017 Rich on Tech Radio Show - April 29, 2023 - Rich On Tech

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Amazon discontinues its activity trackers, a new tablet to rival
the iPad. Hackers are breaking into AT and T email accounts.
Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on. I'm Rich
Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the show where
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should

(00:21):
know about. It's also the place where I answer your
questions about technology. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel
five in Los Angeles. Welcome to show number seventeen. That's right,
seventeen shows so far feels like I don't know what
it feels like.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Actually it feels about right. Seventeen.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Phone lines are open at triple eight Rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Give me a call. If you have a
question about technology, email is also open. Send it to
hello at richon tech dot TV. So show number seventeen

(01:06):
means that we are still getting to know each other.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
This is a new show. It's a new format. It's
got some familiar familiarity. Familiar, it's a little bit familiar,
but it's also new, and so I hope you are
enjoying it the way that we are going to get,
you know, more people to know about the show is
really to share the fact that you are listening to
this show. So if you like what you're hearing, if

(01:30):
you like the show, please tell a friend. That's really
the best way to grow this show and to grow
this program. So thank you for all the support that
I've gotten so far. Believe me, it's been amazing. But
we can always have more. Of course, So what a
week it's been. I don't say that very often, because
most weeks are just fine, but this week my son

(01:51):
happened to Well, let me tell you the story. I'm
driving driving home. I just went to an event, and
I get that dreaded phone call, you know, the one
that comes from the phone number that says your kid's
school on it. And you're like, oh, no, is this
an automated phone call or is this an actual phone call?
And so I pick up the phone, and of course,

(02:12):
the one time I need a phone call to work,
when your kid's school is working or calling, it doesn't work.
For some reason, the bluetooth was not connected in my car,
the volume was not up, whatever it was, I could
not hear the person on the other end, and so
it went from super loud music that I was listening
to to nothing, and so of course I'm fumbling with
the phone. Not really supposed to be touching your phone

(02:34):
while you're driving, but it's my kid's school, so I'm fumbling,
and I go from the Bluetooth connection to speakerphone or
I actually don't remember. At this point, I think I
might have put them on speakerphone. And of course it's
like the front office, not an emergency. But your kid
might have broken their arm. How is that not an emergency?
So it felt like an emergency, and I'm like, okay,

(02:55):
what's the deal. And so the front office is like, well,
I've seen a lot of broken arms. It doesn't seem broken.
But on the flip side, your kid never complains, and
he's been complaining a lot. He fell, And I said, okay,
let me go over there.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Luckily, I work early in the morning on TV, and
so about you know, two o'clock, I am done, and
so I have the ability to drive over to the school.
So I drive over to the school. I find my kid,
of course, in the main office, with his arm. He
can't move it and he's holding it together pretty well.
But long story short, he tells me, Dad, I think

(03:31):
this is broken. So we go to the you know,
emergency room whatever, not er, but like one of those
like urgent care places. Now they call themselves urgent care,
but the care was anything but urgent. I mean I
get in there, it's like my kid is at this
point whaling, and it's like, okay, insurance and paperwork please.
I'm like, I've been here, can we please just look
up his name and get him in there. We got

(03:54):
to go through the motions of fill out this paperwork
and I'm like, really, so I fill out the paperwork,
can't find him in the system. I know he's in there.
Sure enough, they find him and then it's okay, it'll
be a couple of minutes. At this point, my kid
is really wailing. And if you've had a kid with
the you know, the broken arm situation, which my kid
has had it twice.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Now this is the second time.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
It's bad, you know you want immediate results, and as
a parent, you feel helpless. There are a lot of
things I can do in this world, fixing a broken
arm is not one of them. So I'm at the
mercy of this little emergency care center which has nobody
in it, but for some reason, it's still taking a
really long time. We get into the room, they're taking
his temperature, all this stuff. I mean, I guess they

(04:35):
got to do the vitals. But if you've been in
this situation, you know that it just feels really bad.
You're just sitting there helpless, your kid is crying. It's
not fun. Long story short, We go through the whole situation.
They take an X ray, they say it's broken. It's
his wrist actually, and we get them wrapped up and
they say, okay, now take them to the you know,

(04:56):
the main expert person next week. And so of course
my wife by this time gets here and she's like,
oh no, it's like we're doing this right now. So
she goes takes the kid right to the orthopedic surgeon
and figures out. I mean, she is much better at
this stuff than I am. She had him in a
cast within the next two hours, more X rays cast apparently,

(05:18):
by the way, they do waterproof casts now, which I
have never seen before, and they swear you can get
it wet, take it in the shower, take it swimming.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
I still don't believe it. I've been covering it up.
But anyway, I.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Tell you this story because this is what I love
about technology. When it's supposed to work, it may not.
And I call it the it has to be easy
for everyone else principle. I know, if you're a nerd
like me, you can set up all this stuff in
your house, right, the smart home stuff, the sensor that
works when you walk into the certain room, the lights
come on, and you know what to do when it

(05:51):
goes wrong. You have the remote setup for your TV
and your surround sound and your system, and it's super complex,
and you're playing stuff off server, and you've got the
lights that automate, and you've got the movies that you
can take off of plex whatever. None of that matters
if you are living with someone else that doesn't know
how to do that stuff. So I call it the

(06:14):
system has to work for everyone else in the home.
And this is kind of like my overriding tech forever now.
When I set stuff up, it has to work for everyone,
not just for me. And so I'm sure you've experienced
this in your life where you need technology in your
home to work for everyone. And when technology works for everyone,

(06:35):
that's when it's magical. In my car, it did not
work that day, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't
work any other day of the year, but when I
get into my car and I have an emergency situation
like that, it needs to work. And my wife always
gives me a hard time because she likes her like
standard kind of radio that works just when she turns
on her.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Car and I get it and in my car.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
For many years I had like these systems and you
plug in the iPod and this and that. It was
all too complicated for her. So it's just kind of
one of these things where I feel like my world
has always been make it easy that remote control. Like
if you have to tell the person that stays in
your home, like how to use the remote for your TV,
that's a problem if you have to, Like for many years,

(07:17):
I use Google Voice for my phone line, and it
was so complicated. Nine times out of ten you would
get voicemail because it just didn't work. It didn't ring
the phone. I happen to be testing at that time.
And so long story short, just make sure when you
set up your technology it works for someone else, whether
that's your smart home, your automations, your alarm system, your speakers,

(07:38):
your TV, your streaming setup, whatever it is, make.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
It easy Okay, what else?

Speaker 1 (07:44):
This week was also interesting because I did my first
virtual wine tasting. Now I know that Zoom has made
everything happen online, and especially through the pandemic, we realize
that we can do ninety nine percent of our jobs
through Zoom, email and texting. And for some reason, I
really fought that for a long time and then I've

(08:06):
sort of embraced it. So now for some of my
TV segments, I will do Zoom interviews, which I never
did before. We used to always have to meet the
people in person to do the interview. Now I'm like,
all right, fine, I'll do a Zoom interview. It doesn't
look as good, doesn't sound as good, but people have
come to expect it, so I'll do it. But this
week I did a virtual wine tasting eleven am on
a Friday.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
That's when this wine tasting was. Was it random? Yes?
Was it kind of fun?

Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:32):
So it was this, I guess this California Green Metal,
the California Wine Institute. They were excited about these sustainable
wineries and so they wanted to teach us and have
us taste some of the wines from these sustainable wineries.
And what does sustainable mean? Well, it's kind of a
holistic approach to wine. So not only are you doing

(08:52):
things like renewable energy and putting goats to you know,
eat the grass on the fields and you know, eat
weeds and all that kind of stuf, and use spiders
to like clean the.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Pesta instead of pesticides.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
It's also about a holistic approach to the way you
treat your employees, the way you do charity, all that
kind of stuff. So we tasted a couple of wines.
I'll be honest, I tasted maybe two of the wines
they sent us, I think four, and they were excellent.
But eleven am on a Friday, I mean, I had
my whole day ahead. I couldn't really, you know, sit
there and drink all these wines. But it was a
lot of fun and you'll learn. So now I want

(09:29):
to go to these California wineries and do a story
about sustainability, whether they're installing solar, whether they're capturing the
runoff water from the rains. One of the wineries had
produced one hundred and two percent of their energy for
the year, so that means they were making all the
energy they needed to run their winery, and more so,

(09:49):
I was pretty impressed with that. So it was a
lot of fun. If you come across a virtual wine tasting,
which by the way, we did many with friends and family.
Over the pandemic, we definitely had our fair share of
those kind of events, but you know, being in person.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Is much more fun. So but it was kind of cool.
All right.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Coming up on today's show, I've got a lot of stuff.
We've got lots to talk about, lots of great guests.
First off, I'm gonna tell you about Amazon discontinuing discontinuing
one of its smart devices. Amazon and Google, they are
neck and neck with these companies that just make stuff
to break stuff. They have a product or a service
and then they say, you know what, never mind, We're
not going to do that anymore. So I'm gonna tell

(10:30):
you which product that Amazon is now discontinuing and when
it's gonna stop working, and how you can download all
of your data from it. I've got great guests this week.
Dwight Silverman. He is a tech columnist at the Houston
Houston Chronicle. He is going to join me to talk
about the new one plus pad. This is a tablet.
Could it rival the iPad? Then Scott Keyes is going

(10:52):
to join me. He is founder and CEO of Going
dot com. He's gonna tell us how you can nab
incredible travel deals later wire cut or if your Lauren
Dragon is going to tell us about all of her
picks for the best headphones. But first it is your turn.
Phone lines are open at Triple eight rich one on one.
Give me a call, we'll talk technology. My name is Richdmiro.
You are listening to Rich on tech. Welcome back to

(11:18):
Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you
at triple eight rich one on one. That's eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one. Kelly
in California, you're.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
On with Rich.

Speaker 5 (11:34):
Thank you so much for taking my call.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Rich.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
Sure, what's up I have? I think my email's been hacked.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
It's at and t oh I got to talk about
that that's happening.

Speaker 5 (11:47):
Okay, So two weeks ago I stopped getting email and
I cannot send email. And I've done everything they've asked
me to do. I called them immediately and they said
they tried everything to reset my password, couldn't do it.
So then they said my email was stuck in a loop.

(12:09):
So they asked me to fill out a form at
this my email info dot com and somebody would call
me back in forty eight to seventy two hours.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
So I filled out the form.

Speaker 5 (12:18):
Never got a call, so I called them back again.
They said, we're so sorry, somebody will call you back
in twenty four hours. Never got a call. I went
back on to that same at and T email info website,
filled out another form, no call, So I called back
and then they said, well, we will send you a

(12:38):
postcard a postcard. Yeah, I'll send you a postcard and
three to five business days with instructions on how to
reset your password. So it's been seven business days and
I still have no postcard. So they're just giving me
the run around. They're just you know, service, They're not

(13:01):
going to call me or send me anything.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
So now I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
All right, Well, number one is this email address you're
only is it your most important or is it just
one that you're trying to get access into.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
It is my very most important. I do have a Gmail,
but I've only used it for one thing that I
had to you know, I had to have a backup
email for to open an account for something like three
years ago, and I've never used it for anything.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Okay, So a couple of things here. Number one, let's
switch to this Gmail account as soon as you can.
I know that this this AT and T Yahoo whatever
it is. You know, they've gone through so many different iterations.
I've heard about more issues with these branded accounts than anything.
And I'm not just singling out AT and T. I'm

(13:52):
talking any account that comes from your provider. So if
you have you know your email is coming from your
internet service, right. The problem is twofold, number one. It's
linked to that service. So how do you get this
AT and T email? Where did it come from?

Speaker 5 (14:08):
It is for my internet?

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, okay, So if you ever stop paying for that service,
does it go away or how does that work?

Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (14:16):
That's my question too. So I wanted to go into
my AT and T account so that I can pay
my bill. I can't even get into that account.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, okay, this is okay. So number one, my advice
to you. You've gone through all of the account recovery
systems that they have asked you to do. I would
get on the phone with AT and T and I
would not get off the phone. And I know this
is going to take a while until you get someone
that can actually help you, and sometimes that will take

(14:46):
just telling the person I need a supervisor. I had
to do this a couple months ago with an airline
and I had a credit that was a It was
kind of a anyway, It just took a long time,
but I kept saying, please give me a supervisor, Please
give me a supervis until they finally did. And by
the way, it took three different people before I kept
asking them can I have a supervisor? Before I got

(15:07):
to someone that wanted to help me, Because most of
the time, I won't say most of the time, but
many times there's no feeling that the person on the
other end wants to help you. They just want to
get you off the line and onto the next person
that they can just run around.

Speaker 5 (15:20):
So the person I was talking to was obviously in
a call center, reading from a card. I could hear
a lot of background noise. When I asked for a supervisor,
he told me there's nobody else here. They all have
the same tools that I have. They can't do anything
more than I can do.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
No, and then you call back and try to get
you You may have to call back several times until
you get someone. They actually tried to tell me that
there was like no one available, and they said, we'll
give you a call back, which they actually did, so
I will say that they did hold up on that one.
But here's the thing, so I'm gonna explain. Gosh, do
I have enough time to explain what's going on with
AT and T email? So you're not alone. Many people

(15:59):
have had their AT and T emails hacked in recent weeks.
This is according to tech Crunch. So cybercriminals found their
way into AT and T dot net emails, SBC Global
dot net emails, BellSouth dot net, and other AT and
T email addresses, and once they had these emails, they
were able to hack into them and reset other accounts.
So they're actually trying to steal cryptocurrency and doing all

(16:21):
kinds of stuff. What I would say to you is
use the advice Kelly, try to get someone on the line.
You did the right stuff. You went to that email
account recovery. You may eventually, once AT and T figures
this out, finally get a link that will help you
really reset this account and reclaim it. It's unfortunate that
this happened to you. Switch to Gmail as soon as

(16:41):
you can start using that for your main emails. Maybe
go onto some of your key accounts and try to
switch to email address if they allow you. But I
think the bigger lesson is don't use an email account
that is linked to a service that you have, whether
that's your Internet service, whether that's your cable service. Just
go ahead and use something like a Gmail, like an
hour Outlook that is a third party service. Even pay

(17:03):
for an email service if you want to do that way.
But you know, I've had Gmail for many, many years.
It's worked out for me. And so just make sure
you secure whatever account you have with two factor authentication.
In this case, it was a little troublesome because these
cyber criminals figured out a way around all that stuff,
and so AT and T is still sorting through this.
They said that they're aware of this issue, according to

(17:25):
a spokesperson for tech Crunch or a spokesperson two tech Crunch,
but it is still an ongoing matter. So I'm sorry
that this happened to you, Kelly, but please keep on them.
Hopefully you get someone that can actually help you regain
access to your account. All right, coming up, more of
your calls at Triple eight Rich one on one. That's
eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one

(17:47):
zero one. We are going to talk to Dwight Silverman next.
He is the tech columnist for the Houston Chronicle. We're
going to talk about a new tablet that may rival
the iPad. It's called the one plus pad, and there
are pros and cons. We're going to go over them
coming up next. Right here, you are listening to rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro

(18:11):
here talking technology with you. You can follow me on
social media. I am at rich on Tech on Instagram, Facebook,
and yeah, I'm still hanging on on Twitter. I know
everyone's talking about this new thing this week called Blue Sky.
Is it Blue Sky or blue Ski? This is the

(18:32):
new competitor to Twitter. This was actually started by Twitter
co founder Jack Dorsey and it's taken off this week.
It's apparently very popular among the several, you know, thousand
people that are using it because it's invite only right now.
But if someone asks you about this new thing, blue Sky,
you can say you've heard of it, so I wouldn't

(18:53):
rush to go sign up just yet, or maybe if
you want to go ahead, but you know, we've seen
other alternatives in the past months, like masted On, Postnews,
even this app called Artifact that's a kind of a
news app, but it's kind of taken the place of Twitter.
I mean, there's just so many now. But the difference
with blue Ski or blue Sky, whatever you want to

(19:14):
call it, that's kind of interesting is that it's almost
like an open source platform. So Blue Sky think about
it this way. Blue Sky is building a platform on
top of open standards. So if I wanted to create
an app that sort of interfaced with this open standard,
i could. And so that's why people are liking it

(19:34):
because theoretically it's not just owned by one company. It's
not just Twitter. It's sort of like Twitter, but anyone
can build an app that would live on top of
this platform. And so it's kind of interesting in that
aspect and I do like that. But otherwise it's very
much the same. You can post short messages, you've got
a feed, it's a decentralized network. That's the biggest difference.

(19:58):
But it is a little bit more complic because you
have to have a server, kind of like that masted
On stuff. I know, it gets very complicated, right, So again, Twitter,
I know, it's kind of like that whole thing of
my death has been overly exaggerated. The what is it,
the news of my demise has been overly exaggerated, something
like that, that famous saying. That's kind of like Twitter,

(20:20):
like it's still the most popular, one of the most
popular social networks out there.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
But anyway, I digress. Let's bring on Dwight Silverman.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
He is retired but now back at the Houston Chronicle
doing technology. And you've been doing this for a very
long time, Dwight, how long? Welcome to the show.

Speaker 6 (20:39):
Hey, Rich, I have been doing this since about really
since the late eighties. I've had a column since the
early nineties of the Chronicle. I retired briefly. I'm not
good at retirement until I came back and I'm doing
a column as a freelancer. I'm back doing my regular
weekly column and occasional longer form story and I'm having

(21:00):
a great time.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
I mean, who doesn't like getting gadgets to test on
your terms? So I mean before I'm sure you were
under deadlines and this and that, and you can be like, oh,
write a column this week and maybe not next week.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Is that the agreement? At this point?

Speaker 6 (21:14):
Oh no, they want it every week.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, yeah, okay, that's fine, I get that all right. So,
and by the way, I know you're on mastadon. How
is it going on there? I mean, does it feel
like there's a lot of people on there and a
lot of activity compared to Twitter?

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Or is it still sort of nascent?

Speaker 6 (21:29):
You know, it's like Twitter was very early on. There
were people who jumped onto Twitter in the earliest days
who said, there's nothing here, how do I talk to people?
And the same thing is true with mathddon. You kind
of have to find your people, right. One of the
nice things for me is that, you know, I write
about technology and I've been a digital journalist for a
long time, and so there's a lot of people who

(21:51):
are pretty tech savvy. And when the initial departure from
Twitter to masddon started in late twenty twenty two, two
people put in their profiles that they had moved to
mastadon And there were several apps that appeared that let
you find people who you were following who had mentioned

(22:11):
mastedon on their feet that's cool, did you coure to
follow them? And so I've got probably about six hundred
people I follow on mastadon. It doesn't have things like
you know, I'm a local newspaper columnist and I really
kind of missed the local news that you could find
on Twitter. But for the most part, I have better conversations,

(22:32):
more civil, richer, and I think with smarter people sometimes
than I was on Twitter. I think for me, it's
more satisfying.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
But just as you get used to this, now you're
gonna have to sign up for Blue Sky and see
what that's all about.

Speaker 6 (22:45):
I'm on the weight list.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Okay, you're on the weight list, so my, so my,
So we'll see. We'll talk about that in a couple
of weeks once we both get in and see. But
I like the fact that it's built on that decentralized
kind of platform. It's almost like more Web three instead
of Twitter. You know, we're seeing all these new things
come along that are much more decentralized and put the
user in more control. But enough about that, let's talk
about one plus. So you've been testing out the one

(23:08):
plus pad, as have I. My review will be on
KTLA channel five on Monday, so if you're in the
LA area you can watch that.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
But you have reviewed it, you've.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Written your column, you said, it's a satisfying, sleek and simple,
simple Android tablet.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
So let's get through the basics. What do you think
of this thing?

Speaker 6 (23:27):
Well, you know, one of the interesting things about one
plus is that this company has been around for a
while doing premium smartphones, but they don't charge the same.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Prices that the big guides do.

Speaker 6 (23:41):
Their current smartphone is the one Plus eleven, and it's
a fantastic phone.

Speaker 7 (23:47):
It's really fast.

Speaker 6 (23:48):
It uses the same process process or family that Samsung's
current flagship phones used. It's just it's a joy to use.
And one plus wants to get into the tablet market,
and so they've taken what they've learned from doing these
smartphones at decent prices and produced their first tablet. It's

(24:10):
called the one plus Pad. It's an eleven point six
inch on the diagonal tablet. It is very fast, it
has minimal bloatwear, which I'm really happy about it.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
That's what I really liked. Yeah, the software on it
is so great. I mean, if you've ever had a
one plus phone, the software is incredible. It's the same
on this tablet. The software is just it's so like
just refreshing for Android because usually when you get an Android,
it's got all this bloatwear. If you ever use Samsung,
there's a lot of like stuff you don't need. Maybe
not so much in recent years, but you know previously

(24:45):
and with the one Plus, it's just so fresh and clean.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
It's just so nice.

Speaker 6 (24:49):
Yes, and you know what happens, particularly with Samsung and
other big name brands, is that they have their own
apps along with you know, always have Google's apps because
you know Google owns and manages Android and so. But
on this it basically is a handful of very simple,

(25:10):
uh cleanly written one plus apps, and then there is
a folder full of Google's apps. And so if you
know and you use Google products, you'll feel right at
home at this. The other thing is that the general
layout and even the feel of the hardware reminds me
very much of Apple's basic iPad. Yes, you know, it

(25:32):
looks a lot like they're trying to go for people
who maybe have an Android phone, but they have they
bought an iPad because the iPad is the gold standard
for tablets.

Speaker 8 (25:42):
Still.

Speaker 6 (25:43):
Yes, and here is here's the device that you can
that you can get. It isn't loaded down with junk,
that's very clean and very simple, very fast, and it
kind of looks like an iPad on its own screen.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, okay, so it comes in one color, Halo green.

Speaker 6 (25:58):
Yeah, you better like, because that's what you're gonna get.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
It's one hundred and twenty eight gigabytes again on one
size for that, no expandable memory. The screen size is
it's about almost twelve inches, and it's got this interesting
ratio of seven to five, which I found to be
just fine. It's got a large battery and the charging
is incredibly fast, so that's really nice. It's got Dolby

(26:25):
Vision Dolby at most. The only thing that I found
with the display, which I thought was really really nice,
is that I found it to be a little bit
when I was scrolling on some text, a little bit jellyish.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
But it's fine. I mean, it's not like a deal
breaker for this thing. Now.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
The pricing on this pad four to seventy nine for
the device, which I thought was a little bit high.
I wish they would have come in a little bit lower.
Magnetic keyboard one forty nine, stylus ninety nine. So I
think that this is a great tablet and it's a
good kind of Android alternative to the iPad.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
But Dwight, do you think.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
That folks should wait for like to see what the
pixel does or who do you think.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
This is for?

