Tesla's Robotaxi, Electronics Nostalgia & Ring's AI Search

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tesla unveils a ROBOTAXI how your smart TV is spying
on you? Why you're getting so many unsolicited job offer texts?
Plus your tech questions? Answer ered What's going on? I'm
Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech. This is
the show where I talk about the tech stuff I
think you should know about. It's also the place where

(00:21):
I answer your questions about technology. I believe the tech
should be interesting, useful and fun. Let's open up those
phone lines at triple eight rich one oh one. That's
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Give me a call. If you have a question about technology.
Email is also an option, and you like it, just

(00:43):
go to rich on tech dot tv and hit contact.
It is so wild. When this show airs throughout the weekend,
obviously it's live and then it replays in different places.
The emails just come pouring in, and I love reading them.
I can't get to every single one of them. I
do mention a lot on the show. I do answer
some of my newsletter. But if you get that response

(01:05):
from me, you know it, and I do appreciate you
emailing me. All right, Guests, this week, we've got tech
journalists Christian Delooper. He's gonna explore the pros and cons
of those art style TVs like Samsung's the frame and
high senses canvas TV. You know they show artwork when
you're not using it. And we've got former PR pro

(01:25):
Scott Baldwin. He's got a new app. He has a
startup and the app is called front Pack. It's a
social network for athletes. So we'll talk to him. Plus
I've got a special guest. Stay tuned for that.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I am coming to you from my home state of
New Jersey today, so that's why the music you'll hear
throughout the show is all Jersey inspired. Always fun to
come home. I am actually here for a celebration for
my dad and it's a nice one. Ten years cancer free,
which I cannot believe. I still remember the day I

(02:01):
was actually at the doctor with him when he got
the initial diagnosis and it just, you know, puts your
world into a tailspin, just everything, and so my you know,
I live far away, so I said, you know what,
I will help. Couldn't bring him to the hospital all
that stuff, but I will help get his tech life
in order. So immediately I said, let's go through your stuff.

(02:22):
Let's get everything kind of figured out so I can
help you pay the bills and all these different things.
And the first thing I learned is that his digital
life was such a mess, as are so many of ours.
I like to think mine is not, but you know,
there are portions of it that are. But I had
to go through his passwords and access to everything, you know,

(02:42):
get online, access to banking and things like that. And
it just took a lot because it's like, Dad, do
you know your password to this? No? Dad, do you
know how you access this?

Speaker 3 (02:53):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:54):
And so I got a lot of things in order,
but it took a while. A couple of things to
think about. Number One, when you're thinking about, you know,
your access for other folks. Apple has a legacy access option,
So set that up someone that you can hand over
your account to in the event that you can't, you know,
manage it any longer you pass away. Google has an

(03:17):
inactive account manager as well. They will email you can
set someone as a sort of a beneficiary of those
two accounts. Those are the two big ones. But do
that and also maybe share your passwords of some of
the important stuff with folks. Obviously, my dad's livelihood was
impacted during this time when he was recovering. He is
a roofer by trade, so he couldn't go up on roofs,

(03:38):
although he probably did during some of this time, and
so I set up a GoFundMe for him. That was
incredible just to see how many friends, family, and even
complete strangers wanted to help. If you did that many
many years ago, thank you for that. Always set up
a GoFundMe if someone is going through something in your life,
because there are many people that are just waiting to help.

(03:59):
And with social media and all these avenues, it's a
great way to do that and to raise some funds
for folks who can't work or need some help. And
it's been a long journey, lots of doctors, lots of hospitals,
lots of sickness, lots of blood. Blood actually helped save
both my mom's life and my dad's life. They would
not be here today if it was not for blood donation.

(04:21):
So please donate blood. Personally, I am too scared to
do that. I know I'm trying to work through it,
but that is something that I do appreciate when other
people do it. I think it's incredible. My dad really strong.
He's a health nut, always has been, and so he
did end up getting through his cancer. He got a
stem cell transplant, which, again incredible technology. He had to

(04:45):
start life over. It was not easy and it was
a very long journey. Again, it's been ten years. But
modern technology, including includes medical advances. We often forget. We
think about technology as computers and gadgets and things, but
medicine is also quite incredible these days, and there are
very smart people figuring this stuff out and continuing to

(05:07):
make strides. But one thing has not changed. My dad
is healthy now.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
He is.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
You know, it's you never fully recover from something like this,
but you know, the cancer is gone and he is
an incredible person and we're going to celebrate him for
that today. And one thing has not changed, though, I
will tell you his passwords are still a mess, so
that has not changed. While I was here in New Jersey,
I did visit a real life electronics store. It's called Microcenter.

(05:35):
My mom and I were going somewhere else and I said,
I got to stop in that place. I mean I
got to stop in because it's just you know, we
don't have these, And so I did go there and
I just thought it was so neat because over the
years we've seen this sort of evolution of you know,
the the idea of the electronics store. Nowadays it's all
Amazon overnight, right, But through my years growing up, I

(05:57):
mean I remember going going to Egghead Software, if you
remember a place called Egghead Software. But that was like
as a nerd growing up, it was just so cool.
You'd walk in and all the software was in boxes,
and you had discs and floppy drives and you would
come home and put in like one disc after another
to install programs. Now we just download them on our
phone instantly. There's a place called Crazy Eddies, which I

(06:19):
know got a lot of notoriety over the years because
I think the guy ended up getting in trouble with
the government for like embezzling money. But that was a
great place where our prices are insane. I mean, these
larger than life, you know characters on TV that would
be promoting electronics. How wild is that? And then of
course I lived close to New York City, so there
were always these electronics stores, like independent electronics stores in

(06:40):
New York City. And what you do is you'd buy
the newspaper. They would all list their prices in the
back and tiny print, and you'd go into one store
and you say, hey, this other store has this thing,
this VCR for you know, nine ninety eight. You've got
it for nine to ninety nine. Can we get that?
You know, this this price that they have. Maybe it
wasn't that little of a difference, but you know what
I mean. And so you know, then you had the

(07:02):
regional retailer, so PC, Richards, the Whiz sixth have electronics.
These were all on the East Coast. I'm sure where
you are it could be different, but this is where
I grew up, and there was just so many of them,
and I love just going into these stores and walking around.
And over the years, of course, growing up, my dad
would buy stereos in our first camquarder, our first big

(07:23):
screen TV, our first fax machine, computers and printers, and
I will tell you my dad would attest to this
that almost every single thing that he purchased, whether it
was for a small business or for the house, somehow
ended up in my room at the house. Like the
fax machine. He bought it for his business, but somehow
it ended up in my room. Like what did they
sixth grader need with a fax machine. I don't know,

(07:44):
i'd know in a fax, but it was just so cool.
And then of course later peripherals, sound cards, speakers, graphic cards.
It just went on and on. My love for electronics
ran very deep, even as a kid, and the stores
go on and on. Radio Shack that was next to
like one of the grocery stores my mom would always
go to, and of course I had to duck into
Radio Shack and convince my mom to let me go

(08:05):
in there and just check it out. And I didn't
necessarily have enough money to buy anything. But part of
the fun of going into these stores were the smart
people that were inside these stores. So because you were
a nerd, you would find like minded people and just
chat about nerdy things, and a lot of times you
were comparing knowledge, right, oh what about this new you know,
microprocess or this new computer. Oh I tried that. So

(08:28):
that was just part of it. Nowadays, of course, that's
all online, it's all in forms, it's all in chats.
But back in the day, it was like real human
to human interaction at these places, and you knew where
to find these people. And then of course it was
the bigger, bigger stores comp USA Circuit City and Best Buy.
They just continued to get bigger fries electronics when I
made my way to California, but again, local retailers ruled

(08:51):
electronics for a long time until these mega chains stepped in.
Back in the day, even office Depot had an excellent
department that I had never worked in. It was called
business Machines. I actually worked it off as depots selling
cell phones back in the day when they were ninety
nine cents you would, or were they a penny? Whatever
they were, they were like ninety nine cents or a penny,

(09:12):
and every time, without fail, people would buy the phone
and they'd come in like thirty days later when their
first bill came in the mail and their bill was
so expensive because it included the first month, the last month,
the pro rated amount, and I was like, well, the
phone was only ninety nine cents. I mean, you have
to pay for this somehow, right, And we had to
work through that. Half the times, the flip phones that
we sold for a dollar would be returned because people

(09:33):
were so angry at the giant bill they got for.
And back then it was like, you know, a couple
hundred bucks for their first bill, and by the way
in that department business machines. These salespeople again were nerds,
and they were fun and like that's why I just
sit there and chat with about all the latest electronics.
And they were commissioned, so if you were a good salesperson,
you can make a lot of money back in the day. Now,

(09:55):
of course, a lot of these retailers like Best Buy
have moved away from that sort of commission I pressure sales,
but it was quite interesting for a long time, and
now it's all about online reviews, Amazon getting your stuff overnight.
Cost Go still a big place where people buy electronics.
But I'm curious, are there any local electronics stores left
in your area? I mean, I travel a lot, and

(10:17):
of course I will always go into a place if
I see one, But I was so happy to see
micro Center. It's just such a such a great place
to see, like thriving, and I just made my mom
walk around all we walk down every single aisle and
just had such a great time. So if you want
to hop on the phone lines or email me, I
will mention later in the show or throughout the show

(10:37):
some of these places that you visited growing up and
just enjoying electronics because If you're listening to the show,
you probably have somewhat of a small love of gadgets
like I did and still do. All right, coming up,
we're gonna talk Tesla Cybercab, new announcement from Tesla with
their self driving car. But first we're gonna take some
of your calls. Your calls up next A triple eight

(10:59):
rich one, you know 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. My name
is Rich Dmuro. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with
you talking technology at triple A rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(11:22):
zero one, Coming to you from New Jersey today. The
website for the show is rich on Tech dot TV.
While you're there, sign up for my newsletter. Got a
great issue out this week and uh it's completely freeze.
Just pop in your email address. You'll get that every weekend.
And if you want to send me an email here

(11:42):
just go to the website as well. Rich on Tech
dot TV. Hit contact. You know, when I took on
a Saturday live radio show, I did not I kind
of forgot about how much I travel on the weekends
to different places, both for personal and for job, most
of the time in the studio. But you know, I
didn't want to let this show stop me from being

(12:03):
places that I needed to be, Like this weekend, let's
go to let's see here, Let's go to line too,
Tony in the England Empire. Tony, let's get you on
with Rich.

Speaker 5 (12:14):
What's up, Hi, Rich, thank you for taking my call.
I wanted to know.

Speaker 6 (12:21):
I have.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
Air pods and it's the Model A zero three one.
I guess it's the second Gin, okay, but it shut
down after only possibly maybe one hour of youth and
my battery I'm checking and it's still like eighty percent
or more. So I'm, I guess in the market of

(12:44):
purchasing a replacement, and I noticed that the fourth GIN
is out right now. So I need your help on
what shall I buy because I'm quite satisfied with what
I have. It's just that it doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
So the AirPods that you have, what's the problem. The
battery is not lasting right.

Speaker 5 (13:04):
Another battery still showing. I'll put it back in the case.
I'm in the middle of of a phone call or something.
I'm using it, and I'll get that little sound word
shutting down it or whatever it makes, and it'll just
totally go out, and I have to put it back
in the case. And then I'll always check to see
what the percentage I have left, and at that time

(13:25):
it's always seventy or eighty percent left on the I
guess the battery line usage or whatever. But it shuts down.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Okay, well that's odd. So first thing I would do
is reset these to factory like reset. Have you done that?

Speaker 4 (13:44):
No?

