027 Rich on Tech Radio Show - July 8, 2023 - Rich On Tech

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Threads takes the tech world by storm. The social media
scam that wants to give you a free piano, Volkswagen
tests self driving cars, plus your tech questions answered. What's
going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech.

(00:24):
This 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. I believe that tech
should be easy, helpful and inspiring. Phone lines are now
open at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight
eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.

(00:48):
Give me a call. If you have a question about technology,
email is also open. Send it to hello at richontech
dot TV. Well, there is only one story in the
tech world, one story in the entire tech world, and
that is Threads. This is a new app created by

(01:11):
Instagram that lets folks share text updates and join in
on public conversations. It's basically Twitter, but from Instagram. It's
all access through your Instagram account. Seventy million is that
the last count. Seventy million people have signed up in
less than two days. Any startup in the world would

(01:35):
love to have that kind of number. How did it
get there so fast? We'll talk about that more later
in the show, but the bottom line is that because
it's so tightly integrated with Instagram, it was super easy
to sign up and find your followers and find people
to follow, and that made it very sticky right away.
And people are really having a blast with this thing.

(01:58):
So I'll tell you more about threads and just moment,
but I thought it'd be fun to kind of take
a walk down social media history lane, because as tech folks,
we get really excited about the latest and greatest things,
and honestly, it's always been this way. It's been this
way for a very long time, probably thirty years now.

(02:20):
The very first social network that I remember was Friendster.
Friendster was back in about two thousand and two, and
it got some pretty big success. I think everyone was
on friendstr and Friendster just pretty much lets you connect
with friends. I don't remember much more about it than that.
That's all I remember is that you kind of just

(02:42):
connected with your friends on there. And I don't remember
what we did on there, but we had our friends
on there, and then all of a sudden, my Space
came along, like a year later, and then everyone went
to MySpace and we all said Ooh, this is really cool.
My Space is really fun because it lets you customize
your homepage, your profile page. It was kind of like

(03:03):
a social network version of GeoCities, the website that everyone
had their home on the web MySpace. We were all
friends with Tom. Remember Tom. I guarantee you in your
head you could think about what Tom looks like to
this day, that white T shirt or maybe it was
a black T shirt. I don't remember, but anyway, you
could remember Tom, who could forget And the best part

(03:26):
about MySpace is that it showed you how you knew someone.
That was the best part is that you saw how
you were connected and that was so really fun, and
you were connected to everyone by the way. I don't
think there's a person on MySpace that you were not
connected to. And my Space was heavy on the music influence,
so there's a lot of music kind of built into

(03:47):
MySpace and that was really I think what helped it
take off too, is that you can listen to music
on there and just share the kind of music you wanted,
and really it just gave you a way to express yourself.
For Square, remember that one four square came along and
this I remember specifically checking into places in New York

(04:07):
City when this came out, I believe I was working
at c neet around the time, and for Square allowed
you to check in at your favorite restaurant, your favorite bar,
your favorite coffee shop, wherever you were and share that
out and so people could see where you were, and
if you checked in enough, you would become mayor of
that place. And that was an honor to become the

(04:29):
mayor of wherever you were. So for Square was pretty
hot for a while and it was fun, it was great.
It showed people where you were. That was the next
kind of the geolocation part of this became a big
part of social media networks. How about this one? Do
you remember? Path? Path was a This was when everyone
was sort of sick of social media. They wanted to

(04:51):
go back in to just close friends and family. So
Path was an app that was beautifully designed. It allowed
you to share photos, video and messages with just a
limited amount of people, just your friends and family. I
think you can only have a certain amount on there.
The problem is, well, we decided we like to go viral,
we like to be public. We like to have random

(05:13):
strangers say ooh that looks cool, ooh you look like
you're in a cool place. Ooh, you look like you're
eating at a cool restaurant. Okay, now this was a
big one. Google Plus. I remember working at KTLA and
Google Plus came out and it might have been the
biggest thing we have ever seen in our entire lives.

(05:35):
Google Plus was huge. It was launched by Google. It
was so complicated, but it was supposed to be a
challenger to Facebook, more private, more secure, better integrated with Google.
And guess what, we all used it for about a
week and that was it. I loved Google Plus. I
love some of the features on there, it just never

(05:56):
took off. How about Vine? Remember Vine? Vine gave you
the ability to post six second videos. Now I never
got on Vine. I was never big on Vine, but
it was kind of a pathway to all of the
current social media networks that deal with creators. Vine is
where you really had to be super creative because you
had to catch someone's attention in six seconds or less

(06:19):
and be interesting and be funny and witty and smart
and cool. And these videos looped so you'd watch them
over and over, so these vines would have millions of views.
Twitter bought Vine eventually shut it down, all right, Meerkat.
I remember where I was for this one. This was
the first time you could stream live from your smartphone.
What an amazing thing, streaming live from your smartphone. I

(06:44):
was at the Apple event up in Coopertino when this
came out, and it was revolutionary. And of course now
you can stream live from one thousand and one apps.
Periscope came out a little bit later and kind of
overtook this. Periscope was unbought by two Twitter and Meerkat
was eventually shut down. So you see the pattern here, folks. Clubhouse,

(07:05):
how about this one? Remember how hot Clubhouse was. You
couldn't even get on Clubhouse, that's how hot it was.
Even the name Clubhouse reminds me of trying to get
into clubs in Hollywood. It's like, sorry, dude, not tonight.
This was Clubhouse. This is an audio only app and
I believe it's still around. But it was kind of
built into Twitter as well with a feature called spaces

(07:28):
and it's an audio only app where people discuss things
in an audio only way, and it was it had
a moment and now I'm not sure what the deal
is with Clubhouse.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Now.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
I didn't mention the successful social media networks Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram.
These have set the foundation for our social media world today.
These are the apps that are probably installed in a
majority of smartphones. If you just ask a couple of people, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.

(08:02):
They are the rst lne of social media apps right
and now we have a new one, Instagram. Threads. People
were so unhappy with Twitter, they were looking for a
new outlet, and I think a lot of them found it.
Threads is basically Twitter, but through Instagram. So you write

(08:25):
a post, people comment on. The posts are called threads.
It's all about real time conversations and the neat thing
about threads. Not only that has seventy million people so overnight,
it feels alive, it feels vibrant. It feels like your
best friends are on there, and also your mom. And
that's not a joke. I'm not saying your mom. I'm

(08:45):
just saying like she might be on there at this point.
Because they made it so easy to sign up, you
log in with Instagram. It's available in one hundred countries
Europe excluded, by the way, because of privacy situation. Posts
can be up to five characters, they can include links, photos,
and videos up to five minutes. You can share your
threads to an Instagram story, or they even made it

(09:10):
easy to post your thread to Twitter. I'm sure that'll
be blocked soon. It's just one of these things that
has taken off overnight and it's fun. And the reason
why it's fun is because people are on there, and
it's almost like the first day of school. All your
friends are there, everyone's chatting, everyone's having a great conversation.
And the interesting thing about this not only is it

(09:30):
owned by Meta, which is a whole other conversation which
we'll talk about soon, but it's built on an open
platform called Activity pub which means theoretically, eventually you'll be
able to use other apps to not only interact with
people on threads, but also bring your threads account somewhere else.
If Threads is not as fun anymore, you want to

(09:51):
go somewhere else, maybe use a different app. Mastodon is
one of the apps that also uses the same protocol.
So that's kind of interesting that Facebook book would adopt
an open protocol for this app. So Threads available now.
You can find me on there. I am at rich
on tech on threads and already just little old me

(10:11):
has over I think ten thousand people on there because
it let me bring over a lot or let my
Instagram followers find me there. So Threads, we're going to
talk about that more on the show today. We've got
some great guests. We've got a lot coming up.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
We've got Casey Newton of Platformer. We're going to talk
all things threads. Casey is sort of the expert on
this thing. We also have Jacob Palmer of Best Reviews.
He's going to join us to talk Amazon Prime Day deals.
And then later in the show, doctor Renee Dua. She
created an app called Heel. You might have heard of it.
It's a doctor on demand app. Well, she has a

(10:48):
new one. It's called Together and it can take your
vital signs with just a selfie. But first it is
your turn. We're going to have your calls coming up
next at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
You can email me hello at richontech dot TV. Give

(11:08):
me a call or email if you have a question
about technology. My name is rich Demiro and you are
listening to Rich on Tech. Let's go to Jennifer in
Laguna Beach. Jennifer, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Hi.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
Rich.

Speaker 6 (11:27):
I have an iPhone and my traveling buddy has an Android.
Is there an app that would work across platforms to
allow us to track each other's phones when we're on
trips together in case one of us misplaces our phone.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Ooh, good call. So they have an Android? You have
an iPhone?

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Okay? I think the best app for this is Life
three sixty. Have you heard of that?

Speaker 4 (11:53):
No?

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay? So Life three sixty is basically and there are
many many ways you can do this. There are many
many ways, but Life three sixty is probably one of
the best. Like location sharing, it's mostly for families, but
it can be used for friends as well, and it's
free for the main plan, so you can just sign
up and use it for free, which is kind of nice.

(12:15):
And for free you get two days of location history,
two places with alerts, so if you wanted, like if
you had a kid per se and you wanted to
know every time that kid got back to their house
or school, you can have two places set up and
then SOS help alert so you can install this app,
you invite your friend, and next thing you know you're

(12:35):
both sharing your location on these on this app, cross platform,
and this will work wherever you go. You'll be able
to see the last known location. You'll also be able
to see information about battery life on your phone. There's
a whole bunch of things built into this app that will,
I believe help with what you're asking about. Does that

(12:55):
sound like it would work, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
It really does.

Speaker 6 (12:58):
She misplaced her phone for a while on our last
trip together, and that's what made us think that if
we had a way we could try to each other's phone,
it would have avoid a little bit.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
Of stress on her part.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Now, if you have an Android phone or an iPhone,
there's a couple of ways to find and locate those
devices from any device, and so if you're an Android
device user, you can just literally Google Find my device.
So if you go to Google dot com slash Android
slash find, you will see the last known look. You'll
see all of the devices on your Google account. Now, obviously,

(13:32):
if it's her phone or their phone, you will they
will have to log in using their Google information, and
so that you know, keep that in mind, especially with
two factor authentication, But you can go to that as well,
and then if you have an iPhone, I believe it's
iCloud dot com slash find. Let's see if that's the address.
Yeap iCloud dot com slash find. So, no matter what,

(13:55):
you can find the devices. The problem is for most
people they're gonna have to in from someone else's device.
And guess what happens when that When that occurs, yeah.

Speaker 6 (14:06):
It's it's a challenge to get in, especially if you've
got two factors set up. It's gonna send its code.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
So the phone you can't find exactly do we have
a ding? That's uh, Jennifer, you got it. You don't
even need me anymore. See I'm telling you. So that's
the biggest problem. I mean, asking anyone to log in
for anything on their phone is usually a situation because
I'll tell people, you know, they'll come up to me
and they'll have a problem with their device. I'll say, oh, well,
let's log into this, and they say, oh, I don't

(14:34):
know that password. It's gonna take me a while. So
I think the Life three sixty will be a good solution.
I'm sure there are other solutions out there. There used
to be one from Google that we were using cross
platform that was pretty simple, but it was like a
trusted contact situation. But I think that the Life three
sixty app is set up to do things that you're
asking for, and I think that's going to be the

(14:55):
easiest way, uh to do it at this point. So
we're you headed, you said Europe.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Yeah, we we went.

