):
so no one else can read them. And best of all,
your iPhone friends, when they type in your phone number,
you'll show up as a blue bubble, and you're probably
going to be more likely to be added to group chats.
I certainly have found that.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Okay, So, Eric, I'm imagining that you did not go
to WWDC Apple's developer conference and get the blessing of
Apple to do this. So how did you make this
possible for these Android users?

Speaker 7 (22:23):
Actually a pretty interesting story. So up until deeper many
the only devices that could send blue bubble messages were
iPhones and Max. But over the summer, a sixteen year
old security reacher researcher actually uncovered the secret to how

(22:45):
I message works, and he wrote up a blog post
and created a kind of open source project that describes it.
We found it. Actually he contacted us, and well, I
mean we hired him as this sixteen year old kid
to work with us to help us crack the code
and figure out how to get this to work on

(23:07):
Android phones. So over the last few months we've been
working furiously on that, and just this week we announced
the app for the first time.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Is there any sort of security issue here?

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Is there any sort of worrisome aspect of this other
than the fact that Apple may or may not shut
this down?

Speaker 2 (23:26):
And I guess that's my other question. Can Apple shut
this down?

Speaker 7 (23:29):
Well, here's how I look at it. Rich iPhone users today,
when they send a message to a friend on an
Android phone, they get a worse experience. It's not great.
You know, there's no like I said, there's no high
resolution pictures, Your messages are unencrypted. When your Android friend
downloads peper Mini, all of a sudden, you get a

(23:50):
better experience on your iPhone. And now I think it
would be kind of crazy to stop something like that.
Bper Mini is an app that makes both Android users
lives better as well as iPhone users. So I think
it'd be like, I think it'd be nuts to stop
something like that. It's just a net positive for the world,
and in terms of security, we have gone out of

(24:13):
our way to make this as secure and private as possible.
So the most important thing that we've done is we
do something called end to end encryption. That means that
when you send a message using deeper Mini, your message
is encrypted before it gets sent. That means that no
one can read your message. We can't read it. Apple

(24:36):
can't read it, your internet provider, your cell phone plan
can't read that message. No one can read the message
except for the recipient, except for the person that you're
sending it to. And that's really important. And up until now,
if you are an Android user sending a message to
an iPhone user, your message wouldn't be encrypted. Basically everyone

(24:58):
could read it. It's like a postcard. And so peeper
Mini actually brings a lot more security to the average
group chat or direct message.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Why didn't Apple make this app?

Speaker 7 (25:09):
I mean they kind of are. So there was some
news two weeks ago where Apple said that they're going
to adopt an open standard for messaging called RCS, the
Rich Chat Service Protocol. They didn't say exactly when they're
going to do this, maybe by the end of twenty
twenty four, so fingers crossed, you know, it would be
a lot easier for us to do our jobs if

(25:30):
there was an open standard for messaging. So we're excited
by the possibility that Apple will do this, but we
just just said we couldn't wait. We had to do
it now.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
All right, There you have it, Beeper Mini. It was
working really well for about twenty four hours, and you
heard the question, I said, is Apple going to shut
this down? And indeed they seem to have shut this down.
So Beeper was tweeting over the overnight saying that they
are working on getting this back up and running. But

(26:01):
at this point it's kind of a game of cat
and mouse because Apple sort of refuses to bring this
to Android when they know they can and make a
lot of lives better. I mean, the divide between you know,
the green bubble and the blue bubble. It's a real
thing and it's really annoying. And it's like the debate

(26:22):
I posted on my Instagram at rich on Tech a
simple question, I said, iPhone versus Android, And you can't
believe that in the year twenty twenty three, people are
still debating the merits of these two platforms. Now, I
don't mind if you have a preference for the phone
that you want. That's fine. There's a lot of options
on either side, but the fact that our messaging does

(26:43):
not work in the same way, and I feel like
a broken record because I've talked about this so much.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
It's just not right now.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Apple is bringing RCS to the iPhone next year, they
said late next year. That's still another possible six, seven, eight, nine,
ten months that people have to deal with this. And
even when RCS comes to the iPhone, which means Android
users will be able to exchange high quality photos and

(27:11):
videos with iPhone users, they will also be able to
get those you know, everything's just gonna work nice. So
that's basically it is. You'll be able to, you know,
exchange the videos and photos and not have them look
like a postage stamp. That will be the big advantage.
But the messages are still going to turn up green.
So Beeper was onto something. They were trying something. We'll see,

(27:34):
we'll continue to see if this works out. By the way,
they are charging two dollars a month, something else that
Apple probably doesn't like. All right, if you have a
question for me, give me a call. Triple eight rich
one O one that's eighty eight seven.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
You can also go to the website rich on Tech
dot TV, hit the contact link and you can send
me your email.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
More rich on Tech coming your way right after this.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Welcome back to rich on Tech, Rich to Miuro here
talking technology. Triple eight Rich one oh one is the
phone number for the show. That's eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. This is show
number forty nine. By the way, if you can believe it,
it's almost been a full year of this show, which

(28:27):
I want to say thank you for inviting me into
your home and your car and your speakers and your
phone and your earbuds and all the other places you
might listen. It has truly been an honor. And uh,
it's not over. It's not like this is not like
a goodbye, It's go. It kind of started to sound

(28:47):
like I thought Bobo was gonna play me out for
a second there. No, I'm just saying thank you. I
just can't believe a year has gone by that fast
playing me out music. Let's go to uh John in
more Park.

Speaker 9 (29:05):
John, You're on with rich Thank you Rich taking my call.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (29:10):
I use YouTube. I listened to it via Wi Fi
and whatever. Normally it works just fine. But every once
in a while they speed up the the velocity of
their speech. There's doubles of their time, and I have
hard time at normal speed even either that's too fast

(29:36):
for me. I'm so slow. Is there any way I
can get around that? A trait of YouTube's feeding me up.
So it happens a few seconds and then they go
back to normal.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, I think, I think I know what's happening here.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
There's well, there's a couple of things, and I actually
think I have a solution to your you know, if
you want to listen to things slower too, there's actually
a solution for that. But so, what's happening I think,
And I've seen this before on my Instagram. I have
a really bad connection at one of the places why
I look at Instagram and my stories and like the
same thing happens. Like I'm watching a reel and it's

(30:13):
like super fast, and all of a sudden it slows down,
and then it speeds up and it slows down. And
what's happening, I think, is an unstable internet connection. So
it's buffering, and so it's getting all that stuff and
it starts to play it and then it slows down
and it starts to play it again. So I think
that's what's happening here. So what you can do is
you can try to improve your Internet connection wherever you're

(30:34):
using this, So I know, if it's a TV or
something or a computer, you know, you may not be
able to move it to a different place, but that
might be it. But you might want to just kind
of like clear the cookies and the cash on your
computer and on your web browser, I should say, And
maybe that will help kind of clear things out and
make YouTube run smooth again. Now, if you want to

(30:57):
listen to things a little bit slower on YouTube, actually
is a way to do that. And I'm not sure
if this is just a premium feature. I pay for
like YouTube premium, so I'm seeing this on my account,
but it may be available to everyone. But if you
are watching a video, there's a little gear icon and
it says playback speed, and you can playback normal. Some

(31:19):
people like to listen to things faster, so they'll do
like a two X, but you can choose anything from
point two five to two X. So if you want
to listen to something slower, that is a way to
do it. And that's just a built into YouTube. I
don't know if that's a premium feature though, I do
not have information on that right now, but I know
it's on my account.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
I guess I can go into like a you know
what I can do. Let me try this.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
I'm going to go into a incognito web browser and
see if that's still available, and sure enough it is,
So there you go. So John, just tap that little
gear icon in the on the screen when you're watching
a video and it will say playback speed, which is
anywhere from point two five to two.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Good question. Thanks for calling in today. Let's go to
Bob in the San Fernando Valley. Bob, you're on with.

Speaker 5 (32:08):
Rich A Rich Happy forty nine and happy happy holidays.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Thank you you too. What can I help you?

Speaker 5 (32:14):
I'm I'm a big fan of the show, both on
TV here as well as the radio and this. I
have been with Time Warner on the East Coast and
then Time Warner here on the West Coast, and then
ultimately Spectrum. All this time I've been able to record
anything I wanted from television using cable and a recorder

(32:37):
of EHS or DVD recorder. On the end of the
middle of May of this year, I get an email
from Spectrum saying your item will arrive on Wednesday. Well,
I didn't order anything. When it arrived, there was a
huge box. Ok, I didn't open it. I called them

(32:59):
and said, well, if you didn't order that, you can
take it back, just drop it off. So I was
in and out of the Midwest and back, and on
May thirtieth, I got an email saying your new account
will start tomorrow. On June first, and I lost service
and I ended up calling Spectrum at like one in

(33:19):
the morning and talked to a tech for three hours.
He said open the box. And the box was a
new cable box. And the one thing about the cable
box is it did not have a coaxial cable out.
There was a table in TV out. That's the way

(33:41):
it's always been. Apparently I was considered a legacy account holder,
and so they stopped digital adapters which had both cable in.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
TV out there just doing digital out.

