Rich's Favorite Apps 2024, Android Tips, and Can AI Write Your Will?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chat GPT gets an eight hundred number. What it's like
to get a massage from a robot, plus your tech
questions answered, and what you're thankful for in twenty twenty four,
what's going on rich damiro and this is Rich on Tech.
This is the show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the

(00:21):
place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
the tech should be interesting, useful, festive, and fun. Phone
lines are open at shriple eight Rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Give me a call if you have a
question about technology. Email is also open. Just go to
rich on tech dot tv and hit contact if you

(00:44):
want to call in and tell me what you're thankful
for this year when it comes to tech, I will
accept that as well. Guests this week Marcia Collier, author
of Android Smartphones for Seniors for Dummies. She's going to
join us to share tips from her new book, and
mind Over Tech founder Jonathan Garner is going to explain
how to develop a healthier relationship with technology. In twenty

(01:07):
twenty five, Well, welcome to the show. I hope you
are having a fantastic holiday season. I know this is
one of my favorite times of the year. The house
is cozy, everyone's in a good mood, things are fun
and decorated, lots of holiday festivities. So I am a
big fan of this time of the year and I

(01:28):
am thoroughly enjoying it. Hope you are as well. I
figured I would talk about, since it is the end
of the year, some of my favorite apps of twenty
twenty four. So, as you know, I test a lot
of apps, I make a lot of changes. I'm often
moving between iPhone and Android, and so I'm really looking
for apps that are a couple of things simple, essential,

(01:52):
new apps. I'm always looking for a better app than
the one I have cross platform. Always wants something that
works on iPhone and an Android, even though it's not
always possible. AI one of the big trends I noticed
this year. AI is in just about everything, so it's
tough to avoid at this point, and sometimes it's fun
to embrace simplifying complexity. That's one of my main things

(02:15):
that I want. I want apps that just help me
out in life, don't make my life more complicated. And
of course all of my apps reflect my priorities, which
is staying organized, staying creative, and staying connected. So, without
further ado, let me go through some of the apps
that are not only on my home screen but also
just on my phone in general. And again a lot
of these come from trial and error. I've tried so

(02:37):
many apps and these are the apps that I kind
of go back to. So first up Obsidian. So you've
probably heard me talk about all of the note taking
apps that I've tried over the years. This year I
was using Notion a lot, and then I finally decided
to go back to Obsidian when they introduce their web Clipper.
And this is a tool that lets you clip web
pages and save them into your notes and so I

(03:01):
like that it's nice and clean. It gives me that
web page saved forever. And what I like about this
app is it's basically completely free if you want it
to be. So, whether you're sinking it on iPhone or Android,
it's all yours. All the information resides on your system,
and it could be free forever. They do offer sync
if you want to sink from your computer to your

(03:21):
phone and make it easy. They do offer a paid
option for that, but you can do it completely free
as well. So I've really grown fond of Obsidian. My
wife saw my Obsidian yesterday or a couple of days ago,
and she looked at us. She goes, wow, you're so organized.
I was like, well, yeah, you know, I try all right.
This is a new one that I'm testing out for
the new year. You've heard of Duo Lingo, but this

(03:42):
one's called Speak and it's a new way to learn
language with the help of AI. So it basically listens
to you talk and it will talk back to you
and it's all through AI. So I'm looking forward to
learning Spanish through this app this year. Rosebud, this is
one of my new favorites. This is a journaling app,
but it's also powered by AI. Just did a story

(04:02):
with the folks that created it and interviewed them and
I got to say I use this app exactly once,
and I was like, this is incredible. And so you
write in it gives you questions you write in your journals,
you know your answers to those, and then it sort
of acts like a little mini therapist and it kind
of analyzes what you're writing and it's like, hey, rich,

(04:22):
we noticed that you really value you know this, this,
and this, and we feel like what you did today
goes back to what you mentioned a week ago. So
the more you use this, the smarter it gets about you.
And I know it's a little scary when it comes
to privacy. And I asked the guys that I said, hey,
is this stuff encrypted? Like, who's looking at this? They
said it all it's all private. So Rosebud is a
really cool AI journaling app that I'm just gonna I

(04:44):
think I'm hopefully going to be a better person in
twenty twenty five thanks to it. I feel like that's
like what this thing will do for me. Google Photos,
I mean this I've been using forever. You know, I
love it. If you listen to me. I think what's
neat about Google Photos is just puts everything in one place.
It's cross platform. It's not as confusing as iCloud. iCloud.

(05:05):
People love it and they use it because it's the
default on iPhone. But the problem is it's very confusing
and it's very kind of like one side platform. Like
the whole point of iPhoto or of iCloud and iphotos
is really just to get you into the Apple ecosystem
and make it so sticky that you can never leave,
and they've done a very good job with that. Because

(05:26):
photos is something that everyone has, So I like Google
Photos because it works across every platform. It works everywhere,
and especially now with the Ai photo search, finding my
old photos is just so easy. It's unbelievable. It's scary
how good it is at finding old stuff, which is
a couple of keywords. Microsoft to Do. You know, I

(05:47):
struggle with my to do list, but Microsoft to Do
is the one I continue to use. And the reason
I like it over every other to do list out
there is that it's free, completely free, and you can
add files to your to do up to your to
do entries, so if there's a file that you need
to do something with, you can just drag it into
your entry and deal with it as well. Google Calendar simple,

(06:07):
I mean, as you can see, I do love my
Google products. Google Calendar again, cross platform. I live inside
this app. It is everything to me and I use
it all the time. Chat GPT. You know, I was
a big fan of Claude. I still am. I still
think Claude is better at the English language, but I
do think Chatchibt is really good at sort of being

(06:28):
a jack of all trades, so not only can it
do stuff, and it just keeps getting better with new
options and features. On a daily basis, I do pay
for it, but it can also make images, it can
write code, It could just do everything that you throw
at it. It may not be the best at everything,
but it's good at a lot of stuff, especially with
web search and things like that. So I have kind
of gone all in on Chat GBT and it just

(06:50):
continues to impress me with how natural and easy it
is to sort of adapt to my needs. Google Gemini
is great. This is Google's version of AI, and I
find that it's it's good, it's smart, it's clever. It
tells you how it's thinking, which is a new feature
which is really wild. But I feel like overall, Chat
GBT is just kind of easier. But Google Gemini is

(07:13):
great when you want sort of the latest information on
a topic, It's always up to date. It's kind of
like Google, but the AI version of it. All Right, Now,
these two apps I rely on on a daily basis.
It's called email Me, and it's both on iOS and Android.
It's the same thing, different developers. So I have this
where you can tap this and anything you're thinking, you

(07:34):
can just email to yourself very quickly, and so I
absolutely love these apps. I use them all day, every day,
and it's just so much easier than sort of writing
things in a notepad or a to do list, because
my email inbox or my email inbox is my to
do list, so I kind of put everything in there
and then triage it later when I have the time

(07:55):
for social media. Instagram and X continue to be not
so much, but really Instagram is the place I go
to the most when it comes to the short posts
like X and Blue Sky. Of course, everyone's been hopping
back and forth. X still feels more active than Blue Sky,
but I know a lot of people are trying to
make Blue Sky a thing, so we'll see what happens there. Mosey,

(08:17):
this is a new app. This is a social app
that's more private than typical social media apps. And what's
unique about this app is that it's only your real
friends that are in your address book, and so you
can share your travel plans. And I've always had this
idea and this kind of image in my head of
here I am, I landed in Seattle. Who wants to

(08:37):
have dinner with me in Seattle tonight, and instead of
texting your entire address book, this would just show that
you're in Seattle and people would say, oh, hey, I'm
Riches friend. Let me hey, rich I'm here in Seattle.
Let's go have dinner. So that's a really cool new app.
Still testing it out, kind of waiting into that one.
Moz I Mosey Whisper Memos. Again, you've probably heard me
talk about this. Absolutely one percent game changing. This lets

(09:01):
you record voice notes from your wrist on the Apple Watch.
It's iOS only, Apple Watch only, iPhone only, so that's
the only downside of emailed the developer. I said, please
bring this to Android. We need it on Android. But
I love this because I can just record a note
for my wrist. It's transcribed and sent to my inbox,
and it's just so fantastic. I absolutely love it all right,

(09:21):
going down the list here, Popple popl This is what
I use for my digital business cards. A lot of
people don't have physical business cards anymore. This just gives
you a QR code. People can scan it get your
info really really easy. Do like that Raindrop dot io.
This is not so much handy on my phone, but
on my computer. I use it, and it's just a

(09:43):
great app for organizing and saving your bookmarks. You probably
use Chrome or whatever your browser is to organize your bookmarks,
but Raindrop just takes it a little bit further because
it helps you organize them as well. So I really
like that one. And then fly Finn talking about organizing stuff,
I really like this for tracking my tax deductible expenses.

(10:04):
So you know, I have a couple of different jobs.
A lot of that stuff is freelance, and so I
like keeping track of all my expenses. And this uses
AI to say, like, hey, we noticed that you made
a purchase at office depot. We're going to automatically assume
that that's a business expense unless you tell us otherwise,
and it automatically categorizes everything as well. There is a

(10:25):
yearly fee associated with it, but I think it's well
worth that fee. All right, coming up, I'll tell you
some more of these when we get back from the break.
But eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one. I'm
also talking about what people are thankful for today. Nico
in Nicaragua, ex California resident says, I'm thankful for all

(10:46):
the free info you share. Thank you Nico eight eight
to eight rich one o one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one links to all
those apps on my website rich on tech dot tv.
More of your questions after this, Welcome back to rich
on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking

(11:07):
technology at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one. Email
is also an option. Just go to Richontech dot tv,
hit contact, and be sure to follow me on social media.
I am at rich on Tech posted my holiday card
to you and thank you for all of the amazing

(11:29):
responses that you wrote on there. I was just reading
through them and it's it's pretty pretty amazing talking about
tech news. Just how many people you can affect, and
I do appreciate that. Speaking of what people are thankful for,
I asked you on my Instagram to say what you're
thankful for in technology, and Jim in Arizona says, I'm
thankful for FaceTime so I can keep in touch with

(11:51):
family living in different states. So before the break, I
was talking about some of the apps that I really
enjoy on my phone. I'm just going to contin you,
because I do have a lot of them, and I
think they're very useful. I've got these all linked up
on the website rich on tech dot tv. But another
app that I really like this year is called Rocket Money.
This used to be called True Bill, and this gives

(12:13):
you a snapshot of all of your recurring bills and
your spending habits. And it's completely free. They do have
a paid upgrade if you want. I don't really see
a need for the paid upgrade, but the free app
does great things. You connect all of your accounts and
it kind of tells you, like there's a calendar that
shows you all of your bills and when they're happening,
and I really like that, and also how much you're spending,

(12:34):
so you can tap Starbucks and see how much you've
spent there. We were going through the other night and
it's like, all right, how much do you think we
spent here? How much do you think we spent there?
And I knew Amazon was going to be the most,
and sure enough it was, and then something like Starbucks
actually wasn't that much. I'm not a big Starbucks, like,
I don't go there all the time, and so I
was like kind of surprised how little I spent there
throughout the year. Another mon money app is called Monarch Money.

