Japan tech, social media safety & travel pillow pick (144, Oct 18, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
California to require warning labels on social media. Apple TV
Plus gets a new name and a new partner, free
cell phone service for Californians. Plus, Your tech questions answered.
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
This is the show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
up those phone lines at triple A rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(00:40):
zero one.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Triple a rich one oh one. Give me a call.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
If you have a question about technology. Email is also open.
Just go to Rich on tech dot tv and hit
contact rich on tech dot TV hit contact Guests. This week,
Julia Storm, digital wellness educator and founder of Reconnect, is
going to help us break down California's new social media

(01:06):
warning label law and Instagram's new PG thirteen teen content rules. Later,
we've got Rebecca Griffiths from Assurant. She's going to talk
about trading in your mobile phone and getting the most
for your money or the most for your trade in.
And Eric O'Neill, former FBI operative and author of Spies
Lies in Cybercrime. We'll share practical tips on protecting yourself

(01:30):
from today's biggest online threats. Well, a very warm welcome
to you, thanks for joining me on the show. Back
from Tokyo, Japan this week. Was there for c TECH
Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies. This is one of Japan's
probably their largest tech showcase is held near Tokyo. I've

(01:54):
been going for about off and on for about a
decade now, and it's always fun. It's really the first
time I went, it just made me realize how many
Japanese tech companies there are. I mean all the brands,
you know, Mitsubishi, Hatachi, Panasonic, Nissan, Toyota, I mean the
list goes on and on, Sony. There's just so many,
and so they all come together and, you know, show

(02:16):
off what they're working on.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
It used to be a ton of hardware. Now obviously
things have changed. So a lot of it's AI, a
lot of it's smart mobility, a lot of this talk
of this you know, digital society. Not all that stuff
is happening, but you know a lot of it is.
So I did a whole post about just all the
things in the way, the ways that Japan has changed

(02:39):
in the ten years that I've been going, and just
how easy international travel has gotten in the past, I
would say last three years especially. So I'll talk about
a little bit about that later in the show, but
I figured it'd be fun to tell you about some
of the things I saw at the show. I mean,
one of them is going viral this I'll just start
with that one because it's kind of kind of the
coolest thing I saw. This is from Honda. It's called

(03:02):
the Uni one. It's a personal mobility device. Now, lots
of people have been debating the merits over this device, saying, oh,
come on, it's just a world of Wally.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
But let me explain with this.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
It's sort of a self balancing personal transport device from Honda.
So you sit in this chair with wheels. It's got
gyroscopes and all this kind of stuff. But it's a
motorized if you think of like a motorized scooter, but
without any controls. And so you sit in this thing
and you just lean where you want to go and

(03:33):
it goes. Now, I said in my Instagram, it feels
like it's reading your mind. Everyone's construing that as I
was saying, Oh, it does not read your mind. No,
it does not read your mind. It reads your movements.
But it's quite incredible how it can figure out which
direction you want to go just by slightly leaning in
those directions. And so I tried this thing. I sat

(03:55):
on it and it was just so cool. And people
are debating like, oh, well, is this a wheelchair? It's
going to be too expensive. Is it for you know?
Is it for people that just don't want to walk?
What is it for? Well, it's for all of the above,
whatever you want it to be. And that's the beauty
of innovation is that companies innovate and we figure out
how we want to use it. Could it be used

(04:16):
for someone that's less than mobile. Absolutely, Could it be
used for someone that doesn't feel like walking.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Could also be used for someone who has an issue
with their foot right now temporarily and wants to get
around a museum.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
So. Again, the possibilities on this kind of thing are endless.
If you want to see that, go to my instagram
at richon Tech. It's so smooth and just so incredible.
It's just it keeps getting shares and views because it's
just it's one of those things you see and you're like, okay,
and yes, Disneyland could use it, a museum.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Could use it. Airports could use it.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Actually, when I was in the airport in Tokyo, I
thought this was pretty cool. They had these scooters, you
know how they have these people that can drive you
around the airport if you're you know, got a bum
leg or something like that. These are automated, so anyone.
They just had them sitting there, these chairs. You sit
in them and then you scan a QR code, you
say which git you need to go to, and the
thing will take you to the gate, all by itself, autonomously.

(05:10):
I thought that was so cooilt. I wish I would
have tried it out, but I didn't. But I thought
that was really neat. Let's see what else. Oh, this
was interesting at TDK. You know, I try so many
things and I'm like, I don't know what this thing's
gonna do.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
To me or whatever.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
But TDK was showing off this laser module that projects
images directly onto your retina.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
What could possibly go wrong?

Speaker 1 (05:30):
But I put it on and it projected this little
tiny display onto my eyeball and it was cool. I
mean you could see you know, this could be used
for heads up displays and smart glasses, any kind of wearables.
And the reality is that this is going to happen.
The idea of you wearing something on your face or
even in the future contact lenses with information displayed in

(05:54):
your line of sight, that is going to happen.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
It's already happening.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
I mean, Meta is selling a pair of glasses that
does just this for eight hundred dollars. Google was very
very early in this many many years ago with something
called Google Glass fifteen hundred dollars back in the day.
Very limited, but again, it's been percolating for years and
now we're finally getting to the point where these companies
are figuring it out. They're making the technology smaller, they're

(06:20):
making it less invasive, they're making it easier, and it's
going to happen. So TDK working on that. Sony was interesting.
They had this thing called the Rion Pocket. This is
a wearable personal air conditioner and heater. So you wear
this thing around your neck kind of goes on your back.
It sits on your back and it cools you or
warms you using I don't know how you explain this,

(06:43):
but Peltier tech, So it's just I guess somehow it
just warms you and cools you through your own body.
And this was an example of something that an employee
came up with in their innovation program where he was
traveling to Shanghai. It was super hot outside, said he
was sweating, and then we went inside to the office

(07:03):
he was freezing, and he said, there's got to be
a better way, and so why not have this personal
wearable air conditioning and heating system. So I thought that
was pretty neat. And we're already again, we're already seeing
that with all these trade shows I go to. People
are wearing these things that are they go around their
necks and they have fans on them. But the next

(07:23):
version I've seen is kind of like this, where it
sits on your neck and it cools you through like conduction.
So I tried that at CES this year, and again,
these are things that are just gonna get cheaper and
they're going to get better, and we're just gonna have them.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
I thought this was neat.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
I saw for the first time ever, first time I've
ever seen this at a trade show. Apple Vision pro
in the wild. So they were showing off like technology
or I guess society in twenty fifty and you put
this Apple It was a cool, cool display they had,
but you would sit in this room and you would
just kind of explore. They're thinking that the physical and

(08:02):
digital worlds are going to merge in the future, so
they're using Apple Vision Pro.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
I thought that was pretty cool. Let's see this.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Robots everywhere, I mean so many robots, and the trend
I'm seeing with robots are companion robots that are powered
by AI. So Sharp had one called pocket Tomo, which
is short for Pocket Friend, and it had you know,
microphone speaker, GPS camera on it, so it can remember

(08:30):
what you talked to it about, remember where you are,
and it can act as sort of a little memory bank,
but also a little companion. It can talk back to you.
So that was from Sharp. And then they had another
one called Romi. This was from a startup. Same thing,
you know, just sits there, it chats with you. I
don't know if that one had a camera on it,
but it did have Chatubtai built in and it kind

(08:52):
of adapts its personality to you over time. Made by
Japanese robotics company Mirror Robotics, but again conversational robots. What
else did I see? Oh, this was kind of cool.
A helio X solar micromobility scooter. Why didn't I think
of this a solar powered scooter? I mean, these things
sit out in the sun all day, had a bunch

(09:12):
of solar panels on it, and it was inspired by
an earthquake in Japan and back in twenty eleven, where
you know, charging things was tough, and that means getting
around was tough. So this guy came up with this
solar powered scooter doesn't need to be plugged in. And
yes it did have a space to charge your phone.
You need that, of course.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Let's see. Okay, I saw an earbud with a built
in camera.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
So again, now we have glasses with cameras built in,
why not have them in your earbuds? And this makes
a lot of sense, And so JVC Kenwood's showing off
a prototype of little earbuds that had built in cameras
and they were using them.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
They were showing off two demos.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
First, if you meet someone in real life at a
party or something, or at a meeting, it will take
a snapshot of that person and then it will recall
that person's name somehow, it links it up with their
business car or whatever they said to you or whatever,
and it will store that information. The next time, you
can just ask your earbut hey, who was that when
you see them again, or who is this? And it
will tell you details of that obviously need to be

(10:10):
worked out. Then they had a store safety system for workers.
So we've already seen workers getting body cameras. Now this
is sort of another version of that, where you wear
this little earpiece and if you have an employee or sorry,
a customer that comes in that's being abusive, you can
snap a picture of them and send that audio to
your coworker or your supervisor in real time. So that

(10:33):
was there, and then oh, Plaud, I thought this was cool.
I don't know if you're familiar with this company, Plaud,
but they are doing a really good job of making
this little AI power digital recorder. Remember those micro cassette
recorders back in the day. Well, now they've got the
digital version of that, which looks like a credit card
or records transcribes, generates these searchable summaries. They've already had

(10:54):
a version. Now they've got a pro version, which has
more microphones and a little tiny screen plus up to
fifty hours of battery life, and they said.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
It's been a hit.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Journalists love them. Anyone who's in meetings all day loves
this thing. They've got over a million users worldwide, so
that is incredible. And it just goes to show that
even in today's day and age, you can still have
a new idea and still do really well with it.
Because this is a startup and they have actually killed it.
They're doing so well.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
I met the team.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
They had a whole bunch of them there and they
were just so so great to be on TV and
to chat with me, and I told them I've been
using the device and it's just super super cool. So
let's plaud all right. I'll link all this up on
the website rich on tech dot TV. Coming up, we're
gonna take some of your calls at eight eight eight
rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
two four to one zero one.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Plush.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
I'll tell you about how Japan has gotten easier over
the years when it comes to traveling.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
There.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
You are listening to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
My name is rich jamiro get those calls in eight
eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one back after this
a couple items of note. I'm not gonna spend too
much time on this because it's this an expensive laptop.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Actually it's not that bad.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
But you know, Apple came out a new processor this week,
the M five, so they just you know, Apple has
started making their own processors a couple of years ago,
and they've just been doing such a great job. They're
so powerful they and they last a long time. Like
if you bought the M one MacBook Air right now,
which sells for like, you know, five hundred bucks or something,

(12:36):
it's still just as good. My wife uses that. I
can tell you it's fine. I mean she you know,
browses the web whatever, it checks your email, it's fine.
And that you're talking what five years ago this came out.
Now at this point, it's still powerful. So now they've
got this M five and they put it in a
fourteen inch MacBook Pro starts at sixteen hundred bucks, same
price as last year. They did not come out with

(13:00):
the M five Pro or Max. Those are the higher
end chips. They did not do that this year or
just yet, I should say, And it's faster. Obviously, the
battery life up to twenty four hours, which is just
wild ships on October twenty second pre orders. Now, now,
I will tell you I bought the fourteen inch MacBook
Pro a couple of years ago. I would never get

(13:20):
that size again. I cannot recommend that size, and I'll
tell you why. Because we live in a world of AI,
and so what's happening is people are using their web
browser and then they're using AI on the side, and
so if you have a screen that's just fourteen inches,
that is not going to give you enough real estate
to have your AI app on the right hand side

(13:42):
of your web browser. Now, web browsers are getting AI
built in. More and more of that we're seeing. But
the reality is I couldn't get rid of this size
laptop fast enough. So I recommend I've got right now,
I've got. I think mine's a fifteen inch. I would say, yeah,
fifteen inch, a fifteen inch minimum. No matter what you're getting,

(14:02):
it just gives you more real estate. You're gonna you're
gonna like it better if you're going fourteen inch, it's
just you're gonna feel a little cramped. That's the way
I feel this is just this is me talking as
someone who tests a lot of laptops. I just like
a bigger screen. So that's coming out. Let's see what
else happened this week. Oh, Amazon hiring two hundred and
fifty thousand workers for the holidays, same amount as last year.