Speaker 6 (15:03):
To Ireland and Scotland last month and now in the
fall we're going to Italy. So oh yeah, I know.
I don't know how I got this lucky.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
I promise I went to Italy.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I'm not kidding. I went last year and there's not
been a day that goes by that I have not
thought about Italy in an entire year. So if you
want to check out my Instagram at rich on Tech,
scroll through my highlights and just look at Rome, and
I'm not kidding, you will be so excited for your
trip you can't wait. We had such a great time
and it was just four days. I met my wife

(15:36):
out there, she was on a work trip and we
had such an amazing time. All right, Jennifer, thanks so
much for calling today. I appreciate it. Let me tell
you about the latest social media scam. According to the
BBB Better Business Bureau, their scam tracker is getting a
whole bunch of numerous a whole bunch of reports. It
sounds like a friendly neighbor trying to give away their piano.

(15:56):
But guess what, not so fast sopens through Facebook Marketplace.
Someone's trying to get rid of their piano. But all
you have to do is pay the shipping costs and
they will put you in touch with the movers who
will deliver it. Guess what They're gonna ask for money
via zell, PayPal or another digital wallet app. They may
even ask you to wire money or pay with a

(16:17):
prepaid debit card. You send the money, the piano never arrives.
One person fell for eight hundred and forty three dollars
of this scam. Another person fourteen and twenty four dollars.
Do not fall for this scam. It's apparently happening on Facebook,
Marketplace and other platforms. Don't take the free piano unless
you see it on the street. It's probably not free.

(16:37):
It goes back to that old adage, if it sounds
too good to be true, it probably is. Ah so
many scams every day, all right, coming up, we are
going to talk to Casey Newton of Platformer Casey's gonna
talk all things threads. I've already had people say they
found me on there, so I am at rich on
Tech on Threads. If you haven't downloaded the app, I'll

(16:59):
give you a little trick real quick. If you search
inside Instagram for threads, a little ticket comes up. You
tap that ticket and it will bring you to Threads.
Coming up, we'll talk more about Instagram and Meta's new
social network. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome

(17:23):
back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
with you, talking technology. Plus your calls at triple eight
rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
to two, four to one zero one. If you have
a call, hop on the line and give me a
give me a ring. Don't forget to sign up for

(17:43):
the newsletter. Just go to rich on Tech dot tv.
Hit the newsletter icon or the link and you can
sign up for a newsletter which is sort of dormant
right now. But you never know when I will send
something amazing out, so get on the list. It's free.
Might as well be there. Samsung has announced that they
are doing their next event in Korea. We knew that,

(18:07):
but now we have a date. The date is July
twenty sixth. Unpacked will be held for the very first
time in Soeul, Korea. They say this is where traditional
culture and futuristic visions intersect to inspire global trends and
game changing innovation. So this event will be live streamed

(18:28):
all over the place, including YouTube, Samsung TV Plus. I
was actually at the barber shop and that was the
first time I saw someone using Samsung TV Plus. It's
kind of like their free TV built into all of
their devices. There's a lot of programming on there. So
what are they going to announce at this event? You
already know. Oh, it's said join the flip side, So

(18:50):
I think we already have an idea. So we're going
to see the new Samsung Galaxy Z flip five and
Z fold five, and so those devices will be pretty
hot this time around, because foldables are a pretty big
deal right now. We've got them from Google, we've got
them coming up from one plus, and of course Samsung

(19:13):
was the leader in this spot, but now they've got
some good competition. So the event is actually going to
happen at seven am Eastern, but because it's in Seoul, Korea,
I believe it's going to be a nighttime event, and
I guess I can tell you this now, but I
will be there. So I am very, very excited to
go to Korea and experience what it's going to be

(19:33):
like there from their perspective, because I believe I would
have to imagine that Korea is probably very popular with
Samsung devices, whereas here in America we are very iPhone centric,
and so we'll see what happens. It'll be interesting. Other
things to note, Volkswagen launching their first autonomous driving test

(19:58):
program here in the US. It's gonna happen in Austin, Texas.
If you listen to the show, you know I was
in Austin, Texas recently. So this is gonna kick off
this month with ten all electric ID Buzz vehicles. This
is that little van I called it. Well, it's kind
of like when I was a kid we had a van. Again.

(20:18):
It kind of reminds me of that. So this is
gonna be ten of these cars outfitted with autonomous driving
technology developed by Volkswagen in partnership with a company called
Mobile Eye, and they're gonna test this over the next
three years and they're gonna keep growing this fleet. So
it's gonna start with ten and keep going more, and
they're gonna expand to at least four more cities in

(20:38):
the US. I can already guess what those cities are
gonna be. Probably gonna be Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles,
maybe San Francisco. Those are the cities that have been
historically nice to self driving cars. So let's see what
do they say. They're gonna be driven thousands of miles
across a wide diversity of drive scenarios, and the technology

(21:03):
on board includes cameras, radar, and light ar, and all
vehicles would be staffed with a supervising human driver at
all times throughout this initial test phase. So it's happening.
Self driving cars definitely happening. It's happening fast up in
San Francisco. Apparently people are using cones to disable they're
so annoyed with these self driving cars, they're using cones

(21:25):
to disable them. I guess they put the cone on
the hood of the car and it stops going. And
they say that they're doing this because these these self
driving cars are not only annoying, but they're ruining the streets.
They're causing traffic tie ups. They don't always work right
and people aren't happy there, all right, give me a
call at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight

(21:47):
eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one.
We do have our guest, Casey Newton of Platformer. Casey
is kind of a big deal. Casey talks about social
media and its relationship with the world. Very popular newsletter

(22:07):
at platformer dot news. And it took me a while
to get Casey on this show because Casey's a busy guy.
So we are welcome to Casey to the show. Do
we have them, Casey? Can you hear me?

Speaker 7 (22:23):
Yes?

Speaker 8 (22:23):
I can't.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Hey, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me.

Speaker 9 (22:27):
Hey, I'm sorry to be here. Sorry I'm a little
bit late. It's been a moving week for me, so
everything is insane.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
I hear that, so no problem, but welcome to the show.
Thanks for joining me. Let's talk about threads. I am
sure this has consumed your entire week, because has this
been the fastest social media network to ever reach seventy
million people in two days?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
It has an In.

Speaker 9 (22:48):
Fact, people are saying it might be the fastest app
to hit one hundred million users ever, So we really
have not seen anything like it.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
So how do you describe threads? I just said, it's
kind of like Instagram's version of Twitter. How do you
describe it?

Speaker 2 (23:02):
I think that that's about right. You know. The basic
idea is to create a place where people.

Speaker 9 (23:08):
Can write sentences, share links, post photos and gifts, and
just have public conversations.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
So that's definitely what Twitter is.

Speaker 9 (23:17):
And Meta will tell you that they're not trying to
clone Twitter, that they want to make something better than Twitter,
but at least the one point zero version looks a
heck of a lot like Twitter.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
So what is your initial take on this? I mean,
you've been following this very closely. I know you tried
to be on vacation this week but that didn't happen,
and you also got an interview in your podcast hard
Fork with Adam Osseri, who heads Instagram. So what are
your impressions of this? Tell me?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Well, you know, I like it a lot. I'm somebody
who found Twitter very useful in doing my work.

Speaker 9 (23:50):
It's where I sort of got a sense of how
people felt about what was going on in the news.
It's where I would see stories as they were breaking.
It would help me understand what I wanted to write.
About during the day, and so when it started to
collapse over the past six months, I was really sad
and I felt like there needs to be a replacement
for this, like this set of important things cannot be

(24:12):
entrusted to Elon Musk. And so when this week we
got something that effectively is a replacement for Twitter, and
it started to grow very quickly, I just got very
excited because I thought, this thing is going to solve
all of the problems that Twitter.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Used to solve for me.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
And so how is it compared to Twitter? Because I've
been sort of flipping back and forth between the two.
I'm sure I'm not the only person doing that. But
at some point we sort of have to choose. Does
that come soon? Does that come later? What's that process?

Speaker 10 (24:42):
Like?

Speaker 9 (24:43):
Well, I would say to people, you can choose now,
you can stop using Twitter. There's no point to using Twitter.
The Twitter experience is only going to get worse. Just
look at the past six months. Everything that used to
be free now costs you eight bucks a month. Okay,
maybe that feels like a good experience to you. It
doesn't feel like a good experience to me. What I
used to get on Twitter for free, I can now
get on threads for free. And I think the fact

(25:04):
that so many people are moving over so quickly tells
you about the demand for a product like that.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
And so you said it's free, what about the idea
that this is owned by Meta? And just a few
years ago people didn't really like Meta either because of
all of the privacy issues in situation there. So what
do we make of that at this point? Do we
feel like metas cleaned up their act?

Speaker 9 (25:29):
Well, I do think that they're better at a lot
of things than they used to be in twenty sixteen.
But I definitely understand why people are skeptical, and we
should be skeptical. You know, at the end of the day,
these are for profit companies. They're trying to make a
buck and they need, you know, journalists, regulators, academics to
keep an eye on them and make sure that they're
not doing, you know, anything inappropriate with with our data,

(25:52):
our privacy, or anything else. At the same time, for me,
it's just like, you know, the order of the day
was to replace, and so let's focus on that, and
then after that's done, then we can sort of bring
all that scrutiny.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Back to Meta.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
So Threads you're finding. I think the key genius to
this whole situation is that your followers can follow you
very easily on Threads, and that made this place very
quickly vibrant and alive. Is that kind of like the
magic of it?

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (26:23):
I mean Instagram was just in such a great position
to do this because they already had a very Twitter
like user base, right in the sense that it was
a lot of normal people following celebrities, influencers, athletes, journalists.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Sometimes.

Speaker 9 (26:41):
It was just that the medium was much more visual,
and that turns out to be a perfect springboard to
launch something that is going to be a little bit
more text based, right. You just sort of build a
different container and then you import all of those accounts
and it's just again, it's been really amazing seeing how
in just a few short days so many of the

(27:02):
really prominent users of Instagram have gone ahead and set
up Threads account and are going crazy posting.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Now. One of the things that Mosseeri said, I believe
on your podcast, and that he didn't really see this
as a place for hard news. Now, I think that
many of the Threads users would already disagree with that.
Can they control what happens on this platform.

Speaker 9 (27:26):
Uh, mostly No. You know, I think that was an
interesting statement. It's gotten a lot of attention. In practice,
these companies always just follow the lead of the users.
You know, if the users of Threads decide that they
want to see news on threads, there's going to be
news on Threads. I saw that statement as a little
bit of a marketing pitch, right. I think if you're
trying to sell a new app to consumers, running out

(27:48):
and saying, hey, there's gonna be a lot of breaking
news on here, a lot of really divisive political stories,
does it really seem very enticing. If instead you come
out and say, hey, this is a place for creators
and we want to have really kind fun conversations, you're
probably going to be better off. So I think that
was kind of the spirit in which Adam said that.