(12:59):
This is a great Remember Mint went out of business,
that was a fantastic app for tracking your net worth.
Monarch Money sort of fills that gap and it's kind
of like Rocket Money as well. But it has a
great net worth feature. So you can put all of
your accounts in one place. You can put your cars,
you can put your house if you have multiple cars,
you can put your four oh one K, you can

(13:19):
put every account that you have. You link it up
to this Monarch Money and then it will show you,
you know, your net worth, which is kind of like
I guess that's everything you have minus what you owe.
So if you have debt, credit cards, that kind of stuff,
it'll take it all out and it'll show you like
how much you have. And it's just a great app.
It really does a nice job. The only downside is
it does have a yearly fee, which I get it.

(13:41):
It's a smaller developer, so they got to make money somehow,
and there's no ads or things like that. So you know,
with Mint, they were making money on the back end
by collecting your data and of course, selling that against
advertising or whatever marketing monarch money is just more like
this is you. We're gonna charge you, but you're gonna
have a great app. All right, this photo, this app

(14:01):
if you put a if you put one app on
your phone, this is it. No matter what kind of
smartphone you have. It's called Radiant Photo. And before you
post anything to social media, just put the photo through
this app. Takes one tap and it makes it look better.
He uses AI. It's incredible. As far as I can tell.
It's free. I've never paid for it and it works
really well. Radiant Photo. Got to give a shout out

(14:23):
to my pal Jefferson Graham, who does all the photo stuff.
He was the one that recommended that to me, and
it's great. Canva this is to me. If you remember
print shop back in the day, this is the modern
version of print shop. So I do all my Instagram
posts now, I'm not an expert in design, and you
can definitely tell that if you follow me on Instagram
you see my helpful posts. They are nothing special, but

(14:44):
they get the information across and I use I use
Canva to do that, and to be honest, I'm doing
these very quickly. You'd be surprised how long it takes
to make one of those little posts on Canva. And
I get it. The influencers, they do a great job.
They're beautiful. But the thing is the the amount of
time it takes them to make those is a lot.
And I just don't have all that time, so I

(15:04):
just want to get the information out, so I'll just
do it on Canva quickly. Award Wallet, I love this app.
I put all my It just automatically scans my Gmail
and finds every reservation I make and puts it into
one giant timeline. I love it, whether it's a restaurant, hotel,
no matter what. Award Wallet is incredible for that upside.
I've talked about this, save money, get cash back on

(15:27):
gas and groceries. I love it. I've gotten like a
couple hundred dollars back through this app. It's really really cool. Upside.
If you're in La, sick of Citizen LA. I don't
know how you pronounce this app, but it's La It
nine one one La at nine one one. It's kind
of like Citizen but just for La. All the police
activity in your area. You can see what's happening, watch

(15:48):
duty very similar, but for wildfire activity in your area.
It's called watch Duty. Libby also one of my favorites
for free books I can read on my Kindle. Flighty.
If you're flying, Flighty is fantastic for all of your
flight details in one place. It is the best flight
tracking app out there. It is incredible. It's iOS only, unfortunately,

(16:09):
but it's really really incredible. Cap Cut is what I
use to edit videos on the go on my phone.
Caffeine if you have an Android. Caffeine is excellent. If
you want to keep your screen awake, like maybe you're
making a recipe or something. One tap Caffeine will keep
it awake for fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. It's
so great if you're reading something, don't want your screen
to go dark. Zero Cam this is what I'm just

(16:31):
kind of playing with. But this is a camera app
that uses no AI, so just takes a picture, doesn't
use any AI to affect it. Kind of the opposite
of the other one I told you about, the Radiant
Photo and then Ways absolutely love Ways. For one feature,
it's called time to Leave, So if I need to
be somewhere at six pm, I pop it into ways.

(16:52):
It says leave later, and you can see exactly what
time you need to leave your place to get there
on time at six pm. Again, all of these apps
linked up on my website rich On tech dot TV
eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. Coming back,
We'll take a call and have more of what you

(17:12):
are thankful for here on rich On Tech. Let's go
to Diana in Torrance, California. Diana, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Hi Realich, thank you for taking my call. I use
a Mac and Apple devices, and I was wondering is
there any possible kind of either software app or hardware
device that would allow.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Me to connect to my home Wi.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Fi network when I'm out of range of the home
Life Fine network or in a remote location.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
What do you mean by connect to your home Wi
Fi network? You want to tap into your your internet
or you want to tap into your computer at home?
Like what do you want to do?

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Well?

Speaker 3 (18:01):
I want to be able to connect to the Wi
Fi as if I were at home. Like let's say,
if I have my Mac with me and I'd like
to connect to my home Wi Fi from like a
remote location.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay, there actually is a startup that's doing this, and
I'm trying to find the Okay, I think here it is.
So it's interesting what you're talking about. There's not a
way to do it easily, and what you're saying like,
you can't really you can connect your home network from
AFAR using something like a team viewer or you know,

(18:36):
remote file sharing or remote desktop or Chrome has a
version of that, but that'll just get you into your
computer network. If you want to connect to your Wi Fi.
There's actually a company that's working on this called clever
Phi c L e v er Fi, and so what
they're doing is they are coming up with a system

(18:59):
that kind of lets you log into your home network
using your Wi Fi from anywhere you are. It's really
like I couldn't even understand when these people were telling me,
like what this means. But that's the company is clever Fi.
And I'm not going to try to even explain it
because I don't even really understand. But the idea is
that if you're a hotel or a you know, coffee place, whatever,

(19:22):
you would sign up with this clever Fi software and
then when you get to that hotel somehow you can
just log in with your credentials from home. I don't know,
it's weird, but it's that's kind of what you're talking about.
And I think that's the company that's working on it.
But again, this all depends on the place enabling this
kind of software. So the company is Cleverfi dot com.

(19:43):
It's a startup. I think it's out of Italy, but
they were working on that. Now. When it comes to
just kind of accessing your computer from outside of your home,
which many people might want to be able to do,
there is software that can do this. Chrome Remote Desktop
is probably the easiest. It's free from Google and you
just install it on your computer and then you can

(20:03):
share the screen, access files, whatever. Apple also has something
called screen sharing that's built in. I've been using this
at home. You just turn it on in your computer
and when you go to your network from other computers,
you can see your Mac on that network. So that's easy.
And then of course there's software like Teamviewer. Team Viewer
is free sort of remote connectivity software and that will

(20:25):
allow you to do the same thing. Thanks for the question,
Diana there in Torrance. Hope you're having a great holiday season.
Coming up later on the show, if you're into Android,
We've got Marcia Collier. She wrote a new book called
Androids Smartphones for Seniors for Dummies. I've got a copy
of it right here, and reminds me a lot of
the book that I wrote about the iPhone. I wrote

(20:48):
one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone.
Now I self published that book. But this is through
the dummies. You know you've seen those dummies books, right,
But it looks like you know, same thing. I did
all little screens shots and all the circles around things
to show you where stuff is no easy feat when
you're writing a how to book for for phones, there's
a lot that goes into that because there's just so

(21:09):
much that you got to think about. Let's see here.
Let's go to Spencer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Spencer, you're
on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (21:18):
How are you doing, Rich?

Speaker 1 (21:19):
I'm doing great? What's can I help you with?

Speaker 5 (21:23):
I have a system that I built based on Asus
Toughs Gaming X five seventy plus WiFi motherboard.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Okay, it's floaded with loaded with Windows ten.

Speaker 6 (21:36):
Now I want to upgrade, but Windows says that I
have to have TPM turned on and I have to
have U e F.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
I turned on. Yes, but when I went to the
bias and.

Speaker 6 (21:50):
Turn those on, it refuses to boot.

Speaker 7 (21:54):
Oh am, I stuck.

Speaker 6 (21:55):
I don't want to have to reload the I have
about one hundred programs on here.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
I'd have to go fishing for keys or is there
any way I can.

Speaker 6 (22:07):
Do this without having to reformat the hard drive because
then I'd have.

Speaker 5 (22:11):
To buy the Windows eleven instead of getting it free.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah right, No, So, yeah, you're right, there are some
requirements for Windows eleven on these systems. It sounds like
your system. Did you build this yourself?

Speaker 7 (22:24):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Okay, so it sounds like to me that you've got
the requirements, and you know because you built this thing
that you have these things that you need. It's basically
the security of the system. It's like it's kind of
at the base level of the system, this security chip
that it requires. It's kind of the same thing with
Apple too. They did the same thing on their computers,
but it's you know, it's like base level security, and

(22:45):
they want you to have that on your system to
be able to install Windows eleven moving forward, just for
a lot of reasons. So you're saying you have that
on your system. Correct.

Speaker 5 (22:55):
I have it on the system, but when I turn
it on, it no longer boots.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Oh okay, well that's.

Speaker 6 (23:02):
Oh apparently it won't boost Windows tan.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Oh okay, so that's interesting. So yeah, that's a problem.

Speaker 7 (23:10):
Then.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Now there are some blog posts about forcing the Windows
eleven upgrade. Have you checked that or tried that?

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Uh? No?

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Okay, all right, So I'm looking at howtogeek dot com
and this is, uh, you know, how to force the
Windows eleven update. Now, this is from last year, so
I don't know how current it is, but this is
gonna This says that you can force this. Okay, yeah,
you can bypass. I'm just reading through this. It looks

(23:45):
like it looks like you'll probably be able to do
it using this guide if you. The problem is you
got to download this Windows eleven Installation Assistant, which let's
see if they still even have that available, because this
was from a y or ago. Looks like they do,
so you might do that.

Speaker 6 (24:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Is your computer fully updated?

Speaker 5 (24:07):
Yeah, it's the bias is updated.

Speaker 7 (24:11):
I've got everything up to.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
One bias beyond.

Speaker 5 (24:18):
Requirements from Windows eleven.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Okay, I don't they'll.

Speaker 8 (24:21):
Have another window to load, but I think.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
The bias system that I got in there right now
is good to go.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna link this up on the
website on the show notes. This this how to geek
article because it actually it looks like it brings you
to a pretty good help page for Windows that will
help you download this Windows eleven Installation Assistant, and then
if you don't want that, you can also create a
Windows eleven Installation media and then you can download a

(24:52):
disk image as well. So this kind of gives you
all the tools that might help you get that on there.
It sounds like you know what you're doing, so I
think that these would be thing that you would be
able to figure out if you're going through the standard
you know, Windows eleven update through your Windows ten. It
may not allow you to do that because, like you said,
these things are not turned on. Once you turn it
on in the bios, it's not booting up, so it's

(25:15):
signaling to the Windows eleven Assistant that hey, this computer
is not supported. And we've also seen some articles come
out in recent weeks that say you can force this
on more computers, although Microsoft ended up coming out and
saying no, no, we didn't say that. So I'll link
these up on the website rich on Tech dot tv
so that you can get an idea of some of
these things that you might be able to work around.

