Quantum breakthroughs, Apple talk with Brandon Butch & the best photo apps (150, Nov 29, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to rich on Tech.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Rich Tmiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight
seven four two four one zero one. The website for
the show rich on Tech dot tv. If you want
to send me an email, you can do it right there.
If you want to submit your question that way. While
you're there, be sure to sign up for my free newsletter.

(00:24):
New issue went out this weekend, so be sure to
read that. Coming up this hour, we've got Brandon Butch,
tech YouTuber and writer at the Apple Den. He's going
to talk about all things Apple this week, all the
little announcements that they had, So we'll get on the
line with him and talk big breakthrough from Microsoft. Now

(00:44):
this goes way over my head. It's quantum computing, but
it seems like a big deal. This is a new chip,
the Mayorana one. This is a groundbreaking quantum chip powered
by a new material who invents a new material, all
topo conductor. They say it's the biggest breakthrough in computing
materials since silicon. The topo conductor topological semi superconductor is

(01:12):
not a solid liquid or gas. It's a new state
of matter that scientists have theorized for about one hundred years,
but hadn't achieved it until now. My friend I Justine,
did a great video. She went up to Microsoft and
did a video on this thing. And apparently this this
new chip they made to work has to be in

(01:32):
like a space that is colder than outer space, like
in this kind of they put it in this chamber
just to work.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's how wild this stuff is.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
So the main thing about this material is that a
could drastically speed up quantum computing development, so cutting timelines
from decades to just a few years. And that means
that these chips are so incredibly powerful they can solve
complex problems faster, so things like energy, healthcare, environmental cleanup,

(02:05):
so things like self healing materials, sustainable agriculture, advanced chemical discoveries.
Because they can compute this stuff so much faster, the
timeline for figuring out these solutions is quicker. Now, this
is all theoretical at this point. I mean, they came
up with this chip and the material, but now they
actually have to somehow use it, and so I think

(02:26):
that's the next step here.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
But pretty wild.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
The topoconductor based cubits cubits are with quantum bits. They
are so small, one to one hundredth of a millimeter.
I mean, I don't get It's like, how do you
even think about this stuff? We're talking about things you
can't even see. Now, here's the whole thing with quantum computing.
There's a lot of errors apparently in the quantum computing

(02:53):
realm because of the way that these chips are designed.
So when they're coming up with the calculation, apparently they
have a lot of mistakes. And so the big thing
that they've been trying to figure out is how to
make less mistakes. And I guess Microsoft's breakthrough has much
more error resistance and digital control for better performance. So

(03:15):
it just sounds wild. I'm excited just because anything with
these breakthroughs we had Google. I talked about a breakthrough
in quantum computing with Google a couple of weeks ago
or a couple of months ago, and now we've got Microsoft.
So again, the timeline for all of this stuff just
continues to accelerate, and I'm here for it. Very very exciting.
Let's go to Mark in Los Angeles. Mark, you're on
with Rich.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Rich you excited about quantum computing.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Mark, I'm very excited about it. Maybe it'll solve my problems.
I have two R low camera systems. I've had them
for years and with the old app they've been great.
I had to upgrade to the new app and the
new app is just terrible and difficult and very complicated.
I can't set the same schedules and alerts. I do

(04:00):
have paid subscription. However, the real problem is I called
Arlow customer Service in India. I've spent hours on the
phone with different people and they can't figure it out either. Well,
that's a problem, don't know, you know, it's just too complicated.
When I ask a question, they put me on a
long hold and they come back with an answer that

(04:20):
I know that they don't really understand. My question is
is there a way to get back to the old app?
They said no? Or is there a way to contact
Arlow someone in the US to get like real answers,
like how do I make this all work?

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Well, the second question is a good one. I will
reach out to Arlow and see what they say. But
I think that have you asked for like an elevated
customer service supervisor?

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Have you done that?

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Yes? And and someone is supposed to call me. They
haven't yet, but I mean, you know, I think they
probably will, but everybody, I mean, this is really it's
kind of like the Saunos app. They come up with
a new app ap.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Oh oh, Mark, don't get me started on it. I
oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
I've had Sonos for since almost since day one, and
my system I I can't. I used to not be
able to speak high enough about Sonos. Now I don't
think I could ever recommend it to someone because it's
so terrible. Yeah, the app. I still cannot adjust the
volume on all of my speakers at the same time.

(05:31):
That is that is insane to me. This is something
that is like, this is.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Almost like the same thing. Now. They have told me
I do have two different locations, which was never a problem.
One of the people said, well, maybe you have to
get it by a second subscription, and I said, well
I never had to before. And if that's the the
the the goal of the new app is just to
make more money, you know. One that's not very It

(05:56):
doesn't make me happy, but it should have been disclosed
that way.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
So okay, so the main system, so your system doesn't
do what it used to do anymore, correct Okay, Now
when it comes to the app, now, I don't know
how much.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
When did they update this.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Apps, Like a couple of weeks ago, I think it's
pretty recent.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Do you have an Android or an iPhone?

Speaker 4 (06:20):
iPhone?

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Okay, well that's a problem.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
So so on Android, you you can go to websites
called APK websites that will give you the actual old
versions of apps. So in this case, if you wanted
to go download the r LO secure from you know,
a couple months ago, you might be able to find
it on this like an APK website. There's one example
is called APK Mirror. Now, you got to be careful,

(06:42):
and I'm talking to Android folks right now, because if
you're downloading APKs, that is there could be room for viruses, malware, spyware,
so you do have to be careful. But a lot
of times Google will scan them, you know, in this
the website that you're getting it from, as long as
it's reputable as well. So I'm just saying proceed at
your own risk. With iPhone, that is not possible. Once

(07:04):
iPhone upgrades, there's really no way to go back. There's
not a system to do that. So for you mark
the problem is how do you get these things to
do what you need them to do, and what do
you need them to do that they're not doing.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
It's just the to have two different systems, both easily accessible,
and to go ahead and set different schedules and alerts
for both for either system.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
But they're in different locations.

Speaker 4 (07:32):
They are, But that was never ever a problem with
the old app.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Okay, yeah, I mean so that I don't know because
I don't use our low so I don't really know
why that changed. But I can understand that if you're
looking trying to think like with my standard camera. So
if they're on two different Wi Fi networks, is that
what I'm hearing here?

Speaker 5 (07:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, so I think that is. They probably said, like, look,
if something's on one Wi Fi network, you can't manage
it from the same place because you're gonna have to
do you have to log in separately for each network.
Now or do they all show up on the same app?
They just you just can't control them.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
They all show up on the same app. But but
you just now one of them no longer records and
one of them can't be set and in general before
actually that, the the app itself is just terrible in
just in terms of how you you know, have to
now do a very complicated setup for what used to
be a very easy thing. I just hate to have

(08:28):
to buy another subscription when before I didn't have to.
But but but I'm not sure that that's actually going
to solve the problem.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, well, I mean, so what do you what do
you need the subscription for for? What do you use
that for?

Speaker 4 (08:42):
Uh, it's it's to record and uh, you know, to
record any kind of camera alert camera video, and it
gives you your really good alerts, and you know, I
don't mind paying for It's always functioned really well.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Have you searched online for the r low app update?
Are there people complaining about this?

Speaker 4 (09:01):
I went on the community. Yes, they are complaining.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Okay, I'm looking at Reddit right now. There's a do
you know about the website Reddit Answers No, yeah, so
I just searched. Reddit Answers is sort of like they're
you know Reddit, right, Yeah? Okay, so Reddit Answers is
sort of like their AI and so it searches through
all of the reddit forms without you having to do
it and summarizes it and so yeah, people are definitely

(09:24):
having issues with motion detection, GEO fencing, and scheduling the
user interface. People are threatening to switch to different brands.
Some people have found partial solutions by tweaking settings like
motion sensitivity and redefining activity zones and third party solutions interesting.

(09:46):
Seymour By prompt Ai, I can't I don't know if
I would recommend that, but yeah, it sounds like Mark,
the issues you're having are not unique to you. The
best I can say is I will reach out to
r Low and see what they kind of say. If
this is a more recent update, which it sounds like
it is. Maybe they're still polishing things, But I would
say my instinct is telling me that if you're saying

(10:07):
it's tougher to manage the two different locations because of
the subscription situation, it's probably because they want to push
you to subscribe in more ways. And that's really and
this is the sad part about all of the tech
companies at this point, is it used to be technology
was unifying and empowering for the consumer, and now we

(10:29):
are seeing a shift towards benefiting the company first, and
that's always an issue and all these and it's all
because of subscriptions. Once these companies got an idea that,
by the way, we're not going to sell you a
box of software once, we are now going to have
you subscribe every month for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Why would you not want that?

Speaker 2 (10:50):
And so it seems like every improvement quote unquote improvement
we've seen with tech has always been pushing consumers towards
that subscription for the stuff they really want. I think
that might be what's going on here. Hopefully the app
will get better over time. Eighty eight rich one oh
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you about Google's new

(11:13):
AI tool that helps you discover your next career, and
Google's bringing one of their best Android features to iOS
kind of sorta. I'll explain you are listening to rich
on tech. Jace writes in on X Hey, rich on Tech.

(11:33):
I'm a visually impaired person and the home button on
the iPhone is something I strongly value. With the sixteen E,
it will take a lot of getting used to for me,
and I would prefer still having my home button. I
used an SE three at the moment. Yeah, you know,
that is an interesting point, So it will take some
getting used to. I think that you'll be able to Yeah,

(11:57):
that's going to be interesting, but it's it's good to
have different persons effectives and jas.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Thanks for that. Appreciate you writing in on that. Google.
A couple notable items.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
First off, Google is bringing one of their best features
from Android to iPhone, but kindness sort is not going
to work in the same way. If you've listened to
me at all, you've heard me extol the praises of
Circle to Search on Android. I think this is the
differentiator right now between Android and iPhone because anything on
your screen on Android you can search, you can reverse search,

(12:29):
you can circle whatever you need, you can search it.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
On iPhone you can't really do that.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
So there's times when someone posts a restaurant or a
link or a phone number, whatever, and if it's not
like something that is clickable, you can't do anything with it.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
But on Android you can.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
You just bring up Circle to Search and it will
find the links, it will find the phone numbers, it
will search the images, it will search the whatever you want,
text translate things. I mean, it's quite miraculous. So anyway,
in iPhone, there now bringing similar functions calling it Circle
to Search, but they're calling it Search Screen with Google Lens.