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Okay, So you put the AirPods in their case, you
close the lid, you wait about thirty seconds, you open
the lid, and then you press and hold that little
button on the back of the case for about fifteen
seconds until the light will flash amber and then white.
And this is off the AirPod support guide online and
that will get them back to factory settings. So that
will clear everything off of them and make sure that

(14:08):
they are factory fresh once again, and then you will
repair them to your phone and see if the problem persists. Now,
if the problem persists, I would also do a little
clean out. I would get a little alcohol, a little
rubbing alcohol or an alcohol wipe, make sure it's not
super wet. Just you know, maybe put some alcohol on
a Q tip and I would clean the I would

(14:30):
clean the all basically everything inside the case and the
contacts on the air pods themselves, and then I would
charge them up, pair them back to your phone, and
see if the problem is still happening. If the problems
still happening, then I would probably get a new pair
of AirPods. I would see if these are under warranty.
You said they're the second generation. I don't think they're
under warranty at this point, and so I would probably

(14:53):
get a new pair at that point. The new ones
are let's see here. The new ones are one hundred
and twenty nine dollars for the air pods four. I
will tell you I've been testing them with active noise cancelation.
I don't think it's worth the active noise cancelation. I
don't think it's very good. So did you need the
noise cancelation or no?

Speaker 5 (15:13):
No. I normally just wear one anyway, because if I'm
out walking or doing something, I normally just wear one
so that I can be more aware of my surrounding.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, okay, And so is it only one that's messing
up on these air pods.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Well, I only really use the one, and that's the
one that keeps going out. The other one, I don't.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
Know, Okay, got it? Okay, So I'm wondering if I mean, yeah, okay, interesting. Well,
I mean you could switch the other ear, and it'll
take a little bit for your brain to get used
to it, because, believe me, I always put mine in
the same ear when i'm doing just one, and then
it's like if I have it in the other one,
I'm like, wait, I can't do this, but you can.
You know, if you want to squeeze another couple of
years of life out of these, you can just put
it in the other ear and use that one. But

(15:57):
I think maybe a new pair, if you know, go
through the steps that I mentioned. I'll put the links
on the website. Rich on tech dot tv. This is
the show notes. This is show number ninety three, So
I'll put that in the show notes, and hopefully if
you go through all those systems and see if it's
still giving you a problem, then maybe it's time for
a new pair. But I will tell you you're not alone

(16:19):
these Tony. These For some reason, the AirPods just have
this weird thing where like sometimes they just show like
one percent one of them charges, one of them doesn't.
And so I've seen this happen before with mine. Most
of the time it's sort of a contact thing or
like just a quirk. And there have been some software
updates for the AirPods as well, so I'll put the
link on the website. You can't really force a software

(16:41):
update with the AirPods, but perhaps you need a software update,
and I'll put the instructions on how to see if
it needs a software update. You can check like what
the software that's running is and compare it against what's available.
So hopefully that helps Tony.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Okay, so you're saying that, let's just say I go
through all those steps and it's still doing the same thing. Now,
if I were to buy a replacement, you recommending which
one I.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Would go at the AirPods for those are the new ones,
brand new they just came out. AirPods four one hundred
and twenty nine bucks. Or you can go for a
replacement AirPod if you just want to replace what you got,
it's gonna be sixty nine dollars. You're listening to Rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech eight eight
eight Rick one one eight eight eight rich one O

(17:26):
one seven four to two four to one zero one
seem to have hit a nerve with the classic electronics stores.
Lots of you emailing me to tell me that Microcenter
is also in the La area in Tustin. Yes, I
knew that I should have mentioned that. I know they
have more than one location. I just have not been

(17:48):
to the Tustin location, and this one's a lot closer.
So yes, I am well aware of that. They're actually
building a new one in northern California and Santa Clara,
California as well, So they are still expanding and we'll
talk more about them later. Dave writes in from Temecula
many years ago. Daytel in San Diego was the place
to go. They sold the brand new IBM PC and

(18:11):
also their own brand as a kit. I got the
kit assembled. I got the kit and assembled it myself,
A whopping one hundred and twenty eight k of memory,
twenty megabyte hard drive, and a amber monochrome monitor. And
it cost over three thousand dollars, quite a lot in
those days. And go Dosco three thousand dollars is still
a lot. I remember so two computers. I begged three computers.

(18:33):
I begged my dad to buy me my first. We
were just in PC Richard and we just did it
on a whim and we bought this computers like a
computer in a box, and it was a three eighty
six SX sixteen. And then my second computer was a
Gateway two thousand and I don't know if you remember this,
but I mean I sure did. I could not wait
for PC World to get delivered to my house because

(18:55):
in the center of that magazine was the Gateway two
thousand AD and it was headweight in all his like
I don't know, cowboy gear with the cows everywhere the spots,
and I would just flip through this ad and just
I mean that sold me on that brand so heavily
compared to like a Dell, I guess, or maybe that
came later, I don't know, but but Gateway was the

(19:17):
brand for me. And then of course I ordered the
computer and I got it in, you know, in the box.
And then later on I got this was a brand
I'm not even sure it's around anymore. It's called win Book.
And that was my first computer for college and it
was a laptop and it was so expensive. I think
it was like thirty five dollars and it was I mean,
nothing was a beast. It was so slow by today's standards,

(19:39):
didn't even have Wi Fi built in. But anyway, I digress.
Keep those emails coming. Rich on tech dot TV hit
contact if you want to send in your electronics store
that you visited throughout the years. Let's go to line one.
We've got Susan in Santa Monica, California. Susan, right, welcome
to the show.

Speaker 7 (20:00):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
I love you from day one. You've been wonderful. What
a gift for all of us, your information personality. Thank
you so much.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Thank you. Is this my mom? I'm just kissing.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
Yeah, we were worried about losing Leo, but you're just
such a blessing. You're fantastic anyway, and I really miss
Circuit City. I love Circuit City. So here's my question.
I have two questions. One is probably quick regarding turning
my modem my router on and off at night. That's
the quick question. The main question I have it's a

(20:34):
landline bundle with Frontiers, so my internet is I guess
you call it broadband. I don't know, so I just
have plain old fashioned landline bundle phone and internet. I
have a router. I guess it's a combo router modem,
and it's been working just fine. Every now and then
I need to reboot it. No problem, it's pretty old.

(20:58):
Can I give you the name and model and you
tell me if I should be replacing this?

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Well? So here, okay, to answer your first question, you
don't need to turn this off at night. These things
are meant. It's okay. I don't think it's gonna harm it,
but I don't think it's a good idea. I mean,
unless it's for a health reason or you don't you know,
you're just you don't like the idea of it being
on or whatever.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
But like ty, I do what I'm worried about? WiFi
near my bed?

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Okay, I mean, yeah, it's funny. It's funny. I had
a friend had the you know, back when like Wi
fi was first starting. They would just pop the router
like wherever they could, wherever the cable came in. I
remember someone had it under their bed and I was like,
you're just like cooking all night long, aren't you like
this WiFi? Is just radiating up into your body. Now,
I don't know if that's, you know, a problem or not,

(21:47):
but obviously the information on that is very mixed. It
seems to be very safe. We've had it for many,
many years in many people's homes throughout the world. So
I would say, personally, if you're concerned with that, I
would maybe move the router to a different place that
you feel better with. But I don't think that's an issue,
and I don't think it's a reason to turn it
off at night. So if that's the main reason I would,

(22:10):
I would not do that.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's pretty old.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, So what I would do is you have to
call is it still Frontier or is it a different
company now?

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Frontier?

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Okay, so you have to call them and see. Because
here's the thing. The technology on these things has not
changed substantially. There are different there are different standards for
these modems, which is uh DOXIS d O c SI
S and so if your modem does not support the
latest DOXIS standard for your cable company, your speed could

(22:44):
be impacted. I think the standard like this, the typical
one today is like, let's see third generation so three
three uh, yeah, I think it's about the third generation.
So I would call your cable company or look on
there and see if it says anything about that, if
it's like two or something previous. But otherwise, I mean,
you could have these these modems for a very long time. Now.

(23:06):
I have had mine for ten years, and I will
tell you I did get a notice from my cable
company and they said it's time to upgrade and we
have to swap it out. And so it does happen.
It's you know, but it's not over a year or two.
This is a standard technology that's been around for a
long time. But I would get in touch with with Frontier.
Do you rent it or have you purchased it from them?

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Well, I don't pay anything. They gave it to me
many years ago. It's part of it. Okay, this is
part of the package. Okay, I mean I don't trust them.
They might send a new one out and then start
charging me.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Twelve bucks a month, right, And I was just going
to say, that's my concern is that you may be
on a grandfather plan where they didn't charge. But but again,
you can you can call them. They're not going to
do anything without you authorizing it. So I would just
call them up and say, hey, here's my model router number.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Every one might be.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Okay, oh yeah, absolutely, I think. I mean, especially if
you're getting the speed that you're paying for, like I
would do a speed test on your computer connected to
your modem, and if you're paying for five hundred down
five hundred up, and you're getting that on a wired connection,
going to a website like speed test dot net orfast
dot com. If you're getting the speed you're paying for

(24:14):
on a wired connection, wireless might be a little bit slower,
but if you're getting that with a Ethernet cable plugged
into your laptop, then your modem's working just fine. So
there's no real reason to change that. And yeah, yeah exactly,
So thank you so much. All right, thanks so much
for the call there. Susan and Santa Monica do appreciate it,
and of course I always appreciate the kind words. It
really means a lot to me. This week in Los Angeles,

(24:38):
Tesla unveiled the cyber Cab. So this was an event
at Warner Brothers Studios in Los Angeles. No, I'm not
bitter because I wasn't invited, but we'll just get through
this anyway, twenty Cybercab prototypes at this we Robot event.
The Cybercab is a two seater vehicle with doors that

(25:01):
go up. I guess they're not Falcon doors. I guess
they call them goal wing doors. But there's no wheel,
there is no pedals. This is a vehicle that just
is self driving. Now you can buy one of these,
and that's what's unique about this setup is that Elon
Musk is promoting this as something that you would buy
for less than thirty thousand, by the way, that's their

(25:21):
target price, and it would drive you around. But here's
the kicker. When you are not using it, it can
be sent out into the world to act as an
automated uber on your behalf. So your car would be
picking up other people, driving them around, dropping them off,
and then you'd be earning cash on this. How wild

(25:42):
is that? So they're almost creating like a secondary market
they want to start production twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven.
These cars have wireless charging, not plug in chargers. They
also had a Robovan that was capable of carrying up
to twenty people that was more like a bus. They
also had these Optimist humanoid robots on display, they were

(26:02):
making drinks, they were talking to people. Elon Musk believes
these will be huge, like a Rosie the robot for
your house price tag of about twenty thousand dollars to
thirty thousand dollars. These were a little bit iffy because
it was clear that they had humans not only doing
the voice and the interactions with people, but also controlling them.
But they were standing, it seemed, on their own and

(26:23):
walking around, which was pretty cool. So they've come a
long way. Obviously, this is all a very big dream
right now. We don't know if any of this will
happen for real. They've got lots of hurdles ahead, including
people accepting cars driving around by themselves without people in
them or without a human driver. I know Weaimo does this,

(26:44):
but there's a lot of talk about the fact that
Weimo does this very differently. Weimo cars are already driving
around by themselves in Los Angeles, but they use a
completely different tech stack, including radar, ldar cameras. They have
so many sensors on those cars that these cars that
Elon Musk is promoting do not have. Elon Musk typically

(27:06):
the Tesla has used cameras to self drive, and we're
still waiting for that dream of full self driving on
the current Tesla's the Model three, the Model Why. He
believes that in California and Texas there will be unsupervised
full self driving in the next two years or so.
So again, this is someone who promises a lot, and

(27:27):
I love the fact that Elon Musk. There's no doubt
about it. He has delivered many, many things. But again
we have to hold a little bit of we have
to be a little bit critical of this stuff and
a little bit skeptical as well, because this is going
to take longer than probably many of us think. Again,
don't forget this was done on a closed set on

(27:48):
the Warner Brothers lot rather than in a real world situation,
so everything was highly controlled, although people were getting rides
in these cyber cabs around the back lot. So it's cool,
There's no doubt about it. It's very cool. But again,
I can't wait to see this stuff happen. I think
it's there's a many many people out there who do
not want this stuff to happen, or who do not

(28:10):
want to get into a car like this. But I
know many people who have taken the way mos that
including myself. That felt very comfortable. Now eighty eight rich
one one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. You are listening to rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you talking technology at triple eight rich one

(28:32):
O one that's eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Got an email from uh let's
see Diane in Menefee asking are we able to FaceTime
with one Apple and one Android phone? And the answer
is yes, but it's complicated and I don't recommend it.