(14:25):
So if you're looking for a I mean they're doing
full time, part time and seasonal workers, fulfillment centers, delivery operations,
new opportunities in rural areas average of twenty three dollars
an hour with benefits. Seasonal workers get about nineteen bucks
an hour, flexible hours, potential for long term. Let's see

(14:45):
what else. Amazon says. A lot of these jobs do
turn into career paths. Many managers start as temporary hires.
Amazon dot com slash Local Jobs Amazon dot com slash
Local Jobs, which updates weekly through December. Now, I will
tell you I am amazed at Amazon. I don't know
how they do it and what they BUILDT is just

(15:08):
it's unfathomable. Actually, like the fact that now when you
order stuff on Amazon, at least where I live, it
tells you we can get that to you same day,
within a couple hours, Like we'll give you a if
you log on in the morning at nine am, they're like, oh,
we'll deliver that to you from four to eight pm.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
What how Now I get it.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yes, there's instant delivery, drone delivery, all this stuff everywhere,
but like, this is Amazon. The logistics of this company
are just wild. And I watch the Amazon trucks come
down my street every single day and I feel bad
for these people. I'm like, I can't believe you've got
to go to these houses every day, but like, or
come to my house and deliver something.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
But they're doing it anyway.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
They're driving my street anyway because chances are someone.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
On my street is ordering something.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
So where they stop at the house down the street
and mine, that's actually more efficient. So look at it
that way, and I'll tell you, like I get it.
I love shopping in store. I try to shop in store,
but the problem is Amazon has everything all the time,
and especially when you go to the store. When I've
made it an effort to go into a store and
I'm like I'm going to buy this year, guess what happens.

(16:13):
They don't have my size, they don't have the product
in stock, they have one left that's open, and someone
stole the product out of it, or you can't even
shop in the store because you know certain stores, everything's
locked up and you got to ask for someone to
come over to open up a locked cabinet for you.
So it's really tough to compute with Amazon at this
point because you get exactly what you want, You've got

(16:33):
a thousand options, and it comes to your house that day.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
So I get it.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
It's a it's a tough battle for these other retailers,
and I don't want Main Street USA to go away,
but it's just how do you compete with Amazon and
what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
At least we still have restaurants you gotta go after that.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Eighty eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four
to two four one zero. In California passed a whole
bunch of new rules this week, I'm gonna talk all
about that with our guests coming up, Julia Storm, founder
of Reconnect. We'll talk about California's new social media warning
label and Instagram's new PG thirteen rules coming up right
here on rich on Tech.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
This week.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
California just doing a lot of stuff when it comes
to AI, chatbots, social media, and then Instagram layered on
some new rules as well. So California passed a law
regulating these AI chatbots, now the first state to regulate
these AI companion chatbots. Of course, we've heard tragic cases

(17:36):
involving teens and all these conversations they're having. So this
takes effect on January first, twenty twenty six. And then
also California is going to make social media apps show
mental health warnings to kids, kind of like what we
saw on cigarette packs. Now that's going to happen here
in California. So that's happening. And then Instagram, you know,
they don't want any rules from outside places. They want

(17:57):
to do their own stuff. So Instagram, you know, said
this week we're gonna make PG thirteen rules, you know,
like fourteen accounts, So PG thirteen content by default if
an account is figured out to be a thirteen plus kid,
you know, thirteen to eighteen, similar to what you might
see in a PG thirteen movie. So to break down
all of this, Julia Storm is joining me. She is

(18:20):
a digital wellness educator and founder of Reconnect Reconnect dashfamilies
dot com. Reconnect dashfamilies dot com. Julia, thanks for joining me,
my pleasure, Thanks for having me all right, so let's
break some of this down. First off, we've got this
new the warning label. Do you think this is gonna work?

(18:40):
I mean, so if you're on Instagram, you're you're thirteen
to eighteen, AI figures out even if you lie about
your age, it will figure out that you're thirteen. It'll
show you this warning label that says all kinds of stuff.
Do you think that's gonna work?

Speaker 4 (18:53):
I mean, you know, rich, it's a little bit hard
to tell until we see it in effect. I mean,
my understanding is that the label will continue to pop
up after prolonged use. So it's going to pop up
once in the beginning, and then you can bypass that,
and then it's gonna pop up after three hours, which
frankly is a long time to.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
Be on there.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
If you're on there for three hours after the first
pop up, I mean, there's there's no pop up that's
going to change that kind of exactly.

Speaker 5 (19:19):
That's that's what I'm thinking too.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
So I think it might make it frustrating to stay
on the app after an extended period of time, because the.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Second one has to time out. It doesn't go you
can't just click through it. It's like I think it
stays on there for like thirty seconds.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
It stays on for thirty seconds, and then it starts
popping up every hour. But as you just mentioned, you know,
if you're on there for a three plus hours straight,
we've got like a much bigger problem that a warning
label is not.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
Going to take care of.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Now, I mean, I do think that if social media
warning labels become the norm, you know, maybe across the
entire country, maybe that sort of serves to change the
culture ultimately, maybe it sort of puts it more in
people's heads that this is a really serious issue. I
just don't think it's a one and done. I think

(20:03):
it's more of like a trigger, like a cultural trigger
to raise awareness. Maybe in future generations it'll have an impact,
but I'm not sure the impact that it'll have on
current teens and twins.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
And so this will apply to platforms like Instagram, Snapchat,
and TikTok. And the other thing is that, you know,
I think what's happening here is we're finally realizing as
a society that these apps are not the healthiest thing,
especially for teens. Now, I see adults all the time
that are just as scrolling, just as much as teens.
But you know, they're adults. They could do what they

(20:36):
want with their lives, right, But teens are in this
kind of formative years time of their lives that they
don't necessarily need to be on the screens and be
exposed to all of this stuff all at once. So
I think that's kind of the delineation. But I think
we're realizing as a society that like this stuff is
not necessarily good, and it's taking some of these rules
to kind of put that in front of people's faces.

Speaker 5 (20:59):
Yeah, I mean I think that that's true.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
And you know, I talk to a lot of kids
and a lot of teenagers, and they too are really
sort of coming to the realization that it's just it's
not healthy for them. Now, does that get them off
of it? Not necessarily, not because they don't want to,
but because it's really really hard.

Speaker 5 (21:18):
To get off.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's the problem. I mean, I see
that with my kids now. I have two kids.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
They both have very different personalities, but one for sure
watches way more shorts and things like that, and it's
just kind of drawn into that. And I've seen that
with kids in general, Like when my kids are out
with other friends. There are some kids who can handle
this stuff, and they, you know, even though maybe they
shouldn't be exposed to what they're exposed to. They can say, Okay,
it's time to log off, I'm done. Other kids they can't,

(21:45):
and it's a lot tougher for them. And I think
that some of these, you know, the platforms may not
prey on that, but they they don't necessarily help with that,
you know, and maybe these kind of things do Yeah, okay, agreed,
we've got We've got Instagram now doing this PG thirteen
content guidelines by default, So teams under eighteen are automatically

(22:05):
placed in this thirteen plus content setting.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
They can't opt out. And what do you make of this?

Speaker 5 (22:12):
Well, we'll see. I mean, theoretically, it means that the.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Algorithms that decide what content is going to show up
in a child's feed will be programmed to filter content
based on, you know, parameters that align with current PG
thirteen movie guidelines, like, you know, some violence, but it
shouldn't be extreme or realistic, you know a little bit
of language, very brief sex, so you know, just tamping
it all down.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
I don't know, I mean, I think it's going to
be hard to know. Again until we're in it, it's
going to be a mixed bag.

Speaker 4 (22:45):
If your kid currently has a feed that's more you know,
in the sort of rated R realm in terms of
what they're seeing, then yeah, it might have an impact.
But if your child is seeing mostly things that are
somewhat age appropriate, maybe it won't be as noticed. Well,
I mean, hopefully it can put some guardrails around the
content that's most inappropriate are most harmful now. But what

(23:07):
it doesn't really do, which we were sort of hinting
at before, is it really doesn't address how addictive the
endless scroll is or doesn't address notifications, it doesn't address likes,
and actually those three factors are a huge problem for
kids in terms of their mental health. So it's not

(23:28):
really just about the content that they see. Yes, that's
one piece of it, but it's really about the other
ways in which these platforms hold and grip kids attention.

Speaker 5 (23:41):
That's really the problem.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Hm, That is a problem.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
And the other thing is that this is only Instagram
and TikTok is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the
room that is not doing this, And I know all
these platforms are saying that they're trying to do things,
which I do agree. I think they're making these tiny
little improvements I think, but it's still tiny. Like we're
talking like if the problem is one hundred percent, we're

(24:04):
at like one percent right now. So it's not something
that's just like, oh, you change the PG thirteen and
everything is just rosy. It's not that easy because kids,
by the way, are on a bunch of different platforms,
and they're interacting with these platforms in ways that adults don't.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Like you said, notifications and likes. I mean, these kids.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Will pour over the people that have looked at their
stories and who has liked it and who has not,
and they'll take note of that, whereas I don't think
as an adult, like I don't even have my notifications
on for any of this stuff right.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Right, And I mean, to be honest, it's like it's
pretty shortsighted because the social media platforms of today are
not the social media platforms of tomorrow. And so sure,
great Instagram does something, maybe it sets a precedent, but
if you don't have actual regulation, then it doesn't matter
what Instagram does, because the next Instagram or the next

(24:57):
TikTok doesn't have to abide by it, which is.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
What they gravitate towards.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Once these rules happen and this thing gets boring and
they go, okay, well now I'm moving on.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
That's enough for me not to use this.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
So what do you Okay, so you're an expert in
all this stuff, you deal with parents, you deal with kids.
Tell me what you're seeing out there and what you recommend.

Speaker 5 (25:15):
Around social media specifically.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, in general, like all this stuff, like just you know,
this whole world we're in.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
Yeah, I mean, what I see most is parents who
are very overwhelmed, who feel stressed out, in a lot
of fighting in families, and it really is just like
it's eating away at the bond, you know, between parents
and kids, and it just brings this level of stress,
this's undercurrent of pension and stress in the house that

(25:43):
parents are just totally.