(13:06):
And so if you want to try this out, this
is on Chrome or the Google App. You don't have
to screenshot anything. So when Chrome, tap the three dot
menu and then selects Search screen with Google Lens. And
in the Google App, you can tap the three dot
menu and choose search this screen.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
So it's not perfect, but it's a little bit better.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
And it's basically being billed as Google Lens but in
a different way. But it's only going to work inside Chrome,
which is fine if you're using Chrome as your browser
and Google App, which is fine. It's a start, but
the fact that this works across anything on Android is
pretty incredible. And then Google launched a new tool called
Career Dreamer. This is an AI powered tool from Grow

(13:50):
with Google that basically lets you explore potential career paths
based on your skills and also your background and your interests.
So if you're sitting there thinking, gosh, I really kind
of want a new job. Whatever I'm doing is not
really working, but I've been a professor for twenty years
and I want to try something new, well, this tool
basically has you go through a series of prompts saying Okay,

(14:13):
what are your skills, what's your current classification, what are
your skills, what do you like to do, what's your background?
And then it will come up with things, thanks to AI,
that you may be good for. And it taps into
job market data, so it's like basically finding stuff that
is not a dead end, stuff that's growing based on
the Bureau of Labor Statistics and also job market data

(14:36):
from light Cast. It can also help you make a
resume a cover letter, but kind of cool if you
want to try it out, grow dot Google slash Career Dreamer,
Grow dot Google slash career Dreamer and pop in your skills.
See where you can go. I should have done this.
I should have done this to see what it comes
up with for me. That'd be fun. Let's see here.

(14:58):
Let's go to Patrick in reading. Patrick, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 6 (15:03):
Hello, Rich, Hey, I have ways Wise Security systems okay, and.

Speaker 7 (15:16):
I I bought two one.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
I've got a heart out here, so I need a
question real quick here, Sorry.

Speaker 7 (15:25):
I have I want to know how to connect two
new cameras, but none necessarily Wise cameras. They can pan okay,
because the Wise three PAN doesn't have night vision.

Speaker 8 (15:40):
They can't fix it.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
So you want to connect them to what the wise app?

Speaker 7 (15:47):
Or no, actually a separate app. Is there an app
that I can connect wise cameras to end it can
be the cheap camera.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
No, you gotta you gotta use the separate apps.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
The only thing you could do possibly is bring them
into something like Google Home app. You might be able
to monitor several of them from there. But as far
as I know, I've got a couple different cameras in
my house and they're all on different apps. So if
I want to look at I can look at the
cameras from let's see here, I can look at all
of my let's see here. Yeah, I can look at them.

(16:23):
Let's see those are all Nest cams. Yeah, so it
looks like you have to Yeah, you may be able
to link them up through the the Google Home app
to view them, but your best bet, Patrick is just
going to be to use the separate apps because you're
going to get the the full uh you know, the
full features of all these different cameras through their own apps,

(16:46):
their own respective apps. So as far as I know,
you can't just mix and match into one place. But uh,
you know, it's it's these these companies are building silos, right.
They want you to use their app, they want you
to have a subscription, they want you to have all
the same thing. And I think that yes, you'll be
able to do some of the functionality through the Google
Home app if you have that per se, or maybe

(17:08):
through the you know, the Home Kit, the Home on iOS,
but I think for the most part you're gonna.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Have to be stuck with the separate apps.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Coming up, we're going to talk to Brandon Butch of
the Apple Den about all announcements from Apple this week.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Right here on rich On Tip.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
We've got Brandon Butch here, tech YouTuber and writer at
the Apple Den. Welcome to the show, Brandon, thanks for
having me, Thanks for being here. So I'm here, I'm
I'm hearing a little echo here for some reason.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
So let's talk. First off, explain what you do.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I met you at this Samsung event up in San
Francisco and we hit it off. We were chatting and
you know, learned about what you do. But tell me
what you do exactly.

Speaker 9 (17:58):
Yeah, pretty ironic that we met at a same Tunging
event because I mostly do Apple content, so I've been
doing that since two thousand and eight on YouTube. And
I have a newsletter as well called the Apple Den
where I write about Apple news every week, and that's
just been my thing for a long time, covered the iPhones,
the software, pretty much anything to do with Apple products.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
So Apple big announcement this week obviously the new iPhone
sixteen E.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Uh what do you make of that?

Speaker 9 (18:24):
Yeah, So that was kind of a surprise because I
think everybody went in expecting an SE four you know,
kind of a continuation of the cheap budget model. So
when Apple announced the price at five ninety nine, it
was a little bit more than people are expecting. But
I think we also got more than people are expecting
with the sixteen E.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
So it's the first ever you know, E model from Apple.

Speaker 9 (18:42):
And I personally view this more like an iPhone ten
R from twenty eighteen compared to like an iPhone SE,
So I don't really view it as an SE equivalent.
It kind of is, but I view it more like
the ten R because it has a lot of the
you know iPhone fourteen design language, but with a lot
of the more modern iPhone sixteen, like you know, Apple intelligence,
which I think is a big deal. The action button,

(19:04):
the O lead display is a big one because the
iPhone ten R back in the day, the big you
know drawback with that was the LCD display. So yeah,
I think the sixteen E. It's priced at five ninety nine,
it's two hundred dollars cheaper than the regular sixteen. It
is missing some of the more advanced features, but I
think this is targeted to people who just want to
go into the Apple store. You know, hey, what's the
cheapest iPhone you have. It's going to last me all day,

(19:25):
battery life boom. They say five to ninety nine. It's
two hundred dollars cheaper than you know, the sixteen, but
it still has the sixteen name in it.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
It's an easy sale. I think, yeah, that's that.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
That was my kind of thesis at the top of
the show is that I think Apple's going to sell
a ton of these.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
I think so too.

Speaker 9 (19:41):
I mean, if you look back at the iPhone ten R,
that was you know, everybody made fun of the iPhone
ten R when that phone came out, you know, back
in the day, and that sold extremely well for Apple.
So I kind of view this as going down a
more similar path to the as the iPhone ten R
compared to like maybe the previous SE models.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
What about this whole modem. I mean, they've got like
a Apple built modem. I know, it was a big
deal when Apple shifted away from the Intel chips and
their computers to their own, and that's just been fantastic.
Their computers have been so good ever since they did that.
Is this bad for Qualcom?

Speaker 9 (20:14):
I think it is bad for Qualcom if you're you know,
maybe an investor, But I think it's great news for
Apple iPhones, especially moving forward. Maybe it'll show up in
other things as well, but iPhones especially. I mean, we
saw the big difference that makes just in battery efficiency
for the first generation of this C one chip. So
it's the C one modem, that's what it's called inside,
and you know, eventually it's so it doesn't have millimeter wave,

(20:37):
it doesn't have the super fast five G speeds just yet.
But you know, most people, especially buying a base model iPhone,
are not going to care or even know what that means.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Oh wait, hold on, So so explain that again, because
I I've seen that Apple keeps saying this is a
five G modem. So first off, the phone will support
four G, right, correct?

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (20:57):
But it's not going to have that ultra wideband, so
like like on Verizon, let's say, when you get into
those like really fast speeds when you get into a
UW section or on T Mobile, I think they call
it like UC so will it not support those?

Speaker 9 (21:11):
Correct, Yes, it will not support those. That's called millimeter wave,
and that's you know, one of Qualcom's main benefits. So
that's gonna mostly be and like you're really populated cities
New York, California, like in the city, if you're in
a more rural area, it's not gonna you probably never
have seen that before on your phone.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
So oh when I see that, Brandon, I'm like, I'm
literally like downloading all of Netflix. When I see that,
I'm like, all right, baby, let's down. Let's do whatever
we can to take advantage of this speed. Because something
I mean, I think I've gotten like really really fast,
like faster than home on some of those Okay, so
the sixteen E anything else that you think is notable

(21:49):
that we should talk about with this device.

Speaker 9 (21:52):
Yeah, I think one of the main things that I,
you know, quickly picked up on and a lot of
people have mentioned this as well. So there's no mag
Safe support, so the magnets in the back. You know
a lot of people have the mag Safe wallets that
they just stick on to the back of their phone.
That's not in the iPhone sixteen e. So that's a
big drawback for a lot of people. Also for the
wireless charging, you can wirelessly charge the sixteen e, but

(22:13):
it does not support mag Safe, which enables faster wireless charging,
So that's not the big deal. I think a lot
of people are kind of upset that they can't use
maybe their accessories that they had. However, you can buy
cases with magnets in it, so it's not a complete
lost cause it's just not in the phone itself.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Right.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
And the other thing is the face ID. You know,
of course on my Facebook page, you know where rumored
speculation runs rampant. People commented, Oh, well face ID is
you know your face biometrics are instantly sent to the cloud.
Now I know that not to be true because it's
stored on device, but just can you go over fact,
like what the difference is between face ID and the

(22:50):
touch ID.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Is it as secure?

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (22:53):
I think it's more secure because touch ID, you know,
you can take somebody's finger if somebody were to do
something crazy and you know, have your finger without you knowing,
they can unlock your phone, whereas face ID you there's
a setting where you have to be actually have your
eyes open and looking at the camera. So if you
were knocked out or something and somebody couldn't just put
the phone up to your face and unlock it. So

(23:14):
I think face ID is a lot more secure than
touch ID.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
So the other headline that of course a lot of
people are sharing online is this whole cloud encryption change
in the UK. Right, so Apple has this setting where
they can you can super encrypt anything that you send
to the cloud that nobody can tap into and out.
Now they're getting rid of that in the UK, not
in the US, just in the UK. Does that mean

(23:38):
that Apple's looking at your stuff and the government's looking
at your stuff?

Speaker 1 (23:41):
And how big of a deal do you think that is?

Speaker 9 (23:43):
Yeah, So just a little backstory here real quick. So,
so the UK government basically demanded Apple to create a
backdoor to allow the government to in view to view
that encrypted user data globally. So they were trying to
pitch a back door that would allow the government to
view everybody state, including those in the US, so Apple
of course denied creating that backdoor, and instead they just

(24:05):
decided to pool the end to end encryption for iCloud
storage in the UK, which is called Advanced Data Protection.
So basically, now British user files like the iCloud backup
files will be accessible to Apple, so they'll be able
to be shared with law enforcement if they have a warrant,
things like that. Now, I do not see this happening
in the US whatsoever. The UK has been you know,

(24:26):
pushing back against end encryption for years now for some reason,
so this is kind of bound to happen at some point.
But yeah, I don't see this happening in the US
at all.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
How long before Apple just says, you know what, UK,
We're now longer going to do business here.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
I mean, they're changing.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Every aspect of how Apple wants to do business when
it comes to privacy and security by opening up the phone.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
You know, they made them change to USBC, which I
do like.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
But still, you know, they opened up the app store,
the payment method is like all this stuff that's just
like a thorn and Apple side. How much more can
they deal with before they just say, you know what?
Europeans you can't have the iPhone.

Speaker 9 (25:03):
Yeah, you know, it's such a big market for them
that I don't see that happening. I think they'll continue to, like,
you know, maybe remove features and things like this to
kind of, you know, find a middle ground. But the
thing is a lot of these EU changes where a
lot of people are against it at first, but now
fast forward years later, most people are kind of happy,
you know, that they kind of forced Apple's hand and
doing things like USBC and some of the other ones.

(25:26):
This is the first one that I think, just globally
is just like a bad idea for them, like to
even pitch in the first place.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Okay, we've got about a minute left, so I'm going
to leave it to you. Is there any other I
sent you a whole bunch of topics that I wanted
to touch upon. Is there anything else that you want
to touch upon that you know we haven't yet?