(25:36):
But yeah, you've got about a year to figure this out,
so you've got some time. And of course we know
Windows eleven they're gonna Windows ten is going to stop
being supported as of October of twenty twenty five. But
if you want to keep it for that extra year,
and Spencer, maybe you just want to do this, you
can pay an extra thirty dollars to keep it for
one more year past that deadline, and they will give

(25:58):
you all those security updates. Good question, eighty to eight.
Thanks for the call. Eighty to eight. Rich one O
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Coming up, I've got a whole bunch of
whole bunch of stuff to talk about, but I'll talk
about some chat GBT things. They've got a couple of
new things this week, including making search free and there's

(26:21):
an eight hundred number to call chat GBT. I'll explain
coming up next. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at Triple
eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one the website for the

(26:41):
show richon tech dot TV. Once you go there, you
can get the show notes by hitting the light bulb,
or it just might be on the homepage. This is
episode one oh two one o two. There you go
reading what you submitted to me as what you're thankful
for for the tech world, Robin in Anaheim says she

(27:05):
is thankful for my ring peephole camera, my dash cam,
and my smart watch. Those are three solid things to
be thankful for. And this week, did you know you
can call chat GPT. I know it sounds silly, and
there's been a lot of chatchybt news lately because they've
been doing this like twelve Days of Christmas thing or

(27:26):
something similar to that, and so every day they've been
like releasing new features and so there's been a lot
of stuff with chat GBT. But this is an eight
hundred number. It's literally one eight hundred chat GPT. So
you can dial that phone number from any phone and
it will bring you to their AI assistant and you
can ask a question. You get up to fifteen minutes

(27:47):
for free each month, because you know they want to
make sure everyone can use this. And I thought this
was interesting because it sounds silly and it's like, Okay,
well don't most people have an app to use chatch
ebt through? Well, not everyone. And I love the idea
that now this is available through any phone. So you know,
you've got someone elderly, you've got a senior in your life,

(28:09):
you've got someone that maybe doesn't have a computer, doesn't
you know, use a smartphone, they can just call this
number and talk to AI. And I think especially for
some of the uh, you know, more elder folks out
there that may not have a lot of experience with
AI to be able to ask about something like in
their childhood or history or you know, it's just the

(28:30):
amount of information and knowledge that AI has that they
can tap into from a traditional phone call. It's pretty wild.
So I think this is kind of cool and it
reminds me. I was reading The Verge. They have a
newsletter called the Installer, and they they kind of reminded
me of two other phone numbers back in the day Google.
Remember Google had their own eight hundred number for four

(28:53):
one one. It was like one eight hundred Google four
one one. I think it was yeah, Google four one
one and you could literally dial that. And remember back
in the day, four one one used to cost money
to get a phone number. Like you would dial that
and at the end of the month you'd see your
phone bill and be like, oh, I called four one
one seven times. It's like you know, at one point,

(29:13):
I think it was like a dollar each time you
called or something. And remember, I mean this is going
way back. Oh wow, oh wow, my Google AI is
is activated.

Speaker 7 (29:24):
There.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Back in the day, an operator, like a human being
used to answer four one one. I mean, I just
I kind of forgot about that until just now. You
would call and be like hey, they'd be like what
city and what city enlisting or somehow. They'd answer the
phone and you would say, uh, you know Montclair, New Jersey,
the AMC theater or whatever movie theater it was back then,

(29:48):
and they would be like, Okay, hold on, here's your number,
let me connect you. And you like this stuff just
sounds like why would you ever need that now? But
sure enough we went through a whole phase with that.
And remember this one seven seven seven film. Remember you
would call a phone number to get the movie times.
Hello and welcome to moviefone press one for whatever, and

(30:11):
you know that was that was a thing that went
on for a while. Oh what's that? Oh I don't
remember that one. Oh you dial for time? Oh okay, Adam.
Adam's on the board today. He's telling me that that
wasn't over the air, right, you're just talking to me, okay.
And you can't hear him, but I can. He's the

(30:32):
voices in my head. He said, you would dial popcorn
for the time. I have not heard of that one.
Get out of here, Popcorn. Yeah, kqed used to be
able to call popcorn and get the time. Okay. That
was apparently in northern California that was based there.

Speaker 7 (30:49):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Well, I think anyone could dial it, but maybe there
you go the time at the tone, the time is
currently eleven fifty three. Whatever it was. We've come a
long way, baby, that's for sure. Okay, So you got
the one eight hundred chat GBT. The other thing chat
GBT did this week is they made their search, their
web search, their real time web search, free for all users.

(31:11):
Now this one kind of annoyed me because I paid
twenty bucks a month for open Ai for a chat
GBT for this feature and then they made it free.
My kid was using chat GBT and he's like, oh, Dad,
I can search the web. Now. I'm like, wait, what
are you on my account? He said, no, it's free
for everyone, so what So yeah, So now on chat GBT,
if you go there, you'll notice in the search bar

(31:32):
there's a little globe icon and if you tap that,
it's going to bring you it's going to kind of
search the real time web for information, which is really
cool because it's great for travel, it's great for a
lot of things that require real time data. So you
can literally anything that's in the news, say give me
an update on bitcoin whatever, and it will. And if

(31:58):
you tap that little globe, it will give you the
latest data on bitcoin based on the articles. And so
right now it's telling me literally as of this moment,
exactly what it's trading at, how much its surpassed, and
all the different things that has contributed to this. I mean,
that's pretty incredible. And if you just had regular chat
GBT without the web, it would just give you kind

(32:19):
of what I call like a book report on bitcoin.
It wouldn't give you that real time information. Uh, let's see,
Lido writes in Hey, Rich, I remember an episode of
KTLA where you described how to reset instagram suggested content
to a factory setting. I haven't been liking the suggestions
on my account lately and would love a fresh start.
Can you remind me how to do this? Yes, Lido.

(32:43):
The worst words in the tech language are rolling out,
and when I mentioned something is rolling out, that means
it is not available to everyone at the same time.
So I've been checking for this feature on a daily
basis because I can't stand the recommendations I'm getting on
Instagram right now. But they're going to let you do
a master reset of your recommendations, which I think every

(33:05):
single app should have this. I think your music app
should have this. I think your social media apps should
have this, your fitness apps. Every app should just offer
you a master reset switch. And maybe it's locked behind
like a pin or something so that you don't mistakenly
do it. But sometimes you just want a fresh start.
Like maybe you're listening to holiday music on whatever music

(33:26):
app you're using, and in January, all of a sudden,
those songs come up. Now, I feel like the music
app should be smart enough to say, okay, let's not
give them holiday songs in January, but you never know.
So this feature, if you want to check for it,
you tap your profile on Instagram and then you go
into the upper right hand corner the three little dots
or the three little lines that are the menu, and

(33:47):
then you scroll down to where it says content preferences
and you tap in there and you're going to see
all this stuff interested, not interested, hidden words, sensitive content,
political content, hide suggested, reduced by fact checking in. There
will be a new option called reset, and it will
be there any day. I don't have it yet on

(34:08):
any of my devices, but that's where it's going to be.

Speaker 7 (34:10):
Leado.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
I cannot wait for that fresh start. Hopefully this comes
by the beginning of the year. Eighty to eight Rich
one O one rich on tech dot tv coming up
more of your calls and questions and what you're thankful for.
Right here, Welcome back to rich on tech. Rich Demiro
here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight

(34:32):
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one, the website for the show
richon tech dot TV. There you can watch my TV
segments that I do for KTLA Television here in Los
Angeles and also assorted TV stations around the US, so

(34:52):
you can watch them all right there. I asked you
on Instagram at rich on Tech what you're thankful for,
got a lot of responses. Alfonso and La Puente said,
my Galaxy Watch six. I've made healthier choices as a result.
I do think that the smart watches do that. I
think they make you more aware of how many, you know,

(35:15):
steps you're taking, how many minutes you're getting all that
good stuff. So I'm glad you liked that. And by
the way, it took me a couple of tries, but
I did dial the time and temperature and apparently.

Speaker 9 (35:29):
Imp cure is coming up after this.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
So apparently the phone number is still working. But it's uh,
it's it's like it says the time and temperature is
coming up after this, but then there's like an AD,
a long AD, and then it does the time temperature.
So I think someone bought that, and I don't did
it have an AD back in the day. Probably not,
probably just had no just had the time. So anyway,
but it didn't work for different area codes except for
the San Francisco area code, so I guess that was

(35:54):
more of a regional thing. I guess. Let's see, let's
go to Brenda in Orange County. Welcome to the holiday party.

Speaker 7 (36:05):
Hi rich, Yeah, Hi, I'm in much need of your advice.
I don't understand much tech. I need to know if
I bought the right TV yesterday.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Okay, my.

Speaker 7 (36:19):
Old RCA TV quit working.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
R How old was it?

Speaker 7 (36:25):
It was about fifteen years old?

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Wow, okay, I think you got your money's worth on
that one.

Speaker 7 (36:29):
Yes, yes, it was before you know, the smart TVs existed.
I just watched local channels over the air broadcast with
my indoor rabbit ears antenna my TV.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
How much does that costs? How much they charge you
for that?

Speaker 7 (36:47):
Nothing?

Speaker 1 (36:48):
I was just kidding, that was a trick question.

Speaker 7 (36:50):
Oh okay, I thought what Okay, Now I don't have
internet in my home or Wi Fi, my smart I'm on.
I'm on my son in law's AT and T family plan. Okay,
so I can I can browse the internet, you know,
I paid him for the phone, and I can order

(37:11):
online if I wanted to. But I don't now the
TV I bought yesterday. I assume it was a hundred
and twenty vote. It's an it's a smart TV. It's
an LG U h D Okay, and you know, but
I don't need all those extras at this time.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Maybe in the future.

Speaker 7 (37:30):
So will this smart TV just work by just plugging it,
plugging it in and playing the local channels?

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Typically? Yes, it depends on the model. So I'm assuming
there is an RC like a coax jack on the
back for the antenna. Have you checked.

Speaker 7 (37:50):
I have an open Oh I haven't opened the box.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Okay, what's the actual model number of the TV?

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Do you have that?

Speaker 7 (37:56):
Okay? On the front of the TV it says four
to three to seven zero mm.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
That's it. Forty three okay, So here it is. So
we've got this and we're just this is so this
does have LG's smart system, which is called web OS,
so it is on there. But all we're looking for is,
let's see the inputs here, connector types. Let's see here.

(38:25):
I mean, I would assume every TV has a jack
on the back to connect this antenna, but you never know,
you know, it could be that it doesn't let me
see uh here, I'm looking trying to find the specs
that actually shows me the back of the TV. If
you can plug in an antenna on this thing. Okay,
I see the back and it interesting. I'm gonna have

(38:50):
to I gotta find the specs on here. I'm trying
to find the exact Okay, let's see. I would assume
that it has a way to plug in the antenna.
Let's see. Okay, TV tuner. Yes, it does have a
TV tuner, so you are good to go. And so
you would just plug in that antenna and you can
use it as a regular TV. Now what I would

(39:12):
do for the first time you set this up. Do
you have the hotspot feature on your phone or no?

Speaker 7 (39:20):
I do, but I don't understand it. Okay, I have
a friend that's going to do V the hookup. He's
an IT tech, but he don't even have a TV.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Oh wow, he's one of those.