Speaker 5 (33:54):
Yeah. So basically I now cannot record or time shift
anything to the recorder or disc because I would do
that for historical reasons. Basically time shift my work patterns
would be second shift, third shift, so I could record
what I needed to look at when I got home.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
And now you have no way of doing that, no
way of doing it.

Speaker 5 (34:16):
And that's a program they are introducing across the country.
So when I was in the Midwest, I went to
a Spectrum store and told them that do you have
a cable box, And the one that they presented me
was to act cable in TV out to cables.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (34:33):
And then they said, because you are in California, we
can't do anything about it. Otherwise I'm sure they would
give me the box.

Speaker 8 (34:41):
Right.

Speaker 5 (34:41):
They started in California. They're introducing it across the country.
So by the middle of twenty twenty four or the
end of twenty twenty four, nobody will be able to
record to DVD or VHS. If you have it, I
have a combination right.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Well, look, I mean I think it makes sense. I
think it's thank you for the warning. By the way,
I think this makes sense as we make this digital transition.
I do think that less people are probably using the
coax out from their cable box and they're just using
HDMI into the back of their TV for the box.

(35:17):
And it's funny because I was just in a Spectrum
store and they showed me the cable box, and I'm
trying to look in my pictures to see if I
have a picture of the back of it.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
I didn't look. Oh man, I wish I did. I don't.
I don't have a picture of the back of the
cable box.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
But I'm curious now because I'm I didn't notice that
that it didn't have an out. So if you don't
have those outs, you can't bring this into like any
sort of recorder, which makes sense, but I mean, look,
there there are may be some ways around this if
you gosh. I mean with HDMI, there are a lot
more copyright protections on the signal and also on the cable,

(35:55):
so it probably will not give you away. I can't
even think there's a recorder that would take that signal
in and let your record like, especially like a DVD
recorder or something like that. I would say, maybe the
only way to round this is to do something like
a TiVo that might have a cable card, but I
don't even think they offer cable card anymore. At the

(36:15):
end of the day, these these companies want you to
use their products and services, and as we get more
into this on demand world and this world of cloud DVRs,
the companies control that, and that's what they want because
now you have to pay them. And also you don't
have as much flexibility. You can no longer keep that
recording for as long as you want. So, Bob, thanks

(36:38):
for the information, and now we know we've got the
fair warning.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Not gonna be able to do your own recording soon.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
All right, Coming up next, how police can spy on
your push notifications eighty to eight rich one on one.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Welcome back to rich On Tech.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Triple eight rich one O one eight eight seven four
to two four to one zero one. Man, the phones
are on fire today, just so many calls.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
I do want to get to them. I will try.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
It's always a dance because I want to answer the calls,
I want to answer the emails. But I also want
to tell you all the news that I brought in,
and I have tons of it. I mean, it's all
just like sitting here, like I have tons of little
topics I want to bring up like this. This week,
there was a bit of a revelation that governments can
basically spy on you through a push notification. So this

(37:36):
all came to light this week because US senator out
of Oregon sent a letter. I don't know who he
sent it to, but he sent it to someone or
maybe it was Apple and Google, but he said, hey,
you guys should really reveal the fact that you hand
over information on individuals if governments ask for it, and
the way they do this is really tricky and I
never really thought about this. Okay, So basically, let's say

(37:58):
you sign up for an app anonymously on your iPhone
or Android, okay, a messaging app, and you send a
bunch of messages and now all of a sudden you
get a notification. Well, that notification has to go through
Google or Apple servers. They're kind of like the post office,
and they know the address to your phone and what
do they also know? Well, they also know your account

(38:19):
information that you use to sign up for that Google
account or that Apple account. And so government's got hip
to this and said, hey, can you share that information
with us when we need it? And why would they
need it? Well, maybe there's some sort of dissident in
their government or an activist or anyone that they may
be interested in getting information on. And Apple and Google

(38:43):
apparently comply with these requests. Now for Apple and Google,
it depends on how they receive the request. With Apple,
I believe they need a subpoena and with Google they
need a court order. But the reality is if you
sign up anonymously, but then that notification comes to your
phone and you have an iPhone or an Android, there
is information that these companies can then share about you

(39:06):
because they know your account information. It's just wild that
this happens. And so my point is, if you think
you are being anonymous on your phone, you are probably not.
And I thought this was also interesting that Google and
Apple had this secret deal with the government that was
not previously disclosed until this senator said hey, you should

(39:28):
probably disclose this. And then Apple and Google came clean
and said, yeah, we do have this program, and now
we know about it. And now you just have to
realize that you're never really being anonymous online. Let's go
to Robin in Fallbrook, California. Robin, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Hey there, Bruton, is this okay if I'm talking through
my phone on my car?

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah sounds great.

Speaker 10 (39:53):
Oh perfect, Okay, I learned something new.

Speaker 11 (39:56):
All right.

Speaker 10 (39:56):
I have Spectrum at home internet. I have the right
internet only at my studio office, and now I want
and then I have a Verizon cell phone service for
just my husband and I and I'm kind of getting nailed.
I'm paying like one hundred and seventy five bucks a
month and it's not even unlimited internet. So we have

(40:18):
a place out in the middle of a desert where
I have to take like a they call it like
a jet path or something.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
I don't want to do that anymore because it uses
up all my.

Speaker 10 (40:30):
My my megabytes or data stuff for whatever they give
you every month. And is there is there something that
I can have that is like a portable internet that what's.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
That thing with Elon Musk that he has that.

Speaker 10 (40:47):
I forget what it's called like a link of starlink.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, so a couple of things you can do here.
So here's my question. So you're right now you're paying
for what just your phone, your your Verizon serve and
when you go to your house in the desert, it's
using your jet pack, which is also on your account. Yeah, okay,
and that's that's.

Speaker 4 (41:12):
I need something where I can get unlimited minutes, which
I can do with consumer cellular for real cheap, but
they don't have the jet packed capability, so I would
have cheap internet and cheap cell phone unlimited, but then
I can't get internet out.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
In the desert, right, Okay, Well, couple, yeah, a couple
couple of suggestions for you. So Starlink is Elon Musk's
satellite Internet. There's a couple of companies that provide satellite internet.
It's Starlink, one of them is called hues Net, and
then via sat. Now, I believe that the Starlink is
the fastest of the three and the best technology, but

(41:50):
you're going to be looking at some startup costs and
also some monthly costs which are not cheap. So I
believe the last time I looked at it, it was
about one hundred dollars a month for your Internet through
Starlink and then a setup fee which I think was
close to a couple hundred dollars. So that's going to
be a very expensive option if you're not using the
Internet a ton out there, like if you're living there.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
I think that would be fine. But since you're telling.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Me that you have the ability to use a jetpack
at this location, a jet pack is basically just Verizon's
branding for a mobile hot spot. So there's a couple
things you could do. Number One, you can ask Verizon
for a plan that has more hot spot. So what
I would probably do is this would be this would

(42:37):
be the order of things I would do. So, if
you're already paying Verizon, see what plan you have, right,
And Verizon has different Internet plans or different phone plans,
and some of them include mobile hotspot. So if you're
using an iPhone or an Android, there is the ability
to turn your phone into a mobile hot spot, but

(42:57):
you need to have a certain amount of data to
do that, and all the companies used to kind of
include that in the plans. Now it is separated out
most of the time and you get a certain allotment
of that. So with Verizon plans, they're unlimited plans. You
may get thirty gigs of hot spot data or fifty
gigs of hot spot data. It kind of depends on

(43:18):
the plan you have with them. So I would go
to Verizon and ask them and say, Hey, I've got
this place in the desert and I want to use
my phone as a hot spot. That's the keyword, my
phone as a hot spot. Which plan do you think
is best for that? And they may say okay, Well,
if you're on the Unlimited Plus or the Unlimited Ultimate,
you'll get a certain amount of hot spots. So this
Ultimate plan includes sixty gigs of mobile hotspot. That's probably

(43:43):
enough for a month. So that's per month. By the way,
the middle plan with Verizon will give you oh wow,
the Unlimited Plus gives you thirty gigs, but you can
add an extra one hundred gigs of mobile hotspot. Anyway,
It's very confusing because it all depends on your plan.
So talk to someone at Verizon say hey, look, I

(44:05):
want to use my phone as a mobile hotspot at
my home. Now, when you get to your house, what
you would do is you would plug in your phone
and you would toggle the hot spot, and then your
devices like your TV and you know, I'm guessing it's
just your TV and your computer that you want to
connect to this thing. They would connect to your phone
and your phone would act as the mobile hotspot. I
would recommend that you plug in your phone so that

(44:27):
the battery doesn't go dead instantly.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Now that's one way of doing it.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
The other way to do it is both Verizon, T
Mobile and AT and T. They all have what's called
five G home Internet, and Verizon is and T Mobile
are especially aggressive in their pricing and their promotions with
this home Internet. So if you already have a Verizon
signal at this place in the desert, you might just

(44:52):
want to get the Verizon Home Internet. And all that
is is a hot spot, a jet pack that you
plug in in that home. It pulls in the cellular
connection and then it spits it out as a Wi
Fi connection. So it's just an industrial hot spot for
your entire house. And the good news is if you
already have a Verizon account, the pricing is very is

(45:16):
very aggressive on this, so it's really affordable because they're
trying to get people to switch to this. So the pricing,
I'm not sure how much it is per month sort
of depends on your Verizon plan, but I've seen it
anywhere from like twenty five to fifty five dollars a month,
but especially with the promotions for the first year, you
can at least try that out see if it works.

