To-Do Lists, Password Managers & A New AirPods Accessory

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Big tech versus big government. Why some of America's largest
companies are fighting to keep you clicking through those subscription cancelations.
Plus your Wi Fi dead zones could be history. I'll
tell you how to finally get that same strong signal
in your backyard that you have in your living room.
And later, would you spend six hundred dollars to never

(00:24):
scoop kitty litter? Ever? Again, my hands on review of
the robot that's changing the game for cat owners. But
is it worth the splurge? Find out? Plus your tech
questions answered? What's going on rich damiro And this is
Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk
about the tech stuff I think you should know about.

(00:44):
It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
I believe that tech should be interesting, useful and fun.
Let's fire up those phone lines at triple eight rich
one oh one. That's eight seven four two four to
one zero one. Give me a call if you have
a question about technology. Again, that's triple eight rich one

(01:07):
oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
to one zero one. Kim is back this week, So uh,
that's who you will encounter. That's who you'll have to
get through to get on the air here. Email is
also open. Just go to rich on tech dot TV
hit contact that will actually make its way directly to

(01:27):
my inbox. We've got some great guests this week. We've
got a full slate this week, clinical psychologist and attorney
doctor Lisa Stroman. We'll talk about strategies for protecting youth
in the digital age. We're going to discuss a story
that is very sad and nonfortunate, discusses UH. Involves a
fourteen year old that got obsessed with AI and just

(01:52):
not a good ending to the story. We'll talk about
that UH. Later in the show. We've got olo clip
creator and entrepreneur Patrick O'Neil. He's going to talk about
his latest creation, three D printed USBC AirPods holders. We'll
talk about that. He will be live in studio. That's
very exciting. And Bitward and CEO Michael crandall. We'll talk

(02:13):
about password management safety and you should be using a
password manager. I know they're intimidating, but you got to
use one. I'm telling you, just start using one. And
I think that's the thesis of his conversation. All right,
So this week, I asked you in my newsletter or
last week. I guess I should say what kind of
phone do you use? Now? I kind of imagined what

(02:37):
the answer would be here, because you know, I wrote
a book. I wrote three books on the iPhone, one
hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone, and
over the course of three years, I updated it for
the various iOS systems until it just got to be
too much. But a lot of you came to me
from that book, and actually, I'll just tell you quickly

(02:58):
the reason why I wrote that book. I will never forget.
You know, I do cover technology on television. Average people
just watching TV kind of see me and you know,
maybe tune in, maybe whatever. I get their attention, but
I did, you know a lot of times I'd take
for granted this stuff that I know about technology. Not
anymore so much, but back in the day, I'd be like, oh,

(03:18):
everyone knows how to do that. While I was showing
someone how to use the magnifying feature on their iPhone
to like illuminate and make a menu look bigger at
a restaurant, and they're like, wait, what, And I was like, Yeah,
there's hundreds of those tips out there, and like what
do you mean, what are you talking about? And so
I was like, wait, you don't know about that. So
I ended up doing that on TV. I made that
into a tip on television and it went crazy viral,

(03:42):
and I was like, I have never seen anything like
this in my life, just the simplest little iPhone tip.
And so I did another one and I can't remember
what the second one was, but I did another one
and that also did really well, and I was like, hmm,
I think we're onto something here. Let's do these tips
on TV more often, and maybe I should write an
entire book about that. So I did and it did,

(04:02):
you know, reasonably well. I self published on Amazon and
a lot of you bought it, so thank you for that,
and it was a lot of fun. It was like
the best experience. I still say writing that book was
one of the best experiences of my life. Taught me
a lot, kind of helped me become an entrepreneur. It
was really really fun, and people bought it all over
They still buy it all over the world, even though
it's not up to date, but some of the tips

(04:23):
still work, probably a majority of them actually anyway, So
a lot of you came to my mailing list from
that iPhone book, And so it's no surprise that when
you answered this poll, sixty five percent of you use
the iPhone. Next up is twenty five percent of you
use Androids specifically Samsung, and then after that it is

(04:46):
six percent of you use Android specifically the Pixel, and
then three percent of you use Androids something else that
might be the OnePlus and various other brands that you
might get, And then one percent of you said other.
So the other is probably like those flip phones that
are having a moment right now, people that want a
simpler lifestyle. But anyway, I personally have my primary SIM

(05:09):
card in an iPhone and I'm going to keep it
there for a little bit, just because the last time
I tried to swap it, I was out a phone
for like a couple hours, and it was really tricky
to get my number back to my phone. So basically
a quick story is I took my number from one
phone and I put it into another phone. You know,
I test phones all the time, so I'm moving my

(05:29):
number around. Well, this time the number did not move
to the new phone, But what happened was it immediately
went away from the old phone, and so my wireless
carrier had no way of verifying I was who I
said I was because they couldn't text. They usually text
a confirmation code, and I'm like, well, you can't text
it because I have no phone line. And so it
was a whole run around. It was like a whole thing.

(05:51):
That's just I was going around in circles with them.
I said, there's got to be a different way you
could verify I am who I say I am. And
I get it. They need to stay secure because your
phone number unlocks lot of things. Anyway, I finally convinced
them to activate the old phone. I said, look, the
old phone is on my account. Just look up the
number of it. It's the Imei. It's on there, and
they did and it worked out anyway. But I love

(06:13):
the different phones for different reasons. iPhone obviously is just
overall really really nice. Samsung to me is the powerhouse.
You can do anything you want on that device, and
I love that it's sort of independent. It's not iOS,
it's not specifically Google, it's just its own kind of
blend of things. And then the pixel is amazing, it's incredible.
It's got the great camera, and it's got that great

(06:35):
Google software. So they all have their pros and cons,
and I think everyone uses their phone for a different reason.
So there's the results. Now this week I also asked you.
This was a couple weeks back, but I just compiled
the results. How do you keep track of your to
do list? I asked you this question on my Facebook
page Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech. And I

(06:56):
am constantly looking for a better way of being efficient
because I've got two jobs, I've got two kids, I've
got lots of things going on, and I'm trying to
keep up with all of it. And so I'm constantly
trying new apps and things, and so I'll share what
I use in a moment. But the main breakdown of
what you said in your comments. Phone apps obviously number

(07:17):
one for the digital method the notes app, the reminders app,
the Google Keep app, those are very popular. Then you've
got the calendar apps. People just put their to do
items in the calendar apps, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar. Then
of course Microsoft to do is very popular, and Outlook
is very popular. And voice assistants. People just tell their
voice assistants, hey remind me this. Then of course you've

(07:39):
got the analog methods paper and pens, sticky notes, post
it notes, notebooks and notepads, and wall calendars. Some notable responses.
Kayla said, I have five hundred and forty seven tabs
open in my brain at all times, and my to
do list is there. Kayla, I totally hear you, but
this is the reason why I offload my to do list.
It keeps me up at night if I don't put

(08:01):
my to do list on a piece of paper. In fact,
if I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking
about all the stuff I have to get done for
the day, I can go through and write down my
stuff on a piece of paper, all the little things
that are bobbling around in my head, and I will
sleep better. Try it. Robert says, my wife reminds me
of what I have to do every thirty minutes. That's funny.
Lynn says, I'm seventy one. I have no to do

(08:22):
list except wake up every morning. That's a good one.
Ep says I have an app called my Wife nags Me.
It's in the She Don't Play Store. My Wife. Yes,
my wife is one hundred percent her to do list.
She is so good with the to do list in
her mind. I don't know how she does it. I
just don't have a mind like that. I think that

(08:42):
some people do. Some people don't. And Karen says in
a notebook, like any respectable dinosaur. Okay, So I will
tell you my methods, my current method and I've tried
so many different methods for this, but I'll tell you
what I'm using right now, and I put this all
on the website rich on tech dot tv. It's in
today's show notes. But first, I love this app called
Whisper Memos. It's only available for the iPhone and the

(09:04):
Apple Watch, but I've been begging the developer to make
it on to Android as well because it is so incredible.
You have it on your Apple Watch. You tap your
screen on your Apple Watch, it will start recording and
then it will transcribe what you say with perfect accuracy
and email it to yourself. So when you get back
to your inbox, your little to do list, or your memo,
your note whatever is right there. Now. On my phones

(09:25):
on iOS, I've got an app called email Me, So
this is where it's on my home screen. I just tap,
I type something quick that I need to remember, and
it sends it right to my inbox. You can also
share a link or anything you want and it will
arrive in your inbox. And that's sort of where I
trioge things. My inbox is sort of my triage where
once I get back to my inbox on my email,
I will be like, oh, yeah, okay, I need to

(09:46):
put this here, file that there, do whatever. The equivalent
app on Android is called Email Yourself, and I think
it's a one time fee of a couple dollars or
so has Email Me. But they're both fantastic. I use
them every single day of my life. So where do
my notes actually go? Right now? It's Notion. I've tried
every single note taking app out there. I find that

(10:07):
Notion sort of works the way I like. I've gotten
quite used to its formatting. I don't use a lot
of the high end options, all the templates and all
that stuff, but it's a really nice, easy note taking app,
and the search is really good. Now. As for my
actual to do list, out of every single to do
app I've ever tried in my life, I keep coming
back to the same one. It is Microsoft to Do List.

(10:28):
What do I love about it? Two things? Number One,
it works across every platform known to Mankind. The other
thing I like about it there's three Actually, you can
set up a new day for every single day, So
if you like you just want to have your to
do list for that day, it will put that on
one list, and then after that day it goes into
the all list. So if you just want to start

(10:49):
every day with a fresh list, which I find very helpful,
Microsoft to do is really good at that. And the
thing that it does that many other to do lists
do not do. You can add an actual file to
your to do list. So, for instance, let's say that
you needed a PDF of something that would you know
they're on your to do list involves a PDF. You
can drag and drop that file into your to do

(11:10):
item and now that pdf is there. Two other things
I like for my to do list an app called
voice Notoes dot com. So I'm an early adopter of this.
I love this app. There's one thing. It's the same
thing about the Whisper Memos, very similar, except it's sort
of a it's its own note taking app. So not
only can you take voice notes and it transcribes them

(11:31):
for you, and you could do it on your wrist,
you could do it on your phone it works across
both platforms, which I love iPhone and Android. But I've
been asking the developer to give me the ability to
email myself my notes because the note sort of lives
at voice notoes dot com, which is great, and you
can search and use AI to summarize your notes and
all this good stuff. But I'd really like if I

(11:53):
was able to tap one thing on my phone or
my watch and say, hey, email me a copy of
what you just did. And then, finally, I still use
that good old fashioned notepad at work next to my computer.
I still find that I like to write things down
that I need to accomplish that day. So there are
my methods all linked up on the website rich on
tech dot tv. Hopefully that helps you. And if you

(12:13):
want to read through all of the comments I got
on my Facebook page, I linked that up as well,
because you guys are funny. Yeah, you're really You're really
witty with your answers. I love it all right eighty
eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell
you why big companies are fighting the FTC over its