Speaker 9 (25:44):
Yeah, I mean Vision US two point four. I know
there's probably twelve people out there with an Apple Vision
Pro right now, but you know, Vision of US two
point four is a massive software update that's going to
bring a lot of big features to the Vision Pro,
things like Apple Intelligence supports a companion app for the iPhone,
kind of like with the Apple Watch. So you're gonna
have an app on your phone where you can have
an improved guest mode. You can kind of see what

(26:06):
the person is seeing in the vision Pro from your
iPhone via airplay, which is really cool. So I just
think it's gonna Apple's gonna continue working on the Vision Pro.
Despite the you know, not very many sales of that,
They're still continuing to build it out to be something great.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Will there be? I mean, is there a future for
the vision Pro?

Speaker 9 (26:24):
I think theree is. I think we're still ways away.
I think the weights and obviously just the infrastructure. It's
still in its infancy. We're only on the second version. Ever,
it's like going back to iPhone when it was iPhone
OS two. We're now on eighteen, you know, sixteen years later,
so I kind of see it following a similar path
where it's going to take quite some time.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
All right, Brandon Butch, thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 9 (26:45):
Thank you appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
All right.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Follow him the appleden dot com, theappleden dot com. He's
got a newsletter, he's got information. He's also on YouTube,
so find him. Brandon, Butch great source of Apple information.
Appreciate you being on the show today. Link on my
website rich on tech dot TV. Coming up, we'll take
more of your calls at Triple eight rich one O
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(27:09):
zero one. And I'm gonna tell you the app you
have to get on your phone if you want your
pictures to look their best, especially if you post them.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
To social media.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
This is rich on tech, the website for the show
rich on tech dot TV. And uh let's see here.
Oh my gosh, I got so many emails in the past.
Couple of moments here, but I'll get through those and

(27:39):
maybe read a couple on air here.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Did a segment this week.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
You know, I'm also on TV on KTLA five in
Los Angeles, so I do TV segments, so you can
watch those on YouTube, also on my website. But this
week I talked to Jefferson Graham. He's a friend of
the show. He's been on a bunch. He was a
tech journalist at USA Today for many years now. He
has show called Photo Walks TV, and he shared some

(28:04):
of his top photography tips and number one start out.
I know these sounds simple, but you'd be surprised. Charge
your phone, clear out your storage. Two things I know
seems like a given, but I've seen. I've been at
the plays and the recitals for my kids, the holiday shows,
and I've watched the phones in front of me with
that dreaded screen that says boop, you're out of storage,

(28:25):
and people are sitting there scrambling to delete things out
of your phone. And by the way, if that happens
to you, the easiest thing to delete a couple of
large videos. He also says, clean your lens. This is
a big one. You have no idea how many people say, hey,
rich or they just come up to me, hey, can
you take a picture? You know, you're at a restaurant
or something, and you know, you go to take a
picture with their phone, and it's like the smudgiest looks

(28:46):
like there's vasoline on the lens. So the first thing
you gotta do is clean your lens.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
He also likes the iPhone.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
After you know, trying shooting with the iPhone Samsung Pixel,
he actually prefers the iPhone for its natural colors, and
then he mentioned a couple apps that he likes. Number one,
Adobe Light Room Mobile, I said, well, doesn't that have
a subscription. No, you can use a lot of the
features without subscribing, So I downloaded that Adobe light Room mobile.
He likes this de haze tool, so it makes the

(29:15):
skies look better. So you take a sky and it
just you kind of use that de haze tool and
it just kind of brings out the sky.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
It makes it look a lot better.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
He also likes the black Magic camera app for taking
time lapses. He says that the iPhone sort of doesn't
let you change any of the settings with time lapses.
I think he says, they'd limit them to it like
thirty seconds. But if you get one of these apps,
a third party app like black Magic, you can do whatever.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
You want with your time lapses.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
And then he likes the Halied app, which has an
anti AI mode, So if you want to take a
photo without any AI, Halid will let you do it.
There's also another one called Zerocam, which I think you
have to pay ten dollars. I think I paid for that,
but you have to It takes pictures without any AI,
so that's called zero cam. He didn't mention that. I'm

(30:04):
mentioning that, but the app that if you download one
thing that I'm talking about. It's called Radiant Photo. R
Adant Radiant Photo. Again, all these apps are like freemium.
You download them, they want you to pay, but you
don't really have to. You can get a lot of
the functionality. But this Radiant Photo, I'm not kidding. I'm
hesitant to even share it because I feel like it's

(30:26):
my secret weapon.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
It literally perfects your photo with not even a tap.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
You don't.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
All you have to do is put the photo into
it and it will just automatically look at the scene,
sense what you're trying to show, and it will just
perfect it. Like if it's someone's face, if it's a
portrait photo, if it's a landscape, it just somehow does
a really nice job of identifying what that picture is
and making it better. So Radiant Photo iOS Android. Yes,

(30:53):
they may try to get you to subscribe or pay,
but you don't have to. I've I've been using it
for six months, no payment, and it's worked every time.
I Basically any picture that I uploaded social media, I'll
just put in there and just kind of one tap
and it's perfect. Let's go to Mark in Oh, sorry,

(31:14):
let's go to Randy. Randy you're on with Rich.

Speaker 10 (31:18):
Hi Rich, I enjoy your show.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Oh thank you, well, I enjoyed doing it.

Speaker 10 (31:25):
I'm not super tech savvy, but I wanted to ask
your opinion if you could just keep it as basic
language as possible. I have an iPhone eleven and I
deleted a video about a year ago, and I regret
doing that. And I've struggled and agonized over finding apps
that will recover deleted and lost photos and videos, and

(31:47):
I'm just totally dumbfounded by them. I did look in
my iPhone backup.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
It's gone.

Speaker 10 (31:53):
There is there any specific app that you would recommend
that would do the job? Or is it permanently gone?

Speaker 1 (32:04):
A video on the iPhone that you deleted a year ago?
It is gone.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
So I hate to say that, but there are there's
not an app that can bring it back on the iPhone,
let's put it that way. But are there some avenues
that you can explore?

Speaker 6 (32:16):
So?

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Number one, did you have this backed up in any way,
shape or form to any app?

Speaker 10 (32:22):
No other than the iCloud. I'm not even sure if
it was back. Well, it wasn't back.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
It was not.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Okay, what about a backup of your phone? Did you
ever have a backup of your phone.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
So with those two things, so there's a couple of
ways that you know a photo could be still around.
Number one, when you delete a picture on your iPhone,
it does linger for about thirty days in a special folder.
And I'm sure you've checked this, but it's called recently deleted.
Have you seen that one?

Speaker 5 (32:54):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yes, okay, So with the.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Latest iOS, they did add a feature where you have
to authorize your phone before you can look at it.
But on my phone, it's showing me, yeah, twenty nine
days until it deletes the last photo, and it gives
you a little countdown for each picture.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
So that's the first place to look.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
And Randy, even though you may not be able to
get this back sadly, I am just going to go
through these these suggestions so that if someone is dealing
with something similar, maybe they deleted a photo by accident,
these are the places they could potentially look. So that's
number one, they recently deleted, and both iPhone and Android
have a version of that, So that's the first place
to check. The second place is an online backup. So

(33:34):
I always recommend that you back up your photos. I
understand for privacy concerns or other reasons. You may not
want to do that, but I always recommend doing that.
That could be through iCloud, that could be through Google Photos,
that could be through one Drive, it could be through iedrive.
I mean, there's so many different ways of backing up.
If you're an Amazon Photo, if you're an Amazon Prime member,

(33:55):
they offer free unlimited photo backup at full resolution for
their Prime members. Now as long as you're paying for Prime,
right even if you stop paying, they'll give you a
certain amount of time to download it.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
So those are little.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Avenues to backup photos if you don't want to pay
a lot. The other place to look is a full
phone backup. So when you back up your phone, it
you know, if you have an iPhone, it's backing up
to iCloud like the entire phone. Even if you have
iCloud photos turned off, it's still backing up a copy

(34:27):
of your entire phone to the cloud. So you may
be able to go in there use a program like
I Amazing to extract that photo out of that backup,
or you can restore that backup to another iPhone or
your or your current iPhone and get that photo back
the other place to look, of course, is iCloud. And
if you're wondering, like, okay, this on my phone? Is
it not on my phone? You can always go to

(34:49):
iCloud dot com and check to see if the picture
is there.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
But those are the avenues, Randy.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
There is not a way to find that video that
I know of, unless someone emails me something different that's
been deleted a year ago. Because after a year, you know,
no matter what, that thing is pretty much gone. The
only thing I can think of is if it's something
important in the future, you can upload it to YouTube
as a private video for free.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Dropbox gives you two gigs of storage. I believe for free.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Most of the main service writers will give you a
couple of gigs of storage completely free.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
I'm sorry this happened to you.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Please back up your photos or put something that you
need to keep in a safe place.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Eighty eight rich.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
One O one eight eight seven four two four one
zero one more rich on tech coming your.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Way after this.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
We got the question about earlier about the best Android
music app for an Android phone for local files and
uh CALLI Cardinal fan writes in on a Pulsar is
a reasonably good music player for Android. It is compatible

(36:04):
with Android Auto two. Oh, I like that. That's a
good point. Make sure it's compatible with Android Auto. So
I looked it up, Pulsar Music Player. It's got five
million downloads, four point six in the ratings. And most importantly,
and this is always how you want to judge an app,
by the way, always look at the updated on date,

(36:25):
because if an app is out of update, it's not
going to be you know, they're not it's not actively
getting any improvements or updates. So this was last update
on December eleventh, twenty twenty four, which is just fine.
So again, if you're looking iOS or or Android, always
look at that updated on date, the last update, because
that will give you an idea if an app is

(36:45):
actively being maintained, or if it's something that's just still
lingering in the store and not really getting any active updates.
So again, we got a lot of a lot of
suggestions on the best Android music app. So we've got
YouTube Music Cloud, which I think that's the easiest. Just
upload your music to YouTube Music. They have a free

(37:05):
service where you can just upload your MP threes and
they'll show up on your phone, Samsung Music if you
have a Samsung phone, and then listeners recommended Double Twist
and Pulsar. And by the way, if you want anything
that I talk about, I take very good show notes.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
It's all on the website. Rich on Tech dot tv. Definitely.
While you're there, sign up for a newsletter. Follow me on.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Instagram at rich on Tech. Let's see here. Let's go
to Ron in Norco. Ron, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 6 (37:36):
Good afternoon, Rich. How are you folks doing today?

Speaker 1 (37:38):
I am doing fantastic great.

Speaker 6 (37:41):
I'm sitting here watching the Eagles, Eagles and Big Bear
on my camera. I'm a third monitor here and it's fantastic.
The father's going down and getting the fishing and bringing
the fishing up, and then mom fixed the fish apart
and feeds the three babies.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
People are obsessed with this stuff. It's like a big
on YouTube. I think it's one big ad for Big Bear.
That's what I think. Because it is it makes you
want to go there.

Speaker 6 (38:07):
Yeah for sure, yeah, not too far away. But I
don't go very often. My question is I do consulting,
and I go to site do site visits from time
to time. And I used to use a Live Scribe
with the ten and the special paper in the audio system,
which has been good. But what can I use now?

(38:29):
With AI emerging? It helped me do interviews that haven't
transcribed instantly or virtually.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Oh my, how long are you recording? Typically not more
than an hour?