Speaker 7 (39:33):
He just uses his laptop.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Okay. Well he's all streaming and all that good stuff.
So well, okay, so if he's an IT person, he
knows how to activate the hotspot what I would do,
and he'll do this, he'll know how to do that,
or they'll know how to dis services. They'll know how
to do this. But you basically, I would connect this
TV to your phone's hotspot the first time, just to
get the software up to date on this phone. And

(39:56):
it also may download information for the channels. It may
download a program guide or just whatever some and and
you know, it's some information to go along with those channels.
So I would do that the first time, but then
I would make sure he turns off the either so
I would either turn off the Wi Fi on the TV,
or you can just toggle the hot spot off on

(40:17):
your phone so that your TV is not always tapping
into it. But if you want it to, you can
have the TV tap into it just by turning on
the hot spot on your phone or turning the Wi
Fi on your TV on. I know that sounds very complicated.
You don't need any of that stuff. If you don't
want to do anything on the web, just use the channels,
tune them in. You're fine, You'll be okay, okay.

Speaker 7 (40:36):
So I really don't have to do the connect to
the hot the hot spot.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
I I would probably just to get the software on
the TV up to date. There might be some features
or some bug fixes or whatever. You don't have to
do that. It's optional, but it may require that on setup.
It may it may ask you to do that when
you set it up. There may be a way to
bypass it, but your friend who's the it guy, they
are going to know how to do that. If it
says like, hey, you have to connect to internet, there

(41:01):
may be a way to bypass and say, hey, just
set this up without Internet. But I probably do it
just to make sure my TV is up to date
and then I disconnect it.

Speaker 7 (41:12):
Okay, so he's okay to activate that connected to my
phone hot spot to update the software on TV.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Correct if if he wants to do that, you don't
have to. But I think most TVs are assuming that
you're connecting to a Wi Fi connection upon startup, so
you know they're just because they're all smart TV. So
if there may be an option that says on that
TV screen like bypass this for now, typically there is
you would just bypass all that. If you just want

(41:42):
to go to the tuner and you plug in your antenna,
you do a scan of the channels. It's gonna remember
the channel numbers and the ones you get and that's it.
Beyond your merry way.

Speaker 7 (41:51):
Yeah, oh, thank you so much. Rich. I I was
afraid that something that made and why find in the
future I may plan to you know, to set that
up if I want to do those streamings and stuff.
I did buy a searge protector strip and but I
don't know, maybe I didn't buy the most the highest
volt or jewels that I should have. The one I

(42:14):
got it said nine hundred jewels. But I looked online
earlier today and it kind of come and maybe a
TV needs at least a thousand jewels. Do you know
anything about that?

Speaker 1 (42:26):
I mean not really, but uh, I would say, you're
probably gonna be fine. I don't even plug my stuff
into a protector, so I think they'll be okay, Okay,
I think I think that. Uh yeah, I'd have to
do some research on that to see what what you
need for it. I'm looking at this nine hundred let's see. Yeah,
I'd have to see like what that's good for. I'll

(42:47):
do some research and see and I'll mention on there
as well.

Speaker 7 (42:52):
All Right, my home is one hundred and twenty volts,
and I presume that that TV is one hundred and.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Twenty volt, right, that's the standard AC in the US. Yes,
so that should be fine.

Speaker 7 (43:02):
And the search protector for some reading that says it
says use only with one hundred and twenty vote AC power,
and then down at the bottom of the package it
says ratings one five V.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
I'm confused.

Speaker 7 (43:15):
I don't understand. I don't want to be playing something.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
No, you'll be fine. I wouldn't unless you bought this
thing in Europe. You're not really gonna have to worry
about that. And most Yeah, everything standardized here in the US,
so I think you'll be okay, Brenda, thanks for the call.
Do appreciate it. Uh, you're gonna love the new TV.
I mean, fifteen years of the old one compared to
the new one. I think you're gonna You're gonna be
a lot happier with that, So thanks for the call. Appreciated.
Eighty eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven

(43:42):
four two four one zero one. Speaking of TVs, Amazon
added some new accessibility features to their Fire TV. So
Amazon Fire TV, after a software update, now has a
dual audio function, so users with a compatible as HA
enabled here aid can now listen to that hearing aid

(44:03):
listen to the audio from the fireTV on their hearing aid,
but also the audio can go through the TV speakers,
so that means that you can have hearing aids be
listening to the programming and someone you're sitting with who
doesn't have hearing aids can listen to the programming through
the speakers on the TV, so now it's more of
a shared viewing experience versus one or the other. So

(44:24):
that's a new feature on the Amazon firetvs. They've also
expanded some of the support for hearing aids. Looks like
it's mostly on the TV sets and the cube, not
necessarily the fireTV sticks, so just check if you're hearing
aid didn't work with the fireTV before, it may work
with it now. And finally, they also put some looks

(44:48):
like tactile raised dots on the fireTV packaging so blind
and low vision users can easily access set up information.
So Amazon doing a couple things for accessibility always a
good thing to make products more inclusive. Eighty eight rich
one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one website for the show Richontech dot

(45:11):
TV coming up. Got a question about saving money on
a cable bill and finding where to watch a show.
We'll talk about that plus more of what you are
thankful for right here on rich on Tech talking about
things people are thankful for. You submitted these on my

(45:32):
Instagram at rich On Tech, Yvonne in El Centro, California said,
I'm grateful for One Note. I use it as a
manual and use it every day. Yeah, one Note. I
was talking about Obsidian earlier. One Note is pretty much
very similar to that. The only problem I have with
One Note. And I think it's a great, great program,
and it's the only problem I have with it. And

(45:54):
you can use it for free if you use your
included you know, storage space from micros. But the only
problem I have with it is the infinite canvas. I'm
not a fan of that because it's like you can
paste anything anywhere in one note, which I'm sure a
lot of people that use it like that. For me,
I'm too much of a neat freak. I like everything aligned,
and so it's like I can't use it because of

(46:16):
that reason. And also there's no real print option for
some reason. There is, but it's like it prints all
over the page, like it's not format it anyway. Again,
I'm too much of a neat freak. So I need
the Obsidian, I need the order. I need order in
my note keeping app all right. Earlier, we had a
caller that asked about jewels and a surge protector. And
I had to read up on this a little bit,

(46:37):
and so basically jewels are basically how much energy a
surge protector can absorb. So it's kind of like a
buffer between you, your electronics and a surge that comes in.
So if there's like an electrical storm or something or
whatever happens and a surge of electricity comes through your
your power outlets, these jewels would kind of absorb that

(47:01):
searche So the more jewels you have, I guess, the
more can absorb. So a thousand basic protections small electronics
like lamps and phone chargers. A thousand up to two
thousand good for home office setups like computers, monitors, printers.
Over two thousand is for high end electronics like a
gaming PC, home theater, something like that. So I would

(47:23):
probably say for a TV, you probably need a thousand
to two thousand. So that nine hundred that she had
probably wasn't very good. But that's the deal with search protectors.
I don't even know if I have a search protector
on my stuff. I think I need to look into that. Maybe, yeah,
but I've never really had a problem knock on wood
in all these years, but I guess it's probably a

(47:44):
good idea to have it. And they do wear out
apparently over time, so if you have one that's really old,
maybe get a new one. So think about that. All right,
let's see here, let's go to Kirk in is it Atlanto, Lano, California. Kirk,
Welcome to the show. What's up?

Speaker 6 (48:04):
Yeah, Well, the question is I had taken some pictures
on a microscope about four years ago, and I ran
them through an app. I was searching for doing some
research on parasites, and I ran pictures through an app
called parasite ie on through my Chromebook. So I just

(48:26):
had a small Chromebook that I used with with an
email address, and I'm trying to retrieve the pictures but
I'm not sure exactly how to do that. The email
is still active, but the phone I'm having trouble getting
into the I'm having trouble getting into the email account

(48:47):
because the phone that I had that number is out
to read and I got a new phone. And when
I got the new phone, I set up a typical
email because that email was basically just for the parasite ideas,
and so I'm having trouble getting ratification.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
So you've got you've you've got these pictures somehow stored
in your Google account, but you can't access the Google account.

Speaker 6 (49:08):
Yeah, so they're on a jpeg.

Speaker 7 (49:10):
Got it?

Speaker 6 (49:11):
And I was wondering if if the camera that I
used for my microscope would possibly have a connection to
the jpeg picture because it was do they identify the camera?

Speaker 1 (49:23):
You still have the camera?

Speaker 6 (49:24):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (49:26):
Can you connect it to your computer with USB?

Speaker 6 (49:29):
Yeah, that's that's how it doesn't take it's yeah, that's how.
That's the only way you can take a picture is
with USB. Doesn't have a cards or anything.

Speaker 7 (49:37):
It's just the camera.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Oh okay, so so your computer acts as the recording device,
like the computer captures the photo.

Speaker 6 (49:46):
Right, and then the camera is just the camera and the.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Computer is acting as right right, the computers that is
where everything is happening. Okay, So how can I help you?
You're trying to figure out how to get into your
Gmail account.

Speaker 6 (50:02):
That would help because then I'd be able to go
with curse that idea and just pull up pull it
all from there because I have an account. I'm lot
getting there.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Oh god, but you can't. But you don't know that
one either. You can't get in there either, right.

Speaker 6 (50:14):
Because I don't know the g You can't get in
the Gmail.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Got it all?

Speaker 6 (50:17):
Right?

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Well, Google has a help page that will will help
will kind of guide you through the process of recovering
your account. And a lot of people they set up
these phone numbers as the account recovery and then they
get rid of the phone or they get rid of
the phone number. So you have to go to this
special Google account recovery page and it's at account dot

(50:40):
Google dot com, slash sign in, slash recovery. And before
you do that, I'm going to link up these pages
on the on my show notes read through. You want
to use familiar device and location. You want to use,
you know, an email connected to your account. So there's
a lot of things that Google says to do to

(51:00):
make sure you get this right. This is rich on
Tech mentioning what you're thankful for. I asked you on
Instagram at rich on Tech, what are you thankful for
in the tech world? And Daniel in Granada Hills said
he is thankful for slick Deals. Daniel, you're speaking my language.
I check slickdeals dot net every single day of my life.

(51:23):
And if there is a deal out there. I'm actually
looking at these the deal on the front page, just
for these little cookies that I actually bought off this
well during the prime season Prime Day they had all
these like things on sale. I ordered like a giant
box of like baked lays, like you know, chips, like
a whole bunch of My wife's like what is this?

(51:43):
Are you bringing these to the kids school? I'm like, no,
these are just for us. And then these like little
they're called rip van I don't know what rip van winkle.
What are they called rip van wafers? These are little
wafers you eat like cookie that you eat with your coffee.
It's like a I don't know, it's good anyway. So
I have a whole box of those from slick Deals.
Slick deals dot net great place to find deals. If
there is a deal on the internet, they have it

(52:05):
all right Now. On the show, welcoming Marcia Collier, author
of Androids Smartphones for Seniors for Dummies, brand new book
Heating up the Charts on Amazon. Marcia, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 8 (52:20):
Hi, it's so great to talk to you. Rich. Yeah,
it's the second edition. There's a first edition that Amazon's
still trying to push. But I saw that this is
the second edition. Yeah, it led me to the first
and it said it did say there's a newer version.
So I was like, okay, good because you know, you
can still buy the first, but the second edition is

(52:41):
the one that's most up to date. So, Marcia, you've
been on the show before talking about ebays, you've written
books before, you've written how to guides. What made you
want to tackle Android, especially for seniors. Well, you know,
this is, as I said, the second edition, and I
write in the for Dummy series over forty books, seniors

(53:02):
feel left out. Seniors often don't want to ask questions
of their children. They don't want to feel stupid. Let's
just say that they don't want to hear all the
fluff you just mentioned slick deals. There's a whole thing
in the book about websites like slick Deals, and I
mentioned a bunch of others, you know, like Woot and

(53:23):
Bradsteals and all that. Yeah, and they don't know about
those things. So I try to bring the information that
is not common knowledge. For example, an unlocked phone. What
is an unlocked phone?