(28:09):
But at the same time, this company has a lot
of scar tissue around journalism, right, Like, they they're under
so much scrutiny for you know, what, which publishers are
on the platform and who's getting the most distribution. You know,
there are laws in Australia and Canada that are trying
to force them to pay just to display links, So
they're they're really I think anxious about having some of

(28:31):
the same problems that Twitter did.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Now when you copied over your username to threads, you're
Crumbler on Instagram, and you said, at some point, I
wish that maybe I would have thought about that a
little bit more so the username or the username comes over.
You've been very active on threads since it started, So
tell me what your impressions are of it. What do
you think.

Speaker 9 (28:53):
Well, you know, one thing that I think is interesting
about it is, particularly for those first couple of days,
if you posted anything, there was a good chance that
it would show up essentially in the feed that everyone
was looking at. So imagine being able to post directly
to the for you page on TikTok and just have
kind of the whole world seeing what you were doing,

(29:14):
even if they didn't follow you. That was kind of
the experience. And so you know, TikTok, I'm sorry. Threads
by default will sort of buzz your phone every time
you get a like or a reply or a mention,
and so I would post something on threads in those
first couple of days and my phone was just like shaking,
like it was.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Having a nervous breakdown or something.

Speaker 9 (29:32):
I mean, everything was going bananas, and you know, of
course I do feel silly about it, but at the
end of the day, I think we all do get
a seratonin hit when you publish something on a network
like this and you know a lot of people start
to like it. So there was absolutely something addictive just
about posting thinking like, hey, you know, I mean, you know,
not to brag rich, but I posted something a couple

(29:52):
of days ago and like Sarah Jessica Parker was like, oh, yeah,
this is interesting.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
And by the way, I love your podcast.

Speaker 9 (29:58):
I was like, that is like beyond my wildest dreams
of anything that would ever happen to me on a
social network.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
So made me very pro Threads.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Wow, that's wild. Yes, that is that is exciting if
you get that kind of comment. It's funny because I
kept looking at people who are commenting on my stuff
and I was like, wait, do I know this person?
Do I follow them? Because I guess what you're saying
is what happened to me is that some of my
posts might have gotten into like other people's feeds, and
that is actually one and we're gonna leave it at this,
but that's one of the things that people are saying

(30:25):
to me, like, Rich, I don't know if I like
this because I'm getting other people's stuff in my feed.
What do you say to that. I mean, is that
a problem or should we be exposed to other things?

Speaker 8 (30:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (30:37):
I mean I think eventually they will probably roll out
away for you to see only posts from people that
you're following.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
I think that'll be a good thing. But I think,
you know, the first.

Speaker 9 (30:48):
Job that every new social network has is to just
convince you that enough is going on there that you
should bother to pay attention to it. And if it
had to rely on you to go follow a bunch
of people that were very active and interesting, odds are
you wouldn't find it very interesting. So I think it's
smart to show you a bunch of stuff from people
that you don't follow. And of course, you know, if
you see anything you don't like, just mute it and
hopefully your feet will get better.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
All right, Casey Newton from Platformer dot News. Sign up
for the newsletter, uh and of course find you on
threads at crumbler.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Right. That's right, Thanks so much, Rich, All.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Right, thanks for joining me today. Coming up more of
your calls at triple A Rich one oh one, that's
eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
zero one. If you have a question about threads, give
me a call. What do you want to know about it?
What do you think of it? Are you going to
switch over? I'm open. This is an open conversation. You
are listening to Rich on tech. Tim is in more Park, Tim,

(31:49):
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 8 (31:50):
A defuctive spectrum modem. Burn my knees, my legs while
I slip in a bud that was on the other
side of the whap from the defective from modem. I
asked the all I threw d in the bed about
five different days, about eight hours each day. When I
each day, when I woke up after the eight hours,

(32:12):
my knees were on fire. They were burning inside. When
they weren't hot, they were burning inside and it was
hard to walk.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well I would have I would have stopped sleeping in
the bed after the first day. Why'd you go eight days?
Oh my gosh, I would return the modem, get rid
of the modem. If it's that hot, I don't know
what it's doing to go through your wall, but that
is I know these things get hot. That's for sure,
and it's actually a good lesson to learn is that

(32:40):
you probably don't want to put these modems inside an
enclosed container. So these modems, if you look at them,
they've got a lot of breathing areas on them because
they can get hot. That you know, it's it's traveling.
A lot of Internet is traveling through those pipes. So
when you are setting up your modem, you definitely want

(33:02):
to put it in a place that is open on
all sides. A lot of people will put these things
in a drawer, they'll put them in a cabinet, they'll
put them behind a TV, which is also putting out
some of that heat. But tim definitely get professional help
if you are in fact, you know, if this is
a something that burns you for you know, more than

(33:25):
just a day or two. But after the first day,
why would you sleep in the same bed. I mean,
if this thing is doing this over and over, day
after day, night after night, you got you gotta nip
it in the butt, unplugged that thing and get rid
of it. They do have some spectrum stores. Maybe just
bring it into one of those and see what you
you know, if they can get you a new one.

(33:45):
But yeah, again, the lesson learned here and I hope
you're okay, Tim, is that don't put these things well,
first off, don't let it happen more than once. And
second off, don't put these things in a enclosed area
because they can get hot. And we don't hear a
lot of stories like that, but for sure things can happen,
so good thing to be aware of, that's for sure.

(34:08):
Let's see, Oh did you see Thanks for the call.
By the way, did you see this sphere? This thing
in Las Vegas which I actually had the ability to
visit last year and while they're building it. It's the
world's largest LED screen, five hundred and eighty thousand square
feet of fully programmable LED lighting. They lit it up

(34:30):
for the first time on July fourth, and it's called
the Sphere sph E r E Sphere Las Vegas. You
gotta look up the video on this I've got on
my Instagram at rich On Tech. They can basically make
this thing look like a giant moon, a giant fireworks show.
I mean, I'm not kidding. When Aliens and UFO see

(34:51):
this thing from space, they are going to want to
phone home because they're going to be like, I want
to see what that is. They're gonna come in close
and land. This is like an alien beacon in our
sky in Las Vegas. It is so big. But I
had the ability to go inside last year while they
were building it, and it is quite impressive. It's a
giant sphere. They're gonna do like concerts and shows inside.

(35:13):
It's a little too small for a sports arena inside,
but it is quite incredible. So look it up. Go
to my Instagram at rich on Tech. Check out the
video of this sphere being lit up for the very
first time. All right, more of your calls at Triple
eight rich one on one. Give me a call at
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Let's talk tech. Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging

(35:41):
out with you, talking technology at Triple eight rich one
oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
four to one zero one. This hour, we will talk
Amazon Prime Day deals. Jacob Palmer of the website Best
Reviews dot com. We'll join to talk what you need

(36:03):
to know, what's different, what's new, what to look for,
and what people are buying on Prime Day, which happens
on the eleventh and twelfth this year July eleventh and twelfth,
so it is right around the corner also this week.
Since I keep you up to date on all the
movies I watch, I can't believe I was so late
to this one, but I did watch the sci fi

(36:24):
horror thriller movie Megan. I just realized it's actually spelled
with a three in her name, Megan m three gam.
So this was on my list for a long time
and then I forgot about it. It got all the buzz,
and then I was flipping through Amazon Prime and I
saw that it was on there for free if you
know you're an Amazon Prime member, and I watched it

(36:45):
and it was It was so great. I mean, if
you like a campy horror movie, sci fi especially. It's
funny because this movie was right before all the AI
stuff took off, and so it's like nowadays, if they
made the same exact movie, like even a year later,
it would be all about AI and chatchypt. But it
was right before that. But it was still really really good.

(37:07):
It's about this doll that sort of comes to life,
has a mind of her own, not like in the
Chucky style, similar but just more modern. Anyway, if you
like a campy horror movie that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Check it out. Let's go to Reggie in Charleston, South Carolina. Reggie,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (37:27):
Hey, Rich, I think I may have done something very
terrible today. But maybe you can tell me that I'm
okay and I will not lose my house tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Oh no, well, let's hear what she did. What happened? Reggie?

Speaker 4 (37:40):
Okay, I have a small business. I do custom home
and PEP portraits.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Oh that's fun.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yes, And I advertise on Facebook and this morning I
received a message from them telling me that I perhaps
was using my accounts fraudulently and that it really wasn't me.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
You got an email or a notification? How did that
come out?

Speaker 4 (38:06):
It was a notification through Facebook? Okay, So they asked
me to send a photograph of my driver's license and
I did. Am I in trouble? I mean? Have I
gotten scammed? Or is this? And I haven't heard another
single thing. I checked my advertising. Everything is still good.

(38:30):
But I'm just wondering if it was a scam and
I just sent my driver's license information to some weird person.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Okay, Well, how did you send this driver's license.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
I sent it to the email that they sent me.
I just forwarded it. It looked said it was from
Meta and so they had a link and said just
upload the picture. And I uploaded the picture.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
And I sent can you tell me the email address? Like,
what is the domain of the email address?

Speaker 4 (39:05):
So there was no real domain. It just came up
on my Facebook information.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Okay, So it came up on your Facebook as a
notification and you click the notification and then but if
you're emailing the driver's license, you had to send it
to some sort of address. Can you check in your
sent email or was it sent through your Facebook messages?

Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yes, it was sent through my Facebook messages. And now
I can't seem to go back and find it.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Okay. So that so now here's the thing. There's a
couple of things going on. Number One, there are many
many scams that happen on Facebook that involve fraudulent activity.
They say, oh, your account's been flagged, you have fraudulent activity.
You need to do this. I get. And what they
do is they actually tag you in sort of a page.

(39:53):
Sometimes they'll say your page has been flagged. And I
get these all the time on my Facebook like almost
on a daily basi, and so yes, I would say
for the most part, ignore them. Number two the Facebook.
Now here's the interesting part, and this is what scam
artists specialize in. They try to do things that are
very similar to what you actually have to do. Now. Facebook,

(40:16):
if you are hacked, many times they will ask you
to submit a driver's license because they want to verify
you are who you say they are. But when I've
seen that happen, it's not an email. They actually will
have you hold your driver's license in front of your
webcam and it will scan it that way. Now I'm
a little concerned, Reggie that you sent your driver's license

(40:38):
because it may be in the hands of someone that
should not have it. So here's what I think you
need to do. Number one, do you have two factor
authentication set up on your Facebook account?

Speaker 7 (40:53):
No?

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Okay, that's the number one thing you need to do
right now. I would go through and set that up
right now. So if you just go to Facebook dot
com slash security, that's the first thing you want to
do is make sure you set it up. If you
are operating a business on your Facebook page, you have
to do that. Facebook dot Com let's see here, I

(41:14):
want to make sure I get this email address right.
Facebook two factor authentication, so just actually just google that
and just say you go to your security and login settings,
so there's like a little there's a little you know,
just it's face. Sorry, it's Facebook dot com, slash settings
and look for security. So that's where you want to go.

(41:36):
That's the number one thing I would do. Number two
I would anytime you get an alert like this, you
really have to scrutinize it. You weren't doing anything wrong
on Facebook. You probably haven't done anything that is a problem,
and so I think that you have to be just
skeptical of anytime someone's saying, hey, you know, you're doing
something illegal or wrong, you'd have to be like, wait

(41:58):
a second, what, I don't know if that was that's
me or not? Right.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
Well, the thing is rich they blocked me one time
because they thought I was trying to sell pets.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Oh okay, now that's another Okay, now that does make
some more sense. That could be. Yeah. Now, I've have
heard stories about Facebook, especially Marketplace, will block people based
on selling you know, inauthentic goods or of course, pets
is a huge thing online. Right now where people are
scamming people with pets. So now I'm just curious when

(42:31):
you submitted this ID. Was the process? Was it through
your phone? Was it through a desktop?