Speaker 6 (38:44):
Half an hour? I mean I get to break it
up and segments if necessary.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Okay, well, my favorite favorite favorite app is called Whisper
Memos w h I spe er Whisper Memos. Are you
on an iPhone or Android?

Speaker 6 (39:02):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Okay, hold on, that's different. Okay, so if you're on Android,
that's a little bit different. So you're on Samsung or
you on Pixel.

Speaker 6 (39:09):
I'm on Samsung, but I also have an iPad. I
usually take an iPad with me.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Okay, well, well, I think I think the best app
right now is the Whisper Memos app. And what I
love about it is that you record and basically it
will transcribe using the latest open AI Whisper model, which
is really good.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
There's there's a couple of ways to do it. Do
you need to What kind of computer do you have?

Speaker 6 (39:37):
I have a basic desktop, okay, Windows desk up.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
I mean, there's so many there's so many apps that
do this. There's another one called letterly l e t
t e r l Y. Now, for what you're doing,
I think the service from otter might be the best one.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
That's for what you're doing. Have you heard of otter
dot ai?

Speaker 6 (40:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Okay, so I think for your your purposes that might
be the best solution. It all depends on do you
want this to be free? Do you want this to
be free or do you or do you mind paying?

Speaker 6 (40:16):
I don't mind paying, but I like free all the
time too.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Yeah exactly, So I mean I love free too. So
what I do and I transcribe every interview I do
for TV. So when I interview someone, we record it
and then I transcribe it. And so what I do
is I take that audio and drop it into an
app called mac whisper m A c w h I
s p e er now the equivalent for other. There's

(40:43):
another app called Descript, which I used to use and
that you can use as well. Anytime you're doing something
for business. It's tough to get the free because you're
using it more than what the free allotment is. Right,
So with something like descript, you can use it for free,
but as soon as you go over a certain amount,
you're gonna have to start paying. So it all depends

(41:05):
on how much you're using this with built into the
phones nowadays, they've got so many different options for transcribing.
So you mentioned you have a Samsung, Yes I do.
Do you have the latest one UI on it or no? Like,
do you have the AI features or no?

Speaker 6 (41:23):
I don't think so. I have the S twenty two
Anthrom that I hadn't upgrading to AI.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Okay, so yeah, if you have the S twenty two Ultra,
that's not gonna have the AI because basically at this point,
the iPhone, the Pixel, and the Samsung they all have
audio recording on them that also transcribes for free. So
that's another way of doing it. But if you've got
the S twenty two, they just I think they just
announced the one UI beta. Let's see one UI seven

(41:53):
beta rolls out to more phones.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Let's see.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeh see it's going to the S twenty three. Yeah,
so it's it's not to your phone just yet, but
that would be a good way to do it. But
I mean, look, there's a lot of options out there.
I think that one of these AI kind of it
depends if you want your phone to do it one
hundred percent, if you want your phone to do it
from start to finish, I'd probably recommend something like otter

(42:18):
dot AI. If you don't mind taking the file and
transcribing it later, then I would use something like a
descript That would probably be the best option there. And
then you know, there's just there's so many ways of
doing this, but I think those are probably some good
ways to start doing it. But again, I so what
I do is I get my file, I throw it

(42:40):
into mac Whisper, and then I will use that transcription
and then toss that into something like a chat GBT
just to get some key takeaways things like that to
help me think about crafting my story around that. There
is a I'm trying to find there is a transcription.
Let's see where it is. There is a transcription website

(43:04):
that I will look up the url, but I shared it.
It's a free transcription on like basically any computer, so
it's hosted on hugging face. I gotta find the website though,
but that one's pretty cool and I will put that
in the show notes. Rich on tech dot tv is
where you can find that. Thanks for the call ron

(43:24):
appreciate it. There are so many it's so funny. I
went from never ever transcribing my interviews to now I
transcribe everything. In fact, I have a folder inside my
notes of transcriptions, so anything someone says, I can go
back and just and I record everything. All my meetings
I take now, like if I go to like a briefing,

(43:45):
I will record that.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
On my phone.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
And it's just gotten so incredibly easy to do this
process of transcribing that it's like, why not just have everything?
And I think that you know, with the later phones,
the newer phones that handle the AI stuff, it really
makes it a lot easier because it's built in for free,
like I said, on the Pixel phones, the latest Samsung phones,
and of course the iPhones if they support the iOS eighteen.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's all right there for free.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
But if you don't have access to the free services,
you can always do some of the paid stuff that
will work just as well. And I'll put everything I mentioned,
by the way in the show notes Rich on tech
dot TV. I know I mentioned a lot of different services,
but it sort of depends on what you want out
of them, which one is the best for you. Eighty
eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one visited the new Google

(44:34):
store in Santa Monica, California. It's at the Third Street Promenade.
If you're familiar with LA one of my favorite places.
I joke, it's one of the first places I ever
visited when I came to California, and I thought this
was like heaven on Earth. I have never seen anything
like this in my life. Growing up in New Jersey,
it was an outdoor mall on a street and I'm

(44:56):
talking vibrant. Adam, you remember this In the day, Third
Street Promenade was like the place to go for everything,
and you just stroll down the street. You'd get a
Wetzel's Pretzels, You'd go into Barnes and Noble browse the books.
You'd go into all these stores, never buying anything, or
maybe you did, you know something little, but you could

(45:17):
just spend a whole night there and you know, you'd run.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Into people, you'd see people. It was just so great.
Now it's gone through some ups and downs.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Hopefully it's back on its way up after you know,
pandemic really was tough on the outdoor malls. But anyway,
so now they've got a new Google Store there where
you can check out the pixel phones, they're watches, Nest devices.
You can get a help desk, so if you need
a screen repair, you can do that, or you need
your device swapped, if you have a warranty on it,
they can do that.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
This is their sixth store.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
They've got them in New York, Chicago, Mountain View they're headquarters,
and Boston, La, of course is a big market. Austin
is up next and everything is on display. So if
you're looking for an accessory for your pick watch or
your pixel phone, they've got it there. And that's what's
so great about this is because I get it. There's
five hundred Apple stores worldwide, but there's only six Google

(46:10):
stores where you can see all of this stuff in
person and of course free Wi Fi. Just a great
place to visit. Definitely check it out. Oh and by
the way, if you look at the artwork, if you
make it to La and see this place, the artwork
has a secret. It's pretty cool. If you look from
the side, it completely changes color. I talk to the
artist about that. It's made of like thousands of little

(46:32):
strands of thread. Anyway, Google Store Santa Monica now open
check it out eighty eight rich one O one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one
more rich On Tech Weekly Weekly.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
That's my show on TV.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Mort rich on Tech coming your way right after this
the website rich on tech dot tv. During the breaks,
I am furiously taking notes about everything I mentioned, and
so we just have a question about the U transcriptions

(47:10):
of recorded meetings. So I put all of the services
that I mentioned on the website, and you kind of
have to pick the one that works for you. They're
all kind of different, but I like aspects of each
one of them. But the website that I was looking
for that does it on the web. If you have
a file, like an audio file that you want to
transcribe quickly and easily and free, there's a website. It's

(47:35):
a whisper Web. So it's actually hosted on hugging Face.
So I have to it's too long of a URL
to give you over the radio. But if you go
to the website rich on Tech dot tv or just
search hugging Face whisper Web, that should bring you. Let
me just make sure hugging Face whisper web. Yeah, that'll

(47:56):
bring it. That'll bring you right there, and that's completely free,
and it does speech recognition transcription right in your browser,
so it's nice in private, and that's a freeway of
transcribing stuff. If you have a Windows computer or a
Chromebook or a Mac whatever, it'll work on all those.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four two four one zero one. Coming up this hour,
we're going to talk to doctor Gita, doctor g Uh,
doctor Gita Nayir. She's going to talk about healthcare misinformation
on social media. Yeah, there's a lot of it, so
she'll talk about that. We had a question from Reggie

(48:36):
in South Carolina that apparently I guess Reggie didn't want
to be on the air, but was asking about tax
time and software that you like, and so I will
tell you what I use this year, which was absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
I love it and it is so good.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
It's called flyfinn flyfinn dot I guess their websites flyfinn
dot com tax but it's called fly finn Ai. And
this was one of the first guests I ever had
on this show, and basically I found this app and
it is incredible if you are even if you're not
a freelancer, Like, it's just so easy because the way

(49:15):
this app works, you download the app to your phone,
right and if you're a freelancer, this is like or
whatever you are, it's still incredible. But basically what they
do is that you connect your bank accounts to this app,
and then as you get transactions in those accounts, AI
will go through and suggest if that's a write off
or not, and basically put it into the categories as

(49:38):
you go along during the year, and so when it
comes to tax time, your taxes are like ninety nine
point nine percent done, and then you can either do
them yourself and just use all the categories and everything
that you've already categorized, or you can use one of
their CPAs to do it. And I will tell you
with the caveat that the CPA seemed to be overseas

(50:00):
because I got like a little warning that my tax
return was being handled overseas. I think, so, you know,
if you're comfortable with that, But I'm telling you, this
is the easiest thing I've ever used in my life,
and it's so easy. They handle everything, and so you
go through, you have all this stuff on the app,
and then the CPA asks you questions, so you'll get

(50:22):
all these questions.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
You just respond with your answers.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
You send them all your documents if they need it
at the end of the year and they complete it all.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
And I was looking at it today.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
It was like ninety eight pages, you know, and you
sign it all electronically, and it's it's really really slick.
So I think it's incredible. And it's not that expensive.
It's way cheaper than you know. I had a CPA
do my taxes last year, and I'm not kidding. It
was not a very good experience. I was not very

(50:51):
happy and it was very expensive. And that's why I
went back to the app. Because I did the app
the year before. It was almost too easy. I was like,
all right, this is too easy, too cheap, like what's
the catch? And then I use the CPA and I
was like this is too expensive and way too complicated.
And now this year I went back to the app
and I was just like, all right, this is the
way it is. It's so easy, it's so great, and

(51:12):
I love it, Like I can't speak highly enough of this.
The pricing, you know, it depends. Okay, they've got three plans. Yeah,
so they have a standard plan where if you're just
individual then they've got the premium.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
And the ultimate.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
But I'm telling you, oh, the other thing is, let's
say you have during the year. Let's say you have
an expense and you're like, I'm not sure if this
is even a write off. I'm not even sure if
this is deductible. You can flag it and your CPA,
the person they assigned they have like all you know,
even if you don't have your own CPA, like if
you don't pay for that level, they still have a
whole bunch of CPAs they employ that just look at

(51:48):
these questions all day long and then respond to you.
So if you went out to lunch with someone in
discuss business and you're like, I don't know, is this
a business expense?