(28:53):
So there are many many ways to do a video
call that does not involve FaceTime. You know, if you've
listened to the show for any length of time that
I always always prefer third party, platform independent products, so
platform products that work on every platform, not just one. Now,
if you are an Apple person, it's amazing. Everything works great,

(29:18):
but you are beholden to pretty much everything Apple. In fact,
one of the best note taking apps out there is
Apple Notes, which I would love to use, but I
can't because I test a lot of phones. Maybe I
want to switch to an Android phone at some point,
and I would have to switch my entire notes to
some other program because of that, and it just goes

(29:39):
on and on. If you use Apple Photos to store
your photos, Apple Music doesn't work on both. I will
give them that, but it's pretty much reminders, I mean,
anything that you do in the Apple ecosystem. It's pretty
much just glue to keep you on the Apple side
of things. You get an air tag, you're not going
to switch to Android. They don't work with Android. Again,

(30:00):
always prefer things that work on every platform, not just one.
So when it comes to FaceTime, yes, it's simple, Yes
it's easy, but if you're trying to use it with
an Android, it's not that easy. You can do it,
and here's how you do it. So first off, you
have to go to a you have to start the
call from an iPhone, and so you get the call

(30:22):
on an iPhone, you get it going, and there's a
link on the iPhone that you can generate when you're
in the call, and so you can generate that link
and send it to someone that is on another device
like a Windows computer or an Android phone, and then
once they get that link, they can open up that

(30:43):
link and get on the call. So basically, if you
are on FaceTime. You can open up the app and
there's a create link near the top of the screen,
and then you just send that link to someone and look,
I mean, yes, it works, but like, why not use
a program that just works with everything? Right? I mean,
what's app does great video calls? Telegram does video calls,

(31:04):
Facebook Messenger does video calls. I think even Instagram does
video calls. At this point, I mean, can't you just
use something that you know that just works with everything.
So that's my recommendation. But yes, if you have an iPhone,
you got an Android friend and you want to FaceTime them,
that's what you do. You start the FaceTime, create a link,
and then send that link to the other person. Let's

(31:25):
take a call here. Let's go to let's see here,
let's go to Mark in Woodland Hills. Mark. You're on
with Rich?

Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yeah, Hi, Rich. I you know I've been listening as
I've been waiting on hold here, and I do have
a question about help for seniors with tech things like
like one Generation here in the San Franco Valley used
to have college students come in and help seniors work
out their problems with their laptops and their cell phones
and such. But I did want to run one thing

(31:57):
by you. I know it's not happy talk. I couldn't
be I do not share your fondness for the test list.

Speaker 8 (32:06):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
You know, they contain like a dozen toxic chemicals in
the batteries alone. If you have an accident and you
catch on fire, you explode. But the main thing that
really bothers me about that is like cobalt, for instance,
is mind in the Republic of Congo by children. It's
a toxic chemical and you know they need food.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
You know. Look, I've heard a lot about this. I've
heard I've I've heard a lot of complaints about this
sort of thing, Mark, And you know, here's the deal.
We're not going to stop progress from happening. I understand that, yes,
this stuff is dirty at the beginning, but as I
understand it, the more batteries that we make, the more
recycled they are in the future. So yes, it's uh.

(32:51):
And you know, if you're comparing it against oil, like
I mean, and look, and here's the thing, like, I
am all for Lectri cars one hundred percent. I'm not
one of those people who's gonna sit here and say
let's not progress and let's just default to you know,
let's just default to oil for the rest of our lives.
That's not gonna that's not possible. And I understand there's
a drawback to everything. There is not a thing in

(33:14):
this world that there is not a side effect or
a drawback to, no matter what you're talking about. I mean,
I don't care if you tell me you eat bananas
and they're perfect for you. There's a downside to eating
too many bananas, you know. So we have to understand
that this stuff is. There's a pro and a con
to everything, and we are progressing. And I get it.

(33:37):
If you don't want an electric car, don't get it.
That's the best thing. And nobody's forcing you to do that.
I understand. Yes, we've got you know, some states in
some places, and there's been some plans for the future
of transitioning to these cars, but nobody's forcing anyone to
do it just yet. Personally, I think the electric car
is the best thing that I've ever yet mute. Okay,

(34:01):
I mean personally, I think the yes, mark.

Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yes, sir. It's unsustainable. We don't have the electricity to provide.
We have brownouts here in California as it is, because
the environmental is even the leadership of the environmental.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Almost the last time we had a brown out.

Speaker 9 (34:17):
Clear i c.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Nuclear is the cleanest power there is. We don't have
the electrical internet and our network yet.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Go and look here's the thing. Of course, we don't have.
It's unsustainable right now because we're still building the infrastructure
and we're still learning how to, you know, make solar
that's better and come up with renewable energy. So look, again,
it doesn't if you don't want it to happen, that's
that's you. But it's going to happen, and we're making

(34:47):
this transition, and we have to make this transition. There
is no way that we have an amount of oil
or gas that can last infinite amounts of time, and
so we have to find these renewable sources of energy
that we can use and use safely and create alternative
methods of getting around. And again, my electric car is
the best thing I've ever purchased. It is the most

(35:08):
incredible piece of technology I have ever used. Are their
drawbacks to it? Of course? Does it take a little
bit longer to get to places? Do I have to
think about it on road trips? Is there a charger
every single place I ever want. No, I didn't rent
a car this trip, an electric car, by the way.
They were half the price of the gas cars because
nobody's renting them. But I didn't rent one myself because

(35:30):
I knew I'm not I'm not trying to find a
charger on my you know, a couple of days out here,
and so I get it. Mark, I totally understand, and
I get it. But thanks for the call. Appreciate it.
Eighty to eight rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four two four one zero one. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you
talking technology. The website for the show rich on Tech

(35:53):
dot TV. The phone number for the show eighty eight
rich one O one eight eight eight eight seven four
to two, four to one zero one. Was talking about
old school electronics stores and pat rode in from Monrovia.
I bought my first PC at Creative Computers in Lawndale,

(36:15):
an Amiga five hundred with five hundred and twelve K
in nineteen eighty seven. Amigas could add graphics and animation
to home video or pro video, so they required an
interlaced display. By the time I tried to help a
friend buy one of the nineties. The parent company no
longer made those monitors. I asked the salesperson, how can
you sell a computer with no display? It isn't easy,

(36:35):
was his reply. Good old commodore, cheers, Pat, great story,
William wrote in on X Hey, I worked for Staples
when they were the premier company for computer sales. Isn't
that wild now? It's like it feels like when you
go into those stores, you know, the office stores, the
office electronics is sort of an afterthought. You know, people

(36:56):
just go in there for paper, And I, quite honestly,
I'm surprise anytime there's a physical store for anything Like
it just feels like they're all just you know, it's
just a matter of time before they all go away.
And so I don't want that to happen. But I
understand the economics of it. I mean, these these stores
are getting undercut by online so easily, and people literally

(37:17):
are doing price comparisons in the store and then saying, oh,
I'll just save a couple bucks and I'll have it
tomorrow morning. This week, Ring introduced a new AI powered
smart video search. This is pretty cool and it's so wild.
It's so wild how much AI has just it's it's funny.
I do a joke every time I interview someone for

(37:38):
KTLA and talk about you know, their product, I say,
and how is AI involved? And ninety nine percent of
the time they have an answer because AI has to
be a part of every product nowadays, no matter what.
And so Ring has this thing called smart Video Search,
and you can now type in just anything you want

(37:59):
to find speciments in your Ring video history. So your
doorbell and your cameras have been recording all these clips.
You know there might be some interesting moments in there,
or maybe you're trying to look for something like you know,
your backyard is all messed up and you're like, what
what animal did that? So you can search for not
only animal, but a specific animal like raccoon. You can

(38:20):
search for locations. You could search for packages, people, time vehicles.
You can say red car and see how many times
that passes your house. Weather, that'd be cool. I'd love
to try to see if you can search lightning. That'd
be kind of cool. And of course some activities as well.
This works across all their Ring video doorbells and cameras.
This is all being done on the back end, so

(38:41):
it doesn't really need any modification on the camera side,
something that's very easy to I don't know about easy,
but they're implementing on the back end, server side, so
that's why they can roll it out on all these cameras.
It's rolling out in public beta to select customers now,
and so that means you will not have access to
it right away, but eventually you will only though, if

(39:04):
you are subscribed to their new top of the line plan,
Ring Home Premium. That's twenty dollars a month. I know
for my Ring, they doubled the price tag from ten
to twenty dollars a month, So I know a lot
of people are not happy about that, but you know,
that's what's happening, and I don't know, we'll see if
Ring changes their mind about that. But Ring, I will say,
has been very inexpensive over the years, and so you know,

(39:28):
twenty bucks a month, it's a lot, but it's kind
of on par with what people are paying for some
of their other Alarm subscriptions, and I believe that includes
some of the alarm features too. November fifth, they're going
to have that new feature those new subscriptions, So there
you go. Ring with AI and if you got an
email about to be owing you some money for a settlement,

(39:49):
it is legitimate. I got a bunch of emails from
people saying rich, is this real? Yes to be. The
free to watch video service is paying nearly twenty million
dollars in a settlement over video privacy. What do they
do well? They shared information with third parties without your consent.

(40:10):
Now I don't know if they agreed to this or
you know, if this is just the settlement. I don't know.
Of course, these companies don't admit any wrongdoing in these settlements.
They just say, fine, settle. So are you eligible? If
you used TUB between June twenty third, twenty twenty one
and August twenty six, twenty twenty four, you are eligible
for cash. So how much are you gonna get? We

(40:32):
don't know. It depends on how many people file claims.
So you should definitely file a claim if you got
that email or if you use TUB. The only way
you have to prove it is if you have an
email account that's registered with TUB or the device information
and dates of use. So the deadline is let's see here.
Claim deadline. November twenty eighth, twenty twenty four. If you

(40:54):
want to exclude yourself from this class action, you gotta
do October thirty first. Anyway, to be how ironic, it's
a free service, free service that people use for free,
and now they got to pay twenty million dollars because
they shared these people's these uh, these customers information with
third parties. And what's that all about. I'm guessing it's
all about advertising, because that's what's supporting to be as

(41:19):
well as a lot of these other services. It's not
really free. Your data is what's supporting it. But apparently
they shared that data with too many people. Eighty eight
Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Coming up on the show,
we're going to talk about the pros and cons of
those art style TVs. That's this hour. Next hour, we're
going to talk to us Scott Baldwin. He's got a

(41:41):
startup called front Pack. This is a social network for athletes.
Got a new app plus a special guest a little
bit later on. Let's go to line one. Steve in
a Hemmett, Steve and Hemmett. You are on with rich Steve,
Are you there? Nope? Okay, let's go to Uh, let's

(42:02):
see here. Let's go to line too. Kevin in San Clementy. Kevin,
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 6 (42:08):
Good afternoon. Just a quick comment. Somebody said about a
kit a while ago. I remember the old Heath Kit
days building, those you know, uh things that Heath Kid offered.
I think it might even still be around. Uh. The
story I wanted to mention was specific stereo. They were
on paying a Canyon and I think that's Kilga Park
out there that was around for years and years and years.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Oh, isn't it didn't It looks like they're still around.
Is Oh? You know what I just you just made
me think of another one, Alan Eds remember that.