Speaker 4 (42:39):
It was my iPad? On everything on my iPad?

Speaker 1 (42:42):
And how did you scan your ID? Did you take
a picture of it?

Speaker 4 (42:45):
I just took a picture of it. They actually had
the link and just said press here and send a picture.
And they said either you know, if they don't ask
for my credit card, I never would have given it.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Through yeah, yeah, but.

Speaker 4 (42:59):
Then asking for my identification. I was so afraid that
they were going to shut me off again because it
took me a long time to prove to Facebook that
I was doing pet portraits.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Okay, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
That might be a good thing because my pet portraits
are pretty good, and they thought I was selling pets,
and so that's what I was afraid was happening again.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Okay, Well, it sounds like this actually could be legitimate
if it came through a notification, and it seemed like
it was a legitimate kind of activity through there. But
I think that the bigger question is, you know, you
have to be very critical of these notifications, and it
didn't come through an email you said, right, No, it did.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
Not come through many I would have been more concerned.
It came right through my Facebook page.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Right. But here's the thing. So, and that doesn't necessarily
mean that it's legitimate, but it means that it you know,
these scam artists have found ways of getting around all
of the different policies in place by all of these
social networks, and believe me, they will try. Now, the
good news is it's your ID, so it's not your
credit card. I'm not sure what they could do with
this ID. I don't think they I don't think someone

(44:08):
should have it that shouldn't. But at the same time,
it's your ID. You know, you have to show your
idea at the grocery store. Sometimes they take a scan
of it, you know.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
So.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
You know, what could they do with that if this
was fraudulent. Most of the time, if it's a fraudulent activity,
they want your credit card information, your bank account information.
They want you to send, you know, some sort of
gift card or cash or whatever, or a wire service.
So I think you might be okay, But Reggie, I
would just in the future be very cautious and maybe

(44:39):
wait for the second time you get an alert if
if that's the case, And did you get any sort
of confirmation through your email that you did this?

Speaker 4 (44:49):
No, I got I got nothing, no confirmation. I've received
nothing from them since I did it. Of course, my
husband's been yelling at me everything.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Well, yeah, that doesn't take much us husbands. Sometimes you know,
it happens. But here's the thing. I would next time
take a screenshot before you do anything in that way
if there if there comes to be a question, right
at least you know, like hey, like if I'm asking you,
like if you call me again and say I did this,
I can say, hey, what would what did it say? Exactly?
Because a lot of times we do these things so

(45:19):
fast that we forget exactly what it said. You forget
it a Was it an official Facebook page? Was it
an official logo? So a screenshot can help. And on
the iPhone, you take a screenshot by pressing the side
button and the up button. On the androids it's the
power button plus the down button. So just remember that
for future reference. But Reggie, I think you're gonna be okay.
I would just be on the lookout for anything unusual

(45:42):
on your account, and I would definitely set up that
two two factor authentication as soon as you can. The
other thing I would look at right now is on
that Facebook dot Com slash settings, go to that security
tab and just see where it says you're logged in.
If you're logged in on any places that you don't
recogn just get rid of those places or log out

(46:03):
of all sessions and log in again. And I'm looking
at mine. I've got a ton of logins I need
to clean up as well. Thanks for the call, Reggie,
I appreciate it, by bye. All right, Yeah, just be
aware of these things. That's I think the biggest thing
is is just to really be critical of any notification
or email you're getting. Be critical of the source, look

(46:25):
at where it's coming from, think about what it's asking
you to do, and understand why is it asking me
to do this? And in Reggie's case, she did it
really fast because she wanted to be on the good
side of Facebook. And that's what they're praying upon. I'm
not saying that we know this is a scam for sure,
but that's what they pray upon. They pray upon us
doing things really fast, really quick, just to get things

(46:47):
back to normal. All right, Coming up if you have
a call, give me or if you have a question,
give me a call at Triple eight rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
one zero one. You can also email hello at Richontech
dot tv.

Speaker 11 (47:03):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
I'll tell you what to do if you lose an
air tech the number one thing you need to do immediately.
You are listening to rich on Tech Triple eight rich
one on one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Mark is in Los Angeles, Mark,

(47:24):
what's up?

Speaker 12 (47:25):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (47:25):
How you doing? I'm turning on my radio. Hey, I
got a challenge here for you.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Man, challenge? Uh oh, what is like a TikTok challenge?

Speaker 3 (47:33):
No no, no, no no no, no kicktok. That's Spear
in Las Vegas, right, sure, it just it just opened
on July twenty, well, the fourth of julyfe yes. My
question is who do you think is going to open that? Saying, man,
it's like a seventeen seventeen thousand people, eighteen thousand maybe arena.

(47:57):
My guess is going to be swift, and I'm no swifty,
but I like to put it out there in Vegas Land.
There's gonna be a bit for this one. Well, it's
going to open.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
There would be. Now have you seen this thing in
person yet?

Speaker 3 (48:14):
No, I've seen it only online.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
And you saw the video.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
I guess is that somebody's going to open there.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Well I can. Yeah, it's it's it's quite incredible. And
I was inside before it opened and it's it's big.
But here's the thing that's that's really odd about it.
They built it where you can't have like a football
game in there because it's too small inside.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
No I'm not talking about football. No, I know it's
set up for a concerts, yes, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah, and here's the thing. There's also speakers in there
that beam. They have like beam forming speakers, so they
literally beam sound. They can beam sounds to your specific seat.

Speaker 10 (48:51):
It is.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
It's quite incredible the technology they built in. Now here's
the thing. I already know who the people are going
to be that that are going to open this up
because they've said it. They just announced it. So here's
the opening. And Adam, does your mic work yet? Or no?
Now okay, Adam producer Adam here, his mike doesn't work.
He knows how to say this? Octun you too will

(49:13):
open this in September, you v Octune Baby Live at Sphere.
Sphere is a really tough word to say. I don't
like it. I don't like Sphere. It's too like, it's
too spheary. The first Sphere experience will be Postcard from Earth,
directed by Darren Arons Aaron Osky. This, let me just

(49:38):
stumble through this part of the show. In October, that's
when that's gonna happen. Then in November, during the Formula
one Las Vegas Grand Prix. No, I'm just kidding, I
know that one Grand Prix, Sphere will have a prime
position along the circuit to showcase the Exosphere to a
global audience in person and on TV. They'll have planned

(50:02):
takeovers of the Exosphere for race related content, activations, and advertising.
It's also gonna display a wide range of artistic and
branded content daily from rituals such as Sunrise and Sunset whatever. Okay,
this is all their stuff anyway, So we know, so
you two, Then we've got Postcard from Earth, and then

(50:22):
we've got the Formula one Grand Prix, And so the
Grand Prix is not gonna go inside, but it's gonna
be around it. So I think Taylor Swift eventually would
probably like to sell out that space. This is also owned,
by the way, by MSG Madison Square Garden. You know,
I don't know if they go by that anymore, but
they owned the Forum in Los Angeles. Well actually do

(50:44):
they still? They might not MSG the Forum. It's the
key oh Clippers, Yeah, they purchased it. Okay, so the Clippers. Okay, anyway,
disregard that part. I think MSG owned it for a
little bit. But they own you know, Madison Square Garden
in New York City. And of course now this sphere.
So and they also have in Los Angeles in Burbank
by the airport, they've got a mini sphere where they're

(51:07):
taking like creative types in Hollywood to do some of
the programming, to like experience some of it on a
small scale, so like people can figure out, you know,
what they can do with this stuff. All right, good question, Mark,
But we know the answer to that one, okay. So
I said before the break that I'm going to tell
you what to do if you lose an air tag.
So I had someone from my work, a colleague, come
up to me and he said, Rich, we found a

(51:29):
cat and it had an air tag on it. What
do I do. We scanned it and it doesn't have
any information. It has a serial number and the phone
numbers blocked out, and I said, yes, the person that
lost this cat needs to mark this air tag is lost.
So if you lose an air tag, the first thing
you need to do is go into your app on
your iPhone called find My Okay. You open it up,

(51:52):
you go to your items, You tap it and it
says lost mode. You tap lost mode, which I already
have a name for one of mine. But when you
tap lost mode, you can put in your phone number
and a message. Put in that information as soon as possible.
Otherwise someone will find this air tag and they can't
do anything with it. So they if you have an

(52:13):
air tag on your pet and someone finds it, unless
you mark it as lost mode, they will not be
able to do anything with it. If you find an
air tag, you tap your phone to the top of
it to bring up the information on that air tag.
It's got NFC inside. Do that first. You're listening to
rich on Tech Prime Day coming up next, Welcome back

(52:41):
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with
you talking technology and joining me now is Jacob Palmer
of Best Reviews dot Com. Jacob, thanks so much for
joining me.

Speaker 11 (52:51):
Thanks thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
All Right, So Amazon Prime Day is happening this year
starting July eleventh at three am Eastern. Prime members will
have forty eight hours to get some deals. Amazon is
promising more deals than any past Prime Day. Yeah, do
we agree with that?

Speaker 11 (53:08):
Yeah? I definitely think that that's going to be the case.
Are you going to see anything groundbreaking and completely new
and fresh? I mean, that's going to be remained to
be seen. But they're getting more brands, they're getting more
people bought in on it. They're just making the event
bigger every year. So I have no reason to doubt
Amazon on that one whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Okay, so tell me what you do at Best Reviews.

Speaker 11 (53:27):
At Best Reviews, we do product recommendations for people to
make sure that they're purchasing process is as simple as possible.
So we do the testing, We consult with experts. We
make sure that everybody has all the information they need
to make sure they're not wasting their money.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
All right, And I should mention that Best Reviews is
owned by Nextstar, the TV company that I also work for.
So let's talk about Prime Day twenty twenty three. Yeah,
every year, Amazon sort of promises bigger and better, but
the bottom line remains, people shop a lot on this day,
but it's not their biggest shopping day of the year.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
That's correct.

Speaker 11 (54:02):
So basically, when you look at the shopping calendar, the
biggest days are going to be the ones you'd expect.
It's gonna be Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Usually Cyber
Monday is a little bit bigger than Black Friday. But
then I mean when it comes to Amazon and what
they're looking at, Prime Day is right after those that
big Thanksgiving weekend, So it's the biggest shopping event during
the summer. And what we've been seeing is is that

(54:24):
Amazon is leading the way on making it a shopping
event across the board. So other retailers are getting involved.
They're trying to price match, they're trying to get as
much of the tailwind as they can out of this
event that Amazon is basically just created out of thin air,
you know, a little bit less than ten years ago.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
So it's interesting that you mentioned the other retailers. So
many of us are Amazon centric. If you have that
Prime membership, and I'm sure the numbers show this, you
probably only go to Amazon when you're shopping online. For
the most part, should we be cross checking prices anywhere
else or does Amazon do that for us?

