Chicago Auto Show EVs & Stopping Your TV from Spying

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Google changes the name of its AI chatbot less than
a year after its launch. It is officially time to
say goodbye to iTunes, the new service that can protect
your privacy plus your tech questions answered.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
What's going on?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech broadcasting
live from Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Coast to coast.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
This is the show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
up those phone lines triple eight Rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(00:46):
zero one. Give me a call if you have a
question about technology. Email also an option. Just go to
rich on tech dot tv hit contact. Guests on this
week's show will include folks from the Chicago Auto Show.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Was just in Chicago for that and talk to a.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Couple of great people about the show. Doctor Chris Pearson,
cyber security expert with Black Cloak dot io, is going
to talk romance scams. Yeah, it is Valentine's Day week,
stay away from these. He'll talk about how they work
and how to avoid them, and later Kyle Voorbach, filmmaker

(01:25):
of How I Faked My Life with AI. We'll talk
about the history, benefits and dangers of the AI Revolution.
We are all living in Well. I hope you're having
a fantastic day. I am just got back from Chicago
for the Chicago Auto Show.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Chicago what a great city.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Even though I did not leave the complex I was in,
I was only there for like one what was it,
forty eight hours? But Chicago is like a real I
don't know, like there's just some buzz in that city.
Like people just really take life seriously. In Chicago. It
was not cold when I went, which everyone was talking about.

(02:06):
Although it did thunder and lightning, it was not that
windy and it was great. I went to the auto show,
which is one of the most traditional things you can
do here in America, and it was fun. And that
show is the largest in North America. It's been going
on for over one hundred years. They brought me out
there to experience it, and I'm glad I went. Now,

(02:28):
all the journalists there were talking about how the auto
show is dead, and I will tell you it is
not dead. In fact, if you have one in your city,
go and take your kids, if you have kids, because
it really brought back some strong memories growing up in
the New York City area and going to the Jacob
Javits Center with my dad and just sitting in all
those cars and dreaming and having a great time and

(02:51):
seeing what these car companies are doing. It was also
great to witness the revolution that's happening in the auto industry,
which is of course electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles. And I
love going to things like this because it gives me perspective.
That is why I take the time away from my
family to go to these events, to be there in

(03:12):
person and to actually be on the ground, because you
gain perspective, and that's what I got here in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Evs are everywhere you go.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
To Chicago, people are like, oh no, I don't want
an EV why cold weather? Did you see the news
about the teslas that were frozen to the ground in
Chicago because there's only one supercharger station or two and
people are in line and the line was so long
their cars just seized up and they had like tow
them out of there. So again, hearing those stories from

(03:42):
people on the ground in Chicago gives me perspective. Hot
weather changes the battery charging infrastructure. We take it for
granted here, but in other parts of the nation it's just.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Not the same. And not only that, but just sitting
in a car.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
You can watch all the YouTube videos in the world
and think you know a car, but when you sit
in that car for exactly a minute, you understand that
car instantly. That's what happened with me with a cyber truck,
which was there. With the new Tesla that was revamped.
Let's see, there was, I mean just so many cars
I got to sit in, I got to test drive.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
It was great. One thing I saw that.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Was pretty cool at the show is this thing called
Emergency Safety Solutions.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
This is a company that is trying to.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Basically put a new protocol into cars when they're disabled,
when there's a crash or they're disabled, the back lights
blink really fast, like a certain cadence, and that is
to help eliminate disabled vehicle crashes. And this happens a
lot in Los Angeles. Cars are on the side of
the road, people don't notice them, they slam right into them.
People are on their phone, they're texting, they're not looking up, which,

(04:49):
by the way, you should not be doing in general,
but it happens. And so this system is basically something
that could be built into cars and the lights flash
at a certain cadence and it helps drivers behind those
cars understand that this car is stopped. And it takes
a little bit.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Too.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's two sided, so you have the lights that flash
a certain cadence when the car is disabled, but you
also have these digital alerts that are sent to your
dashboard about a car up ahead that may be disabled,
kind of similar to what you might experience with ways
that tells you that there's a cop up ahead or
a disabled vehicle. But this is kind of like across
all cars right now. It's in Tesla's, not every tesla

(05:29):
but it's in a bunch of Tesla's. They're working with Volkswagen, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep,
and Ram. Of course that's all one company except for Volkswagen,
so they're trying to get there.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
It was an interesting concept and I think it would help,
but again, it probably costs more for the manufacturers. They
need to do a concerted effort to get this all working.
But I'll have more from the auto show in just
a little bit. Here on the show. Okay, officially, I
am one of those people. I upgraded my TV for
the Super Bowl. Yes, I am now one of those

(05:59):
people that said let's do this, and so I will
tell you it was the easiest thing I've ever done
in my life. So Number one, I ordered so we
had an expert on a couple of weeks ago, so
I knew all the TVs that I wanted. I ended
up ordering a lesser TV than I wanted. I should
have gone with a better one, but I didn't. But
you know, I like to save money, so I went
with the cheaper TV. I ordered it on the best

(06:20):
Buy app from my phone and it went through. It
took me two tries because my credit card actually said
you don't usually buy stuff this expensive, so we're going
to decline that charge, and so I had to do
it twice.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
The second time it went through.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Anyway, ordered it on the best Buy app was ready
for pick up within it must have been an hour,
not even I got it delivered to my house via
the service called lug where it's kind of like an
Uber but for anything. They will pick up furniture. They
go to the place with a van, the people pick
it up and they bring it to your house. That
happened within another hour. So I had this thing in
my house within two hours after placing order. I couldn't

(06:57):
believe it. Then I texted the guy who hung my
TVs the last time. This is probably ten years ago.
I said, Hey, you still hanging TVs? Can you hang
one more in my house? And he said sure, and
he pretended he remembered me. Of course you didn't, but
he gave me a great deal. Came to the house
and boom, the TV was mounted. So I will tell
you my advice on the TV. Number one, The TV

(07:17):
looks great. Bigger screens definitely highlight the streaming quality of
the content that you are watching. So immediately we put
on a basketball game and we're like, eh, this doesn't
look very good. I did some research. It turns out
that that service I was using streams in like seven twenty.
The bigger the TV screen, the more resolution you need.
So now I'm like, Okay, Now I understand why four

(07:38):
K is a thing. I understand why people like ten
eighty versus seven twenty, and of course eight K is
still a ways off. There are TVs that can handle it,
but there's really no content for that maybe maybe on
YouTube you might find something, but really not.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
My advice also, go o LED. I went with Mini LED.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
It is very apparent when I look at my OLED
screen on my phone versus the Mini LED screen on TV,
very very different. I watched a movie on the Samsung
Galaxy S twenty four yesterday on the plane.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's called Lift. It's on Netflix. It was very good.
By the way, I could not.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Believe how good that movie looked on a smartphone screen.
I mean, I'm talking, it was just incredible. I actually
brought up the movie to my wife this morning. I said,
you got to watch this. Just check out this scene
and see how crisp the colors are and just the
contrast everything. So go OLED if you can. It's a
little bit more expensive. I wish I did, but I

(08:36):
can always bring this TV to a different room. The
other thing I noticed, and this is my takeaway for
you, your TV is spying on you. If you have a
smart TV, it is spying on everything you are doing,
everything you are watching. It is making a log of
what you are watching, the commercials you see, the stuff
you're streaming, the channels, you're watching everything, no matter what

(08:58):
input it is on it is doing something called automatic
content recognition ACR. This is technology that recognizes the content
on your TV screen. They use this data, they categorize it,
and then they sell it so they know exactly when
you buy a pack of Dorito's at the store in
that new flavor. They can go back and look at

(09:21):
the data from your TV and see if you saw
a commercial and tell the advertiser, yeah, that worked. And
if you think this isn't happening, it absolutely is. So
here's my advice to you. Google your TV brand along
with turn ACR off, and you will find the directions
on how to turn off automatic content recognition on your TV.

(09:43):
There is no reason why you already paid for the TV.
You're not getting any benefit out of this feature. Your
TV manufacturer is making extra money on top of the
money you already paid them for your TV. So again,
google your TV brand and along with turn ACR off
automatic content recognition. Or you can just go in your

(10:03):
settings if you're a little if you're a little techy,
just go through the settings. You will find it buried
under privacy or some sort of thing. That doesn't sound
like it is a negative. It sounds like it's a positive.
It says we will use this information to make your
experience better. No they won't. They are just using it
to make money off of you. All right, Coming up,
I'm going to talk about the Super Bowl. I know

(10:25):
it's this weekend. It is the first time it's in
four K. I'll tell you how to access that, how
to place your Wi Fi router in the right place
if you're streaming the game. And coming up, we're going
to talk about Google's AI. It has a new name
and a new price tag. But first it is your turn.
Your calls coming up next at triple eight Rich one

(10:45):
oh one, that's eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Give me a call if you
have a question about technology. My name is Rich Demiro
and you are listening to Rich on Tech Angie and Riverside.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
You're on with Rich. Hey, Rich, good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I get a quick question for you.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
I don't know if it be quick or not. Everyone's
all about Wi Fi and having that in the house
making it really easy to connect and everything. But my
problem is is our WiFi is very spotty and it's
not always reliant, and I want to look for hard
wirings like Ethernet, cables through the house to like our
smart TVs and other like our computers and laptops. Is

(11:35):
there certain kind of company I would look forward specifically
to do that, because I wouldn't be able to technically
drill holes through the wall to fish these cables through
to be able to install the outlets myself.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
No, no, no, you would.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
You would just go on Yelp, and I think an
electrician can handle this. You can type electrician. You can
type like the same person that like hung my TV
I just talked about. They will do stuff like that,
and so if you type in like a TV mounting,
they will. I mean you could just go on Yelp
and literally just type in there's like security network, cabling,

(12:12):
network installation. I mean, there's so many people that will
do this.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
I don't think you need it, to be honest, Like,
I am running a lot of tech in my house
and I don't have anything that is wired up. So
I think what I would recommend before you try this
is to get a mesh network. And a mesh network
is kind of like the new thing in the tech
world that's been around for you know, many years now,

(12:38):
but it uses several access points around your house to
create a network. And the big companies that make it Eero,
you've got ORB. If you want something cheaper, there's a
company called Villo Vilo. But if you go to the store,
you can check these things out. And it's basically a
three pack. So you start with a three pack. You

(13:00):
put one by your modem where your internet comes into
your house, and then you kind of put the rest
around your house in two different other places, depending on
how big your house is.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
You know, one or two or three may cover it.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
But if you still want to do this, I mean,
there's so many people on.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yelp that will do this.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
So if you just put in even the ethernet Ethernet installation,
you can type that in. And what I would do
for the guidance on who to pick is to kind
of talk to. I would call. So Yelp is going
to try to sort by recommended. You can change that
sort to either most reviewed or highest rated, whatever you want.
But I would call the first couple of people, so

(13:41):
maybe like the first three people and just get a
feel for them and just talk to them. And if
they're really quick on the phone, they don't really care
to talk to you, then you know, I think you
go with the next person and see what they do.
That's how I got the TV installer that I like.
That is, you know, I called again after ten years
because he was really great on the phone. He explain
things to me, Hey, how does this process work?

Speaker 2 (14:02):
What do you need?

Speaker 3 (14:03):
You know?

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Do you do this? Do you do that?