Speaker 6 (42:40):
No, there was something Eds on Central Boulevard, I think
in Tarzan or something.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Alan Ed's Alan Ed's auto sound. It was like they
did all car audio.

Speaker 6 (42:54):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah. And I remember getting like it was like I
obviously it was. It was too expensive for me back
in the day when I first moved to La like
to get something, but that's like where you wanted to
get it done, because it was like, you know, you
could go to Best Buy, but like that's going to
be you know, just okay. But this place was like
they knew what they were doing. They knew their stuff absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (43:14):
So what my question is, I've got a pair of
KLH Models five that have the paper cones the mid
range and the woofer or paper cones. How long do
paper cones last unless you blow them out?

Speaker 1 (43:28):
That's a great question that I do not know the
complete answer to. What I would say, until they don't
sound good anymore? I mean, what is there a problem
with these speakers?

Speaker 5 (43:37):
No?

Speaker 6 (43:38):
No, no, it was just something I thought of that.
You know, I'm just curious how long are these going
to last? Because the ones I have are pre the
new owners of KLH. Now, these were I think KLH
sold in twenty seventeen or something, so these are the
original KLH speakers. So I was just ordered how long
are they going to last?

Speaker 1 (43:59):
How? How how old are these things?

Speaker 6 (44:02):
Uh? Probably fifteen years old?

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Okay? And they still sound good? I'm sorry, they still
sound good.

Speaker 6 (44:10):
They sound awesome.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Well, then, I mean, I'm you know, I think they're
they're probably fine. I mean it's I'm looking at some
some info online. It says with good care, twenty to
forty years could be reasonable. But that, you know, I mean,
that sounds like a lot, But you know it's a speaker.
I've it's funny. I I've got the so no speakers
that I've complained about obviously on this show, But I

(44:33):
keep thinking, I'm like, when are these no good anymore?
And I'm like, I guess when they don't work anymore?
I mean, if it's still sounding fine, like it's a speaker, Like,
what more do you need if it's if it's sounding good.
It's funny because we're so used to replacing things and
getting rid of things. But I bet, I bet even
if these things went out, you could probably still repair
them if they if they if someone still the parts.

Speaker 6 (44:54):
Yeah, good point. Okay, Well, I enjoy what you do
for us.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. What was the
other thing they also had? You know, all these companies
have been absorbed by other companies. A lot of them have,
like Best Buy had what was it Pacific Sales? They
I thought Pacific Stereo was part of that. But Pacific
Sales I think was like an independent place that they
ended up absorbing into best Buy as well. So let's
see what was the you said, Let's see what was it?

(45:22):
Pacific Stereo looks like it's still around as far as
I can tell, is this just an online thing? I'm
not sure, but yeah, it's wild to go down down
memory lane with some of these things. Okay, do we
have time to go to uh? Sounds like our other
callers back online one? We have time for Steve and Hemmett. No, No,
we don't. Okay, all right, oh Steven Hemmt's gone. Okay, Well,

(45:42):
this is what happens in a live show here. You know,
we get people, we drop people, they drop whatever. Okay,
So a couple of things. The newsletter on the website
rich on tech dot tv, So if you go there
you can sign up for my free newsletter. I got
a lot of emails this week from folks who, surpriseingly,
do not want to switch. You know, you have to

(46:02):
if you're on Verizon Messages Plus, you have to switch
to Google Messages. And I got a lot of emails
from people saying I didn't want to switch because they
don't want Google having access to their messages. They they're
missing certain features that they had in Verizon Message Plus
that Google Messages does not have. And they're asking me
if they could use a different app now on Android. Yeah,

(46:23):
that's the beauty of Android you could use. There's one
thousand texting apps in the Google Play. You can choose
any one of them. Obviously, make sure it's a company
you trust because these are your texts. There's a lot
of personal information in there. But they're not going to
support RCS, and that's the big thing. If you want
that RCS support, you can go with Samsung Messages. You
could still download that from the Galaxy Galaxy Store, but

(46:46):
you're only going to get RCS, which upgrades your messaging
from Android to Android and Android to iPhone if you
use that Google Messages. Eighty to eight rich one oh
one more Rich on Tech come your way right after this.
Welcome back to on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one on one.

(47:08):
zero one. The website for the show Rich on Tech
dot tv. You can also sign up for my newsletter
there and email me. Just hit contact. Or if you
want show notes, anything I mentioned on the show, I
put on the show notes, just hit the light bulb
and you'll see all of the shows and the notes
for that. Did you participate in Amazon's Prime Big Deal

(47:31):
Days twenty twenty four. I bought exactly one thing. It
was a fog machine for my kid, replacing the old
one we had, and yet it was on sale. It
was great, but I did not get anything else, and
a lot of things were on sale. I do think
that these sales are getting better. I think Amazon is
learning their lesson by putting more things on sale and
not just promising a lot. But they say it was

(47:52):
Amazon's biggest October shopping event ever. I mean that really
narrows it down.

Speaker 6 (47:58):
Prime.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Remember saved over one billion dollars globally across millions of deals.
They never tell you how much they spent, though, right,
because that would be that would be too much for
our brains to handle. More Prime members participated this year
compared to last year's event, and they've got more deals
coming up. Fourth Annual Holiday Beauty Haul October twenty first
and November third. That's a long one. That just sounds

(48:21):
like a tiktoker's dream.

Speaker 8 (48:22):
Right.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
It's talking to my sister and she she said she
buys everything that she sees on TikTok, all these beauty
products that people are hawking all day, and it's a
big business. I'm sure because that's like half of the
stuff on there is like beauty tutorials. Right then you've
got the Black Friday Game, the NFL Black Friday Game
football game on November twenty ninth. I guess they're going

(48:43):
to have some sort of deals there. Amazon spent a
lot of money for those football rights, so I see
the ads everywhere for that, and it's great. They're their
football is so clear, it's unbelievable. I don't know how
they're broadcasting or whatever they're doing, whatever magic they've got,
but it's it's such a play to watch football games
on Prime, and it's just the way it should be.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
You can just watch it on any device anywhere, no
matter what. And right now you can get ten percent
discount on select toys for purchase over twenty five dollars
until October thirty. First, obviously, you need a Prime membership
for all this stuff fifteen bucks a month one hundred
and thirty nine dollars a year, but if you have it,
it's well worth it. Let's see here, Let's go to

(49:25):
line three. Brady and Anaheim. Brady and Anaheim. You're on
with Rich.

Speaker 9 (49:32):
Hi, How are you doing?

Speaker 1 (49:34):
I am doing excellent? What can I help you.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
With So I've used every Note as a note taking
app for almost ten years, but last year when Broken
Spoons bought them, they limited the devices, raised prices, made
it more difficult to use. So I want to know
if you're aware of an app that I could use
the export all my notes that would work with iOS, Windows, Android,

(49:58):
because everywhere I so far there's an issue like, no
you can you have to still have ever note and updated,
you know, one drive One Note's been a kind of
a hassle. Yeah, you have any ideas?

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Are you looking into my brain? Because I think about
this every single day. I have hopped between every single
one of these note taking apps. I was one of
the first new users of ever note Ever. I mean
I remember I was a user so far back in
the day. It was it was like an ever scroll.
It was just an ever, never ending scroll of notes
that you would put it on, and then of course

(50:33):
it's evolved over the years. You're right. It was purchased
by an Italian company, Bending Spoons. I know you called it,
what did you call it, Problem Spoons or something?

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Spoons?

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Broken Spoons. Now I got to give them credit. I
actually think the updates and improvements they've done to ever
Note is excellent. I think they've done a good job
with it. But yes, you are right, they have squeezed
out the free user to a place where it's unusable
if you're if you're a free user, and I would
agree with that. If you're trying to use this for free,
don't even bother because you're gonna either hit the limits,

(51:04):
you know, in three days, or it's just not worth it.
The other thing is that ever note stores everything in
a proprietary way, which is you can export it. But
I found out because I was a big Evernote user
for many years. When I wanted to export, it got
really tricky and everything was kind of gobbledygook. And it's
taken me years to kind of climb out of that.
So what if I tried I've tried one Note. I

(51:25):
don't like one Note because it the way it's got
that infinite canvas I just deal with when you paste
something in there, the text is like in one little
box and then it moves over. It's just two doesn't
work for my brain. Notion is what I'll tell you.
I've settled on that, but I'll tell you I'll go
through the thing. Obsidian is what I was using for

(51:46):
a while, and I think Obsidian is probably, if you're
a little bit of a nerd, the best alternative to
ever Note because it is mostly self hosted. Your files
live on your machine. The file structure and every thing
is very similar to Evernote. It's not as polished, it's not,
as you know, full featured, but I think Obsidian is

(52:07):
really good. You just have to figure out a way
to sink it across devices, and that includes either paying
them or doing it yourself. Apple Notes no good because
it's just one platform, and then you've got Joplin, which
is an open source program. But I find that it's
good and I think it's very similar. It's basically an
Evernote clone, but open source. I just didn't like the

(52:28):
fact that it doesn't really sink in the background, and
it's a little bit old school looking compared now. The
one that I've settled on has been Notion, and again
you do probably have to pay if you want to
use Notion in a big way, but I think it's
the cleanest of all the programs. The thing I don't
like about it is the file structure. Everything is sort
of link based, which is good, but it does take

(52:50):
a little bit of learning. And you can't organize your
file folders if you want to call that in alphabetical order,
which really really bugs me. But I would say those
your options. You kind of have to just play with them.
And see I did download ever note again today to
take a second look. But the problem is it's one
hundred and thirty bucks a year, and once you start

(53:11):
getting into these programs, if you're if you're in it
for the long haul, you're gonna be paying that forever.
So it really comes down to a matter more preference.
Coming up, we're gonna talk frame style art TVs with
Christian Deloper. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro
here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight
Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four

(53:32):
to two four one zero one, the website rich on
Tech dot TV. Hit contact if you want to get
in touch. Uh Joining me now is a tech journalist
Christian Delooper, to talk about the pros and cons of
art style TVs. Christian, Welcome to the show. Hey, Rich,
how's it going. Thanks for having me, Yeah, thanks for

(53:54):
coming on. Let's uh so, first off, what is an
art style TV. What does that mean exactly?

Speaker 10 (53:59):
So I think like maybe three or four years ago
we saw the first one from Samsung, which is the
kind of much loved or much googled Samsung, the Frame TV,
and the goal of the TV was essentially to kind
of replace the big black box that's always in your
living room with something that can not only be a
TV but also kind of like a painting.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Right, And this is something when I first saw it,
I was like, Oh, I want this because it's like
this TV just hangs on your wall, but when you're
not using it, it looks like a framed piece of art. Yeah,
pretty much. Yeah, I felt the same way.

Speaker 10 (54:35):
And they basically use a few different technologies to kind
of look less like a glossy black box like I mentioned,
and kind of more like a painting. For example, they
have typically a matte glass instead of a glossy glass
that can that's kind of anti reflective so that they,
you know, paintings aren't reflective, so that they look much
more like paintings when they're showing a picture of a

(54:56):
painting behind there.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
I'm pretty sure Samsung tried to like fake everyone out
the first time they unveil this where they had had
us in a room or something and they're like, oh,
and then it changes to like a TV. So now
we've got some competition. High Sense also has one called
the Canvas TV. You tested that, yep, yep. I tested
that last month. It's their first model, the heighcensed Canvas TV.
I think the model name is S seven or something.

(55:18):
So hopefully we'll see other models from them. And that
one's pretty interesting because it's taking on Samsung at a
much lower price point. You know, the fifty five inch
frame TV is fifteen hundred dollars, but the heists model
is a thousand bucks, so you know, five hundred bucks
cheaper is a big deal. Yeah, and I have a
high Sense, so I'm actually I can say the quality

(55:39):
is great. I like it a lot, and so I
think that this is probably a nice option. So what
who do you think these are for? Like how do
they work day to day? Like when you turn off
your TV? Does it it just shows the artwork? And
can you choose what you want on there?