Speaker 1 (51:57):
You flag that expense. It sends it to them. They
take a look at it and say, oh, yeah, that's categorized.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Under this boom done. I mean, it's really really incredible.
It's called flyfinn aiflyfin dot tax is the website.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
I really like it.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
I tried doing the turbo tax thing, and I think
that that's probably my second favorite. And the reason I
like it, I know it's complicated. I know they, you know,
do all the stuff where they fight to make taxes
complicated and all that stuff, or people say they do.
But I like it because they do a lot of
returns and so it's like there's strength in numbers where
they've seen a lot of data. And so anytime someone's

(52:33):
seen a lot of data, I always like kind of
like that. But you know, at the end of the day, look,
going to like a person in your neighborhood is probably
the easiest and nicest. But for me, you know, I
like to do everything online. So to me, this worked
eight and eight Rich one on one eight eight eight
seven four two four one zero one coming up, we'll
talk misinformation when it comes to help on the internet.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Surely you're on with Rich.

Speaker 11 (53:04):
Hi. Rich. I'm super excited. I'm starting my retirement degree
and I have a computer I haven't used in three years.
It is probably six years old. So I turn it
on and it said battery half uh, like depleted. So
I just need it for like word and typing in
a class or typing notes at a meeting.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
That's it.

Speaker 11 (53:27):
But of course I want to save it and then
send it, you know, send it somewhere as a PDAF size,
just wondering what does that mean to me? With this
battery half depleted? It's an HP, it's I think it's
a seventeen inch laptop. Like it's super nice, hardly used,
but I want to use, you know, make use of
something instead of just going out and getting another one.

(53:49):
What do you think?

Speaker 7 (53:50):
Well?

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Is it working?

Speaker 11 (53:53):
It turns on and then it goes right off. And
it just said battery half So I'm like, can't you
like to me? It's like, well, what's with the half battery?
I can't. If it took me a half battery for
the first few years, can I use the other half
for the next like five months a year?

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Okay? So you turn Okay, So this is an HP.
What do you know the model?

Speaker 11 (54:16):
No, off hand.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
So it's an HP.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
You've had it for six years. So does it work
when you plug it in?

Speaker 11 (54:23):
Yes, it turns on. It turns on and then tell
me about the battery and then it goes off.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Can you remove the battery?

Speaker 11 (54:33):
I haven't touched anything, but I don't know, but go ahead,
and I'm listening you remove it. What do you mean.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Does the battery pull out of the does the battery
pull out.

Speaker 11 (54:47):
Oh, probably because it's fairly new. I mean, it's not
that old to me, it's not that old.

Speaker 8 (54:53):
I'm sure it will.

Speaker 11 (54:54):
But what about it.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Well, if you could pull out the battery, then you
could just replace the battery and get a new one.
So I would, Yeah, so I would. I would bring
this somewhere you can look up on Yelp, like a
local repair shop, computer repair shop. If if the computer
is doing what you need it to do when it
turns on, you know, if it's if it's going to
accomplish the tasks you need, then I would just spend

(55:18):
a couple, you know, a couple bucks on a new battery.
It's probably HP replacement battery. Let's see how much that
would be. I'm guessing like one hundred, one hundred and
fifty three up to maybe three hundred bucks. But it
all depends, you know.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
But I would.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Yeah, I can't find a price on here right now,
but that's what I would do. So HP has a
so you can't get this thing to turn on at all.

Speaker 11 (55:42):
It goes on with that like a pretty screen saver,
and then it says batteries half like done, have you?

Speaker 1 (55:49):
And that's when it's plugged in.

Speaker 11 (55:51):
When it's been plugged in overnight. I can't set plugged
in now just to see what happened.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Okay, so you've left it.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
I was gonna say, like, leave it plugged in for
a long like longer than you think and see what
happens there. But if it's okay, So if it's if
it's been plugged in overnight, which gives it plenty of
time to charge that battery, and it's still not turning on,
there's something going on there. And typically even with like
a laptop that the battery is depleted, it would still

(56:17):
turn on with the yeah, with the battery out. But okay,
so I think what you need to do is I
would bring this to a shop get an estimate.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Where do you live? You said, Long Beach, Long Beach?

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Okay, so there are let's see here, there are places
called you break I Fix.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Have you heard of that?

Speaker 12 (56:38):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Okay, So I would bring it there. They will give
you a free estimate and see what that estimate is.
And if it's I would say for a six year
old computer to replace the battery, I would not spend
more than one hundred and fifty bucks on that because
six years for a Windows laptop. It's probably not going
to be the best, and you can get a new

(56:59):
laptop for five hundred, six hundred dollars, so I would
probably put my money more towards that than this repair.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
If it's more than that money. That makes sense, yes, sir, Okay.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
So check that out and if you if you need
a recommendation on a new laptop after you do this,
but call me back next time after you get this estimate,
call me back and let me know what they say.

Speaker 8 (57:20):
Okay, off the.

Speaker 11 (57:21):
Top of your head, what would be a good college laptop,
like an extensive like Lenovo or something like just something
to get by.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
To the next like, well, I think I think the
I think the MacBook Air at eight ninety nine for
a brand new M four chip is going to be
your absolute best choice because you're gonna get ten years
out of that thing and it's going to be incredible.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
The battery life is going to be incredible.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Ariis four mac Book MacBook Air M four and it
just came out comes out actually on March twelfth.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
But I would go with that.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
That's going to get you through whatever you need for
your study and longer and when you're done with it,
you can pass it down to someone that that also
needs a laptop while you get a new one.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
So that's how.

Speaker 11 (58:06):
Good got awesome. Thank you, sir, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
All right, Shirley, thanks for the call. Triple eight Rich
one on one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Let's go to Tom and Woodland Hills. Tom,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 8 (58:20):
Hey, Rich, good show.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Thank you.

Speaker 8 (58:24):
I've got a weird one for you. I've got Sonos
one speakers with the Sonos app which has Alexa enabled,
and I can play other iHeart radio stations like KOs
and things like that, but I can't play Kfi.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Can't play Kfi. No hm, that's so why not?

Speaker 3 (58:48):
It says, hold on here, Alexa play Kfi.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Okay here, I hear it working right now. Okay, so
I hear I heard it said. I'm having trouble playing that. Okay,
So you're trying to do the voice assistant there. The
The short answer is, I'm not sure. I don't know
if anything changed. I don't know if anything uh is
going on in the background. I do know that things
sort of happen sometimes that may impact that, but in general,

(59:23):
can you bring it up through the app.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Like if okay, so I will let's see. So it's
just a voice in.

Speaker 6 (59:32):
The Sona's app itself.

Speaker 8 (59:33):
I can't but you know I could use wait.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Why can't you through the soap?

Speaker 8 (59:43):
I don't know, it just wouldn't do it.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
Okay, well if you so, if you go into your
services on the Sono SAP, there is an iHeartRadio service
and that's kind of like a fool proof way of
of getting it to play. So I would try that.
And sometimes these radio stations are also on that tune in,
which also is on iHeart or sorry on so NOS,

(01:00:08):
so I would check for it there as well, but
bring those two services in if something you know and this,
if this continues not working, you might try to disconnect
your Alexa from Sonos and bring it back, or do
a restart of your sons system on the app, like
just say restart your system. But you know, I'm angry
at Sonos right now in general because they have really

(01:00:30):
failed me in the past year of their speakers, because
I have them in every room and they I still
can't adjust the volume across all my speakers with this
new app.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
It's just like it's slow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
One of my speakers skips every song like it just
it plays half the song and then skips it. So
sons and you know, the CEO recently either left the
company or was pushed out, so they've been going through
some issues with their quality control there, so maybe that's
part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
But you should be able to play it. So I
would do those two steps.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
I would disconnect the uh maybe first restart your system,
see if that helps them. Maybe disconnect the Alexa service,
bring it back on board and see if that helps.
But I do think all of this is going to
get better when Alexa is infused with AI, because I
think she's gonna be able to understand what we're trying
to do a lot better. And even though you just

(01:01:23):
said play KFI, I think you're gonna be able to
do a lot more with Alexa when it comes to
music and streaming and all that stuff once she understands
sort of natural language commands. But Tom, I you know
source subject for me this so no stuff because they
just had the best speakers and service in the world

(01:01:44):
until they decided to redo the app, and then just
everything started going wrong after that, and I ended up
getting rid of my speakers and replacing them with Amazon
Echoes and then that was fine. But I kind of
like the grouping of the speakers, and I like having
them everywhere, and I like the app. And they're slowly
but surely clawing their way back to a working system again.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
But it's been really, really tricky.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
four two four one zero one. We're going to try
to get our guests coming up to talk about medical misinformation.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Uh, we'll see if we can get them on the line.
Coming up right here on rich on Tech.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
My next guest is going to break down the growing
crisis of healthcare misinformation. Uh, doctor Gita Nayer, Doctor g
welcome to the show.

Speaker 12 (01:02:37):
Thank you so much for having me, Rich.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
So tell me. Let's let's just start with tell me
what you do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
First off, you've got you know, you're you've been on
all kinds of places talking about healthcare, your doctor. So
why are you interested in this idea of healthcare misinformation?

Speaker 12 (01:02:55):
Well, you know, Rich, I'm a doctor, a technologist as
well as a best selling author on exactly this topic
and disinformation in the era of health tech, AI, social media,
all the things we your viewers know and love and
really because as a physician, I've just run into this
so many times, and having come from a tech background,

(01:03:16):
was previously chief medical officer of salesforce at and T.
I understand the power of tech, and I believe in
the power of tech, but you still got to understand
what you're looking at and what and how it affects
your body. And so this has really become a passion
project for me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
So I imagine that are we talking Like basically people
see this crazy stuff on TikTok and then they start
doing it, or you know, it used to be you
would just google like what your symptoms were, and you
would just follow like what was it WebMD or something.
And of course at the end of the day, I
always made the joke like, no matter what you have,
you're gonna die, because it's like if you just go

(01:03:53):
down this rabbit hole of like the worst possible thing
and then you go to the actual doctor and like,
oh no, here, all you need is this little creamy
to be fine.

Speaker 12 (01:04:01):
Exactly, you got it. Look in today's post pandemic world,
the everyday consumer out there is really hungry and thirsty
for healthcare information, and you're right, they're going to doctor Google.
But more often than not, they're going to doctor TikTok. Right.
We know that fifty nine million Americans turn to social
media for questions about their health. And I think social

(01:04:21):
media is a great asset and tool, but you have
to be mindful of what you're actually looking at, who
is it that you're following, and that you understand and
know when to take some of that information with a
grain of salt.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
So how do you know? I mean, like, let's give
an example.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Now, this may not be medical, but you know there's
a big trend right now of like eating your weight
in protein every day or something ridiculous like that. So
I mean that kind of stuff I feel like started
on social media and we've seen a million of these trends.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
How do you know what's real what's not?