Speaker 1 (14:05):
And instead of some people, you get on the phone
with YELP and they literally are trying to get you
off the phone as soon as possible, or you can't
even get person on the phone. So if you can't
get a hold of them when you're trying to hire them,
imagine what it's going to be like when you're done
with the job and you've already paid them. You're never
going to hear from them again. So that would be
my advice if you need to go the wired route. Also,

(14:26):
it depends on the speed that you have. I mean,
if you're talking a standard Internet speed from you know,
Spectrum or something that's two three hundred megabits per second.
I mean, most people are just using why find nowadays,
But if you feel the need that you want to
wire everything up just to make sure, then that's what
I would do. Find someone on YELP and you'll you'll
find someone that's that's going to do that. It's going

(14:47):
to cost a lot though, that's not going to be
cheap to do. I think it'd be cheaper to buy
the router first, you know, the Mesh network, and then
go with you know, if that doesn't work, you can
return that and then go with someone to install it.
But thanks Ange Riverside, appreciate the call today. Speaking of
wi fi, if you are watching the super Bowl, you
are gonna want to make sure that your WiFi is

(15:09):
really good because many of us are streaming nowadays. So
number one, how to watch the super Bowl forty nine
Ers versus Chiefs. I would do the math, but I
don't know it is this super Bowl fifty eight. It
looks like this is gonna be on CBS. You can
watch it, of course, over the air on the CBS
network that's local to where you live. Paramount plus is

(15:29):
also going to be streaming it.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Now. I will tell you if you have Paramount Plus.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
I've had many issues with them, like just watching a
movie on Paramount Plus is kind of tough sometimes. So
for this, this is probably their biggest event they've ever done.
I would have a backup just in case. Kickoff is
at six thirty pm Eastern. They're also going to be
showing it on Nickelodeon, but that's gonna be like kind

(15:54):
of a kids version of the broadcast. I think there's
gonna be slime involved. So the main way CBS, nickelode in,
Paramount plus. The other thing is if you want four K,
there's a great article I'll link up from the TV
answer Man about the about the Super Bowl in four K,
But basically it will be in four K this year,

(16:14):
but it's going to be an upscaled feed, so it's
not necessarily going to be true four K, even though
they are using four K cameras. But I don't know
what the hesitation is with this whole four K revolution
on streaming, but it's it's very, very slow. And the
other thing is place your Wi Fi router, take it
off the ground, and get things away from it so

(16:35):
this signal can get.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Through your entire house. That's my advice.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Coming up, we are going to talk about the Chicago
Auto Show, what I saw, what was cool, and some
of the key takeaways. You are listening to rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one one.

(17:00):
zero one. I'm on location in Chicago, site of the
Chicago Auto Show. This is North America's largest auto show.
It's been going on for like over one hundred years.
The Chicago Auto Show, along with Nissan was kind enough
to bring me here to experience it, which is my
first time. I talked to several journalists on the floor,

(17:23):
including Emily dry Belbis. She is the EV reporter for
PCMag dot com. She actually lives in Chicago and gave
me some history of the show.

Speaker 5 (17:33):
So Chicago Auto Show has kind of a family atmosphere.
People in the city talk about going here when they
grew up and now they're coming back with their kids.
It'll be flooded with people. There'll be an hour to
get on certain cars and see different cars with people everywhere.
So it's a really popular community event. This is kind
of like an amazing, low pressure dealer where you can
see all of the latest models from all of the

(17:54):
best brands, and they're not gonna sell you on them.
You can look in them and see what the dash
is like. And compare them really easily. I mean, you
can walk right next to each other all the cars
you want to see instead of having to drive to dealerships.
So I think there's a lot of uses. That's the
most practical one. It's also just fun, like you can
drive a car up a huge mountain and down and
kids love that, and there's lots of things you could

(18:15):
do here.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Now.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
I live in California, where evs are everywhere, but it
was interesting to get the different perspective of EV drivers
in Chicago, a place where the cold definitely takes a
toll on the battery, so people here have sort of
a different outlook on buying an EV.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
So I live in Chicago, and I'm an EV journalist,
so I test drive evs all the time. But it's
interesting I wouldn't buy one living in the city as
my only vehicle because the range really does plummet in
the cold. So I test drove a Tesla a couple
of years ago in the winter, and it advertises two
hundred and seventy miles of range in the cold. The
dash screens that I was getting one to eighty. So
if you're paying a premium for that product and you're

(18:54):
not getting the value out of it. It really is
kind of hard for me to rationalize buying it. But
in Chicago, on my street, there are EV's everywhere, all
the latest models. Riviana is located nearby. There are factors
two hours from here, so tons of evs. If you
have a single family home, no worries. But if you're
like me in an apartment, it's probably not a great idea.
What the EV revolution exposes is how many different types

(19:15):
of driving there is, I mean different types of climates
and use cases, road trip in the city and the highway.
So it's a very complex problem. It's very hard to
speak to what everybody wants.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Next up, I talked to Sam abullas Samid. He is
a automotive analyst at guide House Insights, and a lot
of journalists on site. We're talking about the death of
the auto show, how there's no major announcements at these events,
But Sam takes kind of a different approach. These auto
shows are really for consumers now well.

Speaker 6 (19:46):
One of the big trends with auto shows in general
over the past decade is they've kind of followed the
same trend as the technology industry, where most big companies
have moved away from doing big press announcements at the
auto shows and doing standalone announcements where they.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Can get the entire news cycle.

Speaker 6 (20:03):
It's really expensive to do a press announcement at an
auto show, so we've got fewer of those kinds of announcements,
going back to more the traditional auto shows. As a
consumer event, it's a great place for people that are
interested in buying a vehicle to come out and check
out a whole bunch of different brands. Right across the
aisle from US here as the Ford booth where they're

(20:25):
doing test drives, so you can actually come out and
test drive some of the vehicles. You can check out
different brands side by side, you know, as they get
into the traditional spring buying season. You know, it's a good,
good opportunity for consumers to see what's in the market.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
And even though EV's are front and center at the show,
there are still plenty of hybrids in the conversation and
even gas vehicles, so you know, we still.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Got a lot of electrification.

Speaker 6 (20:50):
Right behind me here, it's the Subaru Saltera, which is
their first EV that launched last year, and we're still
seeing a lot of interesting introductions of new EVS. VW
is showing they for the first time at an auto show,
the three row version of the I D Buzz electric
minivan that's coming here later this year to North America.

(21:11):
It's a longer version than the version that they sell
in Europe right now, the v W I D seven
sedan that's coming this summer. There's there's more more electrics,
but also there's also a lot a lot of conversation
around hybrids. You know, with EV's EV adoption not really
hitting that hockey stick. It's still growing, but it hasn't
hit that hockey stick part of the curve yet, and

(21:33):
so there's and affordability is still a challenge. So there's
a lot more interest in hybrids. GM last week an now,
so they're going to bring plug in hybrids back into
their lineup in the next few years. Volkswagen Group of
President Pablo de ce just at a at a press
event just now, talked about bringing hybrids back to the
Volkswagen lineup in the coming year. So we will continue

(21:56):
to see more more growth of electrification in all its forms, hybrid,
plug in hybrid and battery electric. We've got two hundred
and ninety million registered vehicles in the United States, barely
two million of those in total. Less than two million
of those in total right now are electric. So there's
gonna be internal combustion cars, gas and even diesel powered
vehicles on the road for decades to come, and even

(22:19):
new vehicles. We will still have vehicles that are powered
by liquid fuels well into the twenty thirties. You may
not be able to buy a new one in California
in twenty thirty six, but there'll still be around.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
One mini surprise at the show, Tesla was on the
show floor. They typically don't attend events like this. They
had the refreshed Model three on display. The main thing
I could tell that was different right off the bat
was the addition of a display in the back seat.
But the thing that everyone was looking at was the Cyberchuck,
And I will say I was actually much more impressed

(22:54):
with it than I imagined I would be. But this might
be a turning point for Tesla.

Speaker 6 (22:59):
But Tesla traditionally, you know, at least for the past decade,
has not really participated in auto shows. The fact that
they're here again, I think fits in with what we've
seen from Tesla over the past year. With some of
the demand. You know, where Elon Musk used to talk
about infinite demand for Tesla vehicles, Well it's not so
infinite anymore. You know, they've had to cut prices in

(23:20):
the past year by more than twenty percent on most
of the models. And the fact that they're here at
the auto show wanting to have a presence where consumers
are going to be Lucid as well. You know, Lucid
has struggled to really gain traction and grow their sales,
and you know, they're they're still very much in the
premium end of the market. But the fact that they're

(23:41):
here in a market like Chicago where you know, there's
quite a few premium buyers the I think that shows
that they you know, they're having to market a little
more aggressively than they have.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
In the past.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Sam is kind of the guy when it comes to
cars when you're at these parties that surround the events,
when everyone gets together, he's the guy that everyone wants
to talk to.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
So what is he like at this year's show.

Speaker 6 (24:04):
I'm a big fan of the the EV's from Hyundai
at Kia, so cars like the Ionic five and Ionic
six from Hyundai. Uh the Kia EV six and EV
nine are great. You know, the some of the hybrids
from Toyota are really fantastic vehicles. The Broncos that are
driving around this course here, you know, the Mustang dark

(24:25):
Horse is always a favorite for me. You know, I've
been a Mustang fan since I was a little kid.
Uh So, lots of lots of fun stuff to see
here if you have any interest in vehicles at all.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Finally, for an opinion from the TikTok generation, I consulted
with Drake Moscow. He does content for TikTok surrounding cars.
It was also his first time at the Chicago Auto Show.

Speaker 7 (24:46):
It's awesome.

Speaker 8 (24:46):
It's cool to see all these cars back to back
and to see kind of a company's whole lineup all
right next to each other. And you can see the
product cycles, the newer vehicles, how they are updated and
a little differentiated from the older vehicle. And I really
like seeing all.

Speaker 7 (25:01):
Of that stuff.

Speaker 8 (25:02):
So there's a large spectrum of companies here, and it's
cool to see how every brand is taking.

Speaker 7 (25:07):
A different approach.

Speaker 8 (25:08):
Like I was looking at the new Hyundai Santa Fe
hybrid and there's no hybrid badging on it.

Speaker 7 (25:13):
It looks just like a normal gas car.

Speaker 8 (25:15):
The only way you can really tell is like the
exhausts are a little different, but they're not branding it
as a hybrid, which I think is super interesting. All
auto shows nowadays have these awesome like experiential elements, which
is really cool and allows people to like get into
cars and feel what they're like while driving, not just static,
which I think is really important. And the Chicago Auto

(25:35):
Show in particular, it's it's awesome to be like in
this massive venue, there's like so much space around, so
you kind of don't feel too claustrophobic around all the
cars because there is so much space to kind of
hang out and experience the vehicles.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
There you have it from the Chicago Auto Show.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
If you want to see some of the cars that
caught my eye, check out my instagram at rich on Tech.
All right, coming up next, more of your calls at
Triple eight Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. My name
is rich Damiro and you are listening to rich on Tech.

(26:17):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one
o one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one the website rich on tech dot TV.
You could also submit your question there. Ralph on x
formerly Twitter says, Hey, Rich, I never heard of ACR

(26:38):
until today on your show.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Thanks for the heads up, And Chuck.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Wrote in on email he said, I left mine on
because I want them to know what channels I'm watching
so they can provide better service or reward the channel
that's giving me the content. I like, there's about seventy
three channels I never watch. I hope they realize that
and change it up A couple of perspectives there.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
I like that. Let's go to Dan in Carpenteria. Dan,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 9 (27:05):
Hey, good morning, Rich, thank you very much for taking
my call.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Good morning, Yeah, welcome, Yeah, gonna help.

Speaker 9 (27:10):
So here's a little background. Unfortunately, my wife has a
neuro degenitive disease called ALS.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Okay, sorry to hear that.

Speaker 9 (27:19):
Yeah, really tough stuff. But because of that, she's not
able to use her hands. So in the morning, I
get her up, and I get her ready and I
put her in her chair and then she pretty much
watches TV all day. Question I have for you, is
there a programmable remote TV remote control that would say,
like between eight and nine in the morning, she'd be

(27:40):
watching news on channel seven oh seven, and then at
nine o'clock would automatically click over between nine and ten
to channel seven eleven, so she'd watch maybe the Talk
or something, and then at between you know, eleven and twelve,
it would change channels again. But I could just program
for the course of the day, so that The problem

(28:02):
I'm having now is is that if I don't get
in there in time, I know you're a little frustrated
if she's watching her program she doesn't want to.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, so is she able to change the like press
the button on the remote or no?