(12:34):
new click to cancel rule. Yeah, they want to continue
to make it tough for you to cancel your subscriptions.
Give me a call if you have a question about technology,
we'll talk more tech. My name is Rich Demiro, and
you are listening to Rich on tech. Let's go to
uh Tony in the Inland Empire. Tony, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Rich, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, I would like to know.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
I'm interested in purchasing a dash cam, but I need
something that's economical, easy to install and operate. I don't
need a lot of bills of whistles. And I also
want to know should I be looking for one with
the front and rear camera.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Well, okay, so here's my thing about the front and
rear camera. I mean, the problem is if the camera,
the rear camera is not on your bumper, what's the point.
So I mean I have one with a front and
rear and it's like, okay, it records inside the cabin,
which doesn't really do me much good. Right, So I

(13:40):
think that the thing about the rear camera is unless
it was on your license plate, which some of them
do have that capability, but they're much more expensive. It's
you know, you're not going to get Let's say you
got rear ended. You're not going to capture that, right.
So here here's my thoughts. So number one, this is
a question. I get a lot, and I think that
when it comes to these dash cams, the recommendations are

(14:03):
all over the place. So personally I have tested, Uh,
the brands that are Vava va va. Let's see, the
other one I like is called what's that one? Well,
the one that I'm currently using is the ring cam,
which I really like, but I don't think it uh,
I think I think they've discontinued it. Let me see
if it's still available that camera.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
I think you did a story on it or whatever. Yeah,
first came.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Out, Yeah they're not, they're not.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
It seems to be a very large.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
No, not really, I mean it's I I think that, Yeah,
that one's actually great and actually saved us. The other day,
my wife got She's probably gonna be mad for me
saying this, but she got a ticket, uh for not
paying parking, And I was like, oh, let's check the
dash cam, and sure enough, you know, not only did
she pay for the parking, but we had on the
dash cam her putting the parking pass on her dashboard

(14:58):
of the car. So I literally have like the video
of her placing it there, you know. So that's that's
the kind of thing that these work for. I mean,
and these are also really you know, I think that
the idea of a dash cam, especially in Los Angeles,
is very very helpful. Is there a reason why you
want one of these?

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Well, I've always been kind of interested in getting one,
but just recently with some of the stories that are
being shown in the news with people backing it into you,
making it look like a rear in accident type thing,
and that just makes me, you know, considering just getting one.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Just because Yeah. Well okay, so I'll tell you this
so that the brands that I like again are Vava, Vava,
next Base, I like them, And then I'll tell you
the brands that are popular online. Wirecutter likes one called
the Meo five S one that's their best dash cam
under one hundred dollars. She said, you wanted something cheap,
but I would also check out van True. That one

(15:52):
comes up a lot in reviews. People seem to like
that one, and then the Garment obviously people like that again,
but I would just personally go to like, if you
have a membership to Costco, see what they have there.
They usually have one or two dash cams that are
a very good value if you go there. But the
things that you want to look for, obviously are high

(16:13):
quality video. Four K would be ideal. You want the GPS,
you want the sensor, the parking sensor so if your
car gets bumped or hit it will start recording automatically.
And of course night vision. All that stuff is handy
as well, and the widest angle you can find. Thanks
for the call, Tony eight eight eight rich one oh

(16:33):
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. We'll get back to the phone lines in
just a moment. But a very sad and serious story
this week about a kid in Florida fourteen years old
apparently kind of had a relationship with an AI character

(16:59):
and ended up committing suicide. Here to talk about this
story and some of the takeaways here is doctor Lisa
stroman clinical psychologist and attorney. Thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
So what was your initial thought when you heard this story?

Speaker 5 (17:18):
You know, it was just gut wrenching. I've been talking
about AI and deep bakes now for at least two
years and I'm kind of the chicken little of the
kind of the psychology of technology world, and when this
came across, it was just heartbreaking for me to see
and to know the pain that the family, the mother specifically,

(17:39):
is going through.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
So The New York Times wrote about this story. Fourteen
year old boy, I guess he came up with a
Game of Thrones inspired AI character, the website character dot Ai.
Now the family is suing because they say that, you know,
this AI chatbot kind of lured him in, and you know,

(18:01):
was there Could this happen to anyone? I mean they
said that this is the ninth grade student mild aspergers,
but had no serious behavioral or mental health issues before.
Do you think that this caused it? Or do you
think that these AI you know programs are going to
cause more situations like this in the future.

Speaker 5 (18:20):
I think that there's probably a multitude of these situations
that have already happened that we just haven't seen hit
the news. I think that Sewell's mom hit is particularly
adept because she's an attorney herself, to bring this story
to the forefront. But I've had multiple cases in my
private practice already. One example is a college student who

(18:41):
had a full right scholarship straight a student and literally
went into the world of AI role play just because
she was feeling lonely and wanted some support and didn't
leave her dorm room and ended up losing everything, including
her college career, over it. So it's happening every day,
and I don't know how to get it out there faster,

(19:04):
but I do think that some of the kids might
be more vulnerable and more impulsive. But you know, developmentally,
this is going to hit them much harder because this
is where they are, and particularly in the teenage years,
where they're trying to identify and figure out who they are,
and you've got an AI companion that is telling them
that they love them and there's unconditional support and there's

(19:26):
nothing they could do wrong, and they want to spend the.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Rest of their lives together.

Speaker 5 (19:29):
It's really hard to compete with in the real world.
So it's going to get worse before it gets better,
and we need to put the biggest minds and get
the training in the schools as quick as possible.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah. I tested one of these AI chatbot systems and
it's pretty wild because number one, I mean, we're not
talking about you know chatchipt. We're talking about apps that
are specifically created where you can make a character that
kind of gets to know you. It talks to you
like a friend. And by the way, this is twenty
four to seven, always on, and if you have notifications on,

(20:01):
it's going to text you out of the blue and say, hey,
come talk to me, come join me, come hang, and
you can basically talk to about anything. And I think
adults have relationships with these ai but again, like you said, kids'
brains are not fully developed, so I think adults are
going to have problems with these things too, but kids
are particularly at risk because of their brains. Have you

(20:23):
tried one of these things, and what's your take on them?
Are they evil or is it just we need to
learn how to deal with this in our world?

Speaker 5 (20:32):
You know, they weren't created for evil. I'll say that,
you know. Nothing in the tech industry I think was
created with this nefarious role, like trying to get us
all like into these dark places. But I think that
it's interesting how human interaction influences and trains them. So
when I look at some of these things that I
have tried, one of the you know, I speak nationally

(20:55):
on this and I do keynotes all the time. One
of the apps that I put up was pocket Girl,
and most adults are parents or educators don't know about it,
but it literally is an It's an AI derivative with
a video of a girl and you can talk to her,
and you can if you look up the app, it'll
tell you like it's better than having a real girlfriend.

(21:17):
You have a girlfriend in your pocket at any time,
and you can tell her what to do, and you
can imagine the things that this this this girl will
do for you. So it's you know, of course, like
I could go in and say like I just want
to go on a walk, or I want you to
be my best friend, and I could be like very
late late or whatever. But you know, you take adolescents
where they're pushing boundaries and they're curious and all of

(21:39):
those things, and it gets dark and it gets very
challenging in terms of like the psychological risks very quickly
on them.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
So what a parents do, I mean, do you do
you look on your kid's phone to see if they
have these now? I mean, and I'm sure you're up
on this. With this new hidden app drawer on the iPhone,
with the latest update. I mean, it's gonna be for
parents that don't really even know that's there to find
these apps on their kids phone. I mean, how do
you even where do you start as a parent.

Speaker 5 (22:08):
You know, it's to me as this is what I
address in my program. I'm like, we've got to give
power to the kids, because to your point, like they're
going into Congress, they're testifying they're doing all of these things.
They're like, hey, look at we're getting parents' controls. And
at the same time they're releasing things I can nap
drawers that can give kids like more power to be
secretive and like do things without the parents knowing. And

(22:31):
so it truly in my estimation and what I've seen
work is to talk to the kids about it and
give them power. When we educate the kids and say hey,
this is what the industry is doing, this is how
they're using you, this is how you have now become
a commodity, and let me show you some of those ways,
it infuriates them. And then I remind them they are
the largest technological cohort in history and if we can

(22:55):
stop allowing big tech to silo them, they can come
together and make true difference is where they truly have
better control and they're not getting manipulated by these industries.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Is there a warning sign for parents to kind of
I mean, I know kids are on their phones, on
their devices. You know they're doing I was just taking
a tour of a high school yesterday and I mean
half the kids were on their phones in class. Half
the kids had an AirPod in one ear, which to
me is totally unacceptable. But you know, it's the reality
of what you know. These I call them kids, but

(23:26):
like teenagers are growing up at a completely different time
where it's always on, you're always connected, and by the way,
if you're not in on it, all your other friends
are and you're left out.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (23:38):
Yeah, I think that it's fundamentally different for parents. It's tough, right,
So parents need to approach kids with empathy, understanding, and
curiosity because I think that if we come in and
we say like, hey, this is how we did it,
you know, kids are like, we don't really care. And
I'm happy to provide you a link for your listeners.
But I wrote a book that they can downlok for

(24:00):
free called Digital Distress, and it really is about the
first generation, which is Gen z that has come through
that is fully digital, and it helps parents understand it
is a different community, it is a different world, and
it kind of puts that gap together. It's the best
I could do to try to kind of scale what
I know and the knowledge that I have. But parents

(24:22):
need to understand that kids have more control than we think,
and they want to do good if given the opportunity,
and so we just have to have that as a
synergistic approach and not just come down on them as parents.
Obviously guidelines and parents have to be parents, but we
really truly have to get their voice in this if

(24:42):
we're going to get systemic change.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
And finally, these AI companionship apps versus sort of the
traditional social media apps. I mean, the AI apps make
social media seem like a cake walk at this point, right.

Speaker 5 (24:56):
Well, the difference is is right, social media is very interactive,
like we have the ability to put something out there,
we're getting something back. AI appears that way, but like
you have to think, it doesn't know right from wrong.
AI is completely generative and it robs authentic relationships and
true boundaries that we have in real life. So you

(25:19):
can really be totally awful to an AI character and
they're going to come back and still love you. You can
be truly inappropriate with an AI character and they're going
to come back and meet you.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
There.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
So the addictive and the emotional manipulation that AI provides
is very, very different than even with social media, which
I already think is like awful for kids.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah so do I. I think it's awful for adults
too half the time. But here we are, all right,
Doctor Lisa Stroman, you have a website that you want
folks to visit.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
Sure if they want to go to Digital Citisenacademy dot org.
There's resources on there, and like I said, I will
follow up and send you a note with the free
books for your listeners.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
All right, thanks so much for joining me today. And
obviously our thoughts are with the family in Orlando, Florida. Uh,
with this child, it just just sad, sad story.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Eighty to eight rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one the website
for the show rich on tech dot TV. I'll link
up Lisa's website there as well. Uh. Coming up, I'm
gonna tell you why big companies, Surprise Surprise, are fighting
the FTC's new click to cancel rule. They don't want
to make it easy for you to cancel your subscriptions.