Speaker 7 (53:37):
And I don't know.

Speaker 8 (53:38):
Yeah, Well, if you look in the book, it'll explain
to you why and why an unlocked phone is the
best phone for you.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Ooh, I would agree with that. It's funny you said
the thing about that I didn't want to ask you
because you have no idea how many times my family
members will make a major tech decision. And I'm like, wait,
why don't you ask me? I could have told you, right,
I didn't want to ask you. I didn't want to
bother you. You can bother me. I do a radio
show every week. People bother me. I get emails every day.
People bother me. It's not bothering, it's what I do.

(54:07):
I'm trying to help and so do.

Speaker 8 (54:09):
I and I get emails from people all the time too.
So you know, after writing the first edition, I got
a lot of new queries, which gave me some information
as to extra things to include. Like even in the book,
you know, if somebody has placed an air tag on you,
you know, the Apple air tag, to track you or

(54:29):
whatever reason. It's great for luggage, but it has been
used for nefarious reasons. You can get a notice on
your phone letting you know you're being tracked. And in
the book I tell you how to go in to
Apple to find the last three digits of the phone
number that are tracking you. Oh wow, so yeah, I

(54:50):
give those things that people don't know even exists.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
So what what do you think like writing this book?
I mean, what do you think are some of the
common shalut beside it's not asking for help? What do
you think some of the common challenges senior's face when
using androids? And also, I mean, before we get into
that hold on Android versus iPhone, I know you've been
a longtime Android person, right, so what makes you gravitate
towards this platform?

Speaker 8 (55:13):
My husband is an iPhone. I've had iPhones in the past.
I used to have iPod, you know, up until the
most latest iPod that I still run on Wi Fi
in the house.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (55:25):
Now we talk about Wi Fi calling in the book too.
But the point is I get a little lost, and
when I wasn't close to being a senior, I get
a little lost on Apple to find out all the
things I exactly wanted to do. And you can get
lost on an Android phone as well, but with this book,

(55:48):
it tells you where did I use six different phones
to write the book, So I'm checking from phone from
brand to brand to brand, because each brand is like
a different phone, but they're all based on Android, and
Android is the heart of the operating system that is
common to all these devices. And once you learn the basics,

(56:11):
you can switch to any phone, any brand, OnePlus, Google, Samsung.
It's all explained in the book. But the difference is
between the each one.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Which one do you think has the best sort of
skin for most people? Like I mean, because you know,
it's a big debate, like do you like the clean
of the pixel? Do you like all the features of
the Samsung the one plus has you know, one plus
is kind of morphed into being much more iphony.

Speaker 8 (56:36):
Right exactly. I'm I became a pixel fan. Google had
sent me a couple of pixels to write, you know,
to use for my research in the book, and I
have to tell you, I find that the cleanness of
the pixel is a whole lot less confused and without
the skin without having to join somebody's club and sign

(56:56):
up sign up for this, and sign up for that,
You've got an Android phone, which is straight technology, and
on a Pixel phone, you get everything first. Now, whether
they continue the feature or not, this is another question,
but you get to have everything first, So if you
hear the slightest bit about how okay the iPhone can

(57:18):
do this oddside that's been downloaded to your Android phone
and you've got it already.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
That is so true. It's so when I use the Pixel,
I feel like it's actually to me, the Pixel is
the smartest smartphone on the market. Like just the home
screen where and I know you can set widgets on
the iPhone, but like just the home screen on the Pixel,
it just kind of like it looks in your Gmail
for information and Rice surfaces it and like stuff you're

(57:47):
not even thinking about. Like the other day, something popped
up and I was like, whoa wait, Oh was a
package delivery or something. I'm like, oh, I don't even
know I've had a package delivery today exactly.

Speaker 8 (57:56):
And when we had recently the strike with the Amazon,
I had packages that I was expecting and I could
get that notification and it said which delivery center it
was coming from. Oh, so that really helped me know
that I would get my package.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
Yeah, all right, So what give me some tips from
the book. What do you think is a great tip
that you want to share?

Speaker 8 (58:17):
Well, first thing I mentioned is buying an unlocked phone.
Everybody thinks, oh, I need to go into this the
T Mobile store, and they're going to set it up
for me. Now, I like T Mobile, I use T
Mobile myself, So this is not a diss on them,
but any at and T any phone store. Those people
who work there are salespeople. They have a talent for

(58:41):
working the phones. Yes they understand, but remember there's a
commission on everything that they sell you. It is kind
of like buying a car old style.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Mm hmm, I saw phones, I know, right, yeah.

Speaker 8 (58:55):
Right, it's it's and those who didn't like the old
car buying experience or walking into a dealership with the
finance guy and this and that. That is what you're
dealing with in a phone store. If you need help
with your phone, You've got my books, You've got Rich
on Tech, you've got my podcast. There are a billion places,
and I talk about it in the book because you

(59:17):
need to get it, and not necessarily from reviewers. Now,
Rich you and I both know. We go to cees,
we get technology, we look at it, and they would
like us to write a review on a phone immediately.
Now we all know you need to run a phone
for a couple of months to know exactly what's going on.

(59:38):
I mean, anybody can copy a press release with many
people do. But I worked all of these phones, Samsung,
Pixel and OnePlus, and I found out any flaws, anythings,
any whatever changes made over time, and little tips and
tricks that make those phones work better for you in

(01:00:00):
the long run. So never just buy, in my opinion,
a phone on all the reviews you see so so
many of them are sponsored.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Yeah, that's a whole other conversation. Right now, I'm looking
through the book and it's very thorough. It's in full color.
You've got lots of illustrations, lots of screenshots, which I
know probably took a while painstakingly to collect. But you've
got everything that you can imagine that you need to
learn about with your Android phone. It is all in here.

(01:00:29):
It's all lined up, and it's useful, helpful information, especially
if you are trying to I love this. Oh, you've
got the must do You've got Marcia's let's see here.
I like this part Marcia's Must Do Things for your Phone,
Chapter sixteen. You've got all the basics, screenshot, do not disturb,

(01:00:50):
Wi Fi, VPN, wireless charging, emergency calls. Okay, that's great.
So there you have it. The phone is called Android
Smartphone for Seniors for Dummies. Second edition available on Amazon.
Makes a great gift for someone or yourself. Malci Collier,
thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 8 (01:01:10):
Thank you Rich. Happy holidays and yeah, it's a great book.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Really, I promise thanks for sending it along. Happy holidays
to you and very exciting. I will probably see you
a sc yes, all right eight eight eight rich one
O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. The website you want to link to
the book, just go to rich on tech dot TV.
It's all right there. Coming up, the FTC is eliminating

(01:01:38):
some junk fees. We'll explain about that or I guess yeah,
we'll talk about that. And how do you find a
show that you want to watch on the right service.
I'll answer that coming up right here. I'm rich on tech.
What are you thankful for? Many of you replied, Patty said,

(01:02:00):
tile tracker. We have them on our keys, backpack, luggage
and camera bag. So I know that the air tag
gets all the publicity. This is me talking now, not Patty.
But the tile is still a formidable tracker. And when
I like about the tile, I did review the latest
tile trackers this year, they just came out with brand
new ones. Tile was purchased by a company called Life

(01:02:22):
three sixty. They make a popular app, a family tracking app,
so it makes sense that the family tracking app would
also have family trackers and tracking devices built in. They've
got one for your remote control. It's like a little
sticker you put on the back of your remote so
you can find that with a sound. They've got a
pro tracker, they've got a standard tracker with less distance,

(01:02:42):
and then they've got a tracker that slips into your wallet.
And so again, actually let's see here, if I type
in into my website tile trackers, there it is. You
can search for that on my website as well and
see all my review on the new tile trackers. Look
at that the tile Mate twenty five bucks, Tile Pro
thirty five dollars, Tile Slim is the one that goes

(01:03:04):
in your wallet. That's thirty bucks, and then tile Sticker
is twenty five and some of them have a replaceable battery.
So the Pro I think is the best one because
it's got a five hundred foot range that's Bluetooth, and
then it's got a one year replaceable battery. Oh sorry, wait,
that one is yeah, yeah, replaceable, so you can replace
the battery in that. So if you have the tile
mate is a little bit cheaper. It's got a shorter range,

(01:03:27):
but a three year non replaceable battery. And of course
when I talk range on these things, there's two things happening.
You've got bluetooth. So let's say that this tile tracker
is in your backyard at your house. Your phone would
help you lead to it based on the bluetooth because
it can go five hundred feet. But if let's say
you leave this a purse with a tracker in it

(01:03:49):
at the airport, Now that tracker relies on a crowdsource
tracking network. So all the other people that have the
tile app installed on their phone, they are now helping
you locate your tile tracker. So again it's bluetooth for
the local stuff, and then for the worldwide stuff, it's
everyone that has the tile app installed on their phone.

(01:04:11):
Let's see. The FTC this week introduced some new regulations
that go into effect in April twenty twenty five that
say certain businesses have to display the total purchase cost
of your products, including mandatory fees and the two businesses
they targeted. Here are hotels and live event tickets, so

(01:04:33):
you know who I'm talking about, ticket Master, all those
different ticketing services. Let's say you go to buy a
ticket for your basketball game. Oh, it's twenty five dollars.
By the time you get to check out that same
ticket with all the fees and all these different things
they add on, is more like eighty five bucks. And
by the way, you're probably not even finding a ticket
for that cheap these days. Hotel same thing. You get

(01:04:53):
the hotel price. And it's all about the search engines,
because what people do is they put I want to
s stay in a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, and the
hotel search engine, like a Kayak or a Google Hotels,
they put all that information in a list and people
sort by the cheapest and so if this hotel comes

(01:05:14):
up to the cheapest, you select it. And then by
the time you put all your information and it says, oh,
by the way, you've got parking for thirty five dollars,
you've got the resort fee for fifty dollars, which includes
long distance phone calls. And then by the time you
get to the end, your hotel nightly fee is way
more than it was in that first page. So now
they got to put everything up front. Convenience fees, service fees,

(01:05:37):
resort fees all have to be up there. FTC estimates
this will save consumers up to fifty three million hours
annually that would otherwise be spent searching for total prices. Now,
the one industry they did not put in here, which
is a big, big offender, is the airline industry. So
it is my biggest pet peeve when you go on

(01:05:59):
Google Flights and you're looking for a flight somewhere and
a super cheap flight comes up from one of these
carriers that you know, they're fine, And yes, if you're
just a college student or someone who just wants to
get somewhere for fifty three dollars and not pack a
bag or have a carry on or drink of water
on the flight, sure it's amazing that we have that ability.