Speaker 9 (28:16):
No?

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Okay, So so it would be a remote that like
kind of you set it and forget it kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
What about voice? Can she use voice?

Speaker 9 (28:25):
Unfortunately? Yes and no. Unfortunately. She has a stage also,
which means she a lot of times she uses word substitution.
She may say cat whenever she really needs to say dogs.
So I don't see that as an option.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Oh Dan, I'm sorry to hear this. Wow.

Speaker 9 (28:41):
Yeah, that's really tough stuff.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Oh man, Well, so I'm thinking for a tech solution.
It reminds me of the old days when you used
to like program the VCR and it would change to
the channel and like record the show. But I think
we're beyond that. I think that the maybe the best
thing you might be able to do. There's two things

(29:02):
I'm thinking. Number One, some of these like cable boxes
have like a way like a timer that will change
the channel, but I'm not really sure like if that's
a thing anymore, Like if they have a DVR built in,
that may be one way to do it, where you
program the DVR to change to the channel that you
want to record, but it's actually changing to that channel
just to watch it too. Do you have traditional cable

(29:24):
TV or do you have like streaming.

Speaker 9 (29:27):
I have a just I have a Spectrum cable right now.
It ties into a Sony So they have their cable box.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
And does that cable box have the DVR built in?

Speaker 9 (29:40):
You know, that's something I don't know how to check
that out.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Okay, because that's one way is if it's a So
what I would do is, you know, usually these cable
boxes have like a couple of tuners in them so
that they can record a couple of things at once.
But you can almost like hack it where you set
all of the timers to record the same channel at
the you know, like if you want this channel at
nine set both timers to record that channel at nine am,

(30:03):
so it's forced to change to that channel on the screen.
So that's one way that you might be able to
do it, and that doesn't really take any additional equipment
than what you already have. It's been a while since
I used one of those boxes, so I don't know
if that's how they work anymore, but I think that's well,
that's the way they used to work, and so that
may be one way to do it.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
That's pretty simple.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
When I used to have TVO, it would it would
change the channel automatically, and if you max out the tuners,
it would say, sorry, you can't change the channel anymore.
Like we're recording on two channels, and you got to
stick with one of these. You got to watch one
thing or the other. So that's one way. The other
thing you could do, and this takes a little bit
more work, but you could use like a Google Home
or an Alexa speaker and you can program routines into those. Now,

(30:48):
this is not going to be full proof in my experience.
Half the time routines work. Half the time they don't work,
But that could be another way of doing it. And
I'm actually I found a thread on Reddit where people
have come up with routines where it will turn on
the TV, it will set the volume to a certain percentage,
and then it will play the channel that it wants

(31:10):
to play on that TV. And so now that's a
little complicated because you need everything to work with Google
or Alexa, but you can definitely do that. It would
take a little bit of know how though, and it,
like I said, it wouldn't always work. Like I have
a couple things in my house that are routines. Most
of the time they work, sometimes they don't. But that
is something you can definitely and it's not that expensive

(31:32):
to do.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
You can get.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
The best box that I would recommend is probably the
Fire TV Cube because it has an IR blaster in
it and so you can actually hook that up to
work with your cable box. And it's actually pretty slick
because your cable box plugs into it. And so what
that means is that everything on the fire TV overlays
on top of your cable box, so your wife actually
wouldn't really notice a huge difference because everything would kind

(31:54):
of look the same. So those are kind of fire
TV yeah, fire TV cube and that's and it's also
going to give you voice. So basically what you're doing
is instead of doing instead of saying a voice command
to it, you're just programming a voice command as a routine.
So you're saying, Hey, at two o'clock, tune into this channel.
So instead of you saying that verbally, you would just

(32:16):
write that. You would type that in as a routine
and it would do it would fire off that routine
at two pm every day, and then you know, you
can layer on the top, you know, turn on the TV,
turn off the TV. But again, not guaranteed to work exactly,
but it's I think that's going to be a pretty
good solution. But try the DVR setting first, see if

(32:36):
that works, Like, just try to set the DVR to
change to the channel at those times. And the best
part about this show is that now that we talked
about this on the air, I will probably get some
emails from folks saying, Rich, you know, what about this solution?
What about that solution? So there are different ways of
doing this. Those are the couple that I can think
of off the top of my head. But maybe we'll
get some other you know, other suggestions.

Speaker 9 (32:58):
As well, be posted on your website.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, or I'll mention.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Them on the show in the future, and maybe, you know,
if we get some by next week I'll mention them
in the feedback segment at the end of the show.

Speaker 9 (33:08):
Sounds great, Thank you so much, all right.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Dan, appreciate the call up there in a carpenteria today.
Triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Let's see a
couple questions we got on email. Louise says, you have
any suggestions for outdoor TV. We live in Colorado, it
gets cold. The two big brands Louise for outdoor TVs

(33:33):
are Sunbright or the Samsung Terrace. Sunbright sort of owned
the market here for many years. That's in the premium TVs.
Samsung Terras is the other brand that sort of is
coming up.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
And these TVs, you know, they're they're brighter than your
standard TV because you're outside. There's less glare on the
screen because you're outside. And also their weather proof so
that they can deal with the rain, they can deal
with the cold, they can deal with the heat.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Now. I will tell you.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
When I was getting my TV installed by the installer,
he said, what are you going to do with this
whole TV? I said, I don't know, probably just recycling.
He said, why don't you put it outside? I said, outside?
This is a regular TV. And even though we live
in California where people basically set up things that shouldn't
be set up outside outside all the time, because it
you know, it doesn't rain much except in the last

(34:21):
couple of weeks, I was like, isn't that going to
short circuit? Isn't that going to be a problem. He said, Nah,
just get a cover off Amazon.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
It's cheap.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
I'll mount it out there, and you know, you put
the cover on when it's raining, it'll be fine. I
can't say I recommend that because I haven't tried it personally,
but I'm probably going to try it.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
As long as you keep things dry, maybe it's okay.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
But if you want a solution that's truly going to work,
that is meant to be the way it is engineered,
I would go with an outdoor TV. Also, if you
look up on Amazon, there are much cheaper outdoor TVs
than the Sunbrights of the World or the Samsung's.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
But those are two places to start quickly before. Oh,
I don't guess we're going a break never mind?

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Uh eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight
eight seven four to two four to one zero one.
Coming up, Disney Plus is the latest to crack down
on password sharing. I will tell you the details of
when that is scheduled to start. Tell your family members.
Now you are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back

(35:22):
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with
you talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one.
zero one. Well my theory was correct. Steve has written
in through the website rich on Tech dot TV. He said, Uh,

(35:45):
to the man with the question about the ALS situation,
I have Direct TV. If he adds the same programs
fully on their DVR, it will switch to the new
station automatically. It's important to program the same program on
all slots for each hour. That's exactly what I said,
So I think that will be your solution. That was

(36:07):
Dan and Carpenteria. So Dan, I hope you're still listening.
That is the way to do it. It won't cost
you anything. It's using the DVR that you already have.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
So I like that. Let's see.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Let's see d says, what's the best antennae antenna to
get to access local channels. I feel like antennae are
the things that come out of the ants you know.
But like antenna, if you're looking for for your DV
I like anything from Antenna's Direct, A, N T, E, NNA,
Antenna's Direct, and they make something called the Mohu and

(36:43):
they're they're famous for the Mohu leaf, but they also
have new ones, the Mohu Versa. But I would pop
in your zip code, see what you can get and
get the recommendation for what you need. So it really
depends on where you live, what kind of antenna you need.
You might need something that's powered, you might need something
that's small. It just really depends. So just pop in

(37:04):
your zip code on Antennasdirect dot com and it will
tell you what you can get and also the types
of antennas that you should get, so it'll tell you
exactly what you need, suggest an Antenna's fear zip code.
It also tell you the channels that you can get
and you'll be surprised. I mean, I don't know what
the deal is with antennas. I feel like they've come
a long way. But I can plug one into the

(37:27):
back of my TV in the office and I get
like every channel like almost crystal Well, the ones I
get are crystal clear, and I get a lot of them.
A lot of them are, you know, kind of nonsensy,
but you know, the big ones are there. Disney Plus
is going to start cracking down on passwords sharing. They
sent out a new terms of service to their subscribers,

(37:47):
and anyone suspected of improper sharing may have some ramifications.
They could even cancel your account. This will begin summer
twenty twenty four, so Disney of course hopes to convert
some passwords sharing folks to paid subscribers. They will have
some sort of message they will send you saying, hey,

(38:09):
we notice you're trying to share someone else's password. You
want to subscribe yourself. But again, that happened summer twenty
twenty four. There's going to be a lot of sad
people on my account. Every time I log in, there's
another profile added to my Disney Plus page.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I can't say that.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
You should be sharing your password right now, but I
know people do, and so far these streaming companies have
not cracked down on it, but that is changing in
a very, very big way. If you check out my
Instagram at rich on Tech, like I said, I just
got back from the Chicago Auto Show, you can check
out the various posts I put on there, and I

(38:44):
was noticing I actually forgot about this. But yesterday I
was on the plane flying back and I got an
earthquake alert. How scary is that. I'm just sitting there
on my phone before the plane took off. We were
actually delayed a little bit because they're repairing something, and
I get this critical notification that says earthquake drop cover
hold on shaking expected magnitude four point seven in La County.

(39:06):
And I was in Chicago, and so I immediately text
my wife and said, Lindsey, did you are you filling
an earthquake or what?

Speaker 2 (39:13):
She said, Yeah, had you know?

Speaker 1 (39:14):
I said, well, I just got the alert on my phone.
And so my advice, because I posted this, of course,
is to download this app.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
It's called my Shake.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
So if you live in the LA area, it only
works in Los Angeles or sorry, California, Washington, and Orion.
But if you live in one of those places. It
uses that network they set up of the little sensors
in the ground and it will tell you a couple
of seconds before the earthquake, or at least that's what's
supposed to do. And of course, based on all the

(39:43):
feedback I got, a lot of people did get it.
A lot of people said they had an old app
that's been decommissioned. The main app, I think the only
app you can do at this point is called my Shake.
Now that's for Android and iOS. If you have Android,
you can go into your settings under Safety Emergency. There
is an earthquake alert system built into the Android operating system.

(40:04):
So either way, I recommend getting it. My kids were
really shaken up. They said, oh Dad, it was the
first time we had an earthquake at school and the
whole room shot, you know, shook, and we had to
get under our desks. Reminds me of back in the
day when I was a kid. We used to like
what we learned, like stop, drop and roll for like fires.
But now I guess with earthquakes it's like stop and
take cover or something. I didn't grow up an earthquake country,

(40:27):
so I didn't really learn that stuff growing up and
in fact, my inkling was to run outside. And when
I interviewed an expert in earthquakes, he's like, no, no,
that is the last thing you want to do. That's
how people get hurt because things fall on top of
their head.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
So be safe. And if you're not from the area
that has.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Earthquakes or any natural disaster that you get in your area,
educate yourself. Because that was an eye opening thing for me.
I was like, oh, that would be bad.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Let's go to Judy and ya kaipa, Judy, you're on
with Rich?

Speaker 5 (40:57):
Hi.

Speaker 9 (40:57):
Rich.

Speaker 10 (40:58):
I keep doing this message on my iPhone and I
don't know whether to do anything or just to delete it.
And I told you, screener, what it says. Do you
want me to.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah, read it to me. Let's hear it.