(26:31):
You're listening to Rich on tech. Let's see a couple
of people emailed about the dash cams. Neil said, Uh,
it's a dash cams can go in your rear window.
If it's on your bumper, it's gonna end up getting destroyed. Huh, okay,
I guess you. And then uh, Steve also said, my

(26:52):
rear camera is on the back window, So I guess
that must be a camera that doesn't have the integrated camera.
I mean, I guess it's better than thing.

Speaker 6 (27:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
If it sees through your back window, you could see
the person that kind of came up on you. Okay,
thanks for those emails. Let's see FTC a couple weeks ago,
I told you about this click to cancel rule that
they approved. So this rule says that if you sign
up for something, the cancelation process has to be just

(27:21):
as easy. So if you're able to sign up for
let's say a newspaper subscription online, you should be able
to go online and cancel that newspaper subscription without jumping
through a lot of hoops, without having to chat with
someone without having to interact with an agent, not having
to go online or phone. I mean, there's just so

(27:42):
many different ways that they make you kind of cancel
your subscription versus signing up. Signing up super easy, it's
super simple. It's a couple of clicks, boom, you're done
when you go to cancel. Not very easy. And of course,
if you ever had a gym membership, you know all
about this. It is nearly impossible. The last time I
had to cancel a gym membership, I actually used an app.

(28:03):
It was called true Bill back then. Now it's called
Rocket Money, but I used it to cancel two memberships.
One was my gym membership and one was my kid's gym,
you know, like that those little kid gym things. And
they both made it really tricky, like you gotta send
a letter on a Tuesday. It's got to be notarized.
You got to you know, put your signature in blood
and then send it with a a I don't know,

(28:25):
a non forever stamp. You know, it's very very tricky.
And so I was like, you know what, let me
see if this app can do this, and sure enough
it did. It got both of them canceled very easily.
So FTC's new rule is supposed to go into effect
in one hundred and eighty days, and it says, yeah,
if you can, you got to cancel. Make it easy.
That's that's the bottom line. And when you think there's

(28:47):
there's companies that don't do this anymore, there are many
many companies that still do this. I'm gonna I'm not
gonna mention them by name, but let's just say cable companies.
There are some audio companies, there are some alarm company
don't make it easy. Jim's obviously notorious for this. So
why am I telling this because three industry groups that

(29:08):
represent a lot of these companies are suing the FTC
to stop this rule. Those companies are the NCTA, the
Internet and Television Association, the Electronic Security Association, and the
Interactive Advertising Bureau. These companies represent a lot of major
cable companies, a lot of major entertainment companies, a lot

(29:30):
of major alarm companies, a lot of major just companies
that don't want you to cancel. I think that's horrible.
And here's what I think. Why not just make your
pricing transparent? Why not make your pricing good, And why
are you trying to get me to stay when I'm leaving?
Why don't you just have a service that's so great

(29:50):
that I want to stay? Have you ever tried to
cancel Netflix? It's so easy that you do it, and
you're like, wait a second, I shouldn't have done that.
They don't try to you in with like a better deal. Literally,
anytime you get an email from Netflix that says the
price is going up, it says, yeah, your price is
going up on this day. If you don't like it,
here's how to cancel, and they give you the link

(30:12):
to cancel. That's how that is how confident they are
that you like their service. And yeah, do people cancel
Netflix all the time all the time. It's easy to cancel,
it's easy to bring back. Now with Paramount Plus, it's
easy to cancel. But every time I go to cancel
Paramount Plus, which is like every other time I subscribe,
they say, oh, we'll give you three months free, we'll

(30:34):
give you another month free. So anyway, my point is
FTC click to cancel is a good thing for us,
not so good for companies. But hopefully they just give
better pricing and easier ways of signing up and getting
rid of it eighty eight rich one oh one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
If you have Amazon Prime, there's a new fuel savings benefit.

(30:57):
UH save ten cents per gallon at seven thousand BP
D stations, Amaco and AMPM gas stations across the US.
They expect you to save about seventy dollars a year
for Prime members at drive a gas car. Electric vehicle
charging savings is coming in twenty twenty five with something
called BP Pulse. I look up online, though it does

(31:18):
not seem like they have a lot on that BP
Pulse network. Maybe that's changing because they still have another year.
But if you want to sign up for this, go
to Amazon dot com slash Fuel Savings. You have to
download and create an account with this free Ernifi app,
and then use the NiFi app to locate the stations
and then you redeem this at the pump using your
phone number or your linked payment. I also really really

(31:43):
like an app called Upside, and I don't know if
it's like as guaranteed you know, ten cents per gallon,
but if you refer your friends, they do give you
a decent amount off the gas. I think it's like
fifteen cents, but you have to keep referring people. But
upside dot com that's another one. I use that all
the time, not obviously I have an electric car, but
for my wife's gas, I use that and it's great.

(32:04):
Saves us money every time. And then also for groceries.
If you check out at the store with your linked
credit card or debit card, they give you a certain
amount of cash back, and it's pretty substantial. Actually, Charlene
writes in from Hawaiian Gardens, that sounds nice. I have
a Samsung Galaxy S twenty four phone. When I take photos,
I move them into separate folders. If I take a

(32:27):
screenshot or picture of a cat and I move it
to a folder that same cat, it still puts the
picture in that folder, but leaves it in the main folder.
If you try to delete it from the recent folder,
it delets from the cat folder. Why does it do that?
And how can I fix the problem, Charlene, This is
not a problem. This is how it is intended to be.
So nobody really uses file folders anymore because we can

(32:48):
search and slice and dice using keywords, and the keywords
have gotten so good on these programs like Google Photos
or Samsung's Gallery app or Apple Photos that they don't
really move the photos into those folders anymore. They always
remain in the main kind of let's say master folder,
but it's just putting a link to that photo in

(33:09):
the cat folder. So you're really just making an album
that says, oh, these are all the cat pictures. But personally, Charlene,
there's no real reason to do this unless you have
a business use or a work use, or you're just
making an album of like a vacation. Because you can
always just search whatever you want at any time using keywords,
So try it on your S twenty four Ultra or

(33:31):
your S twenty four pol Plus. You can just search
for a keyword, search mountain, search, cat search, rainbow search sunset,
and search someone's name. You can name people in your photos.
That is the best way to organize your photos, which
to say is there is no reason to organize photos
anymore unless you are making an album that you were
sharing with someone, or you run a small business and

(33:52):
you want to show everyone all the bathrooms that you've
ever remodeled, something like that. But otherwise, next time you
need a cat picture, just search cat eight of eight
Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one, ED in Fullerton, California.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
Ed, you're on with rich him calling about my Samsung
Galaxy Flip four phone. It's I can I can receive
calls and hear them, but they cannot hear me. It's garbled.
The transmission is garbled.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Staticky, are you on it right now?

Speaker 4 (34:33):
No?

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Okay, I was gonna say, you sound great right now?
So how long has this been going on?

Speaker 4 (34:40):
This is, uh, three or four days now?

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Oh, three or four days, okay, So it's not it's
not been a long time. It's just been a couple
of days.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Phone is just finished paying for it. It's two years old.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Oh well that's when they break down. Ed, Come on,
everyone knows that.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
Of course, it's got a couple other issues, but this
is the the current one that makes an inoperative.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
So every single person you call, it's garbled.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yes, okay, half a dozen times with different people.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Okay, So, and you've restarted the phone? I take it. No, okay.
So first thing, okay, Well that's okay, you turned it
off and turn it back on.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
No, I didn't restart got it?

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Okay? So what I would do is restart the phone
and see if that helps. That may just you know,
Samsung phones sometimes as software can get a little uh
you know, little laggy, a little clogged up, and a
nice reset will help. There's also some uh some optimization
tasks inside the settings which I would look through, and

(35:46):
there's a there's actually a just an optimized now, a
big optimized now button. So if you go into Settings
Device Care and it'll say optimized now, I would click
that and it will go through and kind of detect
anything that messing with your phone. If it's a software problem.
This could be a physical problem or a hardware problem,
but I doubt it because it's two years old and

(36:07):
you've been using it. The other thing I would do
is make sure all of the software is up to date.
So have you've done all the major software updates for
this phonematically does that in the middle of the night, okay,
so make sure. I would just go through and just
you know, make sure on Google Play all those are updated.
Go through on the Samsung software Update and you know
they have a main software update, just double check that

(36:28):
to make sure those are up to date. I love
software updates, so I'm always looking for those, but I
know the average person is.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
A care another symptom. That's when I used to open
it up, it would populate the home screen immediately. Now
it's three or four seconds before that screen shows up.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Okay, yeah, I mean it sounds like, you know, it's
two years old, so you probably have a couple of
apps on there and things like that over the years
that have built up. So what I would also do,
and I always recommend this, is go through your list
of apps, uninstall any apps that you no longer need
or want, because that will help the phone not to
load so many things in the background when you're first
loading the loading up this device. So I would do that.

(37:06):
I've done that, okay, And then the other thing I
would do is once you do all the other steps,
So once you've done everything and you've gotten this phone,
you know, you've done the software updates, you've done the
you know, the the app cleaning, all that good stuff,
you've done, the the maintenance and the device care, I
would go through and there's a there's a feature where

(37:29):
you can kind of reset your settings, and so if
you type in if you go into your about phone
at the bottom, it says reset, and there's actually a
reset mobile network settings, and so you can reset your
mobile network settings and it will be fine. It'll just
kind of clear out your network and bring it back
again once the phone restarts. But I would do that

(37:51):
and maybe that will bring back the clear calls. The
other thing, and this may be a small thing. You
might just have some gunk, some lint that is stuck
in the bottom of your phone. I would also maybe
take a little bit of canned air and kind of
gently just look in that area and maybe gently blow
out that area as well. There's some microphones and things

(38:12):
on the bottom of the phone, and sometimes even with
Samsung phones, I've noticed the way you hold them, your
finger could be on that microphone on the bottom, which
really messes it up and people can't hear you if
your finger happens to lay on that microphone on the
bottom of the phone. Those are the things I would
check out and ed hopefully that will fix your device,
if not bring it into a maybe like a you

(38:35):
break I Fix or even your carrier store if you
have a main carrier, and you can hopefully get some
help that way if it's maybe a hardware issue. Thanks
for the call. Do appreciate it? Got an email from
Whitney in Los Angeles. Whitney says, Hey, what do you
think of the new promotion that Verizon is having a
free iPhone sixteen in exchange for whatever phone you have? Now?