Speaker 5 (25:44):
Fed up with.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
And also I think they have a really hard time
with being the screen time police, you know, and to
be honest, that tends to fall more on moms than
on dads, and they're just tired of it. And what
I sort of tend to recommend is a paradigm shift,
you know, I really want parents to accept the world

(26:05):
that we're in, as upsetting as it might be for them,
and go from screen time police to screen time ally
because being the police officer, it's only going to get
you so far. And you know, trust me, once your
kids are tweens and teens, you're not going to be
able to police them in the same way a teenager
is going to see and do what they want to

(26:27):
see and do. So stepping in more as a mentor
as an ally, getting curious about your child's online world,
asking them open ended questions about it, not just lecturing
and restricting. I think ultimately that goes a much longer way.
Now that doesn't mean you don't have, you know, boundaries,
because kids, you know, their brains aren't developed and they

(26:48):
have a hard time with self regulation, so you have
to create some boundaries. But at the same time, I
just think what we're trying to do is give them
the skills right so that as they grow older they
will stop and think. They'll be the critical thinkers and
the conscious users of their devices. And the only way
you do that is by really engaging with them in

(27:10):
thoughtful conversations about all this stuff that.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Is so true, and that is it's a struggle. I know,
it's a struggle in my house at times, and it
really is tough because all the kids are on there,
all their friends are on there, and it's so tough
to say, like, Okay, let's do something else besides this,
because why would you not want to be on this
endless source of entertainment all day long with your friends.
I mean, it makes sense, you know, if they're outside,
that's what you want to do too.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Back in the day.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
We're going to leave it there, Julia Storm. The website
is reconnect dashfamilies dot com. I'll put a link to
your website and your tips and tricks on there on
my website.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Rich on tech dot tv. Thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 5 (27:48):
Julia, Thanks so much, Rich Take care all right.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Coming up, we're going to talk about the gadget of
the week. It is solar powered, and I'll tell you
why Apple TV plus is getting a new name Plus.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
We'll take some of your calls at.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Eighty eight Rich one oh one eighty eight seven four
to two four one zero one back. After this, let's
go to Charlene in Hawaiian Gardens. Sounds fancy or.

Speaker 6 (28:19):
On with Rich Good morning. Thank you for taking my call.
I was explaining to the person that took the information
that I have the Zoom on my husband's computer, and
forgive me, I do not know what the computer is
outside is an HP. Okay, whenever the computer doesn't update

(28:40):
for some reason, I can get on Zoom just fine.
They can see me, I can hear them, but they
can't hear me. So when it did it sometime back,
I went to all these websites trying to find a
cure for the ailment of the Zoom, and I did
find a website that had me follow some steps. I

(29:01):
want to say that I had to do something in
the in the in the setting, in the what in
the command. It was a command.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
I think you've got it.

Speaker 6 (29:14):
I did that and it fixed it, okay, but then
it updated and did it again, and I can't find
that website.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Okay, well there's I mean, it sounds like you just
need to change the can you not You said you
can't hear They can't hear.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
You, right, they.

Speaker 6 (29:30):
Can't hear me.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
So it sounds like the wrong microphone is selected. If
I had to guess, because this happens all the time
on Zoom, I'm not sure why the settings don't stick,
but it happens to me all the time. But there
is a way to go into the settings before you
connect to a call. So if you open up Zoom
on your computer right now and just go to the
menu and it says settings, there is a way to
look at your video and your audio settings. So if

(29:54):
you go into your audio settings, it'll say the speaker
that you're on, and for me, I've got one too,
three four, five, six different things I can choose from.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
And then you want to look at microphone.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
So if you go to microphone you've got you may
have different microphones that you want that your computer has
on its system, and you just may be selecting one
that you're not on. So once you select that microphone,
you should see those little green bars moving that lets
your lets you know that your microphone is working. And
then they also have a test microphone option in the

(30:26):
settings where you can test your microphone that way.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
So that's what I would do. If all that's not working.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Then you have to figure out if it's a it's
a problem with Zoom or if it's a problem with
your computer. And so there's a whole bunch of websites
where you can go on and check your microphone or
your headset or whatever. One of them is. Webcam mictest
dot com. Webcam mictest dot com. You go there and
you can check your webcam. You can check your microphone

(30:53):
or your headphones. Just tap microphone and just say start
test and it will ask you for access to your
browser to.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Do the test.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
And once you do that, I'm seeing myself right now.
So again I'll put this all up on the website
rich on tech dot tv. Hopefully you get all fixed
up with your zoom there and you can cure and
see people. Thanks for the call, Charlene eighty to eight
rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Back after this, Donna wrote in

(31:26):
on the website. She says, I have photo albums scanned
and they're presently in my company's dropbox folder. I want
to share the scanned albums with my family for about
six months so everyone can download what they want. I've
been looking for a way to share. Google only lets
you share with five people. I need about a terabyte
of space. Amazon only lets you share with a limited
number of people. I'm wondering what suggestions you have, Donna.

(31:50):
You can share with an unlimited number of people. You
are confusing two different things. You are confusing sharing the
account itself and sharing the content in that account. So
when it comes to Google one like you mentioned, yes,
you can share that with up to five people, five
family members. That is the actual account space. But anyone
can generate a link from these cloud services containing the

(32:15):
stuff that you've uploaded, and you can share that with
the world. So if you went into your Google Photos
after you uploaded a terabyte of stuff and you just
clicked every single picture on there, or an album that
contained all these pictures, and you said share and you
posted that on social media, anyone that has access to
that link could download those pictures. So it's not limited
by the amount of people you can share the account with,

(32:38):
it's just how you generate that share link. And so
I would recommend you mentioned Amazon. If you have Amazon Prime,
for sure, use Amazon Photos because it's free. It's unlimited
and free. So upload all the pictures to Amazon Photos,
make an album, and then you just take that album.
You click it and there'll be a little share icon

(33:00):
when you click link. And there's ways to share with people.
You can share as like a group, but the easiest
way is just to share a link. So you generate
a link, and once you generate that link, you just
email that to your friends and family and now they
can see all of the photos in that album. They
could download the ones they want, and that's it. They
can't add anything, they can't change anything, but they can

(33:20):
access and download anything that you've shared. So again you
have to remember there's a difference between sharing the account
itself and sharing content.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
That you've uploaded to the account.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
All content that you share online has to live somewhere,
and someone needs to pay for that storage, and so
in essence, you're paying for the storage, but anyone can
download from that storage because they're just a bystander. They're
just downloading. You're the one uploading and storing it there. Now,
if you stop paying, that stuff would go away. So again,
I think Amazon Photos is a great, free, easy way

(33:53):
to do this. Again, put it into an album, generate
the share link, and then you can share that out
to your friends and family. And then if you ever
want to get rid of these share links, like if
you want to stop sharing, you can just go into
your settings and turn off that share link. Hope that helps.
Let's go to Kathy in Los Angeles. Kathy, you're on
with rich.

Speaker 7 (34:14):
Me.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Hello, Hi, Hi, Okay, I'm on the premiem right now.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Oh stay safe?

Speaker 8 (34:22):
No, no, no, I'm It's a two prong question, what
to do with old keyboards, old cords, power chords. I
have a new in the box, old compact wired keyboard
that comes with a wired mouth. Okay, A friend of

(34:44):
mine st keep it because if your keyboard on my
Dell laptop goes bad, I can always plug it in
and use it. That is that true?

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Is it a USB keyboard? Compact has been around? I
mean that's that's like a retired brand. I feel like,
so this has got to be old.

Speaker 8 (35:08):
Uh yeah, yeah, no USB, it is USB.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Okay, okay, well, if it's USB, yes, you could theoretically
plug it into your laptop. But here's the deal. You know,
you're you're preparing for a scenario that a has never
happened to me. I've never had a keyboard go bad
on my laptop number two.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
You know this is old. I would just get rid
of it.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
You can buy a keyboard on Amazon for like eight
bucks if you needed it, if you if it came
to that, and it's going to be a modern keyboard,
and you could buy a mouse for about three dollars.
So it's you know, it's it's not something that you
need to take up space in your home and keep
for this doomsday scenario. Now, if you have the space
and you just want to keep it, fine, then you know,

(35:52):
go ahead. But I'm not convinced that this is a
USB mouse that will fit into your computer. I'm it may,
but I can't remember the last time that Compac has
sold a mouse. And I'm trying to let me see,
when did Compac go out of business. Let's see, let's see,
I'm trying to see here, Okay, twenty twenty twenty five.

(36:15):
The brand is Okay is currently licensed the third parties
outside the US.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
It looks like it.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Was operating until okay, yeah, HP to twenty thirteen when
it was discontinued. Okay, So you're talking something from you know,
at least ten years ago. I would probably just get
rid of this. You could put on eBay. So if
it's in, if it's new in the box, nib as
we say on eBay, I would put it on eBay.
I mean, there might be a collector out there that

(36:40):
wants something like this in the box. If that's the case,
that's kind of cool. Otherwise I would just when you
need a keyboard and mouse, just order Amazon Basics or
Amazon Essentials on Amazon and you can let's see, let's
see how much a keyboard is Amazon. So the Amazon
Basics key board, Okay, I was at a little lower

(37:02):
on my price. It's eleven sixty nine. So oh a
keyboard wired keyboard and mouse bundle is twenty dollars. So
I don't really think you need to worry about keeping
this thing for the future. Now when it comes to
the other cables that you have. If you have a
bunch of stuff around the house that you want to
get rid of, Staples is a fantastic place to recycle stuff.

(37:22):
They take everything within reason. You can go on their
website and see exactly what they take. But they're really good.
Best Buy has a recycling program as well. You can
do that. And if you don't want to bring stuff
into the store. Best Buy has this cool thing where
they will ship you a box.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
You pay a certain amount for the box.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
I don't know if it's twenty five dollars, whatever it is,
but they'll ship you a box and you just load
that box up at home with all of your cables
and things, all your old tech electronics.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Throw it in the box. Again within reason.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
There's certain things that are allowed, certain things that aren't,
and then you just slap a label on it and
bring it to the UPS store or whatever and they
will take care of all that stuff. Apple Store you
can also recycle stuff there as well, So if you
want to bring stuff into the Apple Store, even if
it's not Apple, they will take it. And you can
go on their website and see what they'll take for
the recycling. And it's pretty generous. All of these recycling

(38:13):
programs are pretty generous, and I think some of it
is funded by the states that you live in, so
that's why they're getting a little help there. And also
they refurbish some of it, sell some of whatever they
do with it. But again, you want to look for
a place that's going to be reputable. And if you
don't know how to get the data off these machines,
some of these places promised to do that in a

(38:33):
secure manner for you. So if you can't power something up,
you can't turn it on, you bring it to Staples.
They say that they will take care of it.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
For you.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
And I did go to one of these facilities that
does this and I watch them. They take this computer
out of the box, they turn it on if they
can get it on, and then they immediately wipe all
the data off of it and then recycle the parts
and junk it. And it's pretty wild to see this process.
Thanks for the call, Kathy, and appreciate you listening to
the show. Speaking of Apple, apple TV plus is getting

(39:03):
a new name.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
When did this launch?