Speaker 10 (55:54):
So it's complicated you can choose what you want. Typically
they have a kind of art mode, so instead of
hitting the power button on the remote, you'd hit the
art Mode button to put it into art Mode, and
then you know, with the Hyacinths and the Samsung as well,
they typically turn off after a while. Especially the newer
models have like motion detection or light detection, so if

(56:16):
I think it's night and no one's around, everyone's asleep,
they'll just kind of turn off. But you have to
unless you're willing to tinker a lot. You have to
use the built in software to really.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Get the most out of the art Mode.

Speaker 10 (56:28):
I still have the TV set up I reviewed it
a month ago, but I use an Apple TV and
as a result, it's never really an art Mode. It's
just kind of it looks like an empty frame.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Oh that's interesting, yeah, because I'm sure there's like things
competing with these, like you know, your screensavers on your
other things as well, like yeah, streaming box connected. So
is there So I was mentioning earlier on the show,
there's always like a pro and con to something. So
these TVs are expensive, are they as high quality like
typically like if you're watching the regular content as you know,

(57:01):
a nice ole letter or something like that, or is
there a downside to the screen tech that they're using
to make these look like art.

Speaker 10 (57:07):
Yeah, so the downside is not as much about the screen, well,
it is about the screen tech, but the screen tech
as a result of the form factor. So these are
built to be super thin. They're built to be mounted
on a wall and look like a picture when they're
not in use. But the result of the thinness is
less cooling and less space for a new tech. So
the answer is no, that the image quality is not

(57:27):
anywhere near you know, you mentioned you have a high
sense before I reviewed this one. I reviewed the latest
license you eight, which is a stunning looking TV.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
But that's the one I've got. Yeah, it's a great TV.

Speaker 10 (57:39):
But the highcensed Canvas TV, while great, is Yeah, the
image quality just doesn't compare. And that's mostly mostly because
of the backlighting technology that just can't produce the same
deep black levels that dominild black lighting that you know,
higher end models can.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
So, now when you said that you have this thing
set up but it's sort of just a black screen,
why is that?

Speaker 10 (58:01):
Basically because typically well typically I always use the Apple TV.
You know, our household is Apple based, so I can't
There's no Art TV button on the Apple TV, and
I don't see Apple adding one anytime soon. So when
I'm not using the TV, I use HDMI controls, so
I can use my Apple TV remode all the time.

(58:23):
So I hit off and it just goes straight to off.
You know, that's one of the biggest issues I had
with it, is that I wish you could. You can
set up Hdmi to control the TV through the volume
and the power button and all that kind of stuff,
but you can't set up the TV to say, hey,
I just got an off signal, I'm going to go
in art mode instead of OFF because I prefer to

(58:43):
have art mode.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that's something they could do
with a software update, and you know, because it doesn't
seem like it would be that tricky, it's interesting. So yeah,
and there are some hacks around it too, So like,
for example, I could change the Apple TV screen savers
to be paintings instead of to kind of bird's eye
view screensavers that Apple TV has become famous for, and

(59:05):
that would kind of get around it, but you still
won't get the automatic brightness technology like the Canvas TV
can change brightness depending on the.

Speaker 10 (59:12):
Environment, so it looks a little more natural, and.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
You won't get the automatic.

Speaker 10 (59:16):
It can kind of turn on and off if it
detects motion, so if there's no one in the room,
it'll be off without the TV being fully off, and
then switch back on if someone comes to the room.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
That kind of thing.

Speaker 10 (59:25):
So you can kind of get around it, but kind
of not.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
So what you're saying is if you want to get
the most out of these TVs, you sort of have
to use their built in streaming service. Does this one?
Does High Sense have like a Google TV or anything
built in? Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 10 (59:40):
It's Google TV built into the Highcense TCL has a
model as well, and that's Google TV, and there's the
Samsung the frame. You don't necessarily have to use the
built in software, but you do have to be willing.
If you're using an external box, you do have to
be willing to use two remotes, or at least I
think you can technically set up the TV remote that

(01:00:00):
comes with the Hyacins to control your Apple TV as well,
so that that might be a good way around it
for those who are willing to not use the Apple
TV remote and still want art Mode.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
But as someone okay, but that's ironic because if you're
buying one of these art TVs. You love aesthetics and
now you're using like the worst possible real control to plastic.
But I do use the remote for the high sense.
Like I I was so against it for so long.
I had like a third I had my Apple TV
actually connected to the TV. But then I was like,

(01:00:31):
why do I need this extra box, Like as much
as I love Apple TV, like Google TV does everything
I need and it's one less remote, and so I
just you know, that's what we use. But uh, okay,
So the TCL one looks like it's called the Next
Frame nxt Frame TV, so they're doing this as well,
and yeah, sorry what was that? Yeah, no, go ahead,

(01:00:53):
talk about this one.

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
That one is.

Speaker 10 (01:00:55):
Yeah, that was really promising because the the big disadvantage
to these over the past few years has been kind
of the backlighting technology. We've seeing a lot of different
backlight technologies make for a more natural image because they
can turn off sections of the display to produce true
black levels. The Next Frame can't do that, but it

(01:01:15):
does have what's called direct lit backlighting instead of the
canvas TV and the frame's edge lit. So with an
edge lit TV, they basically shine lights in through the
edges will The next frame has a big backlight behind
the display so that the lighting is much more uniform.
They can't still can't get really good control over the
black levels. It doesn't have local dimming or anything like that,

(01:01:36):
but it is a much more uniform lighting if you
care about that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
And the main thing, like if someone's listening and they're
sitting there going wait, I'm so confused, Like I've had
a screensaver on my TV forever, like what's different? The
main thing is the actual when you walk into a
room and see this TV. If it's an art style TV,
it is a different look. It looks much more closer
to like, let's say the printed painted page versus you know,

(01:02:02):
a bright picture.

Speaker 10 (01:02:04):
Yeah, that's right, it's the main Like physical differences are
the matt anti reflective gloss that's used. And then I
guess the frames that you could put around them that
come with the highcense, and I think that the TCL
as well for free, but you have to buy separately
for the frame.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Okay, and now if you want a kind of a
cheaper way to do this, DIY, you know, Amazon's got
what they call the ambient Experience on Fire TV. And
that's on their fire TV Omni. It's also on the
fire Stick four K Max and some Panasonic fire TVs.
And then, like I said, I was at my mom's
place helping her with her Roku, and they just added

(01:02:41):
what's called the backdrops, and it's basically turns your TV
into an art style TV. Now you're not going to
get that same dimming and all the you know, the
matt look, but it's the same thing. Like when I
pressed her power button on the Roku. Once I set
it up, it went into art mode and then you
press again and it turns off the TV. So I
thought that was pretty cool that they added that as well.
And obviously a lot of people have real cool Yeah, yeah,

(01:03:03):
it is pretty cool.

Speaker 10 (01:03:04):
If you really want to go DIY, you can just
find pictures that you like and make those your screensaver
on at any smart TV.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
I don't think it's hard to do.

Speaker 10 (01:03:14):
And then so when your TV goes into screensaver mode,
you could do it on an Apple TV or anything
like that. It'll be shown the art behind the glossy
glass that won't look completely.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Like a painting like some of these art TVs do.
But yeah, it's a good hack. All right, Christian Delooper.
Where can folks find you? We're online.

Speaker 10 (01:03:32):
I write for all all sorts of places. I'm a
expert for our hosting advice. I write reviews for BGR
Tom's Guide, do a lot of smart home, a lot
of home theater. You can find me on threads and
then you'll see some of my work at Christian Delooper.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
And the end of the day, which one are you picking?
The frame, the canvas, the TCL or just sticking with
the Apple TV end of the day.

Speaker 10 (01:03:55):
The frame is probably the best looking so far, but
I haven't reviewed the TCL just yet, and it's pretty
promising in terms of the backlining tech, So we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
All right. I, like I said, I've always wanted one
of these, but haven't haven't done it, and I feel
like we really got to be into that art. Yeah exactly,
all right, Thanks so much for joining me. Appreciate it.
Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. We come back.
We'll take some more of your calls, and I'll tell
you why TikTok's getting sued once again. Welcome back to

(01:04:27):
Talking technology eighty eight Rich one O one eighty eight
seven four to two, four to one zero one coming
to you from New Jersey today. Hence the music all
Jersey inspired. Bon Jovi clearly one of the breakout stars

(01:04:48):
of New Jersey. A couple of feedbags before we get
to uh Todd in Santa Monica to talk about this
hackathon they've got going on there. Danny wrote in from Riverside, said, Hey,
back in the eighties, the Federated Group was one of
the fourth largest consumer electronics stores in the US. If
you mentioned you were in radio, they'd give you a
discount on Sendheiser headphones. Besides headphones, I bought my first

(01:05:11):
Dolby surround stereo system there. Great for movie watching. Then
you had Circuit Oh let's see radio personality. Oh Shadow Stevens.
Huh wow, I remember that name was their spokesperson. Wow.
That just brought back blasts from the past. Circuit City,
where I bought my first big screen TV, eventually became
their main competitor. Atari bought Federated in nineteen eighty seven.

(01:05:32):
After a few lawsuits, they folded in nineteen ninety All
the best, Rich hmm, It's interesting. That's another place people.
Oh that was another like Montgomery Ward, remember that store.
That was another place you could buy electronics. So many
let's see I believe on X says Fyi, Alan Eds
are still going strong. There's one close to me. Oh,

(01:05:52):
good to know always like that's who you wanted to
install your stuff again, Alan Eds, Let's go to a
line too, Todd in Santa Monica. Todd, what's going on
in Santa Monica today?

Speaker 8 (01:06:06):
Hey, Rich, good to hear from you. We're hosting AILA
is hosting the largest hack jenerative AI hackathon in the
region with over five hundred people and it's a pretty
electric over here right now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
What's a generative AI hackathons? Use AI to help you hack?
Or what?

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:06:23):
Exactly is this really? You know, you could be using
AI to write your code or actually developing some tind
of a generative AI platform. So we have a number
of different types of tracks, whether it's around responsible AI,
or is around building of a viable startup, a fundable startup,
or around cybersecurity. And then we have a ton of
different Obviously we're in Los Angeles, so we've got a
ton of different tracks focusing on entertainment and media.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
So I guess my question is, you know, everyone thinks
that AI is the end of everything, especially if you're
a coder, Like do you still have to learn how
to code? How does AI play along with what you
do as a coder.

Speaker 8 (01:06:57):
Yeah, I mean there's definitely a number of different types
of products that are helping people code faster and better.
Like think of it as always having like an assistant
or co pilot next to you. And so for me,
as a non clinical person that went to film school,
I still believe that no matter what, understanding the science
behind AI and the science behind computer you know around
coding is very important. So don't give up on going

(01:07:21):
to get your computer science degree anytime soon.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
And what are some of the themes that you're seeing there?
I mean, I know you mentioned some about anything that's
like stand out to you that people are doing.

Speaker 8 (01:07:31):
I haven't had a chance to walk around. We seriously
started like a two hours ago when people started hacking.
They're going to be working on their projects overnight and
so tomorrow I'll be able to have more to report abile.
But there's people, you know, thinking of a lot of
different applications that some of them are centered around how
do they use content, how do they digest content and
edit it in bite sized pieces to like highlight reels,

(01:07:52):
or helping YouTubers be able to again cut their content
faster as a rough cut, so that then they can
go in and talluld.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
And make it beautiful so wild. I mean, it's also
like even something like this radio show which is three hours,
you know, picking out little spots that you can make
into like you know, clips for shareable social media. You know,
there's so many companies that are working on that. I
don't think it's perfect just yet. I think that you
still need that human touch with some of this stuff.
But it's definitely happening. And you know, AI is just

(01:08:22):
it's such a force in everything these days. So where's
the event happening and can anyone get involved in this
still or what?