Speaker 11 (54:58):
Amazon does it for you? To be straight to be
straightforward with you, There's people that have their own personal preferences,
you know, maybe they have a rewards card or something.
But for the most part, at Best of Youse, we're
looking for the ideal customer experience. And what does that mean.
It means the lowest price possible. It means the fastest shipping,
and it means no hidden costs, and so really when
you boil it down to that, Amazon's gonna win most

(55:21):
of the time. So even though you're going to see
different retailers doing price matching, it's going to be pretty
rare for them to be beating the price. What I
will say though, is especially over Prime Day, what we're
looking out for is Walmart will usually pick a few items,
same with Best Buy, that they will make a huge
deal out of and say, you're not finding these deals
anywhere else. But at the end of the day, even

(55:44):
though they're rolling those out and they are huge deals.
Amazon is a little bit tricky in terms of just
price matching and saying, you know, bringing the people back
to their site. That's kind of their mo as they're
always finding a way to bring people back to their site.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
It is interesting whenever I look at another price somewhere else,
I'm always googling to say what the return policy is.
And even if I shop in a store, like if
I'm at the mall and I'm buying something at a
store I haven't shopped at, or even I have shopped at,
I will always ask at the checkout what is the
return policy, just to keep that fresh in my head,
whether it's you know, even H and M Clothing Company

(56:17):
or Best Buy. You know, because sometimes they change it.
You think thirty days as a standard, it may not
be maybe fourteen.

Speaker 11 (56:23):
You know, it is a big thing. Amazon made news
for changing their return policy recently, but even with that
in mind, they still have one of the better return
policies that you'll find out there the in store places.
Because of how hard it's been to get customers into
retail space, they have been a little bit better, but

(56:44):
you know, Amazon used to be the absolute world leader
in terms of no questions asked, you can return. They've
tightened it up to an extent, but in terms of
that online only storefront, they're still the best, but you
can find some pretty solid return policies in store, or
just because of how badly the best buys the targets,
the walmarts want you to come through their doors.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Let's talk about some of the deals that Amazon doesn't
really tell you every deal in advance, which makes it tough.
But they're promoting seventy five up to seventy five percent
off of select Amazon devices, which of course includes TVs,
Fire TV sticks, the Echo shows, the Ring cameras, and
TCL smart TVs, also kindlescribe, and it's interesting they're mentioning

(57:29):
that their brand new Firemax eleven tablet will be discounted,
which is pretty rare because that's a brand new product.
And then of course they go into all of the
different apparel, the Amazon exclusive clothing, Sony headphones, eye Robot, Bissel, toys, dolls,
so basically everything. And I always say with people on
Amazon Prime Day, if what you're looking for is on sale,

(57:52):
it's a good day.

Speaker 11 (57:54):
Yeah, And that's basically how it goes. And you know,
I think when you look at that Amazon list of products,
there's ones that I would love to advise people to get.
You know, the ring doorbells are fantastic. They test among
the absolute best. You know, I robot is always solid.
They aren't exactly an Amazon brand quite yet. They probably
will be very soon, but not quite yet. Those are

(58:15):
some of the best out of the ones you've listed
in terms of areas where I would advise people to
maybe shop around and reconsider. The Amazon fire TVs are
you know, they're really solid. You get a huge bang
for the buck. They're not going to last as long
as a Samsung would or you know, a Sony something
like that. So in our testing lab we did have
a lot of complaints around that. So you need to

(58:37):
kind of know which ones are worth looking at and
which ones aren't. And I would say there's a lot
of Amazon products that are at some of our absolute favors.
The kin describe that you mentioned is another one that
we had a college student test and they were just
enamored with it. They thought it was fantastic. So there's
a lot of really great ones, and you want to
make sure that you're looking out for, you know, those
really solid top of the line products, which they have

(58:58):
a lot of. But that's one of the things about
when you talk about it getting bigger, you talk about
them selling absolutely everything that's true to the extent that
you want to be able to cut through the noise
and get the best products out of that huge mass,
because it can be kind of tricky with how they're
coming and going, how it's basically everything. How do you
know is it a good day for me? Even though

(59:19):
I've been wanting this thing? And that's where you know,
I think Best Reviews provides a lot of value for
people because we cut through that noise and can provide
you with that perspective that we get from testing these
things in our lab.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Give me a little perspective on how you test things.

Speaker 11 (59:33):
Yeah, we love to go side by side. So you
know a recent one that we really did a deep
dive onto the robot vacuums and we got models from
I Robot, Ufie, Shark, Robo Rock, you know, kind of
across the board, and then we will put them into
real life scenarios. But we try to do that with
a scientific spin on it. What we really advise people

(59:53):
to do is if you have that one thing in
your head. So our company started because our founder needed
a cordless d We say go to Best Reviews dot
Com and search for a cordless drill, and you're gonna
find our testing results. You're gonna find how we looked
at it. You're gonna find all the models we looked at.
And at the end of the day, we lay it
out for you in a very simple way where five
are across. Because the best of the best isn't for

(01:00:15):
everybody all the time, We're also gonna tell you this
is the best for a beginner, this is the best
for an expert, and so on. So we lay it
out for you to be as simple as possible, and
so you're not wasting your time just scrolling and then
eventually giving up. And now a week later we needed
that cordless drill. You remember, oh I didn't even buy
that cordless drill.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
And my advice every year, and you may show this
advice is to put the stuff in your cart that
you want now.

Speaker 11 (01:00:36):
Yeah, And that's the best way to do it. And
what I always say is number one, go to Best
Reviews dot Com, slash Prime. But then when you're looking
through and you're seeing what we're recommending, especially with the
early deals, those are good deals, but a lot of
the times they kind of ratchet it up during the
event and they'll be a little bit even more discounted.
And so that's why it's important that you put it
in your cart, because you put it in your cart,

(01:00:58):
and then on the day of the event, you can
check back in your cart and see exactly how much
it's off. You know, I've said it to you Rich
a few times, but Best review is what we're looking for.
Twenty to twenty five percent offer more is what we
determined to be a good deal, especially as it's more expensive.
You know, a cheaper item, you want to see that
forty fifty percent off. But when you're looking for electronics
twenty five, you know, thirty percent off or more. That's

(01:01:19):
usually what you want to jump at. And like I
said earlier, prices are going up and down, availability is
going in and out. You want to be checking in
and by putting things in your cart early and then
checking back, it gives you that tool and it kind
of pays off for that little bit of preparation that
you do.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
All right, Jacob Palmer of Best Reviews dot Com, thanks
so much for joining me today.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
All right, Happy Prime Day. I never thought I would
say that, But there you go. More rich on Tech
coming your way. Give me a call if you have
a question about technology at Triple eight Rich one on one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
one zero one. Rich tomorrow here rich on Tech talking

(01:02:02):
technology with you at Triple eight Rich one O one
eight eight eight seven four to two four to one
zero one. Paul is in Columbus, Ohio. Paul, you're on
with Rich. Welcome to the show. I'm doing fantastic. You know,
I thought I might retire in Columbus at some point
in my uh when I was younger. I thought that

(01:02:23):
I would make it to Columbus in my TV career
and that's where I was going to work forever.

Speaker 7 (01:02:27):
Oh okay, well that's a good city for that.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
It's got some family there. It's a great little place.
So what's up today?

Speaker 5 (01:02:34):
Okay, I've got actually two of the older buyer TV
two's got one first generation in a second generation I
lived after a few years, they've come out with the third.

Speaker 7 (01:02:48):
Well of them. I'm visually impaired, which makes at was
difficult to do stuff sometimes. So most of the stuff
you can do in voice.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Control and are fantastic for that.

Speaker 7 (01:02:59):
Yeah, okay, so my question is if I get a
new one, am I gonna have to reload all the passwords,
sort of apps and all that stuff settings or canny
that get transferred over.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
That's a great question. I know that the apps will
get transferred over. They don't necessarily download, but they'll be
there and you just one click. But the log ins themselves.
As far as I know, and I've logged into a
bunch of these, I actually have the firetvqube the latest one,
which is great. By the way, I've not seen a

(01:03:34):
scenario where they log into the apps. So the only
password that I am aware of that the fire TV
can save to your Amazon account at this point is
your Wi Fi password, so it can do that. But otherwise,
once you log in, it's gonna it's gonna give you
the app, it's gonna present the apps that you have
in your library, but you will have to log into

(01:03:55):
those apps again. Does that present kind of a challenge
or an issue?

Speaker 7 (01:04:00):
I can get some assistance, but the problem is they're
all kind of spread out in different places. I've got
to get a consolidated list you have them all together.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Yeah, it's definitely it's not ideal, but I will tell
you this, Paul, the majority of the mainstream apps have
gotten a lot easier with logins. Now imagine I test
this stuff for a living, like every day I'm logging
into something, and the biggest apps they've done a couple
of things. Number One, they have a QR code on
the screen. So there's three ways to sort of log in.

(01:04:31):
The old way, which is just the most annoying way,
which is just hey, type in your password and use
your name, and that's really annoying on a TV screen
because you're flipping through letter by letter. You can download
the Amazon Fire TV app to your phone, so at
least you have the keyboard on your phone to help
you log in that way. That's the first way, that's

(01:04:51):
the most annoying. The second way is the QR code,
and this I've seen more and more where you will
scan a QR code on your screen with your phone
and in some cases it'll link up your account either
through the app or you can log in on your phone,
which is easier to manipulate than the on screen typing.

(01:05:12):
And then the third way, which is the absolute easiest way,
and I've only seen this on the Disney app, and
I believe it was, oh maybe the new the Max app,
where all you have to do is be on the
same Wi Fi, have the app installed on your smartphone
and on your TV, and when you open it. When

(01:05:32):
you open the app on your TV, it says, hey,
open the app on your phone, and as long as
you're on the same Wi Fi network, it somehow finds
that you're the same person with the same app and
it will just log you in on the TV. So
those are the three methods I've seen for logging in
on the TV. Oh the other one is the activation code.
So sometimes it'll just when you open up an app

(01:05:53):
like a YouTube TV or something, you'll say, hey, type
in this code on your phone. Go to YouTubeTV dot com,
slash activate and type in this six digit code. That'll
activate it as well. So it's gotten easier, it's gotten
a little bit more streamlined. But no, as far as
I know, the Amazon fireTV upgrade process will save your
Wi Fi password, but no other password there, So that

(01:06:16):
is that's gonna be a little bit tricky. You're gonna
have to get someone to help you to do that.
But the good news is some of these apps that
you download on there will be easier to log in
as long as you have them logged in on your phone.
So I would say, find the passwords, get them all
in one place, call the friend to help you out,
and have your phone handy as well, so that you
can help log into some of those apps through the phone.

(01:06:38):
Great question, Paul, and you're right. The fireTV is fantastic
for the voice support. So the fireTV Cube, once you
hook it up to your TV, it's almost entirely voice controlled.
And right now, wow, I'm looking at Amazon Prime. It's
usually one hundred and forty bucks. Right now it's on
sale for one oh nine one ten thirty dollars off

(01:07:00):
and this is a pretty new product, so that's that's
a pretty good price. And once you have this thing,
I've been trying all the different ways of asking the
voice commands and it works with a lot of the
popular apps. So you can say, like the other day,
I literally said to it, resume watching I think we
were watching Platonic on Apple on Apple TV Plus. I
said resume watching whatever we were watching, and it just

(01:07:22):
came right to the point where we were watching it
last and resumed And it can do it also with
channels and music. I mean, it's really really good. So
if you want that hands free TV experience, the Fire
TV Cube is a way to go. And I'm not
talking like I know the Apple TV can do the
series stuff, but this is real, Like you don't even

(01:07:43):
have to turn on your TV. It will whatever you
say to this thing, it will just take it from there.
It's pretty pretty good. Thanks for the call, Paul, appreciate it.
All right. Couple things I wanted to tell you about here.
Number one, since we're on the topic of movies and
TV shows, the Super Mario Brothers movie. If you like
video games at all, I saw it in the theaters.