(38:57):
Is there a catch? And if there isn't, why are
they doing it? What are they gaining? You only have
to pay the tax and one monthly bill. It doesn't
increase either. Thank you love all the stuff you post
and I listen to you on the radio, et cetera. Well,
here is the catch, Whitney. The catch is yes, uh,
you are on the hook for thirty six months for
this free phone. So let's do a little bit of math. Okay.

(39:19):
So number one, just looking at this the details of
this promotion, you have to have the Ultimate Unlimited plan.
Now this is for thirty six months. The Ultimate Unlimited
plan is one hundred dollars a month times thirty six months,
that's thirty six hundred dollars. Okay. Plus you're giving them
your old phone. Let's just say your old phone is
worth three hundred dollars, okay, So that's now thirty nine

(39:42):
hundred dollars that this company has on your that you
are giving them, and they're giving you a free phone,
which costs Let's see, usually they're giving you like a
eight hundred and twenty nine dollars, So nine eight hundred
and twenty nine dollars. Okay, Now they're giving that over
thirty six months, so you must stay a customer with
them for thirty six months. If you leave, you're gonna

(40:04):
have to pay the difference. Now, let's just say you
are a customer of another company, and let's say you
just got an unlimited plan very similar to the Verizon plan.
Let's say you went to US Mobile. That's forty four
dollars a month for their unlimited plan, which uses the
Verizon network, and that's thirty six months. That's fifteen hundred
and eighty four dollars over thirty six months. So if
we subtract thirty six hundred, if we actually say thirty

(40:27):
nine hundred, I know, keep with me with this math.
So we said thirty nine hundred dollars to Verizon, you're
paying fifteen hundred and eighty four dollars to US Mobile
over that same time period. That would leave you with
the balance of twenty three hundred and sixteen dollars on
the table. Verizon's giving you a phone for eight hundred
and twenty nine dollars. So what do they get out

(40:49):
of the deal. They get you for a customer for
three years, and they're making the difference between twenty three
sixteen minus eight twenty nine, So they're also making an
extra fifteen hundred dollars in the process for your free phone. So, yes,
big companies do not do things out of the kindness
of their heart for you. So my and here's my
advice on this. If you're sticking with a Verizon or

(41:12):
an AT and T or a T Mobile and you'll
want to do the free phone plan, I'm not going
to fault you for it. Just understand that they are
not doing this out of the kindness of their heart.
They're doing it because they make money on the deal
and it's convenient for you. It's zero percent interest on
the finance charges and all that stuff. But at the
end of the day, they're actually making money on this

(41:32):
deal fifteen hundred dollars to be exact, depending on the plan. Now,
if you did a Mint Mobile plan, which is even
cheaper thirty dollars a month for unlimited and by the way,
there's other unlimited plans that are inexpensive as well. That's
even more money that they are netting on this deal.
So that's what's happening here with this deal. With these
free deals, the carriers love them because it keeps you

(41:55):
connected to them for three more years. And by the way,
that plan isn't just a hundred dollars a month. There
are also taxes. There are fees, you know, all the
other add ons and things. You want to talk to
a customer service representative, they may they may charge you
for that. So again that is the catch. But if
you're comfortable with understanding how these things work, I'm not

(42:17):
going to fault you for doing that. It's it's just fine.
Uh eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. The website
for the show is rich on tech dot TV. A
couple things you can do there. Number one, sign up
for my newsletter. I've got a brand new newsletter on
the front page right now, so click through there, put
in your email address. The newsletter is free. You can

(42:39):
join over thirty four how many people do we have
on there? Over thirty four thousand people get that newsletter
every week. So rest assured a lot of people are
reading that and enjoying the tips and tricks that I
share there. You can also hit the contact button up
at the top if you want to get in touch
with me, send an email to me, and if you
hit the light bulb, that will give you you a

(43:00):
link to the show notes. Everything I mentioned is in
the show notes. All right, coming up, we've got a
lot more. I'm gonna tell you about Amazon's new Wi
Fi system for your backyard. Plus, we've got an in
studio guest. The guy who invented the attachable lenses for
the iPhone is here in person, and he's back with
a new accessory to the AirPods. We will talk to

(43:23):
Patrick O'Neil coming up right here on rich On Tech.
Patrick in Colorado Springs. Let's see here is that line three?
There we go, Patrick, You're on with rich Hi.

Speaker 6 (43:39):
Rich, thanks for taking my call from Mile High City. Here.
I have a question for you about an Apple Nano Before,
I want to compliment you on a Q story you
told about your mom about two or three weeks ago.
It showed that in addition to being in a wizard electronically,
you have a nice human side and sometime you should
repeat that. I thought it was lovely my nano. Question

(43:59):
is what would you recommend to replace my nano If
I don't want to use a refurbished nano? Thank you.
I tried to Sony and I'm not happy with it.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Okay, you still want an iPod nano. So the website
I'm gonna recommend it is going to be refurbished. But
they they there's a lot of heart behind the refurbishment.
I mean, obviously, getting a new iPod nano is going
to require a trip to eBay, and you know, you
never know what you're gonna get, and who knows how
much you're gonna pay there. But there is a website
that I think you're gonna like, Patrick called retro spect

(44:32):
r E t R O s P e k T
dot com. And where are they out of? I think
they're out of like Minnesota or something. Let's see where
are they about us? I don't know where they are,
but they're somewhere and they take gadgets and they they
put a lot of TLC into them and they I mean,

(44:54):
the video on their website is amazing. I've been trying
to arrange a trip out there. To like actually meet
with these people because you'll be very impressed with what
they do. So their categories are music, polaroid, photography, VHS, gaming,
all the old consoles, timekeeping books, typewriters, and all kinds

(45:15):
of stuff. So you go to this website and iPods
are on there. So if we go, they have record players, turntables,
but it's all old school stuff that they've taken and
made new again. And the way I found out about
them was actually I think they had like a collaboration
with Urban Outfitters where they had a whole bunch of
these devices that they redid and they kind of refurbished

(45:37):
and they sold them there and of course they sold
out very quickly. But if you look on here, you'll
see the iPods. They've got pretty much every iPod, and
the conditions are vintage, refurbished, are pretty much the condition
they've got the iPods shuffle, they've got the fourth generation
like original iPods, and they go through and make sure
these things are perfectly back to spec like almost to

(46:00):
when they were new, so they'll replace the batteries, the screen,
get the scratches off of them. It's quite impressive. Now,
I will tell you the prices probably match the TLC
that these things get, so something like an iPod shuffle
seventy nine dollars, iPod Mini first generation one seventy nine.
All these things are not cheap. But that's probably your

(46:22):
best bet is going to that website and check it out.
It's retrospect dot com r E t r O s
p e kt dot com. Really cool place. And now
that I see this website, they've been bugging me to
come out there and do a story. I'm like, you know,
when am I gonna go to Minnesota to do a story?
But I think wherever they are, I gotta go and
do this because now I'm just seeing it. It's just

(46:42):
super super cool stuff. Thanks for the call there, Patrick
in Colorado Springs. Not sure what the story was. I
told about my mom, but I tell a lot of stories.
You know, I am a human that's just interested in technology,
Like I'm not a robot. If you want that, go
to chat ebt. You could give you answers to all
this stuff. In fact, you know, Apple's trying to put
me out of business because their new iOS eighteen software

(47:05):
eighteen point one. You can ask it how to do
almost anything on the iPhone and it will tell you
so if you need help with like they basically put
the entire user guide for the iPhone built into Siri now,
so coming next week when that new software update comes out,
you can ask it anything and it will tell you
the step by step directions on how to do that.
So kind of cool there eighty eight rich one on

(47:26):
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. And I joke, there's always going to be
a place for a human in every aspect of life.
Believe me, I'm the number one early adopter of every
technology you can imagine, and yet sometimes I find myself saying,
I'd rather go to the human cashier versus the self
checkout system because it's gonna be quicker and easier. And

(47:49):
by the way, sometimes it's fun to talk to someone
at the grocery store or whatever, but most of the
time I am going self checkout if they have a
good system. By the way, if you want fast internet
in your backyard, Amazon, you know they own euro e Er.
They've got their new outdoor Wi Fi system, so it's
called the Outdoor seven by euro It's launching on November thirteenth.

(48:12):
It's the company's first weather resistant Wi Fi Mesh system
and it works with your existing euro system. It's not cheap,
it's three hundred and fifty dollars, but this is going
to extend your coverage up to fifteen thousand square feet outdoors.
So not only is this going to be great for
people that need Wi Fi outside at their home in
their backyard. Let's say you've a nice pool setup or whatever,

(48:34):
you have a shed in the back, or you want
to just extend that network outside, but also business owners.
So if you run a business, a small business, you
have a cafe and you have a nice outdoor patio.
People love their Wi Fi. They love that free Wi Fi,
so this will do it. They tested it in all
kinds of temperatures from negative forty to one hundred and
thirty degrees fahrenheit, so you're going to be fine there.

(48:56):
It's got Wi Fi seven speeds so up to two
point one gigabits per second, works as a smart home hub,
and it's got mounting hardware so you can put it
on the wall. You can install it via power over Ethernet,
or you can get the optional outdoor adapter if you
want to just plug it into a standard outlet and
you can connect multiple units. So let's say you own

(49:16):
a winery out in the middle of you know, the nowhere.
You can put three of these on your network on
your yard and have Wi Fi everywhere. But you don't
need Wi Fi at a winery. You want to be
out in the middle of Sandy Nez without Wi Fi.
That's why I like going there, because there's no Wi Fi.
So anyway, I'll put the link on the website. Rich
on tech dot TV in the show notes that is

(49:38):
Eero Outdoor seven. All right, coming up, we've got a
special guest in studio. Very exciting. This is only like
the third time we've actually had someone come here to
the studio to chat. Always happy when people do this.
You've got Patrick O'Neil. He invented the original I don't
know if you remember these things used to clip like
a lens onto your iPhone. Well he's back with a

(50:01):
new invention and it involves the air pods. So we're
going to talk about that coming up. Patrick, you're ready
for that. I don't even know if your mike's on
just yet. Okay, well his mike's on yet, but but
he's ready. Our MIC's are not ready. Okay, we're going
to break eight to eight rich one O one eight
eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
We'll get back to the phone lines after our interview.
But Patrick O'Neill coming up next right here on rich
On Tech joining me in studio. Patrick O'Neill, Patrick invented,
lifelong entrepreneur, but you probably know him best for his
olo clip invention. These were those lenses that you would

(50:42):
snap onto your iPhone back in the day before the
iPhone had multiple lenses built in that would give you
a close up or a wide angle lens. And now
he's back with a new three D printed accessory for
the AirPods. Patrick, Welcome into the studio.

Speaker 7 (50:57):
Thank you. Rich great to be here.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
So give me kind of a little bit of the
history of the olaclip before we get to the new stuff.
I mean, you're lifelong Apple fan, and what made you
come up with the snap on lenses.