Speaker 8 (01:08:28):
Yeah, well, the missions are definitely closed up. We had
over one thousand registrations. We've got over five hundred actually
here actively participating and at that one two one seven
second street here in Santa Monica just stepped away from
the big DC group Basic tem Z and so we're
kicking off LA Tech Week with this huge hakathon to
really help a flag in Los Angeles to show people

(01:08:50):
that you know, there's a you know, we're more than
we're an innovation capital too, not just San Francisco or places.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Like New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Absolutely awesome is their website people can go to to
learn more.

Speaker 8 (01:09:03):
Sure, you can just go to join AI dot la.
Find out more about our ailate nonprofit that's hosted this
whole hackathon.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Join a JOINAI dot l A.

Speaker 8 (01:09:14):
Correct join AI dot l A and you'll find more
about the organization and the pacabon.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
All Right, Todd and Santa Monica, thanks so much for
checking in with us. Appreciate that.

Speaker 8 (01:09:24):
Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
All Right, good luck with that. Very exciting. I've seen
a couple of hackathons in my years, and it's cool.
People come up with like, you know, they spend a
certain amount of time, let's say twenty four hours just
working and they got to get a project from idea
to execution and fruition might not be fully complete, but
you know, they try to get the best they can
for what, you know, the time that they have. And

(01:09:46):
it's pretty cool because people, you know, they come together,
they may not know each other sometimes and they solve
these problems that they you know uh have been considering
with technology. It's pretty neat eighty eight rich one on
one eight eight eight seven four to two one zero
one again the website rich on tech dot tv. I'll
put that website that Todd mentioned in the show notes.
Just hit the light bulb there to get those TikTok

(01:10:10):
I know, broken record, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. I saw somewhere
that TikTok has a countdown clock that you can see
when when they're expected to be Let's see TikTok countdown
to ban when they're expected. Oh here it is us
TikTok ban countdown. Oh gosh, there's like some sort of

(01:10:31):
clock I saw on social media that you can countdown
time or oh here it is TikTok countdown. Now that's
not the right one. Well this will work. But TikTok
countdown dot com ninety nine days, nine hours, five minutes,
four seconds. With the ninety day extension, you've got one
hundred and eighty nine days. So if you're making a
living on TikTok, this is the this is the countdown

(01:10:51):
to watch now. I I don't know I will get banned.
I'm not sure and I've already given my opinion too
many times in the show about electric cars. I'll save
mine on TikTok. Let me just tell you what the
what's happening against TikTok. Fourteen states have filed a lawsuit
against TikTok for violating consumer protection laws. They say this

(01:11:11):
platform is addictive, particularly for young users. I don't think
anyone could argue with that. They say that TikTok uses
manipulative features to maximize user engagement, including beauty filters. They
think that harm self esteem, especially for teens, auto play
and endless scrolling. There's no way to turn off the AutoPlay,

(01:11:31):
notifications that make you want to come back, likes and
comments all over the place, and time sensitive features that
exploit a fear of missing out. What do they want
them to do? Change their ways? Sixty three percent of
Americans thirteen to seventeen use TikTok, seventeen percent reporting they
use it almost constantly. This is rich on Tech. Welcome

(01:11:54):
back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
with you talking technology at triple eight rich one on one.
zero one. The website Rich on tech dot TV. As always,
Thanks for your emails, your comments, your questions. I do
read them all.

Speaker 8 (01:12:13):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
Special guests with me, my brother Justin, Justin, Welcome to
the show. Thanks for having me on. You're a repeat
guest at this point. And I was talking about Microcenter
earlier in the show. Yep, I used to work there.
I just realized that I was sitting the wrong way
to talk to you because I set up the studio.

(01:12:34):
We're on a remote show this this week, and I
set up the studio and I just realized where I
set up. Justin is completely like he's just looking at
my back. And I didn't even think about that when
I was setting this up. But yeah, you worked at Microcenter.
I did. Yeah, I was in the BYO PC section.
And so did you know a lot about you've built
your own PC?

Speaker 8 (01:12:51):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yeah, a couple. So what components you need like a motherboard, yeah, motherboard,
a processor, BRAM, a storage, some kind of stories like
an SSD. You need a power supply, a case, some fans,
and somewhere to plug it in. Sounds pretty easy. And
a monitor. Yeah, you just fit the shapes into the
slots that they go into. That's pretty much it. Now,

(01:13:14):
what would people come in there, because you know, people
that are building their own computer. Some of them may
not have known everything, but a lot of them like
kind of know their stuff. So were they trying to
like quiz you like, what would be the interaction? Oh? Yeah,
the smart customers were the worst because they would just
ask me. They would just test my knowledge as much
as they could. That's like this show sometime. Yeah, but yeah,

(01:13:35):
they would ask all kinds of questions. You know, you'd
get everybody. You get somebody who just wants you to
build the computer for them, and I'm like, all right, great,
here's all the most expensive parts, and you commission I did? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
everybody works in our commission. So the customer brings up
the part that they like, and then you slap your
sticker with the barcode on it. And then when they

(01:13:57):
check out, they bring up the part in the barcode
and you get you know, the commissions calculated from that.
Oh wow, interesting? Yeah, And how long did you did
you do that? I think I was there for just
about a year. Oh that's it. Yeah, Oh wow, did
I think of so much longer? Okay, So I was
talking about the idea of when I was growing up,

(01:14:17):
and for you a lesser extent, you're a little younger,
but you know this idea of all these places you
could go to the store, like these electronics stores like
for me, you know comp USA and you know before
Best Buy right right, like like this story yesterday when
I was walking through the aisles. I mean, they sell
stuff that you just can't get in a Best Buy,
like little tiny pliers and like metal fittings and stuff

(01:14:39):
like that that's like really nerdy. Yeah, Microcenter is probably
one of the last places you can get anything like that.
I know, like radio shack back in the day used
to have all kinds of little knickknacks and you know,
little wiry parts that you'd used to connect a circuit
board to something else. And nowadays it's just micro Center.
I mean they're the only game in town other than
small little boutique shops that might sell electronics parts. But yeah,

(01:15:04):
I mean it's great. You got to respect them for
it because they they're a really good business. I mean,
they have a lot of good parts they have. Let's
not turn this into an ad for Microcenter. I mean
it's great that we have them, but okay, let's I'm
gonna I'm gonna get to some emails here. Gary. We
had a question about speakers and longevity. Gary wrote in
to say one of the main things that wears out

(01:15:25):
on older acoustic suspension speakers is the foam surround for
the wolfer. Over time, they just fall apart and turn
to dust. The good news is that the surrounds can
be replaced, either by the owner or by a company
that does this. There are lots of YouTube videos showing
how to do this. I know that older KLH Acoustics
and other brands use these foam surrounds. I'm not sure

(01:15:47):
if the callers KLH uses these or not. If wolfers
are using rubber surrounds, they will last much longer. Let's see.
Let's take Oh, you know Steve, Steve still on line one.
We should get to Steve. It's been a while. You
want to say a call with me? Sure? All right?
Steve online one hammett Oh Kim is on with him. Okay, okay,

(01:16:08):
Well maybe she was telling him that we were gonna
come take him. But okay, well until that, tell me, Bobo,
tell just bring him on when he's writing. I'll read
another email here. Uh, Sandra says, I have a smart
TV that isn't set up to deliver Netflix. If I
purchase a firestick, is that all I need? Thank you?
Justin you want to take that one? Sure? Yeah, you

(01:16:29):
know nowadays a lot of smart TVs, a lot of TV.
You almost can't get a TV without the smart stuff
built into it. But if you do get a TV
without it, yeah, I would say a Kindle fire t sorry,
an Amazon fire Stick, fire TV, one of those devices,
or even Roku personally. What's your favorite? You like the Roku? Huh?
I do like Roku? Yeah? You know, it's really just

(01:16:52):
they all do the same thing. Ultimately, you know, pick
whatever suits your budget and has the features that you like.
I just I used a fire TV for a while
and then switched over to Roku because it was a
bit more of a powerful device and it has its
own proprietary interface. I just found that I liked it
a bit better. So I do I think Roku? I

(01:17:13):
mean because Roku is first and foremost a streaming device
company and a platform. I think that they put a
lot of effort into their platform, whereas with Amazon, and
they are a big platform and Amazon's one of like
the top three. It's you know, I think they do
a lot of other things, right, fire is just one
of those things, and I do like the fire I
think the fire Cube is probably the most powerful device

(01:17:34):
that they have, but it's also the most expensive. But
I'm surprised, Sandra that you're able to get a smart
TV without Netflix, because the idea of a smart TV
is that it has Netflix built in. But Firestick, you know,
I would say a lot of people go with the
fire Stick just because it's very inexpensive, and that's what
people like about it. All Right, do we have the caller? Nope,
we don't have the caller. Okay, let's go to Jamie. Sorry,

(01:17:57):
himI in a Los Angeles line. Too high, you're on
with Rich.

Speaker 11 (01:18:03):
Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Absolutely, what can we help you with?

Speaker 11 (01:18:08):
Yeah, So, my wife and I are in the market
for an outdoor camera system and we're looking more for
a wired thing within the five six hundred dollars budget area.
I'm having a hard time filtering through all the different
reviews of what's good and what isn't, sort of just
looking for some general advice. One of the brands I've

(01:18:28):
noticed is like real Link versus whys And you know,
I just can't tell the difference between.

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
Any of them.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
What are you looking for? Like what's important to you?
You want wired?

Speaker 11 (01:18:39):
Yes, a wired system would I don't want to have
to worry about battery life or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
Well, typically the wise cameras, I mean you can plug
them in and a lot of the cameras you can
get with Solar. I mean, how many cameras are we talking?
Are you covering? Like do you need like a Lorax system,
Like it's like, you know, fifteen cameras on every angle
of your house, or like a Swan system or just
a standard like you need a couple of cameras here
and there, but you just want them pluging.

Speaker 11 (01:19:04):
A couple of cameras like maybe three to four.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
Okay, And do you do you have any problem with
like the monthly fees because a lot of them want
monthly fees.

Speaker 11 (01:19:12):
Now, ideally if we can find one without a subscription,
but you know, we'd have to see what the benefits
of the subscription would be.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
Okay, Well, I think when the first thing that comes
to mind with no subscription is U fee eu f y,
I'm you know, and you with that one, I'm just
not sure about the plug in aspect of it. You
would have to you know, you'd have to get probably
solar with those I like. I mean, I personally like
Whys because they're cheap and they work. I also have

(01:19:43):
some Why's in my house, and yeah, they're very cheap.
They work, you plug them in, you point them, they
give you notifications. They're a little bit finicky sometimes I
will say, if you want to go, you know, that's
that's more of the plug and play. Very easy, get
up and go. And they have an SD card slot,
which I like, right, yeah, so you can roll back

(01:20:03):
the you know, roll back the tapes and see continuous footage.
They support you know, I think up to like a
five twelve gig card and you can go back, you know,
several days. I have two six. I think it's a
thirty two gig card on the on the model I have,
I believe it's max of thirty two. Oh okay, but
I you know, you'd have to look at that, look
at the specs that. Yeah, I do know with mine,

(01:20:24):
I can go back up to about six days of footage.
So yeah, and what I like about the Whys is
that you have that option. Now the only thing the
downside of not paying for a subscription if you're on
the Wisecam or any of these cameras and they're using
local storage is if someone steals the camera, they've stolen
your footage. So that's the downside of not having it

(01:20:46):
go to the cloud immediately. Now with the Wisecam, I
do believe you will get just the the frame, like
a snapshot, will go up to the cloud for free.
But I think that's it, Like, that's the only thing
you would have. Like let's say you know someone did
something and you wanted the footage of it and they
took the camera on your app, you might just have
the frame of them, like their face maybe, but that's it.