Speaker 10 (41:10):
Urgent service reactivation. Your services have been pause. And then
it says it has a phone number, and then it
has a website, which is that's not it?

Speaker 1 (41:28):
How are you getting this notification? How's it? Where's it
coming through?

Speaker 9 (41:32):
Like it?

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Oh, it's a text? Okay, what do you think about this, Judy?

Speaker 10 (41:38):
Well, I've never heard of this.

Speaker 9 (41:39):
Ray.

Speaker 10 (41:39):
I don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
What service do you think they're pausing.

Speaker 10 (41:44):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, this is the problem. These things, these these people
are this is a this is a scam, and this
is you know, I'm assuming the web address is some
sort of like it's not like Google dot com, right,
it's it's something.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, don't don't even give it to us. What is it?

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, we don't want don't don't even say it on
air because I don't want people to go to it
because this is totally you know, they're going to try
to either get your personal information, your credit card number.
This is you know, this is totally a scam.

Speaker 10 (42:18):
Okay, Yeah, appreciate your.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Show, Thank you, thank you, Judy, appreciate it. The main,
the main takeaway here is that you do not want
to click on the links in these texts that you get.
You do not want to call the phone number. You
do not want to respond because the more you respond
to these things or interact with them, it verifies your number.
And I will tell you now probably now's a good
time talking about this. Hang on, let me grab my

(42:42):
notes on this thing. So I was talking to my
wife about the information that is that is on all
of us on the internet, and these uh, the idea
of your data is out there right through data breaches.
Your phone number, your email address, your data birth, your

(43:05):
social Security number, it is all out there. And the
way that this gets out there is that there are
data breaches on the websites that you give this information to,
and so once those sites get hacked, they that information
is out there online for anyone to find. And so
with that said, couple things you can do. I've talked

(43:25):
about this before, but you can manually go through and
try to request a takedown of your information. But first
you have to see where that information is. And so
Mozilla this week came out with the new thing called
Mozilla Monitor Plus. And if you're familiar with Mozilla, that's
the company that makes the Firefox web browser.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
And this is not new.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
This is something that a lot of companies offer, but
I do trust Mozilla and they actually gave me a
test account to try this out, and I'm very impressed.
So it found like one hundred and thirty nine instances
of my information online and it fixed eleven manually, it
removed five of them automatically, and seventy one are in progress.

(44:03):
And so what it does is it scans the information
about you you put in your name, your phone number,
your email address, maybe your data birth and then it
goes out online and it looks for the places that
have that information and so it found it on all
these different websites been verified, people Wizard, Gosh, there's ten
variations of that one. Search Systems, Bumper dot com, whatever,

(44:26):
that is, free People, Directory, Number, Guru, Ownerly, People Smart
and so Spokio. You know you've heard of that one.
And it goes through and it shows you the information
on the page. It gives you a link of that
and then it tells you what you can do about it,
so whether you can manually take that down or they
can do it. So for free, they will do a
one time scan of your information and just kind of

(44:48):
reveal where it is and show you what you can do.
But if you pay them a couple bucks a month,
they will do all of this for you and automatically
and continue to do it. So they scan like one
hundred and ninety different broker sites. But if you want
to do this for a free one time scan, which
I think you should probably do, just check out monitor
dot Mozilla dot org. Monitor dot mozilla dot org and

(45:11):
it's pretty incredible it's very eye opening. Now, if you
are a Google subscriber, if you pay for anything from
Google one, they have what's called a dark Web scanner,
and so they will email you when your results show
up on the dark web.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
That's if you're paid. And I've got all that monitor too.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Your email address, my data birth, my phone number, my usernames,
my passwords. It's pretty wild what is out there, and
so they will email you that as well. That's if
you're a paid subscriber. If you're not paid, Google has
a free thing called Google Results about You, and so
if you go there, you put in your information again
and they will scan the web for any website that

(45:54):
has the information that you put in, whether it's your data, birth,
your phone number, your address, whatever it is, and they
will tell you where that is. Now, Google will not
take down that website, but they will take down the
link to that website on their search results. So if
someone's looking for you, it takes a little bit of
a deeper dive for them to actually find you than
going on Google. So if you just typed in someone's

(46:16):
name and address you know, and or phone number or
date of birth, you won't see those results on Google
search if you want to go through and actually get
rid of those. That's why you have to actually go
through to these companies and get rid of this yourself.
But I highly recommend you do a search for yourself
and just see what's out there and try to remove
some of this information.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
It will definitely come in handy.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
All right, Coming up, we're going to talk to doctor
Chris Pearson, cybersecurity expert. He's going to talk about romance
scams and Google's AI has a new name. I'll tell
you all about that, plus more of your questions and
calls at eight eight eight rich one oh one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
You are listening to Rich on tech. Guy Moore Park

(47:02):
has some suggestions on the outdoor TV situation.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
What's up, guy?

Speaker 11 (47:06):
Oh, hi, Rich, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, there's
a company here in more Park that manufactures enclosures for
TV sets. Ah, it's called Apollo Enclosures.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Okay.

Speaker 11 (47:19):
They make a whole line of different sized boxes and
ways that you can mount your TV and keep it
put it outside.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
And what about like humidity and all that stuff? Does
it kind of keep that way? I see, it's got
some like fans and things make any TV and outdoor
TV there you go.

Speaker 11 (47:35):
Yeah, they're all there, They're all well engineered. The company's
been around for a while.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Oh wow, my.

Speaker 11 (47:40):
Brother has a couple of them in his man caves
out which is kind of an outdoor patio.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Okay, so I mean, yeah, they're not cheap fifty five
inch thirteen seventy five. So it's you know, it's I
guess it depends if you already have a nice TV
that you want to put out there or repurpose. It's
one way of doing it, for sure, but that's another option.
I like that option. Interesting.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Good to know. That's what I love about this show.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
We get people like Guy to tell us things that
maybe I'm not aware of.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Let's see, let's go to let's go to.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Let's go to an email. We've got so many emails,
so I'm trying to get through some of these.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Here.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Let's see here. Maria says, I've got an iPhone twelve
Pro Max. It's completely paid off, but I'm getting sick
of Apple. I'm really leaning towards getting an Android as
far as picture quality goes, mainly from Droid to Apple
not having it look pixelated. What, in your opinion, is
the best Android phone to get. I'd like to say
money is no issue, but I'm a single mom, so
I can't say that. Picture quality and reliability are two

(48:42):
of my biggest issues. I trust and respect your opinion,
so I'd like to ask before throwing caution to the
wind and ordering the first Android ICEE. Thank you Maria,
Well Maria number one. The whole sending a photo from
Android to Apple and looking pixelated has really nothing to
do with the phone. The phone is trying to send
a good picture and it's taken a nice picture. The

(49:04):
problem is the way that Apple receives the picture. They
are using an older version of texting that does not
support high quality pictures, and so later this year they
will support what's called RCS Rich Communication Services, and pictures
from Samsung or any sort of Android to the iPhone
will actually look perfect and vice versa. And so that's

(49:27):
going to be a huge change because right now, iPhone
to iPhone looks great, Android to Android looks great, but
when you go from Android to iPhone or iPhone to Android,
pictures could look really bad. And videos don't even try
to send one of those those are horrible. So With
that said, to answer your question, I think the best
phone for you would probably be a Pixel. I think

(49:49):
pixels take great pictures, they are easy to use, their reliable,
and the price is great. I'd go with the Pixel
seven A if you want a budget phone, or I'd
go the Pixel eight if you want a nice kind
of all around phone, And the price on those are
going to be a little bit more, anywhere from like
five hundred to eight hundred dollars. So, oh wow, it

(50:12):
looks like the Pixel eight is on sale right now.
That's actually a pretty good deal. If it's five hundred
and fifty bucks, that's a great deal because it launched
at like seven hundred. So anyway, I really like the Pixels.
I think they are very liable, they'll take great pictures. Yeah,
five hundred and fifty bucks right now, And the Pixel
seven eight is going to be a little bit cheaper,
but the Pixel eight is going to have overall, it's

(50:32):
going to be faster and better specs. So if you can,
if you can do it, I'd go Pixel eight. Great question,
Thanks for that.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Uh Ring.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Is going to raise prices starting March eleventh, twenty twenty four.
The Ring Protect Basic subscription price will increase from three
ninety nine a month or forty dollars a year to
five dollars a month or fifty dollars a year. This
is if your subscription renews on or after March eleventh,
twenty twenty four. So if you're on a subscription date
that's before March eleventh, you're gonna get one more year

(51:05):
of the cheaper service. You can change this, do whatever
you need to do. I asked Ring about this, and
they said, you know what, we believe that Ring protect
still offers some of the best value in the industry.
I would probably agree with that. Fifty bucks a year
for your video doorbell. I know everything is a subscription
these days, and all these subscriptions continue to go up

(51:26):
in price, but I still think it's a pretty good
value if you want to make your doorbell record the
events that it does. Otherwise, if you get a Ring doorbell,
you can just live stream it.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
You can't really see the recordings of what happens outside
the front of your house. So I would recommend if
you have a video doorbell, you got to pay for
that because you really want those events. And finally, Ring
has a new battery Doorbell Pro. This is now their
best battery doorbell. Ring says seventy eight percent of customers
use a battery power doorbell. Previously, you had to go

(51:59):
wired to get all of Ring's best features like three
D motion detection, bird's eye view, all these cool things,
the HD plus video, low light video. Now you can
get it in a battery doorbell. It's called the Ring
Battery Doorbell Pro. It chips on March sixth. It will
cost two.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Hundred and thirty dollars.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
That is very pricey for a Ring doorbell, but you're
gonna get the best, the best.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Quality out of that one.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Coming up, we're gonna talk romance scams with doctor Chris Pearson,
cyber security expert. I was intrigued at this conversation. I
learned some new things, and I hope you will too.
Coming up right after this, joining me now, friend of
the show, doctor Chris Pearson of black Cloak dot Io.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Chris, thanks so much for joining me.

Speaker 7 (52:50):
Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks Rich.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
So let's talk about what's happening in the h Well,
it's happening all the time, but it is Valentine's Day,
so let's talk talk about these romance scams. So what
are some of the most common techniques that romance scammers
try to use to exploit folks?

Speaker 7 (53:09):
Yeah, I mean this scam is always a good one.
It's on the rise.

Speaker 12 (53:12):
Last year there were ten point three billion reported scams
is twenty twenty two data to the FBI's ICE three.

Speaker 7 (53:19):
And so those.

Speaker 12 (53:20):
Scams that we see that fall into romance scam bucket
usually fall into a you know, somebody becoming friends with
someone else online. It moves from a normal channel, one
of the normal social media channels, into private discussions, private chats,
private areas where there's less monitoring, less control, and then
it evolves into in some form of fashion, a hey,

(53:40):
I'm so sorry I wasn't talking to you for two weeks.
I actually hit it big, did great stuff. You know,
I'll be traveling a lot, but I hope I see it,
And then that gets your interest in. You then end
up joining them in a investing in a crypto, which
of course is all fake, and write them and the
other organized criminal syndicate gang take your money. That's a big,
big one. The other one is any type of man
scam where they're able to get direct funds from you.

(54:03):
It might be via gift cards, it might be very
all wire, might be via some other payment method. But
they're able to go ahead and convince you that they
need travel money, trail funds.

Speaker 7 (54:11):
They're stuck at the border.

Speaker 12 (54:12):
They were on the way to go see you, but
then they ended up in the hospital and the bills
too much as five thousand dollars And could you possibly
help them? Of course yes, because your heart is wanting
them to come in to see them.

Speaker 7 (54:22):
Hence the romance scam. So those are the most common ones.

Speaker 12 (54:25):
We can talk a little bit more about some other ones,
but I mean those are the big common ones.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Okay, so you've got the common ones. What if you
think you're getting scammed in this way? What if you
suspect it? What should you do? Do you just ghost
this person?