Speaker 1 (39:06):
I think Apple TV Plus launched around twenty nineteen and
everything was Plus plus plus, Disney Plus, and then you
had Max, HBO Max, everything's a Max or A Plus.
And then I was gonna make a joke there, but
I decided against it. And then now you know they're
slimming it down. Now it's just Apple TV. That's not confusing.

(39:27):
Now you've got Apple TV the app, you've got Apple
TV the box, and now you've got Apple TV the service,
which is a premium service. So it is changing to
Apple TV on now, I guess. And so just know
that twelve ninety nine a month, seven day free trial.
If you buy a new Apple product, you get a
couple months free. I'll be honest, I've subscribed to Apple

(39:50):
TV Plus since day one, and it's probably the service
I get the least value out of. But it's in
a bundle now. And by the way, the first year
was free and then I just kept paying and twelve
ninety nine a month. I would find it hard to
pay that, I think because I'm not really watching a
whole bunch of stuff, although I am watching a new
show on there, so I take that all back.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
It's all worth it.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
I think it's called Knife's Edge, Knife Edge, and it's
basically about these restaurants that are trying to get a
Michelin star, which I never really cared about because I'm
not the fancy food eater, you know, like they serve
you that little tiny thing in the middle of the
plate with like three It always has some sort of
fish egg on it, like a caviar egg.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
I guess that's fancy, but not to me. Like if
I see that, I'm like, can I scrape that off?
To like, sir, that's the best part the caviat I'm like,
don't know anyway, So I am watching that show and
then f one, finally, all the money that I've spent
on Apple TV Plus over the past six years is
all coming to a head.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
I didn't see F One in the movie theaters because
I knew it.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Was coming to Apple TV Plus because Apple financed it,
and so I said, I know this is going to
be on streaming, and so December twelfth, I cannot wait.
I'm gonna get all whatever five hundred dollars I've paid
over the past five years to Apple TV Plus. That
is going to be the movie I get my value
out of. So if you were like me and you
didn't see in the theaters, or maybe you did see it,
you want to see it again. F One coming to

(41:12):
Apple TV Plus or sorry, Apple TV on December twelfth,
and I will tell you that's going to break every
record they have, all of their sign ups, all of
their streaming.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
That is going to break it all.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
And by the way, I joke about Apple DV Plus
being my least, you know, return on an investment. I
also watch Platonic, which I think is hilarious. I watched
The Studio, which I thought was hilarious, and my wife
watches Shrinking, which she loves. So there is value. And
if you watch, you know, the Friday Night Baseball stuff.
It's there.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Some of the movies have been hit or miss, but
again there you have it all right.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Coming up, we'll
take some more of your calls. I'll tell you why
Google is making it easier to hide ads on its
search results. But there is a catch to that. Plus
much more right here coming up on rich on Tech. Thanks,

(42:11):
welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology. Triple eight rich one O
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
In the next segment, we're going to talk to Rebecca
Griffiths from Assurant. She's going to talk about the best
ways to get the most money for your phone if
you're thinking about trading it in. Let's go to fill
in San Diego. Phil, you're on with rich.

Speaker 9 (42:36):
Hey, thanks for taking my call. I want to thank you.
I always learned something from your show. I always try
and get at least an hour of you in every week,
so thank you.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Roch.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Well, I'm glad you're learning. That's my biggest goal here
is just to help and inform, so I'm glad that's working.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Thank you.

Speaker 9 (42:53):
We'll see what we can do here. Now I'm calling
on the behalf of a friend, a friend of her friend,
and I may be a little short on details, but
I'll call her Holly. I heard Holly's story in a
grief group where people lose somebody and they go for
grief group group grief recovery. And she lost her teenage

(43:18):
son recently as a good kid. Nothing the fairy is
going on. She can't get into his phone. In fact,
he got a pink iPhone because he was going to
turn it down to his sister.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
So he's a good po So sorry to hear that.

Speaker 9 (43:32):
Thank you. She's having trouble get in and finding a
way to get into his iPhone. She wants to figure
out later into his computers. Currently, her husband has talked
with several groups that know about this. They have an
Apple Phone manager helping them, a live person, and there's
a lawyer coming in and talking about seven thousand dollars

(43:52):
to help them get into this. I don't know where.
I know a lot of people in the in the
I could we go through this with deceased people And
I don't know what the story is up now, what's
current about how do people get into somebody's iPhone or
computer after they're deceased.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
There there's the The short answer is there's not an
easy way, and it's it's it may never be away.
So typically what happens is the iPhone is encrypted and
without the the passcode on that phone or a way
to you know, if you're a legacy contact, if you're
if those things are not accessible, it's really impossible.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Now there may be.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Ways around that, but I'm saying what's easy, and so
there's not like a setting on the phone or setting
on the Apple account where you just go, oh, this
person has passed away. I'd like to I'm you know,
I'm their parent or I'm their whatever I would.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Like to get in. You can't just do that.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
It's it's the way that these phones are set up
as they are private by design, and so that's great
for people at want to protect their privacy. Not so
great when someone is no longer here and you want
to get access to their device. Now, are there systems
that may be able to break that encryption and may
be able to get into that device. Absolutely, and law
enforcement uses those. They are expensive, they're not available to

(45:17):
the general public, and I'm not sure who this iPhone
manager is. I've never heard of that. That is definitely
I don't believe someone at Apple. I don't think they
assigned iPhone managers to folks. But a couple of things.
Number One, if you're listening to this and you want
someone to be able to access your account in the future,
you need to do what's called a legacy contact. Go

(45:38):
into your Apple account on your iPhone, set up what's
called a legacy contact. That means it will give you,
it will assign someone a special code. If you ever
pass away and you have no more access to your phone,
someone else will get a message that says, hey, you
can now access this person's phone. You can do that
with Facebook. You can also do that with Google. That's
number one. If you want to access requests or request

(46:03):
access from Apple, you can do that, but you need
legal documentation. So at a very minimum, you're going to
need a death certificate and a core order saying that
there's a reason why you need to access this phone,
and so you can get in touch with Apple with
that information, submit that on their website, and you can
work through that system. But that is not a simple

(46:25):
thing to do. Again, you have to have that core order.
So why is this so complicated. It's complicated for a
reason because if Apple made an easy backdoor to every
single person's phone out there, guess who else has access
to that back door. The government's the law enforcements out there,
and yeah, you might say, okay, we live in the US,
find whatever, but there are international governments that would love

(46:48):
to get access to millions upon millions of people's iPhones.
So this is a very tricky topic, and it's a
very tricky place because these tech companies want to encrypt
things to make sure nobody can get into these counts.
But then on the backside, it's tough for family members
to get in when someone passes get in easily, I
should say.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
So those are the main ways to do it.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
If you have access to the child's pin code that
unlocks the phone, you could you know, obviously that's very easy,
and you can use a program like I Amazing to
download everything from that phone. But that is that's going
to require having access to the phone, which you said.
In this group they mentioned they do not, but that's

(47:30):
what I would do. Those are the avenues you can
take take the phone to an Apple store. See what
the Apple Store rep says. If they say something different
than I said, I'd be curious to hear what they say.
And I'm sure there's a million people promising the ability
to unlock and open this phone. I would just be
very careful before I pay seven thousand dollars to do that.
You bet you better really need something on that device.

(47:52):
And I understand this is a very very sensitive topic
with your child and you want to see what they
had on there, and of course preserve their memories as well.
Thanks for the call, Phil, appreciate it. Eighty to eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Coming up, we'll talk trading in your.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
Phone for maximum cash. Nancy writes in I'm trying to
sell things on Facebook Marketplace and want to use a
second phone number so I don't have to give out
my real one. Is there a free or cheap way
to do that? Yes, there are many, many, many.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Ways to do this.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Uh, Google Voice obviously free easy way to do that.
Then you've got apps, so many apps. Text free is
one of them, Sideline is another burner.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Hushed.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Hushed is probably more for like the dating apps, but
that'll work as well. But they all let you create
a separate phone number for calls and texts. Some of
them cost money, some of them are free, some are
free with ads. But that's the easiest way to do
it if you want to protect yourself from spam calls
and just in general. You know, once you put your
phone your phone number out there on one of these things,
it's like you're it's out there. So I've got a

(49:01):
Google Voice, I've used Burner in the past, text free,
they're all pretty easy. You just have to sign up
and you know know what you're getting into and there
you go. But lots of ways to do that. Nancy,
thanks for the email. If you want to email me
Rich on tech dot TV hit contact. All right, it
is phone season, a lot of people buying new smartphones

(49:23):
trading in their old smartphones. Here to talk about that
is Rebecca Griffiths from Assurant Mobile trade and Expert.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Rebecca, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 10 (49:33):
Thank you for having me, Rich.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
So explain what Assurant is. How where would I trade
in the phone with Assurant.

Speaker 10 (49:40):
So.

Speaker 7 (49:40):
Assurant is a device life cycle and services company that
helps everything from protecting your phone to being able to
enroll in early upgrade programs to trade in, which is
what we're talking about today, and within our connective living business,
that's where mobile devices come into play.

Speaker 10 (49:59):
And you wouldn't actually reach assurance directly.

Speaker 7 (50:02):
We actually support the ecosystem behind the scenes, so we
provide the trade in programs that help power behind your
local carriers, your retailers, your equipment manufacturers, and that's where
you would go to trade in those phones. So whomever
is your carrier or operator today, or if you want
to do it at your local big box retailer or

(50:24):
online with your phone model of choice.

Speaker 10 (50:29):
Yeah, there's a lot of options.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Actually, got it.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Okay, So you guys, you're the behind the scenes folks
that power all of the trade in programs and insurance
programs out there. Can you buy you No, you can't
buy insurance directly from.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
You, huh.

Speaker 7 (50:43):
We're going to offer that through your local providers. So
then we're that behind the scenes, so we'll help make
good on all the fulfillment. You can reach us and
kind of connect to us once you're enrolled, but really
it's important that that relationship remains. So if you have
your telecom or maybe even with your cable operator today. Right,

(51:03):
there's a great offering there for mobile customers as well.
And when you go to sign up and you buy
that new device, that's the key time.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Right.

Speaker 10 (51:11):
So when you're buying that new device, then you want
to look at do you want to protect this device?
So you might think about that then.

Speaker 7 (51:17):
But the other thing is that device holds a lot
of value that's already in your pocket.

Speaker 10 (51:21):
And that's where trading comes into play.

Speaker 7 (51:24):
So you want to look at, hey, what can I
get for this device when I'm ready to move to
my next one?

Speaker 10 (51:30):
How much does this one still worth?