(01:21:09):
So that's, you know, that's something to think of and
keep in mind. So I have a combination of Ring,
Google cameras, the Nest cameras, and the Wise cameras. Again,
the whys are just the most simple kind of like,
and I've had all these cameras, by the way, for
like years and years, so they do work for a
substantial amount of time. I would say Ring probably has

(01:21:29):
the most kind of like subscription based stuff. So if
you're trying to avoid subscriptions pretty much. Ring cameras are
almost exclusively streaming unless you have any sort of subscription
with Ring where it records to the cloud. But UFI,
I know a lot of people. I have not personally
used the UFI cameras, but I know a lot of
people like those for the fact that there is not

(01:21:50):
a major subscription pushed on people with those cameras. One
of my friends uses UFI and they like them a lot.
There you go, Yeah, they have them set up everywhere. Yeah,
no subscription. All right, himI, thanks so much for the
call today. Appreciate it. Okay, how much long do we

(01:22:10):
have before the break? We got We got a minute
to do it. Okay, we got a minute. All right.
Let me just tell you real quick. I've been testing
the Apple Watch Series ten, and I will tell you
if you have a Series six or below, it's probably
a great update. Series ten is thinner, it's lighter, easier
to wear during sleep. It's got the sleep apnea, although
you can also get that on the Series nine and

(01:22:31):
the Ultra two, I believe, not just the regular. It's
got this great polish black color which looks more expensive
than it is. It's the first time they've had this
polished black on the base model. It's got faster charging,
it's got a larger screen. You can listen to music
and audio through the speaker, which is the first time
you could do that on an Apple Watch before. You

(01:22:52):
can only take calls and talk to Siri. The Vitals
app is really cool. It's like going to the doctor
every night overnight. When you wake up, it tells you
if any of your indicators are out of range, like
your heart or your breathing. It's really really cool, and
it's got on risk translation, so if you are in
a different country and you need to translate feature, you
can use that without a connection. Three hundred and ninety

(01:23:14):
nine dollars Go Cellular if you are a runner and
you want to run with this thing without your phone nearby.
Apple Watch Series ten available now. You can read my
full review on the website rich on tech dot tv.
More of the show coming up and more of me
and my brother justin right after this. Welcome back to
talking technology the website for the show rich on Tech

(01:23:38):
dot TV. Be sure to sign up for the very
helpful tech newsletter that is free on the website. Put
your email address in there. You can hit the light
bulb at the top of the email at the top
of the website for the show notes, and if you
want to get in touch with me, just hit contact
and that will send your email right to me. Alongside

(01:23:59):
me today is my brother Justin. I'm in New Jersey,
so he is hanging out Justin. Thanks for being here.
How you doing great to be here? Do you have
a favorite Jersey artist? We've been playing Jersey artists all
all day so far. Do you have one? I guess
Bruce Springsteen? Oh wow, Bruce? All right, there you go
as a classic? Have we Bobo? I don't think we

(01:24:20):
played any Bruce, did we nice? Okay? Well we have time. Yeah.
It's weird because I did a search of like Jersey artists.
I don't think he came up, which is like he's
getting robbed and the Google results that's that's like bon
Jovi came up, like no matter what, Whitney Houston, Dion
Warwick and a whole bunch of other wrong people on AI.

(01:24:42):
But I don't think the what are they called Bruce
Springsteen the Boss? Sure he comes up first when I
searched for Okay, well maybe I missed that. All right,
let's go to line one. Jerry in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. Jerry,
We've never been closer. What's up? What can I help
you with?

Speaker 9 (01:24:58):
Welcome back to the land of Green Pizza.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
Rich, Thank you. I did have a slice and it
was actually really horrible, but I won't talk about that,
So go ahead. What can I help you with? I
like Jerry, already, take a pizza back the kid.

Speaker 9 (01:25:10):
She deserves it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
She deserves a lot.

Speaker 9 (01:25:14):
I have a local radio stations here, you know, on
my computer, and it's run actually it's run by the
high school, my local high school. They played great music
from the seventies and eighties, nineties. Then all of a
sudden they change the URL. I can't get on my
Android bone anymore with the same uver L. How do

(01:25:34):
I do about sniffing at this URL so I can
play it with my app on my bone.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
There's a there's a Chrome extension that will help you
sniff it out. It's called Bulk Media Downloader, and you
install it on Chrome and you go to that website.
You tap the extension and it will give you every
single thing that is going on on that website and
you can filter by applications image, video, audio, archive, document, tab,

(01:26:07):
whatever it is. And so I just went to like
a random streaming radio station and there's a whole bunch
of you know, streams that you can see on there.
So that is what it's called bulk media downloader. I
don't know, you know, I've used this to sniff thinks out.
I don't know what you would do to, you know,

(01:26:28):
with that URL once you have it, but I imagine
you might be able to pop it into some sort
of app or something that you want to use on
your phone, you know, since it's Android, I'm sure there's
lots of them that would allow you to play that.
But that's what it's called bulk media downloader. And I
don't let's see, do they have a website. I don't
know if they have a website or just a Chrome extension.

(01:26:48):
Let's see here, trying to find a fit. Yeah, it
looks like it's just a Chrome extension. So I would
just search for that and you should find it. It looks
like the uh, I don't know what would you call it,
like a navigation mark or something the you know, anyway,
but that's what I look for. Jerry. See if that
works for you.

Speaker 9 (01:27:05):
Thank you much, have some more pizza.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
All right, goodbye, report back, report back on the website.
Rich on tech dot TV. All right, justin, let's talk
about this notebook LM feature. So we're here in person
talking on the radio show. But a lot of folks
are talking about this AI powered audio overview, and so
it's from Google. It's from a feature called Notebook LM.

(01:27:29):
If you're not familiar with Notebook LM, it's basically your
own personal chat GPT. You can upload as much as
many documents as you want to this Notebook LM, and
then you can search through them using Google AI. But
this other thing they can do is they can now
generate an AI hosted basically podcast that has a discussion

(01:27:50):
of your material. So let's play a couple thirty seconds
of this. I uploaded my review of the I think
it was the Samsung Watch Ultra. I just took the
text my review, uploaded it, and then in like a
minute or two, it came up with this audio. Let's
hear it.

Speaker 7 (01:28:04):
All right, everybody buckle up, because today we are diving
deep into the world of Samsung health tech.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
It's gonna be fun.

Speaker 7 (01:28:12):
With their shiny new Galaxy Watch lineup and the game changer,
the Samsung.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
Smart Ring definitely game changer.

Speaker 7 (01:28:18):
We are uncovering all the juicy details from tech guru
Rich Demiro's latest review.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
Love his reviews, he always digs out.

Speaker 7 (01:28:26):
No, absolutely, and we're going.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
To dissect it all for you today. Awesome. Can't wait.

Speaker 7 (01:28:30):
So Samsung is really stepping up their game this year.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
Into two hosts are completely AI generated, justin what's your reaction?
So the first thing I noticed is it sounded just
like one of those podcasts where you have the one
host who has all the substance in the content and
the other one just goes like uh huh yeah, oh definitely, sure, yeah,
I hear you see what you did there. But it's

(01:28:58):
really okay. So here's what I think is interesting this.
I don't think it's perfect. Obviously you kind of got
onto that where the guy was just like, uh huh,
he's great. Sure, he was like a supportive character. I
think obviously it depends on you know, every single one
of these is going to be different. But it's kind
of scary, like they sound pretty good. It's taking the
information and it runs with it. Obviously, it has that

(01:29:18):
same AI issue of like hallucinating and all that stuff.
But this is like day one. Yeah, day one. I
mean if you didn't tell me they were AI, I
might not have even thought that. Yeah, and I can
only imagine where this tech is going to be in
a year from now. Yeah. So there you have it. Notebook,
LM Audio Overview. What I think is really cool about
this is for learning. If you are trying to study

(01:29:39):
for an exam, you want to learn like a complex topic,
you put your information into this notebook and then you
make a podcast and you listen to it on the go.
Helps you understand it in a new and different way.
All right. Coming up, we're going to talk to Scott
Baldwin about his new app called front Pack for Athletes.
There it is, there's the boss. All right. Welcome back

(01:30:01):
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
talking technology. The website for the show rich on Tech
dot TV. So much good information giving out on this show,
not necessarily through me, but just in general, like the
community that we have here of people that know stuff
and add to the show and ask questions that I

(01:30:21):
think we can all take away from My brother's joining
me as well, Justin is here hanging out because I
am in New Jersey. My hometown. Is that my hometown
or my home state? I say home state, home state?
And then joining me now is Scott Baldwin. Scott and
I have worked together for years on the PR side.
Now he has branched off and he's actually starting up

(01:30:43):
his own app called front Pack. This is a social
network for endurance athletes. Scott, welcome to the show.

Speaker 12 (01:30:52):
Yeah, Hey, Rich, good to be here, and shout out
to New Jersey. I am also a fellow New Jersey
in so yeah, how do I.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
Not know that? Look at yeah? See weeah three New Jersey.
Cool here. So, so tell me about Okay, so you
went from PR to creating an app? I mean number one?
What's that been? Like? I mean, is it? Everyone's always
asking me like, Rich, how do I make an app?
How do I make an app? I mean it's tough,
isn't it? Yeah? Absolutely?

Speaker 9 (01:31:21):
So?

Speaker 12 (01:31:23):
Is it something that I ever thought I would do?

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:31:26):
But here I am so.

Speaker 12 (01:31:28):
Like you said, I was in R Communications for twenty
years and I had this idea and there was a
market need that I saw way back in January. And
the market need was there there was no social network
for endurance athletes. So it's something I actually created as
a first a newsletter and then quickly I brought you know,

(01:31:51):
all those worlds together. It quickly grew to a few
thousand subscribers and a lot of people were messaging me,
a lot of run club, cycling clubs. They were saying, hey, like,
I think you're onto something and this is really cool.
Do you have any desire to take it a step further? So, again,
like I said, there was a market need, there's nothing
out there. So I actually started the the app creation

(01:32:16):
process about five months ago.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
It took a long time.

Speaker 12 (01:32:20):
I evaluated the things that people wanted, and I also
interviewed a lot of my own newsletter subscribers. And then, yeah,
I would say it is very difficult. You have to
find the right developers and it takes a lot of interviewing,
which I think, you know, coming from my background before,
I'm pretty good at interviewing people and making sure we

(01:32:44):
have the right fit.

Speaker 1 (01:32:46):
So you didn't You didn't code the app yourself, Like
you weren't sitting there learning like Swift or whatever coding language.

Speaker 12 (01:32:52):
Yeah, exactly. I think if that was the road that
I went down. I don't know if we would be
having this conversation quite yet.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
So explain to me what front pack. The website is
frontpacksports dot com. What is what is the app for?
What does it help people do? Yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:33:09):
Absolutely, So it's a social network for endurance athletes by
endurance athletes. So it's a it's a place for real
people to connect, motivate. Storytell uh, I'm not sure if
you've ever done a five k or a half marathon
or anything, but.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
I think yes, I have.

Speaker 12 (01:33:29):
Yes, So you understand when you are at the starting line,
you might actually be super nervous, and you you you're
not sure if you're training. You know you did your
training correctly, but then there's always that person that's standing
next to you, and before the race or after the race,
you get talking to them and you find out like, oh,
this person might be in the same boat, or oh

(01:33:50):
this person has the same career as I. But once
that gun goes off, you like you never see that
person ever again. So front pack, you know, it's the
answer to just connecting with real people who are like
minded and like you. It's a way to motivate and
push yourself to be even better. And not only that,

(01:34:11):
but you know, it's focused on the sports side of things.
But I think quite often everybody uses LinkedIn, but LinkedIn
doesn't really show you your hobbies or interests. And with
so many people being laid off in the last year,
front Pack not only when you sign up you create
your profile, but you can also connect with people based

(01:34:33):
on your profession, so you're connecting based on interest. But
also you know, you might be in in tech sales
for example.