(01:06:19):
But if you've got a family of four like myself,
you got luggage you got to carry on. You know,
back in the day we had strollers and all this stuff.
You know, you want to see what that total prices.
You can compare it against the other airlines, and a
lot of these these low cost carriers. You've got to
go through the entire flow before you can see how
much it's going to cost you for your bag. And

(01:06:41):
so the FTC did not mandate that airlines have to
do this, which I think is a major miss. But
I get it. It's all about competing on price and
that's what these things do. So junk fees, they're still
gonna be there, just gonna be a little bit more transparent.
Anonymous rites in Rich, Happy holidays, Thanks for all your insights.
I have a quick question. I just bought a new

(01:07:01):
iPhone sixteen Promax and updated it to iOS eighteen. Maybe
I'm crazy, but sometimes it feels like the camera is
being turned on remotely. Is there a way to lock
the camera? I don't know of a way to completely
disable the camera on the iPhone, but you can manage
which apps can access it. So go to Settings, Privacy

(01:07:22):
and Security and Camera and you'll see a list of
all the apps that have accessed your camera recently, and
you can turn off camera access for any or all apps,
so you can do that. I don't think there's on
the Android side of things. On Pixel there is a way,
maybe on Samsung as well, but I know on pixel. Specifically,
you can turn off the camera globally so that no

(01:07:42):
app can access it. The other thing you can do
is look for a case that has a physical slider
for both the front and back cameras. So I was
looking up online. You can find one. Spyfi is one
brand that has it. Spy dash Fi fy so a
case that has a built in slider to physical block
the camera. Eight eight eight rich one O one eight

(01:08:03):
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
What's a massage from a robot like? That's coming up next?
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here with
you hanging out talking technology. Phone lines open at eight
eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven

(01:08:24):
four to two four one zero one. You can also
email me. Just go to the website richon Tech dot
tv and uh you can hit contact there. Jerry, I've
been asking folks what they're thankful for in technology. I
asked on my Instagram at rich on Tech. Jerry wrote
in my GPS golf watch, I'll never lose it. Accurate,

(01:08:47):
rechargeable and reliable. But does it improve your golf game?

Speaker 7 (01:08:52):
Jerry?

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
I bet it does. It's amazing how all these tech
products have helped in so many different fields, right, Like
you almost feel like you're cheating, Like golf, tennis. They
actually have an app for tennis that will like record
your swing. I think it's called swing Vision. Yeah, oh,
AI stats for tennis and pickleball, So I'll give you.

(01:09:15):
It'll process your video in real time to track the
ball trajectory and player movements. Probably help you, you know,
become a better player. But it's just all the stuff
that like you just didn't have and now you have it.
And by the way, it's all through the phone, or
it's all through GPS, it's all through your smart watch.
It's pretty cool. All right, let's go to Monica in

(01:09:36):
u Upland, California. Monica, you're on with Rich Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:09:42):
My question is very simple. I would like to know
if I could use AI to write my will.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Oh, why such a dark question. Now, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 6 (01:09:53):
I mean, I'm old and I'm getting there, so I
better be prepared.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
And the lawyers are very expensive.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
Yes. Well, I am actually very proud of you for
thinking of this because so many people do not have
a will, and it is very important to have a will,
even if it's a simple one, because why do you
want the state having to fit you know, your loved ones,
Why do you want to have to have them figuring
out with a state? You know, like it's just to me,
it's like, just get a will. I know we don't

(01:10:20):
want to think about this stuff, but it is very important.
So here's the thing. I think that AI can one
write your will. Do I want you to use that
as your will? Probably not, So I think that the
AI can come up with a rough draft. I think
the AI can give you some things to think about
when it comes to your will. And I'm sure if

(01:10:41):
you ask chat GBT to write a will for you,
it probably could. But I think that it may not
be the best way. Now. I'm not a lawyer and
I don't know what the legal requirements are for a will.
I believe that you probably just need something in writing
and have a witness to that. I'm not sure, but

(01:11:01):
I know that there are many many companies out there
like legal Zoom that can walk you through a process
to create your own will, and they do it every day,
all day long, and so I would say that's probably
a better way of doing it, just because you want
to be sure that this is done properly on the
up and up, and I'm looking at legal Zoom. It's

(01:11:23):
ninety nine bucks for a standard will that include your
last will and testament, healthcare directive, financial power of attorney,
hipA authorization, thirty days of revisions, printing and shipping of
one set of documents. So now I could be wrong.
I know people may email me after I say this
and say, Rich, of course use AI.

Speaker 7 (01:11:42):
Why not?

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Now I will tell you, Monica that I have used
AI to look at every single contract I sign or
deal or document, and I have it analyze everything, and
so there is no shortage of information that AI has.
So I'm gonna ask chat GPT. I'm just gonna say,
can you help me create a will? And let's see

(01:12:06):
what it says. Yes, I can help you draft a will.
It's important to note that while I can provide a
structured template, legal requirements for wills vary by jurisdic addiction.
For a legally valid will, you should consult with an
attorney or use a legal service tailored to your area.
Here's a general outline to get you started. Title, declaration,

(01:12:28):
appointment of executor, exidor executor. Oh oh yeah, hey, Rich,
Good reading Rich. See, this is how you know I'm
human because I still make mistakes. You know, you get
my newsletter, there's always like a misspelling in there, like
a little like you're like, that doesn't make sense, or
I leave out a word. This is how you know
that there's an actual human behind the stuff that I do.

(01:12:50):
There you go, uh yeah, the executor. It's a totally
different thing. Oh, distribution of ass guardianship for miners, other instructions, signatures,
and witnesses. Example of a witness statement, self proving affidavit.
So I bet you in this world there are probably

(01:13:11):
many many people that have been using AI to create
a will, and it probably works if you're hitting all
the right you know, dotting all the crossing all the
t's and dotting the i's like you, probably it probably works.
But I don't know if I want to leave it
to that chance just yet. So i'd probably have someone
look at this, or I wouldn't even have someone look

(01:13:32):
at it, because Monica, if you're trying to save money
and not pay an attorney, then I would probably just
do something like the legal zoom. And by the way,
there are many there are many other products like legal
Zoom you can type in on interesting on Google. Yeah,
I'm sure if you just type in on Google last
Will and Testament, it'll probably have a million companies that

(01:13:56):
are willing to take your money to do this. Rocket Lawyer,
Free Will, law Depot, so many trust and Will. I
mean there are companies that just specialized in this. I
think you could probably get a pretty good deal. And uh,
you know, look for a promo code. I bet you.
I bet your legal Zoom probably has some sort of
promo code that'll save you even more. So that's what

(01:14:16):
I would do, Monica, just to be sure. But I guess.
I mean, theoretically, if you make this thing on AI
and you go, you're not really gonna have to worry
about what the implications are, right, I mean, you don't
know any better. It's someone else is gonna have to
worry about it, you know. Anyway, Thanks for the question.
That's that's an interesting one. I do love AI for

(01:14:39):
all this stuff though, and it is it is changing
the way we do stuff like emails and stuff like.
I can tell half the email pitches I'm getting now
are all AI. It's all just like Okay, let's let's
summarize this. Let's bullet point it, let's put emojis, let's
use these words like furthermore and lastly. And conversely, Ai
has a way of writing that is just a little

(01:15:02):
bit unhuman, and it always ends with a waffling statement
at the end. While some people like this, others find that.
And it always says it at the end, and then
at the beginning it always says something kind of flowery
as well. So I love it, but it's it's got
a little ways to go. Okay, So Craig writes in

(01:15:22):
I've got a smart TV, Internet and local HDTV, but
I don't want one hundred dollars cable bill just to
watch Alaska the Last Frontier on Discovery Channel. I'm retired
and willing to pay five to ten dollars a month
any affordable options, So Craig, I'm not familiar with this show,
but it sounds good, Alaska the Last Frontier. So what

(01:15:43):
I would do is pop this into Google. And Google
has a feature that says where to watch upper right
hand corner. And I'm looking at this and the different
services come up. You've got Filo Max, YouTube TV, Apple TV,
Discovery Plus, YouTube, Hulu, so it's on a lot of

(01:16:06):
these things because I think it's a TV show. Looks
like it's a TV show on Discovery Channel. So I
think what's happening is if you've had Filo, I bet
you they have Discovery Channel so you can watch it.
If you got Max, do they include Discovery? Oh yeah,
because Max is part of that as well, so yeah,
they probably have it. So what I would do is
look at these subscription services and see which one is

(01:16:27):
the cheapest and subscribe there. I'm guessing it is Discovery Plus.
And so if I go to the third let's see
the second second listing on Google Alaska, the last Frontier
is on Discovery so it looks like a Discovery Channel show.
I would say Discovery Plus is going to be your
best bet. Let's see what is this show about? The

(01:16:51):
Kitcher The Kilture family works together to survive on a
homeland in Alaska. Stream now, So if you click that
Discovery Plus this show is on there, it confirms that.
And then you just have to see how much Discovery
Plus costs. Sign up now and let's see, Okay, Discovery
Plus four ninety nine a month AD free eight ninety nine,

(01:17:12):
where's our bell? That is correct? Craig you can do
this for five to ten dollars a month. Discovery Plus
is your friend. Now there are other apps that do this.
There you go, there's another. There's other apps that do this.
There's an app called Real Good Our E E L
g oo D. You can type in the service in there,
or just watch. Just watch is another one. And these

(01:17:36):
are apps that you can put on your phone. And
this goes for anything, anything that you want to watch.
These apps will help you find where that is. So
I'm gonna put this into just Watch. What's the show
called Alaska the Last Front Tier there it is. The
show has been going on since twenty eleven. It's got
eleven seasons, so Craig, you can catch up on some seasons.

(01:17:57):
So I'm looking at this and it's telling me the
different ways to watch it, and if I want to
do it's, uh yeah, you've got Max, You've got Discovery Plus.
Those are the pretty much the ways to do it.
Those are the main ways, and then of course you've
got the show on other ways. But that's for any
movie or TV show. If you want to figure out
where to watch it, Google is a good first stop.

(01:18:18):
They've got all that data. But Real Good and just
watch her. Also two great ways to do that eight
A eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. The website for
the show rich on Tech dot TV. Coming up this hour,
we're gonna talk to mind over Tech founder Jonathan Garner.

(01:18:40):
He's gonna explain how to develop a healthier relationship with technology,
and coming up right after the break, I'm gonna tell
you what it's like to get a massage from a robot. Yeah,
stick stay stick around for that. Well, become back to

(01:19:00):
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you.
Let's go to uh Mark in Los Angeles. Mark, you're
on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
All right, Rich, how you do it?

Speaker 5 (01:19:10):
Have the very Christmas seconds?

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
Absolutely same to you. What can I help you with?

Speaker 5 (01:19:15):
I have a quick question. I've seen these translating earbuds,
and I've had no good luck with the earbuds, you know,
regular ones, but these translating ones. I'd see him all
over the internet and I've seen them from ten dollars
on up to one hundred and fifty dollars, and I mean,
I don't if they do the same thing. I'm just
trying to find out which one's a good one and

(01:19:37):
what do you based it on? And if you have
any idea where to go and how to you know
which ones to do?