Speaker 7 (51:31):
And so whomever you're buying your new device from, it
has become so popular to offer a trade in program
that you're going to find that just about anywhere when
you're buying that new cell phone or even that new smartwatch. Today,
you can trade in a lot of different categories and
so that's.

Speaker 10 (51:47):
When you're going to do it.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
And you guys came out with this report I mentioned
on the show a couple weeks ago, this trade in report.
You said that the value to consumers is up. What
does that mean exactly?

Speaker 10 (52:00):
Yeah, So it's kind of exciting.

Speaker 7 (52:02):
So what we do is we kind of keep our
finger on the polls of where the trade and ecosystem
is at and how active consumers are participating in it.
And so what we saw that this last quarter in
Q two that compared to last year, the same quarter
that we saw a lot more activity in trade in
whereas Q two can be a little bit slower sometimes

(52:24):
there's not as many new phone releases, which is normally
what prompts people to move to that next device. They
want the latest and the greatest, and so we saw
that being a lot higher in Q two, and that
was really kind of those correlating factors. There's a lot
more promotions that were in market that drive people to
go in and trade their device, and then there's people

(52:44):
who are ready to move to new capabilities that are
out there. So we're seeing kind of that trend picking
up and we're expecting it to be even stronger as
we're in the middle of Q three right now.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
I was going to say, so Q two is like
April to June, that's before a lot of these big
phones come out, right, that's right.

Speaker 7 (53:04):
So April to June, what you'll see offers in market
back to that retail season, like dads and grads, right
like those types of things that happen. So we did
see some of that where there was a lot of
appeal of people to move into what we would call
like the the N minus one generation, so not that
latest that's coming out, but people knowing that new devices

(53:26):
that are coming out, they can get a really good
deal on that device that's in market today. A lot
of that activity driving it where there was before the
next one comes out. But this one's still really good,
go buy that new one now. So that that's what
we saw a much bigger uptick than we did last.

Speaker 10 (53:42):
Year at the same time.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
So funny, so many people tell me they do that.
They're like, I know, I know the new iPhone's coming out,
so I'm going to get the one that's before it
because it's going to be cheaper when that new one
comes out.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
So that's that's a strategy a lot of people use.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
So why would someone want to trade in their old
device instead of keeping it, you know, in a drawer
at home in case something breaks in their new device.

Speaker 7 (54:03):
Oh so many reasons, let's just start with that. A
lot of times people think I'll keep that as a backup,
but in reality, once you've moved to that new device.
It's really hard to go back to a previous generation
device and there's the hassle of moving things, and so
instead what happens is that device get stuck in their
drawer and it's kind of like a rotting banana, right,

(54:24):
like just losing value every single day. And so instead,
if you can trade it in the same time, you're
going to get the most money put back in pocket.
And this is the other cool side. You're doing something
good for the environment. So not only are you keeping
out landfills, but when you're trading that device just because
you're done with it, many of these devices go on
to have a second and sometimes third life, so they

(54:46):
go back.

Speaker 10 (54:46):
Into that ecosystem.

Speaker 7 (54:48):
They get referved, cleaned up, and then used back again,
either in certified pre on programs, sometimes as a program
fix and replace, and so there's there's a lot of
use and that's kind of that participation. And you know,
we're all looking to say, how can we do good
for the environment and be part of, you know, more
of a circular economy, and this is a great way.

(55:09):
So it's not only like good for mind your pocketbook,
but it's also doing that good for the environment and
keeping that device going rather than just letting it waste
in the drawer.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
How do you I mean which devices I guess are
having the most value right now?

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Is it always the iPhone typically or what.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
You know?

Speaker 10 (55:27):
It really goes back to it.

Speaker 7 (55:29):
It follows so I think people are really comfortable with autos,
right You think of your car that you have, and
a car that is going to be the most premium
or the latest is going to hold the most value.
And that same type of thought process goes to smartphones.
So it used to be like ten years ago plus
we didn't even think of, you know, these devices as

(55:50):
holding that much value.

Speaker 10 (55:51):
We have the like you know, the old candy bar style,
et cetera.

Speaker 7 (55:53):
But today these devices they are really little powerful computers
that are in our pocket.

Speaker 10 (55:59):
And so the more premim and.

Speaker 7 (56:00):
The device is, that's going to dictate how much value
it is. So those ones that are more expensive that
first time round, they're going to hold that value.

Speaker 10 (56:07):
And then also the better condition.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
That it is right I was going to ask about that, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (56:13):
Yeah, yeah, and that that is definitely So those are
the biggest drivers. So that for sure that that make
model coming out, and then the condition that it is
really drives that value.

Speaker 10 (56:22):
If that device is damaged.

Speaker 7 (56:25):
Depending on the level of damage, that'll drive down that
value pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
Right, Okay, so that that's my final question. We've got
about a minute left. You know, the accessories, like if
you put a case on it, you have a screen protector.
You know, some people like to go you know, caseless,
they like to you know, just use their like this
is the way my phone should be. But when it
comes to that trade in, you can really boost your
value if your device is in like really good condition.

Speaker 7 (56:50):
One hundred percent. And those are great tips for all
of us to take away. Keep that case on there,
keep that stream protector because when you know, not only
is it going to be in good shape for you,
but when you're ready to trade it in, you're going
to get the best value for it when you upgrade
to that next device. And then the other things is
when you're ready to trade in, go through, make sure
you wipe it, make sure you like you get it ready,

(57:11):
and you do your research of what are the best
promotions that are in market when you're ready to buy
the next device, And that's how you're going to get
the most value out of it.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
And at the end of the day, if I couldn't
wipe it, would you guys do that securely?

Speaker 7 (57:23):
Absolutely absolutely use a reputable, reputable company when you trade
it in, and you know that part of that process
on the back end, they're sending it to full R
two facilities that are ensuring there's complete data wipe and
security and sending that back out.

Speaker 10 (57:37):
So you want to make.

Speaker 7 (57:38):
Sure you get your information off because those are you know,
that's important data that you need. But then also know
that if you're using any of those reputable companies, they're
doing that on the back end.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
All right, Rebecca Griffiths, thanks so much for joining me
today from Insurant.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Really appreciate it.

Speaker 10 (57:52):
You're welcome. Thanks again.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
All Right, I'll put a link on the website rich
on tech dot tv to Assurant. You've probably heard of
them though, if you have insurance on your phone through
your carrier or whatever. All right eight eight eight rich
one O one eight eight eight seven four two four
one zero one.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Coming up. I'll take some more of your call, some
of your emails.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Let's see what else were we going to talk about
connectivity and things that changed in Japan over the years.
And Google is adding a hide ads button. I'll explain
that coming up right here on rich on Tech. I
posted a great app, great website on my newsletter this

(58:31):
week rich on Tech dot tv. It is called vert
v e r T. The website is v e r
T dot s H. And what's great about this website
is it just converts any document that you have that
you need converted. Don't even worry if it's supported. They're
all supported images, audio, documents, and video. And the neat

(58:53):
thing about it is that all the processing is done
on your device, so that means that it's private, and
it's open source, so people can see the source code
on this.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
And it's just really easy.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
You got an image, you got an old image, you
want to throw it in there, It'll convert it into
a JPEG. You got some sort of old audio file,
or you just want to convert an audio file, throw
it in there. It'll convert it into whatever you want. Documents,
everything except the only one that's not support is PDF.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
I've noticed.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
That's the first thing I tried to drag in. I
was like, oh, let me grab the text. Can't do that.
But everything else epubs, ODT, whatever that is, json, CSV,
and then video is supported, So all those old videos.
You may have a tiny old video on your from
your smartphone or your your regular flip phone back in
the day, some random format like I don't know what

(59:42):
was a just MTS, M two ts mg flv VOB,
all those random formats that are lingering on your system
that don't open.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Throw it into here. Now that is done on their server,
so just you know. That's just know that. But otherwise,
I mean, this thing is really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Vert dot sh the website for the show Rich on
tech dot TV. I'll put a link there if you're
googling stuff, and I already had this happen on my Google.
But you can now hide ads in your Google search results,
but first you have to scroll past them. So basically
the change here. Let me see, let me see if
I can bring this up on my computer. It's just

(01:00:22):
tough to Let's see if I type in best sports,
let's just put in best mattresses because that one there's
usually a lot of ads for it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
So I'm looking to see.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah, okay, so I don't I think you have to
be logged in on your account to have this happen.
But it showed up on my account the other day,
but it was like, basically, you go to your search
results and up at the top, all those are sponsored.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Typically.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Now you're going to see one label that says sponsored
and then a couple of ads, and then once you
scroll past them, there's a button that says hide sponsored results,
and you can just hide those.

Speaker 7 (01:00:56):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
I don't know why you'd want to do that every time.
I mean, it seems like a lot of work, but
at least it's an option. I think that for many years,
and Google makes a ton of money on this, people
are confused as to what's a sponsored result and what's not.
Now I'm not saying Google doesn't properly label these, they do,
but people just ignore that label. But when you're going
on Google, the top results are typically sponsored unless you

(01:01:17):
have some sort of ad blocker running on your system.
But now they're giving you that option to hide those
sponsored results after you scroll past them, which is handy,
but I mean, who's going to take the time to
do that every single time? If you live in California,
you can now get a free phone line and a
free smartphone. This is through Total Wireless and they are
owned by Verizon, so you're going to get a great network.

(01:01:40):
But basically they're launching this new California Lifeline program with California.
If you're eligible, you can get unlimited talk, text, and
six gigs of data for zero dollars a month. Now,
that's after you qualify for the program. It's usually like
twenty nine dollars and then they get some sort of
government grant or assistance to pay that. That twenty nine
dollars all directly done so you don't have to worry

(01:02:01):
about it. You also get a free smartphone if you
want unlimited data eleven bucks per month, which is pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
So if to.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Qualify, you have to be enrolled in one of these programs,
one of these government programs like CalFresh or medical or
you know, one of the you know, if you're on
one of these programs, you qualify for this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Basically you can apply online or in store.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
There's no contracts, no credit checks, and I put the website.
It's kind of a weird website, but it's www dot
mygdpbenefit dot com slash TWCA Total Wireless California. I'll link
that up on the website because it's it's way too
tough to remember. But my gdpbeenefit dot com, slash TWCA

(01:02:45):
and you have to put the www in front of
it or else it doesn't work. So if you want,
you can go to my instagram at rich on tech.
I've got this post. But if you're on one of
those programs and you want a free phone line, like,
why not get it? I think it's fun to through
the other phone lines, right, Like, if you're paying for
a phone line, I think you pay a small amount
that funds these other free programs for everyone to have this.

(01:03:07):
So again, California, other states have similar things. Let's see here.
Gerald writes in Hey, rich, my phone says I have
compromised passwords? How do I change them by letting the
password app handle it? Good question. Well, if you're using
let's see would you say you're on iPhone. If you're
on iPhone, Apple has that built in password manager, that's

(01:03:28):
probably given you that warning. So if you go into
Settings password Security Recommendations, you'll see a list of those
compromised logins, and then they'll have a link that says
change password on website. The password manager doesn't necessarily change
the password. Now, some of them do have that functionality
where they can go out and directly change that password.