Speaker 12 (01:04:52):
You know, there's a couple of things you can do
if you're out there and interested in your health. Number One,
checking the source, Right is this something coming from if
you're looking for something for your kids? The American Academy Pediatrics,
the American Medical Association, the American Whatever Association. Right, So
one looking for who is the source? Keeping in mind
there are actually associations out there that are for patients,

(01:05:14):
four people with diabetes, four patients with heart disease. They're
always going to be propagating information that is good for
the consumer. So that's one two. Looking for inflammatory language,
right the always or never, You know, the human body
doesn't tend to work in extremes and complex scientific things
can rarely have a simple solution or a hack like

(01:05:35):
eating your weight in protein. Third, you have to understand
your body is not the same as everyone's body. Right,
If you've got kidney issues, I can tell you that's
a bad plan. So you've got to know your own body.
You have to know your own health. And lastly, rich
you've got to have your own doctor right when and
where you can double check things and actually get personalized
information that is for you, relates to your family history

(01:05:58):
and look, I know access is an issue, depends if
you have health insurance, depends where you are. It can
take a while to get an appointment. But there are
a lot of online virtual telemedicine services out there now.
And so if you are feeling like you are reading
a lot of stuff but you're quite unsure of what
to do, make that doctor's appointment. It's going to help
you make the final decision and also get you information
that's just tailored to you, not just to the general population.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
It's so wild, and I'll admit this for myself, but
you know, when you have any sort of issue, you're
always scared to go to the doctor because you don't
want to find out what it actually is. But the
reality is it's probably better to know what it is
than to not.

Speaker 12 (01:06:34):
Absolutely prevention is always going to be the key in medicine.
We want you to get the mammogram, the colonoscophy before
you get breast cancer of colon cancer, so it is
always wise to know. It can be scary. I agree
with that, and I understand that emotion, but you know,
knowledge is power, and I love that patients want to read.
I often exactly what we said. I often direct my

(01:06:54):
patients when we make a new diagnosis like glupus, matoriitter earthritis.
I'll say, look, I want you to read everything and
come back and ask me your questions. But here's the
top three sites, here's the top three influencers that I follow,
And so don't be afraid to have that conversation too
with your doc, which is where should I be reading,
what should I be aware of? And one more tipperach
if they're selling something, if they're selling you a supplement,

(01:07:16):
if they're selling you something for just nine ninety nine
or click here for this subscription, that's often a really
big red flag because docs are never going to ask
you to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
Interesting, what do you think about chat GBT? And like,
you know, AI is now kind of replacing the Google search.
I know that I've uploaded some of my medical records
when you can tell me if I'm wrong for doing that.
But it's like kind of fascinating you think you're getting
like this analysis, this expert analysis.

Speaker 12 (01:07:44):
Well, look again, I think knowledge is power. I love
that people are more and more curious about the human body,
and I think that's terrific. But again, chat GBT is
a great source, like ninety percent of the time, the
truth is we still don't know. And again remember it's
only as good as the you give it, right, So
I don't know if you uploaded your whole medical record.
I don't know if you uploaded what has most recently changed.

(01:08:07):
So being mindful that so much of AI is dependent
on the data, and that we in healthcare have lots
of gaps and data. Doctors don't share information. Hospitals don't
share information, so you have to be mindful that it's
not a silver bullet. Right Again, there is no real quick,
easy button solution. I think it's great to be curious.
I encourage anyone to read scientific sites, to follow actual

(01:08:31):
doctors with licenses. Because here's the other thing rich, right,
there's entertainment. There are entertainers out there that are making
millions of dollars off of propagating this and disinformation, but
they're not accountable the way that physicians nurses are accountable.
If I give you bad advice, I can lose my license.
So there is an incentive to be on the side

(01:08:51):
of the consumer, which is very different from entertainment.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
That is such a good point, and I do back
to your point about the medical history not being shared.
That has got to be the most frustrating thing as
a patient. That for me, like I would just imagine
that somehow in AI and this will happen in the future,
would have everything from my birth up until now in
a file, and that way you can see patterns, you

(01:09:15):
can see things emerging, and I'm waiting for that day
and I know we're working on it, but is a
very slow process. All right, doctor G. What's the best
way for folks to find you online?

Speaker 12 (01:09:25):
Oh? Thanks, rich I'm I'm everywhere. I'm on Instagram, I'm
on LinkedIn, I'm on x and easy to find me
Genayor and I look forward to continue the conversation with
you and your viewers.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Thank you so much, and I'll link you up on
my website rich On Tech dot TV. Doctor G, thanks
for joining me, coming up more of your calls right
here on rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at

(01:09:56):
Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Phone lines are open. Website,
rich on Tech dot TV, on social media. You guessed
it at rich On Tech is in New York this
week went to dinner and the restaurant we went to.
I've got this little system for picking restaurants, by the way,

(01:10:17):
so I look for my hotel is any anytime going out,
I just go to you gotta go. You gotta do
this on a desktop. It doesn't work on your phone
for some reason. But if you go to Google Maps
and then you search for where you're staying, right, so
no matter where you are. Let's just say you're at
a hotel. I'll just pick one down downtown and then

(01:10:39):
you'll see once you search for that place, you'll see
at the top of Google Maps it says nearby hotels, restaurants,
things to do, bars, coffee. Now they've got some of
these options on the phone, but they just don't work
the same. So what I do is tap restaurants, and
I typically want a place I can walk to, and
so I will look. As soon as you tap restaurants,
then you've got this thirty minute down at the bottom,

(01:11:01):
you've got walking or driving. So I will choose fifteen
minutes as my maximum walking time, and then you go
to your filters. And so if you really want something
that's like highly rated four point five, that's not like
those are the ratings, like a generalized rating that people
give it, not like there's no traditional like zagit or whatever.

(01:11:21):
This is just like an aggregated score. So four point
five is pretty good, Like not many restaurants get that.
So if you want to find the places that people
go to, you can tap that, and then you can
go to all filters and you can say, you know
how many dollars signs you want the cuisine you want.
But typically once you have that list of restaurants, now
you've got restaurants that are within fifteen minutes walking distance,

(01:11:44):
and then you can look at the number of ratings
they have, So anything that's got like in the thousands,
people are going to that place a lot, and then
you could just kind of narrow down from there. It's
it's just a very easy way to sort of narrow
down some of the pop their places near you instead
of trying to search through all these different things and

(01:12:05):
find the place or look through reviews and that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
But this is just my.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Easy go to way and it usually works every single time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
It works. The other way to do it is on Yelp.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
If you just want somewhere that's really popular, you could
just open up the Yelp app and then just sort
You can tap restaurants and then sort by most reviewed,
and that basically gives you, like the they may not
be the best restaurants. You'll still have to use your
your judgment to figure out which one you want to
go to, but those are like the places that are
most visited, most reviewed, most talked about, and that's just

(01:12:36):
you know, again, if you're in town. If you've got
friends and all that stuff, like, sure, ask them for
a recommendation. But if you're just in town for one night,
you want to find a decent place. Those two systems
that I use pretty much work every time. Anyway, that
led us to our restaurant that we went to. It
was called Piccora Bianca and nice place. It was packed
the whole time. But they had this thing on the

(01:12:58):
table that I loved. Yes, there's a tech angle to this.
They had a QR code on the table that you
could scan at the end of dinner and pay your
bill from your phone. And I've seen this before at restaurants,
but this was the best implementation I've seen. Because you
scan it, it was clear, it was easy. It says
do you want to pay the full bill or do
you want to pay for just your items or do

(01:13:20):
you want to split the bill. And so if you're
in one of those groups where everyone's like, you know, saying,
oh I got the I had one less French fry,
so I paid five dollars less, like you can say, okay, fine,
everyone go to your app, choose the things you ordered,
pay for it. Now, for our group, we had split
a bunch of appetizers, and so it was tricky to
do the whole like, oh, I'll pay for just what
I had. So then we just said, okay, well I'll

(01:13:42):
just split the bill. And you know, there's five of us,
and it said, how many people do you want to
pay for? I said too, I was paying for me
and my mom, and so divided the whole thing up.
I paid for us and I used Apple Pay and
you could use Google Pay whatever you want, and the
bill was done. So I looked up, of course this company,
it's called Sunday sun Day Sunday app dot com. So

(01:14:03):
if you have a restaurant, I guess my thesis here is,
please adopt this technology.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
It is so easy. It's so much.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
Better than asking the waiter, hey, can you split the
bill or this or that, because it gives people options
on how they want to pay. Now, the only thing
that's a little bit weird about this, I took a
picture of the QR code on the table to like
put in my newsletter, and you can scan that QR
code at any time and kind of spy on what
people are ordering at that table because that QR code

(01:14:33):
is specific for that table and it's linked to their
POS system, their point of sale system, their hospitality system.
And so last night I scanned it as just a test,
and I could see all the things that people are
ordering at that table. So I guess they're not too concerned,
because who's going to sit there after they left a restaurant,
scan this QR code again and then pay for someone
else's dinner. It's probably not going to happen. There's nothing

(01:14:55):
like nefarious you can do with that QR code.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
But anyway, I thought that was really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
I love when restaurants make life easy, and I'm all
about that. Like these restaurants they go in there and
they're like, oh, you can't split the bill, or you
can't do this, or you can't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
It's or I'm adding all this.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
The new thing is all these fees they add to
the bill. This was just a nice breath of fresh air.
It was just like the way you want to check
out simple easy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
I liked it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
All right, let's go to let's see here Michael in
uh Capistrano Beach.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
My question was for you when you hear about the
w EF members, how he gets up and he talks
about how the humans are going to be hackable animals.
What do you think about that?

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
Who said this?

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Yuri the World's Economic Forum. They say that humans are
hackable animals.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Oh, is this the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Guy that wrote the Sapiens book. I think it might
be because he's it looks like that might be the hymn.
I've read a lot of that book, and so I
did not hear this. I did not hear about what
he said. But you know, there already are you know,
body hackers out there, people that are trying to hack

(01:16:14):
their own body in different ways from a biological standpoint.
But then there's the idea of all these things like
neurolink and these companies that are working on sort of
add ons to our brain. So what do I think
I think it's gonna happen. I think that we are
just at the beginning of this now. I think there's

(01:16:35):
gonna be a lot of pros for people like quadriprilegics,
people that have some sort of brain damage, and people
that you know, of different abilities that you know might
be confined to a wheelchair, like there may be breakthroughs
that will allow these people to get around like regular,
you know, like average human beings. And so I think

(01:16:56):
that there is good in this stuff. And I was
reading a whole article I think was on the plane
about the original guy who got the brain implant from Neurlink,
and you know, he was just talking about how it
changed his life. Like the guy was just a you know,
he had a regular body, and all of a sudden
he got into I think it was a was it
a car accident, And next thing you know, you know,

(01:17:19):
he's confined to a wheelchair and barely can move at all.
And he said, when they put this thing in his brain,
they approached him, he said, it was amazing. He can
move a cursor on a computer. Like he said, everything
that he had to do with the assistance of a person,
he can now do a lot of this stuff by himself.
Maybe not moving around per se, but like just being online.

(01:17:40):
Like imagine that you can't move, you can't control a
mouse computer things that you were accustomed to doing, and
all of a sudden, you can't do that anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
How frustrating it is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
And so he said, things that would take him, you know,
an hour to kind of move or do something on
the computer screen, he can now do in seconds just
by looking at it. Just by thinking about moving the
cursor to the left or the right, or selecting something,
it happens on screen. So I think, you know, but
on the flip side, once we start embedding people with
this technology, of course that technology is hackable, it is programmable.