(45:39):
That's probably what I would do. Use your phone first.
If that doesn't work, if you get really frustrated with that,
then I would I would try the home Internet. If
you're going to move to this place, or you're spending
every single weekend there or weeks at a time there
and you're doing work. Maybe check out something like starlink.
That's probably the way to go. Question Robin and let

(46:01):
me know what you do Rich on tech dot Tv.
Hit contact and keep me posted.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
All right.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
DoorDash, if you have DoorDash installed on your phone, you
can get free pickup and returns for your packages right now.
So if you want to do five free pickups from
your house, you can use the code gift box. And
if you have dash Pass, which is their subscription service,
you can get unlimited free pickups of your packages until

(46:27):
December thirtieth.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
So what does that mean.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
You've got to return something to a store like Macy's
or Amazon. You've got the return code that you print
out at your house or the label. All you have
to do is stick that on the package, package it up.
Someone from DoorDash will come to your house, pick it
up and bring it to a FedEx, a UPS or
a post office. This is for under thirty pounds under
five hundred dollars. They will do everything you need. If

(46:50):
they mess it up, you've got a five hundred dollars reimbursement.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Claim that you can do.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Uber also has a similar package return service. I checked
on my Uber app and they are doing a promotion
where they will give you the first package return for free.
But I don't know if you're like me, but we
order a bunch of stuff on Amazon, not all of
it works out. So by the front door, we've got
a whole bunch of stuff that we need to return
to an Amazon Fresh store or a UPS store. And

(47:16):
if you have that and you want someone to do
that for you, you can have DoorDash to it, or
you can have Uber do it. And it might be
a nice time to try this out during the holiday.
So again, the code is gift box or if you
have dash pass, it is free and unlimited.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
This is all through December thirtieth.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Rich on Tech, dot tv, slash wiki if you want
to link to anything I mentioned here. The phone number
to the show eight eight eight rich one oh one
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
More show coming up. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
My name is rich DeMuro, hanging out with you talking tech.
Phone line to the show is eight eight eight rich

(47:54):
one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Caim will answer, and if you're
really nice to her, she may let you throw. I
know she's tough, but we get people on so I
guess you know, some people are really really nice. You
can follow me on social media. I am at rich
on Tech. You can find me on Instagram. Yes, i

(48:17):
am back on X in a big way. I've got
the blue bubble or not the blue bubble, the blue
check mark. Yes, I broke down and paid for the
X because I will tell you why, bo bo. I
will tell you why. I was pure pressured into it
because I think I told this story. But I posted

(48:40):
on there, and look, you know people are still on
there and it's tough to argue that. And anyway, I'm
having a lot of fun being on there again because
I kind of gave up on it and now I'm back.
So you know, I'm probably over correcting because now I'm
posting like everything.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
I'm like, here's my breakfast. But I'm there.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
I'm also on Facebook at rich on Tech on all
of these platforms.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Let's see. We got an email from Michael.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
He said, Visible Wireless is the only phone plan with
unlimited hotspot that I know of.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
It's twenty five dollars a month, and it's on Verizon.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
It should work in the desert, so yes, Verizon's Visible
does have a good plan with unlimited hotspot. There are
some limitations that you do need to know about. The
speed is capped, so I believe the speed is about
five megabits per second, which is slow, but it's probably
enough for like most things like you can probably watch

(49:34):
Netflix and stuff like that, but you may only be
able to connect one device to your phone at a
time with that, so check the fine print. There's always
fine print with all of these situations. Might have gotten
an email from Amazon that says Venmo is no longer
accepted on Amazon dot Com starting January tenth, twenty twenty four.

(49:58):
Well that was fast. It's so wild how things change.
I remember getting an email from Amazon saying, hey, we're
accepting Venmo and we'll give you ten bucks if you
add it to your account, and I said sure. So
I authorized my Venmo with my Amazon which I would
never do because why would I pay with Venmo? I
don't need to just use your card. And I got
ten dollars off my purchase. My Venmo was kind of

(50:20):
lingering on my account. Actually, it's funny because I got
a promo for adding Venmo to my Uber account and
my Amazon account, and then, of course what happens is
you set it as your payment method and you forget,
and so you start doing charges and they all go
through Venmo.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
So this happened with Uber, it happened with Amazon.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
I was like, oh shoot, I don't want to use
Venmo for my Amazon account. And now it's no longer.
I guess they're breaking up. That was like less than
a year that lasted. I don't know what changed, but
I guess it didn't work out. Nobody cared, nobody wanted it.
Might have gotten an email from Ring this week. Ring
says we are reassuring users. On June sixteenth, twenty twenty three,

(50:59):
we entered it into a settlement with the FTC to
resolve allegations that employees and contractors had access to the
stored videos collected by Ring cameras, and some of these
employees viewed videos without permission and no business reason.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Basically, the FTC said that Ring employees were just kind
of looking at videos of your doorbell cams without any
sort of reason to do that. Now, yeah, that does
not sound very nice. It says, these individuals are no
longer employed by RING, and since twenty eighteen, back when
this happened, we have significantly changed our access and review practices.

(51:39):
Now only a small number of employees can access videos
and in only limited circumstances. Does that sound very reassuring
to you? Sounds like they can still watch my videos?
So number one, is that a peeping tom? Is that
a oh okay, that's crickets? Someone hiding in the bushes

(51:59):
looking at your RING cameras. Now, look, in all seriousness,
I do think that these companies that have these cameras.
Number one, you have to be aware that there probably
is a method that someone can look at your video
streams if they need it to in the event that
there is a government request, police request. I think the

(52:22):
other thing to do here, if you really want to
make sure that nobody can see your videos, you can
enable what's called end to end encryption. It is not
on by default, not every provider offers it. I do
believe RING does offer that, but there are some downsides
to that. Once you enable the end to end encryption,

(52:42):
there are some things that are not possible when you
enable that, and it has to do with how many
different devices you can view your videos on and the
notifications and the videos and all that stuff. So it
is much easier if you don't enable that. But if
you want the maximum protection and the maximum security of
your cameras, then you know you can enable that.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
It is an option.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
But I do think that Ring has probably cleaned up
their act and this was a couple of bad actors.
You know, you're talking five years ago, and it's just
one of those things where now that people know about it,
it probably won't happen again. But we do know from
history that the government and law enforcement if they do
request these videos in a you know, in sort of

(53:25):
a court order or subpoena, they can probably get their
hands on them. So don't put them in your bedroom,
that's the bottom line. Keep them aimed out the front door.
This is weird. Windows, that's not funny. You don't you
don't want cameras in your bedroom in general, Like that's
kind of creepy, right. Windows bug renames printers to HP

(53:49):
laser Jet. There's a Windows bug that is renaming printers
to HP laser Jet, regardless of the actual brand model.
This is affecting Windows ten and Windows eleven device. The
bug also installs the HP smart app even if you
don't need it. Microsoft is investigating and apparently you can
still print, but double clicking on a printer may show

(54:10):
a no tasks available error. This bug was first reported
on December sixth. There's no estimated fixed time. If you're
really techy, you can block access to the Microsoft Store
and that will prevent the bug from renaming your printers.
But if you're wondering why this happened, if you're scratching
your head, you're like, what is going on here?

Speaker 2 (54:30):
It's a bug. You're not going crazy, all right?

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Coming up, we're going to talk to Mitch Lee, one
of the founders of ARC. This is a startup that
is building an all electric performance speedboat. I was on it.
It is pretty fun, no fumes. We'll talk to Mitch
Lee coming up next right here on rich On Tech.

Speaker 2 (54:49):

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology on location.
We've done interviews in the plane. This is the first
time I've done an inner view on a boat. We
are in Long Beach and joining me now is Mitchley
of ARC Boats.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Thanks for joining me.

Speaker 6 (55:08):
It's great to be here and we are excited to
have you out on our one of our boats.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
So this is an all electric boat. Describe what we
are on right now.