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
Interesting, so you can so basically you can. You know,
it's almost like a social network in real life where
you have the shared interest of doing whatever you're doing,
whether it's running, cycling. And also you may be in
the same business or maybe not. But it's kind of
like extending that network through sports.

Speaker 6 (01:35:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:35:04):
Absolutely, And I think the thing, you know, most of
us we grow up playing sports, but unless you go
on to play sports in college or beyond, you know,
you have to give up something that was such a
big part of your life because you need to go
be a professional, and you need to go work, and
you need to go you know, you know, you got

(01:35:25):
to go make money or have a family. So I
think the great thing about it is we all still
have that passion within us and it just because you're
a working professional doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to
connect with people who have similar similar interests.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
And so is the app free? Do you charge for this?
How does that work? And who do you have this
is for?

Speaker 9 (01:35:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:35:47):
Absolutely, so anyone can sign up for free. It's at
frontpacksports dot com. And you know, right now we're just
trying to grow the user base. We have a few
one hundred members at the moment, everywhere from obviously the
US to Canada, but we've also seen an engagement across Europe,

(01:36:07):
New Zealand South Africa. So it's been like a really
interesting mix of people just connecting with you know, other
folks that they've never met before. But like I said,
they all have a common goal and that's you know,
to get better and improve their lives.

Speaker 1 (01:36:22):
And has this been fun for you to do this?
It's very different than pr but clearly it's it's a
new challenge, that's for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:36:31):
Absolutely, So I grew up, like I said, I grew
up playing sports, but endurance sports have always been like
a huge thing for me and I think for a
lot of people like myself, it's a microcosm of life,
because you don't just get good at you know, running
a marathon in a week. You know, that takes time,

(01:36:51):
It takes years of work, It takes a lot of practice,
and most often times you're going to run into an
issue along the way and you have to kind of.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
Quickly figure that out.

Speaker 12 (01:37:00):
So you know, like and during sports, I think this
business I'm also figuring out along the way. And you know,
I I do have to kind of remind myself it's
it's only been a month and a couple of days
since we launched.

Speaker 1 (01:37:14):
Yeah, you're it's a it's a marathon, not a sprint.
You got to remember that you need one of those
motivational signs in your own in your own office, you know.
Uh to two points. First off, I was talking to
my wife just the other night saying how important I
think sports are for my kids, Like the amount of
things you learn in that and the amount of just
to me, it's just it's been amazing to watch my kids.

(01:37:34):
One of them plays basketball, one plays baseball, and it's
it's really a big part of their lives. And it's
it's learning so much about teamwork and failure and success
and and you know, just getting along with people and
accepting all these things in life that really does help
you later on. And then the second thing was when
I did my I did a half marathon, and I

(01:37:56):
actually was very fortunate that I was. I had like
a not a sponure, but I was working with a
six and so they would they had a person like
a coach. And also I had a producer I was
working with and we both were doing it together. And
so it's what you're talking about in this app is
almost exactly what we did in real life, where we
had someone to bounce things off of and to get
information from, and we also had each other going through

(01:38:18):
the same thing. And so that's kind of what you've
recreated here. And I totally get it because we had
so many questions. I'm like, should I really be running
every day? Should I be doing this? And so I
think that this kind of thing is really hard. I
think it's one of those things too where you need
somebody to lean on too, Like an endurance sport. It's
very intense. You need someone to bounce off of and
keep that motivation and keep you going because it is

(01:38:39):
very intense. It is a lot of work, and it
takes a lot to keep going back every day and
keep training.

Speaker 12 (01:38:45):
Yeah, no, I mean I completely agree on all those points.
And I think the beauty of the networks so far
that we've seen is one we created it to be
a positive place. I think there's way too many social
networks out there where it's all about anonymity and that
allows people to be negative and have no accountability. So

(01:39:06):
I will say in the first month with over three
hundred posts, everything has been super positive. Again, like I said,
it's for anyone as well. So you know, like you said,
you you had a coach. We have coaches. We we
have a weekly live stream where we bring on experts,
we bring on coaches, We talk about the most basic

(01:39:27):
things to the most advanced things. So yeah, anyone can
really kind of grow with the sport and within themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:39:35):
All right. The website frontpack frontpacsports dot com, frontpacsports dot com. Uh,
Scott Baldwin, best wishes for this new app available on
iPhone and Android.

Speaker 12 (01:39:47):
Absolutely, thank you guys, thanks for.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
Joining me today. All right, coming up, I'm gonna tell
you how you're streaming TV streaming streaming services are tracking you,
and also we're going to get into the feedbag that's
coming up right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,

(01:40:10):
talking technology. We're gonna get right into it because there
is a lot to get through, especially with the feedbag.
It is overflowing today. I could barely drag it up
to the studio today because it's so filled. But we're
gonna get through all that in just a moment. I
got my brother justin here. New report from the Center
for Digital Democracy says that your streaming services are tracking you.

(01:40:34):
They are spying on you, and they are targeting you
with extensive data on your viewing habits and using that
to sell you stuff. And this makes a lot of sense.
And their argument is that we've never really had such
highly targeted and personalized profiling of people based on what
they're watching on TV. And the smart TVs themselves are

(01:40:55):
a big part of this data collection system because this
stuff is built right into the foundational software on these TVs.
It's a fascinating report. It makes a lot of sense.
Two things going on here. Number One, your smart TV
is probably scanning the screen no matter what and and
recognizing the content of everything you watch. It's called automatic

(01:41:15):
content recognition. You probably agree to it when you set
up your TV. You can opt out of it or
turn it off. The other thing is there is a stream.
All the streaming services have opt out guides as well,
so it's a great website. The nai dot org has
opt out guides for almost every streaming service where you

(01:41:36):
can opt out of some of this data collection. I
don't think you're gonna be able to opt out of
it all, but I'll put that on the show notes
pretty wild because we are just hammered with targeted advertising.
This should be a default opt in. But if you
set up a if you've ever set up a smart
TV lately, it's almost like it says like it's it's
gonna benefit you. There are so many screens you have

(01:41:57):
to go through look at them very very closely. Also,
I hit a nerve this week. I mentioned on my
Facebook that those texts have you gotten these things where
they're just like, hey how are you? Or I lost
your number in my phone book and can we chat again?
I get those messages about five times a day. Yeah,
I don't know what it is. It's because all of

(01:42:17):
these recent data breaches have put our phone numbers out
there on the web, and so they've got a fresh
amount of information. So I posted this to my Facebook.
Let me just give you some of the responses. Many
people commented they're also getting these obviously. They come in
all forms. They talk about weight loss, Amazon deliveries, fake
job offers. One person even commented, they got a barbecue invite.

(01:42:40):
I'll actually go to that. Yeah, that sounds like fun.
I'd be like where they're confusing and annoying. Makes it
difficult to distinguish between legitimate messages and scams. I do agree,
you have to look at everything very closely because we
are getting and this what I've always talked about. We
get legitimate messages like this like hey, your package is
delayed and you're like, oh, okay, and that might be
from Amazon rare, but you know what I mean, right,

(01:43:02):
But they also play upon that and kind of twist
it and make it into their scrutinize every message you
get one hundred percent. Let's see. Some people say that
these senders get aggressive or insulting if you don't respond.
Don't respond to these people, by the way, but some
commenters block the numbers, report them as junk, or they
engage in playful banter to waste their time. I would say,

(01:43:25):
do not write back to these people, because once you
write back, is solidifies your number as being a good
phone number, right, and then they will target you even further. Yeah,
exactly same with spam email. But hopefully everybody knows that
by now, all right. I thought this was pretty cool
justin this developer Andrew Schmellian came up with a way
to hack adopt Matrix printer. Not really a hack, but

(01:43:49):
he wrote a little program where it pulls the headlines
from like Reddit and some other news sites, weather, stocks news,
and every morning at eight am, it prints out a
one page newsletter for him. I love that. Isn't that cool?
I love that? So he actually put his whole project online.
It looks like he needed a dot Matrix printer, a
Raspberry pie Cereal to USB adapter because the old Dot

(01:44:11):
Matrix didn't have USB, so it's just a serial port YEP,
and then power supply and then he just used the
free APIs and he made a little programming And isn't
that cool? Yeah? I mean that that makes it actually
takes away a lot of the distractions that you'd see
when you're looking through those headlines, so I like it,
That's what he said. He was like, you know, this
is like so much healthier than doom scrolling. All right,
you want to read the first feedback? Sure? So we

(01:44:35):
have Max from Los Angeles writing in saying thank you.
I'm a senior level it and listen to you because
of how easily you lay it out to the end users.
You have talent. Please don't go anywhere. Oh wow, well
I'm going to stay here as long as humanly possible.
Thank you. What was his name, Max? Max? Thanks Max?
All right, Michael writes in. Michael from Calabasas writes in,

(01:44:59):
I saw your recommend on whisper flow. You should know
that it only an Apple Silicon chips, so my Intel
based iMac couldn't run it. But to keep those tips
and recommendations coming very informative. This is a life changer.
So I can press and hold one key on my
keyboard and I can dictate, and it uses AI to transcribe.
Not only would I say, but to format it in

(01:45:20):
like perfect formatting. It's incredible. But yes it is. It's
I guess it's Mac silicon only. It's Mac only, but
we're going to see many, many more apps just like that.
So thanks for the clarification. Very very useful. When you're
eating a stack with one hand and you want it,
you still want to work. Yes, tite things out and
I get people always say to me, I can't believe
you responded to my email. I am now responding to

(01:45:43):
emails probably three times faster than ever before because I
don't have to sit there and type them. I can dictate.
But it's it's so good that it gets the nuances
of what I'm trying to say, like if I'm if
I'm like excited, or if I'm writing something in a
list or whatever, it gets it, all right, all right,
next one, Just all right, we have Michael from Memphis
writing in. I have an Android cell phone for personal

(01:46:04):
use and an iPhone for business. Are there any earbuds
out there that will automatically stop what I'm listening to
on my Android and answer a call I'm receiving on
my iPhone without having to steer the call on my
iPhone to switch to the earbuds. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
All right, This is a feature called multipoint. A lot
of headphones, a lot of earbuds now support this, so

(01:46:26):
look for multipoint connection. A lot of them do this
where it can seamlessly go. Let's say you're listening to
music on your computer your phone rings, it'll automatically swap
to your phone. It's not the same thing as having
two devices connected. They're basically almost simultaneously connected and kind
of listening for anything that's happening on each of those
to kind of spring into action and switch the audio source.

(01:46:47):
So multipoint. The ones that I love that I recently
tested are the CMF buds and justin you tried them
because I brought them home, right, Yeah, I actually tried
them today. First of all, excellent sound, I mean, the
space audio is great on them. I haven't had a
chance to test the dual point the multipoint yet, but
it does look like a compelling feature for sure. All Right,

(01:47:08):
you got one more real quick one. She got less
than a minute. All right, we got Ryan from Lucasville,
Ohio writing in, Hey, Rich, I really enjoyed the show.
As a technology coordinator for a local school, I fix
a lot of chromebooks. It's rewarding but crazy. Sometimes. I
used to listen to Leo Laporte and was glad when
you took over. You do a great job helping folks.
Thank you again. All right, well, thank you, Ryan. Appreciate that.

(01:47:31):
I always like when it people like the show because
it means that I'm doing something right. Sure apps, No,
all right, wow, I cannot believe it that is going
to do this episode of the show. You can find
links to everything I mentioned on the website. Go to
rich on tech dot tv. Be sure to sign up
for the newsletter. Find me on social media. I'm at
rich on tech. Do you want people to find you?
Justin sure? Where are you at? Justin demiro on X?

(01:47:54):
There you go. Next week we'll have more of your questions.
I've got the feedback. It's so full I got to
bring it back now week. Thanks so much for listening.
There are so many ways you can spend your time.
I appreciate you spending it right here with me. My
name is rich dedmro Thanks to Justin. Let's real

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Rich DeMuro

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