Speaker 7 (51:10):
Well, I've been an inventor my whole life. I've invented
lots of different things. But when I had the original iPhone,
and I've always been into photography. I've come from a
family photographer, So when I got the iPhone iPhone four
had a great camera, and I thought if we could
only put interchangeable lenses on that, that would be amazing. And
I came up with a really unique idea for how

(51:33):
to mount it and have lenses on either side and
be able to just flip it and go between. And
we got loads of patents on that, and Apple was
our first retail customer for that product, and Apple we
were in every Apple store in the world for ten years.
It was their fantastic company to work with.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
How did that feel to I mean, was that your
first first item you invented or did you have other
stuff before that?

Speaker 2 (51:54):
No.

Speaker 7 (51:54):
I'd invented other items, but nothing at that scale, and
nothing that was sold in any big retail stores.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
So stuff that had.

Speaker 7 (52:00):
Been sold online or things like that, but that, No,
that was in the Apple store when I was inventing
the product. Was you know, that was the ultimate That
was mount everest for where this product could be sold.
And the fact that they came to us and they
were our first customer for retail was just I mean,
it makes my you know, my hair stand up just

(52:22):
thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
How many times did you walk into the Apple store
just to see your product on the shelf. I think
every location.

Speaker 7 (52:28):
Every time I was in a different city, I would
go to the Apple store and see it. I've been
to so many Apple stores all over the world. I
remember going to the Apple store in Hong Kong and
I mentioned to one of the guys who worked there
that or one of the guys who worked there told
another guy, oh, this is Patrick, he invented the old clip.
And the guy could not speak for like ten minutes,
and I'm like, I'm like, I'm just a normal person.

(52:48):
I just happened to invent things because.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
The guy probably sold so many of them over the years.
By the way, I heard of a really cool app
for the Apple Store. And if you know this app,
it's called Facades. Have you heard of this? No kind
of a It lists every single Apple store in the world,
and then you can check into each one of them
and keep a history of all your Apple store visits.
So the app is Facades fac a d S. I

(53:12):
will link it up on the website rich on tech
dot TV because I've been I haven't been to as
many as you have, I'm sure, but like I remember
going into the one in Italy and it was just
so each one is just so unique and different, and
you know, only Apple can have over five hundred incredible
stores with the architecture and things that they have, you
know like that. So Okay, you did oloclip and that

(53:36):
was very successful. Now you're onto something. Well, I mean,
we know what happened. Apple ended up building those lenses
into the phone. Where you devastated or had you had
that much success by that time where you're like, okay,
I can accept this at this point.

Speaker 7 (53:49):
No, I wasn't devastated at all. I mean, some people
that create products and software for Apple, they get upset
when Apple adds a feature that might be part of
their product or their app called sherlocking. Yeah, and I
don't see it that way at all. In fact, I
don't even know. I don't even get that because our
job is people that develop products, is to take what

(54:09):
the manufacturer gives us and add something to it. And
the manufacturer needs to push the base product along and
keep making it better to make the users want to
buy the product so that we can invent something new
to add to it. And if if the manufacturer just
sits still and goes well, I can't put any lenses
on this camera because Patrick has a fish eye and
a wide angle and a macro, so we can't do that.

(54:31):
That's his Yeah, you know, I mean that's ridiculous to
expect that, and it's it's not healthy for the ecosystem
to look at it that way. And I think we've
got responsibility, is people that develop and invent products, to
just keep pushing. We can't sit back on our laurels.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
And I think I think Apple has given inventors an
amazing place to start with all of the ways you
can connect to the iPhone, you know, mag safe, and
I mean, I would say the iPhone part of the
appeal is how many accessories are available for it. You know,
you look at like the Samsung and the Pixels of
the world. It's like there's just not as many accessories.

(55:08):
And it's just because those phones change so much and
they have, you know, maybe the customer base isn't there
as much anyway. So let's talk about the new product.
What is the new product called and what are you
doing unique this time?

Speaker 7 (55:20):
This is the Jura anchor for air pods, and it
allows you to attach your air pods. It has a
caribiner that plugs into the port, whether it be Lightning
or USBC. Now, the USBC is brand new that we've
just come out with, and it's a titanium carabiner that
looks really amazing. It's a single piece design so that
the properties of the titanium are flexible, so it lets

(55:41):
us make the spring and the whole structure of the
caribiner in one piece. And then the part on top
the connects, the connector to the air pods is three
D printed, so that the one you're holding is the
black carbon fiber that looks really cool. That's the most
popular one. And then we have orange and we also
have lunar gray.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
So imagine you know, you throw your air pods in
your bag, you can never find them when you eat them.
This is a way where you can actually clip it
to something and find them every time. What if people
clip these two typically their backpack.

Speaker 7 (56:14):
Or backpack or their purse or I'd like, personally, I'd
like to clip it to my belt loop on my
pants so it's hanging just in front of my front
pocket and then I can single handedly open it up
with one hand, get an AirPod out, put it in
and it's just right there and it's not taking room
in my pocket, and I don't have to fish around
at the bottom of my pocket to get it out
when I need it, I can just quickly get it

(56:34):
and it's it's just there. And so it just makes
it so much easier to you know, have air pods
to usually accessible.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Because if they're in your bag or they're in your
you know, purse or whatever you're gonna you know, the
time it takes you to find them. You may not
use them for that phone call, you may not use
them for the music whatever you're going to do. But
this will make you find them quicker. How tough was
it to get this to be secure?

Speaker 7 (56:58):
It was very, very tough spent. I mean we spent
so much engineering time and effort on perfecting this and
it Yeah, I mean we had we had to create
our own connectors. We have to create everything. I mean,
there's so many things engineered in that and such to
such a fine tolerance. I mean, the products that I

(57:18):
typically invent look very simple, and that's a compliment.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
This looks like a very simple thing.

Speaker 7 (57:24):
There's a lot of technology, engineering and tolerance involved in
that work. Yeah, we we deal in hundreds of a
millimeter wow, in designing, producing, and also making sure that
the product that goes out the door meets all those standards.
The first thing a lot of people think when they
see this product is they laugh and they go, nah,

(57:45):
my AirPods are going to fall off. I'm gonna lose
my air pods. They convince themselves of that. So, I mean,
I've got a little demo here I brought. I brought a.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Little uh wow, I've got a little uh. We're clipping
the onto a pair of weights.

Speaker 7 (58:02):
It looks like, yeah, these are well, these are half pound.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Each half pound weights, Okay, and we're clipping it and
we're pulling it and so it's staying attached to the
AirPods even when it's hanging with the weights. And I'll
take a picture of this so you can see it
and I'll post it on the notes. But yeah, so
it's staying in there. That's impressive. How much do these
things cost?

Speaker 7 (58:23):
These are twenty dollars for the zinc carabiner and they're
twenty five for the titanium.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Now, the unique thing you're doing is you're making them
three D printed. Explain that aspect of it, well.

Speaker 7 (58:35):
I mean tooling for injection molding, which is what we
did with the original one, which is the lightning connector
is very expensive. In fact, we did that. We launched
that product on Kickstarter just before the original AirPod Pro launched,
and when the air Pod Pro launched, the Kickstarter was
over when it launched. But when we got the product,

(58:57):
we we figured out that it wouldn't attach to their
pots pro securely, so we had to redesign the tooling.

Speaker 8 (59:05):
The case was slightly slightly was like even though it's
less than a millimeter, even though it was the same,
we redesigned the tooling right and it was that was
over ten thousand dollars costs and that's and all you
can make is that one thing.

Speaker 7 (59:15):
So with three D printing, we can change the product
as we go. The product's a digital living product. Now
we get version numbers to each each design, just like
you do with software.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Wow, that's amazing. And what's the name though, it's still
the Jura anchor, but this is what's what does that
name mean?

Speaker 9 (59:32):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Jura jurors A.

Speaker 7 (59:34):
It's an island off the coast of Scotland, the west
coast of Scotland. And we went on a trip there
in twenty eighteen with the whole family and we loved it.
And my father in law would talk about the paps
of Jura because he was in the Submarine Force in
the Royal Navy. And then when you would come out
of fast Lane Submarine Base in Scotland, you would go
past the paps of Dura before you submerge, and he

(59:55):
was the navigator, so he'd be up on the tower
and see them.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
So and now you attached the Jura to your air
pods and enjoy. So I'll post the image so you
can see what they look like on my Instagram at
rich On Tech check my stories. But I really really
such a simple design, such a simple thing. Now we're again, okay,
So Apple added this little lanyard item an he plans

(01:00:18):
to take advantage of that.

Speaker 7 (01:00:20):
We did take advantage of that. Rich When the AirPods
Probe too came out a year ago with USBC, I thought, well,
lanyard attachments there will include the lanyard in every box
and job done. Don't need to tool up for USBC.
We're done. We got so many complaints from our customers.
We got so many returns on Amazon. People were not happy.

(01:00:40):
People love the attachment to the connector because it puts
it in right orientation, and also it doesn't flop around
as much when you're wearing it that way. Yeah, because
it's more secure. It's more of stable platform than having
that lanyard whip around, so it's a better experience. Incredible,
we tried it. Did you ever get to meet Steve Jobs?

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
I didn't.

Speaker 7 (01:00:59):
I'm very sad about that, but I've met a lot
of other famous people like Tim Cook has one of these,
and a lot of amazing people. I've met so many
people at Apple, and they're an incredible company to work with.
I've loved every minute of work.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
And you probably can't talk about ninety percent of what
they know ninety nine percent. They're very secretive company.

Speaker 7 (01:01:19):
Well no, they've taught me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Well, all right, what is the website to go to?

Speaker 7 (01:01:23):
It's go Dura with a j dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Okay, and you've got a special deal we do.

Speaker 7 (01:01:29):
We've got a special deal for rich on Tech listeners
which is fifteen percent off, and also we're going to
also include anyone who uses the rich on Tech discount code.
We're also going to include the Lightning connector in the
box as well as the USBC, So this means it
will work with every version of AirPods ever made by Apple.
So if you're thinking about getting a gift for a

(01:01:51):
friend or a grandkid or whoever, you can rest a
shirt if you buy this, it will work with their
AirPods no matter which version they have.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Amazing Go Jura Juara dot com. Rich on Tech. Fifteen
is the code to save fifteen percent. Patrick O'Neil, thanks
so much for joining me here in studio.

Speaker 7 (01:02:09):
Well, thank you for having me Rich. It's been fun.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
We'll be right back rich on Tech dot TV. I'll
put all the information and check the Instagram stories. I'll
put it there too at rich on Tech. Brian in Westport, Washington,
Welcome to the show. Good afternoon, Rich, Hi, good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
I've been corresponding with my state health plan, but somewhere
along the way somehow scammers got wind of it and
started trying to scam me out of personal information cool
primarily by voice phoning. By facts is how I've been
letting them know things.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Facts you saw, Facts would.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Know about the facts number and all that I don't know.
So I'm wondering the tech guy would be able to
tell me what they're probably doing and why, what they
helped to get out of it. All there is personal
information about myself and my family. I have no idea
what they else they would get out of it. What
do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Well, the fax machine's an easy one because there are
no more fax machines. So if you have the one
last number, they probably just looked that up online and
found that. But all joking aside the uh here, I'll
tell you how this typically happens. And typically they have
hacked your email. Are you sure your email is secure?