Speaker 6 (55:16):
This boat that we're on now is called the ARC one.
It is the first model boat that we brought to market.
It's a twenty four foot fully electric power boat, capable
of five hundred horsepower and software limited to forty miles
an hour.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
And I've already been on it spoiler alert, and it's
quite incredible. It's quiet, it's smooth, it's powerful. Tell me
about the company. Let's start with ARC You're based in
Los Angeles, and what are you trying to do?

Speaker 6 (55:43):
This company didn't even exist three years ago, and at
this point we have already manufactured and delivered the ARC
one to our initial customers. The entire company is now
focused on the next model we're bringing to market, which
is a mass market wakesport boat. If you zoom back out,
as a company, our goal is to electrify everything on

(56:04):
the water. Electric boats make a ton more sense than
gas boats across pretty much every aspect of boating. The
ownership experience is much nicer. They're quiet, We can hold
an interview on a boat. You're not smelling fumes. They're
far more reliable, they're less expensive to operate, and the

(56:25):
experience of operating one itself is so much better thanks
to software and the technology on this boat. The hard
part is actually putting enough energy on the boat to
move through water at high speeds and with a lot
of power. That is what we specialize in. We build
our holes, our battery packs, and a lot of the
systems that go into this boat in house in our

(56:47):
manufacturing facility in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
So, Mitch, what made you wake up and say I
would like to electrify a boat.

Speaker 6 (56:55):
I am a lifelong boating enthusiast. My parents were boating enthusiasts,
and particularly water ski enthusiasts. They love to slalom ski.
So I grew up out getting dragged behind a boat
with wakeboarding and knee boarding and water skiing and wakesurfing.
This is what I love to do with my time.

(57:15):
I also have a degree in mechanical engineering and spent
a while portion of my career as a software developer,
and this is kind of the marriage of all of
those things, my passion and my actual career.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
When I tell people I'm going out on an electric boat.
They say, oh, a duffy because people think of a
low powered or slower kind of boat. That's not what
you set out to build.

Speaker 6 (57:41):
No, we absolutely want to change the perception of electric
boats in the same way that most people associate electric
cars with performance, with really fast zero to sixty times.
We are here to change the perception of electric boats
on the water, and hopefully your experience today made that point.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
So we're on the arc one.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
This is the boat that you initially sold. You made
a couple dozen of them, and now you're onto Well,
tell me some of the features of this unit that
we're on.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
So this was a limited edition boat that.

Speaker 6 (58:18):
Was our first entrance into the market, into the marine space.
It consists of two battery packs. Each one of those
battery packs is larger than pretty much anything you'd find
in an electric car. In total, it's two hundred and
twenty kilowat hours of battery capacity, which, as a point
of references, roughly three times the size of a Model

(58:40):
Y battery pack. The boat is laid out in an
open seating arrangement. Given that everything is packaged below the floor,
that affords a lot of space, a lot of space
for storage and a lot of space for seating on
the boat of this size.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
It's a big boat. It's got a lot of space.
It's got a lot of space for people. Again, it's fast,
it's quiet. There is absolutely no scent to the boat.
There's no fumes, there's none of that boating scent that
you kind of associate with being out on the open water.
It's a very simple setup. So you've got just the
steering wheel, the throttle. You've got this nice big screen

(59:16):
which is kind of very Tesla esque in the center,
which is showing maps, music. There's even a backup camera.
I guess if you can call it a back it's
a back camera. I should say. You see your current speed,
your current battery, You've got a compass, the water temperature,
and also the water depth. Do you think that this
appeals to someone who has grown up with an iPhone

(59:39):
or someone who is driving a Tesla.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (59:43):
We want to make better boats and we hope that
those boats and expect that those boats will appeal both
to people that have grown up boating and people that
are brand new to it. By making boats far easier
to own and far less expensive to actually operate, opens
up the market. These are simply better boats. They solve

(01:00:04):
the main pain points with gas boats today.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
What about the charging situation? How long does it take
to charge? How much time do you get out in
the water on a charge?

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
We think in terms of usage time.

Speaker 6 (01:00:17):
We want people to be able to use their boat
exactly how they want to use it for a full day,
plug in at the end of the day, and wake
up the next morning with a boat that is ready
to hit the water again. In practice, that tends to
mean three to five hours of active usage time. That
is a much better experience than what you gas boat
owners deal with today, lugging gas cans down to a

(01:00:41):
dock and filling it up manually, having to go twenty
minutes away to the nearest marina to pay ten dollars
a gallon, or any of the other creative solutions people
come up with.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Are the chargers readily accessible? Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
This boat uses what's known as a CCS one charger.
It is the same style of charger that you use
for any electric car on the road today. And another
awesome part about electric boats is that they tend to have.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Easier access to power.

Speaker 6 (01:01:11):
When you look across a marina today, most of those
marinas actually already are equipped with what is known as
shore power, because even gas boats use electricity to power
refrigerators or bilge pumps or other accessories on the boat.
You can just plug straight into that, plug it into
your boat, and again wake up the next morning with
the charge. Boat docks tend to be the same way.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
You've got the ARC One already. People are using this
out in the world. You're learning a lot of data
from that, and you're now building your mass market electric boat.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
What can we expect from that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:46):
The next boat we're bringing to market is a mass
market wakesport boat. We'll have more to share about that soon.
But as with a lot of new technology, the goal
is to, over the course of our development time, make
the technology more accessible to more people. Our goal is
eventually for every boat on the water to be electric.

(01:02:08):
It makes sense from a customer perspective, from a product perspective,
and from environment perspective. We want to make it happen,
and we want to make it happen quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
How much are we talking for this boat for the
buyers that already have it, and also the upcoming model.

Speaker 6 (01:02:23):
This boat was the ARC One was three hundred thousand dollars.
That's a all in price that includes trailer delivery and
best in class service.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
That might sound like a lot.

Speaker 6 (01:02:34):
But gas boats today of this size routinely sell for
that amount of money. Boats just tend to be more
expensive than automotive. Having said that, our goal is to
drop the price of these boats over time.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Performance wise, we were doing some what do you call
them s turns, S curves, and it was pretty wild.
This boat goes very fast, It has a lot of maneuverability.
It feels like you have a lot of control in
this boat. Advantages of the electric system.

Speaker 6 (01:03:02):
Yeah, so one of the things that we have designed
into this boat is the ability to go quickly from
zero up to top speed. You also get a lot
of torque at low speeds, which makes it easy to
pull a wake order water skier out of the water,
and it also makes the acceleration quite fun. So we

(01:03:23):
were out there doing what are known as hole shots,
which is when you pin the throttle down and let
the boats software take over and accelerate that boat up
to top speed and then turn that into s turns
where you're cranking the wheel left and right and going
back and forth and really experiencing how sporty this boat is.
We are not taking away from any part of your experience.

(01:03:44):
This is absolutely better than what you're experiencing today on
gas boats.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
All right, Mitch Lee, one of the founders of ARC.
Tell folks how they can learn more about the company.

Speaker 6 (01:03:56):
Go to arcboats dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Thanks so much for joining me today on the open water.
If you want a link to that, I'll put on
my website. Rich on Tech dot TV more rich on.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Tech coming your way. Do you have a question about technology?
Give me a call.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
The number is triple eight rich one O one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
My name is Richdmuro and you are listening to rich
on Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Tomuro here hanging
out with you talking technology. The phone line is triple
eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven
four to two.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Four one zero one. Ah. Did you like the electric boat?
That thing was so fun?

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
I was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
I was loving it the entire time up until they
said the price, and I just about I was like, oh,
excuse me, wait why. I know boats are expensive, but uh,
you know, it's one of these things where it's like
I wanted it so badly. Like now that I saw it,
I was like, ah, this is great. U let's go
to Chris in Glendale.

Speaker 11 (01:05:04):
Chris John with Rich high Rich, thank you continuing my call.

Speaker 8 (01:05:09):
I'm a bit of a text I know, so this
might be user error and I can't keep calling my
thirty year old daughter to resolve this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
But when i'm that's usually what happens.

Speaker 8 (01:05:19):
It always happens. I'm out and about. I have an
Apple phone, I have ways of application, I have Google Maps,
I have the various apps. I'll be lost and I'm
trying to get somewhere, and when I try to use
these apps, it comes up with no Wi Fi connection. However,
I have.

