012 Rich on Tech Radio Show - March 25, 2023 - Rich On Tech

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
TikTok gets grilled. Google launches bar a major acropolips that
affects the screenshots you might have shared, plus your tech
questions answered.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and this is Rich
on Tech, the show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about, and it's the
place where I answer your questions about technology. I'm the
tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Welcome
to the show. Phone lines are open triple eight Rich

(00:39):
one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
four to one zero one. Kim is standing by to
get you on the show today. Give me a call.
If you have a question about technology. Email is also
an option. Send it over to hello at richontech dot TV.
I'll be checking email throughout the show. Well well, well,

(01:02):
mister mister Shao Chow goes to Washington. That's what happened
this week. TikTok CEO in front of the House Energy
and Commerce Committee this week, all to talk about concerns
the US has about TikTok spying on users. It turned
into kind of a circus there five hours and I

(01:25):
think it was like over five hours of I'd call
it testimony, but realistically it was a lot of finger pointing,
a lot of accusations. I mean, you're talking a guy
who went to Harvard, his wife grew up in DC,
and he's sitting there defending himself like I've never seen before. Actually,

(01:46):
I have seen it before. I've seen it with Facebook,
I've seen it with Instagram, I've seen it with Google,
I've seen it with Twitter. Yes, the US government loves
to press these tech companies, to press them hard, but
guess what, at the end of the day, have we
seen anything come from any of these style hearings. Not really.

(02:07):
Facebook still works just the way it always has. Twitter well,
Twitter has kind of changed, but you know that's for
different reasons. Instagram all the same. I mean, I would
argue the bigger problem in this whole situation is really
the impact that these apps are having on our society
versus the spying. Now, the spying is a big deal

(02:29):
when it comes to different governments, but I would also
say that this is a wake up call for all
of us to think about the privacy implications of our lives.
So TikTok, whether or not it is spying on US
citizens remains to be seen, right, But this is just

(02:51):
one app. There are many apps that people use on
a daily basis, and I just mentioned a bunch of them. Facebook, Instagram,
app Chat, TikTok, Twitter. I mean, there's so many apps,
and every single one of these apps has a mission
and that mission is to either get you to stay
on that app as long as humanly possible, get you

(03:13):
to pay for something, or take your personal information and
use it to sell you stuff. That is what these
apps do. Now, yes, we get some services out of
these apps, we get some value out of these apps,
of course, that's why we use them. But the unspoken
side of these apps is that they are getting stuff
from us in a big way. So TikTok just made

(03:36):
me kind of think. We're going to talk more about
what happened there a little bit later with my guest
lance You and Off. But for me, what I want
to talk about is privacy in general. So are you
really going to wait for the US government to help
you protect your own privacy? No? US government is going
to do what the US government does. They're going to
do their thing. You need to take control of your

(03:58):
own tech world. You need to get into control today.
So Number one, you gotta stop speeding through all of
those sign up screens. I know we want to get
to these products and services as quick as humanly possible,
and they know that. Why do you think we scroll
through those terms and conditions in about one second? Nobody
can read those terms and conditions as quick as we

(04:20):
scroll through them. Then they know that, so they hide
a lot of good stuff in there that I've probably
never read and neither of you. And I'm not saying
you have to read that, but you have to understand
that when you sit there and act surprised that a
service is taking all of your personal information your location,
your GPS and your IP address, and your likes and
your needs and your wants. That's all in the terms

(04:42):
and conditions. You're saying, sure do that, So stop speeding
through those screens if you really want to see, Like,
hold on, this is asking me for my location, This
is asking me for access to my microphone. Slow down,
Listen to what it's asking you, and think do I
want to give that access? Stop using face Book and
Google to log into things. I know it's fast again,

(05:03):
there's a theme here. Don't be fast, be slow. You
have to understand what they're asking you here. Facebook and
Google super easy to log in. Yes, they do that
for a reason. That's so that they can see where
you're logging in and they can connect the dots between
all these different products and services that you sign up for.
So don't use Facebook, don't use Google to log in.

(05:25):
Apple just a little bit better than those two. But
the problem with Apple is that it keeps you in
their ecosystem. In fact, with all three of these, it
keeps you in their ecosystem. If you're logged into Facebook,
if you use Facebook to log into a dozen different apps,
yeah you're gonna stick with Facebook. If you use Google
to log into a dozen different apps, you're going to
stick with Google. If you use Apple to log into

(05:48):
every app, yeah you're going to stick with Apple. It
makes it tougher to get out of these products and services.
My advice, create unique, separate passwords for every account. Tech
companies are trying to grab as much data as they
can off of you. And it's not just tech companies either.
By the way, doctor's offices, you ever have to fill
out those forms you go into the doctor's office, they
ask you to fill out here, take the number one.

(06:09):
Why do we still have to fill out forms on
a clipboard at the doctor's office. It is the year
twenty hold on twenty twenty three. I have to check
because I sometimes say it's twenty twenty two. It's twenty
twenty three. Why are we filling out things on a
clipboard here? This is what it sounds like when you
go into the doctor's office. You see this. They give
you this, this big clipboard with all this paperwork on it,
and I always say, can I fill this out online?

(06:30):
Or didn't I already fill it out? And say now
you got to fill it out. One time, actually just
flat out refused. I said, no, I filled this out
last time I was here. I'm not filling it out again.
They just were like, okay. But on that fill out form,
they always ask for your social Security number? Right, Why
does your doctor need your social Security number? Why does
your dentist need your social Security number? I know why

(06:51):
they want it so that if you don't pay your bill,
they can come after you. That is not a valid
reason for asking for that. And you can say no,
by the way, so do that say no? I say
no every single time. Honestly. Sometimes I just write down
all zeros and just see what they say, just do it.
Try it, don't give out your social what else? Banks?
Oh this thing you get every year, you get that

(07:11):
little piece of paper in the mail from banks. It's
like this opt out notice, and what do we do?
We get it, we open it up, you realize it's
not a bill or anything you need to do, and
you throw it right in the trash. That opt out notice.
What that's doing is it's saying to you, hey, we're
your bank, and we have all this personal information about you,
and unless you opt out, we are free to share
that personal information with any of our affiliates. What's an affiliate?

(07:35):
Anyone that wants to pay them for that information. So again,
fill out that form, Go to the website, go to
Chase Bank, go to Bank of America, go to the
opt out section of the website and just say ned
rather you not share my stuff. It takes one second,
and I'm guilty this. I I'll be honest. I haven't
done it, but I got this advice a long time
ago and someone said to do it, and I've thought

(07:56):
about doing it, and I will. I will do it now, okay,
because it's just less stuff that you'll get in the mail.
From all these different companies and less sharing of your
personal information. All right, when it comes to your web browser,
you gotta turn off third party cookies. What's a third
party cookie? That means when you visit one website, a
third party cookie allows that website to share your visit

(08:18):
with another website. That's called a third party cookie. Turn
those off. You can turn it off in Chrome. They
make it look scary. They make it look like you're
doing something wrong. You're not. You can turn off third
party cookies and it will be very safe to surf
the web. Get an ad blocker. If you're sick of
the ads that are following you around on the web,
get an ad blocker that can help save you from

(08:39):
some of that nightmare of all these different ads that
follow you around the web. That's a handy way to
do it. Your home network. Someone comes over to your house, Hey, Rich,
what's your five five password? What do I do? I
send them straight to the guest network. Rich, Why are
you giving me the guest network because you're a guest.
You don't need access to my entire home network. Set
up a guest network on your home Wi Fi and

(09:01):
let your friends log into the guest network, not the
network that you use that all of your devices are
connected to. You can easily print out a QR code
for your network. People can scan it with their phone
and then they can log into your guest network. They
don't even have to notice the guest network. Don't name
it guest network, name it VIP network and let your
friends log into that one. Now, your phone, this is

(09:22):
the biggest issue that you have in your life. Think
about it. Think about the sensors on your phone, GPS, bluetooth, accelerometer,
temperature sensors, magnetic field sensors, gyroscope sensors, heart rate sensors,
light sensors, proximity sensors, pressure sensors. You are a walking
scientist with this phone in your pocket. I mean you're

(09:43):
prepared to like go right to Jurassic Park with what
you've got in your pocket at this point. So you
need to realize that every app wants to tap into
those those settings and those sensors. So think about when
you give permissions to these apps that you download. Give
bear basics the minimums. So if it's saying, hey, we

(10:03):
want your location, do they need your precise location? Give
them your approximate location. Maybe they just need location one time.
Stop giving apps blanket permissions. Don't just say yes to everything.
And if it's been a while, go into your settings
for your apps and revoke some of those permissions. So,
for instance, I looked up TikTok just out of curiosity

(10:24):
to see what permissions does TikTok have on my phone.
I just went to the settings on the iPhone. I
tapped TikTok. It has access to my contacts, it has
access to all my photos, it has access to my
local network, my microphone, my camera, and cellular data. Okay,
I just turned all those off. You can do that
for any app you want. Facebook, Instagram, and Google. There's

(10:46):
something called connected apps, third party apps. Turn off those connections.
Go in there, take a look see the apps that
you've given access to your Facebook, your Instagram, and your
Google and turn those off. You don't necessarily need. It's
a good idea to just kind of clean those out.
Those are called permissions. So a lot of times with Instagram, Facebook,
and Google, you give permission to other apps to look

(11:09):
inside those accounts. You can take those permissions back, and
it's a good idea, you know, twice three times a
year to just kind of see which apps you've given
permission to. If you don't recognize one, you don't remember one,
get rid of it, revoke its permissions. If it ever
comes a time when you need that app to be
accessible again, you'll see it'll say, hey, we lost this connection,

(11:30):
and there are legitimate reasons for that. But you just
have to realize why these apps want this access. They
want to build this web, this network of like the
most information possible about you, and by giving them permission,
that's what you're doing. You need to take control of
your privacy, security accounts and have backups because I get
way too many emails about people who get hacked, lose

(11:50):
their photos or files because they're not in the cloud.
Do this stuff today, please, that's my word to you today.
All right, Coming up on the show, we're going to
talk about neck gear. If you have an orbit, it
is time to update your software. I'll explain what that
acropo lips is. Plus we got lance yulanoff coming up.
He's going to talk about TikTok and Google Bard plus Slater.

(12:12):
In the show, we're going to visit Outer Edge LA
all about NFTs. If you're curious about them, we'll tell
you your calls up next at triple eight Rich one O one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. My name is Rich Demiro,
tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. You

(12:35):
can follow me on social media at rich on Tech.
I'm on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Mike is in El Segundo, California. Mike,
you're on with Rich. What's happening?

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Hey, Rich are I've got an older iPad, maybe about
from seven years old, and it won't brouse anymore. And
it tells me that I need an iOS that's newer
than twelve point seven I believe, and but but that
I can't load that.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
On the machine.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Do I have any options?

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Okay? So this is an older iPad. It sounds like,
huh yeah, how how old are we talking?

Speaker 3 (13:16):
I'm thinking it's about seven or eight years old?

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Oh wow? Okay? And so when you go to the
web browser, which browser are you using?

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Using Safari?

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (13:29):
But and uh then I get I get an error
note on the machine. So you know you need to
update your bios okay?

Speaker 1 (13:39):
And so and you can't update past twelve point seven,
because that's it. There's no more support for this older version, right,
And I've kind.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Of googled around to find if I could find a
browser that would accept something that's older, but I haven't
been successful though.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Well, okay, that's my question. So when when you can
you download app from the app store? Still, because I'm
not sure what state this computer this iPad is in.
Does it still like the Wi Fi works on it?
And can you still do anything on it?

Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (14:11):
I can do that, but I went to because I
thought it might be a browser I could use, but
and it downloaded the app when I want to use
it once again, it's still required to thirteen or New York.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Okay. So the thing about the browsers on the iPad
is that they use something they all share, something called WebKit.
And this means that even though there are different browsers
on the iPad and available, they all use the same
back end software and so that software is provided by Apple.

(14:44):
And it's what they're saying is it's basically, your iPad
doesn't have the latest software. It's not secure enough to
run that version of WebKit that it needs, no matter
which browser you download. So that's I think what you're
running into here, oh yeah, because it.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Sounds like.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, so I would say, yeah, I would say to
download something like Chrome or Firefox or any of these
other browsers. But they're all going to run on the
back end using that WebKit software provided by Apple. So
that's that's why I think you're running into this problem.
The only I'm trying to think, uh yeah, so do
you know how to recycle this thing? Do you know
how to get some money for it?

Speaker 5 (15:27):
Not?

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Off hand?

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Okay, So I'll recommend a place that I like because
I think this is a pretty old iPad, so you're
probably not gonna get much. But there's a website I
like called gizmo Go g I z m o g
O gizmo goo dot com, and you can pop in
your iPad and it will tell you how much you get.
Do you know which model this is? Offhand or no?

Speaker 3 (15:50):
I think it's an Air.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
iPad Air okay, so I'm guessing it's an old, old
maybe for okay, So if it's the first generation, you're
ready for this. Don't don't spend this all one place.
But it looks like they're going to give you eleven
dollars and seventy two cents, Mike, all right, iPad iPad
Air second generation five dollars twenty five cents. You might

(16:12):
be better off just keeping this in your house and
using it as a photo display, like turn it into
some sort of like you know, photo frame or something.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
That's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
It might be better. All right, Well, good luck and the
new iPad, by the way, I would just recommend the
standard one. I don't know if you need. I mean,
the Air is nice, but it's much more expensive than
it depends on what you're doing on this thing, but
the standard one's pretty good, and I would before you
buy one, just check for some sales. So I always
type in iPad deal and then go to Google and
then tap news. And because all the bloggers get affiliate

(16:46):
money from these things, they will typically blog about when
iPads are on sale. So that would be my recommendation, Mike.
And if you want, you can go ahead and recycle
it as well, So that's what I would recommend. All right. Thanks,
first call, okay, if you want to get on the show.
Phone lines are open. It's eight eight eight rich one
oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two

(17:07):
four one zero one Uh, let me just tell you
about acropolips real quick. So, if you have a Pixel
or a Windows computer, security researchers have determined that when
you crop a photo using the default editing tools which
is called markup and the snipping tool and Windows, it
saves the information in the file that you tried to

(17:28):
cut out of the picture. So if you share this
picture with someone, whether that's online or you know, over email, whatever,
they may be able to use a tool to recover
the data that you tried to cut out of that picture.
And there's actually a tool I'll link to on the
website that you can try this out. But if you
have a pixel, you got to update the software because

(17:48):
Google did release a software update that will fix this.
So this has been around since twenty eighteen. By the way,
this issue, so update your pixel and for Windows they
are now aware of it, but they don't have a
fixed just yet. So when in doubt, do not share
screenshots involving personal information right now, even if you crop
that information out. All right, coming up, we're gonna talk
to my pal lance Yulanoff about TikTok on Capitol Hill

(18:12):
plus Google Bard. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome
back to Rich on Tech. My name is rich Demiro
and joining me now. My first guest is Lance Ulanoff.
He is the editor in chief of tech Radar. He
has spent many years in the tech industry, and also
he is the tech guy on Live with Kelly and Ryan. Lance,

(18:35):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Hey, I'm just looking at your LinkedIn here and I
noticed you have a cool feature on there. You have
a pronouncer for your name. I've never seen that before.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Yeah, they introduced that a while ago because you know,
I guess just for everyone, but people often mispronounce my
last name, so it's helpful for me.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Did I say it right?

Speaker 4 (18:56):
Yeah, yeah, you get it right. You did well.

Speaker 6 (18:58):
Well.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Thanks for joining me on the show. Appreciate it. Let's
talk first, TikTok. So I assume you watched all five
hours and forty eight minutes of the testimony.

Speaker 4 (19:08):
I watched almost the entire thing. There were a couple
of little breaks I had to take, but yeah, I
caught the majority of it. It was it was actually
pretty frustrating to watch.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
I didn't get through the whole thing, but I did
watch enough to see that Wow. I mean, these things
always go the same, They're they're pretty one sided. Obviously,
they kind of ask questions that are a little bit loaded,
but they do get some information out there. Like the
big the big thing I saw that was they asked
the TikTok CEO if TikTok accessed devices on your home

(19:42):
Wi Fi. And I was thinking about that. I'm like, hmm,
actually it probably could do that, right.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's possible. I Mean, the thing is,
you know, we don't know what when an application is
installed on your computer or on your phone, and obviously
most people at home are using their I find network,
Like what does it interrogate and what does it learn
about you? We don't know that. But you know, in
all fairness, pretty much every application that you install is

(20:10):
going to seek out as much useful information as possible.
The X factor here being that TikTok is owned by
by Dance. By Dance is a Chinese company, and we
are not best of friends with China.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Right now, right, So if they I mean, let's put
it this way, even at the very least, if China
wanted to get the whereabouts of where people are sort
of moving in and about the US, and this is
probably the reason why all of these government you know,
like these local governments and of course the federal government
is saying you can't have this on your phone because

(20:44):
at the very least they can track people's movements. That's
like very basic location services on a phone. Is that
sound right?

Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, I mean there's there's location, there's IP information, you know,
whether you leave your location services on, which most people
do because you use it for maps. I think, yes,
there's a there's a there's a world of data that
that any company can derive about it. And I do
think that's a really strong point that and I think
even the CEO of TikTok agreed with this, that government

(21:13):
employees should not have social media on their devices. I mean,
it just makes sense, and I don't think that anybody
is arguing about that. What it comes down to is
the question of whether or not it should be banned
and no one should have access to it as opposed
to the other option is stronger regulations, which we've all
been asking for for tech companies and social media for

(21:36):
a long time, and they all just keep talking about
it but not actually doing it.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah. Well, I mean it kind of reminds me of
like you know, the Motion Picture Association, You've got the
people that make the movies rate the movies, right, And
so with the tech companies. In an ideal world, they
would make their own rules and say, hey, we play
by these rules. We want to have our own rules.
We're private, see centric, and we're you know whatever. But

(22:02):
the reality is they don't have our best interests at heart.
They're a tech company. They're trying to make money off
of us. They're trying to get our personal information. Is
that right?

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Well, there's certainly these are businesses. These are not philanthropies, right,
there's no charities out there. They're businesses, and it's a
question of how big is the business, How are they
going to make money? You know, whether it's selling you
something which Apple tends to do, right. They sell you
hardware and you're subscribe to software, or they give you
something for in quotes free, but they monetize it and

(22:36):
they make money through advertising. So then they're selling your interests.
They're selling your eyeballs. That is paying attention to whatever
you look at. And that's what TikTok is, right. TikTok
is in that area. TikTok monetizes through ad partnerships. I mean,
if you are on TikTok, you notice there are more
and more ads in there, and so that's how it's

(22:58):
that's a trade off that exists across pretty much all
of technology. But you said something is very interesting that
they don't. There are no rules, right, So different companies
go by different ethos. So, for example, Apple is tends
to be more privacy focused than others, right, because they're
not ad based. They don't care what we're doing all
their devices. What they care about is buy more of

(23:19):
our stuff, be in our ecosystem. Whereas Google, well they
don't sell you a lot of hardware. They're starting to,
but most of their money is made through advertising, so
they really need to know what you're doing across their
network of things. So they don't have the same kind
of rules and ethos that Apple has. So there's no consistency,
and there's no data US data bill of.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Rights, right, different plate. I mean, obviously Europe has much
stronger privacy regulations, California has much stronger privacy regulations. But yes,
federally that's just not the case. And every company, like
you said, kind of does their own thing. I guess
my big question is what was your takeaway? Was there
anything that surprised you from this this testimony?

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Well, I was, you know, I was very interested when
I heard him say the CEO too, say that he
reports directly to the CEO of Byte Dance. The Bite
Dance is a Chinese company, and that CEO is in China,
and he may or may not be a member of
the Communist Party. And I think that was one moment

(24:27):
I'm really kind of fixated on, like, Okay, there's because
they weren't getting enough really solid information out of them
because they spent too much time just talking about I
don't know what. They just just speak they're making speeches.
But I was like, give me details that we can
because that's what they can dig into. The other thing
was that he owns stock in Byte Dance, So again,
these are things that talk to his interests, who controls

(24:50):
what he does and who he answers to and how
it's going to play out now. That was interesting to me.
And of course Project Texas, which is what is the
plan that by Dance slash TikTok now TikTok whatever they're
building separately has to protect firewall off American data, which
includes setting up almost like a separate company, which I

(25:12):
think is called the United States Security Data Security USDs.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Oh wow, that's right there.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
I know, I know it was very weird, but that's
the name they came up with. There's going to be
you know, any legacy data that was left on on
service that were controlled by by Dance, it's going to
be pulled off. Uh. There, So they're all all the
data will be firewalls, all be with Oracle, and they'll
have like a board that will populated with people with

(25:43):
security backrounds all the US people. Uh, and they'll have oversight.
They'll be like an over third party oversite to make
sure they follow all the rules. So I actually thought,
all right, that's a start, that's something. But it was
interesting because what the officials the lawmakers did is they
basically dismissed the entire plan. They really were like me, yeah,

(26:03):
they really kind of pick it apart, which is what
I wanted. I'm like, go deeper into that because that's
what he has to answer for because that's their action plan.
You want to know that that's a good action plan.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
But wouldn't it solve more problems just to get this
controlled by a US company, or to sell make it
its own company, like just you know, branch off and
I don't know, I mean, maybe you can't do that,
but like it seems odd that, you know, I mean,
I get that there's a lot of money at stake
here and Byteedance makes a lot of money off of
this app or there's potential for tons of money to
be made. But would it solve all the problems if

(26:33):
they just said, hey, we're going to make this a
US company. Now we're going to just start up. I mean,
they say they made a big deal about saying how
many offices they have in the US and how many employees.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
They have here seven seven thousand. I think, yeah, obviously, yes,
you are totally right. It would make things so easy.
My feeling is I believe that the reason China by
Dance will not sell is out of pride. This is
a global sensation. They really are excited and happy about it,

(27:07):
and they would feel I think they would feel they
would lose face to spell it. It would be an embarrassment.
They would be, you know, basically kneeling to the US
on this point. That's why they won't sell it. And
I will say also that I don't think I don't
think a band is actually on the table, partly because

(27:28):
of the lobbying, but also because of the thing you
mentioned that the deep sort of integration in US and
including investment from US parties, So there would be a
lot of pushback on doing that, making it like this
illicit thing you could only get to it through VPN.
So I don't think that's going to happen either. So
we're kind of in this weird spot. But what's strange

(27:49):
to me is that it is so rare to find
agreement on both sides of the Aisle and the White
House on any topic, and here we have one where
everybody's there, we're all in agreement. They're like, yeah, bad,
this is bad. We should do something, maybe ban it.
So that is the X factor where if they're truly
not satisfied, they may press this point and then it

(28:11):
goes to someplace that maybe it is something like a
band or I don't know, but I just don't think
they'll get them to sell them sell it because of
the reasons I stated, Well.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's certainly been a saga of the century for at
least a couple I mean, I remember the first time
I covered this probably three or four years ago and
it's still I just can't believe it's still going on.
And we even get into the whole idea of the
misinformation that's on TikTok and the self harm and the
challenges that are just taking over children's lives and ruining them.
So there's a lot going on here, and that's not

(28:42):
just TikTok's fault. That is, you know, a social media
thing in general. But that's a whole other conversation. But
Lance I'm gonna have to leave it there. How can
folks keep in touch with you, follow you all that
good stuff?