(01:03:49):
It's been a while since I've seen that, but they do.
Some of them do have that functionality. I think dash
Lane has it. I think Last Past might have had it.
But otherwise, all you have to do is go directly
to the website change and go to the change password link,
so you can say forgot password or just change password.
And then once you're on that website, the password manager,

(01:04:09):
when it gets to that field where it says enter
your new password, it will suggest, it'll spring into action
and suggest a new password, and you can accept that
password and then save it to the password manager. And
all of the password managers pretty much work the same
way in this regards. So the thing is, if you're
using a password manager, you have to remember to use

(01:04:29):
it to both generate the password and save that password.
There's nothing worse, I'm sure there are, but there's nothing
worse than when you generate a password using your password
manager and then it doesn't automatically save that password and
you're like, where did that password just go? So a
lot of the password managers will have a password generator history,

(01:04:51):
and if worse comes to worse and you didn't, it
didn't pop up to save that password you can go
into the history and look at the passwords that you generated,
and usually it should say the last date and time
that you generated a password, and you can copy that
and manually enter it into your password manager. But the
thing about people and password managers, they don't want to
use them because they see them as like too complicated.
They're actually very easy once you get into the habit

(01:05:14):
of using them, and on your smartphone and on your browser,
you need to decide which program you're using as your
password manager, because the problem is all of these phones
and platforms have their own password manager that tries to
pop up and intercept all this stuff and work because
they want you to use their password manager. But you
get to decide which password manager.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
You want to use.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
So whether you're on Android or iPhone, you can go
into your settings and decide which password manager you want. So,
for instance, on Android, it's under typically under autofil, So
if you type in in the settings in the search autofill,
it'll say under passwords, pass keys, and autofill your preferred service,

(01:06:01):
and you can go in there and choose the service
that you want to pop up when you're using your
password manager. Same thing on the iPhone search for autofill
or passwords, and there's a place where you decide you
don't need to use Apple's password app. In fact, I
really like a third party app like bitwarden because it's
it works everywhere equally. Eighty eight rich one oh one

(01:06:22):
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Back after this, we had a Divina right in from Littleton,
Colorado who listens on KOA love the show, learn a

(01:06:42):
lot from you each week.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Another thing about Apple TV.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Starting next year, they're going to have the rights to
the F one races for the next five years. Yes,
I meant to mention that as well on the show,
and I just did so. Yes, Apple and Formula one
have signed a five year exclusive broadcast deal. Next season,
every F one practice, qualifying, Sprint, and Grand Prix will
stream on Apple TV. Obviously, Apple did really well with

(01:07:09):
F one the movie highest grossing sports film ever made
six hundred and twenty nine million worldwide.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Really really that? That's okay?

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
My son loves sports movies, that's all he watches. He
loves those kind of movies, So I can't wait to
watch this with him December twelfth. Anyway, the F one
content will also appear across all of Apple's properties, and
there you have it. Apple is a force to be
reckoned with at this point. I mean, now they're doing
baseball games, now they're doing F one, they have a

(01:07:44):
movie studio, TV studio, you know, all the gadgets they make.
It's just unbelievable, Like how much bigger can this company get?
And the irony of Apple, the irony of Apple, and
I hope I'm telling this story right. But back in
the day when Apple wanted whatever the deal was with

(01:08:04):
their name, it was a whole thing with Apple, the
you know, the British company set up by the Beatles, right,
it was this whole thing where like Apple wanted to
use the term Apple.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
I think it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I see, I should have looked this up before I
told this story. But the whole thing was that Apple
was like, we are never gonna sell music, so you
can give us this name.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
See I'm already you know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
I'm not even gonna tell the story. I'll tell it
after I look it up because I want to get
the story right. But long story short, the irony is
that Apple now sells everything. I mean, what don't doesn't
Apple sell At this point, books music, TV shows, movies, gadgets.
I mean, it's just it's just wild. Yeah, well, when's
the car coming out? I don't know Adam wants the car,

(01:08:48):
but I think they gave up in the car. But
it would be a perfect fit, perfect fit. They already
have showrooms in every mall in the world. You can
drive a car in there, and now that if one's
done so well, maybe they will make a car. Maybe
they'll buy the rights of that too. Nathan is in Arcadia. Nathan,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 9 (01:09:09):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
Rich. My wife and I just bought a high Sense
TV and Spectrum is our cable provider. The problem we're
having is with the Spectrum remote. If I when I
hit the system button, it'll turn off both the box
and the TV. And if I hit the system button again,

(01:09:29):
it'll turn on the box and the TV. But if
I come back ten fifteen minutes later, which is normal,
and I hit the system button, it only turns on
the box and not the TV.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
So the first time it turns it on every time,
and then the second time it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
If I turn it on right away, within a minute
or two after turning it off, it'll turn on the television.
If I come back ten fifteen minutes later, it only
turns on the box.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Okay, not the TV.

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
Have an answer?

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Well, I think it depends.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
You can turn on the TV using the right of course.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Yeah yeah, but you want the one remote to do both,
which is what the universal remote is supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
I think.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
So, first off, this is working through line of sight. Correct,
this is not an RF remote, do you know that.
It's like, so you have to aim it at the TV, right, yeah, okay,
And then the batteries are fresh, I'm guessing right, brand
new batteries. And now, so the thing what I'm thinking is,
and I have a high sense TV, I don't use

(01:10:35):
the universal remote with it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
I just use the included remote.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
But I'm thinking that sometimes these TVs have a sort
of a little time out period, or you need to
hold the power on button a little bit longer. I'm
wondering if this thing is not firing long enough to
correctly turn this on the second time after the TV
has gone into like a little bit of a deeper sleep.
That's my only thought. So when you press the power

(01:11:02):
button on your remote, do you hold that down for
like a second or two?

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
I think I hold it down for like half a second,
but not much longer.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
Okay, now, who programmed this remote for you?

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
What? It came programmed? But I went and got another
remote and I programmed it, and I got the I
put and then I called up Spectrum and they walked
me through programming it, and so they did I guess
over the phone.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Okay, So I mean, the only other thing I can
think of is perhaps this remote. I mean, the fact
that it's turning the TV on and off means that
it's clearly working for that model. But it could be
that maybe it is not fully programmed, but it's just
weird that it would work to power it on. So basically, okay,
you can always power it on the first time, and

(01:11:56):
then you can always turn it off the first time.
But then after fifteen minutes, like you come back into
the room when it's off, you're like, oh, I want
to turn this TV back on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Nothing happens, just the cable box goes on, right. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a tricky one. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
The only thing I can say is is that is
there a button on the remote you can program for
just the TV power or is it just one universal
power button?

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
Yeah, there's a button I can do for just the TV,
and I've tried that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
And that won't work to turn it on and off. No,
it won't turn back on.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
It won't turn back on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Well, the only other thing I can think of is
go into your Have you gone into the high Sense settings? Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
You mean to their website?

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
No, like on your TV itself.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
This is a smart TV, I'm guessing right, right, Okay, I
would go into the high Sense settings and see if
there's anything that says sleep. Wondering if this TV is
going into a deeper sleep and the remote that it
comes with might unlock that, you know, the deeper sleep.
But if you go into your settings, there might be
a setting. I feel like I remember changing something on

(01:13:04):
my TV that basically makes it so that it goes
into a deeper sleep for energy conservation. There might be
a setting there that you can toggle that might keep
the TV in a more awake state, that might allow
it to come on at any time, even after you've
turned it off recently. So that's the only thing I
can think of, Nathan, a challenging situation. I will tell

(01:13:27):
you that universal remotes are good, but sometimes they are
not perfect, and that could be that you're experiencing this
frustrating problem. It may not be solvable, but I would
go into the settings on the high sense. This sounds
like it's a problem with the high sense. Sounds like
something's not firing for long enough, and also the high
sense is not receiving that information quick enough.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
So thanks for the call, appreciate it. That is frustrating.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
I've just gotten to my high sense remote because it's
the easiest, and I use the high Sense built in
Google TV because it just works. And I had the
whole remote with the every and I'll be honest, every
remote I've had with the Apple TV and with the firestick,
they all seem to work for a period of time,
and all of a sudden they just stop working for

(01:14:14):
something like one of the small like it doesn't change
the input, it doesn't change the volume, it doesn't power
it on or off, like something changes in that system
for some reason. And yes, you can go through and
repair it and stuff, but it's just like, why can't
it be simpler? Why can't this stuff just work? Steve
from Beaumont writes in Hey Rich, Apple charges nine hundred

(01:14:36):
for the iPad Air thirteen inch with two hundred and
fifty six gigs of storage, But the same iPad is
seven forty nine on Amazon, brand new, not refurbished. How
is that possible? Good question. Apple never discounts its products ever.
There's never a sale at the Apple Store. But if
you're an authorized reseller, you could do whatever you want.
Amazon can sell this for half the price. They just

(01:14:59):
take a law on it. It's been going on forever.
You have to remember, when a product sells for nine
hundred dollars, it does not cost nine hundred dollars to make.
It might cost, you know, whatever the cost of that
product is. My Amazon might buy it for five hundred.
So if they're selling for seven forty nine, they're still
making two hundred and fifty bucks on it. If they're

(01:15:20):
selling it for the full price, they're making even more.
This is just I'm not a sales expert, but the
way I understand it is that there's always a wholesale
price that a business is buying a product at. And
it's like when I was selling my book, right, there
was a cost of that book and whatever it was,

(01:15:41):
let's say it was four dollars and seventeen cents, I
don't remember what it was, but I would sell the book.
I think it was twenty dollars on Amazon, and then
it was twenty five if you bought it in person
with an autograph, and so there was a range of
whatever I made on that book was between ten and
fifteen dollars depending on what it sold for. Now, Amazon

(01:16:02):
would go through and that book was selling when it
was like number one on the tech books, Amazon would
discount it. The higher it went on the charts, the
more Amazon would discount because then people would buy it more.
And so they're still making a profit even at when
they were selling it for twelve dollars because the cost
of that book was like four And I don't know,
I'm just giving you random numbers here.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
I don't remember what the pricing was.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
But it's again, Amazon themselves would discount things when they
got popular because they knew what that bottom line price
was that they as long as they are above that,
they're still making money on it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
So that's how Amazon does it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
That's how every retailer does it, is that they come
up with whatever they want to do, and they know,
by the way, on Amazon, and maybe not so much Amazon,
but other stores we call them. We I'm not a
store owner. But you know they call it a loss leader.
They sell things for really cheap on blackfront because they
know you're probably gonna come in there and buy something else. Yes,
do people hack the system and buy just that thing

(01:16:59):
and save a bunch of money.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Absolutely, but chances are you're going to buy something else.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Eighty eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four
to two four one zero one. Coming up this hour,
we're gonna talk to Eric O'Neill, a former FBI operative.
He's going to talk about protecting yourself from the biggest
online threats, plus your questions, your calls, your emails, the feedbacks.
Coming up later and coming up right after this, I'll
talk about my trip to Japan right here on rich

(01:17:25):
On Tech. Just found a cool website, United starlinktracker dot com.
So United Airlines this week did a big press event
with a bunch of journalists, invited them out to Denver
to fly on their first mainline aircraft, a Boeing seven

(01:17:49):
thirty seven. Then now is equipped with starlink. So if
you know what United's doing, They've been equipping all of
their express planes. Those are the little ones, usually the
EJ E er J one seventy fives. They you know,
they operate under SkyWest or whatever. They've been outfitting all
those and now they're doing the main line and they've
got one, I guess one plane. But this website is

(01:18:12):
great because it tracks the I remember when this is
so wild, Like I'm a big United Airlines person because
I fly a lot between the two coasts and that's
what I've been taking for twenty five years. And you know,
old habits die hard whatever. But anyway, well, I'm from
you know, I'm from New Jersey, so I fly into Newark.
That's where I fly into and that's where United flies into.