Speaker 12 (54:39):
So I mean, if you if you want to dive
a little bit deeper, right, really find out right who
they are? You know, hey, want to be careful, want
to want to maybe stay on that main channel, right,
the main social media items, you know, get a driver's license,
get a passport, gets something, actually proves that they are
who they say they are. If their excuses like oh
I don't have it or I lost it, oh this
that whatever other thing is that you know. So that's

(55:01):
always a good a good first thing. But I mean second,
if you feel like it might be some part of
a scam, egress, Right, they're gonna want time to move
forward really really quickly, and spotting that is really imperative.
If they seem like they are always far away, always traveling,
might be a romance scam. If they claim they're in
the military and always traveling. Once again, it could be

(55:23):
a romance scam.

Speaker 7 (55:25):
If the profile match.

Speaker 12 (55:26):
Is too closely something you like as well, Right, Hey
I'm anaquestrian champion.

Speaker 7 (55:30):
Oh will so my love horses have them?

Speaker 12 (55:32):
Whatever speed or continued excuses of hey I can't see
you for some reason, the border, whether whatever it might be.

Speaker 7 (55:42):
There's always a way to get together in person.

Speaker 12 (55:44):
And if they're always excuses over an extended period of time,
these are the big warning science egress, stop close down
your communications with that person.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
What if you actually sent money to one of these people,
because that sounds like what they want.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Is there any recourse?

Speaker 7 (56:00):
Well, first thing is if you say, if you think
that anything.

Speaker 12 (56:02):
Is wrong, speed is your friend in terms of stopping
those funds. So Usually it's going to be sent via
a wire which is very very fast, or some type
of other fast transmission.

Speaker 7 (56:13):
It can be ach or like a zell or a Venmo.

Speaker 12 (56:16):
Look, the bottom line is contact your bank immediately and
get that wire or payment stop.

Speaker 7 (56:20):
That's first and foremost. Second, if you did send.

Speaker 12 (56:24):
Something, you're gonna really want to go ahead and change
those account numbers just to make sure that there's no
trace back to you in terms of them being able
to try to further scam you. And then third, you're
going to be need some type of remediation. It may
be that during the scam you downloaded, you know, screen
messaging software or video messaging software so you can have
one to one chats.

Speaker 7 (56:44):
You're gonna want to scrub that from your machine.

Speaker 12 (56:46):
If you ever downloaded any programs that they sent you, you're
gonna want to remove those from your machine as well
and kind of delete your tracks. But getting funds back,
you get to get with the bank report that. Of course,
you can report scams frauds that have happened to the
IC three Internet Crime Complaint Center of the FBI, but
that's not an arm of the FBI that gets back
your money. They simply taken the intelligence and aggregate it

(57:10):
so that they know what the latest and greatest scams
are and can build cases that are large.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
I think I know the answer to this, but why
are we seeing more of these romance scams now than
we were, you know, five or ten years ago.

Speaker 12 (57:21):
Well, so, simply put, I mean, Number one, the technology
is easier for everyone to use. Everyone has in some
form of fashions, some type of social media platform, communication
platform that's on their devices, cell phone, tablet, computer, COVID
really accelerated that. Everyone got used to Zoom, everyone got
used to video chat, and got used to all those
different types of programs.

Speaker 7 (57:41):
That's number one.

Speaker 12 (57:42):
Number two, payments and the speed of payments has massively increased.
The availability send a wire from an app on your
phone is really something that's been in everyone's power.

Speaker 7 (57:51):
The ability to send a one.

Speaker 12 (57:52):
Time payment via something like a zell or a Venmo
or some other type of messaging app is extremely high.
Everyone has those and so that really does break down
the walls in terms of the speed of getting that.
And then three look right now, I think the Surgeon
General had released the last year it was was like
the loneliest time in America and a lot of people,
more people dealing with depression and loneliness. The fact of

(58:14):
the matter is is that being romantically involved with someone
and really like being excited about this person, it's fun,
it's exciting, and sometimes when those things happen, your brain
shuts down and you move more over to that kind
of like you're leading with your heart a suppose your mind,
and you're more likely to be able to be victimized.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
I imagine that some of these scams turn into like threats,
all out threats, or even blackmail.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Does that happen?

Speaker 7 (58:39):
It does?

Speaker 2 (58:39):
It does.

Speaker 12 (58:39):
Let's talk about Let's talk about two different types there.
So first one is going to be your extortion or
extortion scams. So you're having a long distance relationship, you think,
with somebody else and they decide to kind of take.

Speaker 7 (58:52):
Off their clothes and do things, and you take off
your clothes and do things.

Speaker 12 (58:56):
The fact of the matter is is that they may
be recording or the other folks that are part of
the organized criminal syndicate may be recording you on their screen,
and as a result, they then use that as a
We're going to message your parents, your family members, a
school board, The PTA you're our children's friends, because we
know who you are, we see your social media profile.

(59:17):
And if you don't do that, we're going to go ahead,
and if you don't give us money, we're going to
go ahead and send these messages out.

Speaker 7 (59:23):
And of course that's straight up extortion, extortion.

Speaker 12 (59:26):
There have been people that have committed suicide over this,
and this is especially specially susceptible in terms of you know,
teenagers and young adults really susceptible to this type of harm.

Speaker 7 (59:35):
Think that the world is.

Speaker 12 (59:36):
Over, so you gotta be really really really careful here,
very very careful. A.

Speaker 7 (59:40):
The other one is, you know.

Speaker 12 (59:41):
More extortion that goes into the physical realm, where there
is something of a you know, romantic scam and then
somebody actually comes over to your home to collect the
money or the funds on behalf of someone else. We've
seen that, and there's an FBI warning on that about
two weeks ago. We've been seeing that for about two
months now. That physical component of somebody actually coming called
a mule or a carrier, that carrier.

Speaker 7 (01:00:03):
Coming over to your home or that muele coming over
to your home.

Speaker 12 (01:00:05):
That adds a new level of complexity in this that
actually creates a physical risk to you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
With all of this happening online, are there legitimate relationships
that can still happen? Because I feel like every wedding
I go to that people meet online, So this must
be working in some way, I might look.

Speaker 12 (01:00:24):
You know, dating online can be fun, can be safe,
can be something that you know leads to.

Speaker 7 (01:00:29):
Other things, which is great.

Speaker 12 (01:00:32):
Stick to the mainstream online dating platforms. Try to stick
to platforms that have some type of member verification to them.
Do your own due diligence on the individual you know
LinkedIn Facebook, et cetera, trying to really suss out who
they are and making sure you know who you're dealing with.
Keep your personal private details private.

Speaker 7 (01:00:55):
Don't give them your personal cell phone number, don't give
them your personal email address. Have everything go through the platform.
That's really really important.

Speaker 12 (01:01:02):
Whenever you get things taken off of that platform environment,
it does increase the risks of somebody coming after you,
increase the risk of someone coming after you digitally and physically.
But it's really not necessary, especially in the early days
of our relationship. And then of course, if you're gonna
meet up in person, make sure you know you're sending
your location to you know, your best friend, your parents,

(01:01:23):
so to speak.

Speaker 7 (01:01:24):
That somebody knows.

Speaker 12 (01:01:24):
Where you are, who you're gonna be with, they have
your phone number, they have the contact information that individual
in your meeting in a public place and location.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Doctor Chris Pearson of black Cloak dot io. Thanks so
much for joining me today.

Speaker 7 (01:01:36):
Hey, thanks so much, Rich, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Thanks so much for joining me today. More of your
calls coming up next Triple eight rich one oh one.

Speaker 13 (01:01:42):
That's eight eight eight.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Seven four two four one zero one. My name is
Rich Dmiro and you are listening to Rich on tech.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
My name is Rich DeMuro hanging out with you talking
technology at Triple eight rich one on one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give
me a call if you have a question about technology.
Although it looks like we're pretty filled up here, I
don't even know if I can get to everyone that
we have.

Speaker 14 (01:02:12):
UH.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Email is also an option, many of you taking advantage
of that. Just go to Rich on tech dot tv
hit the contact button. And also, if I mentioned something
on this show, you can easily find a link in
real time. Just go to rich on tech dot tv
at the top. There's a big red banner it says
heard it mentioned on the radio show. Links here, click

(01:02:34):
there and you will find everything that I talk about
in real time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
And by the way, if.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
You want to learn more about me or follow me
on social media, I am at rich on Tech. Got
a lot of folks that interact with me there and
you'll be surprised. I answer a lot of my dms.
So believe me, it doesn't your your messages do not
go on read Let's go to Patty, Patty and Palmdale.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
You're on with rich which I have two problems. I've
got a TV about a year ago. It's an LG
O L ED got a sown bar and then in December,
just a few months ago, I bought another, uh well three
TVs and the one that I'm talking about now is

(01:03:19):
is a Samsung. And when I had the last three
installed in December by best Buy, that came in geek
Squad came in and installed everything, and the one in
the back room, which is not the one I'm going
to talk about, the one in the back room wouldn't connected.
So they said, well, you need a wire mesh system.
So I got the euro wire Mesh system. So I

(01:03:42):
have that now. And so Spectrum took their you know,
was it router away. And so now I have my
TV that I've had for a year. It's the LG fuzzy.
The screen is not looking nice at all. And it's
a high TV my, So that's the LG problem. My

(01:04:04):
Samsung with the soundbar is crystal clear, beautiful. Yeah, but
the sink is off on that. So when I and
but it's only when I have the soundbar on. When
I have the soundbar on, it's a little off. And
I turn the sound bar off, the think is fine.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
So yeah, well okay, so a couple of things.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Number one, uh, these are not this has nothing to
do with your eurosystem. This is these are these are
situations that are local to the TV. So the fuzzy
screen on this on the LG. You didn't change anything,
and that just happened.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Does it look like a defect with the TV screen?
And is it on everything or is it just on
certain things?

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Everything? Okay, whether I'm on Netflix or regular TV. And
it was raining a lot lately, of course, so I
thought maybe it had to do with that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
So it looks like.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
The actual TV screen is affected, like there's something wrong
with the actual screen itself, not the content that's playing
on the screen.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Yeah, because no matter what I have on, it's just
not that crystal clear. Okay, you know the letters are
fuzzy and hard to read.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Interesting, Okay, Well, first off, what I would do for
that TV is I would you know, it could be
it could be a defect that happened, and so that
could be something that you know, you might need to
get someone out there to like look at. But if
I were you, what I would do immediately is just
I would disconnect all of my inputs on the back

(01:05:30):
and I would do a.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Full reset of that TV.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
So go into settings and look for sort of a
factory reset and that will at least bring the TV
back to the out of the box experience, and then
plug in you know, your fire TV box or whatever
you have connected to that and see if that helps.
If that doesn't help and it looks like the TV
is actually just the screen is just something's wrong with it,

(01:05:55):
then I would probably call LG and see if you
can get.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
A service person out there for that.

Speaker 14 (01:06:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Uh, the sound bar, that's just a sink issue. So
you got to go into your settings on whatever you're
using to to do that TV to, you know, to
put the sound onto that soundbar, whether it's a streaming
device or the TV itself, and you have to adjust
the sink and so usually there the soundbar may have

(01:06:21):
an option itself to do that, but it's typically a
little setting on either your TV or the soundbar itself
and there's a sink setting.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
It's also I'm not sure how you have.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
That connected, but it could be depending on how you
have that connected, the sink could be better or worse
based on you know, the type of connection. And if
you're using the HDMI input on your TV or output
on your TV, I would look for the one that
says ARC. That's the ones you want for the best
for the best connection between those two. So that's that's

(01:06:54):
what i'd recommend. But look for the sink on the
audio bar and also ARC look on the back of
your TV and make sure you're using the output that's
labeled HDMI with e ERC and that will give you
the highest quality connection between those two things. So that's
why I recommend, Patty, and hopefully that will work. Report
back please thanks a lot. Eighty eight rich one on

(01:07:16):
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Let's go to stand in Oxnard.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Stand you're on with Rich?