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
Okay, so this, uh, these must be advertised everywhere because
I get this question so often, and I guess they
must be on a lot of Facebook ads. That's what
I'm guessing. Are you seeing these like online?

Speaker 5 (01:19:52):
I'm not on Facebook anymore. Okay, They're all over the internet.
And I told somebody.

Speaker 6 (01:19:57):
I told somebody about them.

Speaker 4 (01:19:58):
She had no idea about them. She was flipping in
the air. She couldn't believe they had them.

Speaker 7 (01:20:02):
And I said, yeah, I've seen them.

Speaker 4 (01:20:04):
I was when COVID hit.

Speaker 5 (01:20:05):
I was, I was on the I was on the
web and I saw a pair company that was in
New York and they I couldn't get a hold of anybody.
I could just they would just do it by email.
And I contacted them again. And I don't if I
can't talk to somebody, I don't know if I want
to buy them.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
Oh that's a that's a great tip, right there. Absolutely.
I always checked for the UH. Always check for the
contact information and the customer service information before you make
a purchase. But to answer your question, so yes, there
are many, many claims of translating earbuds, but there's a
couple of brands and services that I think I would trust,

(01:20:40):
and I've I've seen these things. I've tried them to
a certain extent, but I don't know if there's like
one killer kind of brand out there just yet. I
think the one that comes up over and over with
the best reviews is the time Kettle. So I have
not personally tested these, but those, you know, it's sort
of like they're business and so they do, you know,

(01:21:02):
translating earbuds, and that's kind of like what their entire
world is. So I probably look to those. Number One,
let's see how much they are. So they've got the
latest W four pro. Let's see how much these things are.
Four hundred Oh wow, those are expensive, four hundred and
fifty bucks. So I think that that's, you know, one option.

(01:21:25):
It looks like they have a whole bunch of different
options under their website Time Kettle. But I will tell
you that I think this is going to be a
something that will be tackled in twenty twenty five by
a lot of companies, and I'm already seeing the trend.
So Number one, Samsung earbuds. This year, they came out
with something called Interpreter Mode, So that is something that

(01:21:45):
you can get on Samsung devices with these earbuds, and
in real time, you can hear what someone's saying in
a different language. So that's number one. You have to
have a Samsung phone for that. Pixel pixel buds do that.
So these I don't know if you need the pixel phone,
but I know you need the pixel buds to do this.
But the Pixel buds also have a feature where they
can translate in real time, and obviously it's Google, so

(01:22:06):
they're gonna be good at it. Then you've got the
ray Band Meta smart glasses. They just came out with
a software update that will let you hear what someone's
saying through these glasses in a different language. So if
someone speaking French, Italian or Spanish, it will translate that
into English that you can understand it, and it's done

(01:22:27):
all in the glasses. And I think that AI is
a big part of this. I think that AI is
going to be a huge win for this sort of situation.
But that's why i'd look for something that is maybe
not super duper cheap, but I would look for something
like the Time kettle I think is pretty well known.
This other brand keeps coming up, but I have not

(01:22:48):
heard of it. Yeah, I'm I don't know if I'm
gonna mention that one because I'm not really sure. This
brand is called and Fear a n F I E
er and they have the M three offline, So that's
the other thing depends if these are online or offline.
Offline is obviously going to be easier because you don't

(01:23:08):
need to be connected to the internet. Those are one
hundred bucks. They get three and a half stars on Amazon,
so I'd be a little cautious with those. Let's see
what their M six get. Those get a little bit better.
Those get four and a half stars. Those are ninety bucks.
So a couple of options there. Mark choose wisely, all right.
So this week I got a massage from a robot.

(01:23:30):
Yes it is quite weird. It's called Escape, but this
is the future. So this is a basically a robotic
massage table. You lay down, you put on this spandex suit.
There's no oil, so you put on this tight fitting
body suit so these arms can move over you and
you kind of choose what you want to do. It's

(01:23:51):
kind of like an uber of massages, So you book
it all online through the app. You go to one
of these places and it's pretty much self serve, except
for the first time you go. Someone's going to tell
you how to do it, and you know, help you,
you know, pick out this suit to put on that
they will provide to you. So you put on the suit,
you lay down, you press start, and next thing you know,
the thing uses cameras to scan your body. I'm told

(01:24:12):
the cameras don't actually take pictures. They just kind of
use like topography map kind of thing of your body,
of your back and uses AI to come up with
a program. And once it does that not only takes
like a minute or so, and then all of a sudden,
this thing gets to work and these arms come down
and they start moving on your back and kind of
massaging you. And it reminded me of sort of what

(01:24:35):
Peloton did for cycling. This is not going to replace
people going out on bikes, not going to replace the
human you know therapists out there massage therapists. But I
think it's just going to give people another option. So
it felt good. It was a little scary the first
time those arms hit my back. I was like, oh gosh,
are these things gonna crush me to death? They didn't.
There is an emergency button if you need it, but

(01:24:56):
I didn't have to use that. And if the power
goes out or whatever, you can just push these off
of you. It's not a big deal. It's not like
they're big and heavy. But again, the company is escape
a e Scape. They're putting them in at the rich
Carlton Equinox. You can see the level of clientele they're
going for. I went to a place called Pause in

(01:25:16):
Studio City, California. It's kind of like a wellness clinic.
And again, I think this is just going to give
people one more option for a massage, someone who may
not be comfortable going to a traditional massage, or someone
who just wants a little more tech forward of an experience.
I try it. You can check the video on the
website rich on Tech dot TV. Coming up, we're going
to talk about developing a healthier relationship with your technology.

(01:25:39):
Right here on rich on Tech. Jerry wrote in and
says what he's thankful for my new AirPod pro twos
for my loss of hearing. Such a blessing. I asked
you on my Instagram what you're thankful for. And that's
a good one, Jerry. That's a new feature. Definitely check
it out if you have not if you are hearing,

(01:26:02):
if you have any sort of hearing issue, it can
really help with a wide range of those. All right,
joining me now is a mind Over tech founder Jonathan Garner.
He's got a new book coming out next year and
he's going to explain how to develop a healthier relationship
with technology. Jonathan, thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 4 (01:26:20):
Yeah, very welcome. You're mentioning time.

Speaker 9 (01:26:22):
It's ten thirteen evening here in Berlin where I'm based. Yeah,
see that's what it's definitely definitely code outside.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
You know. I actually did a show from Berlin and
it was The show was I think it was from
eight to eleven at night and I was in a
hotel room but some for some reason, I didn't realize
there was like a lounge club underneath the room I
was staying in, and all of a sudden at night
it was just like the music, the drums, the singing,
and it was I don't think you could hear on

(01:26:49):
the radio, but it was pretty wild. So what do
you think our relationship is with technology? What do you
think the problem, Well, what do you think the problem
is with our relationship with technology?

Speaker 9 (01:27:00):
I think the problem is that it's just very complicated.
At the same time, technology brings us so many incredible benefits,
and at the same time, I think anyone be lying
if they didn't say that there were things they wanted
to improve about their relationship with tech or that quite
a lot of the time they felt like they didn't
actually have full control over the way they.

Speaker 4 (01:27:20):
Were using it.

Speaker 9 (01:27:21):
So I think, yeah, there's like a deep love hate
relationship involved in that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
I can understand that. So you have an organization mind
over Tech. What is that all about?

Speaker 4 (01:27:33):
That's right? So, yeah, mind over Tech.

Speaker 9 (01:27:34):
We work with organizations to help people look into their
relationship with technology, but specifically we work with people on
the behavior level, looking at their digital habits. So basically
the moment to moment kind of interactions with our digital
devices every day, and we do that to create space
for people to actually be more intentional with how they

(01:27:56):
use their technology. So trying to turn it from a
toul distracts us into a tool which actually aligns with
our kind of professional and personal goals as well.

Speaker 4 (01:28:06):
Okay, we work with yeah, sorry, go on.

Speaker 1 (01:28:09):
Well, I'm just I mean, okay. So here's like, so
this is what happens with me personally, is that I'm like, okay,
I'm going to be less on my phone, I'm going
to be with my kids. I'm going to be present,
And all of a sudden, it's like, oh, what time's
that movie playing? Well, where do you have to go
for that? You got to go to your phone? Oh
let me see how long does it take to drive
to that place? Oh? You got to go to your phone.
Did someone call me or leave a message or text

(01:28:31):
me or whatever? I mean, it's like, you know, or
your wife is you know, still out in your home,
and it's like you want to make sure you're available
for a phone call or your kid's school. So I
feel like this the smartphone specifically, is like this really
interesting tool that, like you said earlier, it gives us
so many benefits and it does so many things, but
at the same time, it's like to disconnect from it

(01:28:52):
is really tough because of all those reasons.

Speaker 9 (01:28:56):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, like the reason why that's
so incredible because you know, your smartphone particularly is this
portal which allows you to do almost anything, which is
incredibly liberating and fereing to live these kind of very
complex lives that we live these days. But on the
flip side of that, as you're pointing out, there was
very little boundaries set within those devices.

Speaker 4 (01:29:18):
They're very slippery. So actually, like for me, I'll.

Speaker 9 (01:29:21):
Often go to pick up my friends to check the
time and then suddenly I'm lost down some rabbit hole
somewhere completely forgetting to check the time in the first place.
And I think that a lot of this problem stems
from the fact that actually most of us use our
technology with the default settings. Maybe not listeners of your
show people that kind of get eeky about Peck, But

(01:29:41):
actually there was a really interesting study looking into how
people use Microsoft Word, so perhaps not the most kind
of kind of current piece of technology, but interestingly there
they found that ninety five percent of people never changed
the default settings of using Word. And I think extrape
it out that that's true for most of us with

(01:30:02):
most of our technology. And whilst technology is amazing, actually
the default settings don't often work for everybody. It really
takes time kind of pays off to take the time
to dig in a little bit and set your technology
up in a way that really works for you, and
that's you know, working with your digital habits. The book
that I've written is called Your Best Digital Life, and

(01:30:23):
that's really about looking into Okay, what can you do
to actually dig it a bit deeper, reflect on how
you use your technology and change those settings so that
it becomes a power tool to really align with your goals.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
So true, like go into those settings. You're not going
to break anything. And people think like, oh, if I
turn this off, it's going to like ruin my phone,
Like you can always change it back. My brother and
I were talking about this yesterday because you said, you know,
I'm getting like thirty notifications a day from this app.
And I call it for some of these apps like
notification abuse because let me get an example of a

(01:30:57):
delivery app, right, Like an app delivers food, right, So
you need to keep those notifications on for that app
because you want to know when your food's getting delivered,
an update if there's a problem. But what that app
does in the off time is spam you with a
hundred different things like hey, you're I noticed you looked
at an Enchilada today, do you want to order that?
Or I saw you checked out Chipotle? Do you want

(01:31:19):
to order your ball from there, So it's like they're
abusing you with like all these other things, but yet
you need to leave that on for the important notifications
that you need to get. So that's just one tiny example.

Speaker 9 (01:31:32):
Absolutely, And the thing is that we all know that
we could improve that situation by changing our notification settings,
but the reality is that most of us never actually
get around to doing it. So a lot of what
we teach at mind O of Tech is not things
that people haven't heard of before, but actually saying, how
can you create a system which allows you to move
from this being something that's you know, a nice to

(01:31:55):
have to something that you.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
Actually regularly practice.