Speaker 11 (01:05:38):
My cellular data on my roaming on my personal hotspot on.
I thought that because I have all those things on,
I'm going to be connected to my carrier, to a
Wi Fi signal. I guess that's not the case.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Okay, So you're in a spot where you can't get
the information you need from these apps because your phone
looks like it's connected, but it's not getting the data
needs right. Okay, Well, I have two solutions for you.
Number One, You're not alone. This happens all the time,
especially on the iPhone. Happens to me, and I will
tell you it's actually kind of weird. Number One, I

(01:06:15):
don't think the iPhone does a good job of ditching
Wi Fi when there's not a good Wi Fi signal.
So what's happening is your iPhone when you're using it,
is managing your cellular and your Wi Fi all the time.
It's toggling those and using the connections based on availability
now most of the time. And let me give you
an example of how this works. So let's say you

(01:06:37):
are driving in your car and you have, you know,
no Wi Fi signal around you. The iPhone recognizes that
and it says, okay, we're going to use Chris's internet
connection from Verizon or T Mobile or AT and T.
And then all of a sudden, it finds when you
come into your living room, says, oh, we noticed that
Chris's Wi Fi signal at home is here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Let's use that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
So then the phone we'll switch to using that signal
because it's saying, well, we always want to use Wi
Fi when it's available, because it's usually a better connection,
it's cheaper, it's more readily available, whatever. But sometimes your
phone gets tripped up and there's a Wi Fi signal
that it thinks it can latch onto, but it's not

(01:07:19):
valid or it's not usable. And this happens with my
phone a lot because of spectrum has these hot spots
all over the city, and I connected to it once
and my phone thinks that it can always connect to that,
but somehow it's not a valid connection or a Starbucks
connection that you have to click into. So the reality

(01:07:39):
is there's a lot of times when your phone does
not have a connection when it thinks it does, and
it should drop that Wi Fi but it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
So a couple things you can do.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
And I know this is annoying, but if you're ever
in this situation and you need a quick fix, you
can swipe down from the upper right hand corner of
your iPhone and you'll notice there's a Wi Fi signal.
You can tap that Wi Fi signal and it should
be blue if it's on. If you tap it, it
will turn white, and that means the Wi Fi signal

(01:08:09):
is off. Now, that does not turn off Wi Fi forever.
That only turns it off temporarily to get you out
of that situation. And then once your phone gets to
a place where there is a valid Wi Fi signal
that it recognizes. Again, like when you get home, your
phone will automatically toggle the Wi Fi back on and
it will connect to that Wi Fi.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
So that's number one.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
Number two I think is another solution that when you're
running into this issue is what's called offline maps. Now
on ways, I don't know if you can download offline maps.
Let me see if you can do that. I'm not
sure that you can do that. Let's see settings. Let's
see do they have an offline I don't think they do,

(01:08:53):
but and they might. But on Google Maps, there is
something called offline maps, and I highly recommend that you
download these for the areas that you frequent. So, for instance,
if you live in Los Angeles, you can download pretty
much all of the maps for Los Angeles, so they
are on your phone. And there's two ways to do this.

(01:09:14):
The first is kind of a secret way. So just
go to your open up your Google Maps and you
can type in okay maps, And if you type in
that keyword, it's like a little hack. It's a little trick.
It will say download this map, and now you can
zoom out and download pretty much all of Los Angeles,
and I highly recommend you do this because it's not

(01:09:34):
going to take up much data on your phone, like
for literally the entire area of LA. It's saying it's
going to take up three hundred and twenty megabytes, and
you can zoom in to just do like, you know,
the basin. What I don't know, I don't I don't
know why I call the basin And is that like
a part of LA you know, just like whatever you want.
And I also recommend that you do this for any
city that you're visiting. So if you are visiting let's

(01:09:56):
say Seattle in the next couple of weeks, I would
type in Seattle and you can do the same exact thing.
So if you type in Seattle and then you scroll up,
you'll see where it says download offline map, and you
can tap that, and that means all of Seattle would
now be downloaded onto your phone. And so what that

(01:10:17):
means is that anytime you're in Seattle or navigating, you'll
always have the ability to get directions in that place,
even if you don't have a valid cellular connection in
that area. So highly recommend it. Two ways to do it. Again,
the keyword is okay maps, and if you type it in,
it's kind of like, you know, Google has all these

(01:10:38):
engineers that are just kind of like, you know, they're
nerdy like myself, and nerds love secret little hacks like
that Okay Maps. It's like, you know, okay computer kind
of thing. So you type in okay maps and it
will bring up the secret way to download any map. Now,
if you fancy Apple Maps, you can. They just added

(01:10:59):
the ability to do offline maps. So the way to
do it on Apple Maps is if you type in
a city. Let's type in Seattle again and you'll see
if you start typing in a city, it will come
up with that city name and you can tap download
and it will give you the downloaded maps for that city.
I don't know if Ways offers offline maps. I'm gonna

(01:11:20):
check real quick and I'll see offline maps are not
available at this point in Ways. But a good question,
and hopefully that will help you out the next time
you are in a pinch with that situation. All right,
if you have Disney Plus, you might have noticed on
your TV screen a new Hulu icon on the Disney

(01:11:44):
Plus app. And this is because Disney is actually going
to merge these two services. Disney Plus and Hulu are
going to be one app come March twenty twenty four,
but right now they're testing it with some people. I
do not subscribe to Hulu at this point, so I
don't have this, but I got a bunch of emails
from people saying, rich, Hulu is now on my Disney screen. Yes,

(01:12:07):
if you are a subscriber of both Disney Plus and Hulu,
you might notice that that Hulu hub is now on
your TV screen. So the reason they're doing this is
because it makes sense. Disney owns both of these services,
why not have them mixed into one place where you
can watch the shows from all of them. So if
you have it, you've got access to both, but you

(01:12:27):
do have to pay. This is not something where you
just have it if you don't pay. Let's see what
else here. If you want to talk to Santa in
augmented reality, this is really cute. If you go to
the website ask Santa dot app, Ask Santa dot App,
you go to this from your phone's web browser. There's
no download necessary. This is an augmented reality Santa experience

(01:12:52):
which lets you talk to Santa in real time and
it's kind of cute the way they do it. You
basically aim your phone at the sky. You have to
aim your smart phone at the sky. You tap your
phone screen and next thing you know, Santa will come
down to your backyard and you can talk to Santa
using AI. This is available now through January fifth. Again
the website Asksanta dot App. This is from Nyantik, the

(01:13:16):
creators of Pokemon Go. So it's kind of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Try it out.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
Ask Santa dot app. Eighty to eight rich one O one.
You are listening to rich on Tech. We'll have more
coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Another hour of the show coming your way. My name
is rich Demiro, talking technology with you at triple eight
rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four

(01:13:42):
to two four one zero one. If you have a
question about technology, you need advice, you need something that's
not working, you need an app recommendation, a gadget gift,
whatever you need, give me a call triple eight rich
one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
for one zero one. The website for the show rich

(01:14:04):
Ontech dot TV. You can also send me an email
there if you're too shy to call, and you can
also find me on social media.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
I am at rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Jim sent an email about the whole Beeper Mini situation.
This is the app that brings iMessage to Android, he said.
The question is really about allocating resources to develop a
superior product and then have companies with a lesser product
wanting to use it and make money. If Apple users
don't like that, their friends have green words and they
are free to trade in their iPhones for an Android,

(01:14:37):
and Android users who don't like the interface can buy
an iPhone. I haven't talked to any iPhone users who
complain or want to switch. Plus, Beeper money will make it.
Beeper Mini will make a ton of money without the
upfront cost of developing I message. If a company cannot
develop a superior product and protect it, then no company
will spend the money on development. Rich How would you
feel if someone duplicated your show, called it Rich on

(01:14:58):
Tech and aired it at the same time you aired
and took your audience that you built up. Jim, Well,
I don't think the radio show thing is the same.
That's basically competition and bring it on. If someone wants
to talk technology at the same time and compete for listeners,
that's fine. I think the issue I take with I

(01:15:18):
Message is that it is unnecessarily dividing the world. So
technology is supposed to connect us, right. Imagine back in
the day when we had telephones, like a telephone line
that was in your house and you had AT and
T and someone else had Verizon in your phone like

(01:15:38):
a standard phone line, and you tried to call that person,
they said, oh, sorry, you can't call them because they
have Verizon. It doesn't work like No, everything works the same.
You call them, it goes through. It works email, no
matter if you send through Yahoo, Hotmail, Aol, Gmail, it
all works the same. There are things that are standardized.

(01:16:01):
You plug in an HDMI cable, it is standardized. You
plug in a coax cable, it is standardized. Wi Fi
is standardized. Messaging is standardized. There is a standard message protocol.
Apple has booked that trend because they locked people into
I Message. Now, yes, you can say you can opt out,
but the thing is it's using your phone number and

(01:16:23):
it's on the iPhone. So I just feel like it's
just the way they went about it, and they knew
what they had here, believe me, because they would have
come up with an I message app years ago if
they didn't think that this locked people into their phones.
And yes, it's great and it works really nice.