Speaker 9 (01:07:24):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Rich? How you doing today?

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
I'm doing excellent? What can I help you with?

Speaker 8 (01:07:28):
Hey?

Speaker 15 (01:07:29):
I was just wondering when you were at the Chicago
Car Show, did you get a chance to speak with
any of the developers on all the automations are thrown
in cars and that affects the skill level of the drivers,
like a degradation because of the automation. Is that a
concern to them?

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
That's a great question. I did not ask any of
them that, but that's a great question. And I think.
I mean, my kids will tell you that I'm yelling
at drivers all day long. So I don't know if
it's an automated thing or just a human thing. But
I do think that there are some cars have become
so automated that there's a lot of things we're forgetting.

(01:08:07):
Like I was thinking about this the other day. Whenever
I rent a car, you know, you have to remember
to turn on the lights, you got to remember to
do this, you got to do that, lock the doors,
put it into park. But if you have some of
these newer cars, a lot of that stuff is automated.
So I do think that we're kind of forgetting some
of that skill level. When it comes to the automation,
people are just being stupid, and you know, they're doing

(01:08:28):
stuff they shouldn't be doing and pushing the limits of
these systems in a way that they are not intended.
And so I think that that's a great question for
the next time I talk to someone with these automated systems.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
But I think that they will throw a lot of that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
A lot of that burden back on the human driver
because these systems do have a lot of safety, you know,
safety built into them, but they can only do so much.
You know, when the Tesla first came out, people figured
out how you can like put a weight on the
wheel to like make it autopilot when it wasn't supposed
to be doing that. Actually have a story today that

(01:09:04):
I was going to tell you about. I'll do it
right now. Toyota. This happened in Massachusetts. This guy was
driving a person.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
I don't know if it's guy or female. Toyota BZ
four X.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
I don't even know how to say the name of
this car, but this is Toyota's ev It's called the
BZ four X. Might have seen it advertised, and the
driver got out of the car without putting it into park,
probably because the car is so silent, and it began
rolling off the pier he was on and he had
to escape through a window on his car, and the

(01:09:37):
ev rolled right into the ocean.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
The car was a total loss.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
And this was the twenty twenty four Toyota BZ four X,
and they were saying that this probably suggests the need
for a warning if the driver gets out of the
car without putting it into park. Now I've got a Tesla,
and I've got the situation where when I'm at a
low speed and I'm doing something, my car will will

(01:10:04):
shift into park by itself, and I'll say, oh, we
wanted to prevent a roll away. So the Tesla does
have that system in place, that safety system. And so
this apparently happens when you connect a charging cable, unbuckle
your seatbelt or open the door while and drive or neutral.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
It just seems to do it on my car when
I'm like at a low speed and I kind of
just like it just stops and it says, we're putting
it into bark for your safety.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
So I think the Toyota should have that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
In fact, I left when I was testing a car
a long time ago, I left it running the entire
time I went inside because it was so silent that
I didn't even realize the thing was on. And I
just walked away from this car. When I came back,
it was still running. So yeah, these systems, they're not
fool proof, and we're all human and so we make

(01:10:51):
mistakes and hopefully they can build them where they are
full proof to a certain extent, but there's always going
to be that human element we need to address. Listening
to rich on Tech, Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich Tamuro here hanging out talking technology with you at

(01:11:12):
triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one the website rich
on tech dot tv. You can find more information about
me there, watch the TV segments that I do, see
past show, subscribe to the podcast, send me an email,

(01:11:33):
or get a link to something I mentioned using the link.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
At the top of the page. Let's go to Dan
in New Hampshire. Dan, you're on with.

Speaker 14 (01:11:40):
Rich Get out, sir, Hi, I'm wondering what would be
your recommendation for for LTV security camera. I don't have
life FLI. Oh there's like ten different companies that make
them and compeers and going on. But what the details are.

(01:12:02):
But it has to be linked through the cellular network,
not Wi Fi.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Okay, so you want cellular you want a camera that's
basically self contained?

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
Do you have a place to plug it in or
is it going to be battery it's going to beat Okay,
battery or solar?

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
Okay? Perfect?

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
Well, I mean, you know, the most of my cameras
that I have are all plug in or Wi Fi
with solar or plugged in whatever. But I did test
a while back a Canary camera which had LTE, so
they did make them. It's been a while since I
tried one. But the two popular cameras from what I

(01:12:44):
can tell, are from Rlow and UFE. These are two
pretty big brands, so it kind of comes down to
which camera has the features that you want between these two.
But that those are the two brands that I would
narrow down to. You're probably gonna find if you go
on Amazon, you're probably gonna find a hundre different of
these types of cameras. But these brands are brands that
I know brands.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
That I trust.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
So when it comes to Arlow versus UFIE, you know,
the thing that you want to look for is the
pricing and also what you know, do they make you
pay for the subscription for the LTE the cellular or
can you bring your own cellular? That may be important
to you. Of course, the monthly fees is something you
want to look at. And also the cloud backup, so

(01:13:27):
you want to see these things back up to the
cloud immediately or do they back up to an SD
card that's on board and you can only access it
from there. So the reason why the cloud is important
is because if someone takes one of these cameras, you
will not have any of the video footage. So if
it's backing up to the cloud, you know, that's another
way of having that footage. But those are the two

(01:13:50):
brands that I would take a look at, ARLOW or UFEE.
I think the jury's out on which one is better.
I think that it comes down to personal preference. Like
I said, with the different things that I mentioned, but
those are the cameras that I think are the most popular.
The other thing you might want to look at is
what's called a trail cam This was actually one of
the first questions we ever got in this show, and

(01:14:11):
someone wanted a camera that was sort of just out
there without anything. And I was not aware of the
trail cams at the time, but something like a trailcam
might be good in this situation that has an LTE
connection as well, and those are going to probably be
a little bit more rugged and a little bit more

(01:14:31):
you know, made for the outdoors, so it depends. I mean, again,
those are the brands i'd recommend. Those are the brands
that I check out see if those do what you need.
And that's a good question. You know, we always think
of Wi Fi and we always think of wired Internet
because sometimes you just want to put a camera somewhere
that doesn't have either of those things. And LT gets

(01:14:52):
expensive because you got to pay that monthly fee and
you're talking about streaming and so you need more data.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
So it's not there's not.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
A whole lot of options there that are good, but
it's something that you got to think about sometimes.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
Thanks for the question there.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
In New Hampshire, Hawaiian Airlines, speaking of internet, the first
major air carrier in the US to offer high speed
starlink in flight, Wi FI now before I get the
angry emails. Yes, I know that Jet sweet X does this,
but they are not a major carrier. They are a

(01:15:26):
smaller carrier that just does smaller flights. This is the
first like big airline to do this, and so they
are debuting this service which provides fast streaming gaming downloads.
It's gonna be wild what you can do on these
aircraft now compared to before. I was just on a

(01:15:48):
couple of flights and the Internet is amazing. The fact
that we have internet on planes now is so nice
compared to years past, but it's still pretty slow and unreliable.
I will say my Internet on both of my flights
was pretty darn good actually, but it wasn't this fast.
This is going to be much faster. So Hawaiian's been
testing this with their employees. They say it's safe. They

(01:16:12):
say it's going to roll out across their A three
twenty one neo fleet and you're going to see it
on the door. So they're not letting you select a
flight that has this just yet because I think they're
still rolling it out. But when you get on board
the Hawaiian Airlines plane, there'll be a little starlink decal
on the door, and so if you're on that flight,

(01:16:32):
you're like, yes, I just got great Internet from my
entire flight to Hawaii. So I have been in touch
with Hawaiian I'm hoping to get on a flight to
Hawaii to test this out. I cannot wait. I am
very excited to see just how fast this is. And
now when people are going to Hawaii, they're not really
thinking about doing work. You know, it's a very leisure

(01:16:52):
kind of oriented trip. But it will still be nice
for family and kids especially that want to do gaming
and downloads and streaming and all that stuff. You'll be
able to do all the stuff that they don't typically
let you do on the slower connections that are on
the standard flights. So I'm not sure if I talked
about it last week, but in California, AT and T

(01:17:13):
is trying to get rid of its obligations to provide
landline service, and so that is going to leave a
lot of people without a telephone line in their home,
especially in rural areas places that don't have good cellular connections.
And so I mentioned this on the news and Amazon
emailed me and said, hey, Rich, don't forget about this service.

(01:17:34):
That we offer called Alexa Emergency Assist, and they said,
you know, it might be a good thing in place
of a landline, because the thing about a landline when
you have kids, well, there's a couple use cases. You know,
some people like it as a security in the event
of like an emergency, right if there's an earthquake or
some sort of natural disaster. The landlines are a little
bit more, you know, they work a little bit more

(01:17:54):
than the cellular networks. Although that's probably debatable at this point,
but some people think that they do, so you know,
maybe they do. But you know, also when you have
kids or elderly, So if you have someone elderly that
may not have a cell phone or may not want
to use a cell phone, a landline could be easy.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
They know how to use it, it's been around forever.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
And then with kids, they may not have access to
a cell phone because mom and dad have the phone
and they leave the house, or you know, the kid
doesn't know how to use a cell phone and they
don't have a way to call for help. So this
Alexa Emergency Assist is a service you can pay for.
It is six dollars a month or sixty dollars for
the year, and all it requires is one of the

(01:18:35):
Amazon speakers, so like some sort of echo device, right,
and all you have to say to it, and I
probably shouldn't say this because I don't want to trigger yours,
but you just say alex A call for help, and
it will call through your Echo device to a trained
agent that can request the dispatch of police, fire or
ambulance without waiting on hold. They say it's faster than

(01:18:59):
industry standards called directly. Then they also have smart alerts,
so your alex A can detect your smoke alarm or
CO two alarm or carbon monoxide alarm is ringing the
sound of glass breaking, it will notify you on your phone.
So basically, your your speaker listens for that sound, that
actual frequency, and if it hears it, it will text

(01:19:20):
you and then you can take action. And that's very
important because long story short, my wife and I just
flew to New Jersey one day and all of a sudden,
we get a text on my phone that my alarm
is going off at my house.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
I'm like, wait, what how do I what do I do?