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Oh? I go to a local faccinge place like a
UPS store something like that in facts and numbers, So
you think that that could be an UPS store might
get hacked or something.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
It could be if you're using a public computer or
a public facts I mean the information definitely, Yeah, and
how much I mean we talked? So okay, So let
me get this straight. Your corresponding with this company, and
all of a sudden you've started to get emails and
phone calls and faxes related to what you talk to
this company about that was personal and private that no

(01:04:01):
one else would have known. I guess that answers it all.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Look, I mean, so there is a known scam where
actually when people are buying a house or doing things
like these large transactions where this kind of man in
the middle type scam where they will find this information,
the email will be hacked and they will they will
take that information and use it against you. So they'll
know that you are selling a house, they know that
you're doing a large transaction, and they will insert themselves

(01:04:28):
in between you and the actual person and say, hey,
here's where you need to transfer your money. We're all
ready to go, and they'll give you fake account numbers.
And this is pretty well documented and typically how it
happens is one aspect of that, you know, email chain
or phone chain is hacked in some way, could be
your computer could be monitoring software. But that's generally how

(01:04:49):
it happens. I think that in this case, with the
public use of you know, with the use of sort
of public machines, public facts, that's probably where this leak occurred.
Maybe someone found something on the fax machine, maybe the
person that used it after you, they were still print
out or something like that. So i'd be always be

(01:05:10):
very very careful when you're using public facilities when emailing
or faxing or any of that sort of exchange of information.
In fact, I talked about my newsletter last weekend. How
when I interviewed the head of security for Google a
couple of years ago, she said the one thing to
never ever do is to use a computer in a

(01:05:33):
hotel lobby. She said, they're so riddled with spyware and
scams and things like that people install malware on them
that she would never touch them. Now. I do think
that in a lot of these cases, if you go
to like a reputable store like a FedEx, Kinko something
like that, or like a main hotel chain, a lot
of them have gotten hip to this aspect of things,
and they now add software to their computer systems that

(01:05:56):
automatically formats that computer like in between us, so that
nothing can get taken in between the people logging in,
you know, if it's on the web browser or whatever.
But in general, if you're using like a third party
system or you know, a random place, they may not
have that software in place, and someone, let's say you
log into your email account, you forget to log out.

(01:06:17):
I've gone to public computers where literally people's email accounts
are logged in, So you do have to be very
careful whenever you're using a public system anywhere people go
to the Apple Store and they just log into their
email those on those computers, So you have to be
very careful when you're doing that. Brian. I think it's
unfortunate this happened, but I think at the end of

(01:06:37):
the day, you've got to practice that the safe sort
of security cybersecurity practices for this not to happen to you.
And when it comes to kind of figuring this stuff out,
just be very careful. Know who you're talking to, know
who you're dealing with, and since this already happened, I
think you have to be on guard for any transaction
that you're doing with this company to make sure that

(01:06:58):
you're talking to the person you think you are and
that you're actually doing business with the people that you
think you are. Thanks for the question, Brian. Good food
for thought there if you have. Verizon, by the way,
this week, speaking of safety, they launched a free family
safety app for their customers. It is free for all
Verizon postpaid planned customers, available for iOS and Android. You

(01:07:20):
can track where your family members are on a map.
You can get location and arrival and departure alerts. Your
kid can set up a safe walk so they can
SOSU if they feel unsafe, and you can monitor your
child's Verizon calls and texts, but I wouldn't really count
on that too much because it just tells you that
their calling and texting, doesn't really give you any information
about those caller texts. But I'd probably recommend a third

(01:07:43):
party app like Life three sixty. It does a lot
of these features for free as well. Rich on tech
dot tv if you want a link to anything I
mentioned more show right after this. We've talked about so much.
This has been a varied show so far. We've we've
covered a lot of ground and we still have more.
I'm gonna tell you about meta testing this video selfie

(01:08:05):
to get back your hack to count. I've got my
robot litterbox review. And this is probably the coolest thing ever.
There is a company that will now activate an Apple Watch,
the easiest and probably the cheapest activation ever, and you
don't even have to have a plan on another network.
I mean, it's really really cool. It's like I almost

(01:08:26):
don't want to tell you because it's like it's it's
so great that I'm like, I just want to keep
this to myself. But that's why I feel about a
lot of stuff I share here. I just share all
my secrets eight to eight rich one O one eight
Be sure to hop on the website at Richontech dot
tv and sign up for my newsletter. And you can
also follow me on Instagram. If you saw that I

(01:08:49):
talked about the the AirPod stuff, I've got that on
my Instagram stories. So go to Instagram at rich on Tech,
follow me there and you can see all my journey
and stories there. Let's go to Jackie and San dimas Jackie,
what's on your mind?

Speaker 10 (01:09:06):
Hi, rich I have a very bizarre problem with my
HP all in one computer. I cannot type the letter X. Oh,
and I can give you some background on this. When
I got the computer in May of this year, I
used their keyboard and I found that when I first
turned the computer on, the letter X does work. But

(01:09:27):
as time goes on during the day, I can't type
the letter X any longer. Also on the on screen keyboard,
I pulled that up and I can't type the X
on that as well. But a unique thing is is
that if I purposely during these times when the X
isn't typing, if I purposely misspell a word using the

(01:09:49):
word X like the word excuse, The autocorrect will correct
it and add the X in the Only way I
can get out of the loop of this happening is
by restarting the computer and then again in hours this
problem starts up again.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Well, that is quite certainly a unique problem. And yeah,
that's interesting. So couple things. Number one, have you tried
plugging in another keyboard to see if the X works
on that keyboard?

Speaker 10 (01:10:21):
I have, and it's the same problem. I've also contracted
HP and they opened a case on it and they
could not resolve this either. The only thing that they
suggested was that I completely reboot the machine from go
and try it that way. But they have no solution
for this as well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Okay, have you tried Okay, I mean, so that is
the That is the bottom line. If if something, if
this is not curable by another keyboard, then there is
a problem with the software and there is some sort
of app that is taking over that X key on
your computer. Sometimes apps assigned shortcut to keys. That sounds

(01:11:01):
like what happened here mistakenly. Have you ever have you
ever assigned a shortcut to a key like a keystroke
for something like.

Speaker 10 (01:11:08):
For I have but not not the X key. And
the fact that it will work on on restart is
confusing because that, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
That is weird. But the app that is causing the
problem or the conflict may not be kicking in until
a little bit after you open your computer or after
you do something on your computer. So I'm gonna side
with HP on this one. I think you have to
reformat this whole computer and start from fresh. The other
thing you can do before you do that. Have you
tried booting up into safe mode?

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
No? I have not?

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Ah, Okay, so that's what we're going to do first.
So is this a Windows computer? Because it's HP, right.

Speaker 10 (01:11:47):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Okay, so go on to Google. Okay, so go into
Google and google how to boot up into safe mode
on Windows eleven, and it will give you the step
by step instructions. It's uh, it's different forever. It's it's
slightly different for some computers. But let's see I'm looking
at this here. Yeah, it's a little bit different. So
I would I would just google the instructions for HP

(01:12:10):
boot into safe mode for Windows eleven. And so safe
mode what that does? It will boot your computer into
the very basics of what it needs to do things.
And so what that means is it's not going to
run all the different things that your computer has installed.
It's just gonna it's gonna do the minimum basics. And
so that way you can better isolate this issue and

(01:12:33):
see if it's something that's running on your computer. Uh,
it doesn't sound like it's a physical hardware issue, because
you're telling me that you've plugged in other keyboards and
they work just fine. So boot it into safe mode.
If when you boot it into safe mode and use
this computer for an hour or so and the X
works just fine, then we know that it's a it's
an app on your computer. So if you don't want

(01:12:54):
to reformat your whole computer, which I personally don't think
is that big of a deal, I would. I would
do that in a heartbee, But I know if you
have all your settings and things the way you want them,
I would go through and uninstall any app on your
computer that you don't recognize or don't need, and restart
your computer. I would make sure you have all the
software updates for this computer installed, all the Windows updates.

(01:13:15):
Sound like you're pretty much up to date. With Windows
eleven here, but you know there might be something newer,
So I would make sure you have all those and
then restart your computer one more time and see if
this X issue continues to happen. So that is the
thing I would do, so safe mode, try it, see
what happens, clean up all the old apps and get
rid of those things. I would also whatever you're using

(01:13:36):
to create those macros or those shortcuts that you're doing,
I would go in there and just check and make
sure that there's nothing wonky going on with that app,
that it's not taking over that X key in some
weird way. So those are the things I would do,
And if worst comes to worse, you're going to have
to just factory reset this. The good news is Windows
eleven has that built in and it's pretty easy to do.

(01:13:57):
You just have to make sure everything's backed up before
you do that. The problem is it is Jackie. You
don't want to bring your computer back from a backup
if you're reinstalling everything, because the problem's probably just going
to come back. So what i'd recommend is just reinstalling
every program that you want on their step by step
to get those programs back instead of reinstalling it from

(01:14:18):
a drive that just has a backup. All right, good luck.
That is an interesting, interesting predicament that you're in. I
was thinking it was just as easy as a stuck key,
but clearly there's something more going on there. X marks
the spot X was xd out X. It's what's for
X fiss I don't know. That didn't make sense. Meta

(01:14:40):
is testing a video selfie for account verification. This is
incredible because you have no idea how many emails I
get from people about their Facebook account being hacked every day.
People email me. You know why because I did one
story on TV where I helped one person get their
Facebook account back, and now that story apparently comes up

(01:15:00):
whenever you search Facebook account hacked, and I am apparently
the person to get in touch with. I cannot help
you get your Facebook account back. It's impossible. It's really
really tricky. But Facebook is testing. They know this is
an issue. So this is a video selfie. So you
go to Facebook dot com slash hacked or Instagram dot
com slash hacked. Typically you have to upload like all

(01:15:22):
kinds of verification, ID all this stuff, but they are
testing a new video selfie, so you would take a
video selfie, and it would compare that video selfie to
the profile pictures on the account, the locked account, and
it's just basically analyzing the image. Why is it have
to be a video selfie? Because it may ask you

(01:15:43):
to do different things. It may say smile, it may
say close your eyes, it may say blink your eyes.
That way it knows it's a real human doing this,
and then it takes screen grabs from that and compares
it to the profile pictures. It's the same way that
they add verification. If you've ever set up face Idea
on your iPhone or if you've ever added your ID
to a mobile walle it's very, very similar to that.