Speaker 9 (01:31:57):
And we actually created a number of years ago a
resource called the Digital Habit Lab.

Speaker 4 (01:32:02):
I've got it here.

Speaker 9 (01:32:02):
It's like a deck of fifty experiment cards and actually,
to your point, one of the experiments in there is
have a notification strategy. So this is a basically encouraging
people to spend ten minutes digging into those notification settings
to understand how they work to filter out those useful
notifications from the unuseful ones. But the whole point here

(01:32:25):
is actually everyone's need from technology is different. Some people
don't need any notifications at all. Others may need to
be alerted straight away when loved ones need assistance. Like,
there's an infinite spectrum of needs. And our belief is
that by regularly running experiments like the one I just mentioned,
it allows you to actually understand what you need on

(01:32:45):
your own terms and start to shift your behavior about
how you use your technology, so it is aligning more
with your goals.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
Well, speaking of I know we're kind of getting fixated
on notifications, but speaking of that good good tip on
the iPhone is that when you get a notification from
an app and you don't need a notification from them anymore,
instead of just swiping it away, slow swipe it from
the right to the left and you'll reveal this new
options button and you can tap that and you can
turn off those notifications all together, or you can mute

(01:33:15):
them for an hour or for the day. But it's
something that I do all the time. I'll just clean
up my notifications when I get one from an app.
I'm like, I don't need to. You know, you sign
up for like one of these store apps to get
a discount the first time you use it, and all
of a sudden they just start spamming you with all
kinds of stuff. It's all right, I already use the
ten percent off coupon. Let me just swipe over and
turn off these notifications and you don't need them. Okay,

(01:33:36):
So you've got the book, You've got the book coming out,
and we've got about a minute left. What do you
think when people say they're addicted to their phone? What
do you think the real issue is there? What do
you think?

Speaker 9 (01:33:48):
Yeah, so I think I mean smartphone addictions possible, but
most of the time it's quite uncommon.

Speaker 4 (01:33:54):
And because the thing is addiction creates.

Speaker 9 (01:33:56):
Actually a sense of pleasure in the brain and removes
the discomfort from cravings, which but actually I think what
most people experience is more of compulsion. So and the
difference there with the compulsion is that actually it kind
of creates the urge to do something, but it doesn't
actually necessarily saytiate your your brain.

Speaker 4 (01:34:13):
So this is really driven by dopamine, I guess.

Speaker 9 (01:34:17):
But the interesting thing with dopamine is that we often
think that it's given as a reward at the end,
like I eat ice cream and then I'm rewarded with
that dopamine. But actually the most dopamine has released an
anticipation of a reward. When you hear the ice cream
truck in the distance, your dopamine is released at the
potential of getting a reward there. So actually a lot
of the time we feel addicted, but actually we're just

(01:34:39):
it's a very deeply ingrained habit from these kind of
dopamine loops, which basically drew us to pick up our
phone because actually, you know, there are good reasons, like
often when you pick up your phone, there's very important
information there, but a lot of the time there isn't.

Speaker 4 (01:34:53):
So our brain secretary is very much geared towards.

Speaker 9 (01:34:57):
Compelling us to look at that, and a lot of
what we look at in the book and our methodology
is how can you use a mindful approach to actually
become aware of that behavior, to notice those patterns and
actually start to build behaviors which help you use it
when you want to, but not when you don't, and
therefore help you get more done and feel less anxious.

Speaker 1 (01:35:16):
Good information. Mindover tech dot com is the website the
book Your Best Digital Life that's coming out in April.
You can pre order that now on Amazon. Jonathan Garner,
thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 4 (01:35:31):
Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 9 (01:35:32):
And there's a free chapter one available for danod on
the website, so do check that out.

Speaker 1 (01:35:37):
All right, mindover tech dot com download it, see what
the deal is with you and your phone and get
some healthier phone sort of management skills for twenty twenty five.
Really appreciate you coming on the show today. Coming up,
we are going to open up the feedback. These are
the emails, the comments, the questions that you have sent
to me this week. Dare I say it maybe the

(01:36:00):
last one of the year. Wow, rich on Tech dot TV.
If you want to get in those last minute comments,
will be right back. Welcome back to rich on tech.
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology, sharing

(01:36:21):
some of the things that you wrote in that you
are thankful for. Kristin writes in Claude AI Brad from Lakeland,
Tennessee rights in perplexity, AI. Karen writes in grammarly let's see,
and Matt writes in my Tesla for driving me around town.

(01:36:42):
So AI, very people are very thankful for AI apparently
and the Tesla for driving around town. All right, let's
open up the feedback. If you listen to the show,
you know this is the part of the show where
I read your questions, your comments, your emails. I get
a lot of them, and I do try to write

(01:37:03):
back to most of your questions, but it is just
impossible to get to them all, so I address some
of them on the show. So if you write to me,
you may hear your name on the show. That's what
happened with Rudy from San Jose, he writes in I
wanted to comment on your recent show. A caller mentioned
having issues with an EPSOM printer on AT and T

(01:37:23):
wireless internet, where sometimes it prints and sometimes it doesn't.
One thing to note that routers create two networks, a
personal network and a guest network. It's possible that the
caller's phone or computer is connected to one network and
the printer to the other, which would cause them not
to see each other. We had a similar issue at
home and this was the solution. Love your show, Regards Rudy. Okay,

(01:37:45):
that's one option. Always make sure you're connected to the
same network as the device that you're trying to connect to,
and that is tricky because sometimes people do have a
guest network or a separate network, and that's not always
the case. Along the same lines, Darren from Walnut writs
in Hey, Rich, love your show and never miss it
regarding the caller who had trouble connecting as printer using

(01:38:05):
AT and T five G home Internet. I've had a
similar experience with T mobile home Internet when I had
cable Internet. I did not have the issue with the
same setup. I've noticed devices like my iPhone or Dennin
av box sometimes take ten minutes to an hour to
reconnect after being turned off or restarted. That might explain
the caller's problem. If he's turning off his iPad when

(01:38:27):
he's not using it, I suggest he keeps it on
or avoid restarting it before printing. Yeah, that's another solution there.
It's funny we always make the joke about this show
that printer problems are the number one issue. Everyone has
a printer issue. In fact, I was printing my stuff
for the show today. Yes, I still print out some
of these things. I try to say paper whenever possible,

(01:38:49):
like right now I'm reading off of PDFs on my
computer screen, so I don't waste paper. But you know,
I was printing this morning for some of my show,
and the printer it was like sorry, you're not connected.
It's like what Sure enough, I go into the office
and the printer had been turned off, and you know,
turn on the printer. And as soon as I did
that took about ten seconds, my computer found it and

(01:39:11):
it went to it. But I will say there's been
times when my computer, or rather my printer has gone
into sort of a deep sleep, and I feel like
that's when you have the connection problems. Like maybe if
you're not using it for a long time, it just
says sorry, like you need to like tap the screen
or something and wake it up. David writes in Hey Rich,
big fan of the show and listen to the podcast

(01:39:32):
every week. It's my go to source for tech news
and opinions. I really appreciate your insights and the way
you introduce listeners to new products and helpful apps. I
wanted to share a cool app I recently discovered called
local Send. It's a game changer for easily transferring files
between Mac, Android, and Windows devices on my home network.
The fact that it's open source is a big plus

(01:39:53):
for me. I don't recall hearing you mention it on
your show. I thought you might find it interesting. Thanks
again for the great content. David. I have mentioned local
send on the show and I think it is fantastic
and I have used it personally. It's kind of like
the best way to describe it is sort of like
air drop, but for every device. Keep in mind you
do have to be on the same network, so airdrop.

(01:40:16):
What's beautiful about that is that it works ad hoc.
So if you are in the forest in the middle
of nowhere with no signal, no Wi Fi, and you
had an iPhone and your friend had an iPhone, you
would be able to send a file from your iPhone
to their iPhone without any sort of like cellular network
or Wi Fi network. Local send you do need to

(01:40:37):
be on the same network, but it is free, it's
open source, it's cross platform. It works really well. There
are some other apps like this. One of them is
called a pair drop pai r DRP dot net. So
if you're ever with someone and you want to exchange
something quickly, just have them openpairdrop dot net on their browser.

(01:40:57):
You can open up paardrop dot net on your browser
and as long as you're on the same network, you
can exchange files, or you can even make a public
room and you can exchange stuff like that. So lots
of options. Thanks for the suggestion there, David, appreciate it.
Jony from Carmel writes in thanks for your podcast. I

(01:41:18):
almost bought ink on Amazon that looked like HPS, complete
with the logo, but the brand was listed as dzeng
and raised a red flag. The ninety nine dollars knockoff
was even labeled as Amazon's choice. Meanwhile, the real HP Inc.
Was twenty five dollars cheaper. How was it legal for
sellers to use HP's logo on counterfeit items? Big fail? Amazon.

(01:41:38):
Thanks for letting me vent Merry Christmas to you and
your family. Brian writes in great show, Rich, I really
appreciated the coinbase guest you had on. Unfortunately, I was
a victim of a pig butchering crypto scam, so while
the advice came too late for me, I hope it
helps stop future targets. I reported the scam to the police,
the FBI, and the FTC, but never heard back. It

(01:41:59):
feels like there's very little digital protection, whether for cryptocurrencies
or data breaches. I'd love to hear an interview specifically
about what happens to companies that get compromised. It seems
like consumers end up bearing the brunt. Sorry that that
happened to you, Brian. That's why I do interviews like
that to help folks be aware of these things that
are happening. And yes, you should report things to the

(01:42:22):
IC three. I think it's called IC three Internet Crime
Complaint Center, but it does say on there that they
will not necessarily respond to your complaint, but they will
take it into consideration. Chris writes in I enjoy your program.
I am at best tech challenge, but I appreciate learning
everything I can. Thanks for providing a great show. Candice
from San Diego writes in thank you for all your

(01:42:42):
extremely useful information. You make it easy to understand. Thank you,
and Donna writes in thank you for your time. I
really enjoy your segments and learn a lot from them.
Keep doing the great work you're doing. You're good at
your job. Oh, thank you, and I admire you. Wishing
you in the KTLA family a safe and wonderful Holidays season.
That's going to do it for this episode of the show.

(01:43:04):
Thank you, Donna, Thank you everyone who takes the time
to write to me. It's been two years of this show.
If you can believe it. It is flown by You
can find links to anything I mentioned on my website.
Just go to Rich on tech dot tv. This is
show number one oh two. You can find me on
social media. I am at rich on Tech. Instagram is
kind of where I hang out the most. Of course,

(01:43:25):
I'm also on x I'm also on Facebook and Blue Sky.
Still trying to figure that one out. Have a fantastic holiday,
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Honakah, whatever you celebrate, enjoy,
spend some time with friends and family, Relax, recharge. Thank
you so much for listening. That's what I can say.

(01:43:46):
There are so many ways you can spend your time.
I really do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. Adam in
for Bobo today, Kim on Phones, Bill, Julie, the rest
of the team. My name is rich Tomuro. I will
talk to you real soon.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Rich's Favorite Apps 2024, Android Tips, and Can AI Write Your Will?