Speaker 9 (01:19:33):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
It was the most helpless I ever felt, and back
then I didn't have any cameras, so I couldn't see
what was going on at my house. I had to
call my friend and he had to drive over, and
he said, the fire people, firefighters were literally outside my
house ready to break in the door because they were
going to see what was going on in there. Maybe
he was exaggerating, but he said he the way he
described it, they were literally like an axe to my door.
And like I was like, all right, he said, no, stop,

(01:19:55):
my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Anyway, then you can also have up to twenty five
emergency contacts automatically notified if a call is placed, which
is interesting. And then of course they have the glass
breaking smart alerts and you can drop in and listen
to the sound inside your house.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
So anyway, I.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
Just telling you about it because it's kind of an
interesting alternative, you know, and if you have kids, it
might be a good thing to have. I told my
wife about this and she said, yeah, that sounds like
a great idea. And I said to Amazon, I said,
wait a second, I thought this went away. Well, the
thing that went away was called Alexa Guard and Guard Plus,
and I don't know if those were free, but I
have a feeling they were either free or less cost

(01:20:35):
than this. I'm not sure. Let me say Alexa guard.
I don't know what the pricing was of that. Yeah,
it was free. Yeah, and so now of course this
costs money, and so that's why people were up in
arms about it. But again it's called Alexa Emergency Assist.
Maybe something I'll look into if you want that alternative

(01:20:55):
to dialing nine to one one. But again I think
that at the end of the day, I can't tell
you that this can replace nine one one. But it's
a nice thing because some of these smart home systems
do not dial nine one one. People think they do,
and they don't. So you need to know before an
emergency happens what the capability is of your system. All right,
triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven

(01:21:16):
four to two four one zero one. Coming up later
this hour, we are going to talk to Kyle Vorbach.
He is a filmmaker who did a documentary called How
I Faked My Life with AI.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
He's going to talk.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
About the benefits and dangers of this AI revolution. We
are in looking forward to that conversation a little bit
later on.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
My name is Rich d'miro. You are listening to Rich
on Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology.
Maybe I'll do a little lightning round here. I come
in here with like dozens of stories I want to
tell you about. I don't get to all of them
because we get a lot of calls and emails, so
I try to get to those as well. But I
like to tell you this stuff because the show in
the beginning, i'd say it's the tech stuff that I

(01:22:05):
think you should know about. And if I'm not telling
you that stuff, then I'm not doing my job. So
I want to balance the calls with also the news
that I tell you. So let me get through some
of these iTunes on Windows end of the line.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
So Apple has.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Launched separate apps for managing the iPhone and different things
on the Windows computer side of things. This happened on
Mac a while ago, but there's now a separate Apple Music,
Apple TV, and Apple Devices apps for Windows. So basically
all the stuff that iTunes used to do is now

(01:22:40):
split up. You can get this on Windows ten and
later devices. iTunes will remain for podcast and audiobook access,
but the new apps will give you more of kind
of an experience that's similar to the Mac so again,
Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Devices. You have to install
all three new apps and keep the existing iTunes library,

(01:23:04):
So don't delete your iTunes before you install these apps.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
You will need. That sounds very complicated to me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
I think it's just a ploy to get people on
Windows to install Apple Music and Apple TV.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
But that's just me. What do I know.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
But now, if you want to manage your iPhone, you
can use this new Apple Devices app, which I think
will hopefully be a better situation the other app I like,
if you want to just shortcut all that stuff is
called I Amazing Imazing. That'll just shortcut all the Apple stuff.
You don't have to deal with their software. You can
just use your own and it does a lot more

(01:23:38):
than what iTunes can do.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
It's also going to cost some money too.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
The information reporting that Apple is developing a foldable clamshell iPhone, OMG.
Really I could have told you this news two years ago.
Of course they're developing a clamshell iPhone. Yes, I mean,
that's it. There's nothing more to the story. That's it.

(01:24:03):
This is something Samsung did back in twenty nineteen they
came out with their first foldable phone. Of course, when
Apple comes out with it, it will be oh, foldable phones,
what is that?

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
Explain? Yes, we've had foldable phones. There are many on
the market.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Google has one, Samsung has one, one Plus has one.
The only game in town that does not have one
is Apple. So I would be surprised if they do
not come out with a foldable phone.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Do I think it's gonna be really good? Absolutely?

Speaker 12 (01:24:32):
Do.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
I think they're gonna sell millions upon millions of them.
Absolutely do. I think it'll have a halo effect on
the other foldables. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
Google is now calling Bard Gemini. So Bard is Google's
answer to Chat GPT. They came out with it last
year around this time, I think it was March, and
already they're renaming it to Gemini, so it's very comple.
I don't want to get into all of that because

(01:25:01):
you don't really need to know, but if you go
to the Barred website, it will now redirect to Gemini.
They're also offering Gemini Advanced, just like Chat GPT, where
you can pay twenty dollars a month to get the
absolute best version of their AI. Now you can pay
twenty dollars a month to get Google's absolute best version

(01:25:23):
of their AI. You can get two months free trial.
It's called the Google one AI Premium Plan twenty bucks
a month. It gets you the AI, but it also
gets you some other things as well. So I personally
will tell you I think Bard is great. Sorry Gemini,

(01:25:45):
you know there's all these things. Is it better than
chat GPT? But I will tell you my things, Okay.
Number one, I think chat GPT overall is a very
good kind of like introduction to AI. It's just a
great thing to kind of play with.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
Gemini.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
I will say it's great for access to current events.
So if you want the absolute latest, like the mix
of Google Search but also AI, I think Gemini is
really good for that. And then if you want something
that's really good with data and handling large amounts of
data and summaries, I think claud Ai is the best
for that. That's from a company called Anthropic. And if

(01:26:22):
you want to put AI on your phone, my favorite
app for that is called Perplexity AI. So if you
are looking for say a little history lesson on something
or an explanation on a question, Perplexity is really good
at coming up with kind of answer on that. But
Gemini is really good at that too. And by the way,
if you have an Android phone, you can replace the

(01:26:44):
Google Assistant now with Gemini, which is what I did
on my phone. So now when I swipe or use
the Voice Assistant, it will come up with Gemini, which
is much smarter than Google Assistant in some ways. It
doesn't have all the functionality in other ways. And if
you're on iPhone, it's inside the Google app, so you
have to access Gemini inside the Google app.

Speaker 2 (01:27:05):
There you have it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
Rivian Electric Car Company will unveil a new car on
March seventh, the Rivian R two. This will be a
cheaper and more efficient version of their suv. The event's
going to take place at the Rivian has like a
theater that they have their name on in Laguna Beach. Yes,
I will be there. I can't wait. I think Rivian

(01:27:27):
is doing some really cool things. Their cars are just
very expensive right now. Hopefully this will be cheaper they're thinking.
You know, the rumor says cheaper suv likely priced between
forty and sixty thousand dollars. But you're not gonna be
able to get this until twenty twenty six. And right now,
Rivian loses money on all of their cars. That they sell.
Hopefully that will change with a car that will be cheaper,

(01:27:49):
but they'll it will cost less to make and TEA
Mobile customers. You already know I tweeted about this, but
I was on the plane and I got free Wi
Fi because of a Team Mobile test line that I
have that I'm using, and you get free Wi Fi
on the plane.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
I was like, A, this is so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
What a great perk for T Mobile customers. Well, now
they're doing something called Magenta Status. You get all these
VIP benefits and deals. So this includes fifteen percent off
Hilton Hotels, free upgrades, and this I think is the
best feature. If you rent from Dollar or Hurts. At
Dollar you'll get free gas so you don't have to
return the car with a full tank. And at Hurts

(01:28:27):
you can return an EV without charging it. You remember
when I rented my EV from Hurts, they charged me
like twenty five bucks to return it. Not full movie
tickets at cheap prices. They say this is a fifteen
hundred dollars value for the typical customer. What's it trying
to do get more people to stick with T Mobile?
Coming up next, we'll talk about the benefits and dangers

(01:28:49):
of AI. You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
with you, talking technology and AI is in the news.
It is one of the hottest topics on this show
and pretty much everywhere at this point. And joining me

(01:29:10):
now to talk about it is Kyle Vorbach. He is
a filmmaker who did How I Faked My Life with AI,
and he also has a book called Pandora's Code, which
explains the history, benefits, and dangers of the AI revolution.
Welcome to the show, Kyle, rich Thank you so much
for having me. So I watched your upcoming TED talk

(01:29:32):
on the plane yesterday and I have some questions.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
Sure, what do we believe anymore?

Speaker 1 (01:29:40):
I mean, you took us in so many directions on
the TED Talk and surprised and faked us out that
I'm not even sure you're real anymore. Tell me how
you got involved in this whole idea of AI and
kind of trickery because of it.

Speaker 16 (01:29:56):
Absolutely. Yeah, So it's so dumb, but I was. I
just needed a new profile. Pictures where it started. And
this is when these generative AIS started to come out,
where you could make an image out of anything and I,
you know, figured when I could miss a shot and
I posted an image of me. I made a whole,
very realistic image of me, and no one called me
on it. So I just kept going until someone did,

(01:30:18):
and then no one did, so I just was like,
I need to up the ante here.

Speaker 13 (01:30:22):
And I started to change my life. You know.

Speaker 16 (01:30:25):
I got into a brand new apartment, I bought a
sports car, I met Ryan Gosling.

Speaker 13 (01:30:30):
At that point, people started to get a little suspicious.

Speaker 16 (01:30:32):
But this went on for over a month, and I
thought it would just be like a funny prank. But
when I revealed this, the reaction was so profound that
people had to it both about the AI side and
also our relationship with social media and the disparity there.
That I figured, you know, I need to get to
the bottom of this. I need to understand this AI
thing more. And that's the genesis of this book, was

(01:30:53):
figuring out how do we get here and where's this going?

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
What do you make of AI? I mean, it's become
very popular. People are using it for all kinds of things.
Do you think it's a good thing or do you
think it's dangerous?

Speaker 13 (01:31:05):
It's a little bit of both.

Speaker 16 (01:31:07):
Really, AI is ultimately a tool that if I had
to put it one way, it sort of accelerates human capability.
It is mental labor at the press of a button,
so we're able to do so much more, so much faster.
This is a good thing and a bad thing because
it comes down to the user and what they're doing
with it in terms of you know, what you can

(01:31:28):
make with it. I made that whole short film that
reached out to people and touched a lot of people
with AI.

Speaker 13 (01:31:33):
There's applications with cancer. We're mapping the genome.

Speaker 16 (01:31:37):
I just heard something about people in California actually locating
wildfires using AI that is trained to locate and recognize wildfires.
But on the other side, bad actors can use these
same exact things to cause a great deal of harm.
And I don't think society is quite equipped for that

(01:31:57):
sort of scam or misinformation.

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
Yet it's your takeaway from you know, faking it out
on Instagram, Like, did your real friends take issue with that?

Speaker 16 (01:32:07):
It's funny to this day, people don't believe anything I post.
And I made this video over a year ago in
the Ted Talk. In fact, I mention that when I
posted I'm doing a Ted Talk, people were like, is
this AI? You said at the top of the call,
Is this AI? Wherever I go, I get the question
is this AI? And I think my life has sort
of become a microcosm of what is going to happen

(01:32:30):
to the world at large society moving forward. We are
in a post truth era right now, but I think
we're going to sort of get into a post evidence
era where not only are we not seeking the truth,
there's going to be no way to categorically and quantifiably
prove something to be real for a while at least.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
That's really scary.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
And I often talk about kind of something similar where
you know, these AI systems right now are being fed
data from things that we've done, right, books, people have written, articles,
people have written. But then all of a sudden, we're
gonna start They're gonna like feed upon themselves because half
the pictures are going to be generated by AI, and
they're looking at those pictures and it becomes like, you know,

(01:33:11):
and you saw that meme online where people were saying,
like make it bigger or make it more, you know,
and they just kept feeding the same picture into AI,
saying make it more, make it more, make it the
best pizza make it even better. And that's kind of
what's going to happen with like everything online, because these
systems are just being fed themselves.

Speaker 16 (01:33:28):
These systems are already being trained on themselves. Researchers have
realized that, especially for things like llms, that the amount
of data you need to train AI, which the way
AI learns.

Speaker 13 (01:33:42):
Is the brute force method.

Speaker 16 (01:33:43):
It's not like a kid who touches a stove and learns, oh,
stove hot. AI has to learn every type of image
of a stove, every angle of a stove, and every
type of temperature to understand that stove hot. So to
generate that much data, you can't even scrape it. So
they're feeding that them already back into themselves already. And
I don't know what the ramifications so that are going
to be.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
So how do you prove that you're real? Now that
people are wondering.

Speaker 16 (01:34:08):
Well, I know that there are people currently working on
tokenizing images, and Canon I believe is working on this.
There's a few companies working on being like this is
an image taken on a physical camera.

Speaker 13 (01:34:20):
I'm not sure what happens once that gets off the camera.