(01:16:06):
But the good news is this takes about a minute.
It will get you back your account, and it's way
tougher for hackers to abuse this because they're not you.
Because what does a hacker do Immediately when they trick
you into giving up your account. They immediately go in
and change your email address, They change everything, and they
take over, and you cannot get this stuff back because
everything's different. You can't get the recovery code, you can't

(01:16:28):
get the email password reset because everything's different. But if
you can do the video selfie and say hey.

Speaker 6 (01:16:33):
This is me.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
It's me, Come on, look at me. It's not some
other person that's trying to get in. That's a much
better system, so hopefully more people have access to that.
I think that meta is going to find that's a
very successful system. If you want to see if it's available,
you can go to meta Facebook dot com, slash hacked,
Instagram dot com slash hacked. If you have gotten hacked,
by the way, the best way to not get hacked

(01:16:56):
is to is to set up two factor authentication. There's
a story going viral right now about this woman in
the Bay area of San Francisco who was tricked into
giving a hacker access to her Facebook account. She actually
went to Facebook headquarters, banged on the door and said, hey,
give me access to my account back, and they said,

(01:17:17):
we don't do that. They gave her like a print out.
I guess she's not the first person to do this,
so they literally gave her a print out with a
QR code to go to Facebook dot com slash hacked.
And she's like, no, this is not good enough, and
so her trick. She actually paid for Meta verified. You
can pay fifteen dollars to verify your account and then
when you do that, it unlocks the customer service rep
that can actually help you. So she did that and

(01:17:39):
she got her entire account back so within hours. So
if you ever have an issue, I can't recommend this,
but hey, you know what, if you're really really hard
up for getting your account back, You've got pictures and
memories on there that you want to get back. Just
sign up for Meta Verified for a month, get your
account back, and you know when you're paying, they're ready
to help you. When you're not paying, the could care less.

(01:18:01):
I'll put the link to that story on the show
notes so you can see that. By the way, thanks
to Kim for sending me that. A couple of people
sent that story, but Kim was the one who actually
texted it to me and said, hey, you should do this.
On the show eighty eight rich one on one eight
Coming up, I've got my review of the Robot Kitty
litter Box, and I'm gonna tell you the company that

(01:18:22):
lets you activate an Apple Watch on a cellular plan.
Great for seniors, great for kids, and it's a very
very good value. This is rich on tech. I was
just walking the hallways of the radio station here and
I found I can't believe this a fax machine. I mean,

(01:18:46):
we were just talking with the caller in Brian in
Washington about the fax machine. I hadn't seen one. I
must be a decade And sure enough I'm walking through
the studios here and I see a fax machine. And
good thing I didn't post the picture because the phone
number for the fax is right on there. Actually, maybe

(01:19:08):
we should just start taking fax requests, didn't They used
to do that like back in the day at radio stations,
be like facts in your request, your your song request.
There it is. See I loved I'll never forget my
dad bought a fax machine.

Speaker 6 (01:19:22):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
My dad, you know, growing up, had a small business
still does, owned a roofing company, and you know, so
he's not the most tech person in the world, but
I would push him towards tech. But one day he
got a fax machine for his business, which was quite
important because with a roofing company, you would send out
proposals and people would fax them back signed. Well, I
just basically hijacked the fax machine. I literally took it

(01:19:44):
from his office and I put it in my bedroom
and it just sat there and I didn't get faxes.
What ten year old kid gets faxes? No one but
I just I would make copies on it. And like,
by the way back in the day, it wasn't like
a laser one. It was like it was like a
hold up, gosh, I don't even know how explain it.
Like the way it printed was like a heat roller

(01:20:06):
and there'd be like a roll of I don't know,
ink paper kind of thing. I don't know. It's really weird.
But anyway, that's that's my story about hijacking his fax machine. Uh,
this is really really useful to know. US Mobile. I
was on the phone with the CEO yesterday and we
had a nice long conversation because I was like, dude,
you got to explain this all to me, because you're

(01:20:26):
doing stuff here that nobody else is doing. So if
you're not familiar with US Mobile, they are sort of
the the geeks kind of favorite mv and O. Mvn
O is Mobile Virtual Network Operator. So what does that mean.
It means that they lease space from there's you know,
the three major wireless companies AT and T, Verizon and

(01:20:49):
T Mobile, and then they resell it. So mint Mobile
used to be an MV and O. Well now I
mean they still are, but they're now owned by T Mobile,
but US mobiles independent. And what they're doing is they've
got all kinds of plans that you can customize. So
if you want a plan that just has talk and text,
you can do it. If you want a plan that
just has you know that's on T Mobile, you can

(01:21:09):
do it. And by the way, you can switch carriers.
They call themselves a supercarrier because you can say, halfway
through the month, you know what, I'd rather be on
T Mobile, Let me switch to that network. Oh no,
I'd rather be on AT and T. Let me switch
to that network. I'd rather be on Verizon. Let me
switch to that network without I mean, it just takes
us a couple seconds through their app. It's really really interesting.
They have a new Apple Watch plan, which most envy

(01:21:31):
and o's if you go to them, they don't really
let you have an Apple Watch because they're not equipped
to handle that visible does I know that Mint Mobile
apparently is going to add that functionality, But this is
an independent one, and so you can go on there
and just activate an Apple Watch on their plan. So
if you're on one of their plans, you can add
an Apple Watch, or you can just do a standalone plan,

(01:21:54):
which is launching next week. So if you just want
to pay, literally, let's see how much it is. It
is seventy eight dollars for the whole year to have
an Apple Watch standalone plans six dollars and fifty cents
a month that gives you unlimited talk and text data,
Wi Fi calling, instant activation through them. You don't even
have to go through the Apple Watch app. This is great.

(01:22:16):
So seventy eight dollars for the year. Most carriers are
charging like fifteen a month for this at this point.
So usmobile dot com check it out. The standalone plan
is launching next week right now. They're launching the companion
plan this week, but you have to have a plan
through US Mobile. But anyway, check them out. I really
am a big fan. I love what they're doing Because
I sit there and I look at the things they're doing.

(01:22:36):
I'm like, this must be a bunch of nerds behind
this company, because they're doing stuff that nerds appreciate. The
way that they do their pricing, the way they do
their plans, the way they do everything is just very
nerd oriented, so that means it's very customer centric, and
so I really like that anyway, very cool. I will
probably activate an Apple Watch on a standalone plan because

(01:22:56):
I love the idea of just having the watch by
itself without being connected to anything else. Do you know
that one of the major carriers charged me I think
it was fifteen or twenty dollars a month to pause
my Apple Watch plan, And by the way, they charge
about thirty dollars just to activate an Apple Watch. So anyway,
that's it. Rich on Tech dot TV. Coming up, we

(01:23:17):
are going to talk to the CEO of Bitwarden about
why you should be using a password manager. Yesterday, this
is rich on Tech. Recently I spoke with Bitwarden CEO
Michael crandall. We talked about password managers and why you
need to use one today.

Speaker 9 (01:23:39):
Here it is Bitwarden is a password and pass key manager,
so it helps people manage the the sometimes hundreds of
different credentials that we have to log in to various
accounts on websites.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
Why is this so important to use a password manager
in these days or any day?

Speaker 9 (01:23:58):
Sure, you know. Unfortunately, security breaches have become increasingly common
as a part of our lives, both for companies in
for individuals. Rich last year, eight hundred and eighty thousand
people were victims of cybercrime to the tune of twelve
and a half billion dollars. And why does that happen.

(01:24:19):
It's because we're all human and what makes it easy
for us to use technology also makes it easy for
hackers to take advantage of this. For example, using simple,
guessable passwords makes it easier for us easier to get hacked,
reusing them across different websites and accounts, never checking if

(01:24:40):
they've been compromised or if they show up on the
dark web, pulling victim to phishing attacks. So the best
way to stay safe is pretty simple. It's make sure
you have strong, unique passwords for every website or account
that you use. And that's where a password manager comes
in handy. It makes it easy to create strong passwords

(01:25:03):
for every account and remember them for you and even
auto fill them when you go to use that account
or website. And that's across all of your devices, whether
it's your phone, your desktop, your tablet, whatever. Finally, it
makes it easy to share those with your family or
with colleagues.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
At work, So you've kind of touched upon this, But
why shouldn't you use the same word, the same password
over and over. Some people think I've got a good password,
I'll just use it everywhere. Why is that a bad idea?

Speaker 9 (01:25:35):
It's a bad idea because since a password is like
a key to accessing any account, if you use that
same key everywhere and a bad actor gets a hold
of it, they can get in everywhere Whereas if that
key only gets you into one of your accounts, should
it get compromised the other All the other accounts are safe.

(01:25:59):
So it's compartmentalization of your attack surface or your your risk.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
And what do you think makes one password manager better
than another? Or you know, what should people look for
in a good password manager? Obviously you'd love it if everyone
went to bitwarden, but there are many choices. So what
do you think people should look for if they're comparing
different password managers?

Speaker 9 (01:26:21):
Yes? Well, number one, and this is a special commitment
from bitwarden, is we believe it's important to have a
fully featured, free version that offers that's pretty much free
to use for the full purpose, but meaning unlimited logins,
unlimited credentials, across unlimited devices, and it's our commitment to

(01:26:43):
have that free forever. We think that's important. It's part
of our mission to help build a world where nobody
gets hacked. Is removing the fact that there's there's some
price for entry there. We also think it's important to
have an engaged global community so everyone can help each other,

(01:27:04):
so look for that in any product you're looking for.
We believe open source architecture is critically important because it
means they're more eyes on the way the software is built.
After all, it's storing your precious secrets that are the
keys to all of your accounts. So having an open
source means that many people can work on it developing,

(01:27:27):
but more importantly, they're more eyes on the product looking
for vulnerabilities. All software can have vulnerabilities. The trick is
to find them more quickly and get rid of them.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
And you know, the number one thing I hear about
password managers is it seems like a lot of work.
You know, does it take some getting used to to
kind of get into the flow of using one of
these things.

Speaker 3 (01:27:48):
It does.

Speaker 9 (01:27:49):
We find there's an aha moment that comes more quickly
than most people imagine. Look anything that's new can take
some time to learn a few minutes to learn. Most
people find that once they learn the password manager, it
radically simplifies their life and allows them not to worry

(01:28:09):
about the good practice of having strong, unique passwords. It
also makes logging in a lot faster. For the payoff
for the few minutes that you spend learning it is
not only that you're more secure, but it's more convenient,
and of course it sinks your passwords across different devices,
So a few minutes of learning really can lead to

(01:28:31):
a lifetime of time savings and stronger security. And you know,
I always like to share that the classic story we
hear is from everybody. I don't care if it's the
CISO at a big company. The conversation always turns to, yeah,
I've been trying to get my mom and dad to
start using bitwarden or to start using a password manager.