Speaker 2 (01:16:38):
But by the way, you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
Can get all of those features on WhatsApp, on Telegram,
on Signal, on RCS, on Facebook Messenger, Instagram Messenger, any
other app in the world will work like this. But
the thing is the cross message functionality. The cross platform
functionality is what I take issue with. When you're sending

(01:17:00):
a text message, it should send the same way to
any phone, and we have protocols in place for that
to happen. Apple is adopting those protocols, but it's confusing
to the average person that is just using their phone
number on an iPhone and they don't understand why when
they text someone a picture or a video to an
Android it comes out all pixelated. They don't know why

(01:17:21):
that's happening, and they think it's because Android is not good.
And that's where I take issue with that. Let's go
to nas in Irvine. Nas am I saying that right, Yes, you.

Speaker 8 (01:17:34):
Are saying it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:35):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
You know what, You've got to move, You've got to
move to a better place in your in your home
so I can hear you better.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
I can.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
I'm really getting some breakup, So move to a better place.
I'll come back to you in a moment. Let's go
to Sarah and Ventura. Sarah, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 12 (01:17:55):
I was calling because I have a problem with I
was trying to head trap off my Internet, and then
I was logging back into it. And then when I was,
it said suddenly that it was untrusted.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
What do you mean you turned off your Internet?

Speaker 12 (01:18:13):
I mean I turned off the router. Why there is
something happening with it? Like I would be going to
a page and then it would like kind of scroll
backwards and go to the main screen like it would
just It's like someone said, ah, I don't know what

(01:18:36):
is it called? When we will?

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
So what's happening now? You just you're just you can't
serve the Internet on your computer or what?

Speaker 12 (01:18:43):
No. I I was trying to log into my Internet,
and I said it so that it wouldn't log in automatically.
I have to manually do that. So when I did tried,
it said FFL is untrusted. Then on the page inside
it's said data colon checks slash HTML.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
Why are you I'm confused. Why you need to log
into your internet at home?

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
Is this at home or a home? Okay? And who's
your internet provider? Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
And you're turning off Are you turning off your router regularly?

Speaker 12 (01:19:20):
Yeah, because I'm getting some kind of problem with it.
And after talking to a test who came to here,
he said I would check it and see if someone
is gaining access to.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
Your No, no one's gaining access. I mean turning off
your router is okay. But like I've had my Internet
in my house for ten years, I've never turned it off.
I mean, unless there's a power out, there's no reason
to turn your internet. And if you're using uh, you
know the way that these routers come from Spectrum or
any company, they typically have secure passwords, and unless someone

(01:19:55):
is physically gaining access to your house, they're not getting
on your your internet at home. So I think you
know what's happening here.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
It sounds like.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
By turning off your router and making it so you
have to log into your Internet, it's just causing all
kinds of problems. So you might have to pay Spectrum
to come out there and kind of like reset things
if you've changed settings. But it sounds like you've tweaked
stuff that doesn't really need tweaking. These things should just
be set it and forget it. If you want to

(01:20:29):
secure your Internet, there's two things I recommend. Number one,
when you come up with your Wi Fi password and SSID,
if you're not using the one that Spectrum assigned to you,
then you can change it. Make sure that that is secure.
Make sure it's not something that's easily guessable. If you
think that your neighbor is trying to latch onto your Internet,
you can always do what's called hiding the SSID, which

(01:20:53):
if you go into the settings on the router, there
is an option to make it so that your router
does not show your work to other computers. In fact,
you won't even see it. You have to log in manually.
I don't recommend that for like ninety nine point nine
percent of people unless you are running some sort of
like you know, security highly secure network at your house

(01:21:14):
for some reason. Otherwise, I think what I would try
to do is just factory reset the router. So there
should be a push button on there that you can
press and hold for a very long time and it
will bring everything back to factory settings. I would do
that and turn off your computer, reset your computer. You'll

(01:21:35):
have to reconnect your computer and your other devices to
this router. But in general, there is no reason to
turn off your router. And if you're suspecting that your
neighbor is on your router, there's typically a way to
log in to your router on the back end using
the information on the bottom of it and see a
list of all of the devices that are currently accessing
that router. And if you see neighbor Gym's computer on there,

(01:22:01):
then you've got a problem. But ninety nine percent of
the time that is not the case, Sarah. But I
I would stop resetting the router unless you have like
an Internet connection issue, like if your powers going out
a lot, NAS in Irvine. Uh, you're on with Rich
you there? Nas you there?

Speaker 10 (01:22:22):
Is it better?

Speaker 8 (01:22:23):
Is it better?

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Yes? Much better? Thank you?

Speaker 4 (01:22:25):
Okay, thank you so much for your great program.

Speaker 9 (01:22:28):
Very informative.

Speaker 11 (01:22:29):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
Thank you.

Speaker 11 (01:22:31):
I have a question regarding TV.

Speaker 8 (01:22:33):
We have a package with clocks. It's a basic cable.

Speaker 9 (01:22:38):
A landline phone, and a DVR that you can record
our programs and also the internet.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Do you recommend something else?

Speaker 10 (01:22:47):
If you don't want to.

Speaker 8 (01:22:48):
Stay with cocks but have the same page. That's something
you can record.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
How much are you paying for this?

Speaker 4 (01:22:54):
I'm paying about two hundred dollars and fluctuates.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
That's why you're a little bit so yeah. I mean
that's called the triple play.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
You've got the Internet, you've got the full cable package,
and you've got your phone through them. About two hundred
dollars is kind of like you know, the running cost
for that. And the only way that you could save
money here is if you switch to a different provider
that is in your area and they have you know,
twelve month promotional pricing fee and like it maybe it's

(01:23:26):
fifty dollars a month or something for first twelve months.
But the reality is if you stay with cos and
you just keep the Internet and then you start getting
streaming services, number one, your Internet is probably going to
be more expensive. You know, they might charge you one
hundred dollars a month for just the Internet, and then
you're gonna start getting your streaming services on top of that.

(01:23:47):
Netflix is going to be twenty dollars, Disney Plus is
gonna be thirteen bucks, Hulu is going to be another
couple bucks. So there are ways of doing that, but
the triple play that you have is probably going to
be the cheapest if you like all that stuff. If
you don't need all that stuff, if you're not watching
a ton of Bravo and a ton of ESPN a
ton of sports, you probably don't need all of that
cable package. But if you're just gonna go and sign

(01:24:10):
up with these cable packages independently, like if you go
with YouTube TV or Fubo or any of this stuff,
it's probably gonna come out to the same price, if
not more so. The only way to really save is
to get internet only, drop the other two services and
then bring on a couple of streaming services on top
of that. But you're still talking, you know, one hundred

(01:24:32):
and fifty dollars if you're doing that. But I would
check to see if there's any other providers in your
area for the cheaper internet.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
Good question there.

Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
Nos eighty to eight rich one o one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):

Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you at triple eight
rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Free call from anywhere in
the US. Remember when calls were not free, like in general,
Like I remember, you used to have to choose a

(01:25:10):
long distance operator, Like remember, MCI, when was the last
time you heard that spoken out of someone's lips? MCI,
what's that?

Speaker 8 (01:25:19):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (01:25:19):
That was that?

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
Uh yeah, bobo.

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):
They had all these codes you could dial before your
before your long distance call to like save money. Oh man,
those were the good old days, right, And you didn't
know how much your phone bill was. At the end
of the month, you would get it and it would
just be some random, arbitrary amount. Sometimes it was a lot,
sometimes it was a little.

Speaker 2 (01:25:41):
You just didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
And by the way, people probably got ripped off a
whole lot more back then, because who really looked at
this stuff and took the time to call in and
say like, hey, MCI, I'm noticing I got charged eighty
five ninety nine for a call to my grandma and Idaho.
And they'd be like, yeah, that's how much it costs
to call her for three minutes. You're like, oh, okay,
I remember the party line we had. This is before

(01:26:06):
your time, Bobo, no bobo saying remember this. My grandma
had a house like in the middle of like the woods,
and you would lift up the phone line and there
would be someone on the phone line, like a party line.
You'd share the phone line, like what kind of craziness
did we grow up with? You could listen to someone
else's phone line like conversation what and we're worried about

(01:26:29):
all this stuff? And to end encryption like no, you
would just pick up the line and be like, hey,
are you on?

Speaker 5 (01:26:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Can you call it?