Speaker 6 (27:03):
I think this is for at the outset, people who
already have one plus phone and who maybe as I said,
maybe already own an iPad, but they'd like to go
all in on Android. It has some One of the
things that it's doing is they're trying to build up
a similar kind of ecosystem with one Plus hardware. So,

(27:25):
for example, if you have the one Plus buds Pro two,
which is their latest earbuds, yes, and they pair up
almost as smoothly as the Airpod's pro does on an
iPad or an iPhone. You know, you just open it,
you hold it nearby, and you're connected. It also does

(27:45):
a similar thing for using your phone's five G connection,
so you can bring your one plus phone close to it,
and if you don't have any kind of Internet connection
currently on the pad, it says, do you want to
share your phone's Internet connection? And then you just can.
It's very you know, they're working towards an Apple type

(28:08):
of ecosystem, and I would say, after an iteration or two,
it will be it'll it'll be even better. The one
thing about the price is that one plus will aggressively
discount shortly after its launch, So if you're thinking about
getting one of these, you might want to keep an
eye on sales and so forth. It's for seventy nine

(28:28):
to start, but I wouldn't be surprised if you don't
see it selling soon for in the four fifty four
forty five range.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Absolutely, I would agree with that. Let's leave it there.
One plus pad. It's available May eighth pre order right now,
and I believe they have a fifty dollars discount right
now if you trade in something else. But the reality is,
I agree with Dwight, wait for a sale on this,
usually around Mother's Day or something. I bet you they'll
have one. Maybe not right off the bat, but you know,

(28:55):
you wait a month or two, you'll be fine. All right, Dwight,
thanks so much for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (29:00):
Sure, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
All right, we'll follow you on mastadon or any other
social network that may come along, and uh look for
your stuff in the Houston Chronicle. All right, coming up
more of your calls at triple eight rich one O one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you about the smart
device that Amazon is discontinuing. Might want to download your data.

(29:23):
Now you're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology with you
at Triple eight Rich one O one. That's eight eight

(29:46):
eight seven four to two four one zero one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Give me a call if you have a question about technology,
trying to decide between two things. You want to know
which app does something you need it to do, smart
home issues, whatever you got, give me a call Triple

(30:07):
eight rich one oh one. Uh, don't forget to sign
up front newsletter. Go to rich on Tech dot tv.
I will be writing it soon. Jack is in Goldendale, Washington.

Speaker 7 (30:17):
Jack, you're on with rich Hey, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Hey, thanks for calling question here.

Speaker 7 (30:23):
I don't remember when I bought my net book. I
don't even know if they still know.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Wow, those were hot for a while.

Speaker 7 (30:30):
Well, I loved it. The thing was great. It came
with Windows seven, and my sister gave she worked at
Microsoft at the time, and she gave me Windows eight.
I didn't really like Windows eight and then Windows ten
came along, so I installed it, and at the time
I just wasn't into computers, so I let it sit
for unfortunately over thirty days. Well it turns out Microsoft

(30:52):
didn't bother to tell me that after thirty days you
cannot uninstall Windows ten.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Oh it kind of locks itself in there.

Speaker 7 (31:00):
Yeah, well, this little guy can't really handle the Windows ten.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
And I was going to say, I'm surprised it even
installed on there.

Speaker 7 (31:08):
Yeah, well, it won't do updates anymore. It now it
looks at your computer and says, oh, this thing can't
handle Windows you know, the updates. Yeah, well, I wish
they'd done that when I was installing Windows ten. But anyway, Yeah,
what I'm looking at is, I don't you know, I
spent like maybe less than three hundred dollars on this

(31:29):
thing at Costco years ago. It's an acer file one.
I tried looking it up while I was on hold,
but apparently you can't do that when you're on hold
with speakerphone and all that, or with all the music
and all that stuff. So anyway, I tried looking up
to figure out how old it is. I'm guessing it
was about twenty ten. Somewhere in there, maybe twenty oh nine,

(31:52):
I don't know, But anyway, I would like to replace
this thing and windows. You know, thank god that don't
make cars like they do computers, otherwise everybody replacing their
car three years.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Well, yeah, it depends on the computers.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
But listen, I mean, so what you're trying to spend
under five hundred how much you're trying to spend on
a new computer?

Speaker 7 (32:15):
You know, Quite honestly, I am so fed up with computers.
I don't want to spend any money, but nowadays you
have to have it your doctor appointments, your banking, your well,
I don't do banking on a computer, but everybody everything
is digital and you kind of have to have it.
So I guess I have to spend a bunch of
money just so I can still live in this modern world. Well,

(32:39):
wondering what you would suggest might be a inexpensive I
have never dealt with what do they call it?

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Apple?

Speaker 7 (32:50):
I've never dealt with that, so I don't really want
to try to learn a new system. You know, I'm
almost seven years old, so I'm getting kind of tired
of this stuff. But what are your thoughts?

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Okay, Well, first off, I mean, I think you could
do a lot on your phone if you have a smartphone.

Speaker 7 (33:05):
Or no, well it's semi smart, it's kind of a cheap.
What is it, moto.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
E okay, oh, moto E got it.

Speaker 7 (33:13):
Yeah, And this is my first so called smartphone. It's
only got thirty two gigs, so even it's almost maxed out.
It seventy five percent storage, you know, just for apps,
so I can't install anything else as far as apps go,
So I can get by on it. But I would

(33:34):
really like to be able to type. I used to
like typing on word, type out a letter, copy and
paste it into an email and send it.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Well, nowadays you can just use chat ept to compose
those letters. You don't even have to type. That's the
good news, Jack. You could just Half the stuff that
you used to do manually is now all automatic. So
you're good there, I did it.

Speaker 7 (33:55):
I'm absolutely against AI and I do not want to
have anything to do with chat GPS.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Okay, so no, no, no writing your letters with chat GBT.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Well, I would.

Speaker 7 (34:05):
Recommend, you know, just on word would be fine. I
can still copy and paste.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
I can do that.

Speaker 7 (34:11):
I'm a good type.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
But anyway, I would recommend. I mean, if you want
to stick with Windows, I would just find a Windows
laptop that you think is you know, decent. I would
go maybe like something like the Wirecutter. Have you heard
of wirecutter dot com?

Speaker 7 (34:28):
Yes, I have the newsletter. Yeah I would. I would
mainly about UH streaming services, and I haven't heard I
haven't read anything on there yet.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Okay, So if you look up wirecutter, they do have
some of the best laptops under five hundred dollars, so
i'd recommend looking there. A lot of those are going
to be Chromebooks. And that sounds like you said you
didn't want to learn something new, so maybe you don't
want to go with a chromebook. So the best Windows
computer they pick under five hundred is actually, if you

(34:57):
can believe it, the Acer Aspire five. So you have
the acer Aspire one. It sounds like they've updated things
just a little bit. It's a little bit more expensive.
It looks like it's about four hundred and something dollars,
so it's under five hundred. I don't really see Windows
computers in that three hundred dollars range anymore. I mean,

(35:18):
it's really about four hundred I think is the Magic
four to five.

Speaker 7 (35:22):
I understand.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
So I think that this computer, if you get it
and it's you know, it's going to run the latest Windows.
For under five hundred bucks, I would check out the
ACER Aspire five. I think that's going to be something
that you can get. Otherwise, you know, there's another one.
They recommend, an Asus Vivo Book. That's another one that's
about four hundred bucks. But I think the Acer and

(35:44):
Asus are going to be probably the two brands that
you want to look at for these inexpensive computers. I
think those are going to be your best option. If
you want to go with a chromebook again, I would
also recommend Acer. They have some great chromebooks. The nice
thing about the Chromebook is that the software is going
to last a long time. It's going to be fine. Now,
Jackie said he didn't really want to tinker on this stuff,
but if you wanted to, if you wanted to just

(36:08):
see if you can do something, you might check out
what's called Chrome os Flex. And this is a an
operating system that is free. It comes from Google, and
it will kind of turn your old Acer into a Chromebook.
And this is something that you know, if you mess
up and it doesn't work, you know you're going to
get a new laptop.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Anyway, but maybe just try it.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
If this computer still has enough processing power to actually,
you know, handle what you need to do, it may
be another option. The other thing I'd recommend is maybe
just look at an iPad. I know you said you
didn't want to learn something new, but you've got a
smartphone that is halfway smart. An iPad would probably be
another way to go. That's kind of a nice thing
to do, so I would take a look at those

(36:51):
things and see if they work for you. You can
get a keyboard for the iPad. And with the iPad,
the advantage there is that you've got the access to
all of the modern apps and so you'll still have
Safari on there so you can surf the web, but
you'll also have all of the apps that you need,
including email apps and everything like that. So I think
that those options, hopefully under five hundred dollars, will be

(37:14):
a pretty good deal and it will last at least
another hopefully five years or so. All Right, thanks so
much for the call, Jack, appreciate it. More of your
calls coming up at eight eight eight rich.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
One oh one.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. This is the show
where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
should know about. It's also the place where I answer
your questions about technology. My name is rich Jamiro. You
can find me at rich on Tech, on Instagram, Twitter,
and Facebook, or the website rich ontech dot TV. Phone

(37:58):
lines are open at triple A rich one on one
eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
zero one. Email hello at richontech dot TV. Andrea writes
in I'm a long time Samsung smartphone user and I
have an older Samsung tablet. Well, the one plus pad

(38:18):
that we just talked about be a good tablet replacement
for mine.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Love your program kindly, Andrea. I think so.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I think that the one plus tablet is a really
strong contender. But here's the thing I'm going to caution you.
You gotta wait at least a couple of weeks. So
Google is having this event called Google Io, and that
happens on Wednesday, May tenth, so they are expected to

(38:48):
announce new hardware. They've already said that they're coming out
with the tablet this year called the Pixel Tablet, and
they announced it back in October. We haven't heard a
word about it since then, so I am guessing that
on May tenth they are finally going to tell us
more details about when this is arriving and how much

(39:10):
it's going to cost, and also the specs of this tablet.
So if you can hold off another two weeks, then
you can properly compare the new one plus tablet to
the Pixel tablet, decide which one is a better price,
which one has the better features for you. But I think,
no matter what, these are two strong Android tablets for
twenty twenty three and moving forward. We have not had

(39:33):
a really good Android tablet that's not Samsung in a
very long time. With this clean software that US techies like,
not a lot of bloatwear, not a lot of stuff
to hold you back, not a lot of apps you
don't need. That's what we like about this stuff. Good question, Andrea,
Thanks for emailing. All right, Scott Kay's gonna join me
this hour. He is the founder of going dot com.

(39:57):
This is a website that sends you email alone about
travel deals. So if you want to travel somewhere for cheap,
this is the website that will help you do that,
and it's it's really cool stuff. Scott is a he'll
tell you a great story about how he got started
in all this stuff. So Scott will join me this hour.
Let's go to John in Moore Park. John, you're on

(40:19):
with Rich.

Speaker 9 (40:21):
Okay, I'm Rich.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Hi.

Speaker 9 (40:25):
I have a friend of mine who has a she
has a a iPhone and an iPad, and I need
your advice on a password manager.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Oh is that all they use?

Speaker 8 (40:38):
It's all they are, Okay.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
So in that case I rarely recommend this. But in
that case, if you're only using Apple stuff, I think
that the built in Apple keychain. Gosh, what do they
call it? I gotta I gotta see what they call it.
So it's the Apple let's see Apple password manager. It's

(41:01):
built in to Safari, okay, and it's called oh here
it is iCloud keychain, that's what they call it. And
so this is their version of a password manager. And
it basically will generate secure passwords. If you use an
iPhone or if you use Safari, you've probably seen this
pop up and it says would you like us to

(41:22):
generate and save a secure password for you? And you
can say yes, and it will sync across all of
your devices. So if you're signed into iCloud on an iPad,
on a maccomputer or an iPhone.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
It'll all work.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Now, I give you this with the caveat that it's
only good if you use Apple stuff, and not just
Apple stuff, but Apple Browser as well. So if you're
only using Safari, it'll work, And if you're only using
the iPhone, it'll work, and if you're only using the.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
iPad it'll work.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Otherwise, I would recommend a third party password manager. But John,
you're telling me your friend only uses the iPhone and
the iPad in the event.

Speaker 8 (41:59):
Sho go get a PC. Would there be a password
manager that would work on all three?

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Yeah, So once you get into the cross platform stuff,
I would recommend getting a cross platform password manager. The
ones I like are Bitwarden. That one's a nice free
one that'll be a great way to wait in. Also,
this is kind of quirky too. Chrome has their own
password manager as well, But the quirk about that is

(42:29):
that it actually works on iOS and Android and the
Chrome web browser, and so you can get that completely
for free, you know, if you want a free option.
So the free options again are the iCloud key chain.
Only if you're using Apple stuff and Safari, Chrome will
work if you're using the Chrome web browser, but also
an iPhone that'll work nicely. And then Bitwarden will work

(42:51):
for free across all of these platforms for free. Now,
if you want to get into something that's paid, I
like dash Lane, and a lot of folks like like
one password that's the number one and then the word password.
But those are the password managers that I like. I
think John, any of those will work. It just sort
of depends what your needs are. But I always like

(43:11):
stuff that works across various platforms because I have the
option later to change my mind.