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Obviously tech grad dot com. I have a number of
stories to go up there of the US that are
in chief, and then of course on Twitter, assuming it
doesn't go coput. I'm on Twitter, uh and yes you
can find me there and no, yes on TikTok. Yes
I am on.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
TikTok Okay, we'll check that out. Lancey lan Off, editor
in chief of tech Radar and also the tech guy
on Live with Kelly and Ryan. Thanks so much for
joining me today. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
On your Saturday, it was a pleasure talk to you.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
All right, talk soon, all right, You're listening to Rich
on tech. Coming up, we'll talk about Google Bard that's
their answer to chat GPT plus more of your calls
at Triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. You are
listening to Rich on tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

(29:44):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Don't forget to
sign up for my newsletter. Just go to rich on
tech dot T hit the I believe it says sign
up for my newsletter. Pretty simple. Now, I will tell

(30:07):
you the newsletter is currently dormant, so you may not
get an email from me tomorrow. But I am just
it's a way to keep in touch. When I've got
something important to say, I will put it on there.
So that's the way to do it. Rich on tech
dot TV. Jamie is in Riverside, California. Jamie, you are
on with rich Hi.

Speaker 7 (30:29):
Rich thank you for taking the call. I wanted to
ask you what the Microsoft upgrade to Wendy eleven. I'm
having a difficult time locating like my test manager and
task you know, like my files where before I used
to go and start look down and it would give

(30:49):
you all the information like Microsoft Office, and I can't
seem to find that anymore.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
So if they've moved everything, yes, that's funny.

Speaker 7 (30:57):
If they're like a website, I can find I like
the TT so they can kind of maneuver around, or
you know, they're like.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
A search bar.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
What do you suggest, So they moved everything around Windows
eleven is uh, they sort of moved everything to the
center of the screen now, right, like the whole start
button and all that start menu. Yes, And I'll be honest,
I have not played with it that much. It's on
my list of things to do to kind of check
it out and see. So I can't specifically say where

(31:26):
all these things are. But I mean, as for resources,
I think the easiest thing to do. I mean, these
things don't come with an instruction manual. But no, Microsoft
does a pretty good job on their website of doing tutorials.
Have you looked at those at all?

Speaker 7 (31:43):
No?

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Okay, that's where I was much.

Speaker 7 (31:46):
Are they for C tutorials or are they just like
introducing the new Windows even Well.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
They've got a whole bunch of stuff, so I'm looking
at it Now I just did support dot Microsoft dot
com and they got this section called Meat Windows eleven,
and so they've got a whole thing. It tells you
about the look and feel, it tells you about how
to personalize your experience, the apps and tools, entertainment, gaming, accessibility, creativity,

(32:16):
and then it underneath each video it gives you all
of kind of like the basics. So how to search obviously,
you know how to do that. You press search or
you can you know, tap Windows s, how to make
desktop groups, your Microsoft account, keyboard shortcuts that you might
find useful, like how about this? Did you know that
for voice typing you can do Windows.

Speaker 7 (32:34):
H No, but I got to get.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
See there you go. How about how about opening the
emoji panel? Jamie? Have you done that? It's Windows semicolon.
Ok see all right, so this is support dot Microsoft
dot com. And then look for the meat Windows eleven section.
Now the other thing that's go ahead, well, the other

(33:01):
thing that's really handy. Okay you first, no, you it's
like at a stop you know, is that like those
stop signs you know where you're like, no, no, you
go first, No, you go first, No, you go first, Jamie,
you go first, okay, thank you.

Speaker 7 (33:14):
I wanted to also ask you, I'm building a new workstation.
Before you would be able to just put in a
user name, but now it seems like they always wanted
to use an email account, like you know, a live
or outlook yes, to get connected to the network.

Speaker 5 (33:31):
Is there a work around now or is that just
the way.

Speaker 7 (33:34):
You know the things work now.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
That's a good question because I was just setting up
a computer and I noticed that same exact thing, and
I was like, wait a second, do I really need
to put into Microsoft account now? I'm assuming that there
is a way to do a local account. Off the
top of my head, I don't know, but I assume
that when you're signing in, there's probably a tiny little
link when when you're setting up the computer that says

(33:58):
to do it offline. So when you're going through, just
kind of really take a close look at things and
see if there is a section on that sign up
area where it says like go offline or do this locally.
I'm sure there's a way to do it. I just
went ahead and used my Microsoft account because I was
just like, okay, let me just try this. But obviously

(34:20):
they're trying to force everyone to do these things a
certain way because they want everyone linked in to you know,
their main Microsoft accounts because that helps them in the end.
But again, I think that's all part of the tutorials.
And also, I mean, I know this is a pretty
a given, but you know, YouTube is a really good
resource for this kind of stuff. I would find some
good YouTubers that cover Windows eleven and just kind of

(34:43):
watch some of their videos. I know it's, you know,
could be kind of boring to sit through some of
this stuff, but if you're really trying to, you know,
learn the ins and outs of this new software, that's
probably a good way to familiarize yourself at least, just
to get some.

Speaker 7 (34:57):
Boring.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I don't think it's b but you know, I think
that it depends. It depends, like it's just you know,
it depends on how interested you are and all these
little nuances. But there's definitely a lot of new features,
and I feel like Windows has really they just keep
changing things a lot, and it's happening very fast right now.
I mean, they just you know, especially with this AI stuff,
it's all gonna change again, Jamie, that's for sure.

Speaker 7 (35:21):
Yeah, that's for sure.

Speaker 5 (35:22):
Okay, Well, thank you the mind that I really do
enjoy your show.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
All right, Well, thank you very much for calling, and
I'm gonna put links to everything that I mentioned. I'm
taking very good notes. I'm like a student in a
college class right now. I'm taking notes as I go
along to everything that I mentioned, and I'm putting them
all in the show notes. So after you listen to
the show, once this is all posted as the podcast,
you can go to my website rich on tech dot

(35:45):
tv see the link, and I will have everything that
I mentioned inside the link so that you can easily
find it. All Right, So I've been talking about this
netgear orb. If you have one of these routers, which
you've probably heard people talk about, these mesh router systems,
that you put a couple different access points around your
house and they work together to create a Wi Fi

(36:08):
signal that is everywhere throughout your house. Instead of the
old way that is just one router modem in the
middle of your house from your cable company or whatever,
and that puts out the signal and it never reaches
to the far corners. These new mesh networks, they have
different access points you put in different rooms and they
all work together to create one Wi Fi signal that

(36:28):
works in every corner of your house. So these things
are very popular. Ero sort of started the trend and
now you've got a whole bunch of them. Neck Your
Orby is a very highly rated mesh wireless system. It's
very popular and if you have one, you probably want
to check for updates because there is some There was

(36:49):
an exploit. Basically, hackers were able to get into this thing,
and so you want to make sure that you have
this thing patched up. So the bottom line is you
don't really need to know what they were able to
do with this, because it's besides the point. But if
you have a neck gear Orby, go into the app
on your phone, go into the settings, check for an update,

(37:10):
and update the software so that your network is secure.
All right, I've got phone lines open at triple eight.
Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two,
four to one zero one. My name is Rich Dmiro.
You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. My name is Rich Demiro, hanging out
talking technology. This is a show where I talk about

(37:32):
the tech. If I can talk, this is the show
where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
should know about. It's also the place where I answer
your questions. You can find me online at rich on Tech.
That's me on all social media. That's Instagram, that's Facebook,
and as long as Twitter is still around. That's where

(37:56):
all be this week. I know I try to make
the entire show about AI, but that is the number
one theme of the tech world right now. AI is everything.
It's kind of like it reminds me of going to

(38:17):
these tech shows when the internet and wireless connections kind
of first started, and every product would get an Internet connection.
It's like, you have a teacup up, it's got Internet. Oh,
you have a frame, it's got Internet. You've got a speaker,
it's got Internet everything. And now we're seeing that same

(38:38):
trend with AI. This all started because of chat GPT.
If you haven't used it, there is only one way
to access it. It is through the website, which is OpenAI.
That's the company that makes it. So it's chat dot
OpenAI dot com. So do not get scammed into logging

(39:02):
into chat GPT through an app or through pretty much
anything else. At this point, there is nothing else. There
are products that run on top of OpenAI and chat GPT.
But at this point, there is only one legitimate Chat
GPT and that is through OpenAI's website. And so if
you're trying to like log in with your Facebook, there's

(39:23):
a lot of scams out there that have to do
with that. Do not fall for them. Do not download
an app to the iPhone or from Google. There is
no chat GPT app right now, so just don't even
do it. If you want to use chat GPT on
your phone, you can bookmark chat dot OpenAI dot com
and that will work on your phone, it will work

(39:43):
on your computer, and it's all free. Now it gets
a little confusing because now there is a paid version
of chat GPT called Chat GPT Plus and it's twenty
bucks a month, which is a lot of money. So
you have to really have a use case for chat
GBT plus to pay twenty bucks a month for this

(40:06):
right now, Like you're a developer, you just you know,
you just really really need something more than what they
give for free. And keep in mind, Chat GBT is
sort of locked into twenty twenty one. It is not
up to date, it is not current. It's a research
tool right now, and so if you're looking for answers

(40:27):
that are past twenty twenty one. It just doesn't have
those right now. That will change. But that's the way
chat GBT is. And it's an amazing, amazing application program,
whatever you want to call it. It's really impressive. But
I've been playing with the Google version of this AI stuff.

(40:47):
They're calling it barred b A R D. And Google's AI.
I've told you about this before. They were kind of
their hand was forced in all this stuff. Now, I'm
not saying that Google has not been working on a
for a very long time. They have. In fact, Google
is using a lot of AI behind the scenes, and
almost all of the products that they have, whether it's YouTube,

(41:08):
whether it's Gmail, whether it's you know, any app that
they have on Android, they use a lot of AI.
But they never came out with their version of chat
GBT until now because it flies in the face of
their entire business model. And if you want, by the way,
to sign up for this, it's barred dot Google dot

(41:30):
com and there's a wait list and you will get access.
It just takes a little bit of time. So for instance,
I signed up the first second it was available. I
got access probably an hour later. My son he signed
up probably the end of the day that day, which
was a couple days ago, and he just got access today,
so it could take a few days to get access.