Speaker 16 (01:34:23):
If there's going to be software on the computers that
continue to say and this was edited by a human
and what have you. And I'm sure that will be
faked at some point, but there are people trying to
crack this right now. The only thing that you can
prove is in person human human interaction. We our lives
are so online already and so digital already that they
are going to become so embedded with fake things that

(01:34:48):
you know, it doesn't it's going to sort of just
become a different but fully realized reality.

Speaker 13 (01:34:54):
You could choose to live there if you want.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
It's so weird now that you say that, Like, I'm
looking at you right now. You're on video chat with
me on the back end of the radio show.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
But you know, I don't know if you're real.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
Like if I think about it with this whole Apple
Vision pro you know, they have those things called personas,
which is like a digital version of you that you
can FaceTime with someone because you're wearing a headset, so
it can't you know, it can't see you. The person
doesn't want to look at you in a headset, so
it makes up this digital version of you. But if
you think about that, in the future, anyone could be
behind that. I mean, it's almost like the old days

(01:35:27):
of chat where you didn't really know if you're chatting
with your friend or like, you know, someone random.

Speaker 16 (01:35:33):
What people need to realize is because AI can so
drastically accelerate human work. This applies to scams as well,
and the same sort of scams that you can imagine
happened prior to AI are still going on.

Speaker 13 (01:35:47):
They're just a lot better.

Speaker 16 (01:35:49):
People have had disguises before, but you know, nowadays, some
sick individual could deep fake themselves or deep bake a
different person on a zoom call. Hey Mom, I need
to borrow one hundred dollars or more than that. I'm
you know, I'm in prison right now. I need you
to pay my bail whatever wire it to this and
these same things could have worked before, but now they

(01:36:10):
are going to become so much more convincing, and the
targets are going to be able to be random Grandma's
in the middle of America because these can be done
at scale. Now it's not manual labor like photoshop. You
could have scripts that are doing this training by themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
What about Hollywood, I mean, already, you know we've seen
movies where they affect actors' faces and they change them.
And obviously makeup has always been effects have always been
a part of that. But with AI, it's just going
to be a whole new world for Hollywood.

Speaker 16 (01:36:42):
That's another double edged sword, right, because what's going to
happen is, like with CGI, it's going to raise the
bar of production what you're able to attain. It's also
going to lower the cost of certain things, so smaller
crews can get away with better quality things. Nowadays, a
kid in his garage can, using free tools and a

(01:37:05):
few lights and a green screen and her phone can
make a fantasy epic where they are in knight with
you know, and they're fighting a big CGI dragon. They
can do this already, So the way it's going to
work in Hollywood, it's going to be great. I mean,
especially for people on the post side, there is a
world where this does make their lives a lot easier
because they're already overworked. On the flip side of that,

(01:37:27):
when you start to replace people with AI, that's when
you start to get into the weeds. Humans have been
telling stories around campfires for thousands of years. Storytelling is
intrinsic to human nature, So why would you want to
replace that with a computer in a writer's room, or
you know, just with a generated video. Why would you
want to replace that at that point? Just have AI

(01:37:48):
raise your kid or have dinner with your wife.

Speaker 13 (01:37:50):
You're not a human anymore, you know. These are the
joys we have.

Speaker 1 (01:37:53):
Should we be excited about this? Scared about it? A
combination of both? What's your guidance after going through this
side writing this book and also the documentary.

Speaker 16 (01:38:04):
I think that there is a path forward for this
to be a very optimistic future. I think there's going
to be a rough adjustment period here. There is a
universe where a lot of people online you may have
heard of this phrase of the singularity. I mean, it's
all it's practically its own religion online of people saying,
you know, there's going to become a time where these
ais are going to be able to do so many
different things and do so so fast that it's going

(01:38:27):
to solve all the world's problems. I think that's a
bit sunny of a view towards the future. But I
think a lot of problems will be cracked by these
because these things can think faster than us and can
do incredibly boring jobs for quite long.

Speaker 13 (01:38:41):
Periods of time.

Speaker 16 (01:38:42):
But on the flip side, realistically, in the very near future,
until we're all up to speed on this, it's going
to be like the early days of the internet. We're
going to be trying to weed out disinformation. This is
an election year and we are not equipped for what's
coming down the pike.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
Yeah, I mean we already saw the fake AI Biden
call in New Hampshire and you know it was telling
people not to vote. But do you think we're going
to see I mean, I know we're going to see
a ton of stuff online that you just you just
don't know what to trust anymore. Is that is that
the future we're heading to, or we just see an
image and unless that person, like you said, is right

(01:39:18):
in front of us as a human, we will not
be able to tell if it's real or fake.

Speaker 13 (01:39:23):
Right. I think it's going to be pretty tough.

Speaker 16 (01:39:24):
I think what people need to prepare themselves, especially in
this election year, is, yeah, you know.

Speaker 13 (01:39:29):
These these things like that, these one off things.

Speaker 16 (01:39:31):
I think people are getting a little bit more privy
to They're able to debunk them a little bit more effectively.
I think what where you see a lot of issue
is rapidly developing situations. I have already seen so much
AI disinformation coming out of what's going on in Gaza,
and I'm not sure who's behind it, honestly, because it
could be either party, it could be a third party.

Speaker 13 (01:39:53):
Who has their own agenda.

Speaker 16 (01:39:54):
There is just a lot of things where there is
straight up AI generated images that all this informations coming
from socials when rapidly developing situations, and you can't as
easily vet these things as a user as maybe a
news network might be able to over a longer period
of time.

Speaker 1 (01:40:10):
Imagine we're gonna have to leave it there, Kyle, We're
gonna have to do it there because I want to
get your information before we have to go to break.
What's the best way for folks to follow what you do?

Speaker 13 (01:40:20):
Thanks for cutting me off to plug myself.

Speaker 16 (01:40:22):
Yeah, you can find me at Kyle Vorbach online on
everything that's it.

Speaker 13 (01:40:27):
It's a little top to spell.

Speaker 16 (01:40:28):
But if you can't find it, look up how I
Faked my Life with AI on YouTube.

Speaker 13 (01:40:31):
You'll find all of my stuff there.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
Okay, Kyle vorboch vo r Bach How I Faked my
Life with AI? Sounds like we are all going to
have to be editors in the future, just sourcing everything
that we see. Fascinating conversation. Thanks so much. The book
is called Pandora's Code. You can find it on Amazon.
Coming up, we are going to do the feedback segment.
I got lots of emails throughout the show, so we'll

(01:40:55):
read some of.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
Those and we'll talk more tech. You're listening to Rich
on tech.

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
It is time to close out the show. We got
a lot of emails today, so we'll get right to
the feedback segment, which is a combination of your feedback
and the questions that you send me. Annett says, Hey,
Rich I have some of my passwords password protected in word.
Do you think this is a good slash safe idea?
Thank you, Annette. No, I don't. I don't think that's

(01:41:28):
a good idea.

Speaker 2 (01:41:30):
I know it's.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
Password protected, but I still don't think that's a very
good idea to keep them in there. I would recommend
a password manager because unless you're generating really strong, unique passwords,
it sounds like you're making them up yourself, and that
can only go so far. Hackers can crack even pretty
long passwords that you come up with in seconds using

(01:41:52):
software you really need like a fourteen to sixteen random
character password for it to be uncrackable, at least by
today's standards. So for a free program, I would recommend Bitwarden,
or you can use what's built into Google or iPhone.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
They both work pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
The iPhone one, I'd only recommend if you're only using
Apple products. Coleman says, hey, Rich, my iPhone seven has
a logjam for my AOL emails. I cannot send or receive.
Texting works great, Facebook and Google work. How do I
unblock it? Coleman, I'd recommend going to the AOL website.
It sounds like you are over your allotment for your emails,

(01:42:32):
so go to the AOL website and free up some space.
So go to aol dot com instead of accessing it
through your phone and see what the hold up is.
There's probably the storage is probably full, so delete some
old emails, especially the large ones with attachments, and.

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
You should be good to go there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:51):
Fred says, hey Rich, If the soundbar, this is in
reference to something we talked about today. If the soundbar
is connected to the TV with fiber optic, most likely
the sound and video out of sync. If it's connected
via HDMI or good old fashioned red and white RCA cable.
There should be nothing out of sync. That is true
because mine is connected by fiber optics still, and I
do have to adjust the sink. Bill says on today's show,

(01:43:14):
you mentioned ring and the value of the subscription for
storing recordings in the cloud. Note that second tiered doorbell
camera vendors often offer limited storage for free, such as
the UFI system I have. Having the cloud storage included
and avoiding subscription fees was the main reason I went UFI.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
That is true, Bill, A lot of people like UFI
for that.

Speaker 1 (01:43:33):
Reason, but I do weren't there some recent changes with
UFI where people get all up in arms, But I
think that that's the main reason people like Ufe's because
you don't necessarily have to have a subscription to use that.
Whys is similar. A lot of people went Wise. But again,
all of these companies are pushing people towards subscription, so
they're making the features that you get without a subscription

(01:43:57):
less and less every single day. So you can chew
that now, but that could change. Looks like another another
one from Fred. Fred says antennae is plural for antenna. Oh,
there you go, Rich. Cindy says, I love your broadcast.
A comment in regards to your TVs watching you. We

(01:44:17):
read the book Fahrenheit four fifty one. It'll scare the
beep out of you. I had to read it in
high school, so did my kids. TVs will still watch
you even when they have them turned off. I think
you can check before you buy if your TVs cameras
or camera capabilities. Don't even think about that kind of TV, Cindy,
I would agree with that. I read Fahrenheit four to
fifty one, and all the stuff that I read in

(01:44:38):
these books that were written years and years ago all.

Speaker 2 (01:44:41):
End up coming true.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
I don't know how these people figured it out in
the past, but yes, your TV is watching you, your
phone is watching you, your computer is watching you right now.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
They say that those cameras.

Speaker 1 (01:44:52):
Are not in use when they are off, and most
of these systems have some sort of physical shut off
when the lid is closed or you're not using an
or they have a light that lets you know. But
it is scary and you have to take your own precautions.

Speaker 2 (01:45:06):
Let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
M says, thanks for the my shake tips because in
my office my phone was the only one that made
the audible alert where the phone actually said earthquake out
loud even though my phone was on silent mode. Yes,
I did share that tip about the my Shake app,
and it does. It taps into what's called a critical
alert system on the iPhone and that means that it

(01:45:30):
can still make a noise on your phone even if
it's on silent and only certain apps can do that
and you have to give it permission to do that,
but my Shake is one of them. That's how my
phone went off because my phone was on silent as well,
and the earthquake alert still came through. So my Shake again,
iOS and Android. If you're an earthquake country like we are,

(01:45:52):
Oscar says, just a heads up. I bought a Samsung
seventy five inch seventy five inch at best Buy in January.
They had forty of them. I got it for five
hundred and ninety eight dollars. What a world we live in?
A seventy five inch TV for five hundred and ninety
eight dollars. That is incredible. While enjoy the new TV,
I will certainly enjoy mine watching the Super Bowl in

(01:46:13):
four K tomorrow, even if it's upscaled.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
I'm not going to complain.

Speaker 1 (01:46:17):
If you can believe it, that is going to do
it for this episode of the show. I tell you,
if you want time to go by fast, just get
a radio show, because I don't know how three hours
goes by this quickly every single week. If you want
links everything I mentioned, you can find it on my website.
Just go to rich on tech dot tv for the
show notes. You can find me on social media. I
am at rich on Tech. I am active on Instagram,

(01:46:40):
I'm active on Twitter, I'm active on Facebook, So find
me there. Engage next week? What am I doing next week?
Do I have time to find out? Let's see, let's
look at the schedule. Oh oh yeah, we've got some
you know what, We'll just have some fun. Next week
we'll answer more of your question. Thanks to everyone who
makes this show possible.

Speaker 2 (01:47:01):
Adam and for Bobo today, thanks for doing a great job.
My name is Archdmiro. I will talk to you real soon.

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