(01:18:16):
There will be, you know, people that try to abuse
this stuff. So I think that no matter what, we
are in for it. And I was reading something too
about cars, you know how you know, we think about
all these cars that can do things, they can drive themselves,
you know, security cameras on cars, like all this technology
that's built into cars. You know, there are people working

(01:18:38):
twenty four to seven to try to figure out how
to hack that stuff and use it to their advantage
in various ways. Now, stealing a car is one thing,
but you know, can you imagine if all the self
driving cars slam themselves into walls? I mean, you know
there's someone out there working on trying to make that
happen because they're evil. I hope that doesn't happen. But again,
people do have to look into this stuff to try

(01:19:00):
to patch the exploits that other people may find, and
so there's always someone that's looking for the holes in
this software in the programming in the hardware, no matter what,
whether they're going to use it for good or for bad.
But yeah, I mean, we are just at the beginning
of all this stuff. And I talk about this a
lot too, the idea that AI right now, we've got it.

(01:19:22):
It's been you know what two years that we've had it,
and we've been playing with this stuff and everyone loves,
you know, some of the things that CHATCHYBT and Gemini
and Perplexity can do. But right now it is so basic.
Just imagine when they start building this AI technology into robots,
like I'm talking humanoid robots that many many companies are

(01:19:43):
working on, Like these robots that can walk around and
sort of think for themselves, do for themselves, act for themselves.
So this stuff is happening. It's going to happen, and
we need to be ready for all aspects of this
no matter what. A good movie to watch. It's a
little a little silly, and I hope I'm not giving
too much away, but it's been out for a while.

(01:20:04):
But Companion we sat down to watch kind of a
horror movie. I don't want to give away the premise,
but just it's interesting. So again that's kind of along
the lines of what we're looking forward to in the future.
Good question. Thanks for the call, Michael, appreciate it. Eighty
eight Rich one O one eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Coming up this hour, we're

(01:20:26):
going to talk to a software engineer who wrote a
book about how social platforms really work. You are listening
to Rich on tech. Let's go to George in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 11 (01:20:46):
Hi.

Speaker 13 (01:20:46):
Rich, Okay, I got a question here. I'm having a
lot of trouble, a lot of headed I'm trying to
connect the wireless microphones to my phone. Is a Galaxy
A fifteen, and somehow it's not working. I cannot connect
the external microphone to my phone. When I try to

(01:21:09):
record a video with my camera, my phone camera, it
doesn't give me the audio. And I try with another
old phone that I have, is a Galaxy S twenty,
Samsung Galaxy X twenty, and it works. But I don't
know why with the Samsung Galaxy A fifteen doesn't work.

(01:21:30):
And I try with out of different phones and a
tablet and somehow the microphone don't work. The audio doesn't
you know, doesn't connect. I mean the external microphone doesn't
connect with the tablet. I don't know if I need
a NAP or I did a comparable wireless microphone. I
tried with two different microphones and it's not working.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
Okay, Well, a couple of things going on here. Number one,
have you confirmed that this what brand is the wireless microphone?

Speaker 13 (01:21:58):
It's a label level ler K thirty nine.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
Okay, so is it wired or wireless?

Speaker 13 (01:22:06):
It's uh, well, it's I got the wire from Risk
for the receiver. I connected to the phone with a
wire and then I had the microphone.

Speaker 4 (01:22:17):
There are wireless okay.

Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
Well, number one, not every smartphone supports a external microphone.
Now the Samsung's for sure, do the the Pro models,
the S models they do. Now the A models that's
sort of their budget line, they may not support. And
I'm trying to confirm if they actually have support for

(01:22:39):
an external mic, and I can't confirm right here, like
over the air, let's see, Yeah, I can't confirm like
if that spec is available. So that could be the
first problem. Do you know that this phone is compatible
with an external mic?

Speaker 13 (01:22:55):
I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
Okay, So typically on a Samsung phone, when you plug
in an external mic, it will recognize it and say
right on the screen on your camera viewfinder, external mic connected.
So if it is not giving you that message as
soon as you connect that external mic, this phone may
not be compatible. So over the years, since I do

(01:23:18):
a lot of content creation for my TV job, I
you know, and I test a lot of smartphones over
the years, I found it's very hit or miss whether
these phones support the external mic. I know, the Pixel does, obviously,
the iPhone does, the Samsung, the high end models do.
The OnePlus can still be hit or miss, but nowadays
usually it typically does. But this is an A fifteen model,

(01:23:41):
which you know, if you're looking at a phone that's
a more of a budget minded device, they may not
build in all of those things.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
So what I would do is go online, find the
specs for this.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
Make sure you can find maybe a YouTube video or
someone that actually says, hey, this does support an external microphone.

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
That's number one. That's going to save you a lot
of headache.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
The second thing to do, George, is to make sure
that this is compatible with or this microphone that you have.
This setup is going to work. So a lot of
these microphones that you find on Amazon sometimes are very
hit or miss I use the Dji, which is the
kind of the gold standard for wireless microphones. It's expensive,
but it works. It does exactly what you need, and

(01:24:20):
it's really good. There are other brands out there that
are cheaper that will also do it, but just make
sure they have a lot of reviews and people saying
that they actually work. If you want to get one
of those cheaper brands on Amazon, Like if you search Dji,
Mike or Road Wireless Mic for iPhone and those come up,
just make sure that a lot of people have verified yes,
they do actually work. But the other one is the

(01:24:42):
Road Mics. People like those. But there's a whole bunch
of these microphones on Amazon that you can get.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Some of them are as small as a button, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):
They're just they've changed the game when it comes to
creating content on the go, because it used to be
had to have either something wired or not something very good.
And now the fact that you can use these wireless
mics is just so great. But it's all dependent on
whether your phone actually supports it. The other thing you
could do if your phone doesn't support it, you don't

(01:25:10):
want to invest in a new mic. You don't want
to invest in a new phone. A lot of these
microphones will record into themselves, so they will actually have
built in memory on the microphone.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
You can press record.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
You can record the audio separate from the video and
then use an app like Final Cut to sync those up.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
So that's what we'll do.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
If we have a problem with the audio or it's
not embedded on the video, we'll just sync it up later.
So that's another option where you can just record the
audio separate from the video, bring it into an editing
program like Final Cut or Premiere, and then synchronize the
audio to the video.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
I mean, that's what they used to do in Hollywood
with that clapboard.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
You know, they always recorded audio separate, so they use
that clapboard to sync it up.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
All right, good question, George.

Speaker 2 (01:25:54):
Something to look out for on your smartphones if you
are going to be creating content because those wireless mics,
I call it the best invention of the last decade
for me, they're just so handy.

Speaker 1 (01:26:05):
Coming up, we are going to talk to Tim O'Hearn.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
He is a author of Framed. He's got a new
take on how social platforms really work.

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):
That's up next.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Joining me now is Tim O'Hearn, a software engineer and
author of Framed, A Villain's Perspective on Social Media. Thanks
for joining me.

Speaker 14 (01:26:35):
Tim, Thanks Rich thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
So what's your background and what made you write this book.

Speaker 5 (01:26:44):
I'm a software engineer and I spent most of my twenties,
so the last ten years I spent working in quantitative trading.
During my first year, second year on the job, I
was approached by some people involved in the New York
City nightlife industry who told me that they had a
business that they were using to make money by getting
people more followers on Instagram. They needed someone to help

(01:27:05):
build up the business and help scale it up, and
that's when my involvement began in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
And so you got involved with basically selling what bots
and things like trying to get like people on Instagram
and social media. They want a lot of followers because
it looks like they have a lot of influence, so
a lot of times you will buy those.

Speaker 14 (01:27:24):
Yeah. So really our service was in the second wave.

Speaker 5 (01:27:28):
I call this the organic growth phase, so it was
one step removed from people just paying twenty dollars for
five thousand followers. The bots I created would actually log
into a customer's account and then act as if they
were the customer. So this allowed things to grow more
organically and for it to seem less like a bot

(01:27:49):
and more like a human actually taking the actions.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Ah, So they would sort of like maybe like things,
comment on things, reply to stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
Exactly, and what did you learn in this experience and
why are you telling the story now?

Speaker 5 (01:28:07):
During this time, there was a lot of i would say,
unspoken facts and unspoken truths about the dark side of
social media. So some things that have come to light
is regarding how social networks actually enforce their policies and
what it means to commit terms of service violation on
a social media site.

Speaker 14 (01:28:27):
So in the early days, which I.

Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
Would say twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, we found that we
were learning so much about the underside, about all the
rule breakers and this spectrum of enforcement, realizing that of
course these social media platforms don't want people spamming and
don't want people being disrupted, but we actually found that
we were less of a priority compared to the people

(01:28:50):
actually doing really bad, really illegal stuff.

Speaker 14 (01:28:54):
So for a while we had this.

Speaker 5 (01:28:55):
Reprieve where we just weren't the biggest priority, and during
that time we proliferated.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
Why because these social media platforms want to grow.

Speaker 5 (01:29:04):
Definitely, they want to grow, and they're just worried about
ultimately reactive you know, reactive moves here. They're worried about
having to speak in front of Congress. You know, they're
worried about these bombshell articles coming from the New York Times.
And until twenty late twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, nobody
was talking about followers in that same way, you know,

(01:29:26):
they were talking about other types of illicted activities going
on on social media.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
So what do you think the average consumer needs to
know about all this stuff at this point?

Speaker 5 (01:29:37):
At this point, I think what the book communicates is
that there's a very awkward relationship between users platforms and
then platform stakeholders. People don't realize that, you know, using
a platform for free, you are the product. So you
are the person who is you know, helping out this
advertising vehicle, or you are the person who investors are

(01:29:57):
looking to en mass to actually increase the value of
a platform.

Speaker 14 (01:30:02):
So there are all these awkward, like weird.

Speaker 5 (01:30:06):
Symbiotic relationships between each one of these groups that aren't
obvious to someone who's being beckoned to sign up for
a social media service to begin.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
With, So, what a consumers do I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:30:16):
What I mean, does it change the way that we
use these services or should we be on guard when
we use them?

Speaker 5 (01:30:22):
Or what? As more things have developed on social media,
I think that there are concerns not just in our
own usage habits, but the effects that the platforms are
having on our emotional state and how we receive and
process information. When I started using my Space in two
thousand and six or two thousand and seven, as as

(01:30:44):
ridiculous as the experience was, it was actually quite pure.

Speaker 14 (01:30:47):
And pure is probably.

Speaker 5 (01:30:49):
The last word we would use to describe Reddit or
Facebook or x or any of these platforms today. So
one of the solutions might simply be to spend less
time on it and be more aware of the consequences
of heavy usage.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
Why do you think these algorithms are engineered to addict us?

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
I do.

Speaker 5 (01:31:08):
And one interesting thing for me was after I worked
at Shark Social, which was the Instagram growth company, I
later worked at a small social media startup where I
built these persuasive technology systems. So I built systems that
tried to get users to click on certain push notifications,
or tried to get users to spend more time looking

(01:31:28):
at the news speed of this app My entire job
as the Special Projects lead was essentially to enforce and
encourage addictive behaviors. So you think at scale, there are
entire teams within big Tech who are just trying to
ratchet up those metrics a little bit more, and that
means getting people to spend more time online.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
I mean, look, we already know when you open up Instagram,
it's the equivalent of a slot machine, even down to
the way the little notifications appear in the upper right
hand corner with the numbers says the likes, the comments,
the hearts. It appears exactly like a Las Vegas slot machine.
So what do we need to know for parents and kids?