(01:18:34):
That's their hub. So I'm sticking with it, you know.
And uh, I tell you this because there was a
point on United when I was waiting for them to
install Wi Fi on their planes, like we're talking ten
years ago, and they used to have a little Wi
Fi installation tracker on their website where you can see
and I was like waiting for the day when Wi

(01:18:54):
Fi would be on my flight. And now it's on
every flight and it's by the way, eight bucks, which
is so cheap. I mean, I connected. I flew back
from Tokyo connected to the Wi Fi. I mean, how
am I connected to Wi Fi from Tokyo to Los Angeles?
Just it works. Now they're doing Starlink, which is gonna
be absolutely incredible, fifty times faster than you know, typical

(01:19:17):
Wi Fi on the plane. Anyway, this website tracks the
planes that have it, and so you can look it
up and it's got the main line. They've got one plane,
it's got the tail number for all these planes. So
if you're on end seven seven five two five, looks
like it's mostly out of Denver, Denver just keeps going
back and forth to e seeing Denver and all these
other little cities. But anyway, Starlink's gonna be free for

(01:19:39):
Mileage Plus members and it's just gonna be super fast.
It's just amazing. You have to watch a fifteen second
ad before connecting, and everyone that tried it on this
flight seem like they loved it, and I just I
can't wait, Like it's gonna it's gonna change working in
the sky.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
Like right now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
I typically if I fly anywhere, I want to be
back home in time for Friday because I want to
plan this show for the weekend. But now it's like, no,
I'll just I'll fly back on Friday because I can
use Wi Fi in the sky that actually works and
it's super fast. Speaking of my trip to Japan, I
outlined a lot of it in my newsletter this week.

(01:20:19):
Rich on tech dot tv if you want to sign up.
But I was there for c Tech. This is kind
of like their cees, you know, but in Japan, Tokyo.
So I've been going to the show for about a decade,
and I find it so fascinating the changes in Japan
since I've been going. I've been staying at the same hotel,
same convention center, but every time I go there, something's

(01:20:41):
changed just a little bit. So my first trip, I
will never forget this. And I don't know if I've
ever told this story on the air, but I was
flying to Japan. This show is always in October, and
I land in Japan, and this was the first time
I was going. I get there and my phone will
not connect, like there's just no signal. And this was

(01:21:02):
back before you know, e SIMS and everything was easy
and all the international roaming and plans and all this
stuff you had to still pay for, like international roaming,
and so I turn on my phone, I thought I
had roaming I did not whatever it was did not work,
and so the hotel it was like an hour to
get to the hotel. By the time I got off
the plane got to the hotel, it was probably over
two hours. I was not with a connection in addition

(01:21:25):
to my whole travel day, so probably eighteen hours total.
I get to my hotel and I was meeting my
colleagues who were already on the ground. I make it
to my hotel, I unpack, I go up to their
room to meet them, say hello, and they're like, Rich,
You're so calm.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
I'm like, why wouldn't I be calm. They're like, well,
you heard the news. What news? Steve Jobs passed away?

Speaker 7 (01:21:45):
What.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
I was like, wait what? And I knew he was sick,
but you know, it's it was just like a surprise.
And so I'm like, can I check my email on
your Like, you guys have your system figured out. So
I go there, I check my email on their computer
and I'm to had two hundred emails from all over
the world. Number one, you know with the news. Number two,
where are you? Number three? How come you're not responding?

(01:22:07):
Number four? Can you do an interview? And I missed
all of it, every single bit of it, every single
interview that you know, people requested this and that I
missed it all because I was eighteen hours into this
news cycle and that was it and there was nothing
I could do. And I never felt so out of
control and just so helpless in that situation. Also sad,

(01:22:28):
but it's just that was it. Anyway, fast forward to today.
You're on the plane, you have connection, you get off
the plane. My both of my plans I have both
my premium plan I have in this cheaper plan I have.
They both have international roaming included. So it's just like seamless.
Before it was like you couldn'tven I couldn't even find

(01:22:49):
I remember being in Japan not even finding an ATM
that would take my debit card. Now everywhere is tapped
to pay, every atm works, the Wi Fi is everywhere,
by the way, roaming is everywhere. They also have this
thing called the sweeka card. It's like kind of their
metro card that's digital. You can literally sign up for
this thing using Apple Pay right on your iPhone. Google Maps.

(01:23:11):
I mean, navigating Japan so easy. We made it around
everywhere just by looking at Google Maps. Oh my gosh Ai.
Literally Ai is like having the smartest travel companion in
the world. I'm not kidding you. Just upload a sign
in any language. Don't even explain it. It will just

(01:23:32):
explain the sign to you. I'll come back and tell
you what it all means. Unbelievable eight to eight rich
one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. I'll link up the ramin spot
I found that was so amazing on the website.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
Rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
Back after this, Welcome back to rich on tech rich
DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology web site
rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
I was talking about my trip to Japan.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
I've got to tell you I packed the best travel
pillow I've ever found. I know it's not a gadget,
but I would consider it gear. And I have flown
for twenty five years. I will tell you I have
never slept better on a plane in my entire life.
In my entire life. In fact, I don't even try

(01:24:26):
to sleep on planes because it's so uncomfortable. I don't
try to use one of those U pillows because they
do not work.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
This is so.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Wild, I don't okay, I'll tell you how I found it. Actually,
I'll tell you how I found this travel pillow. I
asked CHATCHBT and Google Gemini for the best travel pillows, right,
and they both came up with their own independent list.
And guess which pillow was on both lists? And I
said that one must be good. And it's called the
Turtle TRTL And what's neat about now? I'm not the

(01:24:57):
first person to discover this pillow, by the way, it's
a clearly it's a known thing because I'm looking at
the website Conde Nast, Buzzfeeds Strategists, New York Times, Sunday Riley,
I just didn't know about this, and it is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
It's almost like it's.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
Not even a pillow, almost more like a neck brace.
So you put this little brace and it's all covered
in like felt, so it feels really nice. But you
put this on the side of your neck and then
you wrap this thing around you and at velcroz so
it stays put. It is unbelievable. I am telling you,
if you buy one travel accessory this year, this is it.

(01:25:37):
And it's a little bit more expensive. Yes, I will
admit I think I paid fifty bucks for this thing,
which is a lot for a travel pillow, but it's
cheap compared to first class. You can sit in an
economy seat in the middle and sleep like a baby.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
No big deal.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Okay, two million people have bought this pillow already. Okay,
so I'm not the first to discover it, but I'm
telling you it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
Is so good.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
I couldn't wait to get back on my flight just
to put this thing on. I'm like, hold on, cause
the first flight, I was like, all right, this is
the first time I'm using this. I slept pretty well.
Maybe I was just tired. Second flight, no, same thing.
I just slept again. I mean, it was really, really incredible.
I'll put that on the website. Rich on tech dot TV.
By the way, speaking of gear that I brought to Japan,

(01:26:22):
I did detail every single thing that I brought, all
the gadgets. I call it What's in I mean, they
do this on YouTube. It's called What's in my Bag?
So I did what's in my travel bag and my
newsletter this week, and everything from the backpack to the
phones I packed, to the iPad to the kindle, everything
I bring I put in this list. It's all right there,

(01:26:43):
and it's all detailed, so I you know, I'll tell you.
I mean, it's backpack, it's phones, iPad, Kindle. Well, actually
I was testing a Kindle alternative my MacBook. Mike's a tripod, cables.
I explained exactly which cables, power bank. I use, the
Meta ray ban glasses, which were great for jogging, by

(01:27:06):
the way, all the accessories, the Ethernet cable, the Ethernet adapter,
a USBC card, a tablet stand, a gaffers tape roll. Yes,
I bring gaffers tape on every trip I go on,
and it is coming handy so many times. The air
tags alcohol wipes, motion sensor for my bathroom, like a
little night light.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
I know, I'm a little baby. I need a night
light in the bathroom, Yes I do.

Speaker 1 (01:27:31):
I don't want that. I don't want to turn on
the light in the middle of the night. You wake up,
you reset your whole body. A little tiny night light
comes on. It's nice carbon monoxide detector. I didn't even
need my travel adapter. You know, half of these places
you go you don't even need an adapter anymore because
they either have a USB port in the room or
your regular plugs just plug right in, like in Japan,

(01:27:53):
the standard plugs not a three prong but a regular
plug will plug right in, and most of the power adapters.
If you look on the back of a tiny tiny
writing they say something like they are voltage from like
one twenty to two forty, so it actually has almost
a little converter built into the Now, I'm not an
expert in this stuff, so don't, like, you know, don't

(01:28:13):
don't email.

Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
Me, be like Rich, you're that's a lie, Like it's.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
I know, but there's something that like it can handle
a wide range of power and still not melt. Now,
if you're talking about a hair dryer or something like that,
sometimes you know you do need a proper voltage converter. Anyway,
it's all on the website Rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
Go there. Uh, let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
Jennifer writes in, Hey, Rich, I enjoy your morning segments
on TV. I wanted to ask about chat GBT. Is
there a way to verify how accurate it's answers are.
Some of my friends take everything it says is fact,
and I'm hoping to show them that it's not always right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
Oh, you want to show them.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
That's the best when people try to get you, like
it's always like when you post something on social media,
there's always the fact checker that comes on board and
like explains what's really happening. It's like, okay, I get it.
So we're just trying to have fun. Sometimes, She says
she's also uneasy about AI in general. I still prefer
good old fashioned research. Well, you're the only one, Jennifer,

(01:29:11):
because no one else cares about that anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:29:14):
I'm being a little facetious, but the reality is, I'm
not kidding. People have gotten so lazy that when they
search something on Google, they just look at what's called
the AI overview or those little answers that come up,
you know how it shows you other things people are asking,
and people just expand that and like read the tiny

(01:29:34):
thing that's written there, and they'll take that as gospel.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
The reality is, no, I am a journalist. You cannot just.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Take what you see highlighted on a Google search result
page as the answer. Even when you see the AI
mode or the AI answers, it's not always right. Now,
I will tell you AI mode is really good. Okay, interesting,
I'm reading what it says about this interesting, But the

(01:30:02):
AI overview can be wrong. When it first came out,
you remember it was telling people to put rocks or
glue on their pizza and eat rocks. Now it's gotten
a lot better since those days. But in general, when
it comes to AI, you cannot take what it says
for granted, you have to imagine there are some issues
there and there could be some errors. And so if

(01:30:24):
you're an expert in an area, just Google search and
look at the AI results or chat gybt some of
the things that you know about to be true and
it doesn't always get everything perfect. So what can you
do to fact check this? Well, you got to just
use your judgment. You got to go in and if
it's if it's giving you a fact. Like when I
said this f the Partnership, I talked about that F

(01:30:46):
one movie, Right, the Partnership follows Apple's success with F one,
the highest grossing sports film ever at six hundred and
twenty nine million worldwide. So I can take that from
chat gybt and go into Gemini and say fact check. Okay,
I'm gonna put that sentence in. And what Google's gonna
do is go to the Internet and it's going to
look for things that say that that's true or not?