Speaker 8 (43:20):
I have one other question, is very show like your
show on Sundays? I mean, I listen to KFI.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
I don't believe there is at this point. I mean
I know that.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Yeah, my show is just Saturdays at this point, so
we're doing just Saturdays.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
You know.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
I work on KTLA during the week, so obviously I
am there and then I'm here on Saturday. The Sunday
option is just a little bit too much. So there
are plenty of tech shows out there, obviously, lots of podcasts,
but not on KFI as far as I know. Of course,
this show goes nationwide on different stations. So depending on
where you're listening, of course, it may not be KFI,

(43:58):
maybe a different station where you are. But John, I
appreciate that you're here trying to get me in more
places and more times.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
I do like that.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
So thanks so much for calling today, and get your
friends set up with the password manager. I love the
fact that you're looking out for them, because everyone should
be using a password manager.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Okay, let's talk Amazon.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
I've been telling you that they have discontinued one of
their smart devices. It is the Amazon Halo. This is
a smart tracker that I'm not sure it ever really
took off. I never did a formal review on it,
although I've talked about it in my segments just to
help people be aware of it, but I've never actively
recommended this. They were very inexpensive. They came out a

(44:39):
couple of years ago. But Amazon says they are going
to discontinue the Amazon Halo effective July thirty first, twenty
twenty three. So in the last twelve months, if you
bought the Halo View, the Halo Band, the Halo Rise,
or any Halo accessory bands, Amazon is going to automatically

(44:59):
ref fund you if you prepaid your Halo subscription, you
will be automatically refunded. Now, if you have a subscription
that is monthly, you're not going to get charged anymore.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Now here's the date.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Beginning August twenty first, twenty twenty three, these Halo devices
and the Halo app will no longer function. That means
if you have your health data inside this app and
you want to keep it, you might want to download it,
so you can download that through the Halo app. You
can also download any images that you took. You have
until August first, basically, so effective July thirty first, not

(45:36):
going to work anymore. August first, it's totally gone. So
you probably want to plan now. If you use this thing,
you've got April, May, June, July, you got a couple
of months to get your affairs in order. With this
Amazon Halo you can also recycle the device if you
don't want to keep it. Amazon will give you a
recycling label for free. They have a link. I'll put

(45:58):
it up on my website tech dot tv in the
show notes. This is show number seventeen, so if you're
looking for it, you can find it in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
So why did they discontinue it?

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Well, let's see, the Apple Watch is very popular, the
fitbits are very popular, the Galaxy watches are sort of popular.
But this just didn't really fit into what Amazon is
doing at this point. Now, they recently came out that
Halo Rise, which was a bedside sort of alarm clock,
sort of fitness tracker that tracked your sleep. So I

(46:32):
don't think Amazon was successful in this area. I think
that they had a lot of controversy with these devices
because it's Amazon. People don't necessarily trust Amazon with their data,
and that's what happened here. I think people just said, eh,
these things, I don't know Amazon is, you know, It's.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Just not the company I want tracking all of my stuff.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
In fact, the big controversy with the Halo devices is
when they first came out, they could actually see what
your mood was based on your voice. So this little
device had a microphone on it that would listen to
you throughout the day and tell you that you sounded
a certain way. And I forget what the qualifications were like,

(47:16):
what the different like, you know, if you sounded angry
or if you sounded concerned or anxious.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Whatever they were.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
People were very upset about this, and I remember reporting
about it, and I thought it was kind of cool
because if you're treating people a certain way throughout the
day and it's like, did you know that you were
sounding sterned throughout your day? Not very good. So that's
what happened with the Amazon stuff. Amazon Halo going away
on July thirty first. So if you have it, download

(47:43):
your data, get that data into you know, into your files,
and get your photos out of it.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
But kind of sad.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
But if you bought one of these things in the
last twelve months, not that big of a deal because
they're going to refund your money. So Amazon and Google,
I don't understand what their deal is, but they love
to discontinue stuff. I mean Amazon has closed entire stores,
like they had all these bookstores and these four star
stores or five star stores or if they called them

(48:11):
and just gone overnight. They just close them up and
that's it. Shut the doors. Google same way, they just
really discontinue a lot of stuff. They come out with
a lot of stuff, then they discontinue a.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Lot of stuff.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
So there you have it. Get a fitbit. I guess
that's the new replacement for the Amazon Halo, all right,
coming up, we're going to talk about travel deals and
I've got my review of Ring's new dash cam, so
I installed this dash cam. By the way, Ring is
an Amazon company, but it's one of the few products
I actually recommend from Amazon because they seem like they've

(48:47):
got some good sort of momentum behind these Ring products,
so I don't think they're going to get rid of
those anytime soon. So we're going to talk about the
Ring dash cam. That is a device that is a
little bit more expensive than your standard dash cam, but
it's pretty good and I like it a lot, and
I'll tell you all about that. That's a two hundred
and fifty dollars dashcam.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
And we also have our travel expert coming up, Scott
Kay's is going to talk about how to find travel deals.
And did you know you can listen to this show
as a podcast, So if you like it here on
the radio, you want to listen to something again, you
can subscribe. Just go to rich on tech dot tv.
There is a podcast icon there. Show notes like I
mentioned are there, so I do put links to everything

(49:28):
I mentioned here on the show. All Right, we got
some phone lines open at Triple A Rich one on
one that's eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. My name is Rich Dumiro. You are
listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech.

(49:49):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Welcome
back to the show. Phone lines are open at triple
A Rich one on one. That's eight eight eight two
four to one zero one. Gary is in Riverside. Gary,
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Gary?

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Are you there? Gary? One two three? Don't hear you?

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Okay, Well, we'll try to find if we can get
Gary back on. Okay, let's go to a question via email.
Let's see Hello. That's at Hello at Richontech dot TV.
So good afternoon, Rich. I have the one plus eight
pro my twenty twenty two Prius XL E didn't come

(50:42):
with Android Auto? Is there a way to install or
use Android Auto on my car? Many many thanks, Wallace
in rolland Heights, California. So it's interesting. I know that
some models of the Prius I thought they came with
Android Auto, but I guess the XL does not, So
that's not ideal. But what I would do is just

(51:05):
mount your phone in your car and use it that way.
And there's a company that I really like that that
makes really good mounts for your car. Oh here it
is pro clip pro Clip USA. So these are mounts
that are really kind of custom made for your specific

(51:28):
car model, and so it'll really hold your phone nicer
than say, you know, a random vent mount or something
that you get. So if you go onto PROCLIPUSA dot
com and then you can build your car mount and
so you can select your model. You've got a Toyota Prius.
Let's go through and build this. So Toyota Prius, and

(51:50):
what I love about these is that they're they almost
look like it's like a custom kind of thing. So
let's go to the Preus twenty twenty two. And so
what you do as you start with a base and
so this is a Toyota Prius angled dash mount. So
you start with the base and then you get your holder.
So once you add that to your car, then you

(52:12):
can get a phone and device holder. And so you
get a specific device holder for your phone. So we'll
go for a phone. We'll go to one plus, which
of course they have and you have the eight as
you say eight or eight pro. Let's see you got
eight pro. So we go to eight pro and you
press next, and so basically they will give you do

(52:34):
you want integrated charging, so you can do charging or
non integrated charging, and it's like a little dock for
your car. So I'm gonna go with integrated charging. See
device holders, and there you go. It's got the charging
holder for small to medium cases for this device, and
that's one hundred dollars. And so you're looking at one
hundred and thirty five dollars, which I know that's a lot,

(52:57):
but it will give you a much cleaner professional installation
for that Prius. And so once you have that, then
you can just ask Google Assistant to go into driving
mode or on Google Maps, just open it up and
enter driving mode that way. And so they used to
have with Assistant where you can go into like sort

(53:18):
of a driving mode on Google Assistant. I can't seem
to find that anymore, but you might want to do
a little bit of research about Google Assistant driving mode
because they used to have Android Auto where you can
actually just activate it on your phone, and it looked
pretty well, looked just like the Android Auto you'd get
built into your car, and then they got rid of
that and they went to like this web based version,

(53:39):
so no matter what. Android is pretty good about activating
Android Auto in your car and making your phone work
very seamlessly for that purpose of driving. And so I
just asked Google, you know, activate driving mode, and it
looked pretty good, Like the buttons get bigger, gives your

(54:00):
options for music and things like that.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
So that's what I would do. So good question.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
And I'm sorry that the Android Auto is not built in,
because I do think that every car should have Android
Auto and car Play built in to give you that nice,
clean install All right, let me give you my review
of the Ring dash cam. This is a simple way
to add, as I've found out, security and peace of
mind to your car. It's two hundred and fifty dollars

(54:26):
plus an optional subscription, but as I learned, you pretty
much need the six dollars monthly subscription to make this
thing worth it. You've got HD cameras front and back.
They give you a nice wide angle point of view.
The camera clarity is just fine. It's nothing special. I
think that the next version will probably be a lot
better installation, much easier than I expected. But you have

(54:47):
to know there's no way to power this except running
a cable to what's called the OBD two port and
so not every car is going to be compatible with this.
It does run down the battery on your car sometimes,
so you do have to be aware of that. Newer
ca you drive more are gonna work better with this setup.
The camera records when you drive, so it's doing a
continuous loop. It'll record when it senses movement to your car,

(55:09):
not motion, but movements.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Your car has to move for it to trigger recording.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
You can also trigger a manual recording when your car
stop by saying alex A record and you know what
I mean by alex A. Just like the video door bell,
you can take a look inside or outside your car
at any time, which is really cool. There's a status
light that appears on the camera in the car to
let people inside the car no you're looking in on them.
There's also a flip up privacy shutter. You flip that

(55:35):
up and all video and audio stops. So again, unless
you're gonna pay for the subscription, you've got to be
prepared to do that because otherwise the best features of
this thing don't work. So ring carcam read my full
review rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
But I love it.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
I think it's really, really cool if you don't mind
spending the money and having that subscription. All right, coming up,
we're talking travel deals right here, rich on Tech. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology
with you. So we were talking about Android Auto and

(56:14):
I was trying to figure out where this is hidden. Now,
so you got to go in Google Maps. It's kind
of weird, but you have to turn this on and
then you say h, Google Activate Driving Mode and or
turn on driving Mode, and it'll bring you into Google Maps.
And once you're in Google Maps and you navigate somewhere,

(56:36):
you'll see at the bottom of your screen it'll have
like a little app launcher and you can access your
commonly used apps, like all the audio apps and then calls,
messages and media. So again, the way to do it
is to just say h Google Activate Driving Mode and
that will do it. So you get that set up

(56:57):
in your car and it's pretty much like having Android Auto,
just to a little less integrated version of it. All right,
we're going to talk travel deals. Scott Key's is founder
and CEO of going dot Com, one of a handful
of websites that can send you deals for airfares, like

(57:18):
really incredible deals as they find them.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Scott, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Great to be with you, Rich, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
So you are sort of a pro traveler at this point,
tell me about how you got started on this whole
world of travel. You found like a really good travel
deal at one point.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
That's right, Yeah, it was very serendipitously. You know, there's
not a degree in college for cheap flight studies. But
I was one of those folks who grew up who
had no idea how to find cheap flights. I felt
like everybody else around me was finding them and I
just couldn't do it. So as I just was very
intrigued by this question, actually ended up spending a lot

(57:57):
of time on years researching how to find flights. And
then I'll culment it had been in twenty thirteen when
I found the best deal I'd ever personally gotten in
my life is NonStop from New York City to Milan
for one hundred and thirty dollars round trip round trip
Poulter on United NonStop, included check bags, the whole works.