(01:08:04):
It was great. It's a fun little movie. It's nothing special,
but it was fun. This will be on Peacock starting
August third, so that is the date a lot of
people are wondering about and they finally have a date
for that movie. So Super Mario Brothers Movie will be
on Peacock on August third. Hopefully you can get I

(01:08:25):
don't know if you can still get a free trial.
A lot of these services you can get a free
trial of Peacock was giving users a free trial for
a while. I'm not sure if that's the case anymore, Yeah,
I don't know, but that's something to look out for. Always.
Google like free trial plus the name of the service
to see if you can get it. Someone told me

(01:08:46):
they were sign up for Apple TV. They want to
pay for us, so don't pay for it. Look in
the Target app, look in the best Buy app. Sometimes
they give three months free on those services. The other
We've had Jared Numan on the show before. He does
a newsletter that is really good called Advisorator, and he

(01:09:07):
at the end of each at the end of each newsletter,
he will tell you like which services are streaming for free,
and what are the apps and everything, So definitely sign
up for that Advisorator dot com, a d v I,
s O R A t o R Advisorator dot com.
And at the end of the newsletter, I'll say, like,
here's all the free streaming codes right now. And Paramount

(01:09:29):
Plus has been free for like since it launched. You
can literally just put in a different code every time
it expires and get it for free. So I'll put
the link on the website. Rich on tech dot tv,
this was pretty cool. Shazam can identify songs in TikTok
Instagram and YouTube. So Shazam's been around forever. You're pretty
familiar with how it works. Every song has a fingerprint.

(01:09:52):
It listens to that fingerprint. It identifies a song. Well,
if you're listening, if you're on TikTok or Instagram or
YouTube and you hear a song that's just like wow,
what is that? And somehow the information's not on the screen,
or maybe you just want to remember this. All you
have to do is open up Shazam, tap the blue button,
and switch back to the app that was playing the song,

(01:10:12):
and it will figure out the song. This is a
new feature according to mac Rumors, but there's actually an
easier way to do this. So if you have an iPhone,
you can swipe down from the right upper right hand
corner to bring up what's called the Control Center, and
you can add a Shazam button to that. So if

(01:10:33):
you go into settings, you can add the Shazam button
to your control center. So just go to Settings, Control
Center and it says music recognition. It's a little Shazam icon.
Apple bought Shazam a couple of years ago. If you
didn't realize that, but if you're in any sort of
app and you want to hear what's playing, you just
swipe down from the right hand corner, just tap that

(01:10:55):
Shazam button. It will recognize what's playing and it will
put a little notification on your screen and we'll also
save that inside the app. Again, all on the website
Richontech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
That closes out this hour. More of your calls coming
up next. Give me a call Triple eight rich one
O one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
to one zero one. Give me a call if you
have a question about technology. This is rich on Tech.
Welcome to rich on Tech. This is the show where

(01:11:29):
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
know about. My name is rich DeMuro. You can find
me on social media at rich on Tech. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
and yes, i am now on threads at rich on Tech.
Phone lines are open at triple eight rich one oh
one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to

(01:11:52):
one zero one. Coming up this hour, more of your calls.
We'll have the feedback segment at the end of the show,
and doctor Renee Doua is going to join me to
explain how her new app called Together can take your
vitals with justice. Selfie and if I didn't try this,
I wouldn't believe it. But it's the first of its kind.

(01:12:14):
You aim your smartphone at your face and it will
show you your blood oxygen level, your pulse, your what
else does it do? Your respiration, your blood pressure. It's
all pretty amazing. So again, that will be doctor Renee Doua.
She's actually the same person who invented the doctor on

(01:12:34):
demand app called Heel, which got quite popular during the pandemic.
She will join us to talk about that app. Triple
eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four to one zero one. Hello at richon
tech dot TV. Is the email address. Scott is in

(01:12:55):
Costa Mesa. Scott, what's up?

Speaker 8 (01:12:56):
Hey, Rich?

Speaker 13 (01:12:57):
Well, before he gets my question. While I was on hold,
I was thinking of other names for the sphere. Oh,
the globe, the bubble, dot, get around in the round.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
In the round. Interesting. That reminds me of a circus
act though, you know those things that they circle around
it in the motorcycles exactly.

Speaker 13 (01:13:16):
Yes, I was thinking planet, but that's too close to
Planet Hollywood. And then I like sphere.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
Yeah, it's just tough to say sphere because if you
if you say it though anyway, but that's what's gonna
be called. So it's fine, we got it.

Speaker 13 (01:13:28):
Come to the sphere and have a ball.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
There you go.

Speaker 13 (01:13:32):
Well, so you're rich on tech, Well I'm Scott under Rock.
I'm not technical savvy in any way, but and I
know you're a tech show, but this is a question
about technical but also financial. And I was wondering, like,
what the stock price has been for Meta with the
release of Threads.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Hmmm, well, let's see. Let's look up Meta.

Speaker 13 (01:13:58):
I would do that myself, but I'm just I've got
the only technical thing I have is a lane.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Well, the stock price for Meta right now is two
hundred and ninety dollars and fifty three cents up a dollar, sorry,
up five sixty two over the past five days. That's
two percent. So and if you look at this little
graph here, well, it looks like I'm not a financial guy,

(01:14:24):
but it looks like it's if I had to say something,
it looks like it's down in after hours trading, but
apparently it's you know, over the past five days, it's
been up. So here's the thing. Threads actually does not
have any advertising on it right now, and so I
think that people are. You know, they see the big
picture of Meta doing really well with this because it's

(01:14:46):
one more avenue for them to collect information and data
about a wide range of people. But at the same time,
they're not actively selling ads, so it's not going to
contribute to the bottom line right away, but ads will
definitely be in the future your plans of course. And
a couple more things. I know we talked about threads
a lot, but this has really come on the scene
very very quickly. But if you look at the threads

(01:15:10):
iOS listing on the App Store, a lot of people
are looking at the privacy they call it, like the
privacy nutrition facts for iOS and the data that Instagram
the apps developer can collect on you and can link
to your identity. Is the following on threads health and

(01:15:32):
fitness data, financial info, contact info, user content, browsing history,
usage data, diagnostics, purchases, location contacts, search history, identifiers, sensitive info,
and other data. It's the kitchen sink of all the
data on your phone that Meta wants to suck up

(01:15:55):
and put into their advertising system. Now we do know
that app and Meta are frenemies because Apple came out
with this thing where if you've ever installed an app,
and it says ask app not to track, So most
people say, yeah, I don't want you tracking me. And
that took like ten billion dollars off the bottom line

(01:16:16):
for Meta because they can't have the same access to
data that they had in the past of people using
iPhones before they can get everything they wanted. And then
Apple said no, let's kind of silo these apps a
little bit more and also let's ask people if they
want to share. So that was a big one. App

(01:16:39):
tracking transparency, that's what they call it ATT App tracking transparency.
By the way, if you want to enable this on
your phone, which I'm sure you should or you have,
you go to settings, scroll down to privacy, so there's
that actual setting for privacy says I've seen security, and

(01:17:02):
then you can tap on tracking and I actually I
actually have this turned off fully, so apps can't even
ask me if they want if they want to track me,
but it says allow apps to request to track, and
I just say no. Across the board, the less data
the better. Let's see. Uh, let's go too, Oh my gosh,

(01:17:25):
so many questions here. Let's go to Chris in Miami. Chris,
you're on with Rich Hey, well you, sir, I'm doing fantastic.
What's up?

Speaker 12 (01:17:33):
I love listening to that you comment you just made
a few minutes ago.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
That was apps.

Speaker 12 (01:17:37):
I was media other night, like, you know, I want
to download this app. It's asking for the dog one
kitchen sink. It wants to know when I'm walking out
the door, when I'm having a salad at Whole Foods.
And I'm like, I don't I have that same thing
you do. I don't allow apps to track me. But
you look at the list of things that they want
from you from just downloading an app, and I'm like,
You've got to be kidding me, right, I use people

(01:17:59):
for real. And I'm like, I heard you talk about that,
and I was like, that's exactly how I feel most
of the time. I don't download a lot of apps
because of.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
Such Yeah, well I download them all and I just
you know, you do what you can do. So I
definitely definitely say no when I can. Sure, how can
I help?

Speaker 12 (01:18:19):
Well, I'll make this quick because I think I called.
I called a couple of weeks ago, but my last
call to you ring Doorbell. So went out bought this
second generation ring Doorbell Pro. Now there's another little issue here,
and I just I just wanted to clear it with you,
is that the condo that I live in has a
peep hole. Okay, so if I remove that device two

(01:18:41):
screws and a peep hole screw, remove it and then
install the Ring Doorbell.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
Pro, it's fine.

Speaker 12 (01:18:48):
It's got really great camera, the most advanced camera. The
problem is it's not on the front of the door,
but on the reverse side of the door, where there's
now three holes. There, there's three areas that once accommodated
these particular areas like the screws, and that's.

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
Not good for me.

Speaker 12 (01:19:04):
So if I go, if I downgrade to the one
with the peepole, such as all of it okay, now
downgrading the quality of the camera, which I don't want
to do because apparently in this one here that's battery operated,
it's one of their most advanced camera. I just figured
I'm going to toss.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
This to Rich So you're are you So you're worried
about what aspect of the peopole cam the quality of it?

Speaker 3 (01:19:31):
Well?

Speaker 12 (01:19:31):
Yeah, I mean I have the Ring Doorbell second generation
Pro battery operated one which I haven't yet hooked up
a charge of battery. But that's going to be an
easy install right, But the problem is is that I
can't use the peepole suppose I don't want to. But
then isn't there a kit to close that off from them?
They say no, So you've got three holes in the
backside of your door.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
Well yeah, I mean for the now if you're talking,
so you're trying to figure out if you should just
go with the peepole cam because it's going to cover
those holes on the backside and it's meant to do this.

Speaker 12 (01:20:01):
Yeah, but it's a lower quality camera though, isn't it
like a book twenty nine?

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
But here's the thing. Okay, so this is people Cam
is HD. The people Cam is h HD. The Video
Doorbell Pro. Let's see you get enhanced dual band Wi
Fi color night vision. And do they say, let's see
if we can find the specs on this camera HD
video with night vision. So I'm not sure that the

(01:20:26):
specs are any better, but I need to check and see. Also,
the pro is a wired installation. So the Video Doorbell Pro,
how would you how would you have this on your
door if it's wired?

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
It's not wired.

Speaker 12 (01:20:41):
The one I got is the one that is just
has the battery.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
Oh okay, Well here's the thing. Yeah, okay, ones, I
see it. Okay, So here's the thing. They're all okay.
The video doorbell Okay, the pro is HD, and so
is the wired and so is the people The Video
Doorbell Pro two is a little bit higher. It's fifteen
thirty six p HD plus. But here's the thing. You're

(01:21:06):
talking about a condo. Aren't you in a hallway?