(41:51):
They're rolling this out because it's test. They're trying to
see how people use it, how it works, and just
to you know, it's just a test. It's an experiment.
They're calling it an early experiment. And generative AI means
that this AI generates responses based on its knowledge. So
nobody has sat there and programmed in these answers. It

(42:13):
comes up with them on the fly. So it could
be wrong, it could be right, it could be off,
it could be amazing. So let me explain. Okay, Number
one Bard. The reason why they're calling it Bard, according
to Bard, is that it's an old storyteller. That's what
they were called back in the day, like a Bard,

(42:34):
and so that's where they got the inspiration for the name.
I don't know if that's true. That's just what Bard
told me, so we have to take it at face value.
But Google says you can use Bard to boost your productivity,
accelerate your ideas, fuel your curiosity, fuel your curiosity. I've
asked it so many questions in the past week, it's
quite impressive. I've said, Hey, I love this book, recommend

(42:57):
me five books just like it. I also asked, give
me I like this song, Give me a list of
one hundred songs just like that song. It did it.
I've asked for recipes. Hey, I have this, this, and this.
Can you make me a recipe using those ingredients? Oh?
Can you make it healthy? Can you make it vegan?

(43:18):
I asked it last night, Can you tell me the
best things on the menu at this restaurant I was
going to? And it just spit out the answers. Now
here's the thing. It doesn't do as many citations as
Bing does with their AI, so Bing will have at
the end of their AI answers where it got those answers.
Google is not as forthcoming all the time.

Speaker 8 (43:39):
Now.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
I've noticed sometimes at the end of the answer it
will give you a link to where it got that information.
Other times it will not, So you don't really necessarily
know where this information is coming from. But what's amazing
about bard is that it feels like you have literally
the smartest person in the world at your desci You

(44:00):
can ask anything to this person. It's not always going
to answer it. Sometimes it'll say sorry, I'm AI, I'm
not trained on that, or it just gets a little
cagey and it says, ah, sorry, Like if you try
to like really push the limits of this stuff, there's
a lot of guardrails built in right now because they
don't know what these AI systems are gonna say. They've
programmed them to work, but they didn't program what they're

(44:23):
going to generate, and so it's really anyone's guess as
to how people flex the muscles of these different AI
programs to make them do things that even the programmers
didn't know they could do. For instance, just in the
past week, I've asked it to compose a song. I've
asked it to write biographies of people. And it's interesting.

(44:44):
If you ask it to write a biography, Hey who
is rich Tomuro it will say sorry, I don't know.
But if you put in their social media account, say
hey who is at rich on Tech? Then it comes
back with all the information. So again, it's just the
way it's been programmed to do this kind of stuff.
I've asked it to. It literally coded me simple websites.
I said, hey, can you grab an RSS feed and

(45:07):
create a feed of that RSS on this website and
play the latest episode of my podcast, and sure enough
it did that. I said, hey, can you code a
simple timer on a website and have this screen flash
when there's one minute left on the timer? And it
did that. I mean, this is really really advanced stuff
and it's all free right now. And the reason why
I said it flies in the face of Google's business

(45:27):
is because there's no ads on it, and as far
as I can tell, I'm not sure how they're going
to implement ads unless it's a banner ad on this screen.
The other thing that's really unique about it is you
can say thumbs up thumbs down if you like the answer.
Because it's still learning. It also gives you different drafts
of answer, so when you look at an answer, it
will say, okay, well, our computer also came up with this,

(45:49):
and it will you can look at different versions of
the same answer, and you can also hit a Google
button at the bottom of the answer to kind of
see where where it lies with the Google search results,
how does it compare with those? And so that's unique
to Google that I didn't really see on BING. These
are all called large language models LLM, and what that

(46:14):
means is They feed a whole bunch of information into
this large language model, and it goes to town just
figuring out what all that information means. And when you
ask a question, it reaches into its information database and
pulls out the answers that it thinks are right. It's

(46:35):
really really wild. If you haven't tried this yet, it's
just and I know there's been so much talk about
this stuff in the world, but it is going to
change everything. It really really is. And when you sit
here and use it, you realize that after a week,
I am using Barred as my entire search engine. I
don't use Google anymore because I don't need it. I'm

(46:58):
asking for answers. If I need a link to a website, sure,
but if I want an answer to something, I'm going
to Bard. Now keep in mind this is from Google,
it says. Because there are so much information that this
is programmed with, this will reflect real world biases, stereotypes,
and sometimes this will show up in the answers. The

(47:18):
answers can also be inaccurate, they can be misleading, and
they can have false information all while being presented confidently,
which means Bard may present an answer to you that
seems right and you may run with it and it's
just flat out wrong. And the reason you don't know
that is because it presents it in such a way
where it feels authoritative. And that's the trickiest part to

(47:41):
all of this AI and I think what's almost the
Achilles heel to it is that because it can be
so wrong on stuff and sound so right, we literally
as humans almost have to fact check, fact check every
single aspect of these answers. And at the end of
the day, if you're fact checking all of these answers,
are they really answers. I mean, it's almost more work

(48:03):
than in the beginning of when we went to the web.
You would type in a search term, you'd go to
that website. If the website was trusted, you would trust
that information, and you could tell if a website is
trusted most of the time if it's from a big name.
Sometimes you couldn't. And that's where misinformation on the web
comes into play again. So many things you can do
with this. I just I really really find this fascinating.

(48:26):
I'm trying to see if there's anything else that Google
says that's interesting about this. I think the main thing
to know is barred dot Google dot com if you
want to sign up and try it out. I've just
been having a ton of fun. Can you can ask
follow up questions? So if you're writing one thing, you
can write a follow up question and say, hey, you know,

(48:46):
I'd like to know more about that. You can modify
kind of the answer that it gives you by asking
it follow up questions. It's really just phenomenal tools and
it's free. This is free, and it's changing. Its going
to change everything, especially as they figure out how this
is going to be integrated into everyday life, how Google's
going to use this, and most importantly, how are they

(49:09):
going to get stuff right? Because that's the thing that
I'm waiting for is when when can we trust this
to really be solid and to give us answers that
we can go with. All Right, I see a bunch
of you waiting online to uh to talk to me,
So I will get to more of your calls coming
up next at triple eight Rich one O one. That's
eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight

(49:32):
seven four to two four one zero one. Email also
open hello at rich on tech dot TV. I'll be
right back. Welcome back to rich on tech Rich DeMuro
here we were just talking about AI and Google barred
and swell seven on Twitter rights. If I as barred

(49:54):
to write a song with me, who owns the copyright?
Good question. This is what it's being figured out right
now as we speak. I mean, there's a lot of
a lot of people using AI now for everything from
first drafts of things to artwork, and it's all being
debated in the communities that are most at stake here

(50:18):
or have the most steak here. I just did a
story with some artists that, you know. They're arguing that
all these generative AI art platforms are being trained using
artwork that other people made, and so how does that
factor into it? And it's really some interesting questions. I
think Hollywood's also trying to figure it out with script writing,

(50:38):
but as of right now, seems like the WGA is
saying that if AI is used to start the script,
the person who actually sort of polishes things up or
writes it after that is the person who is the
writer of it, and you don't even have to give
credit to AI. So there's a lot of things that
are going to be figured out here. I don't think
it's going to happen overnight, because anytime you have technology,

(51:00):
it's always sort of ahead of the rules and regulations
and laws and so. But when there's money at sake, yes,
people will figure it out. Turtis is in Fountain Valley, California. Turtis,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 9 (51:13):
I Rich, thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, what's on your mind?

Speaker 9 (51:19):
So what happened is I have some fluorescent lights in
my kitchen and they grew up in the ceiling and
I replaced them as Elie okay, And since I replaced him,
and that was only about two weeks ago, it's interfering

(51:39):
with some of the some of the channels that we get,
not all of them, but just some of them. Now,
I didn't know it was an nine filter that I
could put in.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
To stop that, or or what might be.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
What kind of lights are they? And what type of
TV reception are we talking about? Were talking over the
air antenna?

Speaker 9 (52:06):
Yeah, we have a haven't having an old type antenna
up in the attic that was up there when I
bought the house site thirty five years ago.

Speaker 4 (52:15):
Oh wow, so we're just using that.

Speaker 9 (52:18):
Uh, you know, we did HDTV of course, and usually
we get decent signals. But once I put those LEDs in. Uh,
it's been interfering with the signals?

Speaker 1 (52:36):
How how does it happen? So you turn on so
you've got the TV tunto a channel, You turn on
the LED lights and what happens? Everything just starts going haywire,
it goes.

Speaker 9 (52:46):
It just goes to a like a background of a picture,
and then it just says, no signals.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
Wow. You turn the lights off.

Speaker 9 (52:56):
And you know in a few sections it will come
back onto the to the channel.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Okay. Well, I mean LEDs uh could emit some electromagnetic
radiation according to some of the research I'm seeing. So,
but I would think that modern bulbs would be shielded
enough to not make that happen in such a pronounced way.
So what I would think is what types of lights

(53:22):
are these?

Speaker 4 (53:24):
Uh?

Speaker 9 (53:24):
They're they're LED, but they're not the two types that
were there linear or three feet long okay, all of
them in the ceiling in the kitchen, in a reverse
soft type thing like about eight or ten inches of Okay.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
So these are these are pretty sizable light bulbs and
this is a sizable array. And it also sounds like
are they underneath the antenna as well as the antenna.

Speaker 4 (53:48):
On top of them right now.

Speaker 9 (53:50):
Unfortunately, the antenna wires. You know, we have like three
different connections in our house, and so antenna comes out
and there's a split or and then it goes to
the other ones in the house and unfortunately right on
top of ord.

Speaker 6 (54:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Okay, well, okay, so's a couple of things maybe you
can try. I don't think you want to replace all
the lights because that's that's gonna be a problem. But
maybe can use like a higher gauge wire that's maybe
more shielded. Like, is there like a better cable you
can use that that you can run up there or
is that not an option?

Speaker 9 (54:28):
You mean as far as the TV cable.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Yeah, exactly, like the cable that's yeah, that might be
your best bet to start.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
There, a shielded, shielded TV cable.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Yeah, I would try that first, and and try that
and maybe maybe even if you can get up in
the ceiling and uh just re route where that cable goes,
maybe keep it, you know, more towards the edge of
the house or more towards the sides. But I would
try to get like maybe a thicker cable that is
more shielded to to sort of shield off some of
the radiation that's coming out of these light bulbs. But

(55:01):
also I'd be a little concerned standing under these light
bulbs if they're causing this much interference with your TV set,
because that could be a problem as well. But turnus
good question, really really something I haven't thought of. But
I mean, the only thing I could kind of relate
is with the Wi Fi connections using the microwave. People

(55:24):
don't realize how much the microwave could impact your Wi Fi.
So if you're having trouble with your WiFi, could be
your microwave. Coming up next, we are visiting Outer Edge LA.
This is an nftxpo. Rich on Tech Coming up next,
rich DeMuro here, rich on Tech, Welcome back to the show. Recently,
I went to Outer EDGELA, a festival that celebrates the

(55:46):
future of the Internet. We're talking Web three stuff like crypto, NFTs,
and the blockchain. First I talked to Outer Edge LA
co founder Josh Kreeger.

Speaker 10 (55:57):
We wanted to create an innovation vessel this celebrate all
the incredible converging technologies that are kind of coming together
in this special moment in time, and we just think
LA is the app center of so much creativity from
high technology to art, entertainment, music, fashion, comedy.

Speaker 11 (56:16):
It all happens here, and so we want to bring
all of.

Speaker 10 (56:18):
Those communities together and talk about where this is all
is going.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
And so, explain to me what's an NFT.

Speaker 11 (56:26):
Yeah, So the.