(58:21):
I think they meant to sell that for thirteen hundred
dollars and forgot a zero at the end. But because
I purchased it in the time when it was lifted
at one hundred and thirty dollars, that's the price I paid,
and that's what I ended up being able to take
an Italian vacation for. And so when I got back,
you know, it was a wonderful time up in Italy,
like Como skiing in the Alps. When I got back

(58:43):
from this trip, all my friends and coworkers kept coming
up to me, Hey, Scott, I heard about that great
deal you got. Listen, next time you find a deal
like that, can you let me know so I can
get in on it too, And so that is how
going dot com eventually, that's its origin. That's how it
began a way to let my friends know anytime I
found a cheap flight. And it's obviously grown quite a

(59:05):
bit since those humble origins eight nine years ago.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
So it used to be called Scott's Cheap Flights.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Now it's going The website is going dot com, and
you sign up with your email and there's a free
level of service which will give you some deals. Of course,
you can pay to get more deals and more customized deals.
But the reality is, how is this working? Scott you're
scanning airfares twenty four to seven and looking for.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
What essentially yeah, so airfair. The important thing to know
about airfare is that it's one of the most volatile
things that we purchase in our daily lives. It's not
like a gallon of milk, where the price you paid
for it yesterday is about the price today, and it's
going to be about the price tomorrow. Airfair is constantly

(59:52):
pinging around. I mean, I remember watching a flight once
from Atlanta to Amsterdam on Monday. When I searched for it,
it was eight hundred dollars on trip. Did the same
search on Tuesday. The next day three hundred dollars round trip.
Did that search again the next day on Wednesday, thirteen
hundred dollars round trip. We're talking about the exact same flight.
And so that's why I think airfare, because it's one

(01:00:15):
of those things that's incredibly volatile and incredibly taxing. Trying
to figure out, you know, this is a good price,
will it drop, will it go up? But also knowing
that if you want to travel more than a state
or two away, you're almost certainly going to need a flight.
I think that's why it creates a unique headache for people,
and so that's where going comes in, being able to

(01:00:36):
make sure that you're not going to miss out on
a great deal because you didn't happen to be searching
for those you know, that specific route on those specific
dates at the right time. That Milan deal I got
was only available for a few hours, and so if
you didn't know about it during that period when it
was available, you would have missed out on. And that's

(01:00:57):
what we want to make sure that our members don't
miss out on those great days.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
And there's generally two types of flight deals. It's unadvertised.
They're just having a deal on the you know, the
airfare goes down, and you know, if you're not searching
for that specific time or date, you would never know.
And then the second way is these mistake deals. So
can you talk about the types of deals that you
have on your site and if I book a mistake fair,

(01:01:22):
am I gonna be able to take that fair?

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Absolutely? So let's start with the unadvertised sales. These are
really our bread and potter. You know, ninety five percent
of the deals that we find and send members are
when the price drops significantly from the normal price. But
the airlines meant to do that. You know, just in
the past couple of weeks, we had flights just last
week over to Europe to places like Bologna, Northern Italy, Vienna, Prague, Zurich,

(01:01:49):
Amsterdam for about three hundred and eighty six dollars round
trip on full service airlines, or flights over to a
Beza for three hundred and forty four bucks round trip.
Those were those were the prices of the airlines meant
to send. But every once in a while they do
make a mistake, like they did with this trip to Milan,
like they did earlier this year with flights to South

(01:02:12):
America to Peru or Ecuador, Colombia for one hundred and
thirty eight dollars round trip. And the funny thing is
when that happens, a it only lasts as long as
sintil the airline's able to fix it. But b most
of the time, I'm talking eighty five ninety percent of time,
the airlines actually honor that there they don't cancel the ticket.

(01:02:35):
And the reason why is that they've come to realize
that these social media backlash they're going to get if
they cancel a lot of people's tickets is not necessarily
worth the headache, worth the whatever financial cost they had
to pay from folks getting that great deal. But on
the flip side, they actually get some amount of social
media benefit went from those mistake fars every once in

(01:02:57):
a while, because the person who bought that one hundred
and thirty six dollars round trip flight to Peru or
to Columbia is now going you know, nobody buys that
ticket and then just quietly goes about their day. They're
telling everybody about the ticket. You know, they're saying the
airline where they got it, and that might increase the
airlines kind of brand, the likelihood that somebody might purchase

(01:03:18):
from them in the future. And so I think, I like,
I like to think about these mistakes theres a little
bit more holistically, and that's why they end up honoring
them most of the time. There are are times when
they cancel it and it's unfortunate. Usually, though, when that happens,
that's going to happen in the first few days after.
It's not as though it's going to happen right before

(01:03:38):
your trip and all of a sudden the airline pulls
the rugout.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Okay, what about all these things we hear about. There's
so many like, you know, you got to use a
VPN to book your flight, You got a book a
flight on a Tuesday, you gotta wake up early in
the morning. Do any of those things really work or
you know, my advice to people generally when they're booking
flights is if the price seems right to you and
you're ready to book, go ahead and book it. You know,
like it kind of like depends on the person, and

(01:04:03):
if you feel like it's fair. Yes, it can always
go down, it can always go up. But you know,
what's your advice for people booking flights.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Yeah, So there are a lot of those sort of
huh retread myths about airfare that I think are a
product of the fact that airfare is so volatile and
seems like it makes no sense, and so we jump
to sort of stock conclusions almost as a modern you know,
twenty per century rain dance. Oh I did this dance
and then it rained, Therefore my dance must have caused

(01:04:33):
it to rain. I think that's the way a lot
of people view, you know, searching for flights when when
it changed, they think, oh, they must be tracking my cookies.
Oh if I search an incognito would be different. We
search for, you know, millions of airfares every single day.
If anybody was going to notice fairs changing because of
our searches, it would be us. But we don't see that,

(01:04:55):
and instead, actually a brand that I did an experiment
on this one search for from Denver to to Iceland,
excuse me, Denver to London for and when the first
time I searched it was four hundred and forty one
dollars round trip. Second time I searched four hundred and
forty one dollars round trip. I searched that one hundred
times in a row. And we've got video of this
on YouTube. On the one hundred search, just like the

(01:05:18):
first search, still four hundred and forty one dollars round trip.
The interesting thing though about that, you know, searching on
Tuesday one pm or whatnot, if that's one that actually
used to be true twenty years ago when airlines first
started selling their tickets online, that they would load their
fares typically once a week at a predetermined time, like
say Tuesday at one pm. And so if you were

(01:05:40):
one of the first people to search for those plates
to buy a ticket right after they loaded, you would
have first crack at those cheapest fares. The problem is
that's not how airfare has been handled for years now.
Nowadays it changes algorithmically. It's constantly repricing rather than somebody

(01:06:00):
just changing the price once a week. And so the
good news is that, look, if you want to search
at Tuesday one PMO, if you want to search an
incognito mode or clear cookies, it's not going to hurt airfare.
It's just not going to do anything to actually make
flights cheaper. To do that, there are a lot of
different sort of best practices, like getting the timing of
your book, where booking a certain period in advance of travel,

(01:06:22):
usually about two to six months in advance, depending on
the trip is kind of the sweet spot where cheap
flights are most likely to pop up.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
All right, Scott, we're going to leave it there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
Scott Key's founder and CEO of going dot com. Thanks
so much for joining me today.

Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
Great to be on rich. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
I've always wanted to do the thing where I ask
all the people on the plane around me, like how
much did you pay for your seat? How much did
you pay for your seat? How much did you pay
for your seat? I'm going to do that one day.
All right, I'll put a link to the cheap airfare
alerts on my website. Just go to rich on Tech
dot TV. All right, coming up, news about WhatsApp. You
can now use it on multiple devices. I'll explain what

(01:07:02):
that's all about. Plus more of your calls at triple
eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four
to two, four to one zero one. Give me a
call if you have a question about technology. You're listening
to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

(01:07:22):
Rich Tamuro here talking technology with you. Let's go to
Gary in Riverside. We tried this earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Gary. Are you there?

Speaker 8 (01:07:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:07:33):
Do you got me? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
I got you loud and clear. What's up?

Speaker 9 (01:07:36):
Man?

Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
I don't know what the heck I did. That's modern technology, right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
I told you it needs to work when it needs
to work, and it didn't work when you needed it
to work.

Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
I must have hit the mute button by accident on
my iPhone. I got a brand new iPhone.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Oh nice, I.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
Got a trip. I've got a simple question that you
I know you know a lot about, as you know.
In October of twenty twenty five, the Windows ten will
no longer get support.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Right, correct?

Speaker 4 (01:08:04):
I have three old computers to ulip packer laptops. Those
are thirteen years old, and I have a Samsung laptop
that is eight years old. If there's no way that
you can put the new Windows eleven into them to
make them work, right, are can you?

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Unlikely?

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
Maybe with the one that's maybe with the one that's
eight years old.

Speaker 4 (01:08:28):
But I doubt it now I kind of Yeah, I
wanted to ask, you know, I listened to you A
lot of I didn't know about it. Even a lot
of my friends don't even know about that that it's
going to go.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
Under Well, yeah, I mean, look, it's you know, Windows
ten came out in twenty fifteen, so it's you know,
it gave it ten years and it's a pretty good lifespan.

Speaker 9 (01:08:49):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
They obviously gave a lot of people the update to
Windows eleven. If your computer can handle it, not every
computer can because they kind of increase the security requirements
for that, and so some of the systems that don't
have these chips, they just won't be able to upgrade
to Windows eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
So what to do?

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
So, Gary, are you a computer tinker at all?

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Or no.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Kind of Okay, So I mean there's one option that
I would recommend if you want to get Now we're
talking you still have a year and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
You know, you don't have to do this today.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Yeah, but I'm just you know, so in that time,
obviously you have you're talking three computers. Now, of course,
these computers are not going to cease to work. The
big thing that's going to happen is that there's no
more security updates for these and now Microsoft may change
their mind in the next year and a half and
they may say, you know what, we're going to do
another six months of security updates because we noticed that

(01:09:44):
a lot of people are still on these systems, right,
you know, we've seen that happen before, it could happen again.

Speaker 8 (01:09:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
The other thing is, you know, you can plan for
a new computer in that time, and you know you
have three of them, so that's a little bit trickier,
but you know that's that's coming up. But there's something
called Chrome os Flex and this is this basically would
turn your computer into a Chrome book. And so I
talk about this on the show a lot because if
you have an older computer that you still want to

(01:10:11):
get some use out of it's not a bad way
to do that, and right right, you can install it yourself.
It's free.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
When I first tested this couple, probably when it was
first announced a year ago or so, it uh, you know,
it's a little buggy, little little wonky. I have not
tried it since, but I imagine that it's gotten a
lot better. And so that's you know, maybe try this
on one of your machines and see what you think
of it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:35):
Right right right, Okay, that sounds that sounds good.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
And I'd say try it on the oldest one. Let's
just you know, get all this stuff off of their
you know whatever. I believe you could run it right
from a flash drive, so you might even try that
and just just see what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
But right right, what do you what do you do
with these computers? They're still working thirteen years later?

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
Yeah, they're still working. I do my banking and everything.
They've been working fine. My main is a EULID packer
and uh, I've got it in front of me now it.

Speaker 7 (01:11:05):
Still works fine.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Wow, I put it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:08):
I put an SSD drive in it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Wow, so makes it nice and fast.

Speaker 4 (01:11:12):
It made it go five times faster.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Well, if you put an SSD drive in your computer. Gary,
I think you can install Chrome OS Flex.

Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
Okay, I put them in, all three of them.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
Try it and see what you know. I want you
to report back. That's your homework assignment.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
Okay, okay, so chrome Chrome FX.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Chrome OS Flex, Chrome Chrome Operating System Flex f l
e X Okay, So look it up and you know
that's your homework. Do that, install it and report back
to me on what you think about it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
Call you back right on. Love your show, listen to
you all the time. I watch it on Channel five.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Awesome, Gary, Awesome, thanks a lot, Gary, appreciate it. Okay,
have a great day.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
Thanks for getting me back on.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Yeah, no problem, thank you, all right, bye bye. All right,
there you have it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
So I talk about this stuff because you know, if
your computer's work. Look at Gary just called. He's got
a computer that's thirteen years old. People are always complaining
about you know, these computers don't last a long time.
I got to redo my computer all the time. My computers.
My dad. I gave him my old MacBook and I
looked it up last time I was there, and I
think it was going on ten years old, and it

(01:12:20):
was just fine. Now he was complaining about a couple
little things about it, this and that, but most of
it was pretty simple stuff that could be fixed. And
I'm not going to say it was user but you
know what it is. Sometimes it is you just feel
like it's you know, it's not working the way you
want it to. But I'm telling you, these computers can
last a really long time. And there you go thirteen years.

(01:12:40):
And look at Windows ten came out in July twenty ninth,
twenty fifteen, and it's going to be retired on October fourteenth,
twenty twenty five. So you've got a lot of time
for this too to be retired. You still have a
year and a half. That's ten solid years of using
an operating system. By the way, you didn't have to

(01:13:01):
pay for any updates for so I think that's a
win in my book. And by the way, you also
got Windows eleven for free. For a majority or maybe
not a majority, but a large amount of those computers
that were running Windows ten were able to upgrade to
Windows eleven. So there you have it, all right. I
told you about WhatsApp new feature. You can now run

(01:13:23):
WhatsApp across multiple phones. This was announced by Meta that
owns WhatsApp. This is a feature that was highly requested.
In fact, when I was looking for messaging apps, I
chose Telegram because I can install it on multiple phones
versus WhatsApp, which is linked to one phone.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
You can have it on.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
One phone plus additional devices like a web browser, a
tablet or a desktop. But you could not install it
on another phone simultaneously. Well, now you can. So now
you can link up up to four additional phones. You
can now link your phone as up to one of
four additional devices. So if you've got multiple phones, you
can have your same chats on all of those phones.

(01:14:06):
If you're a small business owner you've got different employees
that are all using your same WhatsApp account to answer messages,
you can do that. This will be available to everyone
in the coming weeks. It has started to roll out,
so update your WhatsApp if you don't have the ability
to install it on multiple devices.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
It will be there soon.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
It's coming out over the next few weeks, so when
they roll out things, it's not available to everyone at once,
just to make sure that there's no issues with the rollout.
But again, really really cool because WhatsApp is encrypted end
to end by default. That means nobody else can read
your messages, not even Meta if they wanted to. So
it's highly highly secure and quite honestly, if you don't

(01:14:46):
mind Meta and Facebook making the app that you use,
it's a really good option. So WhatsApp now available across
multiple phones. If you've been wanting that feature, it is
now available.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Coming up, we're gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Talk about headphones in the next hour, but that wraps
up this hour of the show. Give me a call
triple eight rich one oh one. You're listening to rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro
here talking technology. Our number three of the show. It's

(01:15:25):
about this time when I say, how did this go
so fast?

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
I wait six Well do I wait six or seven
days to do the show every week?

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
And then it goes by like that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Eight a eight rich one oh one eight eight eight
seven four to two four to one zero one. It's
all thanks to you, by the way, because you make
the show. I mean I just sit here and talk.
You call in with these great questions and really really
make the show interesting and take it in directions that
I don't think of.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
I mean, I just have the stories.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
I'm going to talk about to make sure that you
know about the tech stuff that's important every week, and
that you're up to date. And when people ask you
something and you say, oh, hey, I know about that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
I know Windows is retiring in twenty twenty five, the
Windows ten.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
I know that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
So you feel smart?

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
All right, Let's go to Peter in San Gabriel, California.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
Peter, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Oh, Peter, are you there?

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
I just said how great you were and you're leaving
me hanging Peter in San Gabriel. Do you have your
phone on mute? No, he's not there. All right, we'll
try again with Peter. Maybe we'll come back.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
In the meantime. Let's see what should I tell you about?

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
Now, let's tell you about robotic vacuum maker Nido is
shutting down. So I never did a review on this
robotic vacuum. I like the eye robots, but there's a
whole bunch of other vacuums out there, and Nido was
one of the more popular brands the other distinctively de

(01:17:02):
shaped robot vacuums.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
But they're closing up shop.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
They told tech Hive that this company is being closed
down despite lots of restructuring efforts. So the good news
is if you have one of these robots, they are
going to basically keep them running for at least five years.
So spare parts and repair service will be at least

(01:17:25):
five years, and the cloud services will be at least
five years. So if you have one, you've got a
little bit of a runway for your vacuum to still
work before it totally sucks.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Ha, get it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
I know I'm in here by myself, you know, sometimes
I just have to amuse myself. Nido was founded in
two thousand and five, and a lot of people like
the robots. They were reviewed pretty highly. They also were
among the first to incorporate lightar technology to map out
the room. But Nito going away, So if you've got one,
you've got five years to plan for a new one.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
All right, do we have it? Looks like Peter is back?
Pete be there?

Speaker 10 (01:18:07):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
What happened? When we need a technology to work? It
didn't work? Why are we seeing this trend?

Speaker 10 (01:18:14):
I don't know. But this phone, I don't know what
it is is Okay and I have a nineteen twenty
nineteen version Nissan Okay and my singer compos is the
one the computer and everything. When I go to when

(01:18:37):
I started with this car, I got the map actually
to show up on this thing. But I don't know
how I did it, but now it won't throw up
when I wanted to, and it just goes through the
bluetooth and it just gives me voice direction. I wanted
to actually move it from the phone, like put the
phone up to the side, looking on the screen.

Speaker 1 (01:18:59):
What kind of phone you said? You have an Android phone? Right,
You're you're breaking up a lot, but okay, motog moto
g and are you plugging the phone in or is
it wireless?

Speaker 10 (01:19:11):
It's wireless. It's going on by bluetooth. And I noticed that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Okay, let me on, maybe move to a little bit
of a better signal area in your home, because I'm
really having trouble hearing you. But from what I'm gathering,
you are trying to get your Android Auto and maps
on the center console of the car, versus just having
it speak the directions.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
Is that right?

Speaker 10 (01:19:37):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Well, it sounds like if your car has Android Auto
and you said you have a Nissan Versa. I think
you said twenty nineteen. So let's take a look if
that has Android Auto. So it does look like it
has it, so that's good news. What I would do
is try plugging in your phone and seeing if that

(01:20:03):
helps to bring up the Android Auto. The other thing
you might want to do is reset the connection. So
go on your dashboard, delete the Bluetooth connection between the phone,
and then replug it in. Now if you are okay,
So it does have wireless, so it looks like it
looks like you do have some wireless connections available to

(01:20:25):
you at this with this setup. But have you tried
restarting all of your different Have you tried restarting all
of the different connections to this like, have you tried
reconnecting it?

Speaker 3 (01:20:36):
Or no?

Speaker 10 (01:20:37):
Well, as fun, it's like when I'm on a a
phone call or or where I'm listening to the radio,
it's it's tend to tell me the bluetooth. Okay, so
look on my phone and yeah, the Bluetooth goes up.

(01:21:00):
Wondering if it's the loops.

Speaker 9 (01:21:01):
On the phone.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
Yeah, Well, if I need.

Speaker 10 (01:21:03):
To update or something, it keeps going out.

Speaker 1 (01:21:08):
Yeah, Well, considering the way you're sounding on this phone calls,
it sounds like it could be a problem with your phone.
It sounds like it's it's almost like something is running
in the background of your phone that's causing it to
chop up. So a couple things I would do. Number One,
on your Android phone, I would go through your list
of apps and get rid of any apps that you

(01:21:29):
don't recognize or don't need. Once you do that, I
would go through and update all of your apps. Then
I would go through and I would update the software
on your device, so make sure that your software is
up to date by going into your settings and updating
your Android software on your phone. Once all that is done,

(01:21:50):
I would then go into your settings and search for
reset and then you'll get a thing for reset options,
and there's this, there's an option for reset Fi Fi
Mobile and Bluetooth. I would tap that and then reset
all of those settings. Now, what that's going to do
is it's going to clear out all of the Wi

(01:22:11):
Fi and Bluetooth settings you have on your phone currently,
which means you will have to connect it to your
car once again. But before you do that, I would
go on the versa and I would go into your
profiles for your Bluetooth and I would delete my phone
out of those profiles. So basically you are starting with
a completely fresh slate, and then I would go through

(01:22:33):
I would plug your phone in using USB. It should say, hey,
we noticed you have Android Auto. Do you want to
use it? And go through the setup process of pairing
your phone with Android Auto and the Bluetooth, and then
go ahead and play some music, make a phone call,
try out the Android Auto. If it's still not working,

(01:22:54):
you could have a bigger problem on your hands with
your phone or the car. But if you want a
troublesh the car, just get a friend that has an
Android phone and plug in their phone and see if
if it works. And if it does work, then you
know it's your phone. But just based on Peter how
you were sounding here, it sounds like it's something on
your phone. I would go ahead and kind of just

(01:23:16):
restart things, reset things, and see if that triggers the
help that you need to get this all figured out.
So good question, and hopefully you get that figured out,
because there's nothing worse than your phone not working in
your car. That's just not fun. And so believe me,
it's happened. It's not a good thing, and you want
that to work. So great question. Thanks for giving me

(01:23:38):
a call today. From San Gabriel, Peter and San Gabriel.
By the way, all I could think of was Peter
Gabriel in your Eyes that song, because on my screen
here it says Peter Gabriel. So that's all I see
when I see that triple A Rich one one eight
eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one.
If you want to get in on a phone call.

(01:23:58):
Coming up later on the show, we're gonna have Lauren Dragon.
She is the Wirecutter reviewer for headphones. She's gonna tell
us her best picks for headphones and also talk about
the over the counter hearing aids.

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
Something I tried out this week that I think is
really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
My friend told me about it many many months ago,
I think last summer, and I finally got around.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
To doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
It's called cinch Cynch and I linked it up on
my website rich on tech dot TV. But instead of
going to exchange your pro paine tanks, you literally just
download the app, fill out the form, and they will
come to you and exchange your pro pain tanks. Now
you might think, oh, Rich, it's gonna be so expensive,

(01:24:40):
you're gonna pay No, it was like basically the same
price as me lugging around the tanks to the gas
station and exchanging them. And when you do that, like
for me, I don't want to do any other errands
because you know, these tanks are rolling around in the
back of your car, and when they roll, they really
roll hard. And so this was so easy. I did
the form, I signed up the exchange. Whatever it costs

(01:25:04):
was about the same as the gas station. If you're
a first time customer, you get like a pretty good deal.
It's like ten bucks for your first exchange. I left
two tanks out overnight. They come to your house. I
heard the truck come. I looked outside. I saw a
big pickup truck with a whole bunch of pro Paine tanks.
They took my old tanks, they replaced them with the
new ones, and I did not have to leave my house.

(01:25:25):
This is like a game changer for me because it
was just so easy. Because exchanging pro Paine tanks is
something I never want to do, and so the fact
that I was that I had someone else come to
me to do this, I felt guilty. But this is
how technology works. I mean, you use an app for
everything these days, and now you can use it to
exchange your pro pain tanks, so it's great. I guess

(01:25:46):
I can tell you on the next show because I'm
planning on using the pro paine tanks tonight how the
actual propine works. But again, I was very impressed. I
looked up this company and my friend actually told me
about it last year. Like I said, but it's in
a bunch of different cities across the nation, so it's
not just here in Los Angeles, but it's all across
the nation. So it's run by one of the propane companies, Ameergas,

(01:26:10):
I guess is the company that makes it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
So I thought it was pretty cool. I don't know,
you got to tell me what you think.