(01:28:55):
And often the story we hear is it took a
while to convince them to try try that new thing,
but once they do, they would never go back, and
they feel safer, and the kids feel safer that their
parents are using it, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
What's changed since the last time I talked to you
what's changed in the security world. I mean, I know
past keys obviously have come up a little bit still
people trying to figure that out, but anything substantial. Is
it just more you know, more data breaches and things
like that or what.

Speaker 9 (01:29:23):
Well, you mentioned two big things that I would double
click on there. One of them is the advent of
pass keys. Of course, as I mentioned at the beginning,
data breaches, they just seem to be getting more and
more common. A lot of them are tied to ransomware.
And the thing about that that's important to recognize is

(01:29:44):
that has become a very lucrative business model for the
bad guys, for threat actors. They have a direct way
of catching cashing in when they do a credential breach
and then get into a business's systems. I would also
so re emphasize the pass key development. It's gaining a

(01:30:05):
lot of momentum. I was just at a conference last
week down in Carlsbad, California called Authenticate, and just to
mention three companies that happen to stick out between Google, Amazon,
and eBay, they now have a billion users who have
signed up to use pass keys. So it's a major

(01:30:25):
effort across the industry because it does keep people safer. That's,
by the way. Another thing you should look for in
a password manager is make sure that it also supports
pass keys, because those are an advance in security that
help people stay safer, and they're also even easier to use.

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
I'm just curious about your take on the passwords manager
in iOS eighteen.

Speaker 9 (01:30:50):
The position we take, remember, are one of our important
missions at bit Warden is to help build a world
where nobody gets hacked. So when I talk to folks,
I say, look, if you're using any password manager, you're
better off than not using something. So I never criticize

(01:31:10):
the fact that there are multiple solutions out there, and
we're believers in the notion that they're your credentials. You
should be able to take them anywhere and use them
with equal ease. Whether you're using Mac or Windows or Linux,
whether you're on mobile or a desktop, or you're an
iPad or a tablet of some sort, it's important to

(01:31:33):
have that independence and flexibility. So that's our take on it.
Some password manager is better than nothing. If you really
want to go all the way, I would go with
a third party solution that gives you that independence and
kind of agnostic, non bias view to keep you safe everywhere.

(01:31:53):
When we talked about the learning curve, don't let that
scare you away. The learning curve is really very very short.
It's a small investment for a very big payoff for
those who aren't using password management yet. So really encourage
people dive in. Make yourself and your loved ones safer.

(01:32:14):
By the way, this is, as you know, Cybersecurity Awareness Month,
so it's a great thing we're all focusing on that.
We're coming into this holiday season where they'll be more
online shopping, et cetera. Everybody's more vulnerable than ever at
this period of the year, so it's a really good
time to go try something out. If you're not using
a password manager.

Speaker 1 (01:32:35):
Once again, that is Bitwarden's CEO, Michael Crandall, and yes,
please use a password manager. I know it takes just
a little bit to get up to speed and get
everything going with that, but once you do, like he said,
it makes life much easier and much safer. And I
do love bitwarden because they do have a free level

(01:32:55):
forever that is unlimited, unlike a lot of the other
password apps. All right, coming up, we're going to open
up the feedbag, and I've got a couple more stories
to tell you, including my review of the high tech
kitty litter box. Simply Safe has a new outdoor security
system that is AI powered, and how to use your
AirPods to hear better in noisy restaurants. This is rich

(01:33:17):
on tech. We are going to get to the feedbag
in just a moment, but first, just a couple more
items of no Simply Safe has a new AI powered
outdoor security system with an agent that's live that monitors,
so these security agents can respond to potential threats within

(01:33:38):
thirty seconds. They use AI for human detection to like
see if there's a human on the camera, and then
it uses face matching technology to recognize if that person
is a family member or a trusted neighbor. If not,
they may commence a live operators say hey, what are
you doing there. It's got two way audio. They can

(01:33:59):
activate siren and spotlights and this is fifty dollars a
month if you want it just for overnight outdoor from
eight pm to six am, eighty dollars if you want
it for twenty four to seven. So it's basically like
having a live security guard remote. Of course, monitoring your
place one hundred and ninety nine dollars. The face matching
feature is not available in Illinois, Texas or Portland, Oregon.

(01:34:21):
I did a story with a company that had this
technology years ago, called Deep Sentinel and very very similar.
So now Simply Safe has that. Let's see Pete Wells
writing for the New York Times. He is their food critic.
He said, you know what, if you have a pair
of AirPods, you can use them to hear better in
a noisy restaurant. You've got two features that are helpful
for noisy environments, Conversation Boost and Ambient Noise Reduction. Conversation

(01:34:46):
Boost uses directional microphones to amplify the voice in front
of you. Ambient Noise Reduction reduces background noise from other directions.
So you can go into accessibility settings and turn on
these features. And I will remind you that the AirPods
Pro to Hearing Aid feature is coming out this week,
which will turn the AirPods Pro two into basically hearing aids.

(01:35:10):
AT and T has a new thirty day free trial
of their network, So if you want to try out
the AT and T network you're curious how it works
where you live and work. You can activate this on
your iPhone for free for thirty days, no credit card
or commitment required. You could do this all from home.
They'll give you unlimited talk and text, one hundred gigs
of data, twenty five gigs of hotspot and let's see.

(01:35:32):
All you have to do is download MYAT and T
app or go to att dot com slash free trial.
You don't have to change your phone number or anything
like that. You do need an iPhone ten R or up.
Android support coming in twenty twenty five. But if you
want to test drive the AT and T network, you
can now do that for free. And the robot litterbox.

(01:35:53):
So I tested the Niakasa M one. This has an
open air design, which cats like because they can look
a while they're doing their business. The system automatically cleans
the box after each use. It sort of rotates the
waste into a collection drawer. The empty that drawer every
two weeks. I know that sounds like a lot or
a little, I should say, but I did not. There's

(01:36:14):
no odor whatsoever. It's quite impressive and it's very easy.
There's also an app. This thing is connected to Wi Fi.
I'll tell you when to add more litter, tell you
when to empty the bin, tell you how much your
cat weighs, how much they use this thing, and for
how long. I did talk to a vet about these.
She said that the litter boxes are the number one
reason cats are given back to shelters, and she did

(01:36:37):
have some safety concerns with the automated boxes, although those
are mostly with the cheaper models, so probably don't go
with a knockoff model because cats have died in these things.
The one I tested six hundred dollars, was on sale
during Prime Day for cheaper than that went down to
four hundred. The market leader, I think is the Whisker
Litter Robot for that's seven hundred dollars. And yes, there's

(01:36:58):
a whole bunch of sensors built in to stop the
operation if the cat is in there or whatever. But
I'm very impressed. This thing, to me is life changing.
I know it's expensive, but I'm telling you it is
absolutely incredible. All right, let's open up the feedbag. This
is the feedback plus the mail bag. These are the emails, comments,
and questions I get from you. If you want to
submit yours, go to Rich on tech dot tv and

(01:37:20):
hit contact Steve from Beaumont, California, says, Hey, Rich, I'm
impressed how your tech advice has improved over the months
since you took over the show. Since I'm such a sucker,
I ordered the new Kindle color, but having listened to
your most recent episode, I realized I didn't need color
and canceled. However, being such a sucker, I did order
the new paper white, even though my current one works
just fine. All the best, Steve, yep, I hear you

(01:37:43):
new gadgets. You can't get enough of them sometimes. Sean
from La Crescenta, who listens on KFI, says, Hey, Rich,
I love your show, but today I have a bone
to pick. I listened with interest your interview with the
guy from Swan Bitcoin, but was incredibly disappointed that you
didn't ask him about the outsized amount of electricity that
mining bitcoin consumes. As the crypto industry expands, there will

(01:38:07):
be further strain on the already fragile grid as energy
prices get pushed up. I was very interested in hearing
what his perspective on that issue was, but I guess
it's okay as long as everyone's getting rich sad. Sean,
that was a misfire on my part, I should have
asked him about that. In fact, I should have asked
him about the all the issues with with bitcoin, because

(01:38:28):
there are several and that includes not just the energy
aspect of it, but you know a lot of other things,
like the volatility of it, the illicit use of it,
all that stuff there is, there's there's good, and there's
bad with everything in this world. Thanks for the email, Angel,
says Hey Rich. As a non tech person who finally

(01:38:49):
upgraded from an ancient Motorola phone to a gently used
Pixel eight, I appreciated the timely newsletter. The articles helped
me understand what else I can do since I finally
upgraded to have a decent camera. But I can do
a lot more. George writes in about TV dialogue. He's
from Oak Hills. He says, what's wrong with dialogue video
and newer TV shows and movies. It's a widespread complaint.

(01:39:12):
The new season of NCIS and FBI just came out,
and I may have to stop watching because I can't
understand what's being said. It's not a problem with older
shows or movies. Talk shows and news come through clearly.
Even cops recorded in the field is usually easy to understand.
My five point one speaker system works fine for some content.
Wake up studios, your content is no good if we
can't follow along. The explosions and other sounds come in fine,

(01:39:34):
but often the background music overwhelms the dialogue. So sound guys,
what's up George? This is an issue. We watch TV
with captions most of the time, but that's mainly because
of all the stuff that's going on in the background
of our house with the kids running around. But I
know a lot of people do that, and I know
there's are a lot of the soundbars specifically talk about
the dialogue, so I know it is an issue. Jim

(01:39:56):
writes in Hey Rich, I've had problems with charging two
different Samsung phones. Some USB cables worked fine at times,
not at other times. Finally, I ground down the end
of the connector that goes into the phone. This allows
the internals of the cables connector to reach farther into
the phone's connector and it works. I use care only
to grind a small amount of the connector material. I

(01:40:16):
will tell you warning, do not do this at home.
Do not try this at home. Modifying cables can be
dangerous and might damage your device. I'm glad it worked
for Jim, but I cannot recommend doing that. Let's see here,
Mark says from Carlsbad, California. Thanks man, love your show.
By the way, I was home yesterday and asked alex
A to play rich on Tech and it popped up

(01:40:37):
right from Amazon Music. Nice and uh, let's see, I
can't get to that one. Don't have time for that one.
That is going to do it for this episode of
the show. Thanks for calling, Thanks for emailing. You can
find links to everything I mentioned here on my website.
Just go to rich on Tech dot tv. Once again,
all the show notes are there, and if you want

(01:40:58):
to hit contact, you can get in on the feedback.
You can find me on social media. I am at
rich on Tech. You know I'm active on Instagram. You
can always check my stories. I'm also on x dabbling
in threads, and also on Facebook. Next week we are
going to talk to cybersecurity Girl. She is very popular
and she is on made a name for herself on

(01:41:21):
social media helping people out, so we'll be interested to
hear what she has to say. Thanks so much for listening.
There are so many ways you can spend your time
I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. Adam in
today for Bobo cam on calls. My name is rich Demiro.
I will talk to you real soon

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}To-Do Lists, Password Managers & A New AirPods Accessory