Speaker 10 (56:27):
Technical sort of definition, it's a non fungible token. But
I like to ask a couple of questions when someone
asked me that question, It's like, is there anything in
the world physically that you collect?

Speaker 9 (56:37):
Right?

Speaker 10 (56:38):
Is there any group that you're a member of? Usually
the answer for ninety percent of the world is yes. Essentially,
what we're doing is we're offering a digital sort of
sort of value right of some sort of IP or
some sort of ownership, digital ownership that's verifiable using blockchain
technology and smart contracts.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
How far have you come with this technology over the
past couple of years since we started hearing about it?

Speaker 10 (57:03):
Oh man, you know, there's a lot of analogies, like
one day in web three it might be like seven weeks,
or one month is like seven years.

Speaker 11 (57:12):
It's been an.

Speaker 10 (57:13):
Incredible rapid explosion of innovation, and it's come a long way,
but it's still the first inning.

Speaker 11 (57:18):
A lot of people are like well, where's all this going?
Was this a bubble? We don't really see it that way.

Speaker 10 (57:25):
We see it as sort of an experimentation phase over
the last year and a half and now it's about
real utility.

Speaker 11 (57:30):
The reason we're doing this event and calling it out.

Speaker 10 (57:32):
Of edge LA is to sort of talk about the
real use cases for brands, for membership groups, and for
society as a whole.

Speaker 11 (57:39):
And we just see that as the beginning.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Where do you see the interest lie with when Crypto's up,
cryptos down with NFTs.

Speaker 10 (57:46):
Well, what I would say is that there's just been
volatility in the markets globally, right, and so obviously smaller
markets have more volatility, and crypto is a smaller market
relatively speaking to the macroeconomy. At the same same time,
I see the interest has been more focused on sort
of the everyday use cases which we're talking about here.

(58:08):
So yes, like we've kind of gotten rid of a
layer of speculation in the market and that has made
the market relative, you know, I would say a little
bit smaller than it was, say a year ago, but
now it's growing again with people that are looking at
true utility.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Next, I met up with Nihar Nilakante who runs Ecosapiens.

Speaker 12 (58:27):
Ecosapiens is the world's first carbon backed NFT and it's
a digital piece. It's a piece of digital art that
offsets your entire years worth of carbon footprint and just
one click.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
How do you do that?

Speaker 12 (58:37):
We work with a carbon project developer in Kenya, so
we're actually working with a Kenyan soil carbon project. We
bring those credits on chain, right onto the blockchain ethereum,
and we disguise it as a piece of digital art
called Ecosapian.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
And how much does something like this cost me for
the year? About one thousand dollars And what's the impact?

Speaker 12 (58:56):
It's sixteen tons of carbon and more so, it's an
entire year's worth of carbon fort right all your flights,
you know, miles, et cetera. And it ends up planning
over eight hundred trees and just let first go. You know,
I come from a climate background, actually an in venture capital,
and when I was thinking about how climate changed to
be better addressed in society, a lot of it came

(59:16):
down to sort of tokenization of carbon credits and just
you know, using NFTs as a way to get people
to make an impact. And that was really the opportunity
for me is like maybe you could get people, Maybe
you could create a way for people to make an
impact on the planet if you disguise impact as you know.

Speaker 6 (59:32):
Art.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Sanjay Ragavon is with a startup called Roofstock. They're building
a system that lets you buy rental properties one online
via NFTs.

Speaker 13 (59:43):
About eighteen months back, we started a web three division
to make it faster, easier and more transparent to buy
and sell dental properties. And so our web three division
allows you to actually buy a real rental property in
the US using NFT technologies, and you can also get
alone on the blockchain, so and the whole process can
be done in a few minutes as opposed to the

(01:00:05):
several weeks it takes to buy a house in the US,
whereas here on the blockchain, you can instantaneously become a
property owner. And we've actually sold three of these so far.
This is on open Sea. We sold one last week.
This property is located in Georgia suburb of Atlanta, and
it's sold for two hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. But

(01:00:26):
it literally took minutes to close this property. And it's
a physical property, it's a real property. Yeah, what do
you think this means for the future of real estate? So,
you know, I kind of compare it to the world
where we used to hail a yellow cap to go
to the airport before and then lift an uber came
along and that changed everything. Ultimately, I think the convenience
of getting something faster, cheaper, and just a much more

(01:00:47):
pleasant experience for the buyer is going to make a
lot of difference. The fact that we've now done this
as a pilot, we've sold a few homes proofs that
it can be done in a legally compliant manner, and
we hope that this kind of technology catches on and
more and more people see the benefits are doing this
way in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Digital art is still a big use case for NFTs.
Nadia Tiger is with Snark dot r. They're selling NFT
art that changes over time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
With dynamic and FTS, it's a co creation process. You
as a collector, become a part of the final artwork.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
So why would someone want to own something like this?

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Why people want to own art? It's the same like
for what they did for thousands of years, people collected sculptures, paintings,
and now there is a digital era that we are
entering with such an interesting angle with blockchain technology. That's

(01:01:47):
still a niche, but we are still on the surface.
I believe of this what actually blockchain technology could provide
for art.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Finally, I talked to jack O Hollering of Scale Labs
about the ups and downs of all things digital. How's
the NFT market changed in the past year or so,
you know, I.

Speaker 11 (01:02:08):
Think it's really maturing.

Speaker 14 (01:02:10):
From the outside optically, it may look like it's shrunk
and that it's gotten smaller, but it's actually the real
growth is really coming forward. So the people here today
are real builders. They're building with real use cases for NFTs.
I think a year ago was more like what can
we turn into an NFT? And now it's what can
an NFT do? And so the utility and the core
functional value is the center focus at this event.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
And so what should the average person, what should they
know about this market?

Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:02:37):
I think I think the same rules apply. Look for value,
look for real use cases. And I think there are
a lot of NFTs that were quick money grabs, and
I say steer clear of those. But there are other
amazing NFT projects launching that don't even say that the
product is an NFT and they use the core values
of the tech. So my advice is look for those

(01:02:58):
types of applications, those types of use case. If you're
interested in NFTs, want to own NFTs or leverage them or.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Use them, And what is the core value of this technology?

Speaker 14 (01:03:06):
One is immutable ownership.

Speaker 11 (01:03:09):
So if you have an NFT, it's yours.

Speaker 14 (01:03:10):
The other from a user perspective, and you can get
gated entry, special access, special access in games or in
different online communities or in the real world at ticketing
and events, et cetera. But from a build or a
creator side, you can actually open up to a global
marketplace and capture royalties in an automated fashion. And so

(01:03:31):
I may create an NFT, you buy it, and you
sell it to someone else in an automated way. I'm
able to capture royalties without you needing to be at
my storefront. So it opens up economies and it smooths
out the economic principles in trading and essentially creating a
more effective and efficient market.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
So compared it to like a baseball card.

Speaker 14 (01:03:51):
Yeah, well, baseball cards are great. There's a huge secondary
market for baseball cards. There are NFTs that are like
baseball cards. But imagine if that same baseball card let
you buy season tickets before people who didn't have that card,
They can give you discounts when you came to the game,
you had discounts on merchandise for your favorite team if
you held that card. These are and if I wanted
to sell it, I didn't have to go talk to

(01:04:11):
the team, I could just sell it to you. And
the team is actually going to capture revenue during that
transfer and not try to mitigate me my ability to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Sell it or my ability to own it. So is
this exciting for the future of things?

Speaker 14 (01:04:25):
But my prediction is that we're going to see NFTs
living across all of the products we use, but we're
not going to call them NFTs.

Speaker 11 (01:04:32):
There are going to be new names for them.

Speaker 14 (01:04:33):
The value will come from the intrinsic value and the
utility value of the products, as opposed to the speculative
hype which we saw in this last wave for.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
The market cycle. To see my TV segment on Outer
Edge LA, go to rich on Tech dot TV more
rich On Tech after this, Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Rich to Mirror so here a tech reporter at KTLA

(01:05:01):
Channel five in Los Angeles hanging out with you talking technology.
By the way, if you want to watch my TV segments,
which I cover a variety of tech topics, you can
just go to Rich on tech dot tv. I've got
a cool YouTube playlist of all of the stories that
I do. It's all it runs the gamut, all kinds

(01:05:23):
of stuff. I mean that NFT expo you just heard
me at. I did a video piece there so you
can see, you know, bring that to life. What else
I've got all kinds of We interview a lot of people,
a lot of like a wide range from apps. Let's see.
I went to the Student Television Network conference, which is
just kind of fun for me. We talked about last

(01:05:44):
week the self heating baby bottle, home pod speaker review.
Got my lucid EV review, not really a review, it's
just more of like a look see on that one.
All kinds of good information anyway, All at richon tech
dot tv. Chris is in Miami, Chris, You're on.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
With Rich Hey Rich, good afternoon, stir.

Speaker 15 (01:06:06):
Thank you for having me on. We appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
Thank you so much. I love your radio show.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
By the way, well, thank you. That means a lot.
But what's it like in Miami right now because it
just finally stopped raining in uh Los Angeles.

Speaker 15 (01:06:16):
Yeah, I've been paying attention to the well KFI am
down there in LA as they were talking about the
snow recently and lots of rain and flooding and building
an arch and so you know, usually all the fun
stuff that you get up.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
On the radio down the well, it doesn't that's usually
not what happens here. When it rains here, everyone goes
nuts because it never rains and so we're just not prepared.
Like people don't even have like roofs out here in
Los Angeles because it's just all sunny. You don't need them.
So now I'm just kidding, but you know what I mean,
It's like we just don't even think about this stuff
until it rains. You're like, oh no, I got to

(01:06:51):
bring in the furniture outside like people live like anyway,
there's just it's indoor outdoor living here. Like people literally
have their backyards set up as like you know inside
like there's carpets and stuff because it doesn't rain that much. Anyway,
I digress. What's on your mind?

Speaker 4 (01:07:06):
Chris? Now?

Speaker 15 (01:07:08):
You know what I wanted to just drop into your
world for a few minutes, and getting on air was
very easy.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
It was a pleasant and really pleasant experience for me.

Speaker 15 (01:07:16):
But I just wanted to find out I certainly have
a WiFi right so I have the first generation Wi
Fi router, and I have.

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
All new cats, you know, iphons, iPad, Apple.

Speaker 15 (01:07:27):
Watches, Imax, etc. But looking at the Google Wi Fi routers,
they have the new one with the Wi Fi sixteen,
and then they had the one before that, which has
the potential for being good, but it's it's hiring cont
actually than their newer ones. But a lot of routers
on the market. Wanted to throw it at you, see
if you could toss me something back the ideas on

(01:07:48):
do I need to be using sixty right now? I'm
thinking planning for the future.

Speaker 4 (01:07:52):
That sounds like a good idea.

Speaker 7 (01:07:54):
In the interim, I.

Speaker 15 (01:07:55):
Don't know, So I figured i'd see what you have
to say about it and then don't have to.

Speaker 4 (01:07:58):
Keep me very long on the car. Just wanted to
ask a couple of questions.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
But all right, good, good question. This is definitely a
topic that a lot of people are curious about because
and I sort of talked about these mesh routers earlier
but they are very popular because it used to be
had one router in the center of your house. Your
cable company probably gave it to you, and it would
put the signal out and it basically never ever reached

(01:08:22):
all corners of your home, so there'd always be spots
in your home, dead spots where the Internet just didn't work.
And this company euro came along and came up with
a mesh Wi Fi router, which uses different access points
that you put in your home, so instead of one router,
you kind of have like three or four sometimes it's two,
maybe three if you have a bigger house, and then

(01:08:44):
those will work throughout the house and they all connect
together to make one solid, good signal. So you are
asking specifically about the Google routers, which now I think
it's like the Google Nest. It's let's see what do
they go by. Yeah, Google nets is what they call them.

Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
And so.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
I feel bad saying this because you know, I like Google.
I really love Google Next WiFi Pro that's what they
call them. I love Google, but when it comes to
their products. The problem with Google, Chris, is that Google
is all over the place, and I feel like they
do not put a lot of focus or attention into

(01:09:26):
things for very long. Not everything, but certain things. And
so my fear with going with this Nest Wi Fi
Pro is that you purchase it and then Google says, eh,
we're kind of over that, We're not going to support
that anymore. I feel like there's companies out there that
are a little bit more dedicated to this lineup than Google.

(01:09:47):
Google has a lot of stuff out there, and the
Wi Fi routers are just one, so I think you'll
be fine with them, and I've tested them. They work well,
they're nice, they look pretty good. I haven't speci tested
this latest version that you're talking about, the Wi Fi
Pro with six to E, but I personally use EUO
E ER. They sort of invented the genre, and they

(01:10:11):
are now owned by Amazon, which that's not my favorite.
But the good news is I don't think that Euro's
going away anytime soon, or that Amazon's going to lose
interest in them anytime soon, because it's it's a pretty
big business at this point, and it's a pretty viable
business and it's a pretty well known name. So I
personally would probably look at Euro first and foremost if

(01:10:33):
you have a problem with Amazon owning it. I mean
if you're going with Google, then I don't think you would.
But the cool thing about Eero too is that they
just have a lot of products and a lot of
these things work together. They work pretty well. The downside
is that they can be expensive, and these things are
not cheap. So if you look at the different euro
they do have a Wi Fi a six E, which

(01:10:57):
I don't necessarily think you need right now. But if
you're buying this system and wanting it to last for
the next couple of years, which generally we don't switch
out Wi Fi very often, so the sixty might be
a good way to go, but you're going to pay
a lot for that. I mean you're looking at a
three pack is four hundred and eleven dollars, a two
pack is three hundred. So the thing about these different

(01:11:17):
systems too, the higher you get, the more internet they
can handle. So if you're getting say a four hundred
megabit connection from your internet company, you probably don't need
these pro models. But if you're getting a gig and above,
that's when you want to get into these pro models
because they can they can handle that higher bandwidth. So
that's really the delineation there. Now, if you want something

(01:11:39):
that's that's much cheaper and a company that I like,
and I think they're doing a really good job. It's
called Villo Vlo and these are some folks that deflected
from other companies that used to build this stuff. And
you can look at their biography and their their company
history to see what I mean by that. But they've
got some smart people working at this company that I

(01:12:01):
think is doing a really good job, and it's a
lot less expensive. And I think the main thing that
may not be as slick with the Villo routers that
you would get with something like Ero or Google is
the software. And I think the software leaves a little
bit to be desired. But the functionality of the system
is actually really good, especially for how inexpensive it is.

(01:12:23):
So if you look at their Wi Fi six system,
it's one hundred and fifty five bucks for a two
pack and that's probably going to be pretty good. And
I've tested this one personally. It's very good. The speeds
are very good, it works really well, and so if
you want something that's a little bit cheaper, that might
be the way to go. If you want it really inexpensive,
you can just go with their original that's ninety nine

(01:12:45):
dollars for a three pack. So a three pack Villo
Mesh Wi Fi system ninety nine bucks and you're not
gonna have any dead zones in your house because I've
tested this personally and it works really well. It's fast,
it's efficient, and it does what you need. So Chris,
you're asking my opinion, that's how I would rank it.
I personally would go with Ero, then Villo, then Google.

(01:13:08):
And it's not that I don't love Google. I do
like what they do. I just feel like with their
software and hardware, or with their hardware specifically, you just
never know. You wake up one morning and Google says, oh,
we've discontinued our routers and that's it. Now, where's your support,
where's your service? All that stuff? So good question. That's
what I would do. All right, let's real quick talk

(01:13:29):
about Twitter. I know this is everyone's favorite topic. I
know two people right now that are actively victims of
being hacked on Twitter. So I don't know if that's
going around right now or if you know Twitter has gone.
It's almost like a rock tumbler right now, like Twitter
is just all over the place. But the thing you

(01:13:49):
need to know about Twitter is that two things. Number one,
you can't verify your account with a text message anymore.
You need to turn on two factor authentication if you
want to keep using Twitter. The only way you can
do it right now is by using an authentication app.
The apps I recommend our Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or

(01:14:09):
an app called auth the au thy. You sign up
with those programs and instead of getting a text message,
these programs will generate a code every thirty seconds or
something like that that you can enter into this app
to authorize that it's you trying to log in. If
you don't enter that code, the app will not let
you log in. You need to turn this on your

(01:14:30):
Twitter account two factor authentication right now before you get hacked, because,
believe me, these people are looking after these Twitter accounts
because they know there's a change right now, and they
know there's an opportunity to get in there. So please
turn it on. All right, pull line's open eighty to eight.
Rich one oh one, coming back after this. Welcome back

(01:14:53):
to Rich on Tech. My name is Rich Demiro, talking
technology with you. Uh, let's go to Susan in Lancaster, Susan.
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 8 (01:15:04):
Hi, Rich, I have a sister who is she's not
computer phobic, but she's basically a ludite and her computer
is dying. I wanted to find out if a Lenovo

(01:15:25):
what is it called the Lenovo? Uh, it's a chrome Book.

Speaker 9 (01:15:30):
Hang on, I'll get my thing right here.

Speaker 8 (01:15:32):
I'm driving, so of course nothing's working.

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
Yeah, it's the.

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
Five to one like.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Sorry, and so it's a it's a Lenovo Chromebook. Basically,
I don't want you to distract.

Speaker 8 (01:15:47):
From driving there by the idea flex five.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
One Okay, Uh, so and so, and you're getting this
as a gift for someone, Well.

Speaker 8 (01:15:58):
No, I'm I'm I'm helping her to get a new computer,
and I want to get her something that's really really
easy intuitive, and the speed and the capabilities aren't that important.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (01:16:14):
You know she goes online and she does email and
stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Okay, and this is you said this a Chromebook, right?

Speaker 6 (01:16:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that's the way to
go for someone who is not necessarily can computer savvy. Now,
don't get me wrong, Chromebooks are great. I mean there's
you can do pretty much ninety nine percent of what
we do on the computers these days is through a
web browser, and a chromebook is basically a glorified web browser.
And what's nice about it is that there's no viruses

(01:16:45):
to worry about. The software is super simple. It's it's
pretty much always up to date. Like there's no lengthy
software update installation kind of situations, you know, if there's
ever an update, it just pretty much puts a little
notification in the corner saying, hey, start your computer to
bring it up to date. And you say, okay, which
I think your friend can handle. The only thing I question,

(01:17:07):
do they need a computer or they be okay with
a lap a tablet like a like just like an iPad?
Or is that too complication?

Speaker 8 (01:17:15):
She has an iPad but manipulating stuff. I mean she
does sometimes write stuff. And I don't think the keyboards
on the tabs are all that great.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
No, I would agree with that. If you're if you're
if you want a keyboard and you want to type,
I think that the computer, like the laptop form factor
is still the best for that. Yeah, so I would
agree with that. I would agree with that. Now, how
did you land upon this specific Lenovo?

Speaker 8 (01:17:43):
Well, I was I was just and around looking at
different options, and I saw that you can get this
kind of thing for you know, under three around three
hundred dollars, Yeah, which is amazing. So rather than get
a whole computer, I thought, well, maybe that's the way.

Speaker 4 (01:18:02):
To go for that for that price.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Yeah, and again the chromebooks are are quite inexpensive. There
are some that are even cheaper than that. But I
would say to get a decent spect out system, you
probably want something that's you know, at least three hundred
maybe four hundred depends. But you said, it doesn't really
matter with the capabilities. As long as they can get
online and do their email and all that good stuff,

(01:18:25):
it's going to handle that. It's really when you try
to do things like you know, when it comes to
zoom and the video conferencing, that could be a little
bit slower. Okay, she's not no way, okay, so no,
no zoom. She's not doing you know, sixteen call, sixteen
person calls.

Speaker 8 (01:18:44):
No, she's not editing videos or anything like.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):
Okay, Yeah, then I think this will be just fine.
I think that, uh, you know, if you want to
see some recommended chromebooks. You know, I've been playing with
the Acer five fourteen. I really like that one. It
might be a little it's probably a little more expensive,
so maybe not. But acer is A is a well
known chromebook manufacturer. Lenovo definitely known for chromebooks as well.

(01:19:10):
Those are probably the two biggest brands that I would
recommend for those things.

Speaker 8 (01:19:14):
So great, Yeah, great, okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:19:19):
That was exactly what I needed to know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
All right, Susan, enjoy and uh, you know, give your
friends some lessons on uh, you know, get them on,
like you know, some of these different things that you do.
You sound like you're a little bit more savvy.

Speaker 4 (01:19:31):
So well, I've been on.

Speaker 8 (01:19:32):
I've been working with computers since the early eighties, so okay,
I could tell I had I had the first.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Oh wow, that's that's going back. That's the that's like
the Mac that was named after like Steve Steve, right,
isn't that like the old Mac computer?

Speaker 8 (01:19:50):
Yeah, it was the first. It's pre uh you know,
pre the uh the little one where you needed the disc.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Oh my gosh wow. Yeah, I mean I'm not going
back that old, but I remember like the floppy drive,
and I remember having like megabytes of information on a
floppy like I mean now, the fact that I just
downloaded yesterday an app to my phone. It was like
ninety megabytes on my phone and I'm like, this is
wild to think that this came to my phone in

(01:20:18):
about three seconds versus back in the day you'd run
your whole computer on a hard drive that was like
twenty megabytes and this little tiny flash drive that carried
you know, a couple of megabytes of data. So we've
come a long way in our in our lifetimes.

Speaker 8 (01:20:32):
Yeah, we sure had well. Back on with a baby Mac,
it literally had to take a disc in and out.
To run a program, you'd have to take take.

Speaker 4 (01:20:44):
The main disc out.

Speaker 8 (01:20:46):
Oh yeah, it's a new disc in and run it
from there.

Speaker 4 (01:20:49):
Was but it was so cute that you did.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
Well, we have certainly come a long way. It's it's
for the better or for the worse. Have you gotten
on TikTok or.

Speaker 9 (01:20:58):
Anything like that, because that's say, no, I'm not, I
stay off social media.

Speaker 8 (01:21:03):
Well I don't nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
You'd probably you'd probably get a kick out of Like
even if you went on YouTube and just kind of
search for that Lisa computer.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
It might.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
Yeah, I was gonna say that might bring back some memories.
Yeah right, all right, Susan, were you headed? You said
you're in the car. Where are you going?

Speaker 8 (01:21:22):
Yeah, I'm going down to Brentwood to an organizing client.

Speaker 9 (01:21:27):
I go and help her organize.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
Nice. I used to live in that area. Very nice. Okay, Well,
enjoy Enjoy the beauty of Brentwood, California.

Speaker 8 (01:21:37):
From Brentwood Golf Course.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
I used to run around that all the time. Enjoy. Yeah,
oh yeah, many many times.