Speaker 1 (01:26:15):
The propane exchange was about the same price, like I said,
I think it was like twenty six bucks or something.
But if you want, you can also get new tanks
as well. The only little catch I noticed is that
if you want to leave your pro paine tanks in
a more secure location, like on the side of your
house behind a gate, they do charge you an extra
two dollars for that. Otherwise, the propane tanks, if you

(01:26:39):
leave them in front of your garage, in front of
your house, that's the you know, they don't charge you
any extra, so there was no delivery fee, there was
no sort of like fees added on.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
I thought it was all very reasonable.

Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
So if you want to try this out, I know
summer's coming up and it's time for grilling season. Rich
on Tech dot TV, I'll put a link to the
Cinch Propane Exchange.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
I thought it was pretty cool. It's one of those
little errands that you know, you never get around to.
All right, coming up, we're gonna talk headphones and we're
going to talk about a new AI tool for Mother's Day.
Plus your calls at triple eight rich one oh one.
You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to

(01:27:24):
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
talking technology. One of my favorite topics in the world. Yeah,
I mean it better be. I talk about it a lot.
Triple A rich one on one eight eight eight seven
four to two, four to one zero one. Coming up,

(01:27:44):
I've got a great guest, Lauren Dragon. She reviews all
of the headphones for Wirecutter, and you hear me mention
them a lot. So we're gonna talk about some of
the best picks for headphones earbuds. And also we're going
to talk about those new over the counter hearing aids
because that's a hot topic these days. Let's first go

(01:28:06):
to Stephen in Los Angeles. Steven, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:28:10):
Oh, thank you so much for taking my call.

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):
Absolutely.

Speaker 11 (01:28:14):
So, I have a PC Windows eleven and uh, you know,
Microsoft workus forces you to do the upgrades, and it
this messes up my contacts. I can't access my contacts
and so I'll try to redo passwords and stuff like that.
And with the latest update this week, out looks completely different.

(01:28:35):
It doesn't even have like the little icon thing with
a two heads contact, so it's a mess.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
So, yes, things change with software updates, which is why
people are always hesitant to do them, and so I
always recommend doing the software updates. But I understand when
when that happens, things change. And Outlook, I know recently
on the Mac got a big make over as well,
Like they just recently came out with an app and
then they kind of updated it and so things did

(01:29:04):
change there. But you're saying the same thing happened on PC. Now,
when I use Outlook on the PC, I use the
web version of it because I don't want to deal
with the app at all. So I actually go to
like I think it's like Owa dot Outlook dot com
or something like that, and I found that the web
version recently changed as well. But what's the problem. So

(01:29:29):
you can't find your contacts?

Speaker 11 (01:29:31):
Well, I just brought it up and you know, hoping
i'd get on the show. And so they actually do
have a two personaltalle icon graphic thing and so I
see all those contacts. But here's the thing. It looks
like it's this contacts and the root email is. When
I was sitting this up, I was just clicking and

(01:29:51):
click and you click this, and so it's only I
have three emails, And how do I change the root email?
I can see like everything, I mean, have a setup
con Outlook with Microsoft so that I have all of
the other three emails.

Speaker 1 (01:30:10):
Okay, so you have to go in to your settings
and add those other email addresses. So do you not
have those added on here or what.

Speaker 11 (01:30:18):
I thought I did? But it looks like when I
bring up contexts, the root is from like my spam
email address, the one.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
That you give out to people that you know we're
going to spam you. Well, there should be if you
have multiple accounts, I'm not sure if the outlook will
merge all of those different contacts into one sort of
master list, but you should be able to see that
you would have different lists for the different email accounts
that you have there. I only have one account logged in,

(01:30:49):
so I can't see if there's a way to see others.

Speaker 11 (01:30:52):
Is there a way to change though the root email
address from the spam email to like my more basic
email so since as email.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
Address, Yeah, so I would go into your settings and
change the default email address and that would probably do it.
So once you add all three of these that, I
think that's the way to do it is change the
one that's the actual default email. So it sounds like
when you went through the setting, some things got changed.
But if you have three different email addresses and then.

Speaker 11 (01:31:20):
I download the Microsoft three sixty five and then you're
going through it, and then it just for some reason
to pick my spam email address is like the root
or whatever, I just said, Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
Sure click, and now you can't get back. Now you
got to I'm the same way. I'm the one that
I blast through all. I've actually gotten slower over the
years because I was famous for just blasting through anything,
and I realized when you blast through those menus, you
got to be careful because all the settings are the
best settings for the company, not necessarily for the user.

Speaker 11 (01:31:52):
Why is it that there's never enough time to do
it right the first time, but there's always enough time
to do it again over right?

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
Yeah, And getting back to those settings again, by the way,
they try to hide them as much as possible, And
so that's you know, that's.

Speaker 11 (01:32:04):
Why I'm in setting and I see system, Bluetooth devices, network, internet, personalization, apps, accounts, time, language, gaming,
blah blah blah, blah blah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:15):
Well, I find your way into the setting specifically for Outlook.
I don't know if we want to go through it
all right here, because you know it may take you
a second to find it, but I would find the
setting specifically for email and Outlook, and then inside there
you should see where it has your different accounts that
are linked up to that specific app. And once you

(01:32:35):
find that, there should be a way to either write
click it, or go in there and just say this
is my default and hopefully all of those contacts show up.
You may also have to toggle on the fact that
you want those contacts to propagate into the app, because
sometimes they won't necessarily come on unless you turn them on.
So hopefully that helps, Steven. I know it's it's one

(01:32:56):
of these things where it's kind of like a settings
thing where you just have to kind of go through
get the settings the way you want them, and once
you do, hopefully things will be good and you'll get
your contacts back. All right, coming up, we've got Lauren Dragon.
She is standing on the line ready to talk to
us about headphones and earbuds and also over the counter

(01:33:17):
hearing aids.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):
You're listening to rich on Tech will be right back.
Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:33:23):
Rich Demiro here with you talking technology, and I'm very
excited for my next guest, so I'm just gonna go
ahead and bring her on. Lauren Dragon is a reviewer
for Wirecutter, specializing in headphones and earbuds and all the
stuff that I get a lot of questions about on
a daily basis.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
Lauren, thanks so much for joining me.

Speaker 12 (01:33:44):
Hey, thanks for having me, and you have.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
The distinction of being our first guest via zoom and
you sound like you're right next to me here.

Speaker 13 (01:33:53):
I love it, I love it, and that is what
I'm here for is good audio in all types of forms.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
I mean, I would say if you didn't sound good
and you were giving us audio recommendations, that would be
a major problem.

Speaker 13 (01:34:04):
It really would, I know. So I feel like I
have a reputation to polld hair.

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):
Yes you do.

Speaker 1 (01:34:09):
Okay, So tell me a little bit about what you
do for Wirecutter before we get into all this stuff.

Speaker 12 (01:34:13):
Okay, So I'm a senior staff writer. I write for Wirecutter.

Speaker 13 (01:34:16):
I test headphones, earbuds, earplugs, and over.

Speaker 12 (01:34:20):
The counter hearing aids. What does that mean.

Speaker 13 (01:34:21):
It means that I do a ton of research and
then we do panel testing, We do endurance testing, we
do battery testing, water resistance testing, all sorts of things
until we figure out what is out there that is
the best thing that you can spend your money on.
And since I started at Wirecutter, which was a good
number of years ago, almost ten years ago now, I
have tested one thy seven hundred and fifty headphones a

(01:34:42):
little more now, but somewhere in there they've all been
on my head.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
So, oh my gosh, that's a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
Yes, that's like me with like cell phones, like for
a while there was just so many phones coming out
that I was just you know, testing all of them.
Now it's like just Samsung iPhone and like OnePlus, so
it's not that many anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:34:59):
Okay, but let's get into this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
So let's talk about, first off, the hot topic of
over the counter hearing aids. This is new and we're
seeing a lot of them. So what's your thoughts on
this stuff? Tell me what we need to know about that.

Speaker 13 (01:35:14):
Okay, So there's a few key things you want to
think about when you're going into this process. So the
first thing is that it is going to take time
for your brain to adjust to the new input. So
someone actually explained this to me like this. If you've
ever moved into a new apartment and every single sound
you hear it wakes you up, the garbage truck outside,
some creakings and the floors, and then after time, your

(01:35:37):
brain kind of gets used to those sounds and you
aren't really aware of it anymore. The same thing happens
with hearing aids. You're boosting frequencies that your brain hasn't
been listening to for a very long time, so now
it sounds really weird and loud, and so the key
is you need to give yourself time to acclimate. So
the reason I say this is when you're looking to buy,
you want to make sure you find a company that
has a generous return policy.

Speaker 12 (01:35:59):
So we're talking as long as possible.

Speaker 13 (01:36:00):
So the ones that we recommend range anywhere from the
very minimal thirty days to up to one hundred days.
So you want to have that time to make sure
it's working for you and it's not just your brain
taking its time to get used to the new input.

Speaker 2 (01:36:12):
Oh wow, that's some really good advice.

Speaker 1 (01:36:14):
And so I know that initially there are some companies
that came out with these right off the bat. It's
only been like less than a year, I believe. So
do you have any recommendations for brands that you like?

Speaker 12 (01:36:25):
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:36:26):
So.

Speaker 13 (01:36:27):
One of the ones that I really liked and that
our panelists like, and I should make sure that I'm
clear about this is that we worked with four different
people of different genders and age groups to try all
of these out and really live with them before we
made any recommendations. It's very time intensive, but I wanted
to make sure that we had sort of a consensus,
because you know, what works for one person may not

(01:36:49):
work for other people. So if I found overlap, it
meant that somebody would be more likely to like these,
But you know, everyone's got different needs. So one of
the ones that we recommend is by Jabra Jabra Enhance Select.
There's the one hundred and the two hundred. They used
to be made by company called Lively. Now they're covered
by Jabra, but they're the exact same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:37:09):
I feel like I've seen ads for those on TV
like Lively. I feel like that was like a big
advertiser on TV for a while.

Speaker 13 (01:37:14):
They were yeah, and now they're part of Jabra, which
I think is actually kind of great because Jabra is
owned by GN who also does other hearing aids that
are prescription based, So they have a lot of infrastructure,
which means you're going to have a lot of support,
and that's why we like them.

Speaker 12 (01:37:28):
They have one hundred day.

Speaker 13 (01:37:29):
Return policy, they have a three year warranty and three
years of support. So basically what that means is if
you run into problems anytime you need help, you can
get in touch with somebody and they will talk you
through it, which is really helpful, especially if you're someone
who's a little bit weird. And you know, kind of
concerned about new technology. It's really great to have those.

(01:37:50):
They're behind the ear and they have the little module
back there, and the two hundred takes calls. The one
hundred doesn't. So it's up to us to whether that's important.
But the my panelists love how light they were, how
good they sounded, and how versatile they were because they
could also stream music, which is a big thing for people.

Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
Now I'm looking at the price on these, you're talking
about anywhere from eighteen hundred to two thousand dollars.

Speaker 12 (01:38:14):
Fifteen hundred to two thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
Yeah, so depending on whether you get the one hundreds
or the two hundred's correct. So this is this is
why you want that return policy because you know, this
is an expensive proposition.

Speaker 4 (01:38:27):
Yes.

Speaker 13 (01:38:27):
And the thing is is that we did test some
of the cheaper things out there, and I'm going to
tell you the reason why the cheapest one that we
recommend is three hundred and fifty per year is because
the other ones were just they were going to be junk.
I mean, honestly, a lot of our panelists were like,
this wouldn end up in a drawer and then you're out,
you know, two hundred dollars, and yeah, it's less expensive,

(01:38:49):
but in the end it becomes more expensive because now
you've spent money on something that squeals or has weird controls,
or doesn't amplify the air, you know, the sound frequencies
that you want or falls out or is uncomfortable, and
that's not what you want to have. That's not what
you want to have is your experience. You want to
have something that is integrated into your life.