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:21:11):
I have a hallway bout my dorman, a hallway around meself.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
So I don't think you need higher than HD quality
because you're not trying to reach out to a street
or something. People who are going to be in front
of this are going to be a pretty close proximity.
So I think an HD camera would be just fine
in that case. And I think that the people cam
is meant for this sort of application. You can use
the other ones, but this one is going to lock

(01:21:36):
through the door. So you've got the camera on the
outside of the door, You've got the backside of the
battery on the inside of the door. It's a cleaner installation.
It is what it's meant to be. And I think
in your case, Chris, because you've got an enclosed hallway
that I'm guessing the you know, is not one hundred
feet away or something like that. You're going to have
a pretty smaller setup that I think is going to

(01:21:57):
be just fine. So I would go with the people
cam install that I have not installed that one, but
I've seen it, and you know, it's a good solution
for someone who lives in a place that you know
you either don't want to change the door or you can't.
You can still have the security of a Ring cam,
but if you listen to last week's show, make sure
it sees what you need it to see, because if

(01:22:18):
it's anything like mine, you know it's stopped recording at
the moment I needed it to record. So that's something
to keep in mind, is the timeout. And also one
other pro tip with these Ring video doorbell cams that
a friend told me when I was complaining about the battery.
He said, dude, get a second battery. That way you
can just swap them instead of sitting and waiting for
it to charge. So if you get a camera from

(01:22:40):
Ring and you have a battery on it, just get
a second battery and that way you can just hot
swap them instead of waiting for the thing to charge
because they're not the fastest charging batteries in the world.
Coming up, we've got doctor Rene Doua to talk about
her new app called Together, which can take your vital
signs with just a selfie. Plus, we've got more of
your calls at eight rich one oh one eight eight

(01:23:02):
eight seven four to two four one zero one, and
the emails and the feedback are piling up as we speak.
The feedback segment, your favorite segment coming up a little
bit later in the show. You are listening to Rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro

(01:23:23):
here hanging out with you talking tech. The feature I
was trying out on YouTube if you have YouTube Premium,
they're testing this new lock screen feature, so it allows
you to watch a video in full screen without switching
or turning it off or something. So it's called avoiding
accidental taps on the lock screen. This is a test

(01:23:45):
if you only only if you have YouTube Premium. So
if you have YouTube Premium, lock screen disables touch input
while watching a video, so accidental taps do not pause,
skip or disrupt it. So you know, if you're watching
a video on your phone, you kind of move it
around next thing you know it like exits or pauses
or something like that. So here's how to find this.
So you go, if you only if you have YouTube Premium,

(01:24:06):
open up YouTube and go into your upper right hand
corner where it says you know your profile picture. You
tap that. Then it says your premium benefits. And if
this is available to you, it says try new features.
You tap there, and right now it says one available.
Avoid accidental taps with lock screen available until July thirtieth.
How to use while you're watching a video in full

(01:24:27):
screen mode, Tap on the gear icon in the top
left hand corner of the screen. That's not true, it's
in the upper right hand corner. Weird, and select lock screen.
That is so weird. How do they get that wrong?
There's no gear icon on the upper left that's interesting.
How would they get that wrong? YouTube? Come on, you
can turn that on. It's available on iOS and Android.

(01:24:50):
It's invite only, so if you don't see it, please
don't write me an angry email. You just don't have
access to it. James is in Los Angeles. James, you're
on with Rich?

Speaker 10 (01:25:00):
Hey, Rich, love the show. How are you?

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
I'm doing great? How are you good?

Speaker 10 (01:25:05):
You know you're doing just as good a job as
you do on TV. Oh, I learned something new every week.

Speaker 9 (01:25:10):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
That that is my goal, is you know? I want
this is a show that I'm you know, I'm trying
to make this show accessible to everyone, right Like I
want people who love tech to listen. I want people
who don't care about tech to listen and say, wait
a second, what do you just say? That's kind of useful.
So obviously I cover a wide range of topics on
the show. So I'm glad to.

Speaker 10 (01:25:29):
Joe your podcast Your podcasts are actually worth re listening
because I'm relearning stuff as well as the site job.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
Man, thanks, James, you need a job promoting me or
what I mean? It sounds like you're hired. What can
I help you with?

Speaker 4 (01:25:43):
So?

Speaker 10 (01:25:43):
I bought this external hard drive and I don't know
if I can say the brand, but it just totally
just died on me after three or four months, and
I don't like. Somebody told me if I tap on
the hard drive kind of like a starter with a
car back in the day, like it'll make back to life.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
We called that the old the old. Oh you tried it.

Speaker 10 (01:26:05):
I tried it.

Speaker 5 (01:26:06):
What do you call it?

Speaker 1 (01:26:06):
Well, I mean I called like. I mean, back in
the day, we would just hit stuff, you know, it
was like the fix. But you know, like you hit
a TV, it comes to life. You hit you know,
you give something a little hit. Nowadays everything's so solid state.
I don't really think that works anymore. And a hard
drive specifically, you probably don't want to hit it too much.
What kind of is it? A solid state or a
like a spinning like a disc.

Speaker 10 (01:26:27):
So I thought it was really cool because it's an extern.
It's like it's actually a backup phone charger and a
hard drive. Oh that's cool. You know I can store
stuff and charge my phone at the same time as
a brand called Eye disc. It's spell A two k's.

Speaker 7 (01:26:41):
At the end.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
And it just died.

Speaker 10 (01:26:43):
And I did the tap feature, like I tapped it
real hard a couple of times. Yeah, not too hard,
but you know tap and the files actually showed up,
but they won't load.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
So do you need these files or do you just
want to rescue this thing?

Speaker 10 (01:27:00):
I kind of do need the files. They're not super priority,
but you know, they've got memories and stuff on them
that I used as a backup and I didn't do
my triple backup right right properly because I let a
subscription die.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Okay, well here's the thing, and I'm running up right
against a hard break here. Number one. I'm looking at
this website. The logo sort of a takeoff of sand
discs that that alerts me, like, h, I don't really
like this. I would try some recovery software, something like
Stellar s T E l l A R disc drill
is another one, recouvera r E c u v A

(01:27:36):
that's another one. But I would check those out see
if you know, try something free, don't use something that's
paid to try to rescue these things. Also try a
different computer as well, because it may be that you're
plugging this thing into a device that doesn't recognize it,
or maybe doesn't have enough power for the USB to
power up. But I'm looking at their website and it

(01:27:57):
seems to promise a lot. I'm not sure the quality.
I can't vouch for that, so good question, James. Hopefully
you can salvage this data and back up. Please more
rich on Tech right after this. Welcome back to rich
on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking
technology and joining me now is La based physician doctor

(01:28:19):
Renee Dua. She has got a new app called Together
by Renee. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 14 (01:28:25):
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
So this is not your first app. You came out
with an app a couple of years ago called Heel,
which sort of revolutionized healthcare at home.

Speaker 14 (01:28:36):
That's right, and so we started Heal actually nine years
ago and we just sold the company to Humana and
the idea was exactly as you said, primary care in
the home, booking from an app.

Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
So now you've got a new app. This is called
Together by Renee. And what caught my attention about this
app is that it measures your vitals by taking a selfie,
So you can get your blood pressure, your heart rate,
respiratory rate, and blood oxygen plus more, all by just
taking a selfie on your phone. So tell me about
this app. Why did you come up with it?

Speaker 14 (01:29:09):
Well, so I'm not just a doctor. I'm also a
caregiver for my parents and I was finding that in
between their doctor's appointments, I had tons of little tasks
booking appointments, making sure refills were picked up, making sure
those medications that they're taking are actually working by looking
at their vitals, calling and getting the notes from a

(01:29:31):
doctor's appointment. And I sat down with my husband, who's
also my co founder, and I said, you know what
I need to automate me? How do I make myself
into a health assistant that everyone can use? And that's
sort of the genesis of how we came across this idea.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
So let's first start with the scanning the medication bottle.
It's not your typical scan. It's more of an AI
scan because it's very easy to scan the bottle and
then it's reading the information. So how's that working.

Speaker 14 (01:30:00):
So that's proprietary technology that we built in house because
again we didn't want you to have to type. We
allow you to take a scan of your bottle.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
And which, by the way, is round, so it's not
easy to scan. And so you've figured out a way
to make it easy to scan because it's round.

Speaker 14 (01:30:16):
That's exactly correct. And I'm so grateful that you picked
up on that nuance there, because many people think, oh,
I'm just snapping a video and I'm sorry, snapping a
picture and I'm learning so much. No, the round bottle
has a lot of information that's useful directions, things you
shouldn't take with your medications, that all important refill number.
How many times have you called your pharmacy? And the

(01:30:38):
first question is enter the number the prescription number of
your medication. Who knows right here? The Together app combines
all that information into one place and then takes action.
The Together app can call the pharmacy, knows the identification
number of that medification and knows your name and information

(01:30:58):
and will ask for the refill.

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
Accuracy is really important when it comes to everything that
you're mentioning. So how accurate are your scans? How accurate
is the information that the app can get from this.

Speaker 14 (01:31:08):
We've spent a year and a half just doing research
and development to improve accuracy and to ensure protection, so
they're very accurate. And again everything gets better week after
week as we're releasing new features on the app. So
each week I see that our accuracy is even better
than already. Very good.

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
Okay, Now, the feature that you can download and try immediately,
which I did, was the selfie for your vitals. So
you stand there for about a minute and you just
basically use your selfie camera and it will start showing
you some of your vitals and then when you're done,
it'll show you even more so, which vitals is this
taking and how is it getting those?

Speaker 14 (01:31:49):
So the vitals that it's taking are your heart rate,
your oxygen level in your body, and your blood pressure.
Those are the most important ones. And specifically, the camera
is looking in the backs of your eyes at your retina,
looking at blood pressure in the vessels in the backs
of your eyes to give you these numbers.

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
And what can this information be used for?

Speaker 14 (01:32:07):
Well, I think a lot about my patients who are
anxious or depressed, they have elevated blood pressures, elevated heart rates.
They want to know how they're feeling and if they
are in fact feeling those symptoms. I also spend a
lot of time with people who have high blood pressure
on three or four medications, and even still their blood
pressure is not controlled. And I personally, when I see patients,

(01:32:28):
I tell them, use the app check your blood pressure
once or twice a week. Let's make sure these medications
are working.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
Is this the first time we've seen an app take
vitals like this in such an easy manner?

Speaker 14 (01:32:39):
This is the first time you've seen it in the
United States, that's correct, And on the iPhone we've gotten approvals.
We are the first to release such a feature.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
Can you speak to how AI is being used in
this app?

Speaker 14 (01:32:51):
The entire back end of Together is artificial intelligence, right.
It is the assistant, It is the support that's making
those appointments, reminding for those refills, reading those labels on
the medication bottles, looking in the backs of your eyes
to check your blood pressure. All of that is dependent
on artificial intelligence.

Speaker 1 (01:33:10):
Now, the other thing is that your medications that you're
taking will sort of tell the app what you need
to do when it comes to preventative steps. Can you
talk about that a little bit, right?

Speaker 14 (01:33:21):
And so to me, this is actually a very very
cool feature in that when we're scanning those pill bottles,
we're learning, for example, that you take a medication for diabetes.
People who have diabetes need to have their cholesterol checked,
need to have their kidney function checked, right, need to
have their liver enzymes checked. And so sometimes you go
to the doctor's office and you find out these things

(01:33:43):
aren't done or forgotten, or you forgot. Here's a task
list of things that you can do. And once again
we can help by calling and scheduling appointments. We're going
to be able to help by helping you get those
results and keeping them in one place so that you
can look at them yourselves or share them with someone
you love.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
And what's the goal of this entire app.