Speaker 16 (01:21:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
All right, Susan, thanks so much for calling. Appreciate it.
And thanks for helping out your friend. That's uh, that's
a good friend. When you help them pick out a computer,
that's always always good. All Right, We've got more of
the show coming up. Phone lines are open triple eight
Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four two
for one zero one. I don't do a lot of
different activities, but I do run. That's my main thing.

(01:22:07):
So you will see me running pretty much all over
in any city I go to.

Speaker 6 (01:22:12):
It.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
It's the only thing you can do in any city
that you go to. You can just go out your hotel,
take a run, and you know you don't need to
have any equipment. It's awesome. All right. My name is
Rich Debiro more rich on tech coming up after this.
Welcome back to Rich on tech rich on tech dot
TV is my website eight eight eight rich one oh

(01:22:35):
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Man, we got a lot of calls. Should
I take some calls? Or should I do a story?
I feel like I need to do this. Let's see,
let's do the story. Uh. Verizon free trial. This is
brand new. If you want to try Verizon, if you've

(01:22:55):
been wondering is Verizon right for me? You can try
thirty days of service for free, and you can sign
up right from your phone. I would say it's simple,
but I tried to do it for my phone and
my phone got stuck, so I wasn't able to actually
get this to work. But I'm telling you because it
will probably work on your phone. I got to try

(01:23:16):
this again. But if you have an unlocked mobile phone
that means that you've paid off your phone, or you
have an unlocked phone to begin with, you can sign
up by downloading the my Verizon app. And once you
download the app, right on the home screen, it will say, hey,
you want to try a free trial if it recognizes
that your phone is capable. And this uses what's called

(01:23:36):
an eSIM, and eSIM is the whole new thing that
everyone's using now. It's a simcard that is virtual, it's
in your phone. You don't need one of those little
kind of cards anymore on your phone that you plug
in or pop in. I guess I should say everyone's
going into these eSIMs. So you can literally activate your
phone right from the app. It will give you thirty

(01:23:57):
days of Verizon five G service, unlimited talking text, up
to one hundred gigs of four G or five G data,
and either four EIGHTYP streaming on four G or four
K streaming if you have five GUW, which not every
phone supports, but if it does, it'll pick that up

(01:24:17):
and you'll get four K video at any time during
your thirty day free trial. You can easily transfer your
existing number to Verizon and pick from one of their plans.
But this this is new. So this is kind of
like a new trend we're seeing with all of these
wireless networks because they're all using e sims. It's very
easy for them to offer a free trial, and so

(01:24:38):
you can sign up either online or right from your phone.
And I think I know that T Mobile does it.
I know that Verizon does it. I'm not sure if
AT and T does it, but a lot of the
MV and o's do it as well. So you can
get a free trial test run right from your phone.
And I've done this on a couple of them. One
of them is US Mobile. I signed up for that
one and as signed up, it took me like minute

(01:25:00):
and I you know, your phone is activated instantly. So
again I put links to everything I mentioned. I'm doing
a really good job now of doing the links to
everything I mentioned on the website rich on tech dot TV.
Once the podcast is published of the show, it'll have
everything you need in the show notes, so look for that.
All right, Let's go to Gloria in the Sand Fernando Valley,

(01:25:25):
where it's always Sonny except for the past couple weeks.
How you doing, Gloria?

Speaker 5 (01:25:31):
Okay, thanks for calling in.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
What's what's on your mind?

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):
I need a new phone. This one keeps fading in
and out when I talk to people. And not only that,
it takes terrible pictures. It's a Moto G It really
is terrible. And there's another question.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
The two questions, what is this the two for one show?
That's what's the other question? I have an answer for
the first one, so that's pretty easy. But go ahead.
What's your second question?

Speaker 5 (01:26:04):
Then I go on site and I'm putting in like
frankstance just now when you suggested that aufie, I tried
to do that and I gave it my g le
me see Yahoo account and it said no, it didn't
accept it. And I thought, I'm new to you. How

(01:26:26):
do you know I have another account? And so they
seem to always know I have a Gmail account and
they pretty much want the Gmail account instead of the
Yahoo account.

Speaker 4 (01:26:39):
Number.

Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
Well, that makes sense because Gmail's superior to Yahoo. Male,
so I get that. Uh, maybe they're just trying to
say this is more secure. But let's get your first
question first. The phone. So you've got a Moto G.
I think you would be better served with a Pixel
six A. Have you heard of this phone? The Pixel?

Speaker 4 (01:26:58):
The pixel?

Speaker 5 (01:26:59):
Okay, I had a Pixel a while back and it
did take.

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
Really good Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
Sure, it takes fantastic pictures. This is the phone that
I trust with my own mom, So if it's good
enough for her, I think that I can recommend this
to pretty much anyone. The Pixel six A is uh
is three hundred dollars. Here's the thing, though, they are
actually coming out with a new version of this, the
Pixel seven A, which we believe is going to be

(01:27:25):
announced in May. So if you can wait a couple months,
you can get the latest, greatest version. But if you
don't want to wait, I still think the six A
is a fantastic phone. So the only downside i'd say
is probably the fingerprint sensor could be a little bit better,
and so maybe they fixed that with the new one.
But I think you'd be fine with this six A.

(01:27:46):
That's the only complaint my mom has is the uh
is the fingerprint sensor, okay?

Speaker 5 (01:27:51):
Because I also the audio when I'm listening to things
the on news terrible on this motto, I see it
I'm going death.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
And my doctor said, well, that's good that doc says
you're not. Because you know, sometimes we wonder like is
it me or is it this phone?

Speaker 4 (01:28:12):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
Sometimes with the phones, with the way they're the little
ear pieces, it could be it's not lining up properly
with our ear sometimes and it does sound like it's
you know, if you're not right on your ear in
the perfect place, that can happen. But I would say overall,
the Moto G is probably not the best phone out there.
So even at three hundred dollars for this Pixel six A,

(01:28:34):
I think you're gonna have a much much better experience, Gloria,
because not only are gonna get the better pictures, you're
gonna get better software. You're gonna get I think the
audio on this phone will be fine, and I think
that you're just gonna like the experience so much better.
And it's.

Speaker 5 (01:28:51):
Like you've talked about, I can wait.

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Yeah, I mean, if you can wait for the seven A.
The problem is the seven A is going to be
more expensive because it's brand new. So this, you know,
six A, I think is a pretty good deal. At
two ninety nine, I think that's pretty much the best
price I've seen on that phone.

Speaker 4 (01:29:06):
That's a good price.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
You're right, Yeah, how long have you had this Moto
G A little.

Speaker 5 (01:29:13):
Over a year? Too long? I kept taking it back
and they kept saying that it's okay, everything is fine.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
No, this thing's a limit, and what what's your carrier?

Speaker 5 (01:29:26):
And it didn't matter the carrier because it's changed a
couple of times. I went in the Horizon uh to
and I when I changed phones, the Verizon refused to
let me keep my phone numbers, so I wound up
going to what was it tea Mobile and Team Mobile

(01:29:47):
was able to get my phone number keep it and
so I stayed with them for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
And all right, Gloria, I got to run. They're they're
playing playing me off right now. So check out the
Pixel six A. It'll work with whatever carrier you have
because it is unlocked. Coming up, we are going to
talk to Adobe about shopping insights how you are shopping
online and in store with Adobe analytics. Coming up right

(01:30:14):
here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Rich Demiro here. My guest is Vivic Pandea. He is
the insights analyst at Adobe. Vivic, thanks for joining.

Speaker 16 (01:30:26):
Me, great, thanks for having me Rich.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
So, I love the findings that Adobe always comes up
with with their insights. A lot of it is dealing with,
you know, Black Friday and the shopping seasons, but throughout
the year you come out with stuff, and recently you
have now looked into sort of buy now, pay later usage.
Tell me what's going on with that because this is
something you see on almost every website now.

Speaker 16 (01:30:51):
Cour So, given the inflation effects that are sort of
permeating through the markets and the landscape, the consumers are
dealing with. We're seeing them continue to drive growth in
Buy Now, Pay Later, so its order share is up
fourteen percent year over year, and we're seeing how that
looks across some of the major categories that run across

(01:31:12):
e commerce, so grocery, apparel, electronics, home furniture. I would
say grocery has been a category that's seen a lot
of inflation, and as a result, we're seeing buy now,
Pay later utilization up forty percent for order share for
those types of buy now, pay later orders, So that's
pretty significant, and it's speaking to consumers trying to stretch

(01:31:36):
their budget, drive the sort of purchases and behaviors that
got entrenched during those pandemic years, those early pandemic years,
and now they're trying to see how online can help
them save money, help them make payments easier.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
Interesting and it looks like two of the biggest growth
areas are home furnishings and also grocery, which is interesting
because traditionally you would not think about buying home furnishings online,
you know, that's something you'd go into a store for.
And then of course groceries throughout the pandemic that really
increased so we saw over ten percent increase year over
year in both those categories, which is ironic given that

(01:32:16):
I shop online for groceries and I was looking at
couches the other day as well. Are you saying that
people are using this buy now, pay later to shop
in those categories or just in general.

Speaker 16 (01:32:28):
Both we're seeing, you know, the shift given inflation from
non essentials to essential categories and necessities that consumers need,
and home furniture kind of sits on the cusp of that.
There are some items that are nice to have for
the home, others that feel more like necessities, and in
order to make your home comfortable, you really need those goods.

(01:32:50):
And home furniture, like grocery, saw the seal broken through
the pandemic where consumers found, oh wow, that's actually not
too bad buying these goods online, buying a seven hundred
dollars couch, you know, maybe a couple of thousand dollars
across different types of items, and the ease of getting
those goods directly to your home has improved. We're seeing

(01:33:15):
consumers understand that the sort of mail delivery systems that
got very stressed during those months of the pandemic, those
intense months of the pandemic has eased the supply chains
of ease, so that's helping consumers think more in terms
of ease and efficiency to get these goods across these
major categories.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
Now, another insight is that mobile shopping is expected to
overtake desktop shopping in twenty twenty three. That is a
huge shift.

Speaker 16 (01:33:46):
Absolutely, It's it's not news that people are using smartphones
to buy goods, but what we have found to be
a really important threshold is when the smartphone would become
the dominant shopping and they would see the bulk of
their dollars being spent through that phone. And what we're

(01:34:07):
finding is retailers are understanding that they have to really
prioritize the mobile experiences that they're serving consumers, making sure
that the websites and the apps that they're selling products
on are providing the best output for consumers. Given that's
how they're growing markets into these different audiences and where

(01:34:30):
there's momentum in terms of consumers finding them.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
It's been such a shift, even for me personally, because
it used to be if you really wanted to do
serious shopping, you would go to your desktop, and now
I feel like with some of these websites, it's easier
to shop on the phone and even through the apps.
For instance, buying a plane ticket. I've noticed that sometimes
it's easier to buy from your phone because you can

(01:34:54):
use your Apple Pay from your phone on the mobile
app versus on the desktop where you're typing everything.

Speaker 16 (01:34:59):
In the use case you're describing there is exactly what
retailers and travel facilitators have been hoping for, which is
given that we have more and more mobile first thinking
amongst consumers that they're spending a lot of time on
social media across these apps, that the idea that they

(01:35:21):
can bring the large swaths of audiences from those sources
to their e commerce properties. It has been a real
focus and making it easier can really drive growth for them.
Given where consumers are right now, where they expect a
lot of ease and efficiency in buying these goods and

(01:35:41):
having it available for them.