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Can you like pick up the line in five more minutes,
I'll be done? What what kind of Oh my gosh,
it's fun when you think about this stuff, and this
is why you've got to talk to your grandparents and
people and your family and just ask questions, like just
to ask, you know, if you have a loved one
around that was around before you, like what what was I.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
Like as a kid? What what was this like? Or what?
It's just it's so wild, the stuff that just by.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
Exploring and being curious, like even though you think you
remember all this stuff, you don't, and just by hearing it,
sometimes out loud, it just brings back, you know, conjures
up these memories. Uh, all right, let's get to some
news items here. Verizon has a bundle with Netflix and
Max for ten dollars a month. Verizon's got a new

(01:27:24):
perk for My plan users. You can get an ad
supported Max and Netflix for ten dollars a month. Sounds great.
You gotta have an Unlimited Welcome, Unlimited Plus or Unlimited
Ultimate plan. It's cheaper than subscribing to both services separately.
It saves you about seven dollars a month. But here
is the thing. This is what I don't like about this.
I know it's so tempting because these companies want you

(01:27:46):
to bundle. It's kind of like what we were talking
about with NAS. It's like bundling saves money, and the
cable companies were all about bundling, and now it's the
cellular companies are all about bundling. But here's the problem.
When you need to make a change, there's a little
bit more friction.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
So, for instance, right.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
Now, I've got my Peloton and my Netflix bundled up
through my wireless provider. Now I don't know when that ends,
and so what's gonna happen is invariably I'm gonna wake
up to a bill for my wireless provider. It's gonna
be like another two hundred dollars and I'd be like, wait, what, Oh,
I forgot to change my Peloton and my Netflix and
whatever promotion I had is gonna expire. So that's why

(01:28:27):
they like you to do it is because they are
now in control. If you don't have this bundle, you
can go to Peloton dot com or Max dot com
and you can easily change things as you need. But
once things are bundled, it gets a little bit more complicated.
And that's it's that tiny bit of friction that companies
like because you may be able to call the next

(01:28:48):
time after you see that on your bill, but now
they've just won one extra bill on you, and that
one extra bill at ten, fifteen twenty dollars a month
times millions of customers is a whole lot of money.
So I personally do not like bundling. Even if it
saves you money in the short term, it may not
save you money.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
In the long term.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
Meta launches a free AI image generator called Imagine and
guess what It's trained on all the pictures you've been
uploading to Facebook and Instagram over the years. You knew
this was happening. Nothing is really for free. All those
pictures you've been uploading to Facebook and Instagram. If they're public,
they might have trained this AI model called emu EMU.

(01:29:32):
It's trained on one point one billion Facebook and Instagram
user photos. You can try this out if you go
to Imagine dot Meta dot com. You have to log
in with your Facebook account. You can type in whatever
you want it to create, plane flying over cotton, candy clouds,
and it'll create four images for you, all for free.
But if you notice that that picture looks like your

(01:29:54):
old girlfriend or you know someone in your family that
you uploaded earlier, make no mistake, it's because they train
this AI model on these user uploaded pictures. Now, I'm
just kidding, you're probably not going to find a picture
that looks like someone you know. But the reality is
when you are not paying for something, your data is

(01:30:16):
the payment, and that's what happens here. Now I'm not
saying this is bad, it's kind of what's happening. All
these AI image generators have to be trained on something,
and a lot of them are just scraping images from
the web. But Meta had people upload a lot of
stuff over the years that they can use for this.
And by the way, you probably tagged your images too,
with different things like descriptions, like maybe you uploaded a

(01:30:39):
pizza and you said, oh, best pepperoni pizza from Sal's
Pizzeria in Hoboken, And now they know exactly what that
pizza looks like because you've described exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
What that image contains. Very very smart.

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
All right. Coming up next, we're going to talk accessibility,
Microsoft's new app, Apple's personal voice feature, and a new
controller from PlayStation. It's all coming up right here on
the rich On Tech Radio show. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at Triple eight rich one

(01:31:16):
oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one. If you have some feedback for the show
we'll get it in the feedback segment later on. Send
it in right now on the website Richontech dot tv.
Hit contact if you want to get your voice in
on the show. Tell me what's good, what's bad, what

(01:31:37):
you like or anything you want to comment about. All right,
let's bring on Steven Aquino, freelance tech journalist covers accessibility
and assist of technologies for outlets like Forbes. Steven, welcome
to the show. Hey there, I am doing great. Thanks
for joining me today. So tell me about your interest

(01:31:58):
in covering accessibility.

Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
How did that come about?

Speaker 12 (01:32:02):
Sure, well, it.

Speaker 13 (01:32:06):
Really comes about because I was born freame much really
and I have a whole host of us the build
what it is that I've dealt with my entire life,
and you know it. They have affect how I use

(01:32:33):
you know, everything, and that includes technology. So I just
want to show people that not everybody uses technology in
the same way.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
And that is very true. And I think that technology
has actually been a great you know, it's helped a
lot of people with varying of abilities do things because
you know, you've got stuff like larger text on screens, readers,
all this stuff that has really I think done a lot.

(01:33:09):
So let's talk first about this Seeing AI app. It's
now available and Android. This is from Microsoft, and this
app narrates the world for the blind and low vision.
It can read text, it can identify products and describe photos.

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
So what do you make of this app? Have you
used it?

Speaker 1 (01:33:29):
I have not.

Speaker 13 (01:33:31):
I definitely reheard it and what it is is like
just as you were saying, it basically helps people like
me who have low eye sight or no vision you've
been at all, to be able to identify by objects

(01:33:55):
or even you know, other humans, you know in the
real world.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
Yeah, and this is now available on Android. It used
to just be on iOS, so that is available now
from Microsoft. It's called Seeing AI and it's available in
eighteen languages. It's free to use, and you know, it's
a great thing that you can aim it at something
and have it read text, identify an object, or describe
a picture. And it's also I guess they improved a

(01:34:27):
little bit because they brought it to Android. They've got
richer descriptions of photos and you can also kind of
go back and forth with documents a little bit, so
it does use some AI there.

Speaker 2 (01:34:38):
Let's talk about this feature on iOS.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
It's called Personal Voice and basically you can record. This
is for folks that are at risk of losing their voice,
and you can record your voice and kind of save
it for later.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
What do you make of that feature?

Speaker 8 (01:34:57):
Sure, so.

Speaker 13 (01:35:01):
This feature isn't intended for When it first came out,
Apple said that they worked with people at the l
the teams patients helping people with als, and the whole

(01:35:29):
idea here is that at some point someone with a
LS is gonna lose their build goody to speak. So
the idea with this software is that you record I

(01:35:50):
think it's fifteen minutes of spoken text through your and then.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
The software will.

Speaker 13 (01:36:06):
Forward that and you'll be able to talk using your
own voice.

Speaker 1 (01:36:16):
Yeah, so this is like in you know, if you
have a a you know, a system that would do
a generic kind of computerized voice. Now you can actually
type something and speak it in your own voice, which
is pretty incredible just how far we've come with that technology,
especially since it's available on the iPhone. I did try

(01:36:36):
this out and it did take It took a little
bit longer than I thought, Like, you can't just do
this like quickly, Like you have to be able to
have some time to sit down and record this. But uh,
you know again, if you are at risk of losing
your voice due to some sort of illness like als,
that is something that is an option. Now all right, finally,
let's talk about this PlayStation controller. This is a new

(01:36:58):
accessible controlller for PlayStation five. It looks like you wrote
about this for Forbes, right.

Speaker 13 (01:37:07):
I did. I brod buttered a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
So what.

Speaker 13 (01:37:16):
This is is is it's a specially designed roller for
people who for some reason can't use the stock roller
that comes with the system. So what it is is

(01:37:39):
it's you've got its own shape and everything, and you
can like swap out the different buttons and the sticks
on the controller, and there's a whole lot you can
do in software to sort of uh break your own

(01:38:00):
like super controlled the Blue as it were, because you
can like hailor it to your you know how you
have to have.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
It so your abilities. It's configurable in a lot of
different ways. And also, you know, the main point here
is that one size does not fit all when it
comes to controllers, Like if you have varying abilities or
a disability, you know, you can program this and and
kind of orient it in the way that you need.

(01:38:33):
So there's a whole bunch of stuff that you can do,
and it's just a really great way to open up
gaming to a wider audience.

Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
Do you think this is going to be a good thing?

Speaker 14 (01:38:43):
Yeah, you know, uh greaming technology switchy is really important
and it says a whole lot that these huge com.

Speaker 8 (01:38:56):
For these.

Speaker 13 (01:38:59):
Like Sony have you know, had time and effort to
do this because uh, you know, as you were saying,
it really fixed their games you know, accessible to to
a to a audience.

Speaker 1 (01:39:18):
Yeah, And this is available for the PlayStation five. I've
also been at Microsoft events. They have a lot of
accessible kind of like, they have a lot of pushes
into this accessibility idea, and so does Apple, and so
does Google. So it really is amazing what these tech
companies have done for bringing technology to more people and

(01:39:38):
allowing more people to do things in the way that
works for them. Steven Akino, thanks so much for joining
me today. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 12 (01:39:46):
Great Rich.

Speaker 13 (01:39:49):
You for having me, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
All right, find them online Steven Akino on Forbes. You
can find them also on x and read uh and
keep up on all of the accessibility and diversity options
that are out there with technology.