Speaker 14 (01:34:04):
You know, I really want to transcend the healthcare experience
in America right now. I think a patient is dependent
on what a doctor can do in that fifteen to
twenty minute office visit, and is dependent on what insurance
will allow. So many insurance companies have a prior authorization
or a form that needs to be filled out before

(01:34:25):
you can actually get the care they need you need.
I really want patients to be able to know what
they need and take care of it themselves, and share
what they need with their daughter or their partner so
that their partner can say, listen, I saw that you
need to get your cholesterol checked. Let's get you to
the lab and get that done. Let's not wait for
another appointment with a doctor.

Speaker 1 (01:34:47):
Two things that I specifically have a problem with is
the online appointments very hit or miss every single doctor,
and also filling out paperwork. Why can't I fill out
that paperwork before I get there? Or why do I
have to fill it out every time? Why is it
pen and paper? Is there a reason for that? Is
there something I don't know that doctors know that? Why

(01:35:07):
they make us? Why this is so hard?

Speaker 14 (01:35:10):
Well, I think you've hit on two fundamental needs that
patients have wanted for years and we have yet to
achieve and hopefully together will achieve. Actually, and second, the
by design disruption of your day. Right, none of these
systems communicate. You don't know what your optometrist wants in

(01:35:31):
the same app as your met form and refill, right.
I think these systems are by design to keep all
your information disjointed and disorganized. And once again, that's literally
why we called it Together Together. We'll call and make
your appointments. Together, will fill out your forms and send
them over ahead of those appointments. And we want all

(01:35:52):
your information in one place so that you can see it,
You can control it, you can share it with someone
you love, and you own it. It's your information, It
belongs to you, and you can do with it what
you think is right for you.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
Tell me about the privacy aspect.

Speaker 14 (01:36:07):
Yeah, Together is a hip a compliant company. Your information
belongs to you and anyone you want to share it with.
It's totally private. We do not share your information without
your permission.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
Okay again. The app is called Together by Renee. It's
available on iOS, it's available now, it's free. Who do
you think should download this app?

Speaker 14 (01:36:27):
Together by Renee is for aging Americans, anybody on more
than one medication, any caregiver who wants to know what's
happening with someone they love.

Speaker 1 (01:36:36):
How can folks download Together by Renee?

Speaker 14 (01:36:38):
Go to the app store download Together by Renee, or
go to Together app dot com and you can download
it there.

Speaker 1 (01:36:45):
Okay, doctor Renee Dua, thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 14 (01:36:47):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Rich all right, more rich On Tech coming your way.
If you want to give me a call, it's triple
eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. You are listening
to rich on Tech Tracy's and Myriatta Tracy. What's going on?

Speaker 14 (01:37:06):
Hi?

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):
I get a usual update.

Speaker 4 (01:37:08):
I have an iPhone ten and it updated, gave me
some kind of an update, and then it took.

Speaker 3 (01:37:16):
Away its speaking feature to me.

Speaker 6 (01:37:18):
And I am blind and diabetic.

Speaker 4 (01:37:21):
Oh and so I have my phone my.

Speaker 10 (01:37:23):
Asps talking to me, but it took away on the
last updates.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
And do you know which update. Do you know what
kind of phone you have? You said, an iPhone, iPhone ten,
iPhone ten. Okay, as far as I know, the iPhone
ten still gets the latest updates. This is the last
year for that, I believe. Let's see. Hold on iOS seventeen.
They just came out with the supported models for iOS seventeen,

(01:37:51):
and let's see if your iPhone ten is going to
get that. I think it's the end of the line. Yeah,
the iPhone ten, ten, ten S Max and tens will
be the first will be the first phones that are compatible,
which means the iPhone ten has fallen off the list.
But the good news is Tracy, that your phone still
has the latest update. And I'm looking at mine, and

(01:38:13):
I believe you're referring to the voiceover accessibility feature and
that is still available. So maybe this got turned off.
But what I would do is go into settings and
then accessibility voiceover and turn it back on, and I
believe that should do what you need. And then once
you're in there, they've got all kinds of options for speech,

(01:38:37):
for Braille, for voiceover recognition, for description, for images, what's
on the screen for texts. So I'm looking at it
it's all there, and if you enable that one more time,
perhaps that will be reactivated because it could be very
useful in your situation for looking at those apps and
seeing what they can do. But that's where you find it,

(01:39:00):
and you can actually ask Siri as well, So if
you want to turn this on or off, you can
just hold down your side button and say turn on voiceover,
and that will be an easier way of turning it on.
Because you did mention you're visually impaired, so that might
be an easier way to just turn it on to
ask Siri to activate it. So turn on voiceover and

(01:39:22):
you can hold down the side button to activate Siri,
or you can say the hot word, hey Siri, which
I don't want to say because it activates your phone
and I just did it online. So Tracy, hopefully that helps,
and you may want to think about a potential upgrade
next year when the software is no longer supported. The

(01:39:42):
latest software is no longer supported on your particular device.
So thanks for the call today, appreciate it all right,
let's get to the feedback segment. Not to be confused
with the feedback segment, that's a whole other show. Gale rights.
Gail writes, good afternoon, Rich, I just heard you talk

(01:40:03):
to that woman about the Meta notification. That's how my
Instagram account was hacked. I got one of those messages
in April, and, like a can't say that word, I
provided my password. Then I got more questions from someone
using the Instagram logo. When I refused to answer, the
contact told me my account would be restored for three
hundred dollars. I then deleted any subsequent messages. This morning,

(01:40:29):
I got one from Meta about how I was falsely
using my account. I did what you said and ignored it.
Thank you for your valuable information, Gail. Yes, I was
thinking more about the caller and that notification. I think
in her case it might have been legitimate, but still
very concerning when you have to deal with this stuff.

(01:40:52):
Jill writes in as a casual Twitter user, can you
explain what your guest meant when he said Twitter is broken?
I don't see any differfer instant a function. Educate me, Joe, Joe,
that was that was an opinion that Twitter has broken.
Many people share the idea that Twitter is a different
place than it was before Elon Musk took over. But

(01:41:14):
you are correct at its bear basic functionality. Not much
has changed. I use Twitter, I still use it, I
can still tweet, I can still post stuff. Yes, they
push you to paying for certain things. Yes, stay for
a while, made you log in to look at things. Yes,
they said you can only look at a certain amount
of tweets a day. I think it was six hundred
for But I never came up against any of those situations.

(01:41:37):
So yeah, it's still working pretty much the same unless
Elon changed something again. But the reality is there's a
lot of how do we say, there's a lot of
people that just don't like Twitter because of Twitter and
Elon Musk, and so there's a lot of complaining going
on surrounding that, when in reality, Twitter is still pretty

(01:41:59):
much the same functionality that it's been since it started.

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
Tom says, hey, Rich, I really am enjoying the show
on KFI. My concern about joining threads is that it
sounds like you have to have an Instagram account and
also security concerns on Instagram. Thanks. I'm not sure what
the security concerns are on Instagram, but yes, you do
have to have an Instagram account to join threads, and
people are really up in arms about this idea that

(01:42:26):
if you want to delete your Threads account, you have
to delete your Instagram account. Now, why would you want
to delete your Threads account on day number three? Like
you get in there and it's like getting into a
club and you're like, oh, this place is terrible, and
you walk right out. I mean, if you don't like Threads,
just don't use it. Stop using it. You're gonna delete
your whole like Facebook account, Instagram meta account because you

(01:42:47):
don't like Threads. Just delete everything, delete your posts, don't
use it, delete the app and just come back to
it in six months and rethink it. But you don't
need to like get rid of it. So people are
going nuts over this. Yeah, you got to delete your
whole Instagram account if you want to delete Threads. Okay,
they're connected. What do you expect? This is a company,
it's meta. This is not you know, your grandma giving

(01:43:09):
you something nice. This is like, this is may a
big company that wants to grab your data. They're gonna
make it tough for you to leave, easy to get in,
tough to leave. It's like the Hotel California so big.
A big article on life Hacker, how to delete your
Threads without losing your Instagram delete all your content, make
your profile private, deactivate your profile, and if you're ready

(01:43:33):
to nuke your Instagram profile, you can delete your account.
I would not recommend doing that. It's too early to
say whether we're going to all use threads forever or not,
so just try it out. If you don't like it,
delete the app and worry about it later. Mike says, Hey, Rich,
greetings and congrats on twenty five in the can great show,
great subject matter. Now, I think you're ready for the

(01:43:54):
next step. Bumper music, especially the lead in the beginning
of the show for Adam's Ears just perked up. I
think there is a payoff to having the exact same
tune every time something dynamic. It's an identification thing, identification thing.
We hear it, we know it's you. We have to
listen up and you're not too far off. The song

(01:44:17):
you last played into break an electronic sound. I think
it was Tycho, one of my favorite electronic bands. Put
it at the front, just saying Mike in San Diego,
thank you. I appreciate that. Oh for perspective, he says,
I'm sixty seven tech interested, capable and listen watch radio
TV podcast via streaming. I have Internet radios throughout the house. Mike,

(01:44:39):
thank you for that. I appreciate it. It was tough enough
for us to get the bumper music right, so we're
getting that and the music, the intro music. I kind
of like it's different every time. Oh my gosh, I
gotta get through more. Mark says for the caller with
the really old iMac, the option to turn it into
a Chromebook might really be the best option. Because the
web browsers aren't updated for old mac os versions, a

(01:45:00):
lot of websites won't work. Uri says, Hey, Rich, I
always look forward to your weekly show via Apple podcasts.
You have an excellent way of simplifying tech into Layman's terminology.
Yad someone whose contents was stolen from the trunk of
their car, and I wanted to add a tiny tip.
When storing anything in your trunk, move it before you
get into the place you're going to park. Otherwise everyone

(01:45:20):
around you will see you putting them into the trunk
of your car as you walk away. That's so smart
and I've thought about that, Jerry and Cleveland, says Rich.
You were talking about the use of what three words
on your show last week. I use it to locate
my parents' graves at the massive cemetery they're buried at.
Even when I know the section, it would take me
ten or fifteen minutes of walking to find their headstones.

(01:45:40):
Now the app takes me right there. Sorry for you're
a loss, but Gerald, that's a great Jerry, that's a
great use in Cleveland, Ohio. And finally, Roger Miller says,
I was listening to what your son said about Final
Cut Pro and the iPad, and I'm very inspired. I'm
a forty plus year video editor who's been trying to
get basic functionality, and your son's accomplishments with Final Cut

(01:46:05):
Pro inspired me to give another go and bingo, I'm
now doing basic functions and I have worked. Now I'm
working on Final Cut Pro. Thank you to your son.
I'm finally on my way. Thanks to your show, and
keep up the good work. Sincerely, Roger, Roger, thanks for listening,
and thanks to you for listening. My name is rich Demiro.

(01:46:25):
Another show in the can. Thanks for being a part
of it. Rich on Tech, We'll see you next week.
Take care,

All Episodes

027 Rich on Tech Radio Show - July 8, 2023

Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}027 Rich on Tech Radio Show - July 8, 2023