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):
It's all about having that stored payment method that really
makes a huge difference on a lot of mobile shopping.
If you have to start typing stuff in, you're just
like I never mind. Okay. One of the places that
is actually a challenge though, is mobile for smaller retailers,
and I can understand this for something like a local
business that may not have a strong presence on mobile,

(01:36:06):
and you're saying that that is actually hurting them.

Speaker 16 (01:36:09):
It's really paramount that their mobile experience and mobile site
it's properties be ready for this traffic and be ready
to convert effectively that consumers don't get frustrated on these
sites and then say Okay, well I'm going to go
shop somewhere else where. This is much easier. So really,
we saw a lot of larger retailers invest in this

(01:36:31):
over the years. We're hoping to see smaller retailers try
to pick up the momentum in terms of being able
to compete on these types of devices, because it's more important.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
Now than ever now. During the pandemic, it was all
about picking up at the store and really getting things
shipped to your home. But if you couldn't do that,
you'd go and you'd do that curb side pickup. I've
seen Target has invested very heavily and sort of the
curb side pickup situation. But I'm looking at your stature.
It says in twenty twenty one, twenty three percent of

(01:37:03):
online orders use the curb side, then nineteen percent in
twenty twenty two, and now in the first two months
of twenty twenty three it's down to seventeen percent. So
what's happening with curb side pickup?

Speaker 16 (01:37:17):
So it's really a great question that we get to
answer through what we're seeing in the categories. When we
think about something like grocery, that's still a category that's
seeing click, click and collect by online pickup and store
momentum because consumers need these goods, they want to get
them efficiently avoid shipping costs, so we're still seeing growth there. However,

(01:37:40):
things like electronics, apparel, these categories are seeing growth come
down for them overall, and consumers are more aware that
the delivery systems are, you know, moving at a decent
pace now, so the urgency around getting some of these
goods has sort of slowed down and they're opting in

(01:38:01):
for a sort of efficient habit straight to my door
mode of fulfillment for some of these goods as well.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
Finally, just explain to me how does Adobe get this information.
I'm always curious how Adobe Analytics gets these insights.

Speaker 16 (01:38:17):
Great question, So when we think about our data set
that we analyze through Adobe Analytics, it's what we call
our aggregated opt in data set. It's anonymized, and retailers
opt in to allow us to analyze this data set
at this sort of ten thousand foot level because we're
able to provide them a lot of value in terms

(01:38:37):
of what we're seeing in terms of broader trends, and
we provide them sort of reporting on how they're performing
relative to their industry.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
Vivic, thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 16 (01:38:47):
Thanks very much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Rich all right, Vivic PANDEA insights analyst at Adobe. You
can learn more at Adobe dot com. My name is
Rich Dumiro. Will have more rich on Tech right after this.
Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich on Tech dot
tv is where you can find me online. Let's go

(01:39:11):
to Arthur in Orange County. Arthur, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 6 (01:39:14):
Hey, how you doing, man, I'm doing listen to you
on the mornings and Saturday when I'm ubering shown.

Speaker 1 (01:39:24):
Does it make your Does it make your ubering go
any faster?

Speaker 6 (01:39:27):
Actually?

Speaker 4 (01:39:28):
It done?

Speaker 6 (01:39:28):
Man makes an iggle back. It's a little bit quicker.

Speaker 4 (01:39:31):
All right.

Speaker 6 (01:39:31):
I got a problem, bro Oh yeah, my laptop is
needing a bit locker needs a key of code. I
I don't know what to do other than just shut
the thing down.

Speaker 9 (01:39:51):
Maybe I should take it in.

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
I mean, what what what kind of laptop? So it
needs a okay, so BitLocker this is It sounds like
this is some sort of security program for your computer,
encryption program? Did you enable this at some point?

Speaker 8 (01:40:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
I don't remember, right, that's the thing. This is like
something that that you probably don't remember doing, right, That's
what it sounds like. Right. What kind of computer is this?

Speaker 4 (01:40:22):
HP?

Speaker 1 (01:40:22):
Okay? And so you turn it on and it says.

Speaker 6 (01:40:25):
What It just tells me where to go the start menu,
and you know, it just gives me directions on what
to do. But when I tried to control all the
lead or something like that, it won't take me out.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
Okay, So it's basically locked. The computer is locked up
unless you put this code in there, yes, okay, And
I don't know what the code is. I don't know, Okay,
So I think what what's happening here is that when
this computer was set up? How long have you had
this computer?

Speaker 6 (01:40:59):
Six months?

Speaker 4 (01:41:00):
Oh? That's it? Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
Oh? No, hmm okay. Interesting. I mean, I'm I'm familiar
with the idea of it. So I think that typically
these are you know, this is a security program that's
on computers, and it's an encryption mechanism. So typically and

(01:41:25):
if it's asking for a key, that key is the
is the key that unlocks the encryption. So you can't
do anything without it. So if you don't have that key,
you kind of have a problem. But I think what
you can do now, do you have a lot of
stuff you need to save on here?

Speaker 6 (01:41:42):
I have some writings and stuff and I was sending
out your reader's digests and I was online said that's
some of this stuff just isn't going to be saved.

Speaker 1 (01:41:54):
Okay, Rich, I didn't back it up. Okay, Well here's
the thing. Number one. Obviously, I always recommend backing up everything,
putting you know, if it went in doubt. Try to
use the cloud for different things. I'm looking online here
and it looks do you have a Microsoft account?

Speaker 4 (01:42:10):
You have to do?

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
Okay, So it looks like you may be able to
get this recovery key by signing into your Microsoft account.
Oh okay, So if you have a different device, maybe
even your your phone, if you can sign into your
Microsoft account and go on there and look for your
recovery key. It might be located inside your account settings.

(01:42:34):
So I can't go into my account right now because
I can't really you know, navigate to all those places.
But I think that that is the first place to look.
Now if you can't do that, like if you if
you don't find it there, you know, you may have
to just refresh this whole computer, which means start from scratch,
and you may need if you don't know how to
do that yourself, you may have to enlist the help

(01:42:55):
of someone to format this thing and to start over,
which I know is not the answer you want. But
I think you know what I think, Chris Arthur. I
think you're gonna find this in your Microsoft account. I've
hoped that it's there because the fact that you have
a Microsoft account, the fact that you this computer is

(01:43:16):
six months old, I feel like you're gonna find it
in there. And I'm trying to look in mind to
see if I have I don't have this enabled on
any of my computers that I know of, so I
don't think i'd have a bit key in mind, But
I think that that's that's where you should look. So
let's see security trying to see if there's any sort
of digital security options in here, but that's where I go.

(01:43:40):
So just go to like account dot Microsoft dot com,
sign in, and then look under your account settings and
just see, like under security if it's in there, and
let's let's hope that it is, and that way you
can put that key in there. It's a forty eight
digit code. It looks like so not something you'd remember
off the top of your head.

Speaker 6 (01:44:00):
You give up to a good start man, Thank you,
and again I enjoyed the program.

Speaker 1 (01:44:04):
All right, well, thanks and thanks for driving us around.
You want to tell us a fun Uber story or no,
do you have one? That's uh lucky, I don't have one.

Speaker 6 (01:44:14):
I like that poor gentleman yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:44:16):
That's good.

Speaker 6 (01:44:18):
Yeah, I'm a guy who just doesn't have stories.

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
All right, Well, that's good, that's good. I was the
guy who, by the way, said that the option have
an option for talking or not talking, because sometimes I
get into the uber and I want to talk and
I'm chit chatty right, And other times I'm just tired,
I'm dead from the day and I'm just like, please
don't talk. So now the Uber app has that option.
So do you ever see that? Do people ever say,

(01:44:40):
don't talk to me.

Speaker 8 (01:44:42):
No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
Interesting. Well maybe it just asks me and it never
tells you.

Speaker 6 (01:44:48):
Well, I'm sure you know, when you're you get in
the car, people recognize you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
You know, it's funny, you'd be surprised. There's always that
thing where they look in the roofy mirror and they're like,
are you that guy? It's it happens, believe me. And
I'm just like always kind of waiting for it. But
you know, it's it's always fine. I mean, look, it's
you know, I'm on TV. It's it's something that comes
to the territory. All right, Arthur, thanks for keeping folks
safe out there on the roads of southern California. I

(01:45:14):
really appreciate it. And good luck with this computer. I
hope you figure this out because I'd rather have you
recover this than not. Okay, we're going to get to
the feedback section in just a second before we close
out the show. But first I want to tell you
about this because we've talked about AI so much, Producer Aaron,
I think you'd actually like this. This is a new
tool that lets you that helps you write your wedding

(01:45:36):
vows with AI. So this is a website with joy
dot com slash writer's block, and you go to this
website and it says help me with my wedding toast speech,
my love story for my wedding website, registry, gift suggestions,
wedding vows, a thank you note, or a polite decline
to an invitation, and you type in some of the

(01:45:59):
things that says you can given by whoever you are sibling,
best man, mother, father, whatever, highlighting a story and you
can type in a couple of stories that you have
with this person. And then you can say in the
style of a friend, haiku, a romantic Shakespeare, a therapist,
a pirate, a pessimistic x, a TikToker, or an astrologist,

(01:46:22):
and you click inspire me, and it will literally write
your entire wedding speech. Now you're gonna have to go
through this and you know, fact check because it does
take some liberties with the story. But it's pretty good.
I tried this yesterday. It's your first draft. So if
you need to write a toast for someone, check it
out with joy dot com slash writer's block. Just one

(01:46:43):
of the examples of how AI is changing our world.
I remember my brother's speech for me, he might have
had a couple of You know, I think a lot
of people get that liquid courage when they do these toasts,
and sometimes it turns out good, sometimes not so much.
Aaron says he's done three, So yeah, it's an art form.

(01:47:06):
All right. Let's get to the feedback segment. Before we
got to go here, let's see Richard says, HP Instant
Ink scam. Hey, good morning. I went to cancel HP
Instant Inc. And I saw a message that HP would
render my already purchased and installed ink cartridge inoperable if
I canceled the subscription, then I need to go buy
one at a store to use my printer. The one

(01:47:27):
in the printer is still full. Is this real? It
makes me so angry. Yes, it is real. I had
the same exact thing happen. I went to go cancel
my HP Instant Inc. Because I was printing out so
much stuff, and I realized, oh, I got to pay
two hundred dollars to buy new cartridges. I guess I'll
just stick with the HP Instant Inc. So I up
my subscription and now I'm paying thirteen dollars a month

(01:47:49):
to print. Now I do a lot of printing for
this show, so it makes sense for me. But I
was surprised just as much as you were, Richard. But yes,
it's legit. The ink cartridges in your printer are rendered
obsolete when that happens. Can you believe that? So weird?
So I literally just had to look at the pricing
and I was like, eh, once I added up all

(01:48:10):
the different colors and all the blacking cartridge, Nah, it
added up to way too much. All right, that's gonna
do it. For this episode of the show coming up
next week, I'm taking a test drive in the Hyundai
Ionic six EV, so i'll tell you about that. It's
been such a ride, in the words of Arthur, what
a fun, fun ride. Today. You can find me on

(01:48:32):
social media at rich on tech. The website is richon
tech dot TV. Don't forget to check out my TV segments.
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. I'll talk to you real soon.

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012 Rich on Tech Radio Show - March 25, 2023

Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

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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;}012 Rich on Tech Radio Show - March 25, 2023