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
All right, thanks for joining me today. Let's uh, Oh,
we're gonna go to break.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
Okay, we'll go to break and we'll come back and
we'll do the feedback segment. Oh my gosh, that means
it's almost the end of the show. Get those emails
in rich on tech dot TV, hit contact if you
want yours right on the air. Welcome back to rich
On Tech time for the Oh well, we're gonna get

(01:40:32):
to feedbag. And yes, I decided I think it is
a feedback segment. Because this is what I've decided. It's feedback,
but it's also mail bag. So the feedback plus the
mail bag is feedbag. All right, let's get through a
couple of stories before we get to the feedbag.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
YouTube Premium.

Speaker 1 (01:40:55):
If you're paying for YouTube premium and you were grandfathered in,
well your price is going up in January. So if
you're paying seven ninety nine a month or nine to
ninety nine a month, those are both grandfathered in, you
will be paying thirteen ninety nine a month, effective on
in January twenty twenty four, so next month. So it
was delayed. This was announced back in July, so don't

(01:41:17):
get mad at me. This was something that was announced
for many months now. But you were grandfathered in, which
is pretty rare these days. Most of the time when
these companies are announcing price hikes, it's like effective with
your next billing cycle. So the fact that you got
six months, you know you should be thanking me.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
No, it's not me that's doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Threads has added hashtags, but they don't call them hashtags,
and they don't have the pound sign or the hashtag
sign whatever you however you look at it, So they
call hashtags tags. They're clickable blue links, not the traditional
hashtag symbol. You can add one tag per post. The

(01:41:56):
feature was rolled out and it's kind of confusing because
why did they change a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:42:01):
We all know what hashtags are.

Speaker 1 (01:42:03):
Every single online website uses hashtags, but not threads.

Speaker 2 (01:42:07):
They use tags. I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
Apple Podcasts arrives on Tesla next week. If you have
a Tesla, you're gonna get a holiday software update and
you will have Apple Podcasts, which is kind of nice.
They added Apple Music last year. It does not work
very well. I will tell you that hopefully this will
be better. Apple music is very, very slow and just

(01:42:31):
not very good at least in my experience in the Tesla.
But Apple Podcasts it'll be nice to have. So you
can listen to the show Rich on Tech. Search it
up and if you'd like to listen to the podcast,
you can do it in your Tesla. As of next week,
if you have a pixel phone, two things one thing
to do. There is a new feature where it will

(01:42:52):
send critical data to first responders. You can share medical
info and emergency contacts with nine one one.

Speaker 2 (01:42:58):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:42:59):
This is on the pixel phone in the personal safety
app Pixel has or I guess they've somehow. There's a
partnership with this rapid SOS company which sends medical info
to the first responders. But it's been available on iPhone forever.
I did a story with this years ago, but now
it's finally coming to Android, starting with the Personal Safety
App on Pixel. So if you go to open up

(01:43:22):
the Personal Safety app, your info emergency info access share
during emergency.

Speaker 2 (01:43:27):
Call, turn that on.

Speaker 1 (01:43:30):
That way, if you ever have to die on nine
one one, it'll send more information. And Jimmy Stewart has
a new bedtime story inside the call map. How is
that possible?

Speaker 2 (01:43:39):
You ask?

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
It's AI generated. They took Jimmy Stewart's voice, they recreated it,
and now he's reading. It's a wonderful sleep story. It's
a story about love, lost, hope and joy. Sounds like
my life.

Speaker 2 (01:43:54):
Most of it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:57):
Stuart's family was okay with this. The AI voi was
created by a company called Respeecher. It's pretty good. I
listened to the little clip they put online and I
got goosebumps because Jimmy Stewart is no longer with us,
yet somehow he is now reading a new story.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
It's quite incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
I know it's controversial because people, you know, some people
say you're exploiting these actors that have passed away. But
if their a state is okay with it, I guess
it's fine. But anyway, you have to be a calm
subscriber to hear the whole thing. All right, let's get
to feedback. Bert says, please quit saying everyone hates X. Clearly,
if you're getting a lot of interaction, everyone doesn't hate it.

(01:44:37):
The beautiful thing is that you can get on X
and say everyone hates X, and that's fine because free
speech is alive and well on that platform. Thanks to Elon,
the guy responsible for the car you love. Great show,
minus the fake news.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
Bert. Thanks Bert, there's no fake news on this show.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
Gary says, Hey, Rick, Rick, I love when people call
me because I've never called myself Rick, but so many
people call me Rick.

Speaker 2 (01:45:02):
I like the radio show you do, Leo proud.

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
I purchased a one plus phone on Amazon and it's
locked to T Mobile. Is there a legal way to
remove the carrier lock? I'll be returning this. If there's
not an easy way to remove this, Gary, go to
the unlocker dot com. The unlocker with Noe dot Com
and he specializes in all things unlocking phones. Yes, you

(01:45:26):
can unlock a phone. Just keep in mind it may
not work on every network, so it'll probably work on
T Mobile AT and T. It may not work on
Verizon if you unlock it. You just have to be
careful with that. Bruce says, I want to recommend fuel
Rod rechargeable. I'm biased as I'm a maintenance tech that
services the kiosks here in San Diego. No complaints, Charge

(01:45:46):
it at home, or swap it for a used rod
for a fully charged one for one buck. Love your show,
Bruce and San Diego.

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
Bruce.

Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
Yes, there's a couple of these companies around with kiosks
that lets you get one of these portable batteries. It's
very nice when you see them because you feel like
you can use your phone and if worse comes to worse,
you go to the vending machine, you pop out one
of these portable batteries you can charge your phone. The
main thing is most of them you do have to
return at some point. But I've seen them all over
the place. I've seen fuel Rod for sure. I did

(01:46:15):
a story with another company that plays these things and
it's a big business. Pine says constructive criticism from a fan.
As I start this week this Monday, your segment comes on,
I put down my coffee because I'm a fan. I'm
only disappointed by you showing the same report you did
on your Saturday radio show. It's happened many times. I
don't know if you're lazy or they don't pay you enough,

(01:46:36):
but it's annoying. I don't want to troll because I'm
a fan. Can you fix this or at least tell
me to avoid watching both shows? Okay, I think you're
referring to the fact that I overlap. Like on the radio,
I will do an interview with someone that I then
show on TV.

Speaker 2 (01:46:51):
These are two different mediums. Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:46:53):
If you notice, the interviews are much longer, so you're
getting kind of a deeper dive. TV the stories are
two minutes, so I think it's called synergy.

Speaker 2 (01:47:03):
Like today we had the electric boat.

Speaker 1 (01:47:05):
If you like the electric boat that you heard about
on this week on TV, you're going to see that
electric boat segment. It's not laziness. And no nobody ever
pays anyone enough, do they. No, people always want more,
So it's not about laziness. It's just I think it's
great that you can hear the story on the radio
and learn more. Oh David has a reply to this.

(01:47:26):
I'm older and not very tech savvy, but willing to learn.
I find you interesting and informative. I listen on Fox
fifty nine in Indianapolis. So David David likes the reports
on TV. Let's see what else do we have here?
So many things? Oh my god, these just keep going
on and on and on. Okay, uh, let's see. Hi, Rich,

(01:47:49):
I love your show and podcasts. I want to make
a custom wall calendar for my hiking club, but I
want members of the club to be able to order
their own copies. There are many companies that will let
me make a calendar, but the problem is to order it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
Everyone needs to use my account.

Speaker 1 (01:48:04):
I don't want to give away my account number and
password so they can order the calendar that I create.
Is there a company that allows me to share my
work so my company my friends can print the calendar, Dan, Dan,
I think that Canva will handle this situation. So Canva
dot com. You create your calendar on Canva. You share
the link to that calendar with the people who want

(01:48:26):
to order it. They can then sign in, they can
do whatever tweaks they want. They want to add their
birthdays to the calendar, and then they can print it
out using their account and their phone number. So that's
what I would recommend. Canva dot com is incredible. The
problem is with Canva, a lot of it you might
have to pay for, like the design you want. It's
like it's a free it's a freemium kind of account thing.

(01:48:50):
So just know that if you use things that cost
money inside there, like the things with Little Star, people
are gonna have to pay to print that out.

Speaker 2 (01:48:58):
All right, if you can believe it, that's going to
do it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
For this episode of the show, you can find links
to everything I mentioned on my website. Just go to
rich on tech dot tv for the show notes. You
can also go to rich on tech dot tv slash
wiki to see all of the show notes from over
the last year. You can find me on social media.
I am at rich on tech. Next week some great guests.
We're gonna talk eBay with the person who has sold

(01:49:21):
two million books about eBay, so we're gonna talk about
eBay tips and tricks. Plus a really cool website guy
runs a website with all kinds of spy accessories, so
that's really fun. Thanks so much for listening. There are
so many ways you can spend your time. I do
appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to
everyone who makes this show possible. Bill, Bobo, Kim. My

(01:49:43):
name is Richdmiro. I will talk to you real soon

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Rich DeMuro

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