(01:32:09):
Because you know, I'm an adult, I sort of understand
this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
I get what I'm up.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Against, right, Like Instagram's goal is to get me to
never close Instagram in my entire life. Like that's their goal,
and you can do that. The swipe, the reels, the stuff,
it's it's never ending. But kids, you know, they're not
as evolved because they're still they're still growing.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
So what do you think parents need to know about
all this.

Speaker 5 (01:32:34):
I support the general guidelines which are coming out from
countries such as Australia, which is that a child under
thirteen years of age has no place on social media
or any type of scrolling type of content feed because
the belief is that it is harmful for the developing mind,
and it may be harmful in ways that we don't

(01:32:55):
fully understand yet. So one example I give in my
book is, hey, you wouldn't get a baby a cigarette,
like that's a comedy skit, But we do give babies iPads,
and I see it all over New York City here
where tons of kids are mindlessly looking at these things
because it keeps the kid entertained. But what you don't
realize is that when they're looking at apps that are

(01:33:17):
designed like slot machines and stuff, when it comes time
to function in society or learn in the classroom sometimes,
you know, schoolroom learning is not as exciting or enthralling
as these experiences, so it can have some some absolutely
terrible consequences.

Speaker 2 (01:33:32):
Yeah, it's much much more boring compared to TikTok, which
is like even the format. I mean, I come from
a classic news background where you know, we do news segments,
and I get it. The news is not perfect, but
you know my segments are and so I you know,
I do things that are it's informational. You know, Yeah,
it could be fast paced, but I mean if you
look at something like TikTok, it's like there's a cut

(01:33:54):
every second because people's you know, they're going to look away.
And I've talked to TikTokers that say that they have
to follow that format or else people scroll away if
it's not changing fast enough. So some of this stuff
seems to be changing the fabric of sort of our
brains in the way that we perceive information as well.

Speaker 5 (01:34:13):
Sure, short form video is very addictive, and I think
it is harmful in the way that it kind of
melds and changes our expectations for what is entertaining and
how things like plot lines develop. Like how many people
can really sit through a movie now without thinking about, Okay,
I need to go check my phone right, Like the

(01:34:34):
attention span. The effect on the attention span is crazy.
And this is something we saw in the early twenty
tens where like it started to come out on YouTube
where you had quick cuts, quick cuts quick cuts the
first time I really saw it. I thought this is ridiculous,
But now, as you said, it's standard almost everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:34:51):
It really is. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
The book is Framed a Villain's Perspective on Social Media.
The author is Tim O'Hearn. It's availed now on Amazon.
Did you have fun writing a book? Because I wrote
a book a couple of years ago. It was one
of the best things I've ever done.

Speaker 14 (01:35:07):
It was a very fulfilling experience for me.

Speaker 5 (01:35:09):
And seeing the reaction to it, both from people in
the press, from users, from experienced engineers, and especially from
academics and researchers, it's been very meaningful for me.

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
All right, Well, thanks for joining me today on the show.
Tim O'Hearn once again. The book Framed a Villain's Perspective
on Social Media available on Amazon. I'll put a link
on the website. Rich on tech dot TV. All right,
coming up, we got a couple of items of notes.
I've got a new way to chat with AI using
text messaging. If you have a Pixel seven you got

(01:35:41):
a problem with your battery, I will explain what you
can do with that. And Netflix has a new option
for subtitles. Plus the feedback we are going to open
up the feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
Coming up next on rich.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
On Tech, Apple Watch celebrates ten years. I know I've
worn worn one on my wrist almost that entire time,
and I think it's game changing. I tell people a

(01:36:14):
lot of times that I like the Apple Watch better
than the iPhone just because it's always there. It's simple,
it does what I need, tracks my workouts.

Speaker 5 (01:36:22):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
Of course you've got the rings, all these things. April
twenty fourth, twenty fifteen, that's when the first Apple watches
came out.

Speaker 1 (01:36:32):
I was there at the launch day. They sold them
at high end stores.

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
In addition, well I don't trying to remember why was
at like such a high end store for it. It
was like a little boutique. Now, of course, the Apple
Watch very popular now. The original Apple Watch was more
about like fashion. It did not start out as this
like really health and fitness focused device. But now, of
course it's health, it's fitness. It tracks you know, all

(01:36:56):
kinds of stuff except blood oxygen because they took that away. Yeah,
one of the features I thought was interesting back.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
In the day.

Speaker 2 (01:37:05):
I wrote about this in my newsletter today Digital touch.
Did you know, I thought they took it away, but
you can still do it. If you go to a
text message, press the plus sign next to the message
field and select digital touch and then you tap two
fingers on your screen, it'll send your heartbeat to the
other person. Yeah, it's called digital touch. It's really weird.

(01:37:27):
I thought that they got rid of that, and last
night when I was doing some testing, I was like.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
Wait, that's still there.

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
What news service called text ai lets you text ai?
Text dot Ai is the website, but basically you just
go to the phone number and you text it and
it works with your traditional SMS. So just text it
and ask a question. It will text you back. No
download required. It can help with plans, recommendations, answers, anything else.

(01:37:54):
Built by former Tesla and Walmart Labs employees. Again, the
website tech do Ai. It's free to use. They do
not sell your phone number as far as they say.
Text dot Ai. If you have a Google Pixel seven A,
you got some problems to do battery maybe it's swelling
or popping. You can get a free battery replacement. So

(01:38:15):
you got that bulging back cover your phone looks thick, man?
What am I talking about here? Rapid battery drain? You
got to check eligibility online. But yes, this is the
Pixel seven A. If you have some battery swelling, check out.
It's called the Pixel seven A Extended Repair Program.

Speaker 1 (01:38:34):
I'll put the link on the website.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
AT and T is adding cruise ship coverage to its
International Day Pass, So the International Day Pass now works
on cruise ships twenty dollars per day. So it's pricey,
but you know, if you're on a cruise, you know
it's like one free drink. I guess twenty bucks you
saved paid paid for this five hundred megabytes of data
plus unlimited talk and text, and it works on land

(01:38:59):
and see surf and turf, so no extra charge when
you step off. The ship covers more than four hundred
cruise ships. Obviously they have to be in this AT
and T coverage zone to work, and there's no data overages.
So if you hit that five hundred megabytes, which by
the way is not very tough to hit, your speeds
will slow down, but you will stay connected.

Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
But most of the time.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
When you hit those data speed bumps, you're just gonna
be able to like check your email, let's see what else. Yeah,
so AT and T International Day Pass it's called Man,
we're just going through a lot of notes here Max,
the free ride is over seven dollars and ninety nine cents.
If you have someone clinging onto your account, the extra

(01:39:41):
member add on is now available. So if you have
someone that's using your MAX log in. Yeah, remember this
is to be called HBO Max and Max and they change.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
The color of the logo.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
They're all over the place, But you know what I'm
talking about. It it's the service that lets you watch
HBO shows and other stuff. So the primary account holder
can now invite one friend or family member outside their
household for eight bucks a month. If you want to
pay for them. Extra members get their own log in.
They can stream on one device at a time and
access everything. Or if you don't want to pay for them,

(01:40:16):
they can transfer their profile to move all of their history, recommendations,
and settings. This is only available if you subscribe to
MAX directly, not if you're a bundle user. But basically,
the bottom line is the free ride is over. If
you got people sharing your password, they're going to get
that screen that says, hey, you should sign up for
your own account. As far as I can tell, you

(01:40:37):
don't have to just yet, but they're going to continue
to ratchet this up until they get all the memberships
they want out of the freeloaders. And Netflix they have
a new subtitle option. I don't know about you, but
in my house, we watch a lot of shows with
the subtitles on, even though we don't need to. But
with all the commotion in the background, the kids playing,

(01:40:58):
you know, they got their iPad, all those things going on,
talking to their friends, this is just an easy way to,
you know, instead of saying what they just say, you
just got the subtitles on. But Netflix knows this, so
now they've introduced a new type of subtitle that just
includes the words themselves and not the audio cues. So

(01:41:19):
your typical you know, subtitles have things like music swells
or phone buzzes. They don't have that anymore. Now it's
just the words that people are saying. So you can
see two choices, now English for dialogue only, and then
English CC if you want the full close captions. And
this will be on every This will be on more
shows moving forward, but right now, it's starting with the

(01:41:42):
season five of the show You, which I've not watched,
but I guess that's a popular show. Netflix says half
of viewing hours in the US already happened with subtitles
on and don't forget you can customize the subtitles by
size and font.

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
Some people forget that.

Speaker 2 (01:42:00):
Fed back now, Michelle writes in after hearing us talk
about the recent settlement payout for Facebook and Zell, I
thought the email I got with spam. It said I
had a forty dollars payment pending, and it gave me
a deadline to click a link. I looked up the
case and even called both the settlement administrator and Zel.
Turns out it was legit. I'd signed up for it

(01:42:20):
years ago and totally forgot. After some hesitation, I followed through.
I'm now forty dollars and sixty seven cents richer. So
if you see that Facebook settlement through Zell, yeah, I
guess you can claim it. Just be careful because, like
we know, the scam artists will play prey upon something
that's real and turn it into something that's fake. Gail
from Oakland says, is there an easy way to turn

(01:42:43):
a handwritten page of my well formed cursive into text
using my iPad pro?

Speaker 7 (01:42:49):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:42:50):
Chat GBT.

Speaker 2 (01:42:51):
Take a picture of whatever you're writing and upload it
to chat GBT.

Speaker 1 (01:42:55):
It will read it and convert it into text.

Speaker 2 (01:42:58):
It's fast and it's accurate, and if you're saying you
have good cursive, it'll be easy to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:43:04):
Good question.

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
Christopher from Justice Illinois writes in, is there a way
to see what devices are connected to my WiFi?

Speaker 1 (01:43:11):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:43:11):
There's an app called fing fing iOS and Android give
you a list of all the connected devices. Good if
you think someone's freeloading on your network fing dot com
slash app. Liz writes in, We're all big fans of
you here at work. You make the tech talks interesting
and we all learn so much. Thank you, Liz, I
appreciate the kind words. Really do that's going to do

(01:43:34):
it for this episode of the show. You can find
links to everything I mentioned on my website. Just go
to rich on tech dot tv. If you want to
get in on the feedbag, click contact and send me
a message.

Speaker 1 (01:43:45):
You can find me on social media. I am at
rich on tech.

Speaker 2 (01:43:48):
A lot of the things that I mentioned here on
the show I will post there try to make them
shareable for you. Went to Disney this week and found
a actually Bobo gave me a hidden trick photospot in
Disney California Adventure. So if you're headed the California Adventure,
check that out. Pretty cool. Next week, Harry Campbell, the
rideshare Guy, is going to share the latest in the

(01:44:11):
gig economy, robo taxis and more. Thank you so much
for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
your time. I really do appreciate you spending it right
here with me.

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
Adam in today for Bobo, appreciate your hard work back there,
Kim on phones.

Speaker 1 (01:44:26):
And you of course for listening.

Speaker 3 (01:44:28):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
My name is rich Demiro. I will talk to you
real soon

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Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

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