Speaker 2 (01:39:09):
So the three fifty per year, which brand is.

Speaker 12 (01:39:11):
That, that's the tweak enhance.

Speaker 13 (01:39:13):
So they're really a very basic, you know, kind of
plug and play hearing aids. So we're not talking about
doing a ton of we're not streaming music. You do
need a phone to set it up initially, but then
after that you don't need to use the app anymore.
So that's great for someone who, for example, they're like, look,
I don't have a smartphone, I don't want to deal
with this. You can have a friend to help you

(01:39:34):
set it up, and then after that you just use
them like normal hearing aids. And they are you know,
they're they're not splash resistant, but they do have a
thirty day return policy. They do have adjustability and they
have some support, which is great. So that's why we
recommend those as sort of a base model, and so
it really does range. I mean those are kind of
behind the ears. If you want something where no one

(01:39:56):
can see your hearing aids at all and it looks
like you're wearing nothing, then Eargo is the way to go.
The Eergo six are inside your ears and you literally
cannot tell that someone's wearing them.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
Oh wow, Okay, so three good options there. Now let's
move on to sort of headphones. So you know people
want noise cancelation headphones and also earbuds. So do you
have any picks for sort of noise cancelation headphones that
you really like? I mean, I know, we know the
Bows are like heavily advertised. Are those as good as everyone?

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:40:27):
I mean I had a pair of these like years ago,
but now I know people like the Sony's.

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
But what's your pick?

Speaker 13 (01:40:31):
Okay, So I'm gonna say that with some caveats. So
when it comes to purely noise cancelation, so we're talking
about that is your b all end all. You want
the most noise cancelation possible, then yes, the Bows noise
canceling seven hundred over your headphones are really great at that. However,

(01:40:52):
if you want something that is more isolating, and I
use this word isolating because active noise cancelation only works
on lower frequency sounds, so you need to have good
isolation if you want to block out voices, babies crying,
things like that. So for that, I would say you'd
want to actually go with the Sony W twent thousand,

(01:41:12):
XM four or XM five, depending on which one you want.

Speaker 12 (01:41:15):
They're very similar.

Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
And I've used the Sony's and the Bows and I
think they're both great. And I think also some of
that comes down to the comfort of the actual earbuds,
you know, like the or sorry, the headphone like area,
Like how comfortable they are to wear for a long
period of time.

Speaker 2 (01:41:29):
Oh, that's key.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
So people always like to know kind of like the
budget stuff. So can you give me sort of your
pick in like the budget areas, so like maybe budget
headphones and also budget earbuds.

Speaker 13 (01:41:40):
Okay, so if we are talking budget earbuds, the Earfun
free to SR have no business being twenty seven dollars,
which is what they are right now. They are IBX seven.
They have a wireless charging case. They have a seven
hour battery. They are small, they have full touch controls,
they are comfortable, and they sound good. I mean it
is just I don't know how they do it, but

(01:42:01):
they're fantastic little buds for very little money and you
really can't go wrong with them.

Speaker 2 (01:42:07):
Ear Fun Free one S two S two S.

Speaker 13 (01:42:11):
I know these names, but luckily all of this is
on the website, so if you're at all confused ny
Times dot com slash wirecutter, you'll be able to find
this stuff.

Speaker 12 (01:42:21):
Again.

Speaker 1 (01:42:22):
Yes, we're not expecting you to remember all of these
things because we're talking about a lot here.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
Okay, so the ear.

Speaker 1 (01:42:28):
Funds we like, and then what about you know, sort
of over the year headphones for just cheap pair, like
a nice pair that you don't mind losing if you
lose them.

Speaker 13 (01:42:38):
Yeah, So it'll depend on what you're looking for. So
if you want noise cancelation that's actually functional, the one
more Sono Flow or around one hundred dollars sometimes less,
and they're very good at you know, they get about
we tested about negative fifteen dB from the uh you
know from your sound brings it down a bit, or
if you just want some inexpensive on ears that just

(01:42:59):
work the job or Elite forty five h are usually
under one hundred dollars and they're comfortable and they're lightweight
and they're just easy to kind of toss in a bag.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
Okay, so you've given us some brands that we know,
some brands that we don't know. So before you just
buy a pair of these things in the store, sight
on scene or one of these websites that sort of
forces you to buy. You know, you know those websites
I'm talking about where it's like this is going on
sale and it's going to be over in ten minutes.

Speaker 12 (01:43:26):
Lord, those sites, Yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
Could just tell whenever you see a countdown time or
on a site, you know it's probably not very good.
The only exception is Amazon with their lightning deals. I
wish they didn't do that because it confuses everyone. You know,
it feels like that sense of urgency it does.

Speaker 12 (01:43:43):
And I don't like that.

Speaker 13 (01:43:44):
And also too, I think there's something about those sites
that people don't realize that it's it's going to be
back again, Like it's not.

Speaker 12 (01:43:51):
It's all it's all fraudulent.

Speaker 2 (01:43:53):
They're there to sell this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:43:54):
It's not They're not going to close up the website
after sixteen minutes exactly.

Speaker 13 (01:43:58):
Yeah, But to me, the most important thing when you're
looking at a brand and when we recommend things, we
want to make sure that the company is going to
be there to support you if things go wrong. So
we look at things like warranty and the customer support
and their ability to respond to that kind of stuff.
So it's not just the point of purchase, you know. Granted, yes,
it does help in the early stages to think about

(01:44:19):
like Amazon taking easy returns or best Buy, but you
also want to think about the long term when you're
outside of that return window and how well they actually do.
So that's something that I take time to look into.
Is you know, I'll sometimes just make a you know,
kind of burner account and get in touch with them
about something and see how they do the.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
Process, like a little secret shopper there. Actually, Yeah, what
do you enjoy about this before we go? What do
you like about testing headphones? What's fun for you about this?
Since you've tested over a thousand pairs, I know, you know, I.

Speaker 13 (01:44:52):
Think the most important thing to me is I love
the feeling of being able to help people and I
love kind of being I kind of jokingly call myself
if a headphone Yenta, because I'm matchmaking people with things
that are going to be part of their day to
day life. And I love getting to find out new
things that people might need, and so like recently I've
been looking into missiphonia and sensory processing disorders and autism

(01:45:14):
and how maybe people who have audio sensitivities might have
different preferences and how can I test for that? And
I think that that is just so much fun to me,
is kind of seeing what's new and technology and seeing
how it can make people's lives easier and better.

Speaker 2 (01:45:28):
I love it. Lauren Dragon.

Speaker 1 (01:45:30):
Always fun to do stories with you for both KTLA,
seeing you at CS and of course right here now
on the radio show. Thanks for having the best audio
of any guests so far.

Speaker 12 (01:45:41):
You are welcome. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):
All right, I'll put a link to Lauren's reviews on
my website. Just go to rich on tech dot tv
for all of Lauren Dragon's Wirecutter Headphone reviews. Coming up,
we're going to talk about oh my gosh. We're going
to close out the show. We're going to talk about
a new way that you can AI.

Speaker 2 (01:46:00):
For Mother's Day.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
Yes, it's going to be easier to write your mom
a little poem or a note with her flowers this
year rich On Tech, Rich Demiro here will be right back.

(01:46:23):
Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you talking technology. And Wow, what a great
show it's been today. So many great questions, so many
great stories, and I've got more more where that came from.
So first off, let me start with this. So I
was talking to my brother and I forget how this

(01:46:45):
came up, but he was mentioning about nearby Share on Android,
and nearby Share is pretty much Android's answer to airdrop.
So if you have a Mac computer, well, let's put
it this way. If you have an iPhone, you've probably
used air drop. It's the way that you can drop
or send wirelessly big files from phone to phone. So

(01:47:07):
if a friend is like, hey, you just took a
bunch of pictures, can he air drop those to me?
You can select the pictures and send them to their
phone ad hoc, which means it goes from their phone
to your phone without going through a cellular network. It
just goes over Wi Fi direct basically, but you know,
it's Apple, so they like to rename things into their
own stuff so that you don't really know what's happening.

(01:47:29):
So it's really just Wi Fi direct ninety nine percent
of the time, I think, and it's just sending it
from Wi Fi on your phone to Wi Fi and
their phone. By making that connection directly between the two phones,
it's been really easy.

Speaker 2 (01:47:41):
It's super nice, it's convenient.

Speaker 1 (01:47:43):
You can send big files through it, and iPhone users
love it. It also works equally well between iPads and
also Mac. Now that's all great, but what if you
have an Android? So Android came out with something called
Nearby Share and that works from Android to and it's
the same thing. It's actually even maybe a little bit

(01:48:03):
better because it might use cellular for tiny files once
in a while, but it kind of uses a combination
of cellular, Bluetooth, and Wi Fi to get files from
your phone to another Android phone. Now that's all great,
but what about a PC. So that's been the trouble.
You can't go from Android to a Mac, and you

(01:48:23):
can't go from Android to a PC until now they
now have a beta version of nearby Share for Windows.
So I'm telling you this because if you want to
move files between your Android device and your Windows PC. Sure,
there are many ways you can do it, but this
is kind of like now, the easiest, fastest, simplest way.
So I'll put the link on these show notes. But
it's called Nearby Share Beta for Windows, and you can

(01:48:47):
install that on your Windows computer and boom. Anything you
want to move from your Android phone to your Windows
computer you can do.

Speaker 9 (01:48:54):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:48:54):
There is a version for Mac, but it is unofficial.
I installed it on my computer. I'm not sure if
I should have done that, but I can't recommend installing
that right now because it just comes from like sort
of an unknown developer.

Speaker 2 (01:49:05):
But it does work really well. So that's that now.

Speaker 1 (01:49:09):
If you don't have any of those options and you
want something that's simple from Android to your computer. I
tested out this device called the PNY Duo Link. So
PNY is known for their memory for many years, but
now this is basically a little flash drive and it's
called the Duo Link. It's got two different sides. So

(01:49:30):
one side is a USB C drive. The other side
is USBA which is pretty much think of that as
the standard USB. And so what you do is you
plug the one side USBC into your phone. You copy
the files that you need, maybe it's some big video
files onto this little drive, and then you stick that
drive into your computer and you can transfer the files.

(01:49:50):
I tried this on a Samsung phone. The files I
did a really big file. It transferred very very quickly,
so this is not that expensive. It is twelve ninety
nine for a sixty four gigabyte. It's one hundred and
twenty eight gigabytes for twenty dollars or two fifty six
for thirty dollars. They sell them at best Buy and Amazon,
and also of course directly through pn Y. The read

(01:50:12):
write speed is up to two hundred megabytes per second.
So if you're looking for a way to transfer big
files from your phone, your Android phone to your computer,
this is.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
A easy way.

Speaker 1 (01:50:23):
And by the way, it'll work with a Windows computer
and also a Mac computer.

Speaker 2 (01:50:27):
So there you have it, pretty simple, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):
I mentioned AI for Mother's Day one eight hundred flowers
dot Com has a new thing called mom Verse.

Speaker 2 (01:50:34):
It's basically chat GPT.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
You type in your mom's name and you say do
you want a haiku, a song or a limerick, and
then you say if it's your mom, your grandma or
your wife. You tell them what interests they have and
guess what it comes up with a little message for mom.

Speaker 2 (01:50:51):
Or you know whoever.

Speaker 1 (01:50:52):
You're writing that out for so kind of cool stuff
right there, I mean so many things, just so many
things using chat GBT right, I'm rich Damiro. That's gonna
do it. For this episode of the show. Next week,
how does a salad from a vending machine sound? The
CEO of Farmers Fridge is going to join me to
talk about his fresh food vending machines, which are in

(01:51:12):
locations across the country. You can find me on social media.
I am at rich on tech my website richontech dot TV.
Check it out to watch 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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017 Rich on Tech Radio Show - April 29, 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;}017 Rich on Tech Radio Show - April 29, 2023