(01:31:10):
And so what does this say?

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
F one?

Speaker 1 (01:31:12):
It's the highest grossing sports film ever.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
This is true.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
Multiple sources confirm that the film has surpassed previous records.
The worldwide gross is six hundred and twenty nine million,
essentially true. Many reports cite that. So now we're gonna
ask what was the previous highest grossing sports film ever

(01:31:35):
before F one?

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
And let's see what it tells us. And we're getting
an answer.

Speaker 1 (01:31:41):
The previous the previous highest grossing sports film worldwide was
Cars two.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
Now is that a sports film?

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
I don't know, okay, And AI kind of understands that
there's something a little weird about that, which centered on
an international auto racing competition. I mean, okay, I think
that's a little bit exaggerated. If you strictly consider only
live action films or pure sports dramas, the previous record

(01:32:16):
would be different. Okay, I'm gonna say I don't think
Cars two qualifies. And let's see what AI says. And
this is what's so fun about AI again. You are
able to talk to an interface with this AI as
if it was okay, see, and this is where it
just goes downhill forrest Gump. That was not a sports movie,

(01:32:39):
was it? Okay, that was not a sports movie. That
is crazy?

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Yeah, like what's happening? Yes? Was there a game of
ping pong? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
Okay, there was uh fast five? Okay that maybe I see.
I wouldn't even consider that a sports movie. I guess
if you're talking about fictionalized sports. But to me, a
sports movie'd be like Rudy right, like that's a sports movie?
Or was it blind Side? Was that it or the Blind?

Speaker 2 (01:33:08):
Something?

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Was something like blind in the title the blind Side. Yeah,
that's a sports movie. I didn't see it, but it's
a sports movie anyway, Jennifer. To answer your question, you
just you gotta do some extra searching if you are
in doubt of something you're seeing online, which ninety nine
percent of the time when I'm scrolling, yes I am.

(01:33:28):
You got to cross check in fact checked, fact check.
I will tell you this is how fake some of
this stuff is you see online.

Speaker 3 (01:33:36):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
I cover technology for a living, so I'm pretty well
versed in tech and I can tell when things are
a little Offesometimes I was experimenting with TikTok and just
kind of watching, you know, I don't go on TikTok regularly,
but I will go on there from time to time
to kind of check it out. That doesn't mean I
don't watch shorts. I watch shorts on Instagram and stuff.
But I'm not kidding. Two things I noticed, well, i'll
tell you the first thing I noticed the other day

(01:33:57):
when I was scrolling through TikTok, just kind of testing
it out, Like, what's all the hype here? You see
the same stuff over and over and over done different ways.
I'm not kidding that Taylor Swift Opa Lite song or
whatever it's called. Every single real is using that song,
and it's always like some aesthetic people are showing off

(01:34:20):
or something. You know, whatever they're showing, it's just like
somehow related to that song because it's a trending song,
so people want to capitalize on that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
That's number one, number two. And this was this was
a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
There was a thing going around a TikTok where people
were cutting open an iPhone box and in the iPhone
box was a secret case for the iPhone. Now I
knew that was not true, but after watching fifteen people
cut open an iPhone box with an exact erazor blade,
I had to go literally into my closet and find
an old iPhone box, and I'm like, let me see.

(01:34:52):
And the old iPhone boxes were a lot thicker than
they are today because of the you know, they didn't
have as much environmental stuff like now it's all like
pay and much more compact, and nothing's included with the
iPhone except the iPhone now maybe a cable, and so.

Speaker 2 (01:35:06):
Back in the day, the boxes worth thicker. I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:35:09):
I went into my closet, even though I knew this
was fake, and I said, I took out a box,
I cut it open the way that they did it,
very carefully, and sure enough, there was no case inside,
and I knew it was fake, but I couldn't tell
you how many of these I watched where someone pulled
a case out of the iPhone box, a clear little case,
and it was just like, I sat there and just
laughed to myself. So, yes, there is misinformation, fake news.

(01:35:35):
All this stuff is happening on social media and on AI.
I don't think AI tries to do that, but it
just happens based on how AI is made. There are hallucinations,
It makes mistakes. So I'm glad you're fact checking. Jennifer,
please spread the word about fact checking. Okay, what do
we we gotta go to break?

Speaker 3 (01:35:53):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
Okay, we're going to break. Let me do one more thing?
Could I do one more thing? Yeah? Okay, I'm getting
the thumbs up.

Speaker 1 (01:35:59):
Wayne from Apple to in Wisconsin writs in Hey, Rich,
I listened to on w hby thank you and on
Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:36:05):
I've got a big music collection.

Speaker 1 (01:36:06):
I play through CarPlay, but the volume levels are all
over the place. I'm constantly turning the knob up and
down between songs. Is there a Windows program that can
make all my.

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):
MP three's the same volume level? Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:36:18):
Thanks for tuning in way and appreciate you listening. Try
the program called MP three gain. It'll analyze your tracks
and adjust their volume. And I do not believe you
have to re encode them, which is nice, but just
test on a couple of files first before doing this
to your whole library. But yes, if you have a
collection from over the years, these things have wide ranging
volume levels. MP three gain. MP three gain is the

(01:36:43):
oh It's a free software. I believe that you can
use to do that all right. Eighty eight Rich one,
OH one is the phone number. Eighty eight seven four
to two four one zero one coming up. We are
going to open up the feedback. Yes, I can't believe
it's that time already coming up right here on Rich
on tech, Nasa writes in I called in about my

(01:37:13):
Netflix and Amazon Prime apps not working on my Sony
TV after switching to T mobiles wireless internet.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Yes, I remember troubleshooting.

Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
I tried everything you suggested and then finally called T Mobile.
Turns out, because I bought my router under a business account,
it had safe search enabled, which blocks streaming. See I
would have never figured that out. Once they removed it,
everything worked properly. Just wanted to share in case it
helped someone else.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
Great tip.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
And this is why I love the questions that come
into this show, because some of them are just they're
a mystery, and it's like everything I know about tech,
I'm like.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
That doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
And you can give the advice that you know to
be true, but there's always something that might be in
the background, like that you bought it through the business
account they had this feature enabled. Thanks for the update there,
Mickey Wrights in, hey, rich Ring, why you don't talk
about the TCL sixty x e five G. It has
this cool feature that switches the screen from black and white,
kind of like an ink mode. It's great for reading

(01:38:09):
or browsing Amazon without all the color glare. I've had
TCL phones before, even the first one you talked about
back in the day, and they still work great. This
one's under two hundred and just works. I thought you
might just want to check it out, Mickey, Yes, I
have been testing. They call it next Paper. That's their technology.
It's kind of like a mix of e ink and
a standard display. So I've got a tablet from TCL

(01:38:32):
that has that on it, and it kind of reads
like a kindle, but then you can flip it into
full color mode. The thing is, I don't think the
screen looks as good as a dedicated kindle with the
e ink, Nor do I think the screen looks as
good when it's a dedicated iPad. So if you want
something that's in the middle, yeah, you're gonna give up
a little bit on each side. But you know, I
think it's a great thing. And TCL, I think, you know,

(01:38:56):
they're not as mentioned much with the smartphones, but they
do have some decent smart and their stuff is actually
pretty clean. When you get it. DH Rights in about
my Amazon issue. Remember I told you last week that
I had some issues with my Amazon Prime Delivery not
getting delivered. DH says, you can contact Amazon. They should
have just replaced the undelivered items. It happened to me

(01:39:17):
once the delivery photo showed a completely different apartment. I
checked nearby units, couldn't find it. Contact Amazon. They sent
replacements right away. Just a tip for next time. Leo
Rights in regarding your Amazon non delivery. I've had the
same thing happen more than once, even down to checking
my ring camera. Usually the package shows up the next day.
Sometimes it never does. I think it's just a lazy driver.

(01:39:38):
I've had good luck with Amazon's phone support. If you
call and explain what happened, they'll credit your account for
the miss discount.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
And he gave the phone number for Amazon. Yeah. I
didn't want to call Amazon. That's the thing. I didn't
want to deal with that, So yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
Sarah Wrights in Great Show, Great Guests, Your scam Experts
comments were spot on. In your newsletter, you mentioned Amazon
missing into I don't think it's a rare miss. It's
happened to me twice in the past. Couple of months.
I don't even order that much. I won't speculate on
where those packages end up, all right, So clearly yes,
with Amazon delivering millions upon millions of packages a day,
they're bound to get lost, stolen, whatever, redirected, misdirected.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
Next time I will call.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
Frank writes in after looking you up on Facebook, I
have to say not what I expected. You present yourself
very professionally, and today on air when you mentioned you
don't answer texts, cool to all things strived for, I
do know what that means. Thanks for all your years
of help. Rich have a blessed week.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
I'm glad I'm more professional than I sound, probably just
because they took a good picture.

Speaker 2 (01:40:40):
Let's see Andy. Oh no, that's not it. What do
we have here?

Speaker 1 (01:40:45):
Susan writes in I love your show. I make sure
to listen to the podcast every week. I've learned so much.

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):
I want to thank you for your Prime Day recommendation.
I bought the Lenovo laptop you mentioned after my old
one died, and I absolutely love it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
You're the best. Oh, thank you, Susan.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
And finally, Robert writes in thanks for the public service
that you do your calming, presence and approach, train your
audience to hopefully not respond emotionally to the tactics of scammers.
It's so important to slow down and think about things
before reacting to most things in life, but we need
constant reminders. That applies to emails and social media. Yes, Robert,
slow down, think before you act. I think my parents

(01:41:21):
told me that when I was a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
That's going to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
For this episode, you can find links to everything on
the website rich on Tech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
You can find me on social media at rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
Next week, Scott Stein of Cina is going to talk
about Samsung's new VR headset they're launching, and the CEO
of Veay. This is a rental car service that drives
the car to you remotely. What thanks so much for listening.
So many ways you can spend your time. I appreciate
you spending it right here with me. Please don't text
and drive, don't dive, drive distracted.

Speaker 2 (01:41:49):
Thanks everyone who makes this show possible. My name is
rich Dedmiro. I will talk to you real soon

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Host

Rich DeMuro

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